Saint Genevieve

After the departure of the holy prelates, she applied herself more than ever to the contemplation of heavenly things, and her whole joy was, in the hours she could spare from domestic duties, to run to the church to enjoy the presence and sweet conversation of her beloved. One day (it was a feast day), Genevieve's mother was preparing to go to church, and the child wanted to accompany her. The mother opposed it; but the child said, weeping: I have promised the bishop to live holily; therefore I must go to church often. The mother, irritated, struck her harshly; but immediately she became blind. After being in this state for twenty-one months, she remembered the bishop's words regarding her daughter, and she had her brought to her. — Take this pitcher, she said to her, and go fill it with water at the fountain. — The little girl, upon arriving near the fountain, began to weep because her mother was blind on her account; so that her tears mingled with the water she drew from the fountain. When she had returned to her mother, the latter raised her hands to heaven and told Genevieve to make the sign of the cross over the water; then she took some and washed her eyes three times, and after the third time she recovered her sight. This great miracle compelled her, as well as her husband, to leave the holy girl in complete freedom to choose a state of life. But the choice was already made, and she who had promised Saint Germanus to take Our Lord as her spouse could embrace no other state than that of a virgin consecrated to Jesus Christ. It does not appear that there were any monasteries of nuns or communities of girls in Paris; but those who wished to live in continence and take a vow of virginity addressed themselves only to the bishop, and received from him the veil with the ordinary prayers and ceremonies of the Church; after which, they were permitted to retire to their own homes. Saint Genevieve presented herself for this to the bishop of Paris, Saint Marcellus, or more probably Saint Felix, around 435 or 440, or to the bishop of Chartres, Villicus. Two other girls presented themselves with her for the same purpose, and all three obtained the grace they requested; but the bishop, who was a man enlightened by God, recognizing in Genevieve a virtue above the common, had her go before her two companions, although they were older and of better condition than she.

Her parents having died, she left Nanterre and came to live in Paris, at the home of a woman who was her godmother. Scarcely had she arrived there when God afflicted her with a paralysis so violent and so universal that she could not use any of her limbs, and this malady went to such an extreme that she was, at one time, for the space of three days, without any other sign of life than a few heart palpitations and a little redness that appeared on her cheeks. But, while her body was in this weakness, she was enraptured in spirit among the choirs of Angels, where she saw the ineffable goods that are prepared for those who love God, and many other secrets that her historian has refrained from reporting in detail, because of the incredulity of men. God having restored her health, she began to shine like a sun, in the midst of Paris, through the holiness of her examples; she penetrated, thanks to a supernatural light, into the depths of consciences, and moved everyone, through inflamed discourses, to the love of Jesus Christ. She spent her life in continual prayers and tears, and she shed them in such abundance that the floor of her room was completely soaked. Her abstinence was prodigious, and one could hardly believe it, if one did not see an excellent model of it in the life of her master and director, Saint Germain of Auxerre. For it is said that she ate only twice a week, namely on Sunday and Thursday; on those days, all her meals consisted of a piece of barley bread and a few beans that had been cooked in water for a long time; she observed this abstinence inviolably from the age of fifteen until that of fifty; at that time, to obey the priests of the Lord who governed her conscience, and to support her body, worn out by such a rigorous fast, she consented to eat with her barley bread a little milk and fish; but, as for meat and wine, she could never resolve to use them. She had with this, twelve other spiritual companions, namely: faith, trust in God, charity, prudence, magnanimity, patience, simplicity, humility, zeal for discipline, purity, concord, and truth, which never abandoned her, or rather which she herself maintained with great care and knew very well how to occupy.

Such a brilliant holiness soon attracted envious people to her. Unable to suffer the praises given to her, nor the very high reputation she was acquiring, they decried her everywhere, and spread the rumor that she was only a hypocrite, who deceived the world by an apparent austerity and a feigned and studied devotion. This poison was already beginning to insinuate itself into minds, when the great Saint Germain, of whom we have spoken, having been recalled to England to fight again the Pelagian heresy, which had re-established itself there since his departure, passed through Paris a second time. This was five or six years after his first journey. The malice of these impostors was so great that they made no difficulty in slandering Genevieve in the presence of this holy bishop, and they wanted to make him believe that she was not as he thought. But, as he knew her perfectly, he took no account of their words; on the contrary, leading them into the room of the Saint, he greeted her with profound respect, as a person in whom he would revere the presence of God; after which he gave a speech to the people: he refuted the false accusations published against her and declared what her merit was before God; which caused all the rumors that had spread to the prejudice of her reputation to cease.

