render to the Church even more than by the affection which he bore to the
Camus family, decided to propose him for a Bishopric, although he was but
twenty-five, and had not therefore reached the canonical age for that
dignity.

The young Priest was far too humble and also too deeply imbued with a sense
of the awful responsibility of the office of a Bishop to expect, or to
desire to be raised to it. When, however, Pope Paul V. gave the necessary
dispensation, M. Camus submitted to the will both of the Pontiff and of the
King, and was consecrated Bishop of Belley by St. Francis de Sales, August
30, 1609.

The fact that the two dioceses of Geneva and Belley touched one another
contributed to further that close intimacy which was always maintained
between the Bishops, the younger consulting the elder on all possible
occasions, and in all imaginable difficulties.

Bishop Camus had already referred his scruples regarding his youth at the
time of his consecration to his holy director. The latter had, however,
reminded him of the many reasons there were to justify his submission,
viz., the needs of the diocese, the testimony to his fitness given by so
many persons of distinction and piety, the judgment of Henry the Great, in
fine the command of His Holiness. In consecrating Mgr. Camus, St. Francis
de Sales seems to have transmitted to the new Prelate some of the treasures
of his own holy soul. Camus was the only Bishop whom he ever consecrated,
and doubtless this fact increased the tender affection which Francis bore
him. John Peter was, what he loved to call himself, and what St. Francis
loved to call him, the latter's only son. There was between the two holy
Prelates a community of intelligence and of life. "Camus," says Godeau, the
preacher of his funeral discourse, "ever sat at the feet of St. Francis de