Our Lady of Voirons

It was in the heart of this valley, and in the very town of Boëge, in Faucigny, that one of the most famous pilgrimages of Savoy was re-established in 1852, tha t of Notre-Dame des Vo Notre-Dame des Voirons Mother of Jesus, who appeared to Bertrand. irons, whose history is linked to the definitive destruction of Roman idolatry in this country.

The Voirons are a small mountain range, located between the Chablais and the Faucigny, east of Geneva and west of Lausanne. The Calvary, which is the highest point of this range, and near which the ruins of the old convent of Notre-Dame rise, offers one of the most beautiful viewpoints in Europe.

In the time of the Allobroges, the Voirons and the valley of Boëge were consecrated to Celtic deities, and, in all appearance, to Teutatès, the god of the forests. The names of Grand and Petit Fayet, given to two woods that extend on the eastern slope of the mountain, opposite Boëge, hardly allow one to doubt that fairies or druidesses inhabited these ancient solitudes.

After the conquest of Allobrogia, the Romans, following their custom in this, dedicated to Jupiter the altars that the druids had raised to Teutatès on the Voirons and in the valley of the woods. One still finds in the center of this valley a Mont Jovet and, on the mountain, two forests of Jou which obviously bear the name of the master of Olympus.

Although the city of Geneva had its episcopal see from the end of the 2nd century, and the progress of Christianity had been great in this diocese, under Bishop Eleutherius, a friend of Constantine, the cult of idols persisted for a long time in some remote places.

The altars of the false gods were raised again in Geneva under Julian the Apostate, and, when they had been overturned again, several pagan temples still remained standing at the summit of some mountains or at the bottom of certain ignored valleys. The invasion of the Barbarians, which was so long in our Alps, favored this state of things, and, in the 10th century, Jupiter was still worshipped on the Voirons, as on Mont-Joux, which became so famous through the zeal of Saint Bernard of Menthon.

It is said that the idol of the Voirons saint Bernard de Menthon Student of Saint Germain and founder of the Great St Bernard Hospice. also gave oracles and demanded an assiduous and meticulous cult. Woe to those who failed in the ceremonies prescribed by the god of the mountain! It inspired such terror that the Christians of the time believed that the demon animated this strange divinity, which probably had no other soul than that lent to it by the cunning of its interested guardians and the superstition of its worshippers.

The bishops of Geneva could no longer see this center of idolatry so close to their city, and in the middle of the most beautiful regions entrusted to their zeal. They therefore had the temple of the Voirons razed, and its idol ground to powder. The temple and the idol of Mont-Jovet had to suffer the same fate.

Now, a horrible boar appeared on the mountain and chose it for its dwelling. Everything that dared to approach fell victim to its fury. The devastation increased day by day, and terror grew with it. The dread became so great throughout the land that the people believed the same demon that had once animated the idol of the Voirons had passed into the wild beast.

There was then at the castle of Langin, on the western slope of the mountain, a courageous and devoted lord. He would have thought he was compromising his reputation for bravery had he not attacked the boar, and he would have failed in a duty had he not done his utmost to deliver those whom his arm was meant to defend. Prudence, however, did not allow him to face such a terrible adversary alone, especially since he believed he was dealing with a demon far more than with a wild beast; that is why he invited some friends to join him in his enterprise. They hesitated at first; but the proud lord accused them of cowardice, and they determined to follow him. A great hunt was organized, they gathered, they set out, and soon they arrived at the summit of the Voirons. The boar, which was looking for prey, rushed at the enemy troop. The companions of the lord of Langin scattered and fled in great haste; he remained alone on the field of battle, and the boar threw itself upon him with fury, tearing him cruelly and maltreating him in such a way that he remained as if dead on the spot.

In his distress, he cast his eyes toward heaven and made a vow to the most holy Virgin to build her a chapel on that very spot if, through her prayers and intercession, this wild beast could be killed or driven away, and if he himself could escape from so many wounds, of which he thought the least was mortal. The holy Virgin did not refuse him her help; for, although he was on the point of giving up his soul, he recovered enough strength to withdraw to his castle. He soon healed from his wounds, and the terrible enemy disappeared forever from the region.

