The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints Part 8

_Also_, ST. CONCORDIUS, M.

A HOLY subdeacon, who in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, was apprehended in a desert, and brought before Torquatus, governor of Umbria, then residing at Spoletto, about the year 178. The martyr, paying no regard to his promises or threats, in the first interrogatory was beaten with clubs, and in the second was hung on the rack, but in the height of his torments he cheerfully sang: "Glory be to thee, Lord Jesus!" Three days after, two soldiers were sent by Torquatus, to behead him in the dungeon, unless he would offer sacrifice to an idol, which a priest who accompanied them carried with him for this purpose. The saint showed his indignation by spitting upon the idol, upon which one of the soldiers struck off his head. In the Roman Martyrology his name occurs on the 1st, in some others on the 2d of January. See his genuine acts in Bollandus, p. 9, and Tillemont, t. 2, p. 439.

_Also_, ST. ADALARD, OR ADALARD. A.C.

p.r.o.nounced ALARD.[1]

THE birth of this holy monk was most ill.u.s.trious, his father Bernard being son of Charles Martel, and brother of king Pepin, so that Adalard was cousin-german to Charlemagne, by whom he was called in his youth to the court, and created count of his palace. A fear of offending G.o.d made him tremble at the sight of the dangers of forfeiting his grace, with which he was surrounded, and of the disorders which reigned in the world. Lest he should be engaged to entangle his conscience, by seeming to approve of things which he thought would endanger his salvation, he determined to forsake at once both the court and the world. His sacrifice was the more perfect and edifying, as he was endowed with the greatest personal accomplishments of mind and body for the world, and in the flower of his age; for he was only twenty years old, when, in 773, he took the monastic habit at Corbie in Picardy, a monastery that had been founded by queen Bathildes, in 662. After he had pa.s.sed a year in the fervent exercises of his novitiate, he made his vows; the first employment a.s.signed him in the monastery was that of gardener, in which, while his hands were employed in the business of his calling, his thoughts were on G.o.d and heavenly things. Out of humility, and a desire of closer retirement, he obtained leave to be removed to mount Ca.s.sino, where he hoped he should be concealed from the world; but his eminent qualifications, and the great example of his virtue, betrayed and defeated all the projects of his humility, and did not suffer him to live long unknown; he was brought back to Corbie, and some years after chosen abbot. Being obliged by Charlemagne often to attend at court, he appeared there as the first among the king's counsellors, as he is styled by Hincmar,[2] who had seen him there in 796. He was compelled by Charlemagne {078} entirely to quit his monastery, and take upon him the charge of chief minister to that prince's eldest son Pepin, who, at his death at Milan in 810, appointed the saint tutor to his son Bernard, then but twelve years of age. In this exalted and distracting station, Adalard appeared even in council recollected and attentive to G.o.d, and from his employments would hasten to his chamber, or the chapel, there to plunge his heart in the centre of its happiness. During the time of his prayers, tears usually flowed from his eyes in great abundance, especially on considering his own miseries, and his distance from G.o.d.

