Saint Yves

A chapel, which Saint Yves had founded at Minihy and which had been consecrated under the titles of the Mother of the Savior and Saint Toginal, the apostle of the region, took, after the canonization of Saint Yves, the name of its blessed founder. It received, thanks to the generosity of the faithful who joined their o fferings to Yves Hélory Breton priest and jurist, protector of the poor and patron saint of lawyers. the gifts of Yves Hélory, successive enlargements, the result of which was to transform the oratory into a church. This sanctuary became early on and has remained to this day a place of pilgrimage. From all parts of Brittany, people flocked to the chapel of Minihy to invoke this good country rector, who, during his life, had shown himself so zealous for the salvation of souls, so compassionate for the needs of the body. This building now serves as the parish church for the branch of Minihy, which was served before the Revolution at one of the altars of the Cathedral of Tréguier.

John V, Duke of Brittan Jean V, duc de Bretagne Duke of Brittany who commissioned a mausoleum for the saint following his release. y, having fallen into a hateful ambush through the treachery of the Penthièvres who held him prisoner for a long time, promised Saint Yves that if he regained his freedom, he would give him his weight in silver. As soon as he found himself out of the hands of his perfidious enemies, he resolved to fulfill his vow religiously. He even went further. By his orders, a beautiful chapel was raised in the cathedral of Tréguier. It was intended to contain the tomb of his celestial liberator. It was long known by the name of the Duke's Chapel. It is now the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament. The Saint's mausoleum received splendid ornamentation. Covered with silver plates that were enhanced with an even brighter luster, decorated on its sides with sculptures representing the great deeds of John V, it was surmounted by a stone dome that covered the recumbent statue of Yves Hélory. Iron grilles protected this magnificent monument, which, alas! no longer exists. Revolutionary vandalism wielded its devastating hammer in this place. "In 1793," writes Abbé Tresvaux, "the soldiers of a revolutionary battalion, composed of Parisians, bearing the name of the Temple, and then in garrison at Tréguier, forced the doors of the cathedral church, broke the tomb of Saint Yves, and threw the debris into the sea. At the same time, they seized the vestments they found in the sacristy, put them on, and walked through the city, simulating a funeral procession; but the one who was playing the dead man was suddenly struck by illness and actually died the following night. The other actors in this sacrilegious farce were soon struck by a contagious disease that carried most of them off. This is a fact that was, in Tréguier, of public notoriety and whose truth the old inhabitants can still attest."

To preserve the memory of the place where the sacred bones of Saint Yves had been deposited and to signal them to the veneration of the faithful, the respectable clergyman we have just cited, and whose recent loss the clergy of Paris deplores, had a modest cenotaph erected at his own expense, a work worthy of praise no doubt, but which only distantly recalls the magnificence of the Dukes of Brittany. We know that there is talk of replacing it with a monument more worthy of the one whose memory it will consecrate.

Let us quickly enumerate the precious objects relating to the memory of the Saint, which were due to the munificence of the great and the people, and which had been deposited in the treasury of the Cathedral of Tréguier. Three silver reliquaries, one of which was supported by four small gilded silver lions; the other two resplendent with precious stones. The first contained the head of Saint Yves; the second and third, bones from the arms. Two chalices, upon which the cherished features of the Blessed one had been engraved. He was, moreover, represented several times in different acts of his ministry and charity: here, preaching in a gilded silver pulpit; there, scooping wheat with a scoop from a chest and pouring it into a sack belonging to a poor man; elsewhere, lying on a hurdle also made of silver, with a book for a pillow. A man and a woman were also depicted offering a child before an altar above which was the image of "Monsieur Saint Yves," all in silver. Finally, let us note a beautiful bell to which his name had been given. All these testimonies of the piety and gratitude of the faithful disappeared at the time of the Revolution. But the bones of the Saint were fortunately preserved. They had been hidden in one of the vaults of the cathedral: they were removed in 1801, and M. de Saint-Priest, vicar-general, verified their identity. The head of Saint Yves is currently shown in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Tréguier. A gilded bronze reliquary, given by Mgr de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris, c ontains this Mgr de Quélen Archbishop of Paris, descendant of the saint's family, and donor of a reliquary. venerated head, crowned with flowers that recall the eternal youth of the Saints. In the same place is also the head of Saint Tugdual, that apostolic man for whom Saint Yves had the saint Tugdual Apostle of the region for whom Saint Yves had a great devotion. greatest devotion. Every year, on the date of May 18, this distinguished relic is carried processionally from Tréguier to Le Minihy. "Thus the Blessed one seems to emerge from his tomb to visit the places where he was born, where he did good, where he died; then he returns to his noble cathedral, carried, as on the day of his burial, on the shoulders of priests, amidst hymns and canticles." Formerly, the venerated bones were placed on a kind of cenotaph covered by elegant sculpted arcades. But this charming addition has disappeared. Only the stone table remains in its austere nudity. It is located in the cemetery, at the entrance to the chapel which has become, as we have said, a parish church.

There exists, in the parish of Louannec, a precious relic of Saint Yves; it is an ancient chasuble commonly called the *cope of Saint Yves*. It is made of silk thread: it appears that it was silvered and even gilded. It has only one opening through which the head is passed, made in the upper part: there is neither hole nor slit on the sides.

The manuscript *Hours* of the Saint are carefully preserved in the sacristy of Minihy. This volume, which otherwise offers nothing curious, has lost several of its pages, given to pilgrims who wished to take away a mark of their visit. A few hundred paces away is the site of the manor of the lords of K ermartin. For a long time, th manoir des sires de Kermartin Family manor where Saint Yves was born and died. is building, respectable for its antiquity and the memories it recalled, received visits from pilgrims. At the beginning of this century, it was threatening to fall into ruin: it was demolished. A new construction, dating from 1834, is decorated with a simple marble plaque bearing an inscription stating that it was in this place that Saint Yves was once born. Mgr de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris, was the author of this inscription. If you enter the interior of this modest dwelling, the farmers who live there will show you a bed which, if one is to believe tradition, once belonged to Saint Yves. It is a box bed, such as are found in great numbers in the Breton countryside. We must say that archaeologists do not recognize in it the characteristics of the 13th century. However, as this piece of furniture must have undergone, and indeed has undergone, repairs that its state of decrepitude made necessary, it is permissible to believe that at least a portion of the pieces of wood that went into its original construction has been preserved and that one truly has before one's eyes an authentic relic of the Saint. We are sorry that this bed, which should be sacred to all, is used for domestic purposes. Would it not be appropriate to transport it to an isolated room, to surround it with a balustrade, and not to allow, under the pretext of devotion, numerous fragments to be removed? This is a wish that we allow ourselves to formulate, so that it may reach the attention of those to whom it concerns.

The house of Kermartin, which had seen the birth of Saint Yves, also received his last breath. It appears that this land remained in the possession of his family until the 15th century, the time at which we see that Olivier de Kermartin had as his wife Plesson de Quélen. Their granddaughter, Jeanne, married Thébaut Bérard, by whom she had a daughter, who was united in marriage to Maurice de Quélen, lord of Logueval. The land of Kermartin passed from the family of Quélen into that of de la Rivière, who possessed it until 1790. The heiress of the latter name, wife of the famous Marqu marquis de Lafayette Famous historical figure whose wife owned the land of Kermartin. is de Lafayette, then sold it to the Count Jean-Claude-Louis de Quélen, lord of la Ville-Chevalier and father of Mgr de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris, who was, during his lifetime, the possessor of the ancient patrimony of Saint Yves.

A word now on the foundations of all kinds made under the patronage of Saint Yves. There existed formerly, in the ancient capital of the Duchy of Brittany, an Hôtel-Dieu that bore the name of Saint-Yves. Founded in 1358, that is to say only eleven years after the canonization of the charitable Breton priest, by Eudes Le Bouteiller, a priest originally from the diocese of Tréguier, this hospice served as an asylum for five centuries to a multitude of the sick and also to some infirm. A few years ago, the buildings were threatening to collapse. This vast establishment was then transferred to another district of the city of Rennes. There exists, in Vitré, a hospital also bearing the name of Saint-Yves. The towns of Guérande and Guingamp possessed two chapels dedicated under his invocation. The most remarkable religious monument, in terms of art, that has been consecrated to the glory of the holy priest of Tréguier, is perhaps the beautiful stained-glass window possessed by the church of Saint-Mathurin, in Moncontour, in the department of Côtes-du-Nord.

Jurisconsults and magistrates have taken Saint Yves as their Patron. The Parli ament of Brittany, si parlement de Bretagne Judicial institution that adopted Saint Yves as its patron. tting in Rennes, observed his feast day. All the jurisdictions of the province had followed this example. The University of Nantes had placed itself under the protection of the same Saint. In Paris, at the corner of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Noyers, there was a chapel built under his invocation, where a Confraternity that had chosen him as its Patron met. The chapel possessed a piece of the Saint's robe. This chapel, which was frequented until the worst days of the Revolution, was demolished in 1823.

