Magnificat Vol. LVI, No 5 121 in the secret of a cloister or of an obscure parish. Nevertheless, it was too little, too little to disarm the hand of God. - The chastisement - On July 18, 1870, forty years to the day after the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Catherine Labouré, diplomatic relations between France and Prussia became dangerously unstable. The following day, the 19th, Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, signed the declaration of war. There were manifestations of enthusiasm and scenes of delirium all over France: everyone expected a swift, brilliant victory. “To Berlin, to Berlin!” they shouted on every side. Alas, their dreams of triumph soon turned into a nightmare. A venerable religious wrote: “Future generations will not be able to form a clear idea of this strange period of our history, of this campaign initiated with so much enthusiasm and so many illusions, and continuing – despite the undeniable talent of our generals, despite the value and the exceptional qualities of our troops – with an implacable series of reverses and catastrophes where human reason could see only a dark fatality, but where one sensed the supernatural chastisement of a people for the abandonment of the dignity and the obligations of its providential mission.”5 Confusion in the commands, disease in the camps, indecisive marches and countermarches, phenomenal bad weather...6 All the elements combined to ensure not victory but bitter, humiliating defeat. Indeed, inferior in men and weapons, inadequately organized, the French army recorded an impressive number of reverses. Under the powerful Prussian artillery, cities fell one after the other: Strasbourg, Metz, Rouen,Verdun, Orléans. On the evening of September 2, the nation learned with horror that Napoleon III had been taken prisoner in Sedan with around 80,000 5. Dom Antoine du Bourg, Prior of the Benedictine com‐ munity of Sainte‐Marie de Paris. See the complete reference at the end of this article. 6. See box on next page. men. TheGerman eagle was already swooping down on Paris to begin its siege. Within a few weeks, the military was routed and the Second Empire collapsed.7 Panic and terror spread throughout the people, who trembled at the approach of the ruthless invader. “Who will be able to stop the war that is making so many people in France unhappy?” asked Melanie de La Salette. “France must recognize that this war is purely from the hand of God.”8 - Cry of faith - Under the blow of these national disasters, the faith of a great number finally rekindled. The scales fell from many eyes; it was whispered that God was punishing France. Everywhere, confronted with the peril, with the fear of the victorious Prussians sweeping over the country, the people began to reflect; they promised to change their life and amend themselves, and to build or restore sanctuaries if the war turned away from them. In Tours, its pious inhabitants gathered near the tomb of Saint Martin or in the oratory of the Holy Face and tirelessly raised their prayers to the Most High. Lyons solemnly placed itself under the protection of Mary (vow of October 8, 1870) and promised to rebuild the Marian shrine of Fourvière.9 Paris, starved out and bombarded, hastened to its most venerable churches: SaintSulpice, Sainte-Geneviève, Saint-Roch... A prayer circulated, unceasingly taken up by the faithful, and which one would think was written for our time: 7. Two days after the disaster of Sedan, Léon Gambetta, then a simple deputy, declared the deposition of Emperor Na‐ poleon III and the return of the Republic; it was the end of the Second Empire. 8. Bl. Melanie Calvat, Letter to her mother – November 29, 1870. 9. The city of Lyon, so attached to Our Lady of Fourvière, and rightly so, was not disappointed in its confidence. Thanks to the intercession of Mary, it was doubly protected, first from the Commune (a lesser copy of the one that occurred in Paris in the spring of 1871), then from the Prussians who were defeated at Dijon, thus sparing the Saône Valley.
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