Chapelle Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre

The first parish church was called Notre Dame de Layre. We still have the statue that was in this church: Notre-Dame des Anges.

In Benaud, at the exit of the town on the road which led to Ambert, there was a large cross with a pedestal in the form of a niche. There was a statue of the Virgin seated holding her child Jesus on her knees. It was Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre. Traces of his veneration date back to 1599.

During the Revolution, a former sailor, converted into a baker, took the statue to hide it at home and hid it in his mess and then in his cellar in order to spare it from the searches of the revolutionaries.

In 1801, the statue returned to its place under the cross. The parish church having been destroyed, the parishioners undertook the construction of a chapel to the Virgin. It was at this time that the cross of Benaud was transported to the cemetery and the statue of Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre was found in the chapel.

However, current studies prove to us that the statue which is today in the chapel is not the primitive one. The current statue is often seen as a late copy of Notre-Dame des Chazes, which seems likely given that the monasteries of La Chaise-Dieu and that of Chazes are both of Benedictine origin.
This statue would represent Our Lady of Good Help, wrongly called Our Lady of Good Meeting, and with its modern lines has nothing of the Romanesque virgins of our mountains. We would conclude that she was replaced by an older Virgin...


Today, the Notre-Dame de Bon-Rencontre chapel remains very active throughout the year: the rosary is recited there on many solemnities of the Virgin Mary and during the months of the rosary and of Mary. We owe this activity to the presence of the brothers of Saint-Jean at La Chaise Dieu.