In 1858 Lourdes was a small town in the French Pyrenees with around 4000 people living there. It was the main town in the area and its inhabitants,
who covered a wide range of professions and trades, included the Soubirous family. François Soubirous was a miller who had fallen on hard times and was
struggling to raise four children with his wife Louise Castérot (they were eventually to have eight children in total although four were to die in infancy and
another when he was only ten years old). On the 11th February 1858, their eldest child Marie-Bernard (commonly known as Bernadette) together with her
sister Toinette and a friend, Jeanne Abadie, left their home in a former prison cell to gather firewood. During this expedition, Bernadette had a vision of a
woman in a grotto in the Rock of Massabielle, to the west of the town.
 
This vision was the first of eighteen which were to change the life of Bernadette and result in Lourdes becoming world famous. When Bernadette was born
on 7th January 1844 in the Boly Mill, François and Louise Soubirous were living in comfortable circumstances. In 1854 François was blinded in one eye and
was later falsely accused of having stolen some flour for which he spent eight days in prison. A drought came and reduced the amount of wheat available and the introduction of steam mills meant that the Soubirous family (and other millers) was reduced to poverty. Cholera also affected Lourdes, causing the deaths of thirty-eight people and the illness of hundreds of others (including Bernadette).
 
By the winter of 1857, they had no home; no money, no work, four children (including Bernadette who had asthma even before she
contracted cholera) and two other children had already died in infancy when they were offered accommodation in the cachot by a
relative, André Sajous. The cachot was a former prison which had been deemed unsuitable for human habitation. Six months after
Bernadette's birth, Louise was expecting again and Bernadette went to stay with a woman in Bartres named Marie Laguës. By 1855
Bernadette, who had been unable to attend school due to illness, could still not read French (speaking in the local patois) and since the
catechism was taught exclusively in French, she was unable to make her first Communion. In addition she was being pointed out as the
"daughter of the thief Soubirous". In November 1857, Bernadette left Lourdes for health reasons and went to stay with her former
foster mother in the village of Bartres, close to the town. This relieved the burden of feeding the whole family slightly.
 
When they were on the trip to gather firewood, Toinette and Jeanne crossed the Rive Gavé but Bernadette was hesitant because of her asthma and state of health. While they were gathering firewood, Bernadette heard a rush of wind but saw nothing moving. She then turned to look at the grotto in the Rock of Massabielle and saw a vision of a beautiful lady, dressed in white with a blue band around her waist and a Rosary on her right arm. Bernadette prayed the Rosary and the lady ran her own beads through her fingers but did not pray apart from the "Glory Be's" at the end of each decade. The apparition faded at the end of the Rosary and Bernadette found that she was able to cross the river without feeling it to be cold and when she asked her companions if they had seen anything, they said that they had not. When they returned to the cachot, Bernadette told her sister Marie about the lady but asked her to keep it secret. For the rest of the day the image of the lady did not leave Bernadette and she was troubled. When her mother asked what the problem was, Marie told the story of the woman but her mother dismissed the story as an illusion.
 
Bernadette returned to the grotto on the following Sunday, 14th February without her mother's permission. She had taken with her some holy water and when the lady appeared, she threw it at the woman who just bowed her head and smiled. A few days later on Thursday, 18th February, the lady appeared again and spoke to Bernadette for the first time, asking if she would come to the grotto every day for the next 15 days and she told Bernadette "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next". Every day, for the next fifteen days, Bernadette returned to Massabielle which was now attracting crowds that increased in number every day. Among these crowds, on Sunday 21st February was a sceptical Dr. Dozous who examined Bernadette when she was seeing the vision and whose outlook on religion was changed for the experience. The lady did not appear at the grotto every day but when she did, Bernadette was transfixed and oblivious to everything that was going on around her.
 
The reaction of the clergy in Lourdes was to dismiss the apparitions as the delusions of an unstable girl and the Chief of Police, M. Jacomet, tried to discourage Bernadette from going to the grotto but could not dissuade the small fourteen-year old girl who was drawn to the grotto by an unknown force. During some of the apparitions, Bernadette was told some secrets including a prayer which she said every day but never divulged to anyone. The public reaction to the apparitions was mixed. Most people were sceptical and the local newspaper ran an unsympathetic story on the apparitions on Wednesday 24th February. It was on this date that the first public messages of the apparitions were given by the lady - "penance, penance, penance" and when someone in the crowd lost the power of speech, another person rushed forward to Bernadette asking "What are you doing you little actress?" On the next day, during the ninth apparition, the crowds saw Bernadette eating some wild herbs and heading towards the River Gavé before turning back as though summoned.
 
