' Walled-in by Priests '

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 51, 21 December 1905, Page 2

' Walled-in by Priests '

The French Masonic and anticlerical press had only gibes and jeers for the su'Teiings of thousands of old and infirm women that — for no other crime than their free and lile-long sen ices to the afflicted poor — weie driven out penniless and at the point of the bayonet to seek in foreign lands a home or -grave But those crocodile) journalists and their foreign echoes ha\e lately been shedding Icais as Ing as gooscbeines over the imaginary woes of five townspeople of Lourdes, in the far-off Pyrenees. The story (which was last week published for the second tune m New Zealand) runneth thus :—

'M. Jean De Bonnefon, the well known wnler ou religious subjects, has made public an extraordinary story of a man, llis wife, and three children being besieged by the pnests at Lourdes for thiee years M Roubaud, an 'elderly man who lives af a house called "The Hermitage, 1 ' on the hill known as Calvaiy, near Lourdes, was until Mhrec years ago, states M De Bonnefon, on excellent terms with the priests The latter owned most oi the land surrounding M Roubaud's house, and it is stated that he made a will tiansferiing, his property to them at las demise. Three years ago, at the age of seventy-two, M Roubaud married. Since then three children ha\e been born to bun, and the advent of the first was the signal for a serious quarrel with the priests. They decided, says M. De Bonnefon,

on isolating M. Roubaud and so compelling him to capitulate. A wall six feet high and two feet thick was constructed round the house, to which, , it was asserted, no right of way existed. The owner at once brought an action, and obtained a judgment in his favor, but the priests took the case to the Appeal Court, which quashed the previous decision and decided that no right of way existed. M. Roubaud and his family were consequently obliged to get what provisions they could from obliging tradesmen, who bring their goods to the foot of the wall, whence, by means of a ladder, M. Roubaud taken them to his own house. It is known, states M. D« Bonnefon, that at several periods when M. Roubaud has been too ill to use the ladder his wife and family havo remained without food for days at a time.' Early in November this version of the story waai published by Christchurch ' Truth,' which has of late been giving itself over-much to the snapping-up of morn or less highly-spiced bits of French anticlerical romance. Last week it appeared in the columns of an Otago contemporary. ' Mr. Dooley,' who was much devoted to adventurous day-dreaming ' in front iv th' fire,' killed great multitudes of tigers from his rocking-chair. From a like source was derived the sensational element in the tragedy-comedy of M. Roubaud and his 'isolated' and ' walled-in ' family. It was part and parcel of the systematic crusade of calumny against which the Catholic clergy of France have had to organise a League of Keif-Defence. The frills of mock-turtle pathos and the gewgaws of ' priestly tyranny ' were devised 'in front rV th" fire,' and tacked on to what was in itselK a very prosaic and unromantic tale by the easy-chair fibsters of two savagely anticlerical French papers, the ' Petite Republique ' and the ' Matin.' The patent incongruities and fantastic absurdities inherent to the Roubaud romance were sufficiently laid bare in our issue of November 10. We took steps to have the matter investigated on the spot. In this we were, happily, anticipated by the lengthy statements made on the subject by the Mayor lof Lourdes (M. Lacaze) and ' by the special investigators of the Parisian daily, the ' Gaulois.' * Stripped of its wrappings of envenomed fable, the true story of the Roubaud affair, stated in summary terms, inns as follows :—: — Calvary Hill, Lourdes. was bought as church property- by "the Bishop of Taibes in 187/) In >LBi7)& part of it, was sold to M. Roubaud as a site for the Hermitage I Hotel. In the ' acte de \ente ' (deed of sale;) ltj was expressly stipulated that the vendor did not guarantee access thiough the episcopal grounds beyond thiee years. At the end of that time (in 187,8) the pnest.s of the Grotto (who were and still are the occupiers and guardians of the episcopal property) began to lay out a Way of the Cross on Calvary Hill. At Roubaud's request they allowed him the use of the path or pnvate- roadway in the Way of the Cross gardens. Roubaud (says the ' Gaulois ') ' signed a document drawn up on stamped paper and duly registered, by which he acknowledged all the rights of the bishopric o\er said road, undertaking to fence it in himself, as soon as required to do so, and to give up the use of it, which had only been granted to him as a favor. So things remained till 18i)7.' In that year (189\7)) the diocesan authorities found it necessary to erect a fence across the entrance to this- private path or road, together witli a gate, which was locked at night. This was done in order to prevent ' scandalous scenes ' (manilestations scandaleuses) on the part of an undesirable class that had begun to infest the gardens after dark 'At the same time,' says the ' Gaulois,' 'M. Roubaud was warned that, under the terms of the document he had signed, the time had come to provide himself with some other way than that of the Calvary.' But M. Roubaud ' turned a deaf ear.' In reply to further friendly notifications, he expressed his determination to continue using the private road through the episcopal property.

