It is well known that if our Blessed Father had lived to return from Lyons,
his intention was to retire from the world and its activities in which he
had so long taken a part, and to lead henceforth a purely contemplative
life.
With this intention he had, some years before his death, caused a little
hermitage to be built in a most suitable and sequestered spot on the shores
of the beautiful lake of Annecy. This, however, he had had done quite
quietly without giving any idea of the real purpose for which it was
destined.
On this same shore there is a Benedictine Monastery called Taloire,
easily accessible, as it is built on the slope of the Hill. Into it he
had introduced some salutary reforms, and he was on terms of the most
affectionate intimacy with the holy men who lived a hidden life in its
quiet seclusion.
At the top of a neighbouring spur of this same mountain, on a gentle and
smooth rising ground, surrounded by rich vineyards and delightful shrubs of
various kinds, watered by clear streams, stood an old chapel, dedicated to
God, under the name of St. Germain, a Saint who had been one of the first
monks in the Monastery and who is greatly honoured in that part of the
country. Blessed Francis secretly gave the necessary funds for repairing
and decorating this chapel, and for building round it five or six cells
pleasantly enclosed. This hermitage, the Superior said, would be most
useful to his monks, enabling them to make their spiritual retreats in
quiet solitude. Indeed, from time to time he sent them there for this
purpose, in accordance with the rule of St. Benedict, which so greatly
recommends solitude, a rule practised to the letter in the hermitages of
Montserrat in Spain.
Here, then, in this quiet and lonely retreat, it was the intention of
Blessed Francis to spend the last years of his life, and when he spoke upon
the subject in private to the good Prior, he expressed himself in these
words: "When I get to our hermitage I will serve God with my breviary, my
rosary, and my pen. Then I shall have plenty of happy and holy leisure,
which I can spend in putting on paper, for the glory of God and the
instruction of souls, thoughts which have been surging through my mind for
the last thirty years and which have been useful to me in my sermons, in my
instructions, and in my own private meditations. My memory is crowded with
these, but I hope, besides, that God will inspire me with others, and that
ideas will fall upon me from heaven thick and fast as the snowflakes which
in winter whiten all our mountains. Oh! who will give me the wings of a
dove, that I may fly to this holy resting place, and draw breath for a
little while beneath the shadow of the Cross? _I expect until my change
come!_"[1]
[Footnote 1: Job xiv. 14.]