Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
My first task was to make arrangements for Masses for the soul of the dead Olivet, and for the erection of a small cross to his memory in the Church of Ste. Radegonde. Thus having fulfilled my promise to mademoiselle I spent the next day or so in resting my arm, which grew rapidly better, and in replacing sundry articles of apparel both for Pierrebon and myself.
Not far from it, in a lonely corner which was ani- mated for the moment by the vociferations of several old, women who were selling tapers, presumably for the occasion of a particular devotion, is the graceful romanesque church erected in the twelfth century to Saint Radegonde, a lady who found means to be a saint even in the capacity of a Merovingian queen.
This is pious work fine work, if you will but devoid of the 'beyond'; here is art indeed, but it has ceased to be mysticism. "Look at St. Anne with her gloomy expression, either cross or suffering how far she is from the so-called Radegonde and Berthe! "With the exception of two, St. John and St. Joseph over there in the innermost part of the arch, these are familiar figures.
* The church of Sainte-Radegonde, built by the saint of that name in the sixth century, is famous throughout Poitou. In the crypt between the tombs of Ste. Agnes and St. Disciole is that of Ste. Radegonde herself, but it now only contains some particles of her remains, as the greater portion was burnt by the Huguenots in 1562.
Its small, squat doorway and three little belfries, as if it had been built for a village of dwarfs, attested its Romanesque origin; and, as at Saint Radegonde at Poitiers and Notre Dame de la Couture at le Mans, the interior opened, under an altar very much raised above the ground, into a crypt lighted by loopholes borrowing their light from the ambulatory of the choir.
I know not whether this privilege is occasional or constant; within the church there was no appearance of a festival, and I see that the name-day of Saint Radegonde occurs in August, so that the importunate old women sit there always perhaps and deprive of its propriety the epithet I just applied to this provincial corner.
A greater curiosity which the church contains is a footprint on a stone slab, said to have been left by Christ when He appeared to Ste. Radegonde in her cell. This attracts pilgrims from many parts. Trans. "They promised to tell him and send him here with the Holy Oils as soon as they found him," added Sister Claire. However, this was quite a disaster for Sister Hyacinthe.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking