Saint Claude of Besançon

Gollut states that Saint Claude bore arms until the age of twenty. At that age (627), he entered the holy militia: he embraced the ecclesiastical state and asked to be received into the chapter of the cathedr al churc Besançon Episcopal see restored by Saint Nicet. h of Besançon, which lived in the greatest regularity, following the institutions and examples of the Archbishop saint Donat Archbishop of Besançon who welcomed Claude. Saint Donatus. This prelate eagerly admitted our Saint among his canons. Claude was their model. He studied the Holy Scriptures with such assiduity that, aided by divine grace, he became very learned. He was tasked with teaching sacred science to the young clerics, a function he performed with brilliant success.

While he enriched his mind with so much light, he denied his body everything that could lead it to sin. His senses were so well regulated that nothing entered them that could alter his soul and give him dishonest thoughts and affections. He fasted every day, except on feast days and Sundays: and this fast was so rigorous that he only ate in the evening. His vigils were frequent, and he often spent the nights without sleeping. There was nothing flashy in his clothes; his restraint and his austerity were those of an accomplished monk.

Finding this way of life not austere enough, however, he left the chapter of Besançon after twelve years and retired to the monas tery of Condat (639 monastère de Condat Benedictine monastery located in the Jura, place of profession of John of Gaunt. ), then called Saint-Oyand. There, his historian says, in addition to his piety and assiduity in prayer, he was sober in his meals, nourishing himself only on roots; he rested only on a hard pallet; the paleness of his face and the thinness of his body served as his ornament. At the age of thirty-seven (644), he had to, despite his resistance, accept the office of abbot, which had become vacant upon the death of Injuriose. Under his government, there were many Saints in this monastery, whose relics were later venerated. In 650, he obtained from King C lovis II the roi Clovis II King of the Franks under whom Aquilin served in the army. restitution of property taken from his Order, along with new liberalities; he embellished and adorned the churches, repaired and expanded the buildings, and introduced, or at least ensured the observance of, the Rule of Saint Benedict. In the 12th century, a collection of sermons was still possessed, in which the pious abbot had left his doctrine and his spirit to his children.

After the death of Saint Gervais, Archbishop o f Besanç Besançon Episcopal see restored by Saint Nicet. on (685), the clergy and the people were long divided over the choice of a successor; finally, while they were praying to God to put an end to their disputes, a voice from heaven was heard and ordered them to choose Claude as bishop. They obeyed this divine election with joy. A deputation went to announce it to Claude, who was then in Salins, with his family. Dismayed at this news, he first refused this heavy burden of the episcopate; but the fear of going against the will of God so clearly manifested compelled him to accept it. The whole country of Salins, as well as Claude's relatives, saw with joy a Saint who was already their glory raised so high. Led to Besançon, he was received and consecrated there with demonstrations of the liveliest joy. It is not surprising that he notified Pope John V of his election, for, although the so vereign Pon pape Jean V Pope who responded to Caldeolus regarding liturgical questions. tiffs did not then intervene directly in the election of each bishop, the most intimate ties united the Church of Besançon to the Holy See.

In this dignity, Claude perfectly fulfilled all the duties of a pastor. Far from diminishing his austerities and his assiduity in prayer, he increased them more and more. He never failed to attend the divine offices with his canons. He heard ecclesiastical cases with patience and gentleness and always concluded them so justly that no one could be dissatisfied with them. His occupations did not prevent him from preaching to his clergy and his people, because, having his mind full of divine truths, it was not difficult for him to spread them to his listeners. His sermons even had such force that they tore vice from the hearts of the most hardened, that they imprinted the love of virtue there, and that they brought about a great change in the morals of his diocesans. In the visitation of his province, he exercised at the same time the works of corporal and spiritual charity, visiting the sick, liberally assisting the poor, and working untiringly for the conversion of sinners and the reformation of the disorders he found in his parishes.

This holy bishop had retained the title and duties of Abbot of Saint-Oyand and governed his monastery with the same solicitude as before. It was even there that his tenderest affections tended. He retired there after seven years of episcopacy (693), at the age of about eighty-six. He remained at the head of his abbey for several more years. All the historians of Franche-Comté agree that he reached an extreme old age. His holy life was crowned by a death as sweet as it was glorious before God. A few days before his passing, he was struck by a slight indisposition. On the third day of his illness, he gathered all his religious and spoke to them in an admirable manner of the love of God, of the contempt for earthly things, and of the resignation with which he had to endure his departure from this world. Seeing their tears flowing, he gave them all the kiss of peace and had them leave his cell, then he spent the whole night in prayer. When the day had come, he had himself led to the church, where he received the Sacraments with the liveliest faith. His humility made him fear even those honors that friendship renders to the remains of the dead. When he had returned to his cell, he ordered his disciples to bury him without pomp and without splendor, and on the fifth day of his illness, at three o'clock in the afternoon, while he was leaning on the seat where he was accustomed to read and pray, he raised his hands and eyes toward heaven, and fell asleep gently in the Lord. It was the sixth day of June, the year 699 and the fourth year of the reign of Childebert III. Saint Claude w as then ninety Childebert III King of Neustria who visited Évroult and endowed its abbey. -three years old. His body was embalmed, says one of his biographers, by wrapping it in precious perfumes, and it was placed in the church of Saint-Oyand. The Egyptians removed the entrails of the dead to embalm them, so as to make them incorruptible for centuries. It was not so with Saint Claude; for there appeared no incision on his body, as has been verified several times. This is what made the miracle of his incorruption more admirable for so many centuries. If, therefo re, some aromatics were use miracle de son incorruption Miraculous phenomenon observed on a body after death. d for his burial, it was only on the outside, as had been done formerly for the sacred body of Jesus Christ, as a sign of affection and piety.

Let us recall that the most common attributes of Saint Claude in popular art are a child seated at his feet and a whistle. The child, because he was very helpful to the drowned, and because children were especially saved through his intercession; — the whistle, because he is the patron saint of the cabinetmakers and toy-makers of the Jura, whose art was born in the shadow of his sanctuary.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS OF SAINT CLAUDE.]

The humble vow that Saint Claude had made at his final hour had been fulfilled. He had been buried in a modest sepulcher, and for a long time his neglected tomb was almost without glory in the eyes of men. It was only in the 12th century that God manifested to His Church all the merits of our glorious pontiff. Until then, only an ordinary cult had been rendered to him, and the oldest manuscript Breviaries make only a simple commemoration of him.

The confidence of the faithful in our Saint was manifested above all when it was discovered that his body had remained incorrupt since his death. Numerous pilgrims flocked from then on to his tomb to venerate his sacred relics and obtain the graces that God is pleased to communicate to us through the intercession of the Saints, by glorifying their virtues. The city of Saint-Claude grew rapidly from that time on.

This great servant of God manifested such power for several centuries that he was nicknamed the miracle-worker. The body of the holy bishop had been exposed until then to the veneration of the faithful in an undecorated shrine. But in 1249, when pilgrimages began to become more frequent, Humbert de Buenc, Abbot of Saint-Gyand, wished for the two Saints, whose glorious names the monastery bore, to be honored in a manner not unworthy of their merits. He therefore had two silver shrines of rich workmanship made, which were placed behind the high altar of the church. The one on the epistle side contained the body of Saint Gyand, and the relics of Saint Claude were deposited in the shrine located on the gospel side. This shrine was of oak, adorned with precious stones and covered on all sides with silver plates with various ornaments. The monastery already bore the names of Saint-Gyand and Saint-Claude at that time. But the latter eventually became, in the futur e, the only Saint-Claude Benedictine monastery located in the Jura, place of profession of John of Gaunt. one in use to designate the city and the monastery where God manifested, through striking miracles, the glory of His servant.

