S.F. de Sales_en_web


S.F. de Sales_en_web

1 Pages 1-10

▲back to top

1.1 Page 1

▲back to top
ANDRÉ RAVIER
SAINT FRANCIS
DE SALES

1.2 Page 2

▲back to top

1.3 Page 3

▲back to top
André RAVIER s.j.
SAINT FRANCIS
DE SALES
Edited by Aldo Giraudo
Presentation by Morand Wirth
Afterword by Wim Collin
2021

1.4 Page 4

▲back to top
First edition: Elle Di Ci, Torino-Leumann,1967
Second edition: A. Giraudo, 2021
Translation: Australia-Pacific Province
Typesetting: Korea Province
© October 2021- Formation Sector, Salesians of Don Bosco
Via Marsala 42, 00185 Rome
formazione@sdb.org

1.5 Page 5

▲back to top
Table of Contents
PRESENTATION
Author’s note...........................................................................11
1 - HAPPY CHILDHOOD
François, the Lord of Boisy and his Lady Françoise ............15
Student at La Roche and Annecy ..........................................19
2 – THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN
Paris and the spiritual crisis of 1586–1587 ..........................25
Padua and the doctorate ‘in both kinds of law’ ...................37
3 – PROVOST OF THE CANONS OF GENEVA
Francis ‘A Priest of Jesus Christ’.............................................45
The first months of priesthood...............................................53
4 – THE APOSTLE OF THE CHABLAIS:
TIME FOR SOWING
The Provost’s choice................................................................59
Resistance from the inhabitants of Thonon...........................66
Change of strategy: the Controverses.....................................69

1.6 Page 6

▲back to top
5 – THE APOSTLE OF THE CHABLAIS:
TIME FOR HARVESTING
Stages of success......................................................................83
Bishop de Granier chooses his successor................................90
Francis’ apostolic heart...........................................................95
6 – BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA
Francis goes to Rome............................................................109
Coadjutor of Bishop de Granier...........................................112
The sojourn in Paris in 1602................................................118
Consecration in the church at Thorens ...............................125
7 – THE BISHOP AMONG HIS PEOPLE
In accordance with the Council of Trent’s Reform..............129
Francis’ spiritual doctrine....................................................142
The episcopal duty to preach................................................145
Lenten series and catechism lessons.....................................150
Visiting the diocese...............................................................152

1.7 Page 7

▲back to top
8 – REFORM OF THE CLERGY AND RELIGIOUS
Francis de Sales and his priests............................................157
Reform of the abbeys............................................................163
Friend of souls and the ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’...165
The Visitation of Holy Mary and the ‘Treatise on the Love of
God’.......................................................................................172
9 – TOWARDS PURE LOVE
Third sojourn in Paris..........................................................183
The wish to retire, and the desire for solitude.....................187
The journey to Avignon and his death...............................191
AFTERWORD

1.8 Page 8

▲back to top

1.9 Page 9

▲back to top
Presentation
9
PRESENTATION
On the occasion of the fourth centenary of the death of Saint Francis
de Sales (1622–2022), the Salesian Family of Don Bosco wanted to
honour its holy patron by republishing this beautiful volume entitled
simply: “Saint Francis de Sales”. The idea for the publication and
its realisation came from Professor Aldo Giraudo, of the Institute of
Spirituality at the Salesian University, to whom we are truly grateful.
During this year we also remember the four hundred and fifty years
since the birth of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (1572–2022), co-
founder with the Bishop of Geneva of the Visitation Order.
Author of the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on
the Love of God, an apostle of holiness for everyone, Francis de Sales
was proclaimed a Saint in 1665, declared a Doctor of the Church in
1877, patron of journalists in 1923 and recognised as the “doctor
of divine love and evangelical gentleness” in 1967. Today, he still
continues to inspire a great number of Christians throughout the
world, especially the members of the institutes, associations and
congregations that make reference to his spirit.
Many points of convergence have been highlighted between
the pastoral care and spirituality promoted by the Second Vatican
Council and the teachings of this saint, especially on the method
of dialogue, the primacy of love and the universal call to holiness.
This volume appeared in French in 1962 and was published in
Italian by Elledici Publishers in 1967, the fourth centenary of the
saint’s birth.
André Ravier (1905–1999), a Jesuit, philosopher, historian of
spirituality, rector of a college and provincial in Lyons, is the author
of many publications on Christian spirituality. In particular, he has

1.10 Page 10

▲back to top
10
Saint Francis de Sales
written many biographies of the saints, amongst which Ignatius of
Loyola, Pierre Favre, Claude de la Colombière, the Curé of Ars, Saint
Bruno and Bernardette of Lourdes. He is a recognised specialist of
Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane Francis de Chantal.
This book consists of nine chapters in chronological order
that present the life and works of St Francis de Sales: his “happy
childhood” in Savoy (1; the “perfect gentleman’s” studies in Paris
and Padua (2); Provost of the Canons of Geneva (3); the “Apostle
of the Chablais” ’s time for sowing and for reaping (4-5); the bishop
and prince of Geneva (6); the bishop among his people (7); the
reform of the clergy and religious (8); the final years of his journey
“towards pure love” (9).
In order to put this work together, the author explored original
documents, studied the main handwritten texts and the authors
who preceded him. His erudition did not prevent him from
offering us a simple and transparent account in which the traces of
the mystery of God in the life of a great saint are highlighted.
The current edition exactly reproduces the original text. Only
the photos have been adapted. It is our hope that the reader can
appreciate the quality of the text, which has never aged.
As a preamble, Father André Ravier wanted to quote the
testimony of St Vincent de Paul, disciple and friend of the Bishop
of Geneva, who stated that “Bishop de Sales ardently wished to be
a portrait of the Son of God”, to the point of becoming “The man
who best reproduced the Son of God living on earth.”
Let us make our own the apostolic project of the doctor of love,
who inspired Saint John Bosco and also Father André Ravier, who
concludes his presentation as follows: “Francis de Sales is someone
who wanted – like Jesus Christ on earth – to love God with all
his human heart: and, having experienced the demands and the
sweetness of this gift, he worked to introduce as many souls as
possible into what he magnificently calls the ‘gift of love’”.
Morand Wirth, sdb.

2 Pages 11-20

▲back to top

2.1 Page 11

▲back to top
Presentation
11
Author’s note
Our text is, in the first instance, based on documents published in
the Œuvres de Saint François de Sales (Visitation d’Annecy, 1892–
1932, 26 vols.); just the same, we have made use of letters discovered
in the 19th century with a degree of prudence. To avoid making
this book too heavy we are not providing a list of references when
it is a case of quoted material drawn from this huge edition of the
Œuvres complètes. The reader who is familiar with the writings of
St Francis de Sales will easily be able to find this material with the
assistance of the excellent indexes in those volumes.
We will do similarly for quotations taken from the two
Canonisation processes (1627–1632; 1655–1658) or from the Année
Sainte des Religieuses de la Visitation Sainte-Marie.
Very rarely have we made use of an expression or fact drawn
from biographies by M. de Longueterre (Vie de très-illustre messire
François de Sales…, Lyon, 1624), Jean de Saint-François (La Vie
du bienheureux messire François de Sales…, Paris, 1624), or by Fr
Louis de la Rivière (La Vie de l’illustrissime François de Sales…,
Lyon, 1624). And only with due reserve have we used the Histoire
du Bienheureux François de Sales evesque et prince de Geneve (Lyon,
1634), written by his nephew Charles-Auguste de Sales. We have
used this latter as little as possible and only with regard to facts
that have been confirmed elsewhere. Any references that follow,
therefore, concern only works that do not belong to this collection
common to all the biographies of St Francis.

2.2 Page 12

▲back to top
12
Saint Francis de Sales
“The man who best reproduced the Son of God
living on earth”
Only a saint could speak about
another saint this way. The words
were St Vincent de Paul’s. At the
Paris process, he bore witness to
the outstanding virtues of Francis
de Sales: ‘Bishop de Sales ardently
wished to be a portrait of the Son
of God. I was aware that he had
so conformed to this model that I
often wondered, to my amazement,
how a simple creature could – given
human frailty – reach such a high
degree of perfection and reach the
summit of such sublime elevation...
His fervour was evident both in his
public addresses and in his familiar
conversations... When I repeated
his words to myself, I felt such an
admiration for him that I was led
to see in him the man who best
reproduced the Son of God living on
earth.’ (Procès de Paris, art. 26 and
27). As daring as this comparison is,
it is nonetheless true; even more so
I would say; it introduces us to the
intimacy of the surprising movement
of love that characterises the
spiritual destiny of Saint Francis de
Sales; it makes explicit and explains

2.3 Page 13

▲back to top
Presentation
13
this intimate movement and lets us understand the secret of his
prestigious life.
It is in this light that we will sketch the spiritual portrait of Saint
Francis de Sales: Francis de Sales is someone who sought – as did
Jesus Christ on earth – to love God with all his human heart: and,
having experienced the demands and the gentleness of this gift,
worked to introduce the greatest possible number of souls to what
he magnificently called ‘the eternal freedom of love’.

2.4 Page 14

▲back to top
14
Saint Francis de Sales

2.5 Page 15

▲back to top
Chapter i - Happy childhood
15
1 - HAPPY CHILDHOOD
François, the Lord of Boisy and his Lady Françoise
It is undeniable that, right from birth, Francis de Sales seems to
have been very much blessed. His lineage – the de Sales on his
father’s side, as also the de Sionnaz on his mother’s side – despite
not belonging to the earliest families of the Duchy of Savoy, was
nevertheless one of ancient and genuine nobility. The de Sales Coat
of Arms, ‘azure with two Fesses [bars] of Or [gold] surmounted by
Gules [red]; above, a rising crescent in Or [gold], and two Mullets
[stars], one in the middle and the other below’, bore the motto:
Ny plus, ny moins; and, we are told, the House de Sales numbered
some eight generations or 32 ‘quarters of nobility’.
But the true nobility of Monsieur and Madame de Boisy1 (Boisy
being the title Francis’ parents bore, from the name of a wealthy
property that Bonaventure de Chevron had given as dowry to his
daughter, Françoise de Sionnaz) lay in their fidelity to the Catholic
Faith.
In that area close to the territory of Geneva, torn apart since
1534 by the Protestant crisis – a devastation cruelly manifested by
the presence in ‘Nessy’ (Annecy) of the Bishop of Geneva, whose
episcopal city had become Calvin’s and the Calvinists’ Rome – the
1 Translator’s note: having established that Francis’ parents were of the French
aristocracy and technically Lord and Lady de Boisy (‘Seigneur’ and ‘Dame’),
we will simplify further reference to them in this work by referring to them as
Monsieur (M.) and Madame (Mme) de Boisy, in accordance with the original
French text of this book.

2.6 Page 16

▲back to top
16
Saint Francis de Sales
de Sales had remained fiercely attached to the Holy See and the
Church; they carefully protected themselves and protected their
own from any contact with heresy. And being thus immersed from
earliest childhood in that atmosphere of religious resoluteness, it
was an early grace for Francis that he was not affected by trials and
suffering.
Such courageous faith was, for Monsieur de Boisy, something
quite different from fidelity to a tradition: it permeated his life and
actions. François de Boisy openly practised his religion: he attended
religious ceremonies at the de Sales parish church on Sundays and
feast days and ‘went to confession and communion at Easter time,
on the great yearly feasts and when indulgences were granted’. On
his own lands he showed that he ‘loved the poor very much and
Thorens, chapel built over the place where the bedroom
was in which St Francis de Sales was born.

2.7 Page 17

▲back to top
Chapter i - Happy childhood
17
especially the peasant farmers whom he helped with all their needs,
be it money or wheat, interest free’. There was no shadow of heresy
in this perfect Christian.
This piety and love for the poor was even more pronounced,
and rightly so, in his wife – more than thirty or so years younger
than him! A farmer from Thorens, François Terrier, would say at
the Process: ‘I saw Madame go from the Castle de Sales to church,
quite some distance away, in rain and during winter, without fear of
cold or snow, to serve God and serve the poor and the sick, sparing
nothing to help the latter to whom she gave bread and wine and
other necessities. And I saw Madame treating the ulcers on the sick
with her own hands...’
Now, this ‘pearl of virtue’, as a councillor from the Duchy of
Genevois, François de la Pesse, called her, was barely sixteen years
of age when, on 21 August 1567, she brought her first-born child
Francis into the world: as ‘balanced’ and as ‘reasonable’ as this
young mother might have been, it was impossible for her not to be
passionately attached to that ‘tender’ and ‘delicate’ child to whom
she was closer in age than she was to her husband.
We are not lacking in information on Francis de Sales’ earliest
years. Wet nurse Pétremande Puthod, to whom was entrusted the
premature baby who, to her great regret, Mme. de Boisy could not
feed, was still alive at the time of the first canonisation Process.
Being called upon to refer to her own memories of an infant who
became Bishop and Prince of Geneva, and even more so a candidate
for the honours of the Church, is no everyday occurrence: so one
can forgive the good Pétremande for a degree of lyricism; she tells
us that Francis was ‘a very graceful baby, handsome, friendly, gentle
and familiar… I have never seen a child easier to feed and who had
a better nature’.
To a child ‘of such good nature’, Monsieur de Boisy gave a strict,
even austere upbringing, as befitted the first-born of a noble family:
we are assured that he was not spared the whip on occasion of

2.8 Page 18

▲back to top
18
Saint Francis de Sales
some small misdemeanour but, in compensation, ‘the reasons for
everything that was demanded of him’ were explained. The father’s
severity, the mother’s tenderness: this upbringing, which was always
balanced, soon bore good results. ‘Right from childhood,’ Mother
de Chantal testified ‘as I have heard various people worthy of trust
say, he was very quiet and obedient to his parents, and he had a
sensibility, gentleness and goodness that was quite extraordinary
for that age.’
Charles-Auguste de Sales notes, describing this childhood,
a trait that seems plausible to us: his parents ‘often instilled the
love and fear of God in Francis and explained the mysteries of the
Christian faith to him as clearly as they could through similes and
comparisons drawn from nature; they always responded to his
little questions’. This religious pedagogy would strongly mark the
spirit and soul of Francis.
Undoubtedly, the castle de Sales was but a ‘fortified manor
house’ from around which lands, pastures and a large orchard
sloped away; but the landscape in this region is wondrous. Situated
at the entrance to the val d’Usillon, the castle was on the border of
two regions of very different aspect: to the west, low, fertile, smiling
hills; to the east, high mountains, scattered forests and, behind, a
steep cliff that rises like a mountain and whose peak retains its
snow even in summer. This panorama, with its seasonal changes,
filled young Francis’ mind with stupendous images: natural items
became more familiar to him every day; he understood them,
felt them with all his keen sensitivity. They were part of his inner
universe and, also, already a part of his religious universe.
But all these favourable circumstances lavished upon him by his
family destiny would not have had such a positive effect on the
balance and religious drive of Francis had not God been at work
in his soul. We can believe a mother’s eyes and heart: ‘Were I not
the mother of a child like this,’ Madame de Boisy had to confide
to Madame de Chantal towards 1610 ‘I would reveal many of the

2.9 Page 19

▲back to top
Chapter i - Happy childhood
19
marvels of his childhood... I often observed that from when he was
very small, he was predisposed to the blessings of heaven and only
breathed the love of God...’ And, we could add, ‘and love for the
poor’, learned at the school of his admirable mother. We will see
the mystery of grace that was already enclosed in the secret of that
little child’s heart
Student at La Roche and Annecy
An important change took place in Francis’ life – it was 1573 and
he was six years old. Louis de Sales, Monsieur de Boisy’s brother,
had decided to send his three sons to school at La Roche, a large
Cross on the site of the ancient de Sales Manor House
(destroyed in 1630).

2.10 Page 20

▲back to top
20
Saint Francis de Sales
town situated just three leagues from the castle. M. de Boisy seized
upon the occasion to carry out a plan he had been thinking of for
some time: Francis would accompany his cousins to college. At La
Roche, from the outset Francis proved to be the perfect student to
be a role model for his classmates. Even more than his gentleness it
was his piety that aroused wonder and charmed people. So much so
that according to Mother de Chaugy, two years later when Francis
left La Roche never to return there, ‘most (people) went with him,
and wept, saying that it was the blessing of their city that was being
taken away from them’. This was in 1575.
It is said that it was the political situation that caused this abrupt
change. Louis de Sales had thought it prudent for Monsieur de
Boisy, his family and domestics, not to live in the castle at Sales
and they withdrew to the castle at Brens. This change of residence
meant a change of college for the students. It is possible; but an
even simpler reason could be taken into consideration: the eldest of
Louis’ sons had completed the cycle of studies at the small college in
La Roche, and to continue his education it was necessary for him to
go to a more important institute: his brothers and cousin followed
him. Whatever the case, our four students were now at college in
Annecy: this college, founded in 1551 by Canon Eustache Chapuys,
was flourishing at the time and among its students it numbered all
the outstanding youth of Savoy.
Two important events took place here for the spiritual growth of
Francis de Sales: first of all, his First Communion and Confirmation,
which he received from Bishop Angelo Giustiniani on 17 December
1577, at Saint-Dominique in Annecy. Francis was ten years old, but
this young man made an impression on his companions, and also
on his teachers. A diligent student where study was concerned, and
talented, he was also a lovable companion: they all admired, loved
and respected him. ‘Just his presence’ Mother de Chantal tells us,
‘drew respect from the other students, his classmates: right from
then he had the gravitas and humble and judicious demeanour that

3 Pages 21-30

▲back to top

3.1 Page 21

▲back to top
Chapter i - Happy childhood
21
he had throughout his life... he endured the impertinent humour
of the other students with patience and kindness... and towards
evening, when his classmates went off to amuse themselves, he
remained at home and invited the lady he was boarding with to
listen to a reading from the Life of the Saints, saying to her: “Aunt,
I have something good to tell you.”’
The second important event of this period was the tonsure that
Francis received on 20 September 1578. Even then he was planning
to become a priest. There are two personal exchanges that make
us certain of this: to Mother Angélique Arnauld, Abbess of Port-
Royal des Champs, Francis said one day: ‘From the time I was
twelve years old, I had resolved so strongly to be a man of the
Church that I would not have exchanged this resolution even for a
kingdom.’ And to one of his penitents he said: ‘Since I had the grace
of knowing a little about the result of the cross, this feeling entered
my soul and never left it.’
Taking these two personal insights together allows us to glimpse
the quality of this decision by Francis: it is a firm, decisive will,
one which immediately goes to the essence of the Gospel and the
mystery of redemption.
In order to affirm his resolution as best he could, without
however openly opposing the prestigious plans for the future that
his scholastic successes gave rise to in Lord de Boisy’s mind, Francis
asked his father for permission to receive the clerical tonsure. Being
a cleric then did not mean being destined for Holy Orders, but it
did open the way to stipends and benefits. But this was not how
Francis saw it. The boy presented himself for the tonsure as a future
man of the Church: ‘Knowing that Gallois Regard, the Bishop of
Bagneroy, was to impart Orders at Clermont-en-Genevois, he went
there immediately, furnished with dimissorial letters... There, in
the church of Saint-Etienne, he received the tonsure according to
the sacred rites and received the Lord, with indescribable joy, in
the year 1578.’

3.2 Page 22

▲back to top
22
Saint Francis de Sales
Thorens, Francis de Sales’ baptimal font in the parish church.

3.3 Page 23

▲back to top
Chapter i - Happy childhood
23
‘With indescribable joy’: we gladly believe Charles-Auguste
de Sales. In fact, this twelve-year-old child was truly surprising.
However, we must not be deceived, and the rest of this portrait
will soon prove to us that this amicability hid an iron-like strength,
and this charm hid an intense struggle. Certainly, God helped him
and facilitated his effort; but to these interior inclinations Francis
responded with ‘resolve’. He had chosen God and this choice was
unreserved and one he would not repent of.
This was clearly seen that autumn of 1578, when Monsieur
de Boisy, very proud of Francis’ scholastic successes, decided to
send him to extend his studies in Paris. Always anxious to set up
brilliant relationships for his son, M. de Boisy had decided that
Francis should attend lessons at the Navarre college, attended by
the Parisian youth elite. But Francis was not of the same opinion:
‘He had heard that the young people there were not so devoted to
piety as the ones who attended the Jesuit Fathers college, whose
fame and esteem he had heard so much of. It was all that was needed
because, in his heart, Francis preferred the Clermont college to
the one at Navarre. But how to convince M. de Boisy to give up
his project? Francis, already a diplomat at the time, resorted to
his mother’s mediation. So that when our twelve-year-old student
arrived in Paris “under the guidance and governance of M. Jean
Déage’,2 he enrolled in the college at Clermont.
2 Déage was in fact a young student priest, but the author refers to him as M. Déage.

3.4 Page 24

▲back to top
24
Saint Francis de Sales

3.5 Page 25

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
25
2 – THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN
Paris and the spiritual crisis of 1586–1587
Lyon-Bourges-Orléans. Following this route, by the end of September,1
he had reached the ‘royal city of Paris, mother of the learned
Muses, liberal arts and every science’, as it is called by Fr Louis de
la Rivière: but also the city of politics, religious disputes and joyous
crazy student antics...
Francis was enrolled in the Humanities course at the college at
Clermont, and perhaps also in the Superior Grammar or Rhetoric
course, since he had to start out in Greek, which he did not know.
For four years ‘he recommenced the study of human letters’. Then,
having obtained his Bachelor’s Degree, he was admitted – in 1584 –
to the philosophy course that lasted four years. Through the young
philosopher’s handwritten notebooks that have come down to us,
it is easy to see how earnestly he dedicated himself to study, and
especially his mental qualities: order, method, depth; we should not
marvel that he was thought to be ‘one of the firsts at the University’
and at the end of four years was judged to be ‘perfect in philosophy’.
During these eight years he spent in Paris, Francis’ spiritual
life saw some important developments. Charles-Auguste de Sales
perhaps takes some liberty with the calendar when he tells us of
Francis’ arrival in Paris: ‘He had barely sheathed his sword when he
1 Generally, Francis’ departure for Paris is dated as 1582, More precise studies
tend to bring this date forward to 1578: Francis was twelve years old. Cf. the
critical biography by Étienne-Marie Lajeunie, Saint François de Sales: l’homme,
la pensée, l’action, Paris, Guy Victor, 1966, 2 vols

3.6 Page 26

▲back to top
26
Saint Francis de Sales
immediately asked to be taken to the Jesuit college.’ What is certain
is that however much taken up by his studies and his education
to be a gentleman (dancing, horsemanship, fencing) all of which
Monsieur de Boisy demanded he be energetically initiated in, Francis
‘reminded himself that he had been made a cleric at Clermont and
did not wish to change his resolve’. His first thought was to choose
(most probably from among the Fathers at the college) ‘a spiritual
father and director to whom he could entrust his conscience and
who would teach him the maxims of eternal life: in the same way
that he had been given a teacher for human sciences’.
His fervour shone out among his fellow students in Paris, as
had been the case at La Roche and Annecy: ‘He made himself so
agreeable to everyone by his modesty,’ says Mother de Chantal ‘that
it was a pleasure to look at him when the Blessed walked through
The castle at Thorens acquired by the de Sales family.

3.7 Page 27

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
27
the streets: even the craftsmen among his classmates looked up to
him.’ He went to communion often, perhaps already ‘every eight
days’, or at least every month. During that time ‘he gladly stayed
with the Capuchins’ and had great admiration for the famous Fr
Ange de Joyeuse. To all these practices of piety he secretly added
various acts of austerity such as fasts and the use of the hair-shirt.
He had a very keen devotion to the Virgin Mary; he especially
loved the Black Madonna of Saint-Etienne des Grès, and since he
passed by this church a number of times each day, he would gladly
stop by there for a few minutes. During those years he entered the
Congregation. ‘Seeing that a number of people in the Congregations
of the Blessed Virgin lived angelically and religiously, following the
advice of his director he enrolled in one of them and very often
carried out roles of Assistant and Prefect’.
In Paris, Francis felt the desire to deepen his knowledge of his
religion and to set aside some hours of free time for theology. It
was a yearning of his soul, certainly, this need to initiate himself
in the Holy Scriptures and the mysteries of his faith. But also,
undoubtedly, it was an unadmitted plan of preparation for the as
yet distant goal of priesthood. He knew that in spite of the decrees
of the Council of Trent and contrary to the keen desire of Bishop
de Granier, the unfortunate times did not permit the opening of a
regular seminary at Annecy to prepare candidates for Orders. Later
he would say: ‘In Paris I learned many things that would please my
father, and theology to please myself.’
However, one fine day Francis did receive permission from
M. Déage to dedicate himself to theological studies so long as
philosophy did not suffer from it. Here is how our diplomat
managed this, according to Charles-Auguste de Sales: ‘Since,
during that same time, his tutor, M. Déage, was studying theology...
he studied and leafed through his writings at home whenever he
had time; and the more he considered the eternal truths in depth
the more the desire to continue was kindled in him; so, as soon

3.8 Page 28

▲back to top
28
Saint Francis de Sales
as he came across the slightest difficulty in theology, he debated
it with his teacher and other theologians so he could overcome it.
He also sought to attend debates held at the Sorbonne and wrote
down the questions, arguments and decisions that he considered
more worthy of note. He often went to listen to lessons by Gilbert
Génébrard, a man of divine more than human knowledge: and
thus it was that he conceived that great and profound theological
understanding for which he continued to be admired for the rest
of his life.’
Génébrard? Here is a name that makes one prick up one’s ears:
this Benedictine from Cluny, a prodigy of learning, had introduced
the historical criticism advocated by Maldonnat into the strictly
scholastic atmosphere of the Royal College... Moreover, as faithful
as he was to the Sorbonne, Francis very often took the opportunity
to forage in the garden of the ‘innovators’: ‘He also learned
Hebrew and the positive theology of Maldonnat.’ Maldonnat? A
Jesuit theologian, whose regents at the Sorbonne had seen to his
departure from Paris in 1677, accusing him of ‘novelty’, but his
famous lessons continued under another guise... For Francis, the
attraction to theology was decidedly something quite other than
curiosity or aestheticism: he foresaw the religious dramas he would
be facing up to in the near future.
Indeed, he bore them within, experienced them: and thus we
come to the crisis – we can call it this without over-dramatising it –
through which this barely twenty-year-old young man would pass.
When we ask ourselves what date this broke out, historians hesitate
between 1586 and 1587. But the seriousness of the event does not
change. The ‘storm’ lasted six weeks and was so profound that even
Francis’ health was shaken by it.
‘On one occasion the Blessed told me,’ Mother de Chantal said in
her deposition ‘in order to comfort me in some problem I had, that
when he was a student in Paris he fell into serious temptations and
great mental anguish; it seemed to him, in the most absolute way,

3.9 Page 29

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
29
that he was damned and that there was no possibility of salvation
for him… Despite this most painful travail, deep down he had in
mind his resolution to love and serve God with all his strength
throughout his life, and with so much more affection and fidelity
the more it seemed to him that he could not do it for eternity. This
anguish lasted at least three weeks, or around six as far as I can
recall, and was so violent that he did not feel at all like eating or
sleeping, and became very thin and as yellow as wax, something
that concerned his tutor no end. Now, one day when it pleased
divine Providence to free him from this, while he was returning
from the Palais, he passed by a church and went in to pray. He went
before an altar of Our Lady, where he found a prayer glued to a
small board: Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never
was it known, etc. He said it all; then he got up, and at that moment
he felt perfectly and completely healed; and it seemed to him that
his sickness had fallen away from him like scales from a leper.’
This testimony of Mother de Chantal’s leaves nothing to be
desired. But it does pose a question: where did these ‘serious
temptations and great mental anguish’ for Francis come from? Very
clearly they are of a spiritual order. Nevertheless, could they not
depend partly on a very sensitive temperament, one that was a bit
scrupulous, and on a degree of youthful ‘melancholy’, a melancholy
inherited from his mother and that was made worse by hours of
tiredness? Now, was Francis getting sufficient rest in 1586–1587?
One of his fellow students tells us that ‘very often, leaving the
philosophy lessons, he would skip the usual meals so he could go
to the Sorbonne to listen to the theological debates.’
It is significant that Francis shared his personal feelings about
this trial precisely with ‘a gentleman who had fallen into deep
melancholy’: ‘It is said that other than the illness you have due to
physical ailments, you are also afflicted by violent melancholy…
But, sir, please tell me what reason you have for nurturing this
sad feeling this is so harmful to you. I fear that your mind is still

3.10 Page 30

▲back to top
30
Saint Francis de Sales
troubled with fears of sudden death and God’s judgement. Alas,
what strange torment!... My soul, having put up with this for six
weeks, is able to empathise with those who are afflicted with it...
Perhaps you do not hope in God? Whoever hopes in him can never
be confounded. No, sir: he will never be.’
Whatever its harbingers may have been, the crisis we are
analysing came to Francis with such violence, and took on such
a nature that we cannot but recognise ‘the Lord’s hand’ in it. The
trial has features of the highest mysticism about it. It is a surprising
coincidence, more or less in the same era – precisely in 1583 – that
John of the Cross described the extraordinary ways of the spiritual
life in amazing terms and especially this stage, ever original in its
forms, through which God purifies the soul that wishes to unite
itself to him through a closer union, and that John calls the ‘Night’.
‘And finally, by means of this night and purgation of the old man,
all the energies and affections of the soul are wholly renewed into
a divine temper and divine delight.’2 For Francis de Sales, was it
not precisely this that was the benefit he gained from the crisis in
1586–1587?
We do not know the precise intensity of his spiritual fever.
However, documents we are sure of inform us of its violence and
the way it ended up.
It seems that it all began with a difficulty of a purely speculative
kind: the mystery of predestination. Faced with the thinking of St
Augustine and St Thomas, who insist on foreknowledge and the
free choice of God in the matter of human salvation, Francis began
by becoming keenly aware of the uncertainty of salvation. But it
is at this point that he is dismayed when meditating on his own
behaviour and assessing the dangers threatening him from among
the young student population. And being so sensitive and with
a heart that ‘loves so lovingly’, was he, Francis, among the small
2 John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, book 2, chapter 4.2.

4 Pages 31-40

▲back to top

4.1 Page 31

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
31
number of the predestined?... In fact, the crisis was mainly of a
psychological and spiritual nature, but for Francis, any problem of
the soul was complicated by a problem of intelligence.
At this point we need to pay much attention to the lament of
this anguished soul, just as his tutor, M. Déage, and François Favre,
Francis’ servant, make it known to us through Charles-Auguste de
Sales. If these words are genuine – and we have every reason to believe
they are, since they correspond to the act of heroic abandonment
preserved for us by Fr de Quoex, and to the Protestation in 1591 –
they reveal to us in a magnificent way the purity of love that Francis
had achieved in his spiritual life. It really is the lament of frustrated
love, a love that suddenly – against all his hopes – sees the removal
of the certainty of one day possessing its one and only object. But
in the fire of his anguish this love is strangely purified; and, in a
painful way he falls back on what remains of his happiness: ‘Wretch
that I am, alas! Shall I therefore be deprived of the grace of him
who so gently made me taste his sweetness and who was so lovable
to me? O Love! O Charity! O Beauty to whom I vowed all of my
affections! So I will no longer enjoy your delights?... O Virgin...will
I therefore never see you in the realm of your Son? And therefore
will I never share in this immense benefit of the Redemption?
And didn’t my sweet Jesus die as much for me as for others? Ah!
whatever it may be, Lord, at least I love you in this life, if I cannot
love you in that eternal life, since no one praises you in hell...’
It is a tragic and generous prayer, but that is not enough to pacify
his soul.
The more Francis studied and discussed, the more he came up
again predestination to glory, prior to any prediction of merits. It
seemed that there was no solution possible to this spiritual drama,
when one day, returning alone from college, ‘more dead than
alive’, the idea came to him to enter the church of Saint-Etienne
des Grès, as he often did. It was ‘the day that it pleased Divine
Providence to free him’, according to Mother de Chantal’s account.

4.2 Page 32

▲back to top
32
Saint Francis de Sales
Here, historians are divided over various points (the time it took to
resolve the crisis, where the heroic act of abandonment took place,
the date of the Protestation): our preference is to follow Mother de
Chantal’s rhythm.
So, once he had entered the church, Francis went ‘straight’ to
the chapel of the Virgin. There is no doubt that at that moment he
remade his ‘act of heroic abandonment’, the offering that has been
preserved by Fr de Quoex: ‘Whatever happens, Lord, you who hold
everything in your hand and whose ways are justice and truth:
whatever you have ordained for me regarding the eternal decree of
predestination and reprobation: you whose judgements are a deep
abyss, you who are ever a just judge and merciful father, I will love
you, Lord, at least in this life if it is not granted me to love you in
eternal life; I will love you at least here, my God, and I will always
hope in your mercy, and will always repeat your praise, despite all
that Satan’s angel continues to inspire me to the contrary. O Lord
Jesus, you will always be my hope and my salvation in the land
of the living. If, because my conduct requires it, I must be cursed
among the cursed who will not see your most sweet face, at least
grant me that I will not be among those who curse your holy name.’
Having reaffirmed this pitiful acquiescence to the divine will,
‘he noticed a prayer card attached to the wall: It was the Memorare
(Remember, O most gracious Virgin...). He knelt down and said
it, weeping.’ And then: ‘Having finished the prayer, he asked for
health of body and soul and made a vow of virginity to God and
the Virgin; as testimony and reminder of this, he made a vow to
say the rosary every day of his life. And there, among these prayers
and vows the temptation vanished, his health was restored, and
it seemed that it was being lifted from his head and body like the
scabs or scales of leprosy.’
At the end of this crisis, Francis had gained an inestimable
experience of God’s ways and – something very important – he had
taken a doctrinal position on a major question in Catholic theology.

4.3 Page 33

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
33
Usually we insist on the importance of the first of these advantages:
it is very certain that Francis, despite being barely twenty years of
age, was now able to understand the most painful trials of the soul
that God wanted to lead to the purity of his soul. But if we consider
the era, the disputes that Francis, as priest and then bishop, would
be mixed up in: Protestantism, exceptional mysticism and also,
towards the end of his life, the forerunners of Jansemism, all
discussions where the destiny of human freedom is at stake in its
relationships with grace, one can only admire the wisdom of God
who thus prepares a doctor of pure love and authentic ‘freedom of
the glory of the children of God’.
Despite Francis’ crisis having ended, it seems that the problem
of predestination remained for some time still, perhaps forever, a
Paris, College at Clermont and the Church of Saint-Etienne des
Grès (detail from the 1739 Turgot map).

4.4 Page 34

▲back to top
34
Saint Francis de Sales
tender point in his religious thinking. In his manuscripts we find
a number of annotations on this topic: one of them that is closer
to the crisis of 1586–1587 in its tenor and tone is certainly the
surprising ‘protestation’, that along with the best critics we locate
towards 1591. We cannot quote it in its entirety:3 we will refer
to passages from it that best express the frankly apostolic and
spiritual attitude adopted by Francis to the speculative problem
of predestination.
‘Prostrated at the feet of the Blessed Augustine and Thomas,’ (the
two authors whose theses had at least amplified, if not caused, his
crisis), ‘I am ready to be ignorant of everything in order to know
Him who is the knowledge of the Father, Christ crucified.’ In this
simple sentence it is already revealed what would be his mystical
thinking. ‘Indeed, although I do not doubt that the things I have
written are true,’ (this protestation is at the end of the theological
notes on predestination) ‘since I see nothing that could constitute
a substantial doubt as to their truth, nevertheless, given that I do
not see everything and such a profound mystery is too bright to
be looked at by my owl eyes,’ (it seems this would be the position
Francis would adopt when consulted by Paul V in the dispute De
Auxiliis) ‘if, later, the contrary might be clear – something I believe
will never happen – or, worse still, if I were to know that I were
damned – may this not happen, Lord Jesus! – by that will that the
Thomists place in God so that He may show His justice, struck
with astonishment and raising my eyes to the Supreme Judge, I
would gladly say with the Prophet: Will my soul not be subject to
God? Amen, Father, because it seems good to you to be so; your will
be done. And I would say this so many times in the bitterness of my
heart, until God, changing my life and my sentence, answered me:
“Have confidence, my son, I do not want the death of the sinner, but
rather that he be converted and live.”’
3 Cf. Œuvres, vol. XXII, pp. 63-68.

4.5 Page 35

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
35
(Francis brings together biblical texts, especially Gospel texts,
which state God’s will to save all human beings).
‘Since you wished to glorify my name, even through your
suffering, if that be possible, although in this there is little glory and
exaltation of my name, which is not “damnator” but “Jesus”’ (let us
read these beautiful words in Latin: glorificatio nominis mei qui non
est damnator, sed Jesus) ‘“I will establish you above the multitude, so
that you may praise me in the eternal beatitude where the glory of
my name shines forth…” Then I will not have to answer differently
than before: Amen, Father, because it seems good to you to be so.
My heart is ready, O God, to embrace pain for your sake; my heart
is ready for glory for your name’s sake, Jesus.... Amen, Jesus, Mary.’
This personal statement is of fundamental importance; it
represents a peak, perhaps the peak of the spiritual life; we believe
Fr Bremond, who is a master in this regard: ‘Precious relic, less
gripping and enthralling than Pascal’s amulet, but of a doctrinal
richness of a much superior quality.’4 The ‘doctrinal richness’ of
this text does not amaze those who know of the other notes on
predestination, especially the fragment from 1591 wherein Francis
lists the authoritative proofs and texts that make plausible the
thesis that ‘not only does damnation occur as a result of expected
demerits, but also predestination is based on merits’.
From now on, this would be the theological position on which
he would base all his theological discussion with the Protestants,
all his preaching and spiritual direction. In 1618, more than thirty
years after his crisis, writing to Fr Lessius, he said: ‘In the library at
the Jesuit College in Lyons, I saw your Treatise on Predestination,
and although I only had time to browse through it in haste, I have
noticed that you embrace and support the opinion of predestination
to glory after predestination of merit, such a noble opinion in so
4 Henri Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin
des guerres de religion jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, Bloud et Gay, 1916, Vol. I, p. 90.

4.6 Page 36

▲back to top
36
Saint Francis de Sales
many respects, since it is so ancient, so consoling... It was a great
joy for me; for I have always thought that this doctrine was the
truest, the most lovable and the most in conformity with God’s
mercy and grace, as I indicated in my Treatise on the Love of God.’
The consequences of the 1586–1587 crisis for the spiritual
destiny of Francis de Sales are considerable: they concern not only
his thinking but his soul – not just his theology but his personal
religion and apostolate. After all, for him this was a real battle for
liberation: it strengthened his faith in the most essential truths of
the life of grace, developed in him the virtues that are most effective
in the relationship of the human being with God, and gave him a
very profound experience of Christian life, making him aware of
extreme anguish and abrupt freedom. In short, it gave him access
to the just, healthy and authentic ‘freedom of glory of the children
of God’: from then on it would be the goal towards which he would
fervently strive and towards which he would endeavour to direct
the most sublime and humble souls who would lean on him in
their search for God.
Francis’ first stay in Paris was coming to an end: he completed
his course at the Faculty of Arts. At the beginning of summer 1588
he headed back to Savoy.
Monsieur de Boisy had earmarked ‘this lad of great hopes’ for
the ‘long red robes’ of a senator.
Nevertheless, he granted Francis, who had not been back to Savoy
for eight years, ‘some free time to see his relatives and friends’; but
he had already arranged that, in the autumn of 1588, the student
would go to Padua, once more accompanied by M. Déage, and there
he would apply himself to the study of law: Gallois, his younger
brother, would go with him and follow the grammar course at the
Jesuit College.

4.7 Page 37

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
37
Padua and the doctorate ‘in both kinds of law’
And so we find Francis grappling with studies of ‘both kinds of
law’, meaning canon and civil law, in obedience to his father; but
secretly, and with the connivance of M. Déage, he would dedicate
a part of his time to completely re-doing his theological studies:
‘He set aside eight hours of study, four for jurisprudence and the
same for theology’. In fact, as an extra and as a pastime, he took up
botany and medicine as well!
But the religious problem remained at the centre of his concerns:
‘To gain greater profit not only in scholastic matters but also in
mysticism, having laid good foundations for this in Paris, it was
necessary for him to have a good master and director.’ For this role
he chose, due to an ‘inspiration from heaven’, ‘Fr Antonio Possevino.
from the Society of Jesus, a man whose virtues had raised him
head and shoulders above others’. Fr Antonio visibly exerted great
influence on the spiritual direction of his disciple. It was certainly
he who urged him to join the Congregation of the Annunciation
of our Blessed Lady with its headquarters at the Jesuit College,
and to follow the Spiritual Exercises; In 1590, when he thought he
was dying, Francis had him called. But, during the three years in
Padua, Fr Possevino was especially, for Francis, the teacher who
would continue Génébrard’s teaching, and develop in him a taste
for Holy Scripture; as well as being the guide who helped him to
lead a sincerely Christian life among the carefree and quarrelsome
student population in Padua.
Going back to this time5 is a document of major importance: in
agreement with his director, Francis took up a rule of life. Should
we see ‘an Introduction to the Devout Life in miniature’ in these
5 Contrary to what has often been said, I do not believe we can draw from this text
the proof that it would have been written only after Francis’ major illness at the
end of 1590 – beginning of 1591

4.8 Page 38

▲back to top
38
Saint Francis de Sales
pages? Not necessarily. We should not forget that Francis is secretly
moving in the direction of the priesthood, and that in the church of
Saint-Etienne des Grès he made a vow of chastity that he intended
to faithfully observe, with God’s help, in the midst of the dangers of
life in Padua. This does not detract from the fact that this document
may give us some valuable information on the notion that Francis
had of Christian life around 1590.
There is one exercise that was very close to his heart: ‘I will
always prefer the exercise of preparation to anything else and I will
do it at least once a day, that is, in the morning: it consists of a
preliminary examination, made in the presence of God, of what is
expected to happen during the day.’
After which he proposes seven articles for spending the day well.
‘In the morning, as soon as I wake, I will give thanks to God... Then
Padua, ancient courtyard at the University.

4.9 Page 39

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
39
I will think about one of the sacred mysteries... I will not fail to hear
Mass each day, etc.’
Now, among these seven articles, the third is too original for us
not to spend a moment to think about it, especially since the third
part of our document will take it up again and develop it: ‘Just as
the body needs sleep to rest and soothe its tired limbs, so does
the soul need to have some time in which to sleep and rest in the
chaste arms of its heavenly Spouse, so as to restore the strength
and vigour of its spiritual potential; so, therefore, I will spend some
time each day in this holy repose, so that my soul, imitating the
beloved disciple, can sleep securely on the beloved breast, or dare I
say the loving heart of the loving Saviour.’
The detailed description – in eight points – of this holy ‘repose’
is truly a document of note. A singularly active repose in which
all the great themes of Christian meditation come together... But
what is important is the attitude of the soul. This is an extremely
characteristic attitude: it really is about rest, something enjoyable,
a pleasurable delight that gives the soul rest and introduces it to the
love of God.
‘First of all,’ the text begins, ‘having chosen a convenient time
for this holy repose, before anything else I will try to remember
all the good impulses, desires, affections, resolutions, projects,
feelings and pleasant things that the divine Majesty has sometimes
inspired in me and had me experience while pondering his holy
Mysteries, the beauty of virtue, the nobility of serving him and the
many benefits that he has granted me with such generosity...’
This tone of admiration and enthusiasm is sustained to the end:
‘Second, I will rest beautifully, etc… Third, I will rest peacefully,
etc... Fourth, I will sleep softly in the knowledge of the excellence
of virtue, etc... Fifth, I will linger in admiration before the beauty
of reason, etc... Sixth, I will carefully ponder the strictness of
divine Justice... Seventh... I will be concerned with seeing how
these beautiful attributes (God’s infinite wisdom, omnipotence,

4.10 Page 40

▲back to top
40
Saint Francis de Sales
incomprehensible goodness) shine out in the sacred mysteries of
the life, death and passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.’
The eighth is worth quoting: ‘... I will fall asleep in the love of the
one and only goodness of my God; if I can I will savour it, not for
its effects but in itself; I will drink this water of life, not in creaturely
containers or bottles but from its source; I shall taste how good
this adorable majesty is in itself, good in itself, good for itself; and
also how it is goodness itself, all goodness; goodness that is eternal,
inexhaustible and incomprehensible. O Lord, I will say, you alone
are good by essence and by nature: you alone are necessarily good;
all creatures that are good, whether by natural or supernatural
goodness, are so only because they share in your loving goodness.’
This document also contains other rules ‘for behaving well in
groups and meetings, without stumbling and succumbing to vice.’
Francis de Sales already has this strong, gentle, dogmatically
solid spirituality so sensitive to the movements of the heart, which
would be his charm and would attract many souls to him. But would
he have achieved this peak, would he have written these pages on
spiritual Sleep had he not passed through the crisis of 1586–1587
and emerged from it triumphantly? A soul that had not mastered
its spiritual anguish in faith and trust could not immerse itself so
freely in the sources of love...
For Francis, somewhere between the dryness of legal studies and
the dangers of the university scene, this rule was a talisman: ‘So he
could often re-read (these rules and laws) he wrote them down on
the first and final pages of a prayer book he usually carried in his
pocket.’
All the more so since, having resumed his theological studies, he
necessarily found himself faced with the problem of predestination.
Fr Possevino, whom Francis had brought up-to-date with his
future plans, had encouraged him very much in his vocation:
‘Believe me, your mind is not made for the concerns of the Bar, and
your eyes were not made for its dust.’ The discovery of the book

5 Pages 41-50

▲back to top

5.1 Page 41

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
41
by Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat, suggested to him by
the Theatine Fathers whose services Francis frequented, had once
again confirmed his resolution to give himself to God and thus to
study theology.
His master in thinking continued to be Saint Tomas Aquinas; in
a picturesque perspective on it, Charles-Auguste de Sales imagines
Francis ‘opening the Angelic Doctor’s Summa on the lectern in his
study, so he could keep it before him and return to it quickly to
understand other books’. And there were ‘other books’: Francis had
broadened the field of his reading: the Fathers were familiar to him
and among them all he had a predilection for Augustine, Jerome,
Chrysostom, Cyprian whose style enchanted him, and to these he
added St Bernard and St Bonaventure.
However, on the precise point of predestination he distanced
himself resolutely from what was presented to him as the thinking
of St Thomas, and held to the ‘truer and more pleasing’ opinion6
that his Jesuit teachers openly taught, basing themselves on Father
Molina’s book, published in 1588: De liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis,
divina praescientia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia.
Harking back to these years spent in Padua (and probably in
1591) is the note we have already cited, one that neatly described
the very pure attitude of faith and trust that would be Francis’ from
then on.
But it is noteworthy that the four ‘fragments’ that have come
down to us of his Theological Observations at Padua, all allude to
the problem of grace and predestination. One of them is especially
moving: ‘I noted this with fear and trembling,’ Francis writes on
15 December 1590 ‘so as not to have to regret the loss, if later on
this way of thinking in which I confirmed myself when I reached
adolescence and when, with age and understanding, I acquired
greater experience, would continue to seem true according to
6 Letter to Fr Léonard Lessius (Leys), Œuvres, vol. XVIII, pp. 271-274.

5.2 Page 42

▲back to top
42
Saint Francis de Sales
the judgement and decision of the Church, as it seemed true to
me in my childhood. In fact, ever since then, while my thinking
strengthened, I have been meditating on everything that seems to
be closely related to the question.’7
These theological notes, moreover, are suffused with prayer.
Here, an invocation to the Holy Spirit, there, a tribute to Jesus
Christ. God’s desire and zeal for souls are freely expressed: ‘I noted
all these things for the honour of God and the consolation of
souls.’ But what mattered to Francis more than anything else was
that his doctrine conform perfectly to the teaching of the Church.
‘I have written all these things very humbly,’ he protests ‘being
very ready to abandon not only the conclusions I have arrived
at or will arrive at, but also the head that thought them up: and,
even though my intolerance finds it repugnant to do so, I do this
to embrace the opinion that is or will in the future be adopted by
the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, my Mother and the
pillar of truth.’
Francis was ‘in his twenty-fourth year, and the time he had to
give to the study of law had passed when his father ordered him
to gain his doctorate.’ The great jurist, Guido Panciroli, ‘a man
filled with virtue and knowledge whose nature was more akin to
an angelic than a human one’, was very much attached to Francis
and himself wanted to be his ‘Dissertation director’. The oral exam
took place on 5 September 1591. Francis was outstanding in his
discussion of the thesis and responded ‘very solidly to arguments
opposed to the doctrine’ ... ‘Panciroli, his Dissertation director,
was eloquent in his praise,’ Charles-Auguste de Sales tells us, ‘and
gave him the ring, the crown and the privileges of the University’.
Francis was promoted Doctor in utroque iure – in canon and civil
law. Everyone celebrated the fact, ‘because he had won over all the
hearts in Padua’.
7 Cf. Œuvres, vol. XXII, p. 46.

5.3 Page 43

▲back to top
Chapter ii - The perfect gentleman
43
At castle La Thuile, where Monsieur de Boisy had had to withdraw
due to war between Catholics and Protestants, Francis’ triumph
was greeted with great jubilation. Before returning to France, the
young Doctor wanted to carry out a vow he had taken long before,
and went on pilgrimage to Loreto. Should we, following tradition
and Mme. de Chantal herself, place the first trip to Rome during
this period? This is certainly a respectable tradition, but a more
precise study of documents and dates might lead us to question
this and perhaps reject it.8
In February 1592, Francis was on his way back to La Thuile,
where ‘the Seigneur de Sales was impatiently awaiting his dear son’.
8 Cf. the critical biography by É.-M. Lajeunie, Saint François de Sales..., vol. I, p.
181.

5.4 Page 44

▲back to top
44
Saint Francis de Sales

5.5 Page 45

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
45
3 – PROVOST OF THE CANONS OF GENEVA
Francis ‘A Priest of Jesus Christ’
The welcome was tender and enthusiastic: Francis – still not
twenty-five years of age – seemed to everyone to be filled with
all the gifts of nature and grace. This young Doctor was also the
perfect gentleman, a horseman of fine bearing and had proven on
several occasions that, if needed, he could handle a sword with
‘manly courage’: he was worthy of presenting himself to the world
as the head of a noble family. His father’s ‘mind was spinning with
the great things in store for him’ and to begin with, he bestowed on
him the Lordship of Villaroget.
Let us consider him well as he looks over ‘all his demesne’. Has
he not perhaps perfectly realised the portrait of the virtuous man
whom he outlined in his writing about spiritual repose? ‘Fourth, I
will sleep softly in the knowledge of the excellence of virtue: virtue
so beautiful, so gracious, so noble, so generous, so attractive, so
powerful. It is this that makes man beautiful, both inwardly and
outwardly; it makes him incomparably pleasing to his Creator;
it suits him extremely well, since it is proper to him. And what
consolations, what delights, what upright pleasures it brings him
at every moment! Ah! It is Christian virtue that sanctifies him,
changes him into an Angel, makes of him a little God and from
here on gives him Paradise on earth.’
Francis’ beauty was above all an inner beauty. From the days at
Padua ‘one saw a priestly something in him’, says Fr de la Rivière;
but his soul was torn: ‘The loving respect he had for his father and

5.6 Page 46

▲back to top
46
Saint Francis de Sales
mother held him somewhat in suspense and bewilderment: he did
not know if he would irrevocably consent to the immaculate wedding
with the Lamb without first gauging what their inclinations were,
or if he would delay for a while so he could tackle this trial with all
possible discretion.’ He had waited, but had not the moment now
arrived to declare his decision?
Nevertheless, Francis hesitated to speak: Monsieur de Boisy
was almost seventy: how would he suffer this blow that would be
so painful for him? Would he not exercise his paternal authority
– something that the custom of the time authorised him to do –
to reject Francis’ plans? In few words, the matter dragged on...
Monsieur de Boisy took advantage of this delay: one day he told
his son: ‘You need to go to Chambéry to be admitted as a lawyer
to the Senate there’, and Francis agreed to complete the forms
that, on 24 November, would lead him to be received at the Bar.
Meanwhile, M. de Boisy thought about marrying Francis off to a ‘a
true aristocrat by blood and by virtue’, Françoise Suchet de Miribel,
and Francis accepted meeting her, even if it meant doing ‘nothing
else at Sallanches than simply greeting all the company there, as if
he had something else to do’.
But a more subtle danger lay here, because here one could see
a unique opportunity for the de Sales family: ‘Charles Emmanuel
(Duke of Savoy), assured of the probity and doctrine of the Lord
of Villaroget, promised him the dignity of Senator in the sovereign
Court of Savoy, with letters patent that François Melchior de Saint-
Jeoire, Baron d’Hermance, brought from Turin.’ Francis thanked
His Highness and refused. But all these events convinced him that
the moment had come to go beyond this ambiguity. ‘He turned to his
dear cousin, Louis de Sales, Canon at the cathedral in Geneva’ (he
was three years older than him and would become his companion
in his apostolate) ‘and taking him aside he revealed his heart to
him completely.’ Louis promised Francis he would convince his
uncle to consent.

5.7 Page 47

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
47
From then on, things moved more quickly. Given that the role
of Provost in the Geneva Church was vacant – the provost was the
second most important dignitary in the diocese – Louis de Sales,
without speaking to Francis about it, worked to have it assigned
to his cousin... He confided this plan to Canon François de Ronys,
‘who had much correspondence with Rome and was very practical
when it came to managing benefices’. Canon de Ronys immediately
took the usual steps, ‘and God so favoured this matter that in a
short time it was certain that His Holiness would grant it’. On 7
March 1593 the bulls of appointment were signed in Rome; on 7
May they arrived at the Archbishop’s residence in Annecy.
Francis was dumbfounded. ‘He believed it was a dream’ but,
like his cousin, saw in this event the argument that would make
it possible to gain from Monsieur de Boisy the authorisation ‘to
be of the Church’ without hurting his paternal pride too much.
The conversation between Francis and his father certainly took
place on 9 May. Did it take on the dramatic character that tradition
has given it? Did Monsieur de Boisy still attempt to gain time? It
matters little. In the end he agreed and gave his son his blessing.
The day after, 10 May 1593, Francis wanted to don the soutane.
The ceremony took place in the church in the village of Thuile.
‘Truly,’ M. Bouvard, struck by his fervour, said, ‘looking at you
it seems you are taking on the Capuchin habit.’ ‘Ah, Sir,’ Francis
replied, ‘I am taking on the habit of St Peter.’ On 12 May Francis
went down to Annecy and, without any solemn ceremony, was
invested in the Office of Provost. In agreement with his bishop, he
decided to receive the four Minor Orders and subdiaconate on the
Saturday after Pentecost.
Together with his confessor, Fr Aimé Bouvard, he went to the
castle at Sales to prepare himself to receive Orders. He arrived
there on 18 May and did not leave until 7 June. A time of solitude,
reflection, prayer... A moving echo of this retreat has come down
to us in the Année Sainte of the Visitandines: on 19 May, Francis

5.8 Page 48

▲back to top
48
Saint Francis de Sales
asked Fr Bouvard to renew the tonsure he had first received fifteen
years earlier from Bishop Regard... and as strange as it may seem,
this sacrifice of his hair – ‘they say he had blond and beautiful hair’
– was so much for him that it induced a wave of temptation against
his vocation! ‘Alas, Father,’ he confessed to Messer Bouvard, ‘I have
endured great struggles against my vocation for two days now; the
devil has not left one place in my soul untouched in order to test
me, and has tempted me even down to my hair, making me feel
huge aversion to this tonsure. Samson’s strength lay in his hair and
I think that part of my weakness lay ultimately in mine; because
since it has been cut I feel stronger in the service of God and I have
promised the Divine Majesty to strip off the old man completely
so from now on I can live totally with his grace, in a new life with
Jesus Christ.’
The fact that, in this ceremony, Francis refers to the beautiful
text of St Paul’s on baptism, clearly indicates his resolve for radical
conversion. A written note of his, that Louis de Sales claims to have
read on certain tablets that Francis had forgotten to erase, gives us
to understand the fervour with which he spent that day: ‘Francis,
you must remember that God has granted you great mercies on the
nineteenth day of May 1593, through the intercession of the glorious
Saint Celestine, protector of your retreat in preparation for orders.’
While he was preparing himself spiritually for Holy Orders, in
order to complete the canonical exam that he had already sat for,
Francis wrote his first sermon.1 The topic was chosen in accordance
with the Liturgy; the Church was then celebrating the Feast of
Pentecost. Francis saw in this an invitation to preaching: ‘This day
is the beginning of all preaching’: now, it is noteworthy that one
passage of this sermon alludes to the action, in the soul, of free will
and grace!
1 We say ‘wrote’ and not ‘gave’; but without taking a stance in the discussion by
historians: Œuvres, vol. VII, p. 1, note.

5.9 Page 49

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
49
On 7 June 1593, Francis returned to Annecy. On the 8th he
legally renounced his right as firstborn and his title to Villaroget in
favour of his brother Gallois. On the 9th he received the four Minor
Orders from Bishop de Granier and on the 11th was promoted to
‘the Holy Order of the subdiaconate. After which,’ Charles-Auguste
de Sales adds, ‘his prelate ordered him to be ready for the sermon
on the Feast of Corpus Domini’. In fact he gave the sermon only on
the day of the octave.
It is a great pity that the text, or at least the thread of this sermon
on ‘the reality of the body of Our Lord in the most holy Eucharist’ has
not come down to us, because judging from the summary given us
by Charles-Auguste de Sales, it would seem that the young preacher
had, for the first time, spelt out his ideas on the Love of God: ‘That
the sovereign good is communicated in sovereign manner of itself,
that there are three principal communications, the first with which
the Father communicates to the Son, and with which the Father
and Son communicate to the Holy Spirit; the second with which the
Blessed Trinity communicated the divine person to human nature.
The third, with which God communicates the body of his Son not
to nature but to every human person. These three communications
are so intimately bound up with each other that the third cannot
exist without the second, nor the second without the third.’ Which
means he was going straight to the heart of Christian mysticism.
Although still a subdeacon, the young provost showed that he
was particularly active. Between 24 June and Christmas 1593, he
delivered at least five important sermons. Everywhere ‘he shone
like a beautiful sun’: he studied, worked, was regular with the
choir and passionate about the liturgy. He visited the sick and
reconciled enemies. For the sanctification of souls he founded the
Confraternity of Penitents of the Holy Cross...
Francis had not even been ‘of the Church’ for six months! What
apostolic intent, what zeal for souls there was in this cleric! What
fire! What would happen, then, when he received the priesthood,

5.10 Page 50

▲back to top
50
Saint Francis de Sales
and when he would be bishop? From that moment he had taken
the weight of souls upon his shoulders. Grace in him was not in
vain: it seems that after his first sermon, Bishop de Granier had
exclaimed: ‘We have a new Apostle.’ It was a true prediction! The
life of the Apostles would always be the ideal Francis would try to
come as close to as possible.
On the Saturday of the Ember Days in September, on the
18th, Francis received the diaconate. His priestly ordination
was established for 18 December, the Saturday after the Third
Sunday of Advent. Thanks to a letter that the ordinand wrote to a
friend, Antoine Favre, around 15 December, we are able to know
something of the feelings that occupied his mind at the time: ‘As
the tremendous day approaches, the fearful day, as St Chrysostom
calls it, when according to the will of our bishop, that is, according
to the will of God (since I seek no other interpreters of the divine
will); at the approach of the day when, having passed through all
the degrees of Holy Orders, I will be promoted to the august dignity
of the priesthood, I cannot fail to announce to you the distinct
honour and excellent good that await me. It would not be right that
this transformation take place, in a man who is all yours, without
your knowledge.’
Not without trepidation did Francis confront this ‘change’, ‘the
most glorious that could happen (to him) in this world’: ‘I am
assailed by the greatest apprehension that I have ever felt… If I
am not deceived, nothing more difficult and more dangerous could
happen to man than to be called to hold in his hands and to produce
with his word, according to the expression of St Jerome, the One
whom Angels – those intelligences that we are unable to conceive
of or praise worthily – cannot even embrace in thought or celebrate
with just praise.’
Francis was counting on his friend’s faith for his turmoil to be
understood and so that he would sympathise with his state of mind.
‘Certainly, I knew very well, most respected Sir, that to such a holy and

6 Pages 51-60

▲back to top

6.1 Page 51

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
51
august dignity would be added fearsome responsibilities; but distance
can deceive the eyes and there is quite some difference in measuring
an object from close up than appreciating it from a distance. You,
honourable friend, seem to me to be the only one able to understand
the turmoil of my mind since you deal with divine things with so
much respect and so much veneration that you can easily judge how
dangerous and fearful it is to preside at their celebration, and how
easy it is to sin and sin gravely in doing so and how difficult it would
be to celebrate them with the dignity they deserve.’
But this friendly lament should not fool Antoine Favre: ‘I am
not lacking in courage,’ Francis adds, ‘since until now it has never
abandoned me.’ After having thus confided in his dear friend about
his ‘apprehension’, ‘solely to arouse your sympathy; I know that it is
a useful remedy to lift up a suffering heart’, Francis continues in a
steady tone: ‘I would not want you to think that the holy mysteries
inspire such fear in me that they do not allow any room for hope
and joy that are far superior to what I could ever deserve. I am
very happy and rejoice – laetor plurimum et gaudeo – at being able
to fulfil that office, which is among all others the most sublime, to
offer a truly acceptable sacrifice...’
Unfortunately this handwritten letter stops here: but, just as it is,
this confidence he shares is already, among all others, most precious
to us: it so well expresses the infinitely delicate and prudent soul of
Francis, whose strength and drive are rooted in the depths of the
truths of faith.
On 18 December, Francis de Sales was ‘made priest’: ‘The good
prelate’, Charles-Auguste de Sales tells us, ‘could not prevent himself
from weeping when imposing hands and thinking that this was his
beloved son. But in that action, the Servant of God Francis, rapt in
consideration of his dignity, looked like a man from another world’.
Before celebrating his first Mass, the new priest again wanted to
prepare himself with three days of retreat. ‘On 21 December
1593, the day of St Thomas the Apostle, he sang his first Mass in

6.2 Page 52

▲back to top
52
Saint Francis de Sales
Annecy, cathedral church

6.3 Page 53

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
53
the cathedral church.’ ‘In that first sacrifice,’ he would confide one
day to Mother de Chantal ‘God took possession of my soul in an
inexplicable way.’ ‘After the Office of Vespers,’ adds Charles-Auguste
in a statement that is too condensed for our liking, ‘he delivered a
very fervent sermon on the subject of his sacrifice.’ According to the
customs of the time, this sermon was certainly a semi-confidence
and a kind of agenda-setting declaration, and it is a pity that it has
not come down to us.
The five years that followed (1593–1598) show us the priest of
Jesus Christ in Francis de Sales. A magnificent figure, before whom
the Protestants of the time – at least sincere Protestants – and the
most critical historians of today, have had to bow. Grace shone
out in this priestly soul. And by providential good fortune we
see Francis exercising his priesthood in two apparently opposing
situations: in the calm of the peaceful and very Catholic city of
Annecy (Christmas 1593 – September 1594), and then in the
torment and dangers of the mission of the Chablais.
The first months of priesthood
The Annecy stage of this apostolate began with the solemn
‘installation’ of the provost. The ceremony took place shortly after
Christmas. ‘This sacred college made up of so many gentlemen and
doctors, after examining his nobility and doctrine in accordance
with custom and the statutes, conferred on him the real, actual and
corporal possession of the dignity of provost, with a kiss on the
high altar and the other habitual ceremonies.’
On this occasion Francis delivered a noteworthy address and
programme.2 After having expressed his thanks and saying how
2 This very noteworthy text is kept in the Public Library in Geneva: it was published
only in 1891, edited by the Salesian Academy. Cf. Œuvres, vol. VII, p. 99 ff.

6.4 Page 54

▲back to top
54
Saint Francis de Sales
confused he was at being thus called, he who was so young and
inexperienced, to preside over this ‘venerable chapter of the church
of Saint-Pierre of Geneva’, Francis very naturally recalled the sadness
of this exile and the desire that the bishop and canons would have
it deep in their heart to return one day to the episcopal city. And so
the provost proposed to his canons an ‘enterprise’ ‘as great as it is
difficult: and yet it is neither impossible nor unworthy of us: it is a
matter of recovering Geneva, the ancient seat of your assembly’.
A crusade? The address would have had to have pricked up the
ears of more than one of them who was present: armed struggle and
fratricide were pretty much an ongoing thing between Protestants
and Catholics in that country. But very soon, Francis described the
meaning of this reconquest: ‘With charity we need to break down
the walls of Geneva; with charity we need to invade the city; with
charity we must conquer it again... I do not propose doing battle
with iron, nor with that powder whose stench and flavour remind
one of the furnaces of hell... We need to repel the enemy with the
hunger and thirst that we put up with, not that of our adversaries.
We will drive them out with prayer, since you know that these kinds
of demons can only be driven out with prayer and fasting. Do you
want a simple way to conquer the city?’
Francis drew his example from Scripture: when Holofernes
besieged Bethulia he cut off the aqueduct and had all the fountains
that quenched the city’s thirst guarded. The same needed to be done
to Geneva: ‘There is an aqueduct that nourishes and refreshes, so
to speak, every category of heretic, and this can be identified as
the bad example of perverse priests, the actions, words and the
wickedness of everyone, but especially of the clergy. Through our
own fault God’s name is blasphemed every day among the nations,
and that is why the Lord shed bitter tears for the Prophets. Here is
the water of contradiction that seems to me to satiate the burning
thirst of heretics... These iniquitous men drink our iniquity, as it
is written: they drink iniquity like water... Because it is so, O my

6.5 Page 55

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
55
comrades in arms, since they watch the actions of others and not
their own, please, let us stop the flow of this water.’
The peaceful canons were not a little stunned to hear such
warlike epithets bestowed on them. And showing no mercy, the
provost continued his harangue: now reminding them of Israel’s
exile: ‘Perhaps we would remain insensitive to the pain we would
have to feel, faced with a heavier and less honourable exile in insofar
as all our sins prolong its duration? The Israelites sat beside the
banks of the rivers of Babylon and wept remembering Sion. And
what will we do, Canons of Geneva? Are we not perhaps exiled
and pilgrims in a strange land, the one we live in and trample on?
So let us sit ourselves down by the banks of the rivers of Babylon,
of confusion, of sins; let us weep, remembering the Genevan Sion,
once so glorious a trophy of Christ’s and that today, because of the
crimes of our time and our ancestors, lies oppressed under the
most shameful servitude of heresy.’
A final appeal which sums up the provost’s exhortation: ‘In a
word, because it is time to end this discourse, we must live according
to the Christian rule of life, in such a way that we may be canons,
that is, men of the rule, children of God, not just in name but also
in fact.’
I invite those who judge Francis de Sales to be too ‘flowery’, to
re-read this text in its integrity (there are other no less epic ones):
these thoughts, these directives, this tone would soon reveal the
true Francis de Sales, the priest of Christ grappling with the sin of
the world, convinced he could triumph over it with prayer, penance
and especially charity.
The young provost was not content with fine sermons. He acted
and gave the example. Despite the pressures from his parents, his
friends, he insisted on refusing ‘the state of Senator to which he
had been promised by His Serene Highness’. He refused to sit in the
famous Senate, but on the other hand attended to the offices of the
Chapter: ‘It is a maxim’ he replied one day to Bishop de Granier, ‘to

6.6 Page 56

▲back to top
56
Saint Francis de Sales
Portrait of Francis de Sales, dated 1618 (Visitation, Moncalieri).

6.7 Page 57

▲back to top
Chapter iii - Provost of the canons of Geneva
57
prefer community actions to individual ones: God is there where
we are gathered in his name.’ By holding to the letter of his office, the
provost could have made do with enforcing canonical discipline;
but this was not how Francis conceived of his priesthood: speaking
of that period, Mother de Chantal says: ‘Everyone knows that he
said holy Mass and was present every day at the divine offices, heard
confessions and very often preached the word of God in excellent
fashion; and from then... they considered him to be a man of God.’
We note this zeal of the new priest for the ministry of confessions:
it would be a constant characteristic of his apostolate. ‘Having had
a special authorisation from his bishop,’ (Bishop de Granier had
appointed Francis as the penitentiary of his diocese), ‘he had a
confessional built for hearing penitents’ confessions in the cathedral
church, very close to the door on the Gospel side; he remained
there sometimes from dawn till midday, surrounded by a great
number of faithful of both sexes, and without any discrimination.’
This sentence should not seem an exaggeration to us: even when
he became bishop, Francis would always dedicate himself to this
ministry of confessions as one of the most important; he would
hear the confessions of ‘young and old, poor and rich, nobles and
peasants, the healthy and the sick, the strong and the weak’: even
his mother and father would go to him. He was happy to render
this service to other priests in the diocese, and refused any financial
recompense for this ministry, as meagre as his income was, given
that the Office of Provost had been plundered of all its goods by the
heretics in Geneva; on the other hand, he found ways to give alms
and ‘secretly give to the needy poor’. He loved to comfort, console
and reconcile. He was ever more consulted on matters of law or
theology.
All this zeal and success did not fail to provoke some jealousy or
criticism on occasions: there were also attempts to pit the bishop
against his provost. But with his patience and humility, Francis
worked out how to deal with his adversaries and responded only

6.8 Page 58

▲back to top
58
Saint Francis de Sales
with forgiveness to the wrongdoings they had committed. On the
other hand he had many friends who, if necessary, helped him and
backed him. Among these, Senator Antoine Favre, whom he calls,
in his correspondence, Frater suavissime, amantissime, dulcissime,
and with whom, in the church at Aix where a fragment of the true
Cross is kept, he organised a joint pilgrimage on the Wednesday of
Pentecost 1594 of the Confraternity of Pentitents of Annecy and
the Confraternity of Penitents of Chambéry, recently established
by Antoine Favre.

6.9 Page 59

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
59
4 – THE APOSTLE OF THE CHABLAIS:
TIME FOR SOWING
The Provost’s choice
A considerable change then took place in Francis’ life. This Provost
of the Geneva Canons, who seemed devoted to a hard-working
life, certainly but one without risks and that he could easily shine
in, would for four years become a poor, threatened, destitute
missionary who could be compared to Francis Xavier and even to
Saint Paul. He would be the first to launch the assault, if not against
Geneva at least against Protestant ministers inspired by Geneva,
that he had announced in his inauguration speech: threats, insults,
contradictions, failures, abandonment, nothing would be spared
him. In Francis de Sales’ life there is perhaps no period when he
would seem to be greater...
We are talking about what the saint’s historians call the Mission
to the Chablais.
The Chablais is a small area about ten kilometres by five,
surrounded in the north by Lake Léman (Lake of Geneva) and
in the south by the mountains of Faucigny. In 1594, the Duke of
Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I, took it back: it was part of the territory
under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Geneva, Bishop de Granier.
But the religious situation was less than consoling for the bishop:
of the twenty-five thousand souls who populated the area, only a
hundred or so were Catholic; all the rest, willingly or unwillingly,
had gone over to Protestantism.

6.10 Page 60

▲back to top
60
Saint Francis de Sales
How come things had come to this? It would take too long to
explain in detail the vicissitudes experienced by this district after
the advent of Protestantism in Geneva. Let us quote just part of the
letter of ‘information’ that Francis wrote to the Apostolic Nuncio
in Turin, Bishop Giulio Cesare Riccardi, from Thonon, on 19
February 1596: ‘One part of this diocese of Geneva’ (he was talking
about the Chablais) ‘was invaded by the Bernese sixty years ago,
and became heretical; but after that, the area was reconquered by
force by his Highness and reunited with its ancient heritage. Many
of the inhabitants – moved more by the din of arquebuses than by
the preaching aimed at them by the Lord Bishop – returned to holy
Mother Church; but then these districts were infested by invasions
from Geneva and the French, and the people fell back into their
quagmire.’
The years during which Francis would work to convert this
divided area fell between two important events: the abjuration of
Henry of Navarre, on 25 July 1593, which allowed Duke Charles
Emmanuel to recover the Chablais and weakened the pressure of
Protestantism on souls, without however eliminating it (everyone
feared that the Genevans would become masters of the area again);
and the Treaty of Vervins in 1598, which seemed to reconcile France
and Spain and bring a promise of peace, although the controversy
between France and Savoy was not completely settled. For the
inhabitants, therefore, these were years of political uncertainty, and
as a consequence – for such was the misfortune of the time – years
of religious hesitation.
These were also years of very high military expenses for Duke
Charles Emmanuel. For reasons of State as well as through religious
conviction, he sincerely wanted Francis to be successful with the
conversion of the Chablais, but was unable to provide him with
the financial aid necessary for the restoration of parishes and to
establish various works, in particular colleges for young people.
These circumstances would give the Chablais mission – which

7 Pages 61-70

▲back to top

7.1 Page 61

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
61
could have been a very political enterprise – an unquestionably
evangelical character: it was in poverty, toil, penance, conflicts that
Francis would spend a lengthy period working for the spiritual
reconquest of this area.
But how come Francis was chosen for this tough and dangerous
ministry? Since 1589, the Duke had been asking Bishop de Granier
to once again assign parish priests to the fifty former parishes of
the Chablais. A year later, in February 1591, these fifty priests
had once again been expelled by the Calvinists; and the clearest
result of their work had been to prove that the means tried was
certainly not the right one. It would have been better to send just
two or three priests there, at least to begin with, but for them to
be priests of considerable knowledge and deeply religious: ‘That
great prelate’ Bishop de Granier, Charles-Auguste de Sales writes
candidly, ‘therefore looked everywhere to find those who would
have been able to spread the seed of the word of God in those lands.
Almost everyone had gone to ground, their hearts filled with fear
of the dangers. To be honest, he had first cast an eye on his son,
the provost de Sales, but because of other considerations he had
not dared to propose it to him.’ He then had the idea of calling
his clergy together in assembly and asking for volunteers. ‘The
magnanimous Francis, having been called to the assembly of the
clergy which was held for this purpose, and seeing that no one said
a word, rose boldly from his seat and said: “My Lord, if you judge
me capable, and if you ask me, I am quite ready to obey, and will go
willingly.” It cannot be said how joyful the good bishop was at this
offer. He replied that not only did he judge him very capable, but
also that it seemed to him to be most expedient.’
It is a beautiful scene, and one that conforms completely to
the temperament and grace of Francis. But perhaps this account
does not sufficiently underline a nuance that in no way lessens
the generosity of the provost and that he himself indicates in his
report to Nuncio Riccardi on 19 February 1596: ‘Since His Serene

7.2 Page 62

▲back to top
62
Saint Francis de Sales
Highness, on the one hand, and our Very Reverend Bishop on the
other, have sought to remedy this illness, I came here at the order
of the Reverend Bishop, not as a doctor capable of healing such an
illness but more as an explorer and quartermaster to examine what
needs to be done to provide remedies and doctors for the area.’
In short, more a precursor in charge of preparing the mission
than a missionary properly so called; and we can better understand
Bishop de Granier’s words, as Charles-Auguste indicates them: ‘To
these words (the bishop) added his thanks for the fact that (Francis)
wanted to help him in his old age, since in truth this burden would
have had to fall on his shoulders if he had the strength to bear it.’
So Francis would have left for the task as a replacement for the
bishop. This in no way lessens his merit: the mission as precursor
under these circumstances was already a very dangerous one: he
would have to work in Thonon, capital of the Chablais, under the
protection of Baron d’Hermance’s Catholic soldiers garrisoned at
the castle of Allinges. On the other hand, the apostolic Francis could
not be satisfied with playing the part of the investigator or diplomat:
from the outset the messenger would become a missionary, as can
be seen in the report of 19 February to the Nuncio...
‘Immediately, the Servant of God prepared everything that
he needed for this apostolic expedition, meaning his books, but
other than the Holy Bible and the Controversies of Cardinal Robert
Bellarmine, he took very few things. He took with him his beloved
cousin, Louis de Sales, a canon, a man with a very clear mind and
gentle spirit who had already given great testimony to his capability
in theological matters through his preaching of the word of God.
He also recommended this undertaking to the sacrifices of his
confreres, the canons, and the other good clerics and religious of
the diocese.’ Even accounting for the tone of edification common
to this kind of biography, we can grasp, through these words of
Charles-Auguste the spiritual attitude of Francis and Louis as they
left for the Chablais.

7.3 Page 63

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
63
One incident, moreover, would give Francis the opportunity to
express his intimate feelings more clearly. He was not unaware that
his undertaking was meeting fierce opposition from his father...
On his way through Sales he decided to stop over some time there
‘to receive (his father’s) instructions. But of course the Lord of Sales
would only be instructing him to remain’. The elderly gentleman’s
arguments were filled with human wisdom and political prudence.
Francis would be facing a terrible storm. ‘Relying only on God and
obedience,’ Mother de Chantal says ‘he held firm.’ ‘Father,’ he replied
‘God will provide; it is he who comes to the aid of the strong; we only
need to have courage; we are not dealing with barbarians. Beside
the fact that we are not completely unknown there’ (this confession
of Francis is not negligible, to understand the choice that was made
of him for this mission), ‘we are not going there either to plunder
or to pillage; we only want to attack them with spiritual weapons.
They will not harm our bodies. And God, in accordance with his
promise, will bestow great virtue on our words, in order to preach
the truth of his Gospel. And what if they should send us to the
Indies or to England: should we not go there? Certainly it would be
a very desirable journey, and the death we would endure for Jesus
Christ would be better than a thousand triumphs. After all, this is
the will of His Serene Highness, these are the orders and mission of
the Most Reverend Bishop, and nothing can be opposed to them.
It is a difficult thing, it is true, and no one could deny it; but why
wear these clothes if we do not want to take on the burden as well?’
Monsieur de Boisy was obstinate, and so as not to be present
at his son’s farewells he withdrew to the castle at Thuile, but from
there, just the same, he sent out letters to certain friends in the
Chablais, asking them to watch over his son’s life and that of his
nephew.
On Wednesday 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation of
the Holy Cross, Francis and Louis set out on their journey. They
very soon reached Saint-Cergues and discovered the magnificent

7.4 Page 64

▲back to top
64
Saint Francis de Sales
Chablais plains. They quickly made their way to the fortress at
Allinges, ‘situated on a round mountain’, to present themselves first
of all to the governor, Baron d’Hermance. They arrived at sunset.
The Baron ‘introduced the two new apostles to the fortress... from
that prominent position one could look out over the miserable
state of those provinces’.
In realty the province was admirably picturesque. But at the
time, contemplating it, Francis was thinking of things quite other
than the landscape: while crossing the district, the two missionaries
had already noticed some traces of the ruin of Catholicism. ‘I
am speaking, then, of what I have seen and, so to say, of what my
hands have touched,’ Francis would write one day to Pope Clement
VIII, ‘and I am the least of men if I do not speak the truth, the
most inconsiderate if I do not know. As soon as we entered those
districts, a sad sight appeared before us everywhere. Before us lay
sixty-four parishes; now, with the exception of the Duke’s Catholic
officers, since he did not want them to be of any other religion,
we would have found no more than a hundred faithful out of a
population of several thousand souls. Most of the churches had
been destroyed or were stripped; absolutely no more cross, no more
altar but everywhere the vestiges of the ancient and true Faith in
ruins. Everywhere there were ministers, as they are called, meaning
teachers of heresy, who pervert families, insinuate their doctrine,
occupy the pulpits, all in view of sordid gain. Bernese, Genevans
and other like children of perdition were terrorising the people
through their emissaries to keep them away from our preaching.
The truce, they said, was but a truce, peace had not been concluded
and very soon they would drive out the Duke and the priests with
arms: and our party, they said, would defy any attack, and would
remain alone triumphant.’

7.5 Page 65

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
65
Remains of the Les Allinges fortress

7.6 Page 66

▲back to top
66
Saint Francis de Sales
Resistance from the inhabitants of Thonon
This was the situation. Francis made enquiries with ‘Baron d’Hermance
on means and ways to commence work’. Clearly it was at Thonon
that they would need to begin contact with the Protestants: the city
is three leagues from Allinges; of the three thousand inhabitants
there were only fifteen or so Catholics, but among them the
comptroller, Claudio Marin, fully devoted to the Duke, magistrate
Claude d’Orlier and some friends of Monsieur de Boisy like
Charles Vidomne, Lord of Charmoisy. Francis was already talking
about celebrating Mass. Baron d’Hermance ‘found that it was not
yet appropriate to be instituting the holy sacrifice of the Mass at
Thonon nor elsewhere, since at night time there was no security
except in the fort; so, he said, one might at least be able to find a
way to preach at Thonon’. Francis followed the Baron’s advice and
lodged at the castle.
On Friday 16 September 1594, the small group of Catholics met
with the two missionaries at comptroller Claude Marin’s home.
On Sunday the 18th, after having duly presented the Duke’s letters
authorising his mission to the mayor of Thonon, Pierre Fornier,
Francis met his new flock in the ancient church of Saint Hippolytus,
after the Calvinist function had finished. This is how it happened:
when minister Viret had finished his sermon, Francis entered
the church followed ‘by the Duke’s officers and some Catholics’1
and before this modest audience delivered a sermon extensively
supported by Scriptural quotations, on the mission of the Church’s
pastors.
From that moment on, the two missionaries never interrupted
their activity: Louis chose the region of Allinges, Francis remained
in Thonon, where the danger was greater. A letter of Francis to
Senator Favre, a letter that most probably needs to be dated on 4
1 Note on the back of the handwritten copy. Cf. Œuvres, vol. VII, p. 202.

7.7 Page 67

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
67
or 5 October, tells us about these first weeks. He confesses that ‘the
cloud, certainly commanded by the prince of darkness, seemed
dark’ to him and also that it ‘increasingly obscures the minds of
these men’.
After the sermon on 18 September, things appeared to go slightly
better: ‘The governor, with some other Catholics, did not overlook
anything in order to attract the farmers in the neighbourhood and
the citizens of Evian to our sermons, secretly persuading them, and
to advance matters of religion with ardent and enlightened zeal.’
But very soon the heretics reacted: ‘The Thonon authorities, having
assembled their council (on 2 October) swore, with sovereign
perfidy, that neither they nor the people would ever attend Catholic
preaching... This happened, so I was told, the day before yesterday,
at the town hall, and several had already taken this oath at the
assembly of the godless that they call their consistory... They would
certainly like us to lose hope that we could bring our undertaking
to a good end, and so oblige us to withdraw.’
It means they had underestimated Francis de Sales! ‘It will not
be so; so long as we are permitted to by the truce and by the will of
the ecclesiastical and secular power, we are absolutely determined
to work without end at this undertaking, leave nothing untried,
to beg, to begin over again with all the patience and knowledge that
God will give us. To whoever wishes to question me about this
work, I maintain that not only is preaching necessary, but also that
the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice must be restored as soon as
possible, so that the enemy can see that by his artifices he is giving us
courage rather than discouragement.’ And Francis added these few
words which say much about the mixture in these affairs of politics
and religion: ‘But in this we need to exercise much prudence while
we wait to see if the temporary peace we are enjoying will endure.’
During that winter of 1594–1595, everything conspired to
discourage Francis: the rigours of a particularly inclement season,
the opposition of the Protestant ministers who held sway over the

7.8 Page 68

▲back to top
68
Saint Francis de Sales
people, the plots being woven at Annecy around the bishop to have
him recalled: ‘I hope’ Antoine Favre told him on 31 October, ‘that
my messengers will no longer have to send you my letters in the
solitude where you are living, but in the city where very soon, I
predict, you will be recalled not only at the wish of a very solicitous
father, but also through the orders of a very loving bishop. In fact
both, in my presence, have spoken much about recalling you and
of giving you a successor.’
To this were added ‘a thousand jibes and mockeries’, to use
the words of one of his biographers; they called him a ‘hypocrite,
idolater, false prophet’, accused him of magic and witchcraft.
They ‘hurled insults’ at him, ‘payed scoundrels who sought to kill
him’. Let us hold to one certain and secure fact: it is a fragment
of a letter of 27 November 1594 that tells us: ‘Here, God has me
glimpse a work worthy only of the virtue of his right hand. Today
I begin preaching Advent to four or five people: all the others are
maliciously ignorant of the meaning of the word Advent; and such
an august time as this in the Church is held in opprobrium and
derision among these unfaithful people.’
But these difficulties did not discourage our missionary: ‘Prayer,
alms and fasting are the three parts that make up the cord that is not
easily broken by the enemy: with the help of divine grace, we will
attempt to tie up the enemy with it.’ Prayer, alms, fasting... ‘He went
through snow, bad weather on foot, unless the weather was so bad
that it obliged him to take a horse,’ Mother de Chantal tells us ‘and I
heard both him and the late M. Louis de Sales say that on his return
(from Thonon) the Blessed went to other towns to preach, confess
and do what was necessary for the good and progress of souls.
These journeys were not without peril...’ Things got to such a point
that Baron d’Hermance offered to give Francis an armed guard –
something he refused in horror – and had to do so in secret, from
a distance, using a few soldiers...

7.9 Page 69

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
69
Change of strategy: the Controverses
From all appearances it was a failure. At the end of four months of
preaching, Francis had to agree that progress was non-existent. He
would try another means of conquest: since they did not want to
listen to him he would write.
The Protestants would receive his proofs, his arguments and
refutations at their own homes: they would read them, re-read
them in peace, discuss them or meditate on them. Simple leaflets,
messages compiled in full combat, during the rare free moments
snatched from work and daily tasks; just the same, Francis had
established a general plan for them and from the beginning it
seems that he was thinking of turning them into a book, one day
or other. Right from the first edition, as a whole they were given
the name Controverses, and this is what we will call them:2 but we
are sorry that Meditations or something even more expressive, like
Memorials, has been abandoned since Meditations was the name
Francis attributed to these writings.
As he tells us, the idea of this approach was suggested to him by
‘a serious and judicious gentleman’. His ‘Letter to the Gentlemen
of Thonon’ with which he announced his project, carries the
date 25 January, ‘the day of the conversion of St Paul’; but he had
already begun the work on that date. Towards the end of January
he apologised to his friend Antoine Favre for his delay in writing:
‘I was hoping, my brother, to let you see some of our work; but I
changed my opinion and decided to wait until there was, let’s say, a
body of material, instead of sending it to you a little at a time. I am
so lacking in diligence that, needing to attend to many other tasks,
I haven’t even started at all... I am turning over in my mind some
Meditations on the mutations of the heretics of our time.’
2 Here and henceforth they will be referred to by the French title ‘Controverses’
rather than the English ‘Controversies’, to distinguish them from Bellermine’s
work.

7.10 Page 70

▲back to top
70
Saint Francis de Sales
A little later, certainly towards mid-February 1595, he wrote to
him again: ‘You want to see the first pages of my work against the
heretics: I too very much want to, and I will not hoist my colours
among the ranks of the enemy with all the ardour deserved by this
cause unless you first approve of my plan, the battle plan and the
tactics adopted. But I feel the difficulty of the enterprise and I also
miss the auxiliary troops that I would need: I mean the necessary
books for a man who retains only a very small amount of knowledge
in his memory. However, I have begun, and I have done so in such a
way that it will be somewhat more difficult than I thought to bring
my enterprise to a good conclusion... As soon as possible you will
see part of my work.’
At the same time he told his friend of an important decision: ‘I
will spend the rest of Lent at Thonon: this seems best to me.’ Best?
Les Allinges, chapel where Francis de Sales celebrated Mass.

8 Pages 71-80

▲back to top

8.1 Page 71

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
71
To write his Controverses, for sure – he would be able to use the
libraries of some friends; best also for the joy and courage of the
Catholics there; and also for some Calvinists who secretly wanted
to consult him. But what a reckless decision! Humanly speaking
his gesture was imprudent and for some time he had to remain in
hiding in the place where he was living.
On 7 March he announced to Antoine Favre: ‘I have finally gone
down to Thonon; let the enemy be ready for a lance, vibrating with
the tension of being delayed. Assailed from the distant heights of my
citadel, he has scorned just terms; I will now launch the final assault.’
There was plenty of work: ‘Much more preaching has prevented me
from giving the necessary attention to our Meditations against the
heretics.’ But now, perhaps, a little bit of help was about to arrive:
a famous Capuchin, Fr Chérubin de Maurienne. ‘May he soon
arrive!’
Francis did not yet dare celebrate Mass at Thonon: every
morning he went to the chapel of Saint-Etienne in the village of
Marin, beyond Dranse. This meant that he ran a serious risk: one
day Francis and his three companions, among whom a servant of
M. de Boisy, Georges Rolland, were attacked on the Allinges road
by two armed men. Thanks to Francis’ calm words, matters ended
without bloodshed, and even with forgiveness. But Rolland rode
breathlessly to the castle at Thorens to describe the adventure;
Monsieur de Boisy enjoined his son to return to Annecy, and
this was the letter he received towards mid-March 1595: ‘Most
honourable father, were Rolland your son instead of your servant,
he would not have been cowardly enough to back away from such
a minor incident as he was involved in, and would not have built
it up into what sounded like a huge battle. No one should doubt
the ill will of our adversaries; but they make a mistake when they
doubt our courage. Through the grace of God we know that he who
perseveres will be saved... So I beg you, father, not to attribute my
perseverance to disobedience...’

8.2 Page 72

▲back to top
72
Saint Francis de Sales
This is what he wrote to Monsieur de Boisy, but when he freely
opened his soul, his confidences took on a different tone. In early
April 1595, he wrote to Bishop de Granier: ‘If you would like to
know – as it is appropriate that you should – what we have done
and what we are doing now, you will find it all in the readings of St
Paul’s Letters: we are on the move, but in the manner of an invalid
who, having risen from his bed, discovers that he no longer knows
how to use his feet, and in his frail health, no longer knows whether
he is healthy or sick...’
With Fr Possevino, his former spiritual director, he was even
more personal: ‘There are some relatives and other people here
who respect me for particular reasons I cannot mention; and
that is what keeps me so busy at work. I would already be very
distressed had I not the hope that things will improve, and I also
know that the miller is not wasting time while hammering away
with his millstone. So, it would be a great pity for someone to tire
themselves out here for nothing while they could get better results
elsewhere than I could, not much good at preaching as I am, other
than to walls as I do in this city.’
Finally some success to compensate for Francis’ perseverance:
the famous lawyer and jurist, Pierre Poncet, renounced Calvinism.
There was much jubilation in the Catholic camp and Francis received
much congratulation for this conversion: this was someone ‘who
enjoyed great respect... and much credit.’
Towards the Feast of the Ascension, and perhaps for some rest,
Francis returned to Thorens. He spent a week at the castle in Sales,
then went to Annecy. During the Feast of Pentecost, which fell that
year on 16 May, he gave many a sermon. On Saturday 25 May –
Corpus Domini – Francis was favoured with an extraordinary grace:
‘... At three in the morning, while engrossed in deep meditation on
the most holy and august sacrament of the Eucharist,’ as we are
told in more or less these words by Charles-Auguste de Sales and
Fr de la Rivière ‘he felt moved to rapture by the Holy Spirit in an

8.3 Page 73

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
73
abundance of sweetness... and since his heart was overwhelmed by
such delight, he was finally forced to throw himself to the ground
and exclaim: Lord, hold back the waves of your grace; withdraw
them from me because I can no longer bear the greatness of your
sweetness, which forces me to prostrate myself.’ And Charles-
Auguste adds: ‘So filled was he with this torrent of delights, that
he went away to celebrate Holy Mass; from there, he went up to
the pulpit and preached with such great efficacy of words and with
such ardour that his face shone, so inflamed was he by the divine
embers of heavenly love.’
God sustained the soul of his missionary with these favours:
and in fact the time had come to return to the Chablais. Early in
June, Francis stopped over at the castle in Sales and was saddened
to see that his father’s opposition had not changed. Because he
earned nothing from his role as provost and his father refused any
aid, he left once more for Thonon in abject poverty. Duke Charles
Emmanuel showed no support and gave him no help. Only his faith
in God sustained him in his undertaking... At Thonon he once more
found his small, faithful flock under strong counter-attack from the
Calvinists: Francis’ absence had reinvigorated the latter’s boldness
despite the presence of Louis de Sales.
Despite this, he courageously set to work again. Undoubtedly,
the summer months were dedicated mostly to the Controverses. For
example, it seems that we can choose 29 June, Feast of Sts Peter and
Paul, as the date for the leaflet on The Unity of the Church. The true
Church must be one in its Head, and that the sheet on The Profanation
of the Holy Scriptures caused by the alleged ease in understanding
Scripture was written on 4 October.3
Writing on 21 July to Peter Canisius, the Jesuit theologian whom
Ignatius of Loyola had sent to the Council of Trent and whom he
3 Cf. Œuvres, vol. I, p. 90: Evangile du jour d’huy, and on p. 194, an allusion to the
feast of St Francis of Assisi.

8.4 Page 74

▲back to top
74
Saint Francis de Sales
had made the first provincial of Germany, Francis told him: ‘By
now I have been among the heretics for nine months and, despite
the size of the harvest, I have only been able to put away eight
ears of corn in the Lord’s granary... Among these converts there
is a certain Pierre Poncet, a very erudite legal expert and, as far as
heresy is concerned, much wiser than the local Calvinist minister.
In familiar conversation with him, seeing that the testimony of
antiquity influenced him so much, I loaned him your Catechism
containing the teachings of the Fathers... This reading drew him
away from error and opened up the path that leads to the Church.
He finally surrendered, and we are both indebted to you for this.’
This letter offers us something noteworthy: Francis was grappling
with theological difficulties raised by the Calvinists and that he was
unable to resolve ‘not even with the help of Bellarmine’s works: I do
not have here the books I need; in fact I only brought very few with
me that deal with the controversies of our time.’ Noting that he
was separated from Canisius ‘only by Lake Léman, so to speak,’ he
proposed writing to him from time to time to put some questions
to him ‘on theological issues and the difficulties they present, so as
to receive, also in writing, your instructions.’
Thus we see – and must admire – the care he took to compile his
leaflets and how seriously he took the arguments of the Huguenots.
Were these leaflets printed? We should probably believe the
Visitandines who say they were, instead of Dom Mackey who
says they weren’t: whatever the case, each week a new leaflet ‘was
distributed to homes in Thonon and in the countryside.’
July was not only taken up with theology: ‘I spent the whole
month either on pilgrimage (meaning the apostolic missions), or
in essential brief journeys’,4 he wrote from Annecy on 12 August to
4 Among which we need to include the settling of some disputes that Bishop de
Granier had entrusted him with. Cf., if they are genuine, letters LV and LVI,
Œuvres, vol. XI, p. 148 and p. 151.

8.5 Page 75

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
75
Antoine Favre. Fatigue? Overwork? Beneath his ever courageous
attitude we sense some tiredness: ‘The harvest of Thonon is a
burden beyond my strength, but I have decided to abandon it only
with your approval, at your orders. However, I am continuing to
prepare new workers for this work with all kinds of solutions and
ruses, and to seek ways to sustain them. I see no end, no way out
of the endless cunning of the enemy of mankind.’
And another valuable personal note: ‘I have been tormented and
still am, brother, seeing that among so many disasters that threaten
us, there is so little time left to nurture the devotion we are in such
urgent need of. Nevertheless, counting on the Lord’s mercy, we
need to lift up our hearts to better hopes... Tomorrow I return to
my Sparta.’
In fact, things ‘in Sparta’ did improve somewhat. The letter that
Francis wrote to Antoine Favre from Thonon on 18 September is a
masterpiece that is enough on its own to reveal to us the missionary
zeal, faith and heart of the writer: ‘Finally, brother, a wider and more
beautiful door opens for us to enter this harvest of Christians: in
fact, it was not long ago (yesterday) that M. d’Avully and the elders
of the city, as they are called, came openly to my preaching, because
they had heard that I was to speak about the august sacrament of
the altar. They had such a desire to hear from me the exposition of
what Catholics believe and their proofs concerning this mystery
that, not having dared to come publicly, for fear of seeming to be
ignoring the law they had imposed on themselves, they listened to
me from a place where they could not be seen,5 unless my weak
voice had hindered them.’
And Francis further encouraged their curiosity by promising
‘that in the preaching to follow, he would, through the Scriptures,
put this dogma in a light that would be clearer than the full sun
at noon.’ At any cost he wanted to force the ministers ‘out into the
5 It seems that these listeners had hidden in the organ loft.

8.6 Page 76

▲back to top
76
Saint Francis de Sales
open’ and debate with them. ‘It is certain: since they are agreeing to
debate this, they will very soon end up capitulating, as the proverb
says... The inhabitants of Thonon have agreed to present to us in
writing their confession of faith in the points where it differs from
ours, so that we can discuss with them in private or in familiar
conversations or in writing.’
For Francis, this meant the victory of his apostolic strategy: these
private discussions with the ‘leading citizens’ of the Chablais always
seemed to him to be the most important part, the only evangelical
part of his activity. Certain of his faith and secure in God’s grace,
he would go to these meetings not just as a partner in conversation,
but as a conqueror. ‘We are certainly on the right path, since they
are taking up the fight through their men of rank. Our weak forces
frighten them and they are thinking of offering us conditions. But
as for us, God’s grace gives us much courage and we await this
struggle that gives us good hopes with impatience and joy.’
Unfortunately, we only have a summary of the sermon on 17
September; but whoever wishes to understand Francis’ apostolic
heart should read the introduction that was almost entirely written
down. We need to hear him begin the discourse, after having
quoted the passage from St Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 10:16):
‘The great Babylon, that we see in this miserable century, was
founded on this question, taken and understood in a way that is
very different from how the blessed Apostle did so.’
He would not say everything that could be said about it, but what
seemed to him the ‘most special and more compelling. Anyone
who wants to expose doubts to me, in writing or in any other way,
I will be most obliged to, and I will consider it a singular favour
and will try to give him in return all the satisfaction I can, with full
charity and respect.’
And what an appeal he made to the Calvinists listening to him! ‘I
beg you, for you salvation and by the blood of the Saviour, to come
and listen to the reasons of the Catholic Church, so that it cannot be

8.7 Page 77

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
77
said of you that you condemned them without having heard them.
On that occasion let go of all human passion; do not consider the
familiarity you have with one or other side, but look only to where
scripture, reason and true theology are to be found. And then, in
accordance with what you see, and leaving everything else aside,
resolve to embrace the better side.’ And Francis exclaimed: ‘Lord, I
am here to serve you, da mihi intellectum ut sciam testimonia tua.’
On that same 17 September, Pope Clement VIII finally agreed
on a papal absolution for King Henry IV. The news raced through
Savoy as it did through France. From the beginning of October
Francis rejoiced over it in a letter to Antoine Favre: ‘I learn... that
the Holy Father recently sent Henry the happy message: “Health
and Apostolic Benediction to the King of France.” If this is so, may
peace reign by the power of the Lord! I augur that this peace will
be all the happier as I see it becoming more unpleasant for all the
heretics of Geneva.’
In fact, the event would have considerable influence on Francis’
apostolate in the Chabalis: the inhabitants of the districts there
would be less reluctant to commit themselves, and Duke Charles
Emmanuel, seeing the near future in a less warlike perspective,
would show a strong desire to help Francis. Meanwhile, Francis
increased his pressure on the Calvinists of the Chablais: ‘I am
now pursuing these gentlemen of Thonon even more,’ he wrote to
Favre ‘and I will do so increasingly when, in accordance with my
ability, I have brought to a conclusion the little work I have been
meditating upon for some time, and when you have approved of
my undertaking.’
At the end of 1595, Francis’ activity seemed prodigious: well-
known Calvinists came looking for him to discuss with him, among
them Lord d’Avully, lawyer Claude de Prez. He began drafting, for
the legal Code prepared by Antoine Favre (it would be called the
Codex Fabrianus), an exposé of the principal heresies over which
the legislator would need to exercise vigilance. Vigorous and ardent

8.8 Page 78

▲back to top
78
Saint Francis de Sales
pages, among the most beautiful written by Francis, they would
be included in Favre’s work under the title: De summa Trinitate et
fide catholica.6 To even better confound the heretics he immersed
himself in a study of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion,
after having humbly asked Rome’s permission, as a simple cleric,
to do so.
Finally, towards 1595, Charles Emmanuel asked Francis to
explain to him ‘... the most effective means for realising the holy
desire that (His Highness) has of seeing the people of the Chablais
reunited with the Catholic Church.’ Francis quickly took up this
much desired invitation, and on 29 December explained to the Duke
the moral and financial support he hoped for from his authority.
We need to read the letter in the context of the time: unfortunately
politics was mixed up with religious concerns by both Catholic
and Protestant parties. Francis, as a lawyer, still visibly adhered to
the traditional principle of the Catholic State: ‘One faith, one law,
one king’; and we now hear him demand that ‘in case of obstinacy,
those who persist in error (be deprived) of any office of justice and
any public position’. But after this note, what we find in the letter
is the apostolic heart of the missionary, his theological optimism.
According to him it was sufficient that the Catholic faith be
preached and heard by the heretics: grace would do the rest.7 He
was counting especially on the re-establishment of parish priests in
all the parishes and on freedom of movement for missionaries ‘in
all these bailiwicks,8 according to need.’ He also asked that people
6 In particular, read the magnificent pages of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, Œuvres,
vol. XXIII, pp. 99-100.
7 Cf. Joseph Leclerc, Histoire de la tolérance au siècle de la Réforme, Aubier,
Montaigne, 1955, 2 vols, passim; see the index of topics under: ‘Obligatory
attendance at official worship’
8 Bailiwick: the office and area of jurisdiction of a bailiff who was in charge of the
administration of justice and had administrative control.

8.9 Page 79

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
79
be officially summoned to doctrinal expositions or controversies
that would take place: ‘They will be gently constrained, Sir’; and
knowing the virtues of his friend, Senator Favre, he suggests that
he be chosen to exercise this authority in the Duke’s name. Finally,
he requests the funds needed to set up a Jesuit College at Thonon.
Along with this letter, we need to bear in mind another letter
Francis addressed to Nuncio Riccardi on 19 February 1596: with
admirable clarity he explained the situation in the Chablais to
the new Nuncio, as it stood following these eighteen months of
work: ‘Although fear of our heretical neighbours has considerably
damaged the success of this enterprise, nevertheless some results
have been obtained through the conversion of a few people, among
whom two who were very much involved in heresy. Now, thanks
to news of the coming peace, we are on the eve of reaping what we
have sown so far.’ In fact, peace took some time to be established.
But Francis was right: the time of sowing, the heroic and missionary
period was almost at an end: the time was now approaching to
store the harvest in the granary.
We needed to dwell for a while on this time of sowing. Never
would Francis be more clearly the ‘priest of Jesus Christ’ for us, an
apostle like Paul or Francis Xavier. Here he was alone, or nearly
alone: even when his cousin, Canon Louis, was beside him, it
was Francis who bore the weight of the mission. He was poor,
unresourced, and to support his needs and his almsgiving he only
had some gifts that his mother gave him, unbeknown to his father.
He did not have human support: for sure, Baron d’Hermance
and the garrison at Allinges were ready to protect him in case
of danger, but Francis refused to preach the Gospel beneath the
protection of pikes and halberds. As for the Duke, after asking him
to commence the mission, he was silent, gave the missionary no
official authorisation, gave him no aid, while the Protestants of the
Chablais were strengthened by the assistance and wealth of Geneva
and Berne.

8.10 Page 80

▲back to top
80
Saint Francis de Sales
Thonon, map of the city
(from Theatrum Sabuadiae..., pars II, Amsterdam 1862).

9 Pages 81-90

▲back to top

9.1 Page 81

▲back to top
Chapter iv- The apostle of the Chablais: time for sowing
81
Francis worked slowly and patiently: his hope lay in God:
he prayed, fasted and practised mortification; his daily Mass –
celebrated in the circumstances we know about – was his great
reserve of strength. He treated the Protestants who insulted him,
threatened him and sometimes attacked him ‘with respect and
charity’: and above all, he took them seriously. He studied, wrote
and preached for them. What did it matter if there were just five
or a hundred listening? Gospel, Scripture, the Church: these were
what had to be presented in their purity, making them lovable and
accessible. By words, certainly; but also by his life and all his faith:
he the priest needed to reveal to his lost brothers the spirit and
heart of Jesus Christ.
One day, presenting Francis to Cardinal de’ Medici, Duke Charles
Emmanuel would say: ‘You are looking at a man who has planted
the cross and the faith of Our Lord in this province.’ Never had a
truer compliment been said about Francis. After all, during those
difficult years, he himself had a gesture that symbolised this heroic
apostolate better than any other: accused of magic and witchcraft,
threatened with death, ‘he laughed, and made a great sign of the
cross on himself: “Behold”, he said, “my mark and my spells.”’

9.2 Page 82

▲back to top
82
Saint Francis de Sales

9.3 Page 83

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
83
5 – THE APOSTLE OF THE CHABLAIS: TIME
FOR HARVESTING
Stages of success
In the early months of 1596, Francis’ apostolic life would undergo
some transformation. We will no longer follow him in the
details of his eventful and varied life, but will insist rather on the
characteristics of his spiritual make-up.
One important fact that it would seem we cannot doubt, since we
know of it through two letters whose text became part of the first
canonisation process, allows us to gauge the apostolate of Francis
de Sales in this period and to reconstruct its atmosphere. At the
Duke’s court and at the Nunciature, certainly in agreement with
the Bishop of Geneva, the thinking was to make him coadjutor
to Bishop de Granier. Francis defended himself from this with a
firmness as clear-cut as the protocols of the time allowed: ‘As for
the office of coadjutor, every possible reason and my personal
experience forbid me from desiring it; and the duty, honour and
zeal that I bear for the Most Reverend Bishop will always prevent
me from thinking of the bishopric so long as God leaves him as my
prelate: and my incapacity would prevent me [from accepting it]
when God chooses to deprive me of him.’ But by now the notion
had been floated, and while Francis’ authority increased because of
it, his apostolate, on the other hand, would inevitably be coloured
by political nuances. What is admirable is the fact that even in
these official relationships, Francis would remain, above all and
unfailingly the Priest of Jesus Christ.

9.4 Page 84

▲back to top
84
Saint Francis de Sales
The significant stages of Francis’ apostolate during the four
years from 1596 to 1600 can be thus described. First of all there
was the public ‘debate’ with minister Viret that had been so much
and so long desired by Francis: a debate which Viret and the other
ministers in the Chablais and the district of Vaud whom they called
on to help them ended up stepping away from. Undoubtedly this
happened in the first months of 1596 and ‘it was the driving force
behind many conversions’.
On 26 August 1596, Baron d’Avully solemnly renounced
Calvinism before the Nuncio in Turin: the recantation had huge
repercussions among the Protestants and led Pope Clement VIII to
write to the Baron on 20 September, but which earned the convert
and Francis much slander. ‘I will not neglect to tell you,’ Francis
wrote to Bishop Riccardi on 12 December 1596, ‘that the enemy
has not failed to launch all possible and imaginable attacks on this
knight, to obscure the splendour that this conversion has had: a
great deal of hatred has been aroused against him, both on the part
of the heretics and of Catholics.’
In 1596, there was a feeling that ‘something was on the move’
in Thonon and the Chablais: on 14 November, Francis wrote to
the Nuncio, asking him to obtain authorisation from the Duke to
begin Catholic worship ‘at least in three or four places if, due to the
cold weather, it cannot be done in more...’ ‘It is already very much
something to start: if Christ comes to us as an infant during these
Christmas festivities, he will then grow little by little to perfect
fullness of maturity. And we run absolutely no risk in doing this,
apart from abandoning the enterprise and fleeing from Bethlehem
should negotiations for peace break out into war; this would impede
(the interests of religion) not only in the Chablais but also in many
other places of the diocese. Who knows if God does not want spiritual
peace to be the preparation and foundation of temporal peace?’
One of Francis’ most daring apostolic thrusts can be located
at the end of summer 1596: stirred by the influence that Baron

9.5 Page 85

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
85
d’Avully’s conversion had wielded, Antoine de la Faye, ‘the
ambitious, meddlesome and most mediocre La Faye’,1 decided to
go personally to Thonon and show Baron d’Avully ‘more clearly
than the midday sun, in the presence of the provost of Sales, how
fruitless was the doctrine by which he had been drawn to the
Roman Religion’. Francis accepted the challenge, but ‘although
Baron d’Avully went to ask him to come three or four times or
more’, they awaited the minister in vain... since La Faye refused to
come, Francis decided to go and find him in Geneva. As well as the
Baron, he brought his cousin Louis de Sales with him and a group
of citizens from Thonon, both Catholics and Calvinists: the group
set off for Geneva... ‘and went straight away’, Charles-Auguste says,
‘to the home of minister La Faye’.
According to the customs of the era, the debate took place in
public in Molard Square. Francis came away the winner. When
Duke Charles Emmanuel came to know of the daring enterprise
and Francis’ success, he thought once more about elevating him to
the rank of Senator. This was of little importance faced with the fact
that despite his promises, the Duke did not grant the missionary
either official authorisation for re-establishing Catholic worship in
Thonon, or the money for installing parish priests in parishes that
were asking for their return, or for maintaining the missionaries:
he would have done better to call Francis to Turin, giving him an
opportunity to explain the situation in the Chablais.
In September 1596, Francis wrote a very determined letter to
the Nuncio: ‘This is what makes me want even more to come to
Turin to obtain a declaration of His Highness’s will... Because if,
as it would be appropriate to do, orders are given promptly, I will
return sure and certain to see a happy harvest of some thousands of
souls mature very soon; on the other hand, if orders are not given,
1 So judged by Protestant historian Paul-Fréderic Geisendorff in his work
Théodore de Bèze, Genève, Labor et fides,1949, p. 397.

9.6 Page 86

▲back to top
86
Saint Francis de Sales
I will ask his blessing and permission to abandon this enterprise to
others more capable than me. It breaks my heart to see that I am not
able to satisfy entire parishes wishing to feed themselves with holy
Catholic doctrine, since I lack the means to send them sufficient
numbers of preachers and pastors. I can no longer remain alone
here and become the talk of our enemies2 since by seeing no order
given, they despise my ministry which, just the same, I need to be
jealous of in every way.’
Francis was accused of being ambitious... ‘As for slanderers, I
hope in the end it will be known, and God knows it, how stripped
I am of all ambition: and that with these few works I do not seek
to be looked upon well by my superiors other than what is needed
to carry out this and other missions.’ We always need to go back to
this letter when we see Francis, constrained by the customs of the
time, involve himself in political affairs for the good of his ministry.
Finally, then, the Duke decided to call Francis to Turin. Already
autumn was making the journey across the Alps dangerous; but
what did that matter? It was a wonderful occasion to defend the
cause of the Chablais there where he could win. Francis left on
horseback, accompanied by his faithful George Rolland, and not
without risk they crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass and arrived
in Turin. The Duke gave him a very warm welcome and seemed to
perfectly understand the difficulties of the Chablais: he promised
Francis his official support in the form of letters patent, and offered
him the stipend for six parish priests, taking it from ecclesiastical
benefices held, due to the times, by the Knights of St Maurice. He
asked him to indicate, in a report to be given to the Nuncio, the
main requests he had made. His heart filled with hope, Francis
returned to Thonon through the Little Saint Bernard Pass and
Annecy.
2 Note the expression indicating a serious situation, one that often appears in
Francis’ correspondence in this period.

9.7 Page 87

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
87
But peace between Savoy and France was late in coming and
indeed there was talk once more of war: ‘I hear I don’t know how
many proclamations of war that have my hopes wavering’, Francis
writes; and in fact the Duke’s letters patent did not arrive, and nor
did the deposits from the Knights of St Maurice.
Nevertheless, Christmas was approaching and promises of
conversions abounded. In his zeal, Francis decided to strike a
new blow: despite opposition from the mayors and threats from
Protestants, he set up an altar – a small wooden altar – in the
church of Saint Hippolytus in Thonon and prepared to celebrate
the Christmas Mass there.
It caused quite a ruckus, especially when one minister, Pierre
Petit, asked to ‘embrace the [Roman] faith’! The Provost and Elder
[Petit] wrote to the Duke, each independently. ‘Since the Message
had gone out, the Servant of God completed what he had begun and
decorated the church as best he could, given the inconveniences of
the beginnings, with pictures, carpets, candles and lights: and at
midnight on the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ he celebrated the
most holy Sacrifice of the Mass before his children, who wept with
joy and tenderness, gave them all communion and, when Mass was
over, explained to them from the altar the story of this birth with
such great outpourings of love that he inflamed their hearts with
living embers of heavenly devotion for the divine infant, born for
the redemption of mankind.’ He then celebrated a second Mass at
dawn and the third ‘between nine and ten’.
The Duke was obliged to take a decisive position. On 7 January
1597, the letter that Francis had been waiting for for three years
finally arrived: ‘Reverend, dear, beloved and faithful Sir. Replying
to the letter you have written, let us say that it seems good to Us that
you have had an altar erected in the church of Saint Hippolytus:
and similarly for the other good works that you are doing in praise
of God to root out heresy; and We are sorry for the opposition you
have encountered, but that you have overcome nevertheless, as you

9.8 Page 88

▲back to top
88
Saint Francis de Sales
have written to Us. Continue thus with the ability and prudence
that you know how to apply, [We] having written to the Lord de
Lambert that he did very well to assist the minister who wished to
become a Catholic, as you and he have written to us.’
This very cordial letter from His Highness sheltered Francis
from slander and attacks from the elders; and although the Knights
of St Maurice took a long time to send him the promised funds to
restore the parishes and tried to avoid this duty, he continued his
activity in the best possible way: in 1597 he reopened the parish of
Allinges, then the parish of Cervens; on 4 February, Pierre Fornier,
councillor and former mayor of Thonon, solemnly renounced
Calvinism; Lent was re-established at Thonon, not to mention
Ash Wednesday ceremonies that had the Protestants laughing;
as Easter was approaching, Francis was overwhelmed with work,
preaching, confessions: on 23 April 1597 he wrote to the Nuncio
Riccardi that ‘the new Catholics have worn me out with their
general confessions but I have had enormous consolation seeing
them so devout.’
In the meantime he was dealing with Rome, with the Nuncio, on
very serious matters and received very secret missions of extreme
importance from Clement VIII, such as meeting with Theodore
Beza in Geneva. Subjected to this kind of life his health faltered: in
March he had ‘a small fresh outbreak of fever’ and had to look after
himself. He wrote to the Nuncio from Sales on 11 April 1597 that
‘I have been forced to absent myself for a few days to be present at
the Synod, put some things in order and forestall an illness that has
been threatening me for some time. This absence, however, will be
brief and I will return with more ardour to take up the interrupted
works once more.’

9.9 Page 89

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
89
Francis de Sales’ confessional in the cathedral church at Annecy.

9.10 Page 90

▲back to top
90
Saint Francis de Sales
Bishop de Granier chooses his successor
He did return to Thonon but at the end of April set out again for
Annecy: ‘I received the news that our Very Reverend Bishop was
very ill and that feeling he was in danger of death, was extremely
desirous to see me. I left immediately.’ One could guess why... Bishop
de Granier wanted to appoint Francis as his coadjutor with right of
succession. Francis ‘absolutely refused’. His wishes were of a totally
different kind: since the parish of Petit-Bornand was vacant, he
asked if he could have it and its benefices so he could have ‘what I
need to live on according to my situation’: in exchange he offered to
resign as provost, asking a single favour: that of ‘keeping the simple
role of canon, so that when I come here there will be a place for me
in our choir, since the offices are celebrated with such dignity that
they are one of my great consolations.’
But Bishop de Granier held to his plan. He even won over
Monsieur de Boisy and Francis’s family; yet ‘Francis continued
to refuse with very admirable humility. The Bishop left nothing
untried and to succeed, availed himself of every measure that came
to mind; he obtained the Duke’s assent and sought to have the
letters patent dispatched to him.’ On 16 June, if we are to believe
a letter from Nuncio Riccardi, His Highness’ decision had already
been taken. But the time for Francis’ assent had not yet arrived.
He returned to the Chablais and worked as head of mission: in
fact he had been given three helpers, two Capuchins, Father Esprit
de Beaumes and Father Cherubin de Maurienne, and a Jesuit,
Father Jean Saunier; added to these collaborators were the parish
priest of Annemasse, Fr Balthazar Maniglier, and Canon Louis de
Sales. At this point Father Cherubin de Maurienne, who played
an important part alongside Francis in the Chablais Mission,
decided to strike a further blow: at the beginning of September, at
Annemasse, just five leagues from Thonon and close to Geneva, he
organised a solemn Forty Hours devotion in honour of the Blessed

10 Pages 91-100

▲back to top

10.1 Page 91

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
91
Sacrament. Nothing was spared so that the three days would have
extraordinary splendour: Duke Charles Emmanuel, prevented
from being present by concerns of war, was officially represented
by Lord d’Albigny, governor of Savoy. It was a great tribute to the
Eucharist.
Shortly after these grand ceremonies, Bishop de Granier decided
to launch his final attack against Francis’ humility. One day when
the provost was in Sales, the bishop sent his main chaplain, M.
Critain, to him. The day after his arrival, under the pretext of
saying the holy breviary together, M. Critain took Francis to the
castle balcony and tackled the matter head-on... Francis resisted
for a long time. Finally he suggested to the chaplain that they go to
the church in the village to celebrate their masses: ‘You will say the
first and I will serve it; I will say the second; we will invoke God’s
grace and do what he inspires us to do.’
Francis came away conquered by prayer: ‘Tell My Lord,’ he
told M. Critain on their way back, ‘that I have never desired to be
bishop... But since he wants it and orders it, I will be ready to obey
and to serve God in everything.’
The matter risked ending there: shortly afterwards, going through
Annecy, Francis ‘fell into bed with a strong and violent continuous
fever’. It came to the point that early in January he despaired of his
life. His mother went down to Annecy and ‘was chosen to give him
the news that he would die’...’ The poor patient ‘first of all marvelled’,
and was then assailed by great fear of God’s judgement and the
‘dangers of hell’. He overcame this first crisis by trusting totally in
God’s mercy. ‘I must not hope for salvation except from the Lord;
I shall have as much need for his mercy another time as I do now,
and he will be as favourable to me now as he will at another time.’
The canons from the cathedral ‘came as a body to him for the final
farewell and to receive his holy blessing...’ Exhausted by this visit,
Francis fainted ‘for a whole hour’, so much so that they thought he
was dead.

10.2 Page 92

▲back to top
92
Saint Francis de Sales
At that juncture he was assailed by a temptation against the
dogma of the Eucharist. It was a terrible trial and Francis could free
himself from it only ‘by calling on the name of Jesus from the depths
of my soul’. When he came to his senses, he found the solution he
had not been able to find at the height of the crisis: but the memory
of this struggle remained a poignant one for him. He never wanted
to reveal what happened; and ‘recalling it... he always made the
sign of the cross, fearing that it might be a stumbling block for
weak minds’. Thus God continued to purify this privileged soul and
introduced him deeper and deeper into the mystery of his Passion
and Death, to make him his most faithful image.
Francis had escaped death. His convalescence would be long. On
14 January 1598 he sent a letter to Nuncio Riccardi, but, as he said
Francis de Sales preaching to the people (painting by Piero Dalle
Ceste, St Francis de Sales church at Valdocco, Turin).

10.3 Page 93

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
93
in a separate note: ‘The doctors do not believe it opportune for me
to be writing and have obliged me to make use of another’s hand.’
This dictated letter is a moving one. ‘After being visited by God’s
goodness with an ongoing fever, recently I had such a perilous
relapse that for seven consecutive days nothing was expected other
than my death.’
Nevertheless, he need to think about going to Rome for the
ad limina visit of the diocese and for the final formalities for his
episcopate. But when? ‘Now that by the same divine goodness I
am convalescing, I still feel such weakness, especially in the legs,
that I do not know if I will be able to go to Rome before Easter,
however infinitely much I would like to be there for Holy Week: and
therefore I will make every effort to do so.’ Meanwhile his thoughts
had flown to the Chablais where Father Cherubin de Maurienne
had replaced him; he urged that matters in progress be brought to
a conclusion: ‘His Highness has sent President Favre to Thonon
to get to know the feelings of the inhabitants of the Chablais on
practising Catholic worship, and almost all have testified that they
want it and are anxiously waiting for it to be re-established.’
Promotion to bishop had not changed Francis’ heart! ‘Finally,
since God has given me this bit of life that remains, I recognise that
I must employ it in the service of his divine Majesty, of the Holy
Church...’ And so it would be, for much longer than he foresaw at
the time...
Francis dated the few letters that have come down to us from 1598
as coming from Sales. But in April he wrote to the Nuncio: ‘Today
I am going to Thonon where I am needed for some time.’ The fact
is that Father Cherubin, full of initiative, had suggested to Francis
that he celebrate the Forty Hours in Thonon even more solemnly
than those at Annemasse! On 2 May 1598, Philip II of Spain and
Henry IV signed the Treaty of Vervins: it seemed that peace had
come to savoy; the Chablais would be safe from incursions from
Geneva; the population could return to Catholicism without fear

10.4 Page 94

▲back to top
94
Saint Francis de Sales
of reprisals, and Charles Emmanuel would have his hands freer to
help the missionaries of the Chablais.
The provost immediately sought to profit from the advantages
of the new situation. In July, several parish priests, ‘mature men
and experts in pastoral work’, were installed in important parishes.
Finally, on 20 September, after many material and diplomatic
difficulties had been resolved, the Forty Hours at Thonon began.
Bishop de Granier presided in person at the religious ceremonies
on Sunday 20 and Monday 21 September. Some days later, on the
first and second of October, the second Forty Hours took place in
a grandiose atmosphere: present was Duke Charles Emmanuel
surrounded by his court, And also Cardinal Alessandro de’ Medici,
papal Legate in France. Returning to Italy he had agreed to stop
over at Thonon.
Everything was splendid. But among all these ceremonies, one in
particular had to have moved Francis’s soul. On the morning and
afternoon of Thursday 1 October, the Cardinal, Bishop de Granier
and Francis received the recantations of elders... one pastor...
some groups... entire families... The following day this rhythm
accelerated. The secretaries ended up writing down only the names
of the heads of families. According to the lists still preserved today
in the Vatican archives, two thousand three hundred names were
registered over eleven days.
In those days of lavish festivities, how many memories – and how
many actions of grace – rose up in Francis’ heart! Barely four years
earlier, alone, this poor missionary deprived of human assistance
had penetrated Thonon. Faced with the crowds flocking to recant
over those days or to take part in the sacraments of Eucharist or
Penance, how could it have failed to remind him of the few dozen
frightened Catholics who, by force of persuasion, had succeeded in
gathering around his pulpit in the church of Saint Hippolytus on
Sunday 18 September 1594? Then he had preached on the Mission
of the pastors of the Church; today, at the close of these ceremonies,

10.5 Page 95

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
95
in the presence of the Duke and the Cardinal and their courts, he
preached on the Mass and the priesthood: Do this in memory of me.
To which of these two sermons did Francis dedicate more heart,
more care?
The Duke was sincere in his gratitude. As soon as Cardinal
de’ Medici arrived at the town hall, Charles Emmanuel took the
provost by hand and led him before the prelate: ‘Your Eminence’
he said, ‘ I present to you the apostle of the Chablais; you see a man
blessed by God and sent to us by heaven. Inflamed with great zeal
for the salvation of souls, and not without great risk to his own
life, he came here first, courageously, to this province, spreading
the seed of the word of God: he planted the cross and the faith of
Our Lord in these districts where more than seventy years ago they
had been uprooted by the infernal bands of heretics.’ The Cardinal,
having asked Francis who was kneeling at his feet to stand, said to
him: ‘Sir, I thank you for your zeal, continue as you have done up
till now; as for me, as is the duty of my office, I will not fail to report
extensively to the Holy Father what you have done.’ And in fact he
kept his word.
Francis’ apostolic heart
‘The apostle of the Chablais’: the praise was deserved. As the final
echoes of these lavish festivities dies down and before Francis sets
out for Rome and the episcopate, it is appropriate for us to pause
and once again contemplate Francis de Sales, the priest, in mission
territory. What was the apostolic strategy of this young priest –
he was twenty-seven years of age when he entered the Chablais in
September 1594 – that allowed him to succeed, in four years, in
converting a province so riddled with Protestantism and so solidly
defended by nearby and very powerful Geneva?

10.6 Page 96

▲back to top
96
Saint Francis de Sales
Certainly, when examining this success, we need to bear in
mind the events and also the politics. Certainly Henry IV, like
all the sovereigns of the time, hoped for religious unity in his
kingdom and externally could not too openly support Protestant
countries. On the other hand, France was at war with the House of
Austria and therefore had to deal carefully with the Swiss Calvinist
Cantons that controlled the alpine passages: Geneva was a key city,
one of the ways to access Germany. With regard to Italy, French
foreign policy was no less ambiguous: Henry IV needed the Pope’s
friendship in France; but he also needed to not upset the Italian
princes who were in dispute with the Pope. The Duke of Savoy,
Charles Emmanuel, very skilfully played his games of intrigue in
this imbroglio. Even the Treaty of Vervins (2 May 1598) did not put
an end to the controversy with Henry IV: in fact, the Saluzzo affair,
the marquisate of North Italy that Charles Emmanuel had taken
from France in 1588, remained unresolved. The Edict of Nantes,
signed by Henry IV on 13 April 1598, shows us the compromise
that the King was forced to lean towards to gain peace for his
Kingdom internally. And similarly externally: he had to seek a
difficult balance between his Catholic and Protestant alliances. We
will see this soon: Geneva and Berne, for this reason, continued
to be very powerful at the court of Henry IV – and therefore,
sometimes more, sometimes less as events evolved, paralysed the
activity of Catholic missionaries in the Chablais, the bailiwick of
Ternier and the district of Gex.
These difficulties have at least one advantage, that of highlighting
the truly evangelical nature of the apostolate of Francis de Sales.
His strength lay in his faith. One day he made up a very significant
anagram with his name: ‘Foi sans descaler’, that is, faith without
defect or weakness; it was not coined in vain – Francis was deeply
convinced of the truth of Catholicism. He was convinced that if
the teaching of the Roman Church were presented in all its light
by holy and well-instructed priests, the populace – as long as their

10.7 Page 97

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
97
freedom of conscience was effectively guaranteed – would return to
the ancient faith without hesitation. In short, from then on Francis,
as a theologian and jurist, had a precise notion of what Church
reform had to be like if the Church was to survive; at the same time
that he became aware of the evils devastating the Church of Christ,
he also became aware of the remedy, the only remedy that could
save it: the restoration of a priesthood worthy of apostles. Let us
underline the broad outlines of this strategy, as holy as it is daring:
they clearly result from the writings, memoirs and letters that have
been preserved for us.
First of all there is a need for the Gospel to be preached in all
its purity of tradition and theological interpretation. Francis
spared nothing to keep up to date with Protestant objections and
the problems his adversaries drew from the science of their times:
Annecy, le Thiou canal.

10.8 Page 98

▲back to top
98
Saint Francis de Sales
he in no way underestimated them. He took the Calvinist reality
seriously, its causes, its strength, while not ignoring the fact that
the people, and also some ministers, could be ignorant: ‘In this
bailiwick,’ he wrote one day, ‘everyone has (Calvin’s) Institutes in
hand; I find myself in places where everyone knows the Institutes
by memory.’ To get to know it better he asked permission from
Rome to read this work that had been placed on the Index. The
Controverses show Francis’ spirit and style in these battles of ideas.
In such a way he worked to solidly establish the truth and rights of
the Roman Catholic Church in the face of his adversaries’ denials.
And he succeeded so well in those little works and flyers written at
the height of battle day after day, that the Controverses were found
worthy of use in 1870 by the Fathers at Vatican Council I when
defining the infallibility of the Pope, and they earned Francis the
title of Doctor of the Church in 1878 and in 1923 the title of Patron
of Catholic writers.
Francis preached convinced that evangelical doctrine, so long as
it was known, worked on souls and grew in them like a root in the
ground, in accordance with the will of Providence. He was tireless
in this ministry of the word that he considered one of his first
duties. Sometimes we could see him preach in four or five different
villages in a single day, sometimes ‘spending the night preaching’
or even preaching to seven or eight people as he would do in a
church filled with the faithful, or even catechising in the square,
debating in public or in a small group with pastors and Protestant
elders: with the help of his younger brother Bernard, he invented a
kind of dialogue preaching.
‘Last Sunday, the Third Sunday of Lent,’ he wrote for example
on 12 March 1597 to Nuncio Riccardi, ‘after preaching in the early
morning, as usual, in the parish of Allinges, I went to another
parish three miles away, called Cervens, where I had not yet been.
Having let the people know that I would willingly preach, I had a
numerous and benevolent audience and, at the end of the sermon,

10.9 Page 99

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting
99
they showed me their keen desire for this bread of the children.
But I found great difficulty in arriving in time for the sermon at
Thonon, five or six miles from Cervens. So by staying here it is
almost impossible for me to evangelise several places.’
Already in his apostolic strategy he gave primary importance
to the catechism, solid and simple teaching of doctrine, the sacred
text of Scripture, the word of God. Did he not, perhaps, always
carry a bible with the breviary in his meagre luggage? He knew the
Bible well, and even his most intimate correspondence is filled with
biblical quotations.
From that moment, we would like to see Francis de Sales
in dialogue face-to-face, if not heart-to-heart, with certain
Protestants, or capture, for example, his intimate conversations
‘in the fields’ with Baron d’Avully troubled by conversion. Three
of these encounters are famous but nevertheless mysterious: his
three meetings in Geneva with Theodore Beza. Did the initiative
come from Francis or from Clement VIII? It is not so clear. What
is certain is that Francis undertook this attempt at conversion only
after formal consent from the Pope that looked very much like an
order.
No documentation of these conversations remains from the
Protestant side;3 from the Catholic side there is – other than
the testimonies of the Canonisation process – a letter of Francis
de Sales to Clement VIII, on 21 April 1597 written, therefore,
immediately after the first conversation. It is a severe letter but not
without hope: ‘I found Beza alone and fairly easy to reach. When I
finally withdrew after having tried all means to get him to confess
his thinking, without having left any stone unturned, I found in
him a heart of stone, thus far unmoved or at least not sufficiently
shifted; that is, a hardened old man full of bad days. Insofar as his
words allow me to judge, my personal opinion would be this: if it
3 Cf. P.-F. Geisendorff, Théodore de Bèze, pp. 402-407.

10.10 Page 100

▲back to top
100
Saint Francis de Sales
were possible to speak with him with greater frequency and calm,
perhaps it would be possible to lead him back to the Lord’s fold;
but any delay is risky for an octogenarian.’ Yet at least we can recall
the words Theodore Beza uttered when he farewelled his visitor
after the first two conversations: ‘As for me, if I am not on the
right path, I pray to God daily that through his mercy he may put
me back on it.’4 This attitude of Theodore Beza’s would not have
displeased Francis de Sales. And in fact it is in keeping with his way
of dealing with heretics. Here we touch on a very delicate problem.
It is certain that Francis de Sales sometimes had very harsh words
for the Huguenots. It is just as certain that in the political dealings
that followed the Forty Hours at Thonon, Francis opposed with
absolute firmness the continued presence of Protestant ministers
in the Chablais and in particular in Thonon, and demanded severe
measures against the last stubborn ones at Thonon who ‘follow the
Huguenot doctrine more as a party than as a religion’.
So, was he partisan to the intervention of the secular arm
in religious conversions and events? We need to make some
distinctions, since Francis de Sales evolved regarding this point
during the course of his life. The law student at Padua, too inclined
to follow some of the law theses of the time, would perhaps not have
disapproved of the use of political force and not even of the use
of arms. But after his appointment as provost and especially after
being ordained priest, Francis firmly declared that he was partisan
only to spiritual arms, holiness and theological science, ‘charity’:
we recall the young provost’s sermon to the canons of Geneva!
However, at the end of his mission in the Chablais, when Francis
finds himself involved in political discussions, two seemingly
opposite tendencies emerge in his thinking: on the one hand his
love for souls leads him to be meek, but on the other hand, in
accordance with the ideas and customs of the era, he does not see
4 Ibid.

11 Pages 101-110

▲back to top

11.1 Page 101

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting 101
that political unity can be achieved outside of confessional unity:
‘One faith, one law, one king.’ Apparently, the jurist in him seems
to be in disagreement with the missionary. But in real terms the
conflict did not exist for Francis de Sales: his theological optimism
convinced him that if Protestant worship was forbidden, and if
the Calvinists were taught the Catholic faith, they could only but
convert if they were at least loyal and sincere.5
An example will help us grasp Francis’ thinking on this issue.
On the same day that the Peace of Vervins was promulgated in
Annecy, 13 June 1598, Francis wrote to Nuncio Riccardi: ‘Among
the incalculable spiritual benefits that many servants of God hope
for from this blessed peace, they promise that the King of France,
at the invitation of the Holy Apostolic See, will make every effort
to ensure that the city of Geneva opens its doors to the exercise of
Catholic worship through the Interim [the Interim was a formula
dating from the time of Charles V and in practice ensured the
freedom of conscience for Catholics and Protestants], so that the
Lord and Prince of peace may have his place in such an important
and much desired peace. This would mean cutting Calvinism off at
the roots.’
Thus, two months after the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes
(13 April 1598), Francis was hoping that legislation very similar
to the new French legislation would be installed in Geneva. Now,
three years later, in July 1601, Francis de Sales, writing to Clement
VIII in the name of Bishop de Granier, seems to be speaking a very
different language: ‘This part of my diocese (he is talking about the
district of Gex), with what remains of it beyond the Rhone, is up
to the King of France, by virtue of the treaty of France (the treaty
of Lyons, 17 January 1601). He has ordered that Catholic worship
be fully restored there, at least that is what I hear has been said, but
5 Protestants, for their part, maintained the same principle: cf. J. Leclerc, Histoire
de la tolérance…, vol. II, pp. 126-127.

11.2 Page 102

▲back to top
102
Saint Francis de Sales
with the reservation (called the Interim) that tolerates the presence
of heresy. This basically means leaving everyone the freedom to
think badly and act similarly: and here is something that greatly
increases the difficulties of spreading the Gospel.’ It is easy to see
the point of contact between these two different judgements: in
either case the aim is the same: to spread the Gospel; in the first
case, the Interim facilitates the task: in the second case it makes
it more difficult. To understand this position, it is not enough to
invoke the political ideas of the time alone: one must also know
certain theological concepts that were too narrowly defined and
which exaggeratedly reduced the possibilities of salvation that
heretics in good faith also had, despite their error.6
We also need to make a neat distinction between Protestantism
and Protestants. Dealing with people, Francis was filled with patience
and kindness, a welcoming spirit. Some people reproached him
for this, including some religious. When told of these reproaches,
Francis replied ‘that for a long time his experience had been that he
gained more by kindness than by any other way... It must be held
as certain that people do more out of love and charity than out of
severity and rigour’. He was especially aware that by converting, some
lost their positions, resources and possessions. He endeavoured to
organise aid for them, procure shelter and housing. Had it been
up to him, Thonon would have had a Jesuit college from 1595 or
1596. In 1598, when he saw requests for conversion coming in, he
had another project close to his heart: we find an outline of it in a
petition Francis addressed to Pope Clement VIII in January 1599,
acting on behalf of Bishop de Granier: it concerned a foundation
to assist new converts coming from Geneva who were ‘stripped of
all their goods’: ... ‘a house of mercy or hospice of virtue. There,
these creatures banished for the love of Christ, especially children
and young people of both sexes, could be welcomed, raised and
6 Ibid.

11.3 Page 103

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting 103
educated in a Christian way. Each one, according to his or her
abilities, would be taught the sciences, or some trade that would
later allow them to earn their livelihood.’
Francis revealed these truly exceptional gifts as organiser,
implementer of ideas, and, I was about to say, politician in the
best sense of the word, also in his approach to Catholics in the
Chablais. He was fatherly yet firm with them, demanding yet kind,
strict but benevolent. Let us boldly take this burning example: the
problem of financing the mission in the Chablais. As for Francis
himself, he was rigorously poor and did not complain about this
poverty, happy to be ‘a faithful disciple of the cross’, and to imitate
Our Lord Jesus Christ; if by chance he had a few coins, he would
give them away as alms. However, he knew that this poverty, unless
God imposed it upon him, should not be of the kind that would
inhibit his apostolate, or even more, give scandal to souls. From
the end of May 1595 he confided in his friend Antoine Favre: ‘It is
also (a great argument against my apostolate) seeing men living a
precarious life and, so to speak, in the midst of the Church’s estates
and under a Catholic prince.’ On 31 May, he requested a vacant
parish benefice, the Petit-Bornand parish: ‘It is very much the case
that being provost does not bring in a cent of income, and being
a canon brings the provost on average just sixty scudi a year; so it
would seem more advantageous to me to be a parish priest with
income than a poor provost, were it not for the hope of returning
to Geneva... Thus, having what I need to live according to my
conscience, I seek none other than to serve the Lord and the Church
of this diocese in the small jobs in which I will be employed.’
But little by little, as the mission was successful and developed,
Francis came into dispute with the great benefactors of the diocese:
how could parish priests be installed in parishes if they are not
given what they need to live on, and indeed if we do not begin
by repairing churches ravaged and devastated by the Calvinists?
How do we introduce preachers into the Chablais, Capuchins or

11.4 Page 104

▲back to top
104
Saint Francis de Sales
Jesuits, if we do not ensure their sustenance? How do we found
essential works without money? But there was money around:
the Order of the Knights of St Maurice and Lazarus, in 1579, was
made a depository by Gregory XIII of the ecclesiastical goods that
had escaped the Bernese; in Turin, in 1596, the Duke approved
Francis’s plan whereby the Knights must make available to the
Chablais mission the annuities of these assets, at least partly. But
they sneered at this idea. From then on, for Francis, this conflict
with the Knights would be a constant concern: through the Duke,
the Nuncio, he endeavoured to wrest from them what they, in their
miserliness, were refusing to give him...
So it was that on 21 February 1597 he made them face up to
their responsibilities in very clear terms: ‘This solution’ he told
them among other things, ‘consists of the fact that since the desired
Peace Treaty has been signed, Your Lordships agree absolutely to
cede all the benefices you enjoy in this territory, with their annexes
and connections; if to these we add those coming from private
individuals, we could offer a religious service in this bailiwick so
resplendent that light would shine from all sides.’ When it was
a case of ‘fighting the battles of the Lord of Hosts’, Francis was
not afraid of ‘bothering His Holiness, Their Highnesses’ and the
Knights. This legal and financial intrepidness that went so well
with his profound sense of personal poverty, is a true symbol of
Francis’ apostolic attitudes.
It is impossible to doubt the righteousness and purity of these
intentions in all these temporal matters: we see this clearly when
he was choosing parish priests for the Chablais and installing
them. He wanted these missionary parish priests to be men who
were ‘mature and very expert in pastoral work’... ‘appropriate for
the work of conversion and ecclesiastical solemnities’... He had
no illusions about the difficulties that awaited his co-workers: on
2 March 1597, from Thonon, he wrote to the Nuncio: ‘I have a

11.5 Page 105

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting 105
good number of priests who will soon be able to free themselves
to come here to practise patience and mortification; I will put all
my care into making sure that they are rich in a holy life, and at
least well provided with knowledge.... But it does not seem possible
to introduce them without having first prepared the way for them
with some catechetical sermons given by an experienced preacher.’
It would seem that since then he had been thinking of procuring
for these chaplains a ‘home and dwelling and making it easy for
them to live in small groups’. But the time had not yet matured for
carrying out this project. While waiting, he visited those he had
placed at the head of parishes, helping them as much as he possibly
could ‘with both a fatherly and brotherly love’. And what sorrow –
we could almost say resentment – Francis felt regarding ‘fat abbeys’
that had fallen away from regular observance, ‘in which the monks
(who are such only in name) destroy more than they build’.
This is how Francis appears to us at the end of this missionary
period and on the eve of sharing with Bishop de Granier, and under
his authority, care for the bishopric of Geneva. This thirty-year-old
priest had already shown the measure of his ingenuity and holiness.
To characterise him, we could do no better than make our own
the penetrating judgement of Sainte-Beuve on ‘The Completeness
of Francis de Sales’,7 but giving it a spiritual application. Applying
Pascal’s thinking to Francis: ‘I do not admire the excess of virtue...
for otherwise it is not to rise but to fall. We do not display greatness
by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once and filling all
the intervening space,’ Sainte-Beuve comments on this synthesis of
opposites in Francis de Sales in some unforgettable pages: ‘No one
better than (he)... had, in such high quality the union, temperament,
corrective and extensive, and ultimately, in Pascal’s words, the
entre-deux, the intermediate space. To each of the characteristics
7 Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, 3a ed., Paris, Hachette, 1867, vol. I,
pp. 249ff.

11.6 Page 106

▲back to top
106
Saint Francis de Sales
Francis de Sales being welcomed by Pope Clement VIII
(engraving by F. Chauveau).

11.7 Page 107

▲back to top
Chapter v- The apostle of the Chablais: time for harvesting 107
that I have previously recognised, we should add its opposite,
which appears not to counterbalance and divert, but to modify and
strengthen the dominant quality, entering into it, merging into it,
to make it balanced and stable, as within the quality itself. Already
on this earth his soul is a complete sphere under a single star.’ He
provides a luminous example of this synthesis of opposites by
declaring that Francis ‘was not a dove of gentleness, but an eagle of
gentleness’.
Terms that could be mutually exclusive could, then, be combined
in his case. Francis de Sales is really typical of plenitude rather
than of measure: he lacked nothing, opposites in him were not
contrasts or dissonance, but a superior harmony. His writings, if we
follow them too closely and consider exclusively the Introduction
to the Devout Life or the Treatise on the Love of God – even his
Correspondence, and if we savour only his letters to Mme de Chantal
or other privileged souls – serve him badly by only displaying some
sides of him. If we misunderstand the missionary of the Chablais,
we falsify the spiritual director; if we misunderstand the man of
action and government, we falsify the writer; and above all we
falsify the mystic when we misunderstand the richness of the man,
his capacity as a jurist, the subtlety of his politics. The one ‘enters
into’ the other and ‘merges with it’. Let’s talk about balance, if there
is no better term. But this balance is not an earthly, slippery, flat
balance: it is the higher balance that flies high, the balance that can
only be given by the freedom of love.
Sainte-Beuve has introduced this mystery of grace, yet without
penetrating its depth: ‘Moving from contrast to conciliation, I
arrive at a final intermediate quality that is characteristic of Saint
Francis de Sales and that is the only one that can end up giving
us his measure: I mean the alliance in him between mystical,
contemplative virtue, charity in all its candour and the finesse of
human judgement in all its sagacity.’ Sainte-Beuve needed to go
one step further, or better still, cross a boundary in Francis’ soul: he

11.8 Page 108

▲back to top
108
Saint Francis de Sales
needed to see that all the human gifts of his hero – remarkable ones
and among the most beautiful that exist – had reached that fullness
only because the fire of God’s love had burnt all their dross and
purified their defects, illuminated them from within and somehow
transfigured them.

11.9 Page 109

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
109
6 – BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA
Francis goes to Rome
We left Francis de Sales amid the resplendent festivities of the Forty
Hours at Thonon. Here, the apostle of the Chablais had received
his reward; the Duke’s provisions are such that there is reason
to hope for a rapid total conversion of the province. ‘So, winter
having fled, spring was shining, and everywhere one saw rising “the
precious and resplendent tree” of the life-giving cross; everywhere
the Church made its songs heard like the voice of the turtledove, and
the renewed vineyards, flourishing anew, exhaled their perfume’.
This is how Francis would describe the situation in the Chablais in
1598 in a report addressed to Clement VIII in 1603.
Early in November 1598, Francis left for Rome in the company
of Lord de Chissé, Vicar General and nephew of Bishop de Granier.
At Modena he reached his brother Louis and friend Antoine Favre
who were also to be members of the party. The travellers arrived in
the Eternal City towards mid-December. Francis was in charge of
presenting the Pope with various requests from Bishop de Granier,
and the Vicar General for his part had to request for Francis the bulls
for his role as coadjutor. Clement VIII’s welcome was extremely
paternal: he knew Francis well and spent a long time with him on
his work in the Chablais.
Just recently, Cardinal de’ Medici had spoken to His Holiness
about the wonderful Forty Hours at Thonon; Francis presented
Bishop de Granier’s requests then withdrew. It was 15 January 1599.
There was now the need to await the Pontiff ’s decisions. ‘I had
never been in any place’, Francis wrote to Bishop de Granier some

11.10 Page 110

▲back to top
110
Saint Francis de Sales
days after the papal audience, ‘where the weight of responsibility
was so hugely felt as in this Court. His Holiness would not grant
any grace, no matter how small, without it first being weighed
and re-weighed with the advice of the cardinals, who, seeing il
Santissimo di questo parere (how Holy Father-like was this advice),1
also became Pope with him’.
Francis took advantage of his free time to visit certain high-up
Roman personalities, ‘cardinals and holy monks’, and to wander
around the churches and convents of the city. On 15 March, Lord
de Chissé obtained a second audience and presented the Pope with
the request for the coadjutorship. The pope immediately showed
that he was very favourable to this proposition, had Francis called
and told him that he wanted to grant the Bishop of Geneva all that
he was asking... but he enjoined him to prepare himself to sit for
the canonical examination the following Monday, in his presence.
Francis was very surprised at this announcement, given that
the priests of the Savoy were dispensed from this examination,
according to the privileges of the Gallican Church. What would the
Sovereign Senate of Savoy and His Highness have said?2 But since
the Pope said that ‘it was only for his pleasure and to make (Francis)
recommendable to the whole Sacred College of Cardinals’, it was
necessary to obey.
When Monday came, Francis went to the Pope’s palace. ‘He found
the room full of people...’ His Holiness presided; eight cardinals were
seated around the Pope, among others the Cardinal of Florence,
Cardinal Borghese, Cardinal Baronio and Cardinal Borromeo;
twenty Archbishops, Bishops, Generals of Orders; Bellarmine
was among the theologians tasked with attacking the candidate.
It was truly a special examination committee! Everything went to
1 This is in Italian in the original French text.
2 In fact, passing through Turin on his way back from Rome, he had to calm the
Duke’s unhappiness about this. Cf. Œuvres, vol. XII, p. 9.

12 Pages 111-120

▲back to top

12.1 Page 111

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
111
perfection, so much so that the fear was that this success would
be overestimated at Annecy. On 26 March 1599 Francis wrote to
Louis de Sales: ‘I simply admit to you that God did not allow us to
be confused during the exam, even though I was only looking at
myself and expected nothing else... The signs of paternal goodness
with which the Pope has honoured me oblige me to be more than
ever a good son and good servant of the Holy Roman Church; but
whatever our friends write about it, remember... that in the end we
are only what we are before God.’
On 25 March, Feast of the Annunciation, Francis was admitted
to the Pope’s Mass where he received communion from the Pope’s
hands. There, he received ‘particular favours from Our Lord’, and
immortalised the memory of it in a note whose text we record
here: ‘Having received the Holy Eucharist from the hands of the
Sovereign Pontiff on the day of the Annunciation, my soul was
very much consoled within; and God gave me the grace of great
lights on the mystery of the Incarnation, letting me know in an
inexplicable way how the Word took a body through the power of
the Father and through the work of the Holy Spirit, in the chaste
womb of Mary, by his express desire to dwell amongst us from when
he was a man with us. The Man-God also gave me heightened and
delightful understanding of transubstantiation, his entry into my
soul and the ministry of the Pastors of the Church.’
At the end of spring 1599, Francis was on his way back to Annecy,
not without making a pilgrimage to Loreto for the second time.3 In
Turin, where he stayed, the Knights of St Maurice ‘knowing that
I was the bearer of the writ from His Holiness conferring on the
Bishop of Geneva the authority to apply all the annuities that they
have from converted parishes to the maintenance of parish priests,
pastors and preachers, made me cite them as justification for my
3 If Francis did not go to Rome when he left Padua in 1591–1592, it is worth assigning
to this journey in 1599 much of what historians say about his stay in 1591–1592.

12.2 Page 112

▲back to top
112
Saint Francis de Sales
administration.’ On that occasion the Knights saw that beneath the
benevolence of the prelate were hidden the severity of the jurist
and the justice of the apostolic man...
Coadjutor of Bishop de Granier
For two years, Francis de Sales, titular bishop of Nicopolis, would live in
the shadow of Bishop de Granier. A shadow that he loved and, in a way,
created: in fact he obstinately refused to be consecrated or even to wear
episcopal garb while the Bishop of Geneva was alive. And as was right,
it was in the name of the reigning bishop that the coadjutor dealt with
all ongoing matters. For the most part they were matters concerning
the Chablais; joys and disappointments alternated: parishes organised
themselves, but not without difficulty, the Jesuit college was approved
and also financed by the Pope, but the Provincial in Lyons did not have
men available. And then in August 1600 war broke out again in Savoy:
it is true that the King had signed the Treaty of Paris with the Duke
on 27 February 1600; but the Duke stalled, schemed, dodged; with a
lightning attack, Henry IV invaded Savoy...
The day the Bernese entered Annecy, the Bishop of Geneva’s
position became very delicate: Henry IV was the enemy of the Duke
of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, Sovereign Prince of all the Genevan
territory – but not of the Duke of Genevois-Nemours, to which
Annecy belonged, and that exercised a kind of sovereignty over
the city. The Duke of Genevois-Nemours had been very careful not
to be part of the conflict. What should be done? All the more so
since the inhabitants of Geneva and Berne were endeavouring to
infiltrate regions reconquered by the French and once again destroy
Catholicism.
It was in these circumstances that Francis saved his region
for a second time; he went around the region in person, revived

12.3 Page 113

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
113
courage, supported missionaries and parish priests and, more
importantly, won the diplomatic battle with Henry IV; the King
promised Bishop de Granier that ‘nothing would be reversed in
the province of the Chablais of what had been done for the faith’.
Finally, on 17 January 1601, peace was signed at Lyons between
the plenipotentiaries of the Duke and the King of France. But the
political situation of Catholics became more uncertain than ever:
if Charles Emmanuel kept Saluzzo, he had to cede Bresse, Bugey,
Valromey and the district of Gex to France. What would become
of these provinces, seeing that the King had no scruples (already
demonstrated during the occupation of the Chablais) in letting the
notorious Huguenots govern in his name?
On 26 August 1600, Francis had already sent Nuncio Riccardi a sad
letter, enlightened nevertheless by an essential consolation: ‘Among
so many of the afflictions with which it pleases God to chastise us
for our sins, it but remains for me to write to you, except that in
this infirmity divine virtue has shown itself in the constancy of our
converts at Thonon. Threatened on the one hand by incursions of
the Genevans, then on the other by the Bernese, they have remained
firm in our holy religion. It is true that until now they have received
only threats, since the heretics have not yet come down. But the fear
that the King might end up making use of these infidels would be
sufficient to considerably shake the weak courage of the converts.’
An illness of Bishop de Granier further complicated the situation:
‘Our Very Reverend Bishop is still somewhat ill, both as a result of the
hardships endured in the Chablais last month, and because of the pain
we feel seeing things take such a bad turn... The Fathers of the mission
are still in the Chablais, even though spread around different places for
fear of the Genevans or the Bernese. Most of the parish priests remain
in their parishes, even if some of the more timid ones have withdrawn
to see how things will end up.’
Had not the circumstances of the Catholics become perilous?
The following year, diplomatic negotiations would open in Paris:

12.4 Page 114

▲back to top
114
Saint Francis de Sales
they would be extremely thorny ones and the results would be
meagre and precarious.
In the meantime, towards May 1600, The Defence of the Standard
of the Holy Cross of Our Saviour Jesus Christ was published by Jean
Pillehotte, bookseller in Lyons. This was Francis’ response to an
old work by minister La Faye: it was certainly a late response (La
Faye had written his Short Treatise in 1597, immediately after
the Forty Hours at Annemasse), but it was a work truly worth of
Francis de Sales’ ingenuity: ‘The language of war is different from
the language of peace’, the author said. This language of war is a
language of clarity, precision, of the power of argument: intense
dialectic, passion for the truth, security of doctrine, fidelity to
tradition; here we find the style of the Controverses.
In addition, this book, which could only have been a weapon
of combat, is transformed into a treatise on asceticism by Francis’
grace: his fundamental idea of religion is already the one that would
animate his works on spirituality: ‘The true and pure essence of
adoration lies in the inward act of the will with which one submits
oneself to him who is adored; and knowledge, an act of the intellect,
precedes this submission as its basis; on the contrary, outward
action follows this submission as its effect and consequence.’ The
book did not have the success that one might have predicted in
bookshops; but it helped many souls very effectively to remain
faithful while the new Protestant tornado was unleashed on the
Chablais and other regions of Savoy.
Summing up 1599–1600 in a letter of 18 March 1601 to Nuncio
Riccardi, Francis was able to offer him this ‘consolation: that of
letting him know that... at Thonon and Ternier... they suffered much
under the governance of the Lord de Montglot, a Huguenot, and
from the various treacheries of the Genevans (at Ternier especially,
they had carried out a real tyranny and committed unmentionable
indignities against things sacred), nevertheless, despite everything,
among such a great number of converts, only four relapsed. Thus

12.5 Page 115

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
115
it was clear that their change had been wrought by the right hand
of the Most High, since, as antiperistasis (as a counter-blow) they
celebrated Christmas in quite an unusually lively way.’
Very soon (28 June 1601), Francis was even able to tell the
Nuncio that ‘despite the war, the number of converts has grown
from Christmas until today’, and a few months later (21 December
1601) he wrote to Nuncio Tartarini, Bishop Riccardi’s successor:
‘I will report to Your Lordship on the progress (of religion) in this
diocese, telling you that it is a very happy one, not only at Thonon
and Ternier, since this is already something well known; but also,
and very recently, in the bailiwicks of Gex and Gaillard that stretch
to the gates of Geneva. Last week, in the second of these bailiwicks,
the Bishop of Geneva reconciled eight churches for the use of some
thousands of souls brought back to the faith from Pentecost until
Thorens, parish church in which Francis was consecrated bishop.

12.6 Page 116

▲back to top
116
Saint Francis de Sales
today. In the first, which is under the King of France, three parishes
have been created in which three of our canons have been installed
for holy preaching. They are working very fruitfully there, since in
this region there were many old Catholics whose faith was hidden
and covered over like fire beneath the ashes of Huguenot worship
that was the only one practised for seventy years; now that this
faith has been uncovered by the breath of the divine word, they are
bearing witness to the truth. Others are also converting, and still
others are ready for conversion.’
Seeing all this, Francis was finally planning to realise one of
his great apostolic dreams: to build a Holy House at Thonon, for
which he already had the bull of erection, signed by Clement VIII
and dated 13 September 1599, but which circumstances had not
allowed him to pursue until this moment. This House, which the
Bull (writ) called a ‘Hostel of all sciences and arts’ placed under the
patronage of Our Lady of Compassion, was a very original and, in
so many ways very modern idea: it comprised a prefect and seven
priests and brought together ‘people converted to Jesus Christ, of
whatever degree, status, order and condition they were... (to be)
educated and formed in Christian doctrine, the sciences, arts and
all virtues.’4
However, Francis did not harbour any illusions about the obstacles
still preventing the realisation of this dream: ‘But above all we ask’ he
said, ‘that we start the work soon, in real terms and seriously, since
good intentions are worth little. If this good thing cannot be done all
at once, let it at least be done little by little, beginning with the most
necessary parts like the college, seminary and so on.’ Effectively, the
Bull would not be promulgated until 1602.
That year 1601, at the request of Bishop de Granier, Francis
preached the Lenten series at Annecy. On the morning of Friday
4 Mémoires et documents publiés par l’Académie Salésienne, Vol. V, supporting
document number 25.

12.7 Page 117

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
117
6 April, just as he was about to go up into the pulpit, the Reverend
Aimé Bouvard came to tell him that the previous evening, Monsieur
de Boisy had ‘very gently rendered his spirit to God’. ‘Blessed
Francis, joining his hands and lifting his eyes to heaven, adored
the God who lives forever and ever and did not renounce going up
to the pulpit, where he acted so well and continued his sermon so
that no one noticed that he was in the least disturbed. Having come
to the end, he changed topic and dismissed the people with these
words: coming here I learned of the death of the person to whom
I am obliged more than any other: I ask two things of you, first of
all that you grant me a day or two so that I may perform the final
obsequies, and then that you pray to God for the repose of his soul.’
After Lent, Bishop de Granier and his coadjutor went to visit the
parishes of the Chablais and to reorganise them.
Thorens, monument to St Francis de Sales.

12.8 Page 118

▲back to top
118
Saint Francis de Sales
Bishop de Granier was now presented with a delicate problem:
the King of France had shown himself most favourable to the
re-establishment of Catholic worship in the district of Gex; that
meant he needed to bring back parish priests to twenty-six parishes
in that region.
However, caught between his intention to favour Catholics
and his concern not to upset the Protestants, Henry IV was not
talking about restoring to these parish priest the benefices taken
over by the Protestants. So what would the priests live on if they
could not recover their income? Bishop de Granier asked Rome
for His Holiness to put pressure on the King. Rome gave the order
to the Nuncio in Paris. But the Nuncio was not very much aware
of the real situation of religion in the district of Gex, and needed
a competent adviser. Bishop de Granier, whose health at the time
was very poor and who for three years had already had the habit of
entrusting the more serious matters to his coadjutor, sent Francis
to Paris to deal with the matter of Gex with the Nuncio to France
and with the King.
The sojourn in Paris in 1602
On Wednesday, 2 January 1602, Francis de Sales, for the second
time in his life, walked the streets of Paris, accompanied by
Canon Déage and Antoine Favre. The group arrived in Paris on
Wednesday, 22 January: Francis went to stay in rue Saint-Jacques,
as he did when he was studying there.
As soon as he had arrived, Francis presented himself to the
Nuncio in France. Innocenzo del Bufalo was very well disposed
towards him: however, he told him that nothing could be done on
behalf of the Catholics in Gex unless they first won over the Lord de
Villeroy to the cause, since the King had made him responsible for

12.9 Page 119

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
119
French foreign affairs. On 8 February, Francis wrote to Bishop de
Granier: ‘After the court returned to this city, the Nuncio deigned
to go to the Lord de Villeroy with whom His Majesty had directed
us to negotiate, and there I had much to discuss about what we
demand. However, in the end, I presented my fundamental request,
about which he tells me that the Council will do right and justice
by us and that we must not doubt it.’ In reality this ‘excellent hope’
came about slowly and even more so, partially; only in September
would Francis redirect his steps towards Savoy.
If nothing else, this forced sojourn would bring Francis many
spiritual and apostolic advantages: it gave him, so to speak,
his human dimensions, removing him once and for all from
any distinctive regional identity and facing him with the great
problems of the world and the time. When Francis left Paris, he had
discovered the French Court, with all its pomp and circumstance
but also its intrigues and games of influence; he had preached there
and drawn a brilliant audience to his pulpit, often as frivolous as
they were sensitive; he had mingled with the surprising religious
renewal then affecting high Paris society. ‘Some saints, some real
saints, in great number, and everywhere’.5 He had won over many
minds and hearts... and among all these successes and all this work,
in his daily life he had shown the holiness and charity of the true
priest of Jesus Christ.
Everything depended – judging from human perspectives – on
the fact that Francis, in Paris, sometimes visited Princess Marie de
Luxembourg, the Duchess of Mercœur: it was, according to him, a
‘a relationship of respect and affection... I could not fail, since she
was part of my heritage: in fact my father, grandfather and great
grandfather had had the honour of being pages, and of spending
a good part of their lives in the home of the illustrious princes of
Martigues, the father, grandfather and great grandfather’ of the
5 H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, vol. I, p. 95.

12.10 Page 120

▲back to top
120
Saint Francis de Sales
Duchess. It then happened that shortly before Lent 1602, ‘by chance
the Queen’s chapel in the Louvre was without a preacher’: Francis
was asked. Having no other occupation than to await the ‘outcome
of his business’, he had to accept: ‘So as not to be lacking in courtesy,
I am constrained to preach in the Queen’s chapel three times a week’
he wrote on 9 March 1602 to Lord de Quoex – before princesses
and courtiers, being unable to say no to the requests and orders
made of me. But this is understandable,’ Francis adds with finesse
to his Roman correspondent, ‘without delaying the solicitation I
am slowly making, to assist the mood of those who have the matter
in hand, and to whom I am obliged to adapt.’ As unexpected as it
was, this Lenten preaching was a genuine success: and to add to
the edification, the preacher refused the ‘very beautiful purse filled
with gold scudi’ that the Princess de Longueville had brought to
him as payment. Our courtiers could not believe their eyes.
Meanwhile, the Genevans were scheming with Minister Villeroy
to see that the coadjutor’s request would fail, and the matter of the
district of Gex became ‘so delicate to deal with and such a bizarre
procedure’ that early in April 1602, Francis even feared he would
be returning to Annecy ‘without any luggage other than hope’. Yet
it was not his fault: he increased the number of letters and steps he
took...
At this point an incident occurred that put a more favourable
slant on negotiations. Henry IV, having heard so much praise of the
Savoyard preacher, ‘wanted to see him in the pulpit’. Francis went
to Fontainebleau and on 14 April, Low Sunday, he preached before
the King. ‘On Low Sunday the King had me preach in his presence
and showed that he was happy with it.’ Francis spoke at length with
the King after this sermon. It was fortunate, because otherwise the
negotiations for the district of Gex would have certainly been a lost
cause. On 18 April 1602, he wrote to Lord de Quoex: ‘I am now
returning from Fontainebleau where all my negotiations would have
been lost had I spoken out. However, I have done so much that I have

13 Pages 121-130

▲back to top

13.1 Page 121

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
121
regained some hope; within two or three days all will be completely
resolved. It will not come with all the satisfaction we would like: we
need to pull what we can from the fire. Listening to the experts, it
will already be a lot... The way things proceed in this Court is so
difficult that when you think you have succeeded you find yourself
in the midst of complications.’
The future bishop of Geneva was definitely in a tough school
but it was a finishing school for him as the diplomat. From one
Francis de Sales’ coat of arms.

13.2 Page 122

▲back to top
122
Saint Francis de Sales
disappointment to hope, then from hope to another disappointment,
things dragged on until September... and in reality the results would
be meagre. Giving an account of his mission to Pope Clement VIII,
Francis drafted this disappointing summary: ‘It seemed that nothing
would counter the hope we desired. But, misery of our times! After
having taken so many steps for these blessed negotiations, we have
barely gained authorisation to celebrate the sacred mysteries in
three places, with concession, to this effect, of an annual income for
our priests. As for the rest, the King personally reminded us of the
harshness of the times: “More than anything else” he said, “I would
want the complete restoration of the Catholic religion, but my power
does not measure up to what I want,” and other similar statements.
So after nine whole months, I am forced to go back having concluded
almost nothing.’
‘Having concluded almost nothing’: perhaps, at the level of
negotiations, this was exactly the case. But on a spiritual level, it was
the opposite. Francis had done a lot and had learned even more. He
preached ‘more than a hundred times’, heard confessions, converted
people, visited convents and monasteries where he restored fervour
to many souls. But above all, Pierre de Bérulle – then a simple priest
and eight years younger than he was – introduced him to the home
of Madame Acarie, whom Bremond did not hesitate to call ‘a new
Teresa’.6 Her salon was frequented by Asseline, Marillac, by the
Carthusian monk Beaucousin, and by the most devout individuals
in Paris.
It seems that Francis de Sales had immediately wielded real
influence over this group which was already so fervent: some chose
him as a confessor and spiritual director; but over this period he
received more than he gave. Among those who gathered in this
way, mystical graces and even extraordinary phenomena were not
uncommon.
6 H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, vol. I, p. 96.

13.3 Page 123

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
123
The most favoured seemed to have been Madame Acarie herself,
who very soon placed full trust in Francis: ‘She opened her heart
to him, not only in the sacrament of Penance, but also in private
conversations.’ In his dealings with his penitent, Francis conducted
himself with extreme discretion and did not question her about
the extraordinary graces that the Holy Spirit granted her; later he
would experience some kind of regret: ‘What a mistake I made, not
benefiting from such holy conversation: she would in fact open her
whole soul to me freely; but the great respect I showed her meant
that I did not dare inform myself of the slightest thing.’ Not that he
himself had not already experienced in many circumstances the
privileged states in which God makes himself sensible7 to the soul;
but in these kinds of graces, every experience is original and every
soul has something to learn from other souls: this explains Francis’
regrets.
Francis de Sales’ encounter with the Acarie group had two
extremely important consequences for the religious history of
France: ‘At these meetings it was resolved, through his advice and
at the wish of (Madame) Acarie, that the Carmeline (sic) Sisters of
Saint Teresa (Teresa of Avila died in 1582, so twenty years earlier)
should come from Spain, and from Rome some priests of the
Oratory of the Name of Jesus8; which happened so fortuitously that
with the King’s consent and the support of the Sovereign Pontiff,
the Princess de Longueville increased religion in Paris with a new
monastery after Blessed Francis wrote about it to His Holiness and
7 Here we are of a different view to that of Fr Antanas Liuima, Aux sources du
Traité de l’Amour de Dieu de Saint François de Sales, Rome, Librairie Éditrice
de l’Université Grégorienne, 1959, vol. I, p. 185, and of Fr. Serouet, De la vie
dévote à la vie mystique. Sainte Thérèse d’Avila Saint François de Sales, Desclée de
Brouwer, 1958, Chap. X and XI. – Our statement is based on an analysis of the
texts which unfortunately we are unable to develop in this brief work.
8 The oratory was founded in Rome in 1564 by Philip Neri. Pierre de Bérulle
introduced it into France in 1611.

13.4 Page 124

▲back to top
124
Saint Francis de Sales
broadly informed the Apostolic see.’9 This first Carmel was opened
in Paris in October 1604.
At the end of September 1602, when Francis de Sales left for Savoy,
he left with some regrets. Undoubtedly his diplomatic mission
had not had complete success; but at least he had won the heart of
Henry IV who had then wanted to appoint him as an archbishop
in France and even offered him a ‘huge stipend’ that the prudent
Francis turned down with great difficulty. He also bore the closely
guarded comforting memory in his soul of many confessions,
conversions, confidences and, especially, the joy of having taken
part over many months in the prodigious spiritual progress whose
effects would very soon make themselves felt throughout France
and even beyond French borders. It would not be too much to
say that Francis de Sales returned to Paris after having reached a
kind of human and spiritual maturity. The early letters of direction
he would write after his return testify to this, showing him in full
possession of his spiritual teaching, of the kind that would flourish
in the Introduction to the Devout Life, the Spiritual Conferences and
the Treatise on the Love of God. ‘Sudden, complete and definitive
self-realisation’, Henri Bremond dared write when speaking of this
metamorphosis of Francis de Sales.10
On his way to Lyons on 29 September 1602, Francis learned that
Bishop de Granier had died ten days earlier, his soul still dazzled
by the triumphant Centenary at Thonon he had just presided over.
For his coadjutor it was a moment of great sadness: Francis wept
for a long time for the man who, for ten years, had been a real
father to him.
9 Among the letters that Francis wrote to Rome on this matter, we have at least
the one that he addressed to the Holy Father in November 1603. The Parisian
meetings in which the introduction of the reformed Carmel in France was studied
and decided on, according to the letter to the Pope, lasted “ ‘a few days’; it seems
the last was held on 5 June in the Carthusian chapel in Saint-Georges.
10 H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, vol. I, p. 98.

13.5 Page 125

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
125
Consecration in the church at Thorens
Thus Francis’ fate was sealed. He must ‘occupy the laborious and
dangerous office of bishop’. ‘Let what God’s providence desires’, he
wrote to a friend on 21 October. ‘I am always the same as before; I
do not desire the bishopric any more than I desired it before. If it
comes to me I shall have to bear it; if not, I will be much better off...’
And how could it be possible that the bishopric would not come to
him? The consecration was established for 8 December. ‘I received
episcopal consecration on the day of the Virgin Mary’s, Our Lady’s
conception, and I have placed my destiny in her hands’, he would
write on 10 January 1603 to Bishop Giovenale Ancina, Bishop of
Saluzzo.
To satisfy his mother’s wish, Francis chose Thorens for ‘the
solemnity of his consecration; the reason being the fact that his
mother and brothers lived there, the wishes and prayers of his
subjects and, as well as this, the natural leaning he had towards his
home town that seemed to deserve to see him anointed bishop, just
as it had seen him born and made a Christian’.
He wanted to prepare himself for this grace of consecration with
a lengthy retreat. ‘He wrote to Fr Jean Fourier,11 a Jesuit, who was
then at Thonon, asking him to do him the favour of coming to Sales
to direct him in the review he wanted to make of his entire life. Free,
therefore, from all other thoughts, he remained for twenty days
almost alone, and with continuous prayers, fasting, bodily penance
and other similar exercises, he prepared himself for the general
confession of his sins; following this he prescribed a rule of life for
himself, consulting his wise director.’ Mother de Chantal says she
11 Fr J. Fourier appears in Francis de Sales’ life at least three times: he was his director
at this retreat in preparation for his consecration; the Introduction to the Devout
Life would be published on his advice; and finally, Fr Fourier would be at Francis’
bedside in Lyons as he lay dying on 28 December 1622.

13.6 Page 126

▲back to top
126
Saint Francis de Sales
had seen this rule of life ‘written in his own hand’ and had read it.
Of themselves they contain a brief treatise on the priestly ideal as
presented by the Gospel: poverty, fasting, alms, prayer, confession,
contact with his ‘people’ and, at the heart of all this a life of grace and
charity, ‘the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass that he would celebrate
every day unless prevented by some extreme need... It would not be
inappropriate that he celebrate Mass on specified days of devotion
in the churches where these were scheduled so that when they
went there the people would find their bishop always at their head,
and similarly for the solemn feast days in these churches.’ Francis
insisted that Fr Fourier put his signature to this rule of life.
On 8 December, ‘from early morning the people began to walk
from Sales to Thorens’. The parish church was lavishly carpeted and
decorated. The ‘consecrating prelates’ were ‘Vespasien Gribaldi,
Archbishop and Counte de Vienne, Primate of the Gauls, Thomas
Pobel, Bishop of Saint-Paul or Trois-Châteaux, and Jacques Maistret,
Bishop of Damascus, of the Carmelite Order’. The ceremony took
place in accordance with the ritual. But according to Mother de
Chantal’s testimony, ‘during his consecration, it seemed to him
ingenuously that the most adorable Trinity imprinted inwardly on
his soul what the bishops were doing outwardly on his person; and
he also seemed to see the most holy Mother of Our Lord taking
him under her protection, and the Apostles St Peter and St Paul at
her side, protecting him. That is how his own words seem to me to
be’ says Mother de Chantal.
For a month ‘after his consecration as bishop’, he spoke ‘like a man
who was beyond this world’, ‘and although concerns of office have
somewhat dampened the agitation of the heart, the resolutions, by
the grace of God, have remained with me’. Note the date of this
sharing: 1619!
On Saturday, 14 December 1602, the new Bishop of Geneva
solemnly entered Annecy and was enthroned in the cathedral
church. The day after was the Third Sunday of Advent: at Vespers,

13.7 Page 127

▲back to top
Chapter vi - Bishop and prince of Geneva
127
Annecy, castle and ancient homes alongside le Thiou.

13.8 Page 128

▲back to top
128
Saint Francis de Sales
Francis ascended the pulpit, spoke about the Nativity, but suddenly
‘as if caught up in ecstasy, told his people, without noticing, all of
the wonders that had happened to him during his consecration’.
Ten years later, on the anniversary of the ceremony, he would write
to Madame de Chantal: ‘I said in my sermon that ten years had
passed since I was consecrated, from when God took me away
from myself and to himself and then gave me to the people, that is,
that he converted me from what (I was) for me into what I would
be for them.’ His life as a bishop would be the putting of this ideal
into practice: every day he would be ‘taken by God and given to the
people’.

13.9 Page 129

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
129
7 – THE BISHOP AMONG HIS PEOPLE
In accordance with the Council of Trent’s Reform
‘He immediately applied his mind to the major issues and urgent
affairs of his diocese.’ One thought dominated: being the bishop
that the Church wanted in his diocese; the bishop as conceived and
defined by the Council of Trent in its desire for reform. Francis
himself lets us know of his intimate dispositions in that first year as
bishop. One of his friends, Antoine de Revol, was appointed Bishop
of Dol and asked him for his advice. On 3 June 1603, Francis replied
to him with a long and admirable letter that needs to be quoted in
its entirety: ‘You are entering the clerical state (Antoine de Revol
was not yet a priest) at the height of this state. I will tell you what
was told to a shepherd chosen to be king of Israel: Mutaberis in
virum alterum; you need to be completely different both within
and without. For this great and solemn change to occur, you need
to turn your mind upside down and stir it up everywhere... To
have assistance for this change, you need the help of the living and
the dead: the living, since you must find one or two men of high
spirituality whose conversation you can rely on. It is a great relief
to have some confidants for the spirit... As for the dead, you need
to have a small library of two kinds of spiritual books: some for
you insofar as you are a cleric, and the others for you as a bishop...
I beg you to have all the writings of Granada,1 and think of him as
your second breviary... you will use him mainly to train your mind
to the love of true devotion and all the spiritual exercises that are
1 Luis de Granada (1504–1588), Spanish spiritual writer from the 16th century.

13.10 Page 130

▲back to top
130
Saint Francis de Sales
needed... to read it fruitfully, however, you should not devour it but
weigh it and esteem it, and ruminate on it one chapter after another
and apply it to your soul with many considerations and prayers to
God. You need to read it reverently and devoutly... I almost forgot
to tell you that you should absolutely make the resolution to preach
to your people...’
However, Francis had too much apostolic experience to believe
that his ideal of the bishop could be realised without wounds and
‘a multitude of imperfections’. A few days after his consecration he
had written to Lord de Bérulle: ‘There is no remedy: we will always
need to be washing our feet, since we are walking in dust.’
Here then is how Francis de Sales was entirely dedicated to his
diocese. For twenty years he would dedicate his days and nights, his
work and his waking hours to it. If occasionally he had to be away
from it, he would always do so with some regret and not without
some fear that his absence could harm it; and in general he did so
to do it a service. He accepted very few of the numerous invitations
to preach that came from his bishop friends: and indeed he knew
that Duke Charles Emmanuel, proud as he was of his Bishop of
Geneva, was not very happy to see him triumphing in other pulpits,
and was particularly afraid of the esteem shown him by Paris and
the King of France. Francis also felt some remorse at neglecting the
sheep of his own fold for other sheep. There was much to be done
in the Savoyard diocese.
Other than the fact that the closeness and greed of Geneva
continued to weigh heavily on certain ‘districts’, despite the peace,
there was a need to restore, correct, and see that everything –
souls in the first instance – returned to true Catholic fervour. The
territory over which he exercised jurisdiction as the Bishop of
Geneva was a large and beautiful one, but some villages or groups
of farms were difficult and also dangerous to reach, especially in
winter. Episcopal financial resources were meagre and did not
permit grand undertakings.

14 Pages 131-140

▲back to top

14.1 Page 131

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
131
But all this would not mean much if a secret evil were not
threatening everything he tried to build up. Francis knew this
evil, had already denounced it; but now that he was bishop, he was
more deeply, more personally aware of it: it was the evil that all
the Church was suffering from, the evil that had resulted in the
flowering of Protestantism, the evil which, certainly, the Council
of Trent had decided to apply the most vigorous remedies to, but
that was being healed so very slowly. ‘He also spoke to me with the
utmost frankness,’ Mother Angélique Arnauld said one day, ‘and
I can assure you that he hid nothing from me of his most secret
and important thoughts about the state the Church found itself in
and the behaviour of certain Religious Orders.’ Mother Angélique
Arnauld also spoke of a lengthy confidential exchange she had with
the Bishop of Geneva: ‘My daughter, there are reasons here for
weeping... There is a need to weep and pray in secret that God may
put his hand where men do not know how to do so... We must ask
him... to reform the abuses that have crept into the behaviour of the
Church’s ministers, and to send her holy pastors animated by the
zeal of St Charles, who endeavour to purify it with the fire of their
zeal and their knowledge, and to make it spotless and wrinkle-free
where discipline is concerned, as it is where faith and doctrine are
concerned.’2
This conversation between Bishop de Sales and Mother
Angélique could only have been in 1619, but the allusion to St
Charles Borromeo (and Lord de Bérulle, also mentioned) leads us
to infer that from 1603 this was Francis de Sales’ thinking. Fresh
out of the University of Padua, Francis had wanted to visit Milan,
the city where the holy bishop had died seven years earlier. He
always had the most fervent devotion to him, and this had grown
with the friendship that bound him to St Charles’ cousin, Cardinal
Federico Borromeo. It is certain his zeal for Catholic reform was
2 Cited by C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, vol. I, pp. 210-211.

14.2 Page 132

▲back to top
132
Saint Francis de Sales
Map of Annecy
(from Theatrum Sabaudiae..., pars II, Amsterdam, 1682).

14.3 Page 133

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
133
very much part of this devotion. In the spring of 1613 he would go
in pilgrimage to the tomb of his saintly model; and while celebrating
Mass before the crystal casket, would be taken up in rapture...
For twenty years Francis de Sales would strive to bring about
in his diocese of Geneva what Charles Borromeo had achieved in
his diocese of Milan, meaning reform in accordance with the ideal
defined by the Council of Trent.
Let us outline the path of these twenty years of episcopate.
October 1603: convocation of the diocesan synod that brought
together at Annecy ‘all the clerics of the diocese, abbots, priors,
deans, canons and rectors of parish churches’ – Francis’ first contact
with his clergy as a whole. Lent 1604: first Lenten series in Dijon
and encounter with Jeanne Frémyot de Chantal. From 1605 to 1608:
diocesan visitation in four stages. From 1606 to 1610: the wonderful
period of the Florimontane Academy. 1609: The Introduction to the
Devout Life. 1610: on the Feast of the Trinity, 6 June, Madame de
Chantal, Lady de Bréchard and Mlle Favre withdraw to Galerie
House in Annecy and there founded the Visitation of Our lady.
1616: in August he goes to Lyons, the Treatise on the Love of God
published by Pierre Rigaud. 1618–1619: Francis spends time in
Paris for the third time.
Simple reference points in a life completely dedicated to his
service of the diocese. Francis belonged completely to his people.
Faithful to the spirit of the reform in capite et in membris, Francis
de Sales began the sanctification of his diocese with himself and his
household. His tenor of life was a very simple one. He was poor:
poor in personal resources, he had given all his patrimony to his
brothers; poor in episcopal resources, his bishopric gave him only
a thousand gold scudi annually; poor because he gave away so
many alms publicly and secretly; poor because he wanted to be, to
live ‘like the Apostles’. Staff at home was reduced to the essential,
his table was frugal, his clothing ‘clean and decently mended’, but
destined to last a long time; at home, ‘the largest one in the city of

14.4 Page 134

▲back to top
134
Saint Francis de Sales
Annecy’ that Antoine Favre had placed at the disposition of the
bishop in 1610, he had a very modest room for himself. ‘I will go
around every day’ he said, ‘as the Bishop of Geneva, and at night
will retire as Francis de Sales.’ He did not have a carriage and horses.
‘Although he was raised to a dignity as high as that of bishop, he
did not flatter himself in his way of life, as many do. He observed
strict abstinence and fasting, and very often disciplined himself till
blood flowed.’
But above all he prayed: in the morning an hour’s meditation,
and whenever it was possible for him – following the resolutions
he took at the time of his consecration – two hours for study, study
that was always prayer in some way: he said his Office with great
devotion, both kneeling and walking. He said Mass every day
towards 9, generally in the intimacy of his oratory in the bishop’s
house; but he liked, ‘on the specified days of devotion’, to find his
people again and celebrate in one or other church or chapel in
Annecy. He had a taste for beautiful liturgy, and if he was celebrating
pontifically was quite strict about the observation of the rubrics. In
his eyes, the Mass was the culmination of particular devotion and
public worship; to celebrate it and celebrate it well was his first duty
as a pastor. Only then would the ‘work and hardships’ begin...
Action, however, also meant meditation for him, since it meant
being deeply united with God’s will. ‘Stay very united with Jesus
Christ and Our Lady and your good Angel in all your things,’ he
would advise Mme de Chantal one day ‘so that their multiplicity
does not disturb you nor their difficulty dismay you. Do one thing
after the other as well as you can and faithfully apply your mind to
this end, but sweetly and gently. If God grants you a good result
then we will bless him for it; if not, we will bless him just the
same...’ We can be certain that this was his personal approach in
the ‘annoyances of this world’.
But in the end it would happen that tiredness would take control
of his body and his soul would feel repugnance: then the Bishop of

14.5 Page 135

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
135
Geneva would seek his salvation in God. Less than five years after
becoming bishop he wrote this delightful note to a friend in Dijon:
‘I will spend this Lent residing in my cathedral and re-clothing my
soul somewhat, since it has become almost completely unstitched
by all the worry it has had to bear... It is a broken clock; I need to
take it apart piece by piece, and after cleaning it and oiling it, put
it back together so that it chimes properly.’ He did this whenever
possible, respecting the resolution taken during his retreat for his
consecration: ‘Every year, for a week, and even longer when I can,
I will make a retreat and purify my soul.’
The Bishop of Geneva radiated this devotion. A peace and charity
that attracted hearts emanated from his person; when he walked
through the streets the children would surround him and cling
to him: the poor crowded the bishop’s house or his confessional.
Nothing repelled him nor did he reject anyone... Wonderful tales
were already being woven around him: let us not forget that in
Thonon, in 1598, during the Forty Hours, a dead child came back
to life while Francis was praying kneeling beside his bed... or that
at his consecration at the church in Thorens, he was caught up in
ecstasy for half an hour... already the clothes he touched, the medals
he distributed, the little items that belonged to him, that he used
were sought out as relics... Little by little as the years passed, the
admiration and enthusiasm of the good Savoyard people for their
bishop increased. He was enveloped in an atmosphere of sacred
legend.
How could it be otherwise? Not all the graces that the Lord
bestowed on him could be kept secret. Though some of his
intimate moments of enlightenment – such as the ecstasy at the
castle de Sales when it was revealed to him ‘that he would be the
founder and teacher of an order of sisters, (and was shown) the
imagination or ideas of the main people from whom this Order
would take its beginnings’ – could, strictly speaking, have escaped
those who surrounded him, how would he have been able to keep

14.6 Page 136

▲back to top
136
Saint Francis de Sales
so many extraordinary deeds hidden: the freeing of the possessed,
prophecies and the ability to read souls, the healing of paralytics
or the sick, etc. and even the raising of a dead woman to life from
a distance? We point out in passing that these miracles continued
long after his death, at the saint’s tomb, or from a distance. To
quote just two examples, it is certain that Pope Alexander VII, who
beatified Francis de Sales on 28 December 1661 and canonised
him on 19 April 1665, considered the Bishop of Geneva to be a
‘miracle worker’ – and contemporary accounts of the Beatification
festivities in Annecy indicate that behind the silver casket where
Francis de Sales’s remains were kept walked ‘paralytics he cured
and those he raised from the dead’.3
But the most constant miracle of his life was that life itself.
Francis had admitted this since 1606: what would become of him
after fourteen or fifteen years of journeys and work? ‘I am well,
my dear daughter,’ he wrote to Baroness de Chantal on 2 October
‘with such a huge amount of work and concerns that I cannot say
more about. It is a small miracle that God is working, since every
evening when I retire, I cannot move either body or mind so tired
am I all over; and by morning I am more cheerful than ever. At the
moment I have neither order, nor measure, nor reasonableness (it
would be impossible for me to hide anything from you) but just the
same, here I am, perfectly strong, thanks be to God.’
There were more than enough reasons for Francis de Sales to
gain a reputation for holiness. All the more so since regularly
the ‘rudeness’, criticisms, insolence, slander aimed at the devout
bishop often ended up being turned against their authors. Not
that he wasted any time refuting them, unless it was the honour
of the Church or the priesthood that was at stake, but accepted
them with kindness and patience; and generally everything ended
up, for his part, with general and total forgiveness for the guilty.
3 Visitation d’Annecy Archives, Recueil de circulaires, vol. I, p. 573.

14.7 Page 137

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
137
Then he would invent those phrases where the wound was hidden
marvellously beneath his smile, phrases that were immediately
taken up by the people.
One day a defamatory libel against Francis was spread around
Annecy itself: the holy bishop was not disturbed by it, but since a
Canon had read what was written, the Chapter took it up rigorously,
‘and sentence would have been pronounced had not the good prelate
(holy up to this point) lowered himself to the point of addressing
requests to his Chapter that the sentence, already in writing, be
suppressed and shelved. He did even more: some years later, in
fact, he procured for the same man a very honourable position in
accordance with his birth and circumstances, at the court of Their
Most Serene Princes, without even in the least having been asked
to do so, but of his own free will. So there was a very common
proverb in Savoy, saying that one needed to offend Blessed Francis
to receive any kind of benefit from him.’
This patience and habit of forgiveness did not appeal to everyone,
and many saw it as a weakness if not a sin: ‘Francis de Sales will
certainly go to Heaven,’ said the Prior of Talloires, after Francis had
forgiven the monks who had tried to assassinate him, ‘but as for the
Bishop of Geneva, I don’t know, since he never punishes.’ It meant
he did not understand the source of all these virtues. Under insult
or slander, ‘Francis felt’ as he had confessed, ‘boiling anger like
water on fire’, but he restrained himself and calmed down, finding
his joy in resembling Our Lord Jesus Christ, mocked and despised,
and the Virgin Mary. ‘My Mother,’ he wrote on 13 December to
Mother de Chantal who was upset about some slander, ‘you do not
need to be so tender on my behalf; we need to accept that they will
censure me; if I don’t deserve this one way I deserve it in another.
The Mother of He who deserved eternal adoration said not a single
word when they covered him with insults and ignominies... My
dear Mother, we have much self-love if we want everyone to love
us, and that everything redounds to our glory.’

14.8 Page 138

▲back to top
138
Saint Francis de Sales
Of course, most of the criticisms and even suspicions that Francis
had to endure were caused by his ‘business’ affairs. But only God
knows how much he tried to inform Rome precisely, or his Prince,
on how he conducted himself. If we want to find a fine example of
this, we need to re-read his letters to the Duke and to Clement VIII
when seeking permission to preach during Lent in Dijon in 1604.
But for his part, the Duke was too manipulative, too scheming to
admit that the invitations to preach with which France and especially
the Court and Paris, besieged the Bishop of Geneva, were due only
to his eloquence or holiness. He smelled conspiracy and betrayal
everywhere. On a number of occasions Charles Emmanuel refused
Francis authorisation to accept these foreign proposals. He made
him wait nine months for authorisation to preach in Paris. What
could the bishop have been up to with the French?
It was undoubtedly after Francis’ astonishing crossing through
Geneva on 12 September 1609 that the Duke’s suspicions reached the
point of a paroxysm of rage. Certainly the escape was so spectacular
that Charles Emmanuel was forced to become suspicious: in order
not to miss an appointment set for him by the Baron de Lux, in
which Francis would have discussed the restoration of three
parishes in the district of Gex, seeing that he could not cross the
Rhone swollen by the rains, he simply decided that he had to pass
through Geneva. Of course it was no trivial matter: the Catholic
bishop, in ecclesiastical dress, escorted by a patrol, crossing Calvin’s
city on horseback in broad daylight...
Recounting the adventure to his friend Antoine Favre on
21 September following, Francis told him the true version of
this success: ‘You would know that I crossed Geneva under the
protection of my guardian angel.’ But this supernatural explanation
satisfied neither the Genevans nor the Duke... Francis had to wash
himself, in the eyes of the latter, of suspicion of betrayal! Francis
wrote to Monsieur des Hayes on 4 December 1609: ‘People have
argued thus: Whatever has he done to Gex and who gave him the

14.9 Page 139

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
139
courage to pass through the city that is so much the enemy of the
name he bears and of his quality, and into which his predecessors
have never entered since the revolt – without a safe conduct,
without disguise, without hiding his own identity? – But in reality
they know little about my soul if they judge me to be so full of
self-consideration and apprehension that I can’t be a little rash.
Time, my innocence, but above all divine providence will put all
this right: however, regarding the matter, I have written to His
Highness everything that it seemed to me good to say, after having
come to know that he had indulged in some distrust in my regard...
This is my news of State.’
In order to believe what Francis was saying, the Duke would
have needed to have an innocence that was not his. His suspicions
were revived by the least little occasions, and Francis had to
forcefully reassure him on several occasions of his fidelity to the
House of Savoy: ‘Having been warned that I have been accused by
Your Highness of having carried out certain ill-advised matters of
State with foreigners,’ he wrote on 12 June 1611 ‘I was extremely
astonished, unable to imagine on what appearance of foundation
such a slander could be constructed... I have carved too deeply in
my heart the duty I bear (towards Your Highness) for me ever to
allow myself to go and do something that could in any way harm
the service of your interests; and I have too strong an aversion to the
annoying matters of State to ever want to give them my deliberate
attention.’
If Francis defended himself so firmly it was because the honour
and interests of the diocese were at stake, and also the destiny and
position of his relatives and friends. This clear strength – Sainte-
Beuve would say: this boldness of the dove – is one of the least-
known aspects of his personality; intrigue and slander saw that it
would be revealed: it is the good side of these miseries. We also
find this elevated thinking, attitude and tone in his correspondence
whenever, through the bishop, insults touched on the Church, his

14.10 Page 140

▲back to top
140
Saint Francis de Sales
priests or his Daughters of the Visitation, or the justice due to any
of his sheep. It was then that the daring, ironic, virulent polemicist
was awakened in him whose humility and charity usually blunted
such vivacity when it was only about him.
Thus these very ‘annoyances’ and setbacks were turned in Francis’
favour. Only a saint could conduct himself amid so much scheming
with so much deliberation, wisdom, balance. The reputation for
holiness went beyond the boundaries of Savoy. Francis’ journey to
Franche-Comté in 1609, when he went there at the order of Paul
V to settle the business of the Salines, was a triumph: at Dôle, then
the capital, at Besançon, Baume-les-Dames, everywhere, people
wanted to see him, hear him preach, go to confession to him,
receive communion from him. They all called Francis ‘our bishop,
as if he had practically been their pastor’.
When he went to Paris in 1618, another even greater success.
Churches and monasteries competed for the grace to listen to
him: it has been calculated that over nine months he preached a
hundred and sixty five times; and since it seemed that his health
was suffering, the people tried to obtain relics: in the monasteries
the spoon, the knife he had used to eat, and even more the linen,
the vestments he had used to celebrate Mass. Francis managed as
best he could amid all these annoyances... At the very least he did
not tolerate his friends taking part in this ‘concert’: ‘You are not
writing according to (my wish),’ he wrote to Mme de Chantal on
25 November 1608 ‘nor when writing to my mother or to Mme
de Charmoisy, when you say: “Our holy and good bishop”; in
fact those women should be reading “foolish bishop” when they
read “holy bishop”. I know well that at the time of Saint Jerome all
bishops were called holy due to their role: now, however, this is
no longer the custom.’ On 24 January 1608 he once again insisted:
‘You are forbidden to use the word holy when you speak about me
since, my daughter, I am more knave than holy: and it is not the
case that you should be canonising me.’

15 Pages 141-150

▲back to top

15.1 Page 141

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
141
Annecy, Maison Lambert, first dwelling
of Bishop Francis de Sales.

15.2 Page 142

▲back to top
142
Saint Francis de Sales
Francis’ spiritual doctrine
One can certainly reject as excessive certain testimonies of the early
‘Lives’ of Francis de Sales by invoking their desire to be edifying or
– which is the same thing – their absence of a critical spirit. But the
mass of facts and documents is such that one cannot question the
veneration that surrounded the Bishop of Geneva while he was alive.
What was this due to? Certainly, to the irradiation of his soul. But
it would distort his spiritual portrait if his holiness were limited to
his personal fidelity to God. His holiness was apostolic: he wanted
all his flock to benefit from the graces granted to him; he wanted
his own reform of life to become, as far as possible, the reform of
all his people. Holiness – and by saying this I give the word all its
weight of grace – concerned each of his ‘sheep’.
It was the marvellous thing about his apostolate: Francis de Sales
dared, if not to lead then at least to guide souls, all the souls that
were entrusted to him – his people, his clergy, his monks and his
sisters, his spiritual sons and daughters – towards the ideal of life
that he had once conceived as the evangelical ideal. No one should
be left out of this great movement: each according to their place,
each according to their measure, their situation, their ‘state’, their
attraction to grace, but all must have access, from near or far, to
the ‘Life of holy charity’ about which he was secretly planning,
since February 1607, to write the book that he described two years
later in a letter to the Archbishop of Vienne in clearer terms: ‘I
am meditating on a book on the Love of God, not to deal with
it speculatively, but to show its practice in the observance of the
commandments of the first Tablet. It will be followed by another
that shows the practice of the same divine love in the observance of
the commandments of the second Tablet: both will be able to form
a just and manageable volume.’
The strength of Francis de Sales as a bishop consisted in
possessing from the outset a doctrine, not just theological but

15.3 Page 143

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
143
spiritual, of Christian life, and in having received gifts from God
as well as an exceptional grace for bringing souls to life. Sermons,
writings, counsel, direction, everything in him turns to the heart,
because for him religion is essentially a life, a life of the heart. ‘God
is the God of the human heart’; ‘between this divine Goodness and
our soul’ there is ‘great but secret convenience’. ‘Although the state
of our human nature is now not endowed with its original health
and righteousness... and indeed we are greatly depraved by sin,
nevertheless the holy inclination to love God above all things has
remained with us, as also the supernatural light through which we
recognise that his sovereign goodness is lovable above all things.’
This natural inclination ‘does not inhabit our heats in vain: since
God uses it as a handle to more gently take hold of us and draw
us to himself ’. It is this that is already at work in the hearts of the
unbelievers: “O Jesus, what delightful pleasure one feels in seeing
the heavenly love that is the sun of virtues, when little by little, with
progress that imperceptibly makes itself felt, it unfolds its clarity on
a soul and does not stop before having completely covered it with
the splendour of its presence, finally giving it the perfect beauty of
its light! O how this dawn is cheerful, beautiful, kind and pleasing!’
Once we have expressed the act of faith required for our
justification, nothing – other than our passions and our attachment
to sin – stands in the way of divine love flourishing in us in all its
fullness. Exceptional prayers and extraordinary phenomena are not
essential to the life of charity: instead ‘the union of the soul with its
God’ is achieved, in prayer as in action, through perfect conformity
of our will with the will of God. The only authentic ‘ecstasy’ is the
‘ecstasy and rapture of life and of working beyond oneself and one’s
natural inclinations... about which the great Apostle is speaking
when he says: I live, but it is no longer I who live; it is Jesus Christ
who lives in me’.
It is by starting from the most common truths of the faith and
the clearest texts of the Gospel, therefore, that Francis de Sales

15.4 Page 144

▲back to top
144
Saint Francis de Sales
guides the soul towards deepest unity with God. ‘I am preaching
here, during this Advent’, he wrote on 13 December 1619 ‘on the
commandments of God, which they wanted to hear from me, and
they are following me marvellously; for my part I preach with all
my heart. Of this heart I will tell you, dearest Mother, that God in
his infinite Goodness favours it a lot, giving it great love for the
maxims of Christianity; and this, following the lights he gives me
regarding their beauty and on the love that all the saints have for
them in heaven, since I believe that up there they sing in such an
incomparable way: Blessed are the poor in spirit, since there is the
kingdom of heaven.’ God, through creation, the Incarnation, the
Redemption, has placed all his treasures within reach of the most
humble: souls differ according to love. ‘Love is the first and principal
act of our devout or spiritual life, by means of which we live, feel
and die: and our spiritual life is such as our affective movements
are.’ If, then, ‘love is the life of our heart’, if holiness does not depend
on state, position, function, and even less on wealth, then married
people can achieve it exactly as monks do, the child exactly like an
adult, the ignorant, the coarse just like the theologian, the sick and
infirm like the healthy.
And this is the problem that would increasingly impose itself
on Francis de Sales’s religious thinking – a problem that his
apostolic contact with souls made more heartfelt every day: the
‘life of holy charity’ can be experienced in every state: it depends
on the grace that God grants and on the generosity with which the
soul corresponds with this divine invitation. ‘May God touch and
pluck wherever he wishes to, and on whatever string of our lute he
chooses may he obtain only good harmony: Lord Jesus, without
reserve, without yes, without but, without exception, without
limits, may your will be done... in everything and everywhere...’ ‘I
seem to see you’, he wrote to Mme de Chantal in 1607 ‘with your
vigorous heart that loves and loves strongly. I am so very grateful
for this: because what good are those hearts that are half dead?

15.5 Page 145

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
145
But we must do a particular exercise of wanting and loving God’s
will more vigorously, and I go even further: more tenderly, more
lovingly than anything in the world.’
Since the chapter entitled ‘Devotion is suitable to every Vocation
and Profession’ is found in the Introduction to the Devout Life,
Francis de Sales’ efforts to open up the sources of devotion to all
souls is limited to this work. That means overlooking what he
means by the word ‘devotion’: ‘All true and living devotion... is
neither more nor less than a very real love of God. The difference
between love and devotion is just that which exists between fire
and flame: love being a spiritual fire which becomes devotion
when it is fanned into a flame. and what devotion adds to the fire
of love is that flame which makes it eager, energetic and diligent,
not merely in obeying God’s Commandments, but in fulfilling
His Divine Counsels and inspirations.’ The difference between the
dates of publication of the Introduction and the Treatise on the Love
of God means nothing, nor does the difference of situation between
Philothea and Theotimus. Does not the idea of the Treatise even
predate that of the Introduction? In both, the same spiritual idea is
formulated, as also in the Sermons, other books or planned books,
and all the Correspondence of spiritual direction: Francis could
have said to all souls what he wrote one day to Mother Angélique
Arnauld: ‘My heart… never ceases to formulate the wish for your
advancement towards pure and courageous, but humble and sweet
divine love’: he wanted to introduce all souls to the ‘eternal freedom
of love’.
The episcopal duty to preach
‘Ah, Monsignor, if people in our situation love God, they are
always ready to speak of his love’, Francis de Sales told Bishop

15.6 Page 146

▲back to top
146
Saint Francis de Sales
Jean Geoffroy Ginod, Bishop of Belley who, in 1603, shortly after
his consecration, had him preach in his cathedral; and after the
sermon ‘almost all that fine assembly (the Duke of Bellegarde was
there with his court) went to confession to the Servant of God and
at his Mass on Monday wanted to receive communion from his
hand’. This simple anecdote could sum up all of Francis de Sales’
pastoral effort once he became Bishop of Geneva: preaching to lead
souls, through confession, to a fervent Eucharistic life and union
with God.
Preaching. Francis, who always loved preaching, had no difficulty
making the Council of Trent’s commission his own: preaching is the
most important duty of the bishop. On 3 June 1603, writing to M.
de Revol who would very soon be consecrated bishop, he advised
him: ‘You must absolutely make the resolution to preach to your
people. The most holy Council of Trent, after all the preceding ones,
determined that “the first and principal task of the bishop consists
of preaching”: and do not be carried away by any consideration
that could distract you from this resolution. Do not do it to become
a great preacher, but simply because you must do it and God wants
it. The paternal sermon of a bishop is better than all the artifice of
the elaborate sermons of preachers of other kinds. It takes little for
a bishop to preach well, since his sermons should be necessary and
useful, not curious or sought after; his words simple, not affected;
his action paternal and natural, without art or care; and as brief as
it may be or as little as he may say, it is always a lot.’ Note the date:
1603. Francis was at the beginnings of his episcopate.
A year later, on the other hand, he was offered an opportunity
to clarify and develop his ideas. Bishop Frémyot, on the eve of
his solemn entry into his city of Bourges, and who was afraid of
ascending the pulpit his predecessor had done much honour
to, asked Francis for some advice on preaching. On 5 October
Francis, who was taking some rest at Sales, wrote a lengthy letter
to him ‘letting the pen run, without worrying at all about words

15.7 Page 147

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
147
or artfices’. It was both a personal note and at the same time a
masterpiece. We can leave aside what concerns the technical side
of sacred eloquence – excellent though it may be – and consider
just the apostolic aspect: ‘No one can preach unless he possesses
three conditions: a good life, good doctrine, a legitimate mission.’
Regarding the mission, Francis notes that bishops have not only the
mission, but they have the ‘ministerial wellspring’ of it. He insists
on holiness of life and ends up advising: ‘Furthermore, you must
never preach without having celebrated Mass or without wanting
to celebrate it... It is certain that when Our Lord is really in us, he
gives us clarity, since he is the light.’
After this preamble Francis poses the question: ‘So what is the
aim of the preacher in the action of preaching?’ Then comes his
magnificent reply: ‘His aim and his intention must be to do what
Our Lord came to do in this world; and here is what he himself
says: I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. So
the aim of the preacher consists of this, that sinners who have died
in iniquity should live righteously, and that the righteous who have
spiritual life may have it even more abundantly, becoming more
and more perfect.’ The preacher’s models are the Apostles on the
day of Pentecost: they teach and they move people. What should
he preach? ‘The word of God... So is there no need to make use
of Christian Doctors and the books of the saints? Yes, certainly.
But the doctrine of the Fathers of the Church is none other than
the explanation of the Gospel, the exposition of Scripture. There is
the same relationship between the Holy Scripture and the teaching
of the Fathers as there is between a whole almond and a crushed
almond, whose kernel can be eaten by everyone... In truth, the
passages of Scripture have first place and are the foundations of
the building: since in the end we are preaching the word and our
doctrine rests on authority. Ipse dixit...’
After having spoken at length about the method of presentation
and composition, Francis comes to a point ‘wherein greater

15.8 Page 148

▲back to top
148
Saint Francis de Sales
attention is desired than elsewhere’. It is the art of ‘speaking’: ‘How
will we speak when we are preaching? We need to be wary of the
quamquams and long sentences of the pedants, their gestures,
grimaces, their movements: all this is the plague of preaching. What
is needed is an action that is free, noble, generous, innocent, strong,
holy, serious and somewhat slow. But what does one need to have
this? In a word, to speak fondly and devoutly, simply and candidly,
and trust; be truly captured by the doctrine you are teaching and
about which you want to persuade people. The supreme artifice
lies in not having any artifice. Our words must be set aflame not
by shouts and unrestrained gestures but by inward affection; they
must issue from our heart rather than from our mouth. We must
speak well, heart speaks to heart and the tongue speaks only to
men’s ears.’
This is how the advice of experience flows from his pen: ‘I
like preaching that feels more about love of neighbour than of
indignation, even towards the Huguenots who must be treated
with great compassion, not flattering them but deploring them.
Preaching is the publication and declaration of God’s will made
for men by the one who is legitimately sent to instruct them and
move them to serve his divine majesty in this world, so they can be
saved in the next...’ Francis gives courage to the young bishop who
is a bit timid: ‘Preach often... God wants it, people expect it; it is the
glory of God, it is his salvation; boldly Sir, and courage, for the love
of God... For love, nothing is impossible. Our Lord did not ask St
Peter: are you wise or eloquent when he told him: Pasce oves meas;
but: Amas me? To speak well it is enough to love well.’
One final advice before closing the letter: ‘Your people are
waiting to see you and to be seen and seen again by you... Oh, how
edified they will be when they see you often at the altar, sacrificing
for their salvation, discussing their edification with their parish
priests and in the pulpit speaking of the word of reconciliation,
and preaching!’

15.9 Page 149

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
149
There is the whole pastoral heart of Francis in this letter. It
erases the astonishment we feel today reading what remains of the
Sermons: how could these drafts, or even these elaborated texts
whose dryness disconcerts us, attract crowds, shake up souls so
deeply? It depends on the fact that we are missing what then gave
them their power for the most part: the emotion, the warmth of
the soul that had just finished praying, the tone of love. ‘The others
(preachers)’ the Duchess of Montpensier said one day, ‘fly through
the air, but this orator of holy love falls on his prey, reaches the
heart and takes possession of it.’
The orator of holy love: these words marvellously characterise
Francis’ gift of eloquence. This gift is a grace, sought and received
in prayer. ‘I cannot speak of God without emotion’, he confided to
a priest after a sermon. ‘I went cheerfully like a bird to my pulpit,
where I sang more joyfully than usual in honour of our great God’,
he wrote again to Mme de Chantal on 8 December 1617. For him
every sermon was, in his own words, ‘a sermon of love’: he loved
to preach in front of small, familiar listeners, where he had ‘every
possibility of loosening the bridle of (their) poor and minute
affections’.
After preaching the Lenten series at Dijon in 1604, when the city
administrators presented him as a token of gratitude with a service
of gilded silver pottery and a gold ring adorned with a beautiful
sapphire, he kindly replied that ‘he was not selling the word of God
and wanted to take away with him nothing except their hearts.’
Again it is St Vincent de Paul who would find the best words for
describing Francis de Sales the preacher: he called him a ‘talking
Gospel’.

15.10 Page 150

▲back to top
150
Saint Francis de Sales
Lenten series and catechism lessons
The most useful of these preaching opportunities for him were
the Lenten series: both those he preached to his people, and those
he was invited to preach in other dioceses. ‘You know well’, – he
wrote to Mme de Chantal ‘that Lent is the harvest of souls... Lent is
the autumn of the spiritual life where we gather the fruits and pile
them up for the whole year.’
He had Lent as a primacy concept, a liturgical notion: in his
eyes, Lent was par excellence the time for conversion of sinners
and the sanctification of souls. ‘Preaching Lent wholly’ did not just
mean going into the pulpit ‘many times’, giving five or six sermons
on the same day: it also meant closing oneself in the confessional
for long hours, welcoming one or other in personal conversations,
instructing, teaching catechism, reconciling... Francis was afraid
of Carnival, ‘this winter that leads to the flesh and makes souls
weary, that... languishes hearts, that... produces this unfortunate
rain of unworthy pleasures. Ah, may this time of flesh soon come
to an end!’ But Carnival was followed by Lent. ‘Oh, come, come,
favourable time; come, come, days of salvation!’ He prepared
himself for these Lenten seasons through prayer and penance.
When he could, he did not hesitate to also make a retreat: he did
this in 1606. ‘Now are the days of my farewells since I need to leave
tomorrow, before daybreak, to go to Chambéry where the Father
Rector of the Jesuits (Fr Fournier) is waiting to receive me for these
five or six days of Lent reserved for me to calm my poor mind
torn by so many matters... There, my daughter, I propose to review
myself completely, and to put all the pieces of my heart back in
their place with the help of that good Father who is passionately
interested in me and my good.’ And so he faced his audience with a
heart filled with ‘a thousand good desires to serve divine love well’.
Let us open a brief parenthesis here: nothing resembles Francis de
Sales’ Lenten series as much as another ministry he had very much

16 Pages 151-160

▲back to top

16.1 Page 151

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
151
at heart, especially because the Council of Trent had prescribed it:
catechism. He went to catechism sessions with the same mind as
he did his Lenten series. In the winter of 1603, as bishop, he did
not hesitate to begin this teaching of Christian doctrine himself
to children at Annecy. First in the church of Notre-Dame, then
moving on quickly to the church of Saint-Dominique. And many
parents joined their children, along with many other adults ‘who
wanted to be instructed’. So ‘he divided the people into three classes
according to gender and age’.
Nothing better than these fragments of a letter to Mme de
Chantal (11 February 1607), can reveal to us the understanding of
the infant and popular soul with which Francis led these meetings:
‘I really very much approve of your becoming a school teacher.
God will be grateful for it given that he loves children; and, as I was
saying the other day at catechism to encourage our women to look
after the children, the children’s angels love with particular love
those who raise them in the fear of God and who instil devotion in
their tender hearts.’
And now some grace and relaxation: ‘I am arriving just now
from doing catechism, where with our children we enjoyed making
the audience laugh a little, making fun of the masks and dances; I
was in a moment of good humour, and a large audience invited me
with their applause to be a child with the children. They tell me it’s
something that suits me, and I believe it. May God make me truly
childlike in innocence and simplicity!’
This ministry of catechism would always remain dear to Francis
de Sales’ heart: during the Lenten series and, as we will see, while
visiting the parishes, he liked to gather the children and teach them
simple doctrine. He used Bellarmine’s catechism for this purpose:
but if he found listeners too poorly educated to understand it, he
made up his own questions and answers and distributed them to
each one in handwritten leaflets. Undoubtedly it was from October
1603 that we have a very valuable fragment entitled: ‘Rules for

16.2 Page 152

▲back to top
152
Saint Francis de Sales
teaching catechism’, written for parish priests in the diocese. During
his entire reign, Francis encouraged his priests’ zeal on this point.
Visiting the diocese
One of the tasks that the Council of Trent recommended and
almost imposed on bishops was the visitation of their diocese, one
parish after another. It was a task that Francis both wanted and
feared. ‘I am off to make this blessed visit’, he wrote to Baroness de
Chantal ‘where I see crosses of every kind everywhere. My flesh
quivers but my heart adores them. Yes, I salute you, crosses small
and large, spiritual or temporal, outward or inward; I salute and
kiss your feet, unworthy of the honour of your shade.’4
This letter is from early October 1605: up to that point Francis
had been ‘detained’ in Annecy ‘by a number of burning issues’ and
by a health crisis. The fragility of his health was certainly one of the
crosses looming in his path. Especially since he would travel on
horseback or even on foot, if the terrain required it. The country
was indeed harsh. In a letter of August 1606, Francis would speak
of the ‘frightening mountains (of Chamonix) all covered with
ice ten or twelve shovels thick’. ‘The diocese of Geneva’, Charles-
Auguste de Sales describes it ‘is very large and populous, almost all
topped by high mountains (except for Chablais, Gex, Ternier and a
part of the Geneva and Savoy territory), with very difficult access,
especially as regards the mountain parishes, and very different in
temperature: in some places, in fact, winter is almost eternal, in
others the heat is extreme: this is why the good bishop was very
troubled.’
4 Œuvres, vol. XIII, p. 113. He would say the same at his departure in June 1606, cf.
ibid., p. 199.

