ROC AMADOUR.
La douce Mère du Créatour,
A l’église, à Rochemadour,
Fait tants miracles, tants hauts faits,
C’uns moultes biax livres en est faits.
—Gauthier de Coinsy, of the thirteenth century.
There is not a place of pilgrimage in France without some special natural attraction, from Mont St. Michel on the stormy northern coast to Notre Dame de la Garde overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea; from Notre Dame de Buglose on a broad moor of the Landes to Notre Dame de la Salette among the wild Alps of Dauphiné; but not one of these has the peculiar charm of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour in Quercy, which stands on an almost inaccessible cliff overhanging a frightful ravine once known as the Vallée Ténébreuse. And not only nature, but history, poetry, and the supernatural, all combine to render this one of the most extraordinary of the many holy sanctuaries of France. For this is the place where, as hoary legends tell, the Zaccheus of the Scriptures ended his days in a cave; where the peerless Roland hung up his redoubtable sword before the altar of the Virgin; where Henry II. of England, Louis IX. of France, and so many princes and knights of the middle ages came to pay their vows; where Fénelon, the celebrated Archbishop of Cambrai, was consecrated to the Virgin in his infancy, and where he came in later life to pray at his mother’s tomb; and which has been sung by mediæval poets and rendered for ever glorious by countless miracles of divine grace.
On a pleasant spring morning we left Albi to visit the ancient province of Quercy. From the fertile valley of the Tarn, overlooked by the fine church of Notre Dame de la Drèche—the tutelar Madonna of the Albigeois—we entered a dreary, stony region beyond Cahuzac, then came into a charming country with wooded hills crowned with old towers and villages, as at Najac, where the railway passes through a tunnel directly beneath the ancient castle in the centre of the town, and crosses the Nexos on the other side of the hill, which we found merry with peasant women washing their linen in the clear stream and hanging it on the rocks to bleach in the hot sun. The whole region is full of wild ravines kept fresh by capricious streams and the shadows of the numerous hills. The wayside grows bright with scarlet poppies, the cherry-trees are snowy with blossoms, the low quince hedges are aflush with their rosy blooms, and the pretty gardens at the stations are full of flowers and shrubbery. We pass Capdenac, supposed by M. de Champollion to be the ancient Uxellodunum whose siege is related by Cæsar in his Commentaries, also on a high hill around which the river Lot turns abruptly and goes winding on through a delicious valley, the water as red as the soil, perhaps owing to the recent rains. Soon after the country becomes rocky and desolate again, with stone walls instead of flowering hedges, and flocks of sheep here and there nibbling the scant herbage among the rocks, looking very much inclined, as well they may, to give up trying to get a living. The whole region is flat, the earth is ghastly with the pale stones, everything is subdued in tone, the horizon is bounded by low, dim hills, the sky becomes sombre and lowering. But there is something about all this desolation and silence and monotony that excites the imagination. Even our epicurean friends felt the strange charm, for this is the region where truffles abound, scented out by the delicate organ of the animal sacred to St. Anthony the Great!
We were now in Quercy, which comprises such a variety of soil and temperature. In one part everything is verdant and flowery, the hills wreathed with vines and the trees covered with fruit-blossoms, and over all a radiant sun; perhaps a little beyond is a stunted vegetation, the trees of a northern clime, and a country as rough and bleak as Scotland, with long, desolate moors, arid and melancholy in the extreme.
Some way this side of Roc Amadour we came upon the singular gap of Padirac, where St. Martin is said to have had a race with the devil. They were both mounted on mules, St. Martin’s a little the worse for wear, and, starting across the country, they flew over walls and precipices and steep cliffs, without anything being able to arrest their course. Satan at length turned to the saint and laid a wager he could open a gap in the earth no unaided mortal could pass. St. Martin laughed him to scorn. The angel of darkness then stretched forth his hand, and, laying on the ground his forefinger, which suddenly shot out to an enormous length, the earth instantaneously opened beneath it to the depth of a hundred and fifty feet. “Is that all?” cried the undaunted saint, as he spurred his beast. The mule sprang across the yawning gulf, one hundred feet broad, leaving the impress of his hoofs in the solid rock, as is to be clearly seen at this day. One of these foot-prints turns out, because, we are told, St. Martin’s mule was lame. This, of course, made his victory the more wonderful. After this feat the saint, in his turn, challenged the demon, and, resuming their race, St. Martin hastily thrust a cross of reeds into the fissure of a rock they came to, whereupon Satan’s mule reared and plunged and overthrew its rider, to the everlasting glory of St. Martin and the triumph of the cross. A more durable cross of stone now marks the spot where this great victory was won over the foul fiend.
