“What was now wanted was a book entirely unlike his; a book that would influence the vaster public, whom his homely prosiness would never reach.  Lourdes must make its way through denser and less malleable strata, to a public of higher class, and harder to please.  It was requisite, therefore, that this new book should be written by a man of talent, whose style nevertheless should not be so transcendental as to scare folks.  And it was an advantage that the writer should be very well known, so that his enormous editions might counterpoise those of Lasserre.

“Now in all the realm of literature there was but one man who could fulfil these imperative conditions:  Emile Zola.  In vain should we seek another.  He alone with his battering push, his enormous sale, his blatant advertisement, could launch Lourdes once more.

“It mattered little that he would deny supernatural agency and endeavour to explain inexplicable cures by the meanest hypotheses; it mattered little that he mixed mortar of the medical muck of a Charcot to make his wretched theory hold together; the great thing was that noisy debates should arise about the book of which more than a hundred and fifty thousand copies proclaimed the name of Lourdes throughout the world.

“And then the very disorder of his arguments, the poor resort to a ‘breath that heals the people,’ invented in contradiction to all the data of positive science on which he prided himself, with the purpose of making these extraordinary cures intelligible—­cures which he had seen, and of which he dared not deny the reality or the frequency—­were admirable means of persuading unprejudiced and candid inquirers of the authenticity of the recoveries effected year after year at Lourdes.

“This avowed testimony to such amazing facts was enough to give a fresh impetus to the masses.  It must be remarked, too, that the book betrays no hostility to the Virgin, of whom it speaks only in respectful terms on the whole; so is it not very credible that the scandal to which this work gave rise was profitable?

“To sum up:  it may be asserted that Lasserre and Zola were both useful instruments; one devoid of talent, and for that very reason penetrating to the very lowest strata of the Catholic methodists; the other, on the contrary, making himself welcome to a more intelligent and cultivated public, by those splendid passages where the flaming multitude of processions moves on, and amid a cyclone of anguish, the triumphant faith of the white ranks is exultant.

“Oh, yes!  She is fond of Her Lourdes, is Our Lady, and pets it.  She seems to have centred all Her powers there, all Her favours; Her other sanctuaries are perishing that this one may live!

“Why?

“Why, above all, have created La Salette and then sacrificed it, as it were?

“That She should have appeared there is quite intelligible,” thought Durtal, answering himself.  “The Virgin is more highly venerated in Dauphine than in any other province; chapels dedicated to Her worship swarm in those parts, and She meant perhaps to reward their zeal by Her gracious presence.