ST. BATHILDES, or BALDECHILDE, in French Bauteur, was an English-woman,
who was carried over very young into France, and there sold for a slave,
at a very low price, to Erkenwald, otherwise called Erchinoald, and,
Archimbald, mayor of the palace under King Clovis II. When she grew up
he was so much taken with her prudence and virtue, that he committed to
her the care of his household. She was no ways puffed up, but seemed
{311} the more modest, more submissive to her fellow-slaves, and always
ready to serve the meanest of them in the lowest offices. King Clovis
II. in 649 took her for his royal consort, with the applause of his
princes and whole kingdom: such was the renown of her extraordinary
endowments. This unexpected elevation, which would have turned the
strongest head of a person addicted to pride, produced no alteration in
a heart perfectly grounded to humility and other virtues. She seemed
even to become more humble than before, and more tender of the poor. Her
present station furnished her with the means of being truly their
mother, which she was before in the inclination and disposition of her
heart. All other virtues appeared more conspicuous in her, but above the
rest an ardent zeal for religion. The king gave her the sanction of his
royal authority for the protection of the church, the care of the poor,
and the furtherance of all religions undertakings. She bore him three
sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clotaire III., Childeric II.,
and Thierry I. He dying in 655, when the eldest was only five years old,
left her regent of the kingdom. She seconded the zeal of St. Owen, St.
Eligius, and other holy bishops, and with great pains banished simony
out of France, forbade Christians to be made slaves,[1] did all in her
power to promote piety, and filled France with hospitals and pious
foundations. She restored the monasteries of St. Martin, St. Denys, St.
Medard, &c., founded the great abbey of Corbie for a seminary of virtue
and sacred learning, and the truly royal nunnery of Chelles,[2] on the
Marne, which had been begun by St. Clotildis. As soon as her son
Clotaire was of an age to govern, she with great joy shut herself up in
this monastery of Chelles, in 665, a happiness which she had long
earnestly desired, though it was with great difficulty that she obtained
the consent of the princes. She had no sooner taken the veil but she
seemed to have forgotten entirely her former dignity, and was only to be
distinguished from the rest by her extreme humility, serving them in the
lowest offices, and obeying the holy abbess St. Bertilla as the last
among the sisters. She prolonged her devotions every day with many
tears, and made it her greatest delight {312} to visit and attend the
sick, whom she comforted and served with wonderful charity. St. Owen, in
his life of St. Eligius, mentions many instances of the great veneration
which St. Bathildes bore that holy prelate, and relates that St.
Eligius, after his death, in a vision by night, ordered a certain
courtier to reprove the queen for wearing jewels and costly apparel in
her widowhood, which she did not out of pride, but because she thought
it due to her state while she was regent of the kingdom. Upon this
admonition, she laid them aside, distributed a great part to the poor,
and with the richest of her jewels made a most beautiful and sumptuous
cross, which she placed at the head of the tomb of St. Eligius. She was
afflicted with long and severe colics and other pains, which she
suffered with an admirable resignation and joy. In her agony she
recommended to her sisters charity, care of the poor, fervor, and
perseverance, and gave up her soul in devout prayer, on the 30th of
January, in 680, on which day she is honored in France, but is named on
the 26th in the Roman Martyrology.
* * * * *
A Christian, who seriously considers that he is to live here but a
moment, and will live eternally in the world to come, must confess that
it is a part of wisdom to refer all his actions and views to prepare
himself for that everlasting dwelling, which is his true country. Our
only and necessary affair is to live for God, to do his will, and to
sanctify and save our souls. If we are employed in a multiplicity of
exterior business, we must imitate St. Bathildes, when she bore the
whole weight of the state. In all we do God and his holy will must be
always before our eyes, and to please him must be our only aim and
desire. Shunning the anxiety of Martha, and reducing all our desires to
this one of doing what God requires of us, we must with her call in Mary
to our assistance. In the midst of action, while our hands are at work,
our mind and heart ought to be interiorly employed on God, at least
virtually, that all our employments may be animated with the spirit of
piety: and hours of repose must always be contrived to pass at the feet
of Jesus, where in the silence of all creatures we may listen to his
sweet voice, refresh in him our wearied souls, and renew our fervor.
