Front matter (continued 13)

Six days after, John, patriarch of Antioch, arrived at Ephesus with forty-one oriental bishops; who secretly favoring the person but not the errors of Nestorius, of which they deemed him innocent, had advanced but slowly on their journey to the place. Instead of associating with the council, they assembled by themselves, and presumed to excommunicate St. Cyril and his adherents. Both sides had recourse to the emperor for redress, by whose order, soon after, St. Cyril and Nestorius were both arrested and confined, but our saint the worst treated of the two. Nay, through his antagonist's greater interest at court, he was upon the point of being banished, when three legates from pope Celestine—Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, a priest—arrived at Ephesus, which gave a new turn to affairs in our saint's favor. The three new legates having considered what had been done under St. Cyril, the condemnation of Nestorius was confirmed, the saint's conduct approved, and the sentence pronounced against him declared null and invalid. Thus, matters being cleared up, he was enlarged with honor. The Orientals, indeed, continued their schism till 433, when they made their peace with St. Cyril, condemned Nestorius, and gave a clear and orthodox exposition of their faith. That heresiarch, being banished from his see, retired to his monastery in Antioch. John, though formerly his friend, yet finding him very perverse and obstinate in his heresy, and attempting to pervert others, entreated the emperor Theodosius to remove him. He was therefore banished to Oasis, in the deserts of Upper Egypt, on the borders of Libya, in 431, and died miserably and impenitent in his exile. His sect remains to this day very numerous in the East.[8] St. Cyril triumphed over this heresiarch by his meekness, intrepidity, and courage; thanking God for his sufferings, and professing himself ready to spill his blood with joy for the gospel.[9] He arrived at Alexandria on the 30th of October, 431, and spent the remainder of his days in maintaining the faith of the church in its purity, in promoting peace and union among the faithful, and the zealous labors of his pastoral charge, till his glorious death in 444, on the 28th of June, that is, the 3d of the Egyptian month Epiphi, as the Alexandrians, the Copts, and the Ethiopians unanimously affirm, who, by abridging his name, call him Kerlos, and give him the title of Doctor of the world. The Greeks keep the 18th of January in his honor; and have a second commemoration of him again on the 9th of June.[10] The Roman Martyrology mentions him on this day. Pope Celestine styles him, "The generous defender of the church and faith, the Catholic doctor, and an apostolical man."[11]

The extraordinary devotion of this holy doctor towards the holy sacrament appears from the zeal with which he frequently inculcates the glorious effects which it produces in the soul of him who worthily receives it, especially in healing all his spiritual disorders, strengthening him against temptations,{279} subduing the passions, giving life, and making us one with Christ by the most sacred union, not only in spirit, but also with his humanity. Hence this father says that by the holy communion we are made concorporeal with Christ.[12] The eminent dignity and privileges of the ever glorious Virgin Mary were likewise a favorite subject on which he often dwells. In his tenth homily,[13] after having often repeated her title of Mother of God, he thus salutes her: "Hail, O Mary, mother of God, rich treasure of the world,[14] inextinguishable lamp, crown of virginity, sceptre of the true doctrine, temple which cannot fall, the residence of him whom no place can contain, Mother and Virgin, by whom He is who cometh Blessed in the name of the Lord. Hail, Mary, who in your virgin womb contained Him who is immense and incomprehensible: You through whom the whole blessed Trinity is glorified and adored, through whom the precious cross is honored and venerated over the whole world, through whom heaven exults, the angels and archangels rejoice, the devils are banished, the tempter is disarmed, the creature that was fallen is restored to heaven, and comes to the knowledge of the truth, through whom holy baptism is instituted, through whom is given the oil of exultation, through whom churches are founded over the whole earth, through whom nations are brought to penance. And what need of more words? Through whom the only begotten Son of God has shone the light to those who sat in darkness and in the shade of death, &c.—What man can celebrate the most praiseworthy Mary according to her dignity?"

Footnotes: 1. Ep. 56, and 35 apud Lupum. 2. Synesius, ep. 153. 3. Vie d'Hypacie par l'abbe Goujet. Memoires de Litterature, t. 5. 4. It is very unjust in some moderns to charge him as conscious of so horrible a crime, which shocks human nature. Great persons are never to be condemned without proofs which amount to conviction. The silence of Orestes, and the historian Socrates, both his declared enemies, suffices to acquit him. 5. We have nothing further of the life of this father, until the year 428, when his zeal was first exerted in defence of the faith against Nestorianism: we shall introduce this period of his labors with some account of the author of this heresy. 6. Conc. t. 3, p. 343. Liberat. in Breviar. c. 4. 7. St. Leo, Ep. 72, c. 3. Conc. t. 3, p. 656, 980. 8. They have a liturgy under the name of Nestorius, and two others which they pretend to be still more ancient. See Renaudot, liturg. orient. t. 2, and Le Brun, liturg. t. 3. The former contains a clear profession of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. 9. Ep. ad Theopomp, t. 3. Conc. p. 771. 10. Smith on the present state of the Greek church, p. 13. Thomassin Tr. des Fetes, l. 1, ch. 7. 11. Conc. t. 3, p. 1077. 12. {Footnote not found in text.} L. 4, contra Nestor, t. 6, parte 1, p. 110. l. 7, de adoratione in spiritu et verit. t. 1, p. 231, c. 10, in Joan. t. 1, c. 13. 13. T. 5, parte 2, p. 380. Item Conc. t. 3, p. 583. 14. [Greek: Keimelion tes oikomenes]. The rich furniture of the world.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. CYRIL

OF ALEXANDRIA.

The old Latin translations of the works of this father were extremely faulty, before the edition of Paris, by John Aubert, in 1638, in six tomes, folio, bound in seven, which yet might be improved. Baluze and Lupus have published some letters of this holy doctor, which had escaped Aubert and Labbe. If elegance, choice of thoughts, and beauty of style be wanting in his writings, these defects are compensated by the justness and precision with which he expresses the great truths of religion, especially in clearing the terms concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence his controversial works are the most valuable part of his writings. His books against Nestorius, those against Julian, and that called The Treasure, are the most finished and important.

His treatise On Adoration in Spirit and Truth, with which he begins his commentary on the Bible, contains, in seventeen books, an exposition of several passages of the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, (though not in order,) in moral and allegorical interpretations.

In the thirteen books entitled Glaphyrs, i.e. profound or elegant, the longer passages of the same books are explained allegorically of Christ and his church.

In his commentaries on Isaiah, and the twelve lesser prophets, he gives both the literal and allegorical sense.

On the Gospel of St. John, we have ten books entire, and fragments of the seventh and eighth. In the old editions, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books, which were entirely wanting, were patched up by Clictou from the writings of other fathers: which, for want of reading the preface, have been quoted by some as St. Cyril's. In this great work, the {280} saint gives not only the literal and spiritual senses of the sacred text, but likewise refutes the reigning heresies of that age, especially those against the consubstantiality of the Son, as the Eunomians. He also answers all the objections of the Manichees. He is very clear in establishing in the holy sacrament of the altar the reality of Christ's body contained in it and the holy sacrifice, teaching that "the holy body of Christ gives life to us when received, and preserves us in it, being the very body of life itself, according to nature, and containing all the virtue of the Word united to it, and being endued with all his efficacy by whom all things receive life, and are preserved." (L. 4, in Joan. p. 324.) That we shall, by tasting it, "have life in us, being united together with his body as it is with the Word dwelling in it." (Ibid. p. 361.) That "as death had devoured all human nature, he who is life, being in us by his flesh, might overcome that tyrant." (Ibid. p. 272.) "Christ by his flesh, hides in us life and a seed of immortality, which destroys in us all corruption," (Ibid. p. 363,) and "heals our diseases, assuaging the law of the flesh raging in our members." (ibid. p. 365.) In the tenth look he is most diffusive and clear on this sacrament, extolling its miraculous institution, the most exalted of all God's mysteries, above our comprehension, and the wonderful manner by which we are united and made one with him; not by affection, but by natural participation; which he calls "a mixture, an incorporation, a blending together; for as wax melted and mingled with another piece of melted wax, makes one; so by partaking of his precious body and blood, he is united in us, and we in him," &c. (L. 10, in Joan. pp. 862, 863, item pp. 364, 365.) See the longer and clearer texts of this doctrine in this book itself, and in the controversial writers upon that subject. Also, in his works Against Nestorius, whom he confutes from the blessed eucharist, proving Christ's humanity to be the humanity of the divine Person. "This," says he, "I cannot but add in this place, namely, that when we preach the death of the only begotten Son of God, that is, of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, and confess his ascension into heaven, we celebrate the unbloody sacrifice in the church, and do by this means approach the mystical benedictions, and are sanctified, being made partakers of the sacred flesh and precious blood of Christ, the Saviour of us all. And we do not receive it as common flesh, ([Greek: me genoito],) God forbid; nor as the flesh of man who is sanctified and joined to the Word by a unity of dignity, or as having a divine habitation; but we receive it, as it is truly, the life-giving and proper flesh of the Word." (Ep. ad Nestorium, de Excommun. p. 72, t. 5, par. 2, and in Declaratione undecimi Anathematismi, t. 6, p. 156.) In this latter place he speaks of it also as a true sacrifice: "We perform in the churches the holy and life-giving and unbloody sacrifice, believing the body which is placed, and the precious blood to be made the very body and blood of the Word, which gives life to all things, &c. He proves that it is only to be offered in Catholic churches, in the only one house of Christ" (L. adv. Anthropomorph. t. 6, p. 380.) He heard that some imagined that the mystical benediction is lost if the eucharist is kept to another day; but says, "they are mad; for Christ is not altered, nor his body changed." (T. 6, p. 365, ep. ad Calosyrium.) In his fourth book on St. John, (t. 4, p. 358,) he as expressly confutes the Jewish doubt about the possibility of the holy sacrament, as if he had the modern Sacramentarians in view.

