“That banner is superb, isn’t it?” said Nani, drawing near. “How it must please his Holiness to be so nicely painted in company with so pretty a virgin.” And as the young priest, turning pale, did not reply, the prelate added, with an air of devout enjoyment: “We are very fond of Lourdes in Rome; that story of Bernadette is so delightful.”
However, the scene which followed was so extraordinary that for a long time Pierre remained overcome by it. He had beheld never-to-be-forgotten idolatry at Lourdes, incidents of naive faith and frantic religious passion which yet made him quiver with alarm and grief. But the crowds rushing on the grotto, the sick dying of divine love before the Virgin’s statue, the multitudes delirious with the contagion of the miraculous--nothing of all that gave an id
