The history of this _culte_ is elaborately worked out. S. Geneviève was buried, it is asserted upon pretty good authority, in the crypt of the old abbey church of the Holy Apostles. [Illustration: TOMB OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE.] When the Normans overran the country, the monks took up the body of their patroness, and carried it off to distant parts in a wooden box. Peace being restored, the religious went back to their abbey and repaired the various tombs, among others those of S. Prudence and S. Céran, Bishop of Paris; but the remains of S. Geneviève were not replaced in the stone coffin in which they had previously been laid. A splendid _châsse_ was made for their reception, and until the Revolution, upon every occasion that the good citizens of Paris fell into any grievous trouble, the reliquary was carried about, up and down the "mountain," in and out of the tortuous streets, as a means of gaining the intercession of the patron Saint. And no less honoured was the empty tomb; the faithful paid their respects to that, after having visited the _châsse_. In 1628, when Cardinal de La Rochefoucault began to restore the church, he covered the crypt with costly marbles. In the centre was the stone coffin of the Saint raised upon a few steps, enclosed by four columns and an iron _grille_. Right and left were the tombs of S. Prudence and S. Céran. At the Revolution all was dispersed or destroyed, the _châsse_ was turned into coin, the Saint's bones were burnt on the Place de Grève, and the tomb broken; but in 1802, when Amable de Voisins became _curé_ of S. Étienne, he obtained permission from the archbishop, M. de Belloy, to translate the fragments of the stone coffin to S. Étienne, and to hold the festivals in the Saint's honour in that church.