In the early months of 1858, in a grotto outside an obscure town in south-western France, a 14-year-old shepherdess saw - or said she saw - the apparition of the Virgin Mary on 18 separate occasions. Everything about those incidents remains a matter of debate. What is certain is that Bernadette Soubirous was an ingenue who can have had no idea what she was starting.
On a summer Saturday in 2008, I sat outside the grotto and watched the crowds pass through: they were inside for fewer than two minutes each; 20 people per minute; 1,200 per hour. It was a busy day in a year made busier by the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Soubirous's vision. It was not atypical. The Lourdes Tourism Office says the town gets five million visitors a year.
