Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman, Gallican, and Benedictine Martyrologies. Translation of relics at Chelles on May 26, at Jouarre on June 27. Authority A Life by a nearly contemporary author, given by Mabillon, iii. p. 1 7.] Bertilla was the daughter of noble parents at Soissons. At the exhortation of S. Ouen she resolved to devote herself body and soul to God. She communicated her intention to her parents: they raised no objection, and placed her in the monastery of Jouarre, near Meaux, founded 630, by Ado, elder brother of S. Ouen, and confided her to the care of the abbess Theudehild. She became very useful to the superior and relieved her of much of her work. The story is told that one day she spoke angrily to one of the sisters. Not long after the sister fell down in a fit and died. Bertilla did not know of this, but she heard the bell tolling and the solemn chanting for the dead, and asked what it meant. When it was told her that the nun to whom she had spoken so angrily was about to be buried, she rushed into the choir, and laying her hand on the dead woman's bosom, said, “ Do not depart till you have forgiven me my intemperate expressions! " The deceased opened her eyes and replied, “Why do you call me back from glory? I bear you no ill-will, but forgive you heartily; now suffer me to return.” She closed her eyes and became stiff and dead again.

Queen Bathild founded the abbey of Chelles in 680, and, at the recommendation of the abbess Theudehild, placed Bertilla over it. Under her fostering care Chelles became a celebrated nursery for saints. It was, like Jouarre, a double monastery of men as well as women. The fame of the great qualities of Bertilla attracted a crowd of nuns from England..S’. Gerald.

Ereswitha, Queen of the East Angles, placed herself under her rule, and after that Clothair had attained his majority, S. Bathild herself retired from the government of the kingdom to the seclusion of the monastary of Chelles. After having ruled the abbey forty-six years, S. Bertilla was attacked by a fever and died.

The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of S. Bertilla are preserved at Saint Andrd, near where the abbey of Chelles once stood.