During several months, the episcopal commission visited the houses of those whom public notoriety designated as objects of the miraculous cures subjected to its examination. It established the truth of many miracles. Several of them have already found a place in our history. Two were quite recent. They had taken place shortly after the prefect had withdrawn his prohibition and the grotto had been reopened. One was at Nay, the other at Tartas. Although the recipients of these heavenly favors were mutually unacquainted, a mysterious bond seemed to connect both events. Let us relate them in order as we have personally studied them, and written down what we have heard under the impressions produced by the living testimony.
In the town of Nay, where young Henry Busquet had been miraculously cured a few months before, a certain widow, named Madeleine Rizan, was at the point of death. Her life had for twenty-four or twenty-five years been an unbroken series of pain and sorrow. Having been attacked by the cholera in 1832, her left side had remained almost entirely paralyzed. She was quite lame, and could only move a few steps inside her house, and that only by supporting herself against the walls or furniture. Two or three times a year, in warm weather, she was able to go to Mass at the parish church of Nay, not far from her dwelling. She was unable, without assistance, either to kneel or to rise. One of her hands was totally palsied. Her general health had suffered no less than her limbs from this terrible scourge. She frequently vomited blood, and her stomach was unable to bear solid food.
Beef-tea, soup, and coffee had, however, sufficed to keep up the flame of life, ever flickering and unable to warm her feeble body. She often suffered from icy chills. The poor woman was always cold. Even in the heats of July and August, she always wished to see fire in the grate, and to have her arm-chair wheeled close to the hearth.
For the last sixteen or eighteen months, her state had been muchaggravated; the paralysis of the left side had become total. The same infirmity had begun to attack the right leg. Her paralyzed limbs were greatly swollen, as happens in the case of dropsy.
Madame Rizan left her chair to take to her bed. She could not move, such was her weakness, and they were obliged to turn her, from time to time, in her bed. She was almost an inert mass. Sensibility was gone as well as motion.
"Where are my legs?" she used to inquire, when any one came to move her. Her limbs were drawn together, and she lay continually on one side in the form of a Z.
Two physicians had successively attended her. Doctor Talamon had long since given her up as incurable, and, although he continued to visit her, it was only as a friend. He refused to prescribe any remedies, saying that drugs and medicines would prove fatal, or, at best, only enfeeble her system.
Doctor Subervielle, at the repeated instance of Madame Rizan, had prescribed some medicines, and, soon finding them utterly useless, had also given up all hope. Although her paralyzed limbs had become insensible, the sufferings which this unfortunate woman experienced from her stomach and head were terrible. Owing to her constantly cramped position, she was afflicted by two painful sores—one in the hollow of her chest, and the other on the back. On her side, in several places, her skin, chafed by the bed-clothes, exposed the flesh, naked and bleeding. Her death was at hand.
Madame Rizan had two children. Her daughter, Lubine, lived with and took care of her with the greatest devotion. Her son, Romain Rizan, had a situation in a business-house at Bordeaux.
When the last hope was gone, and Doctor Subervielle declared that she had only a few hours to live, they sent in haste for her son, Romain Rizan. He came, embraced his mother, and received her last blessing and farewell. Then, obliged to leave by a message peremptorily recalling him—torn by the cruel tyranny of business from his mother's death-bed—he left her with the bitter conviction that he should never see her more. The dying woman received extreme unction. Her agony went on amid excruciating sufferings.
"My God!" she often murmured, "I pray thee to end my torments. Grant me to be healed or to die."
She sent to ask the Sisters of the Cross, at Igon, where her own sister-in-law was superior, to make a novena to Our Lady for her cure or death. The sick woman also evinced a desire to drink some of the water of the grotto. One of her neighbors, Madame Nessans, who was going to Lourdes, promised to fetch some of the water when she returned. For some time past, she had been watched day and night. On Saturday, October 16, a violent crisis heralded the near approach of her last moment. She was continually spitting blood. A livid hue spread over her worn features; her eyes became glassy. She no longer spoke, except when forced by excessive pain.
"O my God! how I suffer! O Lord! would that I might die!"
"Her prayer will soon be granted," said Doctor Subervielle as he left her. "She will die to-night, or at least before the sun is fairly up. There is only a little oil left in the lamp!"
From time to time the door of her chamber opened. Friends, neighbors, and priests, the Abbé Dupont and the Abbé Sanareus, vicar of Nay,entered and softly inquired if she were still alive.
Her friend and consoler, the Abbé Dupont, could not restrain his tears as he left her. "Before morning she will be dead, and I shall see her again only in paradise," he said.
Night fell, and solitude gradually took possession of the house. Kneeling before a statue of the Blessed Virgin, Lubine prayed without any earthly hope. The silence was profound, and broken only by the difficult breathing of the invalid.
It was nearly midnight. "My daughter!" cried the dying woman.
Lubine arose and approached the bed.
"What do you wish, mother?" she asked, taking her hand. "My dear child," answered the dying mother, in a strange voice that seemed to come from a heavy dream, "go to our friend Madame Nessans, who was to have returned from Lourdes, this evening. Ask her for a glassful of the water from the grotto. This water will cure me. The Blessed Virgin wishes it."
"Dear mother," answered Lubine, "it is too late to go there. I cannot leave you alone. Besides, everybody is asleep at the house of Madame Nessans. But I will go early in the morning."
"Let us wait, then." The invalid relapsed into silence. The long night finally passed.
The joyous bells at last announced the day. The morning Angelus as it rose carried up to the Virgin Mother the prayers of earth, and celebrated the eternal memory of her all-powerful maternity. Lubine hastened to Madame Nessans's, and soon returned with a bottle of water from the grotto.
"Here, mother! Drink! and may the Blessed Virgin come to your help!" Madame Rizan raised the glass to her lips, and swallowed a few mouthfuls.
"O my daughter! my daughter! It is life that I am drinking! Here is life in this water! Bathe my face with it! Bathe my arms! Bathe my whole body with it!"
Trembling and almost beside herself, Lubine moistened a piece of linen with the miraculous water, and bathed her mother's face.
"I feel that I am cured!" she cried in a voice now clear and strong. "I feel that I am cured!"
Lubine meanwhile bathed with the wet linen the paralyzed and swollen limbs of the invalid. Trembling with mingled joy and terror, she saw the enormous swelling disappear under the rapid movement of her hand, and the stretched and shining skin reassume its natural appearance.
Suddenly, completely, and without transition, health and life revived beneath her touch.
"It seems to me as if burning pimples were breaking out all over me." It was, doubtless, the principle of disease leaving for ever under the influence of a superhuman will. All this was over in a moment. In a couple of minutes the body of Madame Rizan, apparently in her agony, bathed by her daughter, recovered the fulness of strength.