What we have said shows well enough that she was still very young when this persecution was raised against her; but that did not prevent her from being raised shortly after to a position that was highly regarded in those days: it was to have, as it were, the stewardship and direction of the other girls who made a profession of virginity; and she discharged it so worthily that several of these girls attained, through her good advice, a perfect detachment from all things and a very eminent holiness; of their number was, it is said, Saint Aude, a Parisian virgin whose reliquary, before 1793, was shown, along with that of Saint Ciran, twenty-fifth bishop of Paris, and that of Saint Clotilde, wife of the great Clovis, in the church of our Saint Genevieve. However, as she knew that she could only be useful to others through the lights and graces she received from above, she did not cease to spend sometimes entire days and weeks in strict solitude, to attend there solely to God; and she had even made it a law for herself to remain every year enclosed in her little room from the feast of the Kings until Holy Thursday, without any other conversation than that of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed spirits. Who could describe the penances and mortifications she performed there, the torrents of tears she shed there, the acts of love and religion she produced there, the sweetness and consolations she received there, and the intimate communications with God with which she was favored there? Thus she would emerge from it like iron coming out of a burning furnace, that is to say, completely filled, penetrated, and set ablaze with the fire of divinity. A woman once had the curiosity to spy on what the Saint was doing during such a long retreat; but no sooner had she approached her sight to the cracks of the door than she became blind, which lasted until the end of Lent: Genevieve, coming out of her solitude, prayed for her, made the sign of the cross on her eyes, and restored to her the sight she had lost through her thoughtlessness.

The demon, full of rage against this blessed virgin because of the signal victories she continually won over hell, stirred up a new persecution against her in which she was on the point of losing her life. This occurred on the occasion of Attila, King of the Attila, roi des Huns Leader of the Huns responsible for the destruction of Besançon. Huns, nicknamed the Scourge of God, who entered Gaul at the head of five or six hundred thousand combatants. As this barbarian was causing appalling ravages everywhere, sacking cities, pillaging and burning churches, putting everything to fire and sword, filling the countryside with murders, and leaving behind him only a horrible image of death, Paris, which was on his route, had reason to fear being enveloped in this overflow, in this general desolation. The wealthiest citizens thought of saving themselves with whatever goods they could carry to other cities that were stronger or less exposed to the passage of such a terrible enemy. Saint Genevieve, on the contrary, animated by the spirit of God, made every effort to keep them in Paris, assuring them that if they would do penance and appease the wrath of heaven with their tears, this scourge would not fall upon them, and that they would be in greater safety in their homes than in the cities to which they wished to retreat. Some women, persuaded by her words, gathered in the church, where they spent days and nights in prayer to turn this scourge of God away. There were also men who imitated them and resolved to seek their salvation only in the protection of the Almighty, especially since the esteem they had for the holiness of Genevieve made them trust entirely in her word, and they did not doubt that she was capable of delivering them through her prayers. But the demon stirred up others against her, suggesting to them that her prophecies were only daydreams by which she was lulling the best citizens to sleep and leading them to inevitable ruin. Thereupon, they incited a sedition in which they were already conspiring to put her to death; but God, who had delivered her the first time through the remonstrances of Saint Germanus, delivered her, this second time, through those of his archdeacon: the latter, arriving then in Paris and being informed of this conspiracy, assembled the people and turned them away from such an execrable action, setting before their eyes how much the same Saint Germanus had esteemed this pious virgin during his lifetime, and showed them the eulogies that he had ordered, at his death, to be brought to her. Upon this testimony, not only did the tumult cease, but those who were most resolved to leave Paris remained there, and they soon saw the effect of the prayers and the fulfillment of the prophecy of Genevieve; for Attila passed from Champagne to Orleans, and from Orleans to Champagne, without approaching Paris, and he was finally driven from all of Gaul by a signal victory that the Romans, the Franks, and the Visigoths, united together, won over him near Chalons-sur-Marne; which happened in the year 451. Thus the reputation of the Saint grew marvelously, and she was henceforth regarded only as the salvation of the fatherland and as a miracle of wisdom and holiness.

Five or six years later, Merovech, the third king of the Franks, came before Paris, where the Romans still had a strong garrison; and, after a very long siege, which some historians place at five years, he made himself master of it. It is not to be wondered at if Saint Genevieve, who was inside, did not avert this blow, since she was not about to oppose the designs of God, who wished to make this city the capital of the most flourishing kingdom that has ever been on earth. But she subsequently had a great opportunity to show her charity; for this siege having ruined all the surroundings of Paris, it was followed by such a great famine that many of the inhabitants died of hunger, and the others were reduced to the utmost misery. The Saint, therefore, touched with compassion, embarked on the Seine, and, going from city to city, succeeded so well with the merchants that she gathered, in a short time, the cargo of eleven large boats of wheat. Her journey was accompanied by miracles. She drove from the river Seine two evil spirits, who, hidden under a large tree, overturned most of the boats that passed by, and even tried to cause hers to perish. At Arcis-sur-Aube, she restored health to the wife of an officer named Passivus, afflicted for four years with a paralysis that rendered her immobile. At Troyes, in Champagne, she restored sight to the blind, delivered the possessed, and healed a great number of the sick. Having returned to Paris, she took care that the wheat she had brought was distributed to the inhabitants; but above all, she provided for the needs of the poor, constantly baking bread for them in her house, and giving it to them as soon as it was baked; thus, she delivered Paris from a ruin that seemed inevitable, and she drew from death an infinity of people who already bore its fatal marks upon their faces.

