Saint Bertha of Blangy

Berthe wished to bury in the obscurity of her father's house all the qualities with which she was adorned; but they were too brilliant to remain unknown. Thus, the report of them soon spread as far as the court of France. Sigefroy, a young lo Sigefroy Husband of Saint Berthe, cousin of Clovis II. rd of the noble line of kings, and first cousin of Clovis, seduced by all the marvelous things told of the young Countess of Blangy, asked for her hand in marriage. His request was accepted, and he obtained, with the hand of Berthe, the land and castle of Blangy, as well as large properties in the Ternois.

Berthe, after having been the model of young maidens, showed, in her new state, to what degree of perfection a woman can attain in the state of marriage, when she views it from a Christian perspective. Occupied entirely with the care of pleasing her husband, she succeeded, through her gentle virtues, in making him share her pious sentiments. Sigefroy, of a naturally indecisive character, no longer hesitated to give himself entirely to God, and both had but one heart and one soul to walk with the same ardor in the path of perfection. God blessed their union by granting them five daughters: Gertrude, Deotile, Emma, Gise, an Gertrude Saint to whom Odelard bequeathed his property in Nivelles. d Geste; the latter two died very young, and the other three, raised by their mother, responded with their virtues to the care of such a holy teacher.

After twenty years spent in the sweetest union, God called Sigefroy to Himself. This noble son of the Dukes of Douai, full of virtues and merits, preceded Berthe into heaven in 672, and from the blessed abode, watched with love over the wife and daughters he left on earth.

Berthe, whose religion had purified but not extinguished the sentiments of nature, wept bitterly for the husband whom heaven had taken from her, and had him buried at Blangy, near the church, with all the honors due to his rank and his virtues.

Now free from all earthly encumbrances, she resolved to dedicate herself entirely to God in the monastic life, and began to put her plan into execution. She renounced all earthly interests with the same zeal that had been shown by Saint Rictrude, h er sister-in-la sainte Rictrude Stepdaughter of Gertrude, widow of Adalbaud. w, who was then successfully directing the monastery of Marc hiennes. monastère Monastery founded by Saint Berthe following the Rule of Saint Benedict. She implored the light of the Holy Spirit with tears, and believing she knew, by the purity of the motive that animated her, that such was the will of God, she prepared to follow the divine impulse. She chose a place on her land in Blangy suitable for building a monastery; she made a vow to do so, and immediately set to work.

About a quarter of a league east of the abbey that was later erected, she had a church and cells built near the Ternoise, the ancient foundations of which and a chapel of the Blessed Virgin were still visible in the time of Father Malbrancq. The sanctuary alone remained to be built when Berthe, wishing to bid a final farewell to Saint Rictrude and consult her on the execution of her project, arranged to meet her at Quiéry, one of her estates, where the two Saints met.

Berthe and Rictrude, after the first outpourings of joy, went to the church to thank God for this favor; then they spoke of everything that had happened since their last meeting, and shed tears at the memory of the two virtuous husbands whom God had called to Himself. Berthe then declared to Rictrude the resolution she had taken to embrace the religious life, and spoke to her of the use she had made of a portion of her great wealth. But suddenly her face turned pale, the words expired on her lips, and a trembling seized all her limbs. 'What is the matter, my beloved sister?' said Rictrude, alarmed by this sudden change, 'what is the matter?' 'Nothing,' replied Berthe, whose face brightened again, 'nothing; but it seems to me that I heard a noise like that of a building collapsing. I do not know what premonition makes me believe that God is sending me a new trial. May He be blessed! All His views, though hidden from our penetration, are sovereignly adorable.'

Indeed, as she was preparing to return to Blangy, word came that her monastery had just collapsed entirely. Berthe, at this news, overcoming the feelings of nature, submitted without a murmur to this unfortunate event, and was only saddened by the delay it brought to her plan to bury herself in retreat. 'My good sister,' said Rictrude, 'perhaps God wishes to let you know by this that it is not in this place that He wants you to build a monastery.' 'Yes, my dear Rictrude, I see, by the painful impression I felt, that I am not yet sufficiently detached from the earth, and God wishes by this to teach me to renounce myself even in what concerns His service. But how to know that He wants me to build another monastery? How to know the place that will please Him? Ah! my sister, let your whole house pray with me, and heaven will reveal His will to us.'

The whole community began to pray for three days, and during this time observed a rigorous fast. On the night of the third day, an angel showed Berthe, in the middle of a green meadow watered by the Ternoise and belonging to the castle of Blangy, the place where the monastery was to be built. A sweet dew covered the thick grass, and an angel, drawing a Latin cross, designated the place where the church and the monastery were to be built.

Upon returning to Blangy, Berthe hastened to visit the place that the heavenly vision had indicated to her; she saw there four stones arranged in such a way that two marked what the length of the building should be, and two others the width. Berthe, blessing the Lord who so visibly manifested His will to her, immediately had new constructions made. She employed the most skillful architects: the church and the monastery were built with such sumptuousness that they excited general admiration; for there were none in Artois that could be compared to them.

After two years, all the work was completed. Berthe had it consecrated in an extremely solemn manner. Ravenger, Bishop of Thérou anne, in Ravenger Bishop of Thérouanne, immediate predecessor of Erkembode. whose dioce se Blangy Thérouanne Episcopal see of Saint Folquin. was then situated, came to perform the dedication; the Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishops of Paris, Meaux, Noyon, Tournai, Cambrai, and Arras, and a great number of abbots were present, as well as several lords of the court, out of consideration for Berthe, a close relative of the King. The church was dedicated to the Mother of God on the 5th of the Ides of January, 682.

After the consecration of the church was finished, Berthe presented herself before the altar; there, in the presence of all the assistants edified by such a spectacle, animated by the liveliest faith, she made the consecration of her person to God and received the veil from the hands of Ravenger. To better detach herself from everything, she gave her land of Blangy and its dependencies in full ownership to the new monastery. But what can the power of example not do! Gertrude and Deotile, daughters of Berthe, penetrated by the sacrifice their holy mother had just accomplished, not wishing to let her walk alone on the path of perfection, renounced from that very day everything that the world, their rank, and their beauty could offer them of seduction, and the same hand that had blessed the mother placed the veil of the spouses of Jesus Christ upon the heads of the daughters.

This holy and memorable day left a deep impression in the hearts of the assistants, and all were filled with admiration for the rare spectacle they had just witnessed.

In a short time, Morinie saw three monasteries rise under the invocation of the Mother of God, where only marshy ground had been seen before. This region, recently emerged from the darkness of idolatry, was populated by a crowd of holy virgins and pious cenobites whose lives were more like those of angels than men; their examples implanted a lively and tender faith in the hearts of the Morini and drew down upon them the blessings of heaven.

Retired into her monastery, of which she was named abbess, Berthe lived only for heaven. Applied without respite to the duties of her office, she watched with assiduity to ensure the rule was observed in all its purity. Prayer, work, and the chanting of psalms succeeded one another alternately, and the holy abbess was the first to give her nuns the example of the greatest regularity. As much as she was above her holy daughters by the brilliance of her birth and the rank she had held in the world, she surpassed them even more by the brilliance of all religious virtues.

Gertrude and Deotile, happy with the part they had chosen, blessed heaven every day for the very special grace it had granted them, and felt no regret for this world, of which they had only glimpsed the brilliant seductions. As for Emma, the youngest of Berthe's daughters, she lived in the monastery without being subject to the Rule; for her mother, as prudent as she was virtuous, not finding in her sufficient dispositions to commit herself by irrevocable vows, had not permitted her to pronounce them.

While Berthe defied the world to disturb her rest, the demon, jealous of this angelic life, stirred up against her a persecution as strange as it was unexpected, which put her maternal tenderness to a very cruel test, but from which she emerged victorious through the help of the Almighty.

