Venerable Benoîte Rencurel

Benoîte's two masters never tired of admiring her piety, her gentleness, her docility, and were greatly astonished to see in her none of those small faults inherent to childhood. Content with the piece of hard and coarse bread she received each morning upon leaving, she never stole anything from her masters; her hand never even reached out to pick an apple or a grape while passing along unfenced orchards. Her piece of bread dipped in the water of the torrent made up her entire meal. Her young heart was already so inflamed with divine love that material food mattered little to her; but since one cannot love God without loving men, whom He loved so much, she loved them in God and for God. Thus, her single piece of bread no longer even belonged to her as soon as she met a child who was hungry, and she would share it with him. Soon her charity led her to give everything, and this is how it happened: Jean Rolland, one of her masters, could easily, despite the growing famine, take seven pieces of bread from his table in fifteen days; but it was not the same at the home of her other master, Louis Astier, whose small flock she tended at the same time as that of the wealthy farmer Rolland. However, as the wife of Astier loved her gentle shepherdess, she preferred to give her, at the expense of her own appetite, the same quantity of bread as in better days. Benoîte, after having received this rare bread without a word, would secretly distribute it to the six little Astier children, who ate it without understanding that these fragments of bread were like pieces of the pious child's life. As for herself, Benoîte would say to strengthen herself: "Ah! It is quite enough that I eat next week at my other master's house." She would therefore leave fasting to lead her flocks into the mountains; she would return fasting and go to bed the same way, and this for seven times twenty-four consecutive hours! She suffered so much from hunger that blood would gush from her mouth and nostrils; but the angels of the Alps gathered every drop of this pure blood, to make it fall later as a torrent of graces upon sinners.

With her bread, her heart, and her rosaries, Benoîte gave her compassion to all the misfortunes that came to her knowledge. One day, she learned that a woman had just lost consciousness and that her condition was serious; immediately she ran toward the church, dragging along with her all the little girls she met on her way, and, in concert with them, recited the rosary with great fervor. Before moving away from her flock, she had said to it with that faith that moves mountains: "You shall not touch this meadow, nor this one, nor that one," and the flock, during her absence, remained grazing peacefully in the place she had designated for it.

After the Rosary, the band of children went to see the sick woman, all ready to return to the church if need be. But God had heard her: the sick woman had recovered consciousness and speech, and the first use she made of them was to thank and bless these children, and especially Benoîte. To prayers, the young and holy shepherdess knew how to add exhortations when necessary. She spoke with such eloquence of God, of heaven, of hell, that she found the way to the most hardened hearts. It was thus that Jean Rolland, one of the two masters she served at the same time, a brutal, angry, and blasphemous man, conquered by the eloquence of his gentle shepherdess, gave the whole country the example of a conversion as unexpected as it was striking. It was therefore through the exercise of the most sublime virtues that Benoîte was preparing herself, without knowing it, for the greatest mission to which she was predestined.

Benoîte was in her seventeenth spring; her angelic purity, which rejoiced the gaze of the angels and impressed even the coarse people among whom she lived, had made her particularly dear to the Queen of Virgins.

One fine day in May 1664, she had led her flocks to the mountain of Saint-Maurice, and she had entered th e ruined chap Saint-Maurice Martyr of the Theban Legion whose Acts were written by Eucherius. el dedicated to the illustrious leader of the Theban Legion to recite her rosary, when this saint appeared to her and urged her to lead her flock henceforth into the valley of Saint-Étienne, because it would be there that, according to her desire, she would see the Blessed Virgin.

The next day, at dawn, the flock took the path to the valley of its own accord, and Benoîte followed it with a joyful air, without realizing her thoughts. At the bottom of the valley and at the entrance to the woods, there was a small cave where she was accustomed to retire to say her Rosary.

Scarcely had she arrived in front of the cave when Benoîte saw there a lady of incomparable beauty holding in her arms a child of no less admirable beauty. Despite the Saint's prediction, the holy and naive shepherdess could not believe that the Blessed Virgin had descended from heaven to grant the immense desire she had to contemplate her; she therefore believed she had before her eyes only a simple mortal, and she ingenuously offered her a piece of her black bread. The lady smiled at this childlike simplicity and said nothing to her.

