Lourdes

Lourdes is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for its Château fort, a fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its center.
In 1858, Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous. Shortly thereafter, the city and its Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes became among the world's most important sites for pilgrimage and religious tourism.

History

Antiquity

The current municipal area of Lourdes was inhabited in prehistoric times. In Roman times, from the first century BC, it was an oppidum hill on the site of the present-day fortress, as shown by the numerous archaeological finds after the demolition of the parish of Saint-Pierre in the early twentieth century: remains of walls, fragments of a citadel, a pagan temple dedicated to the gods of water, and three votive altars. In the fifth century, the temple was replaced by an early Christian church, which later burned down, with a necropolis nearby. A Roman road along with a possible crossing path connecting the Pyrenean piedmont with Narbonne suggest that the town could be the quell'oppidum novum fortress mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary.
From 732 to 778, Lourdes was occupied by Muslims of Al-Andalus. Mirat, the Muslim local leader, came under siege by Charlemagne, King of the Franks, but the Moor refused to surrender. According to legend, a passing eagle dropped a huge trout at Mirat's feet. Dismayed by this omen, Mirat was urged to surrender to the Queen of Heaven by the local bishop. He visited the Black Virgin of Puy, and was so astounded by the icon's exceptional beauty that he decided to surrender the fort and convert to Christianity. He was baptised with the name Lorus, which was given to the town as Lourdes.

Middle Ages

Little is known of Lourdes in the period from the barbarian invasions to the Carolingian period when the town was part of the County of Bigorre. The fortress was at times the seat of counts and, during the Albigensian Crusade, it was the subject of disputes between various local lords. Ultimately it came under the domination of the Counts of Champagne. In the fourteenth century Lourdes was first occupied by Philip the Fair, then, during the Hundred Years' War, by the English, who controlled it for nearly half a century, from 1360 to 1407, through local feudal lords such as Pierre Arnaud de Béarn and, later, his brother Jean de Béarn. The English were able to take advantage of the excellent strategic situation and the prosperity of an eleventh century market that had been increasingly consolidated thanks to its proximity and good communications with Toulouse and Spain, managing to secure important gains for those who held the town. In the town, which developed in the valley, east of the fort, there were 243 fires at the beginning of the fifteenth century, compared to 150 of the thirteenth century.
After being the residency of the Bigorre counts, Lourdes was given to England by the Treaty of Brétigny which bought a temporary peace to France during the course of the Hundred Years War, with the French losing the town to the English in 1360. In 1405, Charles VI laid siege to the castle during the course of the war and eventually captured the town from the English after an 18-month siege.

Modern Age

During the late 16th century, France was ravaged by the Wars of Religion between Roman Catholics and Huguenots. In 1569, Count Gabriel de Montgomery attacked the nearby town of Tarbes when Queen Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre established Protestantism there. In 1592, the town was taken by forces of the Catholic League, and the Catholic faith was re-established. In 1607, Lourdes was incorporated into the Kingdom of France.
The castle became a jail under Louis XV but, in 1789, the Estates General ordered the liberation of prisoners. Following the rise of Napoleon in 1803, he again made the Castle a state jail. Towards the end of the Peninsular War between France, Spain, Portugal, and Britain in 1814, British and Allied forces under the Duke of Wellington entered France and took control of the region. They pursued Marshall Soult's army, defeating the French near the adjoining town of Tarbes, before the final battle outside Toulouse on 10 April 1814 brought the war to an end.
Up until 1858, Lourdes was a sleepy country town with a population of around 4,000 hosting an infantry garrison in the castle, a transit point to the waters at Barèges, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur and Bagnères-de-Bigorre, and for mountaineers on their way to Gavarnie.
Then on 11 February 1858, the 14-year-old local girl Bernadette Soubirous claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote grotto of Massabielle. The lady later identified herself as the Immaculate Conception and the faithful believed her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. She appeared 18 times, and by 1859 thousands of pilgrims were visiting Lourdes. A statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected at the site in 1864.
During World War II, pilgrimage to Lourdes declined dramatically, but Lourdes became a focus for religious resistance. Refugees from Lorraine visited in 1941, led by their own exiled bishop Joseph Jean Heintz. Lourdes was the destination for a tour of the statue of Our Lady of Boulogne which aimed to secure the spiritual salvation of France. In 1944, a peace pilgrimage to Lourdes took place. Even when war ended, pilgrimages took a while to return to their pre-war levels as the usual trains and pilgrimage ships were in use elsewhere, or destroyed.
Since the apparitions, Lourdes has become one of the world's leading Catholic Marian shrines. Pope John Paul II visited twice, on 15 August 1983, and 14–15 August 2004. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized special indulgences to mark the 150th anniversary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Geography