Roc Amadour is in the diocese of Cahors, which is a picturesque old town built on and around a cliff in a bend of the river Lot. It is quite worthy of a passing glance and has its historic memories. In ancient times it bore so imposing an appearance that one of its historians pretends Cæsar, when he came in sight of it, could not help exclaiming in his astonishment: “Behold a second Rome!” In the middle ages, if we are to believe Dante, it was notorious as a city of usurers. He ranks it with Sodom; but perhaps this was owing to his strong Italian prejudices against the French popes, for at Cahors was born John XXII., whom he severely consigns to ignominy. We are shown the castle where this pope passed his childhood, at one edge of the town. Passing by the university, we are reminded by a statue of Fénelon, in the centre of a square called by his name, that he was once a student here. There is likewise a street named after Clement Marot, whose version of the Psalms became so popular among the Huguenots. He was born at Cahors, and is now regarded as one of its chief celebrities, though not tolerated in the place in the latter part of his life from a suspicion of heresy, then almost synonymous with treason, which caused him to be imprisoned in the Châtelet. He thus protested against the accusation:
“Point ne suis Lutheriste,
Ne Zuinglien, et moins Anabaptiste,
Bref, celui suis qui croit, honore et prise
La saincte, vraye, et Catholique Eglise.”[[6]]
Though released, he was obliged to take refuge in Geneva on account of the use of his paraphrase of the Psalms in the conventicles, but there he was convicted of misdemeanors, and, by Calvin’s orders, ridden on an ass and sent out of the city. Neither fish nor flesh, he now sought an asylum in Italy—“the inn of every grief,” as Dante calls it—and died at Turin in 1546.
In passing through Quercy we are struck by the constant succession of old castles bearing some historic name like that of Turenne. Among others is Castelnau de Bretenoux, associated with Henry II. of England, on a lofty eminence on the left shore of the Dordogne, overlooking one of the most beautiful valleys of France, which is said to have inspired Fénelon with his description of the island of Calypso. A few years since this vast château was one of the finest specimens of feudal architecture in France. Its embattled walls and massive towers; the long gallery, with its carvings and gildings, where the fair ladies of the time of Louis Treize used to promenade in their satins and rich Mechlin laces, admiring themselves in the rare Venetian mirrors; the spacious cellars with their arches; the vaulted stables, and the vast courts with their immense wells, have been greatly injured by fire and now wear an aspect of desolation melancholy to behold. Galid de Genouilhac, a lord of this house, who was grand écuyer in the time of Francis I., and would have saved his royal master the defeat of Pavia had his advice been listened to, was disgraced for presuming to admire the queen, and, retiring to this castle, he built a church, on which he graved the words still to be seen: J’aime fort une.
“Roc Amadour!” cried the guard, as he opened the door of our compartment, disturbing our historic recollections. We looked out. There was nothing to correspond with so poetical a name. No village; no church. Nothing but a forlorn station-house on a desolate plain. Behind it we found an omnibus waiting to catch up any stray pilgrim, and we availed ourselves of so opportune a vehicle, rude as it was. We could not have asked for anything more penitential, so there was no occasion for scruples. It leisurely took us a few miles to the west, and finally dropped us mercifully in the middle of the road before a rough wayside inn that had a huge leafy bough suspended over the door to proclaim that poor wine only needed the larger bush. We were not tempted to enter. The driver pointed out the way, and left us to our instinct and the pilgrim’s staff. There was nothing to be seen but the same dreary expanse. But we soon came to a chapel in the centre of a graveyard, where once stood a hospice with kind inmates to wash the bleeding feet of the pilgrim. Then we began to descend diagonally along the side of a tremendous chasm that suddenly opened before us, passing by a straggling line of poor rock-built huts, till we came to the archway of an old gate, once fortified, that stands at the entrance of a village. This was Roc Amadour.
Imagine a mountain suddenly cleft asunder, disclosing a frightful abyss several hundred feet in depth, lined with gray rocks that rise almost perpendicularly to the very clouds, and, far down at the bottom, a narrow stream winding sullenly along, looking like one of the fabled rivers of the abisso doloroso of the great Florentine. Half way up one side of this Vallée Ténébreuse, as it was once called, hangs the village of Roc Amadour like a cluster of birds’ nests along the edge of a precipice, over which are suspended several churches, one above the other, that seem hewn out of the very cliff. These are the famous sanctuaries of Roc Amadour that have been frequented from time immemorial.
Several hundred feet above these churches, on the very summit of the mount, is the old castle of La Charette, with its ramparts overlooking the whole country. This served in the frequent wars of the middle ages not only for the defence of the sanctuary below, but of the town of Roc Amadour, which was then a post of strategic importance, and has its page in history, as every reader of Sir John Froissart knows.
The sight of this mountain, that looks as if rent asunder by some awful convulsion of nature, with the castle on its summit; its rocky sides once peopled with hermits, and still alive with the voice of prayer; the churches that swell out of the cliff like the bastions of a fortress; the village on the ledge below; and the dizzy ravine in the depths, is truly astonishing.
The town looks as if the breath of modern progress had never reached it. It is the only place in all Europe where we did not meet an Englishman or an American. One would think the bivalve in which it is lodged just opened after being closed hundreds of years. There is the Rue de la Couronnerie, where Henry Court-Mantel was crowned King of Aquitaine. There are the remains of the house occupied by his father, Henry II. of England, with the huge well he caused to be dug, from which the inhabitants still draw water. And there are the remains of the four fortified gates ruined in the wars of the sixteenth century.
