Saint Roseline of Villeneuve

Roseline, already sanctified by so many good works, already a miraculous dispenser of heavenly graces, could no longer find any carnal love worthy of her. The eldest of the children of Arnaud and Sibylle, she had already fulfilled her duties and inner cares of the family toward her younger sisters and brothers; she had already paid her earthly debts: she aspired to enjoy freely the delights of divine love; spotless, infinite beauty, that is what she wanted to possess!...

The enthusiasm of youth is magnificent, but it is sometimes ephemeral, because it is inexperienced. It must be tested; this trial is a duty of Christian parents, who must rule out any chance of an ill-considered religious commitment, sometimes followed by sad consequences and bitter regrets. Roseline's parents did not fail in this painful part of their religious duties.

Many brilliant offers were made to the young girl: but she replied that she was yielding all her rights to one of her four sisters; that she herself, by consecrating her virginity to God in a Carthusian monastery, would be more useful to her family through the help of her prayers; that she implor monastère de Chartreuses Religious order welcomed by Engelbert in Cologne. ed permission to go and train in Carthusian knowledge and practices at the house of Bertaud.

Dom Bruno, prior of the Charterhouse of Montrieux, received the confidence of Roseline's firm reso lution an Dom Bruno Founder of the Carthusian Order. d was tasked with making the parents understand that their daughter's determination was as considered as it was irrevocable; the vow was heard... it had to be carried out.

The monastery of the Carthusian nuns of Bertaud, with its vast solitudes, its tropical storms, and its polar frosts, was the favorite site that had seduced the young imagination of Roseline, eager to place the practice of the highest austerities in the face of the greatest rigors of the climate, and the wonders of Christian serenity in the face of the greatest troubles of creation.

But this house was very far from the castle of Les Arcs, and a long journey for a fifteen-year-old girl was still, in the 13th century, a difficult and dangerous undertaking. Providence could provide for it.

In 1278, Josselin, Bishop of Orange, upon returning from a pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy Apostles in Rome, received the hospitality of Arnaud de Villeneuve. Roseline, ever more ardent in her pious desires, in the presence of delays and difficulties, took Bishop Josselin as her protector, just as she had taken the prior Dom Bruno as her advocate. The bishop smoothed over all difficulties by declaring that he would take it upon himself to ensure the noble postulant arrived safely at the Charterhouse of Saint-André de Ramires, a monastery for ladies located on the borders of his diocese. From Saint-André to Bertaud, the holy houses, multiplied like beads on a rosary and visited by numerous religious messengers, established frequent and very secure communications.

The pious traveler had to place herself under the protection of the religious habit, covered in the coarse fabric of a postulant, which contrasted with the delicacy of her features; she suppressed the sighs and intimate pains of the first separation from her family and the perpetual abandonment of her father's house.

Her father, who had seen the miracle of his holy daughter, and knowing well that she was walking toward heaven, gave her his blessing mixed with his tears. The Christian mother held against her heart this rose without thorns who was her joy and her pride, and whose fragrance she was henceforth offering to God. And the sisters and brothers, who were losing their best friend, covered with their kisses the one who taught them so well how to love and pray to God!

Roseline finally tore herself away from these embraces, and, firm and resolute, she set out toward the place where the sacrifice was to be accomplished; the Bishop of Orange, guiding and protecting the beautiful and holy girl, was a new Angel Raphael leading the young Tobias toward the place where God destined for him a faithful and beloved spouse. After long days of walking, they reached Saint-André. The journey, accomplished like a pilgrimage with a bishop as guide and interpreter, had excited Roseline's zeal and enlarged the light of her faith. It had been a chain of holy impressions provoked by each religious foundation, by each relic whose history they went from town to town, from monastery to monastery, to learn and whose marvelous influences they saluted.

