The Crown of Excellence : Chapter 12 : § 5. 38-39

Chapter 12 : The Eleventh Star or Splendour of the Crown of Excellence of the Mother of God

Continuing our translation of the 1845 reprint of Fr François Poiré's Triple Crown of the Mother of God (1643 French edition).

Notre Dame des Grâces, Cotignac.(Poggi, 2020)

She has been and is still recognized and called blessed by all generations in the world

§ 5. She was recognized  and honoured by all Nations everywhere in the world

France

OUR LADY OF THE DAURADE, OUR LADY OF GRAU & OUR LADY OF MONTPELLIER

 38   Moving across now to Languedoc, we come to the noble city of Toulouse and see the ancient Church called Our Lady of the Daurade, once a Temple dedicated to Jupiter according to some, or more probably to the Goddess Pallas. The people of Toulouse, once they had adopted the Christian Religion, consecrated their city to the MOTHER OF GOD.

Near the mouth of the river Hérault is Our Lady of Grau which has a remarkable record of miracles. It was built by St Sever over a thousand years ago and restored by the Constable De Montmorency with a Convent that he built for the Capuchins who compiled a history of the site.

In Nîmes may be seen the ruins of a most beautiful cathedral, a sign of the sacrilegious spirit of the heretics in our day whose chief preoccupation has always been to destroy the Churches built by their own ancestors.

Montpellier coat of arms
Creative Commons 3.0 

The same may be said of the city of Montpellier where there was a Church and an image of Our Lady that was so famous for the countless cures that took place that when sick people went to see their doctors, the latter would tell them to go and see Our Lady of Montpellier. They said this not out of any great devotion for Our Lady but in a slightly resentful way because she was affecting their practice. The City belonged anciently to the domain of the MOTHER OF GOD as was discovered in 1627 when a Canon found a silver medal in his study. After he had cleaned it, he could see from the inscription something which has since been proven beyond any doubt – that the ancient coat of arms of the city of Montpellier was a Virgin holding her Son in her arms over a bezant gules[1]. The insolence of the heretics after they achieved mastery of the city was so great that they removed the image of the Virgin and retained only the bezant. Pierre Fenouillet, the most worthy and eloquent Bishop of Montpellier, discovered this and then confirmed what had happened in an excellent sermon which he preached on the first Sunday of Advent. This was followed by a decision of the civic authorities to return the city to the ancient domain of the Virgin and all the coats of arms in the city were changed back. The MOTHER OF GOD made an auspicious return, even entering inside the heretics’ own church, signifying that she would soon be Lady and Mistress of all.

Footnotes

[1] bezant gules: a red roundel. Heraldic language signifying a roundel or disc (bezant, from a Byzantine coin) red in colour (gules, or gueules).

OUR LADY OF GRACES

 39   Provence deservedly takes pride in the Church called Our Lady of Graces. What follows is an account of its origins according to an ancient tradition confirmed in a Papal Bull by Leo X who granted several beautiful indulgences to the Church about a year and a half after its foundation.

On the 10th of August 1519 which was the feast day of St Lawrence, the Virgin Mother, accompanied by St Michael the Archangel and St Bernard, appeared in the fields to a very devout man named Jean de la Baume. She asked him to go and tell the Clergy and the Community of Cotignac they were to go in procession to Mt Verdaille and to build a Church there with the name  Our Lady of Graces, for she wished to grant graces to to those who would go there and invoke her name. The procession took place in the following month on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the Church was built shortly thereafter. As for the MOTHER OF GOD, she kept her promise so faithfully that for a space of thirty years the Church was cared for much better by the Oratorians than before and the fruits can serve as a sure sign of the truth of this account.

 

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The following text is not part of the translation of Fr Poiré's work and is included here because of the reference to the Church Our Lady of Graces in Cotignac, featured in today's post.

The image of Notre Dame des Grâces at the head of this post was chosen before the very first post appeared on the 1st of May this year and has so far appeared with every post. The choice was the result of a remarkable coincidence that occurred in November 1637. The story deserves a project in its own right and so I have decided to include here the merest outline, leaving interested readers to pursue the matter for themselves. 

Fr Poiré died on the 25th November 1637. He speaks highly of the King of France, describing him in The Triple Crown as "Louis the Just, who is a wonder among good Kings." [Pt. I. Chapter XII, §5.33]

 

At the beginning of November in 1637, an Augustinian monk in Paris known as Brother Fiacre reported that he had received visits from Our Lady. The upshot was a series of events which would involve Our Lady, the French monarchy, the French kingdom and the little Church in Cotignac. 

Here is a summary of the events:

On the 27th of October 1637 Brother Fiacre experienced an interior illumination: He felt called to ask the Virgin Mary to intercede so that God would give a successor to Louis the XIII, married for 23 years but with no issue.

In the night of the 3rd of November, the Virgin Mary appeared to him four times. While he was praying, he heard firstly the voice of a little child. Surprised, he turned his head and saw at that moment the Virgin surrounded by a beautiful light; she was wearing a blue robe glittering with stars, her hair falling on her shoulders and she was holding a child.

"Fear not, I am the Mother of God," she said to the brother. After a few seconds, she pointed to the little boy and said: "This is not my son, it is the child that God wants to give to France."

The Virgin asked for three public novenas from the Queen, Anne Austria: one at Notre-Dame in Paris, one at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Paris and the last at Cotignac in Provence. On the completion of these novenas, she promised a son would be given to the Queen.

In the fourth and final appearance, Mary said the following: "To show that I want the Queen to make novenas in my honour, here is a sign"  and at that moment, Brother Fiacre clearly saw a picture of the church at Cotignac in Provence. To confirm the truth of what she was saying, Mary said that he would find in that church a painting that showed her exactly as she was at that moment.

The following day, Brother Fiacre recounted these operations to his superiors. A cardinal, a former counsellor of King Henry IV and President of the King's Council, wrote a letter to the Bishop in Provence concerning the topography and the appearance of the church. He received a positive reply confirming the match between the church and what the brother had described.

After a few days, Brother Fiacre was received by the King and Queen who agreed to set in motion the three novenas asked for by Mary in the places chosen by her. The prayers began on the 8th of November 1637 and were completed on the 5th of December. 

In the middle of January 1638, the Queen discovered she was pregnant. The following month, Brother Fiacre was received a second time by the Royal couple who told him to go to Cotignac to verify the presence of the famous painting of the Virgin, to pray for their intentions and for the successful conclusion of her pregnancy.

Brother Fiacre set off to the distant south accompanied by Brother John Chrysostom, sub-prior of the convent in Paris. 

On arriving, Brother Fiacre could not hide his disappointment because although the Church matched what he had been shown, he could not find the painting of Mary. As they came out of the church, the two religious bumped into the Sacristan of the sanctuary. They asked him about the painting and the sacristan replied that it had been replaced a fortnight previously but the original had been placed in the sacristy. When they looked at the original painting they were amazed because it was a perfect match with what Mary had shown him.

On the 10th of February 1638, the Sovereign promised to consecrate the kingdom of France to the Virgin Mary if a son and heir was given to him. This is the famous vow of Louis XIII which asked for the consecration of the principal chapels in each French church to Mary, unless this had already been done. This vow was to be confirmed by Louis XIV in 1650, Louis XV in 1738 and Louis XVIII in 1814. Published by letters patent, following consultation with the Parliament in Paris, it was a legislative text applying to the whole country. 

On the 5th of September 1638, nine months exactly after the end of the novenas, Louis Dieudonné (God-given), the future Louis XIV, came into the world. After a few months, Brother Fiacre passed from the status of anonymity to celebrity. Thousands of little images of him were made and they were often put inside the cabs in the towns and cities, which gives rise to the French name for a cab : fiacre! In 1644 the Queen asked him to take  a painting to Cotignac showing the vow of Louis XIII (this picture was destroyed during the revolution) and to pray for her and for the little baby Louis. Ten years later, Brother Fiacre was invited to the consecration of Louis XIV, but he declined this offer out of humility. 

The friendship linking the King to Brother Fiacre continued. In 1684, the Parisian brother obtained from the King permission for his heart to be laid in the church at Cotignac after his death. Four months later he died, and two religious arrived at Notre-Dame-de-Grâces with a reliquary in which had been placed Brother Fiacre's heart. It was duly placed as requested in the sanctuary of the church.

The above account is my translation (adapted) from a French site:

Les apparitions au Frère Fiacre 

(The apparitions of Our Lady to Brother Fiacre, accessible via the Marie de Nazareth website)

The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam. 

© Peter Bloor 2024