The Life of Saint Martin · Chapter XVIII
The false rumour of the barbarian invasion, the kiss for the leper in Paris and the threads of the tunic
On another occasion, the rumour suddenly spread through the city that the barbarian peoples were on the move to attack, throwing the whole population into panic. Martin then had a possessed man summoned to the church and ordered the spirit to tell the whole truth about that news. It ended up confessing that ten demons together had set that rumour going through the streets, in the hope that the fright would make Martin flee the city; as for the barbarians, attacking had not even crossed their minds. After this confession, made aloud in the middle of the church, the whole city breathed a sigh of relief and recovered its calm.
In Paris, meanwhile, as Martin was passing through one of the gates in the city wall surrounded by an enormous crowd, a leper appeared with his face completely disfigured by the disease. While everyone drew back full of revulsion, Martin went straight up to him, kissed him on the face and blessed him. The man was cured that instant and, the very next day, appeared in church with his skin clean and healthy, thanking God for the health he had recovered.
Nor can I fail to mention that even mere threads pulled from his clothing or from his camel-hair tunic cured sick people on countless occasions: it was enough to tie them round the fingers or wear them round the neck to drive illness away from those who were suffering.
This chapter brings together two very expressive episodes:
1. A war of rumours on the Roman frontier: In the Gaul of the late fourth century, with no rapid communications, it took only talk that Germanic tribes had crossed the Rhine for a whole city to take flight. Martin uses an interrogation in the middle of the church to unmask the false rumour and calm the whole population!
2. “Apud Parisios” — The birth of the name of Paris: Notice the Latin expression Sulpicius uses to set the scene: apud Parisios (“in the land of the Parisii”). We are at the very historical moment when the old Roman name of Lutetia is falling out of use to give way to the name of the local Gallic tribe — Paris! The gate in the wall where Martin kissed the leper stood at the entrance to the Île de la Cité, very close to where the Cathedral of Notre-Dame rises today. In a society where leprosy struck terror and lepers were driven off with stones, the sight of a bishop embracing a disfigured man and kissing him on the cheek was engraved for ever in the memory of the city.