"I am cured! perfectly cured!" cried the happy woman. "Oh! how good the Blessed Virgin is! Oh! how powerful she is!"
After the first burst of gratitude toward heaven, the material appetites of earth made themselves keenly felt.
"Lubine, dear Lubine, I am hungry. I must have something to eat!"
"Will you have some coffee, some wine, or some milk?" stammered her daughter, confused by the suddenness and astounding character of the miracle.
"I want to have meat and bread, my daughter. I have not tasted any for twenty-four years." There happened to be some cold meat and some wine near at hand; Madame Rizan partook of both. "And now," said she, "I want to get up."
"It is impossible, mother," said Lubine, hesitating to believe her eyes, and fancying, perhaps, that cures which come directly from God are subject, like other cures, to the degrees and dangers of convalescence. She feared to see the miracle vanish as suddenly as it had come.
Madame Rizan insisted and demanded her clothes. They had been for many months carefully folded and packed in the wardrobe never to be worn again. Lubine left the room to find them. Soon she re-entered. But as she crossed the threshold, she uttered a loud cry, and dropped the garment which she was bringing. Her mother had sprung out of bed, during her absence, and there she was, before the mantelpiece, where she kept a statue of the Blessed Virgin, with clasped hands returning thanks to her all-powerful deliverer.
Lubine, as frightened as if she had beheld one risen from the dead, was unable to help her mother to dress. The latter, however, put on her clothes in an instant without any assistance, and again knelt down before the sacred image.
It was about seven o'clock in the morning, and the people were going to the early Mass. Lubine's cry was heard in the street by the groups who were passing under the windows.
"Poor girl!" they said, "her mother is dead at last. It was impossible for her to survive the night." Several entered the house to console and support Lubine in this unspeakable affliction, among others two sisters of the Holy Cross.
"Ah! poor child, your good mother is dead! But you will certainly see her again in heaven!" They approached the young girl, whom they beheld leaning against the half-opened door, her face wearing a stupefied look. She could scarcely answer them.
"My mother is risen from the dead!" she answered, in a voice choked by strong emotion.
"She is raving," thought the sisters, as they passed by and entered the room, followed by some persons who had come up-stairs with them.
Lubine had spoken the truth. Madame Rizan had left her bed. There she was, dressed and prostrated before the image of Mary. She arose, and said: "I am cured! Let us all kneel down, and thank the Blessed Virgin."
The news of this extraordinary event spread like lightning through the city. All that day and the day after the house was full of people. The crowd, agitated and yet recollected, pressed to visit the room into which a ray of the all-powerful goodness of God had penetrated.
Everybody wished to see Madame Rizan, to touch the body restored to life, to convince his own eyes, and grave upon his memory the details of this supernatural drama.
Doctor Subervielle acknowledged, without hesitation, the supernatural and divine character of this cure.
At Bordeaux, meanwhile, Romain Rizan awaited in despair and anguish the fatal missive announcing his mother's death. It was a great shock to him when, one morning, the postman brought him a letter addressed in the well-known hand of Abbé Dupont.
"I have lost my poor mother!" he said to a friend who had just come to visit him. He burst into tears, and dared not break the seal.
"Take courage in your misfortune. Have faith!" said his friend.
Finally, he opened the letter. The first words which met his eyes were:
"Deo gratias!Alleluia!
"Rejoice, my dear friend. Your mother is cured—completely cured. The Blessed Virgin has restored her miraculously to health." The Abbé Dupont then went on to relate the divine manner in which Madame Rizan had found at the end of her agony life instead of death.
We may easily fancy the joy of the son and of his friend. The latter was employed in a printing-house at Bordeaux, where was published theMessager Catholique. "Give me that letter," said he to Romain. "The works of God ought to be made known, and Our Lady of Lourdes glorified."
Partly by force, and partly by entreaty, he obtained the letter. It was published a few days afterward in theMessager Catholique.
The happy son hastened to Nay at the earliest moment. As he arrived in the diligence, a woman was waiting to greet him. She ran swiftly to meet him, and, when he descended from the coach, threw herself into his arms, weeping with tenderness and joy. It was his mother.
A few years afterward, the author, while searching out the details of his history, went in person to verify the report of the episcopal commission. He visited Madame Rizan, whose perfect health and green old age excited his admiration. Although in her seventy-first year, she has none of the infirmities which that age usually brings. Of her illness and terrible sufferings there remains not a trace; and all who had formerly known her, and whose testimony we gathered, were yet stupefied at her extraordinary cure.[155]We wished to see Doctor Subervielle. He had been dead some years.
"But," we asked a clergyman of Nay, who acted as our guide, "the invalid was attended by another physician, Doctor Talamon, was she not?"
"He is a very distinguished man," replied our companion. "He was in the habit of visiting Madame Rizan, not professionally, but as a friend and neighbor. But after her miraculous cure he ceased his visits, and did not make his appearance for eight or ten months."
"Perhaps," we rejoined, "he wished to avoid being questioned on the subject, and being obliged to explain this extraordinary phenomenon, which would certainly have been out of accord with his principles of medical philosophy?"
"I do not know how that may have been."
"No matter; I want to see him."
We knocked at his door.
Doctor Talamon is a tall and handsome old man, with an expressive and intelligent countenance. A remarkable forehead, a crown of white locks, a glance which betokens positive adherence to opinions, a mouth varied in expression, and on which a sceptical smile often plays—these are the features which strike one who approaches him.
We stated the object of our visit.
"It is a long time," he answered, "since all that happened, and, at the distance of ten or twelve years, my memory supplies but a dim recollection of the matter about which you inquire; besides, I was not an eye-witness of it. I did not see Madame Rizan for several months, and, consequently, do not know by what conditions or agents, or with what degree of speed or slowness, her recovery was effected."
"But, doctor, did you not have curiosity enough to investigate such an extraordinary event, of which rumor must have instantly informed you, especially in this place?"
"The fact is," he answered, "I am an old physician. I know that the laws of nature are never reversed, and, to tell you the truth, I do not believe the least bit in miracles."
"Ah! doctor, you sin against the faith," cried the abbé who had accompanied me.
"And I, doctor, do not accuse you of sinning against faith, but I accuse you of sinning against the very principles of the science which you profess."
"How, pray, and in what?"
