Fig. 297.—Thanksgivings made in a Chapel of Pilgrimage by a family carrying out a vow.—It is believed that this is the chapel in which were preserved the relics of the saint in the Abbey of Mont St. Claude (Franche-Comté).—French Picture of the Fifteenth Century, belonging to M. P. Lacroix.
One of the first altars erected in France to the Virgin Mary was that upon the summit of Mount Anicium, a volcanic rock near Velay, called Le Puy (from the Italian poggio, high mountain). St. George, bishop of the diocese, came to baptize a lady of the district, who became seriously ill, upon which an unknown voice bid her repair to Mount Anicium. Having obeyed this command, she fell into a quiet sleep, during which she saw a celestial female figure, wearing a crown of precious stones. “Who is this queen, so beautiful, so noble, and so gracious?” she inquired, addressing herself to one of the angelic host that surrounded her. The answer came: “This is the mother of the Son of God. She has selected this mountain for you to come and make your invocation; she bids you acquaint her faithful servant, Bishop George, of what has taken place. And now awake; you are cured of your illness.” The lady, filled with gratitude and faith, went to the bishop, who, when he had heard her story, prostrated himself to the ground, as if it were the Virgin herself who was speaking. Followed by his clergy, he then repaired to the miraculous rock. It was in the month of July; the sun was very hot, but the snow lay deep upon the table-land of the mountain. Suddenly a stag bounded forward and traced with his feet the plan of the sanctuary which was to be built upon that very spot, and then disappeared. The bishop at once saw that a fresh miracle had been wrought in confirmation of the first; he had the spot enclosed, and made a vow to erect a church there. This vow was executed by St. Evodius, seventh Bishop of Puy, in 223.
The statue of Our Lady of Puy, in cedar wood, blackened with age, was the work of the first Christians of Libanus, who executed it after the image of the Egyptian goddess Isis, sitting upright upon a stool, and holding upon her knee the Infant Jesus, swathed in fine linen as if he were a little mummy. This image was brought from the East by St. Louis in 1254.
The origin of the statue of Our Lady of Liesse also dates from the Crusades, which inundated France and the rest of Europe with so many images of the Holy Virgin. Thus, in 1131, Foulques d’Anjou, King of Jerusalem, entrusted the guard of the city of Beersheba to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, amongst the most distinguished of whom were the three brothers of the house of Eppes, near Laon. These knights having been taken prisoners, the Sultan determined to make them become Mahometans, and imprudently selected his daughter Ismeria to effect the work of conversion. But she forgot the object of her mission, and allowed herself to be converted to Christianity by the arguments of the three knights. She asked them to carve for her an image of the Holy Virgin, and though they were utterly ignorant of the art, they began an image which angels came down from heaven to complete. The Virgin appeared to the Sultan’s daughter, encouraged her in her project to set the three captives at liberty, and advised her to follow them in her flight. At about midnight she went to the prison, the doors of which opened before her, as did those of the city. Ismeria bore in her arms the image of the Virgin, and the sovereign virtue of this talisman overcame all obstacles. The fugitives, who had gone to sleep upon Egyptian soil, woke up to find themselves in front of the Château d’Eppes, and the statuette, sparkling with light, selected the place which it wished to occupy in the middle of a wood. Ismeria caused to be erected upon this very spot a plain chapel, whilst in the town of Laon a cathedral was built, dedicated to Our Lady of Liesse. Since that period the great basilica and the tiny chapel have shared between them the worship of the crowd of pilgrims which the startling miracles have attracted thither. Both structures suffered from the fury of the Huguenots in the sixteenth century, but the miraculous image of the Virgin has always escaped from sacrilegious outrage.
Fig. 298.—Ancient Banner of the City of Strasburg, on which is represented the Image of Our Lady, to whom the city was dedicated about the middle of the Thirteenth Century; the lilies running round it are the emblem of the Virgin’s purity. A Memorial of the Thirteenth Century, burnt during the bombardment of Strasburg in 1870.—From a copy published in the “Dictionnaire du Haut et du Bas-Rhin,” by M. Ristelhuber.
Fig. 299.—Removal, by St. Bodillon and the Chevalier Gérard de Roussillon, of the Body of Mary Magdalene to the Church of Vézelay (Yonne).—After a Miniature in the “Chroniques de Hainaut,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.]
There is much analogy between the worship of the patronal Virgin of the country round Chartres and that of the Virgin of the Pillar at Saragossa. The two statues are alike in regard to posture, costume, and general character, and moreover they date back to the same epoch—namely, the fourth or fifth century. The Chartres cathedral, though ancient—for it was in existence during the seventh century—was nevertheless posterior to the first pilgrimages established in honour of “the Virgin who has borne a child,” according to the denomination given to this Notre-Dame by the first apostles who preached Christianity in this district, which was the centre of the Druidical religion. During the whole of the Middle Ages, and down even to our own day, there have been daily arrivals of pilgrims at Chartres, and their number always increases upon the fête days of the Virgin.
