Saint Arthaud of Belley

The fame of Arthaud having reached the ears of Amade us III, wh Amédée III Count of Savoy and protector of Saint Arthaud. o then reigned over Piedmont, Valais, Savoy, and Bugey, the latter hastened to summon him to his person to have him learn the dignities he reserved for him. The young favorite was the only one not to rejoice in the advantages that the world and the prince offered him, for he had already learned through the inner voice of grace and in the meditations of the Holy Scriptures that the hopes of the earth are deceptive and that they all lead only to nothingness. Already he had heard the truth which repeated to him without ceasing these oracles: "He who walks with me cannot wander in darkness; he who bears my yoke will find the sweet rest of the soul." And already, at that time, barely sixteen years old, he was meditating on his retreat from the world. But in the assembly of his virtues, he had included a boundless obedience to his parents; trusting therefore in the wise dispositions of Providence, which would know well how to lead him out of Egypt to lead him to the desert, if it were in solitude that he was to sanctify himself and work out his salvation, he went to the court of Prince Amadeus III in 1118, at the age of seventeen. A noble simplicity, a conversation full of charm, a thoughtful and easy air, gentle and polite manners, and an education superior to that received at that time, won him all hearts and all votes at first. One would not have said that he had brought to the court only reluctance; and, in all circumstances, he knew how to combine two things that seem incompatible: the obligations of the Christian and the duties of the courtier. He knew how to please without flattering, to disapprove of vices without shocking people. Freedom without rudeness, prudence without dissimulation, complaisance without baseness, playfulness without dissipation, piety without scruple—this was the prodigy he offered at the court, where his holiness was highly acknowledged and publicly respected.

Nevertheless, his inclination drew him toward solitude. In the midst of the tumult of the court, he knew how to make one for himself in his heart; it was in this sanctuary that he took shelter from the agitations of the century. His soul was so filled with God that the taste for the world could not insinuate itself there. The splendor and pomp of the century besieged his gaze without attracting his attention: placed at the source of opulence and delights, the favor of his prince presented itself to him with all the flattering hopes that accompanied it; but the poverty of Jesus Christ was his only treasure and the only inheritance to which he aspired. Thus it was not without astonishment that the world saw this young courtier flee riches with as much care as others seek them, and solicit from his sovereign no other grace than the permission to refuse his favors. The pleasures that the century presented to him seemed to animate him toward penance. To defend himself against their corrupting attractions, he followed the precept of Saint Paul and reduced his body under the servitude of his spirit, which was constantly applied to God. Jesus Christ had taught him that the "court of the great is the abode of softness and delights"; thus it was not there that he chose his models. With his eyes turned now toward the solitary saints who inhabited the Bugey, now toward the men who forget God to occupy themselves only with the earth, he seemed to see, on one side, the small number of the elect, and, on the other, the multitude of the reprobate. Filled with this idea and pushed by this oracle of the Savior: "What would it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he comes to lose his soul!" he took the resolution to abandon the court to go and seek a place of rest in the c ompany of the children enfants de Saint-Bruno Religious order welcomed by Engelbert in Cologne. of Saint Bruno, who had just founded, in Bugey, the Charterhouses of Portes and Meyriat, not far from the castle of Sothonod.

The confidence he had in his prince led him to make his plan known to him. Amadeus III was as pious as he was valiant; thus, although it cost him much to lose Arthaud, he did not want to thwart the vocation of his favorite; moreover, he saw well that it was a plant nourished by the dew of grace that the breath of the world and the court could only wither. He was convinced that it was only in the desert, far from the contact of men, that it was to bloom, show its brilliant colors, and fill the sanctuary and the Church with its sweet and delicious perfume. As soon as Arthaud was assured of the prince's agreement, he left the court, taking with him only his virtue and the regrets of all the people he had charmed for two years with his amiable manners, but whom he had above all edified by the examples of the tenderest piety.

For a long time he had formed the design of embracing the life of the Carthusians, because of the great austerity and poverty they practiced. His gaze, upon leaving the tumult of the world, fixed on the mountain of Portes, in Bug montagne de Portes Monastery where Arthaud completed his novitiate. ey, which appeared to him like that of Horeb, where the Lord manifested these wonders to the holy nation He had chosen. He therefore followed the impulse imprinted upon him by the breath of the Holy Spirit, which pushed him into this house where he hoped to live retired far from the tumult of the world and, so to speak, hidden in the face of Go d. Bernard of Var Bernard de Varins Prior of the Charterhouse of Portes. ins, founder and prior of this Charterhouse, a man of rare knowledge and great piety, welcomed him with the distinction that was deserved not only by his birth, but also by his virtue, the fame of which had carried its praises even into this desert.

The hopes he had just trampled underfoot, the goods and honors he was sacrificing to the cross, his youth—for he was at the age of illusions, as favored by the graces of the body as those of the spirit—all these circumstances caused his determination to make noise in the neighboring provinces. Some applauded this step, others treated it as singular, for it is rare that those who wish to give themselves to God do not have to endure the disapproval, the mockery, and often even the hatred of the impious.

Arthaud's parents, although they had consented with difficulty, it is true, to his determination, did not fail to put before his eyes the advantages he was abandoning, his rashness in embracing a way of life whose rigor exceeded his strength, and finally the utility he could be to his family, which founded upon him alone the hope of seeing itself perpetuated and illustrated more and more: their neighbors and friends joined them and concertedly made an attack whose goal was to break his plans and bring him back to the castle of Sothonod; but the disgust for the world, the desire to leave everything to serve only God in solitude, had cast roots too deep in his heart for one to be able to shake him by human motives. Submissive and obedient to his parents in everything that did not concern his vocation, he did not believe he was failing in either the love or the gratitude he owed them by determining to follow the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God blessed his constancy by changing the views and dispositions of those who opposed his resolution. His parents, persuaded that longer remonstrances would only serve to sadden a son they loved tenderly, ended by encouraging him in his pious designs. Arthaud, freed from the importunities of his family and the obstacles that the world had placed in his advancement in the spiritual ways, entered the career of perfection, and his progress was so rapid that he soon reached this goal so difficult to touch.

The exemplary piety of the Carthusians of Portes spread the good odor of Jesus Christ everywhere, and retraced the life of the holy solitaries of Egypt and that of the first disciples of Saint Bruno. The new proselyte was touched rather than astonished by the spectacle of a life so different from that of the people of the world among whom he had lived until then. After having spent his first years at the court of a prince of the earth, he asked to have no longer to serve anyone but the King of heaven. Dom Bernard, prior of Portes, witness to all the steps of Arthaud's parents and friends, as a prudent man, did not want to rush to admit him to the novitiate. He carefully probed the dispositions of the one he saw so full of ardor to prefer the austerities of the cloister to the comforts of life; he examined what spirit led him, what end he proposed to himself, whether it was the lights of grace that had led him to the desert, or human dissatisfactions that engaged him to separate himself from the world and his parents. The prudent Bernard did not take long to discover that the purest intentions had presided over his choice of life, and that he brought into the retreat the holiness that others come there to seek: thus, the time of ordinary trials having elapsed, Arthaud received the habit of the religious of Saint Bruno in the year 1120.

The fervent novice found without difficulty examples and models at Portes, and he was soon himself the example and model of all his companions, whom he quickly outstripped in the career where all sought, in rivalry, to win the crown of immortality. His first care, upon entering, had been to purify his soul of the slightest stains that could have diminished, in his favor, the effusions of grace and delayed his rapid march toward perfection. To see his contentment, the serenity of his face, and the ease with which he fulfilled all his religious duties, one would have believed that the state to which he had just consecrated himself had been that of his whole life. Nothing cost him as soon as it was a question of the rule he had embraced; his fervor smoothed out the difficulties for him, and the pains changed for him into delights. He never felt more satisfaction than when the opportunity presented itself to overcome the pride too natural to man, or to suffer some mortifications to testify to God that he wanted to attach himself only to His cross. He offered them to Him, he said, to expiate his past faults, the memory of which led him to regard himself as a great sinner.

The war that Arthaud began to declare upon his body through penance had no other end than that of his days, which were nearly double those that God ordinarily grants to the common man. The more robust he felt, the less he spared himself in subjecting his senses entirely to the law of the spirit. Besides the prescribed fasts and the perpetual abstinence observed by the Carthusians, he wore a rough hair shirt that he removed only to increase its stinging pains through frequent and long flagellations. However, our Saint had learned that the macerations inflicted upon the body are only a part of true penance, and that humility is its complement; thus, one always saw him, despite the nobility of his birth, vying with the youngest novices for the tasks most capable of revolting one's self-love; he even seemed to multiply himself to take on alone everything that was painful and humiliating to do in the house. This absolute abnegation made him regard obedience to his superiors as the most perfect imitation of Jesus Christ, who was himself obedient unto death.

In admiring the abnegation, the penance, and the humility of Saint Arthaud, we have perceived, so to speak, only the exterior of the temple that he had consecrated to God from his childhood. Prayer is the sacrifice that he offered there constantly to the Eternal on the altar of his heart. The time determined by the rule for this exercise did not suffice for him; he employed a portion of the night in it, and manual labor could not distract him from it; his soul was entirely applied to God, and never did the employment of Martha divert him from the sweet occupations of Mary. However, the time of his probation had elapsed, bringing him each day a new degree of perfection that rendered him worthy of the holy state he was about to embrace irrevocably. He saw with joy the solemn day of his sacred engagements approach. His prayers, his austerities, everything felt the effects of his ardent desires and the sweet hope of being soon fixed forever in the retreat and attached to God by indissoluble bonds. For their part, his superiors, having until then had to admire in his conduct only a piety above all trials, blessed the Father of mercies for the precious gift he was making to them. Thus, everything being prepared, the pious novice pronounced his vows in 1123, with the generosity of a heart that consecrates itself through love and that recovers its freedom under the yoke of Jesus Christ.

After this action, which had just brought his desires to their peak, the first care that his gratitude inspired in him was to thank the divine Goodness for the predilection it had been pleased to grant him, and to implore its help never to forget such a great benefit, nor to belie the holiness of his profession. He understood its full price, and what he had done until then to prepare for it was no longer regarded as anything but a weak apprenticeship for what he proposed to practice thereafter. He was a new man on the path of perfection; having become a disciple of the cross since he had become a religious, his penances increased progressively with his other virtues. His bed served as a veil for his mortifications; he left it to spend on the ground the few moments of rest he could not refuse to the weakness of nature, and even this uncomfortable couch was watered by the blood that flowed under the instruments of his rigors, and by the tears that he always shed in great abundance. That was the portion he gave to his body; but his soul was a sanctuary where one saw the cross of Jesus Christ raised upon the ruins of all desires, of all the inclinations of nature. He was truly like the apostle: "it was not he who lived, but Jesus Christ who lived in him."

Arthaud had neither wanderings to punish, nor vices to uproot, nor constantly reborn passions to overcome; for what he called his great sins were only very light faults from which even the just man cannot be exempt in this life. The penance with which he afflicted his body was therefore not to repair the loss of his innocence, but to preserve it. He had loved it from his tenderest youth, and he always knew how to preserve it from the traps it encounters in the world and especially at court, where it is so difficult to keep it intact amidst the thousand dangers that surround it. Prayer, devotion to the Blessed Virgin who is the queen of all purity, retreat, frequent communion, flight from the world whose corrupting breath is so dangerous for such a delicate flower, the avoidance of persons of a different sex, a precaution so recommended by the masters of the spiritual life; these were the means that Arthaud had put to use to preserve without stain the robe of innocence he had received at the baptismal font.

His life was therefore a life hidden in Jesus Christ; his heart sighed only for God, his spirit was constantly raised toward heaven, and both united to form those bursts of love, those raptures, those ecstasies, which sometimes transported him out of himself. The studies, which are often a subject of dissipation, were for him an occasion to advance more and more in holiness. Theology, which develops the admirable perfections of God, which speaks above all of his benefits toward men, was singularly to his taste; he applied himself to it with the greatest care, so that his science soon equaling his great holiness, his superiors called him to the priesthood as soon as he had reached the age required by the canons of the Church. However penetrated he was with his insufficiency for such a formidable ministry, his submission prevailed over his profound humility. He thought only of imploring with new fervor the powerful help of that God of goodness who, by paths unknown to the prudence of the flesh, had so happily led him to the sure port of salvation.

While he was thus preparing to receive the indelible character of the priesthood, Ilumbald, Archbishop of Lyon, arrived in 1125 at Portes to bless the church of this charterhouse. Our Saint received, from this illustrious archbishop, the laying on of hands and the holy anointing that consecrate the ministers of the Lord. Humbert de Grammont, Bishop of Geneva, assisted at this ceremony. This prelate, having seen for himself all that fame had taught him about Arthaud, bound himself to him in a close friendship.

Having reached the sublime dignity of t he priesthood, the Humbert de Grammont Bishop of Geneva and friend of the saint. fervent religious regarded his elevation as a new engagement for him to ascend to a higher perfection. The liveliest faith, the tenderest piety, came to add even more to everything we have admired until now in a life, it seems, more angelic than human. Charity, that celestial virtue, took from then on such an increase that one never saw him lose the spirit of recollection and prayer that united him to his Creator; often even his superiors found him in his cell, motionless and plunged into the contemplation of the beauties and mercies of the Lord. One would have said, in seeing him, that he was tasting in advance the ineffable delights that are in heaven the food of the predestined. He spent entire hours on his knees at the foot of the altars, glued to the cross of Jesus Christ, without anything being capable of distracting him. But it was especially during the celebration of the holy mysteries that he felt the ardors of the sacred fire that consumed his heart redouble. Serenity, and it is even asserted, rays of a supernatural light shone on his face, and his thanksgiving was accompanied by a torrent of tears, very sweet indeed, since gratitude made them flow. The faith that animated him toward Jesus Christ present in the Holy Eucharist was so lively that God seemed to show himself to him without a veil on the altars. If the strength of respect made him tremble at the approach of the sanctuary, the love that drew him there quickly triumphed over this fear, and made him understand through the tenderest emotions that he was created only to love God. In a word, he was the true priest of Jesus Christ. His body was chaste, his mouth pure, his spirit enlightened with a superhuman light, and his heart all burning with a holy zeal for his sanctification and for that of his brothers; thus, through his advice and his exhortations to the people who came from all parts to consult him on the matter of salvation, he had kindled the fire of divine love throughout the Bugey. Purified by penance, united to God by humility and prayer, prudent in all his steps, inflamed by the charity that had consumed in him everything that is of man, Arthaud was a perfect religious. The divine architect who had fashioned this precious stone in the desert destined it to become the foundation of a house which, for seven centuries, will be the asylum of piety and a nursery of holy anchorites.

Humbert de Grammont, Bishop of Geneva, whom we have already mentioned, in order to satisfy his own desires as much as those of Prince Amadeus III, had formed the project of calling the Carthusians into the Valromey, which then depended on his diocese. The eminent qualities he had noticed in our Saint, when he came to Portes with the Archbishop of Lyon, made him think that Arthaud was the man whom Providence had set aside for this great work. As the sole heir to the lordship of Sothonod, whose properties extended over a large part of the mountains surrounding the castle of his fathers, this holy religious could provide a location suitable for this establishment: thus the first difficulty disappeared; he alone was able to dispel all the others as well, because his strong and penetrating mind knew how to foresee all obstacles and was never discouraged by them when he could not avoid them, and God, who has promised to listen to fervent prayer, made him find ease where anyone else, less accustomed to the favors of heaven, would have encountered only the impossible; moreover, his name and his reputation ensured him the liberality of the powerful figures who could contribute to the foundation of this new house. At the request of the Bishop of Geneva, he was chosen by Dom Guigo, then Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, to go and found a colony of religious of Saint Bruno in the province of Valromey, five leagues from Belley. It was feared that his humility might make him reject the honor bestowed upon him in favor of another, but he happily saw in the order of his superiors only the voice of God calling him to such great labors. He smiled at the idea that he would have more means to practice poverty and penance. This determination greatly afflicted the religious of Portes who were about to lose such a perfect model; but, firm in his resolution, Arthaud left them with six companions and went to Sothonod; from there he traveled through the neighboring mountains, not to find the most pleasant place, but the one that seemed most suitable to remind religious that they are dead to the world and should no longer have any relationship with it. He did not search for long: a small valley named Cimetière, so called, no doubt because of the sad and wild aspect it presents, was the place Arthaud chose to bury himself alive, an hour from the castle where he was born. It is a new Anthony who appears in this solitude bristling with rocks, brambles, and forests, but which will soon change its face under the fertile hand of religion.

The house undertaken by Saint Arthaud was soon in a state to receive the guests who came to animate this desert with their songs and prayers, because it was built on a small scale and in large part with planks, resembling in every way the lauras of the Thebaid; so that this place, which was shortly before the lair of wild beasts, became the dwelling of fervent anchorites who rose to eminent holiness at the school of their seraphic master. This pious founder wanted the cells to be low and narrow, to remind the religious that they were in a cemetery, alluding to the name of the place where they were built, and to represent to them unceasingly that the entrance to paradise is narrow.

We would find it difficult to depict the admirable life that these holy religious led at first in their solitude. Committed to perpetual silence, all their conversation was only with God in prayer and the recitation of the psalms. It seemed that they had a body only to overwhelm it with austerities, sleeping on planks or bundles of sticks; and even then they interrupted this painful sleep to go to the church to sing Matins and attend to prayer. The day was divided between prayer and manual labor; their almost perpetual fast was sustained only by a little bread and coarsely seasoned vegetables. The heat of summer and the rigors of winter never brought any softening to these harsh practices, much more painful than the labors themselves to which most Christians are condemned, who, far from putting them to use for their salvation, despise the law of the Church on fasting and abstinence, under the pretext that their health is impaired. To encourage themselves to endure so many deprivations, the disciples of Saint Arthaud only had to cast their eyes on their master. He knew how to take advantage of his superiority only to give himself over to more rigorous penances, to choose the most uncomfortable cell, the poorest clothes, the coarsest food. He made them love penance by showing them Jesus Christ on the cross, and cherish poverty by assuring them of the immortal crown that the Savior has promised to those who have the courage to abandon everything to follow Him to Calvary.

For ten years these fervent religious practiced all the evangelical counsels, far from the world, but near to God, who performed several wonders to provide for their existence. The reputation of this small colony had spread far and wide and attracted to Cimetière a large number of fervent Christians who desired to die to the world to live for Jesus Christ. The house could not contain any more, when suddenly a fire, which was in the views of Providence, destroyed this poor heap of cells, traces of which can still be seen today near a small spring, opposite the barn called Cimetière. Ardutius of Faucigny, who had succeeded Humbert de Grammont on the episcopal seat of Geneva, was as favorable to the Carthusians as his predecessor. He came to visit them and found them in such a state of destitution and in a place so harsh and confined that he strongly urged them to build another house, more spacious and solid, in a place less rugged and more convenient for supplies. He promised them his help and the intervention of the Prince of Savoy, as well as the magnificence of other great figures.

Arthaud, as a prudent and thoughtful man, did not want to rush anything in such a serious circumstance. He therefore took preliminary steps to know the suitability of the indicated place, to ensure the means of construction, and to confirm the commitments of the benefactors who offered to help him in this enterprise, so as not to leave any embarrassment in the affairs of the convent, nor any matter for dispute between the religious and the neighboring owners. The location that fixed his choice was on the same mountain, half an hour to the south of Cimetière, to the north of Mount Colombier, the highest in the province of Bugey, in a very narrow valley, on the plateau of a sheer rock, at the foot of which flows with a roar, at a frightening depth, the torrent of Arvières, from which the new Charterhouse took its name. The picturesque exposure of this location, from which the view extends over a part of the Valromey and the Bugey, offered an unbearable temperature; access was easy by means of a road that was effectively established to descend into the village of Lo torrent d'Arvières Monastery founded by Saint Arthaud. chieu and from there into all the surrounding country. Forests and very vast meadows also ensured revenues capable of supporting an establishment that was going to become more considerable than the first.

The attachment that Count Amadeus III had vowed to Saint Arthaud, while he was at his court, had only increased in proportion to the holiness of his former favorite; he therefore eagerly seized the opportunity to give him proof of it, and sent him a considerable sum of money. Already this generous prince had abandoned to him the land designated for building the monastery and all the surrounding properties, declaring that he was making these donations to God, to the Holy Virgin, and to the Carthusians of Arvières.

Humbert III, Lord of Beaujeu, having received the lordship of Valromey with the hand of Alix, daughter of Prince Amadeus, also ratified everything his father-in-law had done, gave the Charterhouse some land, and took it under his special protection. One sees among the illustrious founders of Arvières: Ardutius, Bishop of Geneva; Ponce, Bishop of Mâcon; Anthelme, Bishop of Patras; Bernard and Guillaume, Bishops of Belley; Pierre, Bishop of Glandèves. Several rich lords of Bugey, Bresse, and Savoy contributed to the reconstruction of the monastery. The canons of Belley and the monks of Nantua also showed pious liberality by ceding to this house lands and rights they possessed in Valromey; but one must count among the principal benefactors of Arvières Saint Arthaud himself, who ceded all his goods to it, with the exception of the castle of Sothonod and some dependencies that he left to his only sister, married to Jacques de Michelin, to whom this land passed, brought some time later by his granddaughter into the Seyssel family.

The construction of the Charterhouse of Arvières, pushed by such powerful and liberal hands, was completed in less than four years, during which the religious had many evils to endure in the midst of the ruins of their first house, which they did not want to abandon. At the request of Bishop Ardutius, Pope Lucius II, by his bull of May 2, 1144, addressed to Saint Arthaud, designated the limits that were to serve as the enclosure or spacing for the religious, and declared himself the protector of this monastery, which he took into singular affection. Henry II, King of England, sent, several years after the foundation of this monastery, considerable offerings t o Saint Arth pape Luce II Pope who protected the foundation of Arvières. aud, at the solicitation of Saint Hugh, Prior of the Charterhouse of Witham, and later Bishop of Lincoln, who took the keenest interest in this establishment.

The reputation of our holy prior had soon gathered a great number of disciples around him; at this school, they only had to follow Arthaud to become perfect. To prepare the hearts of his religious to serve God through the practice of the tenderest piety, to teach them to fight the world and hell, to die to themselves, to be saints: this is what Arthaud proposed for himself in his important office. Vigilant regarding everything that could concern their state, his tireless activity made him present in every place where the duty of his charge required it, in order to examine if everything was taking place in order. His insights equaled his zeal; he easily distinguished what motive led a novice to ask for entry into religion, and what victory he had to win over his character. He sent back into the world without difficulty those whom he did not believe were fit to embrace the amiable yoke of the Lord, and to live in the society of the Saints. The rule was, in his eyes, a sacred deposit entrusted to him, whose loss or maintenance was to be his work. We have already seen that he never transgressed it while he was a simple religious; thus he watched to have it practiced in its full extent as soon as he was superior; and whatever the gentleness of his government, he was inflexible when it came to regularity. Silence and retreat are the soul and life of religious: he made them feel their necessity by comparing those who love recollection to trees planted in a well-enclosed place, and those who were dissipated to trees along the high roads: the former produce fruits that come to maturity, and the others, shaken constantly by passersby, yield nothing to their masters. His words thus carried with them strength, feeling, and persuasion, because they were born of charity and were supported by example. If he spoke to them of penance, they saw in him a body mortified and reduced to servitude; if he preached humility to them, he placed himself below them, by proposing them as models, he whom no one could equal. He taught them charity toward their neighbor through the tender care he took of all his disciples, especially the sick. His attention made him descend to the smallest details, and he never withdrew from their bedside without having poured into their hearts new strength to suffer with patience. His charity also extended to all their spiritual needs: as soon as he saw some plunged into sadness, he hastened to console them, to soften the pains and disgusts they might encounter in their state, by showing them the immortal reward that will be the happy end of constant fidelity. He strengthened in their vocation those who feared they would not persevere in it; he raised their courage through the just contempt for the world that he inspired in them, through the help of heaven that he promised to implore for them, and through the example of the Saints that he constantly placed before their eyes even more by his actions than by his words. His solicitude was too great to be confined within the walls of his monastery; it extended to the unfortunate in all the surrounding areas. He distributed abundant alms to them every day that often exhausted the monastery's granaries, relying, for the subsistence of the religious, on the help of Providence, which never failed him. It was especially in the midst of the poor that one perceived his patience, his gentleness, and his tender charity. This tender father, which is the name they gave him, thus softened the pains of their indigence as much by the attention he put into relieving them as by the relief itself that he lavished upon them.

Like the flower of the desert whose perfumes attract the traveler's steps, our Saint spreads far and wide the good odor of virtues. After the death of the Bishop of Be évêque de Belley Original diocese and place of education of the saint. lley, the clergy and the people, with a unanimous voice, which was that of God, asked for Arthaud to be their spiritual and temporal prince. The news of this election preceded the deputies of Belley, who were charged with bringing it to him. The holy prior, terrified by the burden they wished to impose upon him, ran to hide in a cave that is still shown today with a kind of veneration under the name of the Balme of Saint-Arthaud. It is seen in the side of the sheer rock upon which the monastery was built, at a great height above the torrent that rushes in this place, and whose monotonous roar makes this cave even wilder and sadder. In vain did the religious and the envoys search for him for three days, plunged in anguish and tears. God, not wanting this light, which was to cast such a bright glow in His Church, to remain any longer under a bushel, already made it shine in a miraculous way to the eyes of the deputies. A supernatural light led them into the cave, where they found Arthaud deeply afflicted by their appearance; but he had nothing to defend himself against their entreaties but his sighs and groans, and the pretext of his incapacity and his strength weakened under the weight of old age. They did not yield to his reasons; they pulled him from his retreat, they dragged him to Belley where he was received like an angel coming from heaven. The people rushed along his path, the clergy stretched out their arms to him, and the holy anointing did not delay in giving him the power to govern this Church, consoled for the successive loss of two holy bishops whom it saw reborn in this one. Arthaud, having finally recognized the voice of God, took up the government of his diocese towards the end of the year 1188 or the beginning of 1189; he found almost nothing to change, almost nothing to reform. He perceived in the clergy and in the people only virtues to be supported, and what man was more fit than he to strengthen the good already done, to maintain the devouring fire of charity in the priests, and the taste for studies among the levites; to watch over vices to stifle them at their birth, to cement the reign of God in the hearts of his flock, and to finally make them enjoy all the delights that the practice of religion provides? The labors he imposed upon himself were immense, but they were not above the zeal of the worker. He traveled through the different parishes of his diocese: he was a beneficent star that rose over them to enlighten them, and whose happy influence gave new life, new strength to the religious spirit. He was a father who saw his children by whom he was tenderly loved; his sight alone exalted the sentiments of faith, his persuasive eloquence dried up lawsuits and quarrels, his consoling words dried tears, his enlightened advice strengthened the weak, his powerful virtue healed the sick, his large alms restored peace and abundance to the cottage of the poor.

