Our Lady of Virtues saves the city of Rennes in Brittany

In February 1357, the English, allied of John de Montfort, pretender to the ducal crown of Brittany, laid siege to the town of Rennes, held by the supporters of the other pretender to the title, Charles de Blois, candidate of the King of France. Rumour had it (and panicked the population) that the English had dug an underground passageway that would allow them to pass under the walls, bypassing the defences and taking the town. But all efforts to find it were in vain. The people of Rennes, in desperate straits, implored the help of the city's patron saint, Our Lady of Virtues. On the night of 8 February, the inhabitants were rudely awakened by the bells of the church of Saint-Sauveur (Holy Savior) ringing the tocsin. This was only the first surprise of this strange night.

Commemorative stained glass window in the Chapelle Notre-Dame de Beauvais in Le Theil-de-Bretagne / © CC BY-SA 3.0 GO69.

Reasons to believe:

The first thing the people of Rennes noticed, when they rushed to the sound of the tocsin on the night of 8 February, was that the bells were ringing without any human intervention, but above all that two candles, extinguished the day before when the chapel was closed to avoid the risk of fire, were burning brightly on the altar of Our Lady of Virtues. Again, with the doors closed, no one could have relit them. The arm of the statue then began to move, pointing out to those gathered the entrance to the underground passage, which was under a slab in the church. The English were caught and the town was saved.

Until the 18th century, visitors to the chapel of the Holy Savior were astonished to see a hole in the middle of the nave, in a place that was both impractical and unsightly, surrounded by a fairly high coping, covered to prevent accidents: this was the exit to the underground passageway through which the English intended to invade Rennes.

The chapel, too small to accommodate the pilgrims who came to venerate the Virgin, was later demolished, and replaced by the basilica of the same name. Although it was decided to fill in the hole after the new building was constructed, a slab was laid in its exact location, mentioning the miracle of 8 February: the location of the tunnel exit is still known today.

Excavation work carried out in 1902 near Saint-Sauveur even made it possible to find the entire underground passageway, which ran under the ramparts and into the chapel.

As commentators - especially the 17th-century historian Gilles de Languedoc - have pointed out, it would have been very strange to have dug (without anyone noticing or reporting it) a false underground passage to support a false miracle, and to have preserved it for so long in memory of an invented event.

To commemorate the miracle, the people of Rennes first vowed to keep a very large candle perpetually lit on the altar (a custom whose existence is attested to by documents dating from before 1388). Then, in gratitude, they decided to burn a second candle in honour of the Virgin, this time outside, in a stone gable built for the purpose. At the time, there were still quite a few living witnesses to the events of 1357, who would have been able to denounce the imposture if it had been the case.

The commemoration of the miracle entailed considerable expenditure (more than sixteen gold ecus) that nobody would have incurred, let alone continued for centuries, if there had been the slightest doubt about the veracity of the facts. Another major expense was the grandiose reconstruction of the altar of Our Lady of Virtues in 1440.

An important pilgrimage quickly developed around the miraculous statue, attesting to the genuine devotion inspired by Our Lady of Virtues. Until 1628, the floor of the church was even covered with fresh straw and gorse so that the many pilgrims who spent the night could sleep there.

From 1357, Our Lady of Virtues became Our Lady of Virtues and Miracles, a name that would have been considered sacrilegious if it had been a lie, at a time of great Marian devotion.

The miracle was officially recognised by the Church on several occasions: first by Bishop de Tréal of Rennes, then by his successors, Bishop Cornulier and Bishop de La Mothe-Houdancourt. Recognition procedures were not carried out lightly, so the bishops had to be convinced of the veracity of the facts.

In addition to the many unexpected cures obtained by coming to pray to her (cures that continue today, even though the statue is no longer the original one, destroyed during the Terror), the people of Rennes also credit Our Lady of Virtues with convincing the Duke of La Trémoille, commander of the French armies, to spare the town in July 1488, when he had just crushed the Bretons at the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier.

The great fire of 1720 destroyed half of Rennes. The fire stopped precisely at the moment when the flames leaped onto the basilica of Saint-Sauveur and were about to reach the miraculous statue.

The fact that the veneration of Our Lady of Virtues and Miracles has lasted for more than six hundred years, despite the dramatic turns of history, and that the people of Rennes are so attached to her, which has sometimes irritated a clergy quick to see it as superstition, is also a criterion of veracity. False devotions quickly disappear on their own.

