ST. VEDAST left his own country very young, (which seems to have been in
the west of France,) and led a holy life concealed from the world in the
diocese of Toul, where the bishop, charmed with his virtue, promoted him
to the priesthood. Clovis I., king of France, returning from his victory
over the Alemanni, hastening to Rheims to receive baptism, desired at
Toul some priest who might instruct and prepare him for that holy
sacrament on the road. Vedast was presented to his majesty for this
purpose. While he accompanied the king at the passage of the river
Aisne, a blind man begging on the bridge besought the servant of God to
restore him to his sight: the saint, divinely inspired, prayed, and made
the sign of the cross on his eyes, and he immediately recovered it. The
miracle confirmed the king in the faith, and moved several of his
courtiers to embrace it. St. Vedast assisted St. Remigius in converting
the French, till that prelate consecrated him bishop of Arras, that he
might re-establish the faith in that country. As he was entering that
city in 499, he restored sight to a blind man, and cured one that was
lame. These miracles excited the attention, and disposed the hearts of
many infidels to a favorable reception of the gospel, which had been
received here when the Romans were masters of the country: but the
ravages of the Vandals and the Alans having either dispersed or
destroyed the Christians, Vedast could not discover the least footsteps
of Christianity, save only in the memory of some old people, who showed
him without the walls a poor ruinous church, where Christians used to
hold their religious assemblies. He sighed to see the Lord's field so
overgrown with bushes and brambles, and become the haunt of wild beasts;
whereupon he made it his most earnest supplication to God, that he would
in his mercy vouchsafe to restore his worship in that country. A
national faith is so great a blessing, that we seldom find it granted a
second time to those, who, by imitating the ingratitude of the Jews,
have drawn upon themselves the like terrible chastisement. St. Vedast
found the infidels stupid and obstinate; yet persevered, till by his
patience, meekness, charity, and prayers, he triumphed over bigoted
superstition and lust, and planted throughout that country the faith and
holy maxims of Christ. The great diocese of Cambray, which was extended
beyond Brussels, was also committed to the care of this holy pastor, by
St. Remigius, in 510, and the two sees remained a long time united. St.
Vedast continued his labors almost forty years, and left his church
flourishing in sanctity at his decease, on the 6th of February, in 539.
He was buried in the cathedral, which is dedicated to God, under the
patronage {369} of the Blessed Virgin; but a hundred and twenty-eight
years after, St. Aubertus, the seventh bishop, changed a little chapel
which St. Vedast had built in honor of St. Peter, without the walls,
into an abbey, and removed the relics of St. Vedast into this new
church, leaving a small portion of them in the cathedral. The great
abbey of St. Vedast was finished by St. Vindicianus, successor to St.
Aubertus, and most munificently endowed by king Theodoric or Thierry,
who lies buried in the church with his wife Doda. Our ancestors had a
particular devotion to St. Vedast, whom they called St. Foster, whence
descends the family name of Foster, as Camden takes notice in his
Remains. Alcuin has left us a standing monument of his extraordinary
devotion to St. Vedast, not only by writing his life, but also by
compiling an office and mass in his honor, for the use of his monastery
at Arras, and by a letter to the monks of that house, in 769, in which
he calls this saint his protector. See this letter in Martenne, Ampliss.
Collect. t. 1, p. 50.