Saint Francis Borgia

Shortly thereafter, the city of Gandia was taken and pillaged by a troop of rebels: Francis escaped their fury only with difficulty, and there was even a kind of miracle in his preservation. He was taken from there to Saragossa, where his maternal uncle, who was archbishop, gave him new tutors to complete in him what had been so happily begun in his father's palace. The soul of this child was capable of the greatest things; and those who were entrusted with his guidance easily made noble impressions of all kinds of virtues upon him. Finally, it was necessary to go to court; being one of the greatest lords of Spain and the eldest of his house, it was impossible for him to excuse himself from this duty. The air of the court is very dangerous for a young lord who begins to breathe it. Borgia, nevertheless, knew how to appear there like people of his birth, without abandoning any of the exercises of devotion to which his status as a Christian obliged him. He knew how to do what seemed impossible to so many people, that is to say, to join the laws of the great world with the maxims of Christianity; and, although he enjoyed this new life well enough, no change was noticed in his modesty or in his other practices of virtue.

Seeing these rare qualities, the Infanta Catherine, to whom he had been assigned, and who came to marry John III, King of Portugal, wanted to take him with her; but the Duke, his father, prevented it and had him return to Saragossa. He studied philosophy there, after which he was sent to the court of Charle s V. Our youn Charles-Quint Emperor involved in the wars leading to the destruction of the convent. g courtier soon found delicate pitfalls there for his innocence. As he was admirably well-built, with a noble air, a gentle and pleasant look, and as he was also naturally inclined to gaiety and playfulness, he soon found enough people who wanted to have connections with him, to engage him in games and a thousand other frivolities. Feeling too sensitive to all these charms, he stiffened vigorously against them, and, so as not to be overcome by them, he first had recourse to God, then he made for himself holy laws which served as a curb to his passions and a wall of defense for his purity and his innocence.

The first law he gave himself was to flee, as much as he could, the company of high society, where everything is dangerous, and which insensibly lets the poison of voluptuousness flow to the bottom of the heart. If he was sometimes obliged to appear there, he armed himself, beforehand, against the traps of the devil with the weapons of prayer and mortification, clothing himself, for this purpose, in a rough hair shirt. The second maxim he prescribed for himself was never to play games of chance, because, besides his money, one also loses three things incomparably more precious, which are: time, the spirit of devotion, and the tranquility of the heart. Nothing was better regulated than his house: one did not swear there, one did not see debauchery there, and prayer was said there exactly in the evening and in the morning in common, without anyone daring to excuse themselves from attending. Moreover, there was no lord at court who had a more brilliant and magnificent retinue than he, nor who appeared with more honor in solemnities and public assemblies.

The Empress, charmed by so many perfections, had him marry Eleanor de Castro, of the illus trious house of th Eléonore de Castro Wife of Francis Borgia. at name in Portugal, a young lady for whom she had the greatest esteem and affection, and who, moreover, besides a very rare beauty and a wonderful mind, had the same inclinations as he for piety. He had eight children by her: five sons and three daughters, who did not degenerate from the virtue of their parents, and who made themselves very considerable by their merit in the different states to which divine Providence called them. The Emperor, in consideration of this marriage, made Francis Marquis of Lombay and Grand Equerry to the Empress, and gave him more of a share than ever in his good graces; but this wise favorite never used the credit he had with their imperial majesties, except to prevent injustice and to favor those whom their innocence and probity made worthy of advancement or protection.

His ordinary amusements were hunting, music, and the study of mathematics; and in these amusements, he had the skill to mortify himself often, such as by stopping his bird when it was ready to swoop down on its prey, by interrupting a tune that seemed too pleasant to him, and by leaving a calculation that gave him too much pleasure. He served Charles V usefully in his enterprise against the Moors and the Saracens in Africa, and he followed him to the Milanese to support the incursion he wished to make into Provence; but several things began to disgust him entirely with the vain occupations of the world. Upon his return from Africa, he had a great illness, during which he had some spiritual books read to him; he found such a taste for them that he resolved from then on to read no more that were even slightly profane. Furthermore, he saw in Provence a strange image of the vanity of men's projects: the army of Charles V was defeated, the greater part of its nobility, whom he had led as if to a victory and a certain conquest, was put to death, and this emperor was forced to make a shameful retreat, without having been able to take the city of Marseille which he had besieged. Finally, the death of the Empress, which occurred in Toledo in the l'impératrice Wife of Philip the Good, donor of a reliquary. year 1539, finished convincing him that all the grandeurs of the earth are vain and that it is pure folly to place one's support in them.

