Saint Medard of Noyon

According to Saint Ouen and several other authors, Medard and Gildard were twins. The tables of the Church of Rouen add that their baptism was not delayed, as was often done at that time; but that immediately after their birth, they were regenerated in Jesus Christ. Their childhood was entirely holy, and their acts record admirable examples of it, which should not be passed over in silence. What shone most in this young Saint was his great compassion toward the poor and the unfortunate. He subjected himself to rigorous fasts in order to distribute to them the bread he was to eat, and deprived himself of all the treats with which he was gifted to bestow them upon them. He stripped himself to clothe them; and, one day when he had been given a costly cloak to appear with honor among the young men of his rank, having met a blind man who had nothing to cover himself with, he made him a gift of it: which caused more admiration than sorrow to his pious mother who, happy to see such excellent qualities in him, strove to develop them in his young heart. Another day, his father having returned from the countryside with many horses, charged him to lead them to the meadow and to guard them there for some time, because all his men were occupied with various duties. As he was performing this humble task, he perceived a man who, having lost his horse by some accident, was carrying on his head, with great difficulty, the saddle, the bridle, the stirrups, and the girths. He asked him why he was burdening himself so much, since even without a load he had much trouble walking. The passerby replied that his horse had just died, and that it was a great misfortune for him, because he had no means to procure another. Then the heart of the Saint was touched with compassion, and, considering that his father had several horses, and that it was easy for him to have others still, he took one of the horses entrusted to his care and gave it to him. God made him know immediately that this action was pleasing to Him; for a heavy rain having occurred, an eagle came above the head of Medard and sheltered him with its wings: which was seen, not only by a servant who went to look for him for dinner, but also by his father, his mother, and all the people of the house, who ran to admire this marvel. The squire of Nectard complained that one of his horses was missing; but, as soon as Medard had declared his action, the number of horses was filled: it was found that none were missing anymore, without anyone being able to say how that had been done. After such a striking miracle, Nectard and Protagie gave their son full liberty to give alms, not doubting that, given by such a good hand, it would draw the blessing of heaven upon their person and their family.

Medard also settled a great dispute that had arisen between peasants over the boundaries of their inheritances; for, having traveled to the place, he placed his foot on a pebble that was in the ground, assuring them that it was the true boundary; to convince them of it entirely, he imprinted the mark of his foot on this pebble, as easily as if it had been soft wax.

Throughout his childhood, our Saint led a pious, mortified, and charitable life. Although he spent few years in the place of his birth, he left behind edifying memories there that time has not erased. Soon, he left Salency and went to the literary schools of Vermand and Tournai. His father often resided in the latter city, which Childeric, King of the Franks, had chosen for his residence.

Under masters commendable for their learning and piety, Medard advanced rapidly in the knowledge of secular letters, and especially in that of the divine Scriptures. He made even more marvelous progress in the practice of Christian virtues. Avoiding the company of the great and the amusements of the court, he found all his happiness in studying, praying, visiting, and relieving the poor. To the gift of miracles that he already possessed, God deigned to add the gift of prophecy: it was then that he predicted to Eleutherius, his fellow student and friend, the future elevation of this holy young man to the see of Tournai.

As for Saint Gildard, the records of the church of Rouen testify that, even in childhood, he was extremely assiduous in church, and that he found all his delights there; that having the gravity of an old man, he fled all the games and amusements that are the pastime of that early age, that after his duties toward God, he made it a capital duty to obey his parents in all things, and that he yielded in nothing to his brother in charity toward the poor, fasting also to feed them and stripping himself to clothe them.

Our two Saints, offering in their lives all the marks of an ecclesiastical vocation, were tonsured in a church dedicated under the name of Saint Stephen, where the scissors that had served to cut their hair were long preserved. It is believed that this church was at the gates of Soissons, and that it is the very one which, having been greatly enlarged by Kings Clotaire and Sigebert, took the name of Saint-Medard. What we can know of their studies is that they were placed under the guidance of the bishops of Tournai and Vermand, who took care to teach them sacred doctrine, so that they might become capable of teaching the Christian people, working for the conversion of the infidels, and confounding heretics. The docility of their minds, the beauty of their memory, and the solidity of their judgment meant that they acquired in a short time what others would only have acquired in many years, and that they were judged worthy, at an early age, to be promoted to the Orders of the Church.

They even received the priesthood from the hands of Sophronius, Bishop of Vermand. It was in this Order that the precious harmony of all the virtues with which their souls were endowed appeared admirably. Their fasts were frequent and their prayer continuous; they spent entire nights in the meditation of our mysteries, and they found such delight in them that they only left them with a holy impatience to resume them. Modest and humble, they paid great honor to their superiors; but they did not wish to receive any from their equals or their inferiors, whom they treated as their brothers. Their gentleness and affability made them loved by everyone, and everywhere people spoke only of these two brothers, who, like two beautiful suns, illuminated the churches of Picardy.

The archbishopric of Rouen having become vacant towards the end of the 5th century, upon the death of Crescence, one of its most worthy prelates, the clergy a nd the people saint Gildard Twin brother of Medard, Archbishop of Rouen. elected Saint Gildard in his place. This holy priest learned of this election only with sorrow; but, as it was evident that it had been made by the inspiration of God, and without any human favor, he was obliged to submit to it. Having arrived in Rouen, where there were still many idolaters, he worked with indefatigable zeal to win them to Jesus Christ, and he had the consolation of seeing the synagogue of Satan diminish day by day, and his flock take on new growth at every moment through the conversion of these infidels: the gentleness, honesty, and paternal tenderness with which he visited them and spoke to them contributed extremely to this happy result. But what helped even more were the continual prayers he addressed to God for this people who were entrusted to him, and the continual celebration of the Sacrifice of our altars. He assisted the poor, he ransomed captives, he visited and comforted the sick whose names he always had imprinted in his memory; he consoled the afflicted, and, to say it all in one word, with the Acts of his life, which are found in the archives of Rouen, he provided in all things for the utility of everyone.

There are especially three events that have made him famous in ecclesiastical history. He cooperated, with Saint Remi, Saint Médard, his brother, and Saint Waast, in the complete conversion and baptism of Clovis, our first Christian king, as it is reported in the ancient Lessons of the church that bears his name in Rouen. He attended, in the year 511, the first Council of Orléans, one of the most famous in France; he subscribed to it in these terms: *Gildaredus, episcopus ecclesiæ Rothomagensis metropolis, subscripsi*. — Gildard, bishop of the metropolitan church of Rouen, I have subscribed. Finally, he consecrated Saint Lô as bishop of Coutances. He was only a child of twelve years and did not even have the first tonsure; but Possesseur, bishop of that see, having died, God made it known, by manifest signs, that He had chosen him as pastor of His flock. The Angel, who had revealed this choice to two priests of holy life of the same Church, also revealed it to King Childebert, who gave his consent. However, Saint Gildard, to whom, as metropolitan, it belonged to confirm the election of the clergy and to give the imposition of hands, found great difficulties in it. He had before his eyes the prohibition that Saint Paul makes against raising men too soon to ecclesiastical dignities; he also knew the Canons of the Church which did not allow one to be consecrated priest and bishop before the age of thirty. He was told that God could dispense with these laws, and that the declaration that the Angel had made of His divine will was a sufficient dispensation; but he knew that one should not believe every spirit, and that the best way to recognize the truth of a revelation was to doubt it at first and to hold it as suspect. He therefore came to find the king to explain his embarrassment, and to tell him that it was such an unheard-of thing to make a bishop at twelve years old, that he did not dare to bring upon himself the reproach of having given such a dangerous example. But the king having assured him of the vision he had had regarding it, he had recourse to prayer, and then God made him know that, being above all laws, He had privileged strokes, and that, as He wanted to give this child the prudence and maturity of an old man, He also wanted him to be, by an extraordinary choice, the bishop of the city of Coutances. Thus, our Saint embraced him as his confrere, and consecrated him by the imposition of hands, which, in giving him the Holy Spirit, gave him at the same time episcopal wisdom and vigor.

Few years later, this blessed Archbishop, consumed by labors and penances, fell into a mortal illness which made him know that the hour of his departure and his reward was approaching; he prepared for it by the reception of the Sacraments and by a renewal of fervor, and finally rendered his spirit to God in the midst of a great light and in the form of a dove, as a lesson of his office says. His body was buried in his cathedral, which bears his name, and, since then, it has been transported to Soissons and deposited in the abbey of Saint-Médard, as we shall soon say. The day of his death is marked on June 8 and around the year 545.

Let us now return to Saint Médard: this holy Priest, until the time of his promotion to the episcopate, assisted his father, his bishop, and our kings with his wise counsel, and edified the entire Vermandois region marvelously through the holiness of his life and the strength of his discourses and exhortations. His charity toward the poor was not limited to distributing bread, clothing, and all things necessary for life; in his zeal for their salvation, he snatched a great number of them from ignorance, sin, and criminal habits. To accomplish a task often so difficult and harsh, he recoiled before no peril and no sacrifice. However, our Saint did not forget to visit his dear Salenciens often. It is said that it was during one of these apostolic journeys in the vicinity of Noyon that he endowed them with the beautiful and touching institution known as the Rosière festival. If no positive document supports this opinion, it finds a sufficiently powerful argument in its favor in the ancient and constant tradition of the country.

Saint Médard also performed great miracles, which gave him such a high reputation that he was regarded as a prodigy of grace and as one of the holiest figures of his century. God took his defense and protection in all things. A thief having entered his vineyard in the evening and having caused great damage there, he could not find the exit throughout the night, nor could he unload his loot; he was found the next morning with his theft in his hands, and in a state of marvelous terror because of the strange night he had spent. They wanted to punish him as a thief; but the Saint forgave him and even gave him, out of grace, what he had wanted to take unjustly. Another, having stolen his beehives, was so pursued by the bees that he was forced to throw himself at his feet and ask for forgiveness to be delivered from them: which he obtained without difficulty. A third, who had taken a bull from his herd, was forced to bring it back because the bell that hung around the animal's neck, wherever he placed it, rang continually by itself and bore witness to his theft. The army of King Clotaire I having caused great devastation in the Vermandois, the carts on which the soldiers had loaded their loot remained immobile and could never advance until they had made restitution and the holy Priest had given them his blessing. He also delivered a man named Tosion from a very cruel demon that tormented him, by merely making the sign of the cross over him.

His labors, virtues, and miracles had made his name famous even in distant lands; but his mission was not fulfilled, and he was not yet permitted to prepare for the journey of eternity in retirement: he had to fight the battles of the Lord until his last breath. Called to govern the church of Vermand, which had become widowed of its pastor by the death of Alomer, he tried to avoid this honor, alleging his advanced age and the diminution of his strength. All his resistance failed before the combined efforts of the king, the clergy, the people, and the holy pontiff Remi: the will of God was manifest; he had to resign himself to receiving the episcopal anointing. He was consecrated Bishop of Vermand by Saint Remi, who was then at the end of his glorious career.

Scarcely raised to the episcopal chair, he showed more than ever his charity toward the poor, his care for the conversion of sinners, his compassion for all the miserable, and his true devotion to God. But as, a little before his election, the entire country around the Oise and the Somme had been miserably pillaged and devastated by the Huns, the Vandals, and other barbarians, and his episcopal city was continually exposed to similar insults, he took the resolution to transfer his see and to bring most of his people to Noyon, a considerable fortress where he would have less reason to fear the raids of the enemies. God blessed this design admirably, and Noyon became a great city and one of the beautiful bishoprics of Fr ance, Noyon The saint's principal episcopal see. to which the county-peerage was attached.

A few years later, Saint Eleutherius, to whom Saint Médard had predicted, while they were students together, that he would be a bishop, left the bishopric of Tournai vacant by his death; all the Catholics of that city insistently requested our Saint as prelate. This proposal seemed inadmissible to him, as it was not permitted to anyone, according to the Canons, to possess two bishoprics together. But the king, the bishops of the province, Saint Remi himself, the metropolitan, and finally the blessed Pope Hormisdas, then seated on the chair of Saint Peter, considering the needs of the diocese of Tournai, which was still plunged partly in idolatry and par tly in the inf pape Hormisdas Pope contemporary with the end of the life of Lautein. amous vices that the mixing of barbarians had brought there, judged it necessary to grant them this excellent pastor. He therefore united these two dioceses, but without taking away from either Noyon or Tournai the status of an episcopal city, and he devoted himself to working in both for the salvation of souls and the ruin of the power of the demon that exercised its tyranny there. He had, above all, incredible evils to suffer in Tournai; he was loaded with insults and covered in opprobrium there; he often saw himself threatened with death and condemned by furious men to the ultimate punishments; but as he was unshakeable in the midst of these storms, and as he suffered all these mistreatments with a constancy that could never be altered, he finally tamed the hardness of the infidels and libertines and, in a short time, he made so many conversions and regenerated so many idolaters in the sacred fonts of Baptism that the entire diocese changed its face, and the light of Christianity was seen to shine there with great brilliance. Fortunatus remarks, in his life, that he did spiritually everything that Our Lord promises in the Gospel to apostolic preachers: he cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, because he banished them from the souls of those who converted and received the faith; he spoke in new tongues, because he announced to the infidels truths that were unknown to them, of which they had never heard; he exterminated serpents, because he armed Christians against all the temptations of the great dragon and the infernal serpent; he drank poison without being harmed, because, receiving the confession of all sinners, he filled himself, so to speak, with the venom of their crime, without the purity of his soul being altered; he finally healed the sick by laying his hands on them, because, having found almost all his diocesans spiritually sick through the violence of their bad habits and passions, he brought them back to health by imprinting in them a hatred of vice and a love of virtue.

Upon returning to the diocese of Noyon, Saint Medard devoted the remainder of his strength to this portion of his flock so dear to him. One of the most remarkable events of his episcopate was the arrival in Noyon of Saint Radegund, who was withdrawing, with the king's consent, from the honors of the court, and came to ask the holy bishop for the veil that would consecrate her to religious life. Saint Medard initially raised some objections, fearing that Clotaire, later repenting of the freedom granted to the virtuous princess, might blame religion for a separation that it had rendered irrevocable. But the holy eloquence of Radegund and the inspiration that shone in her entreaties finally triumphed over this praiseworthy prudence. The prelate laid his hands upon the young queen and added one more glory to all those of his illustrious episcopate. The traditions of the Middle Ages have preserved the memory of this event in the wall paintings of the ancient collegiate church of Poitiers, where Saint Medard appears on the vault of the sanctuary among the bishops who had held the esteem and friendship of Radegund.

In the meantime, a serious illness, combined with great old age, gave him what seemed to be certain p ledges of his a Le roi Clotaire King of the Franks who supported the foundation of the monastery. pproaching deliverance. King Clotaire, having learned of this, came to find the holy prelate to receive his blessing. This prince, repentant for the cruelty he had exercised toward Chramne and the family of that rebellious son, publicly confessed his crime. His admission, his regrets, and the penance to which he submitted earned him absolution. Then he asked him where he wished to be buried; Medard said it should be in his cathedral, according to the custom of other bishops; but the king insisted strongly that his body be transported to Soissons, where he would build a magnificent basilica to serve as his tomb: the Saint was obliged to yield. Shortly after, he exhaled his pure soul; some of those who were present saw it ascend into heaven; celestial lights also appeared for two hours near his body, which clearly showed that he had emerged from the darkness of this mortal life to enter into the light of immortal life.

The very next day, the bishops who were in Noyon having celebrated the Mass for the dead in the presence of the holy body, a great crowd was seen arriving, both of the people and of the nobility, to attend his funeral. They all asked that such a precious treasure not be torn from them to be transported to another diocese; but the king remained firm in his resolution, and himself loaded this precious burden onto his royal shoulders; the bishops and the first of the court helped him in this office of piety; and, thus relieving one another, they crossed the Aisne river at Attichy, and came to the village of Crouy, two hundred paces from Soissons, t he place Soissons Birthplace and place of death of Geoffrey. where the king had resolved to build his new church.

When they were in this place, the coffin became entirely immobile, without being able to be lifted to one side or the other, until the king had donated half of this village from his domain, which was part of the royal mensa, for the maintenance of those who would celebrate the divine offices there. But as after this donation the coffin allowed itself to be lifted on one side and remained so heavy on the other that it was impossible to move it, he made the entire donation, and immediately had letters patent dispatched, sealed with his seal; then, the holy body allowed itself to be easily transported wherever they wished. Before his tomb was entirely closed, two beautiful doves were seen descending from heaven, and a third, whiter than snow, coming out of his mouth: a manifest sign that the Angels had come to meet his soul, and that it had departed from his body with angelic innocence and purity.

So many wonders further moved the king to hasten the construction of the basilica. He therefore prepared all the materials for it; but, having died soon after in his castle of Compiègne, he left this care to his son, Sigebert, who fulfilled it very worthily. The kings who followed him, such as Clotaire, father of Dagobert, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald, made this church even more magnificent. A monastery was also added, which was given to the monks of Saint Benedict, and which was so illustrious that Saint Gregory, Pope, having submitted it immediately to the Holy See, and having endowed it with other great privileges, made it the head of all the monasteries of France. One could see there up to four hundred monks who sang day and night, one after the other, the praises of God, as did those monks of the East who were called the Acoemetae. A great number of villages, fiefs, priories, and provostships depended on it, and the abbot even formerly had the power to mint coins.

Saint Medard died around the year 543, on June 8. Father Giry is obliged to push his death back beyond 560, because, according to him, Saint Medard gave Clotaire absolution for the crime he had committed in having his natural son Chramne burned for revolt, events relating to the year 560.

## ABBEY OF SAINT-MÉDARD. — CULT AND RELICS.

"The famous abbe y of Saint-Médard," sa abbaye de Saint-Médard Benedictine abbey that housed relics. ys M. Lequeux, former vicar general of Soissons, in his *Antiquités religieuses du diocèse de Soissons et Laon*, "was founded in 547 by Chlothar I, King of Soissons. If this prince was very vicious, he appreciated virtue: he proved his esteem for the holy bishop Médard by going to visit him in Noyon during his final illness; and, as soon as he learned of his death (545), he wanted him transported to the palace he had near Soissons, beyond the Aisne, on the territory of Crouy. It was there that, a few years later, he laid the foundations of a great monastery, where he called Benedictine monks whom he brought from Glanfeuil. (It was at Glanfeuil, in Anjou, that Saint Maur, sent to France by Saint Benedict himself in 542, had formed the first establishment where the Rule later adopted by most monasteries was followed.) After the death of Chlothar, Sigebert, King of Austrasia, to whom Crouy belonged as it was beyond the Aisne, continued his father's work and finished the church. The crypt or underground church that can still be seen at Saint-Médard, and which is one of the most curious monuments in the region, dates back to this first period.

"The abbey was showered with goods by the kings of the first and second race; in time, up to two hundred and twenty fiefs were counted that depended on it; the bishops of Soissons, and even those of other dioceses, entrusted it with a large number of altars or prebends; it received from several popes all the privileges to which the greatest importance was then attached, especially that of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction: it soon reached such a point of splendor that four hundred monks, dividing the night and day among themselves and succeeding one another without interruption, performed perpetual psalmody there, while at the same time holding public schools for the teaching of divine and human sciences.

"One is obliged to choose among the most remarkable features of the history of this famous place. Hilduin, who was its abbot around 826, and who had at once much credit at the court of the kings of France and at that of Rome, obtained from Pope Eugene II a considerable portion of the relics of the illustrious martyr Saint Sebastian and of Saint Gregory the Great, and other saints very famous throughout the Church. The devotion of the great and the people was so revived by this precious acquisition that the abbot was easily able to rebuild, on a vaster plan, the main church of the monastery: its consecration took place in 841 with the greatest pomp; King Charles the Bald was not content to attend, surrounded by seventy-two archbishops and bishops and almost all the great men of his kingdom; but, aided by the most distinguished lords, he himself transported the body of Saint Médard from the lower crypt into the new basilica.

"Among the abbots who governed the monastery in the following centuries, one must especially note Saint Arnould, who was later raised to the see of Soissons around 1080, and Saint Giraud.

"The monastery church having been destroyed by a disaster whose cause is unknown, it was rebuilt at the beginning of the 14th century; and the consecration which was performed on October 15, 1131, by Pope Innocent II in person, surpassed in its solemnity what had been done in previous ages. The Pope having granted plenary indulgences to those who would visit it on the anniversary day, the influx of those who wanted to benefit from the pardons of Saint Médard was so great that, as not all could enter the church, certain boundaries were fixed, with the Pope's permission, between which the pilgrims passed to perform the prescribed practices and gain the indulgence. Moreover, this privilege seems to have been especially attached to a sort of jubilee that was celebrated every fifty years, and which gave rise to processions and solemn ceremonies called the pardons of Saint Médard.

"Besides the main church, the monastery contained within its enclosure six other churches: the most remarkable was that of Saint Sophia, where Hilduin had placed canons or ecclesiastics living in community, charging them with administering the Sacraments to pilgrims and guests, in order to leave more freedom to the monks. The other churches were likely external chapels for the people who depended on the monastery, or internal oratories serving for some exercises of the community.

"There are up to ten councils that were held at Saint-Médard; the first took place in the year 744, and the fifth in the year 862. Several kings and several queens were crowned there. Scenes of deplorable gravity also took place there: it was at Saint-Médard that Louis the Pious was imprisoned after he had been deposed contrary to all rules and subjected to public penance; but he soon managed to return to the exercise of the rights of sovereignty.

"To times of prosperity succeeded, for the abbey of Saint-Médard, days of tribulation and anguish. Devastated several times by the Normans in the course of the 9th century, stripped of part of its goods during this century and the next by powerful lords, it had triumphed over these trials. The civil wars of the 15th century were then more fatal to it: however, it still managed to rise again, and in the middle of the 16th century, it seemed to have regained its luster.

"These days of final magnificence were soon followed by desolation. What the abbey suffered in 1567 at the hands of the Calvinists surpassed all the calamities of previous ages: the heretics committed horrible devastations there. We borrow here the account of the author of the *Histoire de Soissons*, almost a contemporary. We like his naive style.

"From Sunday, September 28, while the soldiers were occupied with the looting of the city, some gentlemen went out quietly and came to this abbey to carry off what was most precious. They found the shrines of Saint Sebastian, Saint Gregory, and Saint Médard, with three silver crosses embellished with gold and precious stones, and candlesticks of the same metal; they carried off the shrines and threw the bones into the ditches. God did not permit these holy relics to be buried under the waves: the tailor of the religious collected them with the help of a widow who carried them to the Princess of Bourbon, Abbess of Notre-Dame de Soissons; later, a vine-grower of Crouy found in a vineyard a bag of white damask in which were the bones of Saint Gregory. (Later these relics were returned to the abbey; one can see in Dormay the precautions that were taken to identify them.) The following Tuesday, when the loot began to fail in the city, the soldiers went out and attacked the monastery of Saint-Médard first. You would have thought they were so many demons carried away by fury against the holiest things. Some demolished the altars, columns and balusters were thrown to the ground; others set to work breaking the images of the church, the cloister, and the chapter, overturning the organs, or disturbing the tombs: one heard only confused voices, blows of hammers and axes, and a frightful crashing of stones, wood, iron, and other metals falling on the pavement. Some were seen climbing the bell tower to break the bells, which were of extraordinary size. The cleverest found the place where the rest of the shrines and ornaments had been hidden, and they made a great fire into which they threw all the relics they found. Thus, one lost in an hour a large number of holy bodies that had been kept for centuries. After having vented their hatred on the objects they could destroy with less work, they took to the gallery that was above the portal, the roofs of the church, the dormitories, the refectory, and the other buildings that were of ancient sculpture, and most of them of marvelous beauty.

"Part of the ruins that one still sees at Saint-Médard relate to the time of this catastrophe. The abbey was from then on reduced to a very mediocre state. The church, shaken by so many blows, fell in 1621, and one was obliged to have recourse to the munificence of Louis XIII to rebuild it.

"Saint-Médard entered the Congregation of Saint-Maur in 1637, and this union was profitable to it. However, the ancient monastery had only twelve to thirteen religious left when the Revolution came to close this venerable asylum."

To complete this notice on the Saint-Médard Abbey, M. Henri Congnet, Dean of the Chapter of Soissons, wrote to us on August 15, 1866:

"Of the constructions that existed at the time of the French Revolution, there remain: — 1st, the rather modern building of the abbey church; — 2nd, a vast and very remarkable crypt that is perfectly preserved; it dates perhaps from the reign of Clotaire I or at least from that of his son Sigebert. In the rear compartment, one finds the tomb of the charitable Abbé Dupont, covered by a funerary stone; — 3rd, a dungeon called the prison of Louis the Pious; but its construction points to the ogival period, and the inscription is not from the 12th century. The Duchess of Berry visited this prison in 1821. — 4th, The tower where Abelard was confined after his condemnation, pronounced in a council held at Saint-Médard in 1122. — On this tower, a chapel of Our Lady of La Salette has recently been built, which forms its crowning.

