Notre Dame de Santa Cruz

17 May 2007
Ascension, Nîmes, France
Pèlerinage de Notre Dame de Santa Cruz

Last night at our hotel in Nîmes I had the privilege of meeting a group of mostly Pieds-Noirs from Brest who invited me to join their group to Mas de Mingue today where the church of Notre Dame de Santa Cruz is located. I had originally planned to take the bus up and walk around on my own. I had understood from the church’s website http://sanctuairesantacruz-nimes.cef.fr/ that there would be masses celebrated all day and that the pilgrimage would take place at around 2:00 p.m. With an invitation to leave at 8:00 this morning with a group of Pieds-Noirs, I could not refuse.

We left almost promptly at 8:00 and in our group were Jean-Louis, the President of the Brest Association of Pieds-Noirs d’Oran (Oranie?), Max, the secretary and Mr. Popularity at the gathering, his wife Andrée, Suzanne who comes every year, Pierre, an Algerois Italian, and two friends of the group, Marie-France and Michèle. I wasn’t properly introduced and didn’t do a great job of introducing myself … but that came as the day progressed. We did not attend any of the masses, but the first activity once on site (and there were people walking from far away to get there already at 8:30 while we parked in the church parking lot) was to buy candles to light for those lost, ill, remembered. There was a group of scouts helping to light and place the candles. Everything was very well planned out and organized. The red cross was on site with tents set up, parking was all directed and passes were checked, food and drinks were for sale on the church grounds, the police were everywhere, and an Arabo-Pied-Noir market was set up near the chapel where there were breads, pastries and meats (and other friandises) as well as t-shirts and souvenirs du pays for sale.

I have never been better received by anyone. Of course, last time I came to Nîmes, M. Christian Pastor adopted me, introduced me to the mayor, and drove me up to Santa Cruz to show me around – making the priest give me a personal tour and giving me the history of the place. This time Jean-Louis explained even more to me, and many things I had unfortunately forgotten. The church was founded very early on – in 1962 or 63, and apparently a group of Oranais de Nîmes, or Nîmois d’Oran, clandestinely returned to Oran to steal the statue of the virgin, Notre Dame de Santa Cruz. Since then a sanctuary and shrine (reliquary or sacristy) has been built up, and every year on the Ascension, a pilgrimage is made. I kept hearing throughout the day that this year’s turn out wasn’t nearly as good as the past … that there used to be so many people that they could hardly move through the streets. Max thought that maybe the cult had reached its peak ten years ago.

After Jean-Louis and Pierre lit their candles and explained the shrine to me, Marie-France walked me down to the market. She is from Bretagne and explained that she makes the pilgrimage to remember her children who she recently lost in a traumatic accident. Along the way there were signs set up all over representing the different neighborhoods of Oran. People stand there during the day and others stop by and ask for certain people they knew or see if others can give them news of people past or hope to run into old friends and classmates. On our way through we ran into Max who was chatting with a friend with whom he had been an altar boy. Max took over the tour then and showed me the market. Some of the stalls had signs indicating their names (or their forefathers’ names) in Algeria. He explained several of the different foods to me (soubressade, merguez, boudin, mouna (recette) , paella with escargot, just to name a few), and we stopped to hear Raymond Chayat (paroles) (bio), singing about là-bas and the warm ambiance they used to know. That warm ambiance was certainly alive today.

We went back up to our station for lunch, but not before Max ran into another friend, a former colleague with whom he studied, who said something interesting to me – and this seemed to be the consensus. He said that there are those Pieds-Noirs who say that they should integrate and it’s time to forget. Those people are either lying, or not really Pieds-Noirs. This confirms the argument I made in my thesis that if the Pied-Noir were to move beyond returning to the past s/he would no longer be a Pied-Noir, because that return is implicit in their name. I also heard different versions of the myth of the Pied-Noir name today – mostly going back to the black boots that the colonial soldiers wore. Max said that it was not the indigenous people who called them Pieds-Noirs, but the anti-colonialists. This would make more sense than the versions I’ve read. Still, there is an agreement that they weren’t Pieds-Noirs until they arrived in France. I believe it was Max who said that the first time he was called a Pied-Noir was when he was in the military and the French soldiers called him that. He said he never took it as an insult.

Lunch ensued with anisette followed by sausage sandwiches (longanisse, boudin, et boudin blanc) and for me a glass of rosé. I have to say that I’ve always been skeptical of boudin, but I ate everything, everything was good, and the longanisse was particularly delicious. After lunch Jean-Louis showed me what he called “Le groupe de fantômes” – a name I really enjoyed because of the article I’m working on – who were hiding behind one of the buildings. There were at least 100 people set up with tables and chairs eating lunch, and no one could have known they were there. I met a few members of their group who offered to send me their manuscript (incidentally a cousin of one of our group members also said he’d send me his manuscript on his experience in the Algerian war) and then we were off to prepare for the procession of the virgin.

Alors … the procession itself began around 2 p.m. when everyone was lining up with their city banners with images of the virgin embroidered or painted on them. The bishop and archbishop and several priests and a monk were all there leading the Hail Mary’s and the Our Father’s and the songs (Ave Ave Maria) which were repeated throughout the procession and at various prayer stops. We had human guardrails on both sides of us to keep people from running up to the virgin and touching her hands and feet. Apparently they used to give out the flowers around her base after the procession, but the organizers found the situation no longer tenable. France 3 Sud was there taping the gathering, but I wasn’t able to see if it appeared on the news that evening. One thing I found interesting was that in the apartment building just across from the chapel where we began were several Muslim families, women with headscarves watching out the windows with their children. During the entire procession the sky was cloudy but there seemed to be sun on us coming from I don’t know where and the wind picked up quite forcefully several times, lifting our banner like a kite. I only saw one woman on her knees praying as the virgin approached and a few of the human guardrail women were barefooted, but perhaps that was only a question of uncomfortable shoes. Once we finished the procession, Jean-Louis grabbed me and Marie-France to say – hey, don’t attend the mass. Come back to the car when you’re done. So we obeyed.

Once at the bus, I was introduced to one of the leaders of the group from Marseille who gave me several ideas of what to visit once there. I also talked to Pierre at length about his experience between Italy and France and how he became French when he was doing his military service during the war – and this is also when he learned to speak French. He had grown up between a town near Naples and Alger speaking Napolitano-Italian. Now he has a house in Italy where he spends 3 months of the year. I believe he said he’s 71: he was 19 when he did his military service.

The group had so many nice things to say to me – even thanking me for my participation. They used to come to this gathering in a charter bus but now they had to struggle to find enough to fill their mini-bus. And even then they had room for me and one more if they wanted. Chaleureux, généreux … Warm and generous. Those are the best words to describe this group of Pieds-Noirs. We left the churchyard around 5:15 with Max honking to the people on the streets, we were waving good-bye to everyone on the road, like a parade on the departure route, following the charter buses in the procession, though we were marked with a sign that read “Bretagne” on the windshield. This group will be back next year and the next until there is no one left who is able to make the journey.