As soon as he returned from his apostolic journeys, his palace became a house of charity where he gathered, every day, a large number of the unfortunate and distributed to them himself the word of God, clothing, and food. It was not to them that his zeal was limited; he went to seek out sinners, and made them remonstrances so gentle and so strong at the same time, that they rarely remained without effect, and often he completed their conversion by his prayers and by the harsh penances he imposed upon himself for them. His solicitude, like that of Saint Paul, made him take care of all the churches as well. He knew that the decency and majesty of the temples contribute powerfully to elevating the soul and giving the faithful a great idea of the Master who dwells in them; thus, as soon as he had repaired and embellished his cathedral, he turned all his care toward the other churches of his diocese; he excited the zeal of the priests and the liberality of the faithful so that they might be kept and adorned in the manner most suitable to the holy place, so that the august ceremonies of religion might be celebrated with the pomp that awakens in hearts the sentiments of respect and devotion that we have so little care to maintain there. The time he did not spend on the administration of his diocese, he shared between the study of the Holy Scripture and prayer, following, as much as his duties allowed him, the rule of the Carthusians, of which he never infringed the precept that makes it a duty for them to fast and abstain perpetually. The honors that were attached to his merit and his rank did not change him; the splendor that surrounded him did not alter his taste for poverty; the simplicity of his furniture, his clothes, his apartments, and his table reminded him of his dear solitude of Arvières, which he went to visit sometimes, and from which he never parted but with regret. Finally, after two years of a glorious episcopate, by dint of solicitations based on his great age and his infirmities, he obtained, in 1190, from Pope Clement III, the permission to leave his bishopric to return to his cell. Neither the tears nor the desolation of his flock, nor his tender attachment to them, could turn him away from the project he had formed of spending the rest of his life in solitude, to die on the ashes in the midst of his brothers. His paternal heart was, however, cruelly torn at the approach of this separation; but accustomed for a long time to despise himself, he thought that another bishop would be more useful to the flock he was abandoning; that other hands, stronger and more skillful, would more surely ward off the enemy man from the field of the father of the family, and would extirpate the tares that he accused his own carelessness and laziness of having let grow there.

Thus strengthened in his design, Arthaud gave the final proof of his attachment to the good people he was leaving, by obtaining from God through his prayers a successor endowed with the qualities that the apostle Saint Paul enumerates to make a holy bishop: this was Eudes II, a man of great piety, whom the gentleness of his character and the goodness of his soul made dear to everyone, and who knew, through his great charity, how to calm the universal regrets that the retirement of his predecessor had given rise to.

Arthaud, having returned to his cell, redeemed through the strength of penance the time he had lost, as he said, in the tumult of affairs, and washed away the dust of the century in his tears and his blood; age had taken nothing from his ardor when it came to the fulfillment of the Rule; we saw him, upon leaving adolescence, begin his course in the narrow path of the evangelical counsels, and from the very first step arrive almost at the end. At the age of ninety, he returned to this first career as a simple religious, after having honored the episcopate with all sorts of virtues, and until beyond a century, he maintained all the fervor, the scrupulous exactitude, the active and eager courage of beginners, the tender piety, the sensitive devotion, the timorous conscience, the austere mortification, and the passive submission of a novice. His retreat could not shelter him from the great personages of the Church and State who came to seek from him the counsel of an old man consumed in wisdom and prudence, who had always lived in reflection, far from the intrigues that distort judgment and corrupt the heart. Nothing was spoken of but his virtues; he, on the contrary, thought himself very far from the holiness to which he believed he had never worked enough; he groaned over his faults, and sighed for heaven while complaining, like the Prophet, of the length of his exile, in the desire to enjoy the true homeland sooner. His time was employed only in exercises of preparation for death. It seemed that after having given the example of a holy life for a century, God left him on earth for five more years to teach us all how one must prepare for this terrible passage, through prayer, through the sacraments, and through acts of perfect resignation to death, which is the penalty of sin.

Whatever his weakening, he was never seen to lose the tranquility of his soul; the more he felt his strength diminish, the more he renewed his submission to the orders of heaven, and his heart lived entirely within a body almost extinguished. He was a victim immolated by suffering, whose remains were consumed by the fire of charity. No longer able to celebrate the holy mysteries, he nevertheless participated every day in holy communion, and it was in a transport of gratitude, after such a holy act, that his final hour was revealed to him from above. Death, at this moment, appeared to him as a liberator who came to break his chains and give him the freedom he had desired for so long, and through aspirations drawn from the sacred canticles, the holy old man greeted his renascent youth. In this moment, similar to the ancient tree whose branches bent toward the earth invite one to gather the fruits with which they are laden, he turned toward the companions of his solitude to lavish upon them his final counsels and his final blessings. "Thank, my dear children," he repeated to them incessantly, "thank the God of mercies who has delivered you from the misfortunes of Egypt, to make you enter into a land of blessing. Ask Him with insistence for the graces that are necessary for you to persevere holily in the state you have embraced; may the Holy Spirit be your light in your doubts and your consoler in your sorrows; may the most holy Virgin, toward whom I recommend you always have a tender devotion, be your protectress before God; always be the true disciples of Saint Bruno, always ready to follow the evangelical precepts and counsels with that fidelity of which he gave us the example. You are the founders of this house, grow every day in virtues, so that holiness may be perpetuated here from age to age by the good traditions that you will leave to those who come after you." He then repeated to them the words that the beloved Apostle did not cease to say to his disciples in his extreme old age: "My children, love one another; may charity be the bond that unites you all together, and all together to Jesus Christ." After these discourses and others like them, his love for those he called his children seemed to revive his failing hand, which rose to bless them again, or rather to pour upon them the graces of heaven. Then, like the swan, symbol of purity, which, it is said, announces its death through its songs, he intoned canticles of joy: "I rejoiced at what was told me - we shall go into the house of the Lord. My soul desires to go to you, my God! as the thirsty stag sighs after a pure stream. I burn with an ardent thirst until I can quench it in the fountain of living water which is my God: when shall I appear before his face? Lord, deliver my soul from the prison of its body, the just await me to be witnesses of the reward that I dare to hope for from your goodness."

