The early 17th century was a difficult period for Luxembourg City, which was then part of the Spanish Netherlands. The city was simultaneously contending with attacks from the Protestant Reformation, famine, plague and war. In an attempt to restore hope to the inhabitants and perpetuate veneration of statues in the face of Protestantism, Father Jacques Brocquart of the Jesuit College of Luxembourg organised a procession on 8 December 1624 to erect a statue of the Virgin and Child outside the for
