Genevieve was the daughter of Severus and Gerontia of Nanterre, a Gallo-Roman village near Lutetia (Paris). At seven, on a tour through their parish by St. Germanus of Auxerre and St. Lupus of Troyes, she was singled out by Germanus as having a special vocation. She took the veil at fifteen and devoted herself to prayer and almsgiving in Paris.
When Attila the Hun marched on Paris in 451, the city was on the verge of evacuation. Genevieve gathered the women of Paris and urged them to remain in penance and prayer rather than flee. Attila bypassed Paris and turned south. The city took her as their saviour.
When the Frankish king Childeric I conquered Paris in 464, she repeatedly crossed the siege lines to bring food to the starving population. Her relationship with Childeric, his queen Clotilde, and their son Clovis (her contemporary) was deeply influential in the religious development of the early Frankish kingdom — making her one of the foundational figures of medieval French Catholicism.
She died in 512 at over ninety and was buried beside Clovis on the Mount of Lucotitius — the hill that would in time take the name Montagne Sainte-Geneviève (where the Sorbonne now stands). Her shrine was processed through Paris in every great crisis from the 6th century until the French Revolution; she remains the principal patroness of the city.