[NOTE ON ST. RIQUIER.]
(Appendix I.)
A beautiful description of St. Riquier and the foundation of the Abbey is given in a book by Margaret Stokes, “Three Months in the Forests of France.”
About the year 589, two Irishmen, named Caidox and Fricor, disembarked on the coast at the little town of Quentovic, on the mouth of the Somme, with twelve companions, and they followed the great Roman road, now called the Chaussée Brunehaut, preaching the Gospel on their way. They reached Centule (now St. Riquier), and remained there some days to rest. Some say they came to France with Columban, and that when Columban resumed his journey towards the Vosges, he left behind him these two monks that they might give instructions to the half-barbarous inhabitants, and initiate them into the mysteries of the Christian religion. “They fought on,” said the old chronicler, “perceiving that the inhabitants of Centule (St. Riquier) were blinded by error and iniquity, and were subjected to the most cruel slavery; they laboured with all their strength to redeem their souls, and wash them in the Saviour’s Blood.” But the people could not understand the language of these heavenly messengers, and they rebelled against a teaching so holy and sublime. They demanded what these adventurers, who had just escaped out of a barbarous island, could be in search of, and by what right they sought to impose their laws on them. The voice of charity was met by cries, menaces, and outrage, and the natives strove to drive them from their shores by violence, when suddenly a young noble, named Riquier, appeared upon the scene. He commanded silence, and arrested the most furious amongst the mob, and taking the two strangers under his protection, he brought them into his house. He gave them food and drink, and in return they gave him such nourishment of the soul as he before had never tasted. He learned to know God and love Him beyond all things.... When he had taken orders he became the founder of the celebrated Abbey of Centule (now St. Riquier), and the bodies of the two Irishmen from whom he had learned Christianity were interred with splendour in this church. When St. Angelbert, in the year 799, restored this church, he also restored the half-ruined tombs, decorated their shrines with such magnificence, and inscribed verses upon them in letters of gold. The relics of the two saints lay beneath the monument till the year 1070, when St. Geroinus transferred them to a silver shrine adorned with precious stones, and in this shrine also were laid the relics of another Irish saint, Mauguille. Their festival is celebrated on June 3rd. On the road from Abbeville to Doullens, on the edge of the wood of St. Riquier, and below the slope of a smiling hill, an ancient church, majestically seated in the valley below, comes into view. It is the Abbey Church of St. Riquier. The town rises from the foot of the church like an amphitheatre round the enclosure of its ancient walls. The great tower rises above the fertile fields around and above the summits of the distant hills and woodland glades. The little stream of Seardon, which almost threatens to disappear at its very source, passes through the lower town and on towards the south-west. The old chroniclers called it Reviere au Cardons, from the little flower cardoon. This little thread of water, rising at Bonnefontaine, under Isinbard’s tomb, is swelled by the junction with the river Mirandeuil, or Misendeuil, a name derived from the fact that it was at this spot the ladies of St. Riquier first heard the fatal news that their husbands had fallen in the Battle of Crecy.... The labours of the Irish Church in Picardy, commenced by these two missionaries, Caidox and Fricor, and carried on by the disciples of Columban from Luxeuil, were destined to receive a fresh impetus from the parent country. Another mission, this time from the shores of Lough Corrib, in Galway, was undertaken. Fursa and his twelve companions, who landed at Mayoc, at the mouth of the river Somme, A.D. 638, went up the river to St. Riquier, a monastery in which he must have found traditions of his native Church.
THE INTERIOR OF ST. RIQUIER CATHEDRAL.
