divine charity. Was not
the eternal illusion of happiness rising once more amidst tears and
unconscious falsehoods? Poor, poor Bernadette! All waxed indignant at the
thought of the persecutions which she had endured in defence of her
faith.

Then Pierre, resuming his story, related all that the child had had to
suffer. After being questioned by the Commissary she had to appear before
the judges of the local tribunal. The entire magistracy pursued her, and
endeavoured to wring a retractation from her. But the obstinacy of her
dream was stronger than the common sense of all the civil authorities put
together. Two doctors who were sent by the Prefect to make a careful
examination of the girl came, as all doctors would have done, to the
honest opinion that it was a case of nervous trouble, of which the asthma
was a sure sign, and which, in certain circumstances, might have induced
visions. This nearly led to her removal and confinement in a hospital at
Tarbes. But public exasperation was feared. A bishop had fallen on his
knees before her. Some ladies had sought to buy favours from her for
gold. Moreover she had found a refuge with the Sisters of Nevers, who
tended the aged in the town asylum, and there she made her first
communion, and was with difficulty taught to read and write. As the
Blessed Virgin seemed to have chosen her solely to work the happiness of
others, and she herself had not been cured, it was very sensibly decided
to take her to the baths of Cauterets, which were so near at hand.
However, they did her no good. And no sooner had she returned to Lourdes
than the torture of being questioned and adored by a whole people began
afresh, became aggravated, and filled her more and more with horror of
the world. Her life was over already; she would be a playful child no
more; she could never be a young girl dreaming of a husband, a young wife
kissing the cheeks of sturdy children. She had beheld the Virgin, she was
the chosen one, the martyr. If the Virgin, said believers, had confided
three secrets to her, investing her with a triple armour as it were, it
was simply in order to sustain her in her appointed course.

The clergy had for a long time remained aloof, on its own side full of
doubt and anxiety. Abby Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, was a
man of somewhat blunt ways, but full of infinite kindness, rectitude, and
energy whenever he found himself in what he thought the right path. On
the first occasio