We stopped at the Grand Soleil—a hostel of the ancient time, with an immense kitchen that would have delighted Jan Steen, with beams black with the smoke of a thousand fires, hung with smoked hams, and gourds, and strings of onions, and bright copper kettles—the very place for roistering villagers such as he loved to paint. It looked ancient enough to have been frequented by King Henry’s soldiers. It had a very cavern for a fireplace, with seats at the yawning sides beneath the crook, with which M. Michelet says the sanctity of the fireside was identified in the middle ages far more than with the hearth, and curious old andirons, such as are to be seen at Paris in the Hôtel de Cluny, with a succession of hooks for the spits to rest on, and circular tops for braziers and chafing-dishes. Stairs led from the kitchen to the story above, well enough to mount, but perilous in descent, owing to their steepness. Everything is rather in the perpendicular style at Roc Amadour. An invocation to Marie conçue sans péché was pasted on the door of our chamber, and a statuette of the Blessed Virgin stood on the mantel. The windows looked out on a little terrace dignified with the name of Square, where children were playing around the great stone cross. At table we found the sacrifice of Abraham and other sacred subjects depicted on our plates, and a cross on the salt-cellar. Roast kid and goat’s milk were set before us with various adjuncts, after which patriarchal fare we issued forth to visit the celebrated chapel of Our Lady of Roc Amadour. We found we had done well in fortifying the outer man for such an ascent, particularly as the day was far advanced, and the morning supplies at Albi had been of the most unsubstantial nature. We passed several houses with old archways of the thirteenth century, but the most imposing house in the place is a seigneurial mansion of the sixteenth century, now occupied by the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. We soon came to the foot of the staircase leading up the side of the cliff to the sanctuaries. It consists of about two hundred and forty steps, partly hewn out of the rock, and is generally ascended by the devout pilgrim on his knees and with prayer—an enterprise of no trifling nature, as we are prepared to vouch. On great festivals this sacred ladder is crowded with people ascending and descending. Their murmured prayer is a gradual Psalm indeed. The first flight of one hundred and forty steps leads to a platform around which stood formerly the dwellings of the fourteen canons consecrated to the service of Mary. A Gothic portal, with a stout oaken door covered with fine old scroll-work of iron, leads by another flight of seventy-six steps to the collegiate church of Saint-Sauveur, one of the six remaining sanctuaries. Formerly there were twelve chapels built among the rocks in honor of the twelve apostles, but these all disappeared in the time of the unsparing Huguenots. Twenty-five steps more, at the left, bring you to a terrace with the miraculous chapel of Our Lady on one side and that of St. Michael on the other. Between them, directly before you, is the cave-like recess in which Zaccheus is said to have ended his days, and where he still lies in effigy on his stone coffin. Rupis amator he was called—the lover of the rock—whence St. Amateur, and St. Amadour, the name given him by the people. Amadour quasi amator solitudinis, say the old chronicles. His body remained here from the time of his death, in the year of our Lord 70 (we adhere to the delightful old legend), till 1166, when, according to Robert de Monte, who wrote in 1180, his tomb was opened at the request of a neighboring lord who was extremely ill and felt an inward assurance he should be healed by the sacred relics. His faith was rewarded. The body was found entire, and, on being exposed to public veneration, so numerous and extraordinary were the miracles wrought that Henry II. of England, who was at Castelnau de Bretenoux, came here to pay his devotions. It was now enshrined in the subterranean church of St. Amadour, where it remained several ages so incorrupt as to give rise to a common proverb among the people: Il est en chair et os, comme St. Amadour. But when the country was overrun by the Huguenots, his châsse was stripped of its silver mountings, his body broken to pieces with a hammer and cast into the fire. Only a small part of these venerable remains were snatched from the flames.
The terrace between the chapel of Our Lady and that of St. Michael is called in ancient documents the Platea S. Michaelis. Here all official acts relating to the abbey were formerly drawn up. The overhanging cliff, that rises above it to the height of two hundred and twenty feet, gives it the appearance of a cavern. Built into it, on the left, is the chapel of St. Michael, on the outer wall of which, suspended by an iron chain, is a long, rusty weapon popularly known as the sword of Roland. Not that it is the very blade with which the Pyrenees were once cleft asunder and so many kingdoms won. That shone as the sun in its golden hilt, the day the mighty Paladin came, on his way to Spain, to consecrate it to the Virgin of Roc Amadour and then redeem it with its weight in silver; whereas this is as dim and uncouth as the veriest spit that ever issued from a country forge. The wondrous Durandel, to be sure, was brought back after Roland’s death and hung up before the altar of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, to whom it had been vowed, where it remained till carried off by Henry Court-Mantel, who, adding sacrilege to hypocrisy, came here in 1183 on the pretext of a pilgrimage, and, in order to pay the soldiers who served him in his rebellion against his father, pillaged the holy chapel so revered by King Henry. But his crime did not remain unpunished. He was soon after seized with a fatal illness, and died, but not unabsolved, in the arms of Gerard III., Bishop of Cahors.
Over Roland’s sword hang the fetters of several Christians delivered from a terrible slavery on the coast of Barbary by Our Lady’s might. Among these was Guillaume Fulcheri of Montpellier, whose mother came to Roc Amadour on the eve of the Assumption to offer a cake of wax to burn before the image of Mary for the redemption of her son. That same night, while she was keeping vigil with prayers and tears before the altar of the Virgin, his fetters were loosened in a mysterious manner, and he made his escape. One of his first acts on his arrival in France was to come to Roc Amadour with an offering of gratitude.
So, too, Guillaume Rémond of Albi, being unjustly confined in prison, with no other hope of liberty but his trust in the power of the glorious Virgin of Roc Amadour, while he was persevering in prayer during the night-watches his chains suddenly fell off about the ninth hour, to the utter amazement of the jailer, who became too powerless to hinder his escape. He took his fetters with him to hang up before the altar of his potent protectress.
