[2][1] On 21 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII granted a canonical coronation to the image now located within the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette.

The nuts will become spoiled and the grapes will rot, but if they convert the stones and rocks will become heaps of wheat, and the potatoes will be sown (for the coming year).

Come, my children, pass it well on to all my people.According to later reports, the words "I will tell you otherwise" mean that the Virgin, who had first spoken in French, began to speak in the patois of Corps.

The parish priest of La Salette[12] noted on 16 October 1846: "All this story" (that is to say, essentially, what concerns the complaints, threats and promises of the Virgin) "is faithfully given by little Mélanie and although little Germain could not in principle give it with the same order, he always said, however, when hearing his little companion tell it, that it was indeed that.

"[14] The story of Mélanie and Maximin was very well received by the population and, at least from November 1846, the bishop of Grenoble, Philibert de Bruillard, was convinced of the reality of the apparition,[15] but, wishing to be able to support his judgment on indisputable evidence,[16] he requested several reports from various commissions.

[18] Brayer, benefactor of the two seers,[19] and Verrier, one of the partisans of the "Baron de Richemont" who hoped that the secret of La Salette related to the destinies of this alleged Louis XVII, undertook to take Maximin to the famous priest.

They were received by the Abbé Raymond, vicar of Ars, who expressed to Maximin a total incredulity with regard to the apparition of La Salette.

After this interview, the priest, who until then had great confidence in the apparition of La Salette,[23] declared to several people, in particular to ecclesiastics, that Maximin retracted his testimony.

[27] The same day, he declared before a special commission meeting at the bishopric that he had not retracted his testimony in Ars, but that, not hearing the priest distinctly, he sometimes said 'yes' and 'no' at random.

[30] On 21 November, Maximin wrote ("one made him write", says Father Stern) a letter to the Curé of Ars in which he gave the following explanation: "Allow me to tell you in all sincerity, that there has been a complete misunderstanding on your part.

Now, such a change of opinion on your part, M. le Curé, which is more and more known, (for the very sake of the salvation of souls,) would be a very serious fact if the apparition is real, as believed nine bishops whom I consulted.

On the question of fact, he stood by his statements to the parish priest of Corps and to Canon Rousselot, but he did not exclude that the apparition could be authentic despite Maximin's categorical retraction: "It is not necessary to repeat to Your Highness what I said to these Gentlemen.

[39] Father Stern notes that the Curé of Ars had very good hearing and was neither stupid nor stubborn: "If there had been the possibility of a misunderstanding on his part, why would he have had difficulty to admit it, he who asked nothing better than to believe?

[42] The Curé of Ars, whom the affair had plunged into desolation,[43] confided to his auxiliary Catherine Lassagne, years after the recognition of the apparition by the bishop of Grenoble, that he was very annoyed not to believe in it.

He ended up recovering his faith in La Salette for many reasons, one of which was purely subjective (deliverance from an inner pain) and the other of which (attribution of a miraculous cause to a help arriving during financial difficulties) was of a degree of objectivity that varied according to the witnesses.

Two ecclesiastics, Abbé Deléon[46] and Cartellier, parish priest of the Saint-Joseph church in Grenoble,[47] even claimed that the "beautiful lady" was in fact an old daughter[48] called Mademoiselle de La Merlière, a former nun.

This claim gave rise to a curious lawsuit for defamation which the plaintiff (La Merlière) lost twice, at first instance on 2 May 1855 and on appeal on 6 May 1857,[49] despite an eloquent plea by Jules Favre.

This church, later promoted to the rank of basilica,[52] was served by religious called missionaries of La Salette, who were replaced in 1891 by diocesan priests after their expulsion by exile laws.

[54] In such a "letter", seized in 1818 from a pedlar in the department of Isère, Christ says in particular: "Attacks (sins) so worthy of the most cruel punishments, are stopped by the prayers of the divine Mary my very dear Mother  [...].

A similar document, seized from the same peddler, begins with these words: "Here is the hand of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is ready to punish sinners" and then makes the Virgin say: "I can no longer stop the anger of my Son".

[56] He reproduces (after Voltaire)[57] a version of the Letter of Jesus Christ allegedly fallen from heaven at Paimpol in 1771, which contains in particular the following words: "I warn you that, if you continue to live in sin [...], I will make you feel the weight of my divine arm.

Hippolyte Delehaye SJ, president of the Bollandist Society, expressed in 1928 an opinion similar to that of François-Joseph: "We will add that the famous question of the 'fact of La Salette' had could have been settled sooner and more easily if one had recognized in the words attributed to the Blessed Virgin one of the forms of the celestial letter, barely demarcated. [...]

One has not even taken the trouble to arrange a text originally placed in the mouth of the Saviour, but which, pronounced by the Virgin, no longer makes sense: 'I gave you six days to work, I reserved the seventh for myself, and they don't want to give it me.'

Particularly significant is the title given to the first draft, written on September 20, 1846, the very day after the event: 'Letter dictated by the Blessed Virgin to two children on the mountain of La Salette-Fallavaux.'

Michel Corteville discovered the original Secrets given to Pope Pius IX in 1851, buried for more than one century in the Vatican archives.

[62] The text sent by Maximin to Pope Pius IX and discovered in the Vatican archives reads as follows: On September 19, 1846, we saw a beautiful Lady.

secret which the Blessed Virgin gave me on the Mountain of La Salette on September 19, 1846 Secr[e]t. Mélanie, I will say something to you which you will not say to anybody: The time of God's wrath has arrived!

[64] The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the new version of the secret as "a work of imagination", arguing that, over the years, Mélanie's mind had been disturbed by reading apocalyptic books and the lives of the Illuminati.

[65] "Maximin Giraud, after an unhappy and wandering life, returned to Corps, his native village, and died there a holy death (1 March 1875).

The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette were founded in 1852 by Philbert de Bruillard, Bishop of Grenoble, France, and presently serve in some 25 countries.