[47] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 178-179.
[48] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 193.
[49] Ibid, p. 196.
CHAPTER IV
After two or three days among the relics of Pagan civilization, we were ready to turn our attention to Christian monuments of the town, and it was with our expectations fully aroused that we left what might be described as the neutral ground of the Hôtel St. Louis, and climbed the busy streets that lead within the castrum to the Cathedral of Saint Lazarus, in which the relics of the saint are enshrined.
Readers unfamiliar with the Provençal legends will ask, not unnaturally, how the body of Christ's friend came to the city of Autun. The answer is that, according to tradition, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and others, driven from Palestine after the crucifixion of Christ, and cast adrift in an open boat, were blown, on the wings of a great wind, westward across the Mediterranean, and eventually, by miraculous aid, were cast ashore, unhurt, on the coast of Provence. This land they proceeded to evangelize, Lazarus finding his way to Marseilles, of which city he became the first bishop.[50]
Nearly a thousand years later, at the end of the 10th century, the body was translated to Autun, through the efforts of one Gerrard, the then bishop, and was housed in the basilica of St. Nazaire. So holy a relic naturally demanded a worthy shrine, and already, during the first quarter of the 12th century, we find proposals on foot for the erection of a new church for the housing of the body.