Doctor of Civil and Canon Law from the University of Padua, François de Sales gave up the life of a nobleman and the legal career that his father had intended for him. More than anything else, he wants to receive orders, according to the vow made by his mother before the Holy Shroud the year before his birth, and of course according to his own vocation.
Ordained a priest on 18 December 1593, he undertook, from the following year, to bring back to Catholicism the Protestants of Chablais, at the request of Duke Charles-Emmanuel I of Savoy. He thus followed in the footsteps of the great bishops of the Catholic reform, following Saint Charles Borromeo. The banknotes he wrote, copied or had printed, then slipped under the doors of the literate Chablaisiens were one of the very modern means of communication he used to reconquer the Chablais to the Catholic religion. What had he just invented? The Catholic weekly press! This is how he became the patron saint of journalists.
He became titular bishop of the episcopal see of Geneva (8 December 1602) - transferred to Annecy after the Reformation - he preached and wrote a lot. His most famous works are "Defence of the Standard of the Holy Cross", "Treatise on the Love of God" and above all "Introduction to Devout Life" (1609), the most famous of his books: a collection of letters of direction addressed to "Philotée", a relative (Madame de Charmoisy).
Through his writing, he is considered as one of the precursors of 18th century French literature. Saint François de Sales is the most published Christian author in the world, after the Holy Bible. This theologian of very high level, director of conscience, is also a tireless preacher: many of his sermons have remained famous; in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris, he even had to enter through the window of the sacristy as the crowd had come to listen to him preach! He visited the Savoyard and French parishes of his diocese punctually and regularly, where it was very important to him that the clergy of his diocese benefit from a good formation.
François de Sales assumed the diplomatic missions entrusted to him by the Duke of Savoy Charles-Emmanuel 1st. It is notably during these missions that he became friends with the King of France Henri IV, Richelieu, Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre de Bérulle, the mother Angélique Arnaud, abbess of Port-Royal, etc. In 1619, he negotiated the marriage of Christine of France (daughter of King Henri IV and Marie de Medici; sister of King Louis XIII) with the future Victor-Amédée I of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont. He was one of the concelebrants of this marriage, following which the future Madame Royale asked him to become her great chaplain (the diploma sanctioning this appointment is kept at the château de Thorens).
François de Sales refused several renowned bishoprics and the cardinalate in order to devote himself to Annecy where he founded the Académie Florimontane, in 1607, with the First President of the Sovereign Senate of Savoy, Antoine Favre (father of the great grammarian Claude Favre lord of Vaugelas). A friend of the arts and sciences, he ardently defended the theses of Copernicus and Galileo, against the advice of the Holy See. Thus, he allowed Father Baranzano, who had been blacklisted, to continue his work on the rotation of the earth by inviting him to teach at the Chapuysian College in Annecy. On June 6, 1610, together with Saint Jeanne de Chantal (grandmother of Madame de Sévigné), he founded the Order of the Visitation in Annecy; a religious order which spread throughout the world.
He also attempted a reform of the monastic orders in Savoy in order to bring their rules into line with the evolution of modern life; this led him to advise the Reverend Mother Louise Perrucard de Ballon to create the order of the reformed Bernardine nuns (1622). Unanimously venerated during his lifetime, he was, from his death, honoured as a saint. Beatified on December 28, 1661 and canonized on April 19, 1665 by Pope Alexander VII, he was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pius IX on November 16, 1877.
Text: Gilles Carrier-Dalbion, Guide du Patrimoine des Pays de Savoie, Reproduction of the text, even partial, is forbidden without permission.
