A small town on the Gave de Pau. In 1858 the grotto of Massabielle, just outside it, was common land where people grazed animals and dumped rubbish. There, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw her visions, and she was canonised in 1933. Lourdes now draws about 4 to 6 million pilgrims a year. It became the measure for later cases. Critics of Banneux noted the Lourdes pattern, a poor girl, a spring, a chapel, a vision on February 11. Matúš Lašut at Turzovka first took his vision for a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes.
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