The end of the fifth century is the beginning of the evil times of Gallic story. That fair land of France, “one of Nature’s choicest masterpieces, one of Ceres’ chiefest barns for corn, one of Bacchus’ prime wine cellars and of Neptune’s best salt-pits,” became the prey of the barbarian. The whole fabric of civilisation seem doomed to destruction. Gaul had become the richest and most populous of Roman provinces; its learning and literature were noised in Rome; its schools drew students from the mother city herself. But at the end of the sixth century Gregory of Tours deplores the fact that in his time there were neither books, nor readers, nor scholar who could compose in verse or prose, and that only the speech of the rustic was understood. He playfully scolds himself for muddling prepositions and confusing genders and cases, but his duty as a Christian priest is to instruct, not to charm, and so he tells the story of his times in such rustic Latin as he knows. He draws for us a vivid picture of Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, his savage valour, his astuteness, his regal passion.
After the victory over Syagrius, the shadowy king of the Romans, at Soissons, Clovis was met by St. Rémi, who prayed that a vase of great price and wondrous beauty among the spoil might be returned to him. “Follow us,” said the king, “to Soissons, where the booty will be shared.” Before the division took place Clovis begged that the vase might be accorded to him. His warriors answered: “All, glorious king, is thine.” But before the king could grasp the vase, one, jealous and angry, threw his francisque[19] at it, exclaiming: “Thou shalt have no more than falls to thy lot.” The broken vase was however apportioned to the king, who restored it to the bishop. But Clovis hid the wound in his heart. At the annual review in the Champ de Mars near Paris, the king strode along the line inspecting the weapons of his warriors. He stopped in front of the uncourtly soldier, took his axe from him, complained of its foul state, and flung it angrily on the ground. As the man stooped to pick it up Clovis, with his own axe, cleft his skull in twain, exclaiming: “Thus didst thou to the vase at Soissons.” “Even so,” says Gregory quaintly, “did he inspire all with great fear.”
At this point of our story we meet the first of those noble women, heroic and wise, for whom French history is pre-eminent. In the first half of the fifth century St. Germain of Auxerre and St. Lew of Troyes, chosen by the prelates of France “for to go and quench an heresy that was in Great Britain, now called England, came to Nanterre for to be lodged and harboured and the people came against them for to have their benison. Among the people, St. Germain, by the enseignements of the Holy Ghost, espied out the little maid St. Genevieve, and made her come to him, and kissed her head and demanded her name, and whose daughter she was, and the people about her said that her name was Genevieve, and her father Severe, and her mother Geronce, which came unto him, and the holy man said: Is this child yours? They answered: Yea. Blessed be ye, said the holy man, when God hath given to you so noble lineage, know ye for certain that the day of her nativity the angels sang and hallowed great mystery in heaven with great joy and gladness.”
When on the morn she was brought to him again, he saw in her a sign celestial, commended her to God, and prayed that she would remember him in her orisons, and on his return to Paris, finding her in the city, he commended her to its people. Tidings came that “Attila, the felon knight of Hungary, had enterprised to destroy and waste the parts of France,” and the burgesses of Paris for great dread they had, sent their goods into cities more sure. Genevieve caused the good women of the town “to wake in fastings and orisons, and bade the merchants not to remove their goods for the city should have none harm.” At first the people hardened their hearts and reviled her, but at St. Germain’s prayers they believed in her, and our Lord “for her love did so much that the tyrants approached not Paris, thanks and glory to God and honour to the virgin.” At the siege of Paris by Childeric and his Franks, when the people were wasted by sickness and famine, “the holy virgin, that pity constrained, went by the Seine to Arcy and Troyes for to go fetch by ship some victuals. She stilled by her prayers a furious tempest and brought the ships back laden with wheat.” When the city was at length captured, King Childeric, although a paynim, saved at her intercession the lives of his prisoners, and one day, to escape her importunate pleadings for the lives of some criminals, fled out of the gates of Paris and shut them behind him.
The saint lived to build a church over the tomb of St. Denis and to see Clovis become a Christian. She died in 509, and was buried on the hill of Lutetius, which ever since has borne her name.
“Her hope,” says the Golden Legend, from which we have chiefly drawn her story, “was nothing in worldly things, but in heavenly, for she believed in the holy scriptures that saith: Whoso giveth to the poor liveth for availe. The reward which they receive that give to poor people, the Holy Ghost had showed to her long tofore, and therefore she ceased not to weep, to adore and to do works of pity, for she knew well that she was none other in this world but a pilgrim passing.”