"The entire abbey was sold in 1793 to various private individuals, and its grounds divided into several lots. In the year 1840, a devoted priest, M. l'Abbé Dupont, then pastor of Saint-Germain-Villeneuve, after having for some time made his rectory a school for the deaf-mute, had the happy thought of purchasing from the Goslin family the main portion of the Saint-Médard buildings. He obtained it for a sum of 40,000 francs. His personal patrimony was only 10,000 francs; he gave it as a down payment to the sellers and entrusted himself to Providence to help him pay the rest. From then on, he moved his students into the old abbey of Saint-Médard and put into action all the activity with which he was gifted to collect aid throughout the diocese and thus complete the admirable foundation that the Lord had inspired in him. So many worries, labors, and efforts soon wore out the strength of this new Abbé de l'Épée; he died at his task in 1843, being only forty-three years old. Lying on his bed of pain, he had Bishop de Simony asked to come and hear the expression of his last wishes; the pious bishop yielded to the desires of the dying man and accepted without hesitation his succession, that is to say, his dear deaf-mutes, and the house of Saint-Médard with all its burdens. — The debts were 30,000 francs. Bishop de Simony immediately sold annuities he held from the State and was thus able to satisfy the most pressing creditors. Then, by means of collections, lotteries, and also with his own income, the pious bishop managed to entirely free the establishment; he bequeathed it upon his death to his successors. — Today, the institute for the deaf-mute and blind of Saint-Médard holds the first rank, after that of Paris, among all establishments of this kind. It is directed, for the girls, by the Sisters of Wisdom, and, for the boys, by the Brothers of Saint-Gabriel. The house contains about two hundred children. Scholarships are founded there by the General Council of the Aisne and by the neighboring departments."

The cult of Saint Médard spread rapidly; the faithful came from all parts to the tomb of the Saint, whom they invoked as associated with the glory of the elect. Already, in the year 563, a public cult was rendered to him. The solemn celebration of his feast was fixed for June 8, the anniversary of his death. Churches rose in his honor, not only in the dioceses of Noyon, Tournai, and Soissons, but in all parts of France. He was even invoked in England, until the moment when that country had the misfortune of separating from the true Church.

Saint Géri, who was almost his contemporary, dedicated to him the monastery he built on the Mont des Bœufs, in Cambrai. He always carried relics of this pontiff with him. They are found later in a large number of churches. Judeigne, in Brabant, possessed a jaw of the Saint; Douai, Tournai, and the Abbey of Liessies also had some fragments of his bones, as did the cities of Cologne, Trier, Prague, Noyon, and Dijon. There are six parishes in the diocese of Cambrai that recognize Saint Médard as their patron. In Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, a church is dedicated to him. It was originally only a chapel in which the religious of Sainte-Geneviève had placed relics of this holy bishop after the invasion of the Normans.

The relics of the Blessed one have also undergone sad vicissitudes. Transported to various places, they only escaped the fury of the Normans and the Hungarians to fall into the power of impious sectarians who delivered them to the flames. By a benevolent favor of Providence, pious hands were able to collect the ashes and deposited them with respect in the church of Saint-Médard. Fortunately, also, considerable portions had been removed at various times and distributed to a large number of churches. The cathedral of Noyon has the happiness of possessing some of them. In the year 1852, Bishop Joseph-Armand Gigneux, Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon, and Senlis, solemnly recognized them and enclosed them in a magnificent reliquary due to the liberality of a pious Noyonnais, M. Michaux-Honnocet. This gilded copper reliquary is found in the chapel of Saint-Médard. — The parish church of Sainte-Verta (Yonne), in the diocese of Sens, has also possessed, since October 11, 1874, some relics of the holy bishop of Noyon.

Cf. *Annales du diocèse de Soissons*, by Abbé Pêcheur; *Vie des Saints du diocèse de Beauvais*, by Abbé Sabatier; *Vers des Saints*, by Abbé Destombes; *Acta Sanctorum*, for June 8; *Vie des Saints de l'Église de Poitiers*, by Abbé Anber.