Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/235

Rh gentle and merciful. Many miracles are recorded of him, but all indicating a tenour of life which was chiefly miraculous by its justice and peace. Consecrated at Rheims, and attended by a train of other bishops and nobles to his diocese, he dismounts from his horse at St. Acheul, the place of St. Firmin's first tomb, and walks barefoot to his cathedral, along the causeway now so defaced: at another time he walks barefoot from Amiens to Picquigny to ask from the Vidame of Amiens the freedom of the Chatelain Adam. He maintained the privileges of the citizens, with the help of Louis le Gros, against the Count of Amiens, defeated him. and razed his castle; nevertheless, the people not enough obeying him in the order of their life, he blames his own weakness, rather than theirs, and retires to the Grande Chartreuse, holding himself unfit to be their bishop. The Carthusian superior questioning him on his reasons for retirement, and asking if he had ever sold the offices of the Church, the Bishop answered, "My father, my hands are pure of simony, but I have a thousand times allowed myself to be seduced by praise."

46. St. Firmin the Confessor was the son of the Roman senator who received St. Firmin himself. He preserved the tomb of the martyr in his father's garden, and at last built a church over it, dedicated