Saint Drogo

He therefore abandoned his relatives and his country, renounced all his possessions, and, dressed in a very simple garment over his hair shirt, he went forth, like Abraham, to where God would call him. After various pilgrimages, led by the spirit of God, he stopped in the village of Sebourg, in Hainaut, two leagues from Valenciennes, and about thirteen leagues from Epinoy, his homeland, and hired himself out as a shepherd to a pious lady named Élisabeth Haire. This state was very agreeable to him. As a servant, he could easily practice humility, obedience, and mortification; as a solitary, he lived in prayer and recollection, and the beauties of nature invited and helped him to praise God. One thing only was missing for him in the fields: the Holy Eucharist. But he obtained that an angel would watch over his flock while he attended the holy sacrifice of the Mass from time to time. This is a local tradition, which has even become a proverb, for it is often said when two equally pressing occupations arise: "I cannot be like Saint Druon, in two places at saint Druon Recluse and patron saint of shepherds in the 12th century. the same time." His mistress was very pleased with this good servant, and his virtues made him loved in the village of Sebourg. The inhabitants urged him to take charge of their flocks as well.

He accepted this employment and fulfilled it to the great satisfaction of everyone and to the advantage of the poor, to whom he distributed all the fruits of his services.

After having thus spent six years in the humble condition of a shepherd, Druon, aspiring to a more penitent life, left Sebourg, despite the solicitations of his mistress and almost all the inhabitants, and then undertook long pilgrimages of devotion, to mortify his body with hunger and thirst, with heat and cold, with the fatigues and perils of the roads. He made the journey to Rome nine times, and visi Rome Birthplace of Maximian. ted many other sanctuaries. He would come, at intervals, to Sebourg, to find his former mistress, who received him as a son. When his infirmities no longer allowed him to live as a pilgrim, he resolved to live as a solitary. He therefore had a small cell built against the church, and shut himself in it, never to leave it for the rest of his days. As he could hear the divine offices from there, he attended them with angelic devotion. His food was only a little barley bread, his drink, pure water. If he was given anything, he distributed it to the poor, content with the sole possession of God.

The fire having caught the church, and then his hut, he remained in the midst of the flames without receiving the slightest harm; God renewing in his favor the wonder of the three children in the furnace of Babylon. The holy recluse rendered his soul to God on April 16, 1189, at about the seventy-first year of his age, having withdrawn from his father's house at the age of sixteen, having tended the flocks for six years, spent nine years in his pilgrimages, and forty in his cell.

The parents of Saint Druon, having learned of his death, requested his body from the inhabitants of Sebourg; but it was impossible for them to transport it out of the village; when the cart upon which they had placed him reached the limits of the territory of Sebourg, it became immobile and the body so heavy that they were obliged to carry it back to the church and bury it in the sepulcher that had been prepared for him. This tomb (which one can still see today) was built in the middle of the nave: the holy baptismal fonts were placed upon it. Quant to the place where the cart stopped, it is a small hill that is still called today, in memory of thi s miracle, the Mont-J Mont-Joie-Saint-Druon Locality commemorating the miracle of the saint's body remaining immobile. oie-Saint-Druon.

At the beginning of the 13th century, it was necessary, for fear of desecration, to transport the relics of Saint Druon to Bin che; b Binche City where the relics were temporarily transferred in the 13th century. ut as they performed no miracles there for a period of nine years, they were brought back to Sebourg on June 14, 1227. The gathering of people was immense at this translation; so much so that the wheat, which was already tall, was trampled underfoot; the harvests were thought to be lost, but the next day they were seen standing upright and magnificent. In memory of this translation and this miracle, even today, on Trinity Sunday, the relics of the Saint are carried solemnly in procession. One can see in the second volume of April, in the Bolla ndists, how Hollandistes A society of Jesuit scholars who publish the Acta Sanctorum. many miraculous healings, especially for ruptures, internal descents, the cruel disease of the stone, and deaf-mutism, have been obtained through the intercession of Saint Druon. He had himself suffered from a very serious hernia which forced him precisely to renounce his pilgrimages.

Even today, in Epinoy, at a dis tance Epinoy Birth village of the saint in Artois. of about fifty meters from the rectory, in the fields, one can see the well of Saint Druon. This well is the object of such veneration that water is drawn from it only once a year on the day of the Saint's feast and procession. The church dedicated to him in Epinoy is built on the very site of his paternal home.

In Sebourg, the memories of the pi Sebourg Principal place of the saint's life, reclusion, and cult. ous recluse have also been preciously preserved: In addition to a Fountain of Saint Druon, towards which, according to an ancient tradition, the holy shepherd led his flock every day; in addition to the path that bears the name of Chemin de Saint-Druon, one can still see a stone cross, surrounded by a few trees, at the edge of this parish. It is located at the spot where the parents of Saint Druon, having come from Epinoy, as has been said, to take his body away, set it down and returned it to the inhabitants of Sebourg. Furthermore, in the village church, one can see his stone and wood tomb, above which is placed the reliquary that contains his relics. Finally, in a recess of this church, one discovers the Hut of Saint Druon, which recalls the small cell in which the recluse lived for forty-two years. It contains a kind of stone bed, upon which lies a statue, also of stone, representing the Saint. Its windows are red, and recall the fire that consumed it entirely without causing the slightest harm to the man of God. It is there that pilgrims come in crowds to pay their respects to the holy shepherd, to pray to him to keep plagues and diseases away from their families and their flocks. Their number is especially considerable on the day of his feast and on Trinity Sunday. Among these pilgrims who arrive from the most distant lands, one can always distinguish the delegation of the inhabitants of Epinoy, who never fail to come each year, on the very eve of the feast, to honor and invoke their holy compatriot. Saved from the profanations of 1793, his precious remains rest above the t omb of which we have profanations de 1793 Period during which the tombs were still visible. spoken. The church of Mont-Saint-Quentin possesses a tooth of the Saint.

To supplement Father Giry, whose account w e have re Père Giry French hagiographer, author of the version of the narrative presented. written, we have made use of, among other books, an abridgment of the life of Saint Druon by Mr. Sauvet, parish priest of Sebourg, and the Saints of Arras by Abbé Doutembus.