Frozen in Time – Maximin and Melanie

A wonderful discovery: a new photo of Maximin and Melanie.

Photographic plates left in the Shrine office on the Holy Mountain of La Salette

It was at the end of the 2012 Shrine season that a Norman family of pilgrims left a small box in our Shrine Gallery (main hallway of the Shrine Hotel) on the Holy Mountain of La Salette in France. A first glance, these seemed to be photographic glass plates from the years 1850 to 1895. They were stored carefully in a corner of the office of the Pastoral Attendant until such a time that he could quietly go through them.

But time passed and it was winter time and the new Pilgrim season began with the arrival of our volunteers. It is now possible to review these forty-five small glass photographic plates.

On one particular plate he find one plate of the place where the Beautiful Lady appeared and another of the building of the La Salette basilica.

And among these plates, another surprise – a photo of Maximin and Melanie (below) taken during the period when they were asked to testify at the very site of the apparition. They are pictured standing on a slope of Planeau, in a small ravine where the slopes of Mounts Gargas, Chamoux and Planeau meet.

What a great discovery!

The newly-discovered historic picture of Maximin (right with his hat) and Melanie (center) walking in the area near the place where Our Lady of La Salette appeared to them, on a slope of Planeau, in a small ravine where the slopes of Mounts Gargas, Chamoux and Planeau meet

Photo taken of the La Salette Apparition site between 1864 and 1868 (collection of Dardalet family)