The rumor of these wonders did not remain confined to this city, but soon flew throughout the whole earth. Saint Simeon Stylites, who was in Asia, seeing at the foot of his column merchants from Paris whom a holy curiosity had brought there, begged them to greet their holy compatriot on his behalf upon their return to France, and to commend him to her prayers. It was God, no doubt, who had given him knowledge of her through a special revelation. She was respected by persons of the highest dignity, and even by the kings of France under whom she lived. King Merovech, in the short time he survived the surrender of Paris, always showed her great honor; and, according to the idea that paganism gave him, regarded her as a demi-goddess. His son, Childeric, had no less esteem for her; although he was an idolater, like his predecessors, he never refused her, nevertheless, what she asked of him. One day, absolutely wanting some criminals to be executed, and fearing that Genevieve would come to ask for their pardon, he had the gates of the city, where she was, closed, while the execution would take place outside, believing, by this means, to prevent her from leaving. But the Saint, having opened the gates through her prayers, had such power over his mind that she obliged him, against his resolution, to pardon these wretches. The great Clovis, our first Christian king, had even more affection and veneration for Le grand Clovis King of the Franks, mentioned to date the existence of the church. her; at her request, he delivered prisoners, gave large alms to the clergy and the poor, and had beautiful churches built, such as that of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul-sur-le-Mont, above Paris, later named Sainte-Geneviève, for having been the place of her burial and the glorious theater of her miracles. Furthermore, he made her a gift of two rich farms which she assigned to the cathedral of Reims, where this great monarch had been baptized and had made profession of Christianity; Saint Remigius did not omit this fact in his testament, where he also speaks with great honor of this illustrious benefactress. Finally, the queen Saint Clotilde, wife of Clovis, considered herself extremely favored when Saint Geneviev e visited her; she would la reine sainte Clotilde Queen of the Franks and wife of Clovis, instrument of the conversion of France. have her sit beside her, in her private chamber, and took pleasure in conversing with her familiarly on the means of pleasing God and ensuring her eternal salvation.

During Childeric's absence from the kingdom, the Saint had the devotion to build a church over the tombs of Saints Denis, Rus ticus, and E saints Denis Martyr and apostle of the Gauls for whom Genevieve had a church built. leutherius, apostles of France and martyrs, in the village of Cathœuil, two leagues from Paris, to the north. This is now the city of Saint-Denis. She had no means to carry out this enterprise, and the priests to whom she spoke of it found many difficulties, because they did not know where they would find, in that place which was entirely surrounded by woods, the materials necessary for the edifice; but she told them, with a prophetic spirit, that if they would take the trouble to cross the bridge, this difficulty would be removed for them. Indeed, having gone there, they heard two peasants saying that they had just discovered, in the nearby forest, two lime kilns of extraordinary size, where the lime was all ready to be used. This encounter made them realize that Genevieve's design came from God. They immediately informed her of what they had learned, and offered to assist her with all their credit and all their power for the accomplishment of such a good work. The Parisians and the inhabitants of this place did not fail to contribute their alms as well. Thus this church was built in a short time, and it is the one where, more than one hundred and fifty years later, Dagobert, son of King Clotaire II, and later his successor, took refuge to avoid the anger of his father, who was irritated with him, and where, shortly before, his hunting dogs had not dared to enter to pursue a stag that had taken refuge there. It remained very famous under the name of Saint-Denis de l'Estrée, until the same Dagobert, having ascended the throne, had the royal abbey of Saint-Denis built nearby, where he had the bodies of our holy martyrs transported, which were found in this church, and where he and almost all his successors have since chosen their burial place.

Moreover, Saint Genevieve's edifice was not completed without a miracle; for, the wine having run out for the workers, she miraculously filled their vessel, which could not then be exhausted until the end of the work. Going to this church with other holy maidens, she relit, by her prayer, the torch that served to guide them, and which the violence of the wind and rain, or rather the demon, to whom her devotions were unbearable, had extinguished; a prodigy that was quite familiar to our Saint, for we read again that candles were lit divinely between her hands, in the same church, and in her house, without anyone setting them on fire. It was also there that she delivered twelve possessed persons, who had been presented to her in Paris, and whom she had had brought there on purpose, in order to be able to return to the holy Martyrs all the glory of their deliverance: an excellent trait of humility.

The life of this illustrious Virgin is filled with a host of other wonders. One day, being in Meaux, she spoke with such eloquence of the happiness of the spouses of Jesus Christ to a young person of that place, named Céline, who was already betrothed to one of the richest and most advantageous m atches Céline Young woman from Meaux converted to virginity by Genevieve. in the country, that she made her resolve at that very hour to renounce marriage and to ask for the veil of virginity. The fiancé, having been informed of this, fell into such a great fury against both Genevieve and this girl, that he came, like a madman, to run his sword through their bodies; but they fled to the church, and the doors, which were closed, opened and closed again by themselves to save them; at this sight, the young madman saw clearly that he had Jesus Christ himself as a rival, and that Céline's resolution was an effect of the all-powerful grace of the Master of hearts; he therefore did not wish to oppose it any further, and left her in freedom. Since then, she profited so well from the examples and instructions of her holy mistress, that she herself became a Saint and deserved a place, in that capacity, in the Martyrology of the Saints of France, on October 24, the day on which the church of Reims honors another Saint Céline, mother of its incomparable archbishop Saint Remy. Our Saint also healed, in the same city of Meaux, two people crippled in their limbs. And, while harvesting a field that belonged to her in the territory of this city, she performed a surprising miracle: although it rained with impetuosity all around her plot, nevertheless not a single drop of water fell on her wheat or on her harvesters. A lawyer from the same place, who came expressly to Paris to implore her help, was delivered from a great deafness that had afflicted him for four years, by the sign of the cross that she made over his ears.

Going to Tours to visit the sepulcher of Saint Martin, she healed several sick people in Orléans and, among others, a young girl named Claudia, who was near death. She also obtained in a miraculous way his pardon for a servant who, having deeply offended his master, could not appease him with his prayers; this inexorable master, having even rebuffed the Saint, who was asking for mercy for him, was seized on the spot with such a violent fever that, being as if at the point of death, he was forced to have recourse to her and to grant her what he had just refused her. By this means, the valet had the pardon for his fault, and the master received the healing of the illness he had caused himself by his obstinacy. Upon Saint Genevieve's arrival in Tours, the spirits of darkness were forced to leave the bodies of the possessed over whom they exercised their tyranny; and they were heard crying publicly that her merits, joined to those of Saint Martin, were like two braziers where they were cruelly tormented. One would never finish if one wanted to report in detail all the miracles she performed during her life. But here are two more that we cannot pass over in silence, because they are too remarkable: A child having been presented to her deaf, mute, blind, and lame, she healed him of all these evils, giving him all at once sight, hearing, speech, and the ability to walk, by the anointing of blessed oil. Another child having drowned in a well, she called him back to life after having covered his body with her cloak and shed many tears.

Finally, this admirable Virgin fell asleep in the Lord on the third day of January in the year 512.

## CULT AND RELICS.

Her body was buried in the vault, or underground chapel, that the great Saint Denis had formerly consecrated in honor of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and over which Clovis had already begun, at her urging, a superb edifice, later completed by Saint Clotilde. Upon her death, Saint Genevieve had bequeathed to the basilica of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, built by Clovis, the properties that her parents possessed in Nanterre, and, from that moment, her house belonged to the priests of this church, in which Saint Genevieve, who had conceived the idea for it, wished to be buried. It was a place she had often watered with her tears and from where her spirit had been several times carried up to the heavens, to hear those secrets of which it is not permitted for men to speak. An infinity of miracles occurred there immediately. A lamp was lit there whose oil was never consumed, although it burned constantly and oil was continually taken from it to serve in the healing of the sick. The blind received their sight there; the mute, the use of their tongue; the possessed, their deliverance; those tormented by fever, prompt and perfect health. A woman, rebuked for working on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, had replied impudently that the Virgin was a poor woman like her, who earned her living by the work of her hands; in punishment for this blasphemy, her fingers became so firmly attached to the comb with which she was carding wool that they could not be separated; she was healed by praying at this sepulcher. This caused this church to soon add to its first title of the blessed Apostles that of Saint Genevieve, and in the course of time it was almost no longer known by any other name than that of this Saint.

God has since performed other very remarkable wonders to honor her merit. One day, the Seine having overflowed strangely and filled all the churches and houses up to the height of the first floors, the bed upon which she had rendered her blessed spirit, and which was kept in a convent of nuns, was found entirely surrounded by water like a wall, without it being able to be flooded, or even wetted. Then the overflow ceased, and the river suddenly returned to its former state.

During the time of Louis VI, called the Fat, a cruel disease arose in Paris which physicians call 'feu sourd' (deaf fire). It is believed that this sacred fire was a gangrenous and epidemic erysipelas. Many people died from it without any remedy being found. This compelled the clergy and the people to have recourse to Saint Genevieve, in the hope that, through the merits of her incomparable purity, she would appease the wrath of God, justly irritated against their debauchery and sensuality. It was therefore decided, at the instance of Stephen I, then bishop of this see, that the shrine where her holy remains rested would be solemnly brought from her church to that of Notre-Dame; the effect of this devotion was immediately felt, for all these poor 'ardents', who expected nothing but death, were cured at that very instant, with the exception of three who lacked faith, or whom God did not wish to heal for reasons unknown to us. A church was then built in memory of this miracle, and it was formerly a parish of the city called Sainte-Geneviève des Ardents; the following year, Pope Innocent II, being informed of all that had happened, ordered that a memorial of it be made every year on November 26th in the Breviary of Paris, and granted great indulgences to those who would visit this church.

In the year 1161, under the reign of Louis VII, called the Young, and under the episcopate of the famous Peter Lombard, called the Master of the Sentences, a rumor having arisen in Paris that the shrine of Saint Genevieve had been furtively opened and her precious head stolen, a solemn opening was made in the presence of the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishops of Auxerre and Orleans, whom the king had sent there expressly; and it was happily found that this rumor was false, and that the entire body of the Saint, with her head, was in the shrine. It had been transported twice, during the ninth century, from the abbey where it rested to safe places, for fear of the Normans who were ravaging all of France, and even besieged Paris and pillaged this famous abbey along with that of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. These abbeys were not yet enclosed within the city; but the body of the Saint had been brought back there, both times, with great solemnity, all the clergy and all the bodies of the city having gone out to meet it. Those who have written the histories of these translations recount, as eyewitnesses, a host of miraculous healings that took place through the intercession of the Saint, throughout the course of both journeys; but we refrain from saying anything about them, so as not to be too long, and because such prodigies are still quite common for our Saint.

All of France, and especially the city of Paris, implores her assistance in times of war, plague, famine, drought, flood, and excessive rainfall, and in all other sorts of necessities and important affairs; then (said Father Giry in 1685), one only uncovers the shrine, or else one lowers it from atop the four large jasper columns and the four gilded cherubim by which it is supported, and carries it in procession to the cathedral church; which is done only by order of the king and by decree of the parliament, with magnificent ceremonies, which are described at great length in the *Antiquités de Paris*. There is even a confraternity of the most honorable bourgeois of the city, who are designated to carry these precious relics on this occasion. The account of the miracle of the Ardents, written as early as the year 1131 or thereabouts, assures that this manner of carrying the shrine of Saint Genevieve, in public necessities, was inviolably observed from time immemorial, which shows that it began a few years after the death of this holy Virgin, and that it is a devotion of almost all the centuries of our monarchy. Thus, one has never had recourse to this means to appease the indignation of God and to merit his help and protection without feeling its power. Wars have thus been appeased, plagues dispelled, serenity changed into rain or rain into serenity, and the earth, which was sterile, has seen itself laden with a great quantity of fruits. This is what was experienced in the year 1675, after the lowering and the procession of the shrine which took place on the nineteenth day of July, with an infinite concourse of people. For, although the continual rains had put the entire countryside in the utmost desolation and the laborers were beyond all hope of harvest, a change so marvelous suddenly occurred that the year became one of the most abundant that had been seen for a long time for wheat and small grains; the heretics themselves and the libertines were forced to acknowledge that there was, in the disposition of the season, something extraordinary and miraculous.

The shrine of our illustrious patroness was formerly only of white silver and without many ornaments; but Robert, of La Ferté-Milon, Abbot of Sainte-Geneviève, had one made in the ye ar 1242, in which went 193 and a hal La châsse de notre illustre patronne Reliquary containing the saint's remains, destroyed during the French Revolution. f marks of silver and 8 and a half marks of gold. Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, the last commendatory abbot and restorer of the same abbey, with the liberality of Queen Marie de' Medici, had it regilded and enriched with a great number of pearls and precious stones which gave it a marvelous luster. One cannot believe how many people assemble every Friday, at Sainte-Geneviève, to venerate this Saint and to implore her help; how many masses are celebrated there, both to ask for healings and to thank God for those that have been obtained; and how many ex-votos are attached near her mausoleum, in testimony of the graces that have been received through her intercession.

What one has just read is now nothing more than a memory.

A stone coffin, in which the body of Saint Genevieve originally rested, is just about all that Paris possesses today of its patron saint. A gust of wind was enough to annihilate what thirteen centuries had spared. This coffin, placed in a kind of chapel to the right of the choir in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, is still the object of great devotion and the destination of numerous pilgrimages. Each year, on January 3, a novena in honor of Saint Genevieve begins at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont and at the neighboring Pantheon, which attracts many faithful despite the cooling of faith in the great city.

In 1871, the mobs of Paris, worthy successors to the destroyers of '93, profaned the temple of Saint Genevieve; her reliquary was violated and smashed, and the holy bones cast to the wind: no doubt this concerns only a small portion of the relics of the patroness of Paris, for all those contained in the reliquary kept at the abbey of Saint Genevieve had been burned at the Place de Grève on December 3, 1793; but a certain number of churches in France possessed some relics of the Virgin of Nanterre, and Mgr de Quélen, during the reopening of Saint Genevieve on January 3, 1822, was able to deposit there several fragments of the bones that he had obtained from various places. The piety of the faithful will perhaps find some consolation in learning that several precious relics of the august protectress of Paris still exist, notably at Verneuil, in the department of Oise.

There was, at Verneuil , before Verneuil Location where surviving relics of the saint are kept. the Revolution of '93, a priory; the parish church depended on it, and it bore the title of Priory of Saint Genevieve; it was the prior who appointed the parish priest. All religious acts prior to '93 end as follows: "Done in the church of Madame Saint Genevieve."

From time immemorial, there has been a valley originating in the forest and ending in the country which bears, in the forest, the name of Fonds de Saint Genevieve, and where it is cultivated, Vallée de Saint Genevieve. In this same valley, the spring that gives rise to a small stream has always, within human memory, been called the Source of Saint Genevieve; for about ten years, a magnificent rock has been built over this spring, which contains the statue of Saint Genevieve and bears the name of Fontaine Saint Genevieve; — the water of this fountain is recognized by local doctors as having excellent properties, and they advise the sick to drink it.

A report, drawn up on December 31, 1821, which is found in the reliquary of the church of Verneuil, and for a copy of which we owe thanks to the kindness of Father Loin, parish priest of this parish (letter of October 2, 1871), informs us that prior to the persecution of 1793, the said church of Verneuil possessed a gilded copper reliquary containing hair of Saint Genevieve; that this reliquary had been removed in September 1793 by a detachment of the revolutionary army; that one Jean-Baptiste Dufour, of Verneuil, concierge of the district in Senlis, had — in gratitude for his son's marriage, blessed at Verneuil — given to the church of the said Verneuil, among other relics that had fallen into his possession, a bone of Saint Genevieve appearing to be detached from a lower phalanx of the finger, measuring 22 lines in length by 4 lines in average width. This bone came from a reliquary exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the church of Saint Genevieve of Senlis, a church which was located on a street bearing the name of the Saint.

When a decree of Louis XVIII, issued in December 1821, restored the Pantheon of Paris to the cult of Saint Genevieve, the inhabitants of Verneuil resolved to offer to the latter a part of the precious relic they possessed: the bone was therefore cut into two parts, one of which remained at Verneuil and the other was sent to Paris.

Jean-Baptiste Dufour, who had, during the revolutionary turmoil, become the owner of the spoils of a large number of churches in the district of Senlis, also gave to the church of Verneuil an arm of Saint Just, martyr; a bone of Saint Colomb; two bones of Saint Justin, martyr; a bone of Saint Libère, martyr, and other relics without designation.

Another parish of the diocese of Beauvais — Gouvieux — obtained from Rome, around 1866, some fragments of the relics of Saint Genevieve.

Relics of Saint Genevieve are still venerated at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre and at Dians, in the diocese of Meaux.

We have said that Clovis built the church of Saint-Pierre, where Saint Genevieve was buried; here is the occasion:

Queen Clotilde had made the king promise, at the moment he was about to begin the war against Alaric, who reigned over the Visigoths in the south of Gaul, to dedicate a magnificent church to the service of God if his arms were victorious. Having returned to Paris after the defeat of Alaric, the king fulfilled his promise and, around the year 508, laid the foundations of a basilica (a church of royal foundation) in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, on the top of the mountain of the Thermes palace, in the middle of the vineyards that covered its slopes. Arriving at the designated ground, he had thrown his axe straight ahead of him, so that one day one could measure the strength of his arm by the length of the building. Clovis died in 511, without having seen the church finished; but Queen Clotilde had it completed and deposited the remains of Clovis in the sanctuary. Clotilde, who died in 543, was buried next to the king.

The church of Sainte-Geneviève was demolished in 1807, and the Rue Clovis was cut through its site. From the middle of the last century, as the church was threatening to fall into ruin, the need was felt to build a new one in a nearby location; but the canons, unable to afford this expense, saw Louis XV allocate to it, starting March 1, 1755, a portion of the proceeds from lotteries, and he charged Soufflot, his architect, to draw up the plan for the new church; the king laid the first stone on September 6, 1764. I n 1791, Panthéon Parisian edifice built on the site of the former Abbey of Saint Genevieve. the unfinished building received the name Pantheon and was consecrated for the burial of illustrious men; we know of what illustration!

