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 the hearts of the wretched, upon
whom poverty and sickness were preying! Old Bourriette's restored
eyesight, little Bouhohort's resuscitation in the icy water, the deaf
recovering their hearing, the lame suddenly enabled to walk, and so many
other cases, Blaise Maumus, Bernade Soubies,* Auguste Bordes, Blaisette
Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, in turn cured of the most dreadful ailments,
became the subject of endless conversations, and fanned the illusions of
all those who suffered either in their hearts or their flesh.
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