The young peasant of Monin – Case of ApparitionOne of our correspondents in Oloron (Basses-Pyrénées), sent us the report of the following fact, of his personal knowledge:
“Towards the end of December 1866, not far from the village of Monin (Basses-Pyrénées), a twenty-four-year-old peasant woman, named Marianne Courbet, was busy collecting leaves in a meadow near the house lives with her father, aged sixty-four, and a sister, aged twenty-nine. For a few moments now, an old man of average height, wearing peasant clothes, had been standing at the corner of the gate that gives passage to the meadow. Suddenly, he calls the young girl, that promptly comes, and asks her if she could give him alms.
- “But what could I give you,” she said to him, “I have nothing; unless you want to accept a piece of bread?”
- “As you wish,” replied the old man; “besides, you can rest assured, you will not miss it.”
- “You answered me a long time ago.”
- “How could I have answered you?”, said the woman. “You hadn't called me yet.”
- “I had not called you, it is true, but my Spirit had been transported to you, had embraced your Spirit, and thus I knew your intentions in advance. I also stopped in front of another house over there; my Spirit entered it and I knew the not very charitable dispositions of those who inhabit it. So, I thought there was no point in asking anything there. If these people do not change, if they continue to not practice charity, they shall be very sorry. As for you, you never refuse to give alms, and God will take your feelings into account and will give you back well beyond what you have given to the unfortunate ... Do you have sore eyes?”
- “Alas! Yes,” replies the peasant woman, “and most of the time my eyesight is so weak that I cannot devote myself to the work in the countryside.”
- "Well!”, continued the old man, “here is a pair of glasses with which you will see perfectly. You had a sister whom you loved very much and who has been dead for eight years and four months.”
- “It is true,” said the woman, more and more surprised.
- “Your mother died a year ago.”
- “Right”, she said, still surprised.
- Well! You will say five Our Father and five Hail Mary on her grave. Besides, they are both in a place where they are happy and where you will see them again one day. Before leaving you, I have one thing to recommend to you: you must go to such and such a person (a girl of bad behavior with several children), and you will ask her to let you take one of her children whom you will bring up until the time of his first communion.
The peasant lady hastened to fetch a piece of bread. When she returned, the old man said to her:Finally, here is a book of prayer that you must keep preciously, and to which is attached a grace for all those who will touch it. The people who will come to see you will have to say two Our Father and two Hail Mary for the souls in purgatory, when they come and when they leave. Among these people, whose number will increase day by day in a considerable way, there are some who will laugh, who will mock; to these you will tell nothing. Do not fail to recommend to the person from whom you are to take the child to be converted, for I do not believe that she will live much longer.
I warn you that you will have a serious illness towards the end of March; do not call a doctor, for it would be useless; it is a test to which you must submit with resignation. Besides, I'll come back to see you.”
And the old man went away. When he got to a little bridge, very close, he suddenly disappeared.
Naturally, the young peasant woman hastened to go and tell the story to the Mr. Priest, to whom she showed the book of prayer. The parish priest told her that he thought there was something extraordinary there and urged her to look after that book with care. She also hastened to do all that the old man had recommended to her, and since then we have always seen her with her glasses and the child that she has taken care of.
She was visited by an innumerable crowd, and last Sunday, her house was so full that the priest had to sing vespers almost by himself. I must not forget an important circumstance, that is, according to the prediction of the old man, the peasant woman has been in bed for a few days. Now, I must tell you that in Monin, as in Oloron, opinions are very divided about the fact in question; some believe in it and others remain skeptical. The priest of Monin, who had at first found the thing very extraordinary, preached several times to dissuade his parishioners from going to visit the peasant woman. According to her, the character who presented himself to her, told her his name and confided in her several things that she should not reveal, at least for the moment. In all this, what would make me think a little is that he expressed the desire that a statue be erected representing him in the place where he appeared.
The general opinion among believers is that it must be Saint Joseph. For me, if the fact is true, I can only see in it a Spiritist manifestation with the aim of calling attention to our philosophy, in a region dominated by contrary influences."
