After their dedication they returned to their homes; for, at that time, it was not a matter of course that consecrated virgins should live in community.
About this time her mother suffered from inflamed eyes, and for twenty-one months, or nearly two years, could not see to do her household work. Accordingly, Geneviève was of immense assistance to her. She was wont repeatedly to bathe her mother’s eyes with water from the well, and this in time reduced the inflammation, so that eventually Gerontia recovered her sight.
At last Geneviève lost both her parents, and now, having no home duties to restrain her, she went to Paris into a religious community.
In 447 S. Germain again visited Britain about the same trouble which had occasioned his first journey; and when, on his way, he came to Paris, he inquired for the little girl whom he had blessed at Nanterre eighteen years before.
Genes tells us that some spiteful people sought to disparage her; but Germain would not hearken to them, and sent for and communed with her.
What caused them to make light of her was probably this. She had adopted a life of great asceticism, eating nothing but barley bread and beans, and that only twice in the week; and remaining within her cell, conversing with none from Epiphany till Easter.
There were a number of people in Paris who did not like these extravagances; and it was these, in all probability, who spoke against her to S. Germain. But, as we shall see presently, by this means she did acquire an enormous power over the people of Paris, which she used for good.
S. Germain had probably but just returned from Britain before a new and terrible scourge broke upon Gaul.
In 451, the Huns, headed by their king, Attila, burst in. In two columns this vast horde had ascended the Danube. One of these drew several German peoples along with it, eager for plunder, whilst the other fell on and crushed the isolated Roman stations. This agglomeration of invaders met at the sources of the Danube, crossed the Rhine at Basle, where the proximity to the Black Forest favoured the construction of rafts for passing over.
The Franks, who occupied the right bank of the Rhine, extended their hands to the Huns. The Burgundians, however, offered a vain resistance, and were cut to pieces. The Huns, entering Gaul, completed the destruction of what had been left standing by Vandals, Suevi, and Alans. Attila, following the Rhine as he had the Danube, devastated Alsace. Strasburg, Spires, Worms, ruined by preceding invasions, had not risen from the dust. Mayence was sacked, Toul sank in flames, Metz had its walls and towers overthrown after a few months’ resistance. The savage conquerors massacred all, even to the children at the breast. They fired the town, and long after its site could only be recognised by the Chapel of S. Stephen, which had escaped the conflagration.