François-Marie Bigex (24 September 1751 – 19 February 1827) was a prominent Savoyard churchman who was appointed Bishop of Pinerolo in 1817 and then, in 1824, Archbishop of Chambéry. His life and career were much affected by the French wars which impacted Savoy directly between 1792 and 1815. 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. His principle weapon in these endeavours was the pen. Biography Provenance and early years 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. The family was closely involved with the church. One of his uncles was a priest, as was one of his great uncles, and the two of them took care of his early schooling. He moved on to attend college at Évian on the southern shore of the lake. He had been a little older than was considered normal when he started his studies at Évian, but completed the basic Latin course very rapidly, and was still only sixteen when he completed the required courses in Humanities and Philosophy. He was then sent to college at Thonon where he studied Dogmatic theology. In parallel, he studied Religious text and Greek with a Barnabite brother, whose lessons one commentator describes as "assiduous". His studies at Évian and Thonon would have provided a conventional preparation for a career as a scholar-churchman. However, in Thonon he was also talent spotted by a celebrated local lawyer called Louis Dubouloz who gave him a solid foundation course in civil law. For a time he seems to have been tempted by the urgings of Dubouloz that he should become a lawyer. In the end, however, after three years of Theology at the college Thonon, he seems to have been firmly convinced that his vocation for the priesthood was not to be resisted. He now presented himself for the (presumably oral) examination necessary for admission to the seminary at Annecy. His principal examiner was Mgr. Biord. Father Biord was the Bishop of Geneva. In the wake of the Calvinist reformation Geneva had become a centre of fervent Protestantism and Annecy, safely across the frontier in Savoy, had become the permanent seat for