The following day and for nearly four months, Benoîte contemplated in this place the one who is the joy of the angels and the ornament of heaven. From the first day, the young shepherdess's face appeared to everyone transfigured like her soul; her beauty had taken on a celestial quality, and her words had acquired an irresistible virtue. She shared her happiness with everyone with a joyful simplicity, and everyone, seeing the change that had taken place in her, said to themselves: "If only it were the Blessed Virgin she sees!" As for the humble shepherdess, she did not yet know it and did not even think to ask the one who gave her all this joy who she was.

Before making Benoîte her friend and the dispenser of her graces, the Blessed Virgin deigned to make her her pupil, and when she had closely attached the soul of the young shepherdess to herself by the irresistible attraction of her beauty, she began to speak to her, and it was to instruct, test, and encourage her. To place herself within reach of the uncultivated intelligence of the child of the mountains, she descended to familiarities that would astonish us if we did not know that the goodness of Mary is boundless. She did not even disdain to teach her how to pray, as mothers do, by repeating a prayer word for word to their children; it is thus that she taught her her litanies, still unknown in the region, and by enjoining her to teach them in turn to her companions and to repeat them every evening with them. The young girls of Avançon and Valserre promptly began, like those of Saint-Étienne, to recite the litanies of the divine Virgin every evening; all the processions that arrive at Laus sing them while climbing the mountain; every mass celebrated at the altar of Mary is followed by her litanies, which are still repeated every Saturday and every Sunday to a tune that is heard only at Laus and which stirs every fiber of the soul! If almost all the inhabitants of the valley believed that it was truly the most holy Virgin who was appearing to Benoîte, some still doubted; but when two impious men, who had publicly blasphemed against the beautiful lady of Benoîte, had received a rigorous and exemplary punishment, everyone believed that indeed the Star of the Sea had risen over this happy valley. The rumor of these things crossed the mountains and reached Gap, while Mr. Grimaud, a capable and upright man, judge of the valley, ordered Benoîte to ask the one who appeared to her if she might not be the Mother of God, and if she did not wish for a chapel to be built for her in this place.

Benoîte therefore addressed to the beautiful lady the request that the pious judge had suggested to her; the Blessed Virgin answered her:

"I am Mary, Mother of Jesus," then she added: "My Son wishes to be honored in this parish, but not in this place..." The Blessed Virgin, wishing to publicly authorize the belief in the revelation she had just made, then commanded Benoîte to bring the girls of Saint-Étienne in procession to the cave; the latter replied to this order with her profound ingenuity: "It is possible they will not want to believe: write it down." — "That is not necessary," replied the Mother of mercies as she disappeared.

Not only did the girls of Saint-Étienne eagerly attend the procession ordered by Mary, which took place on August 30; but Mr. Fraisse, the parish priest, and the justice of the peace also came to observe carefully what would happen, and they drew up a report of it. The most holy Virgin appeared to Benoîte before everyone, and as she had remained to pray in the valley when everyone else had left, Mary appeared to her again and said: "You will no longer see me in this place!". This valley was indeed too small for a church to be built there.

For a whole month, Benoîte did not see her divine mistress; she felt such keen pain that, had it lasted a little longer, she could not have survived it. She preferred to direct her flock to a pasture from where her eye constantly explored the two slopes of the mountain, while she asked, moaning, to the clouds passing over her head, to the birds fluttering in the four winds of heaven, if they would not soon bring her news of her beloved.

One blessed day, on the other side of the torrent and halfway up the hillside behind which Le Laus is sheltered, she recognizes, despite the extraordinary radiance that surrounds her, the divine Virgin; she cries out: "Oh! my good Mother, why have you deprived me for so long of the happiness of seeing you?" then she crosses, with the help of one of her goats, the swollen torrent, and throws herself at the feet of the Queen of Heaven.

All that Benoîte revealed of this apparition is that the holy Virgin said to her: "You will see me again only in the chapel of Le Laus; look for it, you will recognize it by the sweet odors that will exhale from it as soon as you reach the door!".

