s orders over all Chablais, and the two bailiwicks of Terni
and Gaillard. Though the plague raged violently at Thonon, this did not
hinder Francis either by day or night from assisting the sick in their
last moments; and God preserved him from the contagion, which seized and
swept off several of his fellow-laborers. It is incredible what fatigues
and hardships he underwent in the course of his mission; with what
devotion {294} and tears he daily recommended the work of God: with what
invincible courage he braved the greatest dangers: with what meekness
and patience he bore all manner of affronts and calumnies. Baron
D'Avuli, a man of quality, and of great worth and learning, highly
esteemed among the Calvinists, and at Geneva, being converted by him,
induced him to go thither, to have a conference with the famous minister
La Faye. The minister, during the whole conference, was ever shifting
the matter in debate, as he found himself embarrassed and pressed by his
antagonist. His disadvantage being so evident that be himself could read
it in the countenance of every one present, he broke off the conference
by throwing out a whole torrent of injurious language on Francis, who
bore it with so much meekness as not to return the least sharp answer.
During the whole course of his ministry in these parts, the violent
measures, base cowardice in declining all dispute, and the shameful
conduct of the ministers in other respects, set the saint's behavior and
his holy cause still in a more shining light. In 1597 he was
commissioned by pope Clement VIII. to confer with Theodore Beza at
Geneva, the most famous minister of the Calvinist party, in order to win
him back to the Catholic church. He accordingly paid him four visits in
that city, gained a high place in that heresiarch's esteem, and made him
often hesitate in deep silence and with distracted looks, whether he
should return to the Roman Catholic church or not, wherein he owned from
the beginning that salvation was attainable. St. Francis had great hopes
of bringing him over in a fifth visit, but his private conferences had
alarmed the Genevans so much that they guarded Beza too close for him to
find admittance to him again, and Beza died soon after. 'Tis said, that
a little before death he lamented very much he could not see Francis.[2]
It is certain, from his first conference with him, he had ever felt a
violent conflict within himself, between truth and duty on one hand, and