"I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION"
180 years ago a baby girl, Bernadette was born in a remote town in the Pyrenees. She was raised in the clink. Well, it was no longer used as a lock-up for criminals because it was no longer thought fit for that purpose, but the baby's parents, Francois and Louise Soubirous lived on the edge of destitution and this one-room hovel was all they could afford. Had Dickens, who was in his hey-day at the time, seen the squalor they lived in, he'd have written a novel about them. When the Soubirous held baby Bernadette, little did they know that she would become so famous and yet so persecuted that she would desire to be imprisoned in a cell of her own to get some peace. Bernadette was the eldest of 9. When she was a toddler she contracted cholera, the disease that dehydrates the body and parches the mouth, but it did not ravage Bernadette's beauty and her eyes looked deep-set while her oval face shone with loveliness of character. She only grew to be 4 '7, more petite even