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word "potatoes" (pommes de terre): I thought I
understood it to be "apples" (pommes)1. The
Beautiful and Good Lady, reading my thoughts,
repeated thus:

"You do not understand, my children. I will
tell it to you another way.

"If the harvest is spoiled, it does not seem to affect you. I made you see this last year with the
potatoes. You took little account of this. It was quite the opposite when you found bad pota­
toes, you swore oaths, and you included the name of my Son. They will continue to go bad and at
Christmas, there will be none left.

If you have corn, you must not sow it. The beasts will eat all that you sow. And all that grows
will fall to dust when you thresh it. A great famine will come. Before the famine comes,
children under the age of seven will begin to tremble and will die in the arms of those who hold
them. The others will do penance through hunger. The nuts will go bad, the grapes will become
rotten."

At this point, the Beautiful Lady, who was entrancing me, for a moment did not make herself
heard. I could see, however, that she was continuing, as if speaking, to move graciously


1. Neither Melanie nor Maximin understood French. The beau­
tiful Lady now continues her speech in "patois".