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Updated: June 3, 2025
By far the greater number were women, and the many bent backs and withered faces among them were a pretty safe sign that they had not all come to implore the aid of the Virgin in that special form of domestic trouble from which so many thousands have sought relief century after century in her sanctuary of Roc-Amadour.
On the night following the opening of the retreat, Roc-Amadour is illuminated, and the spectacle is one that renders the grandest illuminations in Paris mean and vulgar by comparison. It is not in the costliness of the display that its splendour lies; it is in what may almost be termed the zeal with which Nature works with art towards the same end.
And to see these pilgrims devour the fragrant fruit in the month of September makes one think that if Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour were not very pitiful the consequences would be disastrous to many. There was a humorous beggar on the steps who amused me much, for I watched him more closely than he supposed.
It appears to have been wrenched out of the known order of human works the result of common motives and however often Roc-Amadour may suddenly meet the eye upon turning the gorge, the picture never fails to be surprising. It has really the air of a holy place, which many others famed for holiness have not.
Hither he came for quietude, and here he wrote his 'Télémaque, a historical trace of which is found in a little island of the Dordogne, which is called 'L'Ile de Calypso. It is recorded that the mother of the great Churchman and writer, when she feared that she would be childless, went on a pilgrimage to Roc-Amadour, and that Fénélon was the consequence of that act of devotion.
The desire to explore this cavern becoming strong, I spoke to Decros about the adventure. He was ready to go with me; and so we started, taking with us enough candles to light a ball-room. On our way over the hills from Roc-Amadour, we passed two dolmens, one of which was in good preservation.
Although the last days of May had come, the Alzou, usually dry at this time, was running with swift, strong current through the vale of Roc-Amadour. There had been so many thunderstorms that the channel was not large enough for the torrent that raced madly over its yellow pebbles.
Before the main body of the British force that subdued Roc-Amadour as related by Froissart arrived in the Haut-Quercy, the castle of Prangères, near Gramat, was entered by a troop of armed men in the English service under Jéhan Péhautier, one of those brigand captains of whom the mediaeval history and legends of Guyenne speak only too eloquently.
All this is open to controversy, but what is undoubtedly true is that one of the earliest sanctuaries of Europe associated with the name of Mary was at Roc-Amadour.
It is at night, however, during the retreat that the visitor to Roc-Amadour will see the strangest sight if he gives himself the trouble, for then the church of St. Sauveur becomes a hospice where the weary may find the sleep that refreshes and restores the faculties after the work of the day, as sung by St. Ambrose.
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