Saint Ouen

For D adon, Dadon Author of the eulogy and life of Saint Aurea. the second of the three brothers, who is our Saint Ouen, he was chancellor of France, loved by the kings, revered by the great, and pleasing to everyone, because he was not only well-formed in body, but filled with spirit, eloquent, judicious, wise, foresighted, just, and a true servant of Jesus Christ. As he gave no counsel that was not useful to the king and the people, all affairs passed through his hands, and his advice was always received by King Dagobert and the other ministers of state as if it were an oracle. He continually exhorted this prince to look upon Jesus Christ as his Creator and Savior, without whose assistance he could not govern his kingdom with justice; to fear Him, to love Him, and to obey Him in all things; to remember that he should be no less the father than the master of his subjects; to forgive those who humbled themselves and to subdue the pride of the arrogant; to defend the borders courageously against the incursions of the enemies of his state; to drive out the wicked; to take particular care of everything concerning the Church; to build new monasteries and repair the old ones; to be the protector of the poor, the orphans, the strangers, and to provide for the relief of all kinds of afflicted people, because, being raised above all, he had to sympathize with the needs of all. Dagobert at first allowed himself to be carried away by the passions of youth; but, thanks to the advice of Saint Ouen, he eventually regulated himself perfectly and brought very good order to his kingdom.

Saint Eligius wa s at the c Saint Eloi Founder of the monastery and spiritual advisor to Saint Aurea. ourt of Dagobert at the same time as our Saint: God united them so much that they were but one heart and one soul. Although they were still only laymen, they conducted themselves like two bishops or rather like two fervent religious. They did not blush to speak before the princes and the greatest lords of the care one must take for one's salvation. They fought for the Church against the impiety of heretics. They pursued vice and authorized virtue; Saint Ouen, under his silk garments, wore a rough hair shirt; he never tired of praying, keeping vigil, fasting, reading the Holy Scripture, rendering the duties of hospitality to strangers, and assisting the poor and the sick. He regarded the earth as the place of his exile and heaven as his true homeland. He built, in the forest of Brie, the monastery of Resbac or Rebais. He gathered there several religious whom he placed under the guidance of a holy abbot, named Agile, a disciple of Saint Columbanus. He already had the intention of

leaving the world to serve God more quietly in the cloister; but the king and all the great ones opposed it, saying that he should prefer the public good to his own personal satisfaction.

After the death of Dagobert, Clovis II, his son, who succeeded him, continued the seals and the office of chancellor to such an excellent minister. Shortly after, a Monothelite heretic appeared in Autun, having come from the East, who tried to corrupt the faith of the faithful of that city and to sow his error throughout France. Our Saint, having been informed of this, strongly urged the king, along with Saint Eloi, his intimate friend, to assemble a Council at Orléans to promptly remedy such a great evil. He was present there himself, and he had the consolation of seeing the heretic confounded and unable to defend himself. He testifies, in the life of Saint Eloi, that it is to Saint Saïve, bishop and martyr, who was at this Council, that the glory of this victory must be attributed; but one cannot doubt that it is also due in part to him, since, layman though he was, he argued vigorously against the heretic and took the weapons from his hands. At the same time, he contributed to a decree against simony, which had been extremely widespread in France since the impious Brunhilda had begun to establish it there. Father Sirmond places this council in 645, one year before the promotion of our holy ministers of state to the episcopate. When it was finished, several persons of distinguished piety took an interest in having Saint Ouen leave the lay condition and embrace the ecclesiastical state. King Clovis, however much he needed his advice and however much affection he bore him, did not fail to deprive himself of him willingly to give him to the needs of the Church. He therefore received the clerical tonsure and passed through all the degrees of the mi nor o Rouen Norman city where Simeon stayed and founded a monastery. rders. At this time, Saint Romain, Archbishop of Rouen, died, and the clergy were obliged to put another prelate in his place. The great reputation of our holy Chancellor caused eyes to be cast upon him for this see. He resisted this election for some time, but in vain; the king, the great lords, and the people all united together to oblige him to defer to it. He finally yielded so as not to oppose the will of God; but knowing what Saint Paul says to his disciple Timothy: "Do not lay hands on anyone too hastily," he took care not to be consecrated at the same time. He first renounced all secular affairs and all the engagements of his ministry. Then he went to preach the word of God beyond the Seine and the Loire, where he appeared like a star sent from heaven to enlighten these peoples with the pure lights of the Gospel. He taught some the principles of the faith; he strengthened others in the doctrine they had already received; he brought others back to the Church, whom heresy had caused them to abandon. He even traveled as far as Spain, and, f Espagne Place of mission for Jude Barsabas. inding it afflicted for seven years by such a great drought that not a drop of water had fallen there, he delivered it by his prayer from this scourge which threatened the whole country with a universal famine and an inevitable ruin. The fruit of his intercession was both temporal and spiritual; for rain fell in abundance, which restored fertility to the land and caused it to bear a rich harvest; and the people, touched by this miracle, promised to renounce the vices that had brought upon them the divine curse.

Saint Ouen, after confirming these peoples in these good resolutions, returned to France to receive episcopal consecration. While passing through Anjou, he healed, by the sign of the cross, a miller who had become paralyzed in one hand for having violated the sanctity of Sunday by working without necessity. When he arrived in Rouen, Saint Eloi, who had recently been elected bishop of Noyon, went to meet him there, and, on Rogation Sunday of the year 646, they were consecrated together, as he himself writes in the life of this holy Prelate. There is no one who can worthily represent the manner in which this admirable archbishop conducted himself in the guidance of his people. He always maintained the same modesty and gravity that he had before. His humility, far from diminishing, took on, on the contrary, new increases. His clothes were simple, his furniture poor, his retinue without pomp or splendor. He mortified his flesh with continual fasts and vigils. His abstinence was so rigorous that the hunger, which he suffered almost always, made his face quite pale and made it difficult for him to stand. He had for a bed and mattress only a wicker hurdle, more capable of tormenting him than of giving him rest. His neck, his arms, and his loins were surrounded by iron circles, which pricked his skin at every moment and made him the image of Jesus Christ crucified and of the Martyrs. Tears flowed incessantly from his eyes, sometimes for his own sins, other times for those of his flock, whom he did not deplore with less bitterness than his own. The honors of the world appeared to him only as wind, and, to exempt himself from them, he fled the company of the great and the duties that one wished to render to his dignity and his merit, to go visit the needy and the prisoners. Never did a prelate have more tenderness and kindness for his people. He took care to instruct them by his sermons, to correct them by his remonstrances, to relieve them by his charities, to keep them in union by his application to making reconciliations, and to purge them of the mixture of the impious by the justice and severity of his judgments. He used rigor, however, only in necessity, and he tried, beforehand, to win over the most fierce spirits by an incomparable sweetness. The poor and the strangers were his dear children, and it is a prodigious thing, the assistance he gave them in the bad state of their affairs. He did not forget the dead either, and it is noted that he had a particular devotion to praying for the rest of their souls.

He had, besides that, a very great zeal for having churches and monasteries built, and he indeed built several, particularly in his diocese. His clergy was the principal object of all his cares; he established there an admirable discipline, a manner of life full of edification, and also did very great goods to his metropolitan church. He founded hospitals to receive the poor, the pilgrims, and the sick, and churches in places where there were none. He was so exact in his visitations that he went not only into the cities, the towns, the castles, and the villages, but even into the most distant farms and hamlets, in order to know all his people, to show the most ignorant the ways of salvation, to withdraw the greatest sinners from disorder, to receive the confessions of those who wished to convert, and to assist, even corporally, those who were in need. If any time remained for him, after having discharged all the duties of his office, he employed it in tears and in the contemplation of heavenly things. A man, illustrious by his birth and by his great wealth, named Waneng, being sick to the point of death, had a terrible vision, where a great part of the pains of the damned were represented to him. The horror and the fear that he had obliged him to have recourse to the holy Archbishop, who, after having prayed for him, gave him his blessing and restored him, by this means, to perfect health: which was the cause that he founded the abbey of Fécamp. The Acts of Saint Wandrille also attribute to him the

same miracle; but it may well be that the prayers and the blessing of these two Saints contributed to the same work. It shone so brightly in France, because of the quality of the one who had been healed, that it attracted King Clotaire III, son of Clovis II, and his entire court to Fécamp, to have the consolation of seeing Saint Ouen.

