Pibrac

Germaine Cousin's mother died shortly after her birth. Her father, a farm worker, soon remarried to a woman who despised her new stepchild. Germaine suffered from scrofula, a disease that made her neck swell grotesquely, generating oozing sores which turned into scar tissue. Her right hand was deformed and hung by her side.

Her younger siblings and her stepmother abused her, scalding her with boiling water, starving her, and forcing her to sleep in the stable. Germaine was left to tend her family's flock of sheep and rarely experienced human companionship.

She attended church every day, leaving her sheep, who were never harmed by the wolves in the surrounding area. She gave up what little food she had to the beggars in the town. One frozen winter morning, her stepmother saw her scurrying across the field with something bundled in her apron. Accused of stealing bread, Germaine opened her apron, releasing dozens of summer flowers onto the icy ground. She then reached down and offered a blossom to the woman who had tried to destroy her.

She died at twenty-two.

Forty years later her unmarked grave was accidentally opened by workmen. Her body was perfectly preserved, with a garland of carnations and rye in her hair. Two elderly villagers identified the body by the withered hand and scars on the face. Shortly after, her body was displayed in the church, and miraculous healings occurred among the pilgrims who came to see her.

During the French Revolution, her grave was desecrated. Quicklime and water sizzled away her flesh. Her bones are now inside a wax mannequin which lies in a glass and bronze reliquary in the parish church at Pibrac, France.