DID A RELIGIOUS MANIAC PRETEND TO BE JESUS' MOTHER AT LA SALETTE?
Two little shepherds, Maximin and Melanie reported a vision of a beautiful
lady they assumed to be the mother of God. A mad religious lady was
accused of orchestrating this and of being the imposter who was wandering about
in a religious fantasy and who made the dress the vision wore. Let us look
at that rumour.
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LA SALETTE
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I extract these details and the chief part of those which follow from a report
of MM. Rousselot et Orcel, printed under the title " Verite sur l'Evenement de
La Salette," p. 51, &c.
The question is, who was this beautiful lady ? and under what circumstances did
she appear to the two shepherds ?
Having lunched Ute-a-tUe at a little fountain called " fontaine des homines,"
Melanie and Maximin betook themselves to the other side of the rivulet (le
Sezia),and, contrary to their habit, went to sleep at some distance from one
another. Melanie awaking first, woke Maximin. The two shepherds crossed the
brook, set about searching for their cows, thou came down again to get their
bags, which had remained near the place where they had gone to sleep, when all
of a sudden their dazzled eyes perceived a lady bright with light seated on the
stones of the fountain, in an attitude which indicated profound grief.
Frightened at first, the children, however, soon regained courage. The lady
rose, advanced towards them, invited them to approach her, then crossed her
arms, and announced to them that she was there to tell them great news, which
she then proceeded to relate. Her language, at first, was French ; she perceived
afterwards, however, that she was not understood, and, without recommencing, she
continued her discourse in patois, then finished in French, and, taking some
fifteen paces (quinzaiue de pas^) to ascend to the highest part of the hillock,
she then disappeared (Verite sur rEvenement de La Salette, par MM. Orcel et
Kousselot, pp. 52, 3, 4).
The beautiful lady had risen, and the children had been able to see her costume.
It was a white robe, with pearls all over it, a handkerchief with roses round
it, a yellow apron, yellow stockings, white shoes with roses round them, a small
chain to which a cross was suspended, on the right, the pincers, on the left, a
hammer (Verite sur l'Evenement de La Salette, page 59).
Now this costume is precisely that which Mdlle. Lamerliere displayed some days
before, at Grenoble, in the warehouse of M. X . This costume was distinguished
particularly by the fantastic yellow apron and yellow stockings, a colour which
has never in any place been employed to ornament the statues, altars, or chapels
of the Holy Virgin. It was distinguished still more by the pincers and hammer,
which it never occurred to any painter or sculptor to annex to a statue of the
Blessed Virgin, and it is certainly something very singular that such a
coincidence should exist between the costume previously imagined by Mdlle.
Lamerliere, without any foundation in the pious usages regarding the Holy
Virgin, and the costume worn by the beautiful lady of La Salette ; and still
more singular is the coincidence between La Salette, the mountain on which " the
beautiful lady" appeared to the two shepherds, and the mountain of the Alps
towards which Mdlle. Lamerliere directed her course some days before, carrying
with her the costume of the Lady of the Apparition, and with the design of doing
"something which was destined to make a great noise in the world."
But these two striking coincidences are not the only strange things in the
story.
" The beautiful lady" commenced speaking in French, and then, when she had
recounted one half of her " great news," she perceived that the children did not
understand French, and, without going over again what she had already said, she
proceeded in patois, and, subsequently, began again to speak French, to tell the
children what must have been the most unintelligible to them of all — " You will
make this to be known to all my people" (" Vous le ferez passer a tout mon
peuple") — (Verite sur l'Evenement, par MM. Orcel et Kousselot, pp. 53, &c, 04,
&c).*
-at La Salette, the. Lady of the Apparition (who came also, according to MM.
Orcel et Rousselot, to perform an apostolic office, for the conversion of the
world) employs the common language of the country, which the shepherds did not
comprehend ; and instead of reproducing in a simple form, in reference to the
two children, the miracle which the apostles had wrought in a multiform manner
with relation to twenty different nations, she accommodates herself to the
ignorance of the two shepherds, and speaks "patois" to them, but only after her
young auditors had let her know that they could not comprehend her. Could the
most ordinary mortal have acted in a different manner ?
But this is not all. The lady announces to the shepherds that she is come to La
Salette to tell them great news (Verite, pp. 55 et 65). She adds that their duty
is to make it known to all the people (Verite, pp. 57 and 68). Both these
important paragraphs were announced in French, a language that neither of the
children understood. Those shepherds are the channel chosen of God to
communicate to all Christian people the great news which so miraculously reached
them. Was it not necessary that they should understand what was told them, in
order that the Divine communication should be preserved in all its purity, and
that the first intriguer who met with them might not be able to change it to his
own purposes? Both the honour of God and human reason seem to demand that this
should have been so.
But how did things really happen ?
The lady related, in French, the half of her news, and then only when the
children informed her that they did not understand it, she continued in "
patois," but without repeating what she had already said, and which wan,
moreover, the essential part, the very seal of the mission which she came to
fulfil ; for it is the expression of the Lord's complaints of the iniquities of
Ms people.
On this capital point did the Lady of the Apparition, after the example of the
apostles, open the understandings of the two shepherds V Let us see. MM. Orcei
and Rousselot have taken on themselves to inform us.
In their joint work (Verite, p. 87), they represent, as inspired, the answer
which they put into the mouth of Melanie, when pressed with questions on the
difficulty she must have experienced in remembering the recital of the lady —
"Oh! no," said she, " she (the lady ) told it to me but once, and I remember it
well ; whenever I did not understand her well, in saying what she said to me,
those who understand French comprehend it, when even I did not comprehend it ;
that is sufficient."
If that was sufficient, why did the lady change her language with the object of
making herself understood ? If that was not sufficient, why did she not repeat
the part of her news which was not understood by the shepherds?
In either case the white lady has to choose between tie absurd and the
ridiculous — a dilemma not unnatural for Mdlle. Lamerliere, but superlatively
indecent to imagine, much less to say, in reference to the Holy Virgin. The
answer of Melanie, so far from being inspired, was either silly or impious.
One other strange thing, and I proceed.
The white lady, after having fulfilled her mission, ascends to the highest part
of the hillock, her feet only touch the top of the grass; then she disappears,
by rising into the air (Verite, pp. 58 and 68).
Now, in the first place, in those high parts of the mountains where the ground
is scarcely covered with a light coating of earth, and the grass is so short
that it does not even afford the teeth of the sheep or goats anything to lay
hold of, how could the feet of the lady touch anything else than the top of the
grass, since the top is, in fact, the whole of it ?
Moreover, why was this ascension of the white lady from the very top of the
hill? The Holy Virgin could just as easily have raised herself to heaven from
the bottom of the hollow where she was ; then every natural explanation of the
phenomenon would have been anticipated and prevented. In surmounting the hollow,
she reached a crest which presented at the other side a rapid descent, and
allowed a human being to disappear and vanish adroitly before the dazzled eyes
of two little ignorant peasants — a precaution very suitable to Mdlle.
Lamerliere, but which it is ridiculous to attribute to a messenger from heaven.
Thus, the agreement between the Lady of La Salette and Mdlle. Lamerliere in the
choice of a fantastic dress, and in the choice of a mountain of the Alps
destined to become the theatre of a great event, affords, in the first place, a
strong presumption that Mdlle. Lamerliere is the Lady of La Salette ; for
without a divine revelation, Mdlle. Lamerliere could not have foreseen either
the eccentric costume which the Holy Virgin was to choose, or the apparition of
the 19th September on La Salette, a mountain of the Alps. This presumption is
strengthened still more by the nature and variation of the language of the white
lady to the shepherds, and by the human precautions which she took to disappear
adroitly from their view.
