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The apparitions of

GARABANDAL

BY
F. SANCHEZ-VENTURA Y PASCUAL

Chapter One

REASONED ARGUMENTS TO FAN THE FLAMES OF OUR FAITH

Page 16

   Were those perils, foretold in 1846, subsequently confirmed by historical events, or not?

   The Blessed Virgin announced that by Christmastide there would be no potatoes left because of the total failure of the crop. So it came about that peasants all over France and abroad, particularly in Ireland, began to suffer from acute starvation as winter progressed. The French newspaper "Gazette du Midi" of January 28th, 1847, and the London papers of January 21st, of the same year told the sorry tale. "The losses caused by the failure of the crops in Ireland alone are estimated at twelve million pounds sterling, the equivalent of three hundred million francs."

   "The wheat will be worm-eaten and will fall into dust," said Our Lady. And, true enough, in 1851, disease attacked the grain crops and caused incalculable losses throughout Europe. L'Univers wrote, on July 15th, 1856, "We opened a few dry ears of wheat. Some did not contain a single grain; others held very small grains, totally unfit to feed anyone. In both types of ears, we found a yellowish dust and a few little insects which are undoubtedly the cause of all these ravages. Anyone can see this new phenomenon for himself in any wheat-field ..."

   "There will be a great famine . . . Some will do penance through hunger." The price of wheat in 1854 and 1855 rose to sixty francs a hundredweight, and, according to "Le Constitutionnel" and "L'Univers," in 1856, a hundred and fifty-two thousand people died of starvation in France alone, while other papers gave an estimate of more than a million in all Europe. On December 12th, 1856. "L'Univers" said: "For the euphemism 'death caused by want,' read: 'died of misery and hunger'."

   The Spanish Government bought sixty million reals-worth of wheat to stave off starvation. In Poland, the Government raised its civil-servants' salaries by a third to help them meet soaring food prices.

   "Little children will be seized with trembling and will die in the arms of those who are holding them ..." The prophesy began to come true in 1847, in the canton of Corps. In 1854, all over France seventy-five thousand died of ague. The symptoms were an icy coldness which later made the child perspire copiously, causing a constant shivering and bringing death after a couple of hours of fearful suffering.

   "The walnuts will be worm-eaten and withered." In 1852, a report sent to the French Ministry of the Interior stated that, the preceding year, a disease had totally destroyed the walnut crop in the regions of Lyon, Beaujolais and Isère. It added that this was a great

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