Paris Memories: The Story of St Eustache.

It's been almost a month since my wife and I returned from our trip to Paris. The post-vacation letdown has abated, but not totally. Later this week, I travel to Omaha and Des Moines, which are are sure to make me forget about the City of Lights once and for all, but for now, I'm reminiscing.

First stop, St Eustache Church in Paris' Les Halles neighborhood. It's a beautiful Renaissance building, but what's even more interesting and more moving than the architecture and decoration of the church is the story of the sanctuary's namesake. As even the most casual saint aficionado knows, St Eustache (cf., "mustache") was a hirsute Roman general named Capillus who converted to Christianity when he tired of the pagans' mocking his white man's afro. When Bob Dylan stole his line about the streets of Rome being filled with rubble, that was the final straw, and Eustache packed up his comb collection and moved Paris -- Paris, France.

Eustache was an immediate hit when he arrived in that most fashionable of all world capitals. He was not embarrassed to wear a beret, and he taught Parisians how to tie their scarves just right. He drank strong coffee and charmed local women with his George Bush imitation. Soon a movement was afoot to build him a mansion, but they called it a church to take advantage of certain tax loopholes and utilize peasant labor. His popularity reached its zenith as the building was completed, and he moved in, a happy, hairy man.

But trouble wasn't far behind. One misty night, invaders slipped past the city ramparts, and the now-infamous Brazilian sack of Paris was on. On their way through the city, the Brazilians gorged themselves on cheese and bread, which were readily available since it was 9:30 p.m. and the locals hadn't gone to dinner yet. When they arrived at Eustache's home, he was caught by surprise as he gazed deeply into Carla Bruni's dark eyes. He never stood a chance; his attackers used the wax from the thousands of candles they carried to denude his once virile body. Then, even though Eustache was now as hairless and as smooth as a newborn baby, the Brazilians added insult to injury -- they decapitated him. Now, a visitor to St Eustache Church can climb all over a gargantuan stone likeness of his cranium or leave a loving note on his middle finger.

Of course, that's the part of the story of St Eustache that everyone knows. What's far less known, however, is what led to his canonization. Why was he made a saint, you may ask, when the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Tom Brokaw haven't even been beatified? Here's why: first, he turned peanut butter into Nutella; second, and even more significantly, he convinced Europeans that Nutella is edible. Miracles are the surest way to sainthood.

It's knowing this kind of background that makes the world's great monuments all that much more meaningful.