Saint Wandrille

When he was of age to marry, his parents urged him to do so: he married out of obedience a very noble girl who was well-suited to his good inclinations. On the very evening of his wedding, after having implored the help of heaven, he showed her the happiness of virginity and how much this state was preferable to the use of marriage, however legitimate: his advice was so effective that his new wife, who was moreover extraordinarily enlightened by a light from above, promised him to keep a perpetual virginity with him. Her fervor even carried her further: it was she who proposed to her husband that they both withdraw from the world and embrace the religious life. She enclosed herself in a convent of nuns where she spent the rest of her days in eminent holiness, which God even honored with several miracles. As for him, he first left the secular habit and took the ecclesiastical habit, in order to gradually prepare the public to see him one day renounce all the grandeurs of the century, all the employments of the court and the State. Some time before, he happened, during a journey, to be in the midst of a seditious crowd that wanted to outrage him: which would have caused a great carnage, because he was well accompanied and his men would have made short work of these mutineers; he averted this accident by the strength of his prayers: for no sooner had he raised his eyes and his heart toward heaven than this troop of tumultuous people became motionless and could not advance toward him: which changed their fury into a profound respect, and at the same time made known the great merit of him whose protector heaven so evidently showed itself to be.

When he had taken all his measures, he retired to Lorraine, to a place called Montfaucon, in the current diocese of Verdun, to learn the religious and solitary life under the guidance of a holy old man named Beaufroi. This action caused a great stir, because of the rank he held at court and the singular affection the king bore him: especially when it was known that he had sold a portion of his goods and given the proceeds to monasteries and the poor. Some praised his conduct and his detachment from the things of the earth, which opened to him the door to the kingdom of heaven. Others blamed his actions, and there were those who made the king feel aggrieved that he had left the court without permission. The matter went so far that the prince sent for him, to know from his own mouth what had compelled him to exchange his greatness and riches for the humble poverty of the cloister. This holy man, who had learned from Saint Paul that subjects owe respect and obedience to their sovereigns, came to find his. Arriving at the palace, in the streets of Metz, he found a poor man whose cart had tipped into the mud; all the passersby left him there, and several even mistreated him, accusing him of blocking the road. Our Saint dismounted, freed the poor carter, and helped him right his cart. He then entered Dagobert's presence, pursued by the jeers drawn by his mud-stained clothes. But he appeared clothed in a celestial radiance to the eyes of Dagobert, who, seeing his charity and yielding to his reasons, permitted him to follow his vocation. Armed with this authorization, Vandrille returned to Beaufroi, who, having sufficiently trained him in the exercises of the monastic life, advised him to found a convent on the territory of Elisange.

It was there that, some years earlier, in 612, Saint Ursanne, a disciple of Saint Columbanus, had built a cell and gathered around him pious Christians to honor God in solitude. This community had grown and formed a monastery of some importance at the death of Saint Ursanne (620). His body rested there, surrounded by the veneration of the faithful, when Vandrille arrived in these places to seek rest and peace of soul in the practice of monastic virtues.

The monks who inhabited Elisange were poor, and their monastery was insufficient for all the needs of the community. Vandrille, who had divided his wealth into two parts, one for the poor and the other for religious houses, had the buildings erected by Saint Ursanne rebuilt or at least enlarged at his own expense. It was there that this new soldier became a captain consumed in the spiritual militia. He was so sober and abstinent that he went so far as to eat only twice a week, namely: on Sunday and Thursday. His vigils were almost continuous, and when the weakness of his body forced him to take a little rest, he did so only on a hard and narrow bed, which was shown for a long time in this monastery as the mark of a prodigious austerity. He spent his days and nights in prayer, and, for fear that sleep might prevent him, he stood upright, barefoot, on the ground, with a simple habit, even in the greatest rigors of winter. The demon tempted him in all sorts of ways; for he not only troubled him with importunate thoughts to tarnish the purity of his soul, but he appeared to him very often under horrible figures of serpents, dragons, birds of prey, and other carnivorous beasts. But all his persecutions served only to make the Saint more vigilant, more severe with himself, more attentive to the movements of his soul, and more resolved to suffer all kinds of pains and afflictions for God. One day he had slept a little more than usual, and the evil spirit made him hear this word full of mockery: "Vandrille, I have been more vigilant than you tonight." — "Yes, no doubt," the servant of Christ replied, "you watch unceasingly for the ruin of men. But, in the future, I will tame even more this flesh that has caused me to fall into lukewarmness today." Immediately, arming himself with the shield of prayer, he cried out: "Lord, you who are the guardian of your children, who always watch over them with solicitude, deign, in your mercy, to come to the aid of your unworthy servant." This prayer revived the courage and confidence of Vandrille. He felt stronger against the domination of the senses, and he pushed his mortifications so far that, in the midst of the rigors of winter, he sometimes remained in the open air, among the ice and snow, praying with tears in his eyes, or singing, with the accent of the most tender devotion, the psalms of David.

God, who wished to make him a miracle of His grace and the father of a religious congregation, ordered him, in a vision, to go to Italy, to the monastery of Bobbio, founded by Saint Columbanus, t saint Colomban Founder of the Abbey of Luxeuil and friend of Saint Nicetius. o learn there all the practices and the spirit of the cenobitic life. He therefore bade farewell to his brothers, and went as soon as possible to this famous abbey, which was a model of observance and a nursery of holy abbots and good pastors for the government of the Christian people. He was received there with all the demonstrations of love and respect that his holiness and the rank he had held in the world deserved. He saw the admirable order that was kept in this holy republic, which was more an image of that of the Angels than an imitation of political republics. He was also favored there with several graces from above, and, among others, with the knowledge of things to come. When he had learned what he needed to know, he had the thought of going to Rome, to honor there the sepulchers of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and the ashes of so many Martyrs who have consecrated this city by their sufferings and by their blood. Having fulfilled his devotions there, he wished to retire to some place in Italy, far from all his acquaintances and very secret, so as no longer to see what he had left with such courage; but he was warned, in a dream, to take the road back to France, where God expected some considerable service from him.

Having crossed the Alps, he entered a monastery built near Mont-Joux; it was probably the monastery that has since been called Saint-Claude: he saw there so much gentleness, honesty, observance, and fervor in the service of God that, touched by this example, he begged the abbot to receive him among his monks. This grace being granted to him, he soon appeared like a beautiful sun in the midst of this company of Saints, who were themselves like so many stars by which the house of God was illuminated. He remained there for ten years, dead to the world, a pilgrim on earth, carrying every day, with joy, the cross of a penitent life and of an almost unprecedented austerity. Humility, obedience, and charity were his dearest virtues, and he practiced them with such perfection that all his brethren looked upon him as the model of their conduct. Indeed, there were many who, animated by his example, entered into the paths of holiness and devoted themselves with all their strength to the exercises of the interior life and the highest virtues. However, he was not yet at the final term of his career, and God only kept him in this holy house to prepare him for the great services He expected of him in Neustria, a province of France that we now call Normandy. One night, while he was in prayer in his cell, a celestial messenger arrived who filled it with a marvelous odor and brightness, and having exhorted him to perseverance in the pure and austere life he professed, assured him that the prayers he had long offered to God for his nephew Godon were answered, and that this young lord would soon renounce the world and embrace, in his imitation, the religious life. It was a living stone that God was preparing for him for the foundation and establishment of his abbey of Fontenelle, in Normandy.

Shortly after, he was warned in a dream to leave the monastery where he was, and to go and find Saint Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen, from whom he would learn His will. This great prelate received him with extraordin saint Ouen Author of the eulogy and life of Saint Aurea. ary respect and kindness; and, remembering the nobility of his extraction, the close bond they had once had together at court, and the reputation that his piety had acquired for him from that time on; and, knowing moreover that he was a monk consummate in all kinds of virtues, he wished to keep him by his side and conferred upon him the subdiaconate and the diaconate. Then, he had him ordained a priest by Saint Omer, Bishop of Thérouanne, and had him exercise all its functions. Vandrille performed them with universal satisf action, an saint Omer Famous predecessor of Folquin at Thérouanne. d, whether he was announcing the word of God, or listening to the confessions of penitents, or celebrating the awesome mysteries of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, or whether he was called to the council of his prelate, one always saw him so recollected, so fervent, so united to God, so inflamed with zeal for His glory, that he was no less the model of priests among the clergy than he had been the example of monks in the cloister.

