Saint Eligius of Châtelac

Far from the favor of such a glorious monarch diminishing his spirit of devotion, as happens all too often to people of the world who leave God to follow more conveniently the fair wind of fortune, he undertook to lead a more reformed and spiritual life. He first made a general confession to drown in the blood of Jesus Christ and in the ocean of His divine mercy all the sins of his childhood and youth; then, he began to mortify his flesh with fasts, vigils, and other extraordinary penances, in order to fortify himself against the charms of the world and against the dangers to which he saw himself exposed. He spent days and nights considering the inconstancy of human things, the severity of God's judgments, and the rigor of the eternal punishments of hell, and this sight giving him a holy horror of his offenses, he struck his breast harshly, watered the floor with his tears, heaved sighs and groans toward heaven, and, through often-repeated ejaculatory prayers, he strove to appease the divine justice that he believed he had irritated by his actions. "Remember, Lord," he said, "that my life is but a breath and a little wind; forgive me, my God, for my days are but pure nothingness. It is against You alone, my dear master, that I have sinned; have pity on me according to Your great mercy." Finally, after having sighed for a long time and afflicted his body with pitiless severity, he conjured his Savior to let him know if his penance was pleasing to Him and if his sins were forgiven. There were in his room several relics suspended from the ceiling, under which he performed his prayer during the night, his body prostrate against the ground and his head resting on a hairshirt. Being one night in this humiliated posture, he dozed off for a few moments and, during this rest, it seemed to him that he saw a man who said these words to him: "Eloi, your prayer is finally answered and you are going to have the assurance that you wish for." He awoke at this and noticed that a very pleasant liquid was coming out of the case of the holy relics and falling on his head, that a miraculous balm was flowing along his robe, and he felt at the same time an odor so pleasant that it surpassed that of all the perfumes of the earth. He knew by this that Our Lord had shown indulgence toward him and that He had had the kindness to restore him to the state in which he was at his baptism. One cannot express the thanksgivings he rendered to Him and the resolutions he took thereafter to work with more zeal and ardor than ever at the important business of his sanctification. This was properly the foundation of that eminent perfection to which he has since ascended, and the grace was all the more abundant as his humility had been profound. He made to Saint Ouen, who was then only a young lord of the court, a secret confidence of the favor he had received fro m heaven, saint Ouen Author of the eulogy and life of Saint Aurea. and this account touched him so much that he began from then on, following the example of Eloi, to despise the delights and vanities of the world and to consecrate himself with all his heart to the service of God.

The affection that Clotaire held for Saint Eloi passed to Dago Dagobert King of the Franks petitioned by Sulpicius to annul a tax. bert, his son, and this prince honored him with such familiarity that he would leave the company of the bishops and lords of his court to go to him, in order to enjoy a few moments of his conversation, in which he found incomparable charms. Eloi, for his part, used this time advantageously to inspire in him sentiments of clemency, piety, and religion; indeed, he drew him away from several liberties of youth and led him to great acts of virtue. This benevolence of his king drew upon him the envy and hatred of the wicked, and there were those who tried through calumnies to blacken his reputation; but people were so convinced of his probity that their impostures served only to highlight his merit and make his holiness appear with more brilliance. His life was a continual meditation on divine truths; he constantly had his final hour before his eyes, and this thought made him always walk in fear and attention to himself. He loved God with all the affections and all the tenderness of his heart. His charity extended to those who wished him harm, as well as to those who cherished him and showered him with benefits. No one was more humble and modest than he, and yet one could perceive on his face a holy gaiety that charmed all those who had the happiness of speaking to him. He was never seen to be angry, or impatient, or too bold in his speech, or intemperate in his meals, or passionate for glory.

He implored the help of heaven at every moment, to avoid sin, to persevere in good, and to make himself more and more pleasing to Our Lord. The king occupied him with goldsmithing works of great price, where neither money, nor gold, nor pearls and precious stones were spared; but, during his work, he always had an open book that provided him with sentences from Scripture to occupy his mind divinely. His reputation became so great and so universal that the ambassadors of foreign princes, who came to the court, had no sooner had an audience with the king than they went to visit him, as much to secure his favor with the prince as to enjoy the happiness of his conversation. Moreover, priests, religious, pilgrims, and pious people came to him from all parts to implore his assistance in their needs, and they always found in his charity the help and protection they requested. He had above all a marvelous zeal for the redemption of captives, and as soon as he knew there was a slave for sale, whether French or foreign, he bought him with his own money to give him freedom. Sometimes they brought such large troops, especially from the land of the Saxons, that his money was not enough for their ransom; but then he would sell even his provisions, his clothes, and his shoes to pull them from such a miserable state. After having delivered them, he obtained letters of manumission from the king for them, then he gave them the choice, either to return home or to become religious, and he provided them with everything necessary for either of these paths. He used similar liberality toward foreigners and pilgrims who lacked the necessities of life, and often he borrowed money, pawned his furniture, sold his jewels, and gave his cloak so as not to abandon them in their needs.

What shall we say of his mercy toward the poor? There was always such a great number at his door that, when one asked where his dwelling was, no other sign was given than these troops of beggars. "Go," they would say, "to such a street, and where you find a quantity of poor people, that is where the lord Eloi lives." He never left his house without having a purse full of money, in order to satisfy them all and send none away. He was surrounded in the streets, says Saint Ouen, as a hive is surrounded by honeybees; he cut back on his drinking and eating to have the means to give them more abundant alms. There were always poor people at his table, and, while he contented himself with a little bread and water for his nourishment, he treated them splendidly and served them good meats with wine as much as they needed. He performed on this occasion, toward them, the office of valet or steward. He relieved them of their bundles, gave them water to wash, made them sit on beautiful chairs, brought and distributed the dishes that had been prepared, and presented them with drink. Sometimes he ate their leftovers, sitting on a small seat at the end of the table; other times he touched nothing, but always stood before them as before his lords and masters. He had no less benevolence for widows, wards, and orphans, and, when they implored his protection, he served them with all his credit and defended them with courage against those who tried to oppress them with their power. He wore silk clothes and precious stones for some time, according to the custom of courtiers and so as not to appear singular, having only a rough hair shirt underneath that pricked him continually and thereby stopped the revolts of his flesh; but later, being more advanced in the spiritual life, he sold what he had of most value for the assistance of monasteries and the poor, and dressed only very commonly. One saw him quite often put a rope around his body, instead of those golden belts enriched with pearls and diamonds that he had before. The king, who knew that it was the poor who had thus stripped him, sometimes gave him his own cloak to cover himself and his royal belt to gird himself, saying very wisely that it was not reasonable that those who had left everything for Jesus Christ should be in contempt for their too great poverty; but Eloi did not keep them long, and when beggars presented themselves and he had no other way to help them, he got rid of them for their subsistence. He lived with Saint Ouen in the royal palace, because of the particular affection that Dagobert held for him; but that did not prevent him from fulfilling his devotions and spiritual exercises exactly. If this prince asked for him at the time he was making his prayer, he sent him to ask him to wait a little, giving as a reason that he was in business with a greater Master than he. He then received the gift of tears, and he shed them with such abundance, as much for his own faults as for the sins and miseries of his neighbor, that it seemed his eyes were going to melt. Having made it a custom to sleep almost not at all, he spent the greater part of the night in contemplation, and the rest he employed in the singing of psalms and the reading of spiritual books. His room was a sanctuary filled with images and relics, where he performed the same functions that the Angels and Saints do in heaven.

The confidence that the king had in his prudence and holiness led him to send him on an embassy to the Duke of Brittany, to negotiate a solid peace between the two crowns. The princes and lords believed this treaty to be impossible, and that the differences between the two sovereigns would necessarily result in a cruel war; but Eloi, whose prudence was incomparable, conducted his negotiation so adroitly that he persuaded the duke to come and meet the king at Clichy, and that, once he was there, he restored them to very good terms. One cannot worthily represent the alms he gave on this journey. He never refused any poor person along the entire way; he gave to the religious, to the hospitals, and to the beggars all the gifts of his embassy, and he even sold, to assist them, a belt of silver, gold, diamonds, and embroidery, which he had been persuaded to wear to support his dignity as ambassador of the most Christian king. His intentions being so pure and his charity so abundant, not only was he never refused anything he asked for, but often he was anticipated and sent large sums, so that he would have enough to satisfy the extent of his mercy, and the prince gave him very considerable gifts, knowing that in giving them to him, he was giving them to an infinite number of the needy. One of the main requests that Saint Eloi made of him was to grant him the land of Solignac, in Limousin, for the foundation of a monaster Solignac Monastery founded by Eligius in Limousin. y; he pleasantly told His Majesty that it was to set up a ladder there by which they could both climb into heaven. The king made him the gift of it, and Eloi had a famous abbey built there, which was from then on filled with more than one hundred and fifty religious. He became so fond of this house thereafter that he sent there everything he could obtain from the king and the lords of the court; so that one saw carts of dishes, clothes, blankets, linens, books, and all other things necessary for a religious community moving toward this holy place. The rule was kept there in such great purity that Saint Ouen, who made a journey there, confessed that there was no monastery in France that was comparable to it for regular observance.

The foundation of this abbey being completed, he immediately thought of establishing another in Paris for nuns; he dedicated to this good work the house he had in front of the palace and which he held from the liberality of Dagobert, and he changed it into a monastery where he assembled up to the number of three hundred nuns under the discipline of Saint Aure. Nothing was missing for the perfection of the edifice but the extent of a small courtyard that was part of the king's domain. He had a plan of it drawn up, in order to know exactly what it contained, and he then asked His Majesty for it. He had no trouble obtaining it; but having since noticed that there had been a mistake in the measurement of the land and that there was a foot more than he had declared to the king, he was extremely afflicted by it, and, having the work stopped at that very hour, he ran to the palace to ask his pardon for this mistake: which he did with tears in his eyes, on his knees, and offering himself to death if he judged that he had deserved it for this fault. The king was not a little surprised by this delicacy of conscience, and, turning toward a large number of lords who were present: "Behold," he said, "what is the fidelity of those who love Jesus Christ. My governors and my officers often take from me, by cunning and for their own profit, entire lands and lordships without any scruple; and this servant of God did not dare to hide from us a single foot of the land that we gave him for a religious house." As a reward for his sincerity, he doubled the donation he had made to him. In addition to the regular buildings of the monastery, Eloi also had a magnificent church built outside the city gates, on the eastern side, in honor of the apostle Saint Paul, for the burial of the nuns, and he had it entirely covered with lead. The body of the blessed Quintilian, who was apparently the director of these holy maidens, was buried there, and it is now one of the most famous parishes of Paris.

Finally, he built, or rather repaired in the city, the church of Saint Martial, bishop and martyr, and, when it was completed, he had the relics of this glorious apostle of the Limousin brought there with much pomp and solemnity. When they passed in front of the prison, where seven men accused of crimes were locked in dungeons, they became so heavy that the one who was carrying them was forced to stop; at the same time, the chains of these wretches broke, and the doors of the dungeons opened by themselves with a great noise, as did those of the prison, to grant them their freedom. This was a miracle of Saint Martial; but it appeared clear that Saint Eloi had foreseen it, and that he had a great part in it, since he had wanted the procession to pass that way, although it was not the ordinary path. He performed a similar prodigy in Bourges, while he was bishop; for he opened, by his prayer, the doors of the prison, had the prisoners come out, and broke their irons which they had worn to the church, where the fear of being recaptured by their guards had forced them to take refuge. This great man, who breathed only devotion, took extreme pleasure in frequenting monasteries and conversing with the religious, especially those of the famous abbey of Luxeuil, founded by Saint Columbanus and governed by Saint Eustasius. He often went to visit them, and he appeared, among these heavenly men, as a model of holiness. As soon as he saw them, he greeted them down to the ground in a profound sentiment of humility. He even obliged them to give him their blessing; and, after having showered them with benefits, he asked them for nothing upon leaving, in gratitude, but a piece of their bread, which was always very coarse, of which he took every day, on an empty stomach, a mouthful out of devotion, preferring this food to the most delicious meats that one could have served him at the king's table. He fasted when he was traveling or when he was to arrive in the evening at some place of piety, and sometimes even two or three days before, and walked one or two leagues on foot to the door of the church. Before going up to a room, he sent for the poor, the sick, and pilgrims to take his meal with them. He often went to meet them to receive them and show them more friendship. If these sick people could not walk, he had them brought, and, when they had wounds, he dressed them with his own hands and gave them the remedies that he judged to be useful to them. The feast that was prepared for him was not for him, but for these unfortunates; he contented himself with bread and water mixed with a little vinegar and he distributed to them the wine and the meats that had been served, and, after their meal, he humbly washed their feet, as he had previously washed their hands and faces, then he arranged good beds for them. During the night, he visited all the places of devotion in the town and the village, and, in the places where there was no church, as soon as his people were asleep, he would get up to spend the rest of the time in prayer and prostrate on the floor. He always returned to bed before daybreak, not to sleep, but so that his mortification remaining hidden, he might avoid the applause of men. This is what he also did in his house and what he practiced faithfully until the tomb.

This act of humility was so pleasing to God that, while still in the secular life, he received eminently the gift of miracles. He healed a man paralyzed in all his limbs, two lame men, and a poor man whose hand had become withered; he restored life to a dead man and sight to a blind man; he multiplied so prodigiously a few drops of wine that had remained in a bottle that he had enough to give to a troop of beggars who were asking him for alms. He miraculously found money in his purse after his charity had completely emptied it; he forced thieves, by a fervent prayer that he made to God, to return, the very next night, the richest ornaments of the church of Sainte-Colombe, which they had stolen. Finally, he did so much good on all sides, both for the body and for the soul, that one can say that he was in France an abundant and inexhaustible source of all kinds of blessings. His works of piety did not prevent him from always working in goldsmithing, and, among the beautiful works he made, one notes especially the shrines of Saint Denis and Saint Germain, bishops of Paris; of Saint Lucian, apostle of Beauvais; of Saint Piat, Saint Quentin, Saint Maximian, and Saint Julian, martyrs; of Saint Martin and Saint Brice, bishops of Tours; of Saint Severin, abbot; of Saint Colombe and Saint Genevieve, virgins; besides several ornaments that he also made in various churches, and especially at Saint-Denis.

His zeal for the Catholic faith was admirable. Although he was still only a layman, he did not fail to procure, by his insistence, a council at Orléans against a heretic from the East who had come to sow Monothelitism and other errors in France. He was himself present at this council to animate the prelates to fight vigorously against this impostor, and he c ontributed n Monothélisme Christological heresy supported by Constans II. ot a little to his condemnation. He also drove from Paris and from the whole kingdom other apostates who were trying, by their speeches, to seduce the people and make them renounce the faith of the Church. He also applied himself with admirable vigor to exterminating the simony that disfigured almost all the dioceses. He always executed very faithfully the just wishes of the kings under whom he lived; but when their edicts were contrary to justice, he opposed them generously and made remonstrances to them with such humility that they saw well that only the love of equity, and not a spirit of revolt or contradiction, made him speak. "O most holy and most perfect servant of God," cries Saint Ouen, "whom the bishops have made a particular glory to imitate, and who possessed, in the state of a layman, the most eminent virtues of the episcopate! Indeed, what naked people did he not clothe? what hungry people did he not feed? what afflicted people did he not console? what ruined families did he not help? what poor monasteries did he not support? and did he not get permission to bury and have buried all the criminals who had been executed by sentence of the judges throughout the extent of the kingdom?" Finally, one of his greatest desires was to die a martyr, in order to sign with his blood the faith that he had in the depths of his heart, and to give thereby marks of the love he bore to Jesus Christ.

So many rare virtues caused him to be raised, from the goldsmith and layman he was, to the see of the Chu rch o Noyon The saint's principal episcopal see. f Noyon, to be its father and pastor. He did not, however, pass all at once to such an eminent dignity. He remained for some time in the clergy, to satisfy the holy Canons; after that, Dieudonné, Bishop of Mâcon, ordained him priest. Finally, he was consecrated bishop at Rouen, with Saint Ouen, in the third year of the reign of Clovis II, on May 14, which fell on the Sunday before the Rogations. As soon as he had received the laying on of hands, he went to his diocese, where his virtues, of which he had given fine examples at court, appeared with a new brilliance. Far from diminishing the exercises of his charity towards pilgrims and the poor, he increased them even more. He had a place where he received them in troops, washed their feet, hands, and faces, gave them food and drink, clothed them in new garments, and gave them great alms. He had twelve of them at his table every day, whom he served himself with the deepest humility, and whom he treated with no less respect and care than if they had been his masters. "I confess ingenuously," says Saint Ouen, in this regard, "that I have never seen such promptness in assisting the members of Jesus Christ, nor heard it said that anyone has practiced the works of mercy with such affection and perseverance. Indeed, there are those who exercise them sometimes at certain times; but to see those who continue them without ever slackening, like Saint Éloi, is something very rare and almost without example."

