Professor Letenneur, of the Medical School of Nantes, in his "Causerie à propos de la Circoncision," mentions that the Convent of Saint Corneille, in Compiègne, claims to possess the identical instrument with which the Holy Circumcision was performed. Such a holy relic must have been unusually potential in performing many miracles.
In this connection it will not be amiss to notice the lapping over that the old phallic worship and idea has made on the new religions. It is also as interesting to observe how the human mind still leans toward observances and ideas which are believed to belong to a solely pagan people. Hargrave Jennings, in a chapter devoted to phallic worship among the ancient Gauls, gives many interesting and curious examples, the first example that he notices being that of Saint Foutin (from whom the very expressive French word "_foutre_" is taken). Foutin was the first Christian bishop of Lyons, and after his death, so intimately was priapic worship intermingled with the religion or theology of the Gauls, that somehow the memory of St. Foutin and the old, dethroned Priapus became commingled, and finally the former was unconsciously made to take the place of the latter. St. Foutin was immensely popular. He was believed to have a wonderful influence in restoring fertility to barren women and vigor and virility to impotent men. It is related that, in the church at Varages, in Provence, to such a degree of reputation had the shrine of this saint risen, it was customary for the afflicted to make a wax image of their impotent and flaccid organ, which was deposited on the shrine. On windy days the beadle and sexton were kept busy in picking up these imitations of decrepit and penitent male members from the floor, whither the wind wafted them, much to the annoyance and disturbance of the female portions of the congregation, whose devotions are said to have been sadly interfered with. At a church in Embrun there was a large phallus, which was said to be a relic of St. Foutin. The worshippers were in the habit of offering wine to this deity,--after the manner of the early Pagans,--the wine being poured over the head of the organ and caught underneath in a sacred vessel. This was then called "holy vinegar," and was believed to be an efficacious remedy in cases of sterility, impotence, or want of virility.