In the then-profound solitude of Le Laus, some pious mountaineers had, in 1640, built a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Bon-Rencontre. This humble building, thatched with straw, contained only a space of a little more than two meters, a masonry altar which, for all ornament, had two wooden candlesticks and a tin ciborium. It was there that the Queen of Heaven awaited the young shepherdess, just as she had received the shepherds of Judea in the stable of Bethlehem. Benoîte did not know this chapel; she was looking for it while weeping, when, attracted by the scent of the announced perfumes, she finally discovers it; she enters, and upon seeing the radiant Virgin on the altar, she falls to her knees, speechless with happiness. The Mother of Jesus makes her hear her celestial voice, but it is to gently reproach her for the tears she has shed and to exhort her to resignation. Benoîte answers her good Mother humbly: it is only in this way that she will speak of Mary, and this appellation, new in the church, has remained throughout the valley where the most holy Virgin is always invoked under the name of the Good Mother.

Benoîte, upon rising, sees the altar, already so poor in itself, and where the Queen of Heaven does not disdain to place her feet all covered with dust; she cries out: "My good Mother, allow me to untie my apron to put it under your feet, it is all white." "No," answers the holy Virgin, "keep it; soon, nothing will be lacking here, neither tablecloths nor ornaments; I want to have a church built here in honor of my very dear Son and my own, where many sinners, men and women, will come to be converted; it will be as large as I want it to be; and it is there that I will often appear to you." "Where will the money be found to build this church?" asked the young girl who knew the great poverty of the country. "Be without worry, money will not be lacking, and I want it to be that of the poor."

It was then the end of September 1664; after a long conversation, Mary dismissed the shepherdess so that she would be back with her masters before nightfall. Every day, until the following spring, Benoîte returned to spend long hours at the feet of her celestial mistress, as much as the snow and her duties allowed her.

Mary, who was preparing her to enter the Third Order of Saint Dominic, taught her from then on to unite the active life with the contemplative life, and always warned her so that she would leave it in time for her duty not to suffer and that she would continue to work and obey in her humble condition as a shepherdess. She wanted to teach her to despise the vain adornments of the world and to occupy herself only with the ornament of her soul; she therefore forbade her to wear a beautiful dress that the governor of Gap, M. du Saix, had sent her. She formed her little by little, with the gentleness and patience of a mother, for the mission to which she destined her, and she constantly recommended that she pray well for sinners. She made her feel the importance of this so well that the young shepherdess already showed herself animated by the greatest zeal to fulfill her sublime task. One no longer met her except with eyes imbued with a sweet gravity and her rosary in her hand. In her apparitions, the Blessed Virgin had taught her that no offering was more pleasing to her than that of the mystical crown of the Rosary, that no prayer was more effective for snatching sinners from the abyss of evil and suffering souls from the abyss of purgatory: thus she took from then on the resolution to which she never failed, to recite each day, in addition to several other prayers, fifteen rosaries and fifteen chaplets to honor doubly the sacred number of the mysteries of the Rosary, and as the day was not enough for her for so many prayers, during the sleep of her masters, she would quietly leave the house, and, despite the darkness, the cold and the rain, she would go to kneel on the threshold of the village church, where the first rays of the day often still found her. Sometimes, as happened to the glorious Saint Dominic, an angel opened the church door for her, and from then on the angels assisted her in several circumstances of her life. One day in that same autumn of 1664, her masters had sent her to cut grass, not far from the church of Valserre; she entered the holy place with the intention of only saying a short prayer; but soon her soul left the earth and rose toward the celestial regions. When she returned from her ecstasy, the sun had already disappeared behind the mountains, and night was coming quickly; she left the church with anxiety and found, with a joyful surprise, that while she was performing the office of the angels, a celestial spirit had done hers, cut and tied a large bundle of grass with the rope she had left at the church door.

During this time, the public waited with religious impatience, sensing that great things were being prepared in this place, and throughout the winter, the girls of Avançon braved the ice and snow to go every day to sing the litanies and canticles of the divine Mary at Le Laus.

