In 1858, the earliest date of our story, the Parisian journals were reguarly received at Lourdes. The Revue des Deux-Mondes counted there many subscribers. The inns and cafés presented their guests with three numbers of the Siècle, that of the latest date and the two preceding ones. The bourgeoisie and clergy divided their patronage between the Journal des Débats, the Presse, Moniteur, Univers and Union.

Lourdes had a club, a printinghouse, and a journal. The sous préfet was at Argelès; but the sorrow which the inhabitants of Lourdes showed for the absence of this functionary was tempered by the joy of possessing the Tribunal de première instance, that is, three judges, a president, a procureur impérial, and a deputy. Around this brilliant centre revolved as inferior satellites, a justice of the peace, a commissary of police, six constables, and seven gendarmes, one of whom was invested with the rank of corporal. Inside of the town we find a hospital and a prison; and circumstances sometimes come to pass, as we shall have occasion to state, in which independent spirits, nourished with the sound and humane doctrines of the Siècle, think that criminals should be put into the hospital and the sick into the jail. But these gentlemen of such extraordinary reasoning powers are not in exclusive possession at the bar of Lourdes and in the medical profession; men of great learning and high distinction. are to be met-remarkable minds and impartial observers of facts-such as are not always to be found in more important cities.

Mountaineers are generally endowed with strong and practical good sense; and the people of this neighborhood, almost unmixed with foreign blood, excel in this respect. Scarcely one place in France could be cited

where the schools are better attended than at Lourdes. There is hardly a boy who does not for several years go to lay-teachers or to the institution of the "Brothers;" hardly a little girl who does not complete the course of instruction at the school of the Sisters of Nevers. Far better taught than the mechanics of most of our cities, the people of Lourdes still preserve the simplicity of rural life. They have warm veins and southern heads, but upright hearts and a perfect morality. They are honest, religious, and not over-inclined to novelties.

Certain local institutions, dating back to forgotten times, contribute toward maintaining this happy state of things. The people of these regions, long before the pretended discoveries of modern progress, had learned and practised, under the shadow of the church, those ideas of union and prudence which have given rise to our mutual aid societies. Such associations have for centuries existed and worked at Lourdes. They date from the middle ages; they have survived the revolution, and philanthropists would long since have made them famous, if they had not drawn their vitality from religion, and if they were not called to-day, as in the fifteenth century, "confraternities."

"Nearly all the people," says M. de Lagrèze, "enter these pious and benevolent associations. The mechanics, whom the title of brotherhood thus unites, place their labor under heavenly patronage, and exchange with one another assistance in work and the succors of Christian charity. The common alms-box receives a weekly offering from the stout and healthy artisan, to return it at some future day when the charitable hands can no longer earn wages."

On the death of a laborer the association pays the funeral expenses and accompanies the body to its resting-place.

"Each confraternity except two, who share

the high altar between them, has a particular chapel, whose name it takes, and which it supports by the collection made every Sunday. The confraternity of Notre Dames des Grâces is made up of farmers, tillers of the soil; that of Notre Dame de Monsarrat, of masons; that of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, of slaters; that of St. Anne, of carpenters; that of St. Lucy, of tailors and dressmakers; that of the Ascension, of quarry workers; that of the Blessed Sacrament, of church-wardens; that of St. James and St. John, of all who have received either of these names in holy baptism."

The women are likewise divided into similar religious associations. One of them, "the Congregation of Children of Mary," has a special character. It is also a society for mutual aid and encouragement, but in relation to spiritual things. To enter this congregation, although it is merely an association of persons living in the secular state, and not a religious society, a young person must give evidence that she possesses a well-tried steadiness of character. The young girls look forward to it for a long time before they reach the proper age for admission. The members of the congregation are bound never to put themselves in danger by frequenting worldly festivities where the religious spirit is lost, nor to adopt eccentric fashions, but to be exact in attending the meetings and instructions on Sunday. It is an honor to belong to this association, a disgrace to be excluded from it. And the amount of good which it has done in maintaining public morality and preparing good mothers of families, is truly incalculable. In many dioceses, confraternities have been founded on the same plan and after this model.

This part of the country has ever shown great devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Her sanctuaries are numerous throughout the Pyrenees from Piétat or Garaison to Bétharram. All the altars of the church of Lourdes

have been dedicated under the invocation of the Mother of God.

III.

Such was Lourdes ten years ago.

The railway did not pass through it; indeed, no one then dreamed that it ever would. A much more direct route seemed to be marked out in advance for the line through the Pyrenees.

The entire town and fortress are situated, as we have said, on the right bank of the Gave, which, prevented from going north by the rocky foundation of the castle, turns at a right angle to the west. An old bridge, built at some distance above the first houses communicates with the plains, meadows, forests, and mountains of the left bank.

On this side of the stream, below the bridge, and nearly opposite the castle, an aqueduct conducts much of the water of the Gave into a large canal.

The latter rejoins the main stream at the distance of one kilome tre below, after having passed along the base of the cliffs of Massabielle. The long island thus formed by the Gave and by the canal is a large and fertile meadow. In the neighborhood it is called l'Ile du Châlet, or more briefly, le Châlet. The mill of Sâvy is the only one on the left bank, and is built across the canal, thus serving as a bridge. This mill and le Châlet belong to a citizen of Lourdes, M. de Laffite. In 1858, as wild a place as could be found in the neighborhood of the thriving little town, which we have described, was at the foot of these cliffs of Massabielle, where the mill-race rejoins the Gave. A few paces from the junction, on the banks of the river, the steep rock is pierced at its base by three irregular excavations, fantastically arranged, and commu

nicating like the pores of a huge sponge. The singularity of these excavations renders them difficult to be described. The first and largest is on a level with the ground. It resembles a trader's booth, or a kiln roughly built, and cut vertically in two, thus forming a half dome. The entrance, formed into a distorted arch, is about four metres in height. The breadth of the grotto, a little less than its depth, is from twelve to fifteen metres. From this entrance the rocky roof lowers and narrows on the right and left.

