Chaumont-en-Bassigny

Chaumont rises on a rocky spur above the Marne and the Suize, near the meeting of Champagne, Burgundy and Lorraine. Its castle and church of Saint John the Baptist gave the town a prominent place in the surrounding country. The church became the centre of a pilgrimage known as the Grand Pardon.

In 1474 Pope Sixtus IV made Saint John's a collegiate church, and the following year granted a plenary indulgence to the faithful who visited, confessed and took communion when the feast of its patron saint fell on a Sunday. The first such Grand Pardon was celebrated in 1476. Centuries later, in 1814, Chaumont gave its name to a treaty by which Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia bound themselves together against Napoleon.