He spent the most dangerous years of that period exiled in Lausanne, from where he was able to direct and undertake various missionary projects designed to combat the false doctrines that had arrived with the revolutionary armies from the west.
[1][2][3][4] François-Marie Bigex was born at La Balme-de-Thuy, a small town, even then in the Genevois province, set high in the mountains east of Annecy.
However, in Thonon, he was also spotted by a celebrated local lawyer called Louis Dubouloz, who gave him a solid foundation course in civil law.
By the end of his first year, it had been determined that he deserved to receive his education "in a larger theatre", and he was sent on to the seminary attached to Saint-Sulpice, Paris, in France, where he continued his studies for the priesthood.
Starting during the second year of what was designed as a five-year course, he combined his studies with work as a lecturer, which was followed by an appointment to a professorship first in theology and then also in philosophy at the little Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet seminary.
[1][3] Bishop Biord's death in March 1785 did nothing to derail Bigex's career, and at around about the same time he took up an important diocesan appointment as vicar general.
However, the real crisis arrived only in September 1792 when the French citizen armies, without having issued any formal declaration of war, arrived to export their revolution under the leadership of Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac, a slightly unexpected military commander under the circumstances, who fell out with the increasingly radical and intolerant revolutionary government in Paris at around the same time that Savoy was formally annexed, in November 1792.
Bishop Paget hastened across to Piedmont before winter blocked the mountain passes, to continue his ecclesiastical duties from Turin, while Vicar-general Bigex relocated to Lausanne,[1] which at this stage was still a (reluctant) bailiwick of Bern.
[6][7] From Lausanne Bigex was able to watch over his "flock" of church members back in the occupied former Duchy of Savoy who found themselves in very great danger.
Very few weeks passed by when the diocesan clergy did not receive advices and communications of comfort and consolation, helping them in the vital matter of keeping The Faith.
[3] During his years of exile beyond the far shore of the lake Bigex also found time to produce and arrange publication of several substantive books intended to address the evils that had befallen the church from the French Revolution and the ensuing Revolutionary Wars.
The responsible French government minister applied pressure on the Helvetic Republic to communicate his complaints to the authorities in Bern that they had permitted an emigrant to publish in the Lausanne bailiwick, and from there to introduce into France, a work which they held to be seditious.
[1] It was while he was still based in Lausanne that Bigex conceived and launched his "Étrennes catholiques / Étrennes religieuses pour l'an de grâce ..." project, which involved producing a compilation twice yearly - later, possibly, annually - of simple but cogently argued essays and judiciously adapted extracts, according to the Catholic viewpoint of the author-compiler, whose own objective was simply to "combat the false doctrines of the times and the unholy maxims of unbelief".
The author now made a direct appeal to Félix-Julien-Jean Bigot de Préameneu, the "Minister of Cults" and succeeded in having the suppression of "Étrennes ..." referred for arbitration to Bishop Duvoisin of Nantes.
Bishop Duvoisin, a pragmatic scholar and who was one of the very few Christian leaders who enjoyed the emperor's confidence, undertook the arbitration as requested and found in favour of Bigex's "Étrennes catholiqueses".
Pius VII was crowned on 21 March 1800, in the San Giorgio monastery church in Venice, by means of a rather unusual ceremony, which involved a papier-mâché papal tiara.
In many ways the 1801 concordat mirrored changes implemented 260 years earlier in England, although the subordinate role assigned to the church in its dealings with the state was less absolute.
The Diocese of Geneva in respect of which Bigex still served as vicar general, had for centuries straddled the borders of Savoy, France and the Swiss Confederacy.
They had worked closely together for many years before the arrival of the revolution in Savoy in 1792, since when de Thiollaz had led a life no less eventful that of Bigex in devotional service to the church.
[1][3] In the short term, however, Bigex's immediate priority became helping his bishop with the reconfiguration of the important and since 1801 greatly enlarged metropolitan diocese of Lyon.
The task had been entrusted to Bishop de Mérinville, and the administrative micro-organisation involved seems to have been well suited to the talents of the energetic François-Marie Bigex.
[1][3] In June 1815, as the emperor abdicated and the Treaty of Paris was being finalised, Victor Emmanuel returned from his exile in Cagliari to claim his throne in Turin.
[2] During a seven-year episcopal incumbency, François-Marie Bigex proved himself an activist bishop, implementing a plethora of practical and judicious reforms and addressing admonitions to his priests that were at once deeply thought through and of luminous simplicity, pointing out errors and encouraging obedience to the strictures of the true church.
After the two decades of revolutionary "modernising" secularism that had formally come to an end in 1815, there was still much to be done to restore the church to its former central role in the communities of the predominantly rural archdiocese.
In this connection, a significant move was the publication of, "Instruction pour le Jubilé", a little book that many of his brother bishops commended to priests and people in their own dioceses.
[11] At the start of 1827 Archbishop Bigex was still full of plans and projects for advancing the work of the church in his archdiocese, but with little warning his incumbency was cut short.
The condition was bad enough to force him to take to his bed, and after a few days it became clear that he was seriously ill. On 15 February 1827 he drafted and issued a final "mandement" (set of written instructions) filled with wise and loving advice, addressed to those under his care.