"Medicine is not a speculative, but an empirical science. Experience is its law. The observation of facts is its first and fundamental principle. If you had been told that Madame Rizan had cured herself by washing with a decoction from some plant recently discovered on yonder mountain, you would not have failed to ascertain the cure and to examine the plant, and put the discovery on record. It might have been as important as that of quinine in the last century. You would have done the same if the cure had been produced by some new sulphurous or alkaline substance. But, now, everybody is talking about a fountain of miraculous water, and you have never yet been to see it. Forgetting that you are a physician, that is to say, a humble observer of facts, you have refused to notice this, as did the scientific academies which rejected steam and proscribed quinine on some quack principles of their own. In medicine, when fact contradicts a principle, it means that the principle is wrong. Experience is the supreme judge. And here, doctor, allow me to say that, if you had not had some vague consciousness that what I am telling you is true, you would have rushed to find out the truth, and would have given yourself the pleasure of showing up the imposture of a miracle which was setting the whole neighborhood wild with excitement. But this would have exposed you to the danger of being forced to surrender; and you have acted like those party-slaves who will not listen to the arguments of their opponents. You have listened to your philosophical prejudices, and you have been false to the first law of medicine, which is to face the study of facts—no matter of what nature—in order to derive instruction from them. I speak freely, doctor, because I am aware of your great merits, and that your keen intellect is capable of hearing the truth. Many physicians have refused to certify to facts of this nature, for fear of having to brave the resentment of the faculty and the raillery of friends of their profession. With regard to yourself, doctor, although your philosophy may have deceived you, human respect has had nothing at all to do with your keeping aloof."
"Certainly not," he replied, "but, perhaps, if I had placed myself at the point of view which you have indicated, I might have done better by examining the matter."
Long before the occurrences at Lourdes, at an epoch when Bernadette was not yet in the world, in 1843, during the month of April, an honorable family of Tartas in the Landes was in a state of great anxiety. The year before, Mlle. Adèle de Chariton had been married to M. Moreau de Sazenay, and now approached the term of her pregnancy. The crisis of a first maternity is always alarming. The medical men, summoned in haste on the preliminary symptoms, declared that the birth would be very difficult, and did not conceal their fear of some danger. No one is ignorant of the cruel anxiety of such a juncture. The most poignant anguish is not for the poor wife who is prostrated upon her bed of pain, and entirely absorbed in her physical sufferings. It is the husband whose heart is now the prey of indescribable tortures. They are of the age of vivid impressions; they have entered upon a new life, and begun to taste the joys of a union which God seems to have blessed; they have passed a few months full of anticipations of the future. The young couple have set them down, so to speak, side by side in a fairy pleasure-boat. The river of life has carried them softly on amid banks of flowers. Suddenly, without warning, the shadow of death rises before them. The heart of the husband, expanded with hope for the child so soon to be born, is crushed by terror for his wife, who may be about to perish. He hears her accents of pain. How will the crisis end? Is it to be in joy or bereavement? What is about to issue from that chamber? Will it be life or death? What must we send for—a cradle or a coffin? Or—horrible contrast—will both be necessary? Or, worse still, shall two coffins be necessary? Human science is silent, and hesitates to pronounce.
This anguish is frightful, but especially for those who do not seek from God their strength and consolation. But M. Moreau was a Christian. He knew that the thread of our existence is in the hands of a supreme Master, to whom we can always appeal from the doctors of science. When man has passed sentence, the King of heaven, as well as other sovereigns, holds the right of pardon.
"The Blessed Virgin will, perhaps, vouchsafe to hear me," thought the afflicted husband. He addressed himself with confidence to the Mother of Christ.
The danger which had appeared so threatening disappeared as a cloud upon the horizon. A little girl had just been born.
Assuredly there was nothing extraordinary about this deliverance. However alarming the danger might have appeared to M. Moreau himself, the physicians had never given up hope. The favorable issue of the crisis may have been something purely natural.
The heart of the husband and father, however, felt itself penetrated with gratitude to the Blessed Virgin. His was not one of those rebellious souls which demands freedom from all doubt in order to escape acknowledging a favor.
"What name are you going to give to your little girl?" he was asked.
"She shall be called Marie."
"Marie? Why, that is the commonest name in the whole country. The children of the laboring people, the servants, are all named Marie. Besides, Marie Moreau is out of all euphony. The twom's and twor's would be intolerable!" A thousandreasons of equal validity were urged against him. There was a general protest.
M. Moreau was very accessible, and easily moved by others; but in this instance he resisted all counsel and entreaty; he braved all discontent, and his tenacity was really extraordinary. He did not allow himself to forget that, in his distress, he had invoked this sacred name, or that it belonged to the Queen of heaven.
"She shall be called Marie, and I wish her to take the Blessed Virgin for a patroness. And I tell you the truth, this name will some day bring her a blessing."
Everybody was astonished at this apparent obstinacy, but it remained unshaken as that of Zachary when he gave his son the name John. Vainly did they apply every means of attack; there was no getting by this inflexible will. The first-born of the family, therefore, took the name of Marie. The father, moreover, desired that she should be vowed for three years to dress in white, the color of the Blessed Virgin. This, too, was done.
More than sixteen years had now passed since this episode. A second daughter had been born, she was called Marthe. Mlle. Marie Moreau was being educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux. About the commencement of January, 1858, she was attacked by a disease of the eyes, which shortly obliged her to give up her studies. She supposed at first that it was only a cold which would pass off as it had come; but her hopes were deceived, and her complaint assumed a most alarming character. The physician in attendance judged it necessary to consult a distinguished oculist of Bordeaux, M. Bermont. It was not a cold; it was amaurosis.
"Her case is a very serious one," said M. Bermont; "one of the eyes is entirely gone, and the other in a very dangerous condition."
The parents were immediately notified. Her mother hastened to Bordeaux, and brought back her daughter, in order that she might have at home that care, treatment, and perfect attention which the oculist had prescribed in order to save the eye which yet remained, and which was so gravely affected that it could perceive objects only as through a mist.
The medicines, baths, and all the prescriptions of science proved useless. Spring and autumn passed without any change for the better. Indeed, the deplorable condition of the invalid was daily aggravated. Total blindness was approaching. M. and Madame Moreau decided to take their child to Paris, in order to consult the great medical lights.
While engaged in hasty preparations for their journey, fearing lest it might be too slow to escape the danger which threatened their child, the postman brought them the weekly number of theMessager Catholique. It was about the first of November, and this number of theMessager Catholiquehappened to be precisely the one which contained the letter of Abbé Dupont, and the story of the miraculous cure of Madame Rizan, of Nay, by means of water from the grotto.
M. Moreau opened it mechanically, and his glance fell upon that divine history. He turned pale as he read, hope began to awaken in the heart of the desolate father, and that soul, or rather that heart, was touched by a gleam of light.
"There," said he—"there is the door at which we must knock. It is evident," he added, with a simplicity whose actual words we delight to repeat, "that, if the Blessed Virgin hasreally appeared at Lourdes, she must be interested in working miraculous cures to prove the truth of her apparitions. And this is especially true at first before the event is not generally believed.... Let us be in a hurry, then, since in this case the first come are to be the first served. My dearest wife and daughter, we must address ourselves at once to Our Lady of Lourdes." Sixteen years had not worn out the faith of M. Moreau.
