Il n’y a pas un saint comme saint Yves.”
He began his legal education when he was fourteen, and studied law in the schools of Paris, becoming an ecclesiastical judge, and later (1285) an ordained priest and incumbent of Tredrig. Subsequently he was made incumbent of Lohanec, which post he held till his death. As a judge he possessed a quality rare in those days—he was inaccessible to bribery! That this was appreciated we find in the following bon mot:
Saint Yves était Breton,
Avocat et pas larron:
Chose rare, se dit-on.
He invariably endeavoured to induce disputants to settle their quarrels ‘out of court’ if possible, and applied his talents to defending the cause of the poor and oppressed, without fee. He was known as ‘the poor man’s advocate,’ and to-day in the department of the Côtes-du-Nord, when a debtor repudiates his debt, the creditor will pay for a Mass to St Yves, in the hope that he will cause the defaulter to die within the year! St Yves de Vérité is the special patron of lawyers, and is represented in the mortier, or lawyer’s cap, and robe.
St Yves spent most of his income in charity, turning his house into an orphanage, and many are the stories told of his humanity and generosity. The depth of his sympathy, and its practical result, are shown in an incident told us of how one morning he found a poor, half-naked man lying on his doorstep shivering with cold, having spent the night there. Yves gave up his 352 bed to the beggar the next night, and himself slept on the doorstep, desiring to learn by personal experience the sufferings of the poor. On another occasion, while being fitted with a new coat, he caught sight of a miserable man on the pavement outside who was clad in rags and tatters that showed his skin through many rents. Yves tore off the new coat and, rushing out, gave it to the beggar, saying to the astonished and horrified tailor: “There is plenty of wear still in my old coats. I will content myself with them.” His pity and generosity led him to still further kindness when he was visiting a hospital and saw how ill-clad some of the patients were, for he actually gave them the clothes he was wearing at the time, wrapping himself in a coverlet till he had other garments sent to him from home. He was wont to walk beside the ploughmen in the fields and teach them prayers. He would sit on the moors beside the shepherd-boys and instruct them in the use of the rosary; and often he would stop little children in the street, and gain their interest and affection by his gentleness.
ST YVES INSTRUCTING SHEPHERD-BOYS IN THE USE OF THE ROSARY