ENGRAVING OF THE CHURCH IN 1726.

The text evokes a solemn Mass under the invocation of Saint Charles Borromeo, patron saint of Emperor Charles VI of Austria, whose sister Marie-Elisabeth was governess of the Netherlands. It was the “Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul” which launched, from the church at the Sablon, “The Work of Chairs”. In the 19th century chairs were gradually installed in churches which, until then, were furnished with pews or often empty. They were even sometimes used for ball games outside of liturgies! As chairs had to be paid, this posed a problem for the poor. n order to prevent them from abandoning their Sunday Mass practice, the “Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul” of the parish at the Sablon, under the honorary presidency of the Duchess of Arenberg, had the idea of selling cards, which the wealthy bought and distributed graciously to the poor. Statistics from 1881 count 7,526 cards for Notre-Dame au Sablon, 2,380 for the Chapel church and 720 for the Sainte-Gudule church. The Sablon parish was already popular at the time. It was still common in the late XX^th century to make a second collection during Masses for chairs in Catholic churches.