SALES, FRANCIS DE, a most distinguished saint of the Roman Catholic church, was b. Aug. 21. 1567, at the family castle of Cales, near Annecy in Savoy. He was the heir of the family honors, and his education was designed by his father to fit him for the career of distinction to which his position seemed to entitle him From_ the provincial colleges of La Roche and Annecy, lie was Sent to Paris in 1578, where he entered then brilliant school of the Jesuits, and completed under their care the course of rhetoric and philosophy. In 1584 he went to Padua, for the course of cavil law, and pursued his studies there with great distinction till 1591. At this time his ...father,. who had obtained for hint a place in the senate, proposed to him a very brilliant rind advan tageous marriage, but he had already resolved to devote himself to the ministry, and with much difficulty obtained his father's consent to enter into orders in the diocese of Geneva. He soon became distinguished as a preacher, and the zeal with which he dis charged the ordinary _duties of his ministry was no less remarkable. Very soon after his ordination he was employed by his bishop in a mission for the conversion of the Calvin istic population of Chablais, which had been recently annexed to the duchy of Savoy, and in which the duke was desirods of having the Catholic religion re-established. The success of this mission was almost unprecedented. With a companion equally devoted, be traveled on foot from town to town, and in a short time he succeeded in reclaiming many to the chirreh. One of the most remarkable incidents of his mission was a confer ence with the celebrated Calvinist leader, Theodore de Beza. Of this interview very different accounts are given by the rival partisans; but all agree in admiration of the gentleness and enlightened liberality of Francis de Sales. At the termination of this mission, Francis was, in 1596, appointed coadjutor to the bishop of Geneva, Mgr. Grapier, with the title of bishop of Nicopolis. It was with much difficulty that the pope, Inno cent IX.. induced him to accept this dignity. Some time afterward, having occasion to go to Paris. he was invited to preach the lent in the chapel of the Louvre; and his lec tures, which were partly controversial, were reputed to 'lava had so much influence in bringing about the conversion of several of the Huguenot nobles, that the king tried to induce him to accept a French bishopric; but in vain. He returned to his diocese; and
anon afterward, on the death of Mgr. Grapier, he succeeded to the bishopric of Geneva. Flis adini»istration of this charge, upon which he entered in Dec., 1602, was beyond all praise. Being again invited to preach the lent at Dijon,_ in furtherance of the plans of Louis XIV. for the conversion of the Huguenots, he was again pressed by that monarch to accept a French bishopric. But he again declined this honor, as he also declined in 1607 the offer of the. cardinalate from the pope Leo XI. It was about this time that he published his well-known Introduction to a Devout Life, which has continued to the pres. ent day one of the most popular manuals of piety and the ascetic life. Among his measures for the renovation of the monastic spirit, a very important one was the estab.' lishment of a congregation of nuns of the order of the Visitation, tinder the direction of the now celebrated de Chantal, with whom he long maintained a correspond ence on every subject connected with the spiritual and religious life, which was pub lished in 1660, and which still remains a subject of almost undiminished interest for the spiritualist. In 1608 his infirmities compelled him to solicit the assistance of a coadjutor in the charge of his diocese. He continued, however, to labor to the last. His last ser mon was delivered at Lyons. on Christmas eve in 1622; on Christmas-day he was seized with paralysis, and on the 28th of the same month he expired. He was buried in the church of the Visitation in that city, but his remains were afterward translated to Annecy. More than 40 years after his death, in 1665, he was solemnly canonized as a saint by Alexander VII. His festival is held on Jan. '29, the day of the translation of his relics to Annecy. His works were published in a collected form in 2 vols. folio at Paris in 1641; but the separate works (especially the Derout Life, which has been trans lated into almost every European language), have passed through innumerable editions, and still retain their popularity.