Thus, the vestiges of the miracle, eyewitness accounts and measures taken to thank the Virgin prove the reality of events deemed miraculous by their contemporaries.

Summary:

In 1357, there were two contenders for the Duchy of Brittany: Charles de Blois and Jean de Montfort. Blois, a close relative of the King of France, was suspected of favouring French control of the country if he won; Montfort defended Breton independence and did not hesitate to ask England for military support. For twenty years, the two kingdoms had been at war: the English sovereigns claimed to be the sole legitimate heirs to the Crown of Lilies through Isabella of France, Queen of England, and declared that their Valois cousins were usurpers, having imposed their dynasty on them on the grounds that it was impossible for women to pass on the throne (Salic Law). Thus began the Hundred Years' War.

In this conflict, the support of Montfort, who opened the Breton ports to the enemy, was dangerous for France. It was true that Charles V had deployed his best troops in Brittany, commanded by a Breton, Bertrand du Guesclin, but the English were now laying siege to Rennes and, if they took it, the situation would tip in their favour. The beleaguered people of Rennes implored the help of the town's patron saint, Our Lady of Virtues, whose statue had been venerated in the chapel of Saint-Sauveur since the 12th century. Then, at the beginning of February, a rumour spread, plunging the population into fear: the English had dug an underground gallery enabling them to pass under the ramparts and enter the town centre. The only way to stop them would be to find the way out, but it was impossible to find, and prayers were redoubled.

On the night of 8 February, the population was awoken by the bells of the chapel of Saint-Sauveur ringing the tocsin (alarm bell). On the spot, it was found that the bells had rung without human assistance. But that's not the only mystery. As every evening, before closing the doors, the candles were extinguished as a precaution against fire, but everyone noticed that the two candles surrounding the Romanesque statue of Our Lady of Virtues (of the "Throne of Wisdom" type, as the Virgin is depicted seated with the Infant Jesus on her lap) were lit, giving a clear view of the holy image. Suddenly, the image came to life and, with her finger, pointed to a spot on the paving in front of her... Understanding what Our Lady wanted to tell them, the people of Rennes lifted the slab, which came down with suspicious ease, and they discovered the entrance to the famous underground passage, as well as an English commando who was preparing to attack and was massacred on the spot.

After that, no one dared attempt this kind of surprise and, a few months later, the Duke of Lancaster raised the siege of Rennes. The town was saved.

Some historians deny the miracle of 8 February 1357, arguing that the sources that mention it are dated very much later than the events and do not speak of a "miracle", and that the Chronicle of Brittany of 1532, which relates them, gives another date, that of 1343. This, they say, proves that the story is false and that it is a pious legend. But this version does not take into account the context of the time and the political rivalries that remained intense between the supporters of Montfort, who won the battle and became Duke of Brittany, and those of Blois, who was killed in the battle.

The Song of Bertrand du Guesclin (a pro-French source), the first document to mention the story, speaks not of a miracle, but of the cunning of an officer, John of Penhoët, who revealed the supposed existence of the English underground passage in order to induce the besieger, who thought he had been unmasked, to make a mistake and point out the location of the passage. In their view, the French party did not need heaven's help, which would have been a kind of cheating... So there was no need to point out the miracle. As for Montfort's supporters, they obviously had no interest in reporting that the Blessed Virgin had helped Blois by intervening, and so they too kept quiet about the miracle.

As for the Chronicle of Brittany, written after the marriage in 1488 of the Duchess Anne, granddaughter of John IV de Montfort, to the King of France, which led to Brittany becoming part of France, it was written over a century after the facts, so it is legimitate to envision an error in its chronology.

Vestiges of the events, testimonies and measures taken to thank the Virgin prove the reality of the events, which were considered miraculous by its contemporaries.

Anne Bernet is a Church History specialist, postulator of a cause for beatification and journalist for a number of Catholic media. She has published over forty books, most of them on the topic to sanctity.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Two of the greatest propagators of Marian devotion, Saint John Eudes, who preached devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for six months at Saint-Sauveur, and Saint Louis de Montfort, a student at Rennes and devotee of Our Lady of Virtues, prayed at the shrine, without ever suspecting any mystical fraud - on the contrary!

Going further:

Website page about the Saint-Sauveur basilica of Rennes

More information:

Abbé Chuberre, Notre-Dame des Miracles et Vertus, protectrice de la ville de Rennes, Imprimeries Oberthur, 1947.
Albert le Grand, Histoire des saints de Bretagne. Fifth edition available online.