Source et sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Capelou

Belvès (Pays de Belvès)

It was a spring that gave birth to the place, and to its name. Tradition tells that a shepherd noticed one of his cows forever standing near a bush from which a spring flowed, and that she stayed in good health while the others wasted away; pushing aside the brambles, he found there a stone statue of the Virgin. Carried to the church in the town, the statue vanished and reappeared in the bush — a sign, people understood, that the Virgin wished to be honoured there. A chapel was built there, a "capelette" in the langue d'oc, hence Capelou. This story is a tradition, but the place itself is perfectly documented: as early as 1153, Pope Eugene III lists "Sancta Maria de Capella" among the dependencies of the abbey of Sarlat, making it one of the oldest pilgrimages in Périgord. In 1793 the chapel was profaned and the statue smashed; a Pietà from the Benedictine abbey of Fongauffier replaced it. In 1825 the parish priest Cogniel moved the fountain to the roadside in order to enlarge the choir — and there it stands today, beneath its stone Virgin, with a plaque bearing the prayer to Notre-Dame de Capelou fixed to the wall of the grotto. The 19th century sealed the fervour: a plenary indulgence granted by Gregory XVI in 1839, a "privileged pilgrimage of the apostolic region" proclaimed by the council of Agen in 1859, the first stone of the present sanctuary laid in 1860 by Mgr Georges, consecration on 16 September 1873 by Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, before five bishops, three hundred priests and ten thousand faithful. The statue was crowned on 8 September 1892. The annual novena inaugurated in 1873 has been shortened to a week since 1997, and people still come to drink at the fountain.

Site du sanctuaire ↗

Getting there : Free access all year round; the fountain stands by the roadside, beneath a 17th-century stone Virgin and Child

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

Ambient sound