Thus in cases of dire
necessity it was customary to solicit the favour of the saints by
presenting prayers and offerings. Then also did the citizens of
Orleans remember Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan, the patrons of their
town. In very ancient days Saint Euverte had sat upon that episcopal
seat, now, in 1428, occupied by a Scot. Messire Jean de Saint Michel,
and Saint Euverte had shone with all the glory of apostolic
virtue.[499] His successor, Saint-Aignan had prayed to God. He had
regarded the city in a peril like unto that of which it was now in
danger.

[Footnote 499: _Journal du siege_, p. 51. _Chronique de la fete_ in
the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 296. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, pp. 27-31.]

The following is his story as it was known to the people of Orleans.
When still young, Saint-Aignan had withdrawn to a solitary place near
Orleans. There Saint Euverte, at that time bishop of the city,
discovered him. He ordained him priest, appointed him Abbot of
Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, and elected him to succeed him in the
government of the faithful. And when Saint Euverte had passed from
this life to the other, the blessed Aignan, with the consent of the
people of Orleans, was proclaimed bishop by the voice of a little
child. For God, who is praised out of the mouths of babes, permitted
one of them, borne in his swaddling clothes to the altar, to speak and
say: "Aignan, Aignan is chosen of God to be bishop of this town." Now
in the sixtieth year of his pontificate, the Huns invaded Gaul, led by
their King Attila, who boasted that wherever he went the stars fell
and the earth trembled beneath him, that he was the hammer of the
world, _stellas pre se cadere, terram tremere, se malleum esse
universi orbis_. Every town on his march had been destroyed by him,
and now he was advancing against Orleans. Then the blessed Aignan went
forth into the city of Arles, to the Patrician Aetius, who commanded
the Roman army, and implored his aid in so great a peril. Having
obtained of the Patrician promise of succour, Aignan returned to his
episcopal see, which he found surrounded by barbarian warriors. The
Huns, having made breaches in the walls, were preparing an assault.
The blessed saint went up on to the ramparts, knelt and prayed, and
then, having prayed, spat upon the enemy. By God's will that drop of
his saliva was followed by all the raindrops in the sky. A tempest
arose: the rain fell in such torrents on the barbarians that thei