"The water of the grotto of Lourdes is very clear, without smell or decided taste. Its specific gravity is very nearly that of distilled water. Its temperature at the spring is 15° Cent. (59° Fahr.)
"1st. Chlorides of sodium, calcium and magnesium in abundance.[11]
"The complete absence of sulphate of lime in this water is also established by this analysis.
"This remarkable peculiarity is entirely to its advantage, and entitles it to be considered as very favorable to digestion, and as giving to the animal economy a disposition favorable to the equilibrium of the vital action.
"We do not think it imprudent to say, in consideration of the number and quality of the substances which compose it, that medical science will, perhaps, soon recognize in it special curative properties which will entitle it to be classed among the waters which constitute the mineral wealth of our department.
The civil order is not so well disciplined as the military, and, through misunderstanding, false steps are occasionally taken in it. The prefect, in the multitude of his avocations, had omitted to give his orders to the editors of the official newspaper of the department, the _Ere Impériale_, so that, while the chemist of the prefecture said white, its journalist said black; while the former was recognizing in the spring at Lourdes one of the future medical and mineral treasures of the Pyrenees, the latter was calling it dirty water, and joking about the cures which had been obtained.
"It is needless to say," he wrote on the precise day on which M. Latour de Trie sent in his report--that is, on the 6th of May--"that the famous grotto turns out miracles in abundance, and that our department is inundated with them. At every corner you will meet with people who tell you of a thousand cures obtained by the use of some dirty water.
"The doctors will soon have nothing to do, and the rheumatic and consumptive people will have disappeared from the department," etc.
Notwithstanding these discrepancies, which might have been avoided, it must be acknowledged that Baron Massy was, on the whole, attentive to his business. On the 4th of May, at about noon, he had delivered his address to the mayors of the canton of Lourdes, and given his orders. On the 4th of May, in the evening, the grotto had been stripped of the offerings and _ex-votos_. On the morning of the 5th, he had ascertained the impossibility of having Bernadette arrested, and had abandoned this measure. On the 6th, in the evening, he received the analysis of his chemist. Fortified with this important document, he waited the course of events.