The first reference to a bishop, however, is to Eutropius. Venantius Fortunatus, in a poem written in the second half of the sixth century, makes explicit mention of him in connection with Saintes: "Urbis Santonicae primus fuit iste sacerdos". A quite different tale is related, however, by Venantius' friend, Gregory of Tours, in a work called "de gloria martyrum" (I. 56), with a cautious "ut fertur" ('as is said'), indicating Gregory's doubt as to the historicity of the narrative. Eutropius was said to have been consecrated a bishop and sent to Gaul by Pope Clement I in the late first century; at Saintes he began converting people to Christianity, but enraged pagans killed him with a blow to the head. (He is later given a virgin companion, Eustella, the daughter of the local king, who pays the butchers of the town some 150 solidi apiece to kill Eutropius and Eustella.) If it were true, Saintes would be the only church of Gaul which Gregory traces back to the first century, though far from the only church which makes such a claim to antiquity. The evidence is much weakened, in the view of Louis Duchesne, by Gregory's remark that no one knew the history of Saint Eutropius before the removal of his relics to a church built in his honor by Bishop Palladius of Saintes, which took place about 590. It is at this late date that the legend of Eutropius as a martyr seems to have begun.