Espace Bernadette Soubirous Nevers

[2] It became the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, where in 1866, Bernadette Soubirous entered for her novitiate following the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes, and where she died on 16 April 1879.

The novitiate room was converted into a chapel, and is where in July 1866, Bernadette in her traditional Pyrenean garb recounted the apparitions for the last time to 300 Sisters.

The museum highlights various key places in Saint Bernadette’s life: the village dungeon her family lived in, the Grotto of Massabielle, the Hospice of Lourdes, and the convent at Nevers.

On 3 August 1925, following her beatification by Pope Pius XI, Bernadette’s body was moved to a glass reliquary in the convent chapel.

It was built to resemble the Grotto in Lourdes as it would have looked in 1858, and it carries a piece of the rock the Virgin Mary stood on in the upper alcove.

The Grotto also has an altar and a rack where pilgrims may light and offer candles with an image of Saint Bernadette, sold on site.

View of the garden and façade of the cloister.
The gold sarcophagus/reliquary containing the incorrupt body of Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
Sleeping accommodations at Espace Bernadette, formerly the rooms of nuns when the building was a convent.
A replica of the grotto at Lourdes, with a statue of a younger Bernadette kneeling as she would during the apparitions.