Ruodgaire, a young lord of King Thierry's court, became madly in love with Gertrude, whom he had seen at Blangy, and he resolved to marry her at any cost. He had his plan approved by the king, and, accompanied by a numerous escort, he went to find Berthe. He declared to her his intention to marry Gertrude, and the royal authorization he had received for it. Berthe remained stunned, and told him that his request was entirely untimely, since her daughter, as a spouse of Jesus Christ, is bound by irrevocable ties.

Ruodgaire then tried to remove the obstacle by telling her that he had consulted the most enlightened men on this subject, and that he was acting only according to their decisions. "For a long time," he added, "I have loved Gertrude; her excessive youth alone has been an obstacle to my plan; but, now, nothing can prevent her from becoming my wife, and it is in your interest to consent to it, for I enjoy great favor at court, and at my solicitation nothing will be refused to you for your monastery." Berthe made all the necessary observations to him in vain; he nonetheless persisted in wanting the hand of Gertrude.

Seizure then took hold of Berthe. What could she do, a poor woman, against an ardent, impetuous young man? She did not hesitate; she raised her soul toward the God of all consolation, toward the one who knows how to give so much strength and love to mothers, and conjured him not to suffer that Gertrude should belong to any other than him. She then went to her daughter, informed her of what was happening, and conjured her not to violate the holy engagements she had contracted. More tranquil then, and feeling strong in the protection of heaven, she gathered the whole community in the church to sing the praises of God there, and ordered Gertrude to embrace the right side of the altar and to hold fast to it, then she had the doors of the church opened. Like a tiger pouncing on its prey, assured that it will not escape him, Ruodgaire rushed into the church with his numerous escort, determined to abduct Gertrude despite the holiness of the place. But he was ignorant of all the strength that trust in God gives to a Christian soul, and how imposing a mother who defends her daughter can be. "Approach," Berthe said to him, "approach, and look at the spouse of Jesus Christ. She is there, without human defense, but strong in the protection of her God. Tear her away, if you dare, from the one to whom she has given her heart and whom she has chosen for her sole inheritance. Dare to make her violate the oaths she has sworn at the feet of the altars; but tremble that the God of whom you wish to make yourself the rival may make you feel the weight of his vengeance; for he is a jealous God and does not abandon those who have placed their trust in him and who invoke him in their distress."

Ruodgaire did not dare to pursue his criminal plans; he did not dare to advance toward the altar; a superior force held him as if immobile at the entrance of the sanctuary; he cast thunderous looks at Berthe, renounced abducting his prey, and with rage in his heart and imprecation on his lips, he left, threatening Berthe that he would ruin her without return.

The holy abbess, delivered from such an imminent danger, gave thanks to God for such a visible protection, and disposed her soul to endure the consequences of her enemy's vengeance. It was not long in making itself felt.

Calumny, the ordinary resource of cowards and the wicked, was the weapon he used to torment our Saint. He accuse Thierry King of the Franks who made donations to Saint Condedus. d her before Thierry of conspiring against the kingdom, of having established herself in the land of the Morini to maintain relations there with the princes of Great Britain; he even insinuated that the castle and the monastery of Blangy would facilitate the landing of enemies on the coasts of the province, if the king did not secure the person of Berthe. Such an atrocious and baseless calumny found no credence. Nevertheless, Thierry thought it necessary to have Berthe appear before him to account for her conduct, given that it was a serious offense, regarding which she had to justify herself.

Berthe left for the court in a carriage suitable to her birth and the high rank her husband had occupied. But the vindictive Ruodgaire, warned of the arrival of the noble countess, went to meet her; after having exhaled all that hatred and vengeance have of the most atrocious, he tore from her all the marks of her dignity, forced her to descend from her carriage, and made her mount, by a cowardly mockery, a poor horse. Berthe suffered this bloody affront with all the patience of a Christian, spouse of the Crucified. She was proceeding quietly toward the palace on her sad mount, when she was met by Ridulphe, a lord of the court, a very religious man full of veneration for Berthe, whose high rank and eminent virtue he respected. Filled with indignation against Ruodgaire, he approached him, addressed the sharpest reproaches to him, and demanded, in the name of the king whose favor he equally shared, that he return her carriage to the Countess of Blangy, and accompany the Saint to the court himself.

