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Never has this event, supervised by the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association, brought together so many walkers: 18,000, according to the organizers. Mass in Latin and “patriotic vision of Catholicism”, this pilgrimage is a true rallying point for “tradiland”.
In the immense plain of Beauce, the column can be seen from afar, stretching for long kilometers. The wheat is still green. Banners with fleur-de-lys and flags displaying the chouan heart (a red heart surmounted by a cross), symbols of a counter-revolutionary world that was believed to be submerged, flap in the wind. “It’s the crowd of tradition lovers», enthuses Xavier, a young 24-year-old engineer. The tradition ? It is that of the Latin Mass (called Tridentine and which was codified in the 16th century at the Council of Trent) that these thousands of pilgrims defend against all odds. Starting from Paris, they reach Chartres and its cathedral every Pentecost weekend, covering around a hundred kilometers on foot in three days.
“Physical effort must lead to spiritual effort,” comments the national chaplain of the pilgrimage, Jean de Massia, barely 34 years old. The affable abbot with a baby face and close-cropped hair wears, as he should, a strict black cassock and walking shoes. “The first day, Saturday, is the toughest», adds Massia. Forty kilometers to reach the first bivouac in Choisel, in the Chevreuse valley. Because, according to what the chaplain explains, we must leave the contingencies of the world to get closer to God.
Among the French “tradis”, the time has come for triumph. Never has the Chartres pilgrimage, supervised by the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association, brought together so many walkers, 18