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came and opened the door and asked us what
we wanted. I said to her (in French, and I, who
had never spoken French),

"We would like to speak to Father Perrin."

"And what have you got to say to him?" she asked.

"We wish to tell him, Miss, that yesterday we
went up to watch over our cows on Baisses
Mountain, and after dinner, etc... etc. We re­
counted a good piece of the Most Holy Virgin's words. Then the church bell rang: it was the final
call for Mass. Father Perrin, the parish priest of La Salette, who had heard us, flung open his
door, he was in tears and was beating his chest. He said to us:

"My children, we are lost, God will punish us. Oh! Good Lord! It was the Holy Virgin who appeared
to you! And he left to say Holy Mass. We looked at each other, Maximin, the housekeeper and I.
Then Maximin said to me:

"Me, I'm off home to my father at Corps",
and we parted company.

As my masters had not told me to return to
work immediately after speaking to Father
Perrin, I saw no harm in going to Mass. And so I
was in church. Mass begins and after the first reading from the Gospel, Father Perrin turns to the
congregation and tries to recount to his parishioners, the story of the Apparition which had just
taken place, the day before, on one of their mountains, and he urges them to stop working on
Sundays. His voice was broken with