As his diocese extended far into the Low Countries, where idolatry still reigned in many places, the zeal with which he burned for the salvation of souls did not permit him to remain long without traveling there to work for their conversion. He found much resistance at first; but his patience and his assiduity in preaching the word of God finally made him victorious over the stubbornness of these peoples. He made Jesus Christ known to them, persuaded them of the sacred maxims of the Gospel, and made them abandon the worship of demons, to worship only one God subsisting in three persons. He did not limit his charity to the inhabitants of his province; he also undertook to attract to the faith those of Antwerp, the Frisians, and the peoples spread along the coasts o f the G Frisons Region of origin of the saint. ermanic Ocean. He even went as far as Denmark and Sweden to carry the torch of the faith, and everywhere he dissipated the darkness of ignorance and the errors of pagan superstition. The temples of false gods were changed into churches and profane solemnities into holy and religious feasts. He founded monasteries, assembled Congregations of virgins, ordained priests and inferior ministers, whom he distributed in the parishes, and finally discharged, in these places, all the apostolic functions.

Having returned to his diocese, he applied himself with renewed care to leading it well. He preached often, and his words had a wonderful force and energy; but his example made an even greater impression on hearts than all his discourses. He was rigorous only with himself, for he always used an admirable gentleness and kindness toward others, and often this gentleness won over those whom too great a severity would have discouraged and plunged into despair. However, when the glory of God was at stake, his firmness was no less than his patience. A servant of Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace, relying on his master's authority, wished to usurp a wood that was part of the domain of the church of Noyon and treated Saint Eloi very indignantly to force him to cede it to him; the holy bishop suffered all these insults with extreme moderation; but he always stood firm and constantly refused to consent to this usurpation. "My friend," he said to him, "you should repress your covetousness and blush with shame before God and men to desire as you do a good that belongs to Jesus Christ. If it were mine, I would give it to you very willingly; but I cannot permit you to ravish what is destined for the use of the poor; if you go further, and take possession of it, I shall know well how to use against you the sword of the Church and cut you off from it by the severity of ecclesiastical censures." This man only laughed at his threats, and, without being troubled by them, went to seize the wood he desired. Then Saint Eloi stretched out his hand toward this incorrigible man and fulminated against him the sentence of excommunication; at that very hour, Divine Justice struck him in such a way that he fell to the ground as if dead and gave no further sign of life. Great entreaties were made to Saint Eloi, so that he might pray for him and obtain for him time to do penance; but Saint Ouen confesses that he could not know if he did so in fact, or if, for the terror of the impious, he abandoned this one to the rigors of the anger and indignation of God.

Preaching on the day of Saint Peter in a parish near Noyon, he inveighed with extraordinary force against the dances and other games of the people which still held much of paganism, and he absolutely forbade them. The inhabitants of the village were stirred up by this, and, unable to suffer that these amusements which came from an immemorial custom be taken from them, they took the resolution to massacre their holy pastor if he persisted in his command. He was warned of this conspiracy; but, far from retracting his order or moving away from such a dangerous place, he returned there on the next feast day, animated by an ardent desire to endure martyrdom, and he preached with even more vehemence than before against their superstitious rejoicings. They said a thousand insults to him and loudly threatened to put him to death; but he was not at all astonished by these threats, and the apostolic zeal with which he was filled made him address this fervent prayer to Jesus Christ: "I beseech you, my God, that those who have the temerity to oppose your commands and who prefer to obey the laws of Satan rather than submit to your divine will, be now possessed by the evil spirit, as much to strike terror into others as so that your faithful servants may exalt the glory of your name." Scarcely had he pronounced these words than all those who were preparing to lay hands on him were seized by demons who began to torment them in a frightful manner, particularly the servants of Erchinoald, Mayor of the Palace; and these wretches, who were more than fifty, remained for a whole year in this pitiful state, until, on the same day of the following year, the Saint having again come to this village, and seeing the spirits perfectly submitted, had them come publicly into his presence, and, after a severe reprimand, delivered them by the sign of the cross and holy water.

While visiting his diocese, he interdicted a church whose priest was vicious and gave much scandal. This ecclesiastic, mocking his interdict, did not cease to want to say his mass and sing the divine offices as usual; he wanted to ring the bell for this purpose, in order to assemble his people; but, as if it had been sensitive to the word of the holy prelate, it gave no sound until after three days, because, at the instance of the inhabitants, who protested to him that their priest had done penance and was in the resolution to live with more piety, he lifted the interdict and permitted celebration according to custom. Then the bell made itself heard and began again to summon the people as before. Another priest, whom he had excommunicated for his public and infamous crimes, having had, notwithstanding this censure, the temerity to go to the altar, fell stone dead on the steps, and showed by this terrible punishment how severely God will punish his ministers who, by a sacrilegious attempt, have had the temerity to say mass in a state of mortal sin. We would never finish if we wanted to report all the other wonders of this incomparable man. Often, by a single command, or even by his mere presence, he forced the demon to leave the bodies of the possessed. He rendered dry and sterile by his word a walnut tree whose master, quarrelsome and impatient, made great insults to him every day for some nuts that his servants had knocked down, and which neither the reprimand he had given them, nor three gold pieces he had given him to compensate him, had been able to appease. One of his officers being sick unto death, he ordered him to get up to go on a journey with him, and at that very instant he rose in perfect health. He also healed, by his mere touch, one of his deacons who had an unbearable pain in his side and who was making him entirely consumptive.

The gift of miracles was not the only one Eloi received from God; he also had that of prophecy in a very eminent degree; distant things were no less known to him than those which were happening before his eyes, and he saw the future as well as the present. It was told to him that a villain, named Flavaud, had cruelly put to death a very virtuous gentleman of Burgundy, named Willebaud; he said to his friends: "This gentleman was a true servant of God, and he presently enjoys in heaven an immortal life; but as for Flavaud, he will die in ten days of an unforeseen and fatal death"; which effectively happened. He also predicted the death of Simplicius, Bishop of Limoges, and that Felix would be elected in his place; that of Aribert and Dagobert, Kings of France; the birth of Clotaire III, whom he held at the baptismal font, and the reign of the children of Clovis. He warned an abbot, who had come to see him, that the demon was causing great disorders in his monastery in his absence. In fact, he found upon his return that twelve of his monks had left the habit and had returned to the world. But the most striking of his predictions was that of the death of Erchinoald, Mayor of the Palace. This lord asked him to accompany him on a journey he was making for some important business; he went against his inclination, because he foresaw well that the outcome would not be happy. As he was walking one night with h is deacon Erchinoald Son of Gertrude and mayor of the palace. before the door of the inn where they were lodged, meditating on some verses of the psalms, he saw a column of fire descend from heaven which seemed to penetrate with much vehemence into the room of Erchinoald. He then told his deacon that this minister would soon die; in fact, he was struck at that very hour with a violent fever, which, in a few days, led him to the tomb. In the heat of this fever, he had Saint Eloi called to recommend himself to his prayers, hoping that they would obtain health for him. But the blessed prelate told him openly that he had only a very short time to live, and that his only application should be to prepare himself to die well; that, moreover, if he wanted to save his soul, he had to execute before that hour what he had never wanted to do during his life, namely, to give to the poor all the gold and silver he had amassed from the people by his unjust exactions, because all that he would leave in his coffers would serve only for his condemnation. The dying man saw well that this was necessary; but he brought so much delay to determining himself on this that he expired without having accomplished such a salutary counsel. Saint Eloi, nevertheless, had his body removed and gave him an honorable burial in the church of Mont Saint-Quentin, near Péronne, which Saint Foursy had had built from the great alms he had received from him. This lord, in fact, had appeared liberal toward the poor and the monasteries. But what use are the liberalities that are made from goods pillaged from the people, if one does not restore all that one has taken, and if one does not restore it to those whom one has unjustly despoiled?

In addition to the churches and religious houses that we have said our Saint founded, he also had the monastery of Saint-Martin built in Noyon. He expanded that of Saint-Pierre in Ghent, on Mount Blandin. He gathered hermits on a mountain two leagues from Arras, which has since been named Mont Saint-Éloi. He erected various oratories in Aldembourg, Rothenbourg, and Bruges. In this last city, he consecrated the church of Saint-Sauveur, and in Courtrai, that of the monastery of Saint-Martin. Finally, he knew so well how to engage kings and princes in these works of piety that many others were only carried out at his instance and through his care.

He received from God a special gift: to find the bodies of Saints who were previously honored without anyone knowing where their relics were. He made the happy discovery of the sacred remains of the martyr Saint Quentin; he discovered, through a similar good fortune, those of Saint Piat in Seclin, and those of Saint Lucien in Beauvais, and with his own hands, he made shrines of precious metal for them, enriched with precious stones, just as he did for Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian in Soissons.

Finally, after having led such an exemplary and holy life, undertaken so many labors for the conversion of the peoples, and exercised so many works of piety and mercy, being seventy years old, he had a revelation of his death. Then he took new care to prepare himself well for it, persuaded that one can never be too pure to appear before the judgment of God. On the eve of his passing, he summoned his disciples and his servants, and powerfully exhorted them to the fear and love of Our Lord, to never lose sight of the sorrows of His Passion, nor the rigors of His final tribunal, to observe His law faithfully, and to put themselves every day in the state they would wish to be in at the hour of death. He also recommended to them the monasteries and houses of devotion that he had built for the salvation of souls and for the honor of the Church; then, prostrating himself on the ground, he made this prayer to God: "I pray to you, divine Shepherd, to give to this people that I am about to leave a father according to your heart, and to surround it yourself with your mercy; sustain it with your protection; guide it by your inspirations, and do not cease to lead it by the way of your commandments." He then embraced them all one after the other and bade them his final farewell. Finally, the following day, saying these words of Scripture: "Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, and do not enter into judgment with me," he expired in the fervor of his prayer and amidst the tears and groans of his children. This was on December 4, at one o'clock in the morning, in the year of Jesus Christ 659.

Many saw his soul ascend to heaven in the midst of a great light, and take, before they lost sight of it, the form of a globe of fire surmounted by a cross much brighter than the rays of the sun. Queen Saint Balthild, having learned of his illness, immediately set out with the king and the princes, her children, to have the consolation of seeing him one more time; but she did not arrive in Noyon until the day after his death. Her intention was to have his body carried to her abbey of Chelles, and she had prayers and a three-day fast performed for this purpose; but God did not permit him to be taken from Noyon. When they tried to transport him, he became so heavy that there was no way to move him.

Saint Eligius is represented: 1st standing, holding a hammer surmounted by a small crown. In the background, his workers are making a shrine and other objects; 2nd holding a hammer and the crozier; 3rd in front of a gallows where a hanged man is seen whom he seems to be blessing; 4th lying down, having a dream during which he sees the sun and the moon accompanied by three stars; 5th working in his workshop.

Saint Eligius is the patron of Antwerp, Béthune, Bologna, Dunkirk, Limoges, Marseille, Noyon, Paris; and of goldsmiths, blacksmiths, farriers, veterinarians, saddlers, wheelwrights, coppersmiths, cutlers, watchmakers, locksmiths, miners, spurriers, coachbuilders, coachmen, farmers, horse dealers, edge-tool makers, gold beaters, gilders, tinsmiths, moneyers, plowmen, and farmhands. He is invoked for horses and against vicious horses.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

The body of Saint Eligius was buried in the church of Saint-Leu, which had been the most ordinary place of his devotions. His funeral pomp was so magnificent that one had never seen such an illustrious one in the kingdom. The king and the regent, with all the princes and lords of the court and a quantity of bishops, attended it. But what made it even more brilliant were the troops of captives delivered, the poor fed, and the widows supported by his alms, who cried out to heaven for the loss they were suffering of such a good shepherd. The miracles that were performed at his tomb through his intercession, and the chains of the prisoners that all broke when they were brought before his basilica, further wonderfully highlighted the brilliance of his merits.

The relics of Saint Eligius rest in the cathedral of Noyon, to which they were awarded by a decree of the Parliament of Paris, against the religious of the abbey of Saint-Leu, which had taken the name of Saint-Éloi from that time on, in the year 1462. They are kept in a gilded wooden shrine, under the high altar of the old cathedral. His head, which had been given to the abbey of Chelles, is found, since the destruction of that monastery, in the parish church of Saint-André, in the same place. Several other churches pride themselves on possessing some parts of his rich remains, such as Saint-Barthélemy of Noyon, Saint-Sauveur of Bruges, Saint-Martin of Tournai, Saint-Pierre of Douai, and the cathedral of Paris, to which a bone from one of his arms was given in 1212, as is recorded in the breviary of the diocese.

Finally, the memory of this great prelate, one of the most illustrious in the kingdom, is always very famous there as well as in Flanders, and one sees churches and chapels built and confraternities erected in his honor.

Taken from the Life of the Saint, by Saint Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen. — Cf. Vers de s Saints d saint Ouen Author of the eulogy and life of Saint Aurea. u Limousin, by M. Labiche de Enignefort.