Last month I visited Thorens-Glières in the Savoyard Alps, the birthplace of St Francis de Sales. I have felt a particular devotion to this saint since first reading his Introduction to the Devout Life, which is so understanding of human frailty yet so uncompromising in the high standard of holiness to which he feels the laity should aspire. With my wife, I walked to the fine castle in which he was raised, a mile or so from the village, and climbed to the small chapel at the foot of the high mountains surrounding it, struggling in the thin mountain air.