Chapelle Saint-Blaise-des-Simples

Milly-la-Forêt

Away from the town of Milly, a small Romanesque chapel stands alone in the middle of a herb garden. Built in 1136, it is the only remnant of the Saint-Blaise leper hospital, where lepers kept at a distance from the town were cared for. Its dedication says it all: Saint Blaise, physician and martyred bishop, is invoked by tradition for the healing of ailments — and the sick here treated themselves with what grew around them. For Milly has been since the 12th century the capital of "simples", the medicinal plants grown on the neighbouring Plaine des Simples: peppermint, valerian, mouse-ear hawkweed... The chapel of the lepers thus became the chapel of the herbalists. In 1955, Jean Cocteau, honorary citizen of Milly, where he lived, chose this humble place for one of his last gestures as an artist: he covered the interior walls with large medicinal plants drawn in a pure line, inspired by the garden, and composed a work inaugurated on 23 April 1960 in which, in his own words, art and the sacred mingle. On his death in 1963, the poet was buried in the chapel itself, beneath a slab bearing his epitaph: "Je reste avec vous" ("I remain with you"). Listed as a monument historique in 1982, surrounded by its reconstructed garden of simples, the chapel offers one of the most striking short cuts in Île-de-France: eight centuries of the history of healing, from the lepers of the Middle Ages to the tomb of a poet.

Getting there : Rue de l'Amiral-de-Graville, on the edge of Milly-la-Forêt. Open from March to October, Wednesday to Sunday, 10am–12.30pm and 2pm–6pm; admission around 3 euros. Coordinates: approach point on rue de l'Amiral-de-Graville.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound