Basilique Notre-Dame de Liesse et sa fontaine miraculeuse

Liesse-Notre-Dame

The shrine was born of one of the finest crusading tales of northern France: three knightly brothers of the d'Eppes family, taken prisoner in the East, are said to have been freed thanks to the sultan's daughter, Ismeria, converted after the appearance of a statue of the Virgin miraculously carved in their dungeon. Waking in 1134 near Liesse after a prodigious journey from Egypt, they are said to have found the statue grown so heavy that it sank into the ground, a sign that the Virgin wished to stay there — hence the name Liesse, meaning joy. Construction of the shrine began as early as 1134 with stone and workmen from the building site of Laon Cathedral, and pilgrimages started around 1139. A "sanctuaire à répit" in the Middle Ages, where stillborn infants were believed to revive just long enough to be baptised, Liesse became from the 15th century a place of devotion for the Capetian dynasty: Charles VI in 1392, Louis XI, Francis I, Henry II, Charles IX, then Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, who came to ask for an heir, and finally Louis XIV. It was to ease the passage of the royal carriages to Liesse that the road was paved under Marie de' Medici, hence the name "Chemin des Dames" that has clung to this ridge. The cedar statue, having escaped an attempt to destroy it in 1770, was burnt during the Revolution; part of its ashes were taken to Quebec in 1877 and a new effigy was made in the 19th century. The fountain, which once gushed as an artesian well in the marshes and is today no more than a well, plays a central role in the story: it was beside it that the fugitives are said to have woken, and its cures were already attested by an annalist of the Order of Malta in 1446. The dates and the knights' first names vary from one version to another (18 August or 2 July 1134; Jean, Hector and Henri for some, Jean, Gérard and Robert for others): the mark of an oral tradition reworked over the centuries.

Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Liesse — La fontaine miraculeuse ↗

Getting there : Liesse-Notre-Dame lies 15 km east of Laon on the D977. The basilica stands in the centre of the small town, free admission. The well of the miraculous fountain, protected by a small shelter renovated and blessed in 2017, can be visited a few hundred metres away; pilgrims still draw water there. Major traditional pilgrimage around 15 August.

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

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