Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, and that of Ado; not in the genuine one of Bede, nor in that of Usuardus; but in those of Notker and Maurolycus; and in the Gallican and Benedictine Martyrologies; and in the Scottish one of Dempster. His life was written by Jonas, monk of Bobbio, in 664.
Eustace, born of a noble family in Burgundy, had spent his youth in arms, but he renounced the world and joined S. Columbanus [Irish monk (d. 615) who founded monasteries in France and Italy] at Luxeuil, and when, through the persecution of that she-wolf, Brunehault, and her grandson, Thierry, king of Burgundy, Columbanus was driven from his monastery, and from the country, Eustace was deemed worthy to succeed him in the government of the abbey. His marvellous sweetness and tender companion to all who suffered, mentally or corporeally, endeared him to his monks; and when they confessed their faults to him, his tears mingled with theirs, and filled their hearts with consolation.
By order of Clothaire II., he travelled into Italy to recall Columbanus, and the two saints had the happiness of once more falling on each other's necks, embracing. Columbanus having refused to return, Eustace went back to the king and explained to him the reasons of the saint for declining his invitation. Eustace, therefore, remained at the head of the great abbey of Luxeuil, which attracted an increasing number of monks. However, the missionary spirit and desire to preach exercised an overwhelming influence over Eustace, as over all the disciples of the great Irish missionary. The bishops, assembled in the Council of Bonneuil-sur-Marne, by Clothaire II., nominated him to preach the faith to unconverted nations. He began with the Varasques, who inhabited the banks of the Doubs, near Baume, some of whom worshipped the wood-spirit, whilst others had fallen victims to heresy. He afterwards travelled beyond the countries which Columbanus had visited, to the extremity of northern Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium], among the Boii or Bavarians. His mission was not without success; but Luxeuil, which could not remain thus without a head, soon recalled him.
During the ten years of his rule, a worthy successor of Columbanus, he succeeded in securing the energetic support of the Frank nobility, as well as the favour of Clothaire II. Under his active and intelligent administration, the abbey founded by S. Columbanus attained its highest pitch of splendour, and was recognised as the monastic capital of all the countries under Frank government. The other monasteries, into which laxness had but too frequently found its way, yielded, one after another, to the happy influence of Luxeuil, and gradually reformed themselves by its example. This remarkable prosperity was threatened with a sudden interruption by means of the intrigues of a false brother who had stolen into the monastic family of Columbanus. A man named Agrestin, who had been secretary to king Thierry, the persecutor of S. Columbanus, came one day to give himself and his property to Luxeuil. Being admitted among the monks, he soon showed a desire to go, like Eustace, to preach the faith to the pagans. In vain the abbot, who could see no evangelical quality in him, attempted to restrain that false zeal. He was obliged to let him go. Agrestin followed the footsteps of Eustace into Bavaria, but made nothing of it, and passed from thence into Istria and Lombardy, where he embraced the schism of the Three Chapters, and endeavoured to involve therein Attalus, the second abbot of Bobbio. Failing, he returned to Luxeuil, where he tried to corrupt his former brethren. Eustace then remembered what the exiled Columbanus had written to him, in his letter from Nantes, just before his embarkation:—"If there is one among you who holds different sentiments from the others, send him away;" and he commanded Agrestin to leave the community. To avenge himself, the schismatic began to snarl, says the contemporary annalist, hawking here and there injurious imputations against the rule of S. Columbanus. Abellinus, bishop of Geneva, listened to his denunciations, and exerted himself to make the neighbouring prelates share his dislike. King Clothaire, who heard of it, and who was always full of solicitude for Luxeuil, assembled most of the bishops of the kingdom of Burgundy in the council of Macon. To this council Eustace was called, and the accuser invited to state his complaints against the rule. They were directed against certain insignificant peculiarities. "I have discovered," said he, "that Columbanus has established usuages which are not those of the whole Church." And thereupon he accused his former brethren, as with so many heresies, of making the sign of the cross upon their spoons when eating; of asking a blessing in entering or leaving any monastic building; and of multiplying prayers at Mass. He insisted especially against the Irish tonsure [shaving part of the head as a sign of entering the clergy or monastic life], which Columbanus had introduced into France, and which consisted solely in shaving the front of the head, from one ear to the other, without touching the hair of the back part, while the Greeks shaved the entire head, and the Romans only the crown.
Eustace had no difficulty in justifying the customs of Luxeuil, and in discomfiting the violence of his accuser. But as Agrestin always returned to the charge, the abbot said to him: "In presence of these bishops, I, the disciple and successor of him whose institute thou condemnest, cite thee to appear with him, within a year, at the tribunal of God, to plead thy cause against him, and to learn to know the justice of Him whose servant thou hast attempted to calumniate." The solemnity of this appeal had an effect even upon the prelates who leant to the side of Agrestin: they urged him to be reconciled to his former abbot, and the latter, who was gentleness himself, consented to give him the kiss of peace. But this goodness did not benefit Agrestin. Hopeless of succeeding at Luxeuil itself, he sowed revolt and calumny in the other monasteries which had proceeded, like Luxeuil, from the colonising genius of Columbanus, at Remiremont and Faremoutier. But shortly before the expiration of the year, he was slain with a blow of an axe by his servant, whose wife, it was reported—whether truly or not Jonas does not commit himself to decide—he had intended to dishonour. At length, in 625, Eustace was called to his rest, and was succeeded in the government of the abbey by S. Wandelbert (May 7th.)
His relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] were preserved in the abbey of Vergaville, in the diocese of Metz, but on its destruction in 1792 they were carried away and concealed by the last abbess, Madame de la Marche, in the house of M. Labrosse, curé of Surianville. They were surrendered by him, on the return of security, to Mgr. Ant. Eustache Osmond, bishop of Nancy, and they were placed in two shrines in the Benedictine [monks following the Rule of St. Benedict] priory of Flavigny-sur-Moselle, in Meurthe, in 1824.
