Sainte Genevieve

“I know it, I see it. The Huns will not come.”

~ Sainte Genevieve (422-512)

Lifelong miracle worker, consecrated virgin, and Gallic trust fund baby, Genevieve saved Parisians from the Huns, the legend goes, in 451. Parisians had started to flee Paris ahead of the anticipated invasion led by Attila–but stopped when Genevieve told them she had a vision that the Huns would not enter Paris. “Get down on your knees and pray! I know it, I see it. The Huns will not come.“ She became the city’s patron saint. In 1928, a grateful Paris erected a statue to her on the Pont de la Tournelle (now about 420 years old). Sainte Genevieve is facing east, the direction from which the Huns approached. She is also said to have converted Clovis, king of the pagan Franks, to Christianity. If you walk from the Right Bank to the Left Bank near the Ile Saint Louis, you walk right under her, with Notre Dame on your right.