The person acquainting him with this, he answered, “I proceed in this manner because my duty to God and to the Countess of _Chatres_ require it. My Saviour obliges me to converse with her; but I must do no more than what is necessary, and so retire, for which this posture is most convenient. If we sat down, we should forget ourselves, and talk more than is necessary, and perhaps pass on to things unprofitable: therefore we ought both to stand upon our guard.” 29. Those who undertake the conduct of souls, ought seriously to consider this answer; and to be fully persuaded, that the business does not consist in speaking much to them, but in disposing them to speak to God, and in making them fit for God to speak to them. 30. In the year 1647, having visited one afflicted with great pains, he thus writ to his director: “I have been with the person you know of, and have told her what I thought suitable to her condition. I acquainted her how we ought to lay this sure foundation, that we are nothing but weakness and misery itself; and that God from this insufficiency of ourselves to all good, means to extract humility and diffidence of ourselves, obliging us thereby to fly to his Son, to find strength in Him, and a remedy for all our miseries. “As concerning myself, I have not much to say. Only I find within myself, by the mercy of God, a great tranquility in his presence, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and such an inward experience of eternal life, as I am not able to express. Yet I find myself, so naked and barren that I wonder at the condition I am in, and by which I discourse. In my converse with this person, I begun my speech, not knowing how to pursue it. After the second sentence I had not the least foresight of what should be the third; and so of the rest. Not but that I seem to have a perfect knowledge of the things I speak, in such a manner as I am capable of it. But I only utter what is given me, and in the same way as it is communicated, I communicate it to others.” CHAPTER IX. _His outward behaviour, and conduct of business._ 1. M. _de Renty_ being sensible, that even our outward behaviour is of great consequence in the service of our neighbour, being that which makes the first impression upon them, did whatever he could for the well composing his exterior, keeping his gestures, motions, looks, and all parts of his conversation in such a harmony, as he judged fitted to draw his neighbour to God. *2. He was very modest, always calm and inviolably equal. “Among all the things I observed in M. _de Renty_, (says one of his intimate friends) what first affected me was, his rare modesty and great evenness of behaviour. There was something in his looks which carried so much reverence in it one might easily judge, he was always actually in the presence of God.”