At the corner of the Rue Saint-Joseph, near the Plateau de la Merlasse, a family of excursionists, who had come from Cauterets or Bagneres, stood at the edge of the footway, overcome with profound astonishment.

These people were evidently well-to-do _bourgeois_, the father and mother very correct in appearance and demeanour, while their two big girls, attired in light-coloured dresses, had the smiling faces of happy creatures who are amusing themselves.

But their first feeling of surprise was soon followed by terror, a growing terror, as if they beheld the opening of some pesthouse of ancient times, some hospital of the legendary ages, evacuated after a great epidemic.
The two girls became quite pale, while the father and the mother felt icy cold in presence of that endless _defile_ of so many horrors, the pestilential emanations of which were blown full in their faces.

O God! to think that such hideousness, such filth, such suffering, should exist! Was it possible--under that magnificently radiant sun, under those broad heavens so full of light and joy whither the freshness of the Gave's waters ascended, and the breeze of morning wafted the pure perfumes of the mountains! When Pierre, at the head of the _cortege_, reached the Plateau de la Merlasse, he found himself immersed in that clear sunlight, that fresh and balmy air.

He turned round and smiled affectionately at Marie; and as they came out on the Place du Rosaire in the morning splendour, they were both enchanted with the lovely panorama which spread around them.
In front, on the east, was Old Lourdes, lying in a broad fold of the ground beyond a rock.