In the 18th century, Saint Louis de Montfort, priest and author of True Devotion to Mary, encouraged the faithful of France to adorn their countryside with roadside calvaries, depictions of Christ on the Cross. Pre-revolutionary France took kindly to the cleric’s call, and the statues quickly appeared across the land, becoming a defining feature of rural French landscapes, found at crossroads, village entrances, and along paths.
At the end of the century, the French Revolution overthrew the Catholic monarchy, dissolved monasteries, and launched an assault on Christian heritage through a “Reign of Terror” which sought to rid the faith from France’s corporate identity. Church buildings were destroyed, land was confiscated, and priests and nuns were sent to the guillotine. Roadside crosses often went the same way. Yet on those same spots, the faithful would rebuild what was destroyed, in defiance of revolutionary tyranny.