On the pavement beneath these and other trophies of divine grace is an old chest with iron bands, fastened with a double lock of singular mechanism, in which pilgrims centuries ago deposited their offerings. Just beyond is a doorway over which is painted St. Michael holding the balance of justice in which we must all be weighed. This door leads by a winding stone staircase up to St. Michael’s chapel, the oldest of the existing edifices of Roc Amadour. This singular chapel is built against the rough cliff which constitutes one side of it, as well as the vault. It is chilly, and cave-like, and dripping with moisture. A niche at one end, like an arcosolium in the catacombs, is lined with faded old frescos of Christ and the evangelists. The windows are low and narrow, like the fissures of a cave, being barely wide enough for an angel in each—Michael with his avenging sword, Gabriel and his Ave, and Raphael looking protectingly down on Tobias with his fish. On one side is a spiral ascent to a balcony over the Platea S. Michaelis, from which the abbot of Roc Amadour used to bestow his solemn benediction on the crowd on the great days of pardon.
Descending to the Platea, we stop before the entrance to Our Lady’s chapel to examine the half-effaced mural paintings of the great mysteries of her life around the door. Near these can be traced the outlines of a knight pursued by several spectres, popularly believed to be the ex-voto of a man who sought to be delivered from the ghosts of those whose graves he had profaned. But the learned say this fresco refers to the famous old Lai des trois Morts et des trois Vifs of the thirteenth century, in which three young knights, gaily riding to the chase, with no thought but of love and pleasure, meet three phantoms, who solemnly address them on the vanity of all earthly joys. This painting was a perpetual sermon to the pilgrims, enforced, moreover, by the numerous tombs that surrounded the sanctuaries of Roc Amadour. For many noble families of the province, as well as pilgrims from afar, wished to be buried near the altar where their souls had gotten grace. So great was the number buried here in the middle ages that the monks became alarmed, and refused to allow any more to be brought from a distance. But Pope Alexander III. issued a bull declaring this place of burial free to all except those under the ban of the church.
It is, then, with these thoughts of death and the great mysteries of religion we enter the miraculous chapel around which we have so long lingered with awe. The season of pilgrimages has not yet fairly opened, and we find it quiet and unoccupied except by a stray peasant or two, and a few Sisters of Calvary with sweet, gentle faces. We hasten to drop our feeble round of prayer into the deep well fed by the devotion of centuries. Over the altar is the famous statue of Our Lady of Roc Amadour in a golden niche—black as ebony, perhaps from the smoke of the candles and the incense of centuries, and dressed in a white muslin robe spangled with gold. It is by no means a work of high art. Perhaps it is as ancient as this place of pilgrimage. Tradition says it was executed by the pious hands of St. Amadour himself, who was doubtless incapable of expressing the devout sentiments that animated him. It is carved out of a single piece of wood, and is now greatly decayed. The Virgin is stiff in attitude. Her hair floats on her shoulders. Her hands rest on the arms of the chair in which she is sitting, leaving the divine Child, enthroned on her knee, with no support but that of his inherent nature. A silver lamp, shaped like a fortress, with towers for the lights, hangs before her, and beneath is a blazing stand of candles. The profusion of lights in the chapels of popular devotion throughout France is truly remarkable. It was the same in the middle ages. The old chronicles tell us how the mother who sought the cure of a beloved child sometimes sent his weight in wax to be burned before the powerful Virgin of Roc Amadour. Others brought candles of the size of the limb they wished to be healed. And those who had already obtained some supernatural favor generally sent a candle once a year in token of gratitude. So numerous were the lights formerly given to this chapel that there was scarcely room for them. Poets even celebrated this profusion. Gauthier de Coinsy, one of the most celebrated cantadours of the thirteenth century, among other poems has left one entitled Du cierge que Notre Dame de Roc Amadour envoya sur la vièle du ménestrel qui vièlait et chantait devant sy image, relating how our benign Lady accorded one of these votive candles to a pious minstrel as he was singing her praises: Pierre de Sygeland was in the habit of entering every church he passed to offer a prayer and sing a song of praise to the sound of his viol. One day, as he was prolonging his pious exercises before the altar of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, drawing every one in the church around him, both “clerc et lai,” by the melody of his voice, he raised his eyes to the sacred image of Mary and thus sang: “O sovereign Lady, Dame de toute courtoisie, if my hymn and the sound of my viol be acceptable to thee, be not offended at the guerdon I venture to implore: bestow on me, O peerless Lady! one of the many tapers that burn at thy sacred feet.”
His prayer is heard. The candle descends in the presence of five hundred persons and rests upon his viol. Friar Gerard, the sacristan, accuses him of using incantations, and, seizing the candle irefully, restores it to its place, taking good care to fasten it firmly down. Pierre continues to play. The candle descends anew. The good brother, suspecting him of magic, is more vexed than before and replaces the candle. The enraptured minstrel—
“En vièlant soupire et pleure,
La bouche chante et li cuers pleure”
—sighing and weeping, singing with his lips and weeping in heart—continues sweetly to praise the Mother of God. The candle descends the third time.
“Rafaict le cierge le tiers saut.”
The crowd, in its transport, cries: “Ring, ring the bells,
Plus biax miracle n’avint jamais
—greater miracle was never seen.” The minstrel, with streaming eyes, returns the candle to her who has so miraculously rewarded his devotion, and continues during the remainder of his life not only to sing the praises of Our Lady of Roc Amadour, but to offer her every year a candle still larger than the one she so graciously bestowed on him.
The moral of this old poem dwells on the obligation of honoring God, not merely with the lips, but with a sincere heart:
“Assez braient, et assez crient,
Et leurs gorges assez estendent,
Mais les cordes pas bien ne tendent.
————
La bouche à Dieu ment et discorde
S’a li li cuers ne se concorde”
—that is, many bray, and scream, and distend their throats, but their heart-strings are not rightly attuned.... The mouth lies to God, and makes a discord, if the heart be not in harmony therewith.
Of the many miraculous chapels of the Virgin, consecrated by the devotion of centuries, that of Roc Amadour is certainly one of the oldest and most celebrated. Pope Pius II., in a bull of 1463, unhesitatingly declares “it dates from the earliest ages of our holy mother the church.” And Cardinal Baronius speaks of it as one of the oldest in France. The original chapel, however, built by St. Amadour himself in honor of his beloved Lady and Mistress, is no longer standing. That was destroyed several centuries ago by a portion of the impending cliff that had given way, but another was erected on the same spot in 1479 by Denys de Bar, bishop and lord of Tulle, whose arms are still to be seen over the door. This chapel was devastated in 1562 by the Huguenots, who swept over the country, destroying all that was most sacred in the eyes of Catholics. They gave not only a fatal blow to the prosperity of the town of Roc Amadour, but pillaged all the sanctuaries, carrying off the valuable reliquaries, the tapestry, the sacred vessels and vestments, the fourteen silver lamps that burned before the Virgin, the necklaces and earrings, and the pearls and diamonds, given by kings, princes, and people of all ranks in token of some grace received. Their booty amounted in value to fifteen thousand livres—an enormous sum at that period. They only left behind an old monstrance, a few battered reliquaries, and a processional cross of the twelfth century, carved out of wood and ornamented with silver, still to be seen. They mutilated the statues, burned the wood-carvings, and of course destroyed the bells, which was one of their favorite amusements. The roofless walls were left standing, however, and the venerated statue of Our Lady was saved, as well as the sacrificial stone consecrated by St. Martial, and the miraculous bell that rang without human hands whenever some far-off mariner, in peril on the high seas, was succored by Notre Dame de Roc Amadour.
The chapel has never fully recovered from this devastation. It was repaired by the canons, but their diminished means did not allow them to restore it to its former splendor. Not that it was ever of vast extent. On the contrary, it is small, and the sanctuary occupies full one-half of it. It is now severe in aspect. The wall at one end, as well as part of the arch, is nothing but the unhewn cliff. The mouldings of the doorways, some of the capitals, and the tracery of the low, flamboyant windows are of good workmanship, but more or less defaced by the fanatics of the sixteenth century and the revolutionists of the eighteenth, who could meet on the common ground of hatred of the church.
Suspended beneath the lantern that rises in the middle of the chapel is the celebrated miraculous bell, said to be the very one used by St. Amadour to call the neighboring people to prayer. It is undoubtedly of great antiquity. It is of wrought iron, rudely shaped into the form of a dish about three feet deep and a foot in diameter.
The Père Odo de Gissey, of the Society of Jesus, in his history of Roc Amadour published in 1631, devotes several chapters to this merveilleuse cloche, in which he testifies that “though it has no bell-rope, it sometimes rings without being touched or jarred, as frequently happens when people on the ocean, in danger from a tempest, invoke the assistance of Our Lady of Roc Amadour, the star of the sea. Some persons,” he goes on to say, “may find it difficult to believe this; but if they could see and read what I have the six or seven times my devotion has led me to Roc Amadour, they would change their opinion and admire the power manifested by the Mother of God.” The first miracle he relates is of the fourteenth century, but when he came to Roc Amadour the archives had been destroyed by the Calvinists, and he could only glean a few facts here and there from papers they had overlooked. Most of the cases he relates had been attested before a magistrate with solemn oath. We will briefly relate a few of them.
On the 10th of February, 1385, about ten o’clock in the evening, the miraculous bell was heard by a great number of persons, who testified that it rang without the slightest assistance. Three days after it rang again while the chaplain was celebrating Mass at Our Lady’s altar, as was solemnly sworn to by several priests and laymen before an apostolic notary. One instance the père found written on the margin of an old missal, to the effect that March 5, 1454, the bell rang in an astonishing manner to announce the rescue of some one who had invoked Mary on the stormy sea. Not long after those who had been thus saved from imminent danger came here from a Spanish port to attest their miraculous deliverance.
In 1551 the bell was heard ringing, but the positive cause long remained uncertain. It was not till a year after a person came from Nantes to fulfil the vow of a friend rescued from danger by Our Lady of Roc Amadour at the very time the bell rang.
The sailors of Bayonne and Brittany, especially, had great confidence in the protection of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, and many instances are recorded of their coming with their votive offerings, sometimes of salt fish, after escaping from the perilous waves. The sailors of Brittany erected a chapel on their coast, to which they gave her name. It is of the same style as that of Quercy, and the Madonna an exact copy of St. Mary of Roc Amadour.
In those days, when the miraculous bell was heard the inhabitants of the town used to come in procession to the chapel, and a solemn Mass of thanksgiving was sung by the canons amid the joyful ringing of the bells.
“The tuneful bells kept ever ringing
While they within were sweetly singing
Of Her whose garments drop alway
Myrrh, aloes, and sweet cassia.”
