Saint Germaine Cousin

God taught her to love suffering enough to accept humiliations and injustices with joy. She remained silent and hid herself: and as if her cross had seemed too light to her, she added austerities to it. Throughout her life, she refused herself any food other than a little bread and water. Despite her weakness and infirmities, she attended the holy sacrifice of the Mass every day. Even the obligations of her state did not exempt her from it. Full of confidence, she would leave her flock in the countryside and run to take refuge at the feet of the divine Shepherd. Such conduct would have been blameworthy in many others, and those have a misguided devotion who, to satisfy it, neglect the duties of their state. But Germaine was only obeying the inspiration of God; she knew that no accident would happen to her flock and that the good God would guard it in her absence; thus, even when her sheep grazed on the edge of the Boucône forest, bordering the fields of Pibrac, and in which wolves are forêt de Boucône Place where Germaine tended her sheep, known for its wolves. numerous, our holy shepherdess, at the sound of the bell, would plant her crook or her distaff in the ground and run at the call of Him who said: "Fear not, little flock, I will be with you." Upon her return, she would find her sheep where she had left them, quiet and safe as in the fold; the wolves never took a single one from her, and this flock, guarded by the distaff of the absent shepherdess, never strayed from the limits she had marked for it, nor did it cause the slightest damage in the neighboring fields. And, as God had been pleased to bless the flocks of Laban under the guidance of his servant Jacob, so he blessed the one led by his servant Germaine. In the whole village, there were none more numerous, there were none more beautiful. The stepmother nonetheless took the opportunity of our Blessed one's absences to overwhelm her with reproaches and insults, despite the remonstrances of the inhabitants of Pibrac, who were more than once witnesses to the wonder that enveloped the flock when the innocent shepherdess was at church.

Saint Germaine had a devotion all the greater to the holy Sacrament of our altars, as she must have known of the sacrileges that the Protestants were committing on all sides in the surrounding churches: one can suppose that she was consumed with a holy ardor to make reparation for so many outrages, by weeping at the feet of her Savior over the blindness of those who fail to recognize the excesses of his love. She was no less assiduous in resorting to the sacrament of Penance, to receive the body and blood of Our Lord with more fruit: persuaded of the necessity of its help for anyone who wishes to follow the path of justice with constancy and firmness, she was seen approaching it every Sunday and every feast day of the year. The fervor with which she received holy communion offered such a touching spectacle that those who saw her were enraptured, and the impression could not be erased by a long succession of years. From her early childhood, she had given proofs of that tender and solid piety toward the Mother of God, which, according to the doctrine of the holy Fathers, is a mark of predestination. Her rosary, which she recited often, was her only book. She found in the Ave Maria an inexhaustible source of light, consolation, and rapture. She pronounced it with an even more tender heart at the hours when the sacred bronze invites us to greet with the angel, with Saint Elizabeth, and with the Church, Mary full of grace. At the first sound of the bell, she would kneel, wherever she might be. She was often seen kneeling thus in the middle of the snow and mud, without taking the time to look for a better place, and if the bell was heard at the moment she was crossing the stream that waters the territory of Pibrac, without hesitation, she would fall to her knees in the water and say her prayer. All the feasts of the Queen of saints increased Germaine's fervor: she applied herself to sanctifying them through some works of piety and penance. One of these works, inspired by the love of Jesus and Mary, was to gather around her, when she could, some of the little children of the village. She applied herself to making them understand the truths of religion, and gently persuaded them to love what she herself loved exclusively.

As she sought in everything the interests of her Savior and not her own, the world, which does the opposite, was bound to be indignant at finding in her the condemnation of its maxims and its conduct: it laughed at her simplicity and tried to discourage her with its mockery; but, following the example of her Savior, she opposed only silence and prayer to her enemies. In reward, heaven wished to show through miracles how pleasing this girl, so poor and so forsaken, was to Him.

To get to the village church, she was obliged to cross a stream that she forded without difficulty in ordinary times, but which storm rains sometimes made impassable. One day, some peasants, who saw her coming from afar, stopped at some distance, asking each other, in a mocking tone, how she would pass: for the night had been rainy, and the stream, extremely swollen, was rolling with a roar its waters that would have opposed a barrier to the most vigorous man. Germaine arrives without thinking of the obstacle, perhaps without seeing it; she approaches: O wonder of divine power and goodness! the waters open before her, as they once did before the children of Israel, and she passes without even wetting her dress. At the sight of this wonder, which God subsequently renewed very often, the peasants looked at each other with fear, and the boldest began to respect the one they had wanted to mock.

If anyone on earth could believe themselves dispensed from exercising charity by giving alms, it was our Blessed one. Certainly, she had no superfluity to give, since she lacked even the necessities. What covetousness to cut back on in this life of deprivation and penance? What savings to make from the fruits of the labor for which she received only a little bread and water, insults, and mistreatment? But, on the other hand, how, upon seeing a poor person, could she not have seen in that poor person the suffering Jesus? And how could she have seen in the sufferings the one who had loved her unto death, without helping him? She shared her bread with him in the person of the poor. Her pious liberality, which God perhaps multiplied, made her fidelity suspect: she was accused of stealing the bread of the house. Her stepmother easily believed her guilty and asked for nothing more to treat her with the utmost rigor. One day, during the height of winter, she learns or believes she notices that our Saint had carried away, in her apron, some small pieces of bread. She runs immediately after her, full of fury, a stick in her hand and already gesticulating, throwing insults at her before having been able to reach her. Two inhabitants of Pibrac, who were walking on that side, seeing this woman beside herself, guessed her plan and followed her, doubling their pace, with the charitable intention of stopping the blows ready to fall on the innocent victim. They therefore rejoin the stepmother, and learning the subject of her rage, they arrive with her near Germaine: her apron is opened; but, instead of the bread that they thought they would find there, only beautiful and fresh flowers tied in a bouquet fell from it. The soil of Pibrac had never produced such ones, and where could they have come from in this harsh season, if not from heaven? Seized with admiration, the witnesses of this miracle went immediately into Pibrac to publish what they had just seen. From that time on, she was looked upon only as a Saint. Her father, taking on more tender feelings, forbade his wife to mistreat her any further and wanted to give her a place in his house with his other children. But the humble shepherdess refused such a favor; she begged him to leave her in the obscure place where her stepmother had confined her.

After having thus sanctified her through humiliation and suffering, God withdrew her from this world when men, having become more equitable, were beginning to render to her virtue the honors she deserved. One morning, her father, not having seen her come out as usual, went to call her under the staircase where she had chosen to continue taking her rest. She did not answer; he entered and found her dead on her bed of vine shoots. She had undoubtedly fallen asleep in prayer. God had called her: "Come, my sweet dove"; — Veni, columba mea, He had said to her, and her soul had departed toward her Beloved, who was addressing such tender invitations to her. This was in the year 1601, toward the beginning of summer. She was twenty-two years old.

The very night of her death, two religious men traveling toward Pibrac, surprised by the darkness, were obliged to rest among the ruins of the old castle of the former lords of Pibrac, situated on the road that led to the dwelling of the servant of God's parents, and to wait there for daybreak. In the midst of the darkness, they saw two young girls pass by, dressed in white, who were heading toward the farm; a few moments later, the apparition took the same path, but in the middle of the two virgins there was another, also dressed in white and crowned with flowers. Astonished by this vision, the two religious men thought that a holy soul had left the earth. The next day, at daybreak, the religious men entered the village: they asked if anyone had died; they were answered in the negative, for it was not yet known that God had called the pious Germaine to Himself. At the news of her death, the crowd rushed to see her; the funeral was celebrated in the midst of an immense gathering of people: they wished to honor the one they had too long despised and too late known.

She was buried in the parish church of Pibrac, following the custom of that time, opposite the pulpit. However, her place had nothing to distinguish it from the others, and was marked by no inscription. The memory of her good examples and her virtues did not perish among the inhabitants of Pibrac. But those who had known her were disappearing little by little; the place where she rested was forgotten, when at last it pleased God to manifest highly the glory of His humble servant and to give her, in a way, a new life. This was around the year 1644, on the occasion of the burial of one of her relatives, named Endoualle: the bell-ringer, preparing to dig the grave in the church, had barely lifted the first floor tile when a buried body appeared. At the cries that this man let out, frightened to find a corpse, some people who had come to hear Mass rushed toward him; they saw and they verified that the body was at the surface of the ground, and that the area of the face, which had been touched by the pickaxe, offered the appearance of living flesh.

The rumor of this strange event having immediately spread, the inhabitants of the village came in crowds to the church to see for themselves what had been announced to them. Then, and in the presence of all the people, this body, which could only by miracle have been thus raised almost to the surface of the soil, was entirely uncovered. It was found whole and preserved from corruption: the limbs were attached to one another and covered even with the epidermis. The flesh appeared noticeably soft in several parts; the nails of the feet and hands were perfectly adherent: the tongue itself and the ears, only dried out, were preserved like the rest. The linens and the shroud that covered these precious remains had taken on the color of the earth; but they had not been more affected than the body itself. The hands held a small candle and a garland formed of carnations and ears of rye. The flowers were only slightly faded, the ears had lost nothing of their colors; they still contained their grains, fresh as at the time of the harvest. On one of the hands, a deformity was noticed, and the neck bore scars; at these signs, all the elders of the parish proclaimed that this was the body of Germaine Cousin, who had died forty-three years earlier, whom they had known themselves and whose funeral they had seen. All memories were immediately awakened: the miraculous apparition and the miraculous preservation of this body astonished no one anymore. It was placed standing, near the pulpit of the church, and it was left there in the same situation, exposed to the view of everyone, until a new miracle gave cause to place it more decently.

Sixty years had passed since the death of Germaine, and a great number of graces and miracles had been obtained through her intercession, without the episcopal authority appearing to have any knowledge of them; but God willed that the name and works of His servant should emerge from this long obscurity.

On September 22, 1661, Jean Dufour, a p Jean Dufour Vicar general of Toulouse who conducted the 1661 investigation. riest venerable for his virtues and piety, archdeacon of the metropolitan church and vicar general of the Archbishop of Toulouse, Pierre de Marca, came to Pibrac to conduct a pastoral visit in the name of that prelate. His presence had attracted a considerable crowd, and the curious had entered the sacristy with him. There, his attention was drawn to the chest that contained the remains of Germaine. Astonished to see a coffin in such a place, he had it opened after making some inquiries. The witnesses were numerous: the body was found as it had been seen sixteen years earlier, wrapped in the same way, intact, admirably preserved, and flexible.

Then the particulars of Germaine's life were recounted to the vicar general, and the manner in which her body had been removed from the earth. To add more weight to these accounts, God permitted that two elderly people, Pierre Paillès and Jeanne Salaires, both eighty years of age, should meet there to confirm all the depositions. Not only had they known Germaine, but they were the very ones who had been present at the miracle of the flowers.

Wishing to ensure their veracity, Jean Dufour had the place in the church where the body had remained for more than forty years pointed out to him. By his order and in his presence, the grave was opened, they dug, and, at the usual depth, they found the broken and decomposed remains of the woman named Endoualle, buried twenty years earlier in the very place from which the body of Germaine had miraculously emerged. There could no longer be any doubt about the nature of the soil: it was by the sole will of God that the remains of His servant Germaine had been preserved from common corruption.

The parish priest of Pibrac then showed the vicar general an authentic register of the numerous healings performed through the intercession of Germaine. These accounts were signed by the persons healed, attested by witnesses, and certified by notaries. Several inhabitants came forward, declaring that they had received similar graces and confirming these numerous written testimonies with their own words.

The vicar general admired the ways of Providence, had the coffin closed, and drew up a report of the whole matter. At the same time, he forbade the parish priest, under pain of excommunication, from exposing the body to public veneration or moving it from the place where it had just been replaced in the sacristy. He permitted, however, the receiving of offerings that the faithful might make in the name of the pious Germaine, until it should please the Lord to manifest His will more clearly in this regard, as well as the holiness of the person of His servant, and until the Church had otherwise ordered.

From year to year, new and numerous wonders showed visibly that God wished to glorify, in the eyes of men, one whose condition had been so lowly, whose humility so profound, and whose life so poor and hidden. This is why, in 1700, serious thought was given to requesting her beatification from the Holy See, and to beginning, for this purpose, the informative process of the Ordinary. A legal inquiry into the virtues and miracles of Germaine Cousin had already been ordered, not only by the archdeacon Jean Dufour, grand vicar of Archbishop Pierre de Marca, but also successively by several other bishops, and, among others, in 1698, by Colbert, who occupied the see of Toulouse at that time. Jacques de Lespinasse, syndic of the commune of Pibrac, was charged with pursuing the cause in the capacity of postulator.

At his request, on January 5, 1700, the Reverend Father de Morel, vicar general of Archbishop Colbert, went to the church of Pibrac to begin the process. This first visit was followed by two others, during which he proceeded, as we are about to relate, to the inquiry he has left us.

The news of his arrival had spread, attracting a great concourse of people. On the first day, he had the consolation of giving communion to nearly five hundred people. Every time he resumed the course of his operations, he celebrated Holy Mass and gave an exhortation to the multitude of people who flocked from all sides.