The number of visitors soon became so great that it was necessary, in order to hear their confessions and give them communion, to set up confessionals and altars in the countryside. On March 25, 1665, in particular, less than a year after the first apparition, floods of people invaded the chapel, once deserted; and on the following May 3, thirty-five parishes met there at once, each marching under its banner. Mary rewarded so much zeal for her chapel with miraculous healings, unexpected conversions, and various wonders, the account of which is recorded in the voluminous manuscripts kept at Le Laus. One of the most remarkable was obtained by the judge of the place himself: he had a daughter mute from birth; he asked for her healing in the holy chapel, and it was immediately granted to him.

On September 14 of the same year, the vicar general of the diocese arrived at Le Laus, accompanied by several men of great merit; he came to conduct a legal inquiry into the facts that everyone was talking about. At the announcement of this inquiry, the humble shepherdess fled in fear into the woods, to pray and consult the Blessed Virgin, and soon returned reassured by her. Benoîte answered everything with great calm and relevance; and upon the observation made to her that, if no more miracles occurred, she would be removed from Le Laus, and the chapel would be demolished: "After all that I have seen and heard," she said, "I do not doubt that there will be even more in the future than in the past." The inquiry finished, the vicar general tried twice to leave; and twice he was prevented by a violent rain, which began at the moment he mounted his horse. This was not without a design of God. For the very next day, he was witness to a striking miracle that took place in the chapel of Le Laus. Catherine Vial, deprived of the use of her withered legs, and so folded backward that they see med glued to h Catherine Vial Woman miraculously cured of paralysis of her legs at Le Laus. er body, was suddenly healed on the last day of her novena. The grand vicar drew up a report of the fact; the witnesses signed it, and the healing was so complete that a month later, her parish having come in procession to thank the Blessed Virgin, it was Catherine Vial herself who carried the banner.

Notwithstanding these facts, there were men who accused Benoîte of deceiving the people with her reveries; they wanted to arrest her and put her in prison; and three times the Blessed Virgin hid her from the pursuits of her persecutors. Even pious people banded together against her, maintaining that she had no virtue, and tried to have her driven from Le Laus by the ecclesiastical superiors. In response to these accusations, God, around this same time, performed a new miracle at Le Laus. One of the first officers of the court of Savoy, proud and unchaste, violent and hot-tempered, entered the chapel with his head high, eyes wandering, without showing any sign of respect. Suddenly, he felt seized with horror of himself; and motionless for more than an hour, he reviewed in his conscience the crimes of his life, conceived a deep sorrow for them, went to confess, and left converted, fully reconciled with God.

This chapel, where so many wonders were performed, could barely contain ten to twelve people; and the crowd, which pressed all around, had to endure the inclemencies of the seasons. It was therefore essential to replace it with a larger church. In 1665, Benoîte, with no resources other than her trust in Mary, undertook the work. She traced the foundations in such a way as to establish the choir and the high altar of the new church in the very location of the chapel of Bon-Rencontre; then she called to her aid all the souls who love the Blessed Virgin, and communicated her holy ardor to them. A poor woman, who lived on alms, presented herself first, and offered a gold coin; the inhabitants of the surroundings each brought their offering, some in kind, others in money; all those who climbed to Le Laus took one or more stones from the torrent that flows at the bottom of the valley, and brought them to the height. A year was thus spent preparing the materials; and when everything was ready, they set to work. Benoîte, for her part, presided over the work herself, activated it, and directed it. She prepared the meals for the workers, prayed with them, and told them from time to time words of salvation; at other times she interspersed useful advice to prevent accidents, so that, throughout the duration of the construction, not a single blasphemy was heard, not a single accident happened. In four years, this church was completed. This great edifice had begun with nothing; the hands of the poor had assembled its materials, the alms of the faithful had dug its foundations, Providence raised its walls, and trust in God completed it. The portal alone remained to be done, but the Archbishop of Embrun, ambassador of France to Spain, having fallen seriously ill in Madrid, remembered the wonders that Our Lady of Le Laus performed. He invoked her, and made a vow to build the portal if he returned to health. Promptly healed, he promptly executed his vow; and thus nothing more was missing from the holy edifice.