St. Amadour’s bell has not ceased to proclaim the power of Christ’s holy Mother. It is still heard now and then softly announcing the benefit of having recourse to her efficacious protection.
To many this may sound weird-like, and recall
“The wondrous Michael Scott,
A wizard of such dreaded fame
That when, in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.”
We leave such to fathom the mystery. Our part is only that of the historian. Blessed is he who finds therein something more than sounding brass or tinkling cymbal!
The holy chapel is no longer adorned with the rich offerings of other times, but there are still many objects that attest the piety of the people and the clemency of Mary. On the rough cliff that forms one end hang a great number of crutches and canes, and models of limbs, in token of miraculous cures. A glass case suspended on the side wall contains watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains, lockets, etc., the memorials of grateful piety. At the side of the altar stand immense Limoges vases, an offering from that city. And around the chapel are hung several votive paintings, of no value as works of art, but full of touching beauty to the eye of faith.
The most interesting of these is one offered by M. and Mme. de Salignac de Lamothe Fénelon in gratitude for the restoration of their child to health. The little Fénelon lies with a head of preternatural size in a long box-like cradle with no rockers. Beside him kneel his father and mother, the former with a long curled wig, a flowing scarlet robe, over which is turned a Shaksperian collar, lace at the wrists, his hands crossed on his breast, and his face bent as if in awe before the Virgin. Mme. Fénelon wears an amber-colored tunic over a scarlet petticoat, with deep lace around the low-necked waist. Her hands are prayerfully folded and her face raised to the Virgin, who appears in the clouds holding in her arms the infant Jesus, who bends forward with one hand extended in blessing over the cradle—almost ready to escape from his Mother’s arms.
Madame Fénelon always manifested a particular devotion to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, and by her will of July 4, 1691, ordered her body to be buried in the holy chapel, to which she bequeathed the sum of three thousand livres, the rent of which continued to be paid till the Revolution. She is buried near the door that leads to the church of Saint-Sauveur.
The Château de Salignac, where Fénelon was born, and which had been in his family from time immemorial, is not far from Roc Amadour. Old documents go so far as to assert that St. Martial, when he came to Aquitaine to preach the Gospel in the first century, was hospitably received at this castle, and that St. Amadour, hearing of his arrival, went there to see him.
Beyond the miraculous chapel of Our Lady is the church of Saint-Sauveur, built in the eleventh century for the use of the canons. It is a large edifice of a certain grandeur and severity of style in harmony with the cliff which forms one end. Two immense pillars stand in the middle of the nave, each surrounded by six columns, and between them is a large antique crucifix quite worn by the kisses of the faithful who come here to end their pilgrimage at the feet of Christ Crucified.
This church presents a striking aspect on great solemnities, with its crowded confessionals, the Holy Sacrifice constantly going on at the different altars amid solemn chants or touching hymns, and the long lines of communicants moving devoutly to and from the table of the Lord. Over all is the divine Form of Christ depicted on the arches in the various mysteries of his earthly life, filling the church, as it were, with his Presence. On the walls are the majestic figures of some of the greatest pilgrims of the ages of faith. To mention a few of them: St. Louis, King of France, came here in 1245 in fulfilment of a vow, after recovering from a severe illness, accompanied by Queen Blanche, his three brothers, and Alphonse, Count of Boulogne-sur-Mer, afterwards King of Portugal. In 1324 came Charles-le-Bel and his queen, with King John of Bohemia. In September, 1344, came John, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of Philippe de Valois. In 1463 Louis XI., on his return from Béarn, paid his devotions to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour on the 21st of July. St. Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne, of illustrious birth, had such a tender love for the Blessed Virgin that for many years he fasted every Wednesday in her honor, and twice during his episcopate he visited her chapel at Roc Amadour. Simon, Count de Montfort, came here in 1211 with his German troops, who wished to pay their homage to the Mother of God before returning to their own country.
To come down to recent times: It was at the feet of the Virgin of Roc Amadour that M. Borie made his final choice of a missionary life that won for him the glorious crown of martyrdom in Farther India at the age of thirty.
The mill where M. Borie was born stands solitary on the border of a stream, surrounded by chestnut-trees, in a deep, narrow, gloomy valley of La Corrèze, near Roc Amadour—a humble abode, but the sanctuary of peace, industry, and piety. When the news of his martyrdom came to this sequestered spot, his heroic mother was filled with joy, in spite of her anguish, and his youngest brother cried: “I am going! God calls me to the land where my brother died. Mother, give me your blessing. I am going to open heaven to my brother’s murderers!” He went; and we remember hearing a holy Jesuit Father relate how, like the knights of the olden time, he made his vigil before the altar of Our Lady of Roc Amadour the night before he joined the sacred militia of the great Loyola.
Beneath the church of Saint-Sauveur is the subterranean church of St. Amadour, with low, ponderous arches and massive columns to sustain the large edifice above. You go down into it as into a cellar. At each side as you enter are elaborate carvings in the wood, one representing Zaccheus in the sycamore-tree, eager to behold our Saviour as he passed; the other shows him standing in the door of his house to welcome the divine Guest. On the arches is painted the whole legend of St. Amadour. Then there is Roland before the altar of the Virgin redeeming his sword with its weight in silver, and beyond is a band of knights bringing it back from the fatal battle-field. In another place you see St. Martial of Limoges and St. Saturnin of Toulouse, coming together to visit St. Amadour in his cave. And yonder is St. Dominic, who, with Bertrand de Garrigue, one of his earliest disciples, passed the night in prayer before the altar of Our Lady in the year 1219.
