Chapelle des Pénitents noirs

The Chapelle des Pénitents noirs stands in the historic centre of Menton, surrounded by other buildings from the city's varied past. Prince Honoré II Grimaldi and Father Laurent de Brindes, general of the Capuchin province of Genoa, laid the first stone in 1615. Honoré II opened a new street in 1618, today's rue de Bréa, to ease access to the convent. The Capuchins, a branch of the Franciscans, kept the place until 1793. Saint Francis allowed his order no richness or extravagance. The facade shows it: a plain, severe wall beneath a bell tower of about thirty-five metres.

The Revolution shut the convent, and new uses followed. From 1861 to 1881 the building served as Menton's town hall, then as a barracks, while the chapel stored salt. Afterwards the church passed to the confraternity of the Black Penitents. They rebuilt that bare wall in 1875 and set the statue of the Virgin of Mercy in the central niche. The statue came as a gift from Princess Caroline, wife of Prince Florestan.

Every Good Friday the confraternity carries an effigy of the dead Christ through the city by torchlight. An orchestra accompanies the procession, and the music shifts from solemn to, at times, cheerful. The event draws people from quite a distance every year. The brothers answer to a stranger nickname: mangeurs de limaces, slug eaters. It refers to the procession of the slugs during the octave of Corpus Christi, a tradition that lives on in nearby Gorbio. Usually you see the chapel from the outside, because the local heritage service opens the doors only for special guided tours.