St. Bonitus, Bishop of Auvergne, Confessor


[Commonly, in Auvergne, Bonet; at Paris, Bont.] ST. BONET was referendary or chancellor to Sigebert III. the holy king of Austrasia; and by his zeal, religion, and justice, flourished in that kingdom under four kings. After the death of Dagobert II. Thierry III. made him governor of Marseilles and all Provence, in 680. His elder brother St. Avitus II. bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, having recommended him for his successor, died in 689, and Bonet was consecrated. But after having governed that see ten years, with the most exemplary piety, he had a scruple whether his election had been perfectly canonical; and having consulted St. Tilo, or Theau, then leading an eremitical life at Solignas, resigned his dignity, led for four years a most penitential life in the abbey of Manlieu, now of the order of St. Bennet, and after having made a pilgrimage to Rome, died of the gout at Lyons on the fifteenth of January in 710, being eighty-six years old. His relics were enshrined in the cathedral at Clermont; but some small portions are kept at Paris in the churches of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and St. Bont. near that of St. Merry. See his life wrote by a monk of Sommon in Auvergne, in the same century, published by Bollandus; also le Cointe, an. 699. Gallia Christiana Nova, &c.	1