When she went back into the grotto, Bernadette scraped the ground three times before drinking some water from a previously unknown spring and washing her face in what appeared to be mud. Bernadette reported that the lady had asked her to "drink and wash in the fountain" and, thinking that she meant the river, Bernadette turned towards the Gavé before returning to the grotto to a spot where the lady had pointed at. No-one went to see if some water had appeared but as the day passed by, the small trickle had turned into a gentle ribbon of water. The following day, Friday 26th February, the lady did not appear but the crowd was less hostile. On Saturday 27th February, the lady appeared again and told Bernadette to tell the priests to build a chapel on the Rock of Massabielle. The reaction of the clergy to the events had been to avoid becoming involved in the controversy  of the apparitions and Bernadette was afraid of Abbé Peyramale, the parish priest, but she immediately left the grotto and went to the presbytery. Fr. Peyramale at first appeared stern but as Bernadette spoke to him and he listened to her story and observed her sincerity he became friendlier - as was his normal manner. His attitude towards the story was changing and upon hearing of the lady's request, he asked what the lady's name was.

On being told that the lady had not divulged her name he told Bernadette to tell her that the priest was not in the habit of building chapels for people whose names he did not know. The lady did not divulge her name (the crowds had by now assumed that she was the Virgin Mary although Bernadette had not said this) but during the thirteenth apparition on Tuesday, March 2nd, she repeated her request to have a chapel built on the site. Bernadette returned to the parish priest who was displeased at this constant irritation without even knowing the name of the lady and he told Bernadette to ask the lady to make a rose bush at the grotto bloom. His manner was such that Bernadette had forgotten to tell him the second part of her message and had to return to the presbytery that evening. This message was a request for people to come in procession to the grotto. Thursday, 4th March was the last of the 15 days that Bernadette had promised to come to the grotto and large crowds from all over France had gathered. After the apparition someone asked Bernadette if she would return to the grotto and she replied that she would but she was not sure if the lady would appear again. The basilica, built at the request of Our Lady with pilgrims gathered. Bernadette did go to the grotto over the next three weeks but instead of going early in the morning as she had done, she would go in the afternoon and would sit in the grotto, not kneeling in her usual place. By this time some people had erected a small altar, made from an old table, in the grotto with a statue of Our Lady on it and candles were burning all around the grotto.
 
On 25th March - the feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette felt drawn to the grotto in morning and the vision re-appeared. Bernadette
pleaded with the lady to tell her who she was and the lady just smiled and bowed her head as she had done before. Bernadette asked a few
more times and the lady opened her hands and said: "Que Soy Era Immaculada Conceptiou" or “I am the Immaculate Conception" Bernadette
placed a candle at the grotto and went straight to see Abbé Peyramale, repeating the words that she had heard the whole way. By the time
she had reached the presbytery, the word was spreading around Lourdes as to who the lady was and when Abbé Peyramale asked Bernadette
what she wanted, he thought that Bernadette was being conceited as she had quoted the lady directly. When he asked her if she knew what
the words meant, Bernadette replied that she did not and the priest told her that he would consider what to do. Later he confided that he
was astounded when he heard Bernadette's reply. On Wednesday, 7th April, the Wednesday of Easter week, Bernadette was once more drawn
to the grotto and Our Lady appeared once more. During the apparition, Bernadette's hand was accidentally placed in a candle flame and
remained there for 15 minutes, witnessed by Dr. Dozous, who examined it later and found no burns or other marks. When Bernadette was not seeing the
vision, a candle was placed under her hand and she drew it away saying that it was burning her. On Friday, 16th July 1858, the feast of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel, Bernadette returned to the grotto (which by now had been closed) and the apparition appeared for the eighteenth and final time.
 

  During the period of the apparitions, the grotto had been changed in order to accommodate the influx of pilgrims. Bernadette's
  asthma had troubled her but she had made tremendous progress in her preparation to receive the Eucharist, making her first Holy
  Communion on Thursday 3rd June - the feast of the Blessed Sacrament. The Lourdes authorities had tried to close the grotto and had
  threatened to arrest Bernadette if she returned to it. They had wrongly reasoned that Bernadette was receiving some financial
  benefit from the apparitions despite the fact that the family was still as poor as before. Great crowds had been coming to the town
  in response to the apparitions and they included among their numbers some people who were crippled or suffered from illnesses. One
  of these pilgrims was a boy who washed his legs under the water and was miraculously cured. There have been a number of miraculous
  cures associated with Lourdes since 1858 although only a small portion of these have been officially recognised by the Church as
  being beyond doubt.

Bernadette was a very small person only four foot seven inches (140cms) tall. She looked more like an eleven year old child than a sixteen year old woman. She found some lessons very difficult but she was good at sewing. People may have expected her to be a very serious person and would have been surprised to find that she was full of fun, she liked to play jokes and enjoyed joining in the childrens games. At other times she liked to be quiet and to pray.

On 4th July 1866, Bernadette left Lourdes to join the Sisters of Charity in Nevers, making her religious profession on 30th October 1867.
Bernadette died in Nevers on the Wednesday of Easter week - 16th April 1879. On 14th of June 1925, Bernadette was beatified and
canonised by Pope Pius XI on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8th December 1933. Her body was disinterred three times, the last
time being in April 1925 and is currently in a shrine at the chapel of the Convent of St. Gildard in Nevers. The body of St. Bernadette is
incorrupt to this day.