known as he really was, and to cleanse his memory from the stains cast upon
it by the jarring passions of his contemporaries.

If we have succeeded in this the reader will recognise in him a pious
Bishop, armed with the scourge of penance, an indefatigable writer in the
defence of good morals, of religion, and of the Church--a reformer, and not
an enemy of the Monastic Orders; finally a Prelate, who laboured all his
life to copy the Holy Bishop of Geneva, whom he ever regarded as his
father, his guide, and his oracle.

One word more. Those pious persons who wish to know better this true
disciple of the Bishop of Geneva have nothing to do but to read the _Spirit
of Saint Francis de Sales_. There they will see the Bishop of Belley as
he really was. There they can admire his ardent piety, the candour of his
soul, the fervour of his faith and charity; in a word, all that rich store
of virtues which he acquired in the school of that great master of the
spiritual life who was for fourteen years his Director.

[Footnote 1: In the preface of his book, entitled "Strange Occurrences."]




THE FRENCH PUBLISHER TO THE READER, 1639.


Since the holy death of Blessed Francis de Sales, Prince and Bishop of
Geneva, which took place on December 28th, the Feast of the Holy Innocents,
in the year 1622, many writers have taken up the pen to give the public the
knowledge of the pious life and virtuous conversation of that holy Prelate,