FRANCIS (FRANcOIS) OF SALES, ST. noted bishop of Geneva and doctor of the Church, was born in Aug. 1567 at the castle of Sales, near Annecy, Savoy. He studied at the Jesuit College of Clermont at Paris and then at Padua, where in 1588 he took his degree in law. He returned to Savoy in 1592, and took the diploma of advocate to the senate. He was then made provost of the chapter of Geneva, and a year later, was sent by the bishop, Claude de Granier, to win back the prov ince of Chablais, which had embraced Calvinism in By the whole country was Catholic again. In Oct. of this year, Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, who participated in the celebrations of the return of the country to the faith, expatriated such of the leading men as obstinately refused even to listen to the Catholic arguments. He also forbade Calvinist ministers to reside in the Chablais, and substituted Catholic for Huguenot officials. St. Francis concurred in these measures, and, three years later, even requested that those who, as he said, "follow their heresy, rather as a party than a religion," should be ordered either to conform or to leave their country, with leave to sell their goods. At this time Francis was nominated to the pope as coadjutor of Geneva, with the title of Nicopolis in partibus, and after a visit to Rome he assisted Bishop de Granier in the administration of the newly converted countries.
In 1602 he re-visited Paris where he came into the closest rela tions with the court of Henry IV. In Sept. of the same year he succeeded De Granier as bishop. With Jeanne Francoise Fremyot (1572-1641), widow of the baron de Chantal, he founded the order of the Visitation, in favour of "strong souls with weak bodies," as he said, deterred from entering other orders because of physical weakness. In 1618 he again went to Paris to assist in negotiating the marriage of the prince of Piedmont with Chre tienne of France, but nearly all his time was spent in preaching and works of mercy, spiritual or corporal. St. Vincent has given the most extraordinary testimonies (as yet unpublished) of his heroic virtues, and Mere Angelique Arnaud put herself under his direction and wished to join the Order of the Visitation. He returned to Savoy, and after three years of unwearying labour died at Lyons on Dec. 28, 1622. He was canonized in 1665.
The first edition of his complete works was published at Toulouse in 1637. A critical edition was published by the Visitation of Annecy (21 vols., 1892) . There are Eng. translations of various selections of his works, of the Spiritual Conferences (1868) and of the Introduction to the Devout Life (1924).
A biography of St. Francis de Sales was produced immediately after his death by the celebrated P. de La Riviere and Dom John de St. Francois (Goulu), and another by his nephew, Charles Auguste de Sales, in 1635 (reprinted Paris, 1866) . M. Hamon's Vie de S. Francois (1856, 7th ed., 1922) has been adapted by H. Burton as The Life of St. Francis de Sales (1925). See also H. B. Mackey, Four Essays on St. Francis de Sales (1883) ; A. Delplanque, S. Francois de Sales, Humaniste et Ecrivain (Lille, 1907) ; and article in Herzog Hauck, Realencykloplidie.