Saint Gengulphus

His parents having died, he found himself master of many lands and lordships; but, far from squandering these goods through criminal or superfluous expenditures, he administered them with as much prudence and wisdom as if he had been an old man seasoned in the art of economy and domestic government. The churches and the poor had a large share in them, and he believed that he could not show his gratitude toward God, who had given him these riches, except by returning a portion to Him through the assistance of His ministers and those whose indigence He wishes us to consider as similar to His own. Being of marriageable age, he took a wife who was also from a noble and wealthy house, but she suited him little otherwise in the qualities of mind and heart: she did not have the piety of our Saint; she was vain, worldly, and frivolous. God permitted such an unequal union to test the virtue of His servant and to purify him in the crucible of afflictions.

Gengoul, who was one of the principal lords of Burgundy and possessed great bravery, took a large part in the numerous wars waged by King Pepin the Sho rt; he is reputed roi Pépin le Bref King of the Franks whose accession to the throne was supported by Burchard. to have lent the aid of the secular arm to the preaching of the Gospel in Frisia, which would explain the devotion of which he has been and still is the object in Holland.

Pepin esteemed him singularly, because of his fine feats of arms and his holiness, which he saw burst forth even through wonders. He loved him so much that he had him sleep in his tent. One evening, when they were both in bed, the lamp, which had been extinguished, relit itself. The king, having awakened, was surprised by this light; he got up and blew out the lamp, which relit itself again; the miracle was repeated three times, and convinced Pepin that a saint was resting in his tent. The story of Gengoul recounts a much more extraordinary marvel: he was returning to Burgundy to rest from the fatigues of war; while passing through the Bassigny, he stopped in a delightful place to take his meal: it was on the edge of a fountain, whose waters were very beautiful and excellent. He bought it and paid for it to the one who was its possessor. God wished to punish the avarice of the latter: for he believed he would have both the fountain and its price, not seeing how the Saint could transport it to his lands. Gengoul, having arrived at Varennes, his usual residence, stuck hi Varennes Place of the saint's habitual residence and burial. s staff into the ground and made a magnificent fountain spring forth: it was the one he had bought, for it ceased to exist in the land of the greedy seller.

As we have already said, Our Lord destined Gengoul to be a great model of patience, another Tobias, another Job. His wife mocked his piety and insulted his virtues; in the end, she became unfaithful to him. The Saint, having noticed this, was plunged into deep sorrow and great perplexity, finding it equally painful and disastrous to punish this crime or to leave it unpunished. He was still in this predicament when one day, walking alone with the guilty woman, he said to her: "For a long time, rumors have been circulating against your honor. I did not want to speak to you about them before knowing if they were well-founded; but today, I am no longer permitted to remain silent: I remind you, therefore, that a woman has nothing dearer in the world than her honor; she must do everything to preserve or recover it."

This wretched wife replied to him with impudence "that there was nothing more unjust than the rumors being spread about her; she had kept her faith to him until then and would always keep it; it was unfortunate for her to be the victim of such slanders." — "If that is so," the Saint replied, "here is clear water, which is neither too hot nor too cold to cause harm (they were then at the edge of a fountain). Plunge your arm into it: if you suffer no harm from it, you will be innocent in my eyes." The guilty woman, considering this ordeal a sign of her husband's simplicity, hastened to provide such an easy testimony of her innocence and plunged her arm into the water up to the elbow. She was very surprised when, as she withdrew it, the skin, detaching as if she had been flayed, came to hang down to the tips of her fingers in a horrible manner: she felt excessive pain. Confused and stunned, she no longer dared to raise her eyes to her husband; and yet, pride still preventing her from admitting her guilt and asking for forgiveness, she remained in a shameful silence, except for the cries that pain wrung from her. Then Gengoul said to her: "I could deliver you to the full severity of the law; but I prefer to leave you the freedom to expiate yourself, in penance and tears, for the adultery of which Heaven has just convicted you. However, I will no longer remain with you; withdraw to the land that I have assigned to you for your dowry, try there to appease the anger of God, who is justly irritated against you, compensate for the iniquities you have committed with good works; and, as for me, I will also withdraw, so that the company of an adulteress does not make me a participant in her crime."

Thus Saint Gengoul placed his wife in one of his lordships and assigned her a certain income for her subsistence; he, for his part, retired to a castle he had near Avallon, a city i n Burgu Avallon Fortress besieged by Robert the Pious, site of a miracle. ndy, on the Cussin, between Anzerre and Autun. From there, he continued to watch over the conduct of the one whom her infidelity had rendered unworthy of his care: he often exhorted her, by letters, to return to herself and to expiate her past faults through a better life. But his remonstrances were quite useless. This libertine woman, seeing herself separated from her husband, took advantage of it to continue her disorders. She was not content to live publicly in adultery; but, fearing that her husband might give all his goods to the poor, to whom he was already giving great alms, or even punish her according to the full rigor of the law, she resolved upon his death, with the accomplice of her disorders, who took charge of the execution. This assassin therefore went secretly to Gengoul's residence, and, having found a way to enter his room when he was alone and still in bed, took the sword that was hanging near his bedside and raised his arm to strike him a great blow on the head. But Gengoul, having awakened at that moment, parried the blow, which struck him only on the thigh. The wound was nevertheless mortal. The Martyr of justice and chastity had time to receive the last Sacraments before falling asleep in the Lord, on May 11, 760.

He had two aunts of distinguished virtue, whom he had left in Varennes; one was named Villet rude and t Villetrude Aunt of Saint Gengulphus. he other Vil legose. T Villegose Aunt of Saint Gengulphus. hese holy women, having learned of their nephew's death, wished for his body to be buried in the church of their town: this was all the more just, as he was its founder and had provided great revenues for the maintenance of the clerics who served it. They took with them all the clergy, and, followed by a portion of the inhabitants, they traveled with diligence to the place where he had died. His body could not be refused to them: it was therefore brought to Varennes with great solemnity and amidst torches and ecclesiastical chants, which hardly ceased during the entire journey, which is several leagues long. What made this funeral procession so brilliant was that Saint Gengoul manifested, through several miracles, the glory that his soul was already enjoying in heaven.

God continued to manifest the virtue and holiness of the Martyr through numerous miracles. France, the Low Countries, and Germany raised altars to him. Switzerland placed several of its churches under his invocation; and at the foot of the Alps, on the shore of Lake Geneva, in the diocese of Annecy, a village that bears the name of Saint Gingolph is dedicated to Saint Gengoul. Tradi saint Gingolph Village on the shore of Lake Geneva bearing its name. tion reports that he stayed there for some time, withdrawn among the rocks like an anchorite, and giving himself over to contemplation, prayer, and penance.

Furthermore, the murder of Saint Gengoul did not remain unpunished: the adulterer who had assassinated him, having returned to his infamous mistress to inform her of his homicide, was immediately seized with violent colic and died in a place worthy of him, amidst the most atrocious pains. The Saint's wife, who added to her crimes that of mocking his miracles, was chastised by a shameful infirmity that lasted her entire life.

Saint Gengoul is represented in the costume of a baron, fully armed, with a cross on his shield, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the point of which causes a spring to emerge from the ground. Saint Gengoul is one of the patrons of Haarlem, in Holland, of Florennes, in the province of Namur, of Toul, of Varennes, in Champagne, of Montreuil-sur-Mer, etc. He is especially invoked by the unhappily married.

## RELICS OF SAINT GENGOUL.

His holy relics were subsequently transferred to Langres, where a Langres City of origin of the cleric Warnahaire and several cited martyrs. Carmelite church bore his name. Many other places pride themselves on possessing or having once possessed some part of them, especially the town of Florennes, near Philippeville, where Gérard, canon of Reims and later bishop of Cambrai, had a famous house built in honor of this illustrious Martyr. It was first occupied by canons and then by religious. The miracles that occurred there were described by Gouzon, who was its fourth abbot.

Mr. Henriot, parish priest of Varennes, wrote to us on December 23, 1858: "The church of Varennes has only a small parcel of Saint Gengoul's bones. Father Carré possesses a larger one, but it cannot be considered significant. The bishopric of Langres has a considerable fragment of the Saint's chainmail. The parish priest of Les Loges also possesses a fragment of this chainmail. That is all I know about the relics.

"The fountain of Saint Gengoul is in the crypt of a chapel once well-frequented by pilgrims. A good number of people still living have seen crutches and ex-votos from the previous century hanging on the walls of the crypt. Unfortunately, the chapel has been converted into a dwelling and the crypt into a cellar. The fountain has been covered with masonry, and its water has been diverted by a conduit or drainage. Devotion no longer has an object in this chapel.

"This chapel belongs to its village. It is from the 15th century. Its height is divided into floors; but no degradation has altered its character. It would take little to restore it, and, if I had not had to raise the parish church from its ruins, I would have already carried out this restoration."

And Father J.-L. de Blaye, parish priest of Imling, on December 19, 1862: "Saint Gérard, bishop of Toul, obtained, for the collegiate church he had founded in honor of Saint Gengoul, relics of this holy Martyr, which were preserved until the Revolution. This church, now a parish church, no longer possesses, under this title, anything but a fragment of a skull whose certainty is far from complete: it was offered, and it is in a state of deterioration advanced enough that it is permissible to doubt that it belongs to the same skeleton as the head and the numerous bones preserved at the cathedral of Langres. The latter, whose provenance is of incontestable notoriety, show strong development, are of an almost ivory-like preservation, and have a reddish-brown tint.

The faithful of Montreuil formerly went on pilgrimage to the chapel of Saint-Gengoul, located in the parish of Saint-Josse (Pas-de-Calais). This devotion has since been transferred to a church in the suburb, along with his equestrian statue. The cult of this Saint has persisted in Bernay; there are relics of him at Saint-Vulfran in Abbeville. The relic obtained from the chapter of Toul in 1671, and preserved at Montreuil-sur-Mer, was burned in 1793; it has since been replaced by another that Mgr Paris gave to the current chapel.

The famous Hocquillia composed, in the 12th century, an extremely curious La Hocquillia Author of a 12th-century Latin poem on the saint's passion. tin poem on the passion of Saint Gengoul. An analysis of it can be found in the Revue de Paris ecclésiastique, vol. XIII, p. 186.

Several authors speak honorably of Saint Gengoul: the Roman Martyrology gives him the title of Martyr; Surius and the Bollandists report his Acts, drawn from various manuscripts."