Her first visit was to La Salette.
This was years ago.

On the 19th of September, 1846, the Virgin had appeared to two children on a hill; it was a Saturday, the day dedicated to Her, which, that year, was a fast day by reason of the Ember week.

By another coincidence, this Saturday was the eve of the Festival of Our Lady of Seven Dolours, and the first vespers were being chanted when Mary appeared as from a shell of glory just above the ground.
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 Dauphine, tourists wandering through the Alps, or invalids following the cure at the neighbouring mineral springs of La Mothe.