“The Royal Academy of Medicine declares that the case of Louise Lateau has not been completely scrutinized and cannot serve as a base for serious discussion; consequently, it closes the discussion.”
M. Laussedat, after some preliminary remarks, finally proposed the order of the day pure and simple, which was adopted.
The bearing of this vote will escape the mind of no one. In setting aside the orders of the day which pretended that what had been positively established in the question of Bois d’Haine might be solved by science, the Academy has fully confirmed the conclusions of M. Lefebvre’s book.
Meanwhile, in ending, let us return to Bois d’Haine, to that young girl who has become more than ever the object of the veneration of some, the study of others, and the wonder of all.
Since 1868 Louise Lateau presents the phenomena weekly of the bloody stigmata and the ecstasies, to which later on was added abstinence from food.
Her first and chief historian, M. Lefebvre, after having watched the young girl, affirms since 1869: She, whom a certain portion of the public considers as a cheat or an invalid, really presents the phenomena which are reported of her. These phenomena are exempt from trickery, and it is impossible to explain them by the laws of physiology and pathology. We omit the question of fasting, which remains to be studied.
Seven years after the appearance of the first phenomena, at the time when the commotion which they produced had, so to say, reached its height, the leading learned body in Belgium examined the mysterious scenes in the humble house of Bois d’Haine, and, through MM. Crocq and Warlomont, made an inquiry into the reality and sincerity of the facts, and brings in a verdict that the facts are real and free from all fraud.
Finally, this same Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, by its vote, avows in the face of the world that, if it ought not to recognize a supernatural cause in the facts about Louise Lateau, as little can it demonstrate their natural origin and physiological genesis.
Such is the actual state of this extraordinary question.