Katherine of Alexandria : a saint for soldiers


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Katherine ot Alexandria

A Saint for Soldiers
By CHARLES PHILLIPS

St. Katherine ot Alexandria Adoring Blessed Virgin

and Infant Christ —Von Schraudolph

The Paulist Press 401 West 59th Street New York, N. Y.





Katherine of oAlexandria

A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

CHARLES PHILLIPS

New York
THE PAULIST PRESS

401 West 59th Street



Copyright, 1918, by The Missionary Society of
St. Paul the Apostle in the State

of New York

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A.
BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Deaddffied



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

TN the lovely valley of the Indre, within a day’s
ride of the walls and turrets of the ancient chateau

of Chinon, which rises above the river like an island

of rock, lies the village of Fierbois, nestled in the

wooded country of southwestern France. These are

the Touranian fields which Clovis, first King of France,

once trod and loved. At evening the lancet windows

of old Chinon still reflect the glories of a sunset which

for miles and miles bathes with prodigal loveliness a

fair, wide-spreading land of tranquillity and plenty.

Yet this whole peaceful scene was once trodden flat

in the pathway of Mars. That was in the late Mid-

dle Ages when France was suffering the agony of the
Hundred Years’ War, and when armed conflict, instead
of peace, so like our own terrible and momentous times,
became almost the normal state of the civilized world.

In those days, as once more in our own, every man
was a soldier, and there were few left at home to till the
fields and grind the corn—and pray to the saints. But
between those days and our own there was a difference,
too, as well as a likeness. Only a small percentage of
the twentieth century soldiers know anything about the
saints; whereas the fighting men of five hundred years
ago not only knew the saints but they had a saint of
their very own—one whom they actually carried off to
the wars with them, instead of leaving her behind to
find votaries among the stay-at-homes

;
one whose name



4 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

was forever on their lips, called upon for succor
wherever and whenever danger threatened them or
death or misfortune wrung a prayer from their hearts.
This Saint was the blessed martyr-virgin of Egypt,

Katherine of Alexandria, patron of men-at-arms and

worker of innumerable wonders among the soldier-boys
of the fifteenth century. And it is at Fierbois near
Chinon, in lovely Touraine, that her most famous

shrine is situated. Here her relics are still preserved;

and hither the faithful still come on pilgrimages,
though not so much now out of fealty to Madame
Sainte Katherine herself as for love of the greatest

and holiest of all her devotees that one glorious soldier

above all others whom she succored and guided in time
of war, St. Joan of Arc. For this Saint-for-soldiers

of ours is the same Katherine who became one of the
three Voices inspiring and directing the Maid of
Domremy to rise up and save France.

The Shrine at Fierbois

There is much more than the story of Joan clus-
tered around St. Katherine’s shrine at Fierbois,

however; there is, in fact, a whole history of soldiering

written in its ancient records—such a story of war-time
escapes and escapades, of miracles and deliverances

and wonder-workings, as one will find only in the

chronicles of the days of faith and chivalry; days long

lost, but coming back to us, it seems, on the red tide

of war again. For adventure and heroism, for faith

unshaken by fire or sword, stock or gibbet commend
us to these antique records of the Chapel of Fierbois!



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS
5

It is a chronicle of wonders,
this yellowed manuscript,

Les Miracles de Madame Sainte
Katherine,

.

reposing

now in the Bibliotheque Nationale
at Paris. Only

once has it seen the light of an
English day bac m

the nineties of the last century,
when the late Andrew

Lang published a translation of some
of its pages, ta en

from a transcript made at Tours in 1858
by the e

Bourasse; and this slender little book
is now out of

print. A chronicle of wonders—and most of them
wrought for soldiers gone to war.

Supposedly it was a soldier who first brought
St.

Katherine to France—some Crusader, gone to the East
to rid the Holy Land of the curse of the

Moslem, and

returned safe home, after many perils through
all of

which his chosen patroness had protected
him. No

wonder that the story of the martyred
maid of Alex-

andria had appealed to the heart of that
fighting man

of France, that champion of the Cross,
whoever he was,

valiant fighter that she herself was, a
mere girl of

eighteen facing her pagan emperor and challenging
him

with the Faith of Christ! Such an intrepid
saint was

just the patron to inspire the warrior
who must face

the fire and hatred of the heathen desecrator
of the

Holy Land. Long known as “one of the fourteen
most

helpful saints in heaven,” it is not strange
that the

man of arms, cast in pagan lands far from all that was

Christian and familiar, should appeal to her for
pro-

tection. And, his prayers answered, what more could

he do than spread her holy fame among his fellow-

soldiers, and bring back to France the story of
her

power in heaven? Her relics were enshrined on Mount



6 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

Sinai. He made his pilgrimage to that holy spot; but
he did more. When he sailed home to France he
brought with him some of those sacred remains, to be

set up in his own country for veneration.

That was the beginning of the reign of St. Kath-

erine in France. It was at Fierbois that the relics were

deposited and a fitting shrine erected over them. The
Church of St. Katherine at Fierbois became the center

of the world’s devotion to the martyred virgin, and the

cult grew rapidly to vast proportions.

Three centuries passed. Evil days fell upon Fier-

bois. War swept over Europe; and by the year 1375,
as the chronicles show, the shrine, once a Mecca of
the devout, was completely abandoned, the chapel

fallen into ruin, overgrown with weeds, forgotten even

by the soldiers whom the saint had loved to shelter and
protect.

But not altogether forgotten. There was one Jehan
Godefroy who remembered. Like the rest of us, he
may not have given much thought to heaven and the
saints when all went well with him; but when trouble
and pain came, he remembered. In the year 1368 this

Jehan was stricken with blindness and paralysis. Was
it a visitation of God? Marvelous fruits were to come
out of this misfortune of Godefroy’s. After the Scrip-

tural seven lean years of suffering he suddenly be-

thought himself of the long neglected shrine of St.

Katherine near the village of Fierbois. Seven years

of blindness and paralysis give a man plenty of time to
think! Perhaps in a happier day Jehan had visited the



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 7

shrine; perhaps Madame Sainte Katherine had suc-

cored him in other troubles. At any rate,
he recalled

the deserted chapel, to approach which,
as the record

tells us, one had to pass “through tangled wood
and un-

dergrowth no man might reach .
55 He begged that he

might be carried there, to make a novena for his cure,

and thither his friends bore him on his litter,
though

they were obliged to hew a path with axes through
the

wild wood that had grown up around the deserted
and

desecrated place. But the difficult journey was made,

and the crippled soldier was reverently laid
within the

once-consecrated walls. And there, before his novena

was ended, the desired miracle was indeed wrought
for

him, and Jehan rose from his bed sound of limb
and

with his sight restored. “He could see well and clear

and was whole and healed in all his members, as
he

yet continues to be .
55

This was the signal for St. Katherine to come once

more into her own in France. The fame of Jehan s

miraculous cure spread like fire, and that same year the

ruined shrine was restored and the chapel rebuilt.
It

was one Hylaire Habert who, enthused over the
wonder

wrought for his friend Jehan, undertook this restora-

tion. And in Hylaire’s story we find not only the

heavenly and miraculous, but a glint of common every-

day humor as well. The characters in the comedy are

Goodman Habert—himself and his practical minded

wife—evidently a long-tongued and short-tempered
dame, who had a poor opinion of the religious enthusi-

asm of her pious spouse. Hylaire, however, possibly a

soldier at one time, and one who owned some great in-



8 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

debtedness to St. Katherine, took very seriously the

obligations of able-bodied men to the Egyptian virgin.
Rebuild her shrine at Fierbois he would, no matter

what the cost; and forth he set to do it, much to the
neglect of his wife and his work at home. Dame Ha-
bert rebelled. “The thing that he did sorely displeased

his wife,” reads the quaint Chronicle. In fact, she be-

came so terribly incensed at her husband, because “he
left his business to do the same,” that, in one of their

rows over the matter, she made a prayer to God “that
he might never return nor come again to his own
house!” We can see the angry lady driving him off!
—we can imagine the state of mind she was in, to let
go like that!