Lourdes is located in southern France in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains near the prime meridian. It is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, and Vignemale, while around the town there are three summits reaching up to which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer and the Grand Jer. The Grand Jer is accessible via the funicular railway of the Pic du Jer. The Béout was once accessible by cable car, although this has fallen into disrepair. A pavilion is still visible on the summit.
Lourdes lies at an elevation of and in a central position through which runs the fast-flowing river Gave de Pau from the south, coming from its source at Gavarnie; into it flow several smaller rivers from Barèges and Cauterets. The Gave then branches off to the west towards the Béarn, running past the banks of the Grotto and on downstream to Pau and then Biarritz.
On land bordered by a loop of the Gave de Pau is an outcrop of rock called Massabielle. On the northern aspect of this rock, near the riverbank, is a naturally occurring, irregularly shaped shallow cave or grotto, in which the apparitions of 1858 took place.

Climate

The climate of Lourdes, due to the proximity of the city to the Atlantic, is oceanic. It is quite mild for most of the year with moderate rainfall in summer and quite high rainfall in winter – about 120 rainy days and more than of average annual precipitation. The summers are warm, the autumn and spring mild, while winter is cool. Because of the proximity of the city to the Pyrenees, Lourdes, like other areas of the Pyrenean Piedmont, however, can be affected in winter by sporadic waves of frost: in January 1985 the thermometer marked -17° Fahrenheit, -27 °C. A summer temperature of 102 °F, 39 °C, was recorded in August 2003. The reference station of Lourdes is to Tarbes-Ossun-Lourdes, located approximately from the town, in the airport area of Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées, 360 m.

Stat. of Tarbes	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Tp. min. avg	1,0	1,5	3,6	5,7	9,6	12,9	15,0	15,0	12,0	8,7	4,4	1,8	7,7
Tp. avg	5,7	6,4	8,9	10,8	14,6	17,9	20,1	20,2	17,5	14,0	9,1	6,5	12,7
Tp. max. avg	10,3	11,2	14,2	15,9	19,6	22,8	25,2	25,3	22,9	19,2	13,7	11,1	17,7
Frost days	10,88	9,69	4,78	1,06	0	0	0	0	0	0,31	4,1	9,74	40,34
Precipitation	95.3	83.0	85.3	110.7	114.2	78.4	57.7	66.0	72.3	84.3	103.5	92.0	1041.8
Rainy days	10,59	9,5	10,16	12,53	12,91	9,75	7,19	8,47	8,53	10,28	10,16	10,29	120,35

Apparitions and pilgrimages

In 1858, the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared to Bernadette Soubirous on a total of eighteen occasions at Lourdes. Lourdes has become a major place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage and of miraculous healings. The 150th Jubilee of the first apparition took place on 11 February 2008 with an outdoor Mass attended by approximately 45,000 pilgrims.
In 2020, Lourdes had a population of around 15,000. In 2012, 715,000 pilgrims attended Our Lady of Lourdes-related events, falling to 570,000 in 2016. In 2011, Lourdes contained about 270 hotels, the second-greatest number of hotels per square kilometer in France after Paris. Its deluxe hotels include Grand Hotel Moderne, Hotel Grand de la Grotte, Hotel St. Étienne, Hotel Majestic, and Hotel Roissy.