On February 20, 1806, an imperial decree ordered that it be finished and dedicated, as a church, for the burial of famous personages. Returned exclusively to worship in 1821, and destined again in 1830 to receive the remains of great men, it finally became the church of Sainte-Geneviève again in 1852. Since 1852, the church of Sainte-Geneviève has been served by a community of priests composed of a dean and several chaplains.

The chapter of Sainte-Geneviève was very rich and answered only to the Pope; it had full jurisdiction over its lands: its dean, qualified as an abbot, had the right to wear, in ceremonies, the pontifical ornaments, that is to say, the mitre, the crozier, and the pastoral ring. There were several reforms. In 1634, it was decided that the abbot would be appointed every three years; at the same time, a general congregation was formed, according to the new regulations of Sainte-Geneviève, of which this abbey was the headquarters, and the Genevan canons received the name of Regular Canons of the Congregation of France. The Order of Sainte-Geneviève counted more than nine hundred houses in France and made appointments to more than five hundred parishes, among others, that of Saint-Étienne du Mont.

The church formerly called Sainte-Geneviève la Petite, which later took the name Sainte-Geneviève des Ardents, following the miracle recounted by Father Giry, was near the cathedral and the house where the Saint had died. It was demolished in 1747 to build the Enfants-Trouvés hospital.

Among the virgins who attached themselves to Saint Genevieve, we name Saint Aude and Saint Céline, both born in the vicinity of Meaux: thus, in the Brie region, the name Céline is frequently given to young girls.

In the 18th century, following in the footsteps of the first companions of the Virgin of Nanterre, the Daughters of Saint Genevieve were established, better known by the name of Miramiones, from the name of their founder, Marie Bonneau, widow of Mr. Beanharnais de Miramion, councilor to the parliament.

Let us say a word about the well, the underground passage, and the house of Saint Genevieve in Nanterre.

One can still see in Nanterre a well that the double testimony of tradition and history assures is the one spoken of in the life of Saint Genevieve, and with the water of which she healed her mother, who had been blind for twenty-one months. It is doubly consecrated by the tears that Saint Genevieve shed on its curb, and by the sign of the cross that she made over its waters, the effects of which are still felt in our days for all ailments of the sight and the fevers of the burning sickness. It was adjacent to and dependent on the house, the garden, and some other small possessions of the Saint's parents, for whose use it served exclusively.

The well and the land once occupied by the house of Saint Genevieve were recently enclosed in a chapel of which only the boundary walls exist today; and yet, despite the misfortune of the times, this place is still the object of the veneration of the Christian people.

One sees near the site of the house, to the left and while descending a few steps, a kind of underground passage or cellar where the Saint would withdraw to pray with more recollection. The piety of the faithful had, from time immemorial, consecrated this place by the erection of an altar which was destroyed towards the end of the 16th century, and had been completely abandoned since 1582, when in 1642 the zeal of the Christians rebuilt a new altar there where the holy mysteries were celebrated, and at the foot of which the crowd of pilgrims still came, before the first revolution, to pray to God in the same place where Saint Genevieve had so often invoked Him. Political troubles caused this pious practice to be abandoned; soon the altar disappeared, and the oratory did not take long to become a wine merchant's cellar.

The parish priest of Nanterre, who has just rescued these places full of pious memories from profane hands, possesses at this moment only half of this cellar, which is cut in two by the wall of a neighboring house, the acquisition of which could complete both the other part of the precious underground passage and the properties of Saint Genevieve on that side. This cellar, as well as the well, has undergone the encroachments of the terrain, and its semi-ogival vault is very low.

According to some authors, Mount Valérien, which became famous in the war of France against Prussia in 1870-71, owes its name to the father of Saint Genevieve, who was supposedly named Severus-Valerian, and to whom the mountain belonged in full ownership.

On the flank of this mountain, one can still see the Clos de Sainte-Geneviève: a spring flows nearby and also bears the name Fontaine de Sainte-Geneviève. It is there, say those who believe that Saint Genevieve was a shepherdess, that she came to quench her thirst and water her flock. At the time when, on the height of Mount Valérien, there existed a calvary in place of the formidable war works that have been raised there, the faithful who went there on the day of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, went there to drink out of devotion. At the place crossed today by the road from Nanterre to Chatou, was the Parc de Sainte-Geneviève. There remains no vestige of the enclosure that surrounded this park, nor of the chapel that had been built there.

When Saint Genevieve went from Paris to Troyes and Arcis-sur-Aube to buy provisions, she stopped, according to tradition, between these two cities, in a country called La Chapelle-Vallon. One sees in this latter locality a monument of high antiquity, dedicated to the good Saint Genevieve, restored in 1842 by the inhabitants.

Ex-votos, which one still sees in our days at Saint-Méry and Saint-Étienne du Mont in Paris, attest to the famous miracle of the burning sickness. The memory of this miraculous fact was preserved through the ages by a feast that was formerly celebrated on November 26, in the church of Sainte-Geneviève la Petite, in the city of Paris: this church had been erected on the site of the house where the Virgin of Nanterre had breathed her last.

