Saint Flora

Between Figeac and the sanctuary of the Mother of God, built on the rock of Saint-Amadour, there had already existed for nearly a century a famous monaster y called the Hôp Hôpital-Beaulieu Monastery of the Order of Saint John where the saint lived. ital-Beaulieu, or Beluer. It was the asylum that God had prepared for His beloved daughter. Fleur, now free to give herself to the Lord, does violence to her heart, tears herself from the arms of her parents, and departs. A young child of fifteen, she disdainfully turns away from the world that smiles upon her, and hastens to enclose in solitude the deceptive charms of a beauty she fears. She enters the monastery of the Hôpital-Beaulieu.

Charity for the poor and the pilgrims formed the main foundation of Flora's own character. As a Hospitaller of Saint John, she was restrained in her extreme charity only by the fear of exceeding the measure; sometimes she even went a little beyond the bounds that wise prudence imposes. After the ordinary trials, she was admitted to religious profession, donned the habit of th e Order of Saint Jo Ordre de Saint-Jean Religious order to which Flora belonged. hn, and made her solemn vows.

Nourished by the milk of divine consolations, she was still ignorant of the bitterness of life; like that little child, a lovable reflection of the candor of angels, who falls asleep at the maternal breast, Fleur had until then lived as if asleep on the breast of God. Privileged from baptism, God had until then cradled her in his paternal arms. But holiness requires trials, and the hour of trial had come for poor Fleur.

Suddenly, a violent storm arose, a dark cloud enveloped her in the thickest darkness, God seemed for a time to have abandoned her, like a weak toy, to the whims of the genius of evil. Shortly after her religious profession, one day the young virgin experienced an unusual disturbance, an invisible enemy imposed itself on her mind, a thought apparently luminous presented the monastery to her in a false light. She was suddenly struck by the richness of its habits, by the opulence of the monastery, she saw riches everywhere, poverty nowhere. What would become of her virtue in the midst of the pleasures that riches provide? Astonished, seized with terror, believing she saw the abyss where she had thought to find salvation, she stopped suddenly frozen with terror, and compressing in the depths of her heart the deep pain that overwhelmed her: "O captive," she said, "you have rejected with contempt the secular habit, you sighed after the religious life, in the hope of doing penance, and you have had as your share only a place of delights. What will become of you? How will you be able to please Jesus Christ?"

Obsessed by the infernal spirit, such were the reflections and others similar that she rolled in her heart; this cruel thought, like a sharp dart, remained always engraved there, and all her reflections ended in a bottomless and hopeless abyss. While she was thus agitated by these interior pains, God led to the monastery of the Hôpital-Beaulieu a religious of eminent holiness. She went immediately to find him: "Oh!" she said to him, "in the midst of this great abundance of all the goods of this world, how I fear the eternal damnation of my soul!" The man of God answered her: "Lay aside your fear, my daughter; faithful to your vows, use these goods soberly and for the strict necessity only, and these very riches will become for you the occasion of very great merits. Instead of afflicting yourself, give thanks rather to the almighty God. He takes care of you; he has amply provided this monastery with temporal goods, so that you may more effectively relieve the miseries of the poor and provide for their needs; for the poor, deprived of suitable help, would easily forget the service of God, and embarrassed as if by chains in the difficulties of their unhappy lot, they would suffer while murmuring at their painful condition, and would soon refuse to God the submission that is due to him; while on the contrary, relieved by charitable hands, they learn to love the Creator, source of all charity. Why then afflict yourself? Those who, provided with the abundance of all goods, despise with joy the superfluities of life, serve God alone, refuse the sweetness of well-being, and use these goods only to obey the imperious laws of necessity: those increase their merits in a wonderful way by these continuous privations, and strengthen the weak by the example of such a rare virtue."

Fleur gathered these words with avidity; all the waves of this fear vanished to make room for the sweetest consolations; she began to advance even more rapidly in the service of God, and as if she had known no one on earth, henceforth she became solely attentive to God, directing ceaselessly toward him all her thoughts and all her affections. The solitary life occupied this soul so much, she was so assiduous in the meditation of celestial things, she persevered in it with so much ardor, that she appeared rather as an angel descended from heaven, than a creature who had ever lived in the world. Scarcely had the young virgin, entirely given to God, received the spirit of this new life, when behold again the enemy, the relentless enemy of all holiness, the demon, is seized with fury and rage; he wants at all costs to turn the servant of God from this path where she has just entered, he turns against her all his war machines and all his ruses. And first he attacks her vow of chastity; he puts before her eyes all the pleasures opposed to this angelic virtue. To these frightful images he joins the perfidy of his lies, and presents these brutal enjoyments as suitable, honest, useful; he goes even further, he wants to make them a necessity for her, an order come from God; he objects in support of his lies the authority of Genesis, in particular the passage where God, addressing Adam, Noah and his sons, intimates his will to them: Increase and multiply. "Let these horrible things be the share of the worldly," cried the young virgin, "I am willing, but for nuns who have consecrated their chastity to God by a solemn vow, the mere thought of these obscene things would be a crime. But you who can do nothing except by the permission of God, withdraw far from me, do not seek to seduce me anymore."

