Chapelle Saint-Second

Besné

Away from the village, in the village of La Harrois, the chapelle Saint-Second preserves the memory of the two hermits who made Besné. The name is said to come from the Breton bez-enez, 'island of the tomb'. According to tradition, Friard, a simple peasant born around 511, left the land at fifty-two or fifty-three to live as a solitary near a fountain; the deacon of Nantes, Secondel, sent by Bishop Félix of Nantes, joined him, each in his own cell. After their death, the miracles attributed to their tombs drew pilgrims, until the pilgrimage declined in the 18th century. The faithful raised an oratory and built up the fountain where the saints drew water. The chapel was rebuilt on old foundations around 1640: the parish register speaks in 1642 of 'the new chapel', and the floors of a late-medieval chapel were found beneath it. On the ground where tradition places the hermits' garden, a walled enclosure and a monument bearing the statue of the saint were built between December 1854 and 1856. The fountain, a little further on, retains a 15th-century monument, repaired in July 1857 and then restored in 1967. The two Merovingian sarcophagi of shelly limestone said to have held the bodies of the saints are not here: they lie in the crypt of the église Saint-Friard, in the village.

Wikipédia — Chapelle Saint-Second de Besné ↗

Getting there : At the place called Saint-Second, in the village of La Harrois, away from the village of Besné; the surroundings are open access (to be checked). According to the commune, mass is held at the chapel on the third Wednesday of July and August, and there is a pardon on the first Sunday of August with a procession to the fountain (to be checked). The sarcophagi attributed to the two saints are in the crypt of the église Saint-Friard, in the village, open on Wednesdays and Saturdays (to be checked).

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

Ambient sound