GENEVIEVE, a saint of the Roman Catholic church, the subject of many popular and highly poetical legends, and regarded with special veneration in France and par ticularly in Paris, of which city she is the patroness. From a nearly contemporary life of St. Genevieve, we learn that she was born in 422, in the village of Nanterre, near Paris, where, as a mere child, she attracted the notice of Germanus of Auxerre, who passed a night at Nanterre on his return from Britain in 429. Germanus is said to have marked her out as specially destined to a life of holiness and purity; and the child, partly from her natural tendency, partly, perhaps, under the influence of the counsel of so holy a bishop, devoted herself to a life of virginity and conventual seclusion. On the death of her parents, she was removed to Paris; and her active charity, and the extra ordinary reputation for sanctity which she acquired both there and in other cities of France, which she visited on missions of Christian benevolence, won for her the admir ing veneration, not alone of her own people, but even of the heathen or half-converted tribes, about this period, after a long series of struggles, had begun to amalga mate with the ancient population of the Roman province of Gaul. During the Frank invasion under Childeric, Genevieve, with her sisters in religion, set out on an expedi tion for the relief of the starving city, and successfully conveyed to Paris an abundant supply of provisions. The city, when taken, was treated with special leniency through her intercession with the king, and many captives obtained their liberty at her prayer.
On the new alarm for the safety of Paris, created by the news of the march of Attila and his army of Huns, it was proposed to abandon the city; but Genevieve, assembling the matrons and consecrated. virgins in one of the churches, exhorted them to avert, by prayer and fasting, the threatened.calamity.. The unexpected alteration of the direction of Attila's march added still more to her reputation and to her influence; and it is agreed that her personal example, and that of the sisterhood to which she belonged, appealed.. with no inconsiderable effect, to the natural sensibilities of the rude races which now found themselves, for the first time, in contact with the humanizing influences of the Christian religion. St. Genevieve enjoyed, to an extreme age, the reverence and love of the entire people. She died in 512 at the age of 89, and her memory is still affection ately described as the type of all that is purest and most elevating in the conventual life, as well as of all that is most admirable in the works of charity and benevolence, with which, in the active orders, that life is habitually associated. Under her patron age, and with her name, a religious congregation of priests was founded in the 12th c., which, with some vicissitudes, continued until the revolution. A religious congrega tion of women, under the name of " Sisters of St. Genevieve," was established in 1636, chiefly devoted to the care of the sick and the education of young females.