For the spiritual side - some saints you may encounter in Paris

St Genevieve (Sainte Geneviève) (Nanterre, c. 419/422 - Paris 502/512), in Latin Sancta Genovefa, from Germanic keno (kin) and wefa (wife), is the patron saint of Paris. She was a peasant girl who became a nun, and moved to Paris after her parents death to live with her grandmother. There the young woman became admired for her piety and devotion to works of charity, which included corporal austerities, and a vegetarian diet which allowed her to sup but twice per week. "These mortifications she continued for over thirty years, till her ecclesiastical superiors thought it their duty to make her diminish her austerities," She is invoked against plague, fevers and disasters. And her life style hardly seems appropriate for Paris today!

Saint Denis (also called Dionysius, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250. After his head was chopped off on Montmartre, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way making him one of many cephalophores (head carriers) in hagiology. Denis is invoked against diabolical possession and headaches so I’ll keep him at the ready.

And when you were reading previous blog entries you may have noticed a church behind the Stravinsky Fountains. That’s the Church of Saint-Merri (Eglise Saint-Merri), located on the busy street Rue Saint Martin, on the Right Bank. The church is dedicated to the 8th-century Abbot of Autun Abbey, Medericus, who went to Paris on pilgrimage and later died there. In 884 Medericus, also known as 'Merry' was acclaimed patron saint of the right bank..   I love the name, but can’t find why one would invoke it.

St. Rita is one of my favorite saints as she is the saint of lost causes. There is a blog entry in Peter’s Paris (remember the Swede who blogs about Paris). “Just across the street (Boulevard de Clichy) from Moulin Rouge, you can find a very modest chapel, devoted to Saint Rita. The chapel is actually just the ground floor of a building where the great Moulin Rouge promoter Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have lived and worked a couple of years.
Rita is the Saint of “lost cases” and obviously also adopted by prostitutes... The modest chapel, which has just been renovated, is much frequented by representatives of the local professions – we are in what commonly is called the Pigalle area.”