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Oeuvres Vol 11: Letters-1 (1585 - 1598)

The edition of the collection of letters of SFS that covers eleven volumes in which 2100 are numbered, constitutes, however, but one-tenth of the total number of letters the saint is credited to have written. These are letters as much personal written to his family and friends, as professional – formal or informal – written to ecclesiastical and civil authorities, noblemen, administrators members of the political and business community, courtesy letters, letters of comfort in times of bereavement or misfortune, or encouragement in times of distress and anxiety, and letters of spiritual direction, that may be numerically the most predominant in number.

Andre RAVIER, SJ. In his book: "SFS, Letters d’Amitie Spirituelle”, (Desclee de Brouwer, 1980, ISBN 2-220-02300-1, pp. 887) provides extracts of 397 letters from this collection, which he introduces with very appropriate introductory and complementary insights.

At his beatification, a witness testifies that one morning he found about 50 letters laid out on his table, ready for dispatch. [v] Another states that when he entered his room early one morning, he found about 40 letters of spiritual direction addressed to a host of persons awaiting dispatch. SFS exclaims : “This is my workshop, I have so much to do here, that I do not move out”. Francis Favre, his valet states that on an average he wrote “twenty to twenty-five letters every day”. Thus, it is that every day, people of different walks of life, are offered from the same pen [glove, gantiere] a message of comfort in a world of tremendous uncertainties.