Her youth, her beauty, her wit, and that sovereign dignity which raised her above all persons of her sex, had carried her to the highest degree of happiness to which fortune can rise; but a sudden death overturned all this display and, from the greatest princess in the world, made only an infectious corpse that had to be hidden in a tomb. Borgia was charged with conducting her to the place of her burial and handing her over to the clergy of Granada, who were to perform the burial ceremonies. To bear witness that it was indeed her, he had the lead coffin in which she was buried opened, and then her face, which had, a short time before, been the admiration of its century, appeared so hideous and so horrible to behold that no one dared to swear that it was she: "Ah!" cried the holy marquis at that very moment, "I shall never have an attachment to any master whom death can take from me, and God alone shall be the object of my thoughts, my desires, and my love." He was further struck by the funeral oration that the great servant of God, John of Avila, delivered on this occasion wit Jean d'Avila Preacher whose funeral oration left an impression on Francis. h the piety and unction that were ordinary to him, and by a letter he received from the Abbess of Saint Clare of Gandia, sister of the Duke his father, who knew, by revelation, the operations that grace was beginning to perform in the soul of our Saint, and exhorted him not to stop their course. He therefore asked the Emperor for permission to retire from the court, so that, being solitary in his house, he could apply himself with more convenience to prayer, reading, and other spiritual exercises, which detach the heart from visible things so as to attach it only to the invisible.

The Emperor, far from granting him what he requested, made him Viceroy, Captain General of Catalonia, and a Knight of the Order of Saint James; then, to further show the esteem he held for his merit, he provided him with a rich commandery and a seat on his council. Borgia did as much to avoid accepting these favors as others would have done to obtain them; but, all his excuses having been rejected, he was obliged to go to Catalonia as soon as possible. This was the first theater of his great actions. He entirely exterminated the bandits who had devastated it with their brigandage; he remedied all abuses of justice and suppressed the insolence and debauchery of the soldiers who were accustomed to exercising all kinds of ravages with impunity. The poor found in him a secure protection against the oppression of the great. Scandalous vices were banished by the wisdom and rigor of his ordinances. It is incredible how many poor girls whose honor was in danger he married off; how many ruined families he pulled from misery and dire necessity; how many debtors he delivered from prisons by paying their debts himself; how many lawsuits he prevented by settling the disputes of the parties, and how many people ready to kill each other he reconciled, partly by his gentleness, partly by the weight of his authority.

If he fulfilled the duties of Viceroy so worthily, he did not discharge those of a true Christian with any less perfection. He then began to apply himself to mental prayer, and having passed through the various degrees of meditation, he was raised to a high contemplation of the divine perfections. He devoted four or five hours every morning to this delightful exercise, and his soul was so intimately united to God that often, in the midst of the public duties his position required, he was forced to withdraw to give way to the divine transports that overtook him. He joined mortification to prayer, and his fasting was from that time so rigorous that he first spent two Lents, then an entire year, taking nothing each day but a piece of bread, a glass of water, and a few herbs or vegetables, even though his table was always very well served for the people of quality who came to it. This strange abstinence was accompanied by many other austerities. He wore a hair shirt, drew blood from himself with harsh disciplines, stayed awake part of the night to give more time to spiritual exercises, often examined his conscience with the severity of a judge, and when he found himself guilty of some fault, he was pitiless toward himself and punished himself without mercy. He sustained himself in a life so contrary to the inclinations of nature through the frequent use of the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, receiving communion every eight days in his chapel, and on the principal feast days in the great church of Barcelona, for the edification of the people. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whom he consulted by letter regarding this frequency, which then seemed too extraordinary for a governor burdened with a thousand affairs, far from dis Saint Ignace de Loyola Founder of the Society of Jesus and friend of Philip. suading him, sent word that he approved of it and exhorted him to persevere with courage.

However, his father having been called to a better life, and having left him by his death the fourth Duke of Gandia, he took this pretext to ask the Emperor for his discharge from the viceroyalty, in order to go and govern his subjects himself. The Emperor granted it to him, but on the condition that he would soon return to court; and to engage him further, he made him Grand Master of the household of the Infanta Maria of Portugal, who was to be the wife of his son Don Philip; at the same time, he gave the Duchess, his wife, the patent to be her lady-in-waiting. Having arrived in Gandia, he did an incredible amount of good there: he built monasteries, founded hospitals, established charitable assemblies, rescued a quantity of the poor and prisoners from misery, regulated justice, supported religion everywhere, and, making himself a model of virtue and holiness, he led most of his vassals to an orderly life and the exercises of Christian piety.