Bernard II, Bishop of Belley, who professed the deepest veneration for Saint Arthaud, with whom he had maintained a close bond since they had known each other at Portes, warned of the state of his friend, departed promptly for Arvières, accompanied by several canons of his cathedral. The two bishops had together a long conversation on the happiness enjoyed by the Saints in heaven, during which one could see the heart of the dying man revive and palpitate with more strength; his face then covered itself with sweet tears, his mouth addressed the most affectionate words to Jesus and Mary; the religious surrounded his bed plunged in the most bitter sorrow, and the Saint said to them, to console them: "Why afflict yourselves, my children? do not weep for my death, the hour of my happy sleep has arrived, here is the moment when God is going to show me mercy; besides, I have already lived too long, I am no longer necessary to you here below, I will be more useful to you in heaven"; and he blessed them again while recommending to them the love of poverty, the exercise of prayer, and the practice of penance. Feeling his end approaching, he asked for the last sacraments, which he received with the transports of the most vivid love and the most touching gratitude, answering the prayers himself. After holy communion, he conversed for a long time with the Author of eternal life, his face inflamed and in a kind of ecstasy. But returned from this state, he begged the religious to place him on the floor covered with ashes, as prescribed by the Rule of the Carthusians. The sight of Jesus dying on a cross, which was offered to his gaze, revived his weakened strength; he placed himself on his trembling knees, raised his arms and hands toward the heavens: he seemed to be praying still, and he was no more. Thus was extinguished, on October 6, 1206, this torch that had illuminated the world, the desert, and the Church for more than a century.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The mortal remains of the great servant of God were placed with pomp in a stone tomb, in front of the door of the church of the Charterhouse of Arvières. The sweet odor of his holiness penetrated the neighboring provinces and attracted to Arvières a continuous concourse of faithful who came to ask for particular graces that God, to honor his servant, granted to their fervent prayers. The report of these wonders only increased the crowd of pious petitioners. Some ran to implore spiritual and temporal favors, others to bring to the Saint's tomb the homage of their veneration, and to thank him either for some miraculous healing or for some other signal benefit they recognized having received through his merits and mediation. His cult was thus established, and since then he was almost never invoked in vain, especially in times of sickness, or in calamitous times of drought or rain whose duration destroyed the hope of the laborers.

Fame published every day the names of the infirm who had obtained their healing, of the dying who had been recalled to health by placing their trust in Saint Arthaud; it added all the circumstances that established the truth and authenticity of these extraordinary facts, when Mgr Juste Guérin, Bishop of Geneva, upon the pressing solicitation of Claude Rouier, prior of the Charterhouse of Arvières, and to comply with the wish of the entire Order of Saint Bruno, resolved to perform the recognition of the holy body; but the infirmities of this venerable prelate did not allow him to preside over this ceremony. The illustrious Bishop of Belley, Jean de Passelaigue, was charged with representing the Bishop of Geneva on this occasion.

On August 9, 1646, he went to Arvières, accompanied by Dom Claude de Rée, prior of the Charterhouse of Pierre-Châtel, visitor of the province, and a large number of ecclesiastics and faithful who had come from afar to contemplate the worthy object of their tender veneration. God, who watches over the preservation of the bones of his Saints, had preserved the body of his faithful servant from the corruption of the tomb. The applause and cries of joy that the sight of this treasure, which the worms had not destroyed, excited, mingled with the thanksgivings of those who were miraculously healed, formed the most beautiful concert that could honor this feast. The holy body was placed in a reliquary of precious wood, then deposited again in the same stone tomb, where the faithful came from then on to touch objects of devotion, cloths that were impregnated, so to speak, with the virtue of the Saint, and whose application became a resource for the afflicted and a relief in their sufferings. Mgr de Passelaigue was so struck by the wonders wrought by the touching of the relics of Saint Arthaud that he requested and obtained a considerable bone which was sent to the Capuchin convent in Belley, then transferred, in 1645, to the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

The name of Saint Arthaud was inserted into the universal martyrology, and his memory was celebrated at Arvières on October 6. The feast of Saint Bruno, which fell on that day, prevented his feast from being celebrated more solemnly; but the crowd of the faithful always surrounded his tomb, until the moment when impiety came to destroy it.

At that unhappy time when the revolutionary hammer struck everything that recalled a virtue, the religious of Arvières conceived fears even more vivid for the loss of the body of their holy founder than for that of their own lives. Secretly warned by the commissioners summoned by the district of Belley to carry out the complete evacuation of their convent, they begged the inhabitants of Lochieu, whose faith and peaceful dispositions they knew, to be the depositaries of the holy body. It was subscribing to their wishes. On Sunday, July 17, 1791, at the end of the parish mass, M. Crusey, their parish priest, at the head of a procession increased by the population of all the neighboring villages, escorted by municipal officers and a guard of honor, went up to the Charterhouse: the Fathers were waiting for them there, singing Vespers. The holy body, enclosed in the ebony reliquary trimmed with silver, was handed over to M. Crusey by the religious and carried by the confreres of the Blessed Sacrament into the church of Lochieu, amidst the respect and songs of the people who accompanied it. It was placed on the main altar where the Christians who remained faithful did not cease to surround it with homage and prayers until January 2, 1794.

