Saint Prince

Our Saint had been married and had a son, named Lupus, who entered the clergy. Saint Edibius, Bishop of Soissons, having Soissons Birthplace and place of death of Geoffrey. died (December 10, 462), the clergy and the people cast their eyes upon Prince to replace him. It was not without difficulty that they managed to persuade him to accept the heavy burden of the episcopate. At all times, the holiest and most worthy are frightened and turn their heads at the sight of the miter and the pastoral staff; the least capable and the presumptuous, on the contrary, accept without blinking the honor offered to them; the ambitious obtain it by dint of intrigue, without thinking that by doing so they put their eternal salvation in peril and expose themselves on earth to wearing only a crown of thorns, a source of stinging pains and bitter disappointments.

Saint Prince was a great and pious bishop, and his reputation spread far and wide throughout the Gauls. Without knowing Sidoni us Apollinaris, Bis Sidoine Apollinaire Bishop of Clermont and Gallo-Roman writer. hop of Arvernum (Clermont-Ferrand) personally, he maintained an epistolary exchange with this famous poet. In the nine books of Letters that remain to us from Sidonius, one finds two addressed to the Bishop of Soissons, whom he gives the title of Pope, that is to say, father. These are the fourteenth of the eighth book and the eighth of the fourth book. They will be read with interest:

It was during the long episcopate of Saint Prince that the most important events took place in Soissons and the surrounding regions: the end of Roman rule in Gaul and the establishment of Frankish rule. Saint Prince was a witness to the death of Aegidius, Count of Soissons (464), and the defeat of Syagrius, his son, who was vanquished by Clovis, then twenty-two y ears o Clovis King of the Franks, mentioned to date the existence of the church. ld (486). Soissons fell into the hands of the victor and thus became the cradle of the French monarchy. Syagrius, who after the loss of his army had fled to Toulouse to Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, was delivered to Clovis by this barbarian prince and secretly put to death in the prison of the Château d'Albâtre, where Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian had been confined.

The virtues of Prince earned him the respect of Clovis, which they helped to improve. The conversations of the holy bishop with Clotild e, the k Clotilde Queen of the Franks and wife of Clovis, instrument of the conversion of France. ing's wife, encouraged this princess and supported her in the attempts she constantly made to overcome her husband's resistance and lead him to embrace Christianity. The glory of baptizing him, along with the leaders of the Franks, was, in the designs of God, reserved for the brother of Saint Prince, the illustrious Saint Remi, Archbishop of Reims. But Saint Prince undoubtedly attended the ceremonies of this solemn baptism with most of the bishops of northern Gaul, and, upon returning to Soissons, he helped the many neophytes of the court and the army to lead a life in accordance with the evangelical doctrine they had just highly professed.

The favors of Clovis, having become a Christian, were not lacking for Saint Prince, who took advantage of them to further extend the influence of religion and soften the lot of the peoples. He built new churches and multiplied altars or parishes to make the instruction of the populations easier. It is believed that he transferred the episcopal see from the Abbey of Saint-Crépin le Grand to the Church of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Protais, located within the city.

Saint Prince died at a very advanced age, on September 25, around the year 505, and was bu saint Remi Bishop of Reims who baptized Clovis. ried by Saint Remi, his brother, in the chapel of Saint Thecla, outside the walls of Soissons. His relics were subsequently transferred to the cathedral, but the heretics consigned them to the flames and reduced them to ashes in 1567. The Gallia Chr istia Douai Original seigneury of Gertrude's family. na states that in Douai, his arm was venerated in the collegiate church of Saint-Amé.

We owe this notice to the kindness of Abbé Henri Cougnat, of the chapter of Soissons.