While we converse with the world, we must tremble at the sight of its
snares, and be upon our guard that we never be seduced so far as to be
in love with it, or to learn its spirit. To love the world, is to follow
its passions; to be proud, covetous, and sensual, as the world is. The
height of its miseries and dangers, is that blindness by which none who
are infected with its spirit, see their misfortune, or are sensible of
their disease. Happy are they who can imitate this holy queen in
entirely separating themselves from it!
Footnotes:
1. The Franks, when they established themselves in Gaul, allowed the
Roman Gauls to live according to their own laws and customs, and
tolerated their use of slaves, but gradually mitigated their
servitude. Queen Bathildes alleviated the heaviest conditions, gave
great numbers their liberty, and declared all capable of property.
The Franks still retained slaves with this condition, attached to
certain manors or farms, and bound to certain particular kinds of
servitude. The kings of the second race often set great numbers
free, and were imitated by other lords. Queen Blanche and Saint
Lewis contributed more than any others to ease the condition of
vassals, and Louis Hutin abolished slavery in France, declaring all
men free who live in that kingdom according to the spirit of
Christianity, which teaches us to treat all men as our brethren. See
the life of St. Bathildes, and Gratigny, [OE]vres posthumes, an. 1757.
Disc. sur la Servitude et son Abolition en France.
2. In the village of Chelles, in Latin Cala, four leagues from Paris,
the kings of the first race had a palace. St. Clotildis founded near
it a small church under the invocation of St. George, with a small
number of cells adjoining for nuns. St. Bathildes so much enlarged
this monastery as to be looked upon as the principal foundress. The
old church of St. George falling to decay, Saint Bathildes built
there the magnificent church of the Holy Cross, in which she was
buried. Gisela, sister to the emperor Charlemagne, abbess of this
house, rebuilt the great church, which some pretend to be the same
that is now standing. At present here are three churches together;
the first, which is small, the oldest, and only a choir, is called
the church of the Holy Cross, and is used by six monks who assist
the nuns; the lowest church is called St. George's, and is a
parochial church for the seculars who live within the jurisdiction
of the monastery: the great church which serves the nuns is
dedicated under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and is said to
be the same that was built by the abbess Gisela, and much enlarged
and enriched by Hegilvich, abbess of this monastery, mother to the
empress Judith, whose husband, Louis le Debonnaire, caused the
remains of our saint to be translated into this new church, in 833,
and from this treasure it is more frequently called the church of
St. Bathlides, than our Lady's. Two rich silver shrines are placed
over the iron rails of the chancel, in one of which rest the sacred
remains of St. Bathildes, in the other those of St. Bertilla, first
abbess of Chelles: these rails, which are of admirable workmanship,
were the present of an illustrious princess of the house of Bourbon,
Mary Adelaide of Orleans, abbess of this house in 1725, who not
thinking her sacrifice complete by having renounced the world, after
some years abdicated her abbacy, and died in the condition of humble
obedience, and of a private religious woman, near the shrines of SS.
Bathildes and Bertilla, and those of St. Genesius of Lyons, St.
Eligius and Radegondes of Chelles, called also little St. Bathildes.
The last-mentioned princess was god-daughter to our saint, and died
in her childhood, in this monastery, two or three days before her.
See Piganiol's Descr. de Paris, t. 1 and S. Chatelain's notes in
martyr. p. 464, and especially Le Boeuf, Hist. du Diocese de Paris,
t. 6, p. 32. This author gives (p. 43) the full relation of a
miracle approved by John Francis Gondy, archbishop of Paris,
mentioned in a few words by Mabillon and Baillet. Six nuns were
cured of inveterate distempers, attended with frequent fits of
convulsions, by touching the relics of Saint Bathildes, when her
shrine was opened on the 13th of July, in 1631.