nconscious 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. Abbe Peyramale, the
parish priest of Lourdes, an extremely honest man, with an upright,
vigorous mind, was able in all truth to declare that he did not know this
child, that she had not yet been seen at catechism. Where was the
pressure, then, where the lesson learnt by heart? There was nothing but
those years of childhood spent at Bartres, the first teachings of Abbe
Ader, conversations possibly, religious ceremonies in honour of the
recently proclaimed dogma, or simply the gift of one of those
commemorative medals which had been scattered in profusion. Never did
Abbe Ader reappear upon the scene, he who had predicted the mission of
the future Visionary. He was destined to remain apart from Bernadette and
her future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul blossom in
his pious hands. And yet all the unknown forces that had sprung from that
sequestered village, from that nook of greenery where superstition and
poverty of intelligence prevailed, were still making themselves felt,
disturbing the brains of men, disseminating the contagion of the
mysterious. It was remembered that a shepherd of Argeles, speaking of the
rock of Massabielle, had prophesied that great things would take place
there. Other children, moreover, now fell in ecstasy with their eyes
dilated and their limbs quivering with convulsions, but these only saw
the devil. A whirlwind of madness seemed to be passing over the region.
An old lady of Lourdes declared that Bernadette was simply a witch and
that she had herself seen the toad's foot in her eye. But for the others,
for the thousands of pilgrims who hastened to the spot, she was a saint,
and they kissed her garments. Sobs burst forth and frenzy seemed to seize
upon the souls of the beholders, when she fell upon her knees before