To refute the whole system of Arianism, he wrote the book which he called The Treasure, which he divided into thirty-five titles or sections. He answers in it all the objections of those heretics, and establishes from scripture the divinity of the Son of God; and from title thirty-three, that of the Holy Ghost.

His book On the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, consists of seven dialogues, and was composed at the request of Nemesm and Hermias. This work was also written to prove the consubstantiality of Christ, but is more obscure than the former. The holy doctor added two other Dialogues, the eighth and ninth, On the Incarnation, against the errors of Nestorius, then only known by report at Alexandria. He afterwards subjoined Scholia, to answer certain objections; likewise a short book On the Incarnation, in which he proves the holy Virgin to be, as she is called, the Mother of God; as Jesus Christ is at the same time both the Son of God, and the Son of man. By his skirmishes with the Arians he was prepared to oppose and crush the extravagances of Nestorius, broached at that time against the same adorable mystery of the Incarnation, of which God raised our holy doctor the champion in his church; for by his writings he both stifled the heresy of Nestorius in the cradle, and furnished posterity with arms against that of Eutyches, says Basil of Seleucia. (T. 4, Conc. p. 925.)

St. Cyril composed at Ephesus his three treatises On the Right Faith, against Nestorius. The first is addressed to the Emperor Theodosius. It contains an enumeration of the heresies against the Incarnation, namely, of Cerinthus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and Nestorius, with a refutation of each, especially the last. The second is inscribed to the princesses Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, the emperor's sisters, all virgins, consecrated to God. This contains the proofs of the Catholic faith against Nestorius. The third is a confutation of the heretics' objections against it.

His five books against Nestorius, are the neatest and best penned of his polemic writings. They contain a refutation of the blasphemous homilies of that heresiarch, who yet is never {281} named in them; by which circumstance they seem to have been written before his condemnation. St. Cyril sent to Nestorius twelve Anathematisms against his errors. This work was read in the council of Ephesus, and is entirely orthodox, yet some censured it as favoring Apollinarism, or as denying the distinction of two natures in Christ, the divine and human, after the Incarnation; and the Eutychians afterwards strained them in favor of their heresy. John, patriarch of Antioch, prepossessed against St. Cyril, pretended for some time to discover that error in them; and persuaded Andrew, bishop of Samosata, and the great Theodoret of Cyr, to write against them. St. Cyril gave in his clear Explication of them to the council of Ephesus, at its desire, extant, p. 145.

He also wrote, soon after that synod, two Apologies of the Anathematisms; one against Andrew of Samosata, and other Oriental prelates, who through mistake were offended at them; and the other, against Theodoret of Cyr. And lastly, An Apologetic for them to the emperor Theodosius, to remove some sinister suspicions which his enemies had endeavored to give that prince against his sentiments in that work.

The Anthropomorphite heretics felt likewise the effects of St. Cyril's zeal. These were certain ignorant monks of Egypt, who having been taught by the elders, in order to help their gross minds in the continual practice of the presence of God, to represent him to themselves under a corporeal human figure, by which they at length really believed him to be not a pure spirit, but corporeal, like a man; because man was created to his image. Theophilus immediately condemned, and the whole church exploded, this monstrous absurdity. St. Cyril wrote a letter to confute it to Calosyrius, bishop of Arsinoe, showing that man is framed according to the Divine image, not in his body, for God being the most pure Spirit, can have no sensible figure, but in being endued with reason, and capable of virtue. In the same letter he rejects a second error of other ignorant monks, who imagined that the blessed Eucharist lost its consecration if kept to the following day. He reprehends other anchorets, who, upon a pretence of continual prayer, did not work at certain hours of the day, making it a cloak of gluttony and laziness. The saint has left us another book against the Anthropomorphites, in which he proves that man is made to God's image, by bearing the resemblance of his sanctity, by grace and virtue. So he says the angels are likewise made to his likeness. He answers in this book twenty-seven dogmatical questions put to him by the same monks.

He wrote, in the years 437 and 438, two Dogmatical Letters (pp. 51 and 52) against certain propositions of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, the forerunner of Nestorius, though he had died in the communion of the church.

The book on the Trinity cannot be St. Cyril's; for it refutes the Monothelite heresy, not known before the year 620.

Julian the Apostate, while he was preparing for the Persian war, had, with the assistance of Maximus and his other impious philosophers, published three books against the holy gospels, which were very prejudicial to weak minds; though nothing was advanced in them that had not been said by Celsus, and fully answered by Origen in his books against that philosopher, and by Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparation. St. Cyril, out of zeal, composed ten books against Julian, which he dedicated to the emperor Theodosius; and also sent to John of Antioch to show the sincerity of his reconciliation. In this work he has preserved us Julian's words, omitting only his frequent repetitions and puerilities. Nor have we any thing else of that work of the Apostate, but what is preserved here by St. Cyril. He begins by warning the emperor against bad company, by which Julian fell into such extravagant impieties. In the first book he justifies Moses's history of the world, and proves with great erudition from profane history that its events are posterior, and the heathen sages and historians younger than that divine lawgiver, from whom they all borrowed many things. In the second, he compares the sacred history of the creation, which Julian had pretended to ridicule, with the puerilities and absurdities of Pythagoras, Thales, Plato, &c., of whom Julian was an admirer to a degree of folly. In the third, he vindicates the history of the Serpent, and of Adam's fall; and retorts the ridiculous Theogony of Hesiod, &c. In the fourth, he shows that God governs all things by himself, not by inferior deities, as Julian pretended, the absurdity of which he sets forth: demonstrating, likewise, that things are ruled by a wise free providence; not by destiny or necessity, which even Porphyry and the wiser heathens had justly exploded, though the Apostate adopted that monstrous doctrine. He justifies against his cavils the history of the Tower of Babel: and in his fifth book, the Ten Commandments; showing in the same, that God is not subject to jealousy, anger, or other passions, though he has an infinite horror of sin. Julian objected that we also adore God the Son, consequently have two gods. St. Cyril answers that he is the same God with the Father. In the sixth book he reports the shameful vices of Socrates, Plato, and their other heroes of paganism, in opposition to the true virtues of the prophets and saints. Julian reproached Christ that he did not appear great in the world, and only cured the pool, and delivered demoniacs in villages; he reprehended Christians for refusing to adore the noble ensign, the gift of Jupiter or Mars; yet, says he, you adore the wood of {282} the cross, make its sign on your forehead, and engrave it on the porches of your houses ([Greek: To toutu saurou proskuneite tzolon, eikonas autou skiagrafountes en to metopo, kai pro ton opennatos eggrafontes.] L. 6, adv. Jul. t. 6, p. 194.) To which St. Cyril answers, (p. 195:) We glory in this sign of the precious cross, since Christ triumphed on it; and it is to us the admonition of all virtue. This father says in another place, (in Isaiam, t. 4, p. 294:) "The faithful arm and intrench themselves with the sign of the cross, overthrowing and breaking by it the power, and every assault of the devils: for the cross is to us an impregnable rampart." In this sixth book he produces the open acknowledgment of Julian that the heathenish oracles had all ceased; but this he ascribed to old age and length of time. St. Cyril shows the extravagance of this supposition, and that the true reason was, because the power of the devil had been restrained by the coming of Christ. He mentions the same in his Commentary on Isaiah, (t. 2, p. 596.) In the seventh book, he proves that the great men in the true religion far surpassed in virtue all the heroes of paganism. In the eighth and ninth, that Christ was foretold by the ancient prophets, and that the Old and New Law are in substance the same. In the tenth he proves, that not only St. John, but all the Evangelists, teach Christ to be truly God. Julian objects, (pp. 333, 335, 339, and 350,) that we also adore the martyrs and their sepulchres: "Why do you prostrate yourselves at the sepulchres?—which it is to be believed your Apostles did after the death of their Master, and taught you this art magic," (p. 339.) The saint answers, We make an infinite difference between God and the martyrs: which he had before told him, (l. 6, pp. 201 and 203,) where he writes, "We neither call the martyrs gods, nor adore them with divine worship; but with affection and honor reverence them: we pay them the highest honors, because they contemned their life for the truth," &c.

