* On another occasion whilst the two men were walking
one morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with her
little flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abbe
repeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked "I cannot
account for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if I
saw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin's companion." He was
certainly beset by this singular idea, which became, so to say, a
prediction. Moreover, had he not one day after catechism, or one evening,
when the villagers were gathered in the church, related that marvellous
story which was already twelve years old, that story of the Lady in the
dazzling robes who walked upon the grass without even making it bend, the
Blessed Virgin who showed herself to Melanie and Maximin on the banks of
a stream in the mountains, and confided to them a great secret and
announced the anger of her Son? Ever since that day a source had sprung
up from the tears which she had shed, a source which cured all ailments,
whilst the secret, inscribed on parchment fastened with three seals,
slumbered at Rome! And Bernadette, no doubt, with her dreamy, silent air,
had listened passionately to that wonderful tale and carried it off with
her into the desert of foliage where she spent her days, so that she
might live it over again as she walked along behind her lambs with her
rosary, slipping bead by bead between her slender fingers.
* It was on September 19, 1846, that the Virgin is said to have
appeared in the ravine of La Sezia, adjacent to the valley of La
Salette, between Corps and Eutraigues, in the department of the
Isere.
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