Blessed Ida, Countess of Boulogne

At the age of seventeen, she married, by the will of her parents, Eus tace II, Count of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Eustache II, comte de Boulogne-sur-Mer Count of Boulogne and husband of Ida. Lens, in Artois, who was a descendant of Charlemagne through Charles the Bald. She had three sons by him, who made her no less glorious than the nobility of her parents and her husband. The first was Eustace III, who inherited the County of Boulogne. The second wa s Godfrey of Bouillo Godefroi de Bouillon Principal leader of the First Crusade. n, so renowned in the history of the Crusades, who had the good fortune to conquer the Holy Land from the Saracens, and was K ing of Je Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. rusalem. The third was Baldwin, who succeeded Godfrey to the kingdom of Jerusalem. Ida also had several daughters, one of whom married Emperor Henry IV.

Ida wished to raise all her children herself, in order to inspire in them, with their mother's milk, a hatred of vice and a love of virtue; she took wonderful care to raise them in the fear of God, and to train them in all the exercises that were suitable to their station and to the great designs that Divine Providence had for them, and which were not unknown to her. Her gentleness and charity made her beloved by all her subjects; the poor were the most welcome in her palace, and she spared nothing to assist them in their miseries. She cared with equal diligence for the sick, the widows, and the orphans. Her most agreeable occupation was to make adornments for the altars and sacred vestments for the ministers of Jesus Christ. She also worked much, with her husband, on the restoration of the churches in her domains. She repaired the church of Notre-Dame de Boulogne, so famous for the devotion towards the Blessed Virgin. Her life was spent in fasting, vigils, and prayers; and all these virtues were supported by a profound humility which, by giving her low sentiments of herself, made her very pleasing to God.

She had, to guide her in the exercises of such a perfect life, an enlightened director, the g reat Saint Anselm, the le grand saint Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury and friend of Gelduin. n a monk of Bec, in Normandy, and later Archbishop of Canterbury, in England, one of the greatest men of his time. One reads, among the works of this holy Prelate, several letters that he wrote to our pious countess; he calls her his beloved sister, and his dearest daughter in Jesus Christ, and he visited her more than once, as the biographer of this holy Prelate informs us, at Boulogne, to inflame her more and more with the desire for heavenly things.

After the death of Count Eustace, her husband, Ida, having free disposal of her property, sold part of it and used the money to build monasteries. She founded that of Saint-Villemer or Wulmer in Boulogne, in the Ville-Haute, for the religious of Saint Augustine; that of Le Wast, later c celui du Wast Site of a monastic foundation and the burial place of Ida. alled Vasconvilliers, two miles from the city, for the religious of Cluny, whom Saint Hugh, A religieux de Cluny Monastic order to which the monastery founded by Aderald belongs. bbot of Cluny, sent to her; and that of Notre-Dame de la Capelle, near Calais. She also restored that of Samer, which was entirely ruined, and made considerable donations to the monasteries of Saint-Bertin, Bouillon, and Affligem, in the Low Countries, where she stayed for some time after her husband's death. It seems, in the letters that remain of her foundations, that humility and charity struggle together as to which will prevail; and one cannot see anything more edifying than the terms in which the acts are conceived. One also notes a holy emulation among all those who composed the family of Boulogne, to give to these churches some portions of their inheritances.

The piety of the holy Countess did not stop there; she also enriched several of these houses with very precious relics: a portion was sent to her from the Holy Land by Godfrey of Bouillon, her son, and another portion was given to her in England, notably eleven hairs of the Blessed Virgin; she presented them to the abbey of La Capelle. It was undoubtedly through the aid of her prayers that the same Godfrey became master of Jerusalem, and that he performed those great deeds which form the greater part of the history of the Crusades. Indeed, while the Saint was praying for her son in the church of Saint-Villemer, she had a revelation that at that very hour he was scaling the walls of that city and taking it by force. William, Archbishop of Tyre, testifies that God had made known to her the future of her children when they were still very small; Count Eustace, her husband, having entered her room when they were hidden under the folds of her robe, and having asked her what it was, she said to him, as she brought them out: these are three princes, of whom one will be king, another duke, and the other count.

Finally, after having spent her life in a continuous succession of good deeds, Ida was called to receive her reward from God: she died on the year, month, and day she had predicted; namely: Sunday, April 13, in the year 1113. She was over seventy years old. There was a dispute over who would have her body. The religious of Samer claimed it belonged to them, because her husband was buried among them. Those of Saint-Villemer also had reasons to request it. But neither one nor the other had it: it was given, to verify what this holy Princess had said shortly before her death to the religious of Le Wast, that on the following Sunday she would be carried, alive or dead, into their church. The poor, the widows, the orphans, and generally all her subjects, who had found in her a mother rather than a mistress, wept bitterly for her loss, and accompanied her funeral procession with signs of the most sincere sorrow; this served as a better eulogy than all the funeral orations with which one often honors, with more flattery than truth, the burial of the great.

She performed several miracles during her life. In Flanders, she restored health to a dropsical and paralytic woman, whom she met at the door of a church dedicated to Saint Walburga. In England, she healed a lame man by giving him alms. She restored hearing and speech up to three times to a young girl whom God was chastising, through these infirmities, for her continuous relapses into sin. Finally, a great number of sick people recovered their health, either through her prayers or by the laying on of her hands. Several miracles also took place at her tomb; it is reported that three demoniacs were delivered there, and that several people, suffering from fever, received healing there: among o thers, Princess Matil la princesse Mathilde Granddaughter of Ida, Queen of England. da, her granddaughter, heiress to the county of Boulogne, who later married Stephen of Blois, and was, by this means, Queen of England.

Blessed Ida is depicted surrounded by her three sons, who are indeed her most beautiful crown. She could also be represented with a conventual church in her hand, as she founded several monasteries.

There was formerly in Boulogne a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin under the title of Mother of Sorrows, where the pious Countess loved to offer her prayers. It is there, it is said, that she was caught up in ecstasy and that she witnessed, as if she had been present, the triumphal entry of her son Godfrey of Bouillon into Jerusalem. For a long time, an engraved stone could be seen there which recalled this prodigious event. Finally, some parts of the church of Saint-Vaast are still standing: these are the portal, the construction of which dates back to the very time of the Blessed one, and the middle nave which serves as a parish church.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The relics of Blessed Ida remained in the church of the priory of Saint-Vaast until 1609, at which time they were transported to Paris, to the Benedictine nuns of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, on Rue Cassette. During the French Revolution, they were preserved by one of the nuns of this convent, who kept them in the retreat where she found asylum during those dark days. Under the Empire, the Congregation of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration was reformed in Bayeux. It is there that the rel ics of Bayeux Birthplace of the saint. Blessed Ida are now (since 1808).

During the first translation, in 1669, a rib was sent back from Paris to Saint-Vaast, where it still remains.

Blessed Ida was honored in the former diocese of Boulogne by a semi-double office of the common, with a proper legend, on April 13. Since the adoption of the Roman rite in the diocese of Arras, she enjoys, with the approval of the Holy See, a semi-double office of the same common, with a proper legend, on April 14; and the diocese of Bayeux, which possesses her relics, also has a semi-double feast of the same composition in the new Proper of the Saints, since the adoption of the Roman Liturgy.

The life of Blessed Ida was written a few years after her death by a religious of the priory of Saint-Vaast; it is from there that we have drawn this account.