The St Hubert Chapel Mystery
That there exists the remains of a chapel underneath the chapel which now goes by the name of St. Hubert Is no mystery.
We know: Louis XI built it for the private use of the royal family, a Chapel Royal, if you like; it was accessed from Queen Charlotte’s apartments in the Château; it was a replica of the burial tomb of Christ; it was called The Chapel of The Holy Sepulchre.
Apparently it is still possible to enter it via a small spiral staircase installed by the occupying German Army during the Second World War.
That Louis XI built a new chapel above it dedicated to Saint Blaise but died before he could finish it; or that his son Charles VIII was christened in the Chapel of Saint Blaise; or that Charles finished the building his father started is no mystery either. Although when he finished it is. No document with the exact date of the Chapel has yet been found.
Saint Blaise was a Christian Martyr in Turkey, a very popular Saint with a cult following all over Europe.
The mystery is that no-one knows how, when or why the Chapel of Saint Blaise transmuted into the Chapel of Saint Hubert.
The first reference to it being called Saint Hubert was in the 1850s but there is no record of the chapel being rededicated. One can only assume that someone, somewhere because of the carving showing the conversion of Hubert to Christianity, thought it was called that originally or that it should be.
Saint Blaise and Saint Hubert are both associated with wild animals. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Blaise during persecution (for converting to Christianity) took refuge in a cave. The locals brought him food, water and candles. He is said to have healed injured wild animals who made their way to him on their own and to have himself been helped by wild animals. Saint Blaise is the patron saint for wild animals.
To add further to the confusion, apparently, when the Château was returned to the Orléans family someone, possibly Louis-Philippe, had the chapel rededicated to, not Saint Blaise, not Saint Hubert but Saint Louis!
Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.
