Saint Martin of Tours

One day, while he was traveling during a winter so harsh that many people died of cold, he met at the gates of Amiens, on the Agripp Amiens Episcopal see of Geoffrey. an Way leading from Lyon to Boulogne, a poor man who was almost naked and asking passersby for alms. Seeing that the others had not even paid attention to this unfortunate man, he thought that God had reserved him for him. But what would he give? That day he did not even have a coin. Charity, which knows not how to calculate, is nevertheless ingenious and knows no impossibilities. Immediately recalling these words of the divine Master: I was naked, and you clothed me: "My friend," he said to the poor man, "I have only my weapons and my clothes; let us share these. Here, take your part." He had barely finished these words when he had already split his chlamys in two with his sword and thrown half of it to the shivering beggar. The following night, he saw in a miraculous dream Our Lord Jesus Christ covered with that half of the cloak and saying to a troop of angels arranged around him: "Martin, who is still only a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment." The young soldier was not yet eighteen years old when he performed this act of charity, so generous, so rapid, so spontaneous, which revealed his whole soul. One sees this immortal trait engraved on an ancient medal found in Autun: so deep were the traces, so lively and dear was the memory that Martin had left in that city where we shall soon follow him.

Some time later, he received baptism, after having passed through all the trials of the competentes or postulants, and always nourishing his great project of living only for God, he thought from then on seriously about his retirement. However, at the request of a superior officer, his friend, who promised to retire at the same time as him to dedicate himself likewise to God, he consented to remain under the colors for two more years. But his thoughts were elsewhere, and more than ever his soul lived in a higher sphere. Finally, the moment arrived when he could escape the sad necessity of shedding human blood and enter the more perfect path to which he felt called by divine Providence. The Germans having made an incursion into the lands of the empire (in 336); the troops dispersed in their cantonments were gathered, and before leading them to the enemy, they were given the usual largesse in such cases. Martin, decided to leave the army, had the remarkable delicacy to refuse a reward which, according to him, supposed the continuation of military service, and took advantage of this occasion to ask for his discharge, saying that he could not accept a gratuity because, decided to enter the militia of Jesus Christ, it was not permitted for him to fight. As they were on the eve of seeing the enemy, this request was naturally regarded as proof of cowardice. The generous soul of Martin, full of that noble pride worthy of a soldier of Rome, and also worthy of a soldier of Jesus Christ who wishes to keep his name as a Christian free from any stain, could only revolt at such an imputation. "Well then!" he said, "since it is so, let them put me in the front rank tomorrow, without offensive or defensive weapons. I shall have nothing to oppose to the enemy but the sign of the cross, and it will be seen if a Christian is afraid of death." What happened during the night between God and his servant? No mortal has known; but the next day, at the break of dawn, a deputation of the barbarians came to the camp to ask for peace. Then Martin was able to take his discharge immediately and dedicate himself entirely to the service of the divine King. The fatigues and perilous hazards of war had only strengthened his courage, without taking anything away from his virtue, and tempered his great soul even more strongly.

When he finally saw himself for the first time in possession of that freedom he had desired solely to offer as a sacrifice to God, Martin, then about twenty years old, first went to find Maximin, Bishop of Trier, made the journey to Rome with him, and, after the death of that holy prelate (in 348), went to see Saint Maixent, his brother, Bishop of Poitiers. Some time later, Hilary replaced Maixen Hilaire Bishop and Doctor of the Church, ally of Eusebius against Arianism. t on the see of that city, and Martin was happy to be accepted as his disciple. The great doctor soon recognized the extraordinary merit of the holy young man and wished to attach him to his diocese by ordaining him a deacon. Martin refused this honor, of which he deemed himself too unworthy, and consented only to be made an exorcist. It was like a prophecy announcing the incessant war that our Saint would wage against the demons.

Invested only a few days prior with the power to command these spirits of darkness, the new cleric, upon a warning from heaven and with the permission of his illustrious master, made a journey commanded by zeal as much as by filial piety. Full of an affectionate and Christian solicitude for his parents whom he had left in the darkness of paganism, he wanted to see them one last time to work for their conversion. His old mother and several people in the country opened their eyes to the light of the faith. But this consolation was mixed with bitterness: he had the sorrow, despite all his tender and pious efforts, of failing with his father and left him very sad, unable to do anything but pray for him. The former harsh tribune had received him with a cold and somber air; he could not forgive this only son for having renounced his gods, his profession, and for having deceived his vulgar ambition. It was during this long journey from Poitiers to Sabaria that, while crossing the Alps, Martin fell into the hands of a band of robbers. Already one of them had his arm upon him, when he was suddenly stopped by his companions, struck by the noble, intrepid, and calm air of the traveler. "Who are you, then?" they asked him. — "I am a Christian," replied our Saint. — "Are you not afraid, then?" — "No, a true Christian is never afraid, because he has a clear conscience and knows that Jesus Christ is with him, in life and in death. It is you who, having everything to fear from the justice of men and especially from the justice of God, should justly be afraid." Stupefied to hear from the mouth of an unarmed traveler, who was at their mercy, words so firm and so new to them, dominated by a secret force, by an irresistible ascendancy, and chained by admiration, these men of blood and pillage were astonished at themselves and could not explain how they had been able to find a victor in this defenseless stranger, whom they were nevertheless well resolved to make the prey and victim of their cruel rapacity. The very one who had raised his arm against Martin to strike him embraced the Christian religion and even became a monk. He enjoyed recounting later the providential fact that had given rise to his conversion. It was also during this journey that the demon appeared to Martin in human form and sought to frighten him with threats. But the Saint was no more afraid of him than of the brigands of the Alps; and the two enemies promised each other a good war. Both kept their word; but the genius of evil was always forced to flee before the man who was armed with the strength of God Himself.

Nourished by the instructions and inspired by the zeal of Saint Hilary for the faith of Nicaea, the exorcist of Poitiers, before returning to Gaul, vigorously fought the Arians in Illyria. Mistreated publicly and driven out by these heretics, he went to Italy. There, he learned that Saint Hilary had just been exiled for the faith, and he withdrew to Milan. Then, realizing for the first time the dream of his childhood, our Saint made himself a small monastery where he lived with a few disciples, among others Maurilius, whose father was governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and Gaudentius, who later became Bishop of Novara. He was enjoying in peace the happiness of serving God in retirement, when the Arian bishop Auxentius, learning that there was in the city a monk, an ardent defender of the divinity of the Word and a disciple of Hilary, flew into a rage, overwhelmed him with insults and blows, and expelled him ignominiously. Exiled in his very exile, what will become of Martin? Gaul has no attractions for him: Hilary is no longer there. He takes, with a holy priest who had attached himself to him, the resolution to leave the dwelling of cities and to flee even inhabited places. Near the coast of Liguria (the country of Genoa) is a desert island named Gallinaria. It is there that he goes to hide with his companion, far from men to be closer to God, while waiting for better days. A strange incident, says the legend, marked his entry into this sad abode. Beelzebub had once driven out the inhabitants and had reigned there as master ever since. Scarcely had the man of God set foot in this solitude than the evil spirit, unable to bear his presence, deserted the place with frightful howls, and withdrew with his infernal legions to another place from which he was again expelled. Having one day eaten, without knowing it, some poisonous plant on his uncultivated island, for he lived only on roots and wild herbs, the pious solitary was reduced to the last extremity. But he immediately recommended himself to Jesus Christ; and the divine Master, who reserved his faithful servant for great things, granted him the favor of a sudden and complete recovery. He continued to spend, in retirement, in prayer, and in the harshest austerities, the life that had just been miraculously restored to him: thus preluding, alone with God and the holy priest who had become his imitator, the exercises of that monastic life toward which the inclination of his heart always drew him.

Finally, the Arian persecution had subsided, and the great Bishop of Poitiers, the Athanasius of the West, hastened to return to his homeland, of which he was the support, the beacon, and the glory. Martin, at this news, left immediately for Rome where he hoped to meet him. But Hilary is already no longer there. The disciple then flies in the footsteps of his master and arrives almost at the same time as him in the city of Poitiers, happy to have found again a pastor and a father. How vivid was the joy of these two Saints who had learned to appreciate and love each other, when they threw themselves, after five years of exile, into each other's arms! They had separated while shedding tears; on the day of the reunion they shed them again; but this time they were tears of happiness. Soon after, Saint Hilary, knowing the taste of his dear disciple for the religious life, ceded him a piece of land, two and a half leagues from the episcopal city, in the beautiful valley of the Clain; and Ligugé, the first monastery of Gaul, was founded (362). Martin, forty Ligugé First monastery founded by Martin in Gaul. -seven years old, shut himself up there with a number of disciples large enough to form a regular community which he governed under the authority of the holy Bishop of Poitiers. He was at the height of his wishes: his life could therefore henceforth be spent entirely in maintaining intimate communications with heaven and in preparing, through the exercises of the monastic life, worthy ministers of Jesus Christ. For the goal of these first monks, disciples of Saint Martin, was to work for their perfection in a life of retirement, piety, and study, to make themselves capable of serving the Church usefully when they would be called to exercise the functions of the holy ministry and the apostolate. Our Saint therefore rendered an immense service by establishing these kinds of regular seminaries from which came men solidly established in all virtues to go, on the order of the bishops, to work for the conversion of souls and to do the work of God in the midst of the peoples. In order to give his disciples the example of this life of the religious united to the life of the missionary, he began from then on to do what he would do until his last day. He went to preach in the countryside still full of poor idolaters; but he always returned with eagerness to the monastery to retemper his soul in calm and prayer.