We have in the second part of the fifth tome several Homilies and Letters of this saint. It was ordained by the council of Nice that the bishop of Alexandria, in which city chiefly flourished the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, should at the end of every year examine carefully on what day the next Easter was to be kept. They, by custom, acquainted by a circular letter other bishops near them, and in particular the bishop of Rome, that he might notify it to all the prelates of the West. St. Cyril was very exact in this duty. Possevin says he saw his paschal discourses in the Vatican library, for every year of hie episcopacy, namely thirty-one, from the year 414. We have but twenty-nine printed: those for 443 and 444 being wanting. He spoke them to his own flock, as well as sent them to other bishops; and marks in each the beginning of Lent, the Monday and Saturday in Holy Week, and Easter-day, counting Lent exactly of forty days. In these paschal homilies he exceedingly recommends the advantages of fasting; which he shows (Hom. 1.) to be the "source of all virtues, the image of an angelical life, the extinction of lust, and the preparation of a soul to heavenly communications." He says, "If it seems at first bitter and laborious, its fruits and reward infinitely compensate the pains; for more should seem nothing for the purchase of virtue: even in temporal things, nothing valuable can be obtained without labor and cost. If we are afraid of fasting here, we shall fall into eternal flames hereafter; an evil infinitely worse, and quite intolerable." In the following homilies he extols the absolute necessity of this mortification, to crucify in us the old man, and punish past irregularities; but shows it must be accompanied with alms and other good works. In his latter paschal discourses, and others extant, he explains the mystery of the Incarnation against Nestorianism and other heresies. The ninth homily is On the Mystical Supper, or Holy Banquet of the Communion and Sacrifice, in which "the tremendous mystery is performed, and the Lamb of God sacrificed, (p. 271;) in which (p. 272) the Eternal Wisdom distributes his body as bread, and his saving blood as wine: the Maker gives himself to the work of his own hands. Life bestows itself to be eat and drunk by men," &c. At this divine table he cries out, (p. 376,) "I am filled with dread when I behold it. I am transported cut of myself with astonishment when I consider it," &c. He proves, against Nestorianism, (p. 318,) that there is but one Person in Christ, because in this holy sacrament is received his true body and blood: not the Divinity alone, which nobody could receive, nor a pure man's body, which could not give life; but a man made the Word of God—who is Christ, the Son of the living God, one of the adorable Trinity. He remains the priest and the victim: he who offers, and he who is offered. ([Greek: Oti autos menei hiereus kai lusia, autos ho prosferon kai ho prosferomenos.] p. 378.) In the tenth homily he pronounces an encomium of the blessed Mary, mother of God. This was delivered at Ephesus, in an assembly of bishops, during the council; for he apostrophizes that city, and St. John the Evangelist, its protector. In it he calls the pope "the most holy Celestine, the father and archbishop of the whole world, and the patriarch of the great city Rome." (Ib. Encom. in St. Mariam. part 2, p. 384.) He more clearly extols the supreme prerogative of the church of Rome, founded on the faith of Peter; which church is perpetual, impregnable to hell, and confirmed beyond the danger of falling. (Dial. 4, de Trinit. pp. 507, 508.) His eleventh homily is On the Presentation, or, as the Greeks call it, [Greek: apantesis]. The meeting of the Lord in the Temple, and The Purification of our Lady, in which he speaks of the lamp or candles used on that festival. He has a pathetic Sermon on the Pains of {283} Hell: he paints the terrors of the last Judgment in a manner which cannot fail to make a strong impression upon all who read it. (Or. de Exitu animi, et de secundo Adventu.)

The epistles which we have from his pen all relate to the public affairs of the church, and principally those of Nestorius. His second letter to that heresiarch, and his letter to the Orientals, were adopted by the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and are a rule of the Catholic faith. His sixteenth letter is placed among the canons of the Greek church. In it be recommends to the bishops of Libya and Pentapolis, the strictest scrutiny of the capacity and manners of those who are admitted to holy Orders; and the greatest solicitude and watchfulness that no one die without baptism, if only a catechumen, and the Holy Eucharist or Viaticum. See Beveridge.

SS. THYRSUS, LEUCIUS, AND CALLINICUS, MM.

THEIR Greek and Latin Acts agree that, after suffering many torments, they were put to death, on three different days, at Apollonia, in Phrygia, in the persecution of Decius. Sozomen tells us that Caesarius, who had been prefect and consul, built at Constantinople a magnificent church under the invocation of St. Thyrsus, with a portion of whose relics it was enriched. Another church within the city bore his name, as appears from the Menaea, on the 14th of December. In the cathedral of our Lady at Sisteron, in a church at Limoges, &c., St. Thymus is one of the patrons. Many churches in Spain bear his name. Silon, King of Oviedo and Asturia, in a letter to Cyxilas, archbishop of Toledo in 777, says that the queen had sent presents to the church of St. Thyrsus, which the archbishop had built, viz. a silver chalice and paten, a basin to wash the hands in, with a pipe and a diadem on the cover, to be used when the blood of our Lord was distributed to the people.

Footnotes: 1. Cum suo naso. Du Cange, not understanding this word, substitutes vaso. But nasus here signifies a silver pipe or quill to suck up the blood of Christ at the communion, such as the pope sometimes uses. Such a one is kept at St. Denys's, near Paris. The ancient Ordo Romanus calls that pugillar which is here called nasus, because it sucks up as a nose draws up air. In the reign of Philip II., in 1595, in certain ruins near the cathedral of Toledo, this cover of the chalice was discovered with the diadem. Chatelain, p. 440.

ST. JOHN OF REOMAY, A.

NOW CALLED MOUTIER-SAINT-JEAN, IN BURGUNDY

HE was a native of the diocese of Langres, and took the monastic habit at Lerins. He was called into his own country by the bishop of Langres to found the abbey from which he received his surname. He settled it under the rule of St. Macarius, governed it many years with great reputation of sanctity, and was rendered famous by miracles. He went to God about the year 540, being almost one hundred and twenty years old, and was one of the holy institutors of the monastic state in France. St. Gregory of Tours gives an account of him in the eighty-seventh chapter of his book, On the Glory of Confessors. His life was also compiled by Jonas, the disciple of Columban, extant in Bollandus. See P. Rover, Hist. Monast. S. Joan. Reom. Paris, 1637.

{284}

B. MARGARET, PRINCESS OF HUNGARY, V.

SHE was daughter to Bala IV., the pious king of Hungary. Her parents consecrated her to God by a vow before her birth, and when but three years and a half old she was placed in the monastery of Dominican nuns at Vesprin, and at ten removed to a new nunnery of that order, founded by her father in an isle of the Danube, near Buda, called from her the isle of St. Margaret. She was professed at twelve.[1] In her tender age she outstripped the most advanced in devotion, and was favored with extraordinary communications from heaven. It was her delight to serve everybody, and to practise every kind of humiliation: she never spoke of herself, as if she was beneath all notice: never loved to see her royal parents, or to speak of them, saying it was her misfortune that she was not of poor parentage. Her mortifications were excessive. She endeavored to conceal her sicknesses for fear of being dispensed with or shown any indulgence in the rule. From her infancy she conceived the most ardent devotion towards her crucified Redeemer, and kissed very often, both by day and night, a little cross made of the wood of our Saviour's cross, which she always carried about her. She commonly chose to pray before the altar of the cross. Her affection for the name of Jesus made her have it very frequently in her mouth, which she repeated with incredible inward feeling and sweetness. Her devotion to Christ in the blessed sacrament was most remarkable: she often wept abundantly, or appeared in ecstasies during the mass, and much more when she herself received the divine spouse of her soul: on the eve she took nothing but bread and water, and watched the night in prayer. On the day itself she remained in prayer and fasting till evening, and then took a small refection. She showed a sensible joy in her countenance when she heard any festival of our Lady announced, through devotion to the mother of God; she performed on them, and during the octaves, one thousand salutations each day, prostrating herself on the ground at each, besides saying the office of our blessed Lady every day. If any one seemed offended at her, she fell at their feet and begged their pardon. She was always the first in obedience, and was afraid to be excepted if others were enjoined penance for a breach of silence or any other fault. Her bed was a coarse skin, laid on the bare floor, with a stone for her pillow. She was favored with the gift of miracles and prophecy. She gave up her pure soul to God, after a short illness, on the 18th of January, in the year 1271, and of her age the twenty-eighth. Her body is preserved at Presbourg. See her life by Guerinus, a Dominican, by order of his general, in 1340: and an abridgment of the same by Ranzano. She was never canonized, but is honored with an office in all the churches in Hungary, especially those of the Dominicans in that kingdom, by virtue of a decree of Pope Pius II, as Touron assures us.[2]

Footnotes: 1. Touron, Vies des Hommes Illustres de l'Ordre de St. Dominique, in Humbert des Romains, fifth general of the Dominicans, t. 1, p. 325. 2. Touron, ib. in Innocent V. t. 1, p. 384.

ST. PAULINUS, PATRIARCH OF AQUILEIA, C.

ONE of the most illustrious and most holy prelates of the eighth and ninth centuries was Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who seems to have been born {285} about the year 728, in a country farm, not far from Friuli. His family could boast of no advantages of fortune, and his parents having no other revenue than what arose from the tillage of their farm, he spent part of his youth in agriculture. Yet he found leisure for his studios, and in process of time became so eminent a grammarian and professor, that Charlemagne honored him with a rescript, in which he styles him Master of Grammar, and Very Venerable. This epithet seems to imply that he was then priest. The same prince, in recompense of his extraordinary merit, bestowed on him an estate in his own country. It seems to have been about the year 776, that Paulinus was promoted, against his will, to the patriarchate of Aquileia, which dignity had not then been long annexed to that see, after the extinction of the schism of Istria. From the zeal, abilities, and piety of St. Paulinus, this church derived its greatest lustre. Such was his reputation, that Charlemagne always expressed a particular desire that he should be present at all the great councils which were assembled in his time, though in the remotest part of his dominions. He assisted at those of Aix-la-Chapelle in 789, of Ratisbon in 792, and of Frankfort in 794; and held himself one at Friuli, in 791, or 796, against the errors which some had begun to spread in that age concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, and the mystery of the Incarnation.

Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia, in a letter to Elipandus, bishop of Toledo, who had consulted him on that subject, before the year 783, pretended to prove that Christ as man is not the natural, but only the adoptive Son of God: which error he had already advanced in his public discourses.[1] The rising error was vigorously opposed by Beatus, a priest and abbot, and his disciple Etherius, who was afterwards bishop of Osma. Soon after it was condemned by a council at Narbonne, in 788,[2] and by another at Ratisbon, in 792, while Charlemagne kept his court in that city. Felix revoked his error first in this council at Ratisbon, and afterwards before pope Leo III. at Rome.[3] Yet after his return into Spain he continued both by letters and discourses to spread his heresy; which was therefore again condemned in the great council of Frankfort, in 794, in which a work of our saint, entitled Sacro-Syllabus, against the same, was approved, and ordered to be sent into Spain, to serve for all antidote against the spreading poison.[4] From this book of St. Paulinus it is clear that Elipandus also returned to the vomit. Alcuin returning from England, where he had stayed three years, in 793, wrote a tender moving letter to Felix, exhorting him sincerely to renounce his error. But the unhappy man, in a long answer, endeavored to establish his heresy so roundly as to fall into downright Nestorianism, which indeed is a consequence of his erroneous principle. For Christ as man cannot be called the adoptive Son of God, unless his human nature subsist by a distinct person from the divine.[5] By an order of Charlemagne, Alcuin and St. Paulinus solidly confuted the writings of these two heresiarchs, the former in seven, our saint in three books. Alcuin wrote four other books against the pestilential writings of Elipandus, in which he testifies that Felix was then at Rome, and converted to the Catholic faith. Elipandus, who was not a subject of Charlemagne, could not be compelled to appear before the councils held in his dominions, Toledo being at that time subject to the Moors. Felix, after his relapse, returned to the faith with his principal followers in the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 797.[6] From that time he concealed his heresy, but continued in secret to defend it, and at his {286} death, in 815, left a written profession of his heresy.[7] Elipandus died in 809.[8]

The zeal of St. Paulinus was not less successful in the conversion of infidels than in the extinction of this heresy. Burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, and a vehement desire of laying down his life for Christ, he preached the gospel to the idolaters, who had remained to that time obstinately attached to their superstition among the Carantani in Carinthia and Stiria; in which provinces also St. Severinus the abbot, who died in 481, and afterwards St. Virgilius, bishop of Saltzburg, who died in 785, planted several numerous churches. Whence a contest arising between Arno, St. Virgilius's successor, and Ursus, the successor of Paulinus, to which see Carinthia ought to be annexed, it was settled in 811, that the churches which are situated on the south of the Drave should be subject of the patriarchate of Aquileia, and those on the north to the archbishopric of Saltzburg.[9] The Avares, a barbarous nation of Huns, who were settled in part of Pannonia, and were twice subdued by Charlemagne, received the faith by the preaching of St. Paulinus, and of certain missionaries sent by the archbishops of Saltzburg.[10] Henry, a virtuous nobleman, being appointed by Charlemagne Duke of Friuli, and governor of that country which he had lately conquered, St. Paulinus wrote for his use an excellent book Of Exhortation, in which he strongly invites him to aspire with his whole heart after Christian perfection, and lays down the most important rules on the practice of compunction and penance: on the remedies against different vices, especially pride, without which he shows that no sin ever was, or will be committed, this being the beginning, end, and cause of all sin:[11] on an earnest desire and study to please God with all our strength in all our actions:[12] on assiduous prayer and its essential dispositions: on the holy communion, of the preparation to which after sin he shows confession and penance to be an essential part:[13] on shunning bad company, &c. He closes the book with a most useful prayer; and in the beginning promises his prayers for the salvation of the good duke. By tears and prayers he ceased not to draw down the blessings of the divine mercy on the souls committed to his charge. Alcuin earnestly besought him as often as bathed in tears he offered the spotless victim to the divine Majesty, to implore the divine mercy in his behalf.[14] In 802, St. Paulinus assembled a council at Altino, a city near the Adriatic sea, which had been destroyed by Attila, and was at that time only a shadow of what it had been, though famous for a monastery, in which this synod was probably held.[15] It is long since entirely decayed. St. Paulinus closed a holy life by a happy death on the 11th of January, in 804, as Madrisius proves.[16] His festival occurs on this day in the old missal of Aquileia, and in several German Martyrologies: but it is at present kept at Aquileia, Friuli, and in some other places, on the 28th of January.[17] See the life of St. Paulinus of Aquileia, compiled by Nicoletti, {287} with the notes of Madrisius; and far more accurately by Madrisius himself an Oratorian of U{}na, who in 1737 published at Venice the works of this father in folio, illustrated with long notes and dissertations on every circumstance relating to the history or writings of our saint. See also Ceillier t. 18, p. 262, and Bollandus ad 11 Januarii.

Footnotes: 1. See Madrisius, Dissert. 4, p. 214. 2. On this council see Baluse, additam. ad. e. 25, l. 6, Petri de Marca, de Concord. Sacerd. et. Imp. 3. Leo III. in Conc. Rom. 799. Act. 2, et Eginard in Annal. &c. 4. See Madrisius, dissert. 4, p. 219. 5. See Natal. Alex. Saec. 8. diss. 5. 6. Alcuin, l. 1, contra Elipand. 7. Agobard, l. 1, adv. Felicem. n. 1 & 5. 8. From certain false chronicles, Iamayo and Ceillier (in St. Beatus. t. 18, p. 364,) relate that Ellpandus revoked his error in a council which he held at Toledo, and died penitent. Madrisius shows this circumstance to be uncertain, (Diss. 4, in op. S. Paulini, p. 225,) and Nicolas Antony of Seville, in his Bibl. Hisp. l. 6, c. 2, n. 42, has proved the monuments upon which it is founded to be of no authority. Claudius, bishop of Turin, a disciple of Felix of Urgel, renewed this heresy in Italy, and denied the veneration due to holy images, and was refuted by Jonas, bishop of Orleans, and others. 9. Sconleben, Annal. Austr. and Madrisius, Vit. S. Paulini, c. 8. 10. Alcuin. ep. 112. F. Inchofer, in Annal. Hungar. Eccl. ad an. 795. Madrisius, in Vit. St. Paulini, c. 8, p. 31. 11. St. Paulin. l, Exhort. ad Henr. ducem. c. 19, p. 29. 12. C. 24, p. 34. 13. C. 33, p. 29. See 1 Corinth. xi. 28, St. Cypr. ep. 9, 10, 11, and Tract. de Lapsis. 14. Alcuin, ep. 113, and Poem. 214. 15. See Madrisius, Dissert. 6. 16. Mardis. in Vita St. Paulini, c. 13, p. 37. 17. Besides the polemical and spiritual works of St. Paulinus of Aquileia, mentioned above, we have several poems of his composition: the first contains a rule of faith against the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians: the rest are hymns or rhythms on the Chair of St. Peter, and on several other festivals and saints. Among his letters the second is most remarkable, in which he complains severely to Charlemagne that several bishops attending the court neglected to reside in their dioceses. Against this abuse he quotes the council of Sardica, which forbade any bishop to be absent from his see above three weeks. Madrisius, p. 188.

B. CHARLEMAGNE, EMPEROR.

CHARLEMAGNE, or Charles the Great, son of king Pepin, was born in 742, and crowned king of France in 768; but his youngest brother Carloman reigned in Austrasia till his death, in 771. Charlemagne vanquished Hunauld, duke of Aquitaine, and conquered the French Gothia or Languedoc; subdued Lombardy; conferred on pope Adrian the exarchate of Ravenna, the duchy of Spoletto, and many other dominions; took Pavia, (which had been honored with the residence of twenty kings,) and was crowned king of Lombardy in 774. The emir Abderamene in Spain, having shaken off the yoke of the caliph of the Saracens, in 736, and established his kingdom at Cordova, and other emirs in Spain setting up independency, Charlemagne, in 778, marched as far as the Ebro and Saragossa, conquered Barcelona, Gironne, and many other places, and returned triumphant. His cousin Roland, who followed him with the rear of his army, in his return was set upon in the Pyrenean mountains by a troop of Gascon robbers, and slain; and is the famous hero of numberless old French romances and songs. The Saxons having in the king's absence plundered his dominions upon the Rhine, he flew to the Weser, and compelled them to make satisfaction. Thence he went to Rome, and had his infant sons crowned kings, Pepin of Lombardy, and Lewis of Aquitaine. The great revolt of the Saxons, in 782, called him again on that side. When they were vanquished, and sued for pardon, he declared he would no more take their oaths which they had so often broken, unless they became Christians. Witikind embraced the condition, was baptized with his chief followers in 785, and being created duke of part of Saxony, remained ever after faithful in his religion and allegiance. From him are descended, either directly or by intermarriages, many dukes of Bavaria, and the, present houses of Saxony, Brandenburg, &c., as may be seen in the German genealogists. Some other Saxons afterwards revolted, and were vanquished and punished in 794, 798, &c., so that, through their repeated treachery and rebellions, this Saxon war continued at intervals for the space of thirty-three years. Thassillon, duke of Bavaria, for treasonable practices, was attacked by Charlemagne in 788, vanquished, and obliged to put on a monk's cowl to save his life: from which time Bavaria was annexed to Charlemagne's dominions. To punish the Abares for their inroads, he crossed the Inns into their territories, sacked Vienna, and marched to the mouth of the Raab, upon the Danube. In 794, he assisted at the great council of Frankfort, held in his royal palace there. He restored Leo III. at Rome, quelled the seditions there, and was crowned by him on Christmas-day, in 800, emperor of Rome and of the West: in which quality he was afterwards solemnly acknowledged by Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople. Thus was the western empire restored, which had been extinct in Momylus Agustulus in the fifth century. In 805, Charlemagne quelled and conquered the Sclavonians. The Danube, {288} the Teisse, and the Oder on the East, and the Ebro and the ocean on the West, were the boundaries of his vast dominions. France, Germany, Dacia, Dalmatia, Istria, Italy, and part of Pannonia and Spain, obeyed his laws. It was then customary for kings not to reside in great cities, but to pass the summer often in progresses or campaigns, and the winter at some country palace. King Pepin resided at Herstal, now Jopin, in the territory of Liege, and sometimes at Quiercy on the Oise: Charlemagne often at Frankfort or Aix-la-Chapelle, which were country seats; for those towns were then inconsiderable places: though the latter had been founded by Serenas Granus in 124, under Adrian. It owes its greatness to the church built there by Charlemagne.

