SAINT FRANCOIS DE, Bishop of Geneva, and son of Francois, Count of Sales, was born at the castle of Sales, near Annecy in Savoy, on the 21st August 1567. He had his early education at La Roche and Annecy, and subsequently at the Jesuits' college at Paris. Leaving the capital in 1584, he went to Padua, to study civil law under the eminent legal professor Guy Pancirolli. Here his progress was attended with the most marked success; and after spending some time in travel in Italy, he returned to the old castle of Sales with a high reputation for learning and piety. His father was induced by his kinsman, Louis de Sales, canon of Geneva, to abandon a project which he had formed of appointing him counsellor of Chambery, and through that churchman's mediation he was permitted to become a preacher. The success of De Sales in this sphere was quite astonishing. His strikingly handsome figure, his powerful and pleasing voice, his modest and mild demeanour, combined with an earnestness which thrilled and a vivacity which engaged his audience, proved how well he was adapted for the business of religious conversion, and how deep had been his self-knowledge in courting such a sphere of labour. He accordingly set out with his clerical kinsman to convert the city of Geneva from the faith of Calvinism to that of the Church of Rome. By dint of eloquence and of gold, he is said to have succeeded in three years in the conversion of no less than 800 persons. On the return of Francois to Annecy in 1596, he was made coadjutor to the Bishop of Geneva, with the title of Bishop of Nicopolis in partibus infidelium. The king, anxious to retain him in France, offered him the first bishopric that might become vacant, but he politely refused. The death of the Bishop of Geneva raised him to that important office on the 8th December 1602; and he was no sooner consecrated than he made himself felt to the remotest corner of his see, by the vigour of his reforms and by the mild charity of his mandates. In 1605 he had the honour of refusing a cardinal's hat. His Introduction to a Religious Life appeared in 1607. It will be seen from this work that the man who is eloquent and persuasive in speech is very likely to be neither when he assumes the pen. The work is characterised throughout, however, by the most unaffected piety. In 1610 De Sales founded the Order of the Visitation, and placed over it Madame de Chantal, a particularly fervid lady, who was sister to the Archbishop of Bourges. The work in which the good Bishop of Geneva had been so long engaged was now destined to pass into other hands. After preaching on the Christmas Eve of 1622, he was seized with an attack of paralysis, which closed his days on the 28th of December 1622.

We are indebted to Camus, Bishop of Bellay, for the very interesting work The Spirit of Francois de Sales. The best edition of his works is that of Paris, 1641, 2 vols. folio. He was canonized on the 29th of January 1665 by pope Alexander VII.