Saint Mesmin (Memiers) and his companions

A few more days pass; then soon arrives the hour of sacrifice. The enemy is encamped at Méry-sur-Seine; one must obey the order of heaven. The generous victims are ready: Mesmin a nd his Mesmin Abbot of the monastery of Micy in the 6th century. companions, among whom some authors count two deacons, by the name of Felix and Sens atus, Félix Priest tasked with carrying the relics and the pope's letter. and a subde Sensatus Deacon, companion martyr of Saint Mesmin. acon, Maximian, have donned t Maximien Roman emperor associated with the persecutions. heir most precious albs; the people crowd around them and accompany them with the singing of psalms to the gates of the city, where they give everyone the kiss of peace and receive from the moved Pontiff his final blessing.

They arrive at Brolium, today Saint-Mesmin , on t Mesmin Abbot of the monastery of Micy in the 6th century. he bank of the Seine. Attila, mounted on a spirited steed, is surrounded by his fierce warriors. Mesmin advances respectfully to discharge his message; Attila catches sight of him and comes to meet him. Suddenly, a whirlwind rises and throws a cloud of dust into the eyes of the barbarians. At the same time, the dazzling whiteness of the albs of the clerics, the shimmering of the gold surrounding the text of the Gospels, frighten Attila's skittish horse, which throws its rider. Attila rises immediately, but anger inflames his face: "Who are these people?" he cries out, irritated. "Lord," says Mesmin, "we are sent by Lupus, our bishop, to beg you on his behalf not to redu Loup, notre évêque Cell companion of Ausilius at Lérins. ce the city of Troyes to captivity." One of the officers of the king of the Huns th ville de Troyes Episcopal see of Manasses. en speaks: "These people," he says, "are the cause of the accident that has happened to you: they are magicians; order that they perish by the sword." — "You give me good advice," replies the king; "go, have their heads cut off."

Immediately the soldiers fall upon the defenseless young clerics and make a frightful massacre of them. Mesmin was also about to fall under the blows of these furious men, when Attila stopped them with these words: "Do not strike this one," he said, pointing to the leader of the embassy; "let him return and announce in his city what has just happened. Break the vessels they were carrying as the instruments of their magic, and burn a part of them."

The flames were devouring the image of the cross, when a fragment, detaching itself, leapt into the eye of a servant who fell while crying out loudly. Mesmin then said to Attila: "If you believe in my God, He is powerful enough to heal this young man." And at the same time, making a sign of the cross over the eye of the wounded man, he restored his sight.

This miracle did not in any way bring about the conversion of the prince, for, yielding to the urgings of the officer who had already advised the massacre of the young Levites, he ordered the death of Mesmin. The latter asked for some time to pray, and, when he had beseeched heaven to accept his blood for the salvation of his homeland: "Finish what you have begun," he said to his executioners. Immediately his head rolled onto the ground and was thrown into the river.

However, one of the seven had escaped the carnage. Under the cover of the bushes that bordered the Seine at that spot, he had been able to wait for nightfall, take advantage of the darkness to cover the bodies of the martyrs with branches, and return to the city. Great was the consternation of the citizens when he recounted what had happened. Saint Loup could not hold back his tears; nevertheless, he blessed the Lord and His mysterious counsels, and imposed upon himself a harsh penance, as if he had been the cause of this misfortune.

## CULT AND RELICS. Saint Mesmin and his noble companions were buried at Brollum, and when Attila had momentarily moved away from the land he was devastating, Saint Lupus came with several people, had nets cast into the river, and retrieved the head of the holy martyr Mesmin, which was reunited with his body. He had wished to take the precious remains of the head of the embassy back to his episcopal city; but an invisible obstacle opposed this design. Saint Lupus then understood that the martyr deacon wished to be buried at the very place of his triumph, and the body received the final honors at Brollum. A considerable part of it is still preserved today in the parish church of Saint-Mesmin.

Visited in 1544 by Mgr Louis de Lorraine, better known as the Cardinal of Guise, these holy relics were visited again on September 30, 1828, by one of the vicars general of Mgr de Seguin des Hons. They had been saved from revolutionary fury in 1792 by Jacques Porentru, Jean-Baptiste Berthier, and Étienne Berlaison, inhabitants of Saint-Mesmin.

As for the relics of the young companions of Saint Mesmin, they rested for a long time in the Abbey of Saint-Martin-ès- Aires under the name of Relics abbaye de Saint-Martin-ès-Aires Abbey that preserved the relics of the companions of Mesmin. of the Holy Innocents. The Revolution caused their trace to be lost.

No monument, after the church of Saint-Mesmin, recalls the memory of the martyr deacon today. But in the past, a chapel, whose ruins form a small grassy mound surmounted by a cross, existed under the invocation of the Saint in the region of the country still called the Chapellette. Another chapel, to the west of the village, near the current railway station, also sheltered the bodies of the holy Martyrs later on; but, like the first, it has long since disappeared.

We have borrowed this biography from the Vie des Saints de Troyes, by Abbé Defer.