Saint Ouen took extreme pleasure in his conversation, because his discourses were entirely heavenly, and they brought grace and unction to the souls of all those who had the good fortune to hear him. But the holy man, who could not live outside of solitude, was continually seeking the opportunity to retire to some place in Neustria, where, having assembled religious men, he could live with them separated from the world and in the sole exercises of the monastic life. God offered him a very favorable means, as much by the conversion of his nephew Godon, of whom we have just spoken, who left the honors and pleasures of the court to clothe himself in sackcloth and hairshirt, as by the liberality of Echinoald, Mayor of the Palace in Neustria, who also gave from his lands, a few leagues from Rouen, in a plac e called F Fontenelle Abbey where Giraud spent his final days as a reformer and martyr. ontenelle, a very spacious field to build a monastery there. Saint Ouen consented to this construction and to the retreat of his dear friend, whom he recognized as being called by God out of the embarrassment of the cities; and Saint Vandrille, with his nephew, applied themselves with indefatigable zeal, first, to clearing this wilderness which was full of bushes, brambles, and old hovels, debris from the invasions of the Barbarians, and whose ruins served as a lair for wild beasts, then to raising an edifice to receive the servants of God. They began this work towards the middle of the 7th century, under the reign of Clovis II and the pontificate of Pope Saint Martin, and worked at it with such success that they made it one of the most beautiful monasteries that was then in all of France. Saint Vandrille had the joy of soon seeing, under his guidance, about three hundred religious, most of illustrious birth, and truly touched by the spirit of Jesus Christ. He had four churches built there in honor of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Lawrence, and Saint Pancras, and sent Godon to Rome to bring back relics and sacred books. Upon his return, he begged Saint Ouen to come to his abbey to dedicate these churches and place these relics on the altars intended for them: and this great archbishop did so with extreme joy, blessing God infinitely that He granted him the grace to see, in his diocese, a house so flourishing and so filled with holiness and good works. It had so much charm, says the author of his life, that all those who approached it were obliged to say what we read in the Book of Numbers, chap. XXIV: "O Jacob, how beautiful are thy tabernacles! O Israel, how charming are thy tents!"

The lords of the surrounding areas came to pray to Vandrille to establish houses on their lands similar to that of Fontenelle; the most zealous was Saint Waneng, governor of the Pays de Caux. He offered his son Didier to our Saint to be his disciple, endowed Fontenelle with several lands, and built several convents on his domain, among others that of Fécamp. Saint Eulalia of Barcelona, having appeared to him, ordered this foundation. Vandrille also had a part in it: for, having been called to Fécamp by Saint Waneng, he healed him of a fever that was tormenting him and which could have delayed the execution of his enterprise; and, having learned of the vision he had had, he strengthened him in the resolution he had to defer to it and to set his hand to the work as soon as possible. Moreover, it was to him that God addressed the holy virgin Hildemarque, abbess of a monastery in Bordeaux, whom divine Providence had destined to be the foundation stone and the first superior of this new house for women: she had, under her direction, at Fécamp, up to three hundred and sixty-six nuns who were divided into different choirs, so that the office would be continued day and night without interruption. (This abbey, destroyed by the Normans in 841, rebuilt in 988, was entrusted, at that time, to Canons Regular; then, some time later, to Benedictine monks. The Dukes of Normandy, who had a palace near this monastery, were always its benefactors. In the 18th century, it was the richest and most magnificent abbey in all of Normandy. It belonged to the Benedictines of the Congregation of Saint-Maur. There remains today of these splendors, in Fécamp, a city of nine thousand inhabitants, forty-four kilometers northeast of Le Havre, only a few vestiges of the castle built by William Longsword and the monastery church, which is still well preserved. It is an edifice, says Malte-Brun, where one recognizes the most diverse styles, the whole consisting of constructions undertaken at different periods, from the 11th to the 16th century.)