The crypt of the old basilica of Sainte-Geneviève, whose tower, the only debris that remains of it, is today part of the buildings of a high school, contained the tombs of Clovis and Saint Clotilde; but the most famous of the monuments sheltered by this sanctuary was that of the patron saint of Paris; this tomb, precious for a Christian, has been preserved for us. The Abbé Amable des Voisins, who died as the appointed bishop of Saint-Flour, obtained, at the time of the suppression of the old church of Sainte-Geneviève, to have transported into that of Saint-Étienne du Mont, of which he was the parish priest, this stone which had contained the body of Saint Genevieve for such a great number of years. The holy relic of the Virgin of Nanterre was returned to public veneration on November 8, 1803.

What mainly attracts Christians to Saint-Étienne du Mont is, as we have already said, the chapel where the tomb of Saint Genevieve is found, decorated in the flamboyant Gothic style and whose designs were provided in 1846 by the famous Father Martin, a Jesuit.

Saint Genevieve is especially honored at Thieulley-l'Abbaye, at La Mirande, at Hédeuville, at Assainvillers. There is a pilgrimage in these last two localities where she is invoked against inflammatory fevers. She is the patron saint of Flaucourt, Framerville, and Guémicourt. A chapel is dedicated to her near Equancourt. Relics of the Saint are kept at the cathedral, at the Louvencourt and the Ursulines of Amiens, at Liancourt-Fosse, and at Tilley-les-Conty (in a reliquary).

The arts have given of Saint Genevieve, and on her subject, the following various representations: 1° A devil tries to extinguish her candle, and an angel relights it; in the Middle Ages, this devil was armed with a bellows; 2° she restores sight to her mother; 3° she guards sheep while spinning her distaff. This manner, according to Father Cahier, is not earlier than the 17th century; nothing, moreover, proves that Saint Genevieve was a shepherdess. When the meaning of the symbols of the Middle Ages was lost, her candle or a piece of the candle was taken for a shepherd's crook; then, as prior to that time, the episode of the siege of Paris had been represented allegorically, that Saint Genevieve was placed on the ramparts between sheep (the inhabitants of Paris) that she guards, and wolves that she repels (the Huns), one was led to take the allegory for reality. This error is more forgivable than that of a contemporary sculptor who, in a group placed under the portico of the Pantheon, puts Saint Genevieve at the feet of Attila. Saint Genevieve never approached Attila, and, in any case, it is permissible to believe that she would not have thrown herself at his knees. The children of God have more pride and more dignity; an infinity of examples of the same kind prove it; 4° she carries keys: these are those of the city of Paris, which was entrusted to her protection; 5° she appears, in the sky, above numerous sick people who invoke her in the sickness of the fire of the burning sickness; 6° she receives from the hand of Saint Germain of Auxerre a medal with the effigy of the Crucified and puts it around her neck; 7° she carries bread in the folds of her dress, to designate either her ordinary charities or the help she gave to the people of Paris during a famine; 8° near a well where she heals her mother.

The famous Carl Van Loo represented Saint Genevieve with a medal hanging on her chest: it is the one that Saint Germain gave to the Virgin of Nanterre.

The church of Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas, in Paris, possesses a painting due to the brush of Mr. Carbillet, in which Saint Germain, presenting Saint Genevieve to her father and mother, says to them: "How happy you are to possess such a daughter!"

A wooden panel, carved around the year 1700, and placed to the right of the altar of Saint Genevieve, in the parish church of Nanterre, represents the Saint receiving the sacrament of Confirmation from Saint Germain.

Her life was written eighteen years after her death, by an author whose name is unknown, and some religious of her abbey, in Paris, added to it, at various times, the accounts of her translations and her miracles. Hollandus reported them in his first volume of the month of January. There is no Martyrology that does not make a very honorable mention of her. Saint Gregory of Tours, Constantius, author of the life of Saint Germain; Sigebert, Aymonius, Pierre de Natalibus, and many other historians also speak of her. And none of those who have written, in these last two centuries, the Lives of the Saints, has omitted her. We have drawn from the oldest, that is to say from the first sources, what we have reported here; but we have left out many things that the reader will be able to search for in these primitive acts.

One of the most illustrious theologians of the Society of Jesus, Father Petau (whose most famous work, the *Theological Dogmas*, is on sale at the CÉLESTINS, in Bar-le-Duc), sang, in a double poem, of Saint Genevieve, who had restored his health.

It is not even Voltaire who did not celebrate the praises of the patron saint of Paris, in verses that smell of their schoolboy, as one can judge by the following, the least bad of the piece:

Far from an opulent fortune, To the treasures that I present to you My ardor alone gives value; And if this ardor can please you, Accept that I dare to make you An homage of my writings.