Sweet Maudlin. _Actillea Ageratum._
Dedicated to _St. Bridget_.
~October 9.~
_St. Dionysius_, Bp. of Paris, and others, A. D. 272. ST. DOMNINUS, A.
D. 304. _St. Guislain_, A. D. 681. _St. Lewis Bertrand_, A. D. 1581.
~St. Denys.~
This is the patron saint of France, and his name stands in our almanacs
and in the church of England calendar, as well as in the Romish
calendar.
[Illustration: ~St. Denys.~]
St. Denys had his head cut off, he did not care for that,
He took it up and carried it two miles without his hat.
“The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die;”
they were “_the times_!” Yet, even in those times, except “the
Anthrophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,” men,
whose heads grew _upon_ their shoulders, wore them in that situation
during their natural lives until by accident a head was taken off, and
then infallibly “the man would die.” But the extraordinary persons
called “saints,” were exempt from ordinary fatality: could all their
sayings be recorded, we might probably find it was as usual for a
decapitated saint to ask, “Won’t you give me my head?” before he walked
to be buried, as for an old citizen to call, “Boy, bring me my wig,”
before he walked to club.
St. Denys was beheaded with some other martyrs in the neighbourhood of
Paris. “They beheaded them,” says the reverend father Ribadeneira, “in
that mountain which is at present called _Mons Martyrum_ (_Montmartre_),
the mountain of the martyrs, in memory and honour of them; but after
they had martyred them, there happened a wonderful miracle. The body of
St. Denys rose upon its feet, and took its own head up in its hands, as
if he had triumphed and carried in it the crown and token of its
victories. The angels of heaven went accompanying the saint, singing
hymns choir-wise, with a celestial harmony and concert, and ended with
these words, ‘_gloria tibi, Domine alleluia_;’ and the saint went with
his head in his hands about two miles, till he met with a good woman
called Catula, who came out of her house; and the body of St. Denys
going to her, it put the head in her hands.” Perhaps this is as great a
miracle as any he wrought in his life; yet those which he wrought after
his death “were innumerable.” Ribadeneira adds one in favour of pope
Stephen, who “fell sick, and was given over by the doctors in the very
monastery of St. Denys, which is near Paris; where he had a revelation,
and he saw the princes of the apostles, St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St.
Denys, who lovingly touched him and gave him perfect health, and this
happened in the year of our Lord, 704, upon the 28th of July; and in
gratitude for this favour he gave great privileges to that church of St.
Denys, and carried with him to Rome certain relics of his holy body, and
built a monastery in his honour.”
It appears from an anecdote related by an eminent French physician, that
it was believed of St. Denys that he kissed his head while he carried
it; and it is equally marvellous that a man was so mad as not to believe
it true. The circumstance is thus related:
“A famous watchmaker of Paris, infatuated for a long time with the
chimera of perpetual motion, became violently insane, from the
overwhelming terror which the storms of the revolution excited. The
derangement of his reason was marked with a singular trait. He was
persuaded that he had lost his head on the scaffold, and that it was put
in a heap with those of many other victims: but that the judges, by a
rather too late retraction of their cruel decree, had ordered the heads
to be resumed, and to be rejoined to their respective bodies; and he
conceived that, by a curious kind of mistake, he had the head of one of
his companions placed on his shoulders. He was admitted into the
Bicétre, where he was continually complaining of his misfortune, and
lamenting the fine teeth and wholesome breath which he had exchanged for
those of very different qualities. In a little time, the hopes of
discovering the perpetual motion returned; and he was rather encouraged
than restrained in his endeavours to effect his object. When he
conceived that he had accomplished it, and was in an ecstasy of joy, the
sudden confusion of a failure removed his inclination even to resume the
subject. He was still, however, possessed with the idea that his head
was not his own: but from this notion he was diverted by a repartee made
to him, when he happened to be defending the possibility of the miracle
of St. Denys, who, it is said, was in the habit of walking with his head
between his hands, and in that position continually kissing it. ‘What a
fool you are to believe such a story,’ it was replied, with a burst of
laughter; ‘How could St. Denys kiss his head? was it with his heels?’
This unanswerable and unexpected retort struck and confounded the madman
so much, that it prevented him from saying any thing farther on the
subject; he again betook himself to business, and entirely regained his
intellects.”[344]
St. Denys, as the great patron of France, is highly distinguished.
“France,” says bishop Patrick, “glories in the relics of this saint; yet
Baronius tells us, that Ratisbonne in Germany has long contested with
them about it, and show his body there; and pope Leo IX. set out a
declaration determining that the true body of St Denys was entire at
Ratisbonne, wanting only the little finger of his right hand, yet they
of Paris ceased not their pretences to it, so that here are two bodies
venerated of the same individual saint; and both of them are mistaken if
they of Prague have not been cheated, among whose numerous relics I find
the arm of St. Denys, the apostle of Paris, reckoned.” The bishop
concludes by extracting part of a Latin service, in honour of St. Denys,
from the “Roman Missal,”[345] wherein the prominent miracle before
alluded to is celebrated in the following words, thus rendered by the
bishop into English.--
He fell indeed, but presently arose,
The breathless body finds both feet and way,
He takes his head in hand, and forward goes,
Till the directing angels bid him stay.
Well may the church triumphantly proclaim
This martyr’s death, and never dying fame.
Several devotional books contain prints representing St. Denys walking
with his head in his hands. One of them, entitled “Le Tableau de la
Croix, represente dans les Ceremonies de la S^{te.} Messe,” consists of
a hundred engravings by J. Collin,[346] and from one of them the “lively
portraiture” of the saint prefixed to this article is taken.
* * * * *