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Show Traces of an Irish Saint. It is curious how traces of Irish saints linger on the European continent. One that has often been remarked is the name "fiacre" borne by a French cab. Why a cab in the streets of Paris should bear the name of an Irish saint who nourished in the sixth and seventh centuries has often been asked, and various answers given. This seems to be the true reason: Saint Fiacre lived near Breuil in France, having left his own country, like so many of his fellow countrymen, through zeal for his own sanctification and that of the people who dwelt afar. He lived a life of great mortification, and when he died his remains re-mains were interred in the church which he had built near Breuil. Many miracles were wrought at his tomb, so that his fame went abroad into all the country, and numerous churches were dedicated to him in other parts of France. So persistent and abiding is his memory that people with bodily ailments ail-ments still go to his shrine at Breuil. In the later middle ages his remains were honored and venerated by high au- j thorities of the Church in France. But what of the cab, the "fiacre ?" How did that come to have his name? y Well, the story runs that in the middle of the sixteenth century there was in St. Martin Mar-tin street, Paris, a hostlery known as the Hotel de St. Fiacre; It had as its sign the image of the saint; this establishment estab-lishment was the first to let those coaches on hire. Quite naturally, they came in time to be called fiacres, and the name has survived to the present day. We would not wonder if the present pres-ent French government, In its zeal for secularisation, should decree that the fiacre must have Its name changed to suit the new France which it is - attempting at-tempting to build up a land without a God and without a saint. Sacred Heart Review. |