Once upon a time ... right at the beginning of the 4th century ... there was, on the Island of Corsica, then a Roman province, a cruel governor who persecuted Christians.
It was under these circumstances that Dévote, who had vowed her life to the service of God, was arrested, imprisoned and tortured. She died without denying her faith and her martyred corpse was placed by pious hands in a boat leaving for Africa where she would find, they believed, Christian burial.
But in the very early hours of the crossing, a storm arose. And from the mouth of Saint Dévote a dove made its appearance. The storm then abated. The dove guided the boat right up to the coast of Monaco where it ran aground at the entrance to the little valley of the Gaumates ... on a bush bearing early blossoms.
The body of Dévote was piously received by the small Christian community which lived in the neighborhood. It is on this day, the sixth of the calends of February - for us, 27th January of the year 312 of our era, that Saint Dévote took under her protection Monaco and its inhabitants.
A rustic oratory marked the place of her tomb. The faithful, residents and sailors passing through Monaco, went there in greater and greater numbers to venerate the relics of the Saint ... and the first miracles took place.
It was then that an evil idea took possession of the mind of an unscrupulous man who, in the dead of night, stole the relics of the Saint with the intention of taking them beyond the seas and selling their powers.
The intended sacrilege was cut short as Providence was watching. A group of fishermen witnessed the robbery and with a few strokes of their oars, made much more powerful by their anger, overtook the thief and his precious plunder.
Brought back on to the beach, the thief's boat was burnt as an expiatory sacrifice.
During the sieges which Monaco underwent in the sixteenth century, the Italian Wars and the Wars of Religion, the relics of the Saint were exposed on the ramparts, inspiring the defenders and spreading terror among the besiegers.
That heroic age has now passed away. However, the cult of Saint Dévote still remains strong in the Principality.
Positive proof of this can be seen by attending the ceremonies and events which take place, as soon as night falls, around and inside the Church dedicated to St. Dévote which was constructed in the reign of Prince Charles III on the site of the original oratory.
Every year on this date, there is a torchlight procession, a religious ceremony and blessing followed by the setting on fire of a boat on a pyre decorated with olive, pine and laurel branches ; a picturesque symbolic copy of the boat which the Monégasques burnt in the past to efface all trace of an unpardonable crime !
The evening finishes with a firework display given over the waters of the harbor of Monaco, facing the outlet of the little valley of the Gaumates where the long association between Dévote and the Monégasques started.
The life of Saint Dévote was superbly sung by the Monégasque poet Louis Notari (1879-1961). His poem "The Legend of Saint Dévote" was the starting-point, now more than half a century ago, of a sort of rebirth of the Monégasque tongue. This dialect, with its full-flavored intonations and its amazingly rich vocabulary, has since then been the subject of university theses both in France and elsewhere. It is included in the syllabus of the various schools of the Principality.
