The Chapel Built by Ombline Desbassayns to Prevent Slave Revolts

In 1841, a woman of immense wealth named Ombline Desbassayns began the construction of a chapel on her plantation, the domaine de Villèle. She sought to build this place of worship to favor the evangelization of the enslaved people and to prevent revolts.

The house of prayer opened in 1843, dedicated to the Virgin and to Sainte Ombeline, the patron saint of its owner. Within its walls, twenty-four bays of pointed arches were carved during the first half of the nineteenth century. A marble altar sits there now, bearing a relief of a cross fashioned by a sculptor from Nantes.

Nature and history have been cruel to these walls. A cyclone tore the chapel down in 1932, only for it to be raised again in 1933. The old tales whisper that lightning once struck the grave of Madame Desbassayns, for she was a cruel mistress to the people who worked her soil.

Today, the chapel stands as one of the two oldest historic monuments in Réunion. One may see it now as part of a circuit led by the nearby Musée historique de Villèle.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons