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.