We will not dwell here upon the persecutions directed against Bernadette by the magistrates, or upon the vexations besetting the pilgrims who flocked hither from all parts of the world. Every one has read these details in the work of M. Lasserre, who so ably depicts the dignity and firmness displayed in the affair by the parish priest, M. Peyramale. The apparition of March 25th, has a special significance. Bernadette, on several occasions, inquired the Lady's name. At this question, the vision, on the day mentioned, unclasped her hands, the chaplet of golden chain and alabaster grains sliding on to her arm. She opened her arms and directed them towards the earth, as if to indicate that her virginal hands were filled with benedictions for the human race; then raising them towards the celestial country, whence descended on this day the divine messenger of the Annunciation, she clasped them with fervor, and looking towards heaven with an indescribable expression of gratitude, she pronounced these words: "_I am the Immaculate Conception_." Having said this, she disappeared, and the child found herself and the multitude in presence of a bare rock. The Immaculate Virgin appeared to Bernadette twice again; on Easter Monday, April 5th, and July 16th, the Feast of our Lady of Mount Carmel. The following 28th of July, the Bishop of Tarbes named a commission of inquiry, composed of ecclesiastics, physicians and learned men. July 18th, 1862, he published a decree concerning the events that had taken place at Lourdes; it was couched in the following words: "We judge that the Immaculate Mother of God did really appear to Bernadette Soubirous, Feb. 11th, 1858, and on succeeding days to the number of eighteen times in the grotto of Masabielle, near the city of Lourdes; that this apparition bears all the characteristics of truth, and that the faithful may rely upon its reality." Mary had petitioned that a chapel be built upon the spot. The first stone was laid in the month of October, 1862, the piety of pilgrims furnishing the necessary funds for the erection of the edifice, and on the 21st of May, 1868, the Holy Mass was celebrated there for the first time, in the crypt which was to bear the new sanctuary. The connection existing between the apparitions of 1858 and 1830 is indicated by two painted windows in the sanctuary, one of which represents Bernadette's vision, the other that of Sister Catherine. The pilgrimage to Lourdes has assumed vast proportions; thanks to the railroads, the pilgrims each year number hundreds of thousands, coming from every quarter of the globe, and countless miracles recompense the faith of those who seek in this sanctuary the merciful power of the Immaculate Mary. The grotto of Lourdes, reproduced in a thousand places, has become one of the most popular objects of devotion.