“The ancient shrine had been melted down during the Terror and the precious relics of the saint thrown into a fire that had been lit on the Place de Greve; but a poor woman of great piety, named Rouquin, went by night at the peril of her life to gather up the calcined bones and the ashes of the blessed saint.  She preserved them in a jam-pot, and when religion was again restored, brought them to the venerable Cure of St. Maels.  The woman ended her days piously as a vendor of tapers and custodian of seats in the saint’s chapel.”

It is certain that in the time of Father Douillard, although faith was declining, the cult of St. Orberosia, which for three hundred years had fallen under the criticism of Canon Princeteau and the silence of the Doctors of the Church, recovered, and was surrounded with more pomp, more splendour, and more fervour than ever.  The theologians did not now subtract a single iota from the legend.  They held as certainly established all the facts related by Abbot Simplicissimus, and in particular declared, on the testimony of that monk, that the devil, assuming a monk’s form had carried off the saint to a cave and had there striven with her until she overcame him.  Neither places nor dates caused them any embarrassment.  They paid no heed to exegesis and took good care not to grant as much to science as Canon Princeteau had formerly conceded.  They knew too well whither that would lead.

The church shone with lights and flowers.  An operatic tenor sang the famous canticle of St. Orberosia: 

     Virgin of Paradise
     Come, come in the dusky night
     And on us shed
     Thy beams of light.

Mademoiselle Clarence sat beside her mother and in front of Viscount Clena.  She remained kneeling during a considerable time, for the attitude of prayer is natural to discreet virgins and it shows off their figures.

The Reverend Father Douillard ascended the pulpit.  He was a powerful orator and could, at once melt, surprise, and rouse his hearers.  Women complained only that he fulminated against vice with excessive harshness and in crude terms that made them blush.  But they liked him none the less for it.

He treated in his sermon of the seventh trial of St. Orberosia, who was tempted by the dragon which she went forth to combat.  But she did not yield, and she disarmed the monster.  The orator demonstrated without difficulty that we, also, by the aid of St. Orberosia, and strong in the virtue which she inspires, can in our turn overthrow the dragons that dart upon us and are waiting to devour us, the dragon of doubt, the dragon of impiety, the dragon of forgetfulness of religious duties.  He proved that the charity of St. Orberosia was a work of social regeneration, and he concluded by an ardent appeal to the faithful “to become instruments of the Divine mercy, eager upholders and supporters of the charity of St. Orberosia, and to furnish it with all the means which it required to take its flight and bear its salutary fruits.” *