rses flat, as you
yourself are witness." "Do you imagine," said the other, "that eloquence
is what they seek in your discourses? It is enough for them to see you
in the pulpit. Your heart speaks to them by your countenance, and by
your eyes, were you only to say the Our Father with them. The most
common words in your mouth, burning with the fire of charity, pierce and
melt all hearts. There is I know not what so extraordinary in what you
say, that every word is of weight, every word strikes deep into the
heart. You have said every thing even when you seem to have said
nothing. You are possessed of a kind of eloquence which is of heaven:
the power of this is astonishing." St. Francis, smiling, turned off the
discourse.[6] The match being concluded, the princess Christina chose
Francis for her chief almoner, desiring to live always under his
direction: but all her entreaties could neither prevail on him to leave
his diocese, though he had a coadjutor, nor to accept of a pension: and
it was only on these two conditions he undertook the charge, always
urging that nothing could dispense with him from residence. The princess
made him a present of a rich diamond, by way of an investiture, desiring
him to keep it for her sake. "I will," said he, "unless the poor stand
in need of it." She answered, she would then redeem it. He said, "This
will happen so often, that I shall abuse your bounty." Finding it given
to the poor afterwards at Turin, she gave him another, richer, charging
him to keep that at least. He said. "Madam, I cannot promise you: I am
very unfit to keep things of value." Inquiring after it one day, she was
told it was always in pawn for the poor, and that {300} the diamond
belonged not to the bishop, but to all the beggars of Geneva. He had
indeed a heart which was not able to refuse any thing to those in want.
He often gave to beggars the waistcoat off his own back, and sometimes
the cruets of his chapel. The pious cardinal, Henry de Gondi, bishop of
Paris, used all manner of arguments to obtain his consent to be his
coadjutor in the see of Paris; but he was resolved never to quit the
church which God had first committed to his charge.

Upon his return to Annecy he would not touch a farthing of his revenue
for the eighteen months he was absent; but gave it to his cathedral,
saying, it could not be his, for he had not earned it. He applied
himself to preaching, instructing, and hearing confessions with greater
zea