imself and all his actions. Pious
meditation, and the study of the holy scripture, were his beloved
entertainments: and he never failed to carry about him that excellent
book, called the Spiritual Combat. He sought the conversation of the
virtuous, particularly of F. Angelus Joyeuse, who, from a duke and
marshal of France, was become a Capuchin friar. The frequent discourses
of this good man on the necessity of mortification, induced the count to
add, to his usual austerities, the wearing of a hair shirt three days in
the week. His chief resort during his stay at Paris, was to some
churches, that especially of Saint Stephen des Grez, as being one of the
most retired. Here, he made {291} a vow of perpetual chastity, putting
himself under the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin. God, to
purify his heart, permitted a thick darkness insensibly to overspread
his mind, and a spiritual dryness and melancholy to overwhelm him. He
seemed, from a perfect tranquillity and peace of mind, to be almost
brought to the brink of despair. Seized with the greatest terrors, he
passed nights and days in tears and lamentations, and suffered more than
can be conceived by those who have not felt the severity of such
interior conflicts. The bitterness of his grief threw him into a deep
jaundice; he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep. His preceptor labored,
but all in vain, to discover the cause of this disorder, and find out a
remedy. At last, Francis, being at prayer in the same church of St.
Stephen, cast his eyes on a picture of our Lady: this awaking his
confidence in her intercession, he prostrated himself on the ground,
and, as unworthy to address the Father of all consolation, begged that
she would be his advocate, and procure him the grace to love God with
his whole heart. That very moment he found himself eased of his grief as
of a heavy weight taken off his heart, and his former peace and
tranquillity restored, which he ever after enjoyed. He was now eighteen
years old, when his father recalled him from Paris, and sent him to
Padua, to study the law, where his master was the celebrated Guy
Pancirola; this was in the year 1554. He chose the learned and pious
Jesuit, Antony Possevin, for his spiritual director; who at the same
time explained to him St. Thomas's Sum, and they read together
Bellarmin's controversies. His nephew, Augustus, gives us his written
rule of life, which he made at Padua: it chiefly shows his perpetual
attenti