Saint Felix of Nantes

according to the rules established by the canons, and celebrated his first mass in the year of grace 540, at the age of twenty-seven. He lived in this state for several years, with such integrity of morals and piety that the reputation of his holiness soon spread throughout all of France, and even as far as Armorican Brittany, which was not then under the dominion of our kings. Evemer, otherwise known as Eumerius, Bishop of Na ntes, Nantes Episcopal city and principal site of the saint's cult. having died, the people and the clergy chose Felix with one voice to fill his place and to be their pastor. The whole diocese conceived a great joy at this election; deputies were immediately sent to him who brought him to Nantes; he was received there with all the honors due to his dignity and his great merits (550).

The fragrance of his virtues and his doctrine was not confined within the borders of Gaul; it extended throughout all of Europe. Yet the praises he received from men gave him no sense of vanity; on the contrary, he took them as an occasion to humble himself further and to attribute to God alone all the good that people wished to ascribe to him. This worthy prelate governed the flock entrusted to him with great gentleness, marvelous wisdom, an ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, and incomparable charity. He always took great care of the religious and hermits of his diocese, particularly Saint Friard, who had retired to an island in the Loire River, opposite the parish of Benais. He often honored him with visits and provided him with the necessities of life. He would assemble in his episcopal palace a certain number of young clerics whom he trained and instructed himself to make them capable of serving him in the reform of his diocese, and even of carrying the torch of faith to the infidels and heretics. It was from this seminary of doctrine and holiness that the glorious Martin of Vertou emerged, whom Saint Felix made Archdeacon of Nantes. He sent him to Herbauge Martin de Vertou Archdeacon of Nantes sent on a mission by Felix. s to preach the Gospel to the inhabitants who were still pl unged in Herbauges Legendary city submerged following the rejection of the Gospel. the darkness of paganism; but these detestable idolaters having treated such a holy missionary with outrage, they were punished for it with the full rigor of God's justice: for their city was swallowed up, and it is now nothing more than a lake named Grand-Lieu.

The dedication of this holy pastor to the spiritual functions of his office did not prevent him from also extending his care to temporal matters; he therefore thought to complete his cathedral church, which his predecessor had left unfinished. He employed for this purpose not only the revenues of his bishopric but also the assets of his own patrimony, along with many alms he received for this subject; but as the wars that ensued often interrupted this work, it could only be completed after seven years. The bloodiest was that which Chlothar I, King of Fra Clotaire Ier King of the Franks who supported the foundation of the monastery. nce, waged in Brittany against his son Chramn, who, although having revolted for the second or third time against his royal and paternal authority, had nevertheless found asylum and protection with Conobert, Count of Rennes and Nantes. It is known that this monarch, having been unable to compel the count, neither by his prayers nor by his threats, to hand over his son, finally placed himself at the head of a powerful army which he led himself to Nantes: Conobert and Chramn having gone out to meet him near the sea, were entirely defeated there; the former remained on the field, and the latter was taken prisoner in his flight; this unfortunate prince was burned alive in a cottage with his wife and children by the command of the king his father (560).

This victory having left the country unable to resist Chlothar, the city of Nantes was obliged to open its gates to him and place itself at his discretion; but Saint Felix, who received him at his entry, touched this inhuman spirit with his prayers and tears, and obtained that his people would be treated with every kind of gentleness. He even entered so far into the good graces of this prince that, when he wished to return to France, he left the government of the city and the county of Nantes to the holy prelate. It was a very heavy burden for him, and one for which he had an extreme aversion; but, as he saw that it was also a favorable means that Divine Providence presented to him for the relief of his diocesans, reduced by the war to the utmost misery, he accepted it for a time. It was then that his prudence and strength of mind appeared in all their brilliance; for, without diminishing any of the care he owed to his pastoral office, he discharged all the duties of a good governor of a city and province so worthily that one was obliged to admit that the king could never have made a better choice.

