It was previous to the subjugation of the Gauls by the Roman arms that this homage began. They were still a free, wild, and haughty race; Mala gens, according to the Commentaries of their conqueror; living little in their towns, much in their pathless forests; they are, moreover, by the same author reported to be a religious people; that is to say, submissive to their priests, from whom they had not only their faith, but also their laws and government.
These priests were the Druids. If old Armorica was the cradle of their worship, it is no less true that it had at a very early period spread not only into Britain, but also over the whole of Gaul, establishing at Chartres the central point of its continental empire. There the solemn sacrifices were offered, and there were held the tribunals of justice; in loco consecrato,[207] which expression, by a slight variation, might fittingly be rendered, in luco consecrato, considering the veneration in which woods and groves were held, and that it was in these that the assemblies met.
Not until after the Roman invasion was polytheism gradually and with difficulty engrafted on the more primitive Druidic worship, which was evidently neither of Greek nor Latin origin, but rather the offspring of Egypt or Chaldea, with occasional indications of affinity with the belief of the Hebrews. The Galli and Cymri had originally come from the East, being alike descendants of Gomer, the son of Japhet.[208]
As some writers have imagined the Egyptian cross in the form of the Greek Τ, the signum vitæ futuræ, to have proved the expectation among that nation of the coming of the Messias, so others have seen in the venerated mistletoe attached to the oak an image of the Redeemer on the cross, and in the offerings of bread and wine a foreshadowing of the sacrament of the altar. In any case, these were but vague notions or veiled presentiments of truths of which Israel alone possessed the certainty; yet some stray gleam from the light of Hebrew prophecy may have shown to others than the chosen people a faint and distant vision of that great second Mother of the human race who should repair the ills brought on it by the first.
According to the oldest traditions, it was a hundred years before the birth of our Saviour that this expectation manifested itself in a public manner among the Druids of the Carnutes, by the consecration of a grotto, for a long time previous famous among them, to the “Virgin who was to bring forth.”
No written document of equal antiquity to this epoch exists in support of the tradition; nor would it be possible, from the fact that the Druids committed nothing to writing, but transmitted the doctrines of their religion and the facts of history solely by oral teaching.
The Cathedral of Chartres, however, from the time of its foundation by the Blessed Aventinus, who is said to have been the disciple of S. Peter, faithfully guarded the memory of an event which was its peculiar glory, by consigning the history thereof to its archives. These were carefully consulted by the Abbé Sébastien Rouillard, especially a very ancient chronicle which was translated from Latin into French in 1262, during the reign of S. Louis, and of which he gives the following account, although, in rendering it into English, we lose the charm of the quaint original: “Wherefore the Druids having arrived at this last centenary which immediately preceded the birth of Our Lord, ... the said Druids being assembled together by the revolution of the new year to perform their accustomed ceremonies for gathering in the mistletoe, which, coming from heaven and attaching itself to oaks and divers other trees, was a figure of the Messias; at that time, in the assembly of the aforesaid Druids, all being vested in their mantles of white wool, after their custom, in the presence of Priscus, King of Chartres, and of the princes, lords, and other estates of the province, the Archdruid, having made the sacrifice of bread and wine according to custom, and praying the God of heaven that the sacrifice aforesaid might be salutary to all the people of the Carnutes, declared that the divine inbreathing (afflatus) with which he felt himself filled so greatly overpowered him as well-nigh to take away the power of speech, causing his heart to beat with vehement blows, and overwhelming it with extraordinary joy, seeing that he had to announce, by the revolution of the new century, the presage of her approach who should restore the golden age, and bring forth Him for whom the nations waited.” “Wherefore, O heaven! is thy tardy movement slower than the longing of my desires?... If old age, which has brought my steps to the brink of the grave, forbids me to behold with my own eyes that which I foresee, nevertheless I render thanks, O Deity Supreme, to thee, who hast inspired our sacred college with its expectation. In the midst of this grotto, and hard by this well, shall be raised an altar and an image to the Virgin who shall bring forth a Son. And do ye, princes and lords here present, declare whether this thing is pleasing to you.” Thus spoke the pontiff, while tears rolled down his long white beard. The whole assembly, being seized with a spirit of joy and devotion, eagerly corresponded with the desires of its high-priest. The altar was raised and the image dedicated—Virgini Parituræ.
The place where this solemn assembly was held is none other than the hill whereon now stands the Cathedral of Chartres. At that period, a thick wood surrounded the grotto, which resembled the Grottes des Fées still to be seen in many secluded country-places in France, and which were not unfrequently the abodes of Druidesses, the remembrance of whom is preserved under this popular appellation.
We have here, according to this tradition, the most ancient pilgrimage, which was Christian in spirit before being so in reality. The other Druidic virgins, venerated in various places, as at Nogent, Longpont, and Châlons-sur-Marne, were all later and in imitation of the Virgin of Chartres.
The consecrated grotto in time became the crypt of the mediæval cathedral which now in all its majestic beauty rises above it. The original building, in consequence of various catastrophes, changed its form, and was more than once renewed before obtaining its present splendor; but the Druidic image has invariably remained in the locality first assigned to it, whither all the centuries of Christian times have successively sent multitudes of pilgrims to do homage to Notre Dame de Soubs Terre, and whither we must go to find the copy which has replaced the ancient and venerable effigy, destroyed, not yet a century ago, by sacrilegious hands, which, in the time of the great Revolution, tore it from its sanctuary and threw it into the flames. The present image is a faithful reproduction of the Druidic one, of which a minute description is given in a chronological History of Chartres, written in the XVIth century. The Virgin Mother is enthroned, with her son upon her knees, whose right hand is raised in benediction, while in the left he holds the globe of the world. Over the Virgin’s robe is a mantle in form of a dalmatic; her head is covered with a veil, surmounted by a crown, of which the ornaments somewhat resemble the leaves of the ash. Her countenance is extremely well formed, oval, dark, and shining, and the whole figure has much resemblance to the ancient Byzantine type. With regard to the supposed reasons for the color of the complexion, we will quote the words of Sébastien Rouillard: