Boucicaut Chapel of Saint-Sauveur Church, winner of the 2024 Pilgrim Media Prize

His name was Aristide Boucicaut (1810-1877), and with his wife, Marguerite Guérin, they made their fortune by creating Le Bon Marché, the first of the Parisian department stores. But Aristide never forgot his native village of Bellême (Orne). He obtained from the bishop the right to completely redecorate one of the four large chapels of the Saint-Sauveur church, in order to install a cenotaph there in honor of his late mother whose tomb had disappeared.

“Obviously, he asked the men of art who had built and decorated Le Bon Marché,” says Joël Lenoir, president of the Bellême heritage association who alerted the town hall and the regional directorate of cultural affairs of the sad state of this chapel classified: “Mosaic tiles are peeling off, golden stucco has fallen, marbles are broken, the paintings need to be cleaned, the lighting modernized…”, he lists. It became urgent to thoroughly restore this heritage typical of the end of the 19th century, with its rich ornaments.

A heritage that has long been neglected but which is beginning to be rediscovered and which the jury of the Pilgrim wanted to highlight by attributing to him the Pilgrim Media Prize supported by the CFRT-Jour du Seigneur. The projects, awarded this summer, will be launched before the end of the year. “The chapel will be part of a Boucicaut circuit,” adds Joël Lenoir, so that visitors can rediscover the astonishing destiny of this visionary trader, native of the country and generous patron.