Clodoald

Saint Clodoald, known as Saint Cloud, venerable, was a Merovingian prince of the sixth century, grandson of Clovis I and son of King Chlodomer of Orléans, who renounced royalty and lived as a hermit and monk. He was born around 522 and died on 7 September 560. He is regarded as the first Frankish prince publicly venerated as a saint. He is commemorated on 7 September.

Childhood Clodoald was one of the three sons of Chlodomer, king of the Franks of Orléans, and Queen Guntheuc. His father died in 524 at the battle of Vézeronce, in the war against the Burgundians. The children were raised in Paris by their grandmother, Queen Clotilde. Salic law required that the kingdom be divided among Chlodomer's sons, but their uncles, Childebert I, king of Paris, and Clothar I, king of Soissons, coveted their brother's kingdom and resolved to kill their nephews.

According to one account, in 525 the two asked their mother Clotilde to send them the children so that they might be proclaimed successors of their father. She dressed them in their finest clothes and sent them with full trust, not knowing her sons' plans. The two uncles then ordered the children killed. Some sources say that they killed the two elder brothers, Theudebald and Gunthar, aged ten and seven, with their own hands, to the great grief of Saint Clotilde. According to another account, the uncles hesitated between cutting their hair, since long hair was a sign of nobility among the Franks, and killing them, and Clotilde is said to have replied that she would rather see them dead than shorn. Only the youngest, Clodoald, was saved by a few of the faithful. He took refuge with Bishop Remigius of Rheims and so escaped his uncles' searches.

Monastic life Clodoald renounced every claim to the throne and lived as a studious hermit, a disciple of Saint Severinus of Paris, who led a life of solitude and contemplation in a hermitage at the gates of Paris. The young prince received the monastic habit from his hands. At the age of twenty he presented himself to the bishop of Paris, surrounded by leaders of the Church and the city and members of the royal family, and the bishop cut his long hair, the sign of royalty. Childebert and Clothar, who saw no danger in him, left him in peace and even gave him some inheritances so that he might live more easily in the place of his retreat.

After Severinus's death, Clodoald withdrew secretly to Provence, where the people of the surrounding country came to him, learning that he had the gift of healing. He stayed there eleven years, then returned to his first hermitage, where he was received with joy. At the request of the people he was ordained priest in 551 by Bishop Eusebius of Paris. His humility and love of the poor were praised. Unable to bear honours for long, he withdrew to a hill on the bank of the Seine, two leagues below Paris, in a place called Novigentum (today Saint-⁠Cloud). There, among fishermen and farmers, he led a life of solitude and prayer and built a church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. When the place of his retreat was known, disciples came, cells were built and then a monastery. He died on 7 September 560 and remained the patron of the monastery and of the town of Saint-⁠Cloud, near Paris.