Providence, which had intended to use him to make monastic order and discipline flourish in Gaul alongside the priestly life, allowed him only to taste the happiness of his dear solitude at Ligugé. It reserved his high virtue, his eminent merit, his great soul, and his immense zeal for a vaster theater. And to powerfully support the important mission to which it was about to call him, to accredit him in some way to the peoples as its ambassador, the divine Master communicated to him from then on the gift of miracles to the highest degree. For before leaving Ligugé, the humble and modest religious performed several, among which history particularly notes the resurrection of two dead men. Soon the fame of his wonders and the brilliance of his eminent holiness crossed the quiet enclosure where he thought he would shelter his life forever, doing good obscurely and hiding with all possible care the slightest actions capable of attracting the attention of men. He was betrayed. Already the noise his name was making flew far; and he did not know what his reputation, or rather Providence, was preparing for him. Tours had just lost its bishop and had cast its eyes on Martin. A numerous deputation from the city therefore set out with the mandate to go and fetch him, and if necessary to carry him off despite all resistance. But the difficulty was to lure him out of the monastery. Ruricius, head of the deputation, succeeded by cunning. Having had his troop stop at some distance, he detached himself and went alone to Ligugé. There, without making himself known, he said to the man of God: "My wife is dangerously ill and asks for your assistance. Please follow me immediately." He knew well that charity had total power over this great heart and would triumph over the resistances of humility. Martin followed him indeed. Happy with the success of his pious ruse, Ruricius hastened to lead him to the place where his fellow citizens were waiting for him. The Saint suddenly found himself surrounded, taken by force, and carried off to be placed on the episcopal seat that the recent death of Saint Lidoire had just left vacant. At the sight of the poor monk, some people showed disgust. "What! Is that all!... How can one find a bishop in a man of such a humble and neglected exterior?" There was even a party formed against him; but the people and the clergy of Tours wanted him at any cost. They were right and stood firm. The opposition felt ashamed before the manifestation of the unanimous wishes and saw itself forced to submit. Martin was immediately proclaimed and consecrated by the assembled prelates on July 4, in the year 372.

Thus drawn unexpectedly and against his will from his beloved solitude to be raised to the episcopate, our Saint, in order to unite as much as possible the advantages, the sweetness, and the holy austerities of the monastic life with the duties of his new dignity, but also, and above all, in order to form and always have at hand evangelical workers capable of supporting his zeal, founded near his episcopal city, on the right bank of the Loire, a monastery whose cells were built of wood or dug into the banks of the soft limestone of Touraine. Such is the origin of the famous abbey of Marmoutier or th e great mo Marmoutier Abbey founded by Martin near Tours. nastery par excellence, magnum monasterium. He often went to refresh his soul and spend all the time that the grave and numerous occupations of his office left him in this holy retreat, in the midst of the religious who, under his direction, prepared themselves for the holy ministry, studied, copied books, attended to prayer, to the singing of the praises of God, and to the exercises of penance, and only left to go and exercise the functions of the apostolate. This monastery became like a seminary of bishops: all the cities desired to have missionary pastors formed by Saint Martin. To preserve more surely the religious and apostolic spirit, which is a spirit of sacrifice highly exposed to being lost in the midst of riches, the holy bishop was inflexible regarding poverty. Here is an example:

Lycontius, formerly a provincial governor, a personage as distinguished by his piety as by the high rank he occupied in the empire, wrote to him one day, his heart broken, that a contagious disease had broken out in his house and was causing great ravages there. He begged him at the same time to intercede with God to obtain the cessation of the scourge. Martin, touched by the pain of his friend, immediately locked himself in his cell, remained there seven days and seven nights, fasting and praying. He only came out after having in some way done violence to heaven and obtained the grace he was asking for. Lycontius came to thank him and offered him, as a testimony of gratitude, two hundred marks of silver. But the Saint did not allow the smallest part of this sum to be kept for his monastery. He demanded that it be entirely consecrated to the relief of the poor, and replied to some of his disciples who pointed out the needs of the community: "Religious should have only clothing and food that is strictly indispensable. Now, the Church," he added, "will always be in a position to provide for it, especially when it is known that we despise riches." — The following trait shows both the care he took to keep the monastic Rules intact and his skill in the guidance of souls.

A former soldier came one day to ask to be received into his monastery. "Are you married?" the Saint said to him. — "Yes," replied the soldier. — "Well! my friend, I cannot admit you." — "But my wife is like me decided to embrace the religious life." — Martin, admiring such beautiful sentiments, finally welcomed the solicitor's request with his ordinary kindness, and after having sufficiently tested the dispositions of the pious couple, he placed the wife in a house he had established for virgins consecrated to Jesus Christ, and allowed the husband to build himself a cell near those of the monks. But then, a short time later, the novice, taking a dislike to the monastic state, imagined that if he could have his wife with him, he would serve God with more fervor, because, in his thought, both would mutually excite each other to virtue. This poor man therefore went to find the holy bishop and, opening his heart to him, expressed the desire to have his wife with him, if that were possible. Martin, surprised by such a proposal, tried to make him understand directly the incompatibility of his request with the religious profession; but it was in vain. Then, taking a detour, he said to him: "You have been a soldier, have you not, and you have undoubtedly found yourself several times in the fray?" — "Yes," replied the former soldier. — "Well! my friend, tell me, have you ever thought of taking your wife with you into battle? Have you even had the thought?" — "No, certainly." — "And now that you have come here to fight the battles of the Lord, you would like to have her at your side?" It took no more than that to dispel the temptation; and the veteran persevered until the end, without experiencing new dislikes in the vocation that God had inspired in him.

However careful he was to preserve the regular discipline in all its integrity, his zeal was nevertheless full of sweetness and long-suffering. One day he was obliged to address reproaches to one of his disciples who, having barely entered the clergy, forgetting the lessons of the monastery, had bought horses and was leading the life of a secular. Brice, that was the name of this worldly cleric, of this indocile and ungrateful disciple, received his remonstrances very badly, although they were too well deserved and very Brice Indocile disciple and later successor of Martin to the see of Tours. paternal. He even replied with an insolent brusqueness: "It is well for you, who have lost a good part of yours in the license of the camps, to reprimand the conduct of a man who has spent all of his in religious exercises and in the service of the altars!" The venerable bishop, without being moved, tried to calm this unfortunate man and to bring him back gently to better sentiments. But not being able to succeed by his words, he went to kneel down to ask God for the conversion of a soul so rebellious and yet so dear. His prayer was answered. Brice, suddenly changed, returned in all humility to ask forgiveness from the holy Prelate who, full of joy, threw his arms around his neck, embraced him tenderly, and everything was forgotten. As some of the brothers seemed to be scandalized by his indulgence: "Do you want," he said to them, "for me to get angry over insults that only do harm to the one who said them?" And as they pressed him all the same to expel the culprit from the monastery: "What!" he added, "Our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to suffer the traitor Judas near his divine person, and I, who am only a miserable sinner, would send away the repentant Brice!" Martin pitied him and loved him too sincerely to be able to get angry and take severe measures against him. The kindness he showed in this circumstance was all the more admirable as it was not the first time that the culprit put his patience to the test by insulting him grossly and treating him as a dotard. This light, proud, and worldly man did not correct himself entirely yet. But later, he changed completely, even succeeded his admirable master on the seat of Tours, and died a Saint.

It was from this monastery, where he maintained the most perfect regularity and the practice of all virtues by his example and wise direction, that the holy bishop, after having drawn from intimate communion with God an ardent charity and tireless zeal, would set out to evangelize his vast diocese. It was there that he returned to gather new strength before setting out again. In his apostolic journeys, he penetrated to the depths of the most remote countrysides. The poor peasants, coarse, ignorant, and for the most part still idolatrous, were always the principal object of his care. He sought them out everywhere, instructed them with an amiable simplicity, consoled them with a touching kindness, and subdued them by the irresistible ascendancy that the evangelical word had in his mouth, by his examples above all, by his gentleness, and by his holiness supported by the gift of miracles; and always in his wake, the ancient superstitions of Roman or Gallic paganism disappeared.

Amboise was one of the first localities where the holy Pastor went to exercise his zeal. He made numerous conversions there, founded a Church, and gave its government to some of his disciples who gathered into a community and lived there under much the same discipline as in the great monastery of Tours. Cultivated by these worthy workers, the vineyard of the Lord produced fruit a hundredfold. However, there remained not far from there a temple of conical shape, made entirely of cut stone, very solid and very high, where the people honored an idol of extraordinary size. Martin, seeing that this monument perpetuated idolatrous memories in the country, recommended to Marcel, superior of the small community of clerics he had left in the region, to have it torn down. But the disciple, despite all his zeal, could not execute the master's order. Then the holy bishop returned to Amboise; and convinced that, in truth, he must count only on the help of heaven for the realization of his design, he withdrew to a solitary place and spent the night in prayer. Now, the very next morning, a furious hurricane overturned the temple and shattered the idol. Thus did God place the elements at the disposal of him who worked only for His glory and the salvation of souls. What could He refuse to such a lively faith, to such an ardent zeal, to such a persevering prayer?

Arriving one day in another village of his diocese, he found a very frequented ancient temple. As he prepared, according to his custom, to overturn the altars and idols, the pagans, warned of what was happening, ran up in a crowd and drove him away, overwhelming him with insults. Then, says Sulpicius Severus, he remained alone for three days, fasting and begging the Lord to be willing to enlighten this poor people. Finally, two envoys of the celestial militia appeared to him in human form, armed with pikes and shields, and said to him: "We have come to stop this crowd of pagans who have opposed the efforts of your zeal with such brutal resistance. Go now, therefore, in full assurance to execute your enterprise." Martin, who was prostrate with his face to the ground, rose immediately, full of a celestial ardor, overturned the altars, and broke the simulacra of the idolatrous cult, without the pagans offering the slightest resistance. Feeling as if chained by a divine force, in the presence of this man whom they had forced to flee before them three days earlier, they recognized in him the minister of the only true and all-powerful God, converted, and received baptism. — Another time, after setting fire to a temple that was also very famous, seeing the flame pushed by the wind toward a private house that was very close by, he ran, climbed onto the roof of that house, and forbade the fire to spread. Immediately, the fire took a direction completely opposite to the impulse of the wind, and the house in peril was saved. — As he was occupied in a place whose name is unknown, overturning idols, suddenly a man rushed toward him to strike him with a knife. But at the same instant, the weapon shone from the hands of the fanatic and disappeared. — In every village where he arrived to abolish idolatry, Martin was not always reduced to executing the work of destruction himself. When the pagans stubbornly refused to let their temples be torn down, he began to speak to them; and often then his word had such power that, little by little, the anger of these men calmed, and the light of truth soon penetrated their minds. Finally, completely changed and turning against the building themselves, they tore it down with their own hands. More than once, the holy pontiff thus waged war and won the victory with the very troops of his enemy.

But God had not made Martin so great for the diocese of Tours alone. "In order to perpetuate," says Bossuet, "in the Church of the Gauls the glory that Saint Hilary had procured for it, the great bishop of Tours was raised under the discipline of the great bishop of Poitiers; and this Church, renewed by the examples and miracles of this incomparable man, believed it saw the time of the Apostles again: so careful was Divine Providence to awaken among us the ancient spirit and to make the first graces live again!" Soon, indeed, the supernatural ambition that the Holy Spirit had inspired in this sublime soul found itself too cramped within the limits of the Church of Tours. After having visited and renewed his diocese, the man of God felt pressed to extend his journeys and labors outside, even into the most distant provinces. Clad in a poor tunic covered by a black cloak made of coarse hair, mounted on a donkey, and taking with him as auxiliaries some of his religious, he set off as a poor missionary to evangelize the countryside and extirpate the remnants of idolatry; for that is the lot he chose, the task he imposed upon himself. Endowed with a prodigious activity like his zeal, he traveled through almost all the provinces of Gaul, fighting everywhere and always as a victor against the old paganism that fled, forced to go far away to hide to escape the pursuit and conquests of the Gospel. Nothing could stop the steps of the tireless soldier of Jesus Christ: neither the harsh mountains of Auvergne, nor the wild beaches and rocks of Armorica, nor the vast forests of the land of the Carnutes (Chartres), nor the rugged country of the Morvan, distant and last retreats of the Druidism already driven from the cities. Preceded by his immense reputation, surrounded by the brilliance and strong with the influence of a superhuman virtue, having no other weapons than the word of God, the cross, prayer, penance, boundless charity, a faith to move mountains, and the divine power to perform wonders: everywhere, a new and peaceful conqueror, he attracted and submitted the populations to the empire of the divine Master. Everywhere he stifled Celtic superstitions in their cradle, overturned sacred trees, remnants of primitive fetishism, temples, altars, and statues of false gods; taking care to raise in their place a church, an oratory, or a cell, where he left, according to circumstances, one or more religious to support his work, or rather the work of God, and to cultivate the mysterious mustard seed he had sown in passing. Saint Martin is considered the first who, in the province of Tours and perhaps even in all of Gaul, established rural parishes, which has especially contributed to his being regarded as the apostle of the countryside.

Thus, through a profound understanding of human nature, in order to win over the peoples more easily and favor the propagation of the faith, he did not forget to preserve as much as possible for such a temple, such an altar, or such a place, the celebrity that superstition and the gathering of pagans had given them: taking care to substitute in the same place, for the ridiculous and criminal practices of idolatry, the beautiful and pure ceremonies, the sanctifying feasts, the sublime pomps of the Christian cult, and the bloodless sacrifice of the adorable victim.

Let us follow Martin to Trier, where he had been obliged to go to treat with Emperor Valentinian I on some important matter, which no doubt concerned the Church or charity. The prince, prejudiced against the great bishop by Justina, his wife, who was infected with Arianism, and resolved in advance to grant nothing, had his entry to the palace forbidden. Our Saint, after several unsuccessful attempts, had recourse to his ordinary weapons, prayer and penance, to overcome this resistance that hides itself, and to win to his cause Him "who holds the hearts of kings in His powerful hands." After seven days and seven nights of prayer and fasting, he had a vision of an angel. "Go without fear to the palace," the celestial messenger told him, "the doors will be opened to you, and the emperor, however fierce he may be, will soften." Leaving immediately from his cell where he had locked himself to groan before God, he ran with holy confidence to the imperial dwelling, found the entrance perfectly free, and was able to penetrate to Valentinian. This prince, of an excessively violent character, did not deign to rise at first and even flew into a rage. But suddenly conquered and changed by a secret and divine influence, he threw himself on the neck of the pontiff, anticipated his request, even granted him several other audiences, wished to have him as a guest, and finally offered him rich presents, but without ever being able to make him accept them. The feelings of veneration he felt for the man of God increased even more from all his admiration for such selflessness.

In one of his evangelical missions, Martin, after having had a very ancient temple demolished in a place whose name history has not preserved, and having smashed the statues of the gods, also wanted a sacred tree near the temple to be cut down. The priest of the destroyed idols and some pagans violently opposed it. But seeing that the Apostle insisted, they said to him: "Well! We will cut down the tree, on the condition that you receive it in its fall. You have nothing to fear: the God you preach and in whom you have so much confidence will no doubt be powerful and good enough to protect you." The Saint invoked the Lord and, inspired from above, accepted the proposal. They placed him on the side where the tree leaned. The blows of the axe resounded. Soon the pine wavered; already it was leaning over Martin's head; but at a sign of the cross made by the servant of God, it suddenly righted itself, as if pushed by a violent wind, and fell on the opposite side.

Saint Martin, passing through the Aeduan country, evangelized it and came to Autun to pray at the tomb of Saint Symphorian, to visit the holy bishop Simplicius, and to second him in his efforts for the destruction of the remnants of idolatry. It was then that these venerable feet trod this soil sanctified by his zeal, illustrated by one of his miracles, and honored ever since by his immortal name. Not far from the ancient gate where the road from Langres ended, very close to the small cell that contained the body of Saint Symphorian, stood a temple in honor of Saron, a fabulous king of the Gauls, grandson of Samothes, from whom the Gauls, according to Caesar, claimed to derive their origin, renowned for his knowledge and founder of certain schools, from which a sect of Druids had taken the name of Saronides. These Saronide Druids held, in the middle of the sacred forests that covered the heights near Autun, a kind of famous college where youth from all parts came to study religion and philosophy. This antique temple of Saron, which had survived the proscription of the Druids, was then perhaps the last refuge of defeated paganism. Martin saw it while going to pray in the cemetery church and to venerate the relics of Symphorian. Immediately he went there and did not hesitate to do there what he had done everywhere, even at the peril of his life. Seized with indignation at the sight of this permanent outrage to Jesus Christ, he entered the temple, moved by the spirit of God, and overturned, transported by a holy zeal, the sacrilegious statue and altar. Immediately a furious troop of armed pagans rushed at him, shouting savage cries, to defend and avenge the idol. Already one of them, bolder, more violent, and more exasperated than the others, came out from the midst of this irritated crowd and lunged sword in hand at the apostle. The latter, without being moved, threw his cloak back and presented his bare throat to the murderer's sword. Already this miserable fanatic raised his arm to strike him. But suddenly he fell to his knees at the feet of the holy bishop, as if struck down by an invisible force, trembling with fear, seized with respect, asking for pardon, and no doubt converted. We do not need to say with what charity Martin raised him up and reassured him, with what joy he forgave him. One can well presume that such an event also touched the other infidels and that the wonder-worker took advantage of it to instruct them and bring them to the faith.

After having destroyed the idolatrous symbols, he dedicated the temple of Saron to the true God and raised there, under the patronage of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, an altar which, in the following centuries, was always surrounded by the most religious respect. Later, this temple was enlarged; it became the famous church of the abbey of Saint-Martin d'Autun; and the choir of the basilica, built on the spot where the furious peasant who had wanted to strike the Saint fell himself struck with religious terror, retells to future ages the zeal of the incomparable pontiff, the divine ascendancy of his holiness, his passage in these places, and the imperishable glory that his presence, his apostolic works, his name, and his cult have communicated to them. The idolatrous peasants, converted by the miracle that Martin had just performed near the temple of Saron, were happy from then on to go in crowds to this same place, which had become for them forever memorable and dear, to adore Jesus Christ their savior, who had replaced the deaf and insensible idol, the miserable object of their superstitious homage. The ancient pagan temple, transformed by the illustrious apostle into a Christian church and to which such prodigious facts were attached with the name of Martin, became the object of great veneration throughout the country, and the holy bishops of Autun did not fail to surround it with a brilliance worthy of the precious memories it recalled to the faithful. Let us continue to follow our illustrious missionary in his evangelical journeys near Autun.

Pagansim, although dying at the end of the 4th century in almost all of Gaul, still preserved on the wild mountains and among the uncultured inhabitants of the Morvan venerated sanctuaries and followers of an obstinacy that seemed desperate. But nowhere was the old Gallic cult more rooted than at Beuvray. From all parts of the territory of Augustodunum, the eye stops on this mountain with its broad flanks covered wi th vigo Beuvray Sacred mountain of the Morvan where Martin fought against druidism. rous vegetation, its misty crest, often struck by lightning and wrapped in flashes, and rising more than eight hundred meters above sea level. Its dominant position caused it to be occupied as a fortress by the Gauls first and then by the Romans. Vague memories have preserved to our days, among the simple populations who still live at its feet, the memory of a destroyed stronghold and important events accomplished long ago on its steep plateau. The peasant still points out the location of the great gates that one could hear, he says, from Nevers, twenty leagues away, creaking on their hinges. The late-returning villagers and the fearful shepherds believe they hear, during the night, when the wind blows in the beeches, unusual noises. The trumpet bursts, a sonorous voice commands the maneuvers, the chariots start moving, the troops run with great noise on the ramparts. Beuvray summarizes the great historical phases of the Aedui. It was the principal theater of the political assembly of the spring; it saw under Dumnorix and Divitiac, under Cotus and Convictolitan, the first struggles of the Gallic party and the Roman party; it saw Caesar and his troops take their winter quarters in its vast fortified enclosure, behind its gigantic earthworks. After the destruction of the fortress, the neighboring tribes continued to frequent this seat of their ancient nationality, and their important transactions were still settled there in the Middle Ages as in the time of the Druids. Only a few centuries ago, leases and farm rents were paid at the popular assemblies that had been held since the time of the Gauls in its old and coarse ramparts. Today, now that the last dwelling has disappeared from Beuvray, the peasants, faithful to the secular appointment, still climb the mountain of their ancestors at the beginning of May, consecrating by this stubborn custom the memory of the ancient religious and political assemblies and that of the existence of the national rampart.