But for once Dame Habert had permitted her feel-
ings to get too much the best of her. On the making
of that wicked prayer, there came a condign, swift
punishment on her head. “She dropped down, as one

dead, her eyes and mouth shut, sans speech or move-
ment, nor ever returned to herself till her lord came
from the said chapel.” What Hylaire first thought
that evening on coming home, to find his stormy help-

mate “sans speech” and “with her mouth shut,” is not
recorded. But, dutiful husband that he was, he in-

stantly repaid good for evil. Where she had prayed a
curse for him, he made a prayer of charity for her

—

albeit there may have been just a touch of coals-of-fire
in it; for it was to St. Katherine he turned for help.

“He took a vow . . . and promised to bring his wife to
that Saint, if madame would restore her.” She was
restored, and “she made her oblation”—a good resolu-



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 9

tion against sins of the tongue, perhaps, poor fretted

lady—and Hylaire rebuilt the chapel of Fierbois.
It was in 1375 that Jehan Godefroy was cured

—

and Dame Habert silenced. From that time the shrine
flourished. A prisoner of war, a French soldier, taken
by the English and held in chains for “a whole month,”

is the next witness to the powers of St. Katherine’s in-

tercession. This soldier is Perrot Chapon, whom the
saint miraculously delivered out of his irons. Lying

captive in prison, he made a vow that “if he might es-
cape without paying ransom, verily he would go on

pilgrimage to her chapel.” At home, his wife—like
many a soldier’s wife today—was pouring her life out
in prayer for her man’s deliverance and return; and, as

heaven would have it, she too, at the same hour, “made
her vow.” Instantly the miracle was worked! Perrot

in his prison fell asleep; “and on his waking, lo, he was

in the hall of his own house, all in chains of iron as he
was.” “And so hath he come to the chapel to give
thanks to our Lord, and to the Virgin, and hath sworn

that this is true.”

The Wonder-Workings of St. Katherine

In every case the depositions of pilgrims who came
to Fierbois to testify to the wonder-workings of St.
Katherine were duly sworn under oath. There can be
no question of the veracity of these records. With the
devotees who journeyed thither to make public ac-
knowledgment of the help of heaven, this pilgrimage
and attesting was a very solemn business. Often they



10 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

came great distances, and at great expense and grave
peril, to pay this debt to God. Even the most skepti-

cal, then, can hardly question them or claim that such

journeyings were undertaken merely for the fun of

telling gorgeous lies. No; these wonders had been
wrought; these devotees—mostly soldiers, rough men
of little subtilty but of mighty faith—had actually ex-
perienced these miraculous happenings, and nothing

could hinder their publishing them to the world, for

the grace and benefit of those who should come after
them, even to the generation of the twentieth century!

The armies fighting in Europe in those days were
like those of today, made up of men from many coun-
tries. In the Fierbois Chronicle we find, alongside our
Frenchmen and Englishmen, the sturdy, canny Guil-
laume Oade, a Welshman—we can just see him!—“de-
claring and affirming by his faith and oath” how he
was saved from the perils of war through the aid of

St. Katherine. And the Welshman’s story brings us
into the very heart of the World War—into Flanders,
and up to the very “Wipers” whose name the Tommies
of the twentieth century (some of them Welshmen,

too! have written in heroic blood on the pages of his-

tory. “At Poperique in Flanders,” we read “two
leagues and a half from Ipre,” “between All Saints

and Christmas,” in 1382, Welshman Oade “was lodged
. . . with great company of men at arms.” On a cer-
tain Saturday night, about midnight, the English sud-

denly decided to abandon the place, after setting fire

to it; but our friend Guillaume “and his varlet”—Oade
was evidently an officer—were apparently not apprised



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 11

of the movement, or else simply overslept, for they

were left behind “sleeping in the house whereas they

were lodged,” and were quickly surrounded by the

Flemish soldiers who “ran in on them from every quar-

ter.” What followed is enough to make any romancer
sit up and look to his laurels. Fiction could not devise

more breathless suspense. And through it all, St.
Katherine leads our soldier hero scatheless. Taken by

surprise, Oade and his man fled in terror from the
house, fighting to escape; Oade, in his extremity, “call-

ing on Madame Sainte Katherine of Fierboys” for
help, and vowing a pilgrimage to her shrine if she

would save him. How this Welsh soldier came to know
of Fierbois and its miracles is not set forth; but the

only explanation there can be is that the Saint’s fame

had spread through all armies, that it had come even to
his alien ears. At any rate, there he was, cornered by

his enemies, and praying desperately for help. The
swift heels of his varlet took that terrified mortal to

safety; he “escaped by his speed and by the grace of
God and Madame Sainte Katherine”

;

but Guillaume,

either because he was fat and short of wind; or perhaps

because he unselfishly stood back to let his companion
make good his flight—the reason is not stated—was left
alone to face the enemy. He saw “that he might
neither fight nor flee,” so he “ran into a thatched house,

and those Flemings knew not what had become of
him.” Up to the roof of this house he climbed, and
through all the bitter, winter night he lay there, flat

on his face, fearing to move lest he be detected; and
praying—how he must have prayed!



12 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

All around him the town was burning; there was
the crash of falling roofs, the heat of flaming walls,

drawing ever nearer and nearer him; and it was no

easy matter to hide, perched on a roof top in the lurid

glare of such a conflagration. But he did not give up.

He prayed. He placed his all in the hands of St. Kath-
erine. He made his vow to her, over and over again.
The long, perilous hours passed flaming over his head.
At dawn, the fire still raging and the heat becoming un-

bearable, matters grew altogether desperate for him.

“And when the fire had burned all the houses there-
about, the said Guillaume, seeing all the house fall

flaming against him, and the fire entering at front and

rear”—thus graphically does the old parchment tell
the story—with the name of St. Katherine on his lips,
and one last measuring glance to the hostile ground be-

low, Guillaume slid down from the burning roof, de-
termined to fight his way through the street to safety.
But once more he was surrounded by the Flemish and
cornered. Yet even now he did not surrender. There
was still St. Katherine to succor him. With a prayer
bursting from his heart, he broke from his captors and

made a dash for the river—he could not have been
such a fat man, after all!—and leaping in, swam for
the opposite shore. There again he was set upon,

stripped of his purse and his money and savagely at-
tacked “with axes and pikes.” “And seeing that they
thought to smite him and slay him ... he prayed yet
again to Madame Sainte Katherine and despite all
his weakness and exhaustion, and all the uneven odds

of the struggle, he escaped, though he roamed the

plains for three days afterward, hiding by daylight,



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 13

traveling by night—as many a fugitive in the No Man’s
Land of Flanders has done—before he rejoined his
men.

Miraculous Answers to Soldiers' Prayers

There may not be so much of the miraculous in the
Welshman’s story as there is of sheer pluck; but there

was the faith of the man!—it was that that gave him
wit and grit to win out. To him it was a miracle, or at
any rate a direct answer to prayer; and he came duly to
the shrine at Fierbois to pay his promised pilgrimage.
Soon on his heels came others to testify—this time to
a veritable miracle. In the next record of the Chronicle

we find not one alone, but four men, come to acknowl-
edge together the heavenly aid of St. Katherine. They
had been taken prisoner by the English stationed at a
garrison near La Souterraine, and when caught had
been “bound as straitly as they might,” and beaten
“sorely,” after which their captors had left them in
their dungeon and had gone off to enjoy a well-earned

dinner. The poor whipped wretches, left thus to their
smarting pains and their heavy irons, trying to comfort

one another with hopeful words, were minded at last
to pray to St. Katherine for deliverance. They made
their prayer—and their plea was heard immediately!
Straightway the irons fell from their feet and hands,
and out from their prison, past guards and sentinels,
they walked, the four of them, unharmed! “And to
accomplish their vows they came hither together, they,
their wives and their children, and swore and affirmed
that the said tale is true, making oath in the presence
of several notable persons.”



14 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

Two fellow-soldiers, Thomas du Mont and Perrinet

l'Auvergnat imprisoned in a fosse “narrow and deep
as

a lance’s length, and above them laid a right great
rock,

that they might not avail to win forth,” were
held for

fourteen months “at so great a ransom that all
their

friends would have been over hard-set to pay
it.

Three of their companions taken with them, had
al-

ready died in the same fosse, and the bodies were
left

there to corrupt beside the living captives
“whereby

the said Thomas and Perrinet suffered sore from the

filth and stench.” They prayed to St. Katherine.

Kneeling in the trench, they turned their faces, as
well

as they could guess, in the direction of
Fierbois, and

begged their patroness in heaven to send them a
quick

deliverance out of the horrible death that was slowly

creeping over them. Thus praying, sleep came
upon

them; “and when they woke they found themselves

above the fosse, and the rock rolled away, as it
were

two turns, the said rock being so heavy that it
needed

two men to turn it over.” . . . Casin du Boys, sentenced

to be beheaded, and imprisoned in a cage
“locked with

a key, bound moreover with a right strong
rope all

about it” and with a guard lying on top of the
cage,

was likewise delivered through prayer to St.
Katherine.

“Right so, his vow being made and his prayer, the said

cage flew open of its own accord, and forth went Casin,

he that lay above the cage perceiving naught.”
But

still the prisoner was a prisoner. The only opening

in the dungeon was a window “set the height
of two

men from the ground;” yet Casin was miraculously

lifted up to it: “he found his breast on a level
with the

window, and him seemed that he was hoven under
the



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 15

armpits.” And he “went forth of the house.” So
record after record reads—the opening of doors the
falling away of chains, the saving of soldiers from

every sort of peril and death.

The fate of non-combatants in the wars of five hun-
dred years ago was quite as bad as it is today. But

St. Katherine protected them too, as well as the fight-

ing men. Jehan de Pons, peaceably enjoying a par-

tridge hunt one bright June day in 1423—very likely
getting ready for the next meatless day forthcoming

—

was snatched up by a party of marauding Scotch sol-
diers of the invading armies and with seven farm hands

plucked from their tasks in a neighboring wheat field,

was marched off to a nearby oak tree to be hanged with

a halter. The seven unfortunate laborers were hanged
first; “then remained the said Jehan the last to be

hanged because he had prayed for this grace in God’s

name to him that took him” (A Scotchman, not a
Hun!) “that he might have time and space to pray
God’s mercy and pardon.” This prayer was granted,
the while he saw “all these seven hanged and strangled
before his eyes,” and then it was that he turned to St.
Katherine for help.

How often it happens that when we desire the most
earnestly and pray the most urgently, the ear of God
and His saints seems deafest to our pleading! And
then—the sudden answer! Jehan de Pons prayed; but
he was hanged nevertheless, “right high on the said oak
tree by a halter that was almost new.” And yet his
prayer was heard, even in that extremity. The quaint
language of the Chronicle best recounts the ending of



16 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

the story : “And when he that hanged him was mounted
and riding after the others, being now about a bow-
shot from the said oak, the halter wherewith Jehan

was hanged broke asunder and he fell on a heap of

sharp stones, harming himself no more than if he had

been 6n a pillow, and he felt no pain when he was
hanged up, for it seemed that one hove him up under

the feet. So came he to accomplish his vow . . . bring-
ing with him the broken halter.”

The leaven of the grace of God was working among
those braw Scotch warriors marauding in French fields,

it seems. Among these foreign soldiers posted on the
continent was one “Michael Hamilton, a Scot,” a na-

tive of a Scottish parish dedicated to St. Katherine, and

all his life a devotee of hers. That the soldier going
off to the wars need not leave his religion at home be-
hind him, but rather that he does very well indeed to

take it with him to the fray, the story of Michael
Hamilton pointedly attests. Stationed with his com-

pany of “foot-soldiers at arms” in Brittany, he and his
companions suffered an ambuscade in which several

of his men were slain, and he was taken prisoner be-
cause he “could not flee for the weight of his armor.”

