to one of the friends of St.Francis de Sales, "that I desire of him a work to serve as a manual for all persons of the court and the great world, without excepting kings and princes, to fit them for living Christianly each according to their condition.

I want this manual to be accurate, judicious, and such as any one can make use of." St.Francis de Sales published, in 1608, the _Introduction to a Devout Life,_ a delightful and charming manual of devotion, more stern and firm in spirit than in form, a true Christian regimen softened by the tact of a delicate and acute intellect, knowing the world and its ways.

"The book has surpassed my hope," said Henry IV.

The style is as supple, the fancy as rich, as Montaigne's; but scepticism has given place to Christianism; St.Francis de Sales does not doubt, he believes; ingenious and moderate withal, he escapes out of the controversies of the violent and the incertitudes of the sceptics.

The step is firm, the march is onward towards the seventeenth century, towards the reign of order, rule, and method.
The vigorous language and the beautiful arrangement in the style of the magistrates had already prepared the way for its advent.