(COMMONLY, IN AUVERGNE, BONET; AT PARIS, BONT.)
ST. BONET was referendary or chancellor, to Sigebert III., the holy king
of Austrasia; and by his zeal, religion, and justice, flourished in that
kingdom under four kings. After the death of Dagobert II., Thierry III.
made him governor of Marseilles and all Provence, in 680. His elder
brother St. Avitus II., bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, having
recommended him for his successor, died in 689, and Bonet was
consecrated. But after having governed that see ten years, with the most
exemplary piety, he had a scruple whether his election had been
perfectly canonical; and having consulted St. Tilo, or Theau, then
leading an eremitical life at Solignac, resigned his dignity, led for
four years a most penitential life in the abbey of Manlieu, now of the
order of St. Bennet, and after having made a pilgrimage to Rome, died of
the gout at Lyons on the fifteenth of January in 710, being eighty-six
years old. His relics were enshrined in the cathedral at Clermont; but
some small portions are kept at Paris, in the churches of St. Germain
l'Auxerrois, and St. Bont, near that of St. Merry. See his life, {158}
written by a monk of Sommon in Auvergne, in the same century, published
by Bollandus, also le Cointe, an. 699. Gallia Christiana Nova, &c.