This holy Prelate, no longer able to ride a horse to visit his diocese because of his great age, still went by carriage to perform this duty to his people. One day, as he was in the middle of the countryside, quite near Louviers, the mules that were pulling him stopped short, without it being possible to make them move. Astonished by this accident, he raised his eyes to heaven to know the cause, and he then perceived above the air a cross so resplendent that it spread its light on all sides. God made him know, at the same time, that He had destined this place for His service and that He wished to be honored there. Thus, he marked the figure of a cross on the ground and placed some relics upon it. After which he continued his journey, without the mules offering any more resistance. From that very evening and throughout the night, a column of fire appeared in that place, brighter than the sun. All the inhabitants of the country saw it. An infinity of people came there to offer their vows to God and several were miraculously healed there of all kinds of diseases. Saint Leufroy later built in this same place, in honor of the holy Cross and of Saint Ouen, a church and a monastery.

Our blessed Archbishop had another vision at Batignolles, an island in the Seine. For weariness having forced him to take a little rest there, the angels visited him during his sleep, and ordered him, on behalf of God, to have a chapel built there in honor of Saint Stephen; which he undertook immediately at his own expense, giving to Saint Ansbert, abbot of the monastery of Saint-Wandrille, whom he charged with this construction, the sum necessary to complete it. He added a hospital for the assistance of the poor, and endowed it with a rich inheritance that he had in the county of Dun, in Beauce. He performed the translation of the relics of Saint Marcoul. When he was in the design of taking the head for his metropolitan city, with the agreement of the abbot of Nanteuil, he received a notice from heaven to take such other member as he would like, but not to take the head. This notice did not come from an articulated voice, as we had believed on the faith of some authors, but from a letter that fell miraculously into his hands, as the Acts of these two Saints teach us. Saint Ouen having formed the pious project of making a journey to Rome, to honor there the relics of the Princes of the Apostles, as soon as it was learned, people of piety came from all sides to bring him gold and silver for the expenses of his journey and the gifts he would make to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Some holy personages also joined him, among others Saint Sidoine, an Irishman, priest in Rouen, who later served as master to Saint Leufroy. One cannot express the piety with which our excellent pilgrim traveled through all the stations of this city, capital of Christianity; he prostrated himself before the tombs of the Martyrs, spent entire hours in prayer, and prayed there for those who had charged him with their offerings with such fervor, that his eyes shed more tears than his mouth pronounced words. The very ground was watered by them. One day, being before the Confession of Saint Peter, he began this verse: Exultabunt Sancti in gloria, the angels then performed the office of chaplains; for a celestial voice was heard which answered: Lætabuntur in cubilibus suis. He was not content with faithfully distributing to the churches and the poor the gifts that had been placed in his hands; he also made them great liberality from his own goods, so that the whole city received very considerable assistance and relief from it. Pope Adeodatus and all that was illustrious in the clergy rendered him extra ordinary hon pape Adéodat Pope during whose reign Sergius arrived in Rome. ors, and, in recognition of the temporal blessings he had brought him, he was given several relics of the Saints, for which he held himself much richer than if he had been given the whole empire of the world. He returned to France with these sacred spoils, and the joy of his diocesans, upon his happy return, was so great that the people of the cities and villages came in crowds to meet him with crosses and lighted candles to receive him. The priests and religious rendered solemn thanks to God for it, and the King himself and all his court testified to extreme gladness, regarding him as the protector of this kingdom.

