he season when people
resort to the Pyrenean-waters, the passage of the visitors to Cauterets
and Bagneres also brought some animation; _diligences_ passed through the
town twice a day, but they came from Pau by a wretched road, and had to
ford the Lapaca, which often overflowed its banks. Then climbing the
steep ascent of the Rue Basse, they skirted the terrace of the church,
which was shaded by large elms. And what soft peacefulness prevailed in
and around that old semi-Spanish church, full of ancient carvings,
columns, screens, and statues, peopled with visionary patches of gilding
and painted flesh, which time had mellowed and which you faintly
discerned as by the light of mystical lamps! The whole population came
there to worship, to fill their eyes with the dream of the mysterious.
There were no unbelievers, the inhabitants of Lourdes were a people of
primitive faith; each corporation marched behind the banner of its saint,
brotherhoods of all kinds united the entire town, on festival mornings,
in one large Christian family. And, as with some exquisite flower that
has grown in the soil of its choice, great purity of life reigned there.
There was not even a resort of debauchery for young men to wreck their
lives, and the girls, one and all, grew up with the perfume and beauty of
innocence, under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Tower of Ivory and Seat
of Wisdom.

And how well one could understand that Bernadette, born in that holy
soil, should flower in it, like one of nature's roses budding in the
wayside bushes! She was indeed the very florescence of that region of
ancient belief and rectitude; she would certainly not have sprouted
elsewhere; she could only appear and develop there, amidst that belated
race, amidst the slumberous peacefulness of a childlike people, under the
moral discipline of religion. And what intense love at once burst forth
all around her! What blind confidence was displayed in her mission, what
immense consolation and hope came to human hearts on the very morrow of
the first miracles! A long cry of relief had greeted the cure of old
Bourriette recovering his sight, and of little Justin Bouhohorts coming
to life again in the icy water of the spring. At last, then, the Blessed
Virgin was intervening in favour of those who despaired, forcing that
unkind mother, Nature, to be just and charitable. This was divine
omnipotence returning to reign on earth, sweeping the laws of the world
aside in ord