It is said that the church of the monastery stands upon the site of a little ancient chapel; that the new church was inaugurated in 1656 and that the barefooted Carmelites were established here in 1674. Miracles in the matter of recovery from sickness or of escape from dire mishap commenced in 1652, when the little old ruined chapel was still standing. From that moment the sanctuary in this remote and desolate valley was much sought after. Eminent personages made their way to Laghet and among those who came to offer homage were Charles Emmanuel II, Victor Amédée and his wife, Anne of Orleans. Since then the crowd of pilgrims has increased year by year so that on the great festa of Laghet, on Trinity Sunday, the little place is submerged by an overwhelming throng.
The monastery is entered through a portal of three arches which leads at once into a cloister whose walls are covered by ex-voto pictures. These pictures are small, being, as a rule, from one to two feet square. They date from various periods; one of the oldest being ascribed to the year 1793. The majority belong, however, to the nineteenth century. Not a few are so faded as to be scarcely discernible. Beneath each picture is a brief account of the incident portrayed, a large proportion of the descriptions being in Italian. Two or three out of the vast collection—which includes many hundreds—possess some artistic merit; but the mass are crude productions as simple as the drawings of a child and as regardless of perspective and as lavish in colour as the signboard of a village inn, while a few show but a little advance upon the more earnest sketches in a prehistoric cave.
They deal with accidents and misfortunes from which the subject of the picture has escaped through the intervention of the sweet-faced Madonna of Laghet. The impression left by the gallery is that the dwellers in this corner of Europe are peculiarly liable to fall from the roofs or windows of houses, to slip over precipices, to drop into wells, to catch on fire or to find themselves under the wheels of carriages and wagons. Indeed it is a matter for marvel that they have not become extinct. It is a gallery that might suitably deck the walls of a coroner’s court, the corridors of a hospital or the offices of an accident insurance company.
LAGHET: THE ENTRANCE.
Here is depicted a man lying under a cart laden with immense blocks of stone. A wheel of the cart rests poised upon his leg which would normally be reduced to pulp. For his escape he has undoubted reasons to be grateful and for the recording of the fact no little justification. Here is a man under a train: the station clock shows with precision the exact moment of the accident, while, as a writing on the wall, is the sinister and suggestive word “sortie.” Here is a youth hurled from a bicycle over a bridge and in process of falling down a terrific height. In this, as, indeed, in all the pictures, the details of the victim’s dress and the colour of his hair and even of his necktie are rendered with great care. In a picture of 1903, showing a girl being knocked down by a motor the details of the archaic machine of that period are so exactly portrayed as to be of historical interest.
The number of people who are dropping from scaffolds and ladders is very great. Complex horse accidents are rendered with a precision which is usually lacking in the mere narrative of these confusing events. Thus a lady and gentleman are represented as lying beneath an overturned carriage. A grotesque horse, of the type seen in pantomimes, with a vicious grin on its face, has kicked the driver from the box. This outraged man is standing on his head in the road, his body and legs being sustained, by some unknown force, in the vertical position. Here is a motor accident: the motor has plunged into a swamp. The three dislodged occupants are kneeling together, in the middle of the highway, praying; while the more practical chauffeur is holding his hands aloft and is apparently crying for help.
There are many shipwrecks in which the waves, fashioned apparently of plaster of Paris, are very terrifying. Gun accidents are numerous and troubles arising from fireworks not uncommon. Tramcar accidents, including the collisions of the same, are frequent. There are incidents also of a simpler type. In one, for instance, a gentleman is represented as slipping—probably on a banana skin—on the Rampe at Monaco. He is falling heavily. Another shows a lady of eighty-three, nicely dressed and with a fan in her hand, walking indiscreetly at 7 P.M. on a plank projecting over a precipice. There is a mansion in the background from which a man—of the same size as the houses—is running to the scene of this imprudent act.
There are also in the collection misadventures of an unusual character. Thus on a mountain road huge rocks are falling, in some profusion, on an omnibus. In a painting dated 1863 a child, aged fifteen months, is being eaten by a pig. The pig seems to have dragged the infant out of a cradle by its ear in order to consume it with greater ease.