Above and to the right of the spectator, are found two openings in the rock, which seem like adjoining caves. Seen from without, the principal one of these openings has an oval form, and is about the size of an ordinary house window or niche in a church wall. It pierces the rock above, and at a depth of two metres divides, descending on one side to the interior of the grotto and ascending on the other toward the outside of the rock, where its orifice forms the second cave of which we have spoken, which is of use to let in light upon the others. An eglantine growing from a cleft in the rock extends its long branches around the base of this orifice, in the form of a niche. At the foot of this system of caves, so easy to comprehend to one who looks upon it, but complicated enough for one who tries to give merely a wordsketch, the water of the canal rushes over a chaos of enormous stones to meet the Gave, a few steps farther on. The grotto, then, is close by the lower point of the Ile du Châlet, formed, as we have said, by the Gave and the canal. The caverns are called the Grotte de Massabielle, from the cliffs in which they are situated. "Massabielle" signifies in the patois of the place, "old cliffs." On the river banks, below, a steep and uncultivat

ed slope, belonging to the commune, extends for some distance. Here the swineherds of Lourdes frequently bring their animals to feed. When a storm arises, these poor people shelter themselves in the grotto, as do likewise a few fishermen who cast their lines in the Gave. Like other caves of this kind, the rock is dry in ordinary weather, and slightly damp in times of rain. But this dampness and dripping of the rainy season can be noticed only on the right side of the entrance. This is the side on which the storms always beat, driven by the west wind; and the phenomena here take place which can be noticed on the honey-combed walls of stone houses, similarly exposed, and built with bad mortar. The left side and floor, however, are always as dry as the walls of a parlor. The accidental dampness of the west side even sets off the dryness of the other parts of the grotto.

Above this triple cavern the cliffs of Massabielle rise almost into peaks, draped with masses of ivy and boxwood, and folds of heather and moss. Tangled briers, hazel shoots, eglantines, and a few trees, whose branches the winds often break, have struck root in clefts of the rock, wherever the crumbling mountain has produced or the wings of the storm have borne a few handfuls of soil. The eternal Sower, whose invisible hand fills with stars and planets the immensity of space, who has drawn from nothing the ground which we tread, and its plants and animals, the Creator of the millions of men who people the earth, and the myriads of angels who dwell in heaven, this God, whose wealth and power know no bounds, takes care that no atom shall be lost in the vast regions of his handiwork. He leaves barren no spot which is capable of producing any thing. Throughout the extent of our

globe, countless germs float in the air, covering the earth with verdure, where there seemed before no chance of life for even a single herb, or tuft of moss. Thus, O Divine Sower! thy graces, like invisible but fruitful motes, float about and rest upon our souls. And, if we are barren, it is because we present hearts harder and more arid than the rocky and the beaten highway, or covered with tangled thorns that prevent the up-growing of thy heavenly seed.

IV.

It was requisite to the ensuing narrative to describe first the scene where its events took place. But it is of no less importance to point out in advance that profound moral truth, which is the starting-point from which this history begins, in the course of which, as we shall see, God manifested his power in a visible manner. These reflections will, moreover, delay only for an instant the commencement of our narrative.

Every one has noticed the striking contrasts presented by the various conditions of men who live on this earth, where wicked and good, rich and needy, are mingled together, and where a thin wall often separates the hovel from the palace. On one side are all the pleasures of life, softly arranged in the midst of rare delicacies, comfort, and the elegance of luxury; on the other, the horrors of want, cold, hunger, sickness, and all the sad train of human woes. For the former, adulation, joyous visits, charming friendships. For the latter, indifference, loneliness, and neglect. Whether it fears the importunity of his spoken or his mute appeals, or shrinks from the rebuke of his wretched nakedness, the world avoids the poor man, and makes its arrangements without regard to him. The rich form an exclusive circle,

which they call "good society," and they regard as unworthy of serious at tention the existence of those secondary but "indispensable" beings. When they hire the services of one of the latter-even when they are good people and accustomed to succor the needy-it is always in a patronizing way. They never use, in this case, the language and tone which they apply to one of their own kind. Except a few rare Christians, no one treats the poor man as an equal and a brother. Except the saintalas! too rare in these days-who follows out the idea of looking upon the wretched as representing Christ! In the world, properly so called, the vast world, the poor are absolutely forsaken. Weighed down beneath the burden of toil and care, despised and abandoned, does it not seem as if they were cursed by their Maker? And yet, it is just the contrary; they are the best beloved of the Father. While the world has been pronounced ac cursed by the infallible word of Christ, on the other hand, the poor, the suffering, the humble, are God's "good society." "Ye are my friends," he has said to them in his Gospel. He has done more; he has identified himself with them. "What you have done to the least of these, you have done also to me."

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Moreover, when the Son of God came upon the earth, he chose to be born, and to live and die, among the poor, and to be a poor man. From the poor he selected his apostles and his principal disciples, the first-born of his church. And, in the long his tory of that same church, it is upon poor that he lavishes his greatest sp ritual favors. In every age, and with few exceptions, apparitions, vis ions, and particular revelations have been the privilege of those whom the world disdains. When, in his wisdom, God sees fit to manifest himself sensi