Eighth point. His behaviour after his retukn from padua up to the time of his entering the ecclesiastical state

Her answer on the eighth point was :

I declare that I have been told by many persons and, I fancy, by our Blessed Founder himself, that his parents wished him to marry, and that to please them he went to see a young lady, but I believe that this was while he was waiting until Divine Providence should open out to him a way of carrying out his design of making an entire dedication of himself in the ecclesiastical state. Indeed he told several credible persons as well as myself, that had he been heir to a dukedom, he would not have failed to enter Holy Orders; so greatly did he love and esteem that state of life, which he never repented having embraced. He imparted his resolution to the Reverend M. Louis do Sales, his first cousin, a man who was always held in the highest esteem and repute by all the clergy of that diocese, and whom I have already mentioned, and who, being questioned on the matter just before his death, declared that it was the absolute truth, that our Blessed Founder was firmly resolved to embrace the ecclesiastical state, whatever resistance his parents might oppose to his so doing.

64 Saint Sane ff* tie CHjantal's Depositions

M. de Sales, seeing that our Blessed Father, his cousin, was resolved to become a cleric, pro cured for him the dignity of Provost of the beforementioned Cathedral, the post being at that time vacant, although our Blessed Founder had never spoken to him on the subject at all; and when the documents relating to the matter arrived, this same M. de Sales made known to M. and Mme. de Boisy their son's intention of becoming a priest, to their great affliction. And this is true, &c.