Note C — LI. To Mother Marie Jacqueline Favre, Superior at Dijon.

"On December 8th, 1622, while King Louis XIII. was making his state entry into Lyons amidst a great display of pomp on the part of the two courts of France and Savoy, St. Francis de Sales, wishing, like a true father, to enjoy the society of his daughters, sent off all his retinue to see the fête and came by himself to the Convent parlour. There in the course of conversation with us he drew a contrast between the feast which the Church that day celebrated, and the political feast the town was keeping in honour of the King's entry.

"Our worthy Mother de Chantal, who was present, was overjoyed to meet again the father of her soul, but this meeting was not to give her the consolation for which she had hoped. The town was crowded with persons of distinction, all of whom flocked to the Visitation, there to meet 'the Sun of Prelates,' as they called St. Francis de Sales. One day the Archbishop of Bourges and his nephew, the Abbé de Neuchèze, the devout Sister Marie de Valence, and Père Cotton, S. J., all met in our parlour, so that it was said our house was the meeting-place of all the holiest people, and had become, so to say, a court of Heaven, while the court of the Royal Princess was being held in the town.

"Upon a certain day St. Francis, having some hours free, came to the parlour to confer with the Venerable Foundress; but much as she wished to speak to him of her interior state, he would not permit her to do so, deferring all that until their return to Annecy, desiring her to visit the Monasteries of Valence, Grenoble, and Belley before returning to Savoy. St. Jane Frances at once set out, never dreaming that she had seen her blessed Father for the last time on earth." (Taken from the "History of the Foundation of Lyons.") St. Francis died on the 28th of that same month.