She was the fourth of ten children to Pierre Calvat, a stonemason and "pitsawyer by trade" who did not hesitate to take whatever job he could find in order to support his family, and Julie Barnaud, his wife.

On 19 September 1846, it is related that Calvat and Maximin Giraud, who were only teenagers, saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the mountains of La Salette, who gave them both public and private messages.

Sixteen members – the vicars general of the diocese, the parish priests of Grenoble and the titulary canons – assembled in the presence of the bishop.

In his letter of approbation, added as a preface, the bishop of Grenoble declared that he shared the opinion of the majority of the commission which adopted the conclusions of the report.

de Bruillard, adjusted according to observations of Luigi Lambruschini, Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites at Rome, was signed on 18 September 1851, and was published the following 10 November 1851.

In it, the bishop of Grenoble promulgated this judgement: "We judge that the apparition of the Holy Virgin to the two shepherds, 19 September 1846 ... in the parish of La Salette ... carries within it all the characteristics of truth, and that the faithful have reason to believe it indubitable and certain.

"[5] The motives of the decision, which rested on the work of Rousselot and that of the commission of 1847, were the impossibility of explaining the events, the miracles and the cures in a human manner, as well as the spiritual fruits of the apparition, notably conversions and finally the right expectations and desires of large crowds of priests and faithful.

[6] Calvat claimed that the real reason for the refusal was that the bishop was aiming to gain the favour of the emperor Napoleon III of France.

The order was dedicated to hard practical work in helping the poor, and Calvat met brisk common sense, not flattery or adulation.

The bishop, aware of Melanie's fervid and outspoken royalist sympathies, was worried that she would become involved and thereby implicate the following of Our Lady of La Salette in politics.

In early 1867 she was officially released from the order and she and her companion then went, following a short stay at Corps and La Salette, to live at Castellamare[7] near Naples in Italy, where she was welcomed by the local bishop.

Salvatore Luigi Zola, bishop of Lecce near Naples (who had protected and assisted Calvat in his diocese) under the title Apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette.

[10] Mélanie Calvat moved to Cannes in the south of France, from where she travelled to Chalon-sur-Saône, seeking to found a community with the sponsorship of the Canon de Brandt of Amiens.

In 1892, Calvat returned to Lecce, Italy, and journeyed to Messina in Sicily at the invitation of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia.

In 1847, the self-proclaimed prophetess Therese Thiriet presented her message as "an addition to the prediction of the children of the district of Grenoble", largely against the Bishop of Nancy.

[4] Melanie early began to blame the cabinet of Napoleon III for the evils she saw about to befall France, and viewed the Franco-Prussian War as a judgment from God.

[7] Melanie's "prophetic meanderings" were later "orchestrated by ... Leon Bloy" and it became "a 'Melanist' movement allegedly stemming from La Salette, but lacking any foundation except the unverifiable pronouncements of Mélanie".

[1] Inspired by both millennialist visionary Eugène Vintras [fr] and the reports of an apparition at La Salette, Bloy was convinced that the Virgin's message was that if people did not reform the endtime was imminent.

[13] In 1912 Leon Bloy, an ardent millennialist, published a posthumous autobiography of Calvat, in which Melanie claimed to have had miraculous and prophetic experiences before the apparition of 1846.

[10] Jacques Maritain noted that "there was a small number of fanatics who made the Secret of La Salette a partisan affair, and whose aberrant interpretations, and their manner of using prophecies like a railway timetable, could only compromise the cause which they claimed to defend.

Benedict XV issued an admonitum or formal papal warning recognizing the many different versions of the secret in all its diverse forms and forbidding the faithful or the clergy to investigate or discuss them without permission from their bishops.

On reading an account of her life in 1910, Pope Pius X exclaimed to the Bishop of Altamura, in whose diocese she had died and was buried, "La nostra Santa!"

According to the two children's account, the Virgin invited people to respect the repose of Sunday, and the name of God, and cautioned punishment, in particular a scarcity of potatoes, which would rot.

Society is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of the greatest events; one must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink the chalice of the wrath of God.

May the Vicar of my Son, the sovereign Pontiff Pius IX, no longer leave Rome after the year 1859; but may he be firm and generous, may he fight with the weapons of faith and love; I will be with him.

... Civil and ecclesiastical powers will be abolished, all order and all justice will be trampled underfoot; one will see only homicides, hatred, jealousy, lying and discord, without love for country, or for family.

In the year 1865, the abomination will be seen in holy places; in convents, the flowers of the Church will be decayed and the demon will make himself as the king of hearts ... France, Italy, Spain and England will be in war; blood will flow in the streets; Frenchman will fight with Frenchman, Italian with Italian; subsequently there will be a general war which will be appalling ... Paris will be burned and Marseilles engulfed; several great cities will be shaken and engulfed by earthquakes: it will be believed that all is lost: only homicides will be seen, only the noise of weapons and blasphemies will be heard ... Then Jesus Christ by an act of His justice and of His great mercy for the just, will command to His angels that all His enemies be put to death.

Wicked men are devoured by a thirst for exercising their cruelty; but when they shall have reached the uttermost point of barbarity, God Himself shall extend His hand to stop them, and very soon after, a complete change shall be effected in all surviving persons.

Peace shall reign, and the charity of Jesus Christ shall unite all hearts ...[18]Combe incorporated Calvat's 1879 pamphlet into his own subsequent publication in support of his political views.

In October 1912, Albert Lepidi O.P., Master of the Sacred Palace, replying to a query by cardinal Louis Luçon, affirmed that the original message of 1846 remained approved.