The Story of the Bridge
A twelve-year-old shepherd boy called Bénézet saw angels who told him to build a bridge across the dangerous river where many people had drowned.  He went to tell the bishop of Avignon - l'évêque d'Avignon - about his vision but everyone laughed at him.

The bishop challenged him to lift a giant rock and to throw it into the river, in order to prove that God was giving him strength.   The little shepherd boy did indeed lift the heavy stone all by himself, threw it into the river and declared that it was the first stone of the bridge that he was going to build.

Everybody changed their mind!  This was a miracle!  How could a little boy manage so easily to lift a rock that required thirty men to do so?  They now saw that the boy's strength had come from God and decided to help Bénézet to build the bridge.   

The shepherd boy is now known as Saint Bénézet and many Christian pilgrims visit the bridge that he built. 

Bénézet died young from exhaustion, at the age of around eighteen years.  He did not live long enough to see the finished bridge which was completed a year or so after his death.  He was laid to rest in the chapel of Saint-Nicolas that is constructed on the side of the bridge.  Later, his resting place was moved to the church called la Collégiale Saint-Didier d'Avignon.

Saint Bénézet's feast day is 14 April.  He is also known as Petit Benoît.

Saint Bénézet is the patron saint of architects because of the great bridge that he built.  He is often seen in images as a shepherd boy carrying a heavy stone.