One of the most important primary sources for understanding the cult of the Holy Tear at La Trinité is the first-hand account written around 1633 by the Maurist monk Simon-Germain Millet. Histoire de la Sainte-Larme de Vendôme (click to see full text) was published in 1891 by Charles Métais based on an original manuscript recounting the history of the abbey. Millet gives valuable information about the legend of the Holy Tear, the Holy Tear relic. His account of the portable altar-turned-reliquary, called in our study the Vendôme coffret, as well as of the shrine of the Holy Tear is particularly important because Millet was in residence at the abbey before its archives were destroyed in 1793.


 

The chapters are supplemented by commentary from Charles Métais, a nineteenth-century archivist and local historian and priest from Chartres. He was involved in  several diocesan archives, including the archives of La Trinité.