VII
GENEVIÈVE OF PARIS
S. Geneviève was born and lived in a time of frightful disaster, unparalleled in the history of Europe. From the commencement of the fifth century a veritable deluge of diverse nations, driven on one by another, inundated the crumbling empire, and gave the signal for its complete ruin.
The Franks, under the long-haired Clodion, traversing the forest of the Ardennes, and rolling to the banks of the Somme, had seized on Amiens, Cambrai, Tournai, after having burnt Trèves, and sacked Cologne. The citizens, of Trèves, which had been the residence of emperors since Maximian, had been slaughtered in the circus to which they had fled. The amphitheatre, which under Constantine has streamed with the blood of the Barbarians, was now heaped with the bodies of Romans. Cologne had been revelling in drunken orgy, when a slave ran to announce that the Franks were on the walls. The citizens had not the manhood to rise from table so as to die standing. Their blood mingled with the wine of their overturned cups. God chastised Roman vices with disgrace as with iron. In this fifth century three societies stood face to face—the Old Roman polity, the Barbarian, and the Church. Rome went to pieces under the blows of the Barbarians, but the Barbarian in turn was subjugated by Christianity.
S. Geneviève was born at Nanterre, about seven miles from Paris, in 422 or 423. The old name of the place, Nemetdoor, is purely Celtic, as is her name, which is the same as Gwenever or Gwenhwyvar in Welsh. Her father was named Severus, and her mother Gerontia, the female form of Geraint. There can be no doubt whatever that she was of Gallic origin, but Latinised, and a Christian.
One word, before proceeding, about the authority for her life. This is a biography, written eighteen years after her death, by the priest Genes, her spiritual director. He learned from the saint the general outline of the incidents in her childhood, and these he dressed up in what he believed to be literary style.
Late in the Middle Ages it was said that S. Geneviève had kept sheep for her father, and she is now generally represented as a shepherdess; but there is no early authority for this, although the fact is very probable. In the year 429 S. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, and S. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, at the entreaty of the British Church, commissioned for the work by a Council of Gallican bishops, left their dioceses to visit our island, there to withstand the Pelagian heresy, which was making way.
S. Germain was well qualified to go to Britain, as he was of Celtic origin, and his sister was the wife of Aldor, brother of Constantine I., King of Devon and Cornwall.
On his way to the coast he passed through Nanterre. The people, hearing of his approach, lined the road, and with them were the children in goodly numbers.
As Germain and Lupus advanced, the eye of the former rested on a fair little girl of seven, whose devout look, and sweet, innocent face, arrested him. He stood still, and called her to him, then stooped and kissed her on the brow, and asked her name. He was told that she was called Geneviève. The pleased parents now stepped up, and the venerable bishop asked, “Is this your child?”
They answered in the affirmative.