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The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Ceignac is located near Rodez, in southern France (the Aveyron region), in the town of Calmont. This place in the historical province of Rouergue has been dedicated to the Virgin Mary for a very long time.
Historians attribute its foundation to Saint Martial himself, when he came to evangelize the region, although there are no official records of it. There is, however, the testimony of the knight of Rudelle, parish priest of Ceignac in 1823, who wrote:
"Tradition reports that around the year 1150, there was in Hungary a blind prince palatine, very devoted to the Blessed Virgin, whom he often invoked in a chapel where he had seven lamps burning constantly before her image. While he was praying one evening at the foot of the Virgin Mary, she appeared to him and asked him what he wanted from her. He answered that he would like to regain his sight: ‘I am willing to grant it to you,’ replied the Blessed Virgin, ‘but not in this place: Go to the kingdom of France, to a holy chapel built and consecrated to my name near the city of Rodez, in the forest called ‘des Monts’, between the rivers Aveiron and Viaur; it is there that I will answer your prayers.’
The prince traveled by boat through the Adriatic Sea, where a storm caused him to lose some of his people. He then crossed the mountains of Languedoc on foot to the chapel of the Mounts, where, having entered, after greeting the Blessed Virgin, he had a mass celebrated inside.
During the celebration, he received three extraordinary graces: the first was the recovery of his sight, during the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament; the second grace was the healing of the fevers with which he was afflicted; the third, which seems no less miraculous, was the unexpected reunion with his sailors who had been scattered at sea.”