SAINT-JULIEN LE PAUVRE.
In a little back street not far from S. Séverin is the old church of S. Julien, a fragment only of its former self, and all that remains of the ancient priory. Its locality is described in Guillot's Dict. des Rues de Paris, which gives a description in verse of the principal houses and streets in the city at the end of the 13th century, as follows:—
Puis la rue de Saint-Julien
Qui nous gart de mauvais lien,
M'en revins à la Buscherie
Et puis en la Poissonnerie.
And it appears that "il y avait jadis, près du Petit-Pont et la prison du Petit-Châtelet, une ruelle appelée ruelle du Carneaux,[92] qui conduisait au marché au poisson d'eau douce." This fish-market evidently occupied the site of the old annexe of the Hôtel-Dieu, and doubtless was in great requisition when the priory was inhabited by its fifty brethren.
Some years ago, when S. Julien was used as the chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu, it formed a picturesque object from the hospital garden, and no doubt was often a great comfort to some of the patients, who found within its walls a peaceful spot where they could be alone, and out of turmoil of sick wards and their accompaniments. But when the old hospital was pulled down, the church's very existence was threatened, and for some years it seemed as if Paris would have one more vandalism to lament. Happily its demolition was prevented, and it has been restored to God's service, for the use of members of the Greek branch of the Church.
Many were the Julians canonized by the Early Church, and it is difficult to say to which saint this edifice was dedicated, although the fact of the relics of S. Julien de Brioude, who was martyred in 304, having been placed upon the left-hand side of the High Altar, seems to point to him as the patron. S. Julien was born at Vienne in Dauphiné about 270, and became a distinguished soldier in the Roman army; but having embraced Christianity, he was beheaded during the reign of Diocletian in 304, at Brioude in Auvergne, where he had taken refuge from his persecutors. There his remains were discovered by S. Germain d'Auxerre in 431, and forthwith the town became celebrated for the many cures performed at its miraculous well. "Est enim ad hunc fontem virtus eximia," said S. Grégoire of Tours; and Sidonius Apollinaris, who died in 489, also bears witness to the Saint's burial place in a letter to a friend who was travelling in Auvergne: "Hic te suscipiet benigna Brivas Sancti quae fovet ossa Juliani." S. Grégoire, in his life of the Saint, gave a list of the churches dedicated to his memory; and although S. Julien le Pauvre is not enumerated, it would seem that it must have been one of them, as he speaks of lodging in a house attached to the little basilica, when he came to Paris, and called it S. Julien the Martyr: "His diebus Parisius adveneram et ad Basilicam Beati Juliani martyris metam habebam."
Another S. Julien was a confessor, and first bishop of Mans. He was a Roman by birth, and upon being consecrated, was sent by Pope Clement to convert the Cenomans. He arrived at Suindinum (Le Mans) while the town was besieged and deprived of water. Entering it, he caused water to spring from the ground, and henceforth the well was called Sanct-nomius, or fountain of S. Julien. The bishop worked in his diocese over 40 years, and then retired to S. Marceau, where he died in 117, his decease being revealed in a vision to his first convert, a Gaul, surnamed Le Défenseur, who caused the Saint's body to be carried back to Le Mans, and buried with great pomp at Notre-Dame du Pré. In 840 it was translated to the cathedral, where many miracles were wrought. S. Julien is generally represented destroying a dragon, symbolizing paganism, or accompanied by a young girl carrying a pitcher of water, an allegory of the miraculous well. This connection of different Saints of the same name with wells is curious, and makes it difficult to decide the patronage of S. Julien le Pauvre; for there also are two wells, one the so-called "miraculous," just outside the eastern apse of the church, and another outside one of the windows of the 17th century façade. If, as many authorities think, the old 13th century west front occupied a space in advance of the present one, this well may have been originally inside the church, an arrangement frequently adopted by Mediæval architects, and still existing in some of our old churches. There is one of exquisite beauty in the south aisle of Regensburg Cathedral, and at Coutances there are two in the transepts. S. Germain des Prés also had its miraculous well, but it is now closed up. There is yet another one at the corner of Rues S. Jacques and S. Séverin, which formerly bore the name of Julien, but is now re-christened S. Séverin. It was re-constructed in the 17th century and bore the following inscription by the poet Santeuil:
DUM SCANDUNT JUGA MONTIS ANHELO PECTORE NYMPHÆ,
HIC UNA E SOCIIS VALLIS AMORE SEDET.