The centenary of the apparitions at Lourdes has inevitably inspired a new literature which ranges from critical editions of the written sources to popular ballads. The variety of emphasis and the levels of taste revealed in these books reflect the universality of Lourdes itself—its capacity to engage the serious attention of the scholar as well as the uncritical affection of the simple believer.

Most important of the centenary publications is Lourdes: Dossier des Documents Authentiques, edited by Abbé Laurentin (Lethielleux). Four volumes are projected, of which two have already appeared (Vol. I: Au temps des seize premieres apparitions; 1,200 francs; Vol. II: Dix-Septième Apparition, Epidémie des Visionnaires, Gnoses et Faux Miracles, La Bataille Administrative, Fermeture de la Grotte: 1,500 francs). It is a matter for gratitude that a theologian such as M. Laurentin should undertake the necessary task of inspecting the sources of Lourdes. As he explains in his introduction, the apparitions at Lourdes are not a major subject for theological study, but they have an important place in the life of the Church, ‘if only because of the number of people they affect, and because of the fruits they produce as well as the dangers they present’. For that reason ‘God’s designs in this matter should be exactly established and stripped of exaggerations’.

The need, therefore, was to establish the authenticity of the record on which the story of Lourdes depends. M. Laurentin describes his task as comparable to a detective story, and indeed many of the relevant documents are in fact police reports made at the time of the apparitions. In the course of a century a mass of documents had accumulated in archives of all sorts (and, as M. Laurentin remarks drily, ‘France is a country where everything is kept’).