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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
In 1858 Lourdes was the site of a famous series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous (1844–79). These visions became the basis of one of the major religious shrines of the contemporary world. The miraculous spring at the Grotto of Lourdes is visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims every year and the story of St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes has been thoroughly disseminated throughout the Catholic world. Despite the fame of Lourdes, and despite the dramatic foundation of the shrine during the mid nineteenth century, the events at Lourdes have received relatively little attention from historians. A scholarly consideration of Lourdes is included in Thomas Kselman's Miracles and prophecies in nineteenth-century France. This book initiated research into several neglected fields and until it appeared writers who made mention of Lourdes, such as Marina Warner and Judith Devlin, were obliged to rely upon works of Catholic history. The apparitions at Lourdes and the life of Bernadette have given rise to a vast devotional literature, some of which has been carefully researched, but it serves the purposes of hagiography rather than historical enquiry. A voluminous quantity of contemporary documents relevant to these events is in existence in the archives of both Church and State, and some collections of these primary sources have been published.
1 Kselman, Thomas, Miracles and prophecies in nineteenth-century France, New Brunswick, NJ 1990Google Scholar. Lourdes, is also considered by Carroll, Michael in The cult of the Virgin Mary: psychological origins, Princeton, NJ 1986Google Scholar. Carroll uses the methodology of Freudian psychoanalysis. Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra, Encountering Mary, Princeton, NJ 1991CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives an historical study of modern Marian apparitions which includes a review of Lourdes.
2 Devlin, Judith, The superstitious mind: French peasants and the supernatural in the nineteenth century, New Haven, Conn. 1987Google Scholar; Warner, Marina, Alone of all her sex: the myth and the cult of the Virgin, London 1976Google Scholar.
3 ‘Hommage à la bienheureuse Bernadette Soubirous’, Revue d'ascétique et de mystique nos 37–8, Janvier–Avril 1929 (hereinafter cited as RdAM)Google Scholar; Lourdes documents authentiques, ed. Laurentin, René, i–vii, Paris 1958 (hereinafter cited as LDA)Google Scholar; Lourdes 1858, témoins de l'événement, ed. Cros, P. and Olphe-Galliard, P., Paris 1957Google Scholar; Procés de Bernadette: documents authentiques, ed. Tauriac, J.-M. and Aubery, J., Paris, 1958Google Scholar.
4 These letters have not been published in their entirety. Various early edited versions of them were produced, in bowdlerised forms which eliminated their unorthodox content, and printed in clerical journals such as Journal de la grotte x (1897). These distortions were corrected when Abbé Laurentin produced the meticulously edited LDA. This extensive collection of documents includes extracts from most of Adelaide's letters but only prints those sections where she is writing of the apparitions. The original documents are kept in the Archives of the Grotto, Lourdes. They are catalogued, Série A – Histoire des Apparitions, no. 8 (hereinafter cited as AG A8).
5 Soulet, J. F.Les Pyrénées an XIX siècle: une société en dissidence, Paris 1987Google Scholar.
6 Le Ministre de l'lnstruction publique et des Cultes à M. le Garde des Sceaux, Ministre de la Justice, 1 mai 1858, Archives nationales, Paris, BB 18 1577.
7 Évèque de Tarbes à M. Dauzat-Dembarrère, 16 juillet 1862, repr. in Dauzat-Dembarrère, Pierre, Des origines politiques de la Grotte de Lourdes, Tarbes 1890, 25–6Google Scholar.
8 AG A8, Monlaur, 29 Apr. 1858.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Such supernatural lights at shrines, Pyrenean are mentioned in ‘Le choléra et Notre-Dame du Plan-d'Illheu ou de Barousse’, Revue catholique du diocèse de Tarbes, 16 août 1884, 13e année, no. 33, 559Google Scholar; Lafforgue, Abbè E, Histoire de la dévotion aux douleurs de Marie dans le diocèse de Tarbes, Tarbes 1919, 51Google Scholar.