Several others had seen the relics when they were raised from the earth. They were shown to them, and they assured that they were entirely the same.

The Reverend Father de Morel took care to have all persons who could attest to any miracles summoned. He heard their depositions himself, made under the guarantee of an oath.

He drew up a report on the state in which he found the body, which was recognized as exactly as it had been described in 1661 by the archdeacon Jean Dufour.

Furthermore, his prudence compelled him to have the same examination conducted by two master surgeons, upon whom he first imposed the solemn oath to tell the truth in all things. One reads in their acts, after the detail of the verification, that they remarked that the body had never been embalmed, so that it could not have been preserved without alteration by natural means, and that only Providence could have performed this wonder.

It is appropriate to add here that the Reverend Father de Morel and the surgeons tried to break the linens and the shroud in which the body of Germaine had been wrapped; but whatever effort they made, they could not succeed. Everything that touched this blessed body had been removed, like the body itself, from the ordinary effects of death and time.

Let us return to the history of the blessed Germaine:

The acts of the 1700 inquiry were entrusted to a Minim friar, whom an obedience called to Rome. At the same time, the title of postulator was dispatched in that same city to the parish priest of Saint-Louis des Français. But, on the one hand, the friar who had carried the documents of the process received, the day after his arrival, the order to leave for the missions of the Levant; and, on the other hand, after the submission of the documents to the Congregation of Rites and a beginning of execution, the preparatory work was soon stopped for lack of resources to cover the costs of the procedure. In the revolutions that followed, these initial works were lost.

However, the confidence of the people in the prayers of Saint Germaine and the concourse at her coffin continued to grow. God always taking pleasure in rewarding the piety of the faithful with new graces and numerous miracles. The archives of Malta have preserved the memory of this. The reports of the general visit of the Grand Priory of Toulouse, to which Pibrac belonged, unanimously attest to these facts: "We have seen in the sacristy," the visitors say, "a small monument where the body of the devout and blessed Germaine rests, who was born and died in Pibrac, performing miracles: which attracts a great concourse of infirm and crippled faithful, who instantly recover their health or obtain an improvement in their condition through her intercession with Almighty God."

Thus were reached the mournful days of 1793. Impiety, reigning supreme, sought to remove from the veneration of the faithful and to destroy everything that had a religious character. It wished to annihilate the body of the holy shepherdess, which had been preserved until then in perfect integrity, just as it had been found one hundred and fifty years earlier, during its miraculous exhumation.

A manufacturer of tin vessels, a member of the revolutionary district of Toulouse, the all -too-f Toulza Member of the revolutionary district of Toulouse who desecrated the saint's body. amous Toulza, whose name has remained covered in public execration, took charge of this sacrilegious operation. Four men from the village were requisitioned to assist him. One of them fled; the others willingly consented to the ingratitude and infamy that was asked of them. After removing the body from the lead casket, which was confiscated to make bullets, they buried it in the sacristy itself and threw an abundance of water and quicklime over it, in order to ensure its prompt and complete dissolution.

A swift punishment struck these three wretches: one was paralyzed in an arm, another became deformed; his neck stiffened and hideously turned his head toward one of his shoulders; the third was struck by a malady of the kidneys that bent him, so to speak, in two, forcing him to walk with his body entirely bowed toward the earth. The latter carried his infirmity to the grave. The other two, more than twenty years later, humbly turned to the innocent virgin, whose precious remains they had so indignantly profaned, and obtained their healing through her prayers and the clemency of God.

As soon as times became better, the mayor of Pibrac, Jean Cabri-force, and the Abbé Montrastruc, however much an intruder he was as administrator of the parish, yielding to the wish of the population, had the pit opened. They had the consolation of seeing that the wicked plot of the revolutionaries had not entirely succeeded. Except for the flesh, which the quicklime had devoured, the rest of the body had been miraculously preserved.

The silk shroud that surrounded the head, flowers, and several other objects, hastily buried with the venerable relic by the violators of 1793, were found intact. Everything, carefully collected and wrapped in a very beautiful shroud, a gift of the people's piety, resumed its place in the sacristy, in the same spot that the faithful of Pibrac and pilgrims from abroad had known for so long.

In the final days of the year 1813, the Conf raternity of the Holy Thorn, Confrérie de la Sainte-Épine Religious association in Toulouse dedicated to Saint Germaine. established in Toulouse after the Revolution by a holy priest and composed of the most fervent Catholics, bitterly afflicted to see the captivity of the Sovereign Pontiff Pius VII prol onged, Pie VII Pope who authorized the cult of Blessed Rainier. asked God for his deliverance. Trusting in the intercession of Saint Germaine, the confreres, in this painful circumstance, implored her support before God and made a vow to go on pilgrimage to her tomb every year if the Lord deigned to grant their prayer.