While the revolutionaries were fighting over the riches with which piety had surrounded the reliquary, the faithful seized the treasure it contained, and, to hide this prey from these greedy men, they had the happy thought of burying it in the cemetery, persuaded that the dwelling of the dead, offering nothing to the sacrilegious capacity of the profaners, would be a place of safety for these sacred remains. Precautions were taken to identify the place of the deposit as soon as the Lord had made calm succeed the storm. The religious, dispersed by the revolutionary usage, had disappeared from Arvières; their house was pillaged, and soon it offered nothing more than a heap of rubble.

Upon his arrival in the diocese of Belley, Mgr Devie had occupied himself with restoring to the relics of Saint Arthaud the honors of which an unha ppy revol Mgr Devie 19th-century Bishop of Belley who restored the cult of the saint. ution had almost entirely stripped them. According to his orders, they were raised from the ground on July 22, 1824, by M. de la Croix, vicar-general of Belley. Witnesses, those very ones who had hidden the holy body, were heard concerning the place and the circumstances of the burial they had made in the cemetery. Provided with this information, M. de la Croix proceeded with the exhumation in the presence of M. de Seyssel de Sothonod, a relative of the Saint; of M. Chubansy, parish priest of Brenze; of M. Colletta, vicar of Belley, who accompanied him; in the presence of the authorities and the population of Lochieu, further increased by that of the neighboring parishes which the noise of this ceremony had attracted. The preliminary depositions were so exact that in less than a few minutes they found the box containing the bones of Saint Arthaud, surrounded by all the indications given by the witnesses signed in the minutes of this ceremony. The bones were carefully verified and compared with those contained in another small reliquary that was once seen on the altar of the church of Arvières, and which was kept in that of Lochieu throughout the reign of Terror.

The identity of these bones was established; they were enclosed in a wooden box on which several wax seals with the arms of M. de La Croix d'Asolette were carefully affixed. The deposit was made in the hands of M. David, mayor of the commune. From then on, Mgr Devie worked with even more zeal to revive devotion to Saint Arthaud and to prepare the translation of his mortal remains to the church of Lochieu.

While a distinguished worker from the capital was crafting the bronze-gilt reliquary that was to receive the holy remains; while the mausoleum on which they were to rest was being prepared, Mgr Devie was drawing up a regulation to organize the Confraternity of the Good Life and the Good Death, under the patronage of Saint Arthaud. Thousands of the faithful had themselves registered on the catalog of this society, whose goal is so eminently religious. The Sovereign Pontiff Pius VIII approved it by his brief of February 5, 1830, and also wished to grant: 1° A plenary indulgence to the members of this Confraternity on the day of their reception; 2° a plenary indulgence at the moment of their death; 3° an indulgence of sixty days for all acts of charity that the associates will exercise towards one another. By a brief dated February 16 of the same year, the Pope further granted: 1° A plenary indulgence to all the faithful who will receive communion in the church of Lochieu on October 6, the day of the feast of Saint Arthaud; 2° a plenary indulgence to those who attended the solemn translation of the relics, or who subsequently receive communion in the church of Lochieu on the anniversary day of this translation, or one of the eight days preceding it; 3° an indulgence of fifty days to all persons, each time they visit the relic of Saint Arthaud.

Everything being thus arranged, Mgr Devie gave notice that the solemnity of the translation would take place on April 13, 1830. The crowd of the faithful who flocked to this ceremony was immense. The prelate, escorted by a numerous clergy, had gone the day before to Virieux-le-Petit, and, from the morning of April 13, he moved to Lochieu. The box containing the relics was handed to him by M. David, mayor of the commune. After verifying that the seals affixed by M. de La Croix on July 22, 1824, were perfectly intact, the commissioners appointed by the Bishop opened the casket in his presence, took out the bones it contained, and placed them in the gilded bronze reliquary provided by the commune. A numerous procession was organized and accompanied the mortal remains of the holy protector of Valromey, which were carried in triumph throughout the village of Lochieu. Upon returning to the church, they were placed on the monument that the inhabitants had had prepared for them in their church. The ceremony was concluded by a solemn mass celebrated by the Bishop of Belley. Since that memorable day, the crowd of the faithful has not ceased to flock to the chapel of Lochieu, mainly on October 6, the day of the feast of the holy founder of Arvières, and on the Tuesday after Easter, the anniversary of the translation of which we have just spoken.

To fully satisfy the piety of the faithful and the clergy, Mgr Devie requested from the Sovereign Pontiff the extension of the cult of Saint Arthaud throughout his diocese, and the authorization to perform his office. According to the rules established by Urban VIII, the cult of Saint Arthaud, formerly circumscribed in the Charterhouse of Arvières and in the small province of Valromey, could not be celebrated throughout the diocese without the consent of the head of the Church. Gregory XVI, by the briefs of June 2 and September 6, 1834, granted the requests of the venerable Bishop of Belley, and the office of Saint Arthaud, not being able to be performed on October 6 because of the occurrence of that of Saint Bruno, was fixed for the 7th, under the semi-double major rite.

Excerpt from the Hagiological History of Belley, by Mgr Depéry.