This prince was not less worthy of our admiration in the quality of a legislator than in that of a conqueror; and in the midst of his marches and victories, he gave the utmost attention to the wise government of his dominions, and to every thing that could promote the happiness of his people, the exaltation of the church, and the advancement of piety and every branch of sacred and useful learning.[1] What pains he took for the reformation of monasteries, and for the sake of uniformity introducing in them the rule of St. Bennet, appears from his transactions, and several ecclesiastical assemblies in 789. His zeal for the devout observance of the rites of the church is expressed in his book to Alcuin on that subject, and in his encyclical epistle on the rites of baptism,[2] and in various works which he commissioned Alcuin and others to compile. For the reformation of manners, especially of the clergy, he procured many synods to be held, in which decrees were framed, which are called his Capitula.[3] His Capitulars, divided into many chapters, are of the same nature. The best edition of these Capitulars is given by Baluzius, with dissertations, in 1677, two vols. folio. The Carolin Books are a theological work, (adopted by this prince, who speaks in the first person,) compiled in four books, against a falsified copy of the second council of Nice, sent by certain Iconoclasts from Constantinople, on which see F. Daniel[4] and Ceillier.[5]

There never was a truly great man, who was not a lover and encourager of learning, as of the highest improvement of the human mind. Charlemagne, by most munificent largesses, invited learned men over from foreign parts, as Alcuin, Peter of Pisa, Paul the deacon, &c., found no greater pleasure than in conversing with them, instituted an academy in his own palace, and great schools at Paris, Tours, &c., assisted at literary disputations, was an excellent historian, and had St. Austin's book, On the City of God, laid every night under his pillow to read if he awaked. Yet Eginhard assures us that whatever pains he took, he could never learn to write, because he was old when he first applied himself to it. He was skilled in astronomy, arithmetic, music, and every branch of the mathematics; understood the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, also the Sclavonian, and several other living languages, so as never to want an interpreter to converse with ambassadors of neighboring nations. He meditated assiduously on the scriptures, assisted at the divine office, even that of midnight, if possible; had good books read to him at table, and took but one meal a day, which he was obliged to anticipate before the hour of evening on fasting days, that all his officers and servants might dine before midnight. He was very abstemious, had a paternal care of the poor in all his dominions, and honored good men, especially among the clergy. Charlemagne died January the 28th, in 814, seventy-two years old, and was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle. The incontinence into {289} which he fell in his youth, he expiated by sincere repentance, so that several churches in Germany and France honor him among the saints. In the university of Paris, the most constant nation of the Germans, (which was originally called the English nation, in 1250, when the distinction of nations n the faculty of arts was there established,) take Charlemagne for their patron, but only keep his festival since the year 1480, which is now common to the other three nations of French, Picards, and Normans, since 1661.[6]

Footnotes: 1. See Hardion, Hist. Universelle, t. 10. 2. Apud Mabill. Analect. t. 1, p. 21. 3. Conc. t. 6 & 7, ed. Labbe. 4. Hist. de France in Charlem. French edit. in fol. 5. Ceillier, pp. 376 & 400. 6. Pagi (in Breviario Rom. Pontif. t. 3, in Alex. III. p. 82) proves that suffrages for the soul of Charlemagne were continued at Aix-la-Chapelle, till the antipope Pascal, at the desire of Frederic Barbarossa, enshrined his remains in that city, and published a decree for his canonization. From the time of this enshrining of his remains, he is honored among the saints in many churches in Germany and the Low Countries, as Goujet (De Festis propriis Sanctor. l. 1, c. 5, quaest. 9) and Bollandus (ad 28 Jan. and t. 2, Febr. Schemate 19) show. The tacit approbation of the popes is to be looked upon as equivalent to a beatification, as Benedict XIV. proves (De Canoniz. l. 1, c. 9, n. 5, p. 72.) Molanus, (in Natal. SS. Belg.,) Natalis Alexander. (Hist. Saec. 9 and 10., cap. 7, a. 1,) and many others, have made the same observation.

ST. GLASTIAN, B.C. IN SCOTLAND.

HE was a native of the county of Fife, and discharged in the same, during many years, the duties of the episcopal character with which he was honored. Amidst the desolation which was spread over the whole country, in the last bloody civil war between the Scots and Picts, in which the latter were entirely subdued, St. Glastian was the comforter, spiritual father, and most charitable protector of many thousands of both nations. He died in 830, at Kinglace in Fifeshire, and was particularly honored in that country, and in Kyntire. According to the ancient custom of that country, his name is frequently written Mac-Glastian, the word Mac signifying son. See the Breviary of Aberdeen; King in his Calendar, &c.

JANUARY XXIX.

SAINT FRANCIS OF SALES,

BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.

From his writings and authentic lives, chiefly that written by his nephew, Charles Augustus de Sales: also that by F. Goulu, general of the Feuillans: that by Henry de Maupas du Tour, bishop of Puy, afterwards of Evreux: and that by Madame de Bussi-Rabutin, nun of the Visitation See his life, collected by M. Marsoillier, and done into English by the late Mr. Crathorne. See also the bull of his canonization, and an excellent collection of his maxims and private actions, compiled by his intimate friend and real admirer, M. Peter Caums, bishop of Bellay, in his book, entitled, L'Espirit de St. Francois de Sales, and in his scarce and incomparable work under the title. Quel est le meilleur Gouvernement, le rigoureux ou le dour, printed at Paris without the name of the author, 1636. Though I find not this book in any catalogue of bishop Camus's works, the conformity of style, and in several places the repetition of the same expressions which occur in the last-mentioned work, seem to prove this to be also the production of his pen. See also the excellent new edition of the letters of St. Francis of Sales, in six volumes, 12mo. 1758.

A.D. 1622.

THE parents of this saint were Francis, count of Sales, and Frances of Sionas. The countess being with child, offered her fruit to God with the most fervent prayers, begging he would preserve it from the corruption of the world, and rather deprive her of the comfort of seeing herself a mother, than suffer her to give birth to a child who should ever become his enemy by sin. The saint was born at Sales, three leagues from Annecy, the seat of that noble family; and his mother was delivered of him when she was {290} but seven months advanced in her pregnancy.[1] Hence he was reared with difficulty, and was so weak, that his life, during his infancy, was often despaired of by physicians. However, he escaped the danger, and grew robust: he was very beautiful, and the sweetness of his countenance won the affections of all who saw him: but the meekness of his temper, the pregnancy of his wit, his modesty, tractableness, and obedience, were far more valuable qualifications. The countess could scarce suffer the child out of her sight, lest any tincture of vice might infect his soul. Her first care was to inspire him with the most profound respect for the church, and all holy things; and she had the comfort to observe in him a recollection and devotion at his prayers far above his age. She read to him the lives of the saints, adding recollections suited to his capacity; and she took care to have him with her when she visited the poor, making him the distributer of her alms, and to do such little offices for them as he was able. He would set by his own meat for their relief, and when he had nothing left to bestow on them, would beg for them of all his relations. His horror of a lie, even in his infancy, made him prefer any disgrace or chastisement to the telling of the least wilful untruth.

His mother's inclination for a domestic preceptor, to prevent his being corrupted by wicked youth in colleges, was overruled by her husband's persuasion of the usefulness of emulation for advancing children in their studies; hoping his son's virtue and modesty would, under God, be a sufficient guard of his innocency. He was accordingly sent to Rocheville, at six years of age, and some time after to Annecy. An excellent memory, a solid judgment, and a good application, could not fail of great progress. The young count spent as much of his time as possible in private studies and lectures of piety, especially that of the lives of saints; and by his diligence always doubled or trebled his school tasks. He showed an early inclination for the ecclesiastical state, and obtained his father's consent, though not without some reluctance, for his receiving tonsure in the year 1578, and the eleventh of his age. He was sent afterwards, under the care of a virtuous priest, his preceptor, to pursue his studies in Paris; his mother having first instilled into him steady principles of virtue, a love of prayer, and a dread of sin and its occasions. She often repeated to him those words of queen Blanche to her son St. Louis, king of France: "I had rather see you dead, than hear you had committed one mortal sin." On his arrival at Paris, he entered the Jesuits' schools, and went through his rhetoric and philosophy with great applause. In pure obedience to his father's orders, he learned in the academy to ride, dance, and fence, whence he acquired that easy behavior which he retained ever after. But these exercises, as matters of amusement, did not hinder his close application to the study of the Greek and Hebrew languages, and of positive divinity, for six years, under the famous Genebrard and Maldonatus. But his principal concern all this time was a regular course of piety, by which he labored to sanctify himself and all his actions. Pious meditation, and the study of the holy scripture, were his beloved entertainments: and he never failed to carry about him that excellent book, called the Spiritual Combat. He sought the conversation of the virtuous, particularly of F. Angelus Joyeuse, who, from a duke and marshal of France, was become a Capuchin friar. The frequent discourses of this good man on the necessity of mortification, induced the count to add, to his usual austerities, the wearing of a hair shirt three days in the week. His chief resort during his stay at Paris, was to some churches, that especially of Saint Stephen des Grez, as being one of the most retired. Here, he made {291} a vow of perpetual chastity, putting himself under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin. God, to purify his heart, permitted a thick darkness insensibly to overspread his mind, and a spiritual dryness and melancholy to overwhelm him. He seemed, from a perfect tranquillity and peace of mind, to be almost brought to the brink of despair. Seized with the greatest terrors, he passed nights and days in tears and lamentations, and suffered more than can be conceived by those who have not felt the severity of such interior conflicts. The bitterness of his grief threw him into a deep jaundice; he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep. His preceptor labored, but all in vain, to discover the cause of this disorder, and find out a remedy. At last, Francis, being at prayer in the same church of St. Stephen, cast his eyes on a picture of our Lady: this awaking his confidence in her intercession, he prostrated himself on the ground, and, as unworthy to address the Father of all consolation, begged that she would be his advocate, and procure him the grace to love God with his whole heart. That very moment he found himself eased of his grief as of a heavy weight taken off his heart, and his former peace and tranquillity restored, which he ever after enjoyed. He was now eighteen years old, when his father recalled him from Paris, and sent him to Padua, to study the law, where his master was the celebrated Guy Pancirola; this was in the year 1554. He chose the learned and pious Jesuit, Antony Possevin, for his spiritual director; who at the same time explained to him St. Thomas's Sum, and they read together Bellarmin's controversies. His nephew, Augustus, gives us his written rule of life, which he made at Padua: it chiefly shows his perpetual attention to the presence of God, his care to offer up every action to him, and implore his aid at the beginning of each. Falling sick, he was despaired of by the physicians, and he himself expected with joy his last moment. His preceptor, Deage, who had ever attended him, asked him with tears, what he had to order about his funeral and other matters. "Nothing," answered he, cheerfully, "unless it be, that my body be given to the anatomy theatre to be dissected; for it will be a comfort to me if I can be of any advantage when dead, having been of none while alive. Thus I may also prevent some of the disorders and quarrels which happen between the young physicians and the friends of the dead, whose bodies they often dig up." However, he recovered; and by his father's orders, being twenty years of age, commenced doctor in laws, with great applause and pomp, in presence of forty-eight doctors. After which he travelled through Italy to see the antiquities, and visit the holy places there. He went to Rome by Ferrara, and returned by Loretto and Venice. To any insult offered him on the road he returned only meekness; for which he met with remarkable blessings from heaven. The sight of the pompous remains of ancient Rome gave him a feeling contempt of worldly grandeur: but the tombs of the martyrs drew everywhere tears of devotion from his eyes. Upon his return his father received him with great joy, at his castle of Tuille, where he had prepared for him a good library of books.

All persons were charmed with the young count, but none so much as the great Antony Favre, afterwards first president of the parliament of Chamberry, and Claudius Cranier, the learned and truly apostolic bishop of Geneva, who already consulted him as an oracle. His father had a very good match in view for him, and obtained in his behalf, from the duke of Savoy, patents creating him counsellor of the parliament of Chamberry. Francis modestly, but very firmly, refused both; yet durst not propose to his parents his design of receiving holy orders; for the tonsure was not all absolute renouncing of the world. At last, he discovered it to his pious preceptor, Deage, and begged of him to mention it to his father: but this he {292} declined, and used his utmost endeavors to dissuade the young count from such a resolution, as he was the eldest son, and destined by the order of nature for another state. Francis answered all his reasonings, but could not prevail on him to charge himself with the commission. He had then recourse to a cousin, Lewis of Sales, a priest and canon of Geneva, who obtained the consent of his parents, but not without the greatest difficulty. His cousin also obtained for him from the pope, without his knowledge, the provostship of the church of Geneva, then vacant: but the young clergyman held out a long time before he would accept of it. At last he yielded, and took possession of that dignity, and was in a short time after promoted to holy orders by his diocesan, who, as soon as he was deacon, employed him in preaching. His first sermons gained him an extraordinary reputation, and were accompanied with incredible success. He delivered the word of God with a mixture of majesty and modesty; had a strong, sweet voice, and an animated manner of gesture, far from any affectation or vanity: but what chiefly affected the hearts of his hearers was the humility and unction with which he spoke from the abundance of his own heart. Before he preached, he always renewed the fervor of his heart before God, by secret sighs and prayer. He studied as much at the foot of the crucifix as in books, being persuaded that the essential quality of a preacher is to be a man of prayer. He received the holy order of priesthood with extraordinary preparation and devotion, and seemed filled by it with an apostolic spirit. He every day began his functions by celebrating the holy mysteries early in the morning, in which, by his eyes and countenance of fire, the inward flames of his soul appeared. He then heard the confessions of all sorts of people, and preached. He was observed to decline with the utmost care whatever might gain him the applause of men, seeking only to please God, and to advance his glory. He chiefly resorted to cottages, and country villages, instructing an infinity of poor people. His piety, his charity to the poor, his disinterestedness, his care of the sick and those in prison, endeared him to all: but nothing was so moving as his meekness, which no provocation was ever capable of disturbing. He conversed among all as their father, with a fellow-feeling of all their wants, being all to all. He was indeed naturally of a hasty and passionate temper, as he himself confesses; and we find in his writings a certain fire and impetuosity which renders it unquestionable. On this account from his youth he made meekness his favorite virtue, and by studying in the school of a God who was meek and humble of heart, he learned that important lesson to such perfection, as to convert his predominant passion into his characteristical virtue. The Calvinists ascribed principally to his meekness the wonderful conversions he made among them. They were certainly the most obstinate of people at that time, near Geneva; yet St. Francis converted no less than seventy-two thousand of them.

Before the end of this first year of his ministry, in 1591, he erected at Annecy a confraternity of the Holy Cross, the associates of which were obliged to instruct the ignorant, to comfort and exhort the sick and prisoners, and to beware of all lawsuits, which seldom fail to shipwreck Christian charity. A Calvinistical minister took occasion from this institution to write against the honor paid by Catholics to the cross. Francis answered him by his book entitled, The Standard of the Cross. At this time, fresh matter presented itself for the exercise of the saint's zeal. The bishop of Geneva was formerly lord of that city, paying an acknowledgment to the duke of Savoy. While these two were disputing about the sovereignty, the Genevans expelled them both, and formed themselves into a republic in alliance with the Switzers; and their city became the centre of Calvinism. {293} Soon after, the Protestant canton of Bern seized the country of Vaux, and the republic of Geneva, the dutchy of Chablais, with the bailiwicks of Gex, Terni, and Gaillard; and there by violence established their heresy, which from that time had kept quiet possession for sixty years. The duke Charles Emmanuel had recovered these territories, and resolving to restore the Catholic religion, wrote in 1594 to the bishop of Geneva, to recommend that work to him. The wise ones, according to this world, regarded the undertaking as impracticable; and the most resolute, whether ecclesiastics or religious, were terrified at its difficulties and dangers. Francis was the only one that offered himself for the work, and was joined by none but his cousin-german Lewis de Sales. The tears and remonstrances of his parents and friends to dissuade him from the undertaking, made no impression on his courageous soul. He set out with his cousin on the 9th of September, in 1594. Being arrived on the frontiers of Chablais, they sent back their horses, the more perfectly to imitate the apostles. On his arrival at Thonon, the capital of Chablais, situate on the lake of Geneva, he found in it only seven Catholics. After having commended the souls to God, and earnestly implored his mercy through the intercession of the guardian angels, and tutelar saints of the country, he was obliged to take up his quarters in the castle of Allinges, where the governor and garrison were Catholics, two leagues from Thonon, whither he went every day, visiting also the neighboring country. The Calvinists for a long time shunned him, and some even attempted his life. Two assassins, hired by others, having missed him at Thonon, lay in wait to murder him on his return; but a guard of soldiers had been sent to escort him safe, the conspiracy having taken wind. The saint obtained their pardon, and, overcome by his lenity and formed by his holy instructions, they both became very virtuous converts. All our saint's relations, and many friends, whom he particularly respected for their great virtue and prudence, solicited him by the most pressing letters to abandon such a dangerous and fruitless enterprise. His father, to the most tender entreaties, added his positive commands to him to return home, telling him that all prudent persons called his resolution to continue his mission a foolish obstinacy and madness; that he had already done more than was needful, and that his mother was dying of grief for his long absence, the fear of losing him entirely, and the hardships, atrocious slanders, and continual alarms and dangers in which he lived. To compel him to abandon this undertaking, the father forbade his friends to write any more to him, or to send him necessary supplies. Nevertheless, St. Francis persevered, and at length his patience, zeal, and eminent virtue, wrought upon the most obdurate, and insensibly wore away their prejudices. His first converts were among the soldiers, whom he brought over, not only to the faith, but also to an entire change of manners and strict virtue, from habits of swearing, duelling, and drunkenness. He was near four years, however, without any great fruit among the inhabitants, till the year 1597, when God was pleased to touch several of them with his grace. The harvest daily increased both in the town and country so plentifully, that a supply of new laborers from Annecy was necessary, and the bishop sent some Jesuits and Capuchins to carry on the good work with Francis and under his direction. In 1598 the public exercise of the Catholic religion was restored, and Calvinism banished by the duke's orders over all Chablais, and the two bailiwicks of Terni and Gaillard. Though the plague raged violently at Thonon, this did not hinder Francis either by day or night from assisting the sick in their last moments; and God preserved him from the contagion, which seized and swept off several of his fellow-laborers. It is incredible what fatigues and hardships he underwent in the course of his mission; with what devotion {294} and tears he daily recommended the work of God: with what invincible courage he braved the greatest dangers: with what meekness and patience he bore all manner of affronts and calumnies. Baron D'Avuli, a man of quality, and of great worth and learning, highly esteemed among the Calvinists, and at Geneva, being converted by him, induced him to go thither, to have a conference with the famous minister La Faye. The minister, during the whole conference, was ever shifting the matter in debate, as he found himself embarrassed and pressed by his antagonist. His disadvantage being so evident that be himself could read it in the countenance of every one present, he broke off the conference by throwing out a whole torrent of injurious language on Francis, who bore it with so much meekness as not to return the least sharp answer. During the whole course of his ministry in these parts, the violent measures, base cowardice in declining all dispute, and the shameful conduct of the ministers in other respects, set the saint's behavior and his holy cause still in a more shining light. In 1597 he was commissioned by pope Clement VIII. to confer with Theodore Beza at Geneva, the most famous minister of the Calvinist party, in order to win him back to the Catholic church. He accordingly paid him four visits in that city, gained a high place in that heresiarch's esteem, and made him often hesitate in deep silence and with distracted looks, whether he should return to the Roman Catholic church or not, wherein he owned from the beginning that salvation was attainable. St. Francis had great hopes of bringing him over in a fifth visit, but his private conferences had alarmed the Genevans so much that they guarded Beza too close for him to find admittance to him again, and Beza died soon after. 'Tis said, that a little before death he lamented very much he could not see Francis.[2] It is certain, from his first conference with him, he had ever felt a violent conflict within himself, between truth and duty on one hand, and on the other, the pride of being head of a party, the shame of recanting, inveterate habits, and certain secret engagements in vice, to which he continued enslaved to the last. The invincible firmness and constancy of the saint appeared in the recovery of the revenues of the curacies and other benefices which had been given to the Orders of St. Lazarus and St. Maurice; the restoration of which, after many difficulties, he effected by the joint authority of the pope and the duke of Savoy. In 1596 he celebrated mass on Christmas-day in the church of St. Hippolytus at Thonon, and had then made seven or eight hundred converts. From this time he charged himself with the parish of the town, and established two other Catholic parishes in the country. In the beginning of the year 1599 he had settled zealous clergymen in all the parishes of the whole territory.

The honors the saint received from the pope, the duke of Savoy, the cardinal of Medicis, and all the church, and the high reputation which his virtues had acquired him, never made the least impression on his humble mind, dead to all motions of pride and vanity. His delight was with the poor: the most honorable functions he left to others, and chose for himself the meanest and most laborious. Every one desired to have him for their director, wherever he went: and his extraordinary sweetness, in conjunction with his eminent piety, reclaimed as many vicious Catholics as it converted heretics. In 1599, he went to Annecy to visit his diocesan, Granier, who had procured him to be made his coadjutor. The fear of resisting God, in refusing this charge, when pressed upon him by the pope, in conjunction with his bishop and the duke of Savoy, at last extorted his consent; but the apprehension of the obligations annexed to the episcopacy was so strong that it threw him into an illness which had like to have cost him his life. {295} On his recovery he set out for Rome to receive his bulls, and to confer with his Holiness on matters relating to the missions of Savoy. He was highly honored by all the great men at Rome, and received of the pope the bulls for being consecrated bishop of Nicopolis; and coadjutor of Geneva. On this occasion he made a visit of devotion to Loretto, and returned to Annecy before the end of the year 1599. Here he preached the Lent the year following, and assisted his father during his last sickness, heard his general confession, and administered to him the rites of the church. An illness he was seized with at Annecy made him defer his consecration.

On his recovery he was obliged to go to Paris, on affairs of his diocese, and was received there by all sorts of persons with all the regard due to his extraordinary merit. The king was then at Fontainebleau; but the saint was desired to preach the Lent to the court in the chapel of the Louvre. This he did in a manner that charmed every one, and wrought innumerable wonderful conversions. The duchesses of Morcoeur and Longueville sent him thereupon a purse of gold: he admired the embroidery, but gave it back, with thanks to them for honoring his discourses with their presence and good example. He preached a sermon against the pretended reformation, to prove it destitute of a lawful mission; it being begun at Meaux, by Peter Clark, a wool-carder; at Paris, by Masson Riviere, a young man called to the ministry by a company of laymen; and elsewhere after the like manner. This sermon converted many Calvinists; among others the countess of Perdrieuville, who was one of the most obstinate learned ladies of the sect: she consulted her ministers, and repaired often to Francis's conferences, till she had openly renounced Calvinism with all her numerous family. The whole illustrious house of Raconis followed her example, and so many others, even of the most inveterate of the sect, that it made cardinal Perron, a man famous for controversy, say: "I can confute the Calvinists; but, to persuade and convert them, you must carry them to the coadjutor of Geneva." Henry IV. was charmed with his preaching, and consulted him several times in matters relating to the direction of his conscience. There was no project of piety going forward about which he was not advised with. He promoted the establishment of the Carmelite nuns in France, and the introduction of F. Berulle's congregation of the oratory. The king himself earnestly endeavored to detain him in France, by promises of 20,000 livres pension, and the first vacant bishopric: but Francis said, God had called him against his will to the bishopric of Geneva, and he thought it his obligation to keep it till his death; that the small revenue he had sufficed for his maintenance, and more would only be an incumbrance. The king was astonished at his disinterestedness, when he understood that the bishopric of Geneva, since the revolt of that city, did not yield the incumbent above four or five thousand livres, that is, not two hundred and fifty-nine pounds, a-year.

Some envious courtiers endeavored to give the king a suspicion of his being a spy. The saint heard this accusation just as he was going into the pulpit; yet he preached as usual without the least concern; and that prince was too well convinced of the calumny, by his sanctity and candor. After a nine months' stay in Paris, he set out with the king's letters,[3] and heard on the road, that Granier, bishop of Geneva, was dead. He hastened to Sales-Castle, and as soon as clear of the first visits, made a twenty days' retreat to prepare himself for his consecration. He made a general confession, and {296} laid down a plan of life, which he ever punctually observed. This was, never to wear any silk or camlets, or any clothes but woollen, as before; to have no paintings in his house but of devotions: no magnificence in furniture: never to use coach or litter, but to make his visits on foot: his family to consist of two priests, one for his chaplain, the other to take care of his temporalities and servants: nothing but common meats to be served to his table: to be always present at all feasts of devotion, kept in any church in town: his regulation with respect to alms was incredible, for his revenues: to go to the poor and sick in person: to rise every day at four, make an hour's meditation, say lauds and prime, then morning prayers with his family: to read the scripture till seven, then say mass, which he did every day, afterwards to apply to affairs till dinner, which being over, he allowed an hour for conversation; the rest of the afternoon he allotted to business and prayer. After supper he read a pious book to his family for an hour, then night prayers; after which he said matins. He fasted all Fridays and Saturdays, and our Lady's eves: be privately wore a hair shirt, and used the discipline, but avoided all ostentatious austerities. But his exact regularity and uniformity of life, with a continued practice of internal self-denials, was the best mortification. He redoubled his fasts, austerities, and prayers, as the time of his consecration drew nearer. This was performed on the 3d of December, 1602. He immediately applied himself to preaching and the other functions of his charge. He was exceedingly cautious in conferring holy orders. He ordained but few, neither was it without the strictest scrutiny passed upon all their qualifications for the priesthood. He was very zealous, both by word and example, in promoting the instruction of the ignorant by explanations of the catechism, on Sundays and holidays; and his example had a great influence over the parish-priests in this particular, as also over the laity, both young and old. He inculcated to all the making, every hour when the clock struck, the sign of the cross, with a fervent aspiration on the passion of Christ. He severely forbade the custom of Valentines or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints for them to honor and imitate in a particular manner. He performed the visitation of his diocese as soon as possible, published a new ritual, set on foot ecclesiastical conferences, and regulated all things; choosing St. Charles Borromeo for his model.

Above all things he hated lawsuits, and strictly commanded all ecclesiastics to avoid them, and refer all disputes to arbitration. He said they were such occasions of sins against charity, that, if any one during the course of a lawsuit had escaped them, that alone would suffice for his canonization. Towards the close of the visitation of his diocese, he reformed several monasteries. That of Six appealed to the parliament of Chamberry: but our saint was supported there, and carried his point. While Francis was at Six, he heard that a valley, three leagues off, was in the utmost desolation, by the tops of two mountains that had fallen, and buried several villages, with the inhabitants and cattle. He crawled over impassable ways to comfort and relieve these poor people, who had neither clothes to cover, nor cottages to shelter them, nor bread to stay their hunger; he mingled his tears with theirs, relieved them, and obtained from the duke a remission of their taxes. The city of Dijon having procured leave from the duke of Savoy, the saint preached the Lent there in 1604, with wonderful fruit; but refused the present offered him by the city on that occasion. Being solicited by Henry IV. to accept of a considerable abbey, the saint refused it; alleging, that he dreaded riches as much as others could desire them; and that, the less he had of them the less he would have to answer for. That king {297} offered to name him to the dignity of cardinal at the next promotion; but the saint made answer, that though he did not despise the offered dignity, he was persuaded that great titles would not sit well upon him, and might raise fresh obstacles to his salvation. He was also thought of at Rome as a very fit person to be promoted to that dignity, but was himself the only one who everywhere opposed and crossed the design. Being desired on another occasion by the same king to accept of a pension; the saint begged his majesty to suffer it to remain in the hands of his comptroller till he should call for it; which handsome refusal much astonished that great prince, who could not forbear saying: "That the bishop of Geneva, by the happy independence in which his virtue had placed him, was as far above him, as he by his royal dignity was above his subjects." The saint preached the next Lent at Chamberry, at the request of the parliament, which notwithstanding at that very time seized his temporalities for refusing to publish a monitory at its request; the saint alleging, that it was too trifling an affair, and that the censures of the church were to be used more reservedly. To the notification of the seizure he only answered obligingly, that he thanked God for teaching him by it, that a bishop is to be altogether spiritual. He neither desisted from preaching, nor complained to the duke, but heaped most favors on such as most insulted him, till the parliament, being ashamed, granted him of their own accord a replevy. But the great prelate found more delight in preaching in small villages than amidst such applause, though he everywhere met with the like fruit; and he looked on the poor as the object of his particular care. He took a poor dumb and deaf man into his family, taught him by signs, and by them received his confession. His steward often found it difficult to provide for his family by reason of his great alms, and used to threaten to leave him. The saint would answer: "You say right; I am an incorrigible creature, and what is worse, I look as if I should long continue so." Or at other times, pointing to the crucifix; "How can we deny any thing to a God who reduced himself to this condition for the love of us!"

Pope Paul V. ordered our saint to be consulted about the school dispute between the Dominicans and Jesuits on the grace of God, or de auxiliis. His opinion appears from his book On the Love of God: but he answered his Holiness in favor of neutrality, which he ever observed in school opinions; complaining often in how many they occasioned the breach of charity, and spent too much of their precious time, which, by being otherwise employed, might be rendered more conducive to God's honor. In 1609 he went to Bellay, and consecrated bishop John Peter Camus, one of the most illustrious prelates of the church of France, and linked to our saint by the strictest bands of holy friendship. He wrote the book entitled, The Spirit of St. Francis of Sales, consisting of many of his ordinary sayings and actions, in which his spirit shines with great advantage, discovering a perpetual recollection always absorbed in God, and a constant overflowing of sweetness and divine love. His writings to this day breathe the same; every word distils that love and meekness with which his heart was filled. It is this which makes his epistles, which we have to the number of five hundred and twenty-nine, in seven books, to be an inestimable treasure of moving instructions, suitable to all sorts of persons and circumstances.

His incomparable book, the Introduction to a Devout Life, was originally letters to a lady in the world, which, at the pressing instances of many friends, he formed into a book and finished, to show that devotion suited Christians in a secular life, no less than in cloisters. Villars, the archbishop of Vienna, wrote to him upon it: "Your book charms, inflames, and puts me in raptures, as often as I open any part of it." The author received {298} the like applause and commendations from all parts, and it was immediately translated into all the languages of Europe. Henry IV. of France was extremely pleased with it; his queen, Mary of Medicis, sent it richly bound and adorned with jewels to James I. of England, who was wonderfully taken with it, and asked his bishops why none of them could write with such feeling and unction.[4] There was, however, one religious Order in which this book was much censured, as if it had allowed of gallantry and scurrilous jests, and approved of balls and comedies, which was very far from the saint's doctrine. A preacher of that Order had the rashness and presumption to declaim bitterly against the book in a public sermon, to cut it in pieces, and bum it in the very pulpit. The saint bore this outrage without the least resentment; so perfectly was he dead to self-love. This appears more wonderful to those who know how jealous authors are of their works, as the offspring of their reason and judgment, of which men are of all things the fondest. His book of the Love of God cost him much more reading, study, and meditation. In it he paints his own soul. He describes the feeling sentiments of divine love, its state of fervor, of dryness, of trials, sufferings, and darkness: in explaining which he calls in philosophy to his assistance. He writes on this sublime subject what he had learned by his own experience. Some parts of this book are only to be understood by those souls who have gone through these states: yet the author has been ever justly admired for the performance. The general of the Carthusians had written to him upon his Introduction, advising him to write no more, because nothing else could equal that book. But seeing this, he bade him never cease writing, because his latter works always surpassed the former; and James 1. was so delighted with the book, that he expressed a great desire to see the author. This being told the saint, he cried out: "Ah! who will give me the wings of a dove, and I will fly to the king, into that great island, formerly the country of saints; but now overwhelmed with the darkness of error. If the duke will permit me, I will arise, and go to that great Ninive: I will speak to the king, and will announce to him, with the hazard of my life, the word of the Lord." In effect, he solicited the duke of Savoy's consent, but could never obtain it.[5] That jealous sovereign feared lest he should be drawn in to serve another state, or sell to some other his right to Geneva; on which account he often refused him leave to go to preach in France, when invited by many cities. His other works are sermons which are not finished as they were preached, except, perhaps, that on the Invention of the Cross. We have also his Preparation for Mass: his Instructions for Confessors: a collection of his Maxims, pious Breathings and Sayings, written by the bishop of Bellay; some Fragments, and his Entertainments to his nuns of the Visitation, in which he recommends to them the most perfect interior self-denial, a disengagement of affections from all things temporal, and obedience. The institution of that Order may be read in the life of B. Frances Chantal. Saint Francis designing his new Order to be such, that all, even the sickly and weak, might be admitted into it, he chose for it the rule of St. Austin, as commanding few extraordinary bodily austerities, and would have it possess funds and settlements in common, to prevent being carried off from the interior life by anxious cares about necessaries. But then he requires from each person so strict a practice of poverty, as to allow no one the property or even the long use of any thing; and orders them every year to change chambers, beds, crosses, beads, and books. He will have no manner of account to be made of birth, wit, or talents; but only of humility; {299} he obliges them only to the little office of our Lady, which all might easily learn to understand; meditations, spiritual reading, recollection, and retreats, abundantly compensating the defect. All his regulations tend to instil a spirit of piety, charity, meekness, and simplicity. He subjects his Order to the bishop of each place, without any general. Pope Paul V. approved it, and erected the congregation of the Visitation into a religious Order.

St. Francis, finding his health decline, and his affairs to multiply, after having consulted cardinal Frederic Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, chose for his coadjutor in the bishopric of Geneva, his brother John Francis of Sales, who was consecrated bishop of Chalcedon at Turin, in 1618. But the saint still applied himself to his functions as much as ever. He preached the Lent at Grenoble, in 1617, and again in 1618, with his usual conquests of souls; converting many Calvinists, and among these the duke of Lesdiguieres. In 1619, he accompanied to Paris the cardinal of Savoy, to demand the sister of king Louis XIII., Christina of France, in marriage for the prince of Piedmont. He preached the Lent in St. Andre-des-Arcs, and had always such a numerous audience, that cardinals, bishops, and princes could scarce find room. His sermons and conferences, and still more the example of his holy life, and the engaging sweetness of his conversation, most powerfully moved not only the devout, but also heretics, libertines, and atheists; while his eloquence and learning convinced their understandings. The bishop of Bellay tells us, that he entreated the saint at Paris not to preach twice every day, morning and evening, for the sake of his health. St. Francis answered him with a smile: "That it cost him much less to preach a sermon than to find an excuse for himself when invited to perform that function." He added: "God has appointed me a pastor and a preacher: and is not every one to follow his profession? But I am surprised that the people in this great city flock so eagerly to my sermons: for my tongue is slow and heavy, my conceptions low, and my discourses flat, as you yourself are witness." "Do you imagine," said the other, "that eloquence is what they seek in your discourses? It is enough for them to see you in the pulpit. Your heart speaks to them by your countenance, and by your eyes, were you only to say the Our Father with them. The most common words in your mouth, burning with the fire of charity, pierce and melt all hearts. There is I know not what so extraordinary in what you say, that every word is of weight, every word strikes deep into the heart. You have said every thing even when you seem to have said nothing. You are possessed of a kind of eloquence which is of heaven: the power of this is astonishing." St. Francis, smiling, turned off the discourse.[6] The match being concluded, the princess Christina chose Francis for her chief almoner, desiring to live always under his direction: but all her entreaties could neither prevail on him to leave his diocese, though he had a coadjutor, nor to accept of a pension: and it was only on these two conditions he undertook the charge, always urging that nothing could dispense with him from residence. The princess made him a present of a rich diamond, by way of an investiture, desiring him to keep it for her sake. "I will," said he, "unless the poor stand in need of it." She answered, she would then redeem it. He said, "This will happen so often, that I shall abuse your bounty." Finding it given to the poor afterwards at Turin, she gave him another, richer, charging him to keep that at least. He said. "Madam, I cannot promise you: I am very unfit to keep things of value." Inquiring after it one day, she was told it was always in pawn for the poor, and that {300} the diamond belonged not to the bishop, but to all the beggars of Geneva. He had indeed a heart which was not able to refuse any thing to those in want. He often gave to beggars the waistcoat off his own back, and sometimes the cruets of his chapel. The pious cardinal, Henry de Gondi, bishop of Paris, used all manner of arguments to obtain his consent to be his coadjutor in the see of Paris; but he was resolved never to quit the church which God had first committed to his charge.