Notre Dame de Nazareth in Plancoët

Before the long series of famous modern Marian apparitions (which began around 1830 with Saint Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal), the Virgin Mary was already very present in France. There were other apparitions, some of which were recognised by the Church, such as that of Our Lady at Plancoët in Brittany. It all began in 1642 with strange sounds coming from a muddy fountain where, according to an old tradition, a statue of the Virgin had been swallowed up. A statue of the Virgin and Child was indeed found at the bottom of the fountain, and in the days that followed, a lady dressed in white and mysterious lights near the fountain were observed by many people. Eventually a primitive sculpted granite cross with figures of Jesus and Mary was fished out. The place became a pilgrimage site and many people who came to Plancoët to pray were cured.

Statue of Notre-Dame de Nazareth from the church of Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth in Plancoët / © LO/wikimedia

Reasons to believe:

A thorough canonical investigation was launched in the same year as the apparition.

A team of theologians was sent in, led by the vicar general of the Saint-Malo diocese, Monsignor de Harlay de Sancy (d. 1646).

Numerous testimonies were collected in a 80-page reportwa by the court clerk.

The cures were verified by doctors. There was no natural explanation for some of the cures, which involved serious conditions such as dropsy, cancer, deafness, etc.

Mons. de Harlay de Sancy studied the whole case and recognised the supernatural nature of the events. By decree, he authorised worship at the site and provided religious services for pilgrims, first by Oratorians, then by Dominicans.

Summary:

The extraordinary phenomena began in May1644. Yvon Bertin's widow, Olive Blandin, from the village of la Massonnais, in Corseul, aged 66, was driving her flock near the Ruellan fountain. Four times around ten in the morning, she heard a plaintive voice. She looked around, but saw no one. A thought occurred to her: that her daughter, who had died recently, was suffering in purgatory and was asking for prayers. Without hesitation, she knelt down by the roadside and begged the Lord to have mercy on the soul of her poor child.

Olive Blandin returned to Plancoët and recounted what had happened to her. Immediately, people started sharing unusual stories. François Billy, a merchant living in Haut-Plancoët, recounted how, passing by the Ruellan fountain on July 26, 1643, the feast of Saint Anne, he had stopped to let his horse drink without its bridle when, all of a sudden, he heard a loud voice - a woman's voice - lamenting. A glance around him convinced him that he was alone on this corner of the road. He walked away, distraught, without having found the origin of the voice.

Nicolas Le Marchand, from Dinan, recounted that the previous year, in November 1642, as he was returning from a fair held in the town of Matignon, he noticed a similar phenomenon. As he passed by the Ruellan fountain at daybreak, he unharnessed his horse to water it, but he couldn't get it to drink. He pushed its head down to incline it towards the water and plunged its mouth into the stone basin, but to no avail: the animal refused and fell to its knees. Annoyed, his master gave him an angry lash. It was a pointless punishment! The animal didn't move, while a touching wail rose from the fountain, sending shivers through Nicolas Le Marchand's heart.

Discovery of the statue
People began to recall how a statue of the Virgin Mary was believed to have fallen into the Ruellan fountain many years before. That fountain was deep and muddy fountain with an abundance of aquatic plants. The three sons of a hardware merchant in Bas-Plancoët, respectively named Alain, 21, Jacques, 19, and Jean Faguet, 17, decided to find out for themselves. The day after the feast of the Holy Rosary, on Monday, October 3, 1644, Alain and Jacques began to dig, but after working until two or three in the afternoon, the elder became discouraged. More tenacious, the younger boy found the first piece of the statue. He called his brother back, and handed him the body of the statue. Jean soon joined them, and Jacques his two brothers the top part of the statue: the heads of the Virgin and the Child Jesus. Digging deeper, Jacques noticed the third piece at the bottom of the fountain: the pedestal (or base), which seemed too heavy to lift, so he left it in the basin. Together, the three brothers washed the two pieces they had removed from the water and placed them on the slope of a field, against an oak tree belonging to Sieur de Laudren Le Roy. At dawn the next day, ina spontaneous display of piety,pilgrims flocked to the humble statue to pray and bring offerings. Then, bowing with respect, they devoutly drank the clear water from the cleaned fountain, where Mary's smile seemed to be reflected. In a moving scene, a young girl took off a pretty ribbon she was wearing and placed it as an offering at the feet of the Blessed Virgin.

The grey granite statue is sculpted on both sides: one side represents Our Lord's descent from the Cross; the other, the Virgin Mother holding her son in her arms. Next to the Child Jesus is an engraved figure that is hard to identify - possibly Saint John the Evangelist.

