The ex-votos and sculptures of the Saint-Léger chapel (Finistère), winners of the Grand Prix Pèlerin du Patrimoine

Legs and bodies of small children made of beeswax are hung by a string from a pillar. Above them, a plaque: “Thank you Saint Léger.” “Behind these modest ex-votos, there are people, stories of healing or hope of healing, it’s very touching!”

This is how Annick Bisquay, secretary of Giving life to the Saint-Léger chapel, in Riec-sur-Bélon, expresses the motivation of her association to have these fragile and rare testimonies of popular piety restored by a specialist, before they are exhibited in a suitable display case.

This project has just won the Pèlerin des Médias prize, supported by the CFRT-Jour du Seigneur. “We came to invoke Saint Léger to make babies walk faster or because our legs hurt,” says the woman who still remembers participating in this devotion, as a child, for her younger brother. From now on, it is especially the forgiveness of the second Sunday in July that attracts people to this chapel.

Six statues of saints, in Breton naive style, will also be cleaned. “Like children, I have a predilection for Saint Julien, represented wearing a “swimsuit”, who waits to take the faithful across the river,” says Annick Bisquay mischievously. Saint-Léger, built around 1850 on a stream which leads to the small Bélon river, on the edge of a bucolic beach, is worth a stop. The association, which is well aware of this, opened the building every Sunday afternoon this summer.