Cusset

The current statue is a copy of substitution. One still has the hands of the old statue, in the treasure of the church. They are dated from Xème century and are decorated bracelets of vermeil on which cups are fixed containing a chalcedony for the left hand and the right hand two cornalines, Roman intaglios representing Athéna-Minerve and a bouquet with a rudder.

The statue was found towards Xème century, according to the legend, on a fountain of the abbey of Cusset. The worship of Notre-Dame de Cusset was considerable and the kings of France Louis XI and Philippe the Beautiful one honoured it and covered it gifts. In 1629, it stopped the plague which devastated the city.

But celà did not prevent the statue from being destroyed with the revolution, and in spite of the new statue remade with the manner of old, its worship, which was one of largest the pélerinages to the Middle Ages, fell into the lapse of memory. (Jacques Bonvin, black Virgins)