Upon his departure, he had left the royal house in great unity; but he found it greatly divided upon his return, which caused him strange affliction. He had recourse to his ordinary means: vigils, prayers, and fasts. Through these, he obtained from God the reconciliation of those princes, whom discord would have driven to open war. Such a signal service earned him the favor of King Theuderic: this prince, persuaded of his wisdom and incomparable piety, ordered that no bishop, abbot, abbess, count, or judge, whether ecclesiastical or secular, should be elected and instituted throughout all of Neustria without his advice and consent. Disunion having arisen between Neustria and Austrasia, the king begged him to make one more journey to Cologne to negotiate peace and prevent them from coming to blows. His great age could well have excused him from such great fatigue, but he could not refuse this final aid to his homeland. While in Cologne, he restored speech to a mute who had not spoken for eleven years, and he handled the matter for which he had been sent so wisely that he established a good peace between these two kingdoms and between the princes and ministers who governed them. On his return, while passing through Verdun, he delivered a possessed woman whom the demon was tormenting cruelly. From there he came to the ca stle of Clichy, t château de Clichy Site of the episcopal assembly that appointed Agile as abbot. wo leagues from Paris, to report to the king on the success of his negotiation. But God had brought him there to make this place famous by his death and by the great number of his miracles. He fell ill there, at the age of ninety, and, knowing that Our Lord wished to deliver him from the miseries of this life to reward him for his labors, he prepared for death with all the piety one could expect from a man who had spent his life in such eminent innocence and holiness. He urgently asked God to be pleased to grant his people of Rouen a pastor after His own heart, not content with having given them for forty-four years all the marks of a truly pastoral charity, but wishing also to extend his benevolence toward them even after his death. His prayer was answered, and it was made known to him that Saint Ansbert, abbot of Saint-Wandrille, had been designated in heaven as his successor. He spoke of t his to the ki saint Ansbert Metropolitan of Aquilin who convened the Council of Rouen. ng, who came to see him in his illness, and he had no difficulty in having him accept a choice so prudent and so advantageous for Neustria.

Finally, after having prayed for all the Orders of the Church and for the kingdom, which was about to be deprived of his counsel, he peacefully rendered his soul to God, which was transported to heaven by the hands of angels, in 684. His body was transported to Rouen, with extraordinary pomp and magnificence. The king, the queen, the mayor of the palace, and the entire court accompanied him to Pontoise and deposited him in a chapel, which has since become a parish of his name. There, the bishops and abbots, the priests and religious of the province of Neustria, with an infinity of gentlemen and other persons of all conditions, came to take him in procession, and carried him alternately on their shoulders as far as the city of Rouen. The place of his burial was the church of Saint-Pierre, built by King Clotaire I, and which has become the famous abbey of Saint-Ouen.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.] God manifested the glory of his soul through very great miracles performed at his invocation, not only near his tomb but also in several other places where his memory is celebrated. Three years later, Saint Ausbert had him raised from the earth to place him in a more honorable location, and he was found to be as fresh as at the time of his death. The city of Rouen gave him a precious shrine and chose him as one of its principal protectors. The same Saint Ausbert, by touching the bier in which he had been buried, was cured of a slow fever that had so undermined him that he was beyond hope of recovery. During the Norman wars, this shrine was brought to Paris for fear that it might fall into the hands of these infidels; but, when Neustria had been ceded to them and they had embraced the Catholic faith, Rollo, their duke, insistently requested that this great trea sure be returned Rollon, leur duc First Duke of Normandy. to the city of Rouen. His request having been granted, the principal Norman ecclesiastics and lords came to fetch it in Paris and carried it solemnly to the village of Darnétal, which is one league from Rouen. They wished to continue their procession, but the body became so heavy that it was impossible for them to lift it. The duke, being informed of this, came to meet it himself, barefoot and bareheaded, covered in a simple coarse habit; and, throwing himself at the feet of the Saint, he begged him, with tears in his eyes and hands raised toward heaven, not to deprive his city of the consolation of his presence. He also gave to his Church, to merit this favor, all the land between Darnétal and Rouen. Thus, his prayer was answered, and the shrine returned to its natural state. He took charge of it himself along with other lords, and he brought it back to its former place, amidst the singing of palms, canticles, and hymns, which caused this entire path to be called Long-Paon (Longueu Penanum), which signifies long praise. But this inestimable relic, for which kings and princes had so much respect, found none in the year 1562, in the impious and cruel fury of the Calvinists who pillaged his shrine along with all the other reliquaries and sacred vessels of the Abbey of Saint-Ouen; they profaned, broke, burned, and scattered the bones they found there, as they had done in all the other churches of France that had been in their power. The royal castle of Clichy having been destroyed, a church was built in his honor at the place of Saint Ouen's death, near Saint-Denis, in which one of his fingers was honored. The old church of the Abbey of Saint-Ouen, which has become a parish church, possesses today some fragments of his relics. His life is found in Surins, on August 24, and in the Christian History of Normandy. We have used, to complete this biography, the Annals of the Diocese of Soissons, by Abbé Pêcheur, and local notes provided by M. Langlois, honorary canon in Rouen.