La Légende de Saint Torpes

(from a myriad of sources…)

It’s 68AD.

Nero heads the Roman Empire, saturating it with cultural capital. Theatres and athletic games thrive. And Christians are persecuted, tortured, blamed for the great fire four years ago. Peter and Paul will soon be dead.

But before Paul loses his head, he is a prisoner of the chief of Emperor Nero’s personal guard, the regal Knight Torpes. And, as Paul tended to do, he seduced Torpes into converting to Christianity.

Torpes was hooked. During the festival of Diana in Pisa, Italy, Torpes wildly and loudly proclaimed his new faith, announcing to the world his devotion to the one God. You can imagine how his boss reacted. Nero immediately ordered him to be tortured and beheaded, cast away and made an example of. His body was placed on a boat with his dog and a rooster and launched down the River Arno.

But that was not the last of Knight Torpes.

Currents carried the boat down the river, through the Mediterranean Sea, to what is now known as the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. As this boat drifted by, God appeared in the dreams of a kind woman called Celerina, calling upon her to rescue the martyr's body. She followed his wishes, shocked at what she discovered. Neither the rooster nor the dog had touched the body, although — by any means — they should have. He had been protected by God.

The village near the landing place of the boat was named Saint-Tropez after Torpes. The rooster (coq) flew away with a branch of flax (au lin) and landed in a nearby village, later named Cogolin. And the dog walked to another adjacent village — now known as Gassin — where people called out to it, "G'chien! G'chien!"

Torpes/Tropez became the patron saint of the local seamen, and its veneration spread to Italy (especially in Genoa and Pisa) and Portugal. According to legend, the martyr’s discarded head was retrieved by fellow Christians and ensconced in the Pisan Church of St. Tropez, where it remains. Meanwhile, his body was buried at what is believed to be the current site of the Chapel of St. Tropez.