Saint Hugh of Grenoble

Upon returning to Valence, he was provided with a canon's prebend in the cathedral church; he conducted himself there so prudently and with such edification that the famous Hugh, first Bishop of Die and later Archbishop of Lyon, having been appointed legate in France by Pope Gregory VII, took a liking to him, made him his advisor, and asked him to share in the labors of his legation. He therefore followed the legate to Lyon, and from there to Avignon, where, during the celebration of a Council, deputies came on behalf of the cle Grenoble Seat of the diocese where the events took place. rgy of Grenoble to request him as their bishop (1080). The legate joyfully consented to their request, but the Saint was terrified and seized with grief; trembling in his whole body, he began to cry out that he had neither the age, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue necessary for such a great office, and that he would never suffer an eminent dignity like the episcopate to be defiled by the consecration of such an unworthy subject: a sentiment of humility he maintained until the end of his life; for despite his miracles and his very wise administration, which earned him the respect and admiration of everyone, he still regarded himself only as the most incapable of all bishops, and was always ready to leave the episcopate. But the legate, who, according to the testimony of Ivo of Chartres, was one of the greatest men and holiest figures of his time, paid no heed to his tears; delighted to see that not only did he not seek honors that did not suit him, but that he even refused those for which his merits made him worthy, and which were offered to him at the age of twenty-seven, he succeeded through his remonstrances in calming his fears, overcoming his stubbornness, and finally deciding him to accept this office, too heavy for the strongest if they are not supported by God; but which is not too heavy for the weakest when His spirit animates them and His virtue strengthens them. Thus, he conferred upon him all the Orders up to the priesthood, and persuaded him to come with him to Rome to receive episcopal consecration from the Pope himself; for Hugh would have been careful not to receive it from the hands of Varmond, Archbishop of Vienne and his metropolitan, who was publicly considered a simoniac.

While he was waiting in Rome for the day of his consecration, the devil began to trouble him with an importunate temptation of blasphemy regarding Providence, which was, until his final illness, the trial of his virtue and the subject of his victories. God permitted this temptation to come to him so that, as he was to perform in his life a great number of heroic actions and prodigious things, which drew upon him the esteem and applause of an infinity of people of all sorts of states and conditions, he would have continually within himself, not a thorn in the flesh, like Saint Paul, but a pain, a spiritual cross, which warned him of what he was and kept him in the sight of his nothingness and a humble sentiment of his lowliness. But what is quite surprising is that, during such a long space of time, he was so much on his guard, and watched so faithfully over all the movements of his heart, that the devil could never obtain from him, I do not say a consent to the thoughts of blasphemy that he suggested to him, but even a negligence or a cowardice in repelling them.

However, this great man, seeing himself attacked by this new kind of pain, wanted to use this occasion to excuse himself from the weight of the pastoral charge that was about to be imposed upon him. He spoke of it first to the legate Hugh, who had brought him to Rome, and, having opened his heart and what was happening within it, he told him that he feared this temptation had come to him as a punishment for having too easily consented to his election: but that, in any case, he should not take on the leadership of a diocese, because it was a sufficient occupation for him to repel the temptations from which it was impossible for him to free himself. The legate consoled him and encouraged him as best he could; but in order to remove all cause for distress, he advised him to reveal himself entirely to the Pope, with the disposition to then submit blindly to everything that His Holiness would order. Saint Hugh did so with much sincerity and frankness; but as the Holy Father was perfectly enlightened, he penetrated also the designs of God for his servant, and recognized that, on one hand, the devil had stirred up this war against him only to prevent the great services he was to render to the Church, and that, on the other, God had permitted it only to strengthen him further and make him a more worthy instrument of His will. Thus, having wonderfully consoled and fortified him, he laid his hands upon him and consecrated him Bishop of Grenoble. Countess Matilda, who was then very powerful in Italy , and who generou comtesse Mathilde Influential countess who aided in the reconciliation at Canossa. sly assisted the Holy See in all its needs, provided everything necessary for the ceremony of this consecration, and presented to this new bishop a crozier, or pastoral staff, with the Book of Offices of Saint Ambrose and the psalms accompanied by the Commentaries of Saint Augustine. It was a precious gift in those days, that of a psalter.

Saint Hugh, after his consecration, left Rome with the Pope's blessing and went as soon as possible to his diocese; but he found it in a deplorable state and almost entirely corrupted by usury, simony, debauchery, impurity, concubinage, incestuous and sacrilegious marriages, and a thousand other vices that were no less common among priests and lower clergy than among the laity, without either the former or the latter refraining from approaching the altars and receiving the holy Mysteries, so great was their ignorance and blindness. The revenues of the bishopric had also been dissipated or sold to laymen by some of the prelates who had occupied the see; so that there remained for our Saint hardly enough to subsist on, because he did not wish, like many others, to profit from spiritual graces and the administration of the Sacraments, which he knew must be given freely. It is not possible to describe here what he did in those beginnings to remedy such great evils. He employed all the means that prudence, zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, the ardent desire to fulfill his duty, and the light of the Holy Spirit could suggest to him. He joined to his remonstrances, to the thunderbolts of preaching and threats, to his prayers and his tears, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and everything capable of attracting the grace and mercy of God upon his people; but as he recognized, by a heavenly light, that the fruit of his labors was not yet ripe, and that the moment for the entire renovation of his diocese had not yet arrived, he retired, after two years of continuous efforts, to the monastery of La Chaise-Dieu, of the Order of Cluny, where he took the habit of Saint Benedict (1084). It is not that he wished to abandon his diocese; but considering that he was still young, and above all persuading himself, through that humility which accompanied him all his life, that he had an infinity of imperfections to correct, he believed that a retreat of some time in this monastery would serve him extremely well to fulfill more worthily, in the future, all the duties of his office. One saw in him a model of all religious perfections; and as new as he was, there were no exercises in which he did not serve as a model to the most senior. But Pope Gregory VII, having learned of his retreat, immediately sent him an express order to return to his diocese and to take up again the helm of his vessel, wh pape Grégoire VII Pope during whose pontificate Saint Gausbert died. ich he seemed to have abandoned. He obeyed without resistance, and although he had been at La Chaise-Dieu for only a year, he brought back from it so much unction and fervor that he subsequently did much more good for his flock.

About three years after his return to Grenoble (1086), Saint Brun saint Bruno Founder of the Carthusian Order. o, accompanied by six of his friends, came to find him, with the intention of laying the foundations of his Order in some remote place within his jurisdiction. The holy bishop received him with great joy and willingly granted what he asked; some time before, God had shown him in a dream seven stars of great splendor, which, walking before him, led him to the desert of the Chartreuse, as to a place where he wou désert de la Chartreuse Place of retreat for Geoffroy in 1114. ld find true rest. He easily understood that they signified these seven venerable persons who were approaching him to withdraw into solitude. He was not content with merely marking out a place suitable for their purpose; he led them there himself, and wishing to benefit from their conversation, by which he felt marvelously refreshed, he returned there very often and stayed as long as the obligations of his office would allow him. He was so humble with them that, the smallness of the place obliging these holy anchorites in the beginning to lodge two in the same cell, Saint Hugh's companion complained that instead of treating him as an inferior, he acted toward him as with his master and superior. The charms of contemplation sometimes kept him so long in this blessed solitude that Saint Bruno was obliged to warn him to go and resume the care of his flock.

The holy Bishop saw the face of his diocese change little by little, when new troubles came to assail him and cast a thousand embarrassments upon his life. We shall not enter into the account of the disputes he had with several lords, which would fill his existence with bitterness: it will suffice for us to say, to edify our readers and lead them to patience and trust in God, that after thirty-six years of struggles, he was finally able to enjoy some rest. Freed henceforth from the concern of temporal affairs, he redoubled his zeal for his own salvation and the sanctification of his dear diocesans.

His zeal and his love for poverty and penance led him to the point of wanting to sell his horses to give the money to the poor and then go on foot to preach, catechize, and confer the Sacraments throughout his diocese. But Saint Bruno dissuaded him, because this action could pass for a singularity, and because the diocese of Grenoble being entirely filled with mountains and rocks, he would never have been able to withstand the fatigue of traveling and visiting it on foot.

He joined to the labors of the episcopate the greatest austerities of the cloister, and his fasts, his vigils, and his other mortifications were so great and so assiduous that they soon caused him a heaviness of the stomach and a headache that lasted until his death. His table was ordinarily seasoned with a holy reading, which he listened to with such an attentive spirit that he often watered his bread with the water that flowed from his eyes. He also wept with great tenderness when he was in the confessional; and a venerable Carthusian, named Gautier, testified that, while confessing to him before entering religious life, the Saint had shed so many tears upon him that his hair, his face, and his clothes had been completely wetted by them. As for women, he did not confess them in secret or dark places, but in public confessionals, which were in view of everyone. He was so restrained in looking at them that, after having occupied the chair of Grenoble for fifty-two years, he hardly knew one of them by sight. Having spoken to a lady who had presented herself to him with her throat and bosom too exposed, some were astonished that he had not reprimanded her; he was obliged to reply that he had not noticed it. And he said in this regard that he did not know how one who did not restrain his eyes could protect himself from evil thoughts, since it is through them, according to Jeremiah, that death enters our heart¹.

This holy Prelate was no less careful not to lend an ear to murmurs, because it is enough for everyone, he said, to know his own sins, to weep for them and do penance for them, without worrying about knowing those of others, which can only serve to wound the conscience. He was so detached from the things of the earth that he took no pleasure in learning news, nor in telling it, and he could not suffer that the people of his household, who were almost all either clerics or religious, should converse about such trifles. He often had very sublime ecstasies, in which he tasted, with an ineffable pleasure, the infinite sweetnesses of the Divinity; and from there, he drew a marvelous strength to suffer the bodily pains by which he was so long tormented. He was the most upright man in the world and the most truthful in his words; a count, named Guy, who was otherwise his enemy and whom he had excommunicated twice for his violence against the Church, was forced to admit that he did not believe that a lie had ever escaped his lips. His judgments were so disinterested and so equitable that no one would have dared to appeal them; he looked neither at the poor nor the rich, neither the friend nor the enemy, but only at the justice of the cause; and although he terminated an infinity of them in the great number of years that he governed his diocese, he could say, with the prophet Samuel, that he had never received a single gift, knowing that gifts blind and corrupt the wisest.

But, although all the virtues of this great Prelate were so many charms that won him the love of those who had the happiness of frequenting him, nevertheless this natural goodness, enhanced by the spirit of charity, which made him sympathize with all the afflictions of his neighbor, was the most powerful attraction to win hearts to him. Indeed, he was so charitable that he denied everything to himself, in order to have something to give to the poor; he distributed so liberally all the revenues of his church to them, that in a year of famine he even sold his ring and his golden chalice to help the beggars of his diocese. He took particular care to settle disputes; when he could not succeed by his remonstrances, he would throw himself at the feet of the interested parties, whether he found them in the countryside or met them in the middle of the streets, to persuade them to be reconciled with one another, and would not leave them until they had finally granted his request. Thanks to his vivid sensitivity, he was a compelling and pathetic preacher. His preaching was not delicate, but vigorous; it made such an impression on souls that people would interrupt him to confess their crimes publicly, and no sooner had he descended from the pulpit than he would go to the tribunal of penance, to reconcile with God the sinners whom these exhortations had touched. One cannot speak enough of his humility: although he procured infinite goods for all the Orders of his diocese, for the ecclesiastics, the religious, and the laity, nevertheless he sought all his life only the opportunity to rid himself of his prelacy, as judging himself very unworthy of it. And, indeed, he made great entreaties for this to the popes Gelasius II, Callixtus II, and Honorius II: he prayed especially to the latter, pleading his old age and his continuous illnesses; but this Pope replied that he preferred him old and sick, for the good of his people, than any other who would be younger and in full health. Hugh nonetheless continued his efforts: he went to Rome himself to have his resignation accepted. It was, however, still without success, because Pope Honorius persisted courageously in refusing him this resignation, which he believed would be prejudicial to his Church. This is what Pope Innocent II, his successor, also did.

¹ Jerem., 12, 22.

If the vigilance of Saint Hugh was so useful to the Church of Grenoble, it was no less so to the Universal Church. He was one of those who, in the year 1112, at the Council of Vienne, most ardently procured the excommunication of Emperor Henry IV for having seized, by treachery, Pope Paschal and the entire clergy of the Holy Roman Church. And during the schism of Peter Leon, who wished to be recognized as pope in place of Innocent II, and who called himself Anacletus II, he was present with the other prelates at the Council of Le Puy, in Velay, and excommunicated him as a schismatic. This holy Bishop is all the more praiseworthy in this, as he was closely beholden to this antipope and his father, who had favored him on several occasions; but, as a faithful servant of God, he generously renounced all his own interests in a matter where the general interest of the Catholic Church, the spouse of Jesus Christ, was at stake.

On this occasion, the temptation to blaspheme dissipated entirely, so that not even the memory of it remained with him; but his illnesses increased so much that he had no vigor left, nor even memory, except for spiritual things. In this state, he acted with such gentleness that he never asked anything of those who served him except by way of supplication; and, when they had rendered him the service, he thanked them with these words: "My brother, may God reward you for the charity you have shown me." If there was anyone who showed disgust at doing what he asked, or who complained about him, he would strike his breast, and accusing himself as if he were guilty, he would ask for penance. He recited continuously, languid as he was, psalms, litanies, and hymns; and it was noted that in one night, he said the Lord's Prayer three hundred times. The religious who assisted him feared that this assiduity in prayer would inconvenience him; but he told them, with his ordinary humility, that far from increasing his miseries, it was a very effective remedy for them. Often he wept bitterly and heaved deep sighs; and when he was asked why he lamented so much, since he had never committed perjury, nor murder, nor adultery, nor any crime: "What does it matter," he replied, "since covetousness and vanity alone are capable of destroying us without the mercy of God!"