It was then that God permitted the Duchess, who seconded his zeal and fervor in everything, to fall dangerously ill. The Duke, who loved her with an incomparable love, seeing her given up by the doctors, had recourse to God to ask for her recovery. After many alms, penances, and sighs, one night while he was praying with greater ardor, he heard a heavenly voice that told him that his wife's health was at his disposal, that he could choose for her either life or death; but that, if he chose life, it would be neither to his advantage nor to that of the dying woman. At this miraculous voice, he entered into a profound astonishment at the goodness of Our Lord, and, melting into tears, he cried out: "How is it possible, my God, that you should do my will and that I should not do yours? I no longer want anything but what you want. I offer you, not only the life of my wife, but also my own and that of all my children."

This generous resignation was followed by the death of the Duchess, which was as holy as her life had been pure and innocent. Thereafter, the Duke thought only of putting his household affairs in order, so that nothing could prevent him from leaving the world and dedicating himself entirely to the service of God. He made the Exercises under the guidance of Father Lefèvre, the first companion of Saint Ignatius, whom divine Providence had brought to Spain, and he emerged from them so inflamed with the fire of divine love that he wished from then on to retire into a cloister. With this thought, he consulted a learned religious of the Order of Saint Francis regarding the choice of the Congregation he should embrace; and having learned f rom his mouth that Compagnie de Jésus Religious order to which Peter Canisius belonged. God was calling him to the Society of Jesus, he wrote as soon as possible to Saint Ignatius, who was in Rome, to ask him for the grace of being received. The blessed founder granted it to him with joy, but on the condition that before his entry he would take time to put his children in a state where they would no longer need his guidance or the care of his paternal providence. This condition was very judicious; however, the holy Duke, whose fervor could not suffer any delay, obtained a brief from the Pope, by which he was permitted to profess the vows of religion in secret and before few witnesses, without for that reason leaving his quality of Duke of Gandia, until he had fulfilled the duties of a father toward his children.

His Holiness gave him four years to fulfill them, but he only needed three; he married his eldest son and two of his daughters very advantageously, from one of whom descended the princes who have since reigned in Portugal. He also prepared from afar the establishment of the others, and marked the goods they were to have in his succession. At the same time, he settled all his accounts and all his other domestic affairs, so as to leave neither debts nor lawsuits in his family. During this interval, he rose every day at two in the morning and remained in prayer until eight o'clock. Afterward, he went to confession, heard Mass, and never failed to receive Communion. Communion was followed by a study of theology, which Saint Ignatius had recommended to him, and he finally finished the morning with a first audience that he gave to those who had business with him. After a very sober dinner, which was nevertheless his only meal, he employed the afternoon, first, in a spiritual conference with his children and his whole family, whom he instructed in the truths of the Gospel; then in the study of the Fathers of the Church and the holy Canons; thirdly, in a second audience to which all sorts of people, poor and rich, learned and ignorant, were admitted; finally, in the evening exercises, which were, besides some vocal prayers, spiritual reading, the renewal of the presence of God, and the examination of conscience.

In the jubilee year 1550, after having given precepts of high and sublime wisdom to Charles of Borgia, his eldest son, he left for Rome, ac comp Rome Birthplace of Maximian. anied by John, his second son, and thirty of his servants. He was received everywhere with great honor, and upon his entry into Rome, the ambassadors of the crowns and several cardinals came to meet him with a magnificent procession of carriages; the Pope himself asked him to take an apartment in his palace; but having excused himself, he went to stay with the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, where, finding Saint Ignatius waiting for him at the door, he threw himself at his feet, and weeping with joy to see himself in the arms of his superior, he asked him for his hand to kiss and for his blessing. From there he went to the audience of His Holiness Julius III, from whom he received extraordinary testimonies of affection and benevolence; so that it was believed in Rome that he was going to be a cardinal, like two of his brothers who were already. But he avoided this blow by leaving the city as soon as possible, and by returning to Spain as soon as he had gained the jubilee. He did not, however, go to his Duchy of Gandia, which he had left forever; but, after having visited with singular devotion the castle of Loyola, the birthplace of his father Saint Ignatius, he retired to Oñate, a small neighboring town, which is in the province of Guipúzcoa.

It was there that, having received the letters from the Emperor, by which he permitted him to resign his duchy in favor of the Marquis of Lombay, his son, he did so by a public act before a notary, and at the same time renounced all his other goods; then he took the Jesuit habit, received Holy Orders, and said his first Mass with marvelous fervor and devotion in the chapel of the castle of Loyola. It was only a low Mass; but the next day, to satisfy the devotion of the people, he celebrated the second solemnly in the town of Vergara. The crowd was so great that, the church being too small, it was necessary to raise an altar in the middle of the countryside, and so many people wanted to receive Communion from his hand, to participate in the indulgences he had obtained from the Pope, that he could not finish until three o'clock in the afternoon. He finally preached in an apostolic manner that softened and touched all hearts. The inhabitants of Oñate, wishing to keep such a holy man, gave him and his company a small hermitage outside their gates, where he had wooden cells built, so poor and so narrow that it was easy to see that the whole world, with its luxury and vanities, was entirely dead in him. His pleasure, in this house, was to lower himself to the lowest offices and the most humiliating functions. He worked in the garden, carried wood and water, and served in the kitchen; he went through the villages to beg from door to door, with his bag on his shoulders, and nothing was more unbearable to him than to see that he was distinguished from the others, whether for the merit of his person or for the memory of his past greatness. He also taught the catechism to the children, whom he assembled for that purpose to the sound of a small bell.

This rare example of humility astonished the minds of all these peoples. Soon his solitude changed into a very public place. People came from all sides to have the consolation of seeing him; and everyone, upon coming, said to themselves: "Let us go, let us go see the man of heaven." A great number of prelates, dukes, lords, and magistrates wished to share in this happiness: no one visited him in his hermitage who did not return better; many were so touched by the holiness of his discourses that they left the world and entered the Company, in his imitation, among others Dom Antoine de Cordoue, his first cousin, whom Pope Julius III was about to make a cardinal at the nomination of Charles V; Dom Sanchez de Castille, Dom Pétro de Navarre, Dom Charles de Gusman, Dom Barthélemy Bastamance, secretary to Dom Jean de Tavora, cardinal and archbishop of Toledo and prime minister of state, and a quantity of other disciples of Father Jean d'Avila, all illustrious by their birth and by their own merits. The Emperor, informed of the incomparable virtues of Francis, solicited a cardinal's hat for him from the Pope so powerfully that the matter was nearly concluded without him knowing anything about it; but Saint Ignatius having informed him of it, he broke this move as well through very humble and very pressing letters that he wrote to His Holiness. His desire was to spend the rest of his days in the humility of his retreat; but divine Providence had disposed otherwise. Saint Ignatius sent him first to Castile, then to Andalusia, and from there to Portugal, where he everywhere made marvelous conversions and conquests. One cannot imagine the honor and respect with which he was received in Portugal, not only by prelates and lords, but also by the king, the queen, Don Jean, their son, and Don Louis, brother of the king. He preached often before Their Majesties, and his word had so much success at court that one saw there a renewal of piety that was quite extraordinary. Don Louis, who had already made great requests to enter the Company following his example, without however being able to obtain it for reasons of state that made him necessary in the secular world, especially wanted to have him as his director, and he profited so much from his instructions that he lived thereafter, in his palace, like a religious in his cloister. From Lisbon, Saint Francis went to Evora and Braganza, where he worked with no less success for the glory of God and for the salvation of the great and the people.

From there he returned to Spain, and went to Valladolid, where Prince Don Philip, regent of the kingdom during the absence of the Emperor his father, made his ordinary residence. He lodged at the hospital; but he was visited there by all the great, and, by the force of his remonstrances, he won to God the Count of Monterey, the two sons of the Count of Oropeza, Dom Pimantel, one of the wisest counselors of Charles V, and a commander of high distinction, named Jean de la Moschera, but who had made himself more famous by the disorders of his scandalous life than by the brilliance of his birth. This lord usually declaimed against the Society of Jesus, enemy of all vices. Our Saint went to find him at his home, and having thrown himself at his feet as if to ask his pardon for the subjects that the Society might have given him to disparage it, he disarmed him so much that he made him a regulated, charitable man and a humble disciple of Jesus crucified.