The repulsed enemy is not discouraged: astonished by the virtue of this young girl, he adds threats and terror to caresses. "I want you to know," he said to her, "that you will have to end up giving your consent to the sin of the flesh and to the loss of your chastity, or else I will trouble you so much by my continuous assaults, I will make you suffer so much and so much pain from the other nuns, that you will have to finally, consumed with bitterness and sadness, end up falling into despair, and through despair into the torments of eternal damnation." Arming herself then with the sign of the cross, lifting her eyes and hands to heaven, she prayed to the almighty God, asking him for help and counsel, she invoked the holy Virgin, mother of God, and those among the Saints whom she honored with special devotion, she begged all the Saints, imploring mercy. This long and hard combat ended finally in bitter tears that the chaste virgin shed before the Lord, until the day when, touched by her tears, the Redeemer returned to her his accustomed benevolence by pushing away his relentless enemy, without him ever having been able to obtain from her the slightest consent nor harm her in any way. The other nuns saw her with pain overwhelmed by the sadness that lasted always; they were ignorant of the terrible combat that was taking place in the depths of her soul, and her movements of eyes and hands toward heaven, and all her demeanor, they attributed to madness, and believed their unhappy sister seized with vertigo and become mad. Several even of her companions talked among themselves about this mania and this singular madness; and if by chance monks came to the monastery, either to hear their confessions, or to ask for hospitality, some of the nuns took care to ask their guests to severely reprimand the foolishness and dementia of their unhappy sister who had become mad.

To all the accusations and all the reproaches, the young virgin responded with silence, keeping an inviolable secret about her pains; she shed daily tears, signs of her interior pain: and often, following the example of Magdalene, prostrated at the feet of the Savior, she spent the nights in prayer. It is thus that in the midst of the waves of temptations, her thoughts fixed on God kept her soul always raised toward him. Never putting her trust in man or in an arm of flesh, she never asked any creature for consolation and help. Useless, in fact, she would have sought it in the monastery; for she heard all the sisters speak ill of her and received from all only harsh words; they exercised her patience every day in a thousand ways, because of this dementia and this apparent madness, and frequently led her before the religious who passed by the monastery to turn her into ridicule and mock her. All these pains came to her, at the persuasion and instigation of Satan, who hoped that, tired of so many struggles, she would end up falling into despair. But the grace of God supported the young virgin; it gave her the strength to keep silence in the midst of her pains, and to suffer everything with courage and with a good heart. Finally, the merciful Savior, whose goodness appears for all his creatures and in particular for the pure souls who give themselves to him, who tests his faithful souls only to make them better, never forgets to come to their aid when their affliction is at its height, finally had pity on the pious virgin; overwhelmed under the weight of so many struggles and pains, he resolved to console her, and to restore strength to her soul by making her participate in the ineffable pains of his passion.

The Savior, in a sensible form, appeared before the eyes of the afflicted virgin and struck her spirit with an impression so strong that, for about three months, this vision remained present before her, without her ever being able to lose sight of it. It seemed to her that she carried within her bowels Jesus Christ attached to the cross. When she walked, this sacred burden seemed to crush her as if with an enormous weight; she suffered within herself as if the arms of the Savior's cross had internally dislocated her chest, and as if she herself had been nailed to the cross. She often felt extreme pain in her right side, and suffered as horribly as if the lance had pierced her; blood flowed there in such great abundance that she was often as if suffocated by it while she was in prayer, and finally it escaped from her mouth like a bloody stream. It was thus that she was totally changed into another, that she learned to die to all things, in order to live only for Jesus Christ alone. Now, while she thus suffered the passion of the Savior through a compassionate pity, following the example of the apostle Saint Paul, she believed she knew nothing other than her Savior and her crucified Savior.

