Procession in Honor of the Assumption of Our Lady

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has revived the tradition of the procession in honor of Our Lady on the feast of her Assumption. You can see some pictures of it here. Note particularly the last in the series and the third from the last (labelled "quinzeaout0042" and "quinzeaout0048"). In these you can see the silver statue of Our Lady being carried in procession. It was created to replace her image destroyed by the revolutionaries during the terror.


The procession is described here by a witness (the man who took the photographs, in fact):

Notre Dame was having N.O. vespers, uninteresting patchwork of old and
new, french and latin. That included the Ave Maris Stella and the
beautiful Magnificat du ton Royal. I was really convinced by the
Magnificat and started singing (shouting?)with the crowd in the
packed cathedral. Then She appeared. Our Lady of the Vow, the
sterling silver statue of the Virgin, given by Charles X to replace
the one recently destroyed by the French revolution. She was wearing
her gold and diamonds crown made by Armand Caillat, one of the best
goldsmiths, and some flowers.

The procession was very well organized. Twenty Knights of the Holy
Sepulchre (who have always been commited to the guard of the Relics
of our Lord, Crown of thorns, thorns, True Cross) carried the Virgin,
and it was presided by one of our auxiliary bishops. 20 000 people
attended and the procession lasted more than two hours, a long walk
in La Cité. No latin but French litanies of the Virgin were sung
three times, the Glorious mysteries of the Rosary were said, some
cantiques were sung and parts of the text of the Vow were recited by
the bishop. And all the bells of the Cathedral...

The ND procession had been reduced to an indoor procession after the
council. In a small parish, St Eugène, we restored an outdoor
procession. Then St Nicolas had the idea to do the same and their
procession became popular. The Cathedral then decided to restore the
traditionnal procession. There are some good signs sometimes.

[Thanks, Philippe.]