The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes | Page 2

that I came across some instances of real cure. Many cases
of nervous disorders have undoubtedly been cured, and there have also
been other cures which may, perhaps be attributed to errors of

diagnosis on the part of doctors who attended the patients so cured.
Often a patient is described by his doctor as suffering from
consumption. He goes to Lourdes, and is cured. However, the
probability is that the doctor made a mistake. In my own case I was at
one time suffering from a violent pain in my chest, which presented all
the symptoms of /angina pectoris/, a mortal malady. It was nothing of
the sort. Indigestion, doubtless, and, as such, curable. Remember that
most of the sick persons who go to Lourdes come from the country, and
that the country doctors are not usually men of either great skill or great
experience. But all doctors mistake symptoms. Put three doctors
together to discuss a case, and in nine cases out of ten they will
disagree in their diagnosis. Look at the quantities of tumours, swellings,
and sores, which cannot be properly classified. These cures are based
on the ignorance of the medical profession. The sick pretend, believe,
that they suffer from such and such a desperate malady, whereas it is
from some other malady that they are suffering. And so the legend
forms itself. And, of course, there must be cures out of so large a
number of cases. Nature often cures without medical aid. Certainly,
many of the workings of Nature are wonderful, but they are not
supernatural. The Lourdes miracles can neither be proved nor denied.
The miracle is based on human ignorance. And so the doctor who lives
at Lourdes, and who is commissioned to register the cures and to
tabulate the miracles, has a very careless time of it. A person comes,
and gets cured. He has but to get three doctors together to examine the
case. They will disagree as to what was the disease from which the
patient suffered, and the only explanation left which will be acceptable
to the public, with its hankering after the lie, is that a miracle has been
vouchsafed.
"I interviewed a number of people at Lourdes, and could not find one
who would declare that he had witnessed a miracle. All the cases which
I describe in my book are real cases, in which I have only changed the
names of the persons concerned. In none of these instances was I able
to discover any real proof for or against the miraculous nature of the
cure. Thus, in the case of Clementine Trouve, who figures in my story
as Sophie--the patient who, after suffering for a long time from a horrid
open sore on her foot, was suddenly cured, according to current report,
by bathing her foot in the piscina, where the bandages fell off, and her

foot was entirely restored to a healthy condition--I investigated that
case thoroughly. I was told that there were three or four ladies living in
Lourdes who could guarantee the facts as stated by little Clementine. I
looked up those ladies. The first said No, she could not vouch for
anything. She had seen nothing. I had better consult somebody else.
The next answered in the same way, and nowhere was I able to find any
corroboration of the girl's story. Yet the little girl did not look like a liar,
and I believe that she was fully convinced of the miraculous nature of
her cure. It is the facts themselves which lie.
"Lourdes, the Grotto, the cures, the miracles, are, indeed, the creation
of that need of the Lie, that necessity for credulity, which is a
characteristic of human nature. At first, when little Bernadette came
with her strange story of what she had witnessed, everybody was
against her. The Prefect of the Department, the Bishop, the clergy,
objected to her story. But Lourdes grew up in spite of all opposition,
just as the Christian religion did, because suffering humanity in its
despair must cling to something, must have some hope; and, on the
other hand, because humanity thirsts after illusions. In a word, it is the
story of the foundation of all religions."
To the foregoing account of "Lourdes" as supplied by its author, it may
be added that the present translation, first made from early proofs of the
French original whilst the latter was being completed, has for the
purposes of this new American edition been carefully and extensively
revised by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly,--M. Zola's representative for all
English-speaking countries. "Lourdes" forms the first volume of the
"Trilogy of the Three Cities," the second being "Rome," and the third
"Paris."

LOURDES

THE FIRST DAY

I
PILGRIMS AND PATIENTS
THE pilgrims and patients, closely packed