At Saint-André, where she remained for some time, Roseline began her undertaking, and when she was well initiated into the material duties and religious exercises of this monastery, she thought only of reaching the house that was the end of the journey. But it was necessary to cross steep mountains to go and acquire the complete religious doctrine in the house of Bertaud: a small caravan was organized that accompanied our young virgin until she could rest in the shade of her beloved solitude.

In the 13th century, turbulent lords, such as those of Mont-Maur and La Roche, and persecuting heretics, such as the Waldensians, the Pastoureaux, and the Albigensians, numerous and implacable enemies, caused the nuns of Bertaud great anxiety and threatened their weakness with the ultimate outrages. The young postulant from the Château des Arcs arrived like a messenger of peace; she brought the assurance of the energetic intervention of the Sovereigns of Provence against the enemies of the monastery: as a relative of the current governor of this land, was the young virgin not a reassuring hostage for the future of the house? Roseline thus appeared as the rainbow of the serenity now assured: her entry into Bertaud was a day of celebration, for they were greeting a guardian angel under the novice's habit. Just as in 1095, Saint Bruno determined the great crusade and became the secret missionary of the peaceful and civilizing faith, in 1278, Saint Roseline, barely admitted into the family of the Carthusian founder, was already determining around her the protection of public order, the respect for the laws of religion, and Christian civilization.

While Roseline procured peace for the convent, as the most humble and zealous novice, she drew from it both religious and secular knowledge. The sacred letters, the sweet and pious melodies, the Rules of her Order and their motives were learned with happiness and eagerness by our Saint; the variations of the practices, their alternatives during the hours of the day, seemed to her a succession of joys; her progress stimulated the zeal of her companions, while the sweet cheerfulness that radiated from her whole person gave a seductive charm to the most austere or monotonous exercises. Under every simple material detail, she read an important intention and a high thought. To advance always toward God, through the intellect and the heart, was for her a constant need, and what repelled equivocal vocations overexcited hers.

After two years of novitiate, and on three successive occasions during the last month, Roseline had requested the favor of being admitted to the dignity of a professed nun; three times the unanimity of the votes had welcomed her desires submitted to the General Chapter. In 1280, around Christmas, the solemn moment of irrevocable vows had arrived, and the humble Roseline, already tested by heroic sacrifices, nevertheless still trembled for her weakness; she asked for the support of all prayers around her.

Finally, the day dawned when, rich in that holy and generous boldness which is acquired through contact with long and painful struggles of which it is the necessary crowning, Roseline advanced, resolute, before the altars to pronounce her vows and receive the priest's blessing: she was a professed nun. In immolating her virginity to the God of purity, she eagerly adorned herself with the white robe of a Carthusian, more brilliant in her eyes than purple and silk. She had left riches for poverty, the eager care of servants to become a humble servant; she had renounced in a single day the sweet caresses of a mother and the intoxicating honors of a princely family. The daughters of Saint Bruno were in possession of a treasure that was soon to be snatched from them.

Not far from the castle of Les Arcs, a new convent of Carthusian nuns had just risen: it was Celle-Roubaud, the fruit of the liberality of our Saint's father. The prioress was named Jeanne de Villeneuve: she was the aunt of our heroine. Bending under the double weight of years and austerities, she insistently called for the one who was to help her in the administration of the house and to spread a salutary proselytism throughout the region. Roseline, now instructed in the interests of her Order, well initiated into Carthusian practices, could be of great utility in this nascent monastery: the general good required that she appear at Celle-Roubaud, and her superiors called her there.

In 1282, she left those majestic Alps, witnesses to her religious vows and the most beautiful impulses of her faith, to go near the castle of Les Arcs to begin an enterprise worthy of her. Everything was ready to welcome the holy Carthusian. The Bishop of Fréjus, Bertrand de Favières, was himself to consecrate Saint Roseline, and by raising her to the dignity of deaconess, give her the highest religious character that women can receive. Having reached her twenty-fifth year, our Saint had attained the minimum age required to receive this consecration: she ardently aspired to the supreme honors of this ceremony, which conferred upon her the holy privileges of the title of spouse of Jesus Christ. The Carthusian consecration is a reproduction of the most graceful impulses of the Song of Songs: sublime transports of celestial loves poetically sung in the offices of the holy Virgin: it is the intimate union with the victim who sacrifices herself each day on the altar. The desires of our Saint were finally fulfilled: it was given to her to receive from the hands of the bishop the veil that separated her from the world, and the gold ring that chained her to God; the crown of precious stones that made her a participant in the glory and power of the King of heaven; the maniple that was to adorn her right arm with the sign of strength; the stole, symbol of the yoke of the Lord; the cross, sign of absolute sacrifice, of complete devotion; finally, the book of holy Canticles that the religious soul loves to sing to the praise of the Spouse.

During this happy day, Roseline could not utter a word; she could not take any food. All earthly necessities were suspended; tears of ecstasy veiled her eyes directed toward heaven, while the impulses of her heart stifled her voice. Like Mary, sister of Lazarus, she did not cease to contemplate the divine beauty and to listen to the intimate conversation of the mystical Spouse. The spouse lived only by the breath of the Spouse.

What was then the joy of her father, the noble chancellor of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies! He saw the realization of his hopes in the development of this house of Carthusian nuns that he had founded with his gifts, which he populated with his family. By giving this convent both his sister as prioress and his daughter as deaconess, did he not ensure for his lineage, for his vassals, all the graces of prayer and sacrifice?

But, among all these expanded hearts, there was one above all that was overwhelmed by happiness, that of the mother of the Carthusian crowned and raised in glory. Sibylle de Sabran saw her Rose without thorns arrived at her most splendid blossoming. The omens of the birth of her holy daughter, preciously preserved in the maternal heart, were moving toward their full fulfillment.

Henceforth strong with a strength entirely divine, our young virgin employed it generously for the successive improvement of the various parts of the internal administration of the monastic house of Celle-Roubaud. In her novitiate, completed in the eminent house of Bertaud, and in her pilgrimage through the principal religious institutions of Provence, she had learned much. The zeal of the professed Roseline, of the consecrated Roseline, propagated all that the open mind of the novice Roseline had grasped. Under her intelligent impulse, religious chants were executed with that exquisite feeling for sacred poetry, which knows how to lift the thoughts of the coarsest workers of the earth toward heaven; one saw the birth of that religious music of the daughters of Saint Bruno, whose chords are like a groaning of the earth followed by a hope toward heaven. The model virgin of Celle-Roubaud made everyone admire her pious application and her skill in the material art of writing, taking pleasure in tracing in graceful characters the marvelous beauties of sacred poetry, and writing with delight the divine language that she felt with rapture. A fervent interpreter of Him who said: Go and teach, she applied herself to making the light of sacred doctrines shine brightly, and the charms of her teaching edified all those who surrounded her. A generous and faithful servant in small things, whom God was to raise to greater ones!

The prioress Jeanne de Villeneuve had just abdicated her religious functions, and the prior general of the Carthusians, Boson, listening to the unanimous wish of the virgins of the monastery of Celle-Roubaud, imposed upon Roseline the acceptance of the labors and the dignity of the priory. After thirty years of charity, after twenty-two years of prayers, sanctifying exercises, and severe practices, the holy Carthusian, having arrived with her thirty-seventh year at Carthusian perfection, could demand and teach the virtue, the type of which was found in herself. The severity of the warnings, the touching exhortations to perpetual immolation and prayer, the incessant vigilance against the seductions of lukewarmness and softness: such were henceforth the grave duties that devolved upon her. It is by fulfilling them that she founded the traditions of the Carthusian nuns who raised her to the rank of model of the virgins of their Order.

Roseline as a novice had shown herself eager to acquire the virtues of this Order; as a professed nun, one could have called her its model virgin; as prioress, she would be its highest protectress, and like the center of a circle of active intelligences, devoted to the religious development of which the Carthusian Order was to be one of the principal centers. To this gigantic work of peace and protection, in a country and at a time when both were so rare and so difficult, the daughter of Bruno would invite the immense procession of her relatives and friends, in the political order and the religious order. Independently of the protection of her brother, the lord of Les Arcs, charged with the defense of the diocese of Fréjus and the Carthusian monasteries up to La Verne, she would invoke that of another brother, Raymond de Villeneuve, governor of Marseille; of her brother Raynaud, chancellor of the duke of Tarente; of her brother-in-law of Villeneuve-Vence, grand seneschal of Provence; of her first cousin Saint Elzéas de Sabran, governor of the crown prince and ambassador of King Robert; then, in the religious order, that of her brother Elzéas de Villeneuve, canon of Marseille; of her paternal uncle, Guillaume de Sabran, bishop of Digne; and, above all these influences, she would call to her aid the grand master of the knights of Saint John, her brother, and the sovereign Pontiff, her friend.

Never at any epoch, neither before nor after Roseline, did one see an assemblage of powers and civilizing virtues so closely united: thus, what important results were due to this bundle of religious powers, military authorities, and high civil functions, all united by great virtues and by ties of blood, by the reciprocity of esteem and devoted affection! To cite only a few, the Provençal sovereign instituted, in 1308, a special knight protector of the Carthusians; in 1310, the former bishop of Fréjus, the great admirer of the virtues of Roseline, having become pope under the name of John XXII, endowed the Car thusian O Jean XXII Pope who placed the diocese of Rieux under the protection of Saint Cizy. rder with the hospital house of Bonpas, near Avignon, while the following year, he added to this first favor the exemption from tithes for its lands, and, by his bull of December 1323, he increased in a lasting manner the resources of the Charterhouse of Celle-Roubaud, by decreeing the addition of the revenues of the priory of Saint-Martin to the goods of the monastery. In 1320, the security of the Order reached its peak, assured as it was forever by the establishment of a post of knights of Saint John, directed by a Villeneuve, while the archbishop of Arles, and the bishops of Vaison and of Senez were named conservators of the goods and persons of the Carthusian nuns.

These are some of the fruits that blossomed during the interval of the twenty-five years of Roseline's priorship (1300-1325). However, she had aged in this long succession of good works; she had provided her monastery with both spiritual and temporal goods, and she had herself acquired perfections that separated her more and more from human weaknesses. She thirsted for the delights of contemplating divine perfections, and she was weaned from them by material cares, by the preoccupations and worries of leadership.

She descended from her supreme rank to be forgotten in isolation and reclusion. A stranger to earthly needs, she drew closer to angelic spirituality. She would remain for up to a whole week without food... A few plain vegetables, bread soiled with ash, such was the coarse and meager food that sufficed for her on the days when she savored the spiritual delights of the bread of angels!

As material necessities became less pressing every day, her soul, ever more active, penetrated the secret of hearts. She was struck by the inner stains of those who asked to speak with her, and no one dared approach her again without first having purified themselves through confession. The author of sin himself, the demon, could no longer resist the prayers of the Saint who repelled the approach of the slightest stain and the slightest thought of evil.

The grace of preparing for the final battle, the hour of which was revealed to her, was the most distinguished of the divine favors granted to the virtues of Saint Roseline. Calling her dear niece Marguerite, the most beloved of her proselytes, she who since the loss of her sister Sanche represented both the family of blood and the family of religion, she begged her to assist her with her final cares at the moment when death was about to untie her soul from material chains.

The nuns gathered around her bed heard her final tendernesses and her final counsels. "Confidence and love for the Lord, that is," she said, "the heritage I leave you; it will suffice for all your needs." Was her example not a palpable demonstration of this great principle? Renouncing everything and giving constantly, had not all aid come to her at the right time?

It was beautiful to see this lover of the poor and of God lying on straw, enduring the sting of illness as if she had been softly stretched out on a bed of roses, exhaling humble complaints about her slight weaknesses that barely left a cloudy trace in her memory; confused by her unworthiness, as if she had not constantly triumphed over the flesh, and as if each of her years had not been a step toward the highest perfection. With her eyes toward heaven: "Call me to you," she said, "so that I may unite my weak voice, O my God, to the canticles of your angels, that I may arrive at you, by the favor of the indulgences that your vicar has granted me, and that, equipped with the strength drawn from your mysterious bread, my weakness may journey to your sublimity!"

Thus groaned in the embraces of her humble love for God the virgin who had been nothing but prayer and charity, the worthy emulator of the virtues of Saint Bruno. Soon satiated with the supernatural sweetness of the divine Eucharist, she fell into an ecstasy that lasted an entire day. Was it an excursion toward paradise that thus suspended earthly communications?

After this rapture, the final anointings of holy oils came like an embalming to prepare the virginal body for eternal incorruptibility. All human senses, from then on separated from their earthly infirmities, were applied to celestial messages. The community, kneeling before the holy prioress, received amidst sobs her final blessings... In a solemn silence, the Carthusian virgins withdrew, carrying in their hearts a tender emotion and a sanctifying memory.

Her niece Marguerite remained alone in prayer in a corner of the cell when she heard Saint Roseline say in a clear and satisfied voice: "Farewell for the last time, I am going to my Creator." At these words, a new miracle breaks forth: then appears the holy Carthusian triad, Saint Bruno, Saint Hugh of Grenoble, Saint Hugh of Lincoln, all in Carthusian habits, with the censer in hand and preceding the holy Mother of God carrying her divine Son in her arms. The divine Virgin having permitted Saint Bruno to have the cell incensed, Saint Hugh of Lincoln enveloped the room and the bed of the sick woman with fragrant circles: the demon, summoned to articulate the reproaches to formulate against Roseline: "She let herself go," he said, "to rest during an afternoon." By the inanity of such a reproach, the insidious spirit of evil confessed well the holiness of Roseline! Then the holy Mother of God, with the ineffable grace of her smile, pronounced these sweet words: "Lead the chaste bride to the nuptial bed of the celestial Spouse."

At these words, the concert of thanksgiving of the holy triad broke forth, and the venerable mother expired!

Henceforth, Carthusian virtue had two models: Saint Bruno and Saint Roseline; it was the sweet personification of prayer, on lips without stains, and under the two forms of humanity.

The body of the spotless virgin was then, according to the Carthusian rite, adorned with the insignia of her consecration. On the brow of the Saint of Celle-Roubaud shone the precious stones of the crown received at twenty-five years of age; on her right arm was the maniple; over her white robe descended the stole, which encircled her breast like the halo of purity; upon her heart rested the cross that had inspired all her thoughts.

When the body was placed in the coffin, the limbs of the Saint, cold as marble, retained, along with the grace of their form, a marvelous flexibility.

At that very instant, the voice of God made itself heard through the mouths of children. In all the villages and in the neighboring towns, these cries resounded: THE SAINT IS DEAD! Then an immense crowd headed toward the monastery; everyone wanted to see, everyone wanted to touch the holy remains. The blind regaining their sight, the crippled restored to their functions, and numerous sick people healed by the mere touch of the coffin were the public testimonies to the holiness of Roseline. The burial had to be delayed until the third day. This was demanded by the population, who could not satisfy their desire to contemplate the Saint.

She was buried in the common cemetery of the monastery, following the rite of her religious Order, and laid to rest beside the previous prioress, Jeanne de Villeneuve, who had died nineteen years earlier.

Our Saint had flown to heaven on January 17, 1329, at the age of nearly sixty-six: a nun at sixteen, she was about to celebrate with her celestial Spouse the fiftieth anniversary of her well-fulfilled Carthusian vows.

