Lourdes, a French place of pilgrimage in Hautes Pyrénées, 12 miles SSW. of Tarbes by rail. Pop. 6517. The town nestles at the foot of a high rock on a plain bounded to southward by the foot-hills of the Pyrenees. The site was a Roman military station, and was successively held by Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Basques, Saracens, Albigenes, English (after 1360), and the lords of Bearn. Here, in a niche above one of the caves of the Massabielle rocks, the Blessed Virgin is said to have appeared at noon on the 11th February 1858 to a poor girl fourteen years of age, called Bernadette Soubirous; the apparition was seventeen times repeated during the succeeding six months. A spring rising from the spot, which was hitherto unknown to exist, was endowed with miraculous powers; and many miracles were reported. Crowds flocked to the place; and the barriers erected by the sceptical local authorities (1858) were soon afterwards removed by command of the emperor. The Bishop of Tarbes then appointed a commission of ecclesiastics and scientists to inquire into the extraordinary events that had occurred at Lourdes during the last six months. After investigations extending over three years, the commission decided in favour of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the ecstasies of Bernadette, and the miracles wrought by the water of the spring. A great basilica (1876) now adorns the scene of the miracles, and on a level with its crypt has been added the church of the Rosary (1889) for the accommodation of the pilgrims who visit the spot. The most important pilgrimage is the National pilgrimage in August, numbering, in 1897, 60,000 persons. The miracles and other notable occurrences are duly recorded in the Annales de Lourdes, conducted by the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, to whose care the grotto and its appurtenances have been confided.
See works on the subject by H. Lasserre; Colin (1889); Father Clarke, S.J. (1887); Barbé (trans. by Alice Meynell, 1894); and Zola's famous novel, Lourdes (1894).