A novena was resolved upon, in which all the neighboring friends of the young girl were to be asked to join. By a providential circumstance, a priest of the city had in his possession a bottle of the water, so that the novena could be commenced at once.
The parents, in case of a cure, bound themselves to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and to devote their daughter for a year to the colors of white and blue, the colors of the Blessed Virgin, which she had already worn for three years during her infancy.
The novena commenced on Sunday evening, the 8th of November.
Must it be acknowledged? The invalid had but little faith. Her mother dared not hope. Her father alone had that tranquil faith which the kind powers of heaven never resist.
All said the prayers together in M. Moreau's room, before an image of the Blessed Virgin. The mother and her two daughters rose one after another to retire, but the father remained on his knees.
He thought he was alone, and his voice broke forth with a fervor which recalled his family, who have given us the account, and who never can forget that solemn moment without a tremor.
"Blessed Virgin!" said the father—"most blessed Virgin Mary! you must cure my child. Yes, indeed, you areboundto do it. It is an obligation which you cannot refuse to acknowledge. Remember, O Mary! how, in spite of everybody and against everybody, I chose you for her patron. Remember what struggles I had to give her your sacred name. Can you, Holy Virgin, forget all this? Can you forget how I defended your glory and power against the vain reasons with which they surrounded me? Can you forget that I publicly placed this child under your protection, telling everybody and repeating that your name would some day bring a blessing upon her? Can you be unmindful of all this? Are you not bound in honor—now that I am in misfortune, now when I pray you for our child and yours—to come to our help and heal her malady? Are you going to allow her to become blind, after the faith I have shown in you? No! no! impossible! You will cure her."
Such were the sentiments which escaped in loud tones from the unhappy father, as he appealed to the Blessed Virgin, and, as it were, presenting a claim against her, demanded payment.
It was ten o'clock at night.
The young girl, before retiring, dipped a linen bandage in the water of Lourdes, and, placing it upon her eyes, tied it behind her head.
Her soul was agitated. Without having her father's faith, she said to herself that, after all, the Blessed Virgin was perfectly able to cure her, and that, perhaps, at the end of the novena she might recover her sight. Then doubt returned, and it seemed as if a miracle ought not to be worked for her. With all these thoughts revolving in her mind, she could hardly lie still, and it was very late before she fell asleep.
When morning came, as soon asshe awoke, her first movement of hope and uneasy curiosity was to remove the bandage which covered her eyes. She uttered a loud cry.
The room about her was filled with the light of the rising day. She saw clearly, exactly, and distinctly. The diseased eye had recovered its health, and the eye which before was blind had been restored to sight.
"Marthe! Marthe!" she cried, "I see perfectly. I am cured!"
Little Marthe, who slept in the same room, sprang out of bed and ran to her sister. She saw her eyes, stripped of their bloody veil, black and brilliant, and sparkling with life and strength. The little girl's heart at once turned toward her father and mother, who had not yet shared in this joy.
"Papa! mamma!" she cried.
Marie beckoned her not to call them yet.
"Wait! wait!" said she, "until I have tried if I can read. Give me a book."
The child took one from the table. "There!" said she.
Marie opened the book, and read with perfect ease as freely as any one ever has read. The cure was complete, radical, absolute, and the Blessed Virgin had not left her work half-done.
The father and mother hastened to the room.
"Papa, mamma, I can see—I can read—I am cured!"
How can we describe the scene which followed? Our readers can understand it, each for himself, by entering into his own imagination. The door of the house had not yet been opened. The windows were closed, and their transparent panes admitted only the early light of morning. Who, then, could have entered to join this family in the happiness of this sudden blessing? And yet these Christians felt instinctively that they were not alone, and that a powerful being was invisibly in the midst of them. The father and mother, and little Marthe, fell on their knees; Marie, who had not yet arisen, clasped her hands; and from these four breasts, oppressed with gratitude and emotion, went forth, as a prayer of thanks, the holy name of the Mother of God: "O holy Virgin Mary! Our Lady of Lourdes!"
What their other words were, we know not; but what their sentiments must have been, any one can imagine by placing himself before this miraculous event, which, like a flash from the power of God, had turned the affliction of a family into joy and happiness.
Is it necessary to add that, shortly afterward, Mlle. Marie Moreau went with her parents to thank Our Lady of Lourdes in the place of her apparition? She left her colored dresses upon the altar, and went away happy and proud of wearing the colors of the Queen of virgins.
M. Moreau, whose faith had formerly been so strong, was wholly stupefied. "I thought," said he, "that such favors were only granted to the saints; how is it, then, that they descend upon miserable sinners like us?"
These facts were witnessed by the entire population of Tartas, who shared in the affliction of one of their most respected families. Everybody in the city saw and can testify that the malady, which had been considered desperate, was completely healed at the beginning of the novena. The superior of the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Bordeaux, the one hundred and fifty pupils who were school-mates of Mlle. Marie Moreau, the physicians of that institution, have established her serious condition before theevents which we have related, and her total cure immediately afterward. She returned to Bordeaux, where she remained two years to complete her studies.
The oculist Bermont could not recover from his surprise at an event so entirely beyond his science. We have read his declaration certifying to the state of the invalid, and acknowledging the inability of medical treatment to produce such a cure, "which," he observes, "has persisted and still holds. As to the instantaneousness with which this cure has been wrought," he adds, "it is a fact which incomparably surpasses the power of medical science. In testimony of which I attach my signature.Bermont."
This declaration, dated February 8th, 1859, is preserved at the bishop's residence at Tarbes, together with a great number of letters and testimonials from citizens of Tartas, among others that of the mayor of that city, M. Desbord.
Mlle. Marie continued to wear the colors of the Blessed Virgin up to the day of her marriage, which took place after she had finished her studies and left the Sacred Heart. On that day she went to Lourdes and laid aside her maiden attire to put on her bridal robes. She wished to give this dress of blue and white to another young girl, also beloved by the Blessed Virgin, Bernadette.
This was the only present which Bernadette ever accepted. She wore for several years, indeed until it was worn out, this dress which recalled the loving power of the divine apparition at the grotto.
Eleven years have since elapsed. The favor accorded by the Blessed Virgin has not been withdrawn. Mlle. Moreau has always had most excellent and perfect sight; never any relapse, never the slightest indisposition.
Excepting by suicide, ingratitude, or abuse of grace, that which God has restored can never die.Resurgens jam non moritur.
Mlle. Marie Moreau is now called Madame d'Izaru de Villefort, and is the mother of three delightful children, who have the finest eyes in the world. Although they are boys, each bears in his baptismal name first the name of Mary.
