Chapelle Notre-Dame de Montmélian

Saint-Witz

The hill of Montmélian, a natural lookout between the Plaine de France and the Valois, has according to tradition been under the protection of the Virgin since the 2nd century, when Saint Rieul evangelised the region: this would make it one of the oldest Marian pilgrimages north of Paris. In the Middle Ages, a royal castle recorded as early as 1060, a small town and a pilgrimage church crowned the hill, which was disputed between the lords of Vernon and the abbey of Saint-Denis; excavations there have uncovered floor tiles decorated with knights, lions and fleurs-de-lis, witnesses to a vanished prosperity. The Revolution scattered this past: from 1793 the pilgrimage church was sold and dismantled stone by stone. But the devotion held out. Around 1800–1801, a pious inhabitant, Louis Poutrel, turned his barn into a temporary chapel to receive the pilgrims, moving the precious altarpiece there; then a neo-Gothic chapel was raised again on the hill between 1856 and 1864. It was in this high place that the writer Charles Péguy, in 1914, stopped to lay flowers before the Virgin and pray at length. Restored in 1938, the "Péguy chapel" and the hill still welcome a pilgrimage every September, in which the memory of Mary and the memory of the poet merge.

Getting there : Summit of the Montmélian hill, reached on foot from the village of Saint-Witz (rue Charles-Péguy, where the "Péguy chapel", a barn-chapel of 1801, also stands); chapel generally closed outside the September pilgrimage; Survilliers-Fossés station (RER D) about 3 km away. Coordinates sourced for the hill, the chapel being about 130 m from the spot height.

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

Ambient sound