Such happy successes led Saint Ignatius to establish him as his Vicar General throughout the extent of the Spains, Portugal, and even the East Indies. He excused himself for some time from this commission, which did extreme violence to his humility; but, obedience prevailing over his reluctance, he finally submitted to the desires and will of his superior. Our Lord showed well by the great blessings He gave to his labors that this choice came from Him. During the time of his government, there was almost no city in Spain or Portugal where he did not establish colleges or houses of the Company. He was seconded in his glorious designs by all those in these kingdoms who were prelates famous in doctrine or holiness; of this number were Saint Thomas of Villanova, Archbishop of Valencia, and Dom Barthélemy of the Martyrs, Archbishop of Prague. The greatest lords, who had for the most part had connections with him, as well as the princes and princesses of the blood, held it an honor to contribute to his holy enterprises. The Infanta Joanna, who had remained regent of Spain during a trip that King Philip, her brother, made to England, whose queen he had married, favored him in everything she could. She had placed herself under his guidance, and she thought so highly of his merit that she believed there was no one in the Church more worthy of the sovereign pontificate than he; she undertook nothing without having consulted him beforehand.

The death of Saint Ignatius, which occurred two years after he had created him his Vicar General in Spain, touched him very sensitively by the inestimable loss it caused to his Order and at the same time to the whole Church. He consoled himself only with the hope that a new superior would relieve him of the burden that this blessed founder had placed on his shoulders; but he was deceived in this expectation, for the Rev. Father Jacques Laynez, who was elected General in the place of Saint Ignatius, immediately confirmed him in his charge. Also, in this conjuncture, the Company needed, in Spain, a leader of his strength and merit to support it against a terrible persecution that was stirred up against it by the secret intrigues of heretics and also of some communities jealous of the glory it had acquired in so little time. He suffered with invincible humility and patience the calumnies that were sown on all sides to disparage it; contenting himself, after having devoted himself to the justice of God, to bear all the opprobrium alone, to destroy them by a simple exposition of the innocence of the accused. He was then called to the Emperor Charles V, who had already left the empire and the royalty and had retired to Yuste, in Extremadura, to a monastery of Saint Jerome. He found this prince prejudiced against his own by the bad impressions that their enemies had given him of them; but as slander, however brazen it might be, had never dared to attack his person, whose holiness was revered by all of Spain, he was nonetheless received admirably well. He was lodged in the monastery, although even the princes who came there were not lodged there; he had several audiences with His Majesty for entire hours, always covered, seated, and alone; he disabused him so perfectly of the accusations with which they had wanted to blacken the members of the Company that Charles, striking his forehead with his hand, exclaimed: "Is it really possible that they dared to lie to me like this?" He gave him advice of great importance, both for the good conduct of Spain, in order to share it with the king, his son, and for his own particular regulation, and Charles found them so judicious that he absolutely wanted to have them in writing. Thus, no one daring to disapprove of what this great prince approved, the persecution against the Society of Jesus was quieted or at least suspended for some time.

From Yuste, Saint Francis was obliged to go to Portugal, where the court was in extreme consternation due to the sad death of King John. He was an angel of peace, who made the will of heaven adored with gentleness and resignation, and the consolation he brought there was so great that the queen herself, who was the most afflicted, thought only of making good profit from this cross. He later paid several visits to the Emperor, the last of which was to prepare him for death. He was one of the executors of his will, and he then gave his funeral oration, where, without stopping at the moral virtues and glorious actions that this prince had had in common with the greatest pagan heroes, he praised only what he had had of Christian in his conduct.

It would be an infinite thing to follow this incomparable man in all his travels; to describe all the establishments he made there, whether in Spain or in Africa, to instruct the youth, to form missionaries, to fight heretics and Moors, to reform the morals of the faithful, and to re-establish ecclesiastical discipline in the dioceses from which it was almost entirely banished; to represent the fruit of his sermons, his remonstrances, and his familiar instructions; to mark all the persons of extraordinary merit whom he received into his Company, among whom, however, we must not omit the Reverend Father Francis Toledo, so famous for his piety and his erudition, and, later, raised to the cardinalate; finally, to paint the picture of the new persecutions he overcame by his silence and his patience, without ever wanting to accuse anyone or reveal the names of his calumniators to justify himself. What is more surprising is that this great Saint, whose zeal embraced so many provinces, and who worked at the same time for the salvation of both worlds; whom one always saw either in the pulpit, preaching with the zeal of an apostle, or visiting the colleges and houses of his Order, or in the council of princes and prelates, to advance the glory of God, the honor of the Church, and the instruction of the peoples, or in some other negotiations of piety; this great Saint, we say, was almost never without violent pains, either from gout or other illnesses that he had brought upon himself by his extraordinary austerities.

