Maximin Giraud
Pierre Maximin Giraud (26 August 1835 – 1 March 1875) was a French man known for his Marian visionary of Our Lady of La Salette.
[1] The mother died leaving Maximin, then 17 months old, and a daughter, Angélique, who was eight years of age.
Maximin grew up in haphazard fashion, spending much of his time with carefree abandon in the sole company of his dog and goat as they roamed the streets of Corps en Isère.
Giraud spoke the Vivaro-Alpine[2] (Dauphinois) dialect of the Occitan language,[2] like everybody else in town, but he learned a few words of French as he circulated among the wagon-drivers and travelers at the stage coach relays.
On 19 September 1846, about three o'clock in the afternoon, on a mountain about three miles distant from the village of La Salette-Fallavaux, it is related that two children, a shepherdess of fifteen named Mélanie Calvat, called Mathieu, and a shepherd-boy of eleven named Maximin Giraud, both of them uneducated, beheld in a resplendent light a "beautiful lady" clad in a strange costume.
After complaining of the impiety of Christians, and threatening them with dreadful chastisements in case they should persevere in evil, she promised them the Divine mercy if they would amend.
Philibert de Bruillard, Bishop of Grenoble 16 November 1851 under the title of Our Lady of La Salette.
A third edition was produced on 5 August 1853 at the request of Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, the new bishop of Grenoble, who was unacquainted with the secret.
Sociologist Michael P. Carroll hypothesizes that the apparition may have grown out of an initial hallucination, shaped by an unconscious desire on the part of Maximin to punish his step-mother for mistreating him.
Indications that Maximin may have on occasion gone hungry would be reflected in the predicted punishments relating to famine.
Giraud went to Ars to meet Saint Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney three times, and was questioned by him about the apparitions.
Due to the malice of an assistant priest of Vianney, a misunderstanding arose, which only after eight years was resolved and the Curé once again confirmed his belief in the apparitions.
From there, he travelled to Seyssin, and then to Rome, and thence to Dax, Aire-sur-l'Adour and Le Vésinet, then to Tonnerre, to Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles, and finally Paris.
His time in the Zouaves combined a religious element, with his interest in the military, and his medical training, in an atmosphere of camaraderie.
[10] It was during this time that the Jourdain family, a couple devoted to him, brought a measure of stability into his life, and, at financial risk to themselves, cleared his debts.
He wanted to underscore once again his love for La Salette and solemnly proclaimed: I believe firmly, even to the shedding of my blood, in the famous apparition of the most Blessed Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, on 19 September 1846, the apparition that I have defended in word and suffering.
