And she appeared as Our Lady of Tears in that desert landscape of
stubborn rocks and dismal hills. Weeping bitterly, She had uttered
reproofs and threats; and a spring, which never in the memory of man had
flowed excepting at the melting of the snows, had never since been dried
up.

The fame of this event spread far and wide; frantic thousands scrambled
up fearful paths to a spot so high that trees could not grow there.
Caravans of the sick and dying were conveyed, God knows how, across
ravines to drink the water; and maimed limbs recovered, and tumours
melted away to the chanting of canticles.

Then, by degrees, after the sordid debates of a contemptible lawsuit,
the reputation of La Salette dwindled to nothing; pilgrims were few,
miracles were less often proclaimed. The Virgin, it would seem, was
gone; She had ceased to care for this spring of piety and these
mountains.

At the present day few persons climb to La Salette but the natives of
Dauphiné, tourists wandering through the Alps, or invalids following the
cure at the neighbouring mineral springs of La Mothe. Conversions and
spiritual graces still abound there, but bodily healing there is next to
none.

"In fact," said Durtal to himself, "the vision at La Salette became
famous without its ever being known exactly why. It may be supposed to
have grown up as follows: the report, confined at first to the village
of Corps at the foot of the mountain, spread first throughout the
department, was taken up by the adjacent provinces, filtered over all
France, overflowed the frontier, trickled through Europe, and at last