It was interesting to read Ray Azzopardi’s letter The Value Of Pilgrimages (January 28) of his experiences at Lourdes, but it is sad so little is known of what Lourdes was like 128 years ago when Charles de Roussy, a pilgrim, arrived and found a large number of invalids left stranded on arrival and with tears in their eyes having to beg passers-byto help them reach the Massabielle Grotto, where Bernadette Soubirous had her first vision of the Virgin Mary on February 11, 1858.

Those who were lucky to receive help along the rough way to the Grotto were later, after their visit, left abandoned, unable to go to the places where the healthy pilgrims visited. When de Roussy set eyes upon this appalling sight in 1884 he immediately, with the assistance of two other young men he recruited, began to help the invalids. A few days later, with his newly found friends, he went to see Fr Francois Picard and offered their time to help the sick.

In the following year, the same year a cross was brought from Jerusalem to Lourdes, the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes was formed, modelled on the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem who had, with assistance, founded a hospital towards the year 1085 to help the pilgrims in the Holy Land. Since then, men and women from all walks of life have flocked to help the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes, many of them from Malta, to assist the thousands of invalid pilgrims who visit Lourdes each year.

Yet it is strange that in the tourist brochures that are sold at Lourdes, which show beauti-ful coloured photographs of the magnificent monuments, churches, swimming pool, regattas and ski-resorts, there is no mention of this pilgrim, Charles de Roussy. Were it not for him, thousands of invalids would not have been given their one pleasure in life – to visit the Massabielle Grotto.