Saint Soline

This life apart did not prevent her remarkable beauty and the brilliance of her rank from making her desired by many wealthy suitors. Her parents shared these views, but Soline resisted, and the perseverance of her refusals irritated them to the point of violence and mistreatment. This conduct continued long enough to make the young Christian fear that, having to struggle constantly for her conscience against antagonists who nonetheless retained rights to her tenderness and respect, she might perhaps succumb to their urgings and finally compromise her fidelity to the holy Spouse she had chosen.

She resolved to escape this danger by flight, and entrusting herself to the Spirit of the God whom she preferred above all else, she departed, still unaware of where she would stop. While crossing Toura ine, she thought of Chartres, where the cult of the Mother of God was already famous among Christians, and where some converted druids, supported by Priscus, a wealthy and influential citizen, had become the guardians of the statue so anciently consecrated to the Virgin who was to give birth, and who had finally become the Virgin Mother. It was therefore toward the city of the Carnutes that Soline directed her path.

God permitted that it was at this same time that a Roman prefect, n amed Qui rinus, taking advantage of the hatred he knew the Emperor Domitian held against the followers of the new religion, anticipated, to satisfy his own grievances, the general persecution that later marked the final years of this prince. Everything trembled in the Chartres region, and it was through evident miracles that Saint Savinian and Sain t Potentian had just escaped the tyrant's pursuits. Quirinus did not take long to learn that a foreigner, professing the same faith, was acting as its apostle and encouraging young girls to the holy state that she herself had embraced.

Summoned to the tribunal of this terrible judge, Soline courageously refused any compromise between her faith and the seductions of the most magnificent promises. Martyrdom was the reward for her heroism.

Buried in Ch artres b y the pious hands of the faithful, her remains were venerated there to this day, authorizing the confidence of the populations through countless graces obtained near her tomb, which always attracted public and private needs. The Church of Poitiers did not remain a stranger to these fervent demonstrations. A place of prayer was founded in her honor in the vicinity of Melle (Deux -Sèvres), probably in the village where she was born, and where some of her relics could be placed; another also rose in the Angoumois, not far from Bar bezieux (C harente). These two monuments, renewed in the 11th or 12th century, are heavily damaged, less by time than by the violence of our local wars, and constitute the center of two parishes. The feast of Saint Soline is celebrated in Poitiers on October 16.

Excerpt from the Origins of the History of Poitou, by Abbé Anber.