At first the incredulous had shrugged their shoulders at the report of these cures, taking the simple course of denying them out-and-out, and refusing to make any examination. Then some skilful persons had invented several false miracles, to enjoy an easy triumph in refuting them. But they had very soon been confounded by the multiplicity of these wonderful cures, of which a few have been mentioned. The facts were evident. They became so numerous and so striking that it was necessary, however painful it might be, either to acknowledge their miraculous nature or find some natural explanation for them. The free-thinkers, then, understood that, unless they were willing either to surrender or to deny in the face of complete evidence, it was absolutely necessary to take up some new line of tactics. The most intelligent of the clique, indeed, saw that things had already gone too far, and perceived the grave error which they had committed at the outset in denying prematurely and without examination facts which had afterward become patent and perfectly well established, such as the appearance of the fountain, and the cures of a great number of many who were notoriously incurable by natural means, and who were now to be seen going about the streets of the town in perfect health. What made the mistake worse and almost irreparable was that these unfortunate denials of the most well-attested events were authentically and officially recorded in all the newspapers of the department. II. The greater part of the cures effected by the Massabielle water had a character of rapidity, nay, even of instantaneousness, which clearly showed the immediate action of sovereign power. There were some, however, which did not present this evidently supernatural appearance, being accomplished after baths or draughts repeated a few or many times, and in a slow and gradual manner--resembling somewhat in their mode the ordinary course of natural cures, though in reality different. In a village called Gez, near Lourdes, a little child of seven years had been the subject of one of these cures, of a mixed character, which, according to one's natural inclination, might be attributed to a special grace of God or to the unaided forces of nature. This child, named Lasbareilles, had been born entirely deformed, with a double curvature of the back and breast-bone. His thin and almost withered legs were useless from their extreme weakness; the poor little boy had never been able to walk, but was always either sitting or lying down. When he had to move, his mother carried him in her arms. Sometimes, indeed, the child, resting on the edge of the table or helped by his mother's hand, could manage to keep himself up and to take a few steps; but it was at the cost of violent efforts and immense fatigue. The physician of the place had professed himself unable to cure him; and the disease being organic, no remedy had ever been resorted to.