After having thus glorified the faith of Germaine by dissipating the material obstacles to the performance of her duty, God wished also to glorify her charity to the poor.
If any one could believe himself exempted from the obligation of charity and alms-giving, it was certainly our shepherdess. She had no superfluities; she lacked even the necessaries of life. What was there, then, to retrench, in her life of extreme privation and severe penance? How economize the reward of her labor, which consisted only of a little bread and water? But charity is ingenious; and, seeing only our suffering Lord in the person of the poor, Germaine often deprived herself of a part of the bread which was allowed for her nourishment, doubly glad to give it to the hungry, and increase the treasure of her privations. Such are the deeds of the saints which will one day reproach us with terrible power! What will the rich man say when he beholds, rising up to confront his hardness of heart, the alms of Lazarus!
The pious liberality of Germaine made her an object of suspicion to her step-mother, who, not divining her resources, accused her of stealing bread from the house. One day she learned that Germaine, who had just gone with the flock, carried in her apron some pieces of bread. Furious, and armed with a cudgel, she immediately ran after her. Some of the other inhabitants of Pibrac happened to be on their way at this very moment to the house of Lawrence Cousin. Seeing this woman almost beside herself with passion, they divined her intentions, and hastened to protect Germaine from the ill treatment with which she was menaced. Overtaking the step-mother, they learned the cause of her anger. Finding Germaine, she seized her apron, and instead of bread, it was filled with bouquets of roses, although it was a season when those flowers were not in bloom. Thus God confounded the malice of her implacable enemy by renewing a miracle, likewise wrought in favor of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and other saints.
From this time, Germaine was regarded as a saint. Lawrence Cousin, conceiving more tender sentiments toward this pious child whom he had so little known, forbade his wife's annoying her any more, and wished to give her a place in his house with the other children. But Germaine, accustomed to suffering and loving privation, besought him to leave her in the obscure place which her step-mother had assigned her.
It was now that Germaine attained and proved the perfection of her humility. We must not consider it a trifling honor to have been esteemed at Pibrac; nor a small reward to have had a place at the fireside of Lawrence Cousin. Human nature is the same everywhere. There is no theatre too small for ambition. We know there are as many cabals for the first place in a village as for the chief place in an empire.
Perhaps it may not be entirely useless to speak of the exterior of the blessed Germaine. The manners and customs of the remote provinces of France retain so much of primitive simplicity, they change so little year after year, and the people in these localities have such a marked appearance, that we may form a reasonable idea of her person and habits.
She is represented in paintings and engravings as we see scores of shepherdesses in the south of France at this day—seated on a hillock in the fields, and surrounded by her flock. With a spindle in her hand, and under her arm the distaff laden with flax, she is spinning, after the primitive manner of that country. She is rather below the medium size, and is slight in form. She has the long head of the Toulousains, and their dark, Spanish complexion and eyes. The face, half hidden by the picturesque scarlet capuchon, is expressive of silence, interior silence; and forcibly speaks of the deep, deep calm within. A pleasing sadness, or rather a subdued joy, veils her face. There is an introspective look about the eyes which shows that her spirit has passed the bounds of sense, and is concentrated in one mysterious thought—some dream of a heavenly world. Sitting alone, away from her kind, her thoughts were pure and holy and bright, like the fragrant flowers of her own green meadows. She must have seemed to the other peasants like some phantom of unearthly love, as she sat there enveloped in a divine ethereal atmosphere. In the distance rise the towers of the church, and the antique château of the Lords of Pibrac, and between murmurs the Courbet. Over all, is the sunlight of her own bright clime.
Perhaps the miracle of the roses is the most popular representation of Saint Germaine, as something not quite so unearthly. There is no mystery about the look of the fierce step-mother, as with one hand she raises the cudgel over the head of the resigned-looking girl, and with the other grasps the apron from which tumble out the bright and fragrant flowers. The face of Germaine is somewhat sad, and her eyes are cast down in fear to the earth. Tremulous and mute she stands before her step-mother, for she is humble and sore afraid. There is a reflective charm about her of which she is wholly unconscious, for it emanates from that spiritual beauty visible only to the intelligences and bright ardors around the throne.
Saint Germaine died soon after the miracle of the roses. Almighty God, having sanctified her by humiliations and sufferings, withdrew her from this world when men, becoming more just, began to render her the honor her virtue merited. She terminated her obscure and hidden life by a similar death, but according to appearance this terrible moment, which confounds human arrogance, gave her no terror or pain.