Our Lady of Victories

Then, as the population of the neighborhood had increased, and the faithful flocked to the chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows which was honored in this church, the nave proved too small. In 1656, the building that still exists today was constructed; and Anne of Austria, to wh om a religious of this convent had predicted the birth of Louis XIV, herself had the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, which has since become so famous, decorated and clad in marble out of gratitude. Enlarged in 1737, having become a constitutional parish in 1791 after the expulsion of the Augustinian religious, then a parish church by the Concordat of 1802, it was for more than thirty years a deserted church, which almost no one frequented. Located in the center of commerce and business, surrounded by theaters and places of pleasure, agitated by all the political movements that seemed to start from this neighborhood and end there, one would have said that it was only a useless appendage: its worship neglected, the sacraments abandoned, pious practices and even the greatest solemnities forsaken as outdated customs, good for the simplicity of our fathers, everything announced a population dead to the faith.

Abbé Desgenettes was appointed pastor of this church in 1832; for four years he lamented his sterile ministry; finally, on December 3, 1836, during Mass, he felt interiorly urged to consecrate his parish to the most holy and immaculate heart of Mary. At first, he took this feeling for an illusion; for he had never thought of honoring the heart of Mary. But then, during his thanksgiving and even after he had finished it, this same feeling became more vivid, more penetrating, more pressing. Then, although with difficulty, he decided to follow this interior movement; he returned to his room, began to draft the statutes of an association of the ho ly heart of Mary, and was quite su rprised by the ease with which he executed this unaccustomed work. He went without delay to present it to Mgr de Quéle n, Archbishop of Paris, who immediately approved the association. The following Sunday, he announced the new confraternity during the sermon, and indicated the first meeting for that same day, at seven o'clock in the evening: it was the third Sunday of Advent, December 11, 1836. Scarcely had he descended from the pulpit, when two merchants of his parish, whom one never saw at church, came to ask him to hear their confession; such were the first fruits of a work that was to produce so many others.

Throughout the day, the zealous pastor found himself torn between fear and hope; but, in the evening, what were his surprise and joy when, entering the church at the appointed hour, he found it full of people who had flocked to the inauguration of the new work, and among them a large number of men. The exercise began with the singing of the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, which were heard with some indifference; but the instruction that followed on the purpose of the meeting was listened to with remarkable recollection; and the enthusiasm and animation of all the voices in singing the prayers of the Benediction and the litanies of the Blessed Virgin, the spontaneity with which the invocation *Refugium peccatorum, ora pro nobis* was repeated three times, as well as the *Parce, Domine*, revealed that all hearts were won over, and the success of the work assured. M. Desgenettes took advantage of the general emotion to have the assembly ask God for the conversion of one of his parishioners, a former minister of Louis XVI, who, brought by his great age to the gates of the grave, was still living in disbelief. The next day, he went to see the old man; he was well received; he reawakened Christian sentiments in him; finally, he heard his confession, and had the consolation of seeing him enter a new path in which he persevered until death.

The following Sunday, the same exercises took place at the same hour, with the same attendance; and when, on Sunday, January 12, 1837, the statutes of the association were published and the register for enrolling members was opened, there was a crowd to sign up. Not ten days had passed before there were already two hundred and twelve members, almost all parishioners; in the following days, it was impossible to keep up with the eagerness of the faithful from the various parishes of Paris and elsewhere who came to be enrolled. The Holy See, informed of the prodigious development of this goo d work, establ ished it as an archconfraternity, with the right to affiliate similar societies; and soon, requests for affiliation arrived from all points of the Catholic world; so that Notre-Dame des Victoires has become a great center of prayer for the conversion of sinners, the essential goal of the confraternity. At each meeting, some conversions are recommended to Mary, and wonders of mercy are obtained; sometimes even temporal graces are asked of her, as a means to touch hearts and bring them back to salvation, and it is impossible to state the number of healings or other favors obtained. Thus, the church, once so deserted, is today the most frequented in the capital; at any hour of the day, there is a crowd before the altar of Mary; and at the Sunday evening meetings, the crowd presses in, attentive, recollected, and moved: it is one of the most beautiful spectacles that religion can offer.

Finally, what crowned the fame of this church, the sovereign Pontiffs, after having granted it the most abundant indulgences, added a privilege reserved for the most venerated sanctuaries of the Blessed Virgin. Msgr. Pacca, nephew of th e illustr ious cardinal of that name, came on July 9, 1853, to solemnly crown the statue of Our Lady of Victories, in the name of the sovereign Pontiff and the chapter of Saint Peter's in Rome.

*Notre-Dame de France*, by the parish priest of Saint-Sulpice. — Cf. *Le Pèlerin à Notre-Dame des Victoires*, by Abbé V. Dumas (Paris, Pousselague, 1867).