The high plateau of Beuvray was at the same time the center of religion and, as it were, the sanctuary of the Celtic divinities. Behind this boulevard of the tribes of the valley, there was still sheltered, at the time of Saint Martin, a cult in harmony with the spirit of child-like peoples. What strikes them, in fact, is always greatness and strength in nature as in men. High places, great trees, rocks, fountains, all the apparent elements of the world, everything that astonishes ignorance: such are the gods that take life in their imagination. Druidism, which thus deified all the forces of nature, had chosen its position well. The summit of Mount Beuvray seemed indeed marked in advance for such a cult. Sometimes veiled by all the mists of the Morvan, sometimes revealing to the eye a boundless space that embraced almost the entire territory of the Aeduan confederation, it necessarily became the religious center as well as the political center of the city. From all points of the region, the dwelling of the protecting gods appeared in its powerful majesty and summarized the unity of the tribes. The Druidic sanctuary had emerged complete from the bosom of nature: it only had to be taken possession of. For this material religion, what place more suitable and more striking, more magnificent and more grandiose? High mountains, an immense view on all sides, great aspects, great strength of vegetation, great trees, venerated forests, fountains that give lively and abundant waters, rocks that raise their abrupt heads here and there. There, in the heart of the woods and silence, the Gallic priests celebrated their dark mysteries and gave their lessons on the cult of nature. After the conquest, driven out first by Roman polytheism, and later discredited by Christianity which was becoming the dominant religion, they persisted in remaining, as in a last asylum, on these mountains where, in fact, paganism has left such deep traces that the neighboring populations preserve, even in our days, some customs that recall, with incredible tenacity, under a Christian transformation, the ancient cult of fountains and rocks.

To the Druidic religion was added on the conquered Beuvray the more cheerful and voluptuous religion of the conquerors. The Roman legions, as if exiled on this frozen summit, transported there to brighten their stay the gods and festivals of Italy. The cult of Flora, celebrated by dissolute dances and songs, brought the neighboring populations running, during the decadence of Druidism or simultaneously with it. These festivals, where the statue of the goddess was adorned with greenery, flowers, and ribbons, became acclimatized with the ease that doctrines flattering to the passions always encounter; and it seems that their last traces have not yet entirely disappeared. The walkers who go to Beuvray on the first Wednesday of May no doubt ignore that they are making a traditional ascent; that they are continuing, after eighteen centuries, the celebration of the festivals of Flora, indicated at that time in the ancient calendar. Druidism and Roman polytheism thus lived side by side, with their separate or united adherents, during the first three centuries of the Christian era. In the fourth, a name appears that operated a revolution in the countryside, and in particular in the Aeduan country.

After the brilliant but perilous victory he had just won at the gate of the city over paganism, Martin could not leave standing so close to him, on the summit of Beuvray which rose to his gaze, the altars and statues of the gods. The difficulties, the steepness of the slopes, the dark forests, the wild aspect of the places, the reputation for cruelty and barbarity of the neighboring tribes, nothing could stop the intrepid and tireless conqueror of souls. He advanced toward this new battlefield mounted on his donkey, without any escort other than a guide, and with his ordinary weapons, the cross, the evangelical word, prayer, and trust in God. What happened on the mountain? Local tradition teaches us that, while he was evangelizing hardened peasants at the foot of a Druidic rock, he almost became, as near the walls of Autun, a victim of his zeal. This fanatical and stirred-up troop was going to stone him: God no doubt had to perform a new miracle to save him and at the same time to make his zeal fruitful. Everything in these places attests to the happy results he obtained there, the deep impression his presence, his preachings, his memory, his works, and probably some prodigious fact left there. The passage of the Saint could not have remained so popular, so strongly imprinted on the very soil, except as a result of an event that must have struck the imaginations so vividly that they never forgot it. The villagers, who learn little but forget nothing, still show the place where the famous missionary was pursued and the trace of the feet of his humble mount. The place has even kept a name in relation to the event; it is called the Malvaux or bad valley.

Saint Martin's name has remained attached to a fountain originally consecrated to certain fairies or goddesses invoked by nurses to obtain milk, and to an oratory dedicated under his invocation, which replaced the temple of idols early on at the summit of the famous mountain. The ancient Gallic assemblies that were held on this same mountain were continued and represented by this great gathering of the faithful, going each year to invoke the great bishop in the places sanctified by his presence and full of his memory. This chapel of Saint Martin, substituted for the pagan sanctuary, existed until the seventeenth century; but popular veneration has survived its ruin.

Saint Martin's apostolic journeys, preachings, and miracles, joined to the persevering efforts of the zeal of Simplicius, bishop of Autun, operated a complete religious transformation throughout the country. From then on, in the places where the cult of fountains, trees, rocks, or Roman divinities, such as Flora and others, attracted the populations, pious pilgrimages were established in honor of some Saint. The ancient festivals were less abolished than metamorphosed, purified, supernaturalized, and made Christian: the pious gathering of the faithful replaced the profane assemblies of the ancient adherents of polytheism. Almost everywhere where the pagan cult had previously had a center, Christianity raised a chapel, in order to combat by prayer, by the elevated, pure, and sanctifying cult of Jesus Christ, his mother, and his Saints, the material symbols or the coarse pleasures consecrated by idolatry. It was the substitution of truth for error, of virtues for vices, of spirit for matter, of sacrifice for sensuality. It was, finally, the resurrection of human dignity. Such was the practice of Saint Martin, the great apostle of the countryside.

The illustrious missionary of the Aeduan country, after having accomplished his holy but dangerous mission at Beuvray and in the surroundings, descended by the other slope of the mountain, following the Roman road that headed toward the Eaux-de-Nisiné, to go into the Bazois to overturn a famous temple of Diana located in the middle of the forests. In these places, tradition has always kept the memory of his passage through these countrysides very alive, and the people only pronounce his name with touching veneration. There too, as at Beuvray, religious monuments where pilgrimages are still made attest to both his presence and the memory of his immortal apostolate. Does the great number of abbeys, churches, and chapels placed under his patronage, and even of families who in these regions bear the name of Martin, not seem to attest that the great wonder-worker passed through there? The devotions of the peasants and popular traditions may seem despicable to some strong minds, to some half-learned people; but they are nonetheless significant, for tradition is the book of the people, especially of the people of the countryside, who preserve it all the better because they often have no other, and among whom the history of the soil to which they are as if attached and where they have always lived is perpetually transmitted.

As he was going to Chartres, another center of Druidism, after his return from Autun, the inhabitants of a village located on his route all ran up, although they were idolaters, to see a man of such reputation. Touched with deep pity for these poor people and lifting his eyes to heaven with an ineffable expression of zeal and tenderness, he prayed to God to be pleased to enlighten them. Then he spoke with such force and unction that the Holy Spirit himself, says the historian, was certainly speaking through his mouth. Thus his listeners were already shaken when God took it upon himself to complete the work that the preaching had begun, by seconding the efforts of his minister with a striking prodigy. A woman who had just lost her only son placed him before the Saint, crying out to him, bathed in tears: "Ah! restore life to my child! O friend of God! you can do it." Martin, seeing that a miracle in this circumstance would have the happiest results for the conversion of this uneducated people who only understood the voice of facts well, began to pray. Then, in the presence of the attentive crowd eager to know what was going to happen, calling the child back to life, he returned him to his mother, whose astonishment was surpassed only by her gratitude and joy. At the sight of such a great miracle, all threw themselves at the feet of the Saint, shouting with a unanimous voice and with enthusiasm: "We want no other gods but the God of Martin," and begged him to remain among them to complete their instruction. A few days later, baptism had made as many Christians of them; and the Saint resumed his journey filled with those heavenly consolations that only those to whom it is given to bring forth souls for Jesus Christ can know and taste. This miracle made a lot of noise throughout the region and left a long memory there. One could even see in the past at Chartres a church that the piety of the faithful had raised to perpetuate the memory of such a prodigious fact. It was under the invocation of Saint Martin giving life, S. Martini vitam dantis. While he was in this city with Saint Valentinian, the diocesan bishop, and Saint Victricius, bishop of Rouen, a man came to present his daughter, mute from birth, and begged him to heal her. Martin said to him, pointing to the two bishops who were present: "Address yourselves to these: they are more powerful than I before God." Then a battle of humility began between the three prelates and lasted quite a long time. Finally, the bishop of Tours was forced to yield. He therefore began to pray according to his custom, then blessed a little oil, poured a few drops into the young girl's mouth, and said to her: "What is your father's name?" She answered this question distinctly: she was healed.

A man of high standing in the world, named Evantius, an excellent Christian, a friend of Martin and uncle of Gallus, one of his dearest disciples, was struck by an extremely serious illness. Seeing that all remedies were powerless, he had the holy bishop called. The latter immediately poured out his soul before God in an ardent prayer, then hastened to go where charity and friendship called him. Before having traveled half the way, he found the sick man perfectly healed, who was coming to meet him and who wanted to take him to his home. While the Saint was in this house, one of the servants was bitten by a reptile of a very dangerous species and was soon reduced to the point of death. Evantius, full of confidence and faith, took the sick man on his shoulders and carried him, almost dying, to the one he had the happiness of calling his host and his friend. The man of God, lifting his eyes to heaven, touched the wound with his finger. In an instant, the swelling had disappeared, and the poor servant, whom they already considered dead, rose full of health.

Here is another trait that will show us the charity of Martin rewarded by a miracle. Count Avitianus, formerly governor of Africa under Julian the Apostate and famous for his cruelty, had just arrived in Tours to punish with the ultimate penalty several citizens who had incurred the emperor's wrath. The sentence had just been pronounced, and the whole city was groaning in terror and consternation. It was evening, and the execution of the unfortunate condemned was to take place the next morning. This sad news only reached the holy Pontiff during the night. Suddenly, and without hesitating for an instant, he rises, he runs to the terrible count. After knocking for a long time, but in vain, because all the people in the house were asleep, he remembers that prayer has already opened the palace of Valentinian for him, immediately throws himself on his knees on the threshold of the door, and prays with fervor. His confidence in God was not deceived. At the same moment, Avitianus heard a voice saying to him in a severe tone: "What! is this how you sleep while the minister of God is at your door!" Awakened with a start and all trembling, he calls his servants and orders them to go quickly and open the door to the bishop. They, believing themselves to be in the illusion of a dream, pay no attention to their master's words. Soon the same voice is heard again and speaks in an even more pressing manner. This time the count runs to open it himself, and finding the Saint in prayer, he says to him: "Lord, why have you treated me this way? I see well what you desire. Could you not have addressed your request to me without giving yourself the trouble of coming here yourself and at this hour? But at least you will not have come in vain." And immediately calling his officers of justice, he orders them to immediately set free all the condemned whose grace the good Shepherd had come to ask of him.

In one of his travels, Martin met on a narrow causeway a chariot belonging to the governor of the province. At the sight of the long black cloak that enveloped him and his humble mount, the horses took fright and nearly overturned the chariot. The soldiers who were driving the vehicle threw themselves furiously on the involuntary author of the accident and overwhelmed him, without knowing him, with insults and blows. The Saint opposed to so many outrages and acts of violence only an unalterable gentleness and patience. The soldiers who had thus mistreated him, wanting then to continue their journey, had in vain pressed their horses, stimulated them in all ways, these animals persisted in not wanting to take a step, and the chariot remained in a desperate immobility. Not being able to explain such a strange fact, they asked the passersby the name of this man they had just met. Learning that it was the bishop of Tours, they no longer doubted that this extraordinary obstinacy of the team was a punishment for their unworthy conduct. Penetrated with shame and regret, they began to run after the innocent victim of their brutality and fell at his feet, humbly asking his pardon. Martin, touched to tears, raised them with paternal kindness and prayed for them. Then, returning to the place where the chariot had remained immobile, the soldiers found the horses perfectly docile, and the journey ended happily. This is how the Saints know how to take revenge.

In the country of the Senones there was a village whose territory was completely ravaged by hail every year. The desolate inhabitants resolved to address themselves to Martin to implore his assistance. They therefore deputed to him Auspicius, who had been praetorian prefect and whose lands were usually the most mistreated. The Saint welcomed this illustrious and unhappy man with his ordinary kindness, and went with him into the midst of the population who were waiting for him, all trembling in fear of new disasters. Arrived on the scene, he made his prayer, and the country was from then on preserved from the scourge that had long spread famine and despair there.

Another time, as he was approaching Paris where his immense fame had preceded him, the people, informed of this news, which was a true event, flocked to meet him. The humble and holy bishop was alarmed by such eagerness; but while he lowered himself in his heart, God wanted to raise him even more in the eyes of the world by adding to these honors that came to him from men a heavenly and more striking glory. At the gate of the city was an unfortunate man covered with a hideous leprosy, whose contact and even sight everyone carefully avoided. But charity filled the soul of Martin too much to leave a place for this natural repulsion. He approached the astonished leper, and, without suspecting that he was performing a heroic act, he took him by the hand, kissed him, and gave him his blessing. At that very instant the hideous malady disappeared; and to preserve the memory of this double miracle of the charity of the thaumaturge and the healing of the leper, a chapel was built in this place which subsequently bore the name of the great bishop of Tours. At the gate of Amiens, the Saint had given half of his cloak; at the gate of Paris he did more, he gave himself, so to speak. Moreover, this is not the only time that lepers received from his kindness such a mark of tenderness and their healing. Sulpicius Severus reports that our Saint performed several other miracles in Paris. Often the mere touch of his clothes, his hair shirt, or his letters was enough to heal.

Arborius, former prefect of Rome, an honorable Christian full of faith and piety, had his daughter sick with a quartan fever resistant to all remedies. Having remembered that he possessed a letter from Martin, he applied it to the chest of his young child. The fever disappeared immediately and did not return. The father, deeply struck by this prodigy and at the same time penetrated with pious gratitude, no longer regarded as belonging to him a daughter who had just been the object of such a great miracle: he vowed her to the Lord, so that she could employ a divinely recovered health solely in his service. And desiring that the one who had been the instrument of her healing should also be the instrument of her consecration to God, he took her to Tours, happy to place her in the hands of the holy Pontiff who was himself happy to give this new bride to Jesus Christ.

But here is another miraculous healing that took place in Trier. A man went one day to find him at the Church, threw himself at his feet, and with a voice broken by sobs: "My daughter," he cried, "is in agony. Already she has lost the power of speech; she is going to die, lord, if you do not come to her aid." — "My friend," replied the Saint who seemed to become more humble as he became greater, "such a healing is not in the power of a man, and I do not deserve that God should use me to manifest his all-powerful goodness." This poor father, melting into tears, insisted strongly. Finally, the venerable Prelate, moved by compassion and putting all his trust in God, went to the house of the dying woman, where a crowd of people accompanied him. After remaining prostrate for some time with his face to the ground, he asked for oil, blessed it, then approaching the young girl, he poured a little of it on her tongue. Immediately the sick girl recovered her speech and did not delay in rising healed. The people burst into transports of admiration, blessing the name of Martin and giving thanks to God who, for the consolation of the faithful and the conversion of the pagans, performed such great things through the intercession of his faithful servant. This healing, followed by several other miracles, made so much noise in Trier that the idolaters themselves more than once had recourse in their needs to the Christian thaumaturge, and that several embraced the faith, among others Tetradius, one of the most distinguished citizens of the city.

During one of his pastoral visits, he arrived one evening very tired in a parish. The clerks of this church prepared a bed for him in a cell, near the sacristy. This bed, worthy of the Apostle of the God-Man born in a stable, consisted of a pile of straw that covered the floor. Martin, finding this poor bed still too soft for him, pushed aside the straw and fell asleep, as usual, on his hair shirt. Now, this straw piled up too close to the hearth suddenly caught fire in the middle of the night. The holy bishop, awakened with a start, ran immediately to the door of the cell, but he could not open it, and soon saw himself completely surrounded by flames. Already even his clothes were catching fire, and he was infallibly going to perish. What to do in this extreme danger, deprived of all human help? He addressed himself to the God who had accustomed him to prodigies. At that very instant the flame moved away as if it had received the order to respect the worthy minister of the Almighty. However, the clerks, awakened at last by the noise or the glow of the fire, ran up immediately, broke down the door, all trembling, and believing they would find their holy bishop half consumed. What was their surprise and their joy to see him in the midst of the flames, full of life, praying and praising God, like the three young Hebrews in the furnace!

Crossing Auvergne, he stopped at Arthonne, to pray on the tomb of a pious virgin named Vitalina, who had died recently in the odor of sanctity. There, as he asked her if she enjoyed the sight of God, Vitalina replied that this happiness was deferred for her, because she had sometimes put a little too much care into washing her face. So true it is that, according to the Gospel, we will be asked for an account of the smallest things, at the tribunal of the one who judges justice itself. After having signaled his passage at Arthonne by several miraculous healings, the Saint went to the capital of the Arverni (Clermont). But having perceived from afar the magistrates and the principal men of the city who were coming to meet him, he turned back to escape a triumph that alarmed his humility; and the most lively entreaties could not determine him to enter the city that was preparing such a pompous reception for him. All that could be obtained from him was that he should lay his hands on the sick. He did so, and at that very hour health was restored to them. The place where he stopped became sacred: it was surrounded by a trellis that could still be seen in the sixth century. Having returned to Arthonne, he went to visit the tomb of the virgin Vitalina a second time and said to her: "Rejoice, my beloved sister; in three days you will enjoy the glory of the Saints!" Indeed, on the third day, the Saint appeared to several people who then received the graces they had asked for through her intercession, and even indicated to them the day on which her memory should be honored.

One still reads in history, without counting the numerous healings of the possessed, the prophecies, the visions, the revelations of all kinds, the account of a quantity of other miracles by which it pleased God to authorize the word of his servant. Among this multitude of miracles granted again to the prayer of the apostle, let us cite among others the healing of Saint Paulinus of Nola. This illustrious bishop had long suffered from a violent eye ailment. Martin, who met him in Vienne with Saint Victricius, touched his eyelids and the ailment disappeared.

While our Saint was filling the Gauls with the fame of his virtues and his wonders, carrying his tireless apostolate everywhere, announcing Jesus Christ to the poor inhabitants of the countryside, and working with an activity as prodigious as his successes to make the last remnants of idolatry disappear, the Western Empire was agitated by violent tremors, and the Church was distressed by a new heresy. Maximus, proclaimed empero Maxime Imperial usurper in Gaul. r in Britain by the Roman legions accustomed, in these times of decadence, to making revolutions and sovereigns at the whim of their caprice, crossed into Gaul, was recognized there by the army, established his seat at Trier, and defeated, near Paris, Gratian, who was betrayed by his own soldiers. At the same time, the Priscillianists were infesting Priscillianistes Heretical movement in Spain and southern Gaul. Spain and the south of Gaul with the poison of their vices and the most frightful doctrines. Sons of the Gnostics and the Manichaeans, and precursors of the Albigensians, they undermined the edifice of Christian morality and dogma through fundamental errors regarding the origin of souls, the resurrection of bodies, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the sanctity of oaths, hiding the most infamous turpitudes under an exterior of austere piety.

