But these--"I am the Immaculate Conception"-- whence had they come as though expressly to fortify a dogma--still bitterly discussed--with such prodigious support as the direct testimony of the Mother conceived without sin?
At this thought, Pierre, who was convinced of Bernadette's absolute good faith, who refused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began to waver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter within him.
The apparitions, however, had caused intense emotion at Lourdes; crowds flocked to the spot, miracles began, and those inevitable persecutions broke out which ensure the triumph of new religions.

Abbe Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, an extremely honest man, with an upright, vigorous mind, was able in all truth to declare that he did not know this child, that she had not yet been seen at catechism.

Where was the pressure, then, where the lesson learnt by heart?
There was nothing but those years of childhood spent at Bartres, the first teachings of Abbe Ader, conversations possibly, religious ceremonies in honour of the recently proclaimed dogma, or simply the gift of one of those commemorative medals which had been scattered in profusion.

Never did Abbe Ader reappear upon the scene, he who had predicted the mission of the future Visionary.

He was destined to remain apart from Bernadette and her future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul blossom in his pious hands.