Fourth point. His behaviour while he was puesuing his studies at annecy and paris

Her answer on the fourth point was :

I declare that it is well known that he was sent by his parents to the College of Annecy, where he very soon endeared himself to his companions. M. de Sales,* Provost of the Cathedral of Geneva, a man of exemplary life and great learning, told me that the very presence of our Blessed Father was sufficient to keep his fellow-students in order; and that even at that early age he was endowed with that gravity, humility, and propriety of demeanour which never forsook him in his after life; that he bore with the impertinences and ill-humours of the other students sweetly and patiently; that he was so lenient towards their faults that he often took their well-deserved punishments upon himself; and that, when his companions went off in the evening to their various amusements, he would stay at home and invite the person in whose house he boarded to hear him read the Lives of the Saints, saying to her : Aunt,}' I have really something good to tell you.

The Blessed Prelate told me that, from his

• This was Canon Louis de Sales, who succeeded Saint Frangois de Sales in the dignity of Provost.

f This was a playful expression — she was not a rela tive [Tr.].

JFourtfj $0tttt 59 earliest youth, God had taught him to trust in His heavenly providence. He also told me that, as he grew older, his parents sent him to Paris, under the care of his tutor, M. Deage, a priest of great learning and piety. This M. Deage spoke repeatedly of the great obedience and unfailing respect paid to him by our Blessed Founder, and declared that his modest demeanour so endeared him to all, that they delighted to watch him as he went to and fro through the streets; even the working folk noticing him as different to his companions. M. Deage added that he never caused him the least annoyance by misconduct of any kind, or neglect of his studies; that there was therefore never any need to bestow any chastisement upon him, except perhaps a light box on the ear or repulse, when he had made himself too busy in trying to get one of his fellow-students pardoned; that, on such occasions the saintly youth would go quietly away without a word of complaint; that he never left the house without leave, although he had reached an age when he might have done so; and that, when his tutor refused to grant him this leave, he withdrew to his own apartment without a sign of annoyance.

Our Blessed Founder told me once, in order to console me in some trouble, that when he was a student at Paris, he fell into a state of great temptation and extreme agony of mind. It seemed to him certain that he was reprobate, and that for him there was no hope of salvation —

60 Saint Sane ff. to CfjantaPs thoughts which overwhelmed him with anguish, especially when he remembered that the lost can not possibly love God, or see our Blessed Lady.

Notwithstanding the extremity of this torment, he always, in the depths of his soul, held fast to one resolution, namely, to love and serve God with all his strength throughout his life, and so much the more faithfully and affectionately, because he imagined that he would not be able to do so in eternity. This agony lasted for three weeks at least, perhaps for nearly six, but on that point my memory is uncertain, and with such violence that it deprived him of appetite and sleep, reducing him to such a wasted and pallid condition that his tutor was filled with anxiety.

One day, however, when it pleased Divine Providence to deliver him, our Blessed Founder on his return from the palace,* passing by a church, the name of which I have forgotten,-)went in to say his prayers there. Kneeling down before one of Our Lady's altars, he noticed a prayer pasted on to a board, beginning : Re member, 0 most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protec tion, &c.; he said it all through, then rose from his knees, and at that very instant felt himself perfectly and entirely cured, and it seemed to him that his disease fell at his feet like the scales of a leper. What I have related is true and of public knowledge.

• College — see Charles Auguste de Sales' Vie de S. F. de Sales [Ed.]. t St. Etienne des Gres [Ed.].

Point 6 1