Twelve years after the founding of Montréal, Marguerite Bourgeoys built the first sanctuary of the city. It was a small wooden chapel thirty feet by forty around 400 yards of the city limits. It lasted only a few years due to its destruction by fire. The founder of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame rebuilt the Chapel, this time a stone one and slightly larger. She asked everyone to bring a stone, inviting also the workers to give a few days of work. It was in 1673.
On a trip to France, Marguerite Bourgeoys returned with a small statue of the Virgin eight inches high. This statue came from a Belgium Castle where it had been worshipped for more than a century. In the 1754 fire, the statue was saved and it became an object of profound veneration. In 1771, it was decided to rebuild a new chapel on the same foundations , thus saving a place coveted by the British army to build barracks.
But the chapel was still a small one. At its side the Bonsecours Market had been built in great style to cause the admiration of the passengers arriving by boat. It has been in the same spirit that it was decided to reshape the chapel. The front on the Bonsecours Street was added as well as an “outgrowth” facing the River. A monumental statue of the protective Virgin of sailors was placed facing the river but the top of the support proved too weak and had to be shortened. It was in 1893.
In the nineteenth century the chapel became a place much frequented by sailors. Miniature ships have been suspended in the vault in thanks to the Virgin Mary for having rescued these sailors in dangers at sea. In 1831, the miraculous statue disappeared without anyone knowing where it was. It was found again in 1894 in a niche of the sanctuary. It is now on the left side altar. Marguerite Bourgeoys also are returned in the chapel in 2005, on the 350e anniversary of the Chapel. She is now buried under the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours statuette.
