'Daurade' is a kind of fish and must be one of the strangest nick-names for a statue of the Blessed Mother. Yet it was skillfully chosen, because everybody will ask: "Why is Our Lady called La Daurade?" And then this ancient story has to be told from generation to generation:(*1)

In 109 B.C. the Roman Consul Servilius Cepio drained the lake of Toulouse in search of the famous 'gold of Toulouse' that the Gauls had stolen from Delphi. Instead of discovering a worldly treasure however, the statue of a Dark Mother was found floating in the draining water. She was revered as a Pagan goddess until it was decided in 415 A.D., when all Pagan worship was outlawed, that she was really Mary the Mother of God.(*2) The present, late 18th century incarnation of her church still stands where the lake once was, on the banks of the river Garonne.

During the Middle Ages Our Black Lady of Toulouse became a major pilgrimage center of France, sought out in particular by pregnant women. According to Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet, it was an ancient Pagan practice to borrow a belt from a goddess and tie it across a woman's belly during childbirth in order to ensure a quick and painless delivery. Both Isis and Hera were known to lend out their belts,(*3) and so was Mary. The "real" belt of the Virgin was venerated in Marsat since at least the 6th century, but only queens and princesses dared to borrow that one. Other women had to content themselves with belts or pieces of robes of miraculous statues of Mary. The National Museum in Toulouse still exhibits a belt that is inscribed with the words: "OH MARY, DIVINE MOTHER, PRAY FOR ME. PROTECT ME." To this day the parish priest will bless such birthing belts consecrated to the Virgin to help during labor. A mother will obtain the belt for her daughter, just like her mother did for her.(*4)

The statue known as the Brown One was stolen in the 14th century and replaced by a copy, which later became known as the Black One.

In 1637 the Benedictines in charge of the church of La Daurade composed a book entitled: "Memoirs of the extraordinary things that happen to those who recommend themselves to the very holy Virgin who is conserved in the church of La Daurade in Toulouse." According to this book La Daurade protects not only women in childbirth, but also those who fight for the Catholic faith, as well as all in need.

In 1631 when the Black plague was threatening the city, the inhabitants staged an elaborate procession of the Virgin called, 'The descent of Our Lady the Black One.' After that descent from the high altar down into the dirty streets, the disease gradually disappeared.

The history of La Daurade is inseparable from a famous confraternity founded in Toulouse in 1323 under the name of "Company of Gay Knowledge" (Companie du Gay Scavoir). Outwardly it was an academy that staged championships of troubadour poetry honoring the feminine in its pure earthly and heavenly forms. Their songs were full of praise of the Black Virgin and a mythical Lady Clémence Isaure, supposedly their founder and the ideal woman, a wonder of beauty, intelligence, and nobility. According to Jacques Huynen however, she really denotes Isis and all the children of the goddess who have realized the highest esoteric knowledge through a path of secret initiations.(*5)

In 1790, during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, Our Lady the Black One's triumphant processions were outlawed and the statue placed in a museum. After five years the secular authorities graciously decided to allow the statue's return to her church. But they didn't expect anything like the huge fervent crowds of faithful that pressed around their Mother. Horrified, they ordered the precious Madonna to be destroyed after all. It took another 12 years, till 1807, before a copy could be made and safely innstalled in her church. The event was celebrated again with a great processsion and to this day the cult of la Daurade is very much alive.(*6)

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(*1) Others claim the name is a French pronunciation of the Latin "deaurata", gold-plated as in the decorations surrounding her. Maybe they'd rather forget the Pagan roots of their divine mother?
(*2) Ean Begg,The Cult of the Black Virgin, London, New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1985, p. 229
(*3) Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet, Vierges Noires, Editions du Rouergue, 2000, p. 146
(*4) Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet, p.200+201, and Jacque Huynen, L'Enigme des Vierges Noires, Editions Jean-Michel Garnier, Chartres: 1994, p.201. (Not a mistake, both books happen to treat La Daurade on page 201.)
(*5) ibid., p.202-3
(*6) See Madame Dulac's fantastic site on sacred sites, which includes lists of Black Madonnas by departments of France.