12 AG A8, Monlaur, 21 Mar. 1858.
13 Ibid. 8 Mar. 1858.
14 A memoir of the 1860s, ‘La grotte de Lourdes’ by Laffitte, Abbé Charles, cites this as a common belief: LDA vi, no. 1045, 247Google Scholar.
15 The Archives of the Grotto preserve a letter by J. Latour de Brie dated 30 May 1879. His family was visiting the Pyrenees in 1856/7, when he was twelve years old. He claims to have explored the grotto of Massabielle, where he found a collection of statues of the Virgin Mary buried in the sand of the niche: Lettre de J. Latour de Brie, Archives of the Grotto, Lourdes, Série A, no. 21. It is claimed that from the ninth century Massabielle was known to be a feudal dependency of Notre Dame du Puy and that herbs from the area were offered every year to this ancient icon: Cros, L.-J.-M., Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, i, Paris 1925, 15Google Scholar.
16 Gratocos, Isaure, Fées et gestes: femmes pyrénéennes: un status social exceptionnel en Europe, Toulouse 1987, 54Google Scholar.
17 AG A8, Monlaur, 8 Mar. 1858.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. 21 Mar. 1858.
20 Ibid. 11 May 1858.
21 Ibid. 18 May 1858.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid. 8 Mar. 1858.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid. 9 Aug. 1858.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid. 8 Apr. 1858.
30 I have drawn this analysis from a seminar given by Russell, Penny, the author of ‘“For better and for worse”: love, power and sexuality in upper-class marriages in Melbourne, 1860–1880’, Australian Feminist Studies vii–viii (1988), 11–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Ibid.
32 Mullois, Isidore, Cours d'éloquence sacrée populaire ou essai sur la manière de parler au peuple, i, Paris 1856, 52Google Scholar.
33 AG A8, 18 May 1858.
34 Ibid.
35 Siûsat prêtre, Lettre à la Reine, Tarbes 17 août 1844, Dossiers des Évêques, Mgr Laurence, Archives nationales, Paris, F19 2585.
36 Bernadette, quoted by de Bernetas, Azun: Procès de Bernadette: documents authentiques, Paris 1958, 222Google Scholar.
37 AG A8, Monlaur, 21 Mar. 1858.
38 Procès-verbal d'interrogatoire de Bernadette, , 18 03 1858, LDA i, no. 69, 259Google Scholar.
39 Relation de l'abbé Désirat, 1868; Cros, , Histoire, i. 316Google Scholar.
40 Another much quoted example was from Estrade, J-B: RdAM, 71Google Scholar.
41 AG A8, Monlaur, 8 April 1858.
42 ‘La Déposition de Toinette Soubirous’, RdAM, 156.
43 This is not, strictly speaking, an inaccuracy on Adelaide's part. She is following a Pyrenean custom by which a person may be known by the name of the house where their family lives, rather than their name in civil law. Bernadette's family had previously occupied the Boly mill and the Savy mill. Yet the use of different names interchangeably demonstrates that Adelaide was not preoccupied with the visionary as an individual. On the use of names, see Fedacou, Henri, Henri Fedacou raconte la vie montagnarde dans un village des Pyrénées au débul du siècle, Tarbes 1984, 127Google Scholar.
44 AG A8, Monlaur, 20 Apr. 1858.
45 Quatorzième rapport du commissaire Jacomet au préfet Massy, 19 04 1858, LDA ii, no. 164, 202Google Scholar.
46 AG A8, Monlaur, 29 July 1858.
47 Ibid. 18 May 1858.
48 McReavy, L. L., Bernadette, child of Mary, London 1933, 124Google Scholar.
49 For example the hamlet of Nouillan, where eleven people saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary at different times during June 1848: Colinon, M., Guide de la France religieuse et mystique, Paris 1969, 465Google Scholar.
50 AG A8, 18 May 1858.
51 Le Ministre de l'Instruction publique et des Cultes Rouland à Mgr Laurence, 30 07 1858, LDA iii, no. 464, 228Google Scholar.
