Innumerable rows of benches filled
the central rotunda, benches free to the public, on which people could
come and rest at all hours, for night and day alike the Rosary remained
open to the swarming pilgrims. Like the shelter-house, it was a cow-shed
in which the Almighty received the poor ones of the earth.
On entering, Pierre felt himself to be in some common hall trod by the
footsteps of an ever-changing crowd. But the brilliant sunlight no longer
streamed on the pallid walls, the tapers burning at every altar simply
gleamed like stars amidst the uncertain gloom which filled the building.
A solemn high mass had been celebrated at midnight with extraordinary
pomp, amidst all the splendour of candles, chants, golden vestments, and
swinging, steaming censers; but of all this glorious display there now
remained only the regulation number of tapers necessary for the
celebration of the masses at each of the fifteen altars ranged around the
edifice. These masses began at midnight and did not cease till noon.
Nearly four hundred were said during those twelve hours at the Rosary
alone. Taking the whole of Lourdes, where there were altogether some
fifty altars, more than two thousand masses were celebrated daily. And so
great was the abundance of priests, that many had extreme difficulty in
fulfilling their duties, having to wait for hours together before they
could find an altar unoccupied. What particularly struck Pierre that
evening, was the sight of all the altars besieged by rows of priests
patiently awaiting their turn in the dim light at the foot of the steps;
whilst the officiating minister galloped through the Latin phrases,
hastily punctuating them with the prescribed signs of the cross.
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