The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, France, is the chapel where Catholics believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Catherine Labouré in 1830 and requested the creation of the medal which came to be known as the Miraculous Medal. It is also the mother house of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul.
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The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal is more commonly referred to by its address, 140 rue du Bac, or simply the street on which it is situated, rue du Bac.
In 1813 the construction of a chapel began in the Hôtel de Châtillon. On August 6, 1815 the solemn benediction of the chapel was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was attributed by imperial decree to the Daughters of Charity.
In 1830 Saint Catherine Labouré, then 24, received three visits from the Blessed Virgin Mary, "in flesh and bones," she will say, to request the creation of a medal with the following invocation: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." From May 1832 onwards the medal, which is extraordinarily disseminated and is said to convert, protect and perform miracles, is called miraculous by the faithful.
In 1849 the chapel is expanded and in the following years it will know many other transformations. Since 1930, the date of its complete renovation, the chapel is as we know it today.
Only the tabernacle, which dates back to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, is unchanged since 1815; it comes from the building allocated in 1800 to the Daughters of Charity. It was then to be found in the chapel of the Sisters of Mercy installed there before the French Revolution. Saint Catherine Labouré said that it is in front of the tabernacle that the Blessed Virgin Mary prostrated in the night of July 18 to July 19, 1830 and above it that she was during the third apparition in December 1830. In 1850 an ivory crucifix was placed on top of it.
The chapel, as a site of Marian apparition, is a Marian shrine and hence a site of heavy Roman Catholic pilgrimage.
The bodies of Saint Catherine Labouré and Saint Vincent de Paul, founder of the Sisters of Charity, are kept there.