The first miracles.
That same day, Guillaume Huet, a merchant who had been suffering from dropsy for six months and had been confined to bed since Pentecost, made a vow to the Blessed Virgin and promised to go to the Ruellan fountain to visit the statue that the Faguet brothers had found. The remedies provided by Picot, an apothecary in Dinan, had had no effect on him. Since the end of September, he hadn't even been able to get out of bed. As soon as he invoked the miraculous statue, he felt such relief that he got up straight away. Filled with gratitude, he returned to the statue the next day, walking joyfully and completely cured. There he met the three brothers near their miraculous find. Together they decided to build Mary a rustic chapel, made temporarily of planks.

Strange lights
The miraculous signs around the statue multiplied, starting with the light, attested to by hundreds of witnesses. One of them was a certain Jean Lhostellier, aged 38, who passed shortly after midnight in the rue de l'Abbaye, and climbed the hill towards Dinan. As he approached the simple chapel, a bright light appeared, similar to a burning torch. Then the light disappeared, leaving Lhostellier in a state of stupor. Nevertheless, he continued on his way, quite impressed by this vision. The next day, on his way back from Dinan, he passed the same place and saw only people kneeling piously before the statue.

Apparition
On 18 October 1644, the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, a small group left the heights of Créhen three hours before daylight. It included a ploughman, Yvon Merdrignac, a shoemaker, Jean Girard, Guillaume Bouexière, and his wife, Jeanne Besrée, from the village of La Chesnelaye, and a certain Yves Gillebert who had joined them with his daughter. They approached the chapel two hours before dawn, in the middle of the night. They were in for a surprise: in the middle of the road they saw a beautiful luminous lady dressed all in white. When they approached, the tall lady had disappeared and the road was deserted. The six of them knelt down in front of the granite statue and, after praying for a long time, they went into a hut on the other side of the road to have breakfast, sheltered from the morning air. As they ate, they saw a long flash of lightning shine above the holy image, without hearing any sound of thunder.

The pilgrimage
The news spread throughout the region, and popular devotion grew rapidly, as marvellous events multiplied around the recently discovered crossed-shaped statue. The number of pilgrims increased by the day. At first, there were as many as two or three hundred in a single day. Soon, as their numbers grew, it became more difficult to estimate. On any given day, there could be as many as two thousand. Father Julien Gévezé, rector of Corseul, reported all these events to his bishop, Mgr Achille du Harlay de Sancy, who then presided over the diocese of Saint-Malo, and asked him to define a course of action.

Canonical enquiry
The bishop decided to investigate these extraordinary events in depth, and set to work straight away. He set up a tribunal and sent it to the site to examine this cross of granite, broken into three pieces, bearing the images of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus on one side and the Descent from the Cross on the other, and to examine the witnesses to the extraordinary events and healings that had preceded, accompanied and followed the discovery of this statue. The commission of enquiry went to the site and scrupulously noted the number of ex-votos which, placed at the foot of the statue, bore witness to graces received, including a large number of healings: "Sixty-four lighted white and yellow wax candles; one hundred and fifty rosaries hanging from the walls; two gold crosses; three silver crosses; earrings; wax representations of arms and legs, and the bodies of men, women and children; crutches; two paintings of the Blessed Virgin; an alabaster statue of Saint Catherine; a bell; and even objects such as white earthenware pots, a pewter dish, a mirror, a grey hat, two cloth tablecloths, four napkins, headdresses and men's shirt collars."

Popular devotion has not abated since that time.

In 2015, Arnaud Dumouch, who holds a degree in religious studies, and Father Henri Ganty founded the Institut Docteur Angélique, which offers a complete online training programme in Catholic philosophy and theology, in line with Benedict XVI's hermeneutic of continuity.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Critics are surprised by the unusual phenomena around this apparition: moans that seem to come from beyond the grave, the appearance of a white lady, naïve ex-votos offerings, etc. All this is reminiscent of certain traditional Breton legends about the dead. It is true that Celtic Christianity was dominant then in Brittany as it was in Ireland, and celtic culture could have influenced the story, theoretically. But the investigation and the testimonies of dozens of witnesses, who did not know each other, is solid and lends credence to the truth of the reported miracles. The number of cures, which cannot be doubted, shows that the Blessed Virgin wished to appear in accordance with the prevailing sensibilities of 17th-century Brittany.

Going further:

Video account of the apparition by Arnaud Dumouch (narrated in French): The apparition of Our Lady of Nazareth in Plancoët

More information:

"History of Notre Dame de Nazareth de Plancoët by Father A. Lemasson , with an introduction by Mgr A. du Bois de La Villerabel. Lemasson, with an introduction by Mgr A. du Bois de La Villerabel ".
Article from the Marian Encyclopaedia "Plancoët: Notre Dame de Nazareth".
René Laurentin and Patrick Sbalchiero, "Plancoët", Dictionnaire encyclopédique des apparitions de la Vierge, Paris, Fayard, 2007.