on the other, the pride of being head of a party, the shame of
recanting, inveterate habits, and certain secret engagements in vice, to
which he continued enslaved to the last. The invincible firmness and
constancy of the saint appeared in the recovery of the revenues of the
curacies and other benefices which had been given to the Orders of St.
Lazarus and St. Maurice; the restoration of which, after many
difficulties, he effected by the joint authority of the pope and the
duke of Savoy. In 1596 he celebrated mass on Christmas-day in the church
of St. Hippolytus at Thonon, and had then made seven or eight hundred
converts. From this time he charged himself with the parish of the town,
and established two other Catholic parishes in the country. In the
beginning of the year 1599 he had settled zealous clergymen in all the
parishes of the whole territory.

The honors the saint received from the pope, the duke of Savoy, the
cardinal of Medicis, and all the church, and the high reputation which
his virtues had acquired him, never made the least impression on his
humble mind, dead to all motions of pride and vanity. His delight was
with the poor: the most honorable functions he left to others, and chose
for himself the meanest and most laborious. Every one desired to have
him for their director, wherever he went: and his extraordinary
sweetness, in conjunction with his eminent piety, reclaimed as many
vicious Catholics as it converted heretics. In 1599, he went to Annecy
to visit his diocesan, Granier, who had procured him to be made his
coadjutor. The fear of resisting God, in refusing this charge, when
pressed upon him by the pope, in conjunction with his bishop and the
duke of Savoy, at last extorted his consent; but the apprehension of the
obligations annexed to the episcopacy was so strong that it threw him
into an illness which had like to have cost him his life. {295} On his
recovery he set out for Rome to receive his bulls, and to confer with
his Holiness on matters relating to the missions of Savoy. He was highly
honored by all the great men at Rome, and received of the pope the bulls
for being consecrated bishop of Nicopolis; and coadjutor of Geneva. On
this occasion he made a visit of devotion to Loretto, and returned to
Annecy before the end of the year 1599. Here he preached the Lent the
year following, and assisted his father during his last sickness, heard
his general confession, and administered to him the rite