Marie Moreau of Tartas, a town in the Landes department of southwestern France, was seventeen years old and suffered from a progressive bilateral eye condition that had begun the previous year and was bringing her close to total blindness. She could no longer read or sew, and the local physicians offered no remedy.
On the night of November 9, 1858, she went to bed with a compress of Lourdes water laid over her closed eyes. In the morning her sight was completely restored — she could read the smallest print. The cure was permanent. Examined by the canonical commission, it was the last of the seven recognised by Bishop Laurence in his decree of January 18, 1862.