Martin believed that charity for his neighbor and zeal for the glory of God made it his duty to involve himself in these great and sad things that were troubling both the world and the Church. An angel of peace as well as an apostle, a minister of the God of love and of a kingdom that is not of this world; a stranger to politics and the things of this earth; but desirous of healing at least some of the wounds, of saving some of the victims that revolutions always make while passing over the world, he hastened to cast his influence into the midst of the parties and ran to Trier to ask Maximus for the pardon of several people whom their attachment to Gratian had caused to be condemned to death. At the court of Trier was Saint Ambrose with him, also one of the glories of the 4th century; and like the great bishop of Milan, he respected himself too much to lower himself, even before an emperor, to vile adulations unworthy of the elevation of his character and the episcopal majesty. Showing on the contrary without ostentation, but with a courage as firm as it was modest, that noble independence which is the eternal honor of the Catholic episcopate, he even dared to refuse for a long time the invitation to dine with a prince armed with all the imperial power, and did not fear to say, with a holy boldness, that he could not sit at the table of a man who had taken the crown from his master to place it on his own usurper's head. This conduct was dictated to him not by a vain political opposition, but by conscience. Finally persuaded by the protestations that Maximus made to him of having only put the crown on his head constrained by the army, he yielded and accepted the invitation. The prince attached so much value to this gesture that he let his joy burst forth by celebrating that day, as a feast day, with a banquet to which he invited all the great men of his court; and to show how much he, an emperor, honored a poor bishop, he had him placed beside him and put the priest who accompanied him between two of the highest personages invited to the feast. That Maximus was directed by politics as much or more than by religious sentiments is possible: but he nonetheless paid homage to the high influence of spiritual authority and to holiness. The episcopate was from then on a moral power with which one had to reckon. An officer having presented the cup to Maximus according to custom, the latter ordered it to be offered first to Martin, from whose hand he thought he would receive it; but the holy pontiff passed it immediately to his priest, as to the most worthy person in the assembly. One likes to see how these great bishops knew how to uphold before the powers of the earth the supereminent dignity of the priestly character before God. In this unhappy era where brutal force dominated almost exclusively, they did not fail to seize every opportunity to implant strongly in the world this principle, so necessary and yet then still so new, that outside of the power that wields the sword and reigns over bodies, there is this power of a superior order that governs souls. What high and salutary influence, what respect, a precursor to the coming civilization of the barbarians, the lights and virtues of the episcopate had already won for the Church for the good and the transformation of the old Roman society!

The empress had remained during the meal seated at the feet of Martin, gathering with pious avidity all the words that came from the mouth of a man so famous and so holy; but she was not content with this single interview, she also wanted to have him at her table, and the emperor was to honor the feast with his presence again. The man of God, insensitive even to the greatest human favors, only accepted this new invitation after having made the greatest difficulties. And despite his seventy years, despite his hair whitened in the labors of the apostolate and the austerities of penance, to engage him to violate, even in this very exceptional circumstance, the law he had imposed upon himself of not conversing with any woman without a true necessity, it required nothing less than the even more imperious law of charity. He had, in fact, to ask and hoped to obtain, by acquiescing to the very lively desire and the very pressing solicitations of the princess, the pardon of several prisoners, the recall of a great number of exiles, and the restitution of unjustly confiscated property. It was at this meal that one saw with astonishment an empress, lowering the height of supreme rank before holiness, serving a humble bishop at the table with her own hands.

However, an even greater interest had called and kept Martin at the court of Trier: the honor and discipline of the Church, no less than the faith, were involved in the affair of the Priscillianists. Ithacius and some bishops of Spain, led astray by an excessive and disordered zeal, in which was mixed the passion of a personal hatred, were not content with condemning and proscribing the error. They were criminally pursuing the heretics themselves and had gone to Trier to solicit against them, from Maximus, a death sentence: forgetting that the Church, necessarily intolerant like the truth with regard to falsehood, always an implacable enemy of bad doctrines, but never of persons, has always held the shedding of blood in horror and does not suffer that the clergy take part in such proceedings. Fortunately, the two great bishops of Tours and Milan were there. They showed, by refusing to communicate with the Ithacians, how much the episcopate they represented so worthily at court abhorred the conduct of the hateful and violent Spaniards. They did even more. Casting their charity, their high influence, and the true ecclesiastical spirit between Ithacius and Maximus, they prevented the emperor, already shaken, from yielding to the obsessions of a false and bitter zeal: happy to spare a stain of blood to the white robe of the Spouse of Jesus Christ. But no sooner had our Saint left Trier than Maximus, letting himself be circumvented again, and defeated by fallacious and obstinate instances that no longer had any counterweight, condemned several Priscillianists to death. The sentence was pitilessly executed.

At this news, Martin, whose charity was tireless, flew again to Trier to save the life not only of the heretics but also of several people compromised in the last revolution. He wanted above all to prevent the sending of a military commission to Spain. The Ithacians, alarmed by the ascendancy that the great Gallic bishop had at court, and furious at his obstinate refusal to communicate with them, forestalled him and blackened him so well to the emperor that this prince would not grant him anything and even went, in a fit of anger, so far as to drive him from his presence, ordering at the same time to put to death those whose pardon the holy pontiff had come to ask, among others Count Narses. What will the apostle of charity, pushed to the limit, do? Overcoming all repugnance and all fear, he returns to the emperor and promises to communicate with these men stained with blood, whom he abhorred, if they would pardon the condemned and recall the military commission sent beyond the Pyrenees. He obtained his request at this price, and consented to be present the next day with the Ithacians at the consecration of Felix, who had just been named bishop of Trier; but he refused to sign the minutes and hastened to return immediately after to his diocese, praying to God for his enemies and conjuring Him, for the honor of the Church, to change the hearts of the heretics and their violent persecutors. He left without having obtained all that he desired: at least he had spared a few drops of blood.

But the sacrifice he had just made, the most painful that charity had yet imposed upon him, weighed on his conscience almost like a remorse, so much did his great soul have both elevation and delicacy! It seemed to be still all shaken, all troubled by the sublime struggle that had been engaged there between charity and the honor of the Church. On the way, the holy old man, his heart plunged into the bitterness of a sad perplexity and his eyes full of tears, reproached himself for his condescension as a weakness, and felt the need to pour out his pain and his trouble into the bosom of God. Arrived in a wood near Andethanna (today Echternach), he began to pray. The divine Master had pity on his faithful servant groaning and humbled before Him, and sent an angel who consoled him in these words: "Your condescension could have been criminal, but charity has made it excusable; cease to fear." Reassured by these words from heaven, Martin continued his journey with more calm; but he never forgave himself for what he called a fault and redoubled, to expiate it, his prayers, his vigils, his austerities, without ceasing nevertheless his apostolic journeys. God rewarded him for this increase of virtue by redoubling in proportion the signaled favors with which He had showered him until then: revelations, visions, intimate communications of all kinds with heaven, extraordinary discernment, the gift of miracles. He thus increased more and more the brilliance of his reputation in the eyes of the peoples and always gave new authority to his word, a new sanction to his works, and new successes to the labors of his zeal.

His diocesans watched him, loved him, and venerated him as their father, as their guardian angel, as a man raised almost above human nature, and strangers flocked from afar to Tours to consult in him the oracle of the Gauls. One cites among others a writer no less remarkable for his talents than for his piety, Sulpicius Severus, who earn ed the name of Sulpice-Sévère Disciple and primary biographer of Saint Martin. the Christian Sallust and was one of the literary glories of the Church. This great man, after having renounced the world, went to find Martin to settle with him the affairs of his conscience. The august old man received him with more than paternal kindness, as well as all the people in his retinue, wished himself to provide them with water to wash, and, after an honest but frugal meal, entertained them with spiritual things, the contempt of pleasures, the vanities of the world, and everything that opposes our intimate union with God. In the evening, he again washed the feet of his guests with his own hands. What humility! What charity! What a touching reproduction of the Savior's examples!

We owe to Sulpicius Severus, this illustrious guest and disciple of Saint Martin, precious details on the life of his master, whose history he wrote to pay a debt of admiration, gratitude, and love. "This great Saint," he says, "had a marvelous penetration; in him, common sense rose to the height of genius. His discourses, although he was not very versed in human letters, were clear and methodical, full at once of strength, energy, and penetrating unction. He spoke with an inimitable tone of gravity, of noble and paternal simplicity, and of persuasive sweetness. As the name of Jesus Christ was always on his lips and in his heart, his piety was affectionate, and the purest charity, with supernatural intentions, animated all his feelings, all his thoughts, all his actions, all his words. Never could any natural passion disturb the celestial calm of his soul, and never did zeal, however ardent it was in him, know the slightest irritation, nor have the slightest bitterness. Like all the Saints, gentle and indulgent to others, he was severe only with himself. Often he spent the nights in work and in prayer; and when nature succumbed, when necessity forced him to take a little rest, a mat or a hairshirt spread on the floor served as his bed, and his head rested on a little withered grass or on a stone. Thus he lived like an angel exiled on earth, and never lost sight of the presence of God. Everything provided him with an occasion to raise his soul to heaven and to carry the thoughts of others there. — One day, at the sight of a sheep from which its fleece had just been removed, he said pleasantly to those who accompanied him: "This sheep perfectly fulfills the precept of the Gospel, for it had two garments and it gave one to him who had none. Let us do the same." He had already given the example; we shall see presently that he will give it again. — At the sight of a man covered in rags who was guarding pigs: "There indeed," he said, "is Adam driven from the earthly paradise. Ah! how important it is to strip ourselves of the old man to clothe ourselves with the new!" — Another time, as he was on the banks of a river where fishing birds were trying to catch fish: "You see," he said to the people who were with him, "the image of the enemies of our salvation. It is thus that they are in ambush to ravish our souls." — At the sight of a meadow of which one part was ravaged by pigs, another mown, and a third all enameled with flowers, he said to those who accompanied him: "You see here the image of impure vice; there, the image of marriage; and these flowers, so beautiful and so fresh, represent to you the lovely virginity."

