Saint Clotilde, Queen of France

Around the middle of the 5th century, the Burgundians, having come from Germania like the Franks, occupied the territory in Gaul extending from the Rhône and the Saône to the Alps. Lyon, Geneva, and Chalon-sur-Saône were their capitals. Their king, Gondioc, was Catholic. Upon his death (463), he left four sons: Gundobad, Chilperic, Godegisel, and Gondomar. It was Chilperic who succeeded his father and took the title of King of the Burgundians, while leaving the government of certain provinces to his brothers. He resided in Lyon. Chilperic was Catholic, as was his entire family, with the exception of Gundobad, who was infected with Arianism; he had two daughters, Chrona and our saint Clotilde, at the time when the events that cast him from the throne broke out.

Around the year 477, discord arose between the sons of Gondioc. Gondebaud Uncle of Clotilde, King of the Burgundians, murderer of Chilperic. Gundobad, the most ambitious of all, stopped at no crime to dethrone Chilperic. The consequences of this fratricidal war seem to have been long and cruel. Finally, Gundobad appeared at the gates of Vienne, where his brother had taken refuge. Chilperic fell into the power of the victor, along with his wife and his two daughters, Chrona and Clotilde. Gundobad did not know how to show generosity in victory. He cruelly had his brother Chilperic beheaded, and his widow was thrown into the Rhône with a stone around her neck.

The two young princesses, having fallen into the power of a barbarian uncle, were nevertheless spared. Chrona, who was the eldest, was relegated to a monastery, where she took the religious habit and lived under the name of Mucurune. As for Clotilde, who was still very young, she was locked in a castle that belonged to her father's murderer.

A constant tradition, recalled by the historians of Burgundy, places Clotilde's stay, after falling into the power of her uncle, at Montmorot, near Lons-le-Saunier. One can still see today the high keep where she was locked up, it is said, by the suspicious Gundobad. Ancient historians do indeed speak to us of Clotilde's stay in Geneva and in Upper Burgundy, and King Gundobad had her carefully guarded, either at Montmorot or in some other castle in the province. He undoubtedly feared that the interest attached to the fate of an innocent orphan might reawaken the ardor of Chilperic's partisans against him. However, he treated her with honor, and the young princess showed herself as remarkable for the wisdom of her mind as for her radiant beauty.

Clotilde, raised thus in the midst of an Arian court, remained faithful to the worship of the true God. Her gentleness, her piety, and also her love for the poor made her blessed by all those who lived around her, and by all the indigent to whom she was accustomed to distribute alms. She performed these good works in complete freedom, and soon the reputation of the pious princess spread throughout all of Gaul.

Clovis Clovis First king of the Franks to convert to Catholicism. , who then reigned over France, heard of Clotilde's virtues and immediately conceived the desire to have her as his wife. But how could the thought of marrying a Catholic princess come to Clovis, who was a pagan king? From a strictly political point of view, this marriage did not offer the advantages usually sought for princely alliances. Clotilde could bring her new husband only virtues, without other treasures. Stripped of all personal fortune by the murderer of her parents, held in a semi-captivity that made her invisible even to foreign ambassadors sent to the Burgundian court, she had to be sought for herself, without any ulterior motive of ambition or territorial expansion. There has been talk of the rights she represented, as the daughter of Chilperic, over the kingdom of the Burgundians, and some historians have claimed that this prospect alone determined Clovis's choice. But it is certain that among the Burgundians, as well as among the Franks, daughters could not inherit the throne. Only a war could dispossess Gundobad. Now, Clovis and his Franks had no need to buy the right to wage war on neighboring nations through an alliance. They took this right whenever they wanted, according to the inspirations of their bellicose mood and the opportunity of conjectures. But the choice of Clotilde as the wife of Clovis had a far more significant meaning for the Gallo-Roman Catholics. It confirmed the hopes that, from north to south, from east to west, in all the Gauls, were attached to the Frankish nation. The wishes of the Catholics were in favor of Clotilde. Ardent prayers rose from all hearts so that the orphan, having become Queen of the Franks, might one day win them to the faith.

It is natural to think that the advice of Saint Remi, in whom the Frankish king had complete confidence, was not foreign to his determination.

"Clovis sent frequent embassies to the Burgundians," says Fredegar, "in the hope that his envoys might meet Clotilde. But they were not allowed to see her. Clovis then resorted to a stratagem that a Gallo-Roman nobleman, Aurelian, undertook to make succeed. The latter disguised himself in the rags of a beggar, a bag on his shoulder, and left alone for the city of Janua (Geneva) where Gundobad was then lo Aurélien Gallo-Roman nobleman and ambassador of Clovis. cated. He carried the royal ring that Clovis had entrusted to him."

