On this Saturday, in the morning, he received a telegram to tell him that M. and Mme. Guerrier were on their way to Lourdes, and to ask if he would kindly meet them at the station with a carriage.
M. and Mme. Guerrier were utterly unknown to him. A letter only, which he had received from the curé of St. Gobain twenty-four hours before the telegram, informed him that Mme. Guerrier had for several years been suffering from a very serious illness, and was starting for Lourdes to seek a cure, full of faith that it would be granted. This lady and her husband were earnestly recommended to the Abbé Martignon, as this was their first visit to the city of the Blessed Virgin.
The canon gladly undertook this act of charity, and went to the station in good time to meet the three o’clock train. Leaving him for a time occupied with his Breviary in the waiting-room, we will relate by what series of circumstances M. and Mme. Guerrier were brought to Lourdes on that day.
M. Edouard Guerrier, judge of the peace at Beaune, married, about fifteen years ago, Mlle. Justine Biver, a religious and excellent lady. Her father was a distinguished physician, and her two brothers occupied high commercial positions, one being general director of the Company of St. Gobain, and the other director of the celebrated glass manufactories of St. Gobain and Chauny.
God had blessed this union with three children, healthy and intelligent, to whose training and education their mother devoted herself, bringing them up especially in the love of God and of the poor.
Thus passed eleven years of unbroken happiness. In 1874, however, a dark cloud suddenly over-shadowed this clear sky. The health of Mme. Guerrier broke down rapidly, and violent headaches, frequent faintings, and increasing weakness were succeeded by a general state of paralysis, which seized successively several important organs of the frame. The spine and lower limbs became powerless, and the sight dim and enfeebled. The sufferer was unable to sit up in bed, and obliged to remain always lying down. Finally the lower limbs became not only incapable of movement but insensible to pain, so that, if pinched or pricked, they remained without feeling. During the long fits of fainting it often seemed as if life must become extinct. Death was knocking at the door, and mourning had already entered the home lately so bright with happiness.
Unable to continue the education of her children, the poor mother could only assist them in their religious duties. Night and morning they knelt at her bedside, adding to their prayers an earnest petition for her recovery.
In this state Mme. Guerrier had continued about two years, when Alice, her eldest girl, was about to make her First Communion, on April 2, 1876. This great day constantly occupied the thoughts of this Christian mother. She thought of it for her child, and also a little for herself. It seemed to her as if, in coming to take possession of this young heart, the compassionate Saviour would surely bring some relief to her own great needs, and leave in the house some royal token of his visit and sojourn there. Had he not, on entering the house of Simon Peter, healed the sick mother-in-law, enabling her to rise and serve him?
“I am certain of it,” she said. “On that day I shall get up and walk.”
Alice made her First Communion on the appointed day; and in the evening the priest who had prepared her, and a few members of the family, were assembled at dinner. No change, however, had taken place in the state of the sick lady, and her place was remaining empty, as for so many months past, when, at the moment the party were about to sit down to table, suddenly recovering her lost powers, she rose, dressed, and came to take her place amid her family circle. Her sight was clear, the spine had recovered its strength, and she walked and moved with the same ease as before her illness.