Miraculous cures were counted by hundreds. It was impossible to verify them all. The episcopal commission submitted thirty of them to most rigorous scrutiny. The most severe strictness was shown in this examination, and nothing was admitted as supernatural, until it was absolutely impossible to call it anything else. All cures which had not been almost instantaneous, or which had been occupied by successive stages, all these were rejected; as also were all which had been obtained in conjunction with medical treatment, however unavailing the latter might have been. "Although the inefficacy of the remedies prescribed by science has been sufficiently demonstrated, we cannot in this case in an exclusive manner attribute the cure to a supernatural virtue in the water of the grotto which was used at the same time." So runs the report of the secretary of the commission.
Moreover, numerous spiritual favors, singular graces, unlooked-for conversions, had been reported to the commission. It is difficult to establish juridically events which have taken place in the closed recesses of the human soul and which escape the observation of all without. Although such facts, such changes, are often more wonderful than the restorationof a member or the healing of a physical disease, the commission judged rightly when it decided that it ought not to include them in the solemn and public inquiry with which it had been charged by the bishop.
In the report to his grace, the committee, by agreement with the physicians, divided the cures which had been examined into three categories, with all the carefully gathered details andprocès-verbaux, signed by the persons cured and by numerous witnesses.
The first category included those cures which, despite their striking and astonishing appearance, were susceptible of a natural explanation. These were six in number; namely, those of Jeanne-Marie Arqué, the widow Crozat, Blaise Maumus, a child of the Lasbareilles of Gez, Jeanne Crassus, Arcizan-Avant, Jeanne Pomiès of Loubajac.
The second list comprised cures which the commission felt inclined to attribute a supernatural character. Of this number were Jean-Pierre Malou, Jeanne-Marie Dauber, wife of a certain Vendôme, Bernarde Soubies and Pauline Bordeaux of Lourdes, Jean-Marie Amaré of Beaucens, Marcelle Peyregue of Agos, Jeanne-Marie Massot Bordenave of Arras, Jeanne Gezma and Auguste Bordes of Pontacq. "The greater number of these facts," says the medical report, "possess all the conditions to cause them be admitted as supernatural. It will, perhaps, be found that in excluding them we have acted with too much reserve and scrupulousness.
"But far from complaining of this reproach, we shall congratulate ourselves upon it, since in these matters we are convinced that prudence demands severity."
Under such circumstances, a natural explanation, although in itself utterly improbable, seemed rigorously possible, and this was sufficient to prevent the examiners from declaring a miracle.
The third class contained cures which presented an undeniable and evident supernatural character, fifteen in number. Those of: Blaisette Soupenne, Benoite Cazeaux, Jeanne Grassus married to Crozat, Louis Bourriette, little Justin Bouhohorts, Fabian and Suzanne Baron of Lourdes, Madame Rizanand, Henry Busquet of Nay, Catherine Latapie of Loubajac, Madame Lanou of Bordères, Marianne Garrot and Denys Bouchet of Lamarque, Jean-Marie Tambourné of St. Justin, Mlle. Marie Moreau de Sazenay of Tartas, Paschaline Abbadie of Rabasteins, all these were incontestably miraculous.
"The maladies to which those favored by such sudden and startling cures were subject were of entirely different natures"—we quote from the report of the commission. "They possessed the greatest variety of character. Some were the subjects of external, others of internal pathology. Nevertheless, these various diseases were all cured by a single simple element, used either as a lotion or drink, or sometimes in both ways.
"In the natural and scientific order, furthermore, each remedy is used in a fixed and regular manner; it has its special virtue proper to a given malady, but is either inefficacious or hurtful in other cases.
"It is not, then, by any property inherent in its composition that the Massabielle water has been able to produce such numerous, diverse, and extraordinary cures, and to extinguish at once diseases of different and opposite characters. Furthermore, science has authoritatively declared, after analysis, that this water has no mineral or therapeutic qualities,and chemically does not differ from other pure waters. Medical science, having been consulted, after mature and conscientious examination, is not less decisive in its conclusions."
"In glancing at the general appearance of these cures," says the medical report, "one cannot fail to be struck by the ease, the promptitude, and instantaneous rapidity with which they spring from their producing cause; from the violation and overthrow of all therapeutic laws and methods which takes place in their accomplishment; from the contradictions offered by them to all the accepted axioms and cautions of science; from that kind of disdain which sports with the chronic nature and long resistance of the disease; from the concealed but real care with which all the circumstances are arranged and combined: everything, in short, shows that the cures wrought belong to an order apart from the habitual course of nature.
"Such phenomena surpass the limits of the human intellect. How, indeed, can it comprehend the opposition which exists:
"Between the simplicity of the means and the greatness of the result?
"Between the unity of the remedy and the variety of the diseases?
"Between the short time employed in the use of this remedy and the lengthy treatment indicated by science?
"Between the sudden efficacy of the former and the long-acknowledged inutility of the latter?
"Between the chronic nature of the diseases and the instantaneous character of the cure?
"There is in all this a contingent force, superior to any that spring from natural causes, and, consequently, foreign to the water of which it has made use to show forth its power?"
In view of so many carefully-collected and publicly-certified facts, so striking in their nature; in view, moreover, of the conscientious and thorough inquiry made by the commission, together with the formal and united declarations of medicine and chemistry, the bishop could no longer remain unconvinced.
Nevertheless, on account of that spirit of extreme prudence which we have before remarked, Monseigneur Laurence, before giving the solemn episcopal verdict in this matter, demanded a still further guaranty of these miraculous cures—the proof of time. He allowed three years to pass. A second examination was then made. The miraculous cures still held good. No one appeared to retract former testimony or to contest any of the facts. The works of him who rules over eternity had nothing to fear from the test of time.
After this overwhelming series of proofs and certainty, Monseigneur Laurence at length pronounced the judgment which all had been awaiting. We give below its general features.
TO BE CONTINUED
It was just five months since I had left it, the bright, proud Babylon, beautiful and brave and wicked, clothed in scarlet and feasting sumptuously. King Chanticleer, strutting on the Boulevards, was crowing loudly, and the myriad tribe of the Coq Gaulois, strutting up and down the city, crowed loud and shrill in responsive chorus—petits crévés, and petits mouchards, and petits gamins, and all that waspetitin that grand, foolish cityful of humanity. Bedlam was abroad, singing and crowing and barking itself rabid, and scaring away from Babylon all that was not bedlam. But there were many in Babylon who were not afraid of the bedlam, who believed that crowing would by-and-by translate itself into action, into those seeds of desperate daring that none but madmen can accomplish, and that, when the bugle sounded, these bragging, swaggering maniacs would shoulder the musket, and, rushing to the fore, save France or die for her. No one saved her, but many did rush to the fore, and die for her. They were not lunatics, though, at least not many of them. The lunatics showed, as they have often done before, that there was method in their madness. They cheered on the sane, phlegmatic brethren to death and glory, while they stayed prudently at home to keep up the spirits of the capital; they were the spirit and soul of the defence, the others were but the bone and muscle of it. What is a body without a soul? The frail arm of the flesh without the nerve and strength of the spirit? Pshaw! If it were not for the crowing of King Chanticleer, there would have been no siege at all; the whole concern would have collapsed in its cradle.