Fleur was only the more vigilant over herself, for fear of falling into the traps of the demon, whose malice she knew. She studied to hide her treasure in the depths of her heart: but the more she strove to keep the flame of divine love that consumed her tightly hidden, the more the pain became ardent within the interior of this sanctuary, and yet it was not without a mixture of a totally ineffable interior sweetness. It was thus that, inflamed with the love of God, consumed by the most ardent desire for heavenly things, tired by so many struggles, tested by the most diverse temptations, Fleur found herself completely changed and as if transformed into a new creature. She drew upon herself the eyes of her beloved, and God then rewarded her sometimes by the fervor of the spirit, sometimes by an interior sweetness; often she even experienced corporally, through a state full of charms, the happiness of divine grace. At other times, enlightening her spirit with a supernatural light, God revealed the future to her, and unveiled before her the secret of the most hidden things. In the beginning, she had such a heart for keeping silent about the secret graces that God granted her, that when she sensed the coming of heavenly gifts and the peaceful arrival of the eternal King, whom she was about to receive, she feigned being ill, and making a rampart of her bed curtains, she hid from all eyes the ardors of the love of God that consumed her and the happiness of heaven that was in the depths of her heart. This happy peace which she enjoyed could not long escape the vigilant eye of Satan, and immediately he sought again to trouble her and to agitate her with innumerable waves of new temptations. But God, who had sufficiently tested the fidelity of his servant and the firmness of her soul, immediately came to her aid, for fear that she might be overcome by these new temptations and tribulations.

One day, prostrate on her knees, she prayed with fervor: at her side appeared an angel of the Lord, armed with a two-edged sword; the brightness and the double edge of this heavenly weapon was the faithful symbol of the word of God which penetrates more deeply than the sharpest two-edged sword. The young virgin, taking in her hands the hilt of this symbolic sword, armed by God himself against all the assaults of the demon, learned so much by her experience to despise the demon that fear and terror no longer had access to her heart; armed with the word of God, she repelled without any difficulty the frightening phantoms and all the ruses of the evil spirits, and within herself the divine consolations were like a sweet dew for her soul. Moreover, victorious in this combat, this young girl consecrated to God became an iron pillar and a strong city: and she was so well known as an arsenal of doctrine and heavenly graces that all those who were afflicted with sorrows, temptations, or other evils came immediately to find her, and thanks to her prayers they never left except happy and content and after having obtained consolation and help.

The reputation of Fleur's holiness had flown far; from all the neighboring places and from more distant lands, the unfortunate resorted to her. Many, unable to go to the monastery, expressed their needs to Fleur by letter and, immediately, the Lord, touched by the prayers of his servant, granted their request. Gifted with the gift of prophecy, she announced future events with the greatest certainty; enlightened by the light from above, although bodily absent, she had knowledge of facts that were happening far from her, discovered the secret of the most hidden things, and her ecstasies and the sweetness of her raptures were prolonged for a long space of time.

On the day consecrated by the Church to honor all the Saints, the first of November, God favored her with an extraordinary grace. As she meditated on these words of the beloved disciple: Vidi turbam magnam, etc.: "I saw a great crowd, etc.", her spirit was rapt to heaven; she remained in this state until the second Vespers of the day on which the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Cecilia, virgin and martyr. She spent twenty-two days in almost continuous rapport with the blessed, recalling in her person the raptures of the first faithful.

Enriched with the gifts of heavenly grace, she added to her admirable life the brilliance of virtues and miracles. Never was the slightest disorder noticed in her life, but she always appeared to act with weight and measure. She experienced such a fullness of grace and such a fervor of divine love that she herself could not understand how the narrow circle of her poor heart could contain this treasure and resist the fire that consumed it. Often, when she prayed, God revealed to his servant the eternal joys of the palace of heaven and fixed the eyes of her soul upon them; and if later she sought to recall to her memory what she had seen, or if she was forced to express it in words, at that same instant she experienced a new rapture; a new ecstasy brought her back to heaven, and it was not rare to see her remain motionless for a long time as if she had been dead.

VIES DES SAINTS. — TOME XII.

She fled pride and vainglory and gave all her care to the practice of humility, considering it the guardian of virginity and of all good works, as the school and foundation of prayer; it is this humility that God rewarded in her by filling her with graces and favors. In her private conversations with her nieces, with her most familiar friends, with her superiors, or with the young novices who were entrusted to her, she took great care not to tell them what could turn to her glory, but she carefully hid through silence everything it was in her power to keep hidden. However, when she believed it useful to speak, she took great care to instruct them in all the pious practices that could be advantageous to them; thus she asked them, each in particular, in what manner they conducted themselves in their prayers, then she taught them a good method for praying. Often she repelled with absolute silence the praises that were spontaneously addressed to her.

