Each saint, we all know, has his medical speciality, like Ricord, for instance, or Dr. Ollivier.

Suppose you are suffering from ophthalmia, and instead of consulting a physician, you pray to God, in hopes that God will cure you.

You are wrong, that does not concern God.  It is the business of St. Claire, who has the principal management of the sight of the faithful.

You are paralyzed, and you commend yourself to your patron saint.  “You must not address yourself to me, that one answers.  Go to the other office.  See St. Marcel (or Marchel), to make the impotent walk is entrusted to him.”

And so one after another: 

St. Cloud cures the boils; St. Cornet, the deaf; St. Denis, anemia; St. Marcou, diseases in the neck; St. Eutropus, the dropsy; St. Aignan, the ringworm, and it is generally admitted that we ought to pray on All Saints Day to be preserved from a cough.[2]

And observe how the good people of France are always the most enlightened and intelligent people in the universe!

The speciality of Monsieur Ridoux’s candidate was broken legs, girls in complaints of childhood, and fluxes of the womb.  That was what he healed, but he must not be asked for anything else; besides fluxes of the womb, sprains, and girls in complaints of childhood, he did not attend to anything.

That is conceivable; one cannot do everything.

It is quite unnecessary to state that he did not give all his consultations free, and that he did not work for fame alone.  No one was constrained to pay, it is true; but it would have been a very unhandsome thing not to make a preliminary contribution to Monsieur le Cure’s poor-box.

Little presents have always maintained friendship, and there is nothing like sterling silver to predispose the benevolence of the saints and the love of heaven in our favour.

While on the contrary: 

  A poorly furnished niche affronts the saint: 
  The God deserts, and when we enter, shows
  His anger from the door of his poor shrine.

He no longer worked every-day, but on fete-days.

All the cripples came from twenty leagues round, and there were miracles then for crutches.

As in the time of Paris the deacon, when Cardinal de Noailles kept a register of the wonders of St. Medard’s Cemetery, a churchwarden of the place, assisted by two secretaries and the corporal of Gendarmes, religiously inscribed the miraculous cures of the saint on a magnificent volume.

Credible witnesses attested these prodigies and, if necessary, gave details to the incredulous.

If all were not cured, they had the hope of being so, which was a consolation.

“And then,” whispered Monsieur Ridoux in the ear of sceptics, “if the touching of these blessed bones produces no benefit, you are sure it will do no harm, and you cannot say the same of your doctor’s drugs.”