As such a brilliant sun was not meant only to illuminate the Spains, there was an ardent desire to see him in Italy. He therefore received an order from the Pope and his General to travel as soon as possible to Rome, where divine Providence destined him for even more considerable tasks than those he had held until then. He arrived there on September 7, 1561, and shortly thereafter, he was named Vicar-General in the absence of the Reverend Father Laynez, whom the Pope had sent to France. The zeal, prudence, firmness, gentleness, and other virtues he displayed in this new position meant that, upon the death of that General, he was placed in his stead with the applause not only of the entire Society, but also of His Holiness and all the cardinals and prelates in Rome, and even of all the princes of Europe. Saint Francis was the only one who groaned before God about it, and who complained of it before men. Before dismissing the General Congregation, he absolutely insisted on kissing the feet of each of the deputies individually; this filled that entire celebrated assembly, composed of a group of men admirable for their learning and holiness, with a new respect for a superior so humble, and so perfectly dead to all the grandeurs of the world.

It is impossible to say how much the Company grew on all sides under his wise government. An infinite number of great personages entered it and rendered it illustrious by their capacity in all sorts of disciplines and by their signal piety. He established countless new houses, not only in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Poland, but also in Asia, Africa, and America. Kings and other sovereigns wrote to him continually to obtain from him such zealous and useful laborers at a time when the corruption of faith and morals had become almost general. There were several of his disciples who endured martyrdom after the many labors of the apostolate. Finally, the whole world looked upon him as a man sent from heaven to procure the salvation of all nations. The Popes Pius IV and Saint Pius V bore him a particular affection for this, and they could not tire of giving him great praise. Yet, this marvelous man regarded himself only as a useless member of the Church and as an onerous burden to his institute. Having one day assembled the principal Fathers, he threw himself at their feet and begged them, with tears in his eyes, to reveal his weaknesses to him and to declare all the failings he committed in his office. In the end, he spared nothing to have himself entirely discharged from it.

But when he least expected it, the hol y Pope Pius V ad saint pape Pie V Successor to Pius IV, he supported Charles Borromeo in his reforms. ded to his burden a journey and a negotiation of the utmost importance; for, seeing that Sultan Selim, after making himself master of the island of Cyprus, was threatening all of Christendom with a general desolation that could only be prevented by a holy league of all Christian princes, he sent Cardinal Commendon with Father Francis Tolet to Germany to solicit it from the Emperor and the King of Poland, and Cardinal Bovello, known as Alexandrin, his nephew, to France, Spain, and Portugal to negotiate it with the sovereigns of these three kingdoms, giving him our Saint as an assistant and perpetual advisor, with orders to consult him and follow his advice in all things. The legate was received at the entrance to Catalonia by Ferdinand de Borgia, one of the children of this blessed General, whom the King of Spain sent expressly to meet His Highness. Charles de Borgia, Duke of Gandia, his eldest son, and Francis de Borgia, Marquis of Lombay, son of that Duke, received him in Valencia, followed by the flower of the country's nobility. All the former vassals and servants of the Saint, along with his grandson, threw themselves at his feet to kiss his hands and ask for his blessing.

When he was in Madrid, King Philip II showed him great esteem and a very special veneration on all sorts of occasions. King Don Sebastian did the same in Portugal, and Francis took advantage of this disposition to manage with Their Majesties a great number of enterprises of the utmost importance, for the preservation of faith and piety and for the conversion of sinners and infidels. He made some new foundations for his religious, and, visiting all the houses of his Order that were on his route, he made admirable regulations there to maintain the observance and purity of the spirit of the Company. From Spain, he went to France in the retinue of the legate, and Charles IX, who was in Blois with Queen Catherine de Medici, his mother, did not receive him there with any less honor and tenderness than the other sovereigns to whom he had gone. However, as the kingdom was full of tumult and rumors of war, and the Calvinists were causing universal upheaval there every day, he could not obtain any help in men or money against the Turks. The desolation in which he saw our provinces and the most holy and venerable places of religion touched him so much that, having wished to say Mass in one of these churches pillaged by the heretics, he was seized by a fever that never left him. He therefore took the road back to Italy, where the Dukes of Savoy and Ferrara kept him with them for some time to help him recover his health; but, all the care of the doctors being useless, he went promptly by way of Loreto to Rome, to have the consolation of dying in that city sanctified by the blood of so many martyrs.