The grace was too signal not to hasten the fulfillment of the vow that had obtained it. The lord of Langin had the chapel built that he had vowed to the Queen of Heaven; in this chapel, he made an altar, and upon this altar, he placed the image of his liberator. It was a wooden statue: the Virgin held the divine Child in her arms, and a bishop of Geneva had blessed it.

The chapel of the Voirons is the first of the sanctuaries of Mary where we find a *Black Virgin*. The oldest statues of this kind we Vierge noire Mother of Jesus, who appeared to Bertrand. re brought from Lebanon, from the first centuries of Christianity, by pilgrims who visited the Holy Land. They had been made by solitaries who had dedicated their work to the Mother of God.

The lord of Langin, unable to sufficiently show his gratitude to Go d and the Virgin f seigneur de Langin Local lord who founded the first sanctuary after surviving an encounter with a wild boar. or the protection with which they had covered him, had a small hermitage built near the chapel of the Voirons to go and end his days in the shadow of Mary's altar. He reserved for himself only the income necessary for the poor and retired life he was embracing, ordered that upon his death his body would be buried in the chapel of Our Lady, and that the bodies of his heirs, dying at Langin, would be brought there before being buried elsewhere. He distributed great alms, said goodbye to the world, and retired with a friend who wished to follow him into solitude.

He prescribed for himself a rigorous rule of life which he had approved by his bishop... He spent the rest of his days in prayers, meditations, fasts, interior mortifications, and bodily macerations, embalming the whole neighborhood with the scent of his virtues, giving the example of a solid devotion, and leaving after his death the precious and very sweet memory of his life.

The work whose foundations had just been laid was that of God; it could not descend into the grave with its founder. When he was no more, new hermits came to join his friend, who had survived him; others would succeed them, and, for a great number of centuries, one saw elite Christians renounce the world to come and sing in the solitude the praises of Our Lady of the Voirons.

From its origin, the holy hermitage began to be frequented by a great number of people who came from afar, from all sides, as much to thank God for the favors they had obtained through the intercession of the glorious Virgin as to learn the way to heaven from the mouths of the holy hermits.

The feast of the Visitation, which Saint Bonaventure had established for the Friars Minor as early as the year 1263, and which Pope Urban VI extended to the whole Church in 1389, appears to have been the patronal feast of the Voirons from the end of the 14th century. It became the day of the principal gathering on the holy mountain, and was known in Chablais and Faucigny only by the name of the feast of Our Lady of the Voirons. Popular tradition has preserved for us a detail that relates to the period of which we speak, and which deserves to find a place in this notice. A young person, who had come, no doubt, to place herself under the protection of the Queen of Virgins, was at some distance from the chapel of Our Lady when she encountered on her path one of those lost men for whom nothing is sacred. She fled in terror, but the fierce man pursued her. In the turmoil that agitated her, she did not see a bottomless precipice that lay beneath her steps, or, if she did see it, she preferred her virtue to life, threw herself into the abyss, and deserved to be counted among the most heroic virgins. It is said that the hand of God sustained her in her fall, and that she found herself at the bottom of the precipice without having any harm. This intrepid virgin well deserved a monument: the people raised one for her that will remain standing for a long time; they gave to the perpendicular rock from which she had thrown herself the name of the Maiden's Leap, which it still retains today. This rock is one kilometer from the old chapel, on the west side.

In 1536, the Bernese established heresy in the Chablais by force of arms and committed a thousand ravages there. The holy hermitage of the Mount of Voirons was not exempt; they came there armed as if to assault some fortress, mistreated and drove out the hermits, carried off by a horrible sacrilege the sacred vessels, vestments, furniture, foundation papers, donations, sales, privileges, indulgences, and other rights, set fire to the buildings, ruined them, and demolished them entirely, even rolling the stones down the mountain.

The sacrilegious demolishers believed they had triumphed, but God did not leave these wicked acts unpunished; for, very shortly after, those who had cooperated in the demolition of this holy hermitage all perished miserably.