His charity for the poor and for all those who suffer was truly extraordinary. This eminently evangelical virtue, which had shone in him with such bright brilliance when he was still only a catechumen, only increased from day to day. The relief of the needs of others was, with the salvation of souls, his great preoccupation. Thus, as soon as he went to church, all the infirm, all the needy who knew well that if the good shepherd received any offering it was for them that he destined it, never failed to flock in crowds in his footsteps. One day, as he was going to the office in winter weather, a half-naked poor man presented himself to him, asking for the alms of a garment. Immediately he called the archdeacon, strongly recommended the shivering poor man to him, then entered a secret cell of the sacristy where he prayed, deeply recollected, on a simple small three-legged stool, while the clergy, in a neighboring room called the diaconium or paratorium, attended to greetings and audiences. Meanwhile, the poor man, to whom they were delaying giving the promised garment, arrived unexpectedly up to the holy bishop, complaining of the archdeacon and the cold. Martin then retired into a corner where he could not be seen, took off his tunic which was covered by a large garment called an amphibale, and not sharing it as he had formerly done with his cloak, gave it entirely to the beggar, had him withdraw without noise, and quietly returned to prayer to continue his preparation for the holy sacrifice. Meanwhile, the archdeacon came to tell him that the people were waiting for the celebration of the solemn office. "The poor man must be clothed first," replied the Saint. The archdeacon, who saw him covered with the amphibale, not suspecting that he was without a tunic and that he was speaking of himself, became impatient at not seeing any poor man appear. "Bring the poor man's robe: he must be clothed," the venerable prelate kept repeating. Understanding nothing of it, pushed to the limit and in a bad mood, the clerk ran to the neighboring shops, took at random, for five denarii, a miserable long-haired cape, and threw it abruptly at the feet of the Saint, saying in a sour tone: "There is the garment; but as for a poor man, there is none here." Martin picked it up and covered himself with it aside in all haste. He threw over this rough and coarse cape, which barely covered his shoulders, the stole sparkling with gold and silver, and went off with his arms half-naked to celebrate the august sacrifice. Then, a marvelous thing! continues Sulpicius Severus, we saw, at the moment of the great blessing of the altar, a globe of fire gush from his head which spread upward, raised his stature, and formed like a hair of flame. Jewels sparkled on his bare arms, adds Fortunatus, and the emerald supplied the too-short sleeves of the poor tunic. This miraculous brilliance remained in some sort attached to the humble garment, which passed early into the hands of our kings and was by them deposited in the oratory of the palace. This oratory took the name of little cape or capella. Hence the name of chapel.

However, Martin had reached his eighty-fourth year, and the frailty of age had neither slowed his activity nor diminished the ardor of his zeal. He went again to Candes, near the confluence of the Vienne and the Loire, at the extreme limits of his diocese, to arrange a contentious matter concerning the clergy of this parish . This Candes Place of the death of Saint Martin. was the last act of his ministry. God wished finally to reward so many labors, virtues, and merits: he called the angel of the Church of Tours to heaven. At the moment when the holy old man was preparing to return to his episcopal city, he fell ill and suddenly lost the little strength that remained to him. Feeling his end approaching, he had his disciples called and said to them with a paternal tenderness imprinted with the solemnity of the supreme hour, that the moment of his death had arrived. Immediately all burst into sobs and cried out: "O our father, what! you are abandoning your children! And who then will take care of us henceforth? We know the ardent desire you have to be reunited with Jesus Christ; but for love of us, ah! ask that your reward be deferred. In any case, you cannot lose it." The Saint, whose heart was as tender as it was large, felt himself all moved, and mingling his tears with the tears of those who called him their father and whom he loved as his children, made this prayer to God: "Lord, if I can still be useful to your people, I do not refuse the work; may your will be done." A prayer as humble as it is sublime, a heroic prayer in the mouth of this great Saint who already saw heaven open and the crown suspended over his head. God had the kindness not to grant it. Ordinary men can offer to God as a sacrifice the happiness of still living this perishable life of the earth; but celestial men, like the apostle of the Gauls and before him the Apostle of the Gentiles, push, if necessary, the devotion for the salvation of souls to the point of sacrificing everything to him, even the happiness of dying to which they aspire to begin to live the eternal life of the heavens: Desiderium habens dissolvi et esse cum Christo, permanere autem propter vos. The prince of pastors was content with this disposition of his faithful minister to devote himself still by accepting from his sovereign will, even at the moment of entering into rest, the painful labors of life as well as the sweetness of death: Vivere Christus est et mori lucrum. The illness in effect only increased. It was well seen that the day of reward was irrevocably fixed; and already the soul of the Saint was no longer on earth. Thus, despite the ardors of the burning fever that consumed him, he did not cease to pray during the long hours of a sleepless night, the last he spent on earth. The body, which for him had always been so little, was nothing then, nothing but a worn-out and useless instrument, a vile remnant that he was going to leave to take the garment of immortal light. That is why he wanted no other bed than ashes. "The Christian," he said to his disciples who wanted to put at least a little straw under his failing limbs, "the Christian must die thus. Woe to me if I gave you another example!" Solely occupied with heaven toward which his hands and eyes were constantly raised, he remained motionless in the recollection of prayer, in the rapture of ecstasy. And as they proposed to turn him on his side to procure him some relief: "My beloved brothers," he said with sweetness, "suffer me to look at heaven rather than the earth, so that my soul may better dispose itself to take its flight toward the Lord." Believing he saw near him the demon who was trying to frighten him: "What are you waiting for there, cruel beast? There is nothing in me that belongs to you, and already the bosom of Abraham is open to receive me." These were the last words he pronounced. An instant later his soul flew away to the famous homeland and signaled forever, by its entry into glory, this day of November 11 (the year 400). As soon as he had expired, the thorns of penance seemed to change into roses: his face, exhausted by austerities, appeared flowered, and his complexion became rosy like that of a child.

In the diocese of Nevers, the church of Clamecy, an ancient collegiate church, placed under the patronage of Saint Martin, presents, in its portal, rebuilt at the beginning of the 16th century, one of the most beautiful iconographic pages devoted to reproducing the history of this Saint. Here are the main subjects: 1st Saint Martin, catechumen, sharing his cloak with a poor man; 2nd the Savior appears to him the following night; 3rd baptism of Saint Martin; 4th ordination of Saint Martin, he is on his knees before a bishop accompanied by two clerks; 5th Saint Martin receives the pontifical anointing; 6th the Saint heals a leper by embracing him; 7th mass of Saint Martin, Brice serves him at the altar, two women are chatting during the holy sacrifice, the devil, in a corner, writes their conversation on a banner; 8th temptation of Saint Martin; he descends a staircase on which the devil has scattered nuts; Satan, hidden under the staircase and armed with a hook, tries to make him fall, but an angel supports him; 9th a globe of fire rises over the altar while Saint Martin celebrates, angels surround the altar; 10th Saint Martin imposes hands on idolaters whom he has converted; 11th final moments of Saint Martin; he is lying in a bed, characters surround him, the devil withdraws; 12th death of Saint Martin; he is lying with the miter on his head, and a candle in his hand, which one of the assistants supports; the devil withdraws while grimacing, two angels receive his soul in a linen cloth, and carry it to a crowned personage (Jesus Christ); 13th body of Saint Martin deposited in a boat; among the people who accompany him is a bishop.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

Death only increased the public veneration that had long been acquired by the great bishop. He was mourned as a father, he was invoked as a powerful intercessor with the sovereign master; and all the places where he deployed his zeal, where he made his virtues admired, and which he illustrated by a miracle, would have liked to possess his precious remains. The inhabitants of Poitiers and those of Tours disputed the mortal remains of the earthly angel who had just flown to heaven. The latter, after having taken him alive from the diocese of Poitiers to make him their bishop, were still obliged to take him dead to transport him to their city. The funeral convoy was a true triumphal pomp and such as was never seen. The populations who flocked from all parts in prodigious numbers formed an immense procession along the entire route. One can judge by the number alone of the monks or clerks: they were more than two thousand there, mingling their groans with the singing of hymns and psalms. A numerous choir of virgins consecrated to the Lord followed them in good order.

Pilgrims have not ceased since then to flock to his famous tomb, venerated like that of the Apostles. Kings sent magnificent offerings there; the guilty, the unfortunate, the persecuted found the most inviolable asylum there. In his honor, the city of Tours was declared exempt from taxes. Numerous miracles, or rather miracles without number, did not cease to confirm the faith, the confidence of the peoples, and the cult rendered to the memory of a life that had itself been only a long miracle of virtue and superhuman devotion. Soon pilgrims went to Tours as to Saint-Jacques, to Rome, or to Jerusalem, and the influx became such that it was necessary to build two large hospitals near the church depository of the holy relics.

One of the facts that contributed most to extending the celebrity of this venerable place was the death of the Seven Sleepers. These cousins of Saint Martin had come, it is said, from Pannonia to Tours to place themselves under his direction. Since his passage to a better life, the blessed one had often appeared to them to strengthen and console them for his absence. One year, the night that followed his feast, he showed himself a last time to them in the church and said to them: "Tomorrow, early in the morning, call the abbot Aichard here; make your whole life known to him by confessing all your sins, and recommend to him on my behalf to celebrate a mass in honor of the Holy Trinity where he will make mention of me and of the Saints whose relics are enclosed in this altar that I have consecrated. Let him prepare and offer hosts for each of you; and, when they are consecrated, you will all communicate. After having received the holy viaticum of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, you will prostrate yourselves in prayer. Then you will pass from this life to the other, exempt from the pains of death, as you have been exempt from the corruption of the flesh. You will be welcomed by the angels and by me and led to heaven, where we will present you to the tribunal of the sovereign Judge." Everything was accomplished according to the promise of the Blessed One. Such is the end of the graceful story of the Seven Sleepers of Marmoutier, so named because their death appeared to be a peaceful sleep.

The cult of the great bishop of Tours soon spread, not only in all the provinces of the Gauls, but also in all the regions of Europe. England was one of the first to adopt it. From the middle of the 6th century, one saw rising near Canterbury, under the title of Saint Martin, a church that can be considered as the mother of all the churches of this famous island; for it is there that the holy monk Augustine began his apostolate. Around the same time, Rome and Monte Cassino also had their churches of Saint Martin. Religious Spain did not remain behind other countries of Christendom. From the end of the 5th century, one saw there several churches in honor of the illustrious bishop of Tours, among others that which was built by Carraric, king of Galicia, an Arian prince who converted after having obtained the healing of his son through the intercession of Saint Martin, and sent to Tours a weight of silver equal to that of the child's body. Miro, successor of Carraric, inherited his gratitude and his piety toward Saint Martin. The queen especially had had an extraordinary confidence in the man of God which earned her the resurrection of her son. Gregory of Tours, who recounts this fact, held it from the very mouth of the ambassadors that Miro had sent to Chilperic.

The veneration of the faithful for this great Saint, the prodigy of his century, has been neither local nor ephemeral: it has filled the entire West, it has crossed all the centuries. Innumerable churches are dedicated under his invocation. In France alone, one counts more than four thousand. In the diocese of Autun, one of those, it is true, where he signaled his zeal as an apostle and his power before God the most, there are more than fifty parishes that recognize him as their patron. In that of Beauvais, there are one hundred and fourteen oratories or churches that honor themselves with his patronage. The Frankish kings placed their kingdom under his protection; and the most venerated relic of their chapel, that on which they made their vassals take the oath of fidelity, was the coarse cape that the holy bishop of Tours had worn. Charlemagne, wishing to rest in the shadow of this humble tunic, transported it to the city where he established his residence, and the ancient capital of the great Carolingian empire, which drew from *cappellin* (diminutive of cape) its name of Aix-la-Chapelle, is even prouder of this poor remnant of Saint Martin than of the name of its Charlemagne. But no one honored the memory of the bishop of Tours more than Brunhilda, who raised on the very ground where the Saint had overturned the idol of Saron at the peril of his life, a pious and magnificent monument which until our unfortunate days was called the abbey of Saint-Martin.

The cult of Saint Martin, already very widespread, extended further in the Auxerrois, following the stay of his body in Auxerre. One counted in this diocese, before its suppression, more than twenty parishes that were dedicated to him. In the current diocese of Nevers, Saint-Martin-d'Henille, Blismes, Dommartin, Chougny, Fretoy, now united to Planchez, Cuzy, Lys, Dirol, currently united to Monceaux, Cancy-les-Varzy, Villiers-sur-Yonne, Burgy, Dornecy, Clamecy, Neuilly, Taix, Garchizy, Chitry, Bulcy, Varennes-les-Narcy, Saint-Martin-du-Tronsec, Miennes, Ciez, La Celle-sur-Nièvre, Saint-Martin-du-Pré, now united to Douzy, Langeron, Toury, Chevenon, Bruy, Saint-Martin-du-Puy, Coussay, Charrin, Saint-Martin-de-la-Bretonnière, La Marche, Garchy recognize Saint Martin as their patron, and the parish of Nurin honors him on the day of the translation of his relics, July 4. He is also secondary patron of D'hon-les-Places and Chanteauy.

The considerable number of parishes placed under the patronage of Saint Martin would suffice to prove how widespread his cult is in the diocese of Nevers, and we have not, however, made any mention of the chapels that bear his name. One of the oldest was that of Beuvray, on the ruins of which was raised a cross voted by the archaeological congress of Nevers, in 1851. Not far from this chapel flows a pure water coming from the Fountain of Saint-Martin. One also sees, in the parish of Marzy, on the banks of the Loire, ruins of a very ancient chapel dedicated to the Saint.

Two kilometers from Montigny-sur-Canne, one sees an enormous pebble, toward which the populations of the neighborhood go and invoke Saint Martin; one goes there mainly to obtain the healing of fevers. The origin of this popular devotion undoubtedly dates back to the mission of Saint Martin in the Morvan. This coarse rock will have been originally a druidic stone; by planting a cross there, Saint Martin will have made it a Christian monument.

The body of Saint Martin was deposited about six hundred paces below the city of Tours, as it existed then, in a place which, according to Alcuin, was part of the ancient cemetery of the Christians where Saint Gatian had first been buried. Saint Brice, his successor, built a small church on the tomb of the Saint. It was dedicated at first under the invocation of Saint Stephen, following the custom of the first centuries, of consecrating temples only to the memory of Martyrs, and the tradition of it was still preserved by the inscription that was above an altar leaning against the tomb of Saint Martin. But the name of this famous wonder-worker did not take long to prevail among the faithful who came from all parts to venerate him. Soon the church no longer appeared large enough to contain them, and, in 472, Saint Perpet, sixth bishop of Tours, had a vaster one built in the same location and founded the maintenance of a lamp there; which gave rise to a translation of the relics of the holy bishop. In 461, the thirteen bishops, assembled at the first council of Tours, rendered solemn honors to the memory of Saint Martin, but they did not touch his body.

One built a particular city around the church of Saint-Martin. It had its particular enclosure for a long time; the towers and a part of the walls still exist. It was called *Martinopolis* or *city of Saint-Martin*, then Châteauneuf, when a fortress had been raised there. There were about six hundred paces of distance between Tours and the city of Saint-Martin, which have drawn closer with the lapse of time.

The guard of the relics of Saint Martin was entrusted from then on to a chosen number of his disciples, who seconded the public piety by sacrifice and prayer. They also occupied themselves with transcribing books proper to instruct them well in religion; they worked for their sanctification as well as that of their neighbor; they lived in common under the authority of the bishops, who permitted them later to have particular leaders.

The first translation of the relics of Saint Martin was made, as we have said, by Saint Perpet on July 4, the day on which one makes the memory of it under the double-major rite as well as of the ordination of the Saint. In 833, during the invasion of the Normans, one took the decision to remove the precious deposit. It was first hidden, not far from there, in the monastery of Cormery, on the position of which one counted against all attacks. Soon nevertheless one believed that it would be better in safety at Orleans, then at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire; from there it was transported to Chablis, in Burgundy, and finally to Auxerre in 856. All these stations were favored with miracles that the Saint seemed to take pleasure in lavishing after his death as he had done during his life. However, the people of Tours, after a long space of thirty-one years, seeing France more tranquil, reclaimed their treasure, which was returned to them and resumed possession of its ancient dwelling in the midst of a magnificent gathering of bishops, clerks, and an immense population, on December 13, 887.

The body of the pontiff remained entire and perfectly preserved until the reign of Charles the Fair; but, in 1323, this prince, by virtue of a bull of Pope John XXII, had the head separated from it, before a large number of bishops, and exposed it, in a gold bust, to the veneration of the faithful. Nearly a century later, it was enclosed in a gold reliquary of the most magnificent workmanship, and exposed on a silver platform placed under the dome. One put the bust containing the head of the Saint next to it. His tomb remained nonetheless the object of universal veneration. Lamps of great price burned there day and night. An iron grille surrounded it at first, and later a silver lattice, a gift of the piety of Louis XI. This monarch placed his own statue there, also in silver, of natural size, and in the attitude of prayer.

The Calvinists, in the month of May 1562, pillaged the reliquary of Saint Martin and burned his relics. One saved, however, the bone of one of his arms and a part of his skull, which remained until the French Revolution in the same church. Saved from profanation at that time, these precious remains were put and are still in the cathedral of Tours, for the antique church of Saint-Martin was destroyed in these sacrilegious and barbaric times. Its vaults were overturned in 1798; and a prefect, whose name will pass to posterity, *Pommeraye*, had it destroyed from top to bottom a few years later. The space it occupied is today a street. Two towers alone remain standing: that of Charlemagne and that of the North. Mgr Guibert, renewing the prodigies of faith and art of the Middle Ages, made an appeal to the Catholic universe, with the goal of buying back this sacred ground, and of remaking this monument so dear to the friends of the arts, of the fatherland, and of religion.

Before the dispersion of the relics of Saint Martin by the Calvinists, in 1562, several churches had obtained small portions of them. There was one at the priory of Saint-Martin des Champs, in Paris. Religious of this house, transformed today into the *Conservatoire des arts et métiers*, wished, when they were expelled in 1792, to preserve this relic, which was a bone of the arm. The revolutionary tribunal, to which they were denounced, condemned them to death, to the number of three, as fanatics, on March 29, 1794. They were Fathers Courtin, prior, Maître, former master of novices, and Adam. Father Courtin was seventy-nine years old.

The parish church of Montmorency, near Paris, also possesses a bone of the arm of the holy bishop of Tours. Ligugé, near Poitiers, where Saint Martin established his first monastery, obtained, in 1822, from M. du Château, archbishop of Tours, a parcel of the relics of the same Saint. One saw two of his teeth at Saint-Martin de Tournat.

The cathedral of Salzburg possesses bones of Saint Martin, under the third altar, on the epistle side.

There is, in the church of Saint-Gengoult, in Toul, a fragment of bone, which appears to be a clavicle, coming from the ancient treasury of the cathedral of this city, which, before the Revolution, possessed a more considerable relic of Saint Martin.

The cathedral of Tours, built by our Saint, was dedicated under the invocation of Saint Maurice.

It has borne the name of Saint-Gatian since 1096. The bishopric of Tours was suffragan of Rouen, until it was erected into a metropolis.

The Church of Poitiers celebrates the feast of Saint Martin on November 11, under the double rite of the second class, with an octave.

A few steps from the parish and abbatial church of Ligugé, dedicated to Saint Martin, pilgrims piously visit an oratory built on the site of a cell in which the Saint resurrected a catechumen who had been dead for several days.

We have drawn this biography from the History of Saint Symphorian, by the Abbé Dinet; from the Lives of the Saints of Poitou, by Ch. de Chergé; from the Lives of the Saints of the Church of Poitiers, by the Abbé Anbert; from the Life of the Saints of the diocese of Nevers, by the Abbé Sabatier; from the Nivernais Hagiology, by Mgr Crounier; from the History of the Church of Le Mans, by Dom Piolin; from the History of the Church, by the Abbé Barrau; from Dom Collier; from Sulpicius Severus; from Gregory of Tours.