He was sentenced to death by hanging and the sentence
was to be executed not only as an act of war, but as
one of personal revenge, by the son of a Breton spy
whom the Scots had already dispatched by the halter.
And so it was done. “In truth, before the eyes of the
other Bretons, he bound Michael’s hands behind his
back, and hanged him from the gibbet at Clisson in
his shirt, hose and shoon. There was he hanged on



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 17

Maundy Thursday, two hours after noon;” and there
the Bretons left the victim of their vengeance, sus-

pended in mid-air, given up for dead.

But Michael Hamilton, devout parishioner of St.

Katherine’s—somewhere-in-Scotland—Shotts, Bartram
Shotts, or Bothwell Minor, in Lanarkshire, opines An-

drew Lang—this soldier who had all his life prayed to
St. Katherine, had not now, in his hour of peril, for-

gotten his patroness. “So soon as he was taken [he]

did nothing but think devoutly of Madame Sainte
Katherine and prayed that she would be pleased to

guard him from death.” In what sensational manner
those prayers were answered the Chronicle tells us in

thrilling language:

“So chanced it, that, when he had been hanged,
there came a voice to the cure of the town bidding him
go speedily and cut down Hamilton. Of this voice the
cure took no keep, and forgot it until the morrow,
which was Good Friday. And when the said cure had
done all his service it was near noon. Then he be-
thought him of the said voice, and bade one of his
parish go to the gibbet and see if Hamilton were dead
or not. Wherefore the man went on that errand. And
when he got thither he turned and spun the Scotsman
about, and knew not whether he was dead or alive.

“Nevertheless, to know the very truth, he took the
hose from the right foot and slit the little toe with a
knife, so that therein was a great wound and much
blood. And when the said Hamilton felt it, he swears
by his oath that as long as he was hanging he felt no



18 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

harm, no more than if he had been hanged by a rope

under the arms. For when he was hanged he kept
praying Madame Sainte Katherine to be his aid, with-
out other thought. And it seems that he was hoven
up under his feet. Nevertheless, when he felt the
wound in his said toe, he drew up his leg and stirred.
Thereon sore fear fell on the messenger of the cure,

as Hamilton hath since heard him say. Wherefore he

ran hastily to the cure, declaring that Hamilton was

still alive and he had seen him move. Then the said
cure, considering his voice in the night, and considering

that Hamilton had been hanged from Maundy Thurs-
day to Good Friday afternoon, deemed that it was evi-
dent miracle, and proclaimed all these things to the
people present. Whereafter he and the other people
of Holy Church put on their vestments and with a great
company they went to the gibbet and cut down the said
Hamilton. . . . Now he that had hanged him was pres-
ent, who in wrath that he was not dead, struck him
over the ear with a sword, and gave him a great wound,
for which he was blamed. Nevertheless, the said
Hamilton was set on a horse and taken into a house
to be nursed and cared for. . . . And today the said
Hamilton came hither in his shirt, bringing the halter
wherewith he was hanged. ...”

Jeanne d'Arc

These strange happenings occurred in Brittany in
the spring of 1429; in May of that year Hamilton,
true to his vow, was at Fierbois testifying to his mi-
raculous deliverance through the aid of St. Katherine.



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 19

But already in this same year the shrine had been

visited by another and a far more illustrious warrior

—

by Jeanne d’Arc herself not only a devotee of the

Alexandrian saint, but one who had even seen her in
visions and hearkened to her voice. This was in mid-

winter, in February, 1429, in the darkest hour that the

arms of France have known between sorry Vaucouleurs
and the bloody but victorious Marne of the present
day. From Vaucouleurs, leading the distracted armies
of the Dauphin, rode the battle-weary Maid; and halt-

ing at Fierbois for rest, she repaired to the shrine of

her beloved St. Katherine to pay her devoirs to that

glorious patroness and to assist at Mass in her honor.
She heard three Masses there that day the records tell

us; and what prayers she prayed, what thoughts she

thought, as she knelt before the bodily relics of that

heavenly spirit whom already she had beheld crowned,
in an ecstacy, what fears were allayed in her heart,

what courage renewed, we can easily imagine. The
walls of the chapel around her were hung thick with
the votive offerings of those whom St. Katherine had
succored in the hour of peril and despair: there were
crutches and canes and irons and ropes; there was the
arrow that had struck but had not pierced, the culverin
ball that had glanced away from the prayer-protected
body; the halter of Jehan de Pons was there, and the
chains that had bound Perrot Chapon. Could Jeanne’s
ardent soul resist the thrill of such sights, the encour-

agement of such irrefutable witnesses? No! Rather,
she rose from her knees there in the chapel of Fierbois
with her heart beating high with renewed hope and



20 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

strength, renewed faith in her divinely appointed mis-

sion.