The glory of the abbey increased with that of its holy protector. The most illustrious families considered it an honor to send their sons there, and, in an act from the year 1271, the religious are designated under the name of noble Chapter, which seems to indicate that from that time this abbey was already destined for the nobility. A church in honor of Saint Claude had been built within the very enclosure of the monastery, in the place that today bears the name of Place Louis XI. His name had been given, like a presa Louis XI King of France who enriched the reliquary of the Innocents in Paris. ge of blessing, to a bridge built over the Bienne by the Congregation of masons, called the Bridge-building Brothers!

SAINT CLAUDE! was the war cry of the inhabitants of these mountains when they rushed against the enemy. Captives invoked him in their prison and miraculously obtained their freedom. The shipwrecked recommended themselves to him in the midst of the storm, and God rewarded their confidence by snatching them from the fury of the waves. In 1754, the iron chains that Christians, captive among the infidels, had placed there after being delivered by the protection of the Saint, were still kept in the church of Saint-Claude.

Guillaume de Sure, Archbishop of Lyon in 1335, ordered that the feast of Saint Claude be celebrated in his diocese, and that this day be a day of rest. On May 7, 1446, it was decreed that this feast would be held in the diocese of Besançon under a double rite.

Towards the end of the 14th century, the religious of Saint-Claude laid the foundations of the current Saint-Pierre cathedral within the cloister enclosure. It was built on the site of the oldest church of the abbey, which was dedicated to the holy apostles Peter, Paul, and Andrew, for whom the first founders of Condat had a particular veneration. Subsequently, the monks sang the night office in the church of Saint-Pierre, and the day office in the church of Saint-Claude, which served as the parish for the city. They seemed in some way to share the cult they had for these two Saints by sharing their office.

To the homage that the Church rendered to Saint Claude, the people sometimes mixed superstitious ideas. At that time, people generally believed in sorcerers, and the Jura mountains were considered to be infested with them. When a sick person imagined that some spell had been cast upon them, they came to implore Saint Claude to be delivered. Whatever opinion one may form about the existence and power of sorcerers, these prayers that the people addressed to the holy wonder-worker attest at least to the great confidence they had in his powerful protection.

The pilgrimage of Saint-Claude became one of the most famous in Europe; people came from the most distant provinces; hence the festivals, confraternities, and other institutions; it would be too long to enumerate them, as well as the miracles performed through his intercession and the illustrious personages who came to honor him.

By the end of the 15th century, the feast of Saint Claude was celebrated with great magnificence.

This feast gave rise to a fair where neighboring populations flocked. Already, the trade in devotional objects—statuettes, crucifixes, medals, rosaries, etc.—was carried out there, which contributed to developing in these mountains the art of sculpture, so happily cultivated in Saint-Claude. Wood grows in abundance in the vicinity of this city, and the inhabitants sought in industry the resources that the soil denied them. Sculpture thus fed a great number of them, who sold small works of piety to the pilgrims. It raised others to the reputation of distinguished artists, and it was in Saint-Claude that those Bassets were formed who worked ivory, and whose masterpieces are so sought after. One sees that piety is useful for everything. It attracted populations to the shrine of the Saint, who came to seek spiritual consolations there, and it provided the inhabitants of these sterile mountains with the opportunity to practice this charming industry which subjects the root of the wood, with all its capricious images, to such varied forms, and which is still today the main wealth of the country.

It was not only a province, a kingdom that manifested its devotion to Saint Claude; but people came from all points of Europe to this famous pilgrimage. The faith of the peoples had made it one of the most famous sanctuaries in France, and these pious manifestations sometimes took on the character of public institutions. Parishes, cities, and entire provinces sent deputations to Saint-Claude almost every year. One of the most remarkable was the pilgrimage of the Picards. We do not know at what time it began; but it was carried out for a long time in a fairly regular manner. "We know," says one of our historians, "that the day the pious deputation from Picardy passed through Moiraux, one of the stations of its itinerary, all the bourgeois of this city had to welcome it with honor and feast it in an eager and cordial manner. Moiraux was, it is true, the first and only stop to be made in the monastic land of Saint-Claude before reaching the holy destination; and the most reverend abbot, who was lord of Moiraux, had perhaps made it a duty for his subjects to offer hospitality to strangers who brought him notable offerings on behalf of some city in Picardy, for the fulfillment of a solemn vow to Monsieur Saint Claude, friend of God. It is good to remember that the troops of Picards were part of the army of Louis XI in the county of Burgundy, and that they could have composed the guard of the King of France, conqueror of the country, when he carried out one or the other of his pilgrimages to the shrine of o ur Saint Louis XI King of France who enriched the reliquary of the Innocents in Paris. ." When the Picards returned to their country, they were received in triumph by their compatriots, who awaited them at the border, and to whom they distributed blessed objects brought back from their distant pilgrimage.

The body of Saint Claude was saved, not without a miracle, from the profanations of the Protestants during the Ten Years' War (1632 to 1642). To escape the misfortunes with which this war afflicted Franche-Comté, ten or twelve thousand Burgundians of both sexes went to settle in Rome. This Franche-Comté community introduced the cult of Saint Claude into the common homeland of all Christians and built a church in his honor and under his name.

From the beginning of the 18th century, a confraternity was established in his honor in the monastery church. Similar confraternities were established in all parts of France, and several still exist today. There were some in Besançon and in many cities of Burgundy. The confraternity of Autun is one of the oldest and most famous. The Vendée and Picardy, especially, instituted a large number of them. There were three in Paris: one in the church of the Saint-Jacques hospital, another at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and the third in the church of the Petit Saint-Antoine. The chapels dedicated to Saint Claude were often adorned with a painting where the blessed bishop was represented with a small child kneeling at his side. According to tradition, it was a child he had resurrected through his prayers while he was bishop, or rather, it was the symbol of all those he had recalled to life since he had been in glory.

Nothing was more common in the account of the marvelous graces obtained at the tomb of the holy bishop than the kissing of his blessed feet. Three times a day, one of the sides of the shrine was opened to allow the people to kiss these venerated feet; and yet, neither the humidity of the air nor the breath of the pilgrims ever caused any corruption there. This constant prodigy, already verified in particular by the report made to Pope Nicholas V, was again attested in an authentic manner in 1690 by Cardinal d'Estrées, commendatory abbot of Saint-Claude, who had gone to this abbey to fulfill an apostolic delegation.

A more solemn testimony was soon to attest to the perpetual miracle of the preservation of the holy relics. God wished to provide this consolation to the Church of the Jura before the revolutionary furies came to make the body of Saint Claude disappear.

In 1742, the abbey of Saint-Claude was secularized by Pope Benedict XIV and erected into a bishopric under the metropolis of Lyon. The first bish pape Benoît XIV Pope who beatified Jerome Emiliani. op of Saint-Claude, Joseph de Méallet de Fargues, having finished the church of Saint-Pierre, erected it into a cathedral and transferred there all the relics of the monastery whose church was falling into ruins; but before doing so, he recognized them, assisted by his Chapter and a commission that included several doctors and the notables of the city. The shrine of Saint Claude was opened in the presence of the bishop and his entire retinue, and the incorruptibility of this hol y body was solemnly confirmed once incorruptibilité de ce saint corps Miraculous phenomenon observed on a body after death. more. A body of ordinary size was recognized, which appeared very ancient, and of which each limb had preserved its natural connections and positions. It was still entirely intact, with the exception of the little finger of the right hand, which appeared to have been torn off, and the cartilaginous part of the nose, which was damaged. The left part of the upper lip appeared slightly retracted; but the tongue was vermilion, and the rest of the body palpable and elastic. There was no incision or opening made on the body; it did not exhale any aromatic odor that could lead one to judge that it had been embalmed. This is why the doctors forming part of this commission declared that "the incorruptibility of this body for nearly twelve centuries being above the conception of their art, they could only contemplate it with admiration, as supernatural and miraculous."

