JEANNE DE CHANTAL (saint). Autograph letter signed "Janne Fr - Lot 204

JEANNE DE CHANTAL (saint). Autograph letter signed "Janne Fransoise Fremyot" to the Archbishop of Besançon, Claude d'Achey. Monastère de la Visitation, Annecy, February 1 [1639]. 3pp. in-folio over 2ff.; margins slightly faded, second leaf cut in 3at folds. "Votre debonnaireté reconnue de tout le monde et dont nous recevons de si paternels temoignage[s] me donne confiance de vous ofrir nostre trés humble et filialle hobeissance avec des infinye[s] actions de grasse pour tant de bontés, de saint zelle, et de fraternelle affection, qu'il vous plait, Monseigneur, temogner en toute[s] ocations aux filles de celuy dont votre pieté cherit si hautement et tandrement la memoire et sainteté [François de Sales]. I cannot tell you the true feelings I have, Monseigneur, but I assure Your Lordship Ilustrissime that God has imprinted in my soul a very deep filial reverence and dilection towards her and a very great desire to have some ocation to temogner luy the absolute otority she has over me by the prontitude and fidelity of my hobeissance to your commandments. S'il vous plait, Monseigneur, me faire la grasse de m'en imposer, je les estimerey presieus. Ma seur la superieure de Besançon m'ecrit le desir que votre bonté a que ma seur, sa chere cousine, était en ce monastere [d'Annecy]; In the past she had some desire to come there, but now she no longer speaks of it, and as far as I know her mind, her proposal should not be made to her on our part, as it would seem to me that her mind was thinking the opposite, but if she ever shows the slightest inclination to us, I assure you, Monseigneur, that we will draw her to us with all our heart. While I believe that Your Lordship must remain at rest, it was not a soul to do a bad deed, I believe that she loves her vocation and particularly our Blessed Father [François de Sales] and that she lives there more content than ever, and does well. It is true that she is attached by great affection to her superiors [Mother Marie-Marguerite Michel] and certainly, Monseigneur, it is with good reason, for her good mother has always had great charity for her very dear sister, whom God has made go through great difficulties and inner pain, and no heart could be less maternal and vigilant than hers to help her through her difficult steps. Your gentleness, Monseigneur, which once honored her poor mother with its benevolence, will allow me, I beg of you, to tell her my pansy, since I believe that God wills it and I know that she has fallen from the good esteem in which she is held in your care, Monseigneur, and as I believe with much less sugeit than one would pence, for I find it hard to believe that a girl who has been dedicated to God since her childhood, who has persevered in goodness for so many years, should suddenly depart from it. Our Blessed Father loved and esteemed her greatly, and said that there was something divine in her soul. She governed a large number of novices [at the Visitation in Annecy] under the guidance of the Blessed Father, she was assistant in the absence of the superior with general satisfaction, and she governed three monasteries - Bezanson being the last - with great edification and regularity. Our confessor, who was in Fribourc last year, says he saw nothing but good. All of this, Monseigneur, leads me to the conclusion that, on the contrary, she cannot have done so much harm, but that, as she has a complaisant and cordial heart, her negligence and the desire she has to succeed in her undertaking has caused her to spread out further than the restraint and modesty of our vocation requires, And this to win affections and be helped in her needs, in which, of course, she is very wrong and mistaken in her human prudence, for a [g]rain of trust and resignation in Holy Providence alone can help us and move us in a moment to do more good than all our human industry[s] in a thousand years. I also admit, Monseigneur, that she has shown herself to be too sensitive in the little temporal worries she had with the late poor Mere de Besanson; but all this, Monseigneur, should not hold us in sorrow for my very dear sister Marie-Agnés [Claudine de Bauffremont]. Truly believing that the family walks in the observance of the exercises and hobeisance of the rules, I have received ases bon[s] temoignages. There is only one thing that I fear I cannot remedy, because it concerns a person whose otority is dear to me, and whom I can see is very much afraid of angering, sepandant, s'est ce qui est regardé pour les antree[s] qui se font inocemment mais non sans faire parlle[r] le monde qui le desapreuve. Je pense, Monseigneur, que vous m'entendés et que peut-es