Chapelle Notre-Dame des Misères

Mirabel

On 15 August 1550, monks who had come from the Corrèze to found the abbey of La Garde-Dieu halted on this hill overlooking the valley of the Aveyron. At first there was only a hut roofed with branches, but Marian devotion took root: thus was born, according to the shrine's tradition, Notre-Dame des Misères (Our Lady of Miseries), where people have come ever since to lay down the sufferings of body and soul and draw from it "acceptance, courage, comfort". The dedication, rare and poignant, says everything about the place. Pilgrims flocked from Rodez, Agen and Cahors, and the people offered the Virgin an enormous candle of white wax shaped like a tower. Ransacked by the Calvinists during the Wars of Religion, the Romanesque chapel was rebuilt in brick in the 17th century; its elegant octagonal bell tower with paired openings, a rare rural example of the Toulouse school, is now protected as a historic monument. In 2002, the gilded wooden Virgin and Child was stolen: a local sculptor, Jean-François Leroy, made a 340-kilo bronze statue to replace it, which was hoisted into the shrine. Every 15 August, the pilgrimage still gathers the faithful of the Quercy on the hill, perpetuating a history of faith almost five centuries old, facing one of the widest panoramas of the Bas-Quercy.

Getting there : 1 km from the village of Mirabel on the road to Réalville (D40), between Caussade and Montauban. Free parking on site. Shrine open to visitors; major pilgrimage every 15 August.

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

Ambient sound