However, the statue of Our Lady was miraculously preserved. Jean Burgnard, a Chablaisian fro m the parish Jean Burgnard Chablaisian heretic miraculously punished for desecrating a statue. and village of Brens in the Chablais, having not only embraced the heresy of the Bernese but also having joined them to lead them to the hermitage, threw himself at first upon the altar to remove the statue, as he did; and, having tied it, he dragged it behind him while descending, with all sorts of ignominies, and said mockingly: "Come after me, my little Moor! If you have as much power as the y say, show petite Maure Miraculous wooden statue, Black Madonna type, the primary object of devotion. it now! Why do you let yourself be dragged like this? Why do you not defend yourself?" And behold, while he vomited such outrages and blasphemies, the statue suddenly stopped and remained immobile, even though it was in a place where the ground was level, in the middle of a meadow. This wretch, seeing that he could no longer pull it, turned his head to see what was preventing it; but, by a double miracle, his head remained twisted in that way, and he was at the same instant paralyzed and crippled in one arm and one shoulder, without ever being able to turn straight again; so that he was forced to leave the statue in that very place, and descended with difficulty, bearing upon him, for the rest of his life, the punishment for his impiety and the evident testimony of the sovereign power of the Queen of Heaven.

But here is yet another wonder: There was a large bell that could be heard from Geneva and Lausanne; the heretics, having dismantled it and being unable to carry it away because it was too heavy, nor to break it into pieces, rolled it into a valley called the Bois de La-Jou, with the intention of returning to take it the next day. It was at the beginning of the month of August; nevertheless, all night long such a great quantity of snow fell on that side of the mountain, and nowhere else, that the soldiers, having returned with ropes and hammers to break and drag away the bell, could never recognize the paths, nor the very place where they had put it; so that they were forced to return. Some time later, the snow having melted, a peasant from Boëge, named Chevalier, to whom the land belonged, found it and had it transported to the parish church of Boëge, where the statue of Our Lady of the Voirons was also brought.

Shortly after, a holy religious, François Monod, of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, having restored the chapel and the hermitage, replaced there the miraculous statue of the Virgin that had been kept in the church of Boëge.

From then on, devotion began again with such great fervor that the heretics, being indignant, did everything in their power to prevent the holy exercises that the people of Faucigny performed there; but the inhabitants of Boëge and the neighboring parishes went there in arms, especially on the day of the Visitation, and thus provided the opportunity to celebrate Masses and perform other divine offices, to the consolation of the poor Catholics.

On July 4, 1595, the eve of the feast of the V isitation, the Apo Apôtre du Chablais Bishop of Geneva who prophesied the vocation of Olier. stle of the Chablais took up the pilgrim's staff and set out toward the Voirons. He had understood that he needed superhuman strength to accomplish the mission he had just undertaken, and he went to ask for the assistance of Her whom the Church has so well called Queen of the Apostles. The heretics caught sight of the man of God heading toward the holy mountain; they followed him, attacked him, and subjected him to a thousand outrages. Saint Francis later said that he had only escaped their hands through a special protection of the Blessed Virgin. It is to be noted that his labors, which until then had remained fruitless, began to be crowned with a success that, ever-increasing, led to the conversion of seventy thousand heretics.

After the return of the Chablais to the Catholic faith, the hermitage of the Voirons was restored to its primitive splendor, and, i n the year 1620, Saint saint François de Sales Bishop of Geneva who prophesied the vocation of Olier. Francis de Sales gave Rules to the hermits of Our Lady, of whom he formed a particular congregation.

The Saint prescribed to them, among other things, to hold hospitality in very high regard, and to take special care of pilgrims and strangers. They were to make a very special profession of devotion toward Our Lady. Their evening prayer began with the litanies of the Virgin, and, every Saturday after supper, the hermits were to sing in choir the hymn of her joys before the image in the chapel.

Charles-Auguste de Sales was a hermit of the Voirons before becoming Bishop of Geneva. He had renounced the dignity of provost of the cathedral and dean of the collegiate church of Annecy to retire to the holy mountain, where he led a most mortified life. When he was made bishop, he persuaded the hermits of the Voirons to unite with t he Friars Preach Frères Prêcheurs Religious order to which Christophe Ptolomée belonged. ers of Annecy, and from that time on, the guardianship of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Voirons was entrusted to the children of Saint Dominic. Dom Luc de Lucinges, who is famous in the history of Savoy, was prior of the convent of the Voirons.

There was no longer, in these regions, any pilgrimage that could rival the one whose history we are tracing. Although the mountain of the Voirons was very high, twenty-five processions, coming from the Chablais and the Faucigny, sometimes met there in the same morning.

In 1717, Michel-Gabriel de Rossillon de Bernex, one of the greatest bishops of Geneva, turned aside from the course of his pastoral visits to come on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Voirons, for the intention of King Victor-Amadeus II, and he wrote to that prince a letter of condolence on the loss he had just suffered of the Kingdom of Sicily.

