Soubirous was then conducted to the infirmary. The whole community of twenty nuns, and all the serving sisters, were there crowded about the bed. On it Soubirous caught a glimpse of the white face of his sister with her great burning eyes looking at him, and tears rolling down her cheeks. The dying girl in a feeble voice said, “The fathers will give you work. They have promised it.” That was all. The head sank back on the pillow, and more tears flowed. Soubirous was then hustled out of the room, and he never more saw Bernadette. To-day this man is well-to-do. He has a shop and a house, and fears God and the Fathers of the Grotto. So ended this poor martyr to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.[H] The annual number of pilgrims who visit the grotto amounts to something over 600,000, and the affluence increases every year. Trainloads of sick people leave Paris in the month of August, when the principal pilgrimage takes place. But all the festivals of the Blessed Virgin, and that of the Apparition, inserted in the calendar with proper Mass, give occasion to solemnities of exceptional grandeur, the most imposing feature of which is the night processions so beautifully described by Zola. Hideous and vulgar are basilica and chapel of the Rosary that have been erected over and by the cave. The situation is exceptionally beautiful, and would lend itself to a stately and well-proportioned church and pile of buildings; but it has been used as an occasion for the display of architectural ineptitude. Grotto and church are crowded with _ex votos_ memorials of cures wrought there, cures that are reputed miraculous. [H] Bonnefon, _Lourdes et ses tenanciers_. Paris, 1906. The value of this book is in the second part, that contains the hitherto unpublished documents from the Paris and Departmental archives relative to the course of development of the Lourdes story.