"One Sunday after Mass, Clotilde, advancing, according to custom, under the porch of the church, was busy distributing her alms to the assembled poor. There pressed the Romans stripped of their goods, the Gauls ruined by the tax collectors, those who arrived as fugitives from the lands devastated by the Franks, women, old men, children, whom the distant reputation of Clotilde's beneficence called from all regions to the places where she poured out her gifts. That day, a young Roman, who kept an air of opulence and dignity under his beggar's clothes, had struck her by the whiteness of his hands, by the perfume of his hair, and even more by the care he had taken to push aside the veil with which she was enveloped to contemplate her fixedly, while kneeling before her he held out his hand for her silver as. Surprised, she had him called, and asked him the motives for his disguise and his boldness.

"Most illustrious Clotilde," he had replied, "I am Aurelian, son of the senator of that name, of a consular family. King Clovis has held my family and me in grace. He took us as the interpreters of his clemency to the Romans of my province; since then, he has honored me with the title of his guest, raised me to the rank of his antrustions, and at this moment I am fulfilling a mission which is the highest and most magnificent testimony of his confidence. Aurelian, son of Aurelian, most clarissimus senator, he said to me, I have resolved to seat on my throne, at my side, a princess of the same religion as your people, a princess who is said to be beautiful among all the daughters of the Gauls. Go, manage to see her, without the knowledge of her uncle Gundobad; and if I have not been deceived, if you find her worthy of the praises that the world gives her, here is my ring... Noble princess," added Aurelian, "my expectation is exceeded!"

And at the same time he handed her the royal ring which was to serve as authentic proof of his mission.

Clotilde received it with joy and said to the envoy: "It is not permitted for a Christian to marry a pagan. If, however, the designs of God prepare this union, if He wishes to use me to lead the King of the Franks to know Him, I will be happy to fulfill His will. Receive, I pray you, as a reward for your service these one hundred solidi. Here is my ring. Return promptly to your master and tell him on my behalf that, if he wishes to marry me, he should immediately send ambassadors to make the request to Gundobad, my uncle. The deputies must conclude the negotiation without delay and act with celerity. Aredius, the advisor to my uncle the king, is not yet back from Constantinople. We must take advantage of this circumstance, for I suspect he would be contrary to our project."

Aurelian left immediately and reported to Clovis all the details of his journey. He was immediately charged to return, no longer as a beggar, says Almoin, but as an ambassador, to Gundobad, to demand in the name of the King of the Franks the immediate delivery of his fiancée whom he was unjustly detaining. The exchange of the two rings between the future spouses indeed gave Clotilde the title of fiancée. She knew it. Consequently, she had taken care to deposit secretly, and without her uncle's knowledge, Clovis's ring among the other jewels of the royal treasury. Aurelian, having arrived at Gundobad's, who was unaware of all these details, said to him: "The King of the Franks sends me to claim from you his fiancée whom you are holding at your court. — What is this fiancée? replied Gundobad. Do you come here with a hostile goal, and to play the role of a spy? Take care that I do not have you driven shamefully from my states. — The fiancée of Clovis my master," said Aurelian, "is your niece Clotilde. The King of the Franks has exchanged his ring with her. Fix then yourself the day and the place where the solemn delivery of the princess will be made to her royal husband. — Gundobad, more and more astonished, took counsel from the great men of his court. All feared that a refusal would draw the arms of Clovis upon the Burgundian provinces. Here is the advice they gave the king: Let the young girl be questioned; let it be known from her if it is true that she received the ring of Clovis and consented to marry him. In the event that the fact is true and that she has really exchanged the engagement gifts, she must be handed over without delay to the ambassadors of the King of the Franks, rather than exposing us to a disastrous war. — Clotilde was therefore summoned; she declared having really received the ring of Clovis, showed it to her uncle, and added that she would willingly become the wife of the King of the Franks." Aurelian was recalled: "He hastened," says Fredegar, "to offer Gundobad a sou and a denier, a customary pledge of matrimonial alliances among the Franks. It was agreed that Clotilde would leave immediately to join Clovis, and that the two spouses would return together to celebrate their wedding solemnly at Cahillonum (Chalon-sur-Saône), where Gundobad wanted to prepare magnificent festivities. The Frankish ambassadors received Clotilde from the hands of the King of the Burgundians. She took her place on a basterna, a covered chariot drawn by oxen." — "But having learned that there was talk of the imminent return of Aredius, she said to the Frankish ambassadors: If you wish to deliver me safe and sound into the hands of the king your master, it is not on a basterna that we must travel. Give me a good horse, and let us hasten to leave the territory of the Burgundians. Otherwise we will be stopped on the way. — The Franks asked for nothing better, and the young fiancée, mounted on a swift steed, quickened her pace. Aredius had indeed just landed in Marseille, and, galloping day and night, arrived at the court of Gundobad. You know, the prince said to him, that I have just contracted an alliance with the Franks, and that I have given my niece Clotilde as a wife to their king. — An alliance! cried the Burgundian minister; say rather that you have just preluded a war that will never end. O my master! do you no longer remember that the father of Clotilde, your brother Chilperic, succumbed under your sword; that the mother of Clotilde was thrown with a stone around her neck into the Rhône? and that the two brothers of Clotilde had their heads severed by your order? Believe me, if she ever has the power, she will avenge the tragic end of her parents. Send an army in pursuit of her: let her be brought back by force. It will be easier to finish a quarrel settled once and for all with Clovis than a resentment that will be eternalized between the Franks and the Burgundians, under the influence of the new queen. — Gundobad took this advice. He immediately dispatched a band of horsemen to stop Clotilde, and bring her back to him with the treasures deposited in the royal basterna. But it was too late. Clotilde was already touching the borders of the two states. Informed of the pursuit of which she was the object, she immediately had Clovis, who was waiting for her at Villariacum (Villery), in the territory of the Tricasses (Troyes), notified, asking him what was to be done and proposing to defend herself by force against the unjust violence of which she was the object. Clovis gave the order to the Frankish soldiers who were escorting his fiancée to ravage and burn the Burgundian country that they still had to cross within a radius of two leagues. They did so, and Clotilde reached Villariacum without having been caught by Gundobad's horsemen. Upon approaching her royal husband, she knelt and said: I give thanks to you, Almighty God, that I have seen a beginning of vengeance exercised against the murderer of my father, my mother, and my brothers (494)!"

The wedding of the first Christian queen of France could no longer be celebrated at Chalon-sur-Saône, as Gondebaud had proposed: it was held at Soissons, amidst the most sumptuous festivities (493). While the Franks took advantage of their leader's marriage to amuse themselves according to their inclinations, Clotilde prayed and let her tears speak to obtain from God the prompt conversion of the king, her husband.

Clovis had a first son by Queen Clotilde. Wishing for the child to be consecrated by Baptism, the queen urged her husband insistently, saying to him:

— "The gods you honor are nothing, for they can do nothing, neither for themselves nor for others, since they are carved from stone, wood, or metal. The names you have given them are the names of men.

"But the one who should be honored above all is He who, by His word, created from nothing the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and all things contained therein; who made the sun shine, adorned the sky with stars; populated the waters with fish, the lands with animals, and the air with birds; who decorates the fields with harvests, the trees with fruit, and the vines with grapes at His will; whose hand created the human species, and whose liberality willed that every creature should render homage and service to man, formed by Him."

But, although the queen said all this, the king's spirit was not brought to the faith. He said:

— "It is by the will of our gods that all things were created and produced; it is clear, on the contrary, that your God can do nothing, and, what is more, it is proven that He is not even of the race of gods!"

The pious queen nevertheless obtained what she wished. She was permitted to present her child for baptism. By her order, the church was decorated with garlands and rich hangings. Clotilde hoped to draw him more easily to the faith, through this pomp, the one whom her exhortations had not been able to touch. The child was baptized and received the name Ingomer; but he died within the week of his Baptism. The king, embittered by this loss, overwhelmed Clotilde with reproaches, saying to her:

— "If the child had been consecrated in the name of my gods, he would certainly still be living; but, as he was baptized in the name of your God, he was bound to die."

The queen replied: "I give thanks to the almighty God, creator of all things, that He has not judged me entirely unworthy to see the fruit of my womb admitted into His kingdom. This loss has not affected my soul with pain, because I know that children whom God takes from the world while they are still in their white garments must enjoy His presence."

The queen had a second son, who received the name Clodomir at Baptism. This child having fallen ill some time after his baptism, the king said:

— "It cannot happen otherwise to this one than it happened to his brother: baptized in the name of your Christ, he must also die."

But, through the mother's prayers and the will of the Lord, the child recovered.

However, Clotilde continued to urge her husband to keep the promise he had made to her to recognize the true God and to abandon the worship of idols. But nothing could convince him to believe. A war broke out between the Franks and the Alemanni, in which he was forced by necessity to confess what, until then, he had obstinately denied. The two armies met on the plains of Tolbiac. The troops of the Frankish king were pushed back, and the disorder in their ranks was such that the battalions, entangling one another, were killing each other. At this sight, Clovis could not hold back his tears.

Aurelian, the faithful Aurelian, was at the monarch's side: "O my king!" he said, "believe in the God of Clotilde and He will give you victory." Then Clovis raised his eyes to heaven and cried out: "Jesus Christ, whom Clotilde declares to be the Son of the living God, You who come, it is said, to the aid of those in distress and grant victory to those who hope in You, I devoutly invoke Your glorious support. If You grant me to defeat these enemies, and if I experience the effect of this power that the people devoted to Your name claim to have experienced, I will believe in You and be baptized in Your name. I have invoked my gods, but I find that they are not near to help me; therefore I believe that they possess no power, since they do not help those who serve them. It is You that I invoke now, and it is in You that I wish to believe. May I only escape my enemies!"

As he was saying this, the Alemanni turned their backs and began to flee, and seeing that their king was dead, they placed themselves under the dominion of Clovis, saying: "Cease, we pray, to kill our people, we are yours." Clovis ordered his men to stop the carnage and led his troops back to the tents. Upon his return, he told the queen how, by invoking the name of Christ, he had obtained victory (496).

It was then that Clotilde sent for Saint Remi, Bishop of Reims, begging him to let the word of salvation penetrate the king's heart. The Ponti saint Remi Bishop of Reims who baptized Clovis. ff taught hi m to Reims Site of the baptism of Clovis. know the true God, and when he believed him sufficiently instructed, he had the baptism ceremony prepared with great magnificence. This day having arrived, an immense crowd circulated around the main church of Reims; they were impatiently awaiting King Clovis and the thousands of catechumens who were to be initiated like him into the divine mysteries of the Christian faith. Children scattered flowers from their baskets on the ground; young girls, covered with long veils, walked in a line toward the place of the ceremony and sang hymns to the glory of God. Here, richly costumed leudes vied with one another in the race of their chariots; there, religious men explained prophecies that the people received with ardor; further on, fatistes (poets) told naive legends, and the name of Christ finally rested on lips that, not long ago, repeated only the profane names of idols.

A sudden rumor announced the approach of the royal procession: Clovis appeared. At his side walked Clotilde, radiant with happiness; behind him advanced the king's sisters, the princesses Lanthilde and Albofède, whom the miracle of Tolbiac had converted; the young Theuderic, son of a first marriage of Clovis, and waves of warriors and people, whom Clotilde was happy to bring to the heavenly fold.

The deacons received Clovis on the threshold of the church; clouds of myrrh escaped from the censers and rose in vapors to the vault; scattered roses strewed the forecourt and perfumed the enclosure.

It was fitting that Clovis should be the first to quench his thirst at the regenerating springs of Baptism. The Bishop of Reims led the illustrious catechumen to the entrance of the baptistery, and just as Christ, when He healed the blind and the deaf, Saint Remi, brushing with his fingers moistened with saliva the ears of the monarch, pronounced the word Ephphatha, "be opened."

Clovis, after having recited the Apostles' Creed, entered with the bishop into the Jordan. This was the name given to a circular sanctuary, in the center of which was a large porphyry basin filled with holy water. Looking toward the East, image of light, then toward the West, image of darkness, Saint Remi prepared to pour over the forehead of Clovis the water he had drawn from the basin when a dove descended from heaven, and carrying in its beak a small vial, entered the baptistery through one of the open windows.

The bishop, fulfilling the secret orders of the Lord, seized the small vial, poured a few drops of the heavenl petite fiole Vial brought by a dove during the baptism of Clovis. y liquor it contained onto the head of Clovis, and cried out: "Bow your head, proud Sicambrian; burn what you have adored, and adore what you have burned."

A murmur of enthusiasm ran through the assembly; Clovis emerged from the baptistery clothed in the white robe of the neophytes; he approached the prisoners of Tolbiac and unfastened their chains. It is by an act of clemency that the king of the Franks began his new existence.

"O Clovis!" the bards sang in chorus, "no earthly power equals your power: for the halo of the Christian shines on your forehead; one of your hands holds the sword, and your other hand leans on the cross!"

After the baptism, Clovis dispatched ambassadors to Pope Anastasius and had his own crown deposited before the tomb of the holy apostles Peter and Paul: it was the beginning of the alliance between France and the Roman Church. Under the inspiratio n of Clo Anastase Pope contemporary to the conversion of Clovis. tilde, he had the temples of the idols in his states torn down and churches raised to the true God. A warrior always favored by victory, everything succeeded for him: his empire grew, and Paris, which until then he had besieged in vain, finally opened its gates to him.

Twenty years had passed in a happy union between Clovis and Clotilde, when God called the King of the Franks to Himself (544). Clotilde, after the first tears shed by nature, resigned herself as befits a Christian and said: "Lord, You gave him to me a pagan; by Your mercy, I return him to You a Christian; may Your will be done."

From Paris and the life of the court, Clotilde moved to Tours, before a tomb: that of Saint Mar tin! Tours Place of retirement for Clotilde near the tomb of Saint Martin. "There," says Saint Gregory of To urs, "one sa saint Martin Spiritual model for Aquilin. w the daughter of a king, the niece of a king, the wife of a king, and the mother of several kings, spending her nights in prayer, serving the poor, consoling the afflicted, assisting the needy with her wealth, and protecting widows and orphans."

No one more than Clotilde was to have compassion for misfortune. After the death of Clovis, she lived for more than thirty years, which were, like her youth, sown with trials and tribulations. Her only daughter, named Clotilde like her, had married the King of the Visigoths, Amalaric. This prince, who was an Arian, began to hate his wife because of her religion. He had mud thrown at her when she went to church, and sought, through all sorts of mistreatment, to force her to abjure. The brothers of this unfortunate princess, having learned of the outrages to which she was subjected, declared war on Amalaric, killed him, and brought their sister back; but Saint Clotilde was not to see her daughter again in this world: she died on the way.

Other sorrows, an expiation for those faults from which even the saints are not exempt, awaited Queen Clotilde. Her uncle Gondebaud had just died, leaving his kingdom of the Burgundians to Saint Sigismund (546). The troubles that broke out in Burgundy under this prince seemed to Clotilde a favorable moment to avenge the death of her parents. She believed that filial piety made it a duty. She therefore incited her sons to declare war on Sigismund. "My children," she said to them, "let me not have to repent of having raised you with tenderness; be, I pray you, indignant at my injury, and avenge the death of my father and my mother." Clotilde was only too well obeyed by her children. They attacked the Burgundians and defeated them. Sigismund, defeated and captured, was handed over to Clodomir, who inhumanly had him thrown into a well, along with his wife and children.

One will undoubtedly be surprised to see the heroine sometimes cruel alongside the Saint. But to judge these acts worthily, which seem so strange to us in the life of Clotilde, let us take care not to estimate them by the measure of our customs and our civilization. Posterity, in listening to the story of this strong woman, who raised the cross on the shields of the Franks, will not dare to make it a crime that she sometimes reproduced too easily the imprint of her nation and her era. Christians know, moreover, that the Church proposes in its saints for the admiration of men only their traits of resemblance to Jesus Christ, the author of all holiness. As for the actions that bring them closer to other men, it only reports them, abandoning the care of judging and absolving them to the merciful God who crowns repentance no less than innocence.

One of the sons of Clovis, Clodomir, died fighting the Burgundians at Vézeronces. He left three young children, Theodebert, Gontaire, and Clodoald. They were raised by the care of Clotilde, their grandmother, who returned from Tours and settled with them in a monastery in Paris.

God permitted a supreme trial to break the last ties that attached her to the world, that the cruelty of her own children would come to tear these poor innocents from her maternal arms.

One must read in Saint Gregory of Tours himself the moving account of the horrible murder of the young children of Clodomir; nothing is more heartbreaking: As Queen Clotilde was staying in Paris, Childebert, seeing that his mother had bestowed all her affection on the sons of Clodomir, dri ven by env Childebert King of the Franks who supported the saint. y and fearing that, through the favor of the queen, they might have a share in the kingdom, sent word secretly to his brother Clotaire: "Our mother keeps the sons of our brother with her, and wants to give them the king Clotaire King of the Franks who supported the foundation of the monastery. dom. You must come quickly to Paris, and we must hold council together to deliberate on what we should do with them, whether to cut their hair so that they may be like the rest of the people, or whether it would not be better to kill them and divide our brother's kingdom equally between us."

Full of joy at these words, the latter came to Paris. Childebert had spread the idea among the people that the two kings were meeting in order to raise these young children to the throne. But, when they were gathered, they sent word to the queen, who was then living in the same city: "Send us the children so that they may be raised to the throne."

She, filled with joy, and ignorant of their artifice, had the children eat and drink, and sent them, saying: "It seems to me that I have not lost my son if I see you reigning in his place."

They, having gone, were immediately seized, separated from their servants and their tutors, and they were all kept, on one side the servants, on the other the children. Then Childebert and Clotaire sent Arcadius to the queen, with scissors and a naked sword. When he was before the queen, he showed her both, saying: "What is your will, most glorious queen; your sons, our masters, ask what you think should be done with these children, and if you order that they live with their hair cut, or that they be put to death?"

She, appalled by the message and outraged with anger, especially upon seeing the naked sword and the scissors, replied without thinking, in the bitterness that had seized her, and without knowing, in her pain, what she was going to say: "I would rather, if they are not raised to the throne, see them dead than shorn."

But Arcadius, caring little for her despair and what she might decide later upon further reflection, returned promptly to report this and said: "The queen consents; finish your work; she herself orders that you accomplish your design."

Immediately Clotaire, taking the oldest of the children by the arm, threw him to the ground and killed him cruelly by plunging a knife into his armpit. At the child's cries, his brother prostrated himself at the feet of Childebert, and grabbing his knees, he said to him with tears: "Help me, my excellent father, so that I do not die like my brother!"

Then Childebert, his face covered in tears, said: "I pray you, my very sweet brother, to have the generosity to grant me his life; I will give you everything you want for him; only let him not die."

Then Clotaire said, full of fury: "Either push him away from you, or you will certainly die in his place. It is you," he continued, "who are the instigator, and you are so quick to lack faith?"

At these words, Childebert pushed the child away and threw him toward Clotaire, who, receiving him, plunged his knife into his side, as he had done to his brother, and killed him. They then put the slaves and the tutors to death. After they were dead, Clotaire, having mounted his horse, rode away without being in the least troubled by the murder of his nephews; as for Childebert, he retired to the suburbs of the city. The queen had the poor little bodies placed in a coffin, and followed them with great ceremony of chants and immense mourning, to the Basilica of Saint Peter, where she had them buried together. One was ten years old, and the other seven. They could not get the third, named Clodoald, because he was saved by courageous men. He, despising an earthly kingdom, consecrated himself to the Lord, cut his hair with his own hand, and was made a cleric; he applied himself to good works and died a priest. The two kings divided the kingdom of Clodomir in equal portions.

From then on, the world closed itself off to Clotilde. She returned to the tomb of Saint Martin and shared her final years between prayer and good works.

In Tours, she was a witness to the miracles that occurred every day through the intercession of the wonder-worker of the Gauls and became a wonder-worker herself. The Frankish princes, her sons, continued to engage in fratricidal combat. "Now," says Gregory of Tours, "it happened that Theodebert and Childebert, at the head of an army, set out against Clotaire. The latter, despairing of resisting their attack, fled with his men into the forest of Routot, on the banks of the Seine, near Caudebec, where he sought to cover himself with great felled trees. But the fugitive prince hardly counted on this weak rampart and thought to invoke God.

"Queen Clotilde, informed of what was happening, went to the tomb of the blessed Martin, prostrated herself in prayer, kept vigil all night, and prayed to God to put an end to the impious war that her children were waging.

"The two kings, arriving with their armies, surrounded Clotaire and were preparing to kill him the next day, when one morning there arose in the place where they were gathered a storm that carried away the tents, destroyed the baggage, and overturned everything; lightning mixed with thunder and a rain of stones descended upon their heads; they threw themselves face down on the ground covered with hail, and these stones falling struck them with force, for they had no shelter left but their shields, and what they feared most was being consumed by the fire of heaven. Their horses also were so scattered that they could barely be found at a distance of twenty stades, and many of them were even entirely lost.

"Bruised by the stones, as we have said, prostrated on the ground, they expressed their repentance and asked God for forgiveness for what they had intended to do against their own blood. On Clotaire, not a single drop of rain fell; and not the slightest sound of thunder was heard, and not a breath of wind was felt in the place where he was. His brothers sent messengers to him to ask for peace and friendship, which having been granted to them, they returned home.

"No one will doubt that this was a miracle of the blessed Martin, obtained by the Queen!"

This miracle of maternal love was the final act of Saint Clotilde on earth.

One evening, as she was praying with extraordinary fervor at the tomb of Saint Martin, the royal widow heard a voice in her heart predicting happy news. It told her that before thirty new suns had shed a little light upon the world, the Queen of France would have passed to a better life. From then on, the virtuous Clotilde was seen preparing herself with the most ardent efforts and the most vivid bursts of piety for this passage from earth to heaven. But although all her thoughts were then fixed on the eternal rewards that God has promised to His Saints, she nevertheless felt her heart moved by an immense love for some beings she was about to leave in this world. It was her mother's heart, which, about to lose itself and be consumed in the flames of divine love, still burned with an ineffable tenderness for ungrateful sons, whose quarrels and crimes had many times pierced this same heart with a painful sword. Clotilde, on her deathbed, wanted to see them, to speak to them, and to hear them. Clotaire and Childebert, summoned by her, therefore appeared in her presence. Oh! how vivid and eloquent must have been the final prayer of this royal mother to the cruel sons who had ignored her love! She exhorted them in the most touching manner to serve God, to keep His laws, to protect the poor, to live together in perfect harmony, and to treat their peoples with paternal kindness. She then turned all her thoughts toward God, awaiting her hour with the calm of the just who, through the transparent veils of death, glimpses the dawn of a more beautiful life. On the thirtieth day of her illness (545), she fortified her soul with the bread of the elect; and, after a public profession of her faith, she gently rendered her last breath in the arms of the God who had comforted her here below by His love, and who, in the heavens, was Himself to be her reward.

The body of Saint Clotilde was brought to Paris, where her sons Childebert and Clotaire gave her a magnificent funeral! She was buried, according to her wish, in the church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul, next to that of Clovis and at the foot of the tomb of Saint Genevieve. It is there that her precious remains rested for a long time, near the monarch she had won to the faith, and the humble virgin of Nanterre, whom she had known, whom she had loved, and near whom she rests today in heaven.

The Germans claimed that three toads were the primitive arms of France and that they were replaced by three lilies brought from heaven by angels to Saint Clotilde after the baptism of Clovis. We have seen Saint Clotilde represented standing: crown on her head, two long braids of hair descending onto her shoulders; royal mantle; halo of sanctity. Her hands support a small edifice that may recall either the foundation of the basilica of the holy apostles Peter and Paul in Paris, or the creation of Les Andelys, or even, in a figurative sense , the f Andelis Site of the foundation of a monastery and a miraculous fountain. oundation of the new Church of France. One also recalls, in the painted or engraved history of Saint Clotilde, the blessing of a fountain that she caused to spring forth at Les Grands-Andelys for the benefit of the workers who were building her monastery. We will say a word about this marvelous fact below. Finally, it is quite natural to recall her tears and her painting at the tomb of Saint Martin.