52 AG A8, Monlaur, 29 July 1858.
53 Ibid. 9 Aug. 1858.
54 Ibid. 18 May 1858.
55 See the depositions collected by Fr Cros, which are preserved with his papers in the Archives of the Grotto, Lourdes. They are catalogued, Archives Cros, ‘Les visionnaires’ (E) AIV o à 15Google Scholar. Laurentin, gives a comprehensive review of the other visionaries, but not of the content of their visions, in LDA ii. 58–78Google Scholar.
56 Archives Cros, ibid; Estrade, Mlle, RdAM, 55Google Scholar.
57 AG A8, 16 July 1858.
58 Ibid. 29 July 1858.
59 Junca, M. l'abbé quoted by de Bernétas, T.-M.-J.-T. Azun in La grotte des Pyrénées ou manifestation de la Sainte-Vierge à la grotte de Lourdes, Tarbes 1861, 170Google Scholar.
60 Quatorzième rapport du procureur impérial Dutour, 2 07 1858, LDA iii, no. 391, 145Google Scholar.
61 Testimony of Julie Garros, Procès ordinaire de Nevers, Sessio LXXXIV, p. 999. This manuscript copy of the enquiry for the canonisation of Saint Bernadette is in the archives of the St Gildard Convent of the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction, Nevers.
62 AG A8, Monlaur, 11 May 1858.
63 Ibid. 16 July 1858.
64 Lettre de Monseigneur Laurence à l'abbé Peyramale, 9 05 1858, LDA ii. nos 215, 263Google Scholar.
65 AG A8, Monlaur, 8 Mar. 1858.
66 Ibid. 20 Apr. 1858.
67 Quatrième rapport du procureur impériale Dutour au procureur général Falconnet, 14 04 1858, LDA ii, nos 150, 177Google Scholar.
68 Ibid.
69 de Lagrèze, Gustave Bascle, Les pèlerinages des Pyrénées, Tarbes 1858, 127Google Scholar.
70 Jean Barbet, like Adelaide Monlaur's father, was a schoolteacher in a village near Lourdes. His memoir of the Lourdes apparitions was edited by his son and published after his death: Barbet, Jean, La Dame plus belle que tout, 1909Google Scholar, repr. Paris 1957, 99.
71 Quoted by Laurentin, : LDA, pp. 2, 18Google Scholar.
72 It is a general feature of traditional Virgin Mary worship. A recent study which addresses this subject is Carroll, Michael, Madonnas that maim: popular Catholicism in Italy since the fifteenth century, Baltimore 1992Google Scholar.
73 Théas, Alexis, Notre-Dame de Medoux; aujourd'hui Notre-Dame d'Aste, Tarbes 1896Google Scholar.
74 Gibson, Ralph, A social history of French Catholicism, London 1989, 146Google Scholar.
75 Devlin, , The superstitious mind, 18Google Scholar.
76 Gibson, , Social history, 147Google Scholar.
77 Colinon, , France religeuse et mystique, 153Google Scholar.
78 ‘d'Astè’, La Vierge, Revue catholique du diocèse de Tarbes, 16 août 1884, 13e année, no. 33. 219Google Scholar.
79 Gibson, , Social history, 255Google Scholar.
80 For a precise analysis of this see Pope, Barbara Corrado, ‘Immaculate and powerful: the Marian revival in the nineteenth century’, in Atkinson, Clarissa, Buchanan, Constant and Miles, Margaret (eds), Immaculate and powerful: the female in sacred image and social reality, Wellingborough 1987, 173–200Google Scholar.
81 AG A8, Monlaur, 29 July 1858.
82 Ibid. 8 Apr. 1858.
83 Ibid. 9 Apr. 1858.
84 This letter is also in AG A8. It is from Germaine Raval, who had become Sister Vincent Raval of the Daughters of Charity.
86 AG A8, Monlaur, 8 Apr. 1858.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid. 9 Apr. 1859.
88 Ibid. 25 Feb. 1858.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid. 20 Feb. 1859.
91 Ibid. 23 Mar. 1859.
92 Ibid. 20 Apr. 1858.