Some time later, the Holy Father, leaving his prison without having yet regained his freedom, took the road to Italy through the south of France. On February 2, 1814, he sadly skirted the walls of Toulouse in a locked carriage. An immense population, having flocked from all sides, pressed along his path. On their knees, and with tears in their eyes, they lovingly implored the blessing of the illustrious and holy captive. One could distinguish above all the numerous confreres of the Holy Thorn, raising their hands to heaven, conjuring the Lord to complete His work and finally return the head of the Church to his See.

From that year on, the Confraternity of the Holy Thorn fulfilled its vow and has not ceased, since that time, to go to Pibrac on the feast of Saint Peter. Mass and Vespers are sung in the village church with the greatest solemnity. It is common to see up to eight or nine hundred people approach the holy table on that day.

Pope Leo XII favored this pious pilgrimage with a plenary indulgence.

For the feast of Saint Peter in 1849, the crowd at the tomb of Blessed Germaine was more considerable than ever. The confreres came once again this time for the end of the exile and the return to his See of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the illustrious successor and friend of the Pontiff who had been the object of their first vow.

Presented to the Lord by the pious shepherdess, their prayers were answered. The following night, the French army took the holy city by storm, occupied and profaned by hordes of the impious who had come from all corners of the world, and replaced the immortal Pius IX on his throne. It is said that since the beginning of the siege (in the first days of June), one of the confreres, a serious man of recognized and honored piety, was pursued night and day, especially in his prayers, by the thought that Rome would be taken immediately after the pilgrimage of the Congregation to the tomb of Blessed Germaine, and that consequently he should ask the superiors to move it forward, so that the capital of the Christian world might be delivered sooner. After resisting this thought for several days, he could not help but communicate it to the director of the Confraternity, who did not wish to change anything in the ordinary custom. Nevertheless, the siege was prolonged and only truly ended on the night that followed the day of the pilgrimage.

Among the many miracles of which we have just spoken, we shall recount only those that God has performed in our century to glorify his servant:

A young man from the parish of Mauvesin, in the diocese of Auch, named Dominique Gauté, suddenly lost his sight and remained entirely blind. He left his country to consult the most famous doctors, and succeeded only in acquiring the sad certainty that he would not be cured. He had been struck by amaurosis, an ailment by its nature incurable.

His brother Georges, who had accompanied him, no less desolate than he, then told him to have recourse to Germaine, and both soon made the pilgrimage to Pibrac, with a lively hope and a lively faith. They heard Mass while recommending themselves to the servant of God. Dominique's eyes were covered with a cloth that had touched the body of the shepherdess. God wished to test them a little, and the two brothers left the church and set out again on their way as they had come, yet full of hope. They were right to hope. Soon Dominique was able to perceive in the distance the wings of the windmills turning, and before returning to his parish, he had recovered his sight.

Élisabeth Gay, a young girl of eighteen, long blind due to a humor that had settled on her face and eyes, was cured at Pibrac, where her parents had taken her. Until her death, which did not occur until long after, she had no recurrence of the ailment from which she had suffered.

M. de Castex, parish priest of Angoumer, attests that Françoise Ferrière, his parishioner, blind since birth, was cured by means of a cloth that had touched the body of Germaine.

On the first of August 1839, a ten-month-old child, blind from birth, son of Antoine Nous, a master on the Languedoc Canal, was brought to Pibrac. The child recovered his sight through the intercession of the blessed Germaine. An inquiry drawn up on this subject by M. l'abbé du Bourg, vicar general, is deposited in the archives of the archbishopric of Toulouse.

Antoinette Estellé, an inhabitant of Pibrac, attests that her son had lost his sight at the age of two and a half. Various objects were placed before his eyes, the gesture of striking him was made with the hand, his eyelids remained motionless. He was carried to the tomb of Germaine, and he saw: "He is now forty-three years old," adds the happy mother, "and he has kept his sight and the memory of the grace that Germaine obtained for him."

A more signal miracle rewarded the faith of Bertrande Lafon. It is too little to say that the intercession of Germaine restored sight to her son: she gave him eyes. This child, named François, had been born with an infirmity worse than blindness. When his eyelids, which were always drooping, were lifted, one could distinguish neither pupil nor cornea; but only an amorphous matter like a piece of flesh.

Two skilled doctors of Toulouse, MM. Massol and Duclos, after having tried for three months all the resources of their science, ended by declaring to Bertrande that there was nothing to be done, that her child was born blind and would remain blind. In her affliction, Bertrande did not despair of divine goodness. She implored the protection of Germaine, and, that very evening, while putting little François to bed, she placed on his eyes a cloth that had touched the body of the blessed shepherdess. Around midnight, she was still praying beside her dear child, asking God to heal him, when suddenly she thought she perceived above the cradle a light, a sort of halo. Her prayer became more fervent. Feeling as if assured in her heart of obtaining what she asked for, she forgot sleep and prayed until daybreak. Then, approaching the cradle, she removed with a moved hand the cloth that covered the child's face. Celestial goodness! This little face, previously so dull, is animated by two lively and bright eyes that fix upon her. Her child sees her and smiles at her! Mad with joy, she stirs, she weeps, she cries miracle! and, rushing to the window, she calls with gesture and voice all her neighbors, crying to them to come and see what God had just done for her. The neighbors, who knew how much she grieved over the sad state of her child, thought that the excess of pain had taken away her reason. They went up with a feeling of compassion, to calm her and prevent her from committing some dangerous extravagance. They saw her happiness. The child smiled as if he were conscious of the grace he had received, and looked at them with his beautiful eyes full of life; and all together gave thanks to God who deigns to grant men such favors through the merits of his Saints.

Several paralytics received the use of their limbs through the intercession of our Blessed one. We shall content ourselves with reporting the recent healing of Jean-Charles-Raymond Cahusac.

A disease of the spine had for several months deprived him of the use of his limbs. He could neither stand nor walk. When he was held perpendicularly, his legs were dangling like those of a skeleton; if one pressed his feet to the ground, they bent at the joints, without offering the slightest resistance to the weight of the body. The paralysis of these lower extremities was complete, there was atrophy. The care of medicine had been entirely fruitless. On April 28, 1840, he was carried into the church of Pibrac.

During Mass, at the moment of the elevation, the young patient rose and knelt, saying: I am cured! He remained in this position until the end of the Mass. Immediately after, he walked, lightly leaning on the arm of the Baroness de Guilhermy, his grandmother. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. At five o'clock in the evening, the same day, he walked on foot, without being supported, through several streets of Toulouse, made visits, climbed stairs. Seized with astonishment, the distinguished doctor who had treated this young child until then declared that God alone could have performed this healing, which was so sudden and which has been perfectly sustained.

To say everything in a few words, one can assert that there is no kind of disease or infirmity that God has not healed miraculously to glorify the humble shepherdess, and almost always instantaneously at the mere invocation of the name or at the contact of the precious relics. We are going to point out some miracles which, after mature examination, have received the approval of the Congregation of Rites and have been confirmed as such by the Sovereign Pontiff.

Around the year 1845, there were, in the community of the nuns called the Good Shepherd, in Bourges, seventeen nuns, fifty-nine penitents, and forty young girls: in all one hundred and sixtee Bon Pasteur, à Bourges Site of the miracle of the multiplication of bread in 1845. n people. This number always increasing and resources diminishing, the house found itself in distress. In this hardship, Sister Marie du Sacré-Cœur, superior of the monastery, felt moved to ask for help from the blessed Germaine. She ordered a novena of prayers to be started in all the classes; she wanted some passages from the life of the Blessed one to be read each day, a medal with her image to be placed in the attic, and each Sister to carry one on her, praying with a lively faith. Two lay sisters were in charge of making every five days the bread necessary for the consumption of the Community; they used each time twenty-four baskets of flour, which yielded forty large loaves, each weighing twenty pounds. Full of confidence, the superior ordered the Sisters to use for the next batches only sixteen baskets of flour, instead of the twenty-four that were necessary, and she prayed the venerable Germaine to make up for what would be missing. The sisters obeyed, but no miracle. The loaves were barely enough for three days. Finally, the third time, the good mother addressed herself to the venerable Germaine and begged her not to allow the loaves to be so small. The two bakers, annoyed at being forced again to make the bread with only eight baskets for each batch instead of twelve, experience having proven to them that the thing did not succeed, resolved, once the dough was made, to fill the baskets well, so that it would be clearly seen that there was a smaller number of loaves and that the superior would know well that one could not succeed in what she desired. But as the baskets were being filled, it was seen that the dough did not diminish in proportion in the trough. There was enough to fill all the baskets; there even remained enough to add to all the loaves two or three pounds more in the trough. There were therefore in this batch, with eight baskets, twenty loaves which were even larger than the ordinary loaves produced by twelve baskets of flour; it was the same for the second. The miracle being known, the nuns and the students rushed to the oven to see with their own eyes the bread that God had given them. The superior had thanks rendered to God and to the blessed Germaine, who had remembered their distress; the same prodigy was renewed two other times.

