Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
To St. Germain of Autun, made bishop in 555, Paris owes one of her
earliest ecclesiastical foundations. His influence over Childebert,
king of Paris, was great. He obtained an order that those who refused
to destroy pagan idols in their possession were to answer to the
king, and when Childebert and his warriors, seized by an irresistible
fighting impulse, marched into Spain, and were bought off the siege
and sack of Saragossa by the present of the tunic of St. Vincent, he
induced the king to found the abbey and church of St. Vincent (St.
Germain des Pres), to receive the relic and a great part of the spoil
of Toledo, consisting of jewels, golden chalices, books and crucifixes
of marvellous craftsmanship. In the same reign was begun on the site
of the present sacristy of Notre Dame a great basilica, dedicated to
St. Stephen, so magnificently decorated that it was compared to
Solomon's Temple for the beauty and the delicacy of its art. The
church of Ste. Marie or Notre Dame, already existing in 365, stood on
a site extending westward into the present Place du Parvis Notre Dame.
During this great outburst of zeal and devotion, another monastery
(St. Vincent le Rond), was established and dedicated to St. Vincent,
which subsequently became associated with the name of the earlier St.
Germain of Auxerre (l'Auxerrois).
A curious episode is found in Gregory's _Chronicle_, which is
characteristic of the times, and proves that a monastery and church of
St. Julien le Pauvre were already in existence. An impostor, claiming
to have the relics of St. Vincent and St. Felix, came to Paris, but
refused to deposit them with the bishop for verification. He was
arrested and searched, and the so-called relics were found to consist
of moles' teeth, the bones of mice, some bears' claws and other
rubbish: they were flung into the Seine and the impostor was put in
prison. Gregory, who was lodging in the monastery of St. Julien le
Pauvre, went into the church shortly after midnight to say matins, and
found the creature, who had escaped from the bishop's prison, lying
drunk on the pavement. He had him dragged away into a corner, but so
intolerable was the stench that the pavement was purified with water
and sweet smelling herbs. When the bishops, who were at Paris for a
synod, met at dinner the next day, the impostor was identified as a
fugitive slave of the bishop of Tarbes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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