Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Heritage

The Virgin Mary's Veil at Chartres Cathedral and how the relic reached France

Chartres is the first Gothic cathedral of France, dedicated to the Virgin, where one of the greatest Christian relics is kept: the veil of the Virgin Mary, in which she was clothed when she gave birth to Jesus. The silk camisia has been kept in the city since the 9th

Faith · Society · Paris · People

More than 10,000 pilgrims walk to Chartres in 2017 and Cardinal Burke's Mass

More than 10,000 of the faithful joined the 2017 pilgrimage to Chartres: 244 groups of 50 pilgrims each. The three-day, 100-kilometre route ran south from Notre-Dame de Paris through the Place de la Porte d'Orléans, then south-west to Chartres. The journey's

Pilgrims hold flags and banners before the altar inside Chartres Cathedral, with stained glass windows in the background.

NB! · Faith · Society

This year's three-day pilgrimage to Chartres ended on 5 June

The annual pilgrimage to Chartres lasts three days and celebrates the life and building of the third millennium of Christendom. This year it ended on 5 June

NB! · Faith · Paris · Reportage

the pilgrimage from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres is one of the largest in Europe and is dedicated to Pentecost (the 10th day after the Ascension and the 50th day after Easter), the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France, in a frightfully fine outfit with fur trim, a muff, a tippet and a plunging neckline

Marie Leszczyńska, Queen of France, in a frightfully fine outfit with fur trim, a muff, a tippet and a plunging neckline. The eighteenth century, but with our weather it would be just the thing today. And likewise in a sleigh, on some granite or other

Architecture · Art · Books · Monarchies · Paris

Napoleon's plaster model of a bronze elephant at the Bastille site stood until 1846

Napoleon wished to raise a dazzling monument to his victories: a bronze elephant twenty-four metres high, cast from melted-down cannon, was to adorn the square on the site of the demolished Bastille. The elephant, on a lofty pedestal, stood in the middle of a fountain, and the creature&

NB! · Architecture · Paris · Humour

This is how the elephant was meant to look, according to Jacques Cellerier and Jean Alavoine: with a conservatory in its bottom

Architecture · Books · Paris

Victor Hugo describes the decaying elephant monument at the Place de la Bastille in “Les Misérables”

Foreigners rarely inspected this structure, and passers-by did not look at it at all. The Elephant was crumbling with every year; fallen chunks of plaster left hideous sores on its flanks. The "aediles", as the elegant argot of the salons puts it, had forgotten it since 1814.

NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Paris

A Monument to Napoleon's Military Genius in the Fountain on the Place de la Bastille

Faith · Observations · Ethnography

How oracles received answers from the gods and how the Delphic Oracle worked

Oracle means an answer. Oracles foretold the future, while priests and soothsayers watched the course of the ceremonies and sacrifices, paying attention to the appearance and strength of the sacrificial fire and to the shape and colour of the entrails of the victim: from these it could be told whether

Archaeology · Faith · Monarchies

Some scholars believe that the chryselephantine Apollo of the 6th century BC was part of the ex-voto of Croesus, King of Lydia, to the Delphic oracle

Some scholars believe that the chryselephantine Apollo of the 6th century BC was part of the ex-voto of Croesus, King of Lydia, to the Delphic oracle. An ex-voto is an offering to a deity or a priest in gratitude or in fulfilment of a vow. Votive objects have

NB! · Art · Museums

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