He was held in such high esteem throughout Brittany that the greatest lords would defer to his judgment in the disputes that arose between them. Through the influence that his virtue afforded him, he dissuaded Conon (Canao), Count of Vannes, who had already put three of his brothers to death so as to have no competitors in his State, from doing the same to Macl iau, hi Macliau Apostate Bishop of Vannes and brother of Conon. s fourth brother. However, Macliau caused our Saint much trouble, for, at first, to remove all suspicion from the Count, his brother, and to avoid his fury which could be rekindled, he placed his wife in a monastery, embraced the ecclesiastical state, and was even consecrated Bishop of Vannes; but when his brother died, he returned to the spirit of the world, and, driven by an ambition more than diabolical, he abandoned the altars, trampled the priesthood underfoot, and, through a scandalous apostasy, renounced the august quality of prelate in the Church of Jesus Christ to return to his wife and make himself master of the sovereignty. Saint Felix did everything in his power, through his prayers and his remonstrances, first to prevent him from reaching this point, then to lead him to penance and withdraw him from such a disastrous abyss; but this apostate remained obstinate in his sin and always resisted the grace of Jesus Christ, who spoke through his servant: he was punished for it, for he was killed by Theodoric, son of Budik, Count of Cornwall.

All these things were happening outside the jurisdiction of Nantes; but this county, which Clotaire had united to his crown, and where he had left a garrison, did not remain in peace for long; for Dunalic, son of Conobert, wishing to re-enter his father's states, brought a strong army there with the help of the other princes of Brittany, and caused great ravages there, and the one that King Chilperic, son of Clotaire, sent against him, did no less damage: so that the holy bishop had the sorrow of seeing his diocese exposed to the pillage of two powerful adversaries. He constantly went to find the leaders of both parties to negotiate a peace between them that would restore the province to rest; but, as neither side would yield on their claims to Rennes and Nantes, all he could gain from them was that they would spare, out of consideration for him, the country that Divine Providence had committed to his charge: which gave him a little relief and respite. This excellent prelate had beautiful public works carried out for the convenience of his diocesans. He gave the Loire a new bed and had it surround the walls of the city; he dug and deepened that of the Erdre to make it more suitable for commerce; he had the port of La Fosse built, one of the most beautiful in all of Europe. The care of the temporal

did not in any way slow his solicitude for ecclesiastical affairs. In the year 567, under Pope Joh n III, a Jean III Pope contemporary to the beginning of the saint's life. national council was assembled at Tours f concile national à Tours Council significant for the reform of morals and ecclesiastical discipline. or various needs of the Church. Archbishop Euphronius presided over it, and our Saint, who was of his province, did not fail to be present. Very fine canons were made there for the reformation of morals and for the utility of the dioceses. The third orders that the body of Jesus Christ be kept on the altar, not among the images, but under the cross. The fifth, that each city should feed its poor and that the ecclesiastics, as well as the townspeople who had the means, should each feed their own, in order to prevent begging and vagrancy. The twenty-second, that parish priests and clergy should not fail to correct through ecclesiastical censures those who, still retaining remnants of paganism, would offer sacrifices to Janus on the first of January, or present meats on the day of the Chair of Saint Peter, or perform ceremonies unknown to the Church near certain stones, trees, or fountains. Saint Felix subscribed to these canons in these terms: "Felix, sinner, bishop of the Church of Nantes, I have consented and I have subscribed." Having returned to his diocese, he made a visitation of it, beginning with his metropolis, to have them observed more exactly. He took particular care that the Blessed Sacrament was placed on all the high altars with great decency and honor. Desiring that no one should exempt themselves from helping the poor, he was the first to set the example. He chose a good number of the most miserable whom he took charge of sustaining, and to whom he had given every day what was necessary for an honest livelihood. People hastened to imitate such an edifying action: the ecclesiastic and the layman, the gentleman and the bourgeois, the magistrate and the private citizen, each, according to his means, took one or more poor people and contributed according to his power to draw them from their pressing necessities, so that in a short time one no longer saw beggars in the streets of Nantes. He did not have great difficulty in establishing the same order in the other places of his diocese; but what he found more difficult was to have the twenty-second canon observed, especially in certain villages, where the peasants, while embracing Christianity, had nevertheless still retained many superstitions of paganism. However, he applied himself with such prudence and vigor to reforming this abuse that he successfully overcame it, and everywhere, at least in public, they got rid of all the observances and ceremonies that idolatry had introduced there.

