Patroness of Paris, b. at Nanterre, c. 419 or 422; d. at Paris, 512.
Her feast is kept on 3 January. She was the daughter of Severus and
Gerontia; popular tradition represents her parents as poor peasants,
though it seems more likely that they were wealthy and respectable
townspeople. In 429 St. Germain of Auxerre and St. Lupus of Troyes were
sent across from Gaul to Britain to combat Pelagianism. On their way
they stopped at Nanterre, a small village about eight miles from Paris.
The inhabitants flocked out to welcome them, and St. Germain preached to
the assembled multitude. It chanced that the pious demeanour and
thoughtfulness of a young girl among his hearers attracted his
attention. After the sermon he caused the child to be brought to him,
spoke to her with interest, and encouraged her to persevere in the path
of virtue. Learning that she was anxious to devote herself to the
service of God, he interviewed her parents, and foretold them that their
child would lead a life of sanctity and by her example and instruction
bring many virgins to consecrate themselves to God. Before parting next
morning he saw her again, and on her renewing her consecration he
blessed her and gave her a medal engraved with a cross, telling her to
keep it in remembrance of her dedication to Christ. He exhorted her
likewise to be content with the medal, and wear it instead of her pearls
and golden ornaments. There seem to have been no convents near her
village; and Genevieve, like so many others who wished to practise
religious virtue, remained at home, leading an innocent, prayerful life.
It is uncertain when she formally received the religious veil. Some
writers assert that it was on the occasion of St. Gregory's return from
his mission to Britain; others say she received it about her sixteenth
year, along with two companions, from the hands of the Bishop of Paris.
On the death of her parents she went to Paris, and lived with her
godmother. She devoted herself to works of charity and practised severe
corporal austerities, abstaining completely from flesh meat and breaking
her fast only twice in the week. These mortifications she continued for
over thirty years, till her ecclesiastical superiors thought it their
duty to make her diminish her austerities.
Many of her neighbours, filled with jealousy and envy, accused
Genevieve of being an impostor and a hypocrite. Like Blessed Joan of
Arc, in later times, she had frequent communion with the other world,
but her visions and prophecies were treated as frauds and deceits. Her
enemies conspired to drown her; but, through the intervention of Germain
of Auxerre, their animosity was finally overcome. The bishop of the
city appointed her to look after the welfare of the virgins dedicated to
God, and by her instruction and example she led them to a high degree
of sanctity. In 451 Attila and his Huns were sweeping over Gaul; and the
inhabitants of Paris prepared to flee. Genevieve encouraged them to
hope and trust in God; she urged them to do works of penance, and added
that if they did so the town would be spared. Her exhortations
prevailed; the citizens recovered their calm, and Attila's hordes turned
off towards Orléans, leaving Paris untouched. Some years later Merowig
(Mérovée) took Paris; during the siege Genevieve distinguished herself
by her charity and self- sacrifice. Through her influence Merowig and
his successors, Childeric and Clovis, displayed unwonted clemency
towards the citizens. It was she, too, who first formed the plan of
erecting a church in Paris in honour of Saints Peter and Paul. It was
begun by Clovis at Mont-lès-Paris, shortly before his death in 511.
Genevieve died the following year, and when the church was completed her
body was interred within it. This fact, and the numerous miracles
wrought at her tomb, caused the name of Sainte-Geneviève to be given to
it. Kings, princes, and people enriched it with their gifts. In 847 it
was plundered by the Normans and was partially rebuilt, but was
completed only in 1177. This church having fallen into decay once more,
Louis XV began the construction of a new church in 1764. The Revolution
broke out before it was dedicated, and it was taken over in 1791, under
the name of the Panthéon, by the Constituent Assembly, to be a burial
place for distinguished Frenchmen. It was restored to Catholic purposes
in 1821 and 1852, having been secularized as a national mausoleum in
1831 and, finally, in l885. St. Genevieve's relics were preserved in her
church, with great devotion, for centuries, and Paris received striking
proof of the efficacy of her intercession. She saved the city from
complete inundation in 834. In 1129 a violent plague, known as the mal des ardents,
carried off over 14,000 victims, but it ceased suddenly during a
procession in her honour. Innocent II, who had come to Paris to implore
the king's help against the Antipope Anacletus in 1130, examined
personally into the miracle and was so convinced of its authenticity
that he ordered a feast to be kept annually in honour of the event on 26
November. A small church, called Sainte-Geneviève des Ardents,
commemorated the miracle till 1747, when it was pulled down to make room
for the Foundling Hospital. The saint's relics were carried in
procession yearly to the cathedral, and Mme de Sévigné gives a
description of the pageant in one of her letters.
The revolutionaries of 1793 destroyed most of the relics
preserved in St. Genevieve's church, and the rest were cast to the winds
by the mob in 1871. Fortunately, however, a large relic had been kept
at Verneuil, Oise, in the eighteenth century, and is still extant. The
church built by Clovis was entrusted to the Benedictines. In the ninth
century they were replaced by secular canons. In 1148, under Eugene III
and Louis VII, canons from St. Victor's Abbey at Senlis were introduced.
About 1619 Louis XIII named Cardinal François de La Rochefoucauld Abbot
of St. Genevieve s. The canons had been lax and the cardinal selected
Charles Faure to reform them. This holy man was born in 1594, and
entered the canons regular at Senlis. He was remarkable for his piety,
and, when ordained, succeeded after a hard struggle in reforming the
abbey. Many of the houses of the canons regular adopted his reform. He
and a dozen companions took charge of Sainte-Geneviève-du-Mont, at
Paris, in 1634. This became the mother-house of a new congregation, the
Canons Regular of St. Genevieve, which spread widely over France.
Another institute called after the saint was the Daughters of St.
Genevieve, founded at Paris, in 1636, by Francesca de Blosset, with the
object of nursing the sick and teaching young girls. A somewhat similar
institute, popularly known as the Miramiones, had been founded under the
invocation of the Holy Trinity, in 1611, by Marie Bonneau de Rubella
Beauharnais de Miramion. These two institutes were united in 1665, and
the associates called the Canonesses of St. Genevieve. The members took
no vows, but merely promised obedience to the rules as long as they
remained in the institute. Suppressed during the Revolution, it was
revived in 1806 by Jeanne-Claude Jacoulet under the name of the Sisters
of the Holy Family.
Vie de Sainte Geneviève, ed. Charpentier (Paris, 1697); Acta SS., Jan., I, 137-8, 725;
Tillemont, Mémoires (Paris, 1712), XVI, 621 and 802; Gallia Christiana, VII, 700; Butler, Lives of the Saints, I, 17-20; Bennett in Dict. Christ. Biog., s. v.; Delalain, Légendes historiques de Sainte Geneviève (Paris, 1872); Trianon in Revue du Monde Catholique (Paris, 1872), XXXIV, 470-82; Park in Dublin University Magazine (Dublin, 1876), LXXXVII, 102; Guérin, Vie des Saints (Paris, 1880), I, 92-104; Vidieu, Sainte Geneviève et son influence sur les destinées de la France (Paris, 1896); Fleury, Hist. ecclés., LXIX, 22, LXXIV, 39.
A. A. MacErlean (Catholic Encyclopedia)
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