The story of that Blocus has yet to be written. Of its outward and visible story, many volumes, and scores of volumes, good and bad, true and false, have been already written. But the inward story, the arcana of the defence, the exposition of that huge, blundering machine that, with its springs and levers, and wheels within wheels, snapped and broke and collapsed in the driver's hand, all this is still untold. The greatPourquoi?is still unanswered. History will solve the riddle some day, no doubt, as it solves most riddles, but before that time comes, other, grander problems of greater import to us will have been solved too, and we shall care but little for the true story of the Blocus.
"Yes, monsieur," said my concierge, when we met and talked over the events that had passed since the first of September, when I fled and left my goods and chattels to her care and the tender mercies of the Prussians and the Reds—"yes, monsieur, it is very wonderful that one doesn't hear of anybody having died of cold, though the winter was so terrible, and the fuel so scarce. It ran short almost from the beginning. We had nothing but green sticks that couldn't be persuaded to burn and do our best. I used to sit shivering in mybed, while the petiots tried to warm themselves skipping in the porte-cochère, or running up and down from thecintièmetill their little legs were dead beat.O Mon Dieu! je me rapellerai de cette guerre en tous les sens, monsieur."
"Did many die from starvation," I asked—"many in this neighborhood that you knew?"
"Not one, monsieur! Not one of actual hunger, though my belief is, plenty of folks died of poison. The bread we ate was worse than the want of it. Such an abomination, made out of hay and bran and oats; why, monsieur, a chiffonier's dog wouldn't have touched it in Christian times. How it kept body and soul together for any of us is more than I can understand."
"And yet nobody died of want?" I repeated.
"Not that I heard of, monsieur; unless you count Père Jacques as dead from starvation. He disappeared one morning soon after he told Mlle. Adrienne, and nobody ever knew what became of him. They said in the quartier that he went over to the Prussians; but they said that of better men than Père Jacques, and besides, what would the Prussians do with a poor oldtoquélike Père Jacques, I ask it of monsieur?"
I was going to say that I fully agreed with her, when we were both startled by a sudden uproar in the street round the corner. We rushed out simultaneously from the porte-cochère, where we were holding our confabulation, to see what was the matter. A crowd was collected in the middle of the Rue Billault, and was vociferously cheering somebody or something. As a matter of course, the assembly being French, there were counter-cheers; hisses and cries of "renégat! Vendu aux Prussiens! drôle," etc., intermingling with more friendly exclamations.
"Bon Dieu! ce n'est done pas fini!Is the war going to begin again? Are we going to have a revolution?" demanded my concierge, throwing up her hands to heaven and then wringing them in despair. "Will the petiots never be able to eat their panade and build their little mud-pies in peace! Oh! monsieur, monsieur, you are happy not to be a Frenchman!"
Without in the least degree demurring to this last proposition, I suggested that before giving up France as an utterly hopeless case, we would do well to see what the row was about; if indeed it were a row, for the cheering, as the crowd grew, seemed to rise predominant above the hissing. Already reassured, I advanced boldly toward the centre of disturbance, my concierge following, and keeping a tight grip of the skirts of my coat for greater security.
"Vive Mlle. Adrienne! Donne la patte Mlle. Adrienne! Vive le Père Jacques!" The cries, capped by peals of laughter which were suddenly drowned in the uproarious braying of a donkey, reverberated through the street and deafened us as we drew near.
With a shout of laughter, my concierge dropped my skirts, and clapping her hands:
"Comment!" she cried, "she is alive, then! He did not eat her! He did not sell her!Vive le Père Jacques! Vive Mlle. Adrienne!"
Those of my readers who have lived any time in the quartier of the Champs Elysées will recognize Mlle. Adrienne as an old friend, and rejoice to learn that, thanks to the intelligent devotion of Père Jacques, she did not share the fate of her asinine sisterhood, but has actually gone through the horrors of the siege ofParis and lived to tell the tale. Those who have not the pleasure of her acquaintance will perhaps be glad to make it, and to hear something of so remarkable a personage.
For years—I am afraid to say how many, but ten is certainly within the mark—Père Jacques's donkey has been a familiar object in the Rue Billault and the Rue de Berri, and that part of the Faubourg St. Honoré and the Champs Elysées which includes those streets. Why Père Jacques christened his ass Mlle. Adrienne nobody knows. Some say, out of vengeance against a certain blue-eyed Adrienne who won his heart and broke it; others say, only love for a faithful Adrienne who broke his heart by dying; but this is pure conjecture; Père Jacques himself is reticent on the subject, and, when questioned once by a curious, impertinent man, he refused to explain himself further than by remarking, "Que chacun avait son idée, et que son idée à lui, c'etait Mlle. Adrienne," and having said this he took a lump of sugar from his pocket and presented it affectionately to hisidée, who munched it with evident satisfaction, and acknowledged her sense of the attention by a long and uproarious bray.
"Voyons, Mlle. Adrienne! Calmons-nous!" said Père Jacques in a tone of persuasive authority. "Calmons-nous, ma chérie!"—the braying grew louder and louder—"wilt thou be silent?Uplà, Mlle. Adrienne! Ah, les femmes, les femmes! Toujours bavardes! La-a-a-à, Mlle. Adrienne!"
This was the usual style of conversation between the two. Père Jacques presented lumps of sugar which were invariably recognized by a bray, or, more properly, a series of brays, such as no other donkey in France or Navarre but herself could send forth; and while it lasted Père Jacques kept up a running commentary of remonstrance.
"Voyons, Mlle. Adrienne! Sapristi, veux-tu te taire? A-t-on jamais vu! Lotte, veux-tu en fini-i-i-r!"
Though it was an old novelty in the quartier, it seemed never to have lost its savor, and as soon as Père Jacques and his little cart, full of apples, or oranges, or cauliflowers, as the case might be, were seen or heard at the further end of the street, the gamins left off marbles and pitch-and-toss to bully and chaff Père Jacques and greet hisidéewith a jocular "Bonjour, Mlle. Adrienne." The tradesmen looked up from their weights and measures, laughing, as the pair went by.
