When, at the time of the apparitions, now nearly twenty years ago, he had asked Our Lady to make roses bloom in the time of snow, she, who was in that same place to work so many miracles, refused this one, and to the priest whom she had chosen replied by the austere word, “Penance.” The illustrious Abbé Peyramale, the priest of the Immaculate Conception, had thus been condemned to suffer. It was he of whom, for some years, the Abbé Martignon was the filial comforter and the friend of every hour.
It is not our purpose here to dwell on the sorrows beneath the weight of which sank the venerable curé of Lourdes; we would only call to mind that, when the basilica of the grotto was completed and enriched with the gifts of all the world—the basilica which was to be the point of arrival for the processions commanded by Our Lady—he undertook to rebuild the parish church, which ought to be their point of departure.
He died at his work, without having been able to complete it, and having more than once announced his death as a sort of necessity—a last sacrifice on his part in the interest of the house of God.
The unfinished church had stopped at the height of the arches. Aid on which he had been led to rely had failed him, and his efforts had been impeded by inconceivable hostilities.
“I shall not enter the promised land,” he would say; “I shall only see it afar off. I must die to repair the ruin. When I am here no more, all difficulties will be smoothed. My death will pay all”—sorrowful words, which brought tears to his eyes and to the eyes of those who loved him! We ourselves had the sad consolation of being present at his departure. God chose the Feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady to open the gates of eternity to her faithful servant.
Around the death-bed of Mgr. Peyramale were his brother and other relations, his vicaires, friends, and those of his flock who had been able to penetrate into his room. Among this tearful family was the Abbé Martignon, broken down with grief, and scarcely thinking of himself, his malady, or his cure, or yet of his novena to Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, which, by a curious coincidence, was to begin that same day.
Mgr. Peyramale, after a long agony, had just rendered his last sigh to earth and his immortal soul to God. In that hour of grief and desolation his friend, while raising his heart to her who is the Consolatrix Afflictorum, recollected his promised novena.
What was passing in his mind? Kneeling by that bed and holding in his the lifeless hands of the curé of Lourdes, he remained for some time bowed down in silence. Then, rising, he said to some of those present: “I have just said the first prayer of my novena to Our Lady of Sorrows, and made my request for a cure, in presence of these holy remains; and I conjure Our Lady of Lourdes to permit that in her own name, and on the ninth day, our friend may himself transmit to me the answer”; adding: “The choice God has made of the 8th of September to call to himself the Priest of the Apparitions sufficiently authorizes me to associate his first remembrance (souvenir) with my humble supplication.”
Side by side with a great sorrow a great hope from this moment entered in and possessed the heart of the sick priest. The thought of recovery did not, assuredly, lessen his grief for the loss of his friend; but seeing himself henceforth alone in France, it was a happiness to him to know that his protector was in heaven, and that it would be doubtless owing to the intervention of that friend, next to that of God and Our Blessed Lady, that he should receive the favor so long solicited.
He spoke of this with conviction. It seemed to him that, with such an intercessor, the Blessed Virgin would, on the ninth day, put herself in some sort at the disposal of his prayer. He even wrote to Paris, to the Rev. Père Picard of the Assumption, to tell him of his hope. Already he spoke of what he would do when he was cured, and how he would employ himself in furthering the unfinished work of the curé of Lourdes. He prayed with fervor; friends joined him in his novena; and thus the time went on until Saturday, the 15th of September—the eve of the ninth day.