The pious virgin, always assiduous in the meditation of divine things and occupied with heaven, addressed fervent prayers to the blessed Mother of God, to the archangel Gabriel, to the holy Apostles, to the holy Virgins, to the most holy bishop of Myra, Nicholas, perfect model of chastity and humility; she had a particular devotion for them. On the days that the Church solemnizes in honor of the mysteries of Our Lord, évêque de Myre, Nicolas Saint to whom Flore had a particular devotion. on those days she considered these mysteries with a very special fervor, and received from heaven extraordinary lights and revelations. On Christmas night, she contemplated the Child-God as if wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger; on the day of the Purification, she considered this same child in the hands of the holy old man Simeon; on the eve of the day that Our Lord died, she drew from the celestial light a knowledge so clear of the mysteries of divine humility, of eternal wisdom, of the sacred love of Jesus Christ, that one would have said that, present herself in the company of the Apostles, she saw the divine Master and heard his divine words. That same night she contemplated in the garden of Olives the man of sorrows, and a painful sword pierced her afflicted soul. On Good Friday, it was barely if she could support the weight of the extreme pain that overwhelmed her. In the prayers she made then, this same pain seized her so entirely that she suffered as if her feet and hands had been pierced by nails, and her side opened by the iron of the lance. She uttered plaintive cries that the memory of the Savior's passion tore from her, and she expressed by her sighs and her tears the feeling of the most vivid pain, incapable of articulating a word. On Easter day, she saw with her own eyes Our Lord speaking to the holy women, and she listened avidly to all the words that came out of his mouth. On the day of the feast of the Ascension, she contemplated Our Lord ascending to heaven and blessing her with his disciples, then she withdrew filled with special gifts of grace, like the Apostles when they descended from the mount of Olives. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit favored her with a spiritual joy and a marvelous consolation. It happened to her once that at the moment when she was singing the hymn: Veni creator Spiritus, suddenly, before all the gathered sisters, her soul was rapt to heaven and her body raised above the earth by more than two cubits, and she remained thus suspended in the air for a long time.

When she knew someone in pain and tribulation, immediately she offered to God for them her humble and holy prayers, and it was never in vain. In this very holy life, one noticed in particular her Christian faith, torch of truth and virtue, and her truly singular devotion for the sacraments of the Church. She applied herself with extreme care to make the confession of her faults in the sacrament of penance, and regarded confession as a salutary bath that washes our soul of its stains. She approached this tribunal of Jesus Christ every day, always with a new humility and contrition; she probed the folds of her conscience with such subtlety that the most skillful priests to whom she made the confession of her faults usually regarded as admirable traits of virtue the alleged failings that she herself, while groaning and weeping, came to submit to the heads of the Church as great crimes. She regarded priests as the ministers of Jesus Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God; she had for them, as for fathers, a filial love, and for them every day she poured out her prayers before God.

She had an extraordinary attraction for the divine Eucharist. Every time she assisted at the most holy sacrifice of the mass, she sensed the arrival of the heavenly King, and raising her heart, she remained until the end of the mass in ecstasy and as if deprived of her senses. But especially on the days when she was to approach the holy Table, then one saw her as if burning inwardly, as if entirely consumed by the excess of love and rapt to heaven.

The passion of Jesus Christ was one of the principal objects of Fleur's devotion. It was there that she conceived an immense love for Jesus Christ, it was from there, as from a divine source, that flowed into her soul floods of sweetness and celestial consolations. It was not rare for her to participate in the pains and wounds of the Savior, and then the feeling of the pain she experienced became so intense that it surpassed the feeling of any most vivid natural pain. Considering prayer and the ecclesiastical office as one of the principal means to arrive at a perfect life, she employed all her time in prayer, meditation, and contemplation. Whatever she did, on the road, at work, in the house or outside, she prayed without respite, according to the counsel of the Apostle; often her prayer was prolonged very late into the night, and it was not rare that she spent the entire night in it. And what is most extraordinary is that for more than two or three years she deprived herself totally of sleep, watching and praying, according to the word of the Savior, in the fear of yielding for an instant to the suggestions of the tempter who wanted her ruin. She recited the canonical hours of the ecclesiastical office with such sustained attention of her spirit and heart, and with such devotion, that often, in the recitation of this divine office, she fell into ecstasy when verses occurred that were proper to excite the love of God. As long as her ecstasies were, she never omitted anything of the ecclesiastical office. If by chance she left some point of the office unfinished at the required hours, were it of the most minimal importance, she supplemented it with all diligence. She taught the other sisters that they should never leave the divine office, even if they were running to the scent of the perfumes of the heavenly spouse, even if they had entered into the sanctuary of heaven through the most sublime contemplation.

