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148 whole thing had been got up as a fraud, for that it was not, but might avow how greatly she had been influenced by the suggestive action of the abbés Ader, Pomian, and Peyramale, all doing their part in good faith, with no intent of deception but who, like Ader, had become, conscious après coup that they had brought this affair about.

Bernadette was taken off and shut up in a convent at Nevers, at such a distance from her home that there seemed no chance of relative or acquaintance ever seeing her again. There she was retained very close; hardly any one was permitted to visit her. Her health, always frail, gave way in confinement, deprived of her mountain air, and she died in 1879. When it was known that she was on her death-bed M. le Gentil very kindly undertook to pay the expenses of her brother to Nevers, so as to have a last look at his sister. Gentil accompanied him. Nevers would seem to have been chosen expressly as a place where to place Bernadette, so difficult is it to be got at from Tarbes—only by cross lines and slow trains, with long waits at every change. However difficult and tedious Gentil and Soubirous may have found it, making their way thither by train, it was nothing to the difficulties caused by wilful obstruction put in their way on reaching Nevers. Soubirous went alone to the convent, and asked for the superior. She replied to his demand for an interview with his dying sister, "It is against the rules of the convent." Soubirous, timid as poor peasants are, returned to the hotel and told M. Gentil his want of success. Soubirous went again to the convent and was again refused. Then the two men called at the palace on the bishop. He said, "I can do nothing. The superior is mistress in her house." Then Soubirous and his companion went again to the