Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Authority The purely fabulous Acts.] The legend of S. Nicasius — it is nothing more — relates that he was an Athenian, converted by S. Paul, and that he came to Gaul with S. Dionysius the Areopagite. This is all nonsense: the invention of those who wished to establish an apostolic origin for the Church of Gaul. According to the same authority he received his mission from Pope Clement I. He accompanied S. Denys to Paris, and there left him, that he might push further north along the banks of the Seine. At Vaux, the saint, who was accompanied by Quirinus and Scubiculus, found the country ravaged by a dragon. Quirinus put the stole of S. Nicasius round him, and rendered him harmless. At Roche-Guyon the apostles converted the lady Pientia, who inhabited the castle; and having opened the eyes of a blind priest of idols, called Claims, baptized him also.

Nicasius pushed on to Rouen, and made that the headOct. quarters of his mission. He built a church there, and S. Denys came from Paris to consecrate it. The procurator Fescennius Sisinnius had Nicasius and his companions arrested and executed at Ecos, between La Roche-Guyon and Les Andelys, near the river Epte. The bodies lay very still till the executioners had departed, and night had fallen, when they cautiously got up, looked about with the stumps of their necks, and seeing the coast clear, picked up their heads, and stole off with them under their arms to the river side. They waded across to an islet, now called Gasny, where they thought they could be comfortable, and then put down their heads, and lay their bodies at length upon the grass. Lady Pientia, who had been looking on with not unreasonable surprise, followed, buried the saints, and built a chapel over them. The father of Pientia by this means became aware that his daughter was a Christian. He therefore cut off her head, and with it also that of the old priest Claims. They were buried beside S. Nicasius. There probably never was a S. Nicasius, bishop of Rouen; but the reminiscence of early veneration for Nicasius, bishop of Rheims, and martyr under the Vandals in the 5th century, became transformed in course of time into the belief that Nicasius had suffered in the diocese of Rouen, and was the first bishop of that see. Some of the lists of the bishops of Rouen even include this Nicasius, and reckon him as eleventh bishop.

Relics at Meulan, in the church of S. Nicolas, portions at Evreux, others at Ecos. [Oct. ii.