Saint Clotilde is sometimes represented with a battle in the distance. This is a way to recall the conversion of Clovis following the battle of Tolbiac.

## CULT OF SAINT CLOTILDE.

Deposited in the church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul, she was later removed and placed in a special reliquary (1520) which was carried solemnly with that of Saint Genevieve.

This church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul later took the name of Sainte-Geneviève. Destroyed during the Revolution, it bequeathed its name to the building known as the Panthéon. When the Geneviève canons were expelled from their house in 1792, one of them took care to save the bodies of Saint Clotilde, Saint Céran, Bishop of Paris, and Saint Ande, virgin, from the profanation with which they were threatened, and carried them to a countryside area near Paris, where he was going to settle; but, fearing later to compromise himself during the Reign of Terror by keeping this precious deposit, he burned these holy relics and kept the ashes, which are now found in the church of Saint-Leu in Paris, enclosed in a reliquary with some small fragments of the bones of Saint Clotilde.

The parish of Longpont, near Paris, preserved an illustrious relic of Saint Clotilde.

Some are also found in the church of Viviers, in the diocese of Soissons. These relics were brought there before the 13th century from the basilica where she was buried in Paris. The feast of Saint Clotilde is celebrated at Viviers with great pomp on June 3rd. A double office is performed for it in the Proper of the diocese, approved by Rome.

Mr. Henri Cougnet, dean of the cathedral Chapter, wrote to us from Soissons on June 3, 1866:

"A fact that does not seem contestable, and which is reported by ancient historians, is that in the 9th century, the relics of Saint Clotilde were carried out of Paris to shelter them from the pillaging of the Normans. They were deposited at Viviers or Vivières in the church of the castle, which was fortified. It was on this occasion that the collegiate church of the castle of Vivières was established. When the Normans were no longer to be feared, a deputation was sent from Paris to ask for the return of the reliquary of Saint Clotilde, which had only been placed at Vivières for safekeeping. After many disputes, it was agreed to divide the relics. The head and an arm of the Saint remained at Vivières, and the reliquary was returned to Paris. — It is from the stay of these precious relics that the pilgrimage of Vivières dates. — What confirms the division of the relics as we have just indicated is that when Louis XIII, wishing to possess a portion of them, had the reliquary opened to satisfy his devotion, a large part of the body was found there, but the head was not.

"In the 13th century, the dean of the collegiate church, named Henri, embraced with his Canons the Rule of Prémontré, recently approved by the Pope (1126). The number of religious having increased considerably in a few years, Henri moved his community (1149 or 1153) a league and a half further away, into a solitary valley called Valsery, *Vallis serena*, which a local lord had just given them. Henri took from then on the name of Abbot of Valsery. A small number of religious remained at Vivières, which became nothing more than a simple priory.

"Under the reign of Saint Louis, a division and a translation to Valsery of the relics of Saint Clotilde that had remained at Vivières took place. 'The churches of Viviers and Valsery,' says Muldrac, 'glory in possessing the head of Saint Clotilde, Queen of France, and both celebrate her feast with great solemnity. As for Viviers, it is proven by a charter of an Abbot of Valsery, who made a new translation of it in the time of Saint Louis, that it truly has a good part of the feast of this august princess, wife of the great Clovis, — and Valsery another parcel of the same head (LE VALOIS ROYAL amplified... by Muldrac, former prior of Longpont en Valois, in-12 of one hundred and seventy-three pages).'

"At Vivières, in fact, the relics of Saint Clotilde have been venerated from time immemorial and without interruption until today. We ourselves saw in the church, in the year 1865, a strong and old wooden bust representing a woman, and called by the local people and pilgrims: bust of Saint Clotilde, before which one kneels and offers prayers, in the belief that relics of the Saint are enclosed within it. We wanted to verify the truth of the fact, and on August 8, 1865, provided with the powers and seals of Mgr Dours, Bishop of Soissons, accompanied by the Reverend Father Lacoste of the Society of Jesus and several notable persons, we opened the head of the bust using a saw, and we removed a considerable portion of a human head including the entire top of the skull, the entire frontal bone up to the bridge of the nose, the eye socket, the bones surrounding the two auditory canals, the parietal; then, separated from the head: the upper jaw bone, a tooth, and a small bone. — Inside the skull was wrapped in the saw a piece of parchment fourteen centimeters long and eight centimeters wide, written in 13th-century characters, with the remains of a red wax seal. It is an authentic document from the Abbot of Valsery attesting to a translation of the head of Saint Clotilde *venerabili et sanctissimae glebae Beata Chrathildis regina... cujus corpus in ecclesia beata Genovefa Parisiis requiescit, in hoc vasculo podium fuit, anno Domini 1234*, in the presence of the religious of Valsery, the Abbot, and the Canons of Lien-restauré. — It is certain that for six hundred years the pilgrimage of Saint Clotilde at Vivières has been frequented and still is; that during the Revolution the said bust containing the skull of Saint Clotilde was buried in a room adjoining the church, from where it was removed at the restoration of the cult. — The fountain of Saint Clotilde also exists, and next to it one can see the ruins of the old chapel dedicated to the Saint. At the time of the pilgrimage, on the eve of June 3rd and during the six weeks that follow, pilgrims come with devotion to drink the water, 'covered,' they say in their popular language, 'with the hair of the Saint.' This is what they call the very fine herbs that are on the surface of the water. One asks the Saint above all to be delivered from fever. Each year, twelve or fifteen hundred pilgrims are counted.