She is represented carrying a reliquary containing two eyes, because the eyes of the Saint remained vivid and clear several centuries after her death. She is also seen dispersing Mahometan troops, a symbol of the protection she extended to the Carthusian Order. Finally, she is depicted crowned with roses, in memory of the revelation her mother had while she was still carrying this child in her womb, and to recall the miracle of the loaves changed into roses.

She is the patroness of the Carthusians and the Order of Malta.

## VENERATION AND RELICS.

Soon the prayers of the nuns and those of the surrounding populations rose in concert to Avignon, to the representative of Saint Peter, to the illustrious old man who was a friend of Roseline, to request the exhumation of the holy body. It was carried out on the day of the octave of Pentecost, June 11, 1334, amidst the most numerous and solemn gathering; after five years of resting in the earth, the body appeared whole, without corruption; the eyes, usually so perishable, were marvelously preserved. Public joy rose to a state of pious intoxication, miracles multiplied, and on all sides it was repeated: We have an inestimable treasure, we possess a Saint. This memorable day was henceforth justly named "the triumph of Saint Roseline," and it is celebrated each year on the Sunday of the Octave of Pentecost. The eyes of the Saint were placed in a small, special reliquary to be transported to the treasury of the parish of Les Arcs, near the place where these eyes, a symbolic figure of virginal purity, had first opened to the light. The holy body, carried by six Carthusian nuns, was placed in the monastery church, near the altar, inside a balustrade that protected it from desecration.

Political and religious triumphs due to the patronage of Roseline, and the numerous miracles that occurred among the populations near the monastery, redoubled public devotion to the remains of the Saint, and, in 1344, by universal wish, the body was raised from the vault to be exposed to the sight of all, and later placed on the altar in a glass-fronted reliquary.

But the 15th century brought with it its political troubles and the famous papal schism; the body of Saint Roseline had been hidden by pious hands, and the Christian people urgently requested the restoration of the precious relic: she was the patron saint of the country, Roseline, who warded off the storms that destroyed the harvests, who softened afflictions, and who entered into all the inner joys of mothers of families; to find the holy body, the lights of heaven were invoked in the chapel of Celle-Roubaud. In the middle of Mass, a blind man cried out: Here is the body of Saint Roseline, I see it. At that same instant, the blind man regained his sight. The excavations made at the place that had just been indicated brought to light the holy relic, still in its integrity; it was then replaced near the choir, in the chapel, in a gilded reliquary, and in the position it had previously occupied. But the monastery adjacent to the church had been half-destroyed; it was rebuilt according to the rules of the Franciscan Friars of the Observance, who established themselves as the guardians of the sacred deposit, and on the day of its full completion (1504), it received the popular name by which it is exclusively known today, that of Sainte-Roseline. The precious relic was able to pass through the period of the Wars of Religion that preceded the pacifying reign of Henry IV without insult. In 1657, a new reliquary had to be created, intended to house it more appropriately. A solemn translation took place in the presence of dignitaries of the religious Order, numerous members of the Saint's family, and amidst the explosion of pious joy of four thousand attendees. The reliquary was placed in a recently constructed chapel, to the right of the church, at the corner of the altar corresponding to the Gospel. After the popular ovation came the homage of the most superb prince of the old monarchy, for nothing was to be lacking in the exaltation of the humble virgin. Louis XIV, in 1661, came with his mother Anne of Austria and his entire court to make the pilgrimage to the holy places of Louis XIV King of France during the ministry of Olier. Provence; after Saint Magdalene, the penitent of the desert, honors were addressed to the incorruptible virgin, Saint Roseline. The marvelous preservation of the eyes of the Carthusian nun placed in the reliquary struck the King deeply. He ordered his physician, Antoine Vallot, to ensure that these eyes were natural.

The prick made on one of the eyes by the physician armed with a needle dispelled all doubts. The result of this verification is still manifest today; the eye pierced by this prick has withered, the other has retained its integrity. Thus, the verification of Louis XIV has become a permanent proof of the ancient incorruptibility. An irrefutable date has been given to the homage rendered to a humble virgin by the King who had taken the sun as his radiant emblem.