His charity, which was boundless, could not be confined within the boundaries of his diocese; he spread it abroad by sending money to ransom prisoners who were in the hands of the Saxons. The edifice of his cathedral being completed with a magnificence and beauty that had no equal in any other church in France, he dedicated it in the presence of several prelates. Saint Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, was among them: and this gave him the occasion to describe in verse the architectural works, the rich paintings, the sacred vessels of gold and silver, and the other ornaments that he saw in this superb temple. When it was dedicated, Saint Felix took care to have the divine offices and the august sacrifice of the Mass celebrated there with great solemnity and reverence, and to often assemble all the people there to distribute to them the bread of the word of God. Here is another trait of the zeal that this blessed prelate had for the holiness of the house of God. A young libertine, captain of the French garrison, having often asked and had his niece asked for in marriage without being able to obtain anything, had the effrontery to abduct her with the help of his soldiers, in order to marry her against his will; and, to avoid the pursuits of justice, he took refuge with her in the church of Saint-Alban. The Saint was not ignorant of the holiness of asylums, for which emperors and kings, and especially pontiffs and bishops, had always had a sovereign veneration; but, knowing well that they were for criminals and not for crimes, and that they should not serve as a retreat for the impious to commit their sacrileges more freely, he himself courageously entered this church and snatched from him this prey that he wanted to sacrifice to his passion at the foot of the sanctuary.

It would be desirable that the authors who lived in his time had marked for us more particularly the other heroic acts of virtue that he practiced during his life; we would undoubtedly see there a continual exercise of faith, hope, and charity, of humility, of penance, of Christian austerity, and of all the other virtues that compose the perfectly spiritual man. He had, towards the end, a dispute with Saint Gregory of Tours, who, immediately after his promotion to this archiepiscopal see, was offended by a saint Grégoire de Tours Bishop and historian who mentions the martyrdom of Antolian. service rendered by Felix to Riculphus, who had been his competitor, and wrote him very bitter letters on this subject. The zeal of Saint Gregory was undoubtedly a little hasty in this circumstance. One must admire the gentleness and patience of Felix who, despite these reproaches, always maintained towards him the respect and love that he owed to his dignity and his merit.

Finally, during a contagious disease that depopulated almost all of Brittany, he was himself cruelly attacked; there remained with him a fever and a languor which caused him extremely acute pains, and finally took him from this world around the year 582, in the sixtieth year of his age. His body was buried with great honors in the superb cathedral that he had caused to be built, and several miracles made his merit known from then on. The number of healings that subsequently took place at his tomb prompted one of his successors to raise it from the ground and have it enclosed in a gilded silver reliquary. His head, however, was separated from the rest of the body and placed in a silver reliquary bust. He is invoked particularly against the plague, against war, and against the dislocation of limbs. The city of Nantes has not preserved any relics of Saint Felix since the French Revolution. No chapel in the cathedral is dedicated to this holy bishop. Since 1857, the feast is celebrated as a minor double on July 7, the day of the translation of his relics; before the 17th century, the feast of Saint Felix was celebrated on January 8, the day of his blessed death. We have drawn this life mainly from the verses that the learned bishop of Poitiers, Saint Venantius Fortunatus, composed in his honor, and from local notes provided by Mr. J. Richard, vicar general. — Cf. Vers des Saints de Bretagne, by Dom Lubincon.