Forty-first point. His magnanimity

Her answer on the forty-first point was :

Our Blessed Founder possessed a courage so great and noble, so generous and so magnani mous, that he was never intimidated by any living creature or any earthly thing. He was far above all that when it was a question of what related to the glory of God. He laughed to scorn honours, and benefits, and the favours of the great, placing no reliance whatever upon them, any more than he did on life or death, relations or friends; his mind rose superior to all these things and had the mastery of them. Such was his magnanimity.

It was also displayed in an infinity of great and difficult enterprises which he undertook, as appears in my depositions, Point 28, treating of his fortitude.

He wrote to rne once that he had done a great many courageous acts out of sheer simplicity, " Not certainly," he added, " out of simplicity of mind, for I do not wish to speak in a double manner, but from simplicity of confidence in God." This he told me when speaking on the subject of his passing through Geneva after he became Bishop, on his way to Gex, where he was going to re-establish the Catholic Faith in several parishes. For, finding it very dangerous to cross the Rhone at the port, he bravely de termined to do so by the bridge of Geneva, and he traversed the whole city at the peril of his life, to the astonishment of those who knew that he had resolved to attempt this crossing. And had he been questioned as to who he was, he would have died rather than deny it; indeed he had commanded his servants, if asked at the gate, who this person was in whose suite they

1 98 Saint Sane jj\ tie Cijantal's depositions were, to reply : the Bishop of the diocese, which they did.

He never attributed the honours which so many Princes, Princesses, and great people paid him as due to any merit of his own. He re ferred all to God, and never took advantage of such, except in some matter which concerned the glory of God or the good of his neighbour; as in the instance of the establishment of the Barnabite Fathers in this town of Annecy and at Thonon; for our own Order; and for such work as required the support of a Prince's authority, and sometimes of his pecuniary assistance. Thus, at times, this was needed for the protec tion of persons unjustly molested, or to procure favours and help for others, and even pensions for poor people who had been converted to our Catholic religion.

When his Most Serene Highness the Duke of Savoy gave him the appointment of Grand Almoner to the Princess of Piedmont, he wrote to me thus : " You will, I think, readily believe me when I tell you that I have neither directly nor indirectly striven for this post; no indeed, for I feel within me no sort of ambition, except to be able to employ the remainder of my life usefully for the honour of Our Lord."

He said once with regard to some proposals which had been made to him touching his own private advantage : " How could you imagine me to be so poor-spirited a creature as to aim at any reward except that of eternity ! I hold the

Court in sovereign contempt, because the world's supremest pleasures and all its maxims I abhor more and more."

He saw that it would be a great advantage to his bishopric if his brother succeeded him in it, yet he never spoke of the matter to the Prince, and told me in writing, when the Duke of Savoy gave his brother the certificate of the Coadjutorship, that he had never sought or asked for it, either directly or indirectly. This is true, &c.