ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
A greater figure--perhaps the greatest of all figures in the history
of Savoy--is that of St. Francis de Sales. It is a little difficult
to speak of him without appearing to stir the embers of theological
disputation. But the effort must be made, since he is much too
notable a man to be passed over; and the task may be made easier
by the fact that he is a Catholic of whom Protestants speak well,
even though they have to recognize in him one of the most damaging
of their opponents. They respect his character even in the act of
examining his propositions; they perceive that it was just because
his character was so admirable that he was able to do the cause of
the Reformation so much harm.
He combined qualities which, in that age, were rarely found
conjoined, being at once a gentleman and a scholar, a man of saintly
humility, and yet of energy and courage. Such men were scarce in
both religious camps. The Reformers had their share of virile
vigour, and the best of them were among the most learned men of
their time; but, on the whole, they lacked good manners and 'sweet
reasonableness.' Their methods were often violent, and their speech
was often coarse. They upset altars and smashed stained-glass
windows, and threw sacred images into the rivers, and, as we
have seen, 'crowned Roman Catholic priests with cow-dung.' Their
vocabulary, too, was scurrilous, as was natural, seeing that many of
them had risen to eminence in their church from some very humble rank
in life. They lacked the grand style in theology, and one could find
excuses for calling them vulgarians.
No doubt there was more of the grand style among their Catholic
opponents, but they also fell short in many ways of the Christian
ideal. Many of them were dissolute debauchees. The case of Æneas
Sylvius, already cited, shows that the most cynical immorality was
not incompatible with the highest ecclesiastical advancement, and,
indeed, it is notorious that the loose lives of ecclesiastical
dignitaries did more than their unscriptural doctrines to discredit
the Church of Rome and make the Reformation possible. There were
prelates of whom it could truly be said that they spared neither men
in their anger nor women in their lust; and even among those whose
reputation was sweeter, there were a good many who would have passed
a very bad quarter of an hour if haled before Calvin's Consistory
and cross-examined. Even if they had passed the moral standards,
they would have been found guilty of luxury and arrogance. They were
unduly addicted to purple and fine linen, and made no pretence to
live a simple life.
On each side, however, there were exceptions, exempt from the
characteristic faults of their parties, and these, even in that age
of vehement polemics, were able to recognize and appreciate one
another. On the Protestant side there was M. de Bèze--the 'gentleman
reformer,' as he has been called--who, drawing a useful inspiration
from the memories of his unregenerate days, was able to speak affably
with his enemies in the gate. On the Catholic side there was St.
Francis de Sales, whom the study of the Humane Letters had indeed
humanized, who was transparently sincere, and who, by the charm of
his character, disarmed antagonism. In an age in which men of all
religious opinions (and of none) lived in daily peril of torture
and the stake, each of these two men believed that the other was
honestly mistaken, and would have liked to be his friend.
Judged by the historical results of his principal achievement, St.
Francis can hardly escape condemnation as a maker of mischief and a
stirrer-up of strife. To him, and to him alone, was due the triumph
of the Counter-Reformation in Chablais. If he had declined that
missionary enterprise, or failed in it, the Duke of Savoy would not
have been encouraged to make the treacherous attempt upon Genevan
independence known as the Escalade. That plot was actually laid at
Thonon, at a meeting held to celebrate and rejoice over St. Francis
de Sales' apostolic achievements. He must have known of it; he was
in a position to protest against it; he does not appear to have
done anything of the kind. It went forward, and Spanish soldiers
were hired to cut Genevan throats in the name of the Church of St.
Peter. There we have cause and effect--a saintly man interfering with
freedom of thought, and so bringing, not peace, but a sword.
That is the summing-up of the matter which impartial logic
compels; but, somehow or other, it does not much interfere with
the friendliness of one's feelings towards St. Francis de Sales.
The rude logic of events did not correspond to any syllogism in
his mind. The narrowness of his outlook was that of his country
and his age; the sweetness of his temper was his own. He loved his
erring brothers, as he considered them, and his concern was for
the salvation of their souls. He did disinterestedly, and at great
personal sacrifice, the duty which he conceived to lie nearest to
him; he did it like a soldier, who must not reason why, and with a
serene and lofty courage.
The courage of missionaries has often, it is true, been the subject
of exaggerated eulogy. Courage is no uncommon human quality; and it
is doubtful whether good men are, on an average, any braver than
bad men. It is not only the soldier who, as a matter of course,
takes risks quite equal to those of the missionary. The brigand, the
highwayman, and the beach-comber, to say nothing of the terrorist,
who is generally an atheist, also do so; and, these things being so,
much of the talk about the heroism of Christian heroes is almost
indecently vainglorious. Yet, even when all the necessary deductions
have been made, there remains something singularly fascinating in the
courage of St. Francis de Sales.
He was not by nature pugnacious, as was, for example, Farel, who
took an Irishman's delight in a row, and considered that it was all
in the day's work when he was fustigated by women, or dragged up and
down the floor of a church by the beard. His tastes, on the contrary,
were refined, and his inclinations were for the life of the cloister
or the study. He went into the wilds of Chablais--and it was really
a wild country in those days--because he had been called and chosen,
and because there was work to be done there which he was considered
specially capable of doing. Men with guns took pot-shots at him in
the dark places of the forests; and he once spent a whole winter's
night in a tree-top, while a pack of hungry wolves howled at him from
below. Such adventures were repugnant to his gentle and sensitive
nature; but he faced them and persevered, year after year, until at
last his pertinacity was rewarded. More as a tribute to his unique
personality than to his arguments--which, of course, were only the
commonplaces of Catholic apologetics--Chablais surrendered to the
Church. Even though one wishes that Chablais had held out, one cannot
help regarding its evangelist as a sympathetic figure. Pope Alexander
VII. canonized him in 1665.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN, VEVEY]