The apparitions to Brother Fiacre

Summary:

Denis Anthaume, in religion Brother Fiacre de Sainte-Marguerite, was born on February 21, 1609, from a very modest social background in Marly-la-Ville (France, Val d'Oise). He was partially illiterate and learned the trade of potter early in his life. For a time, he worked in Montmartre, near the convent of the Discalced Augustinians, rising early every morning to attend their conventual mass.

In 1628, Denis tried to join this convent, but was not admitted. He then asked the Virgin Mary to help him, and was admitted to that same community twenty months later as a "lay" brother - meaning that he was entrusted with manual work. He was an unremarkable religious, obedient, zealous in carrying out the tasks entrusted to him, and, above all, a man of prayer and faith.

On October 27, 1637, Brother Fiacre had a strong "interior illumination": he felt he should entreat the Virgin Mary to intercede so that God would give a successor to Louis XIII, who had been married for twenty-three years and had no children. On the night of November 3, the Virgin Mary appeared to him four times. As Br. Fiacre prayed, he first heard the voice of a small child. Surprised, he turned his head and at that moment saw the Virgin in a beautiful light, dressed in a blue dress strewn with stars, her hair hanging over her shoulders, sitting on a chair, holding a child. "Don't be afraid, I am the Mother of God" she said to the friar. After a few seconds, she added, pointing to the little boy sitting on her lap: "This is not my Son, this is the child God wants to give to France."The Virgin asked Queen Anne for three public novenas: one said publicly at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, one at the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires (Paris) and the last at the church of Cotignac (France, Var), after which she promised her a son.

During the fourth and last apparition, Mary said the following: "To show that I want the Queen to be told to make novenas in my honour, here is the same image that is in Notre-Dame-des-Grâces, in Provence [Cotignac], and the way the church looks." At that moment, Brother Fiacre clearly saw the Marian painting at the church of the Provençal shrine, "half-round, all azure and strewn with stars near the altar". And to confirm her words, Mary told him that he would find that same image of her inside the church of Cotignac!

The next day, Brother Fiacre reported the apparitions to his superiors. A report was drawn up immediately. The Augustinians informed Cardinal François de La Rochefoucauld that a modest, simple and pious brother had been visited by the Mother of God on the subject of the royal descent. The prelate, Grand Chaplain of France, former adviser to Henry IV and President of the King's Council, was to play a key role in this affair: he wrote a letter to the Governor of Provence and the Bishop of Fréjus (France, Var) to verify Brother Fiacre's statements, particularly with regard to the topography and decoration of the shrine church. Following the confirmation by his correspondents, the cardinal put all his heart in making Mary's requests happen.

The improbable became reality: within a few days, Brother Fiacre was received by the royal couple Anne of Austria and Louis XIII, who agreed to organise the three novenas requested by Mary, in the places chosen by her. A special bond developped between the royal couple and the humble friar. The scheduled novenas began on November 8, 1637,  and concluded on the following December. In mid-January 1638, the queen announced she was pregnant. The following month, Brother Fiacre had another audience at the court. The king and queen asked him to go to Cotignac to verify the existence and description of the painting of the Virgin he had seen in a vision, and to pray for them and for the happy outcome of the pregnancy.

Brother Fiacre set off for the south of France in the company of Brother Jean Chrysostome, sub-prior of the Paris convent. When he arrived at the church of Notre-Dame-des-Grâces in Cotignac, Fiacre couldn't hide his disappointment: while the place did indeed resemble his vision, he couldn't find the painting of Mary. Had he been the victim of an illusion? "It's impossible," he said to himself as he left the church. Just then, the two monks ran into the church's sacristan. They quickly asked him if the painting existed. The man explained that it had been replaced a fortnight earlier by a newer painting and that it had simply been taken to the sacristy. On discovering the painting, Fiacre was very moved to see that it looked exactly as in his vision.

On February 10, 1638, the sovereign promised to consecrate the kingdom of France to the Virgin Mary if an heir was given to him. This was the famous "Vow of Louis XIII", which provided for the consecration of the main chapels in each French church to the Virgin Mary, if it was not already the case. The vow was confirmed by Louis XIV in 1650, Louis XV in 1738 and Louis XVIII in 1814. Published by letters patent, after consultation with the Parliament of Paris, it was a legislative document of national scope: this text consecrates the kingdom of France, the king and his subjects under the protection of the Virgin Mary. It includes a set of promises and acts of religious devotion to be performed by the king and the entire population, essentially on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15).

On September 5, 1638, nine months to the day after the end of the novenas, Louis "Dieudonné" ("God-given"), the future Louis XIV, was born. He would succeed his father Louis XIII sixteen years later.

In just a few months, Fiacre went from anonymity to celebrity. Thousands of small images of him were printed and often hung in town carriages, hence his name (Note: "fiacre" is the French word for "cab"). In 1644, Anne of Austria asked him to bring to Cotignac a painting representing the "vow of Louis XIII" (this painting was destroyed during the Revolution) and to pray for herself and the young Louis. Ten years later, Fiacre was invited to attend the coronation of Louis XIV, but he declined out of humility. In 1661, the Sun King asked him to bring to Cotignac a copy of his marriage contract with Marie-Thérèse and a copy of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, by which France and Spain had just made peace. The friendship between the king and Fiacre endured. In 1684, the Parisian friar obtained permission from Louis XIV for his heart to be placed in the church at Cotignac after his death. Four months later, after God had called his servant back to himself, two religious arrived at Notre-Dame-de-Grâces Shrine in Cotignac, carrying a reliquary in which Fiacre's heart had been placed, as the former modest potter had wished, under the altar stairs. 

Beyond reasons to believe:

The legislative nature of Louis XIII's vow destroys the theories attributing the authorship of this text to influencial ecclesiastics like Richelieu, politicians or women of the court like Madame de La Fayette. The king, in whose name all laws were enacted during the Old Regime, was the sole author and initiator of the vow.

Going further:

René Laurentin and Patrick Sbalchiero, Dictionnaire des "apparitions" de la Vierge Marie, Paris, Fayard, 2007, p. 695-696.

More information:

• Victor-Lucien Tapié, La France de Louis XIII et de Richelieu, Paris, Flammarion, 1967, p. 363-375.
• René Laurentin, Le vœu de Louis XIII. Passé ou avenir de la France, 1638-1988: 350e anniversaire, preface by Pierre Chaunu, Paris, Œil, 1988.
• On the Notre Histoire avec Marie website, the article " The birth of Louis XIV 'Dieudonné' puts an end to 20 years of sterility in the marriage between Anne of Austria and Louis XIII".