The convent of Fontenelle was too small to contain all the people who presented themselves. Saint Vandrille built two others in the neighborhood, with their churches: in one, he placed relics of Saint Saturnin, bishop of Toulouse and martyr; and, in the other, relics of Saint Amand, bishop of Rodez, which had been brought to him by the deacon Sindard, one of his disciples, whom he had sent to these cities for some business. It was in the oratory of Saint-Amand that Saint Ouen and Saint Filbert often paid him pious visits, where these great friends of God spoke only of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, of the contempt for worldly things, of faith, of justice, of Christian perfection, and of the delights of paradise. Besides these two houses, our Saint founded a third and a fourth, which, with the great abbey, made the number five. One, through the liberality of a young gentleman named Hartbain, son of Erimbert, who even left the world to become his monk, and the other, through the donations of a very illustrious man named Varanton. Vandrille worked with his hands with his monks; it was he who planted, on a hillside near Fontenelle and well exposed, the first vineyard that Normandy had ever known. This noble task of making this country fertile was not always without danger. One day when he was at work with his pious cohort, a man named Betto, guardian of the royal forest, part of which had been given to them, dissatisfied with this gift, approached the abbot to pierce him with his lance; but, at that very hour, the arm of the sacrilegious man became paralyzed and motionless, and he was possessed by the evil spirit, which did not cease to torment him until the Saint had prayed for him and had finally obtained his deliverance. To acknowledge this miracle, this signal protection of heaven, the servant of God had another church built under the name of the holy Virgin, at the place where he had been on the point of being assassinated. Many recovered their health there in a completely supernatural way. "This chapel, called Notre-Dame de Caillouville, was demolished, since the French Revolution, by a man named Lérondel. One can still see there a fountain visited every year by a large number of pilgrims: at the bottom of the paved basin is found, engraved in intaglio, a crude image of Saint Radegund." Besides this miraculous assistance which concerned his own person, he received another less striking one for the whole community of his monks; for, food having failed them, Our Lord warned Queen Saint Balthild in a dream of the necessity they were in, and ordered her to send them food; which she executed imme diately, sendin sainte Bathilde Queen of the Franks who confirmed the election of Audebert. g several carts loaded with bread and other food toward the abbey of Fontenelle.

The establishment of Saint Vandrille soon became flourishing enough to cast out branches around it and give birth to new religious houses. But, alongside this material prosperity, the holy abbot worked with ardor to also make his abbey a hearth of virtue and light. Formed himself in the study of holy letters, he applied himself to instructing his disciples and teaching them that Christian science which is a reflection of eternal clarity. He knew how to adapt to everyone, consoling the sadness of some with his benevolence, calming the petulance of others with his humility, supporting the weak, relieving the infirm, giving everyone the help of his prayers, his words, and his examples. His charity shone especially toward those who had fallen into some fault, and the grace of his word almost always healed their wounds and fortified them against new attacks of the demon. He exhorted his disciples to keep themselves constantly on guard against their own hearts, and to remain always united by the bonds of charity, and, all his life, he showed them, by his example, that the work of the hands, as well as prayer, is a powerful weapon against temptations.

The monks were the most ardent workers of Christian civilization in Gaul. Each monastery, while causing the virtues proper to religious life to flourish within, spread the benefits of evangelical doctrine to the neighboring populations around it. This important work was especially necessary in the region where Saint Vandrille had raised his monastery. The inhabitants of the Pays de Caux, who had only a confused knowledge of Christian truths, still retained the ignorance and coarsene pays de Caux Norman region evangelized by the saint. ss of barbarian peoples. It was difficult to bend to the yoke of the Gospel these men accustomed to pillage and slaves to the most shameful superstitions. But zeal does not calculate obstacles, and God always rewards works undertaken for his glory. Vandrille, helped by his monks, preached the doctrine of Jesus Christ in the midst of these peoples. His word, sweet and powerful, touched all hearts and enlightened their coarse intelligence. The Saint reproached them for the disorders of their lives, the cruelty of their customs, and, when he could not speak to them, he prayed to the Lord to convert them. One soon saw them flocking to his teachings and prostrating themselves at his feet to ask for forgiveness for their faults. The holy abbot always mixed the oil of mercy with the bitter wine of penance, and, when a sinner seemed to fear making an admission of his iniquities to him, he knew how to raise his dejected courage and inspire confidence in him.

