St Saturnin

Today I joined the village tour which was to describe life in the village during the First World War. Actually the tour was just the normal tour of the old village with a few snippets of information about the war, particularly the distrust of the authorities and the fear of espionage being close to the Spanish border. Spain at the time was considered to be sympathetic to the Germans. I did learn a few more facts about the village and saw inside the St Saturnin church treasury. The hand with two fingers raised supposedly contains parts of the saint's arm.

Gregory of Tours describes his martyrdom: to reach the Christian church Saturninus had to pass before the capitol (still the Capitole de Toulouse), where there was an altar, and according to the Acts, the pagan priests ascribed the silence of their oracles to the frequent presence of Saturninus. One day they seized him and on his unshakeable refusal to sacrifice to the images they condemned him to be tied by the feet to a bull which dragged him about the town until the rope broke. (Tellingly, the identical fate was ascribed to his pupil Saint Fermin whose site of martyrdom is at Pamplona.)