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Origin and history

The Notre-Dame de Montplace chapel, located in Jarzé Villages in the department of Maine-et-Loire, was built in the seventeenth century following a Marian apparition. According to legend, around 1610, a shepherdess saw an ancient statue of the Virgin Mary light up in an appentis. This phenomenon attracted popular devotion, reinforced by stories of miraculous healings. Under the impulse of the Marquis de Jarze, protector of the place, a chapel was erected in the second half of the seventeenth century to house the statue, a walnut stake dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century.

The chapel, rectangular with three spans, is topped by a roof on the back of the donkey surmounted by a central bell tower. It remains an active place of worship, welcoming every August 15 a procession from the village of Jarze for the feast of the Assumption, followed by a mass. The original statue, still present, is at the heart of this unbroken religious tradition since its discovery.

The monument also has a funeral dimension: it houses the tombs of the Nantes shipowner Piter Deurbroucq (1756–1831), MP and President of the General Council of Maine-et-Loire, as well as those of his family. Classified as historical monuments in 1950, the chapel illustrates both the Angelvin religious heritage and local history, mixing legend, popular devotion and aristocratic memory.

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