Ruodgaire, whose rage knew no bounds, had preceded them there, and, more animated against her than ever, was preparing to support his infamous accusations.

But God will not allow innocence to succumb to calumny. As he is the God of all goodness for his beloved servants, he is also the God of vengeance against those who oppress them, and Ruodgaire experienced it. At the moment when the Saint appeared before Thierry, Ruodgaire cast fierce and contemptuous looks at her; but at that very instant he was struck with blindness, and his eyes came out of their sockets. The whole court and the Saint herself were frightened by such a sudden and terrible punishment. Thierry, by an involuntary movement, threw himself at the knees of Berthe, asked her for forgiveness for his excessive credulity, and begged her to forgive the culprit. Berthe, who had learned from her Savior to forget offenses, had Ruodgaire called, assured him that she had no resentment against him, exhorted him to repentance, and raising her eyes to heaven, she begged the Lord who had avenged her to forgive Ruodgaire. Her prayer was answered, and, by a second miracle, the culprit recovered his sight on the spot. Thierry, full of veneration for Berthe, granted her great privileges for her monastery, and gave her considerable gifts. The Saint left the court blessing God for the striking manner in which he had protected her, and returned to Blangy to find, in her solitude and among her dear daughters, her former tranquility, momentarily disturbed by the malice of the enemy of salvation.

She concerned herself more than ever with consolidating her monastery; she had several churches built in the various fiefs dependent on Blangy, in order to propagate as much as lay in her power the glory of God, in a land only recently conquered from idolatry. After having exercised the functions of abbess for nine years with wisdom and success, and having established the Rule of Saint Benedict there in all its purity, she thought of resigning from her office in order to work exclusively on her own perfection. She implored divine light for a long time to be enlightened on the choice of a superior capable of continuing the work she had begun. After having thought about it maturely, she believed she f ound in Déotile Second daughter of Bertha and her successor as abbess. Déotile, her second daughter, the qualities required to worthily fulfill such holy functions. Such was the humility she had inspired in the holy daughters she directed, that Gertrude, although the eldest, deferred without hesitation and with joy to her mother's decision, and recognized her younger sister as superior.

Ravenger, Bishop of Thérouanne, ratified Berthe's choice and came to give Déotile the abbatial blessing. Déotile justified Berthe's choice and governed the abbey for nineteen years with admirable wisdom.

Berthe, relieved of all temporal occupation, withdrew to a place separated from the community, and wished to live only for heaven. She conversed only with God, and attained a sublime degree of prayer. But divine love, overflowing so to speak from her soul, needed to spread in order to ignite it in the hearts of others; that is why she had an opening made that looked into the chapter house of the community; it is from there that she addressed to her dear daughters exhortations so touching that, after having heard her, they felt as if set ablaze with celestial fire and protested with more fervor their love for the God who knows how to spread so much sweetness in the soul that gives itself entirely to Him.

Pearls formed in stormy seas are, it is said, the most beautiful and perfect; thus, virtue tested by adversity is also that which is most precious in the eyes of God. As He wished to bring Berthe to an eminent holiness, He allowed the peace she enjoyed to be troubled once more in her dearest affections.

