306 MY LIFE [Chap, 



and he devoted several years to collecting materials direct 

 from every person on the spot who could give him informa- 

 tion, as well as from all contemporary records and official 

 documents bearing on the question. The book was published 

 in 1869, and the second volume of "Episodes" in 1883. 



The most remarkable feature of these cures is their rapidity, 

 often amounting to instantaneousness, which broadly marks 

 them off from all ordinary remedial agencies. One of the 

 most prominent of these, related by M. Lasserre, is that of 

 Francois Macary, a carpenter of Lavaur. He had had vari- 

 cose veins for thirty years ; they were as thick as one's finger, 

 with enormous nodosities and frequent bleedings, producing 

 numerous ulcers, so that it had been for many years impos- 

 sible for him to walk or stand. Three physicians had declared 

 him to be absolutely incurable. At sixty years of age he 

 heard of the cures at Lourdes, and determined to try the 

 waters. A bottle was sent him. Compresses with this were 

 applied in the evening to his two legs. He slept well all 

 night, and early next morning was quite well ; his legs were 

 smooth, and there was hardly a trace of the swollen veins, 

 nodosities, and ulcers. The three doctors who had attended 

 him certify to these facts. 



Other cases are of long-continued paralysis, declared 

 hopeless by the physicians ; one of serious internal injuries 

 due to an accident, and declared incurable. The lady had 

 suffered extreme pain for seven years, had been unable to 

 walk, and every remedy tried had been useless. She had 

 at various times consulted five doctors, in vain. Two of 

 these signed statements that she had been cured instan- 

 taneously, and could now walk and perform all the ordinary 

 actions of a healthy person without suffering the slightest 

 pain. One of them says, " This cure, so sudden, so unpre- 

 cedented, so unexpected, is for me a fact positively marvellous. 

 There is in it something of the divine — an intervention beyond 

 the natural, visible, incontestible, of a nature to baffle the 

 reason. For nature does not usually proceed thus, ; and 

 when she operates she acts always with a wise deliberation. 

 — A. Maugni " (" Les Episodes Miraculeaux," p. 486). 



