Note 108 — Chapter XVII

Marca enters into a long dissertation to establish the truth of this wonderful event, which may be thus summed up: There were five persons to witness it, four of whom were still alive when he wrote. They were cultivators of the soil—an innocent occupation that has often led divine Providence to make choice of those who pursue it to publish the wonders of his grace, as when shepherds were chosen to announce the Nativity. They were natives of Béarn, where the people are free from any undue credulousness, and where the Catholic religion had been proscribed for more than forty years, so that of course they had not been brought up with the care that would have rendered them particularly susceptible of religious impressions. Moreover, they knew a statement of this kind would be sifted to the bottom by Protestants as well as Catholics. They could have no interest in the matter, as Bétharram belonged to Lestelle, with which Montaut was often at rivalry. The chaplains were absent, and wholly ignorant of the affair. And these five men were people of probity, who swore to the truth of their statements on the Holy Gospels before the magistrates of Lestelle and Montaut.