The French S. Swithin shares with his brethren on the opposite bank of the Seine, les frÈres Gervais et Protais, a predilection for drenching us on and after his fÊte day; so that, what with S. MÉdard's 8th of June, S. Gervais' and S. Protais' 19th June, and S. Swithin's 15th July, we who live upon our respective sides of the ditch may reckon upon a good three weeks of wet, over and above the forty days, if unhappily it rains upon the earlier of those unlucky festivals.

But if S. MÉdard was vindictive in his ways, he compensated us for his downpours by inventing that handy instrument without which life would be unbearable. The French say that an Englishman goes to bed in his hat, clutching his umbrella, which is a polite way of reproving him for his peculiar and insular practices; but how could he live without his umbrella? and kind MÉdard, foreseeing the state of dampness to which our northern atmosphere was leading us, turned to account an accident which befel him. In was in this wise. On a certain hot day in a certain hot summer, MÉdard and his friends went a picnicing, when suddenly a storm disturbed their innocent junketings. All were thoroughly soaked through from head to foot, with the exception of the host, who suddenly found himself protected from the rain by the outspread wings of an eagle which hovered over his head. This was the birth of the umbrella, which, as everyone knows, is of French, and not of oriental origin. In Belgium the rainy Saint is one GodeliÈve; in Germany the character is undertaken by the Seven Sleepers, showing the wisdom of the Teuton in slumbering through his miseries. Amongst the flowers, the moneywort is dedicated to S. MÉdard.

At the commencement of the last century, Jansenist pilgrimages and divers miracles took place at the little church, curing those suffering from convulsions; young girls had fits which gave them "comical twitchings of the nerves. Some would bark all night, and others leaped about like frogs. Sister Rose sipped the air with a spoon, as your babies do pap, and lived on it forty days; another swallowed a New Testament, bound in calf. Some had themselves hung, others crucified, and one, called Sister Rachel, when nailed to a cross, said she was quite happy. In their holy meetings, they beat, trampled, punctured, crucified, and burnt one another without the least sentiment of pain." All this was done under Louis XV., and attested by thousands of witnesses, until at last the archbishop, by means of a strong military guard, put an end to the folly. Thereupon some wag wrote upon a wall:

Large packages of the earth were exported to work miracles in the provinces and in foreign countries. One of these marvellous cures is related, scoffingly, in a song of the Duchesse de Maine:

The church of S. MÉdard is in the Rue Mouffetard, and originally the ground belonged to the abbey of S. GeneviÈve. At first the monks only erected a small chapel, which they placed under the protection of the great Bishop of Noyon, who was the friend and chancellor of the early MÉrovingian Kings. In the 12th century the chapel is designated as a church in the bulls of the popes, and up to the Revolution it was served by the regular canons of the abbey.

The church is of no importance, dating only from the 15th century. The pillars are without capitals; but, as in many of the other churches, the keystones and bosses are elaborately carved. Some of them represent the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and other Scriptural subjects, besides monsters, griffins, and garlands of foliage. In one of the chapels a little glass of the 16th century remains; and a retable, upon which a Notre-Dame de PitiÉ is painted, is also worthy of note.

In 1784 an architect named Petit-Radel conceived the idea of transforming S. MÉdard into a modern temple of Jupiter, with not much success. Doric and Corinthian columns, palms and personages, adorn the sanctuary and the chevet. Better are the fragments of old glass which are interspersed with the new in some of the windows; a S. Fiacre, patron of cabs and coaches, a Holy Family, S. Michael, a Calvary, and many Angels; but they are the merest scraps of former grandeur. The chapel of the Virgin was built by the "artist" who mutilated and distorted the choir, and is in the same grandiose style. The academician, Olivier Patru, and Pierre Nicole, the theologian, were buried at S. MÉdard.