Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Grâces de Cotignac

Cotignac

On 10 August 1519, according to the tradition reported by the chroniclers of the sanctuary, an old peasant of Cotignac, Jean de La Baume, saw on Mont Verdaille a lady who asked him to bring the village in procession and to build a chapel there under the name of Notre-Dame de Grâces; the next day he saw her again with the Child. The procession took place the following month, the church was begun on 14 September, and Leo X granted it indulgences as early as 1521: the Church approved the cult without ever having enquired into the fact. The sanctuary, served by priests attached to the Oratory in 1615, would have remained Provençal but for Brother Fiacre, a discalced Augustinian of Paris, who declared in October 1637 that he had been warned that Queen Anne of Austria, childless for twenty years, would have a son if prayers were said here; he made his novenas there, Louis XIII consecrated the kingdom to the Virgin on 10 February 1638, and the Dauphin was born in September. On 21 February 1660, Louis XIV, aged twenty-one, came with his mother to give thanks in person; he would have a black marble plaque placed in the church, still on the wall. Razed under the Revolution, the church was rebuilt in 1810 by the inhabitants on the same plan, a single nave and a semicircular apse; the 16th-century painting of the Virgin is behind the altar, and the ex-votos cover the walls of the esplanade.

Wikipédia — Église Notre-Dame-de-Grâces de Cotignac ↗

Getting there : From the centre of Cotignac, follow "Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Grâces" (quartier Notre-Dame, 1 km to the south); car park at the foot of the esplanade. Church open to visitors every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (8 p.m. from 1 May to 1 October), in the care of the Brothers of Saint John. A path of oratories leads on foot to the sanctuary of Saint-Joseph du Bessillon.

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

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