Sainte, in Latin Genovefa, the patron saint of Paris, was born at Nanterre about the year A.D. 424. She early took the veil, and distinguished herself by her active benevolence, as much as by the austere sanctity of her personal character. Twice she saved Paris, first from Attila, who with his Huns was marching to sack the town. Ste Geneviève offered up the most earnest prayers for the safety of the city, and, according to the old tradition, a thick cloud ascended, rendering it utterly invisible to its barbaric foes, who immediately marched off in the opposite direction. At another time, when Paris, after a long siege, was on the point of yielding under the horrors of famine, Ste Geneviève ascended the river to Troyes, whence she brought back eleven boats filled with provisions, and thus inspired her countrymen to hold out till the enemy withdrew. Neither the date nor details of this second siege of Paris are known. Ste Geneviève died in 512 at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, which, in the ninth century, came to be called by her name. This church stood till 1807, and its tower is still to be seen close to the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter of Paris.