He founded the Prêtres du Sacré Cœur, who continue to serve the church. He restored the Calvary to its ancient beauty, and repeopled its cells. While he was superior of the house the sanctuary was visited by the Abbé de Salinis, a distinguished Béarnais priest, who had inherited a special devotion to Notre Dame de Bétharram. He afterwards received the pallium, as archbishop of Auch, at her feet, and thenceforth came here regularly to make his annual retreat. It was he who sent Alexander Renoir, a Christian artist imbued with the love and spirit of the middle ages, to design the bas-reliefs that now adorn the Stations of the Cross. This sculptor spent five years at the work, after passing whole days on the sacred mount looking down on the enchanting valley of the Gave and meditating on the scenes he has so ably depicted in the first eight oratories. His figures are dignified, the faces full of character, and the draperies graceful. The Saviour has everywhere the same superhuman expression. In the Garden of Olives he is supported by an angel whose outspread wings surround him like a glory. It is evidently by his own will he suffers himself to be sustained. In the Flagellation his face wears a wonderful expression
of patience; in the Crowning with Thorns, of inexpressible suffering and divine submission. He stands in all the majesty of innocence and sorrow before Pilate, whose thoughtful, anxious face as he looks at him reveals the struggle within. Perhaps the most touching scene is when Christ meets his Blessed Mother. The Virgin is kneeling with arms yearningly stretched up towards him, with a look of ineffable tenderness and pity, and he for an instant seems to forget the weight of the overwhelming cross in the sense of his filial love. The Crucifixion is terribly real. The sacred Body visibly palpitates with suffering; the feet and hands quiver with agony; the face is filled with a divine woe. Mary, at the foot of the cross, is sustained by a form of enchanting youth and beauty.
The fourteen oratories of the Via Crucis are of various styles of architecture, and built, with an artistic eye to effect, on admirable points of view. Visible at a great distance, they seem to sanctify the whole valley. Some of them are surmounted with a dome, others with turrets. The royal chapel of St. Louis, built between two cells, has three Oriental domes that swell out on the tops of slender, minaret-like towers and are extremely striking from the railway. Twenty-eight stone steps—a Scala Santa—lead up to the sixth oratory, that of the Ecce Homo. The seventh looks like a castle with its crenellated towers. The eighth has a hexagonal tower flanked by four turrets. The ninth is of the Roman style.
The three crosses on the summit of the mount were cast at Paris and exhibited with success at the Exposition Universelle of 1867. In the Doric chapel beyond is a fine painting of the Descent from the Cross,
saved from the revolutionists of ’93. It is intensely realistic. The Pietà of Carrara marble opposite is the work of M. Dumontet, of Bourges—an ex voto from the Marquis d’Angosse and his wife. Our Saviour’s form is of marvellous beauty. The fourteenth oratory is of the Doric style. There is a touching grief in the faces of the disciples bearing the dead body of Christ to the tomb. Mary stands in speechless sorrow. Magdalen is a prey to violent grief.
The top of the hill is a long plateau. The Crucifixion is at the east end, so that the Christ, according to ancient tradition, may face the west. At the left is the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where lies the holy Abbé Garicoïts, who died on the Festival of the Ascension, 1863.
At the west end of the esplanade, facing the Crucifixion, is the most imposing of all the chapels—that of the Resurrection. Two fine towers rise on each side of the gable on which stands the rapt form of our Saviour ascending to heaven, the work of M. Fabisch, the sculptor who executed the Virgin in the grotto at Lourdes.
Since the admirable restoration of the hill new devotion has sprung up among the people. Pilgrims to the grotto of Marie Immaculée, in the cliff of Massabielle, come to end their pilgrimage by weeping with Marie désolée on the solemn heights of Bétharram. On great festivals crowds may be seen coming from all the neighboring villages in festive array, with a joyful air, singing psalms on the way. They carry their shoes in their hands, but put them on on their arrival at church. The women carefully lift their dresses with characteristic eye to economy. During Holy Week thousands often ascend the mount, group after group, chanting old
Béarnais hymns of the Passion, the men wrapped in their mountain cloaks, and the women veiled in their long black capuchons, looking like Maries at the Sepulchre.
On the 21st of October, 1870, his Holiness Pius IX. granted the Calvary of Bétharram all the indulgences attached to the Holy Places at Jerusalem, as well as special ones to all who visit the devout chapel. Pope Gregory XVI.. also paid his tribute of homage to Our Lady of Bétharram.