Book of Hours

The woman first saw the stranded pilgrim, babe in arms, on a poster on the wall of the Medieval Center at the University of Bordeaux the year she finally studied abroad. The black-and-white illustration showed a mother kneeling on the frothing waves’ surface, staring into the face of her naked infant as the Virgin Mary towered above them both, attended by angels circling her head. On the shore, the witnesses dropped to their knees in awe. The medieval abbey of Normandy’s Mont Saint-Michel, a tid