The work of the Saint was blessed by heaven. The west of France was covered with establishments formed by Vandrille, and his spirit animated all these new communities. The men who went there, attracted by the example of his virtues, soon became new apostles themselves, bringing to the peoples the bread of the evangelical word, initiating ignorant and coarse men into the knowledge of God and the love of virtue, and teaching them at the same time to cultivate lands that had remained sterile until then, and to make abundant harvests germinate there. When one travels through each region of Gaul, and even of Europe, and sees almost no corner of land that has not been cleared by these tireless cenobites, no region that has not been evangelized by their word, one has only pity or indignation for those who still come to tell us: "What are monks for?"

Gaul was filled with the name of Saint Vandrille and the works he accomplished. One would have said, adds his historian, that the apostolic times had returned; for one saw a great number of men of high birth putting all their goods in common, and voluntarily renouncing all private property. Before his arrival in the Pays de Caux, this region was, so to speak, only a frightful den of brigands, more similar to brutes than to men, and who possessed hardly any notion of the Christian faith. The preachings of the holy man renewed the face of this land, and the inhabitants broke the idols they still worshipped, left their savage customs to submit humbly to the evangelical faith, and showed the deepest respect for the priests of Jesus Christ.

Vandrille reached an advanced age without ever having ceased to join the work of his hands to the ordinary duties of his office. Death appeared to him as the end of a long pilgrimage, as the long-desired rest. He sighed continually for the end of his pilgrimage, saying with the Prophet: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged, and that I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Kedar!" God finally granted his desires and sent him an illness which he received as the instrument of his deliverance. In this state, he was for three days and three nights in an ecstasy, in which he was shown the gate of heaven opened to him and a throne of glory prepared for him. This is why he often had his eyes open, looking fixedly upward with a content and joyful face. Having returned from this rapture, he gave excellent instructions to his disciples, and predicted several things to come. They asked him who would be his successor; he replied that they had among them two great subjects who would hold his place one after the other, namely: Saint Lambert, who was later Archbishop of Toulouse; and Saint Ansbert, who succeeded Saint Ouen in the Archbishopric of Rouen. Finally, when he had received the Sacraments with admirable fervor and tenderness, and repelled the demon who still had the boldness to attack him at this final hour, the angels and saints came to receive his soul while singing the praises of God; he died in the presence of the same Saint Ouen, his archbishop, and nearly three hundred of his monks, who were all melting into tears for the loss of such a good father.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS. — ABBEY OF FONTENELLE.]

His body was first buried in the church of Saint-Paul; but, forty years later, having been found whole, it was transferred by Saint Bain, one of his successors and Bishop of Thérouanne, to the main church dedicated in honor of Saint Peter. Since then, for fear of the Normans, who descended upon Neustria, it was transported again, along with those of Saint Ausbert, Archbishop of Rouen, and Saint Vulfran, Archbishop of Sens, first to Boulogne-sur-Mer, then to the monastery of Blandinberg, in the city of Ghent, in Flanders.

These holy relics were lost during the persecution of the Calvinists in 1578, with the exception of the two arms of Saint Vandrille, one of which had been given to the Abbey of Fontenelle and the other to that of Brone.

As for the Abbey of Fontenelle (Fontanella, small fountain) or Saint-Vandrille, which, with its four churches, formed, like that of Jumièges, one of the most beautiful ornaments on the banks of the Seine, nothing remains but the monastery, transformed into a spinning mill. One admires the cloister, a monument from the 14th and 16th centuries. But of the four churches, the main one of which, the abbey church, had been magnificently rebuilt in the 13th century, nothing remains. In 1828, their ruins were still beautiful and admired: since then, the owner, Mr. Cyprien Lenoir, used the pickaxe to tear them down. The stones of the mullions and columns were used to pave the neighboring roads. An Englishman, more intelligent than the barbaric successors of the contemporaries of Dagobert, bought considerable fragments of these precious remains and had them transported across the Channel to re-erect them in his park.

The life of this holy abbot was written by an author who was almost of his time. See Surius, the Bollandists, and Mabillon: The Monks of the West, by M. de Montalembert; The Churches of the Yvetot Arrondissement, by Abbé Cochet.