As we have seen, our Saint had not wanted Emma, her third daughter, to take the veil and commit herself to monastic life. Thi Emma Third daughter of Bertha, the repudiated Anglo-Saxon queen. s young countess was edified by the examples she had before her eyes, and waited under her mother's wing for Providence to dispose of her fate. Heiress to all the titles of her illustrious family, she could only aspire to a princely match, which came to pass. Swaradin or Sward, an Anglo-Saxon prince, after returning from a pilgrimage to Ro me, visi Swaradin Anglo-Saxon prince, husband of Emma. ted King Thierry and took advantage of the kindness he showed him to ask for Emma's hand. Thierry consented with pleasure and gave full powers for the marriage to be concluded in concert with Saint Berthe. The latter received the request coldly; perhaps she had a premonition of the future. After having probed and known Emma's dispositions, she gave her consent, and the marriage took place with royal pomp. Acclamations of joy greeted the young princess's arrival in England; but Emma, far from being as happy as one might believe, was entirely preoccupied with sinister premonitions. Her separation from her mother had been very painful, and, barely arrived in Great Britain, she regretted the abbey of Blangy with bitterness. Confident in God, and trained in her mother's school, Emma took care to inspire piety at court and to live there as a Christian. But the demon, who had troubled Berthe's tranquility and had attacked her with the impure weapon of slander, also unleashed himself against the innocent Emma, who became the victim of the most infamous jealousy. A lady of the court, named Theide, jealous of the influence Emma was gaining over her husband, and conceiving the most dreadful plans, first knew how to spread suspicions in Swaradin's mind; then, through false reports, she turned him so much against Emma that he repudiated her and substituted Theide for her. Not only was Emma deprived of all the honors attached to her title of wife and queen, but she also saw herself treated as a vile slave and employed in the most abject functions of the palace.

A worthy daughter of Berthe, she did not murmur against the Providence that sent her such a cruel cross to bear, and she opposed only heroic patience to all the mistreatment she was made to endure. But the most sublime virtue does not prevent one from feeling the impressions of nature. She suffered all the more because she had no one to whom she could confide her bitter sorrows; for Swaradin, at the instigation of Theide, had taken the most severe precautions so that his unfortunate victim would not inform her mother of the persecution she was enduring, and it was impossible for her to send any message to France.

However, Berthe, receiving no news of her dear daughter, and by a premonition she could not defend herself against, sent a man in whom she had full confidence to know the reason for such a prolonged silence. The latter, in disguise, arrived at the palace, and what was his astonishment when he perceived this Emma, whom he had seen so beautiful at Blangy, pale, sad, and covered in unworthy clothing, performing the duties of a slave on the outskirts of the palace! "What! Madame," he cried out painfully, "what! You reduced to such a job!..." — "Alas!" replied Emma, "speak low, for I am watched so closely that I cannot explain myself freely. Go tell my mother that you have seen Emma repudiated, treated as a slave, and replaced by a depraved woman, and that, while submitting myself to the will of God, I aspire only to see Blangy again."

At the news of the sad state in which her daughter found herself, Berthe had no more rest until she had made her return to her. After the first movements escaped from nature and maternal tenderness, she adored the designs of Providence and submitted to them without seeking to penetrate their secrets. She then wrote to several lords of the court whose influence with Thierry she knew, to obtain through their intermediary that Emma return to France; none refused her their support. They left and arrived in England.

Swaradin was so absorbed by his criminal passion that he easily consented to return Emma to her mother. What joy for this unfortunate young woman to leave this inhospitable land and to see her beloved mother again, and the abbey where she had spent such a sweet and pure life! The walls of Blangy appeared to her as the port of salvation; but, alas! she was not to see them again, she carried death in her bosom. Seized by a violent fever, her end appeared inevitable and near. In vain did the sailors redouble their efforts to arrive on French soil; death had seized its prey, and the blessed Emma expired while murmuring the name of God and that of Berthe.

Arrived at Quantovic, today, according to the most common opinion, the bay of Etaples, the deputies had the sad news of Emma's death announced to Berthe. How to paint the grief of this mother condemned to see only the inanimate remains of her daughter? She offered to God this sacrifice so cruel to her heart, and, to relieve her pain, she wished to render to these sad and dear remains all the honors due to her name, to her title of queen, and to the virtues she had so heroically practiced. She obtained from the Bishop of Thérouanne the permission to leave the monastery with the community to go to meet the funeral procession, and she waited until the place called the Grand-Pré, located near Hesdin, a quarter of a league from the abbey.

