154 PRÆTERITA-I

town. Concerning which saint I translate from the Dict^re des Sciences Eccles^ques,¹ what it may perhaps be well for the reader, in present political junctures,² to remember for more weighty reasons than any arising out of such interest as he may take in my poor little nascent personality:-

“St. Riquier, in Latin ‘Sanctus Richarius,’ born in the village of Centula, at two leagues from Abbeville, was so touched by the piety of two holy priests of Ireland, whom he had hospitably received, that he also embraced ‘la pénitence.’ Being ordained priest, he devoted himself to preaching, and so passed into England. Then, returning into Ponthieu, he became, by God’s help, powerful in work and word in leading the people to repentance. He preached at the court of Dagobert, and, a little while after that prince’s death, founded the monastery which bore his name, and another, called Forest-Montier, in the wood of Crécy, where he ended his life and penitence.”

I find further in the Ecclesiastical History of Abbeville,³ published in 1646 at Paris by François Pelican, “Rue St. Jacques, à l’enseigne du Pelican,” that St. Riquier was himself of royal blood, that St. Angilbert, the seventh abbot, had married Charlemagne’s second daughter Bertha-“qui se rendit aussi Religieuse de l’ordre de Saint Benoist.” Louis, the eleventh abbot, was cousin-german to Charles the Bald; the twelfth was St. Angilbert’s son, Charlemagne’s grandson. Raoul, the thirteenth abbot, was the brother of the Empress Judith; and Carloman, the sixteenth, was the son of Charles the Bald.

179. Lifting again your eyes, good reader, as the train gets to its speed, you may see gleaming opposite on the hillside the white village and its abbey,-not, indeed, the walls of the home of these princes and princesses, (afterwards again and again ruined,) but the still beautiful abbey built on their foundations by the monks of St. Maur.⁴

In the year when the above quoted history of Abbeville

¹ [For the full title of this work, see Vol. XXXII. p. 67 n. Ruskin summarises from the article on the saint, in the Dictionary of Richard et Giraud, vol. xxi. p. 113 (ed. 1825).]

² [The reference is to the Irish question, then prominent.]

³ [By Ignace de Jésus-Maria (i. e., Jacques Sanson).]

⁴ [For the Abbey Church of St. Riquier (Flamboyant style, early sixteenth century), see Vol. XIX. p. xxxix.]

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