Fresh developments ensued in 1899. In that year thej Way of the Cross was completed. M. Roubaud was again notified— presumably for the reasons mentioned in the last paragraph — that a wall was to be erected around the church property. Again he paid no heed. The wall was built in 4.901, the year before that assigned in the story for the marriage of the proprietor of the Hermitage, and long in advance of ' the advent of the first,' which (as the story runneth) led to the ' walling-in ' of the hapless Roubaud family. Here was a pretty inversion of cause and effect ! It lemiiuLs one of Looking-glass Land, where the sequence of an accident to the Queen's finger was— first bleeding, then a healthy yell, and lastly the prick of a big thorn. But now, as in the days when the world was young, the wolf that wants a pretext for devouring the lamb, will find no difficulty in making the course of events run up stream. As regards the supposed wall of circumvallation about the Roubaud Hermitage, it was not ' constructed round the house.' The Mayor of Lourdes testifies that it was ' only on the noith side, leaving open ground on all the other sides,' and free means of communication at all seasons with the town. The Ap* peat Court at Pan, like ulhei suUi Courts in Franco at the present time, is not open to any suspicion of favoring ecclesiastical ownership. Yet in its judgment on the case, it decided that Roubaud had no right of way through the episcopal grounds, and pointed out that he had abundant space for the customary pathway to his house, as the wall did not come nearer than within three metres (Oft. 10m.) of any part of his property. The story about the will, the delicate wife, and the ' walling-in,' 'isolation,' and starvation of the family has all been imagined or invented by anticlcricals to whom, in such connections as this, truth is in a very real sensa stranger than fiction. ' J\l. and Madame Roubaud,' says the Mayor of Lourdes, ' come down into the town almost daily. Both they and their children are in the enjoyment of perfect health; and they lack neither bread nor coals nor anything whatever.' * The Roubaud incident was recently closed m the following anucable way. By an arrangement made between the Mayor and the chief of the municipal police on tho one side, and the Bishop (Dr Schocptcr) on the other, effect i\e slops ■were taken to prewnt a recurrence of the conduct which had necessitated the closing of the Calvary grounds at night The foibiddance of thoroughfare (said tin 1 Bishop) had then no longer any object, and the private road is once more open at all times to the Roubaud family— not, <>i <-oiu-,e, as a legal right, but as an act of Christian charity. Ju \icvv of Ins persistent dis legard of his signed agreements, it seems to us that M. Roubaud lias been all along treated with a patience and consideration that he would neither have expected nor received at the hands of a lay proprietor. With characteristic anticlerical ' honor bright,' the ' Matin ' refused to publish any part of the lengthy statement tot' M. Lacaze, Mayor of Lourdes. It subsequently appeared in the ' Gaulois ' and other papers. And here endeth— in smoke— the Punch-and-Judy tragedy of the ' walled-in' innocents of Calvary Hill, over far-off Lourdes.