Monsieur de Geneve A e improved understanding of human character
and a more careful study of his life and writings have lately removed S. Francois de Sales from the class of amiable and lady-like saints to which he was once consigned, and have discovered and exhibited his greatness and his virility. The best and most important part of this work has been done, as it should be, in France. First and most excellently by the Abbe Huvelin, who devoted a considerable section of his Quelques directeurs d'dmes to a subtle and penetrating study of S. Francois as a spiritual guide ; latterly, at greater length, by Professor Vincent and the Abbe Bremond. Miss Sanders, retelling the story of the saint from the angle indicated by these researches—though Huvelin's worx does not seem to be known to her—has added a valuable and fascinating volume to her series of studies of French seventeenth-century religion. She opens admirably, with a picture of the handsome and aristocratic child in the great Savoy castle of his ancestors ; trained from the first to nobility of speech and conduct, and unconsciously educated by the beauty of his natural environ- ment. Though S. Francois said in later life that the studied gentleness which veiled the operation of his inflexible will was not his by nature, but had been won at considerable cost, he is yet a characteristic example of the once-born saint. Whilst an unceasing inward discipline and self-oblivion were the sources of his tranquillity and power, his development—from the brilliant youth who so quietly and firmly renounced his birthright to become a priest, to the great father of souls and slave of God who had learned " to ask nothing and refuse nOthing "—is not marked by any violent crisis. His vocation represents the sublimation of his temperament, and uses to the full his natural genius for judging and dealing with human character. He practised in his own life the homely advice he was so fond of giving to his impatient penitents : " Do not desire to be anything but what you are, desire only to be as good as possible as you are."
The charm and human interest of S. Francois's relations with Madame de Chantal, and the story of the founding of the Visitation, have tended to obscure other and equally important aspects of his life. Miss Sanders earns our gratitude by restoring these to their proper place. Especially she empha- sizes the neglected opening phase of his career, as mission priest in the Calvinist district south of the Lake of Geneva ; a position making demands on his abundant physical courage as well as his spiritual zeal. Though here his immediate success was considerable, the great desire of his early days— the restoration of Geneva to the Church—was never granted. It had been seventy years a Calvinist stronghold when S. Francois became the sixth of its Bishops in exile ; with his episcopal headquarters at Annecy, and a titular jurisdiction stretching north to Evian and east to the foot of Mont Blanc. Only at considerable personal risk could its Catholic prelate enter and ride through Geneva—as he once did, to the amazement of its citizens. It required a courage and confi- dence even greater than this to administer a see in which every circumstance, geographical, political, and spiritual, seemed to frustrate him. The Catholic population was mostly hidden away in mountain villages : " I myself," says
the Bishop, " have seen and visited a parish church on a high mountain which can only be reached by clambering with feet and hands." Men and money were both lacking for the proper maintenance of Church life. Priests were scarce and ignorant ; the monasteries corrupt and avaricious. The constant strain of this situation, pressing upon a mind and heart deeply conscious of responsibility and possessed by a passion for souls, must be
remembered when we dwell on the other side of S. Francois's vocation ; and watch that gracious and apparently unruffled figure dealing gently and patiently with the crowd of penitents by whom he was always beset.
Miss Sanders suggests that it was his despair of effecting any genuine improvement in the clergy and the parishes which drew him more and more to concentrate upon the training of individual souls ; and especially his daughters of the Visitation. Here it is certain that his great successes were won, and his genius found full opportunity of expression. No director ever existed more thorough and penetrating in his method ; more apparently gentle and truly severe. His letters and conferences can still teach us more about the human heart than all the laboured analyses of the psycholo- gists. Miss Sanders deals competently with this, the most absorbing aspect of her subject ; even though it sometimes seems as though she hardly gave full value to the wit, the social dexterity, and lightness of touch, which confer on Salesian spirituality its peculiar charm. There is surely something missing in her account of that interview between Madame de Chantal and her spiritual father, wherein this devoted but somewhat intensive daughter of desires poured into his ears her ghostly confidences whilst the footman waiting outside the door sang to while away the time. The Bishop, says the chronicler, twice interrupted his daughter's eager flow to remark placidly that Pierre was singing ; but she merely replied :—
"` My very dear Lord, let us leave Pierre to his singing and make use of this precious time.' At which our saintly Founder rose and opened the door himself that he might better hear the lackey singing—and perhaps that he might better moderate the holy zeal our saintly Mother may have displayed concerning her own spiritual state."
A solemn warning lightly given, says Miss Sanders. But was it ? Saints and great shepherds of souls retain their human attributes ; and there may have been moments when even S. Francois longed for a little respite from pious ladies talking eagerly about themselves. I would like to think that this is the true reading of the story. On one hand, it brings S. Francois very near to us ; on the other, it gives heroic
quality to his patience and his love. EVELYN INDERniLL.
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