The following notable example of frugality and economy was related to me by
our Blessed Father himself.
Monseigneur Vespasian Grimaldi, who was Piedmontese by birth, made a
tolerably large fortune in France as an ecclesiastic, during the regency of
Catherine de Medicis. He was raised to the dignity of Archbishop of Vienne
in Dauphiné, and held several other benefices which brought him in a large
revenue. Having amassed all these riches at court, his desire was to live
there in great pomp and splendour, but whether it was that God did not
bless his designs, or that he was too much addicted to extravagance and
display, certain it is that he was always in difficulties, not only about
money, but even about his health.
Weary at last of dragging on a life so troubled and so wretched, he
resolved to quit the court, and to retire into a peaceful solitude. He had
often in past days remarked the extraordinary beauty of the banks of Lake
Leman, where nature seems to scatter her richest gifts with lavish hand,
and there he resolved to fix his abode in a district subject to his own
sovereign, the Duke of Savoy, and settling down in that quiet spot to spend
the remainder of his days in peace. He selected for this purpose the little
village and market town of Evian, so called because of the abundance and
clearness of its lovely streams and fountains. The little town is situated
on the very margin of the lake, and backed by an outlying stretch of
country is as charming to, the eye as it is rich and fertile.
There, having given up his archbishopric and all his benefices, reserving
only to himself a pension of two thousand crowns, he established a retreat
into which he was accompanied by only three or four servants.
He was at this time sixty-five years old, but weighed down by physical
infirmities much more than by the burden of his years. He had chosen this
particular spot purposely because there was no approach to it from the high
road, and there was little fear of visits from that great world of which he
was now so weary, in the crush and tumult of which he had spent so large a
portion of his life in consequence of his position at court.
Another reason for his choosing Evian was that the little township being
in the diocese of Geneva, which is included in the province of Vienne in
Dauphiné, in settling there he was not leaving his own province.
Living then in this calm retreat, free from all bustle and all burdens of
office, with no show and state to keep up, having nothing to attend to but
the sanctification of his soul and the restoration of his bodily health, a
marvellous change was soon observed in him. Inward peace gave back to him
health so vigorous and settled that those who had known him in the days of
his infirmity declared him to be absolutely rejuvenated, and truly he did
feel in his soul a renewal of strength like that of the eagle. This he
attributed to exercises of the contemplative life to which he now devoted
himself with fervour.
We see thus how true is the divine oracle which tells us that to those who
seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice all temporal things necessary
shall be given,[1] for God prospered this good Prelate in even his worldly
affairs.
The small sum of money which he had reserved for himself, and which he
spent in the most frugal and judicious manner possible, so increased that
when he died at the age of a hundred and two or a hundred and three years,
he left behind him more than 6,000 crowns.
By his will he ordered the whole to be distributed in benefactions and alms
throughout the neighbourhood, and in fact it relieved every necessitous
person to be found round about.
It was this very Mgr. Vespasian Grimaldi who, assisted by the Bishops
of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, and of Damascus, conferred episcopal
consecration upon Blessed Francis in the Church of Thorens, in the diocese
of Geneva, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, December
8th, 1602.
From this notable example we may easily gather: