11 juin 2007
Ronzières
The hillock around which this small village is built was inhabited since of very moved back times. The naturally defensive basaltic headland was used as of the first millenium before our era, before being re-occupied at the Lower Empire, then strengthened at the time Carolingian.
In parallel, it very early sheltered one of the first rural parishes of the diocese.
Behind the Romance church, one discovers excavations going up at the time Gallo-Roman. In this church, in addition to the black virgin trônant, one can see the châpiteaux ones of Gallic invoice undoubtedly coming from a temple raised formerly at this place.
The legend of Ronzières arrived to us starts with the arrival of Baudime Saint.
“Whereas Holy Baudime passed by Ronzières, it found a source dedicated to the fairies. It y précha and devoted it to Notre-Dame. The source exempted a water healer then and never not taring. A vault was built there. During the cruel invasions, the vault sheltering the fountain was destroyed and the statue of Notre-Dame, placed by the saint, disappeared. Much later, after the revolution, the statue was found, in a roncier not far from the fountain, by an ox which marked a rock of its shoe. The girls wishing to marry always slip their feet into the “step of ox”, on the driving way with the fountain, and deposit an offering with the church.”
Another legend, a little more explicit…
“Holy Baudime and the dragon.
The oldest legend reports the duel epic which opposed Saint Baudime, compagon evangelist of Nectaire saint, with a hideous monster. This one had established its den in anfractuosities of cliff and terrorized the inhabitants of the area. Baudime had courage to face the terrible dragon and embanked it at the end of a keen combat. the legend also tells that before mourrir, the animal marked the rock of the print of its claws and caused the crumbling of the southern part of the plate… “
I found the church without problem, the step of ox with a little
more evil. The source was another business. The way of Jacques saint
passes by there, but it turns well before the fountain. (one passes,
while going up towards the church, by several doors of life. The drawn
up stones on each side of the way propose to us, as in the forest of
Holy the Balsam, the stages.)
It should have been deserved, which makes me say that it is still operational. I met a guy of the corner which, with a small smile narquois, said to me that it “did not see at all what I wanted to speak”… It collected the fruits of a splendid lime offering its saving shade in these days of torrid heat, just behind the church.
I am sure that this place belonged to the top-places of France. The
stone with cup being in front of the fountain, and that I suspect of
speaking to us about things that one can hear only with the ears of the
ass which hurdy-gurdy, in fact faith…
The dragon indicates the telluric power of this place, the black virgin and her source to us her effectiveness.