On August 7, 1769, a fire consumed the convent of Our Lady and its venerated chapel. The religious of Saint Dominic withdrew to their convent in Annecy, and the regions that had become accustomed to the touching solemnities of their Patroness could no longer raise their eyes toward the holy mountain without feeling them bathed in tears.

The faithful, however, continued to come to pray on the ruins of the ancient chapel; for it seemed to them that these walls and scattered stones, which had been the silent witnesses of so many wonders, must retain a divine virtue, and the surrounding parishes still went there every year in procession.

For their part, the Dominicans brought the cult of Our Lady of the Voirons to Annecy, erected an altar to her in their church, and continued to celebrate a mass in her honor every day.

The upheavals and terrors of the French Revolution did not succeed in making the powerful Lady of Les Voirons completely forgotten. Fugitive priests would go to celebrate the holy mysteries on the mountain that was still consecrated to her, to ask God, through the intercession of Mary, to shorten the trials of the Church.

The memory of Our Lady of Les Voirons was preserved nowhere more vividly than in the Burgnard family, many of whose members bore, alas! until recent times, visible signs of the curse that their ancestor had deserved.

Only a few years ago, a member of this family had a hollow stone set up on the edge of a path that crosses the mountain of Les Voirons and leads from Boëge to Saint-Cergues, and in the hollow of this stone, he placed the image of the Mother of God. Being poor, he could only raise a very poor monument, but She who looks much less at the value of our offerings than at our good will will take his intention into account. This rough stone, marked with the seal of hope and love, is worth a magnificent monument of expiation that cannot fail to have its effect.

The statue of Our Lady of Les Voirons was found in a village of the parish of Boëge on the first Sunday of May 1852, and solemnly inaugurated on the first Sunday of July in the parish church that had served as her shelter in the 16th century. Providence, in returning this image to the valley of Boëge, undoubtedly wished to reward it for the zeal it had always shown for the cult of vallée de Boëge Commune in Savoy at the center of the cult of Our Lady of Les Voirons. Mary.

In 1855, on the first Sunday of July, dedicated to Our Lady of Les Voirons, the inhabitants of Boëge laid the first stone of a magnificent church that was to replace the old one, which was falling into decay; and, two years later, on the same day, it was blessed under the title of Our Lady, whose image was carried there in triumph amidst an immense gathering of the faithful who had flocked from all parts.

Every year, the feast of Our Lady of Les Voirons is celebrated with solemnity and amidst a very large gathering. What distinguishes it above all is a magnificent triumph awarded to Mary. The ancient statue is placed on a brilliant throne, and twenty or thirty young girls, dressed in white, carry it in procession amidst lilies and flowers. The streets of the town of Boëge are adorned as if for a royal reception. A numerous clergy and thousands of the faithful accompany the pious procession, to the singing of litanies and holy canticles, which the bronze bells accompany with their great voices.

Our Lady of Les Voirons was not long in showing herself as liberal in the new sanctuary that had been consecrated to her as in the one she had inhabited on the mountain for so many centuries, and already numerous ex-votos have been deposited there as a tribute of gratitude.

Two gold hearts stand out among these pious testimonies. One was sent to Our Lady of Les Voirons on August 15, 1859, by about a hundred young people from Savoy. It contains their names and a very touching act of consecration to the Mother of God. The other was given, one does not know by whom, from the very first days of the restoration of the cult of Our Lady of Les Voirons in the church of Boëge. It contains a note that we wish to reproduce here verbatim: "A mother was distressed to see that a child she loved very much was not walking, although he was already about four years old; the extraordinary weakness of his legs even made the mother fear that he would never walk well. She came with her child to the foot of the altar of Our Lady, and, while she was praying, he began to drag himself while climbing the steps of this altar. However, he was not yet walking. When she returned to her house, the happy mother found that her child was healed, and he has continued to walk from that moment on."

In 1853, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX deigned to grant two plenary indulgences to those who would visit Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. the church in which the cult of Our Lady of Les Voirons had just been restored. One can gain the first on the day of the feast of the Visitation or the first ten days of July, and the second, on any day of the year, at the pilgrim's choice.

Excerpt from Notre-Dame de Savoie, by Father F. Grobel.