An 18th century prayer book to accompany those who visited the Calvaire Chapels in Vence.
Hidden away on a small side street on the west side of Vence is a series of small chapels that date back to the early 1700s. Known as La Calvaire de Vence, you will find six chapels still intact alongside the road today. There is one large chapel, known as the “grand,” “mother,” or “main” chapel, and five smaller ones. Additionally, there is what remains of a seventh chapel, which has been partially destroyed. In 2024, Jacques Chave published the definitive book on these chapels, Le Calvaire de Vence.
These chapels were initially filled with a collection of over fifty almost life-sized wooden polychrome statues portraying the various scenes of the Mysteries of the Passion. Later, in the late 1800s, frescos were added to each of the chapels to complement (or maybe replace) the statues. Almost fifty of these statues have survived. From their original creation through the French Revolution and into the late 19th century, these chapels and statues attracted faithful pilgrims from near and far.
Canon Honoré Blanc began work on the Calvary of Vence on January 20, 1720. We know this exact date because it is noted in the will he left upon his death. The large chapel was the first to be built (though there is some disagreement about this), followed by a series of smaller chapels. Blanc’s will states that there were ten chapels in total. However, in 1725, he published a small spiritual guide (an expanded second edition was published the following year) for visitors to the chapels, where he contradicts himself by saying there were only eight.
In his guide Blanc emphasized that visiting the Calvary of Vence could serve as a substitute for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He wrote, “It is true that not everyone is capable of such great courage and zeal [as those who travel to Jerusalem]. There are even many who, due to unavoidable commitments, cannot abandon their properties, occupations, and families. But divine providence has inspired different people to build chapels where the Mysteries and the Passion are presented, so that the faithful may find nearby what so many holy pilgrims travel far to seek.” He also advised against allowing young girls to visit the chapels in the company of young men, pointing out that the secluded location could lead to “inappropriate behavior.”
Today, original copies of this book are virtually impossible to find. Mr. Chave was kind enough to share images of the pages from the guide with me. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been transcribed into French, let alone translated into English. I have done so, following the design and layout of the original book and copying the style and fonts as closely as possible.
I used OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to convert the scanned images into actual text. Then, I recreated the book in its original French, reading through it and correcting any problems I found. To create the English translation, I used ChatGPT to translate the text, again reading through everything carefully and making any needed corrections. As careful as I have been, there are bound to be errors here and there.
Overall, I think this is a very good translation and quite readable. I hope you find it worthwhile. If you find any typos or mistakes, please email me so that I can correct them for future versions.
In the spirit in which Mr. Chave shared the original images with me, I am making this English translation, along with the French version and a reproduction of the original book, free for everyone. Enjoy.
Download a high quality PDF reproduction of the original book (7mb)
Download a high quality PDF of the book transcribed in French (3mb)
Download a high quality PDF of the book translated into English (3mb)
[click on any image to see sample pages of the original, English and French versions]