Really, until preparing today’s blog, I had not thought about the murderous intrigues of kings and queens and power-hungry potentates (or wanna-be ones) in terms of the effects upon the children in these situations. Certainly, I was struck, as were so many, by the tragic twists and turns in life and sadness in death of Princess Diana and the impact upon her two sons. But that was not a situation anything like the one faced by St. Cloud. Cloud (yes, “Cloud” was this person’s name) has driven home for me that, stripped of political machinations and greed, violence inside any family (rich or poor, ruling or peasant) affects everyone–especially children.

Cloud lived in 6th century France, and he and his two older brothers were raised by their grandmother, following the death of their father Chlodomir, then King or Orleans. Well King Chlodomir had two brothers who did not want the kingdom to pass to any of Cholodmir’s sons–so they “stabbed with their own hands the two elder of their nephews, Theobald and Gunthaire (Cloud’s older brothers), the former being ten, the latter seven years old. Cloud, by a special providence, was saved from the massacre . . . .” The two uncles then proceeded to divvy up the kingdom of Orleans between them.

Stepping away from issues of primogeniture and the fate of the kingdom of Orleans, and any echoes of Richard III (who similarly arranged the death of two of his nephews), what remains is that Cloud’s own uncles murdered his two brothers. This is huge. I’ve no idea in the world how Cloud’s grandmother–who raised him and had also raised two sons who killed two of the other grandsons she raised–reacted. I simply cannot (bear to) imagine.

What we do know is how Cloud reacted, Cloud who was under seven years old–he became a cutter.

Butler relates that immediately after his uncles murdered his brothers, Cloud “cut off his hair with his own hands” and fled to a monastery (perhaps with his grandmother’s help?), where found an anonymity and a total separation from money and power and intrigue and … his family.

Before this seems so utterly impossible a decision for someone so young, I would share that I personally know someone well, who vividly remembers being in his room at age 3, covering his ears with his hands and swearing that he would never-never-never-never-never marry EVER–because of how much yelling at each other his parents engaged in on an almost nightly basis. AT AGE 3.

Cloud’s subsequent life is described by Butler in this way:

By this means he enjoyed in a little cell a peace which was never interrupted by scenes of ambition or vanity, and he tasted in the service of God too solid a joy to think of exchanging it for the racking honours or bitter pleasures of a false world, or of converting the tranquillity and real delight which he possessed into the dangers, confusion, and perplexity of a (royal) court.

This remained true even when, discovered some time later, Cloud was offered troops and funds to reclaim Orleans as the putatively rightful heir.

It took 27 years for Cloud to emerge from seclusion, at which point he went to Paris in a pastoral role. And along the way, Cloud racked up all the good works and miracles that resulted in eventual sanctification. But let’s be clear about this path–27 years of his life spent in a little cell, shut off from the world. His agoraphobia-cum-devotion to God–an omnipotent, all-loving, incapable-of-dying Father–is as tragic as it is admirable. Many have sought out the Church and the life of a religious as a means of insulating themselves from tremendous wounds inflicted in their lives. And perhaps that alone justifies the Church’s existence. For Cloud, it certainly did.