The emperor recalled him from Milan, and deputed him to pope Leo III. to a.s.sist at the discussion of certain difficulties started relating to the clause inserted in the creed, concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Charlemagne died in 814, on the 28th of January, having a.s.sociated his son, Lewis le Debonnaire, in the empire in the foregoing September. While our saint lived in his monastery, dead to the world, intent only on heavenly things, instructing the ignorant, and feeding the poor, on whom he always exhausted his whole revenue, Lewis declared his son, Lothaire, his partner and successor in the empire, in 817: Bernard, who looked upon that dignity as his right, his father Pepin having been eldest brother to Lewis, rebelled, but lost both his kingdom and his life. Lewis was prevailed upon, by certain flatterers, to suspect our saint to have been no enemy to Bernard's pretensions, and banished him to a monastery, situated in the little island Heri, called afterwards Hermoutier, and St. Philebert's, on the coast of Aquitain. The saint's brother Wala (one of the greatest men of that age, as appears from his curious life, published by Mabillon) he obliged to become a monk at Lerins. His sister Gondrada he confined in the monastery of the Holy Cross, at Poitiers; and left only his other sister Theodrada, who was a nun, at liberty in her convent at Soissons. This exile St. Adalard regarded as his gain, and in it his tranquillity and gladness of soul met with no interruptions. The emperor at length was made sensible of his innocence, and, after five years' banishment, called him to his court towards the close of the year 821; and, by the greatest honors and favors, endeavored to make amends for the injustice he had done him. Adalard (whose soul, fixed wholly on G.o.d, was raised above all earthly things) was the same person in prosperity and adversity, in the palace as in the cell, and in every station: the distinguis.h.i.+ng parts of his character were, an extraordinary gift of compunction and tears, the most tender charity for all men, and an undaunted zeal for the relief and protection of all the distressed. In 823, he obtained leave to return to the government of his abbey of Corbie, where he with joy frequently took upon himself the most humbling and mortifying employments of the house.

By his solicitude, earnest endeavors, and powerful example, his spiritual children grew daily in fervor and divine love; and such was his zeal for their continual advancement, that he pa.s.sed no week without speaking to every one of them in particular, and no day without exhorting them all in general, by pathetic and instructive discourses.

The inhabitants of the country round his monastery had also a share in his pious labors, and he exhausted on the poor the revenue of his monastery, and whatever other temporal goods came to his hands, with a profusion which many condemned as excessive, but which heaven, on urgent occasions, sometimes approved by sensible miracles. The good old man would receive advice from the meanest of his monks, with an astonis.h.i.+ng humility; when entreated by any to moderate his austerities, he frequently answered, "I will take care of your servant, that he may serve you the longer;" meaning himself. Several hospitals were erected by him. During his banishment, another Adalard, who governed the monastery by his appointment, began, upon our saint's project, to {079} prepare the foundation of the monastery of New Corbie, vulgarly called Corwey, in the diocese of Paderborn, nine leagues from that city, upon the Weser, that it might be a nursery of evangelical laborers, to the conversion and instruction of the northern nations. St. Adalard, after his return to Corbie, completed this great undertaking in 822, for which he went twice thither, and made a long stay, to settle the discipline of his colony. Corwey is an imperial abbey; its territory reaches from the bishopric of Paderborn to the duchy of Brunswick, and the abbot is one of the eleven abbots, who sit with twenty-one bishops, in the imperial diet at Ratisbon: but the chief glory of this house is derived from the learning and zeal of St. Anscharius, and many others, who erected ill.u.s.trious trophies of religion in many barbarous countries. To perpetuate the regularity which he established in his two monasteries, he compiled a book of statutes for their use, of which considerable fragments are extant:[3] for the direction of courtiers in their whole conduct, he wrote an excellent book, On the Order of the Court; of which work we have only the large extracts, which Hincmar has inserted in his Instructions of king Carloman, the master-piece of that prelate's writings, for which he is indebted to our saint. A treatise on the Paschal Moon, and other works of St. Adalard, are lost. By those which we have, also by his disciples, St. Paschasius Radbertus, St.

Anscharius, and others, and by the testimony of the former in his life, it is clear that our saint was an elegant and zealous promoter of literature in his monasteries: the same author a.s.sures us, that he was well skilled, and instructed the people not only in the Latin, but also in the Tudesque and vulgar French languages.[4] St. Adalard, for his eminent learning, and extraordinary spirit of prayer and compunction, was styled the Austin, the Antony, and the Jeremy of his age. Alcuin, in a letter addressed to him under the name of Antony, calls him his son;[5] whence many infer that he had been scholar to that great man.

St. Adalard was returned out of Germany to Old Corbie, when he fell sick three days before Christmas: he received extreme unction some days after, which was administered by Hildemar, bishop of Beauvais, who had formerly been his disciple; the viatic.u.m he received on the day after the feast of our Lord's circ.u.mcision, about seven o'clock in the morning, and expired the same day about three in the afternoon, in the year 827, of his age seventy-three. Upon proof of several miracles, by virtue of a commission granted by pope John XIX. (called by some XX.) the body of the saint was enshrined, and translated with great solemnity in 1040; of which ceremony we have a particular history written by St.

Gerard, who also composed an office in his honor, in grat.i.tude for having been cured of a violent headache through his intercession: the same author relates seven other miracles performed by the same means.[6]

The relics of St. Adalard, except a small portion given to the abbey of Ch.e.l.les, are still preserved at Corbie, in a rich shrine and two smaller cases. His name has never been inserted in the Roman Martyrology, though he is honored as princ.i.p.al patron in many parish churches, and by several towns on the banks of the Rhine and in the Low Countries. See his life, compiled with accuracy, in a very florid pathetic style, by way of panegyric, by his disciple Paschasius Radbertus, {080} extant in Bollandus, and more correctly in Mabillon, (Act. Ben. t. 5, p. 306, also the same abridged in a more historical style, by St. Gerard, first monk of Corbie, afterwards first abbot of Seauve-majeur in Guienne, founder by William, duke of Aquitain and count of Poitiers, in 1080. The history of the translation of the saint's body, with an account of eight miracles by the same St. Gerard, is also given us by Bollandus.)

Footnotes: 1. It was usual among the ancient French, to add to certain words, syllables, or letters which they did not p.r.o.nounce; as Chrodobert, or Rigobert, for Robert: Cloves for Louis; Clothaire for Lotharie, &c.

2. Hinc. l. Inst. Regis, c. 12.

3. Published by D'Achery, Spicil. tom. 4, p. 1, 20.

4. From this testimony it is clear, that the French language, used by the common people, had then so much deviated from the Latin as to be esteemed a different tongue; which is also evident from Nithard, an officer in the army of Lewis le Debonnaire, who, in his history of the divisions between the sons of Lewis le Debonnaire, (published among the French historians by du Chesne,) gives us the original act of the agreement between the two brothers, Charles the Bald, and Lewis of Germany, at Strasburg, in 842.

5. Alcuin, Ep. 107.

6. St. Gerard, of Seauve-majeur, died on the 5th of April, 1095, and was canonized by C[oe]lestine III. in 1197. See his life, with an account of the foundation of his monastery, in Mabillon, Acts, Sanctorum ad S. Benedict. t. 9, p. 841.

JANUARY III.

ST. PETER BALSAM, M.

From his valuable acts in Ruinart, p. 501. Bollandus, p. 128. See Tillemont, T. 5. a.s.semani, Act Mart. Occid. T. 2, p. 106.

A.D. 311.

PETER BALSAM, a native of the territory of Eleutheropolis, in Palestine, was apprehended at Aulane, in the persecution of Maximinus. Being brought before Severus, governor of the province, the interrogatory began by asking him his name. Peter answered: "Balsam is the name of my family, but I received that of Peter in baptism." SEVERUS. "Of what family, and of what country are you?" PETER. "I am a Christian."

SEVERUS. "What is your employ?" PETER. "What employ can I have more honorable, or what better thing can I do in the world, than to live a Christian?" SEVERUS. "Do you know the imperial edicts?" PETER. "I know the laws of G.o.d, the sovereign of the universe." SEVERUS. "You shall quickly know that there is an edict of the most clement emperors, commanding all to sacrifice to the G.o.ds, or be put to death." PETER.

"You will also know one day that there is a law of the eternal king, proclaiming that every one shall perish, who offers sacrifice to devils: which do you counsel me to obey, and which, do you think, should be my option; to die by your sword, or to be condemned to everlasting misery, by the sentence of the great king, the true G.o.d?" SEVERUS. "Seeing you ask my advice, it is then that you obey the edict, and sacrifice to the G.o.ds." PETER. "I can never be prevailed upon to sacrifice to G.o.ds of wood and stone, as those are which you adore." SEVERUS. "I would have you know, that it is in my power to revenge these affronts by your death." PETER. "I had no intention to affront you. I only expressed what is written in the divine law." SEVERUS. "Have compa.s.sion on yourself, and sacrifice." PETER. "If I am truly compa.s.sionate to myself, I ought not to sacrifice." SEVERUS. "My desire is to use lenity; I therefore still do allow you time to consider with yourself, that you may save your life." PETER. "This delay will be to no purpose, for I shall not alter my mind; do now what you will be obliged to do soon, and complete the work, which the devil, your father, has begun; for I will never do what Jesus Christ forbids me."

Severus, on hearing these words, ordered him to be hoisted on the rack, and while he was suspended in the air, said to him scoffing: "What say you now, Peter; do you begin to know what the rack is? Are you yet willing to sacrifice?" Peter answered: "Tear me with iron hooks, and talk not of my sacrificing to your devils: I have already told you, that I will sacrifice to that G.o.d alone for whom I suffer." Hereupon the governor {081} commanded his tortures to be redoubled. The martyr, far from fetching the least sigh, sung with alacrity those verses of the royal prophet: _One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life_.[1] _I will take the chalice of salvation, and will call upon the name of the Lord_.[2] The governor called forth fresh executioners to relieve the first, now fatigued. The spectators, seeing the martyr's blood run down in streams, cried out to him: "Obey the emperors: sacrifice, and rescue yourself from these torments." Peter replied: "Do you call these torments? I, for my part, feel no pain: but this I know, that if I am not faithful to my G.o.d, I must expect real pains, such as cannot be conceived." The judge also said: "Sacrifice, Peter Balsam, or you will repent it." PETER. "Neither will I sacrifice, nor shall I repent it." SEVERUS. "I am just ready to p.r.o.nounce sentence." PETER. "It is what I most earnestly desire." Severus then dictated the sentence in this manner: "It is our order, that Peter Balsam, for having refused to obey the edict of the invincible emperors, and having contemned our commands, after obstinately defending the law of a man crucified, be himself nailed to a cross." Thus it was that this glorious martyr finished his triumph, at Aulane, on the 3d of January, which day he is honored in the Roman Martyrology, and that of Bede.

In the example of the martyrs we see, that religion alone inspires true constancy and heroism, and affords solid comfort and joy amidst the most terrifying dangers, calamities, and torments. It spreads a calm throughout a man's whole life, and consoles at all times. He that is united to G.o.d, rests in omnipotence, and in wisdom and goodness; he is reconciled with the world whether it frowns or flatters, and with himself. The interior peace which he enjoys, is the foundation of happiness, and the delights which innocence and virtue bring, abundantly compensate the loss of the base pleasures of vice. Death itself, so terrible to the worldly man, is the saint's crown, and completes his joy and his bliss.

Footnotes: 1. Ps. xxvi. 4.

2. Ps. cxv. 4.

ST. ANTERUS, POPE.

HE succeeded St. Pontia.n.u.s in 235. He sat only one month and ten days, and is styled a martyr by Bede, Ado, and the present Roman Martyrology.

See Card. d'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. T. 3. In the martyrology called S.

Jerom's, kept at S. Cyriacus's, it is said that he was buried on the Appian road, in the Paraphagene, where the cemetery of Calixtus was afterwards erected.

ST. GORDIUS.

MARTYRED at Caesarea, in Cappadocia, was a centurion to the army, but retired to the deserts when the persecution was first raised by Dioclesian. The desire of shedding his blood for Christ made him quit his solitude, while the people of that city were a.s.sembled to the Circus[1] to solemnize public games in honor of Mars. His attenuated body, long beard and hair and ragged clothes, drew on him the eyes of the whole a.s.sembly; yet, with this strange garb and mien, the graceful air of majesty that appeared in his {082} countenance commanded veneration. Being examined by the governor, and loudly confessing his faith, he was condemned to be beheaded. Having fortified himself by the sign of the cross,[2] he joyfully received the deadly blow. St. Basil, on this festival, p.r.o.nounced his panegyric at Caesarea, in which he says, several of his audience had been eye-witnesses of the martyr's triumph.