To establish the authenticity of the relic, the most indisputable testimonies have combined from that era to the present day. The most touching is seen in the zeal that the neighboring populations showed, in the 18th century, to protect her relic: here is this testimony. When, in 1707, following the disasters that saddened the final years of the great reign of Louis XIV, the army of the Duke of Savoy invaded Provence, fire, rape, and carnage signaled the march of the enemy army. Soon it was seen returning covered in mud and for that very reason more furious; it had broken against the gates of Toulon, defended by Marshal de Tessé and by the old Count of Grignan, who, despite his seventy-five years, showed all the activity and all the ardor of a young hero.

The part of Provence that extends from Toulon to the Var was covered with the debris of the defeated army. The soldiers, without leaders, without discipline, marching in numerous bands, pillaged, extorted, and burned; our unfortunate country was but an immense pyre, the convent of Sainte-Roseline would have become the prey of the flames without the generous devotion of the inhabitants of Les Arcs and the country folk, who had gathered around the monastery to defend it.

The devotion of the inhabitants of Les Arcs to their celestial protectress went even further. In the dire days when all the churches were sold and profaned, Sainte-Roseline was bought back by the inhabitants of Les Arcs and given by them to the commune. It is the protection of the people that replaced the guardian brothers for Sainte-Roseline; the popular devotion of 1793 was worthy of that of 1767!

But the most irrefutable, the most authentic testimony is provided by the solemn translation of 1835, carried out under the auspices of Mgr Michel, Bishop of Fréjus.

A marble reliquary was substituted for the gilded wooden reliquary, a silk veil, bearing in gold letters the year of the birth and that of the death of the Saint, was given by the members of the Villeneuve family, belonging to all the various branches.

Numerous effects of the patronage of Sainte-Roseline are preserved in the memory of the inhabitants of Les Arcs; but the most universal, the most popular patronage of the Saint of La Celle-Roubaud is that which she exercises over the harvests. From the heights of heaven, the virgin of the roses still casts compassionate glances upon those who are hungry; she wards off storms, she gives water to the parched harvests.

In the year 1817, the persistent drought threatened the wheat harvest with total destruction. The inhabitants of the town of Lorgues, gathered in a procession numbering three thousand, came to implore the help of Saint Roseline by traveling a distance of four leagues; the petition was on May 8, and on May 9 an abundant rain watered the parched fields. The miracle is recorded in the chapel by an inscription engraved on a marble plaque placed below the painting representing the procession.

The Carthusians urgently requested to be authorized to celebrate the cult of Saint Roseline as patroness of their female Order; they had been pursuing, since 1840, the regular canonization of their dear sister of Celle-Roubaud, when the pontifical approval given on May 9, 1851, to the proper of the diocese of Fréjus, classifying the feast of Saint Roseline among the popular diocesan cults, demanded for several centuries by the devotion of the faithful, smoothed out and resolved all difficulties.

After the approval of the diocesan cult, all requests for the extension of the cult had to be admitted, and these requests were honors more widely granted to the holy Carthusian. The Order of the Carthusians hastened to request the approval of this cult in all the chapels it possessed, and the corresponding inscription in the ordinary calendar of their particular rite. The decree of this concession was signed on September 17, 1657, by Cardinal Patriazi, president of the Congregation of Rites.

On September 27, 1859, a plenary indulgence was granted for those who would visit a Carthusian church on the day of the Saint's feast, fixed for October 10. This grace was, moreover, subject, as usual, to a holy communion made for this intention.

Thus the humble Carthusian has conquered a place on all the altars of the diocese of Fréjus and in all the chapels of the Carthusians.

We have drawn this Life from the scholarly work of Count H. de Villeneuve-Flaycac, member of the illustrious family of Saint Roseline. — Cf. A.A. SS., vol. II of June.