Francis was born in 1567 at the château of Sales in Savoy, the eldest son of a noble family. He studied at Paris and at Padua, where he took a doctorate in law, but he turned down the career his father had planned for him and was ordained priest in 1593. The next year he went as a missionary to the Chablais, south of Lake Geneva, where most people had become Calvinist; he preached, debated, and wrote leaflets for those who would not come to hear him, and many returned to the Catholic Church.
In 1602 he became bishop of Geneva, living at Annecy because Geneva itself was closed to him. He was a tireless preacher, confessor and director of souls. From his notes for one of the people he guided grew the Introduction to the Devout Life (1609), and in 1616 he published the Treatise on the Love of God. In 1610 he and Jane Frances de Chantal founded the Order of the Visitation. He died at Lyon in 1622 and was canonised in 1665.
Francis de Sales in the library (3 works)
- Introducción a la vida devota — 1609; traducción de 1793 · en español
La guía clásica de la santidad para quienes viven en el mundo. - Francis de Sales: Introduction to the Devout Life — 1609; translation 1885
The classic guide to holiness for people living in the world, written for a married laywoman. - Francis de Sales: Treatise on the Love of God — 1616; translation 1884
The Doctor of Love's great treatise on how love of God is born, grows and rules the soul.