“Our last trial had been one season at the sea-side. My wife had taken our poor child to St. Jean-de-Luz. I need hardly say that in the state in which he was, the care of his body was everything. Our only object was to keep him alive. We had from the first suspended his studies and stopped all labor on his part, whether of body or mind; we treated him like a plant. Now, his mind was naturally active and inquiring, and this privation of intellectual occupation gave him much _ennui_. The poor boy was also ashamed of his trouble; he saw other children in good health, and he felt himself as it were disgraced and under a ban; so he kept apart.” The father, deeply moved by these memories, stopped a moment to check a rising sob, and continued: “He kept apart. He was sad. When he found some interesting book, he would read it to distract his mind. At St. Jean-de-Luz, he saw one day on the table of a lady who lived in the neighborhood a little notice of the apparition at Lourdes. He read it, and seems to have been very 103 much impressed by it. He said that evening to his mother that the Blessed Virgin could very easily cure him; but she paid no attention to his proposal, considering it as only a childish whim. “On our return to Bordeaux--for a little while before this my station had been changed, and we had come to live here--on our return to Bordeaux the child was absolutely in the same condition. “That was last August. “So many vain efforts, so much science employed without success by the best physicians, so much lost trouble, had by this time, as you will easily imagine, discouraged us most completely. Disheartened by the failure of all our endeavors, we gave up all kinds of remedies, letting nature act alone, and resigning ourselves to the inevitable evil which God was pleased to send us. It seemed to us that so much suffering had in a certain way redoubled our love for this child. Our poor Jules was tended by his mother and myself with equal tenderness and solicitude continually. Grief added many years to our lives. You would hardly believe it, sir, but I am only forty-six years old.” I looked at the poor father; and at the sight of his manly face, upon which grief had left such visible traces, my heart was moved. I took his hand and pressed it with cordial sympathy and real compassion.