A month later this holiest of the devotees of our
Saint for soldiers was the acclaimed of France, and

Charles was showering her with royal gifts, with horses

and arms, with armor and the richest raiment. But

whatever else was forced upon her, one thing she would

not accept from him. She would have no sword from

him. Her Voices bade her look for a more sacred
weapon than even his kingly anointed hands could
proffer. This was to be none other than the sword of

Charles Martel, the self-same sword that had van-

quished the Paynim at Tours. It was to be a blade
marked with five crosses—thus should it be known

—

and it was to be found awaiting her under the altar of

St. Katherine’s shrine in the village of Fierbois. So

said Jeanne’s Voices; and worthwith, an armorer being

sent from Tours to make search for the mystic weapon,
under the altar of St. Katherine at Fierbois, just as had

been foretold, the sword was found.

This supernatural happening not only roused the

greatest enthusiasm for the Maid, and played a great

part in establishing her before the eyes of all France,

but likewise it gave to the cult of St. Katherine a new
impulse of popularity. And though the actual connec-
tion of the Warrior Virgin with the shrine at Fierbois

ceases with the discovery of the holy sword—unless
we note from the chapel Chronicle a Mass said “for
the King and the Maid, the worthy servant of God” on
May 5, 1430; or mark down the names of Dunois, La
Hire and de Gaucourt, all her associates and all to be



A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS 21

found in the chapel register: from that time henceforth,

nevertheless, these two names of Blessed Jeanne and

St. Katherine were inextricably linked in the popular

mind of France. Miracles continued to be wrought

and pilgrimages to be made. “Two fingers deep” into
the head of Jehan Fary—another Scotchman looking
for trouble!—flew an arrow which yet left the man
unhurt. Jehan Prevost struck by a culverin ball, could
find no remedy, “for the stone of the culverin abode

fast in his leg,” until St. Katherine cured him. There

were still other hangings and escapes, still other rescu-

ings from dungeons and loosening from stocks. Where-
ever the soldier fared or fought whatever befell him,

he had a helpful friend in St. Katherine of Fierbois,

did he but call upon her.

Of such are the wonders wrought by this blessed
Saint for soldiers in the fifteenth century, rescuer of

the imprisoned, curer of the injured, saver of the

doomed; above all, patroness and inspirer of the pa-
troness of all Christian warriors, Jeanne the Maid;
these things and many others, proved and attested be-
yond questioning. “Ah yes,” smiles the skeptic; “quite
so! But she did not save Jeanne, this Saint of yours,
I see! She let her be taken, and held, and even burned

to death. What do you say of that?”

To the Christian soldier, dear as are life and free-
dom and victory, there are still higher and dearer
things; and these, above all succorings and rescuings,
St. Katherine will give to him whenever the need be,
if he but ask her, just as she gave them to the St.
Jeanne. Strength to withstand temptation, strength to



22 A SAINT FOR SOLDIERS

remain steadfast and true to his ideals, to his cause and

to his flag, whatever the cost, be it even death, these

are the rarest gifts heaven can accord the fighting man
on the field of honor. To Katherine herself, imprisoned
in Alexandria and doomed to martyrdom if she would
not recant her Faith, God’s comforting angel came,

promising her help to withstand her judges and ac-

cusers, promising her release from her suffering, and

entrance into paradise. To Jeanne, imprisoned and
doomed the holy Katherine brought the same comfort,
a gift greater and more desired than even liberty and
triumph could ever be. The true soldier surrenders
only to God. And that surrender made, he can turn
even death into a victory, and if life be denied him,

can welcome with a soldier’s salute the falling away of
the chains of his mortal flesh, the unbarring of the

bright doors of eternity.



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