Dijon - Notre-Dame

Dijon, today a city with a population of about 150.000, was a Roman settlement named Divio, located on the road from Lyon to Paris. Saint Benignus, the city's patron saint, is said to have introduced Christianity to the area before being martyred.
The province was home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th centuries, and Dijon was a place of wealth and power.

In 1513, Swiss and Imperial armies invaded Burgundy and besieged Dijon. The siege was extremely violent, but after long negotiations, Louis II de la Trémoille managed to persuade the armies to withdraw. During the siege, the population called on the Virgin Mary for help and saw the withdrawal of the invaders as a miracle. For those reasons, in the years following the siege the inhabitants began to venerate Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope).

Before the second half of the 12th century, the site of today's Notre-Dame was occupied by a simple chapel, which was outside the city walls. Beginning around 1220 the erection of the Gothic church of today started.

The wooden statue called Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir is dated 11th/12th century. The Virgin originally was seated on a throne, holding the baby Jesus. Later the throne was removed and the back of the statue was sawn off and replaced by a piece of wood. The baby Jesus disappeared during the French Revolution, in 1794. By the 18th century, the Virgin's hands had been lost.