Bishop Zola of Lece, letter to Fr. Isidore Roubaud, May 24, 1880, relates the following of Pope Leo XIII: “In 1879 our Holy Father Leo XIII deigned to honor Mélanie with a private audience and also charged her with compiling the rules for the new Order recommended and requested by Our Lady of La Salette under the title of the Apostles of the Latter Days. In order to complete a draft of this kind, the ex-shepherdess stayed in Rome for five months at the convent of the Salesian Sisters. During this time she became better known and more highly esteemed, especially by these good nuns, who furnished favorable reports very much to the credit of the blessed shepherdess of La Salette.
“I know from my own sources of information that when Mr. Nicolas, a lawyer from Marseille was in Rome on Holy Saturday 1880, he was commissioned by His Holiness Leo XIII to put out a brochure explaining the Secret in its entirety, so that the public might understand it properly. I feel sure these particulars will suffice to strengthen you in your conviction. I could tell you very much more, but, that would require a book, not a letter.”