When provisions began to run short during the Blocus, Père Jacques grew uneasy, not for himself, but for Mlle. Adrienne. Hard-hearted jesters advised him to fatten her up for the market; ass-flesh was delicate and rarer than horse-flesh, and fetched six francs a pound; it was no small matter to turn six francs in these famine times, when there were no more apples or cauliflowers to sell; Mlle. Adrienne was a burden now instead of a help to her master; the little cart stood idle in the corner; there was nothing to trundle, and it was breaking his heart to see her growing thin for want of rations, and to watch her spirits drooping for want of exercise and lumps of sugar. For more than a fortnight Père Jacques deprived himself of a morsel of the favorite dainty, and doled out his last demikilog to her with miserly economy, hoping always that the gates would be opened before she came to the last lump.
"Voyons, ma fille!" Père Jacques would say, as she munched a bit half the usual size of the now precious bonbon. "Cheer up,ma bouriquette! Be reasonable, Mlle. Adrienne,be reasonable, and bear thy trials like an ass, patiently and bravely, not like a man, grumbling and despairing.Paperlotte, Mlle. Adrienne! if it were not for thee I should be out on the ramparts, and send those coquins to the right-abouts myself.Les gredins!they are not content with drilling our soldiers and starving our citizens, but they must rob thee of thy bit of sugar, my pretty one.Mille tonnerres! if I had but their necks under my arm for one squeeze!"
And, entering into the grief and indignation of her master, Mlle. Adrienne would set up an agonized bray.
Thus comforting one another, the pair bore up through their trials. But at last came the days of eating mice and rats, and bread that a dog in good circumstances would have turned up its nose at a month ago, and then Père Jacques shook in his sabots. He dared not show himself abroad with Mlle. Adrienne, and not only that, but he lived in chronic terror of a raid being made on her at home. The mischievous urchins who had amused themselves at the expense of his paternal feelings in days of comparative plenty, gave him no peace or rest now that the wolf was really at the door. Requisitions were being made in private houses to see that no stores were hoarded up while the people outside were famishing. One rich family, who had prudently bought a couple of cows at the beginning of the Blocus, after vainly endeavoring to keep the fact a secret, and surrounding the precious beasts with as much mystery and care as ever Egyptian worshippers bestowed on the sacred Isis, were forced to give them up to the commonwealth. This caused a great sensation in the quartier. Père Jacques was the first to hear it, and thegaminsimproved the opportunity by declaring to him that the republic had issued a decree that all asses were to be seized next day, all such as could not speak, they added facetiously, and there was to be a general slaughter of them, amassacre des innocents, the little brutes called it, at the abattoir of the Rue Valois. The fact of its being at the Rue Valois was a small mercy for which they reminded Père Jacques to be duly grateful, inasmuch as, it being close at hand, he might accompany Mlle. Adrienne to the place of execution, give her a parting kiss, and hear her last bray of adieu. At this cynical climax, Père Jacques started up in a rage, and seizing his stick, set to vigorously belaboring the diabolical young torturers, who took to their heels, yelling and screaming like frightened guinea-pigs, while Mlle. Adrienne, who stood ruminating in a corner of the room, opened a rattling volley of brays on the fugitives.
All that night Père Jacques lay awake in terror. Every whistle of the wind, every creak in the door, every stir and sound, set his heart thumping violently against his ribs; every moment he was expecting the dreaded domiciliary visit. What was he to do? Where was he to fly? How was he to cheat the brigands and save Mlle. Adrienne? The night wore out, and the dawn broke, and the raid was still unaccomplished. As soon as it was light, Père Jacques rose and dressed himself, and sat down on a wooden stool close by Mlle. Adrienne, and pondered. Since her life had been in jeopardy, he had removed her from her out-house in the court to his own private room on the ground-floor close by.
"Que me conseilles-tu, Mlle. Adrienne?" murmured the distracted parent, speaking in a low tone, impelled by the instinct that drives humanbeings to seek sympathy somewhere, from a cat or a dog if they have no fellow-creature to appeal to, Père Jacques had contracted a habit of talking out loud to his dumb companion when they were alone, and consulting her on any perplexing point. Suddenly a bright idea struck Père Jacques; he would go and consult Mère Richard.
Mère Richard lived in a neighboring court amidst a numerous family of birds of many species, bullfinches, canaries, and linnets. She had often suggested to Père Jacques to adopt a little songster by way of cheering his lonely den, and had once offered him a young German canary of her own bringing up.
"It's as good as a baby for tricks and company, and nothing so dear to keep," urged Mère Richard.
But Père Jacques had gratefully declined. "Mlle. Adrienne is company enough for me," he said, "and it might hurt her feelings if I took up with a bird now, thanks to you all the same,voisine."
To-day, as he neared the house, he looked in vain for the red and green cages that used to hang outau troisièmeon either side of Mère Richard's windows. The birds were gone. Where? Père Jacques felt a sympathetic thrill of horror, and with a heavy heart mounted the dark little stairs, no longer merry with the sound of chirping from the tidy little roomau troisième. He refrained, through delicate consideration for Mère Richard's feelings, from asking questions, but, casting his eyes round the room, he beheld the empty cages ranged in a row behind the door.
But Mère Richard had a donkey. There was no comparison to be tolerated for a moment between it and Mlle. Adrienne, still their positions were identical, and Mère Richard, who was a wise woman, would help him in his present difficulty, and if she could not help him she would, at any rate, sympathize with him, which was the next best thing to helping him. But Mère Richard, to his surprise, had heard nothing of the impending raid on donkeys. When he explained to her how the case stood, instead of breaking out into lamentations, she burst into a chuckling laugh.
"Pas possible!Bouriquette good to be eaten, and the republic going to buy her, and pay me six francs a pound for her! Père Jaques, it's too good to be true," declared the unnatural old Harpagon.
Père Jacques was unable to contain his indignation. He vowed that rather than let her fall into the hands of the cannibals, he would destroy Mlle. Adrienne with his own hand; he would kill any man in the republic, from Favre to Gambetta, who dared to lay a finger on her; aye, that he would, if he were to swing for it the next hour!
"Père Jacques, you are an imbecile," observed Mère Richard, taking a pinch of snuff; "you remind me of a story my bonhomme used to tell of two camarades of his that he met on their way to be hanged; one of them didn't mind it, and walked on quietly, holding his tongue; but the other didn't like it at all, and kept howling and whining, and making atapage de diable. At last the quiet one lost patience, and turning round on the other, 'Eh grand bétat,' he cried, 'si tu n'en veux pas, n'en dégoute pas les autres!'"
Père Jaques saw the point of the story, and, taking the hint, stood up to go.
"What did you do with the birds?" he demanded sternly, as he was leaving the room.
"Sold four of them for three francsapiece, and ate three of them, and uncommonly good they were," said the wretched woman, with unblushing heartlessness.
"Monster!" groaned Père Jacques, and hurried from her presence.
