At this point of our story we meet the first of those noble women, heroic and wise, for whom French history is pre-eminent. In the first half of the fifth century St. Germain of Auxerre and St. Lew of Troyes, chosen by the prelates of France "for to go and quench an heresy that was in Great Britain, now called England, came to Nanterre for to be lodged and harboured and the people came against them for to have their benison. Among the people, St. Germain, by the enseignements of the Holy Ghost, espied out the little maid St. Genevieve, and made her come to him, and kissed her head and demanded her name, and whose daughter she was, and the people about her said that her name was Genevieve, and her father Severe, and her mother Geronce, which came unto him, and the holy man said: Is this child yours? They answered: Yea. Blessed be ye, said the holy man, when God hath given to you so noble lineage, know ye for certain that the day of her nativity the angels sang and hallowed great mystery in heaven with great joy and gladness." When on the morn she was brought to him again, he saw in her a sign celestial, commended her to God, and prayed that she would remember him in her orisons, and on his return to Paris, finding her in the city, he commended her to its people. Tidings came that "Attila, the felon knight of Hungary, had enterprised to destroy and waste the parts of France," and the burgesses of Paris for great dread they had, sent their goods into cities more sure. Genevieve caused the good women of the town "to wake in fastings and orisons, and bade the merchants not to remove their goods for the city should have none harm." At first the people hardened their hearts and reviled her, but at St. Germain's prayers they believed in her, and our Lord "for her love did so much that the tyrants approached not Paris, thanks and glory to God and honour to the virgin." At the siege of Paris by Childeric and his Franks, when the people were wasted by sickness and famine, "the holy virgin, that pity constrained, went by the Seine to Arcy and Troyes for to go fetch by ship some victuals. She stilled by her prayers a furious tempest and brought the ships back laden with wheat." When the city was at length captured, King Childeric, although a paynim, saved at her intercession the lives of his prisoners, and one day, to escape her importunate pleadings for the lives of some criminals, fled out of the gates of Paris and shut them behind him. The saint lived to build a church over the tomb of St. Denis and to see Clovis become a Christian. She died in 509, and was buried on the hill of Lutetius, which ever since has borne her name. [Illustration: TOWER OF CLOVIS.]