A small 24-page booklet commemorating the events of April 15, 1914 when the discovery of the “lost” relics of Saint Véran and Saint Lambert were celebrated in Vence.
One of the largest religious ceremonies ever held in the town of Vence occurred on Easter Thursday, April 16, 1914. (Note: this booklet specifically shows the date as April 15, but it was indeed April 16.) The occasion was the celebration of the discovery of the “lost” relics of Saint Véran and Saint Lambert, the two patron saints of Vence. These precious relics (the bones of the saints), believed to have been lost for over one-hundred years, were discovered hidden in the Vence Cathedral a year earlier.
The relics had disappeared in 1793 during the height of the French Revolution when many Catholic relics, statues, manuscripts, chalices, candlesticks, busts and other liturgical objects were confiscated and/or destroyed by the revolutionaries.
In 1913, the then current Bishop of Nice, Henri-Louis Chapon, set about to try and find out what had happened to the relics. Father Marius-Emile Baude, the archpriest of the Vence Cathedral, was tasked with researching and investigating the missing relics.
After combing through old documents and manuscripts in the Vence archives, Baude discovered some hand-written notes which led him to believe the relics had been hidden in a wall of one of the chapels in the cathedral. On June 7, 1913, Father Baude, along with the then current mayor of Vence, Mr. Bougearel, and several other witnesses, removed a large painting hanging in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart in the cathedral. Behind it they found a cupboard and inside the cupboard they found several wooden chests (along with two very old wooden busts of the two saints).
Three days later, on June 10th, the chests were opened in a public ceremony attended by a large contingency of civil and religious authorities, as well as members of the public. Inside one of the wooden chests were white silk pouches containing the relics of Saint Véran and Saint Lambert. The relics of other saints were found in the other two wooden chests, most likely removed from various reliquaries that were seized and melted down during the French Revolution. Certificates attesting to the authenticity of the relics had been placed in one of the smaller wooden chests.
Grand celebrations to mark the discovery and homecoming of the relics were organized on Easter Thursday, April 15th of the following year, 1914. The Archbishop of Aix presided over the ceremonies which were attended by a cardinal, the Abbot of Lérins, ten bishops and over two-hundred priests. Pilgrims from towns all over the region travelled to Vence for the solemn ceremonies.
The celebration was described in this booklet: “Never, within the memory of the people of Vence, had the town seen such a crowd. Thousands of pilgrims arrive from every direction. I see some coming from Ventimiglia, Menton, Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Fréjus, Toulon, Draguignan, Fayence, Grasse, Sospel, Saint-Martin-Vésubie, Venanson, Villars, Mons, etc., etc. As for the surrounding countryside, I was assured that all its inhabitants had come to Vence. There are more than two hundred priests; all the youth organizations of the diocese are represented: Boy Scouts in striking uniforms, young guides in dark attire, gymnasts in ceremonial dress.”
A small booklet, published shortly after the celebrations, commemorated the events of these days. Titled Fête de l’Invention des Reliques de Saint Lambert et de Saint Véran (The Feast of the Discovery of the Relics of Saint Lambert and Saint Véran) is divided into three parts: 1. A detailed account of the ceremonies by G. Adami; 2. A speech by Mrg. Félix Guillibert, the Bishop of Fréjus given that day; 3. A sermon by Abbé Thellier de Poncheville given at the high mass on that same day.
Original copies of this little booklet are fairly hard to come by today. I found one in the Nice Diocesaines Archives. I was allowed to photograph the pages and have created a downloadable PDF of the booklet, along with an English translation.
You can read a more in-depth account of these relics in this article: Devotion, History and Art: The Relics, Reliquaries and Busts of Saint Véran and Saint Lambert of Vence
Download a high-quality PDF reproduction of the original booklet in French (30mb)
Download a high-quality PDF reproduction of the English translation of this booklet (1mb)
[click on any image to see sample pages of the original and English versions]
Steve and Carole
Thank you again for your illuminating narrative on the finding of the bones of St V and St L. Where are just in Vence now and we saw the progress of the archaeological work near the Place Clemenceau. It’s super that this fascinating history continues to be a source of wonder.
Hi Graeme, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m publishing an in-depth article on the “missing” relics in the next few days, so keep an eye out for that.