All that remains of the body of St. Amadour is enshrined in this church behind the high altar.
A service for the dead was going on when we entered this crypt, with only the priest and the beadle to sing it. Black candlesticks stood on the altar, and yellow wax-lights around the bier. The church was full of peasants with grave, devout faces and lighted candles in their hands. The funeral chant, the black pall, the motionless peasants with their lights, and this chill, tomb-like church of the eleventh century, all seemed in harmony.
The pilgrim, of course, visits the chapel of St. Ann overhanging the town, and that of St. Blaise, with its Roman arches of the thirteenth century, built to receive the relics, brought by the Crusaders from the East, of a holy solitary who lived many years in a cave of the wilderness, the wild beasts around as submissive to him as to Adam in Paradise.
The chapel of St. John the Baptist was founded in 1516 by a powerful lord named Jean de Valon, who became a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem. Out of piety towards Our Lady of Roc Amadour, he built this chapel, authorized by the pope, as the burial-place of himself and his family, and bequeathed the sum of five hundred livres to the prebends, as the foundation for a Mass of requiem every Monday, and the Mass of Our Lady every Saturday, for the remission of his sins and those of his friends and benefactors.
The family of Valon, which still exists, has always shown a remarkable devotion to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour. We read of a Dame de Valon whose pilgrimage to this chapel in the twelfth century was marked by a miracle. This family owned considerable property in the neighborhood, and had a right to part of the revenues from the sale of the sportulas, or sportellas, which were medals of lead bearing the image of Our Lady on one side and of St. Amadour on the other. Sir Walter Scott, in his Quentin Durward, deridingly depicts Louis XI. with a number of leaden medals of like character in his hat. The pilgrim who wore one needed no other safe-conduct in ancient times. His person was so sacred he could even pass in safety through the enemy’s camp. In 1399, during the war between the French and English, the sanctuary of Roc Amadour was frequented by both parties, and both camps regarded the pilgrim hither with so much respect that if taken prisoner he was set free as soon as his quality was discovered. Three of these old almond-shaped sportellas are still to be seen in the Hôtel de Cluny at Paris.
The ancient standard of Our Lady of Roc Amadour was held in great veneration. It was not only carried in religious processions, but sometimes to the field of battle. Alberic, a monk of Trois Fonts, relates that the Virgin appeared three Saturdays in succession to the sacristan of Roc Amadour, and ordered her standard to be carried to Spain, then engaged in a critical contest with the Moors. The prior, in consequence, set forth with the sacred banner and arrived at the plain of Las Navas on the 16th of July, 1212. The Christians had refused to give battle the day previous, because it was the Lord’s day, but the fight began early Monday morning. The Templars and Knights of Calatrava had been put to flight and the army partly routed. At the last moment, when all hope seemed lost, the prior of Roc Amadour unfurled the banner of the Virgin. At the sight of the holy image of Mary with the divine Babe every knee bent in reverence, fresh courage was infused into every breast, the army rallied, and the fight was renewed to such purpose that they smote the infidel hip and thigh. Sixty thousand of the enemy were slain and a greater number taken captive. The archbishops of Toledo and Narbonne, the bishop of Valencia, with many other prelates and a great number of priests, sang the Te Deum on the field of battle. The King of Castile, Alfonso IX., had always shown a special devotion towards Our Lady of Roc Amadour. In 1181 he consecrated to her service the lands of Fornellos and Orbanella, in order, as he says in the charter, to solace the souls of his parents and secure his own salvation. And, by way of intimidating the lawless freebooter of those rough times, he severely adds: “And should any one trespass in the least on this gift or violate my intentions, let him incur the full wrath of God, and, like the traitor Judas, be delivered over to the torments of hell as the slave of the devil. Meanwhile, let him pay into the royal treasury the sum of one thousand livres of pure gold, and restore twofold to the abbot of Roc Amadour.”
This gift was afterwards confirmed by Ferdinand III., Ferdinand IV., and Alfonso XI.
King Alfonso was not the only royal benefactor of the miraculous chapel. Sancho VII., King of Navarre, for the weal of his soul and the souls of his parents, gave in 1202 certain rents amounting to forty-eight pieces of gold, to be employed in illuminating the church of St. Mary of Roc Amadour. A candle was to burn night and day before the blessed image on Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, the Assumption, and All Saints’ day. And twenty-four candles, each weighing half a pound, were to be placed on the altar on those days. The remainder of the money was to be used for the incense.
Sancia, wife of Gaston V. of Béarn, and daughter of the King of Navarre, sent the chapel of Roc Amadour a rich piece of tapestry wrought by her own royal hands.
Count Odo de la Marche in 1119, during the reign of Louis-le-Gros, offered the forest of Mount Salvy to God, the Blessed Mary of Roc Amadour, and St. Martin of Tulle, free from all tax or impost, adding: “And should any one presume to alienate this gift, let him incur the anger of God and the saints, and remain for ever accursed with Dathan and Abiram.”
In 1217 Erard de Brienne, lord of Rameru, allied by blood to the royal families of Europe, and Philippine, his wife, daughter of Henry, Count of Troyes and King of Jerusalem, made an offering of two candles to burn night and day before the image of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour for the redemption of their souls and the souls of their parents.
