To assess the crowds at the Lourdes sanctuary, Françoise Steff, heir to Viron photographs, has an unstoppable technique: she observes the size of her photos. “Look at that of the pilgrims of Brescia [dans le nord de l’Italie], it is 25 × 40 cm. Normally, it’s a 25 × 55. The groups come back, especially the French, but they take up less space in front of the lens. » The one whose great-grandfather photographed the young Bernadette Soubirous, a century and a half ago, keeps good commercial sense: “Fewer in the photo, they see themselves better, so they buy more. »
His duly handwritten spiral notebooks testify to the collapse in the number of pilgrimages organized during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019, 15,000 photos; in 2020, 400; this year, to August 10: 6,500. Business is picking up, and the national Assumption pilgrimage, on the occasion of the weekend of August 15, should be the largest gathering for three years, marked by the return of coaches and white trains. The prayer intentions sent by La Poste and the masses on YouTube do not replace, assure the pilgrims, the escape of the body, the moments of empathy and the physical communion. Lourdes is a spiritual trip at low cost, sometimes 50 euros for full board – like at the badly named Hotel Corona, located rue du Calvaire.
However, the great hours of the Marian city seem light years away. In the streets of the lower town, we come across more bicycle wheels than armchairs. Monday, August 8, at the time of the morning mass in front of the grotto of Massabielle, a hundred patients and companions take communion, under the gaze of the Virgin Mary and a numbing sun. Some banners claim a diocese. We squeeze on the benches, and only these small circles drawn on the ground, without occupants, recall the era of social distancing. If we see them, it means that the esplanade is far from full.
“There was a time when we all did the same thing”
Of all the high places of French tourism, Lourdes is the one that is recovering the slowest from the health crisis. The sanctuary estimates that its attendance in 2022 will be much lower than in 2019 (3.5 million visitors). Organized pilgrimages are halved, while individual visitors and small groups are on the rise. Italians and Spaniards have returned, but we still hope for groups of Irish, English, Poles and South Americans.
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