LOUISE DE CHARMOISY. — The *Filotea* of St Francis de Sales. Born into the noble family of Chastel around 1587, she was a lady-in-waiting to the duchess mother of Guise. In 1600 she married in Paris Claude de Charmoisy, a cousin of St Francis de Sales, and followed him to Savoy. Becoming the saint’s penitent (perhaps as early as 1604), she received from him a series of spiritual counsels, meditations and fairly developed exercises in which the holy bishop set forth, case by case and even for the benefit of other souls, his doctrine on devotion for persons living in the world. After arranging these writings, Louise de Charmoisy showed them to various people, including the Jesuit rector of Chambéry, Fr Giovanni Fourier, who urged the author to revise the texts and prepare them for publication.
The first edition of the *Introduction à la vie dévote* appeared in Lyons at the end of 1608 or the beginning of 1609; subsequent editions (from the summer of 1609 onward) became more complete and systematic and somewhat softened the work’s original personal character. The traditional thesis, vigorously contested by D. Mackey, who sees in the *Introduction* an occasional work composed from letters and notes happily preserved and arranged, must in any case be taken *cum grano salis*.
A widow in 1618, Louise de Charmoisy took part in the process for the beatification of Francis de Sales in 1632 and died at Villy on 19 June 1645.