“Un pied chaussé et l’autre nu,
Pauvre soldat, que feras-tu?”
There were two other bishops in the south of France who received a similar mark of homage at taking possession of their sees. At Lectoure, it was the Seigneur de Castelnau, and at Cahors the Baron de Ceissac, whose duty it was to offer it. At Auch, the Baron de Montaut afterwards served the archbishop at dinner and received the silver plate on the table as his perquisite. Dom Brugelles, in his Chronicles of the diocese, gives a ludicrous account of the disappointment of a Baron of Montaut at the arrival of a cardinal-archbishop of simple habits, whose service was of glass, though of fine workmanship, which so disappointed the baron that he forgot his loyalty and smashed all the dishes, to the great disgust of the cardinal, who left the city and never returned.
One of the Archbishops of Auch, Geraud de Labarthe, went with Richard the Lion-Hearted to the Holy Land, and had command of an armament. He knew also, it seems, how to wield his spiritual weapons, for on the way he stopped in Sicily for a theological encounter with the celebrated abbot Joachim, in which he proved himself worthy of his descent from the Lords of the Four Valleys. He died in the Holy Land in 1191, leaving a foundation for the repose of his mother’s soul, a touching incident in the life of this valorous churchman.
Another archbishop established the Truce of God in his province, issued indulgences to encourage his people to go to the aid of the Spanish in their crusade against the Moors, and finally placed himself at the head of those who responded to his appeal and went to the assistance of Don Alfonso of Aragon, where he distinguished himself by his bravery and religious zeal.
Other prelates have a simpler record which it is pleasant to come upon in such rude times. Of one we read he granted an indulgence of three days to all who should bow the head at hearing the Holy Name of Jesus. This was in 1383, when S. Bernardin of Sienna, the great propagator of this devotion, was still a child.
In the XIVth century we find Cardinal Philip d’Alençon, of the blood royal of France, among the archbishops of Auch. He died in Rome in the odor of sanctity, and was buried in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, where his beautiful Gothic tomb—a chef-d’œuvre of the XIVth century—may be seen in the left transept. In the arch is a fresco of the martyrdom of his patron, S. Philip, who was crucified with his head downward, like S. Peter; and beneath lies the cardinal on his tomb, sculptured in marble, with hands folded in eternal prayer. Above are his cardinal’s hat and the fleurs-de-lis of France, and below is the epitaph:
“Francorum genitus Regia de stirpe Philippus
Alenconiadus Ostiæ titulatus ab urbe
Ecclesiæ cardo, tanta virtute reluxit