Hom. 17, t. 1.

Footnotes: 1. The _Circus_ was a ring, or large place, wherein the people sat and saw the public games.

2. [Greek: Heautou ton tupon tou staurou perigrapsas.] St. Basil, t. 1, p. 452.

ST. GENEVIEVE, OR GENOVEFA, V.

CHIEF PATRONESS OF THE CITY OF PARIS.

HER father's name was Severus, and her mother's Gerontia: she was born about the year 422, at Nanterre, a small village four miles from Paris, near the famous modern stations, or Calvary, adorned with excellent sculptures, representing our Lord's Pa.s.sion, on Mount Valerien. When St.

Germa.n.u.s, bishop of Auxerre, went with St. Lupus into Britain to oppose the Pelagian heresy, he lay at Nanterre in his way. The inhabitants flocked about them to receive their blessing, and St. Germa.n.u.s made them an exhortation, during which he took particular notice of Genevieve, though only seven years of age. After his discourse he inquired for her parents, and addressing himself to them, foretold their daughter's future sanct.i.ty, and said that she would perfectly accomplish the resolution she had taken of serving G.o.d, and that others would imitate her example. He then asked Genevieve whether it was not her desire to serve G.o.d in a state of perpetual virginity, and to bear no other t.i.tle than that of a spouse of Jesus Christ. The virgin answered, that this was what she had long desired, and begged that by his blessing she might be from that moment consecrated to G.o.d. The holy prelate went to the church of the place, followed by the people, and, during long singing of psalms and prayers, says Constantius,[1]--that is, during the recital of None and Vespers,[2] as the author of the life of St. Genevieve expresses it,[3] he held his hand upon the virgin's head. After he had supped, he dismissed her, giving a strict charge to her parents to bring her again to him very early the next morning. The father complied with the commission, and St. Germa.n.u.s asked Genevieve whether she remembered the promise she had made to G.o.d. She said she did, and declared she would, by the divine a.s.sistance, faithfully perform it. The bishop gave her a bra.s.s medal, on which a cross was engraved, to wear always about her neck, to put her in mind of the consecration she had made of herself to G.o.d; and at the same time, he charged her never to wear bracelets, or necklaces of pearls, gold, or silver, or any other ornaments of vanity.

All this she most religiously observed, and considering herself as the spouse of Christ, gave herself up to the most fervent practices of devotion and penance. From the words of St. Germa.n.u.s, in his exhortation to St. Genevieve never to wear jewels, Baillet and some others infer, that she must have been a person of quality and fortune; but the ancient Breviary and constant tradition of the place a.s.sure us, that her father was a poor shepherd. Adrian, Valois, and Baluze, observe, that her most ancient life ought not to be esteemed of irrefragable authority, and that the words of St. Germa.n.u.s are {083} not perhaps related with a scrupulous fidelity.[4] The author of her life tells us, that the holy virgin begging one day with great importunity that she might go to the church, her mother struck her on the face, but in punishment lost her sight, which she only recovered, two months after, by was.h.i.+ng her eyes twice or thrice with water which her daughter fetched from the well, and upon which she had made the sign of the cross. Hence the people look upon the well at Nanterre as having been blessed by the saint. About fifteen years of age, she was presented to the bishop of Paris to receive the religious veil at his hands, together with two other persons of the same s.e.x. Though she was the youngest of the three, the bishop placed her the first, saying, that heaven had already sanctified her; by which he seems to have alluded to the promise she had already made, in the presence of SS. Germa.n.u.s and Lupus, of consecrating herself to G.o.d.

From that time she frequently ate only twice in the week, on Sundays and Thursdays. Her food was barley bread with a few beans. At the age of fifty, by the command of certain bishops, she mitigated this austerity, so far as to allow herself a moderate use of fish and milk. Her prayer was almost continual, and generally attended with a large flow of tears.

After the death of her parents she left Nanterre, and settled with her G.o.d-mother at Paris; but sometimes undertook journeys upon motives of charity, and ill.u.s.trated the cities of Meaux, Leon, Tours, Orleans, and all other places wherever she went, with miracles and remarkable predictions. G.o.d permitted her to meet with some severe trials; for at a certain time all persons indiscriminately seemed to be in a combination against her, and persecuted her under the opprobrious names of visionary, hypocrite, and the like imputations, all tending to asperse her innocency. The arrival of St. Germa.n.u.s at Paris, probably on his second journey to Britain, for some time silenced her calumniators; but it was not long ere the storm broke out anew. Her enemies were fully determined to drown her, when the archdeacon of Auxerre arrived with _Eulogies_, or blessed bread, sent her by St. Germa.n.u.s, as a testimony of his particular esteem for her virtues, and a token of communion. This seems to have happened while St. Germa.n.u.s was absent in Italy in 449, a little before his death. This circ.u.mstance, so providentially opportune, converted the prejudices of her calumniators into a singular veneration for her during the remainder of her life. The Franks or French had then possessed themselves of the better part of Gaul; and Childeric, their king, took Paris.[5] During the long blockade of that city, the citizens being extremely distressed by famine, St. Genevieve, as the author of her life relates, went out at the head of a company who were sent to procure provisions, and brought back from Arcis-sur-Aube and Troyes several boats laden with corn. Nevertheless, Childeric, when he had made himself master of Paris, though always a pagan, respected St. Genevieve, and, upon her intercession, spared the lives of many prisoners, and did several other acts of clemency and bounty. Our saint, out of her singular devotion to St. Dionysius and his companions, the apostles of the country, frequently visited their tombs at the borough of Catulliac.u.m, which many think the borough since called Saint Denys's.

She also excited the zeal of many pious persons to build there a church in {084} honor of St. Dionysius, which King Dagobert I. afterwards rebuilt with a stately monastery in 629.[6] Saint Genevieve likewise performed several pilgrimages, in company with other holy virgins, to the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. These journeys of devotion she sanctified by the exercise of holy recollection and austere penance.

King Clovis, who embraced the faith in 496, listened often with deference to the advice of St. Genevieve, and granted liberty to several captives at her request. Upon the report of the march of Attila with his army of Huns, the Parisians were preparing to abandon their city, but St. Genevieve persuaded them, in imitation of Judith and Hester, to endeavor to avert the scourge, by fasting, watching, and prayer. Many devout persons of her s.e.x pa.s.sed many days with her in prayer in the baptistery; from whence the particular devotion to St. Genevieve, which is practised at St. John-le-rond, the ancient public baptistery of the church of Paris, seems to have taken rise. She a.s.sured the people of the protection of heaven, and their deliverance; and though she was long treated by many as an impostor, the event verified the prediction, that barbarian suddenly changing the course of his march, probably by directing it towards Orleans. Our author attributes to St. Genevieve the first design of the magnificent church which Clovis began to build in honor of SS. Peter and Paul, by the pious counsel of his wife Saint Clotilda, by whom it was finished several years after; for he only laid the foundation a little before his death, which happened in 511.[7] St.

Genevieve died about the same year, probably five weeks after that prince, on the 3d of January, 512, being eighty-nine years old. Some think she died before King Clovis. Prudentius, bishop of Paris, had been buried about the year 409, on the spot where this church was built.

Clovis was interred in it: his remains were afterwards removed into the middle of the choir, where they are covered with a modern monument of white marble, with an inscription. St. Clotilda was buried near the steps of the high altar in 545; but her name having been enrolled among the saints, her relics were enshrined, and are placed behind the high altar. Those of St. Alda, the companion of St. Genevieve, and of St.