The very holy life of Fleur rested on the most ardent desire for eternal glory, and appeared a life more angelic than human. She experienced a foretaste of divine things through the most assiduous contemplation. She sighed after the day of deliverance, desiring that the bonds of the body coming to break as soon as possible, her soul could finally exit this life to go with Jesus Christ. It is barely if she could pronounce herself or hear pronounced the name of heaven or divine things without falling into ecstasy, which happened to her frequently before the priest who was her confessor. The desire she had for heaven was renewed so often in her heart that it appeared to entirely exhaust her strength. Death, terrible to the rest of men, appeared to her amiable and full of charms. She sought only to please God, and in all that she did, she had no other goal than to render him glory. In reward, God consoled his servant in a thousand ways; he rejoiced her, fortified her, and enriched her with all the gifts of grace and heavenly favors. Thus, when she was in ecstasy or when she came out of it, she was so united to God that it was not rare to see her all surrounded by a celestial light spread around her, like a halo, and she appeared all resplendent.

Thus it was that, tested in turn by the rage of the demon and by the most frightful temptations, then amply rewarded by divine goodness, the blessed virgin Flora had seen the days of her pilgrimage fulfilled. Enlightened by a supernatural light regarding her future destiny, she had long known the path by which her soul was to fly to heaven; for a long time, through the assiduous practice of contemplation and prayer, and through her ecstasies which had become habitual, she inhabited heaven more than the earth. Already she had been granted many times a glimpse of the splendors of the eternal city; in 1327, shortly after her great trials, she had seen herself for a moment clothed by two angels in the garments of glory that were reserved for her in eternity if she persevered; and one of these blessed spirits had shown her the brilliant throne that was prepared for her in the heavens as a reward for her humility. Thus, she called with her most ardent wishes for the fortunate hour when, escaping from her mortal prison, her soul would go to possess forever God, whom she had loved so much on earth. The end of her life was approaching, the hour of deliverance was about to strike. Overwhelmed by austerities, broken by sufferings, burned inwardly by divine love, a supreme effort was finally to break the last bonds that still held her. Indeed, she fell asleep gently in the Lord on June 11, in the year 1347.

Scarcely had the blessed Flora breathed her last, when brilliant prodigies signaled the glory she enjoyed in heaven. The face of the deceased cast an extraordinary radiance and appeared surrounded by a luminous halo, before a crowd of people who were witnesses to it, while at the same time the most sweet odor exhaled from her whole body, like a perfume of lilies and roses.

Saint Flora is represented kneeling before an angel who presents her with a crown.

## CULT AND RELICS.

Immediately after the death of Saint Fleur, the miracles performed through her intercession multiplied so greatly at her tomb that one had to proceed to the solemn exaltation of her body. This mission was entrusted to Gérard de Lentillac, Abbot of Figeac, by the Bishop of Cah ors, Bertrand de Carda Bertrand de Cardaillac Bishop of Cahors who ordered the exaltation of the body in 1368. illac, on June 11, 1368. At the moment the tomb of the Blessed one was opened, a perfume of the sweetest scent spread in the form of an embalmed dew over the crowd of people, whom the novelty of this spectacle had attracted from all sides. That day, a great number of the sick recovered their bodily health, and all received abundant spiritual aid; there was but one voice to proclaim that this perfume which had just embalmed the air could only come from God Almighty.

The religious of the Military Order of Saint John never forgot to invoke her in their perils at sea; an infinity of nuns, following the tradition of the ancients, learned to pray to her and often experienced the miraculous aid of her protection; it is thus that the monastery of Beaulieu was illustrated by an uninterrupted series of miracles performed at her tomb by the mercy of God and the intercession of Mary. Such was, in 1693, the cult rendered to her. The illustrious virgin of the Hôpital-Beaulieu, long since canonized by the popular voice with the approval, at least tacit, of the ecclesiastical authority, was vulgarly called only Saint Fleur. Thus, her holiness was already so recognized that Father Louis de Mesplèdes always gave her the title of Blessed in 1625. Her office was inserted into the Cadurcian breviary printed in Paris in 1746, by order of Bertrand Duguesclin, on October 5, by a simple commemoration with a common prayer for a virgin under this title: *Commemoratio sanctæ Floræ virginis, hospitalis Belli-Loci, ordinis sancti Joannis Jerosolymitani, in territorio cadarcensi*. This is where the cult of Saint Fleur stood in 1793.

