Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Miséricorde de Pellevoisin

Pellevoisin

Pellevoisin, a large village of the Boischaut, owes its fame to Estelle Faguette, a 33-year-old servant whom the doctors had given up for lost, suffering from tuberculous peritonitis, and who reported receiving fifteen apparitions of the Virgin in her bedroom between February and December 1876. On 20 February she declared herself cured; the practitioners attending her noted the complete disappearance of her symptoms. The Virgin is said to have entrusted her with the mission of spreading the scapular of the Sacred Heart, approved by the Congregation of Rites on 16 June 1900, after Estelle had been received by Leo XIII in January of the same year. The Church moved cautiously: a confraternity approved by Pius IX as early as 1877, official recognition of the miraculous character of the cure by the Archbishop of Bourges in 1983 after medical and theological examination, then the nihil obstat of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on 22 August 2024. This last green light authorises the Marian devotion without pronouncing on the reality of the apparitions themselves — an important nuance to bear in mind on the spot. Estelle's room, turned into a chapel, remains the heart of the pilgrimage; the sanctuary, served by the contemplative Sisters of Saint John and attached to the diocese of Bourges, draws people from well beyond the Berry. It is one of the rare places of Marian apparition in France where the story unfolded not in a grotto or a field, but in a maidservant's bedroom.

Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Miséricorde de Pellevoisin — site officiel ↗

Getting there : Pellevoisin lies a dozen kilometres north-east of Buzançais and some forty kilometres north-west of Châteauroux, by the D926 and then the lanes of the Boischaut. The sanctuary — the room of the apparitions, chapels, oratories, Way of the Cross — occupies the heart of the village and has a guesthouse for pilgrims. Note: the coordinates correspond to the village; the precision is that of the village rather than the building. Reception, mass times and guided tours on pellevoisin.net; a renovation campaign, "Cap 2026", is under way ahead of the 150th anniversary. Access is free of charge.

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

Ambient sound