The temporal benefits of our Blessed one for this house did not stop there; the multiplication of the bread was followed by the multiplication of the flour. In the same year 1845, there were in the attic three hundred measures of flour which, begun on November 4, were to be exhausted in the first days of the following January. However, the flour lasted until the month of February. There was therefore a miraculous increase of about one hundred and fifty measures. The first Sunday of January, the superior had led the nuns into the attic, so that they might see with their own eyes the miracle that was feeding them. Prostrate and letting their tears flow, they bowed their heads and remained for some time praying with arms in the form of a cross.

Jacquette, daughter of Jean Catala and Louise Morens, was born on April 7, 1821. At the age of three months, she had smallpox. Promptly cured, she was well until eighteen months; but then she was seized by an ailment that threw her into extreme weakness, and which, growing from day to day, reduced her to the saddest state. The ankle of the foot and the kneecap swelled extraordinarily; the legs and thighs became emaciated to the point that the skin was stuck to the bones; a slow fever consumed her. Her mother, in her solicitude, had her take a multitude of remedies for a long time, and, finally discouraged, let the ailment follow its course. The pains of the unfortunate little girl, far from diminishing, increased with age. At the beginning, she had been able to take a few steps, although with great difficulty; soon her twisted feet and her extreme weakness forced her to be kept constantly in bed or tied to a chair. Sometimes also her belly swelled, and she then suffered from frightful colics. The desolation of her parents was without measure, especially that of her mother, who saw her deprived of all hope of recovery. In the excess of her misfortune, this mother drew a boundless confidence in the mercy of God; and as she had a great devotion to the blessed Germaine, she made a vow to go three times on a pilgrimage to Pibrac, the first two times alone, the third time with her child. She soon fulfilled the first part of this vow. Domestic affairs having arisen, they prevented her for a long time from accomplishing the last, or her faith perhaps had wavered. Be that as it may, it was only after three years that she took the infirm child to Pibrac, in 1828; the little invalid was in her seventh year. Here is her deposition:

"I left on foot," she says, "with one of my friends. Before us walked a beast of burden loaded with two baskets. In one I had my little Jacquette, in the other another of my children, and, between the two, a third aged ten years. The journey had nothing extraordinary. We entered the church. It was a Sunday, and the parish priest was preaching. I took a place on a bench with my children, Jacquette between her brother and me; and we both kept her. I followed the Mass. When the bell rang for the Sanctus, Jacquette let out a cry, and I myself heard a cracking sound that seemed to me to come from her bones. I was in a state difficult to explain. It came to my mind that my daughter was cured; this thought kept distracting me from my prayers. At the moment of communion, I recommended to my eldest to watch over his sister: because of the looks of those present, it had been repugnant to me to tie this poor little one to the chair, as I usually did. I arrived at the holy Table. When I was kneeling there, good God! behold Jacquette withdraws from her brother's hands and comes to kneel beside me, all alone, without anyone supporting her, without anyone guiding her! My emotion redoubled and I cannot say what happened in me, when I saw this innocent one, imitating what she saw me doing, taking the cloth as if to receive communion. With my hand, I signaled to the parish priest that she should not receive communion, and I returned to my place. She followed me. She sat down; she remained seated without needing to be supported. Her feet had resumed their natural position. She was all joyful. At the priest's blessing, seeing everyone kneeling, she rose without being helped, and, taking a chair on which she was sitting, she turned it with skill and knelt on it.

"My vow was fulfilled. I left immediately, my heart delighted and full of gratitude for such a prompt healing. Neither my children, nor I, nor the person who accompanied us, did we even think of eating. We arrived in Toulouse around three o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as we arrived in front of the house, Jacquette, perceiving her father, began to shout: 'I am cured! Take me in your arms, and then put me on the ground, and you will see how well I walk, and how Germaine Cousin has restored my health.'

"Indeed, the father took her in his arms, then placed her on the ground and saw her walk at that very instant; in the presence of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, which is very populous. She walked free and agile, without fatigue, without the slightest difficulty. She was indeed cured, and, since that day, she has felt no more pain."

