famine, and pestilence. Her power became
a counterpoise to the despotism of the king
himself, and he was obliged to pardon the
prisoners for whom she interceded. When
her power excited jealousy and she was
accused of witchcraft, Saint-Germain defended
her by his testimony to her virtues, and
she continued to serve the church, and the
people.

When Attila, king of the Huns, ravaged
France, and the Parisians in their terror
thought of abandoning their city, Généviève
reassured them by prophesying the retreat
of the invaders, if the people propitiated God
by fasting, watching, and praying. Paris
escaped.

Afterwards, when Childeric besieged Paris,
the besieged were in danger of famine.
Généviève sallied out of the besieged city at
the head of a courageous band, and went
in search of provisions as far as Arcis sur
Aube or Troyes. She returned successfully
with a supply of food in spite of all the
dangers which surrounded her at every step
she took. The pagan Childeric, on entering
the city, rendered homage to her virtues;
and Childeric and his son Clovis liberated the
prisoners for whom she interceded. She
lived to see a Christian king upon the throne.
The first sanctuary which was dedicated to
Saint Denis was built by her care. She
founded a monastery near the church of
Saint Jean en Grève, which became the
Convent des Hendriettes. When eighty-nine years
of age, Sainte Généviève died on the third of
January, five hundred and twelve, five weeks
after Clovis, the first of the Christian kings
of France.

Ever since her death, the name of
Génévièvehas been worshipped by the devout
Parisians. When king Clovis made a
profession of Christianity, he dedicated the temple
of Isis to Peter and Paul, and he was himself
buried under their altar. After the death of
Généviève the ancient temple of Isis became
the church of Sainte-Généviève. She was
buried in it, and a little wooden oratory was
erected over her tomb. The mountain upon
which the temple of Isis stood has ever since
borne the name of Généviève, and has during
successive centuries been covered with edifices
erected in her honour, edifices continually
increasing in number and constantly growing
in magnificence. The hour of the greatest
splendour and solemnity of the worship of
Sainte Généviève was the hour in the last
half of the nineteenth century in which
Jean Yerger cried amidst the worshippers
at her shrine:—" Down with the Généviévians,
—down with the goddesses!"

During the seventh century, the wooden
shrine was enriched with golden ornaments
by Saint Eloi. Prior to the invasions of the
Normans in the ninth century, gold, silver,
and precious stones having made the shrine
a tempting booty, it was carefully hidden in
distant fortified places during the different
sieges of Paris by the Normans. A shrine
was constructed, in the thirteenth century,
which enjoyed great celebrity until the
revolution in the end of the eighteenth.
Twelve years were occupied in collecting the
necessary minerals and metals. This far
renowned shrine was in the form of a little
rectangular monument, with a lid like the
roof of a church without a steeple and without
a belfry. There was, at one end of the
shrine, an image of the Virgin, and at the
other end, an image of the Patroness. The
twelve apostles were placed in six niches
on each side. All the statuettes were about
a foot high; the apostles being in solid
silver, and the Virgin and the Sainte in
gold. Kings, queens, and prelates vieing
with each other, covered the whole reliquary
with jewels in course of time, and Catherine
de Medici finally surmounted the shrine
with a crown of diamonds. It rested
on columns of marble and jasper, and
without a solemn order of the court and
parliament, no one dared to take it down
from its place. When an order was given to
take down the shrine, it was conveyed to the
canons by a procession of public dignitaries.
On their arrival in the church, they found
the canons prostrate upon the ground in the
chapel, with their feet bare and reciting
penitential psalms and litanies. Prior to
obtaining possession of the shrine, all the
high officials swore a solemn oath never to
quit it until they had brought it back again;
and, when the shrine appeared in the solemn,
processions, the abbot of Sainte Généviève
took precedence of the bishop of Paris.

The faithful Parisians believe the shrine is
the safeguard of Paris and of France. They
fly to it as to a refuge in time of trouble.
When death knocked at the door of the
palace, when pestilence walked in darkness
among the populace, when invaders were
encamped upon the heights, when droughts
parched the rivers, when floods overwhelmed
villages, when fears of famine filled humble
households with delirium and broken hearts;
the parliament and people, the priests and
kings, invoked the protection of the Sainte
and paraded the shrine through the streets
of Paris. In the nineteenth century, when
the allies approached the gates—just as in the
ninth century when the Normans threw
panic before them—the Sainte was invoked
and the shrine was paraded. And just as in
the time of Louis le Gros the shrine had
been used as a talisman against the maladie
des ardents, the shrine was used in the days
of the Republic to combat the devastations
of the cholera. The Normans burned the
church of Sainte Généviève to the ground,
and the Jacobins melted the shrine at La
Monnaie, and made a bonfire of the relics
upon the Place de Grève. Généviève as the
goddess of the vanquished was outraged by
the worshippers of Odin and the fanatics of
Babœuf. Living men have seen the Sainte