On January 17, 1871, as darkness descended on the village,the Virgin Mary appeared to four children above a barn on the farm of the Barbadette family in Pontmain. Eugene, age 12, and his brother Joseph, age 10, were the first to see her in the sky. They described a beautiful lady in a dark blue dress covered with stars. She wore a black veil with a golden crown on her head. Two little girls, Francoise Richer, age 11, and Jeanne Marie LeBosse, age 9, also saw her in the sky.
About the visionaries: Joseph Barbadette became a priest of the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate; his brother Eùgene became a secular priest. One of the girls who had seen the Blessed Mother became his housekeeper, and the other, Jeanne-Marie Lebosse, became a nun.