St. Clotilde

St. Clotilde was born around 474, a Burgundian princess raised in the Catholic faith, and died on 3 June 545 at Tours in Gaul (modern France). She was given in marriage to Clovis I, the powerful pagan king of the Franks. A devoted wife and queen, she never ceased to pray for her husband's conversion and to commend to him the Christian God, though for years he resisted.

According to tradition, in the midst of a desperate battle Clovis called upon the God of Clotilde and, granted victory, resolved to be baptized; St. Remigius received him and thousands of his Franks into the Church. This conversion, owed in large part to Clotilde's patient faith, made the Frankish kingdom Catholic and shaped the destiny of France. In her long widowhood she gave herself to prayer, charity, and the founding of churches and monasteries, bearing family sorrows with faith. She is venerated as a saint and a mother of Christian France.