RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Francis, Saint
of a monastery and church, probably about 1454, although the date is usually given as 1435. This marks the establishment of his order, which assumed the title of " Eremites of St. Francis " and strove to surpass the Franciscans by a more rigid application of the vow of poverty and by extreme asceticism. The fame of the miracles of St. Francis soon attracted the attention of Paul II. who sent a chamberlain in 1469 to test them. The result was favorable, and the rule of the new order was confirmed by Sixtus IV. in a bull issued May 23, 1474, their founder himself being appointed correctorgeneral. The rale was slightly modified by Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., and Julius II., the second changing the name of the order to Minimi Jratres (" Least of the Brethren "), probably in allusion to Matt. xxv. 40. Numerous miracles are recounted of St. Francis, many of them closely resembling those of Christ. As a consequence, Louis XL of France, when near death, summoned him to his court, but was obeyed only at the command of the pope, St. Francis declining to attempt to prolong the dying monarch's life by his prayers. The new king, Charles VIII., induced him to remain in France, consulted him both in spiritual and secular matters, and built for him two monasteries in France, one at Plessis-les-Tours and the other at Amboise, as well as a third at Rome, to be occupied solely by French monks. Francis was canonized by Leo X. in 1519. The Minims are bound, in addition to the three monastic vows, by a fourth which devotes them to a vita quadrigesimalis, or perpetual fast, enjoining abstinence from all meat and lacticinia, and permitting only bread and water, oil, vegetables, and fruit to be used for food. The appointed fasts of the Church are intensified by the Minims, who are also bound by strict rules of silence. The rule of the Minimite nuns, whose first convent was established at Andujar in Spain in 1495, closely resembles that for the monks, but the Tertiaries of both sexes are subject to far less rigid restrictions, especially with regard to diet. During its period of greatest prosperity, from the death of its founder to the end of the sixteenth century, the order had 450 houses, and extended its missionary activity as far as India. It now has only nineteen cloisters, the mother house at Paola, Sant'Andrea della Fratte in Rome, fourteen in Sicily, and one each in Naples, Marseilles, and Cracow. (O. ZocKLERf.)
Bibliography: The earliest life of the founder is in ASB, April, i. 105-234. Other lives are by Hilarion de Coste, Paris, 1655; I. Toscano, Venice, 1704; C. du Vivier, Douai, 1722; Rolland, Paris, 1874; J. Dabert, Paris, 1877; and in KL, iv. 1824-26.
Early accounts of the order are: L. de Montoia, Cronica general de la orden de los Minimos, Madrid, 1619; Louis Doni Datichi, Hist, generate de Vordre des Minimes, Paris, 1624; F. Lanovius, Chronicon generate ordinis Minimorum, ib. 1635. Consult: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, vii. 426-452; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 527 sqq.; Currier, Religious Orders, pp. 268-270. On the Rules consult: C. Passarelli, Statuta fratrum Minorum, Naples, 1570; Les Regies des freres el sozurs et des Miles . . de Vordre des Minimes, Paris, 1632; Digestum sapientim Minimitanm tripartitum, ed. P. Baltas d'Avila, Lille, 1667; Traduction nouvelle des regies de Vordre
des Minimes, Paris, 1703.
FRANCIS OF PARIS. See Jansen, Cornelius, Jansenism, § 7.
FRANCIS, SAINT, OF SALES: Saint Francis of Sales, noted preacher and devotional author; born at the chateau of Sales near Annecy (25 m. s. of Geneva) in Savoy, Aug. 21, 1567; d. at Lyons Dec. 28, 1622. He was a member of a noble family of Savoy and at the age of twelve entered the Jesuit college in Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of philosophy, the classics and Hebrew, leading at the same time a life of stern asceticism in fulfilment of an early vow to the Virgin. From 1584 to 1590 he studied civil and canon law at Padua, but gave himself up more and more to theology under the guidance of the Jesuit Possevin. During a severe illness he determined to enter the priesthood, and carried out his purpose in 1591, in spite of the opposition of his family.
Placed under the authority of the bishop of Geneva, who was then residing at Annecy, Francis began to play an important part in the movement for bringing back to the Roman faith the inhabitants of the province of Chablais and of the district of Gex, lying on the Lake of Geneva.
Activity Conquered in 1536 by the Bernese in Chablais, and converted to Protestantism,
Gex, and Chablais and Gex were restored to
Geneva. Philibert Emmanuel of Savoy by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1564 with the assurance of religious freedom. This pledge, faithfully kept by Philibert, was broken by his son Charles Emmanuel, who succeeded in 1580, and discerned in the close connection prevailing between the people of the two regions and the inhabitants of Bern and Geneva a menace to his political authority. Peaceful methods were at first decided upon, and to Francis of Sales the mission was confided. In spite of his zeal, courage, patience and remarkable gifts of persuasion, Francis met with absolute failure at Thonon, the capital of Chablais, whose inhabitants entered into a compact to refuse even a hearing to the eloquent preacher. Only among the peasantry and the nobility could he point to a few isolated conversions. Convinced that nothing was to be accomplished by peaceful means, he abandoned the field of his labors in the winter of 1596-97, and at Turin in the ducal council declared himself for a policy of forcible conversion, calling for the expulsion of the Protestant clergy, the prohibition of Evangelical literature, the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic parishes, the foundation of a Jesuit college, and the restoration of the mass in the city of Thonon. The plan was adopted, priests and monks were sent into the country, soldiers were quartered upon the inhabitants; and with the additional weapon of exile the Roman reaction was speedily triumphant. Encouraged by their success, the authorities turned their eyes to Geneva whither Francis went in 1597 at the instance of Pope Clement VIII. There he came into repeated contact with the aged Beza, and, convinced that the great Huguenot could not be gained over by argument, attempted bribery— an act which roused Beza to great indignation. To his very last day Francis retained an irreconcilable hatred for Geneva, which he designated as the home of the devil and of heretics.
Francis, Saint Franck