Beautiful French 1800s St. Bernadette of Lourdes religious icon. Bernadette of Lourdes was a French peasant girl who lived in the 1800s and had visions of the Virgin Mary in the Massabielle grotto. The apparitions began in 1858 when Bernadette was 14 years old, and she later became a Roman Catholic nun. During the apparitions, Mary identified herself as the Immaculate Conception and led Bernadette to find a spring that would cure people. The shrine of Lourdes was founded based on Bernadette's visions, and millions of people visit it each year. Bernadette was canonized as a saint in 1933.
