Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Lourdes

LOURDES (lörd), a town of France, in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, arrondissement of and 6 miles N. N. E. of Argeles, on the Gave-de-Pau, 10 miles W. by N. from Bagnères-de-Bigorre, on the Toulouse and Bayonne railroad; situated at the foot of an almost inaccessible rock, and commanded by a strong castle, now used as a prison; in the neighborhood are marble and slate quarries. In modern times a famous place of pilgrimage, a fact due to the belief that in 1858 the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto in the neighborhood, above which a magnificent basilica has since been erected. Pop. commune, 8,805.