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Following his mysterious appointment, Marcouf is always said to have set off to travel throughout the neighbouring districts, preaching to all the true remission of sins for whose who trust in the Father not begotten, the only Son, and the Spirit who proceeds from both, and the power of one God in three Persons. All this is reminiscent, almost in the same words, of the Creed and the declarations of Floxel, and the culminating call of Germain at his martyrdom; and it brings us back to the combat against the Arian heresy which we meet with Floxel and Germain. In a region which is not precisely described, but is certainly larger than Le Pays de Coutances alone, Marcouf preaches the Incarnation, and proclaims that Christ is God, as is his Father. Marcouf is truly a successor to Germain; probably, like Germain, he addresses himself to those whose language and traditions he knows - the descendants of the "barbarian" auxiliaries of Rome. His teaching further specifies that it is not enough to know the faith; it must be confirmed by works.
His preaching is very successful, and numerous miracles take place among the surrounding crowds: the blind receive sight, the deaf hear, paralytics walk. His fame spreads over all the West and King Childebert comes to hear of it. When Marcouf sets out to meet him, the people try to stop him leaving; when he returns, enthusiastic crowds come to escort him back.
I am not unaware that one must take account of some magnification of events, and that the author of Life A has not hesitated to exaggerate the events. In reality, at the time when he was writing, the Arian controversy had been over a long time age, and popular excitement was in the very distant past. For him to have stressed these so strongly, their memory must have been very much alive. Rarely does one find in the Lives of saints such a popular movement; it should also be noted that the part which Marcouf played in the evangelisation of the region overall will probably have been quite different from the perspective given here.
As to this part, it is not very certain that the ecclesiastical and civil authorities regarded it with favour: we are presented with a reversal of the course of a preachers' vocation. As is almost always the case in hagiology, Marcouf's new intention to found a monastic community is attributed to a dream, and after the appearance of an angel (in the dream) he sets out for Paris on a little donkey with his two disciples, Domard and Carioulphe.