At about
twenty miles from Tours the railway between that city and Angers stops
at the station of St. Patrice; the commune is also named after the
Saint, and, as we shall see, there is historical evidence that it has
been thus designated for at least nine hundred years."
"The first witness whose evidence we shall take on the subject of the
Saint's arrival at St. Patrice is one which many believe to have
survived since his time, but on this point the reader must form his own
opinion. Above the station, on the side of the hill which rises from
the banks of the Loire, we find the famous tree which bears 'the
flowers of St. Patrice.' For ages past it has been an object of
religious veneration with the people of Touraine, and now in our time
it is particularly interesting to find that this devotion was shared by
that eminent servant of God, Leon Dupont, the Thaumaturgus of Tours.
Monsignor C. Chevalier, President of the Archaeological Society, has
published a very full account of the tree and of the traditions
connected with it, the subtance of which we subjoin, together with the
result of personal investigations made on the spot in August, 1881. At
this season the tree was covered with foliage so luxuriant, from the
ground upwards, that it was impossible to distinguish the stem, and in
every respect it presented the appearance of a tree in its prime,
without a sign of decay.
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