Philippe Luc, a child of the village of Cornebarrieu, was about twelve years old when he felt in his hip very sharp pains that the slightest movement excited and that could not be made to disappear. After two years, a tumor appeared there which broke under the action of an ointment and which closed after having slightly suppurated, but which did not delay in reopening with a worrying character. Three skilled doctors, consulted in turn, recognized a fistula. It was two lines wide, two inches deep, livid and purplish; the edges of the opening were lowered and callous. The patient was advised to be taken to the Saint-Jacques hospital in Toulouse. There, for two consecutive months, the doctors treated him with all possible zeal, but without result. The fistula had always made progress: it reached the bone, which was beginning to decay. The child left the hospital and returned to Cornebarrieu sicker than he had left. It was then that he felt born in his heart a lively confidence that he would obtain his healing through the intercession of the blessed Germaine.

Cornebarrieu is only a league from Pibrac; but it was a long distance for the poor patient. He left nevertheless on foot, with his mother, suffering such acute pains that he was forced to stop for quite a long time halfway. Finally he arrives, he hears Mass and prays beside the tomb of Germaine. He obtains nothing, but he loses neither confidence nor hope. During the return, he excited himself in his feelings, telling his mother that Germaine would certainly grant him later what she still seemed to have refused him. Returned home, he went to bed, and his mother, having wrapped the wound with the cloths that they had placed on the body of the Blessed one, he fell asleep peacefully.

After a short sleep, Philippe called his mother and asked her to dress his wound again. She hurried with eagerness as she was accustomed to do. She removed the cloths: they were dry, the fistula was entirely closed.

The doctors were struck with astonishment: "I remained stupefied," says M. Laurent Stevenet, one of them, "when they presented this child to me perfectly cured. I examined the place where the wound was: a well-formed scar indicated that the ailment had existed; but now it existed no more; there was no deformity in the bone, not the slightest disposition to the return of the ailment. The fistula was closed, no other opening had been made. I must indicate still another marvelous character of this healing: it is the mobility of the skin and the resumption of the fibrous tissue which forms the internal scar of the fistulous cavity."

Germaine was beatified by Pope Pius IX on Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. May 7, 1854. It would be too long to describe with what pomp, what piety, and what a gathering of the faithful, celebrations were immediately held in honor of the Blessed one in Toulouse and Pibrac. In this village, the homeland of Germaine, Holy Communion was distributed to eight thousand people, and many were forced to withdraw from the altar, sad and resigned, without having been able to appease their spiritual hunger. In three days, about seventy thousand faithful, at the height of the harvest, during very hot days and after a year of famine, flocked to a small village to honor a shepherdess; people crowded to kiss and see these bones, to which, when they were part of a living body, shelter under the thatch was refused, and which are venerated today in a reliquary shining with gold and light, while waiting for them to be reunited with the soul and participate in its immortal glory.

Monseigneur Pie, Bishop of Poitiers, and the Reverend Father Corail, of the Society of Jesus, delivered the eulogy of the Blessed one; the discourse of the venerable and eloquent successor of Saint Hilary can be found at the end of the Lif e of the Bless M. L. Veuillot Writer and biographer of Saint Germaine. ed Germaine, by M. L. Veuillot. Let us learn above all, by meditating on this poor, humble, and hidden life, that the Lord casts down false greatness, confounds false science and false wisdom, and that He raises up the humble and those who place the science of the crucified Jesus before all other sciences. Our shepherdess never attended any lessons other than those of religion.

"One wonders if she knew how to read," says the Bishop of Poitiers, "and everything leads one to believe that, of the alphabet, she never knew anything but the sign that our fathers never forgot to put on the frontispiece of the Christian Primer: I mean the Cross of God. But what she learned under the empire of divine grace, at the school of this cross of the Savior and that of the secret inspirations of the Holy Spirit, took the place of all other knowledge. Her ignorance was so learned, her simplicity so enlightened in the eyes of God, that, not content with giving her the halo of the elect in heaven, He wished to glorify her tomb, for two centuries, by an uninterrupted series of miracles, and finally to crown her head with the radiant nimbus by which the Church juridically signals the holiness of its children."

On June 29, 1867, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX, after having approved new miracles, inscribed her in the book of Virgins.

She can be represented with a crook, a guard dog, or a simple sheep, to mark the office of shepherdess that she fulfilled; with flowers in her apron, or with a distaff. We have given the explanation of these characteristics in her life.

*Life of the Blessed Germaine*, by M. L. Veuillot; *Eulogy of the Blessed Germaine*, by the Bishop of Poitiers.