Alfonso, Count of Toulouse, brother of St. Louis, presented a silver lamp to burn before the statue of Our Lady, and another was given by the Countess de Montpensier, a French princess.
Letters are still extant by which Philip III., King of France, in 1276, ratified the foundation of his uncle Alfonso, Count of Toulouse, amounting to twenty livres of Touraine money, to be paid, one-half at the Ascension and the other at All Saints, to keep a candle constantly burning before the Virgin of Roc Amadour.
Pope Clement V. bequeathed a legacy to this church in 1314 that a wax candle might burn continually in Our Lady’s chapel, in her honor and to obtain the redemption of his soul. It was to be honorably placed in a silver basin or sconce.
Savaric, Prince de Mauléon and lord of Tulle, celebrated for his familiarity with military science and the elegance of his poesy, among other gifts in 1218 gave the lands of L’Isleau, exempt from all tax, to the church of St. Mary of Roc Amadour.
Louis of Anjou, afterwards King of Sicily, in 1365 ordered twenty livres to be given annually to this church from his domain of Rouergue, out of the love he bore the holy Virgin.
The Vicomte de Turenne, in 1396, assigned a silver mark annually from one of his seigneuries as a contribution to the support of the miraculous chapel.
On the 22d of June, 1444, the noble and puissant lord, Pierre, Count of Beaufort, moved by his devotion towards Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, and to Mary, his glorious Mother, and desirous of procuring his own salvation and the solace of the suffering souls in purgatory, assigned to the monastery of Roc Amadour the sum of ten livres annually from the ferry over the Dordogne at Mount Valent, that a solemn Mass might be sung every Thursday, at least in plain chant, with three collects, one in honor of the Holy Ghost, another of the Blessed Virgin, and the third for the repose of the faithful departed. After Mass the priest, laying aside his chasuble, was to go daily, with all the clergy of the chapel, to sing before the statue of Our Lady either the Salve Regina or the Regina Cœli, according to the season, with the Libera or the De Profundis, for the repose of his and his wife’s souls and the souls of his parents.
We could multiply these beautiful examples of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, but forbear, though it is not useless to recount the deeds of our forefathers in the faith. They have their lesson for those who know how to read aright.
Among the glorious prerogatives with which the chapel of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour is favored is the Grand Pardon, accorded by several popes of the middle ages, on the feast of Corpus Christi whenever it coincides with the nativity of St. John the Baptist. This frequently happened before the correction of the Calendar by Gregory XIII., but it now only occurs when Easter falls on St. Mark’s day—that is, the 25th of April. The Grand Pardon comprises all the privileges of a solemn jubilee, and is gained by all who visit the miraculous chapel on the appointed day, receive the sacraments with the proper dispositions, pray for concord among Christian princes, the extirpation of heresy, and the exaltation of our holy mother the church. So great was formerly the affluence of the pilgrims on such occasions, as in the jubilee of 1546, the town could not contain them, and tents were set up in the country round. Pilgrimages to this ancient chapel are still common.
A remnant of the old palace of the abbot of Roc Amadour is still standing, but is used for the sale of objects of devotion. Here Arnaud Amalric, the papal legate, spent the whole winter of 1211, and many other eminent prelates received hospitality, as the holy martyr St. Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne. Behind this building a narrow, dangerous path leads along the side of the cliff to an ancient hermitage that now bears the title of Maison à Marie, where people desirous of spending a few days in retreat can find an asylum. It hangs like a bird’s nest on the edge of a fearful precipice, and must be a trying residence to people of weak nerves. The Sisters of Calvary, who have charge of it, look like doves in the clefts of the rocks. Still further along the cliff is their convent.
A winding stair of two hundred and thirty-six steps, hewn out of the live rock, and lighted only by the fissures, leads from the sacristy of the church up to the ancient castle, and a scarcely less remarkable ascent has been constructed zigzag over the cliff. This castle, half ruined, was bought by the Père Caillau about forty years ago, and repaired as a residence for the clergy who served the sanctuaries of Roc Amadour under his direction. The old ramparts remain, affording a fine view of the whole country around. Bending over them, you look straight down on the group of churches below, and the village still further down, while in the very depths of the horrid abyss is a faint line marking the course of the Alzou along the bottom of the Vallée Ténébreuse.
A few years ago the ruined castle and crumbling churches below looked as if they belonged to the time of King Dagobert, but they have lost in a measure their air of charming antiquity in the necessary restorations, by no means complete. Nothing, however, can destroy the singular grandeur and wild beauty of the site, or the thousand delightful associations—historic, religious, poetic, and legendary—connected with the place.
We close this imperfect sketch by echoing the sentiments that animated the saintly Père Caillau when he entered upon his duties as superior of Roc Amadour: “With what joy I ascended the mysterious stairs that lead, O Mary, to thy august sanctuary! With what fervor I celebrated the holy mysteries at thy altar! With what love and respect I kissed the sacred feet of thy statue! With what impatience I awaited the hour for returning! Happy the moments passed at thy feet! The world seemed as nothing in my eyes. What devotion, what profound silence there was in my soul! What sweet transports of joy! My heart seemed consumed by a sacred fire. Why, why were such moments so short? May their remembrance, at least, abide for ever! And may I never cease to chant thy praise and exalt thy wondrous mercy!”