As the bishop of Die, who had been dean of his church, wished to receive the religious habit from his hands, he jumped joyfully from his bed and performed this ceremony, after which he prostrated himself face to the ground to thank the divine Goodness for having inspired this design in his disciple. A lord, named Guy, having come to ask for his blessing on his knees, the Saint rebuked him severely for a tax he had placed on his vassals, and threatened him with the wrath of God if he did not lift it. This lord recognized that it was God who had revealed this matter to him, and promised him to suppress the tax from which he had not yet received anything.

Finally, in the year 1132, on April 1st, which was the Friday before Palm Sunday, it pleased God to crown his servant and call him to blessed eternity. He was eighty years old: he had spent fifty-two in the prelacy. His body was kept without burial until the Tuesday of the following week; and, although he had been consumed by illnesses, he did not exhale any bad odor. He was buried by three bishops in the church of Notre-Dame, in Grenoble, where God has rendered his sepulcher illustrious by several miracles: Pope Innocent II issued the decree of his canonization in Pisa, on April 22, 1134, two years after his death.

Saint Hugh is depicted hearing confessions because he restored the use of the Sacraments in his diocese, which were almost no longer frequented, and because he himself devoted himself with great zeal, modesty, and humility to the ministry of confession.

Sometimes he is depicted in the habit of a Carthusian, to show that his greatest happiness was to share the solitude of those religious, whom he himself had established in his diocese.

He is also attributed the silent swan to signify his love of solitude and the requests he made to the Holy See to obtain permission to leave his chair and retire to the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu.

Then he is shown examining a construction plan to indicate that he was like the founder of the Grande-Chartreuse.

There is another emblem by which one wishes to signify much the same thing. Saint Hugh sees seven stars falling at his feet: these are the companions of Saint Bruno who come to beg him to welcome them into his diocese.

He is also seen represented in a group with Saint Bruno, Saint Hugh of Lincoln, and Saint Roseline, because, visited at her death by the three servants of God, this blessed woman saw them all in Carthusian habits.

He is often shown shedding tears, to mark the sorrow he felt at seeing the sad state to which his Church had been reduced by the negligence of his predecessor and to recall the tender piety with which he attended to all the exercises of his holy ministry.

Saint Hugh was tall and well-built, but of extraordinary shyness. He is especially honored in Grenoble, his episcopal city, and at the Grande-Chartreuse, of which he is considered the founder, along with Saint Bruno.

## RELICS OF SAINT HUGH. — HIS HISTORIANS.

Little remains of the relics of Saint Hugh; the hand of man, even more than that of time, has destroyed everything. In the 16th century, when Grenoble was taken by the Baron des Adrets, at the head of his Huguenots, all the churches were given over to pillage; the body of the baron des Adrets Warlord whose siege of Apt caused the spoliation of the reliquary. holy Prelate, which was kept in a silver reliquary, was brought down to the public square and burned.

Saint Hugh left no work, either because all his moments were filled by the labors of his ministry, or because, overwhelmed all his life by infirmities, it was impossible for him to engage in assiduous studies. We have from his episcopate only three cartularies or collections of charters that he had drawn up, no doubt to spare his successors the embarrassment he had encountered. Deposited in the National Archives during the Revolution, these cartularies were returned to the bishopric of Grenoble. Moreover, the Library of this city possesses two copies. We said in our last edition: "These precious documents and all those of this kind should be published, in order, if one may use this language, to secure history against fire; for what an irreparable loss it is when only one copy or rare copies exist, and a disaster strikes precisely the place that serves as their repository, as recently in Bordeaux?" Today we learn that these cartularies have been published by Mr. Jules Marion, in-4°, 1869.

Of the places that saw the birth of Saint Hugh at Châteauneuf, there remain on an eminence overlooking the woods only the ruins of an old castle still called today the Castle of Saint Hugh. Below these ruins, on the side of the Isère, is a fountain to which miraculous properties are attributed; it is also called the fountain of Saint Hugh.

His life was composed by order of Pope Innocent II, by the Rev. Fr. Jacques Guigues, fifth prior of the Grande-Chartreuse. Besides this original document, besides Baronius and the other general histories, one can usefully consult Mr. Nadal, Hagiology of Valence, and especially Mr. Albert du Boys who has treated the subject ex-professo.

This Guigues was united by the bonds of a holy friendship to the great Bernard of Clairvaux. The latter, having taken the road to the Chartreuse to visit his friends in the mountains, did not fail t o present his respec Bernard de Clairvaux Contemporary and admirer of Guigo. ts to Saint Hugh while passing through Grenoble. Now, what was the pious surprise of the venerable abbot when he saw a prelate crowned with white hair, whose virtue was renowned everywhere, prostrate himself at his feet and ask for his blessing? Never, surely, was an act of humility better appreciated than by such an illustrious visitor: since then, adds the historian of Saint Bernard, these two children of light were but one heart and one soul. But to return to Guigues, historian of our Saint, his work is remarkable above all from the point of view of piety and asceticism.

The Bollandists have reproduced the original life written by the venerable Guigues.