Notre-Dame de Paris, "the church of the Patrons of France," was enriched by a beautiful painting of Saint Yves offered by a Breton lord who is not named. "The design is grand and noble," wrote the Abbé de l'Œuvre, who had seen it. "The Blessed Virgin is at the top of the painting; a little lower down, Saint Yves is prostrate before her, and presents to her on one side the body of justice in robes, as to her whom the Church calls the Mirror of Justice, Speculum justitiae; and, on the other, he presents to her people who are in litigation." This other testimony of Breton devotion has also disappeared. To conclude what concerns France, the dioceses of Chartres, Évreux, Noyon, Auxerre, and Dijon had dedicated a special cult to Saint Yves. The law faculty of Orléans testified through solemn demonstrations that the young Yves Hélory had studied on its benches. In Belgium, the cities of Antwerp, Ghent, and Malines, proud to possess some splinters of the Blessed one's bones, had founded Confraternities that took charge of the just causes of the indigent. Let us admire here, in passing, the philanthropic result of these pious institutions. People gathered to honor a Saint, to commend themselves to his powerful protection; and immediately, the desire to imitate him in the beautiful and touching virtues of which he had given the example was born naturally. This is the true cult of the Saints. Louvain did not remain behind the movement that drew our neighbors toward such a popular Saint. The famous painter Rubens, for the Jesuit chapel in that city, made a painting where one saw the Saint rendering justice to a poor woman who implored his pity by presenting to him a small child she held in her arms. Always the same image, always the same memory, always the same gratitude.

Finally, in Rome, there exists a church that bears the Rome Birthplace of Maximian. name and preserves the memory of this Saint dear to the Bretons. It was given in 1456 by Pope Callixtus III to our compatriots established in the Eternal City and joined to a hospital founded by them as early as 1411. In 1508, it was restored. A few years later, in 1583, the King of France, Henry III, obtained the union of Saint-Yves with its dependencies to the church and hospital of Saint-Louis. Since that time, the Saint-Yves chapel was neglected, the necessary repairs omitted or poorly done, and the cult lost its luster. Now it retains only faint vestiges of its primitive splendor. Thus, the Confraternity of Roman jurisconsults, which continues to honor the Breton saint, holds its meetings in another building. The fame of Saint Yves has penetrated as far as Naples. The chapel of the hospice, Santa Maria della Porta Nuova, is specially dedicated to him.

Saint Yves read the Lives of the Saints continuously. The heroic acts of these friends of God had become so familiar to him that he had composed a collection of the most edifying traits. He gave this writing, the loss of which we must deeply regret, the charming name of F lowers of the Sai Fleurs des Saints Hagiographical collection composed by Saint Yves, now lost. nts.

To complete the abridged history of Saint Yves, we have used the Lives of the Saints of Brittany, by Dom Lobineau, published by Abbé Tresvaux in 1836, and a popular biography of the Saint by L. Roumain de la Rallaye, who drew from a much more substantial work by the pen of M. Enpartz, a Breton lawyer.

Jean Robert, who composed a large book expressly to inform the public that there are at least fifty canonized lawyers. And even then, the list is not complete!

But if lawyers lean toward heaven, do bailiffs enter it? A perilous question that uncharitable people have claimed to resolve negatively. In support of their claim, they tell the following anecdote, the intention of which is not in doubt:

Saint Yves, after his death, presented himself at the gate of paradise and, deceiving the vigilance of the heavenly gatekeeper, managed to cross it in secret. But this fraud was soon discovered. Saint Peter, making his usual rounds, spotted the intruder, asked for his name and his papers, and, upon his reply that he was traveling without a passport, ordered him to leave the premises. "Gently," replied the shrewd jurist who was not at his first trial; "I have possession on my side. Serve me the sentence, otherwise I shall keep what I hold." "I willingly consent," said Saint Peter; "I shall go at once to fetch some bailiffs." He searched for them, but found none; for never, the legend adds mischievously, has a bailiff entered paradise. And that is how, thanks to the loopholes in the procedure, the prince of lawyers was able to prepare places up there for his colleagues from down here.

These stories, of questionable taste, but against which it would be wrong to be indignant, amused the good-naturedness of our forefathers without shaking their faith or imposing themselves on their credulity. For educated Christians have never been unaware that one can be sanctified and that one has indeed been sanctified in all honest professions.

19 MAY.