Bernadette is the French feminine diminutive of Bernard — from the Old Germanic bern (bear) + hardu (brave, strong). **Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879)** — illiterate 14-year-old French peasant girl who **between February and July 1858 reported 18 visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto at Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees**. **Lourdes has become the most-visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world — approximately 6 million pilgrims annually** seeking the miraculous spring water. **Bernadette's incorrupt body remains on display in Nevers, France**. **Canonized in 1933; feast day February 18 in France, April 16 elsewhere**.
Subject of Henry King's *The Song of Bernadette* (1943 film) starring Jennifer Jones (Oscar).
Bernadette reduces to four — the number of Lourdes visionary.