_GENEVIÈVE OF PARIS_
S. Geneviève was born and lived in a time of frightful disaster,
unparalleled in the history of Europe. From the commencement of the
fifth century a veritable deluge of diverse nations, driven on one by
another, inundated the crumbling empire, and gave the signal for its
complete ruin.
The Franks, under the long-haired Clodion, traversing the forest of the
Ardennes, and rolling to the banks of the Somme, had seized on Amiens,
Cambrai, Tournai, after having burnt Trèves, and sacked Cologne. The
citizens, of Trèves, which had been the residence of emperors since
Maximian, had been slaughtered in the circus to which they had fled. The
amphitheatre, which under Constantine has streamed with the blood of the
Barbarians, was now heaped with the bodies of Romans. Cologne had been
revelling in drunken orgy, when a slave ran to announce that the Franks
were on the walls. The citizens had not the manhood to rise from table
so as to die standing. Their blood mingled with the wine of their
overturned cups. God chastised Roman vices with disgrace as with iron.
In this fifth century three societies stood face to face—the Old Roman
polity, the Barbarian, and the Church. Rome went to pieces under the
blows of the Barbarians, but the Barbarian in turn was subjugated by
Christianity.
S. Geneviève was born at Nanterre, about seven miles from Paris, in 422
or 423. The old name of the place, Nemetdoor, is purely Celtic, as is
her name, which is the same as Gwenever or Gwenhwyvar in Welsh. Her
father was named Severus, and her mother Gerontia, the female form of
Geraint. There can be no doubt whatever that she was of Gallic origin,
but Latinised, and a Christian.
One word, before proceeding, about the authority for her life. This is a
biography, written eighteen years after her death, by the priest Genes,
her spiritual director. He learned from the saint the general outline of
the incidents in her childhood, and these he dressed up in what he
believed to be literary style.
Late in the Middle Ages it was said that S. Geneviève had kept sheep for
her father, and she is now generally represented as a shepherdess; but
there is no early authority for this, although the fact is very
probable. In the year 429 S. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, and S. Lupus,
Bishop of Troyes, at the entreaty of the British Church, commissioned
for the work by a Council of Gallican bishops, left their dioceses to
visit our island, there to withstand the Pelagian heresy, which was
making way.
S. Germain was well qualified to go to Britain, as he was of Celtic
origin, and his sister was the wife of Aldor, brother of Constantine I.,
King of Devon and Cornwall.
On his way to the coast he passed through Nanterre. The people, hearing
of his approach, lined the road, and with them were the children in
goodly numbers.
As Germain and Lupus advanced, the eye of the former rested on a fair
little girl of seven, whose devout look, and sweet, innocent face,
arrested him. He stood still, and called her to him, then stooped and
kissed her on the brow, and asked her name. He was told that she was
called Geneviève. The pleased parents now stepped up, and the venerable
bishop asked, “Is this your child?”
They answered in the affirmative.
“Then,” said Germain, “happy are ye in having a child so blessed. She
will be great before God; and, moved by her example, many will decline
from evil and incline to that which is good, and will obtain remission
of their sins, and the reward of life from Christ.” And then, after a
pause, he said to the young girl, “My daughter, Geneviève.” She
answered, “Thy little maiden listens.”
Then he said, “Do not fear to tell me whether it be not your desire to
devote yourself body and soul to Christ.”
She answered, “Blessed be thou, father, for thou hast spoken my desire.
I pray God earnestly that He will grant it me.”
“Have confidence, my daughter,” said Germain; “be of good courage, and
what you believe in your heart and confess with your lips, that take
care to perform. God will add to your comeliness both virtue and
strength.”
Then they went into the church and sang nones and vespers, and
throughout the office Bishop Germain rested his right hand on the fair
little head of the child.
That evening, after supper had been eaten and they had sung a hymn,
Germain bade Severus retire with his daughter, but bring her to him
again early next morning. So when day broke, Severus returned with the
child, and the old bishop smiled, and said, “Welcome, little daughter
Geneviève. Do you recollect what was said yesterday?”
She answered, “My father, I remember what I promised, and with God’s
help what I promised that I will perform.”
Then S. Germain picked up a brass coin from the ground, which had the
sign of the cross on it, and which he had noticed lying there whilst he
was speaking; and he gave it to her, saying, “Bore a hole in this, and
wear it round thy neck in remembrance of me, and let no other ornament,
or gold or silver or pearls, adorn thy neck and thy fingers.” Then he
bade her farewell, commending her to the care of her father, and pursued
his journey.
Now, we may ask, How much of this is true? Almost everything. Geneviève
was certain never to forget how the old bishop had stopped her, when a
little mite of seven, how he had asked her name, had made her promise to
love and fear God; how in church his hand had rested all through the
service on her head, and how he had given her the coin to wear. But as
to the prophecy relative to her future, and to his exacting of her a
promise to be a nun, all that may be the make-up of Genes, writing after
she had been a blessing to the people of Paris, and had embraced the
monastic life.
At the age of fifteen she and two other girls somewhat older than
herself presented themselves before the bishop to be veiled as dedicated
virgins. It was remarked that, although Geneviève was the youngest, yet
the bishop consecrated her first.
After their dedication they returned to their homes; for, at that time,
it was not a matter of course that consecrated virgins should live in
community.
About this time her mother suffered from inflamed eyes, and for
twenty-one months, or nearly two years, could not see to do her
household work. Accordingly, Geneviève was of immense assistance to her.
She was wont repeatedly to bathe her mother’s eyes with water from the
well, and this in time reduced the inflammation, so that eventually
Gerontia recovered her sight.
At last Geneviève lost both her parents, and now, having no home duties
to restrain her, she went to Paris into a religious community.
In 447 S. Germain again visited Britain about the same trouble which had
occasioned his first journey; and when, on his way, he came to Paris, he
inquired for the little girl whom he had blessed at Nanterre eighteen
years before.
Genes tells us that some spiteful people sought to disparage her; but
Germain would not hearken to them, and sent for and communed with her.
What caused them to make light of her was probably this. She had adopted
a life of great asceticism, eating nothing but barley bread and beans,
and that only twice in the week; and remaining within her cell,
conversing with none from Epiphany till Easter.
There were a number of people in Paris who did not like these
extravagances; and it was these, in all probability, who spoke against
her to S. Germain. But, as we shall see presently, by this means she did
acquire an enormous power over the people of Paris, which she used for
good.
S. Germain had probably but just returned from Britain before a new and
terrible scourge broke upon Gaul.
In 451, the Huns, headed by their king, Attila, burst in. In two columns
this vast horde had ascended the Danube. One of these drew several
German peoples along with it, eager for plunder, whilst the other fell
on and crushed the isolated Roman stations. This agglomeration of
invaders met at the sources of the Danube, crossed the Rhine at Basle,
where the proximity to the Black Forest favoured the construction of
rafts for passing over.
The Franks, who occupied the right bank of the Rhine, extended their
hands to the Huns. The Burgundians, however, offered a vain resistance,
and were cut to pieces. The Huns, entering Gaul, completed the
destruction of what had been left standing by Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.
Attila, following the Rhine as he had the Danube, devastated Alsace.
Strasburg, Spires, Worms, ruined by preceding invasions, had not risen
from the dust. Mayence was sacked, Toul sank in flames, Metz had its
walls and towers overthrown after a few months’ resistance. The savage
conquerors massacred all, even to the children at the breast. They fired
the town, and long after its site could only be recognised by the Chapel
of S. Stephen, which had escaped the conflagration.
Several cities opened their gates to Attila: they hoped to find safety
in submission; they did but expedite their destruction. Despair gave
courage to others, but no heroism availed against these devouring
hordes. Rheims and Arras were delivered over to the sack. The host broke
up into fractions, which ravaged the country, carrying everywhere fire
and sword.
Attila advanced to the Loire.
Then it was that a panic fell on the inhabitants of Paris. In madness of
fear, they prepared to desert it: the rich in their chariots and
waggons, the poor on foot.
It was now that S. Geneviève stood forward and rebuked their cowardice.
Whither could they fly? The enemy penetrated everywhere. The Hun gained
audacity by the universal panic. Better man their walls, brace their
hearts, and resist heroically.
The Parisian mob, headlong and cruel, as such a mob has ever been,
howled at her, and prepared to pelt her with stones and cast her into
the Seine, when, opportunely, appeared the Archdeacon of Auxerre, sent
expressly to Geneviève from the bishop, just returned from Britain, and
now dying, bearing Blessed Bread to her, that he had sent in token of
affectionate communion. This loaf, the _eulogia_, was that from which
the bread for the Communion had been taken, and which remained over. It
had been blessed, but not consecrated; and it was sent by bishops to
those whom they held in esteem.
Such a token of regard paid to Geneviève by one so highly esteemed awed
the rabble, and they swung from one temper to another. They were now
amenable to her advice. They closed the gates, accumulated the munitions
of war, and made preparations to stand a siege; but Attila did not
approach. He foresaw that it would take him too long to reduce so strong
a place. On the 14th of June, 451, the Huns encountered their first
repulse. They were driven from the siege of Orleans. On the field of
Châlons-sur-Marne, the memorable battle was fought between Aetius, the
Roman general, and Attila. “It was a battle,” says the historian
Jornandes, “which for atrocity, multitude, horror, and stubbornness has
not had its like.” The field was heaped with the dead, but it resulted
in the expulsion of the Huns from Gaul.
Feeling a great reverence for S. Denis, Geneviève desired greatly to
build a church on the scene of his martyrdom; and she urged some priests
to undertake the work. But they hesitated, saying that they had no means
of burning lime—it was a lost art. Then, so runs the tale, one of them
suddenly recollected having heard two swineherds in conversation on the
bridge over the Seine. One had said to the other: “Whilst I was
following one of my pigs the other day, I lit in the forest on an
ancient abandoned lime-kiln.”
“That is no marvel,” answered the other, “for I found a sapling in the
forest uprooted by the wind, and under its roots was an old kiln.”
The priests inquired where these kilns were and used them, and Geneviève
set the priest Genes, who was afterwards her biographer, to superintend
the work of building the church.
It shows to what a condition of degradation the art of building had
fallen, when the Parisians were unable to burn lime without old Roman
kilns for the purpose.
A little incident, very simple and natural, was afterwards worked up
into a marvel. She was going one night from her lodging to the church
for prayers, carrying a lantern, when the wind, which was violent,
extinguished it. She opened the lantern, when a puff of wind on the
thick red glowing wick rekindled the flame. This was thought quite
miraculous. It is a thing that has happened over and over again with
tallow candles when the snuff is long.
In the year 486, Childeric, King of the Franks, laid siege to Paris,
which had remained under Roman governors. The siege lasted ten years, to
496. It cannot have been prosecuted with much persistence.
The Frank army reduced the city to great straits, and famine set in. The
poor suffered the extremity of want, and were dying like flies. No one
seemed to know what to do. All energy and resourcefulness had deserted
those in authority. Geneviève alone showed what steps should be taken:
she got into a ship, and was rowed up the Seine, and then up the Aube to
Arçis, where she knew that she could obtain corn. In the Seine was a
fallen tree with a snag that had been the cause of the loss of several
vessels, but no one had thought of removing the obstruction. Geneviève
made her boatmen saw up the tree and break it, so that it floated down
stream and could effect no further mischief. Another instance of the
condition of helplessness into which the debased provincials of Gaul had
fallen: they neither could build lime-kilns nor keep their rivers open
for traffic. She got together what provisions she could at Arçis, then
went on upon the same quest to Troyes, and finally laded eleven barges
with corn, and returned with them to the famished city. As they neared
Paris a strong gale was blowing, and the barges being laden very heavily
ran some risk, especially as here also there were snags in the water.
But with patience and trouble they were manœuvred through these
impediments, and the convoy arrived in Paris, with the priests singing,
and all who were in the boats joining, “The Lord is our help and our
salvation. The Lord hath delivered us in the time of trouble.”
The joy and gratitude of the Parisians knew no bounds. Afterwards, when
the city did fall, Childeric resolved on executing a great host of
captives; but Geneviève, in a paroxysm of compassion, rushed to him,
fell on her knees, and would not desist from intercession on their
behalf till he had consented to spare them.
At length, worn out by age, she died in 512, and was buried in Paris,
where now stands the Panthéon. The church was desecrated at the
Revolution, and turned into a burial-place for Mirabeau, the regicide
Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, the brutal Marat, Dampierre, Fabre, Bayle,
and other revolutionaries. The bodies of Voltaire and Rousseau were also
transferred to it.
In 1806 it was again restored as a church, but was once more turned into
a temple after the July revolution of 1830. Once again consecrated in
1851, it was finally secularised in 1885 for the obsequies of Victor
Hugo.
[Illustration: THE SISTER OF S. BENEDICT.]