ROCHAMBEAU
101
ROCHESTER
Rome. Everywhere the terrible scourge disappeared
before his miraculous power. He visited Mantua,
Modena, Parma, and other cities with the same
results. At Piacenza, he himself was stricken with
the plague. He withdrew to a hut in the neighbour-
ing forest, where his wants were supplied by a gentle-
man named Gothard, who by a miracle learned the
place of his retreat. After his recovery Roch returned
to France. Arriving at Montpellier and refusing to
disclose his identity, he was taken for a spy in the
disguise of a pilgrim, and cast into prison by order of
the governor,— his owTi uncle, some writers say, —where
five years later he died. The miraculous cross on his
breast as well as a document found in his possession
now served for his identification. He was accordingly
given a public funeral, and numerous miracles at-
tested his sanctity.
In 1414, during the Council of Constance, the plague having broken out in that city, the Fathers of the Council ordered public prayers and processions in honour of the saint, and immediately the plague ceased. His relics, according to Wadding, were carried furtively to Venice in 1485, where they are still venerated. It is commonly held that he belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis; but it cannot be proved. Wadding leaves it an open question. Urban VIII approved the ecclesiastical office to be recited on his feast (16 August). Paul III instituted a con- fraternity, under the invocation of the saint, to have charge of the church and hospital erected during the pontificate of Alexander VI. The confraternity increased so rapidly that Paul IV raised it to an arch- confraternity, with powers to aggregate similar con- fraternities of St. Roch. It was given a cardinal- protector, and a prelate of high rank was to be its immediate superior (see Reg. et Const. Societatis S. Rochi). Various favours have been bestowed on it by Pius IV (C. Regimini, 7 March, 1561), bv Gregorj- XIII (C. dated 5 Januar>% 1577), by Gregory XIV (C. Paternar. pont., 7 i\iarch, 1591), and by other pontiffs. It still flourishes.
Wadding, Annates Min. (Rome, 1731), VII, 70; IX, 251; Acta SS. (Venice, 1752), 16 August; Gallia Christiana, VI ad an. 1328: AsDR±, Hist, de S. Roch (Carpentras, 1854); Ch.^vanne, S. Roch. Hist, compute, etc. (Lyons, 1876); CoFKiNifcnES, S. Roch, etudes histor. sur Montpellier au XIV' siecle (Montpellier, 1855); Bevion.vni, Vita del Taumaturgo S. Rocco (Rome, 1878); Vita del gloriosa S. Rocco, figlio di Giovanni principe di Agntopoli, ora delta Montpellieri, con la storica relazione del suo corpo (Venice, 1751); Butler, Lives of the Saints, 16 August; Leon, Lives of the Saints of the Three Orders of S. Francis (Taunton, England, 1886); Piazza, Opere pie di Roma (Rome, 1679).
Gregory Cleary.
Rochambeau, Jean - Baptiste - Donatien de ViMEUH, Coi.NT DE, marshal, b. at Vendome, France, 1 July, 1725; d. at Thorc, 10 May, 1807. At the age of sixteen he entered the army and in 1745 be- came an aid to Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, sub- sequently commanding a regiment. He served with distinction in several important battles, notably those of Minorca, Crevclt, and Minden, and wa.s wounded at the battle of Lafeldt. When the French monarch resolved to despatch a military force to aid the .Amer- ican colonies, in the Revolutionary War, Rochambeau was created a lieutenant-general and placed in com- mand of a body of troops which numbered some 6000 men. It was the smallness of this force that made Rochambeau at first averse to taking part in the Amer- ican War, but his sympathy with the colonial cause compelled him eventually to accept the command, and he arrived at Newport, Rhode Island July, 1780, and joined the American army under Washington, on the Hudson a few miles above the city of New York. Rochambeau performed the double duties of a diplomat and general in an alien army with rare distinction amidst somewhat trying circumstances, not the least of which being a somewhat unaccount- able coolness between Washington and himself, which, fortunately, was of but passing import (see
the correspondence and diary of Count Axel Fersen).
After the first meeting with the American general
he marched with his force to the Virginia peninsula,
and rendered heroic assistance at Yorktown in the
capture of the English forces under Lord Cornwallis,
which concluded the hostilities. When Cornwallis
surrendered, 19 Oct., 1781, Rochambeau was pre-
sented ^nth one of the captured cannon. After the
surrender he embarked for France amid ardent pro-
testations of gratitude and admiration from the
officers and men of the American army. In 1783 he
received the decoration of Saint-Esprit and obtained
the baton of a marshal of France in 1791. Early
in 1792 he was
placed in com-
mand of the army
of the North, and
conducted a force
against the Aus-
trians, but re-
signed the same
year and narrowly
escaped the guillo-
tine when the Ja-
cobin revolution-
ary power had
obtained supreme
control in Paris.
When the fury of
the revolution had
spent itself,
Rochambeau was
reinstated in the
regard of his
countrymen. He
was granted a
pension by Napo-
leon Bonaparte in
1804, and was dec-
orated with the
Cross of Grand
Officer of the Legion of Honour. The last years of the
distinguished niilitary leader's life were passed in the
dictation of his memoirs, which appeared in two
volumes in Paris in 1809, and which throw many per-
sonal and briUiant sidelights on the events of two
of the most historically impressive revolutions, and
the exceptional men therein concerned.
Wright, Memoirs of Marshal Count de Rocliambeau Relative to the War of Independence (1838); SouL^, Histoire des troubles de r.imerique anglaise (Paris, 1787) ; standard histories of the United States may also be consulted.
Jarvis Keiley.
Roche, John, Venerable. See Leigh, Richard, Vener.\ble.
Rochester, Ancient See of (Roffa; Roffensis), the oldest and smallest of all the suffragan sees of Canterbury, was founded by St. Augustine, Apostle of England, who in 604 consecrated St. Justus as its first bishop. It consisted roughly of the western part of Kent, separated from the rest of the county by the Medway, though the diocesan boundaries did not follow the river very closely. The cathedral, founded by King Ethelbert and dedicated to St. Andrew from whose monastery at Rome St. Augus- tine and St. Justus had come, was served by a college of secular priests and endowed with land near the city called Priestfield. It suffered much from the Mercians (676) and the Danes, but the city retained its importance, and after the Norman Conquest a new cathedral was begun by the Norman bishop Gundulf . This energetic prelate replaced the secular chaplains by Benedictine monks, translated the relics of St. Paulinus to a silver shrine which became a place of pilgrimage, obtained several royal grants of land, and proved an untiring benefactor to his cathedral city. Gundulf had built the nave and western front
-Baptiste Rochambeau
