St Geneviève

St Geneviève (c. 422-c. 500), patron saint of Paris, born in nearby Nanterre, France. She decided on a life of religious devotion at an early age. In 451 she was in Paris and is said to have predicted the invasion of the Huns led by Attila and to have saved the city by her prayers. By tradition she is credited with the conversion to Christianity of Clovis I, king of the Franks, and, through him, his entire nation. On her death, St Geneviève was buried at Mont-les-Paris, in the Church of SS Peter and Paul, which came to be known as the Church of St Geneviève. Louis XV erected a new church in her memory in 1764; in 1793, during the French Revolution, the government changed this church into the Panthéon, where busts of famous Frenchmen are enshrined. Her traditional feast day is January 3.