16.3 Page 153

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
153
He left, therefore, on 15 October 1605. Taking into account the
necessary returns and sojourns back in Annecy, this visitation
would last four years. In many places Francis found Protestants or
the ruins they had left; joys then mingled with sorrows: sometimes
he rejoiced at noting or receiving conversions; sometimes he was
desolate when facing the hardening of souls and the thousand
annoyances aroused by the ministers. In August, however, the
sight of his Chablais consoled him: ‘While (eleven years ago) I had
found only a hundred Catholics, now I have not found a hundred
Huguenots.’ But the report he addressed to Pope Paul V on the
state of the diocese (November 1606) was much less optimistic:
one hundred and thirty parishes are ‘partly under the tyrannical
domination of Berne, partly under the government of the most
Christian King’... ‘As far as regards those occupied by the Bernese,
there is nothing to hope for until the city of Berne itself is brought
back to order.’ As for the others, the King ‘orders us to continue
hoping... But my eyes begin to tire of waiting for his word and say:
when will he console me?’
To the contrary, in the four hundred and fifty Catholic parishes,
Francis found many consolations despite the problems; and the
love of his people comforted him: ‘My dear daughter,’ he wrote to
Mme de Chantal on 2 October 1606 ‘I have found a good people
among these high mountains! What honour, what welcome, what
veneration they have for their bishop! The day before yesterday I
arrived in this small village (Bonneville) in the middle of the night;
but the villagers had put out so many lamps and lanterns, as if for a
feast day, that it looked like daytime. Oh! How they deserve a better
bishop’.
Not even he, however, spared his time and his strength for the
benefit of his people: ‘He preached, he taught catechism, he did not
fail to visit even the smallest chapel; he administered the sacrament
of Confirmation, heard confessions and gave holy communion to
his people from his own hands; he listened to everyone’s complaints

16.4 Page 154

▲back to top
154
Saint Francis de Sales
Frontispiece of the Rituale published by Francis de Sales in 1612.

16.5 Page 155

▲back to top
Chapter vii- The Bishop among his people
155
with great patience and prudently ordered what seemed necessary;
he informed himself about the shortcomings of clerics and lay
people, about public sins and sinners, and corrected when necessary
with a severity very well mixed with his natural gentleness, etc.
etc.’ Temporal administration, reconciliations, legal matters and
disputes: he omitted nothing, so that after the visit, souls and all
matters would be at peace. ‘Ultimately, it was the good shepherd
and bishop who gave his soul for his sheep.’
However, when he returned from these trips, he had a great
need for rest and spiritual recollection. ‘I arrived here on Saturday
evening,’ he wrote on 30 November 1605 ‘after having beaten
around the countryside for six weeks without stopping anywhere
other than for half a day at most. Usually I preached every day and
often twice a day. How good God is to me! I have never been so
strong. All the crosses I had foreseen, when I faced them, turned
into olives and palms; all that looked like gall to me turned out to
be honey, or even less. Only that I can truthfully say that other than
while on horseback or during some waking moments at night, I
have not had time to think about myself and consider the state of
my heart, so many have been the important concerns coming one
after the other. I confirmed a considerable number of people.’
In this way, ever more intimate ties were woven between the
bishop and his people5: the heart of the people was increasingly
‘enamoured’ of its bishop, and he said: ‘I feel enamoured of souls
a little more than usual... Now the heart of my people is almost
all mine.’ The fact that in the meantime, King Henry IV persisted
in wanting to attract him to France, and prepare new honours,
titles and roles for him – ‘There is talk of elevating me again.’ What
‘saddened’ Francis was the fact that they offered these changes to
5 One example among many: Francis’ vigorous reaction to a Cardinal when in 1608
some Savoyards were accused of reading heretical books. Œuvres, vol. XIV, pp.
42-43.

16.6 Page 156

▲back to top
156
Saint Francis de Sales
him ‘in the name of the greater glory of God and in the service of
the Church’. On the other hand, he did not hide the fact that he had
‘a special leaning’ towards France, ‘in whose atmosphere he had
been nurtured’. However, except for some formal order from the
Pope, he preferred his dear Savoy: ‘It is true that I am in my own
country and amongst my own people, with a degree of ease that is
sufficient for me, and what is dearest of all to me, with rest that is
as good as my office can allow, and that for now seems to be secure
enough.’ Speaking of his diocese (a word that was feminine at the
time), he said jokingly: ‘My poor wife makes me feel sorry for her,
and since I can only let her suffer a thousand problems and God
wants me to cling to her, here I am garrotted!’ Beneath the humour
lies love, deep love.

16.7 Page 157

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
157
8 – REFORM OF THE CLERGY AND RELIGIOUS
Francis de Sales and his priests
Of all his people, one group drew the cream his concern: his priests.
Although in the Correspondence that has been preserved, letters
to simple clergy are rare (other than the letters to M. de Bérulle
before his elevation to the cardinalate) and there is almost complete
absence of letters to Savoyard priests, one should not conclude that
his clergy aroused less interest in the Bishop of Geneva than his
spiritual sons and daughters and the great personalities with whom
he corresponded. The whole current of his thought and action goes
against this opinion: Francis de Sales knew that in the reform of
a diocese, the main thing was the conversion of the bishop, and
that there was nothing more urgent than the sincere and profound
conversion of the clergy.
During the years he had been ‘parish priest of Thonon’ – a parish
priest without a church, presbytery or assistant! – he had seen from
too close up, had experienced too much in his own sensitivity, in
his flesh, what in fact pastoral life demanded in terms of zeal and
grace from the priest, for him not to have wanted a fervent clergy.
On the other hand, even on this point he made the directives of
the Council of Trent his own: if the bishop has, par excellence, the
mission to preach, the priests are the ‘brooks’ of this ‘ministerial
wellspring’: the grace of episcopal consecration passes into the
grace of priestly ordination. A casual comment illuminates Francis’
feelings concerning his priests: when writing to Bishop Frémyot: ‘Oh,
how your people will be edified when they see you... discussing their
edification with their parish priests’. Clearly this sentence means that

16.8 Page 158

▲back to top
158
Saint Francis de Sales
the priest, and especially the parish priest, shares very closely in the
mission of the bishop, and therefore in his vocation and grace.
Against this background, Francis was faced with the concrete
problem of ensuring the quality of his clergy. He wanted the priest
to be educated and have good morals: he knew from experience
that the best allies of Calvinism were the ignorance and bad
conduct of certain clerics. His zeal for his clergy was therefore first
and foremost expressed in an effort to sanctify and educate them.
It is a pity that the text we will now quote does not offer all the
critical guarantees of authenticity, because it certainly expresses
the thinking of Francis de Sales: ‘Good pastors are no less essential
than good bishops, and bishops work in vain if they do not bother
to provide their parish churches with devout pastors of exemplary
life and sufficient doctrine, for it is the immediate pastors who
must walk before the sheep, teach them the path to heaven and
give them the example they must follow.
Experience has led me to understand that the people easily practise
the exercises of devotion when they have clerics who, with the word
of God and good example, encourage them to flee vice and embrace
virtue; while on the other hand, the people very easily abandon the
practice of Christian virtues when their priests are ignorant, care little
about the salvation of souls and have bad habits.’1 Not that there were
not many ‘very recommendable’ clerics in the diocese, but Francis
would have wanted all of them, not just many, to be such.
For the reform of the clergy, Francis de Sales based himself on
some unchanging principles, firmly pursuing their implementation.
Especially by setting up a seminary, for the instruction and
formation of the many candidates presenting for orders each year:
the spiritual destiny of the diocese depended on the spiritual worth
of the seminary. Hence the paradox: candidates were abundant
at the time in the Bishop of Geneva’s diocese, while the clergy as
1 Cf. Œuvres, vol. XXIII, pp. 400-401.

16.9 Page 159

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
159
a whole was mediocre. In less than two years – 1605 and 1606 –
Francis gave the tonsure to more than five hundred and seventy
young men during his visits. The archives indicate that in the
twenty years of his episcopate he ordained around nine hundred
priests – on average more than forty a year. So there was no lack of
candidates: however, he needed to form them.
Francis often returned to this urgent matter: one document
marvellously sums up his thinking, the 1606 report on the state
of the diocese of Geneva. ‘No diocese in the Christian world has
greater need than that of Geneva for a seminary for its clerics.
Nevertheless, up till now we have worked in vain to erect one. In
fact the episcopal stipend is too meagre to take something from it;
the Chapter stipend is very poor and insufficient for feeding the
canons, and it is the same for the other collegial churches. As for
abbeys and priories, as wealthy as they may be, nothing at all can be
obtained from them, since those that have them hold them tight,
and most often these benefices are bled dry by the various taxes
imposed on them. However, if the Apostolic See, in its supreme
authority, wishes to allocate some rural priories to the erection
of the seminary, as soon as they become vacant, matters would
certainly end well. However, it is absolutely necessary that this be
done, either in this way or with a general contribution from the
clergy.’ Right up to the end of his life Francis would fight fiercely to
realise his wish. He would not succeed, but his successors would
reap the benefits of his tenacity.
After his episcopal consecration, Francis de Sales did not wait long
before coming into contact with his clergy. Already on 11 August 1603
he called ‘all the clerics of the diocese’ to come together in a synod
to be held in Annecy on 2 October. The archives have preserved for
us a number of Constitutions or Ordinances of the synods Francis
held with his clergy during his episcopate: these juridical texts are
obviously austere, but they reveal how much Francis was concerned
about making all his priests men who were educated and with good

16.10 Page 160

▲back to top
160
Saint Francis de Sales
morals. One article in the Ordinances of 1617 is characteristic of
this tenacious and patient effort: ‘those who from now on want to be
promoted to Holy Orders... must practise the orders they have now
and bring a written certificate of the fact from their parish priests,
likewise regarding their age and good morals; in this matter the
parish priests are exhorted and implored, by the eternal Judge, to be
very conscientious and sincere.’
But among the acts of his episcopal administration, other
documents – even more than the synodal texts – reveal his
pastoral concern for his priests. In the first instance the regulations
for teaching catechism that we have already mentioned. Then
the Memorial for confessors, in which Francis places his lengthy
personal experience of the confessional at the disposal of all his
priests: ‘Remember that the poor penitents call you Father and that
in reality you must have a fatherly heart in their regard, patiently
putting up with their rustic manners, ignorance, lack of intelligence,
tardiness and other imperfections, never tiring to help and support
them so long as there is some hope of amendment in them. The
pastors are not in charge of strong souls but weak and feeble ones’...
He then describes the apostolic attitudes of the priest in this
properly divine ministry: ‘May your conscience be very clear and
pure... Have a keen desire for the salvation of souls... Have the
prudence of a doctor... Above all be charitable and discrete... When
you meet people who, because of very serious sins... are excessively
afraid and troubled in conscience, you must raise them up and
console them with all means, Assuring them of the great mercy of
God who is infinitely greater in forgiving them than all the sins of
the whole world in damning them: and promise to help them in all
their needs for the salvation of their souls.’... ‘The touchstone of a
perfect confessor’ he says in another fragment, ‘consist in having
pity on the vices of others and in being merciless on his own.’
Nor did he delay in compiling another significant document for
his priests, an ‘exhortation to apply themselves to study’: ‘Learning’

17 Pages 161-170

▲back to top

17.1 Page 161

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
161
Francis dared say ‘is the eighth sacrament of the Church’s hierarchy...
Ignorance is worse than malice... This is how our miserable Geneva
surprised us: seeing that we were idle, not on our guard and that
we were happy with simply saying our breviary, without thinking
of becoming wiser, they deceived the simplicity of our fathers and
those who came before them, making them believe that up until
then they understood nothing of Holy Scripture.’
In this way the Bishop of Geneva had his reform ‘slip’ into the
mind and heart of his priests, so that he could bring about the
reform of the whole diocese through them.
Another initiative was also very close to his heart, and he hoped
that it would be a source of life and missionary zeal for his priests:
the Holy House at Thonon, or more precisely its ‘presbytery’,
meaning the group of seven priests, who under the authority of
a prefect, directed and animated the works of the Holy House.
Let us immediately say that while some of these works, following
Francis’s death, saw real success, the Holy House, while he was
alive, brought him nothing but trials and tribulations. The almost
total lack of financial resources prevented the institution from
flourishing: it just got by rather than being alive; and right up to the
end Francis had to beg or even demand help for it. Yet he placed so
much of his hopes on that presbytery! Maybe he saw in it a formula
for a priestly community, a missionary centre that one day or other
could serve as a model of a ‘secular collegiate’ for the parishes of
the diocese? It was perhaps too good a dream and too premature.
But it is interesting to see an attempt to adapt the life of a group of
priests to the missionary task entrusted to them at that time.
Reform of the abbeys
Cursed money! When Francis visited his diocese, he ran into
this problem everywhere. Among his parish priests and assistant

17.2 Page 162

▲back to top
162
Saint Francis de Sales
Jeanne-Françoise Frémont de Chantal
(portrait in the Maison de la Galerie)..

17.3 Page 163

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
163
priests he found many who were ‘highly recommendable’. But how
many of those he could have written about as he did to Bishop
Riccardi about one priest in 1600: ‘He endures great poverty and is
almost starving’, or again: ‘We have no way of procuring for these
men of merit an accommodation suited to their circumstances and
office’. Yet money was not lacking in Savoy, even taking Protestant
plundering into account...
Here we touch on one of the most delicate points in Francis de
Sales’ episcopate. Let us tackle it with the same frankness he used in
his 1606 report. ‘The tithes that are introduced every year’, he said
to Paul V ‘would be sufficient to maintain (parishes and pastors).
But see what prevents it: almost always, the tithes from the places
in question belong to abbots and monasteries.’
In the following completely juridical text, Francis recounts this
fact: ‘I saw with my own eyes and visited a parish church situated
on a very high mountain, where nobody can get to except by
climbing with their hands and feet, and six Italian miles [about 9
km] from the nearest church. Now, the one and only parish priest
administered the two churches there and celebrated Mass on feast
days in one or the other, I do not need to say at the cost of what
effort, what danger, how many inconveniences, especially in winter
when everything in those places is covered with ice and snow. As
soon as the men and women of the village arrived, from the first
to the last they exclaimed: How come we respect all ecclesiastical
rights, we pay tithes and first fruits and we are not granted a parish
priest?... In fact, everything was taken by the nearest abbot.’
If at least those abbeys and monasteries would carry out the
‘work’ for which they had initially been founded! Alas! Francis
de Sales, who very much respected religious vows and received
many ‘letters of affiliation’ from Generals of Orders (Carthusians,
Dominicans, Barnabites, Capuchins, etc.) whereby he shared in the
merits and good works of these great religious families, he who had
worked to introduce the Carmelites of St Teresa of Avila to France

17.4 Page 164

▲back to top
164
Saint Francis de Sales
and founded the Visitation, was forced to proclaim the terrible
laxity of many Savoyard monasteries and take extremely severe
measures concerning them. His correspondence bears ample traces
of his sadness at this decadence of those who should have been, in
the bosom of the Christian people, hearths of holiness, poverty,
charity. Francis measures the harm done to the Church of God by
such a state of affairs.
In the letter that he addressed to Nuncio Tolosa at the end of
1603, he wrote these very severe lines: ‘It is certain that the laxity of
all the monasteries of Savoy, except those of the Carthusians,2 is so
inveterate than an ordinary remedy would not be enough to heal
them.
‘To succeed it needs a reformer of great authority and prudence,
furnished with broad powers to be used as needed; they should not
only be very broad but absolute and without appeal, because the
monks are very expert and capable at quibbling. And to prevent
them from having any way of avoiding reform, it would need His
Serene Highness to have the Senate of Savoy intervene in this
matter, since without this intervention nothing will be gained.’
In his report to Paul V in November 1606, Francis reserved pride
of place to this serious difficulty. ‘It is surprising to see the extent
to which regular discipline is ruined everywhere in the abbeys and
priories of this diocese (I make an exception for the Carthusians
and Mendicants). In all the others, silver has turned into slag and
the wine has been mixed with water, or worse still has turned into
poison. This is how they make the enemies of God blaspheme, who
say every day: And wherever is the God of this people?... The gates of
the Cistercian sisters’ monasteries are open to all, for the sisters to
leave and the men to enter.’
2 Francis makes an exception also for ‘Mendicants’, that is, the Capuchins: cf.
Œuvres, vol. XXIII, p. 325.

17.5 Page 165

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
165
In the same document Francis proposes remedies for these
evils: ‘This evil can be remedied, either by sending better people
taken from other Orders, by making annual visits and employing
coercive means, or finally by replacing monks with canons regular.’
However, the spiritual man then appears beneath the jurist: ‘The
second (remedy) is very difficult and uncertain, since what is
achieved by force is almost non-existent.’ An investigation could be
made of Francis de Sales the reformer of abbeys and monasteries:
and he would be found no less great or spiritual in this enterprise
also: if we were to do this study, the mere history of the reform
of the Benedictine Priory at Talloires would make an enlightening
chapter...
These difficulties strongly influenced Francis de Sales’ religious
thinking: could one be a monk and ‘keep only the habit of the
monk’? Was not such a contemplative and austere Rule as that of
the Cistercians a protection against laxity? Were religious vows,
cloister, superiors not enough to ensure holiness? Could one be of
God and alienate souls from God?... So where did the secret to the
true devout life lie?
Friend of souls and the ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’
Now by contrast, his contacts with his people proved to him that
there are – both among humble people and those of high rank –
some ‘very beautiful souls’ who, through their simple daily life,
cling to God and radiate charity. He had seen this at the time of his
youth, including among family members. He had come to know of
it through his long stints in the confessional. He had met them in
Paris in Madame Acarie’s circle, including Madame Acarie herself.
He had met them even at the heart of heretical Geneva, such as
the amazing hotel maid, Jacqueline Coste, who would be the first

17.6 Page 166

▲back to top
166
Saint Francis de Sales
tourière3 or sister at the monastery gate, at the Visitation monastery.
And finally he saw many of them hidden away in the humblest
villages when he was visiting them. After the visit in 1606 he wrote
beautifully that ‘I met God full of gentleness and sweetness among
our highest and harshest mountains, where many simple souls loved
him and adored him in all truth and sincerity, and the roe deer and
chamois ran hither and thither amid the fearful ice proclaiming
his praises.’ One day he apologised to a woman of the aristocracy
who was impatiently waiting for him to finish a conversation with
a woman of the people: ‘My daughter, I love these poor peasant
women so much: there are such good souls here, so simple, so filled
with the fear of God!’ Even among prisoners – some of whom asked
Francis to accompany them in their final ordeal – he sometimes
discovered perfect love...
It was during these experiences that the sense, the delight he took
in spiritual direction developed, something that was already innate
in him, Head to head – heart to heart – with a soul, Francis felt fully
himself. He certainly had the gift of attracting and encouraging
genuine holiness; but these intimate, spiritual contacts were the
ones he sought first of all as an essential means for each soul to
access, in accordance with their personal grace, the ‘perfection
of pure love’. And it was not only male and female religious that
he wanted to be ‘spiritually assisted’. It seems that the following
surprising notice was addressed to all his parish priests (1604?):
‘To confessors and directors, for discerning the operations of the
Spirit of God in souls from those of the evil spirit.’ At any rate, it is
in this notice that we find the secret of his personal way of dealing
with souls. ‘The surest sign of love is when it is founded on a true
and profound humility and an ardent charity’; or again, this golden
rule: ‘It is an effect of the happy guidance of the Father of Lights, to
3 The tourière or, in Italian, the suora di ruota, (think of a turntable), would be the
point of contact with and for the outside world.

17.7 Page 167

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
167
inspire (the soul) with inner feelings, (to) flow softly into the soul,
and to descend there like rain on the fleece.’
He would use no other principles in that admirable spiritual
correspondence that, as abundant as it is, is but a tenth of the
letters he wrote. And what is the Introduction to the Devout Life, if
not a collection of spiritual ‘memoirs’, an echo of the lengthy and
numerous conversations Francis had with Mme de Charmoisy? We
know how the book came about. In 1608 Madame de Charmoisy
had to spend a few months in Chambéry for various tasks; Francis
de Sales, who had been directing her for some time, advised her to
go to Fr Fournier during this sojourn. Thus it was that the priest
came to know about the ‘written memoirs’ that Francis had left for
his penitent. Fr Fournier was enthusiastic about them and asked
Francis that ‘the treasure of devotion of Madame de Charmoisy be
printed’.
The good bishop agreed, trusting the judgement of this ‘great,
learned and devout religious’. Undoubtedly he ‘hurriedly’ reviewed
the text and ‘adjusted it’ with some minor ‘layout’ before giving it
to the printer; but he was telling the truth when he wrote to the
Bishop of Vienne: ‘You will have noted, Monsignor, that this work
was never done according to some design or plan. It is a ‘memorial’
that I had written for a beautiful soul who sought my direction: and
this during the concerns of a Lent during which I was preaching
twice a week.’
This is the Introduction, connected with Francis de Sales’ habitual
form of spiritual direction and reflects his familiar conversations;
the letter clearly confirms this: ‘The Very Reverend Bishop of
Montpellier warned me that sometimes I am too hasty and concise,
and that I do not give sufficient body to my advice. And without
doubt I see that he is right about this; but having written this work
only for a soul whom I saw often, I was brief in writing given that it
was possible for me to speak at length. He also told me something
else, and that is that for a simple and first introduction, I take my

17.8 Page 168

▲back to top
168
Saint Francis de Sales
Philothea too far; this happened because the soul with whom I was
dealing was already very virtuous, even though she had no practice
in the devout life: hence the reason why she advanced much in a
short time.’ There is no ‘theory’ in this book: it is a collection of
experiences. In order not to take it the wrong way, one needs to
see it in the context of all the spiritual correspondence and also
everything we know about Francis de Sales’ direction.
On the other hand, the Correspondence poses a specifically
Salesian problem: that of spiritual friendship. When we talk about
Salesian friendship, we seem to be referring only to the feeling that
bound Francis de Sales to Madame de Chantal and to some other
very devout individuals. This would unduly narrow the field. In fact,
for Francis de Sales, friendship was the normal, I was about to say
essential atmosphere for a spiritual direction worthy of the name to
be achieved. Friendship envelops spiritual direction and even goes
beyond it. And here is what clearly defines its nature: there is no
friendship unless it is spiritual; friendship is the communication of
lights, holy desires, graces between two souls who both aspire to the
perfection of divine love and who help each other in this search.
I will give only two examples but they are sufficient. First of all
Antoine Favre: who could say which of the two was the ‘director’ for
the other, the senator or the provost? They really had everything in
common. Antoine was the confidant of Francis’ plans and the first to
attempt their realisation. Francis collaborated with Antoine’s works,
for example the Codex that bears his name. Francis gave advice to
Antoine, but he often asked the latter’s advice too; thus, during the
time of the Chablais, he deferred to him to judge whether he should
remain in Thonon, or even publish his Controverses. Together, in
the winter of 1606–1607, the two friends began the Florimontane
Academy. In some ways it was the extension, for all the educated
elite of Annecy and even of Savoy, of what had been the fervour
of their youthful correspondence and the charm of their familiar
conversations among themselves in the Hôtel du Clos de Cran in

17.9 Page 169

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
169
Annecy: the sharing of all their culture and virtue. ‘The aim of the
Academy will consist in the exercise of all virtues, the sovereign
glory of God, the service of the most Serene Princes and public
usefulness’: this is how the statutes began. It was their friendship
that sustained the Florimontane Academy and gave it the soul
it had. In 1610, when Antoine Favre was promoted to President
of the Sovereign Senate, he left Annecy for Chambéry and this
brilliant institution faded. The correspondence between Francis
and Antoine would then often be a businesslike correspondence
between a bishop and president of the Senate, but the friendship
lasted: ‘It seems to me that our friendship is boundless and that
being so strongly naturalised in my heart, it is as old as he is.’ On
the other hand, a new bond was woven between the two friends in
1610: ‘Mademoiselle Favre’ Francis wrote to Madame de Chantal
Annecy, chapel in the Maison de la Galerie.

17.10 Page 170

▲back to top
170
Saint Francis de Sales
on 5 February ‘has finally decided, with her father’s permission,
to be completely of the Lord and to remain more than ever my
daughter, and I believe that we will make something good of it’;
at Pentecost in 1610 Marie-Jacqueline entered the Galerie House,
along with Madame de Chantal and Mademoiselle de Bréchard.
On that day the friendship between Francis de Sales and Antoine
Favre acquired its full significance.
When we speak of Francis de Sales’ friendships, the first name
that comes to mind is that of Mme de Chantal. And rightly so: it
is enough to open the Correspondence to fully grasp the evidence
of a privileged, total, respectful and strong attachment, the tone of
which, furthermore, including its most tender expressions, is even
more paternal than it is friendly. ‘I know that you have complete
and perfect trust in my affection’ he wrote to her, for example, on
24 June 1604... ‘Also know, and believe it profoundly, that I have
a keen and extraordinary desire to serve your spirit with all my
strength. I would not know how to explain to you either the quality
or the greatness of this affection that I bear in the service of your
soul; but I will tell you that I believe it comes from God and that
therefore I will nourish it dearly, and that every day I see it grow
and increase considerably... I am all yours... God has given me to
you: consider me yours in him.’
But it is worth noting how, from its origin, this friendship was
placed at the level of the ‘perfection of divine love’. First of all, it is
God who desired it: in a wonderful way he prepared the encounter
between Francis and Madame de Chantal at Dijon; he even revealed
it to both in advance; but above all: ‘(the choice you have made
for me to be your spiritual father) has all the marks of a good and
legitimate choice’, Francis wrote to the Baroness on 14 October 1604.
‘This important movement of the mind that led you to do so almost
by chance and with consolation; the consideration with which I
examined the matter before agreeing; the fact that neither you nor I
trusted ourselves but that we asked your good, learned and prudent

18 Pages 171-180

▲back to top

18.1 Page 171

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
171
confessor; the fact that we gave the first stirrings of your conscience
time to cool down when they might have been badly founded; the
fact that everything was preceded by prayers, not for a day or two but
for some months – all these are certainly infallible signs that it was
the will of God.’
From the very first letters, Francis endeavoured to give
this friendship its clearly spiritual character, and immediately
established their relationship in the holy freedom of pure love: ‘I
have never thought that there would be any bond between us that
might lead to any obligation other than that of charity and true
Christian friendship whose bond St Paul called a bond of perfection.
Here is our bond, here are our chains, which the tighter they are
the more they will give us joy and freedom.’
A year later, on 1 August 1605, he wrote once more to Mme
de Chantal in these decisive terms ‘I will tell you nothing of the
magnitude of my feelings towards you, but will assure you that they
go well beyond any comparison: and this affection is whiter than
snow, purer than the sun: this is why I left the reins free during this
absence, allowing things to proceed as you wished. Oh, Lord God,
it is not possible to say what consolation we will feel in Heaven
diving into that sea of love, since its streams give us so much.’
We will not follow the evolution of this holy love through all
its stages that would one day result in the foundation of the order
of the Visitation of Holy Mary. ‘I greet the dear daughters that
are with you’, Francis would write to Mme de Chantal some days
after the ceremony. ‘They are my sweet loves in Jesus Christ and
you, my dear daughter, are truly my own heart in Him who, in
order to have ours, presents his heart to you openly... Now I look
upon our Congregation with such intensity that I am there with
you night and day.’ In the same note, Francis ‘gave reason’ to his
correspondent for the manner in which he made this meditation...
Between the two there was love and freedom, everything was an
exchange of God’s gifts.

18.2 Page 172

▲back to top
172
Saint Francis de Sales
The Visitation of Holy Mary and the ‘Treatise on the Love of God’
By founding the Visitation of Holy Mary, Francis not only added
a new Congregation to already existing Orders, but brought about
a new kind of religious life, the original kind that his spiritual
experience, his reflection, contacts with souls had led him to
conceive as an expression of life consecrated to God. ‘The strictest
cloisters in the world do not result in souls united to God’. Not
the greatest austerities and suffering, nor the strictest observation,
nor high contemplation, not even the most extraordinary ecstasies:
only the love of Jesus Christ. The Visitation? For Francis de Sales,
this was the true reformed monastery: all the external features of
religious life are nothing unless the human heart is filled with the
love of Jesus Christ.
To define what the spirit of the Visitation of Holy Mary consists of,
only the Visitandines have competence and authority: to understand
the Rule of an Order in depth it is necessary to live this Rule from
within. The task of the historian is different, and consists of collecting
and interpreting, as well as possible, the documents that preceded or
accompanied the foundation. In this case, the task is immense and
exciting, since Francis de Sales developed his project as a Religious
Congregation following his personal experience, according to the
events through which God’s will was manifested.
It all began in Dijon, so it seems, through an inspiration that
came to him. ‘Our Congregation’ he wrote on 24 May 1610 to Jesuit
Nicolas Polliens, ‘is the result of the journey to Dijon, so it has never
been possible for me to see things from a natural perspective; and my
soul was secretly forced to penetrate another success that so directly
concerned the service of souls that I preferred to expose myself to the
opinion and mercy of the good rather than the cruelty of the slander
of the wicked.’ He is talking about the time he spent in Dijon in 1604,
and the Lenten sermons he preached in the Sainte Chapelle of the
ducal palace and the first encounter with Baroness de Chantal...

18.3 Page 173

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
173
However, there were numerous and difficult stages to overcome
before the project could be realised! Francis would keep his plan
secret for three years, would reflect and pray. He would not speak
about it to Madame de Chantal either during the conversation at
Saint-Claude in August 1604 or even during the retreat she made
at Sales under his direction in May 1605. Only in June 1607, when
she went to see him in Annecy, did he reveal his plan to her. Up
until that moment he had not wanted to approve, and even less
encourage, the desire the Baroness had shown to renounce the
world: ‘I will think about it a lot and I will hear many Masses to
obtain enlightenment from the Holy Spirit,’ he told her again on 11
February 1607 ‘because you see, my daughter, we are talking about
a serious undertaking that that must be weighed with the weight of
the sanctuary.’
It was in May that Mme de Chantal’s journey was decided; in
June she went to Annecy, and during her stay there, on 4 June,
the Monday after Pentecost, Francis told her ‘what he had chosen
for her’. On 2 July, ‘on the octave of her departure’, he wrote to
her: ‘For my part, I feel (this choice) ever firmer in my soul;
and since, after so many considerations, prayers and sacrifices,
we have made our resolutions, do not allow your heart to apply
itself to other desires; but blessing God for the excellence of other
vocations, stop humbly at this one which is lower and less worthy,
but more proper to your satisfaction and more worthy of your
lowliness. Remain simply in this resolution, without looking to
the right or to the left.’
On the other hand, the project was not lacking in boldness and
required great trust in God: ‘I see great difficulties in carrying it
out,’ Francis confessed at first ‘and I do not see how they can be
overcome; but I am sure that divine Providence will do so with
means unknown to creatures.’ Three years later, on the Feast of the
Trinity 1610, on 6 June, Madame de Chantal, Charlotte de Bréchard
and Jacqueline Favre were introduced to the Galerie by the Bishop

18.4 Page 174

▲back to top
174
Saint Francis de Sales
of Geneva; Jacqueline Coste, the maid, was there to wait on them;
the Visitation of Holy Mary was born. A year later, on the feast of
St Claude, 1611, Mother de Chantal and Sisters de Bréchard and
Favre made their ‘oblation’ and the bishop gave them the veil.
But the Constitutions of the new Congregation had not yet been
written. Several ‘essays’ from those years 1610–1611 were turned
into an actual draft towards July-September 1613. But regarding
the foundation at Lyons, a controversy arose between Archbishop
de Marquemont and Francis de Sales; on 2 February 1616 Francis
acquiesced to the Visitation being transformed into a Religious
Order, into ‘formal religion’, in his own words. He revised the Rules
to adapt them to the new canonical requirements. The manuscript
was ready between August 1616 and January 1617. Finally, in
July 1618, Francis receiver the brief from Rome that erected the
Visitation as a Religious Order. On 16 October he turned the House
at Annecy into a ‘monastery under the Rule of St Augustine’... More
than fourteen years had passed since God had inspired Francis in
Dijon to found a Congregation!
To be sure to understand what Francis de Sales intended by
founding the Visitation of Holy Mary, it is good to proceed with
extreme caution. All his religious and apostolic thinking from
1604–1618 went into this project, and it is this that we need to
reconstitute. First of all we need to follow his correspondence letter
by letter – not just the exchanges with Baroness de Chantal or with
the first Visitandines such as Charlotte de Bréchard or Jacqueline
Favre; but also those he exchanged with ‘lay and secular’ souls
eager for perfection. We also need to analyse, one document after
the other, the dossier of the Constitutions and those of the other
foundations. And even that would not be enough: it would be
essential to delve deeper into the workings of grace in the souls
of the first sisters and in Francis himself, and to compare all this
data with the slow drafting of the Treatise on the Love of God. All of
this influenced the development of the Visitation of Holy Mary, as

18.5 Page 175

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
175
Annecy, the second Visitation
(inside garden).

18.6 Page 176

▲back to top
176
Saint Francis de Sales
also the bishop’s missionary activity in his diocese and outside his
diocese. The Spiritual Conferences are testimony to this... A study
of this kind would go beyond the limitations of this book. We limit
ourselves here to some notes which seem to us to be essential.
One fact seems to be of paramount importance: the Visitation of
Holy Mary is directly linked to – one could say that it is the ideal
realisation of – what is highest in Francis de Sales’ spiritual doctrine.
We have seen that at its peak this was pure love, and to access this
pure love we find perfect self-denial, the total annihilation of self-
love. When defining ‘the purpose for which this Congregation was
established’ in the Constitutions, Francis de Sales clearly indicates
that with this foundation he intends to allow people, all people,
whatever their age and state of health, ‘there to seek the perfection
of divine love’: ‘This Congregation was erected in such a way that no
great severity may prevent the weak and infirm from being part of
it, in order to seek the perfection of divine love.’ Therefore, people
‘of good and strong constitution’ may enter; but also ‘widows’, so
long as they have adequately ‘provided for their own things’ and
in particular for the care of their children; and above all people
‘who because of age or some bodily (infirmity) cannot enter more
austere monasteries’.
This latter sentence is important, since it created a new criterion
of attitude to religious life. What was required of postulants
was no longer health of body in order to follow an austere Rule
without failing, but ‘a healthy spirit willing to live in profound
humility, obedience, simplicity, sweetness and resignation’. Francis
would write to Mother de Chantal in 1619, concerning a crippled
candidate: ‘I will forever believe that we should not refuse entry
into the Congregation to infirm postulants, so long as we are not
talking about the infirmities indicated in the Rule, that are not the
case for (this) girl who cannot use her legs. In fact, without legs it
is possible to do all the essential exercises of the Rule: obey, pray,
sing, observe the silence, sew, eat and above all be patient with the

18.7 Page 177

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
177
sisters who carry her around when they are not ready and prompt
with their charity... I see nothing that would prevent her from being
received unless her heart is crippled.’
If Francis de Sales so clearly eliminated ‘austere austerity’ from
the Constitutions, he did so because he demanded that ‘the fervour
of charity and the strength of a very intimate devotion make up for
all this’ and that this required of the soul an extremely vital union
with God. Francis had the same idea as St Paul about spiritual
strength and weakness: ‘Cum infirmor, tunc potens sum’. Love and
humility go hand in hand, they call upon each other: ‘Seeing your
Congregation small in number at the beginning,’ he wrote in the
Preface to the Constitutions ‘yet great in its desire to perfect itself
ever more in the most holy love of God and in denial of any other
love, I was forced to assist it with care, reminding myself well that
Our Lord, as he himself said, came into this world for the good of
his sheep, not just that they might have the true life, but also that
they may have it more abundantly.’ In the Book of Vows, on 6 June
1611 the day of the first three Mothers’ oblation, he wrote: ‘The
humble glory of the Sisters of the Congregation. We have no other
bond than the bond of charity which is the bond of perfection. The
charity of Jesus Christ urges us.’
Such a concept of religious life demanded that people who
dedicated themselves to it receive a solid and deep spiritual
formation sustained by a living faith. True devotion presumes great
strength of soul. And this strength of soul is only gained through the
daily struggle. Francis de Sales knew this. It is no coincidence that
he insisted with Baroness de Chantal in 1607 on regular reading of
the Spiritual Combat, a book by Scupoli ‘that is my dearest book
and that I have carried in my pocket for at least eighteen years, and
have never read it without benefit; in fact, the virtue of strength
and the strength of virtue are never acquired in peace.’
He spared neither time nor concern to form the soul of Madame
de Chantal and that of the first sisters, even before they entered

18.8 Page 178

▲back to top
178
Saint Francis de Sales
religion. He thought that the stability and durability of the entire
building depended on the solidity of these cornerstones. In an
extremely interesting document – that undoubtedly needs to be
dated in September-December 1614 – Preface for the instruction
of devout souls on the dignity, antiquity, usefulness and variety of
the Congregations or Colleges of Women and Girls who dedicate
themselves to God – he arrives at this observation: ‘There is no
kind of life in the world in which inconveniences do not occur:
solitude or conversation (he means community life), learning or
ignorance, frequent changes of superiors or the fact of “having
them in perpetuity”, visits from Generals or continually residing
in a city, poverty or the certainty of having resources: they all have
advantages, they all have risks for spiritual life...’ ‘In winter the bees,
observing strict enclosure, are subject to rebelling and killing each
other; but in summer when they fly out, they run the risk of getting
lost.’
What does the safeguarding of religious souls consist of? ‘If the
spirit of devotion reigns in Congregations, a mediocre cloister will
be sufficient to create good servants of God there; if it does not reign
there, the strictest cloister will serve for nothing. Now, the spirit of
piety will always reign there if the superiors apply themselves to it
with the paternal care they must have.’ That Mother de Chantal had
had the inspiration to take the ‘vow of most excellent perfection’ and
had been authorised to do so by Francis de Sales on 27 December
1611, was important not only for the soul of the foundress, but for
the whole foundation.
In this spiritual education, Francis grants the human heart
a place of primary importance, places it at the centre, studies
its movements, inclinations and repugnances, generosity and
moments of lukewarmness. For him, the heart is the place of love,
the place of renunciation and self-denial: ‘We hope’, Francis wrote
to Mother de Chantal ‘that the Holy Spirit will fill us one day with
his holy love; and while waiting we perpetually hope and make

18.9 Page 179

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
179
room for that sacred fire, emptying our hearts of ourselves as much
as possible. How happy we will be, my dearest Mother, if one day
we can exchange ourselves for that love which, by making us one,
will completely empty us of all multiplicity, so as to only have in
our hearts the sovereign unity of the Most Holy Trinity, which is
blessed, forever and ever. Amen!’
Francis was so concerned with engaging, I was about to say
committing, the human heart to ‘devotion’ and the life of perfection
that he wanted it inscribed in the symbol on the Visitation coat
of arms. A note of 10 June 1611 simply describes how he had the
inspiration for this. That morning he was unable to celebrate Mass
at the Galerie and sent along M. Rolland. But, as he told Mother
de Chantal, ‘he is not a messenger skilful enough for me to entrust
him with the thought that God sent me last night: and that is
that our House of the Visitation is, through his grace, noble and
considerable enough to have its own coat of arms, its blaison, its
livery. So I thought, dear Mother, if you are in agreement, that
we should take as our coat of arms a single heart pierced by two
arrows enclosed within a crown of thorns: in this poor heart will
be incorporated a cross that will surmount it, and the sacred names
of Jesus and Mary will be imprinted on it.’ And then comes the
mystical explanation of this symbol: ‘Our Congregation is truly the
work of the heart of Jesus and Mary. The Saviour, by dying, gave
birth to us by opening his sacred heart; it is therefore only right
that through careful mortification, our heart always be surrounded
by the crown of thorns that was on the head of our Chief, when love
held him bound to the throne of his mortal sorrows.’ According to
Francis de Sales, love and self-denial are explained and justified
only in reference to the love of Jesus crucified. His religion begins
with the heart and goes to the heart.
What is surprising is the fact that this ideal is not only symbolised
by the ‘coat of arms’ of the Congregation, but is also, so to speak,
inscribed in its history. We will not recount here the controversy

18.10 Page 180

▲back to top
180
Saint Francis de Sales
between the Archbishop of Lyons, Archbishop de Marquemont,
and Francis de Sales, following which the Visitation became an
enclosed Order. We will merely recall the magnificent reply that
Francis addressed to the archbishop on 2 February 1616. It is an
item in which every nuance needs to be carefully weighed! How
well it fits with Salesian spirituality! Francis does not hide the
fact that the suppression of ‘visiting the sick’ made obligatory by
perpetual enclosure was a sacrifice for him and also, in his opinion,
a spiritual loss. But with magnificent and elevated insight he
recognises that what is essential to religious life does not lie there;
and since ‘by transforming the Congregation of the Visitation into
formal Religion one can preserve exactly its purpose... the Bishop
of Geneva wholeheartedly and freely consents’ to the archbishop’s
wish! So then, since souls, all souls, even the weak and infirm, can
First pages of a handwritten manuscript by Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal
(Visitation monastery, Treviso).

19 Pages 181-190

▲back to top

19.1 Page 181

▲back to top
Chapter viii- Reform of the clergy and religious
181
‘seek the perfection of divine love’, in accordance with his spiritual
principles, Francis ‘agreeably accepts the choice that the archbishop
would like to make.’ ‘The purpose of the Congregation could easily
be preserved in Religion, provided that it is loved, appreciated and
favoured as it deserves, and as the need of the good of souls in this
area of the Gauls demands.’
Nor is it even necessary to stress the perfect concordance between
the concept of religious life that urged Francis to found the Visitation
and the spiritual doctrine he expounds in the Treatise on the Love
of God. The Order and the book (which came out in August 1616)
matured together in the spirit of Francis, and in the preface to the
Treatise he does not hide the fact that the care given to his Visitandines
strongly influenced the drafting of the work: ‘I began indeed long
ago to think of writing on holy love, but that thought came far short
of what this occasion (the Visitation) has made me produce.’ It is
certain that the personal sharing of his Daughters had ensured
that Francis’ thinking would turn to concrete, practical aspects of
religious life; but it is no less certain – and saying this does not in any
way minimise the influence of the Visitation on the inspiration for
the Treatise, if anything the opposite – that the Treatise on the Love of
God was, in the author’s eyes, a book for all souls who wish to ‘seek
the perfection of divine love’, even if they are ‘lay people and seculars’
living ‘amid the hassles of worldly affairs’; in the first instance it is the
‘Life of Holy Charity’ that he preached to everyone as the supreme
expression of love, perfect abandonment to God’s will; and he
proposes it as a unique model of holiness according to the doctrine
of the ‘great and miraculous St Paul’, Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ
crucified. Why wonder then that the Treatise on the Love of God and
the Visitation Order have such intimate resonances between them:
both were born from the same heart, the devout and apostolic heart,
the evangelical heart of Francis de Sales.
Francis wrote one day to Baroness de Chantal who bore the name
of Jesus on her bosom: ‘My point (of meditation) was about this

19.2 Page 182

▲back to top
182
Saint Francis de Sales
question of Sunday’s prayer: Sanctificetur nomen tuum, Hallowed
be your name. O God, he said, who will give me the happiness of
one day seeing the name of Jesus engraved in the deepest part of
the heart of she who bears it on her bosom?’ The deepest part of
the heart: It is only there that authentic conversions, reforms, and
the reformation of souls, religious and secular souls, simple and
priestly souls, are realised. The Treatise on the Love of God, this
prodigious breviary of Christian mysticism, does none other than
expose this fundamental idea of Francis de Sales. Where does it
end up leading us to? The final chapter of ‘these things, Theotimus,
which by the grace and help of charity have been written to your
charity’, is entitled: ‘That Mount Calvary is the academy of Love’.
An academy of love? This is precisely the name with which Henri
Bremond describes the Visitation of Holy Mary.4
4 H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, vol. II, pp. 573-
583.

19.3 Page 183

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
183
9 – TOWARDS PURE LOVE
Third sojourn in Paris
Towards mid-October 1618, Francis de Sales took the road to Paris
for the third time in his life. Not that Paris had not, on many an
occasion, invited the preacher who had charmed the city in 1602:
but the shady Charles Emmanuel had opposed the fact that Francis
might preach the Lenten series there. Now he had to give way and
allow Paris to once more see and hear Francis: in fact the Prince-
Cardinal of Savoy1 was going to the Court to ask for the hand of the
young Christine of France for the Prince of Piedmont, eldest son of
His Highness.
This ‘embassy’ succeeded: the wedding was celebrated in
February 1619. But only in September did Francis leave for
Savoy. The year spent in Paris was, for Francis, a very apostolic
one: everyone wanted to hear him preach, speak with him, go to
confession to him or have his advice. ‘I found such an increase in
piety in Paris that it is marvellous’, he wrote. However, he did not
forget his friends and his daughters in Annecy; the letters for Savoy
are numerous and by no means the least pure, the least spiritual of
those in the Correspondence. On 23 June 1619 he wrote to Mme de
Chantal: ‘I would certainly like to have some beautiful bouquets of
1 Prince and Cardinal Maurice of Savoy was also a son of Charles Emmanuel I of
Savoy, the only member of the House of Savoy to be created cardinal (he resigned
from the clergy in 1642). He was part of the ‘embassy’ that went to France to
negotiate the marriage of Princess Christine with his older brother, Victor
Amadeus. Negotiations took a year.

19.4 Page 184

▲back to top
184
Saint Francis de Sales
flowers from the desert of our glorious St John to present to your
dear soul; but mine, more sterile than the desert, has been unable
to find any today, although in truth this morning and still now, my
soul had a certain small, insensitive feeling of no longer wanting to
live according to nature, but, as long as it is possible, according to
faith, hope and Christian charity in imitation of this angelic man
whom we see, in this deep desert, looking only at God and himself.
How happy is the man who sees but these two objects, one which
enraptures in sovereign love, and the other which casts him down
in extreme abjection.’
This stay in Paris summarises, so to speak, and crowns the life
and work of Francis de Sales. Mme Acarie had died, but the Carmel
that he had helped her to found was a radiating centre. Francis
spoke with Pierre de Bérulle who had introduced the Oratory to
France, with Fr Bourdoise, and with Vincent de Paul, about the
formation of the clergy.
He met Mother Angélique Arnauld who at the time was struggling
with the reform of her Abbey of Port-Royal des Champs and with
the even more arduous reform of the Abbey de Maubuisson, and
he advised her: ‘Do not burden yourself too much with vigils and
austerity (and listen to me, dear daughter, because I am very well
aware of what I am saying when advising this), but go to the Port
Royal of religious life by following the royal road of the love of God
and neighbour, humility and kindness.’
On 7 April 1619, he founded a new Visitation monastery in the
capital and entrusted the direction of his daughters to Vincent de
Paul, who would keep this office for more than forty years. Among
the prelates he met at court he noted the young Bishop of Luçon,
Bishop Armand du Plessis de Richelieu, and was noted by him:
‘He swore full friendship and told me that in the end he would join
my party, to think only of God and the salvation of souls.’ Even
though he did not keep this fine resolution, nevertheless Richelieu
had great veneration for Francis de Sales.

19.5 Page 185

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
185
Suddenly, during his stay at court, a serious risk threatened
Francis: Cardinal de Gondi, Archbishop of Paris, backed by the
Cardinals of La Rochefoucauld, and Perron, planned to keep the
Bishop of Geneva in Paris and have him appointed as coadjutor
with right of succession: King Louis XIII had agreed.
All difficulties had been foreseen and resolved: Francis’
brother, Jean-François, would be appointed Bishop of Geneva
(the archbishopric of Paris would even take on the expenses of
the consecration!); Francis would have the rich abbey of Sainte-
Geneviève... They had the good taste not to speak to him of the
‘purple’ that would not fail to cover his shoulders... ‘The Blessed
thanked the cardinal for his benevolence and at the same time
explained to him that he had been attached elsewhere for many
years: and that furthermore he did not even have the strength
needed to support the weight of the bishopric in Geneva, given
that he was about to become an old man and already saw how he
was subject to many ills and ailments.’
The following year, on 26 February, speaking to Mother de
Chantal, moved at learning of the promotion of Jean-François de
Sales as coadjutor of Geneva, Francis would give not another version
but another translation of his response: ‘I told (the cardinal) fairly
clearly at Tours that I would accept a divorce only if I were never to
marry again... As for burdening me with someone else’s wife out of
obligation – that would really seem impossible to me!’ But he could
not escape the wish of the petite and delightful Princess Christine
marie of France who, seduced by his good grace, wanted him as her
grand almoner (chaplain): but at least he obtained that a clause he
wanted would be included when he accepted the title: his brother
Jean-François would carry out the role!

19.6 Page 186

▲back to top
186
Saint Francis de Sales
Monument to St Francis de Sales at the Les Allinges fortress,

19.7 Page 187

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
187
The wish to retire, and the desire for solitude
‘I would accept a divorce only if I were not to marry again...’ This
playful phrase undoubtedly hid a confession. Returning to Annecy,
Francis resumed his usual concerns and occupations: but it really
seemed that deep down in his heart, and without letting this be
seen, he aspired to solitude. Some time later, Princess Christine
Marie’s chaplain was appointed coadjutor at Geneva, without his
brother having ‘ever said or written a single word, begged or made
any recommendation’. Francis wrote to Mme de Chantal on 14 May
1620: ‘My brother is a bishop: it is true that this does not enrich me,
but it relieves me and gives me some hope of being able to retire
from work: (and alluding to Cardinal de Gondi’s plans) it is better
than a cardinal’s hat.’
During the summer he drew up the Constitutions for the
Anchorites at Mont-Voiron: and he was not afraid to establish a
properly ecclesial ideal for these somewhat wandering hermits:
they would live there in holiness ‘for the great glory and veneration
of the blessed and pure Virgin, Mother of Our Saviour Jesus
Christ, for the salvation of their souls and the edification of the
Catholic people in the provinces around this hermitage and, if not
dedicating themselves to the conversion of heretics, at least they
would be at their disposition so they could receive the light of the
true and salutary faith’. By following Francis’ indications, the life of
contemplation and penance once again found its gospel meaning.
During 1621, the Bishop of Geneva’s health worsened: ‘Our life
is regulated by what we can and cannot eat’ he wrote to Mother de
Chantal on 21 September, ‘and I can no longer write in the evening
hours because my eyes cannot endure it, nor can my stomach. It
will not depend on me that I will not be old for very long...’
In autumn, the Prior of Talloires told Francis that the hermitage
of Saint Germain had been restored, as he had ordered, and he
asked him to bless the sanctuary.

19.8 Page 188

▲back to top
188
Saint Francis de Sales
‘He admired the beauty of that hermitage,’ Charles-Auguste de
Sales tells us ‘and among the praises one could not fail to discover
his thinking: it has been decided, he said, seeing that I have a
coadjutor, if it is possible in accordance with the will of our Serene
Princes, I will go up there; this needs to be my repose, I will live in
this hermitage since I have chosen it. And having said these words,
opening the window that looked to the north and looking at the
lake and the panorama of Annecy: O God, he said, how beautiful
and pleasant it is to be here; we must definitely leave the burden
of the day and the heat to our coadjutor, while with our rosary
and pen we will serve God and his Church here. And know, Father
Prior (he said, turning to him), that ideas would come to our head
as vigorous and thick as the snows that fall in winter.’
In fact he had a number of works planned, whose titles – if we are
to believe his acquaintances who revealed them at the depositions
at the Processes – are significant for his spirituality: A familiar
explanation of the mysteries of our holy faith, Treatise on the four
loves (God, ourselves, our friends, our enemies), and especially a
Theandric History ‘in which he wanted to describe the life of Our
Lord made man and suggest ways of easily practising the gospel
maxims...’ We must regret that Francis was unable to write these
works; they certainly would have thrown light on his spirituality
in a new and original way; but just from the titles themselves we
can guess that the teaching would have been similar to that of the
Introduction and the Treatise on the Love of God.
On the other hand, the interest of these projects goes beyond
the projects themselves. ‘With our rosary and pen we will serve
God and his Church here’: on the part of the former missionary
of the Chablais, of the bishop who had preached so often, heard
confessions, ‘who had spent himself and over-spent himself ’’ in the
service of God and the Church, this suggestion indicates a spiritual
leaning, means a choice that he who writes the history of a soul
must consider as a stage. Undoubtedly Francis’ health was failing;

19.9 Page 189

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
189
Annecy, the Sainte Source.

19.10 Page 190

▲back to top
190
Saint Francis de Sales
Annecy, Basilica of the Visitation.

20 Pages 191-200

▲back to top

20.1 Page 191

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
191
business and journeys had tired him so much in body and spirit;
but there was more to it: he sincerely believed that he could not
make better use of his remaining strength in the service of God and
the Church than praying and – thanks to his booklets distributed
by the thousands – seeking out Philothea and Theotimus at home
to help them speedily advance on the ‘royal road of love of God and
neighbour’.
The journey to Avignon and his death
‘At that time, the most Christian King Louis XIII and His Serene
Highness the Duke of Savoy thought of going to the city of Avignon
(Louis XIII had just triumphed in the south of France against
the Huguenot revolt of Benjamin de Rohan) and Blessed Francis
received the express order to join them there as soon as possible.’
The bishop’s entourage was deeply concerned: ‘There was nobody
who did not think badly of this journey for the holy bishop.’ They
all advised him to inform His Highness of the ‘miserable state of
his health. But he said: What do you want? We need to go where
God calls us.’
Francis de Sales would die for wanting to obey God and his
prince... ‘Foreseeing his death, he put his affairs in order and
made his solemn last will and testament... which he duly signed
and sealed... He immediately prepared everything needed for the
journey, said goodbye to his family and expressly predicted his
death.’
These farewells of Francis were distressing because he hid
from no one that they really were farewells. He alone preserved a
marvellous peace. On the morning of 8 November he celebrated
Mass at the Oratory of the Sainte Source. ‘My dear daughters,’ he
told them with supreme resignation, ‘may your only desire be

20.2 Page 192

▲back to top
192
Saint Francis de Sales
God; your only fear be losing him; your ambition, possessing him
forever.’
Finally, the departure. Francis mounted his horse while in his
name a few bushels of wheat were distributed to the poor: there
was great poverty in the city at the time.
On 14 November, Francis arrived in Avignon. Celebration
followed upon celebration for some ten days.
On Friday 25 November the King and the Duke left Avignon
together and went to the province of Lyons. In Lyons, Francis
sought shelter at his sisters’ convent in Bellecour. ‘Because of his
love for holy poverty, he chose the gardener of the Visitation’s
house, a hovel rather than a house, where the sisters’ confessor also
lived, on the pretext that he would be freer to receive those who
would come to greet him: and that he would not inconvenience his
St Francis de Sales’ casket in the Basilica of hte Visitation (Annecy).

20.3 Page 193

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
193
own and would be ready more quickly for the spiritual service of
his dear daughters.’
And indeed, very soon the small hovel saw an uninterrupted
parade of visitors whose weight was added to that of official
ceremonies and preaching. ‘My God,’ Francis wrote to a woman
on 19 December 1622 ‘how happy are those who, free from the
courts and the compliments that reign there, live peacefully in holy
solitude at the foot of the crucifix!’
But it was necessary for Francis to give the final touch to his
spiritual edifice and to show by deed and his example the supreme
demands of ‘divine love’. Everything we have said about his
spirituality would be falsified were we not to insist on this final
gesture of Francis de Sales, the spiritual director. ‘When will it be’
he had written in May 1616 to Mother de Chantal ‘that this natural
love of blood, propriety, decorum, correspondences, sympathies,
graces, will be purified and reduced to the perfect obedience of the
purest love for the will of God?’
This time had now come for Mother de Chantal... ‘She had not
spoken to him about her own internal matters for three and a half
years.’ She was in Lyons on 10 November when Francis came to
Avignon from Annecy. ‘But this time the Father and his Daughter
did not have the time to see one another.
The Blessed ordered her to go and visit our houses in Montferrand
and Saint-Etienne.’
On 12 December, Mother de Chantal, having returned to Lyons,
hoped to once again meet Francis. To have more time, both had
even ‘cancelled all other business’. ‘Mother,’ Francis began, ‘we will
have a little free time. Which of us will start to say what we have
to say?’ ‘Our worthy Mother,’ Mother de Chaugy tells us in her
memoirs, ‘who was burning to speak of some issues close to her
heart, promptly responded: “Let me speak, Father, I beg you: my
heart has a great need for you to look and see.”... “Mother,” Francis
replied “we will speak about ourselves back in Annecy. For now,

20.4 Page 194

▲back to top
194
Saint Francis de Sales
let us bring some resolution to the things of our Congregation...”’
Mother de Chantal folded the piece of paper on which she had
written her personal concerns and ‘explained those on which she
had noted the things of the Institution.’ They spoke ‘for a good
four hours’; then Francis ordered Mother de Chantal to visit the
monasteries at Grenoble, Valence, Belley, Chambéry... He blessed
her and said goodbye.
The perfection of spiritual friendship is to renounce oneself so
that the soul can devote itself to the service of God and neighbour:
here is the true end of the ‘Life of Holy Charity’, the end towards
which Francis had led, one step after the other, the soul who
entrusted herself to his leadership. Thus it was that this soul arrived
fully at the ‘freedom of holy love’.
‘On Christmas Day he celebrated Midnight Mass with his dear
sisters of the Visitation and gave them and exhortation filled with
tenderness. At dawn he went to hear the confessions of the princes
of Piedmont and celebrated the dawn Mass with them.’ at eleven he
said the third Mass. ‘After lunch he gave the Visitation habit to two
daughters and preached with great holiness.’ The following day ‘he
attended to various matters’.
On Tuesday 27 December, the feast day of St John the Evangelist,
towards ‘two in the afternoon... he fainted’. His servants carried him
to bed. After a long day of agony that a surgical intervention in use
at the time made very painful – the application of the ‘fire button’,
‘the holy bishop gently and peacefully rendered his innocent
soul to God’. It was 28 December, the day of the feast of the Holy
Innocents, at eight in the evening.
In the most painful moments of his illness and agony, Francis
repeated these two names: Jesus! Mary!
At the time of his consecration, Francis de Sales had chosen
as model for his episcopate the saintly Bishop of Milan, Charles
Borromeo. His wish was fulfilled: ‘For the prelates of his time’ he
was ‘another Saint Charles’. Many dared to go further: ‘We should

20.5 Page 195

▲back to top
Chapter ix- Towards pure Love
195
The glory of St Francis de Sales
(Annecy, Basilica of the Visitation).

20.6 Page 196

▲back to top
196
Saint Francis de Sales
call him the image of the Man-God’ the Grand Prior of France once
declared to the King’s Council. The image of the Man-God? Yes,
through his heart: Francis de Sales had above all a heart similar to
the Heart of Jesus Christ...
One day, in 1619 or 1620, he made this precious confession
to Mother de Chantal: ‘There are no souls in the world who love
more warmly, more tenderly and I would say more completely and
lovingly than I since it has pleased God to make my heart thus.
But just the same I love independent, vigorous souls that are not
effeminate; since such great tenderness clouds the heart, worries
it and distracts it from loving prayer to God, it prevents complete
resignation and perfect death of self-love. What is not God is
nothing to us. How can it be that I, who am the most affectionate
person in the world, as you know, my dearest Mother, can feel these
things? Truly, I do feel them; but it is marvellous how I put all these
things together, for it is my opinion that I love nothing at all but
God and all souls for God.’
‘The most affectionate’ and at the same time perfectly ‘indifferent’,
the most free: what a confidence! Here Francis was confessing the
ideal he tended towards and had souls tend towards. But then he
added: ‘How can it be?...’. Yes, such a spiritual state is a mystery
of grace, and at the same time a mystery of the human heart! To
achieve this ‘perfection of divine love’ there is no other method,
therefore, than to let a person’s heart surrender itself to God’s Love,
‘in ‘complete despoliation of itself ’. Here, finally, is the secret that
the Bishop of Geneva reveals to us through his life and his work.
Francis de Sales’ God was truly ‘the God of the human heart’.

20.7 Page 197

▲back to top
Afterword
197
AFTERWORD
A word about the author of this book
This biography of Saint Francis de Sales was published by Fr André
Ravier (1905–1999) some twenty years before his better-known
work: Francis de Sales: Sage and Saint.1
After Ravier’s death, adding him to the necrology,2 Jean Sainclair
asked himself about the point of view he should use to describe his
life. In fact, he was a teacher, writer, educator, but also a man of
government as rector of a college and provincial of the Jesuits in
France… Above all, however, he was a man who encountered God
and wanted to offer the same experience to many others, as we can
see from his countless works.
Born on 3 June 1905 in Poligny in the French Jura, the young
André Ravier was educated at the Notre Dame de Mont Roland
college in Dole. After his baccalaureate in philosophy (1922) he
entered the Jesuit novitiate on the hill overlooking Lyons, near the
famous Marian Shrine at Fourvière. Having completed his first cycle
in philosophy at the Catholic University in Lyons, he then went to
Grenoble where he gained his degree in arts and philosophy with
a thesis on the image of God in the religious philosophy of Jules
Lachelier. He was ordained priest in 1937.
After military service he taught Greek, Philology and French st
the college in Yzeure. There, together with two of his confreres,
1 André Ravier, Un sage et un saint, François de Sales, Paris, Nouvelle Cité 1985
(English translation. Francis de Sales. Sage and Saint, New York, DeSales
Resource Center 2007).
2 Cf. Compagnie. Courrier de la Province de France, n. 333 (décembre 1999), pp.
191-194.

20.8 Page 198

▲back to top
198
Saint Francis de Sales
he founded a student association whose aim was, other than the
spiritual life of the students, their complete human, religious,
intellectual and social formation. In his spare time he undertook a
research doctorate at the École des hautes études a the Sorbonne, on
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile.
On the eve of World War II, he was enlisted as a second lieutenant
in the French army. He miraculously survived the first turbulent
days of war, but during a bombardment he lost almost all the
materials for his thesis. He had to rewrite the thesis based on notes
and tentative fragments. In September 1941, after discussion of
the thesis, Ravier returned to Lyons. For eight years he was prefect
then rector of the Collège Sainte-Hélène, where he could put his
pedagogical studies to good use.
In 1951 he was appointed provincial of the Jesuits. It was a
particularly critical moment, just after the encyclical Humani
Generis by Pius XII and the “affaires de Fourvière”. Fourvière
was where the French Jesuits had their theological scholasticate.
Prominent theologians like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Henri de
Lubac and others taught there. Their theological teaching, however,
was judged to be overly attentive to the historical-critical method,
too closely linked to current cultural events. Rome intervened with
heavy censures. As provincial, Fr Ravier was attentive and gentle
in dealing with his condemned confreres, seeking to understand
and encourage them. This shows up in his correspondence with
Teilhard de Chardin, in exile in the United States. De Chardin,
at the height of the crisis, wrote to a friend: “I have received an
extremely kind and understanding letter from my provincial in
Lyons [André Ravier]. It is the first time a superior has asked me
to speak freely and constructively with him… Such gestures are
worth more than all the decrees that tie me to the Order and more
generally to the Church, and this for me is important.”
When he had finished his mandate as provincial, Ravier
could finally dedicate himself to his true vocation: as the writer.

20.9 Page 199

▲back to top
Afterword
199
He published popular books on the Curé of Ars and Bernadette
Soubirous and on the spirituality of St Ignatius of Loyola, after a
trip to Rome that allowed him to immerse himself in the Society’s
archives. During this period he gradually discovered St Francis
de Sales, Claude de la Colombière, St Bruno the Cistercian and St
Colette de Corbie.
From 1962 until 1968 he was rector of the Collège Saint-Louis-
de-Gonzague in Paris. As he wrote, these were “six marvellous but
difficult years”. These were times of protest and struggle, but also
valuable opportunities to reflect on the Catholic identity of the
college and the socio-cultural transformations. 1968 was certainly
a testing year for him.
After this task he was transferred to the beautiful Les Fontaines
Castle in Chantilly, located in a wooded area some forty kilometres
from Paris. It was an ideal place for Fr Ravier: he had a huge library
available to him and the tranquillity needed for his intellectual work.
From then on he was a full-time writer. Over twenty-two years he
published a hundred or more books, articles and contributions of
various kinds of a spiritual and historical nature.
Being the writer was not simply his second vocation or a new
one. Writing was in his blood. From the years when he was prefect
at the college in Yzeure and then when he was provincial – as we
read in the necrology – he dedicated all his spare time at weekends
to writing. He wrote monographs for various religious institutes.
He liked archival research. He did not do this just to reconstruct
the history of congregations and their founders, but to understand
their spirituality and charismatic identity. He had his own style for
writing books: he loved to illustrate them with images of places and
objects, with photos and drawings, and documents. His writings
succeeded in combining history and spirituality in a natural way.
This is how he wrote about Sts Bruno, Francis de Sales, Bernadette
Soubirous, Ignatius of Loyola, Claudio de la Colombière, Colette
de Corbie and the Curé of Ars. He also published collections of

20.10 Page 200

▲back to top
200
Saint Francis de Sales
lectures, books on the spirituality of everyday life, guidelines for
Catholic education, descriptions of churches and works of art,
meditations on the experience of silence, on various forms of
prayer, on the Church, on Lourdes... His work was translated into
English, Italian, German, Dutch and Spanish. His writings have
been published and republished even after his death.3
In his later years his health slowly deteriorated. His mind was
clear, but he found it increasingly difficult to walk. He moved to
Paris in 1994, to the Jesuit nursing home in the historical part of
the city, where he continued to write and update his books.
Writing was his way of doing ministry, catechising, proclaiming
the Gospel and speaking about God. In one of his last articles, he
dwelt on the theme of the presence of God and presence to God,
summarising what he had wanted to convey to his readers in his
many works: that is, how man can experience God and come closer
to him. “How can a human heart grasp something of the One who
described Himself: “I am who am”? […] Only experience allows us
to perceive some sign of his Presence. What is certain is that God
is constantly present to man, he calls him to meet him, but he waits
for man to seek him out and come to meet him.”4
The first paragraph of the article contains a personal, profound
and lived profession of faith. God is present always and everywhere,
because He has created everything; everything has been given to us
by Him. God is present always and everywhere in man, formed in
his image and likeness. He has revealed himself throughout history
and in the fullness of time, with the Incarnation, the culmination
of revelation took place. In his only Son, the Word became man.
Whoever meets Christ meets God.
3 For example: Mystique et pain quotidien, Paris, Parole et Silence 2002; Saint Bruno.
Le Chartreux, Paris, Lethielleux 32003; En retraite chez soi, Paris, Parole et Silence
52015.
4 André Ravier, Présence de Dieu, présence à Dieu, in “Revue des sciences
religieuses” 70 (1996) n. 3, p. 353.

21 Pages 201-210

▲back to top

21.1 Page 201

▲back to top
Afterword
201
In the second paragraph he asks himself why man is so insensitive
to God’s presence. How come we do not feel and see it? There is a
very personal touch here that makes his writing more than just
a theological reflection: it is the result of long years of research
and meditation. It is a very dense synthesis of his thought and his
experience of the interior life. He takes the reader by the hand,
shows them the obstacles that prevent them from approaching
God and offers his advice for an effective spiritual journey, advice
inspired by his great model, his source par excellence, Saint Francis
de Sales.
Placing ourselves in God’s presence, Ravier writes, is first of all
an act of faith. We need to be aware that God is present, sees us,
listens to us, loves us. It is something we all know but do not place
much store on. We are constantly immersed in the flow of love
that emanates from the Father: there, in that love, we can deeply
experience the presence of God, as Francis de Sales teaches in the
Treatise on the Love of God.
The believer must gradually move from being in God’s presence
to living “constantly” in God’s presence. This, writes Ravier, is not
easy. We think that our human nature does not allow us to do so,
because we are naturally distracted, weak. But God knows us as we
are, knows who we are, and despite everything, has immense love
for us. So, as St Francis de Sales teaches, do not dream of being
what you are not, but desire to be what you are... Don’t wait for
everything to be perfect, for God welcomes everyone just as they
are.
Once again, Ravier uses the words of the bishop of Geneva:
‘The ultimate in loving ecstasy is not to seek one’s own will, but
God’s, and not to seek satisfaction in one’s own will, but in God’s.’
To feel God’s presence is to lose oneself completely in Him: this is
our raison d’être. Abandonment to God, total unity between the
believer and the Creator, is not only the ultimate goal of human
existence, but also its source and cause.

21.2 Page 202

▲back to top
202
Saint Francis de Sales
This is the fundamental core, the heart and soul of the work of
André Ravier. Through his books he intends to guide us to the only
transformation needed in life: that of abandonment in God and
union with God. After reading, re-reading and meditating on his
works, books and articles, we cannot help but conclude that he was
the first to follow this path which was indicated to him by the saints
he studied. He encourages us to do the same.
Wim Collin, sdb.

21.3 Page 203

▲back to top

21.4 Page 204

▲back to top
“The man who best reproduced the Son of man living on earth”.
This is how, at the Canonisation Process in Paris, St Vincent de
Paul testified to the superior virtues of Francis de Sales.
In a detailed and passionate way, this biography offers an
original spiritual portrait of the Saint.
Francis de Sales is someone who, like Jesus Christ on earth,
sought to love God with all his human heart, and having
experienced the demands and sweetness of this gift, worked
to introduce the greatest possible number of souls to what he
himself called “the eternal freedom of love”.
The book outlines the salient features of Francis’ life: his heart as
a man, priest, bishop and founder, and his extraordinary ability
as a spiritual guide.
André Ravier, (1905-1999), Jesuit, former provincial superior in Lyons, always nurtured
studies of spirituality. He is especially known for his biographies of Ignatius of Loyola,
Bernadette Soubirous, Francis de Sales, Jeanne de Chantal and the Curé of Ars.
Formation Sector
Sede Centrale Salesiana