Le Puy en Velay

Since the early (even pre-Christian) times Le Puy has been a center of pilgrimage. Le Puy was a centre of the cult of Our Lady, already Charlemagne made the pilgrimage to Le Puy twice.

Seen in the forground is the 12th centry chapel "Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe" ("Saint Michel on the Needle"). In the backdrop, on the top of the Rocher Corneille, the huge "Notre-Dame de France". It was made from 213 Russian cannons taken in the "Siege of Sevastopol" (1854–1855).

It may have been created, as during the Revolution furious revolutionists had burnt the statue of the miraculous Black Virgin, that was adored for centuries inside the Cathédrale Notre-Dame, seen to the right.