It was there that the lords who had taken charge of bringing back the body of the holy princess stopped; it was there that Berthe wished to have the painful satisfaction of seeing her daughter one last time. "O my daughter, my Emma!" she cried out while bursting into sobs when the coffin was opened, "my eyes see you, but yours cannot see your desolate mother!" Emma had always shown the most vivid desire to see her mother again; God, who had not granted her this favor in her final moments, permitted that her eyes then reopen. In the sight of all the astonished assistants, she looked tenderly at her mother, after which death resumed its empire, and they closed forever. The convoy resumed its march, which then became triumphal, for songs of praise and thanksgiving were immediately heard in the air. The body of Emma was deposited in the monastery. A chapel was erected at the very place where the miracle had taken place; it is still frequented by a large number of pilgrims, as well as a nearby fountain where the pious faithful go to quench their thirst and then fill bottles with this water which, according to popular tradition, keeps for several years without spoiling.

The sorrow that Saint Berthe felt at the death of her daughter gradually faded, assured as she was of the eternal happiness of Emma who, during the harsh trials she had endured, always showed unalterable patience and sublime resignation to the will of God. All of Berthe's thoughts turned toward heaven, and, during her final years, she lived more than ever the life of the angels; each beat of her heart was a surge of love for the heavenly homeland. She could say with the Prophet-King: "What have I to desire, but you, O my God! My heart speaks to you, my eyes seek you! Alas! how long is my exile!"

Finally, the long-desired day arrived when the faithful servant of Jesus Christ entered the house of her Lord. She was struck by a fever that appeared very light, but which she foresaw would lead her to the tomb. Indeed, there was soon no more hope. She then had Gertrude called, who had governed the community since the death of Deotila, and having assembled all the nuns: "My dear daughters," she said to them, "the end of my course has finally arrived, and in a short time I shall be reunited with my Creator. I rely less on my works than on the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, and so I leave the earth with an inexpressible joy, for can the bride fear seeing her Beloved again? But you, my dear daughters, who are condemned to groan still in exile and to fight the enemy of salvation, place your trust in Him whom you have chosen for your portion. May charity, that bond of all perfection, reign in your hearts and direct your actions; may it make you observe with exactitude the holy Rule that you have embraced, and it will make the yoke of the Lord sweet and easy for you. God, at this moment, lets me glimpse that a day will come when the daughters who have inhabited this monastery will be subjected to cruel trials. Barbarians will carry iron and fire everywhere; they will set fire to this house, and the virgins who inhabit it will be forced to seek asylum in the foreign land of exile. But let them have confidence, virtue is purified in adversity, God will be with them, and their patience will find its reward in the heavenly homeland."

These holy daughters responded to this speech only with tears; they understood in its full extent the loss they were about to suffer, and their sorrow yielded only to the thought of having one more protectress in heaven.

But suddenly, Berthe's face appeared radiant with joy, her eyes, just moments before cast down by suffering, shone with an unusual brilliance; she perceived her guardian angel beside her, and he held in his hands a cross luminous as the sun. The sight of this cross made the Saint understand that, having always suffered with resignation throughout her life, the hour to exchange the instrument of torture for a crown of glory had finally arrived for her. My God! how liberal you are toward your friends, and with what torrents of sweet delights do you fill them! You soften for them the bitterness of death, and give them a foretaste of heavenly sweetness! Berthe, whose ears were about to close forever to the discourses of the earth, heard, as did all her daughters, a harmonious melody accompany these words pronounced by the angels: "Come, my beloved, come!" Could she have desired to live longer after having heard this celestial concert? Oh no! and so her soul exhaled like a sweet perfume, and went to receive, in the midst of the choirs of angels who transported her to heaven, the reward due to her heroic virtues.

It was on July 4, 723, that this new inhabitant of the heavenly Jerusalem rendered her soul to her Creator, at the age of seventy-nine. Saint Erkembode, who had succeeded Ravenger on the see of Thérouanne, presided over the funeral, which was attended by a large number of bishops and an immense concourse of people. S aint Berthe was Saint Erkembode Bishop of Thérouanne and abbot of Sithiù in the 8th century. buried in the abbey church, and God confirmed the holiness of his servant by the great number of miracles that occurred at her tomb.