Ceraunus, bishop of Paris, are placed in silver shrines on the altar of S. Clotilda. The tombs of St. Genevieve and King Clovis were near together. Immediately after the saint was buried, the people raised an oratory of wood over her tomb, as her historian a.s.sures us, and this was soon changed into the stately church built under the invocation of SS.

Peter and Paul. From this circ.u.mstance, we gather that her tomb was situated in a part of this church, which was only built after her death.

Her tomb, though empty, is still shown in the subterraneous church, or vault, betwixt those of Prudentius, and St. Ceraunus, bishop of Paris.

But her relics were enclosed, by St. {085} Eligius, in a costly shrine, adorned with gold and silver, which he made with his own hands about the year 630, as St. Owen relates in his life. In 845 these relics, for fear of the Normans, were removed to Atis, and thence to Dravel, where the abbot of the canons kept a tooth for his own church. In 850 they were carried to Marisy, near Ferte-Milon, and five years after brought back to Paris. The author of the original life of St. Genevieve concludes it by a description of the Basilick which Clovis and St. Clotilda erected, adorned with a triple portico, in which were painted the histories of the patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and confessors. This church was several times plundered, and at length burnt, by the Normans. When it was rebuilt, soon after the year 856, the relics of St. Genevieve were brought back. The miracles which were performed there from the time of her burial, rendered this church famous over all France, so that at length it began to be known only by her name. The city of Paris has frequently received sensible proofs of the divine protection, through her intercession. The most famous instance is that called the miracle of _Des Ardens_, or of the burning fever. In 1129, in the reign of Louis VI., a pestilential fever, with a violent inward heat, and pains in the bowels, swept off, in a short time, fourteen thousand persons; nor could the art of physicians afford any relief. Stephen, bishop of Paris, with the clergy and people, implored the divine mercy, by fasting and supplications. Yet the distemper began not to abate till the shrine of St. Genevieve was carried in a solemn procession to the cathedral.

During that ceremony many sick persons were cured by touching the shrine; and of all that then lay ill of that distemper in the whole town, only three died, the rest recovered, and no others fell ill. Pope Innocent II. coming to Paris the year following, after having pa.s.sed a careful scrutiny on the miracle, ordered an annual festival in commemoration of it on the 26th of November, which is still kept at Paris. A chapel near the cathedral, called anciently St. Genevieve's the Little, erected near the house in which she died, afterward, from this miracle, (though it was wrought not at this chapel, but chiefly at the cathedral, as Le Beuf demonstrates,) was called St. Genevieve des Ardens, which was demolished in 1747, to make place for the Foundling Hospital.[8] Both before and since that time, it is the custom, in extraordinary public calamities, to carry the shrine of St. Genevieve, accompanied with those of St. Marcel, St. Aurea, St. Lucan, martyr, St.

Landry, St. Merry, St. Paxentius, St. Magloire, and others, in a solemn procession to the cathedral; on which occasion the regular canons of St.

Genevieve walk barefoot, and at the right hand of the chapter of the cathedral, and the abbot walks on the right hand of the archbishop. The present rich shrine of St. Genevieve was made by the abbot, and the relics enclosed in it in 1242. It is said that one hundred and ninety-three marks of silver, and eight of gold, were used in making it; and it is almost covered with precious stones, most of which are the presents of several kings and queens. The crown or cl.u.s.ter of diamonds which glitters on the top, was given by Queen Mary of Medicis. The shrine is placed behind the choir, upon a fine piece of architecture, supported by four high pillars, two of marble, and two of jaspis.[9] See the Ancient Life of St. Genevieve, written by an anonymous author, eighteen years after her death, of which the best edition is given by F.

Charpentier, a Genevevan regular canon, in octavo, in 1697. It is interpolated in several editions. Bollandus has added another more modern life; see also Tillemont, t. 16, p. 621, and notes, ib. p. 802.

Likewise, Gallia Christiana Nova, t. 7, p. 700.

Footnotes: 1. Constant. in vit. S. Germani. Altiss. l. 1, c. 20.

