From New Advent, we learn that de Sales, like so many in the papacy, was born into an aristocratic family. Further...
"From 1583 till 1588 he studied rhetoric and humanities at the college of Clermont, Paris, under the care of the Jesuits. While there he began a course of theology. After a terrible and prolonged temptation to despair, caused by the discussions of the theologians of the day on the question of predestination, from which he was suddenly freed as he knelt before a miraculous image of Our Lady at St. Etienne-des-Grès, he made a vow of chastity and consecrated himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary."
lol. Thank goodness for the intervention of a dead sinner's wooden statue which supposedly rid the poor Jesuit's mind of all that disquieting trust in God and His eternal decrees.
Yep. de Sales "pious acts" such as denying himself a wife and children (where have we heard that one?), and "consecrating" himself to another fallible human being brought some citizens back under the bondage of Rome.
People love their idols. Probably because they've already become like them, as Scripture says.
As an added (and fully expected) perk, de Sales's dead and molding body was separated from its heart. According to New Advent, that's a good thing.
Immense crowds flocked to visit his remains, which the people of Lyons were anxious to keep in their city.
Anxious to keep his dead remains? That certainly compares poorly with Calvin's request that his grave be unmarked, which it is. Shows where each man's heart lies.
Speaking of hearts...
With much difficulty his body was brought back to Annecy, but his heart was left at Lyons. A great number of wonderful favours have been obtained at his tomb in the Visitation Convent of Annecy. His heart, at the time of the French Revolution, was carried by the Visitation nuns from Lyons to Venice, where it is venerated today.
So Calvin's grave is unmarked, his only remains being arguably the second greatest book ever written after the holy Scriptures, THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
De Sales remains are entombed in glass and bowed down to and prayed to and venerated and seen as the "cause" of miracles.
Right there we have the difference between orthodox Christianity and everything else. As Paul reminded us, everything not of faith is sin. And bowing down to either the stock of a tree or an embalmed set of atria and ventricles is not of faith, but deadly folly.
No doubt de Sales is aware of that now.