All that day he and Mlle. Adrienne stayed at home with their door and window barred and bolted; but night came, and the domiciliary visit was still a threat. Next day, however, the little door stood open as usual, and Père Jacques was to be seen hammering away at the dilapidated legs of a table that he was mending for a neighbor at the rate of twenty-five centimes a leg; but Mlle. Adrienne was not there. Had Père Jacques put an end to his agony by actually killing her, as he had threatened, and so saved her from the ignoble fate of the shambles? Or had he, haunted by the phantom of hunger which was now staring at him with its pale spectral eyes from the near background, yielded to the old man's love of life, and sold his friend to prolong it and escape himself from a ghastly death? Most people believed the latter alternative, but nobody knew for certain. When Mlle. Adrienne's name was mentioned, Père Jacques would frown, and give unmistakable signs of displeasure. If the subject was pressed, he would seize his stick, and, making amoulinetover his head with it, prepare an expletive that the boldest never waited to receive. One day he was caught crying bitterly in his now solitary home, and muttering to himself between the sobs, "Ma pauvre fille! Mlle. Adrienne! Je le suivrai bientôt—ah les coquins, les brigands, les monstres!" This was looked upon as conclusive. The monsters in question could only be the Shylocks of the abattoir who had tempted him with blood-money for Mlle. Adrienne. When curiosity was thus far satisfied, the gamins ceased to worry Père Jacques; the lonely old man became an object of pity to everybody, even to the gamins themselves; when they met him now they touched their caps, with "Bonjour, Père Jacques!" and spared him the cruel jeer that had been their customary salutation of late: "Mlle. Adrienne à la casserole! Bon appétit, Père Jacques!"
The days wore on, and the weeks, and the months. Paris, wan and pale and hunger-stricken, still held out. Winter had come, and thrown its icy pall upon the city, hiding her guilty front "under innocent snow;" the nights were long and cold, the dawn was desolate, the tepid noon brought no warmth to the perishing, fire-bound multitude. No sign of succor came to them from without. In vain they watched and waited, persecuting time with hope. The cannon kept up its sobbing recitative through the black silence of the night; through the white stillness of the day. Hunger gnawed into their vitals, till even hope, weary with disappointment, grew sick and died.
One morning, the neighbors noticed Père Jacques's door and window closed long after the hour when he was wont to be up and busy. They knocked, and, getting no answer, turned the handle of the door; it was neither locked nor barred, merely closed, as if the master were within; but he was not; the little room was tenantless, and almost entirely stripped; the mattress and the scanty store of bed-clothes were gone; the iron bedstead, a table, a stool, and two cane chairs, were the only sticks of furniture that remained; the shelves were bare of the bright pewter tankards and platters that used to adorn them; the gilt clock with its abortion of a Pegasus bestrid by a grenadier, which had been the glory of the chimney-piece, had disappeared.What did it all mean? Had the enemy made a raid on Père Jacques and his property during the night, and carried away the lot in a balloon? Great was the consternation, and greater still the gossip of the little community, when the mysterious event became known through the quartier. What had become of Père Jacques? Had he been kidnapped, or had he been murdered, or had he taken flight of his own accord, and whither, and why? Nothing transpired to throw any light on the mystery, and the gossips, tired of guessing, soon ceased to think about it, and, like many another nine days' wonder, Père Jacques's disappearance died a natural death.
A day came at last when the mitrailleuse hushed its hideous shriek, the cannon left off booming, the wild beasts of war were silent. Paris cried, "Merci!" and the gates were opened. The city, like a sick man healed of a palsy, rose up, and shook herself and rubbed her eyes, and ate plentifully after her long fast. Many came back from the outposts who were wept over as dead. There were strange meetings in many quartiers during those first days that followed the capitulation. But no one brought any news of Père Jacques. There were too many interests nearer and dearer to think of, and, in the universal excitement of shame and vengeance and rare flashes of joy, he and Mlle. Adrienne were forgotten as if they had never been. But when, on the day of my return to Paris, my conversation with my concierge was interrupted by the cheering of the crowd in the Rue Billault, and when the cause of the hubbub was made known, the fact that both Père Jacques and hisidéewere well remembered and, as the newspapers put it, universally esteemed by a large circle of friends and admirers, was most emphatically attested. Nothing, indeed, could be more gratifying than the manner in which their resurrection was received. The pair looked very much the worse for their sojourn in the other world, wherever it was, to which they had emigrated. Mlle. Adrienne's appearance was particularly affecting. She was worn to skin and bone; and certainly, if Père Jacques, yielding to the pangs of hunger, had sacrificed hisidéeto his life, and taken her to the shambles, she would not have fetched more than a brace of good rats, or, at best, some ten francs, from the inhuman butchers of the Rue Valois. She dragged her legs, and shook and stumbled as if the weight of her attenuated person were too much for them. Even her old enemies, the gamins, were moved to pity, while Père Jacques, laughing and crying and apostrophizing Mlle. Adrienne in his old familiar way, cheered her on to their old home. How she ever got there is as great a marvel as how she lived to be led there to-day; for, what between physical exhaustion and mental anxiety—for the crowd kept overpowering her with questions and caresses—and what between the well-meant but injudicious attentions of sundry little boys who kept stuffing unintermitting bits of straw and lumps of sugar into her mouth, it is little short of a miracle that she did not choke and expire on the macadam of the Rue Billault.
Many an ass has been lionized before, and many a one will be so again. It is a common enough sight in these days, but never did hero or heroine of the tribe bear herself more becomingly on the trying occasion than Mlle. Adrienne. As to Père Jacques, he bore himself as well as he could, trying hard to look dignified and unconscious, while in his inmost heart he was bursting with pride. Whilehe and Mlle. Adrienne ambled on side by side, some facetious person remarked that Père Jacques looked quite beside himself. This, indeed, was a great day for him and his ass. Yet, notwithstanding that his heart was moved within him and softened towards all men—nay, towards all boys—he could not be induced to say a word as to where he had been, or what he had done, or how he and Mlle. Adrienne had fared in the wilderness, or what manner of wilderness it was, or anything that could furnish the remotest clue to their existence since the day when they had separately disappeared off the horizon of the Rue Billault. Provisions were still too dear, during the first fortnight after the capitulation, to allow of Père Jacques resuming his old trade of apples or cauliflowers; besides, Mademoiselle Adrienne wanted rest.
"Pauvre chérie! il faut qu'elle se remette un peu de la vache enragée," he remarked tenderly, when his friends condoled with him on her forced inactivity. He would not hear of hiring her out for work, as some of them proposed. Mère Richard came and offered a fabulous price for the loan of her for three days, with a view to a stroke of business at the railway station, where food was pouring in from London. Père Jacques shook his fist at the carnivorous old woman, and warned her never to show her unnatural old face in his house again, or it might be worse for her.