The most famous Madonna and Child of Besse en Chandesse is not this stone statue placed in a niche at the corner of Notre-Dame and Boucherie (butcher's shop) streets (photo), but a Black Virgin, Notre Dame de Vassivière, housed in the eponymous chapel, a major pilgrimage site in the 17th century. The modest wooden statuette of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus in her lap was burnt during the French Revolution, but a replica is still celebrated each September, by the inhabitants of Besse.