2. _Nonam atque duodecim_. It deserves the attention of clergymen, that though anciently the canonical hours were punctually observed in the divine office, SS. Germa.n.u.s and Lupus deferred None beyond the hour, that they might recite it in the church, rather than on the road.

The word _duodecima_ used for Vespers, is a clear demonstration that the canonical hour of Vespers was not five, but six o'clock,--which, about the _equinox_, was the twelfth hour of the natural day: which is also proved from the name of the Ferial hymn at Vespers, _Jam ter quaternis_, &c. See Card. Bona, de div. Psalmodia, &c.

3. Apud Bolland.

4. See Piganiol, Descrip. de Paris, t. 8, v. Nanterre.

5. Paris was called by the Romans the castle of the Parisians, being by its situation one of the strongest fortresses in Gaul; for at that time it was confined to the island of the river Seine, now called the Isle _du Palais_, and the _City_: though the limits of the city are now extended somewhat beyond that island, it is the smallest part of the town. This isle was only accessible over two wooden bridges, each of which was defended by a castle, which were afterwards called the _Great_ and _Little_ Chatelet. (See Lobineau.

Hist. de la Ville de Paris, t. l, l. 1.) The greatest part of the neighboring country was covered with thick woods. The Roman governors built a palace without the island, (now in Rue de l'Harpe,) which Julian, the Apostate, while he commanded in Gaul, exceedingly embellished, furnished with water by a curious aqueduct, and, for the security of his own person, contrived a subterraneous pa.s.sage from the palace to the castle or Great Chatelet; of all which works certain vestiges are to be seen at this day.

6. Some think that Catualliac.u.m was rather Montmartre than St. Denys's, and that the church built there in the time of St. Genevieve stood near the bottom of the mountain, because it is said in her life to have been at the place where St. Dionysius suffered martyrdom; and it is added, that she often visited the place, attended by many virgins, watched there every Sat.u.r.day night in prayer, and that one night when she was going thither with her companions in the rain, and through very dirty roads, the lamp that was carried before her was extinguished, but lighted again upon her taking it into her own hands: all which circ.u.mstances seem not to agree to a place two leagues distant, like St. Denys's.

7. The author of the life of St. Bathildes testifies, that Clovis built this church for the use of monks; which Mabillon confirms by other proofs, (Op. Posth. t. 2, p. 356.) He doubts not but it continued in their hands, till being burnt by the Normans in 856 (as appears from Stephen of Tournay, ep. 146,) it was soon after rebuilt, and given to secular canons. These, in punishment of a sedition, were expelled by the authority of Eugenius III., and Suger, abbot of St. Denys's, and prime minister to Lewis VII., or the Young, in 1148, who introduced into this church twelve regular canons of the order of St. Austin, chosen out of St. Victor's abbey, which had been erected about forty years before, and was then most famous for many great men, the austerity of its rule, and the piety and learning which flourished in it. Cardinal Francis Rochefoucault, the history of whose most edifying life and great actions will be a model of all pastoral virtues to all ages to come, having established an excellent reformation in the abbey of St. Vincent, at regular canons, at Senlis, when he was bishop of that see, being nominated abbot of St. Genevieve's by Lewis XIII., called from St. Vincent's F. Charles Faure, and twelve others, in 1624, and by their means introduced the same reformation in this monastery, which was confirmed in 1634, when F. Faure was chosen abbot coadjutor to the cardinal. He died in odor of sanct.i.ty in 667, the good cardinal having pa.s.sed to a better life in 1645.

8. _De Miraculo Ardentium_. See Anonym. ap. Bolland. et Brev. Paris. ad 26 Nov.

9. See Piganiol, Descr. de Paris, t. 5, p. 238, et Le Fevre Calendrier Hist. de l'Eglise de Paris, Nov 26, et Jan. 3. Gallia Christian.

Nova, t. 7, p. 700. Le Beuf l. 2, p. 95, et l. 1, p. 387.

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JANUARY IV.