THE SHRINE OF THE SALETTE
A remarkable building representing the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the children of La Salette in the Alps, a place of pilgrimage.
A cultural site owned by the Conseil départemental de la Vendée, this singular and unusual building, built on the hillside overlooking the course of the Petite Maine, at La Rabatelière, represents the apparitions of the Virgin to the children of La Salette in the Alps in 1846. The Sanctuary of Salette is made up of various constructions which marked the parish life of the end of the 19th century and shows the fervour of the Vendeans for the cult of the Virgin. But let's go back in time... In response to the anti-clerical policy in France from 1879 onwards, there was a wave of church rebuilding and the construction of places of worship in the Vendée. It was on the initiative of Abbot Hillairet, parish priest of La Rabatelière between 1873 and 1908 that the sanctuary was built in 1887. It is one of the most original places of pilgrimage in the department, as much by the materials used - local schist and brick - as by the architecture. Testimony to the religiosity of the second half of the 19th century, this set consists of three sets and a Way of the Cross, all in a plant universe exotic: the monument to Our Lady of La Salette, the rosary and the monument to the Cross of Jerusalem. The sanctuary reproduces the episodes of the apparition of the Virgin Mary dressed in Dauphinois costume to two children. Staircases and alleys make up the ascent. A pilgrimage takes place there every year on thefirst Sunday of September.
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