One of the first subterranean chapels I entered was that of the Sainte-Epine, in which is a beautiful silver reliquary, containing one of the thorns from the crown our suffering Saviour wore. It was given by St. Louis to his brother Alphonse, who married Jeanne, daughter of Raymond VII., last Count of Toulouse. On the pavement of the chapel is graven this ancient distich, likening the Sainte-Epine, surrounded by the bodies of thirteen saints, to a thorn among roses:
"Quisquis es externus quaerens miracula sixte, En tredecim pulchris insita spina rosis."
After the Revolution a holy priest of Toulouse established, in honor of this precious relic, the Confraternity of the Holy Thorn, composed of the most fervent Catholics of the city. Afflicted by the prolonged captivity of Pope Pius VII., they begged of God his deliverance—not only at their own shrines, but at that of St. Germaine of Pibrac. Their prayers were heard. On the 2d of February, 1814, the holy father slowly and sadly passed the walls of Toulouse on his way to Italy, locked up in his carriage! The highway was completely obstructed by the crowds of people, who, all bathed in tears, went out to meet him, and on their knees besought his benediction. Among them were the votaries of the Sainte-Epine, raising their hands to heaven in behalf of the holy captive.
The pope earnestly desired to enter the city that he might venerate the body of the angelic doctor, in the church of St. Sernin, but it was not deemed expedient to entrust such a guest to the faithful Toulousains. Halting beyond the ramparts, merely to change their horses and obtain refreshments, they hurried on as if afraid of losing their prisoner.
In another chapel of the crypts is the altar of St. Simon and St. Jude, containing their relics. It was consecrated by Pope Calixtus II. Old legends tell us that these apostles were two of the shepherds of Bethlehem, who first heard the Gloria in Excelsis. One loves to believe that they who were encircled by the brightness of God, to whom angels talked, and who were first at the manger, should afterward be called to follow our Saviour and preach the glad tidings, which they had heard from angelic tongues, to the nations afar off. They could not have lost sight of him who was so miraculously revealed to them. They must have hastened to join him as soon as he entered upon his public life.
In a niche, close by the chapel of St. Simon and St. Jude, is the entire body of St. Gilles, to whom the old counts of Toulouse had a particular devotion, especially Raymond IV., who is invariably styled in history Raymond de St. Gilles. This saint was very popular, not only in France, but in England and Scotland. A large hospital for lepers was built by the queen of Henry I. outside the city of London, which has given its name to a large district of that city; and St. Giles is the patron saint of Edinburgh, where a church was built under his invocation not later then 1359. This renders his shrine a place of interest to all who speak the English tongue. St. Sernin possesses, too, the body of one of England's sainted kings and that of her patron saint.
St. Gilles, or St. Giles, was an Athenian of royal blood, who, fearing the admiration excited by his talents, went to France, and became a hermit in a cave near the mouth of the Rhone. He subsisted on the produce of the woods and the milk of a tame hind. After his death a magnificent monastery, and then a city, rose round his tomb, and gave his name to the counts of Languedoc.
In a large portable châsse is the head of the glorious St. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the profound Summa Theologiae and the sublime Office of the Blessed Sacrament, worthy of the tongues of angels. This great doctor of the middle ages is not dead. His voice is still heard in the office of the church, "now with a single antiphon unlocking whole abysses of Scripture, and now in almost supernatural melody, more like the echoes of heaven than mere poetry of earth," says Faber. One should listen to this grand office resounding in the arches of the church where its author is enshrined, when thousands of tapers, around the enthroned ostensorium, light up the brilliant shrine of St. Sernin! It is a foretaste of the song of the redeemed!
When the body of St. Thomas of Aquin, brought from Italy, approached Toulouse, Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France, with archbishops and mitred abbots, at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand people, went out to meet it. Duke Louis and the principal lords of his court bore over it a canopy blazing with gold and precious stones. Around it floated six standards: on two were the arms of France, the third of Anjou, the others of the pope, the house of Aquin, and the city of Toulouse. They enshrined it magnificently in the church of the Dominicans, but it has been at St. Sernin since the Revolution. When placed in its present châsse in 1852, the venerable Père Lacordaire made a panegyric of the saint, attracting an immense audience. The arms of the illustrious house of Aquin are emblazoned on his altar.