for her piety.

After she lost her parents she went to live with her godmother,
and continued the same simple habits, leading a life of sincere
devotion and strict self-denial, constant prayer and much charity
to her poorer neighbors.

In the year 451 the whole of Gaul was in the most dreadful state
of terror at the advance of Attila, the savage chief of the Huns,
who came from the banks of the Danube with a host of savages
of hideous features, scarred and disfigured to render them more
frightful. The old enemies, the Goths and the Franks, seemed like
friends compared with these formidable beings, whose cruelties
were said to be intolerable, and of whom every exaggerated story
was told that could add to the horrors of the miserable people who
lay in their path. Tidings came that this "Scourge of God," as
Attila called himself, had passed the Rhine, destroyed Tongres and
Metz, and was in full march for Paris. The whole country was in the
utmost terror. Every one seized their most valuable possessions,
and would have fled; but Genevieve placed herself on the only bridge
across the Seine, and argued with them, assuring them, in a strain
that was afterwards thought of as prophetic, that, if they would
pray, repent, and defend instead of abandoning their homes, God
would protect them. They were at first almost ready to stone her
for thus withstanding their panic, but just then a priest arrived
from Auxerre, with a present for Genevieve from St. Germanus, and
they were thus reminded of the high estimation in which he held
her; they became ashamed of their violence, and she led them back
to pray and to arm themselves. In a few days they heard that Attila
had paused to besiege Orleans, and that Aetius, the Roman general,