SAINT FRANCIS
348
SAINT FRANCIS
to Odilo all he possessed, and a large monastery was
again founded. Urban II, after the Council of
Clermont (1095), consecrated the church of this new
monaster}'. The church collapsed in 1396, and no
remains of it e.xist. Pope Callistus II passed some
time there. In August, 1317, John XXII detached
Haute-Auvergne from the See of Clermont and
raised St-Flour to the rank of a bishopric, the first
ordinary of which was his chaplain Raymond de
Montuejols. Among his successors were: Pierre
d'Estaing (1361-67), afterwards Archbishop of
Bourges and cardinal in 1370; Louis-SiiTrein-Joseph
de Salamon (1820-29), former counscillcr-derc to
the Parliament of Paris, who during the Revolution
had socretlj' acted in France as the pope's agent, a
role concerning which he has left very important
memoirs.
The Abbey of Aurillac was celebrated: it was founded by St. Geraud, Count of Aurillac, who in 898
The Cathedral, Saint-Flolk
brought thither monks from Vabres; it .soon became well known, according to John of Salisbury, as a centre of hterary and scientific studies: Gerbert (later Sylvester II), and Guillaume d'Auvergne, friend and confidant of Saint Louis, studied there. St. Odo, Abbot of Cluny, from 926 to 943, was at first a monk at Saint-Pierre de Mauriac, and, accord- ing to some. Abbot of Aurillac. St. Peter Chavanon, founder in 1062 of the monastery of Pcbrac, in the Diocese of Le Puy, was for some time superior of the Abbey of Chazes, near Vic. The tragic poet, de Belloy (1727-95), author of the celebrated tragedy on the Siege of Calais, was bom at Saint- Flour. Louis-Antoine de Noailles (1651-1729), Arch- bishop of Paris, was born at Laroquebrou in the diocese. Abb6 Jean Chappe d'Auteroche (1722-09), astronomer, who in 1769 went to California to ob- serve the transit of Venus and died there of a con- tagious disease, was a native of Mauriac. AV>b< de Pradt (1759-1 S37) wa** bom at Allanche. The Dio- cese of Saint-Flour is remarkable among the French dioce.ses for the great number of its sanctuaries and pilgrimages dedicatffl to the Iiles.sed Virgin. TIktc are sixty-five, of which the following are the more
important: Notre-Dame de Claviers, at Moussages,
the statue of which is the most ancient in the diocese;
Notre-Dame des Miracles, at Mauriac, si.xth century;
Notre-Dame de Frodieres, at Saint-Flour, eleventh
centurj'; Notre-Dame de Laurie, at Laurie, an
eleventh-century sanctuary; Notre-Dame de Bon
Secours at Marmanhac; Notre-Dame de Quezac,
which is visited annuallj^ by between 20,000 and 30,-
000 pilgrims; Notre-Dame de Vau Claire, at
Molompise — these three dating back to the twelfth
centurj^; Notre-Dame de Valentines at S(5gur, be-
longing to the thirteenth century; Notre-Dame de
Turlande at Paulhenc, Notre-Dame de Villedieu,
both dating back to the fourteenth century; Notre-
Dame de Pitic at Chaudesaigues; Notre-Dame de
Puy Rachat, at Nieudan; Notre-Dame des Oliviers,
at Murat, all three dating back to the fifteenth cen-
tury; Notre-Dame d'Aubespeyre, at Aubespeyre;
Notre-Dame de la Font Sainte, at St. Hippolyte,
visited annually by between 10,000 and 12,000
pilgrims; Notre-Dame de Pailherols; Notre Dame
aux Neiges, at Aurillac, all four dating back to the
sixteenth century; Notre-Dame de Guerison, at En-
chanet; Notre-Dame de Lescure, both dating back
to the eighteenth century.
The "Revue catholique des eglises" published in 1905 an interesting monograph of the diocese; it shows that 50 per cent of the men go to Mass each Sunday, 25 per cent go every second Sunday, and 70 per cent fulfil their Easter duty. An interesting work is the "(Euvre des bergers", which assembles several hundred shepherds from the neighbouring regions each j^ear at Pailherols and La Font Sainte for a day's religious exercises, the only one which they can have during the five months that they pass alone in the mountains. Before the application of the law of 1901 on the associations, there were in the Diocese of Saint-Flour Lazarists and various teach- ing orders of brothers. Some congregations of nuns have their mother-houses in the diocese, in particular: the Soeurs de Saint Joseph, with their mother-hou.se at Saint-Flour; the Petites Soeurs des Malades, with their mother-house at Mauriac; the Sa?urs de I'Enfant Jesus, dites de I'instruction; and the Soeurs de la Sainte Famille. with their mother-house at Aurillac. At the close of the nineteenth century the religious congregations directed in the diocese, 1 creche, 12 refuge halls, 1 school for the deaf and dumb, 1 boys' orphanage, 6 girls' orphanages, 1 home for honest poor girls, 1 hospice for incurables, 1 asylum for the insane, 1 dispensary, 1 house of retreat, 1 house of nuns devoted to nursing the sick in their own homes, 13 hospitals or hospices. At the time of the de- struction of the concordat (1905) the Diocese of Saint- Flour contained 230,511 inhabitants, 24 parishes, 288 succursai churches, and 190 vicariates towards the support of which the State contributed.
(lallia Chrintiana, nova (1720). 419-437, and instr., 127-162; BouDET, La ligende de St. Florus d'aprh les textes lea plus anriens; additions aux nouveaux Bollandistes in Annates du Midi (LSO.")); Idem, La l6oende de St. Florus et ses fables (Clermont, 1897); Chaumeil, Biographie des personnes remarquables de la Haute-Auvergnc, pricM^e d'un essai sur I'hixtoire religieuse de cette demi-province (Saint-Flour, 1867); Froment, Esquisse historique surlemonaslire et la ville de St-Flour in Revue d' Auvergne (1885); Chabau, Pilerinages et sanrtuaires de la Sainte Vierge dans le diocise de St-Flour (Paris, 1889); Rouchy, Le diocise de St. Flour in Revue catholique des fglises (190.5).
Georges Goyau.
Saint FraJicis Mission (properly Saint Fran- cois i)K Sales, (Quebec), a noted Catholic Indian mis- sion village under Jesuit control near Pierreville, Yamaska district. Province of Quebec, Canada. It was originally established (16S3) at the falls of the Chaudirre, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, above Quebec, as a refuge for the Abnaki and Penna- cook Indians who were driven from New England by the wars of that and the subsequent colonial period: these tribes were French in sympathy and, especially