Benoîte was in her twentieth year when the first stone of the church was laid, which, four years later, was completed and received the name of Notre-Dame du Laus. On December 25, after midnight mass, a great number of celestial spirits celebrated the inauguration of the new church, circling the sacred edifice three times while singing the Gloria in excelsis. Sister Benoîte, who had remained, according to her custom, to pray in the holy place, followed the angelic procession. Those who were outside were, so to speak, dazzled by the bright light that shone through the windows and intoxicated by the sweet perfumes that emanated from the church, even though the doors were closed. The first historians of Notre-Dame du Laus are unanimous in speaking of the sweet and celestial perfumes of Laus, and they speak of them as a public fact to which an infinite number of people can bear witness. These perfumes were sometimes so intense that they spread from the chapel throughout the entire valley. The Vicar General of Gap expressed himself on this subject as follows: "The odors of Mary are so sweet, so delicious, and provide such great consolation that he who smells them believes he is already enjoying a foretaste of heaven. As they strike the sense of smell, they elevate the soul and all its powers, and fill the heart with joy; the perfumes of flowers are nothing in comparison to these, because they are outpourings of the divinity."

Sister Benoîte, who breathed these perfumes at their source and whose every sense was purified by holiness, was completely permeated by them. When she returned from being with her good Mother, her face, like that of Moses descending from Sinai, appeared all luminous, her clothes remained long and deeply impregnated with the celestial odor, and her soul was so intoxicated with consolations that for several days she could neither drink, nor eat, nor sleep. The sweet perfumes were therefore, for the crowd that did not see the holy Mother of God, a sensible proof of her presence, since they were less a particular grace than an attribute of the celestial nature of Mary.

According to Benoîte's observations, the angelic hierarchies are distinguished by perfumes that God spreads in abundance over the entire extent of the heavens as an element of happiness, as well as by clarity, agility, and other more or less known elements of celestial bliss. Thus, the young shepherdess had noticed that, while all angels exhale sweet perfumes, one angel would scent more strongly or differently than another, but always in a manner far inferior to the Queen of angels and men. As for the perfumes that emanated from the sacred and adorable person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom she had the happiness of contemplating several times, they surpassed in an infinite way everything she had experienced of this kind. We cannot be surprised that it is so with the blessed souls, since our Father Saint Dominic and Sister Benoîte, his worthy daughter, gave, while still on earth, signs of this privilege, as did several other Saints. Everything that belonged to the holy shepherdess was perfumed; her breath, everything she touched, and the air she passed through. She had not yet spoken that the breath of her lips would deliciously anticipate the sense of smell before going to stir the heart, and this perfume was all the more sweet and penetrating as the transports of her actual love for God were greater. When her heart had been further warmed at the hearth of love by a fervent communion, an ecstasy, or a vision, she would then intoxicate all those who approached her with her perfumes.

The perfumes of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels, and of our sister Benoîte compose what tradition has named the good odors of Laus: the pious charm of this word still endures, and from time to time privileged souls perceive the celestial perfumes of Laus.

At the moment when Benoîte was enjoying the success of her work, unheard-of contradictions arose against her, especially in the ranks of the clergy, then in fected with the venin janséniste A theological movement to which the canons of Saint-Ruf remained opposed. Jansenist venom. The hatred went so far as to fabricate and post, at the door s of t Embrun Episcopal city and birthplace of the saint. he Embrun cathedral, an interdict against this holy girl, with a threat of excommunication against any priest who would celebrate in the chapel of Le Laus. Jealousy and self-interest were brought into play, by representing that the new devotion to Our Lady of Le Laus would destroy the ancient devotion to Our Lady of Embrun, which was in possession of receiving numerous pilgrims bringing rich offerings. The former vicar general, protector of Le Laus, had died; the one who replaced him did not know the state of things. But, in this general abandonment, Benoîte did not despair. "The devotion of Le Laus," her good angel told her on March 18, 1700, "is the work of God, which neither man nor demon could destroy, and which will subsist until the end of the world, flourishing ever more, and bearing great fruit everywhere." Indeed, the new vicar general summoned Benoîte to Embrun, subjected her to a serious examination, concluded that the devotion to the chapel of Le Laus comes from God, and that the virtue of the humble shepherdess is not only incontestable, but eminent. Remarkably, during the fourteen days that Benoîte remained in Embrun for this affair, she took no food; and neither her health nor her strength was altered by it. The eve of her departure, spending the day in prayer at the metropolitan church, she received during high mass a visit from the Blessed Virgin, who exhorted her to patience against the persecutions that might still befall her. The next day, upon arriving at Le Laus, she saw in a vision Jesus crucified, all covered in blood; and this sight tore her heart, to the point that she lost the power of speech for two days. Mary came to console her, recommending that she pray for sinners, for whom Jesus Christ suffered so much. The new Archbishop of Embrun, Mgr de Genlis, was for her a second consoler. This prelate, having come to Le Laus, was so moved upon entering the church that he exclaimed: Vere Dominus est in loco isto; truly God is in this place. He then questioned Benoîte; and her answers, which he wrote down with his own hand, inspired in him such veneration for her person that he declared he had never met either more solid virtue or a simpler girl.

Nevertheless, without ceasing to admire Benoîte, Mgr de Genlis let her be persecuted. To the pitiful rivalry of the metropolitan church, Jansenism, very powerful at the time, came to lend its support and waged a long, treacherous, and shadowy war against our heroic shepherdess. The Jansenists are also attributed with the design of making her pass for a witch and condemning her as such. There was also talk of abducting, at the same time as Benoîte, the pious hermit of Notre-Dame de l'Érable, a neighbor of Le Laus, to publish afterwards that they had run away together.

However, the populations, always drawn by the great voice of the miracles, continued to flock to Le Laus, when a way was found to slow their zeal by replacing the holy priests who, from the beginning, had dedicated themselves to the new pilgrimage, with Jansenist directors who brought with them despair and discouragement into the sanctuary of Mary. The enemy was therefore at the heart of the place; the refuge of sinners was closed, Benoîte herself no longer had a confessor! There was then in the momentum of the populations towards Le Laus a forced pause that its historians have called: Eclipse of Le Laus... But soon the eclipse was to be succeeded by a radiant sun.

The image of Mary, which was the glory of Embrun, disappeared without anyone being able to find it, and half a century later, not only Le Laus, but Embrun, was given to the diocese of Gap, which, from the beginning, had shown itself devoted to the new sanctuary of Mary.

Benoîte, for her part, received consolations proportionate to her terrible trials. In addition to the frequent apparitions of angels and some Saints, our sister enjoyed on six different occasions the vision of the chaste Joseph, the spouse of Mary and the foster father of the Child Jesus, whom she had the happiness of contemplating several times in the form of a graceful child in the Holy Eucharist, before, having become even more advanced in the ways of perfection, she contemplated him in the sorrows of his passion. Of all these apparitions, the one that charmed her most was the sweet presence of her good Mother who showered her with a thousand favors. One day, some good workmen having offered, out of charity, to the poor mother of Benoîte to give her little vineyard the cultivation it needed, she instructed her daughter to lead them there and to serve them their modest meal. While waiting, Benoîte entered the church which was very close to the vineyard. Scarcely had she entered when the divine Virgin appeared to her, and she fell into an ecstasy that lasted the rest of the day and all the following night, so that the workmen had to provide for their own needs. Their charity was not offended by this, and the next morning they were seen continuing their work in the poor widow's little vineyard. Benoîte did not know with what excuse she could approach these good people, when the Queen of Heaven, before letting her leave the chapel in the morning, filled her apron with fresh roses and an exquisite perfume so that she could distribute them to the workmen, who received them as a precious gift from heaven, for it was only March 15th, and no vegetation had yet appeared in the harsh alpine climate.

Later, in her fifty-second year, Mary granted, on the day of the Assumption in 1698, an even more signal grace to our pious sister, by taking her with her to heaven, where soon, without being able to say with Saint Paul whether it was with or without her body, she swam in floods of light, harmony, and perfumes, while crossing the various ranks of the blessed: "In the highest rank," her divine guide told her, "are the martyrs dressed in red; then come the virgins dressed in white, and varied colors distinguish the other blessed in the lower rank." Among these, Benoîte recognized a gentle director, who had died several years earlier, and her pious mother who looked at her with an ineffable tenderness. She would have liked to speak to them, but Mary led her further on, and she saw many other things so admirable that she could not describe them. At the moment when the night was coming to an end, the same angelic procession that had taken the holy shepherdess away brought her back to her cell, so intoxicated with consolations that she spent fifteen days without taking any food. It was only out of obedience that she confided this most remarkable vision to her director. One All Saints' evening, our sister remained very late at the foot of the cross of Avançon praying for the souls in purgatory, when, in her own words, she saw a cloud a quarter of a league long emerge from the valley, composed of a multitude of souls in human form, having at their head the Holy Virgin and two angels. A soul, detaching itself from the immense cohort, came to her and said: "We are souls coming out of purgatory. During our lives, we came here to pray with confidence to the Mother of God, who delivers us on this beautiful day; her merits, as well as your prayers and your sufferings, dear sister, have shortened the time of our expiation. Before introducing us into the heavenly homeland, the divine Virgin leads us to give thanks to God in her sanctuary." When this multitude had thanked Jesus and Mary in the church of Le Laus for its deliverance, it ascended to heaven, where Benoîte followed it with her gaze and her desires. The familiarity of the angels and our pious sister was like that which exists on earth between well-united brothers and sisters, so much did her spotless purity bring her closer to the angelic spirits. When the demon had deposited her on some inaccessible rock, her angel came to retrieve her; he cleared her path through rocks, ice, and brambles laden with snow; he brought her back from unknown places where she was lost, he helped her cross the impetuous torrent that barred her way, and, in the dark nights, he became luminous to light her path. More than twenty times, when she was left by the demon on the roof of the chapel of Notre-Dame de l'Érable, an angel helped her down, opened the door of the chapel, and recited the rosary with her. No doubt, to support her in her cruel trials, the heavenly spirit enumerated to her all the graces she had obtained, all the evils she had averted, all the sinners she had converted. When the persecutions that the demon made her endure reached their peak, the angels, in the new form of little birds that sang, prayed, and perfumed the air, came to assist at her sacrifice, not to relieve her, but to venerate her. As they were luminous, she looked at them from time to time: one day, she saw them white; the next day, red; another day, the two colors alternated in the crown they formed while flying above her head. Nothing was more fitting, indeed, around a victim so pure and so tested, than the color of virginity united with that of martyrdom; and, so that she would not forget the mystical connections her pains had with the passion of Christ, the celestial birds sang most habitually, while accompanying her on her return to her cell, the litanies of the Passion. However, once, so that she might experience, like her Savior, the pain of complete isolation, she remained two days, without any help, on the rock where the eagle nests, where Satan had roughly let her fall.

When the Jansenists were the masters at Le Laus, an angel offered to give Benoîte her Beloved; the tabernacle opened by itself, the angel took the ciborium, and soon Jesus entered the heart of the holy shepherdess, while another angel assisted at the pious ceremony. The two directors, who had left her to go and receive in heaven the reward of their faith and their zeal, came, like the angels, to visit, encourage, and console her. One day, at the moment when the vision was moving away, Benoîte expressed her desire to leave the earth to follow it to heaven: "Not yet," replied the blessed soul of her director, "patience; one must still suffer."

However, the hostile men who served the pilgrimage were removed, and the diocesan authority replaced them with the priests of Sainte-Garde, true men of God, who made the solitude of Le Laus flourish again. Benoîte, thus seeing all things in good order, understood that her mission was finished, and that she had only to prepare for death. An angel came to announce it to her; and it was for her the subject of great joy. She died in the odor of sanctity, on the day of the Holy Innocents in 1718, aged seventy-one years and three months; and, since that moment, her memory is increasingly venerated; the public voice demands her canonization, and yielding to so many wishes as well as to his personal convictions, Mgr Bernadou, Bishop of Gap, is currently instructing the process, collecting information to transmit it to the Holy See, to which alone it belongs to pronounce.

