14 MAR - OUR MOTHER DE LA BRECHE (FRANCE)

 Our Mother de la Breche, at Chartres, where a procession takes place every year, 

    in thanksgiving Our Mother for having delivered the city, when besieged by heretics in the year 1568. It was during this siege that the image of Our Mother, 

    placed upon the Drouaise gate could not be injured by the cannon and musket balls which the besiegers fired at it, 

    and the marks of which are still seen at two or three inches from the image. About the altar are there were numerous cannon-balls of stone which were relics of the siege. 

    Entering the large annex on the right the visitor would see a still more curious relic of the siege. 

    The men of the Huguenot army were the greatest soldiers in Europe yet were they miraculously blinded by a manifest miracle. 

    The defenders of Chartres placed above the gate of Drouaise the statue of Our Mother de la Breche against which the enemy fired many shots from 

    cannon but without being able to ever hit it. The statue remained whole and intact; in spite of the efforts of the enemy to destroy that image, 

    for it was never struck by a single shot.




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