On Bernadette’s Footsteps

This visit is proposed to pilgrims to help them to follow Bernadette’s footsteps in order to discover her message of Faith.
Bernadette’s Places to visit in Lourdes include the following:

1. The Boly Mill Even if it is not a luxury House, it is far from miserable. Bernadette was born there on the 7th of January 1844, a year after the wedding of her parents Louise Castérot and François Soubirous. Named after an ex-owner, BOLY is run since 1786 by the Castérot Family. During 10 years, the Mill will be known as “The Mill of Happiness”. With the development of flour Mills, traditional Mills tend to disappear. Money is short and soon the Soubirous who don’t own the Mill, cannot pay the rent and are kicked out in 1854. This is the start of their slow social and professionnal downfall.

To-day, pilgrims and visitors discover on the first floor, the room where Bernadette was born, on the landing, is the Mill as Bernadette knew it when she lived there, with its two millstones fed by the Lapacca Stream, and the kitchen which was also used as Family Room.
The Mill has recently been restored with antique furniture.

2. The Prison Cell
In a lane of the High Town at Petits Fossés Street, is a very old house, drab and grey : it’s the Ancient Prison; deep down is a dark and humid cell measuring 3m77 by 4m40, opening on a backyard, with a unique and very small window: The Prison Cell.

The Soubirous will live there from 1856 and stay until autumn in 1858. François, Louise and their four children are packed in less than 16 m2. A unique room used for: sleeping, cooking, eating and praying. It is from that small room that Bernadette will go to the Grotto to meet the Virgin Mary 18 times.

Renovated during winter 1995-1996, you discover this room void of any furniture. During Bernadette lifetime: “the room was dark and unhealthy. The only pieces of furniture were two poor beds and a small trunk for the clothes”. This place reminds us that the Virgin Mary has chosen the poorest and less learned to reveal to each of us that we have a special place in the heart of God. This paradox of Lourdes is nothing but the paradox of the Gospel.

3. The Ancient Vicarage After the BOLY Lane, visitors come to what is left from a garden stone wall with its little gate, preciously kept. A schist slab on which written explanations are given, explain to visitors why these ordinary stones ar so important to the pilgrims of Lourdes. “Per aquesta porta quey pasade Bernadette” (Bernadette did pass through this gate) Behind the wall, is a beautiful and huge building comprising of a central apartment and two wings belonging to the Lavigne family. In 1858, two tenants live in it, one of whom was Father Peyramale, the Parish Priest of Lourdes.

Even if the building is no longer used as a house ( it is now a Municipal Office), even if restoration works have enhanced the façade and the roofs, it is still the focus point of the saga of the apparitions, for it is there that Bernadette goes to visit Father Peyramale, on the 2nd of March 1858, to convey the message of the Virgin Mary : “ Go and tell the priests to ask people to come to this place in procession, and to have a Chapel erected”. Bernadette will come again on the 25th March 1858 to convey to Father Peyramale the last message of the lady: “ Que soy era Immaculada Conception” ( I am the Immaculate Conception).

4. The Hospice Very near to the Lourdes Railway Station, there is a huge building dating from the XIXth century which welcomes pilgrims, with its grim façade and its double rows of freestone windows. Apart from the Neo-Gothic Chapel, more recently built, this façade reminds us of the ancient Hospice, founded in 1834 by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. Faithful to their vocation, the nuns had the double mission of looking after the poorest sick people and giving education to children from the ghettos of poverty. Seven to ten nuns worked as Female Nurses, and the Chaplain of the Community was Father Pomian..

Bernadette went to that School as a pauper from january 1858 to July 1860 then as boarder until July 1866, when she left Lourdes definitely.
Bernadette received First Holy Communion in this school on June 3rd 1858.
To-day this Home forms part of the hospital of the Town of Lourdes.
Two rooms, among which the ancient Chapel and the long corridor of the Ground Floor, have been preserved as Museum and are used to welcome pilgrims who want to get acquainted with this period of the life of Bernadette. Moreover,souvenirs of Bernadette are exhibited in the former parlour room. The oratory is the one that Bernadette knew very well.

5. The Parish Church of The Sacred Heart The actual Parish Church of the Sacred Heart was built after the apparitions in 1875, and was inaugurated only in 1903. Soon after, the old Saint Peter’s Church, where Bernadette was baptised, on the 9th of January 1844, was demolished. The remains of Bernadette are kept in the Church of the Sacred Heart.. The font where Bernadette was baptised on January the 9th 1844, is found in the left transept surrounded by the statues of The Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist. The rest of the furniture of the old Parish Church is kept at the Manor House.

In the crypt, you can see the tomb of Mgr Peyramale. He died, on September the 8th 1877, he was the Parish Priest of Lourdes when Bernadette saw the apparitions.
Many Pilgrims like to gather in this place which Bernadette didn’t know, but which is the Meeting Place of the Parish, that is the christian community of Lourdes to which Bernadette belonged.
The font is a link with the old Church where Bernadette enjoyed going to pray.

6. Bartrès
This small Village, a few Kilometers away from Lourdes, was very important in the life of Bernadette. In November 1844, the family sends Bernadette to be breast-fed by Marie Lagües. She will come back to her, 13 years later, but at this time as helper on the farm, because Bernadette is “somebody too many to feed” in a family where hunger is a real problem. Tired by the heavy work, e.g.looking after the young children of Marie Lagües, helping on the farm, keeping watch on the sheep, Bernadette has no time to study catechism with the Parish Priest from Bartrès.It is Marie, who teaches her the Catholic Faith in the evenings. Bernadette has problems to remember everything and Marie is not at all happy. In the end, on the 21st of january 1858, Bernadette comes back to Lourdes to get ready for her First Holy Communion .

Pilgrims who visit Bartrès to-day will discover the sheep-fold where Bernadette used to take the flock, the house belonging to Marie Lagües, (the Burg House) and the Parish Church. On the 26th of March 2000, during the Pilgrimage organised by the Diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes, the lane to Bartrès was inaugurated by Mgr Jacques Perrier, Bishop of the Diocese. This pedestrian lane which Bernadette used everyday, has been retarred and reopened for pilgrims and visitors.