In 1769, the Prince de Croÿ came to venerate these holy relics. Here is what an eyewitness reports: "Yesterday, September 14th, the entire shrine was opened to show the body of Saint Claude to the Prince. I saw it on this occasion. It is still in the same situation, the mouth open; one can see the tongue, a little redness in the complexion, still some brilliance in the eyes, some hair and the beard; the two hands are on the stomach without being pressed there; his whole body lying in its length, and the head slightly raised on a cushion, still palpable, except that the flesh is not very white. It is believed that it is the breath of the people who want to kiss the feet that causes this color; the face is whiter than the rest of the body."

The Cathedral Chapter had a new silver shrine made, adorned with crystals, in which the holy body was placed in 1785. This shrine allowed the precious relic to be seen in its entirety. But in the month of June 1794, the represent ative Lejeune, taske représentant Lejeune Revolutionary representative who ordered the destruction of relics. d with organizing the public spirit in the East, arrived in Saint-Claude, declaring that "the people no longer wished to recognize any God other than the God of nature, any religion other than that of the fatherland, any cult other than that of liberty." Following an orgy that had lasted until midnight, Lejeune had the keys to the cathedral brought to him and sent his satellites there with orders to bring him all the trinkets of superstition. The body of Saint Claude was broken into pieces and carried to the seminary, where Lejeune had taken up residence. On the way, the forearm bone fell to the ground and was picked up by a craftsman named Jacquet, who piously preserved it to return it to the Church in better days. The distinguished relics, which had survived for twelve centuries through so many vicissitudes and revolutions, were burned on the very night of June 19, 1794.

Five years later (1799), a fire entirely destroyed the city of Saint-Claude. It is believed that this was a stroke of divine justice, which sought to punish a profaned offense with a frightful disaster. "Indeed," says a historian, "the fire having started one knows not how, in the middle of the day, with the sky serene and the air calm, the inhabitants were struck with such blindness and such extraordinary stupor that, despite the presence of help and the favorable hour, far from using the means to extinguish the fire, everyone busied themselves with moving their house, leaving it to be devoured by the flames, so that, after a short space of time, the ground that a rich and flourishing city had covered offered to the view nothing more than a heap of burning rubble and smoking ashes. The fire spared only one house: that of a pious man named Calais, whose wife had received the rosary of Saint Claude, which the impious had given her at the moment they were burning the relic." The Cathedral of Saint-Pierre could not escape the violence of the fire; but, thanks to the solidity of its vaults and walls, the flames did not penetrate the interior, and only the roof was destroyed. When liberty had been restored to the Catholic cult, this edifice was restored and what remained of the Saint's relics was placed there. Claude Lecos, Archbishop of Besançon, after conducting an inquiry to verify their authenticity, ordered that they be exposed to the veneration of the faithful. When the bishopric of Saint-Claude was re-established by the Concordat of 1817, the incumbent of this see, Mgr Antoine-Jacques de Chamon, decreed that the office of the translation of the relics of Saint Claude would be celebrated on August 29. Today, these precious remains are seen in a small silver shrine, which is itself enclosed in another gilded wooden shrine. If the cult of the holy bishop no longer attracts an immense gathering of people to the city that bears his name as it once did, his memory is still venerated in the Church, and especially in Franche-Comté, as that of a great pontiff and a powerful intercessor before God. Several Confraternities honor him as their special protector, and a large number of parishes recognize him as their patron. These are, in the Doubs, those of Saint-Claude, Pont-les-Moulins, Luisans, la Sommette, Epenouse, Droitfontaine, Noël-Cerneux, les Fins, Malbuisson, Vuillecin; in the Jura, those of Saint-Claude, les Nans, Ouglières, Maynal, le Frasnois.

The church of Émery-Hallon (Somme) possesses a relic of the Saint in a bust.

We have used the Vie des Saints de Franche-Comté to reconstruct this life.