Above the great arch which forms the entrance to this chapel is inscribed the word “Pénitence”—the answer to the request for roses to bloom in February, and which spoke of suffering; while on the right of the altar, over the smaller arch leading to the next chapel, the sculptor has represented Simon the Cyrenian bearing the cross of Jesus.
On the altar is carved the young shepherdess saint (also of the south of France) who seemed best to typify the favored child of Lourdes—namely, the pure and innocent Ste. Germaine Cousin. Bernadette was wont to say: “Of all my lambs I love the smallest best.” Ste. Germaine is represented with a lamb at her feet, while behind her is the dog, symbol of Vigilance, Fidelity, and Strength, these virtues recalling the energetic pastor who had never suffered persecution to touch the child of Mary.
If, in granting this cure, Our Lady of Lourdes had not intended specially to associate with it the remembrance of her servant, would she not have chosen another moment than this ninth day, asked for beforehand, another place than this significative chapel, and another circumstance than the last Mass of the novena made by that servant’s intimate friend? In all these delicate harmonies of detail we seem to perceive the divine hand.
We resume the narrative.
After her act of thanksgiving Mme. Guerrier rose from her knees, calm and serene, without the least excitement, physical or moral, but still radiant from the heavenly contact, and, turning to her husband, she said: “Give me your arm, dear; let us go down.”
Still fearing that what he saw was too good to last, M. Guerrier wished to summon the porters.
“No,” said the Abbé Martignon; “let her walk.”
Taking her husband’s arm, she pressed it for a moment to her heart, full of happiness and gratitude; then, with a firmer step than he, descended the two steps of the chapel and crossed the nave.
The Marseilles pilgrims thronged the church, singing the power of the Immaculate Mother of God, not knowing that close beside them, in a little side-chapel, during the stillness of a Low Mass, that benignant power had just been put forth.