When he was told that he was in the city, he recited with extraordinary fervor the canticle of Saint Simeon: "Now, Lord, you will deliver your servant to enter into the enjoyment of your peace." He thanked God for the grace He had given him to remain in his humble state as a religious without being elevated to the great prelacies of the Church, as he had so often been threatened; he also expressed to Him a lively gratitude that he had lost his health and that he was going to die through the obedience he had rendered to the Holy See and in the service of the Church. As soon as he had entered the house of his Order, the cardinals and ambassadors came to have the consolation of seeing him, but he stopped this concourse by asking that he be left to manage the little time that remained for him to prepare himself well for death. Pope Gregory XIII, who had gone to Tivoli, learning of the extremity of his illness, was deeply touched by it, and, sending him the plenary indulgence, he said that the Church was going to lose a great servant of God and one of its strongest columns. He lived only two days after his arrival; during these two days, he did not lose a moment to prepare himself holily to appear before the judgment of God. He received all the sacraments with a devotion so tender that it delighted and charmed all those present. He absolutely refused two things: one, to name or even indicate his successor, saying that he had enough other accounts to render to God without being burdened with that one; the other, to suffer a painter to make his portrait. After an ecstasy of a few hours, in which he had assurances of his salvation, he predicted to Dom Thomas de Borgia, his brother, that he would be a bishop, and at the same time blessed all his children; finally, being ready to enter into eternity, he rendered to God his soul, all laden with the trophies it had won over the demon, the flesh, and sin, and all crowned with merits. This was on September 30 of the year 1572, the year of the death of Saint Pius V, and the sixty-second of his age.

Here are the main characteristics of Saint Francis Borgia: 1° The hat is usually painted near him, or at his feet, because he hastened to leave Rome quietly, upon realizing that there was talk of making him a cardinal; 2° a skull, wearing the imperial crown, is usually placed near him: this is to recall that his desire to renounce the world came to him on the occasion of the funeral of Empress Isabella; 3° he is also painted in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, to signify that he was gifted with a very special devotion to the Holy Eucharist: in the company of Saints Louis Bertrand, Cajetan, Philip Benizi, and Saint Rose of Lima, because they were canonized simultaneously by Clement X (1671); holding in his hand a painting or an engraving of the portrait of the Blessed Virgin, honored at Saint Mary Major, because he obtained that reproductions be made of it, and took care to distribute them far and wide in great numbers, to extend the cult of the Mother of God.

He is invoked in Lisbon against earthquakes. He is the patron saint of Gandia and Valencia, in Spain.

## CULT AND RELICS. — WRITINGS.

His body was buried in the old church of the Society, near those of Saint Ignatius and the Reverend Father James Laynez, his two predecessors. But since then, by the permission and authority of Pope Paul V, it has been transported first to the sacristy of the same house, then to the church of the Gesu, and finally to the professed house of Madrid, in Spain, through the care of Cardinal Duke of Lerma and Cardinal Gaspar de Borgia, his grandsons. The distinguished and countless miracles that have been performed at his tomb and through his intercession led Urban VIII, in 1624, to beatify him, and Clement IX to canonize him. Innocent XI fixed his feast day on October 10.

Saint Francis Borgia left four treatises, namely:

1° The Spiritual Chiliad, where he examines 1° how much the consi deration of things Chiliyre spirituel Spiritual treatise written by the saint. that are below the earth should confound us before God; 2° how much the consideration of things that we see on the earth should give us confusion; 3° how much the consideration of heavenly things should humble us.

2° Exercises for each day of the week.

3° A Discourse on the tears of Jesus Christ over Jerusalem.

4° The Mirror of the Christian's actions, where one finds a spiritual paraphrase of the canticle of the three children in the furnace.

They were translated from Spanish into Latin by Father Alphonse Deja, a Jesuit. Brussels, 1675, folio; Abbé Grimes, in his Esprit des Saints, gave a very beautiful summary of them.

We have used, to compose this summary, various Lives of the Saint, written by Ribadeneira, Betencourt, and Fr. Verjus. — Cf. Esprit des Saints, by Abbé Grimes.