"The town of Couvres, where the ruins of the castle of the beautiful Gabrielle are located, inherited from the abbey of Valsery in 1793 the arm, that is to say, the radius of the arm of Saint Clotilde, Queen of France (*Crathildis regina*). The Annals of Prémontré by Louis Hugo, Abbot of Étival and Bishop of Ptolemais, in the exhumation of the relics of Valsery, also made mention of a portion of the head and arm of Saint Clotilde. *Reliquiae: caput et brachium sanctae Clotildis*. The radius is still in the church of Couvres.

A pilgrimage to Saint Clotilde also exists at Les Andelys (Eure). Pilgrims go there annually in the number of four to five thousand people. Part of the stained glass windows of Grand-Andelys represents the life of Saint Clotilde, who is the patron saint of the church. The Saint had, during her lifetime, founded an abbey for women at Les Andelys. While it was being built, she encouraged the zeal of the workers by all sorts of means. One day when they were harassed by fatigue and the intensity of the heat, she obtained from heaven that the water of a nearby fountain would have for these men the taste and strength of wine. Each year, on June 3rd, at the solemn procession, the reliquary containing a very small fragment of the skull and a rib of Saint Clotilde is carried, and they head toward the miraculous fountain; and, to recall the miracle of which we have just spoken, wine is poured into the fountain and the statue of the Saint is dipped into the water. The rib was given to Les Andelys in 1655; the fragment of the head, in 1617, by the Canons of Sainte-Geneviève of Paris. Their authenticity has been recognized by Mgr Devouroux, now Bishop of Evreux.

"Since the 13th century and perhaps before, relics of Saint Clotilde were honored at Joyenval (*Gaudium in valle*), a place where, as reported by the *Gallia christiana*, *froncæ insignia fuerunt caritus demisso, l'occasion en champs d'azur avec trois fleurs de lis d'or* was given by a hermit to Saint Clotilde to be offered to her husband and subsequently adopted by all the kings of France. — In 1791, when the suppression of the monasteries had been decreed, the first mayor of the commune of Chambourcy (Seine-et-Oise), Mr. Terrier, had the reliquary of Saint Clotilde transported processionally from the abbey of Joyenval to the parish church of Chambourcy. It remained suspended there in the choir by two iron chains until 1793. As it was made of solid silver and weighed three hundred pounds, the revolutionaries seized it, and Mr. Terrier, then a simple municipal councilor, obtained permission to remove the bones, put them in a cloth bag which he had sewn with three ribs, and having joined the two ends, he affixed a wax seal to it. It is in this state that the bag, perfectly preserved and hidden during the Terror, was then handed over by the same Mr. Terrier to Mr. Tupigny, in charge of serving the parish; then, in 1802, to Mr. Lefebure; then, in 1829, to Mr. Lacoste, today a Jesuit. This bag was placed in a glass box until 1837, the time when Mr. Lacoste opened the bag and removed the relics to place them more honorably in a reliquary. In 1860, the Reverend Father Lacoste gave one of the bones to the church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris; a small bone of twelve centimeters to His Lordship the Bishop of Versailles. There remain today at Chambourcy two large bones of Saint Clotilde of about twenty-five centimeters each.

"Statues are being erected today to all those who have illustrated the place of their birth or residence. It is astonishing that at Soissons, where Saint Clotilde lived for a long time, and where she often spoke to Clovis, her royal husband, about the necessity of embracing the Christian religion, one has not yet thought of erecting in the cathedral or elsewhere a chapel under the invocation of this great queen, to whom 'we owe the definitive establishment of Catholicism in France.' In 1864, the seminary of Soissons dedicated one of its stained glass windows to Saint Clotilde.

"It is known that a magnificent Gothic church has been built in honor of Saint Clotilde in Paris, on the Rue de Bourgogne, which recalls the name of her homeland."

*History of the Church*, by Abbé Darras; *Lives of the Saints of Franche-Comté; Celestial Legends*, by Alfred des Essarts; *Hagiological Annals of France*, by Mr. Ch. Barthélemy; *Local Notes*.