Saint Berthe is found represented: 1st with a church in her hand, because she is the founder of a monastery; 2nd holding the abbatial crosier, symbol of her dignity; 3rd in the company of her two daughters Gertrude and Deotila who took the veil at the same time as she did; 4th before the altar, with one of her two daughters. A lord having formed the project of taking the latter from her monastery, Berthe led this child to the foot of the altar, telling the suitor that he had God as a rival and that he would proceed further if he dared; 5th tracing with her distaff a small channel at the foot of a spring, and returning to her monastery followed by a stream that goes to quench the thirst of her sisters who lack water.

## CULT AND RELICS. — ABBEY OF BLANGY.

The Abbey of Blangy, founded in 682 by Saint Berthe, continued, after her death, to distinguish itself by great regularity. Towards the end of the 9th century, it gave generous hospitality to the religious of Fontenelle, forced to flee before the Normans. Then, forced themselves to escape the fury of these terrible men of the north, the nuns of Blangy withdrew to Germany, where they in turn received hospitality in the Abbey of Hersfeld. They had taken with them the most precious of their treasures, the relics of Saint Berthe and her daughters, and these relics had bee reliques de sainte Berthe Remains of the saint preserved at Blangy following several translations. n glorified all along the route by an uninterrupted series of miracles. However, the Normans destroyed the abbey and the churches, and for a century this angelic dwelling was transformed into a desert. At the beginning of the 11th century, some priests came to settle in Blangy; two of them, Albin and Ebroin, went to Germany in 1631 and brought back the bodies of Saint Berthe and her daughters. In 1632, Roger, Count of Saint-Pol, brought in religious from the Abbey of Fécamp, who, joined to the ecclesiastics of whom we have just spoken, formed a community of men who began to lead a holy life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. This abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict existed until 1791.

Towards the middle of the 17th century, the religious were forced to carry the relics of Saint Berthe and her daughters to Saint-Omer, for fear of the Spanish soldiers who, in 1550, destroyed the cities of Thérouanne and Hesdin from top to bottom. At Saint-Omer, the relics passed into various hands and were found in a miserable state by a pious woman, who notified the Abbot of Saint-Jean du Mont. After having proceeded, with the Abbot of Blangy, to the examination of the bones contained in the reliquary, and having verified their authenticity, the precious relics were transported in procession to Blangy. In 1606, Baudouin Lallemand, Abbot of Blangy, had the relics placed in a new reliquary, in the presence of Claude Dormy, Bishop of Boulogne. In 1791, the reliquary was transported from the monastery church to that of the parish. It was placed in a niche made behind the high altar.

On the 20th Vendémiaire of the Year III of the Republic, the administrator of the district of Montreuil, Prévost-Lebas, came to Blangy at the head of a squad of gendarmes to remove the reliquary and consign the relics to the flames; but on the night preceding the departure of the relics for Montreuil, they were saved, at the peril of their lives, by the heroic devotion of three inhabitants of Blangy, Barbier, Gilles-Joseph Desmons, and Bonnedouche, wife of Terrier, who went to hide them between the floor and the ceiling of one of the rooms of the abbey. It is there that they were found later. Finally, they were transported to the parish church of Blangy, where they still are today, and placed above the high altar where, by an ordinance of Mgr de la Tour d'Auvergne, Bishop of Arras, dated August 6, 1803, they are exposed each year, from June 4 to July 12, to the veneration of the faithful. Some relics of the Saint were detached from the treasury of Blangy by Mgr de la Tour d'Auvergne, in favor of several churches of the diocese of Amiens.

Légendaire de Morinie, by Abbé Van Drival. — Cf. Vies des Saints des diocèses de Cambrai et d'Arras, by Abbé Duslombes; Vie de sainte Berthe, by Pierre Bion, of the Priories of the Médicande.