Bartrès, l'église et la bergerie de Bernadette

Bartrès

Bartrès is the village of the wet nurse. When her mother, pregnant again, could no longer feed her, Bernadette, born in January 1844, was placed in November with Marie Laguë, a peasant woman of Bartrès who had just lost her newborn child; she stayed there until April 1846. Eleven years later, when the family had nothing left and was living in the cachot, she was sent back to the same woman, in September 1857, to look after her two young children, do the housework, carry the water and the wood and take the lambs to pasture: this is the shepherdess of the pictures, but the reality is that of a girl of thirteen placed out for one mouth less to feed. She wanted to make her first communion and followed the catechism of the priest in charge, the abbé Ader, until he left for the monastery on 3 January 1858; without a priest, without a school, she grew bored and went home to Lourdes in the middle of January. Three weeks later she was at Massabielle. The church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, where she came to pray, has kept its altarpiece of the beginning of the 18th century, classified; the Laguë house is private; the sheepfold, a barn of the beginning of the 19th century in front of which she watched the flock, is a few minutes from the village on the road to Lourdes, and thousands of pilgrims climb up to it each year for the silence.

Wikipédia — Bartrès ↗

Getting there : From Lourdes, 10 minutes by car on the Bartrès road (signposted), or 1 hr 15 on foot by the chemin de Bernadette across the fields. Church open during the day; the sheepfold, away from the village, is freely accessible but the path climbs (not advised for people with reduced mobility). Reception of groups: La Pastourelle, 20 rue de l'Église.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound