“Blessed Germanus, Bishop of Paris, a native of the territory of Autun, was born of well bred and respected parents, his father Eleutherius and also his mother Eusebia. Since she had conceived him in her womb within a short space of time after another [child], his mother, moved by womanly shame, wanted to kill the infant before birth; and since she did not harm him after taking a potion to throw out an abortion, she would lie on her belly to suffocate by her weight he whom she could not harm by poison. Mother was in battle with child, but the infant was resisting from the womb; there was a fight between woman and her insides. The matron was being struck but the infant was not being harmed; the bundle was struggling so that the mother would not be come a parricide. So it happened that protected he emerged safe and sound and rendered his mother innocent. Here was a prophecy of the future, to have performed a miracle before he even reached birth.”
[Chapter 1, the “Life” of St. Germaus of Paris (+576), written by St. Venantius (+609)]
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