And the same dreams showed themselves in the
naivete of the means which were to be employed and of the object which
was to be attained--the deliverance of nations, the building of churches,
the processional pilgrimages of the faithful! Then, too, all the words
which fell from Heaven resembled one another, calls for penitence,
promises of help; and in this respect, in Bernadette's case the only new
feature was that most extraordinary declaration: "I am the Immaculate
Conception," which burst forth--very usefully--as the recognition by the
Blessed Virgin herself of the dogma promulgated by the Court of Rome but
three years previously! It was not the Immaculate Virgin who appeared:
no, it was the Immaculate Conception, the abstraction itself, the thing,
the dogma, so that one might well ask oneself if really the Virgin had
spoken in such a fashion. As for the other words, it was possible that
Bernadette had heard them somewhere and stored them up in some
unconscious nook of her memory. But these--"I am the Immaculate
Conception"--whence had they come as though expressly to fortify a
dogma--still bitterly discussed--with such prodigious support as the
direct testimony of the Mother conceived without sin? At this thought,
Pierre, who was convinced of Bernadette's absolute good faith, who
refused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began to
waver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter within him.
The apparitions, however, had caused intense emotion at Lourdes; crowds
flocked to the spot, miracles began, and those inevitable persecutions
broke out which ensure the triumph of new religions.
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