Maximin Giraud

Pierre Maximin Giraud (26 August 1835 Corps, Isère, France - 15 December 1875 Corps, Isère, France) was a French member of the Corps of Papal Zouaves and Marian visionary.

Biography

Maximin Giraud was born in Corps en Isère. His mother, Anne-Marie Templier hailed from this same region. His father, Germain Giraud was from a neighboring district. The mother died leaving Maximin, then 17 months old, and a daughter, Angélique, who was eight years of age.

Shortly after, Germain Giraud, a wheelwright by trade, remarried Marie Court. Maximin lived with his father and received little attention as his father was at his workshop or at the bar. His new wife was reportedly not interested in Maximin.

Maximin grew up in haphazard fashion, spending much of his time with carefree abandon in the company of his dog and goat as they roamed the streets of Corps en Isère.

Attendance at school was not compulsory and so he never frequented classes. The same was true with regard to religious instructions.

Maximin spoke the Vivaro-Alpine^[1] (Dauphinois^[2]) dialect of the Occitan language^[1], as did everybody in town, but he did learn a few words of French as he circulated among the wagon-drivers and travelers at the stage coach relays. He was 11 years old in 1846.

On September 19 1846 he had, together with Mélanie Calvat, an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the mountains of La Salette, France, during the cowherding. Our Lady transmitted a public message to Maximin and to Mélanie, and a personal message to Maximin alone.

Maximin had a difficult childhood. During the three years following the apparition his halfbrother Jean-Francóis, his stepmother and his father all died. His mother's brother, called oncle templier, a rough and calculating man, became Maximin's guardian.

The apparition was approved by Mgr. Philibert de Bruillard, Bishop of Grenoble November 16 1851 under the title of Our Lady of La Salette. Both secrets were written down by the visionaries and sent to the pope in the same year.

After the apparition, he was placed as a boarder in the Sisters of Providence School in Corps en Isère, where an inquiry concerning the apparition took place. His progress in school was slow, hampered by constant pressure from pilgrims and other curious people.

Against the advice of the parish priest and defying the orders of the bishop of Grenoble, Royalist partizans brought the boy to Ars to meet Saint Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney three times, to be questioned by him upon the apparitions. Maximin reportedly did not enjoy their company but enjoyed the ride and the chance to see new sights.

He thereafter moved from place to place. He entered Rondeau^{[disambiguation needed ]} minor seminary, afterwards moving to the abbey of the Grande Chartreuse. From there, he travelled to Seyssin, and then to Rome, and thence to Dax, Aire-sur-Adour and Vésinet, then to Tonnère, to Petit-Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles, and finally Paris. Maximin tried his vocation as a seminarian, and after that, he worked as a nursing-home employee and a medical student. Failing the state examinations, he got a job in a pharmacy.

Finally, Maximin became a member of the Corps of Papal Zouaves, who were responsible for the defense of the Papal States and the protection of the Pope. After six months of service, he ended his contract and returned to Paris.

The newspaper La Vie Parisienne published an attack against la Salette and the two children. Maximin protested and the newspaper printed a correction. In reaction towards this, in 1866 he published a short work called Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette.

It was during this time that the Jourdain family, a couple devoted to him, brought a measure of stability into his life, and, at financial risk, cleared his debts. Maximin then entered into a partnership with a liquor dealer who used his now-famous name to increase sales. The improvident Maximin was fraudulently abused by him and failed to profit from the association.

In 1870 he was drafted by the Imperial army and assigned to Fort Barrau in Grenoble. Following this he returned to Corps and was joined there by the Jourdains. The three lived poorly and were helped by the fathers of the shrine with the approval of the bishop.

In Novemberof 1870 Maximin made a pilgrimage to the shrine. In the presence of a rapt audience he repeated the story of La Salette as he had done on the very first day. This would be the last time he would do so.

In February 1875 he visited the parish church, also for the last time. On the evening of March 1 Maximin received the sacrament of Penance and Holy Communion, drinking a little La Salette water to swallow the Eucharist. Shortly thereafter he died, not yet 40.

His remains lie in the cemetery of Corps, but his heart rests within the La Salette basilica. He wanted to underscore once again his love for La Salette and solemnly proclaimed:

I believe firmly, even to the shedding of my blood, in the famous apparition of the most Blessed Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, on September 19, 1846, the apparition that I have defended in word and suffering. ... It is with this spirit that I give my heart to Our Lady of La Salette.

Text of the secret given to Maximin Giraud

Our Lady of La Salette with the Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud.

Maximins's secret consists of two elements. A first element is the text of the message he received. A second element of the secret are the moral confidences related by Maximin to various persons, concerning elements of his secret, thus further developing and explaining the secret.

First edition - July 3 1851

First element

What follows is the integral text of the secret given by the Virgin Mary to Maximin Giraud, as written down in a letter to Pope Pius IX in 1851, and published by René Laurentin in his 2002 book 'Découverte du secret de la Salette':

On September 19, 1846, we saw a beautiful Lady. We never said that this lady was the Blessed Virgin but we always said that it was a beautiful Lady. I do not know if it is the Blessed Virgin or another person. As for me, I believe today that it is the Blessed Virgin.

Here is what this Lady said to me:

If my people continue, what I will say to you will arrive earlier, if it changes a little, it will be a little later.

France has corrupted the universe, one day it will be punished. The faith will die out in France: three quarters of France will not practice religion anymore, or almost no more, the other part will practice it without really practicing it. Then, after [that], nations will convert, the faith will be rekindled everywhere.

A great country, now Protestant, in the north of Europe, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted.

Before all that arrives, great disorders will arrive, in the Church, and everywhere. Then, after [that], our Holy Father the Pope will be persecuted. His successor will be a pontiff that nobody expects.

Then, after [that], a great peace will come, but it will not last a long time. A monster will come to disturb it.

All that I tell you here will arrive in the other century, at the latest in the year two thousand.

Maximin Giraud

(She told me to say it some time before.)

My Most Holy Father, your holy blessing to one of your sheep.

Grenoble, July 3, 1851.

Second element

[Not present in this edition.]

Second edition - August 11 1851

The edition of July 3 1851 was reproduced on request of Benjamin Dausse, a friend and trustee of Maximin.

First element

...

Second element

[Not present in this edition.]

Third edition - August 5 1853

A new edition was produced on request of Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, the new bishop of Grenoble, who was unacquainted with the secret.

First element

...

Second element

[Not present in this edition.]

Fourth edition - February 2 1866

A written rebuttal of allegations against the apparition was made by Maximin and published.

First element

...

Second element

...

Bibliography

• (French) Rousselot, Pierre Joseph. 1848. La verité sur l'événement de La Salette du 19 September 1846 ou rapport à Mgr l'évêque de Grenoble sur l'apparition de la Sainte Vierge à deux petits bergers sur la montagne de La Salette, canton de Corps (Isère). Grenoble: Baratier.
• (French) Rousselot, Pierre Joseph. 1850. Nouveaux documents. Grenoble: Baratier.
• (French) Rousselot, Pierre Joseph. 1853. Un nouveau Sanctuaire à Marie, ou Conclusion de l'affaire de La Salette. Grenoble: Baratier.
• (French) Giraud, Maximin. 1866. Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette. (1st edition.) Paris: Charpentier.
• (French) Giraud, Maximin. [1866] 1870. Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette. (Reprint.) Paris: Charpentier.
• (French) Giraud, Maximin. [1866] 1873. Ma profession de foi sur l'apparition de Notre-Dame de La Salette. (Reprint.) Paris: Charpentier.
• (French) Laurentin, René and Michel Corteville M.S. 2002. Découverte du secret de la Salette. Paris: Fayard, ISBN 2213612838.
• Bert, Michael, James Costa. 2010. "Linguistic borders, language revitalisation and the imagining of new regional entities", Boarders and Identities (Newcastle upon Tyne, 8-9 January 2010), 18.
• (French) Ronjat, Jules. 1941. Grammaire historique des parlers provençaux modernes. Vol. IV: Les dialectes, Montpellier: Société des Langues Romanes.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Bert and Costa (2010: 18).
2. ^ Ronjat (1941).

External links

• La Salette at the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911.
• La Salette at www.christ-roi.net (French).
• The story of Our Lady of La Salette as a comic strip.

See also

• Our Lady of La Salette
• Order of the Mother of God
• Order of the Apostles of the Last Days
• Missionaries of La Salette
• Mélanie Calvat
• Gilbert Combe
• Paul Guion
• Armand Thiéry

Persondata
Name	Giraud, Maximin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 26, 1835
Place of birth
Date of death	December 15, 1875
Place of death