Sister Benoîte was buried near the high altar and that communion rail, from which so often during her mortal life she had turned away souls unworthy of participating. Although thick snow had fallen in the preceding days and had made the roads impassable, the gathering of the people who attended her funeral was so considerable that the death certificate of our sister felt it necessary to mention it. The weeping crowd pressed around the open coffin to see once more the features of the one they called their mother and their benefactress, and to have crosses, rosaries, medals, etc., touch her body or her clothes; finally, a large stone was sealed over the sepulcher and hid from everyone's eyes this holy body, and the gift of miracles, promised by the Holy Virgin, continued to make known to the following generations the power before God of the intercession of his servant. This stone is still seen in the church of Le Laus, at ground level, with its inscription, engraved by an unskilled hand, and conceived as follows: *Tomb of Sister Benoîte, who died in the odor of sanctity, December 28, 1718*. A painting from 1688, which is still seen in the church of Le Laus, gives us an idea of the features of our holy shepherdess. She was tall and beautiful, all her limbs were in perfect harmony with her stature. The lines of her face are so pure and so suave that, in considering them, one is struck more by the aspect of a soul than by that of a body. Her small mouth seems created exclusively for prayer. Her hair is black as are her eyes, which have something veiled about them; her pale face is tanned and gilded by the sun, although the skin has remained fine and a little shiny; a mixture of faith, gentle gravity, and resignation gives her whole being an expression of religious melancholy. She is dressed in coarse serge, spun and woven in the village, and which has taken the form of the usual costume of the mountains.

Since the death of Sister Benoîte, foreigners and local inhabitants alike venerated the humble cottage where she was born in Saint-Étienne as a sacred place; Bishop Depéry had acquired and restored it when, on January 28, 1850, a violent fire devoured almost the entire village of Saint-Étienne. The flames, which should have devoured the humble cottage first and entirely, stopped as if pushed back by a powerful and invisible hand when they reached the spot where the alcove, Benoîte's cradle, was located. The debris that the fire had spared was collected like relics and incorporated into the new construction. On a black marble plaque placed on the front of the house, one reads the following inscription:

THIS HOUSE WAS PURCHASED AND RESTORED IN 1850 BY BISHOP JEAN-IRÉNÉE DEPÉRY, BISHOP OF GAP.

The place where our sister was born, and where the most holy Virgin deigned to converse with her so often, was converted into a graceful chapel, placed under the title of Our Lady of Childhood. In this house of Sister Benoîte, Bishop Depéry founded a school for the little girls of Saint-Étienne; the nun in charge of directing it must always add the name Benoîte to her own; she will also always have a small garden, a goat, and some sheep, to resemble the holy shepherdess of Le Laus.

The priests of Sainte-Garde continued their ministry at Our Lady of Le Laus with great blessings until 1791. Then they were brutally driven out: their house, their furniture, the church, and what it contained, the paintings, the ex-votos, the rich ornaments of the statue, everything was sold for a pittance or delivered to the flames; this did not prevent the inhabitants of Réalon, a parish some distance from Embrun, from coming in procession to Le Laus to pray for the cessation of the drought that was devastating the country. Even during the reign of the Terror, pilgrims came to pray on their knees before the door of the closed chapel. Upon the return of order, Bishop Miollis, who, as Bishop of Digne, had Le Laus under his jurisdiction by virtue of the Concordat, bought back the holy chapel with the rectory, obtained, a few years later, the convent with the property that depended on it, and established there the Oblates of Mary, founded in Marseille by Bishop de Mazenod. They remained there until 1841, when they gave way to the society of missionaries of the diocese of Gap, who still exercise and will long exercise their holy ministry there.

The pilgrimage, thus provided with good workers, received from Pius IX, a fe w year Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. s later, the greatest honor that the Holy See can grant. The Sovereign Pontiff sent, through two apostolic protonotaries, two magnificent crowns, one intended for the Virgin, the other for the Child Jesus; and on May 23, 1855, there took place, for the coronation ceremony, one of the most magnificent festivals that can be seen on earth. The Cardinal of Bordeaux presided over it, surrounded by the archbishops of Aix, Avignon, and Turin, the bishops of Digne, Grenoble, and Gap, six hundred priests, and forty thousand faithful. It was more than enough to reawaken devotion to the pilgrimage and enhance its fame. Thus, since that time, the crowd there has been prodigious; one counts, each year, up to eighty thousand pilgrims. Some choose, for this pious journey, the day of the Nativity, which is its patronal feast; others, Corpus Christi, Saint John's Day, Saint Peter's Day, or the Rosary; others May 23, the anniversary of the coronation; but the greatest number come for the feasts of Pentecost.

Année dominicaine and Notre-Dame de France.