In 1693, one could see leaning against the wall near the high altar, on the side vulgarly called the epistle side, ten or twelve feet above the church floor, a wooden reliquary, suitably adorned on the outside, in which were respectively placed the bones of this virgin. The hair was still adhering to the head, and around the temples one could still see the white linen headband as fresh as the first day; yet it had been there since the day of her burial, that is to say, since the year 1347.

These holy relics were preserved in this state until towards the end of 1792. At this dire epoch of our history, the body of Saint Fleur was still in the convent chapel, in the same reliquary raised above the ground, on the same epistle side; the hair was still adhering to her head; every year a great feast was held there, and her holy relics wrapped in red silk were exposed.

Such was the state in which the relics of Saint Flore were found when the terrible Revolution of 1793 broke out. Then began those scenes of horror whose account still terrifies after so many years: the demolition hammer fe ll upon the hospic Révolution de 1793 Period during which the saint's relics were hidden and lost. e, as well as upon the convent and the chapel; everything was looted, profaned, and devastated, and so that nothing would be missing from this lugubrious drama, the sacred remains of Flore were delivered to the flames, on the very threshold of this house still resplendent with the brilliance of her virtues and her miracles, at this same place where she had welcomed the poor and travelers with such kindness, where her hands had so often opened to spread the treasures of charity into the bosom of indigence. But the fire could not burn these sacred bones; the virginal head of Fleur kept rolling out from the midst of the flames; rendered more furious by the impotence of the elements against God, they threw it back into the fire while uttering horrible blasphemies. The fire even respected the blond hair of Fleur, which had never served as bait for vanity. Fortunately, in the midst of this mob of scoundrels, there was a good man who, passing by chance, witnessed this horrible drama with pain; he seized this sacred head, preserved it with respect, and deposited it at the Visitation monastery of Saint-Céré. The other bones were scattered and spread, like a precious treasure, among the Christian families of the region. A fragment of Fleur's head and her hair, recognized as authentic in 1866 by Mgr Grimardius, Bishop of Cahors, is deposited in the church of Issendolus.

Thus was destroyed the monastery of the Hôpital-Beaulieu; founded in 1235 or 1236, it had lasted about five hundred and fifty-six years. The relics of Saint Fleur, deposited in an eminent place in the chapel on June 11, 1368, thrown into the fire towards the end of 1792, had rested in the holy place, surrounded by public veneration, for about four hundred and thirty-two years.

The glory and cult of Saint Fleur survived the ruin of her monastery; her memory remained alive and gentle at Hôpital-Beaulieu. Even today, people enjoy giving the name Fleur at Baptism; she is invoked during storms alongside Saint Barbara against lightning.

On November 18, 1852, a decree from the Holy See, approving the Proper of Cahors, also approved the office of Saint Flora, under the semi-double rite, with the title of Saint. Shortly after, the diocese of Saint-Flour requested the same favor, and on April 29, 1858, a decree from Pope Pius IX ex tended the pape Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. solemn cult of Saint Flora to that entire diocese. Three years later, in the year 1861, the faithful were able to come once again to prostrate themselves at the feet of the Saint's relics. An almost complete bone of the tibia of the leg had been saved in 1793 by Angélique Bro, a lay sister native to the Hôpital, and preserved by her in concert with the chaplain of the same monastery, Father Surgier, a faithful priest. These precious remains, surrounded by all the desirable marks of authenticity, recognized as authentic by Bishop Bardou in 1861, enclosed in a hardened wood reliquary, provided with the seals of the bishopric and episcopal approval, were exposed for public veneration for the first time since 1793 in the parish church of Issend Issendolus Current parish housing the saint's relics. olus during the entire octave of All Saints (1861).

Since then, the cult rendered to Saint Fleur has made rapid progress; driven from her monastery by the Revolution, Saint Fleur found an asylum in the parish church. A chapel was consecrated to her in the church of Issendolus, her adopted parish. Every year, on October 5 and throughout the octave, her relics are publicly exposed for the veneration of the faithful.

Excerpt from the Life of Saint Flora or Fleur, virgin, by Father Cyprien Lacarrière, parish priest of Issendolus. Toulouse, 1871.