racles. Called a liar and a
lunatic, Bernadette was threatened with imprisonment. Abbe Peyramale, the
parish priest of Lourdes, and Monseigneur Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes,
like the rest of the clergy, refrained from all intervention, waiting the
course of events with the greatest prudence; whilst the civil
authorities, the Prefect, the Public Prosecutor, the Mayor, and the
Commissary of Police, indulged in excessive anti-religious zeal."

Continuing his perusal in this fashion, Pierre saw the real story rise up
before him with invincible force. His mind travelled a short distance
backward and he beheld Bernadette at the time of the first apparitions,
so candid, so charming in her ignorance and good faith, amidst all her
sufferings. And she was truly the visionary, the saint, her face assuming
an expression of superhuman beauty during her crises of ecstasy. Her brow
beamed, her features seemed to ascend, her eyes were bathed with light,
whilst her parted lips burnt with divine love. And then her whole person
became majestic; it was in a slow, stately way that she made the sign of
the cross, with gestures which seemed to embrace the whole horizon. The
neighbouring valleys, the villages, the towns, spoke of Bernadette alone.
Although the Lady had not yet told her name, she was recognised, and
people said, "It is she, the Blessed Virgin." On the first market-day, so
many people flocked into Lourdes that the town quite overflowed. All
wished to see the blessed child whom the Queen of the Angels had chosen,
and who became so beautiful when the heavens opened to her enraptured
gaze. The crowd on the banks of the Gave grew larger each morning, and
thousands of people ended by installing themselves there, jostling one
another that they might lose nothing of the spectacle! As soon as
Bernadette appeared, a murmur of fervour spread: "Here is the saint, the
saint, the saint!" Folks rushed forward to kiss her garments. She was a
Messiah, the eternal Messiah whom the nations await, and the need of whom
is ever arising from generation to generation. And, moreover, it was ever
the same adventure beginning afresh: an apparition of the Virgin to a
shepherdess; a voice exhorting the world to penitence; a spring gushing
forth; and miracles astonishing and enrapturing the crowds that hastened
to the spot in larger and larger numbers.

Ah! those first miracles of Lourdes, what a spring-tide flowering of
consolation and hope they brought to t