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	Saint-Germain, mainly through the 5th arrondissement. Seen through the eyes and the intellectual skills of Arthur Gillette: that's something. His tours are stormed but I persist by posting his best tours, with his benediction of course. He gave me full copyright and I add or withdraw sometimes some passages that I already had in my pages (before I met him). This series will be called "A medieval sampler" and will begin at the place Saint-Germain des Prés, and ends on the rue de Poissy. It's only 3.5 km long but it fills your whole afternoon. Paris is very old, even if you don't have that impression when you visit it. It started to be a little city in Roman times, and if you stand on the west main entrance of Paris oldest church (Saint Germain), you are now in 52 B.C., when the Gallic chieftain Camulogne gathered his troops to defend the settlement against Caesar's general Labienus. The Gauls lots the battle, said to be fought near the place where the Eiffel tower stands today, and from now one we speak of Gallo-Romans. Let's jump to the 6th century and observe a certain A.D.Childibert, son of France's first king, the famous Clovis. He returned from Spain and took in with his luggage a very precious relic (stolen from the Visigoths): a fragment of the tunic of St.Vincent, a native of Saragossa, martyred in 304 AD. Now you had to preserve that relic: what better than to build a rich abbey out of the city in the fertile fields of Saint-Germain (the countryside) with exquisite beams and shiny, bronze roofs. Then they burnt them to the ground. Mystery of history? No one can explain. But a century later, Saint-Germain was rebuilt but in a more military aspect (a belfry and more castle keep than church spire), recalling how fragile peace still was at the turn of the 10th to 11th century. Over the years, the abbey and the church were expanded, but not always in the spirit of Christian tolerance. When pope Alexander came to Paris in 1163, (to lay the foundation of Notre Dame and to enlarge the Saint Germain church), incensed monks would not allow the Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully (where you stand now to enter. We only owe allegiance to Rome, they argued!! To visit the church today and all that remains of the old abbey, step over the sidewalk by 16, rue de l'Abbaye. The suite of this stroll will continue in the next post. To have the complete stroll mail to Arthur. Bibliography A Medieval Sampler, stroll no.2 by Arthur Gillette Sources of culture, volume 1 abbaye of Saint-Germain(.M.Biggs TH.Dill, E.Schermacj and E.Gordon Whatley edited by Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas

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