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A saint's journey · PARIS, September 28, 1660 AD

St. Vincent de Paul's bones were hidden in a man's house

Thousands of the poor of Paris walked last behind Saint Vincent de Paul's coffin, and in the French Revolution his bones were taken out of their silver-and-gold coffin and hidden.

Edition of · 3 min read

Saint Vincent de Paul
In a bare stone church, a crowd seen from behind watches priests in black and white surplices stand around a coffin under a black pall beside an open grave in the floor, as a row of women in grey habits and small white caps kneels at the chancel step.
The church of Saint-Lazare in Paris on September 28, 1660 AD, the day St. Vincent de Paul was buried there.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon François de Tours, circa 1660, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

PARIS, September 28, 1660 AD — Saint Vincent de Paul was buried on the afternoon of September 28, 1660 AD. His grave was in the church of Saint-Lazare, an old leper house outside the walls of Paris. He had died the day before, at about four in the morning. He was sitting in an armchair, and he was nearly eighty-five.

Since then his body had lain first in the house and then in the church. Six clergymen said the Church’s prayers for the dead beside it, day and night. His priests and the Sisters cried around him. The poor of Paris pushed past one another to kiss his hands and feet.

St. Vincent had lived at Saint-Lazare for twenty-eight years. It had been built as a hospital for lepers. But by the time it was offered to him, there were no lepers left, and only eight men lived there.

The man in charge of Saint-Lazare offered St. Vincent the whole place. St. Vincent said no for more than a year. St. Vincent told him: “It is true, sir, your proposal frightens me; it is so far beyond us, that I dare not think of it. We are poor priests, who live in a simple way, with no other object before us but the service of poor country-people.” In the end he moved in, on January 8, 1632 AD.

St. Vincent had started a company of priests, the Congregation of the Mission. The next year, 1633 AD, he and Saint Louise de Marillac started the Sisters of Charity.

The poor came last

On the day of the burial, St. Vincent’s priests walked first. They were led by the priest who would take St. Vincent’s place at their head. The Sisters of Charity came next. Then came princes, among them the King’s cousin, the Prince of Conti. After them walked the bishops, the judges and the ladies of Paris. Last of all came the poor of Paris, in their thousands.

His body, shut in a coffin made of lead, was laid in the church. His priests marked the place with a stone carved with words in Latin.

A coffin of silver and gold, then a wooden box

St. Vincent was declared a saint in 1737 AD. After that, what was left of his body was moved into a coffin of silver and gold. It was set above the main altar of the chapel of Saint-Lazare.

In the summer of 1789 AD, Saint-Lazare was still feeding two hundred poor people every day. Word went round Paris that its storerooms were full of grain. At two o’clock one July morning, a mob of about two hundred people broke open the doors.

In the break-in, the straw mattress St. Vincent died on, the candlestick from his room and his walking-stick were lost. But the mob left the chapel alone, and nobody touched the coffin above the altar.

In August 1792 AD, during the Revolution, government agents came to the chapel. They came for every object of gold and silver in it. St. Vincent’s coffin of silver and gold was one of them. The priests asked permission to take his skeleton out of it. They were allowed to, and they put the bones in a wooden case.

Then Monsieur Clairet, who worked for Saint-Lazare, took St. Vincent’s bones and hid them in his own house. In 1795 AD, Monsieur Clairet gave them back to the priests.

On the afternoon of April 25, 1830 AD, a huge procession carried St. Vincent’s bones through the streets of Paris. It took them to his priests’ new chapel. They lie there in a silver case above the main altar. His face and hands are covered with wax.

About this story

Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.

The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.

Junior Report. Written for readers ten to twelve, from the same sources and under the same rules as the rest of the paper. The words are shorter, hard terms are explained, and the question at the end is for the reader to think over.

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Image. AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon François de Tours, circa 1660, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris) — see the original.

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Sources for this story

Listed by paragraph.

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    • attested Mgr Émile Bougaud, trans. Joseph Brady C.M., History of St. Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Sisters of Charity, Volume 2, HIS DEATH, p. 168
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    • attested Mgr Émile Bougaud, trans. Joseph Brady C.M., History of St. Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Sisters of Charity, Volume 2, THE RELICS OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL AND THEIR, p. 215 ¶18
    • attested FAMVIN Vincentian Encyclopedia, Vincentian Paris

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