two vicars general. The appointment of François-Marie Bigex as one of these was an obvious one. The other was Claude-François de Thiollaz, a former provost at Annecy, whom Bigex had known ever since the two of them had studied in Paris in the 1770s. 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. 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. He completed the work with great success. A change of bishop Bishop de Mérinville retired in 1805 and was succeeded by Irénée-Yves Dessolle, hitherto Bishop of Digne. Bigex continued in his functions as diocesan vicar general. He also retained the rank of arch deacon which had been conferred on him in 1802 with the creation of the newly enlarged cathedral chapter for the new Diocese of Chambéry. Viewed from the perspectives of London of Vienna the Napoleonic Wars continued till 1815, but within the department of Mont-Blanc (as Savoy had been known since 1792) the revolutionary period had ended by 1801, while the Concordat of 1801 put an end to the savage government assault on the church. The international armies stayed away, and the period between 1802 and 1815 was one of relative calm and stability, inside the consulate/empire. Characteristically, Bigex engaged fully with the administration and development of the new diocese. The diocesan seminary was re-established at Annecy, and a number of smaller seminaries were set up. Several major convents were established (or, in some cases, re-established following more than a decade of militant secularism on the part of government). Church retreats and regular conferences of senior prelates became routine under the administration of François-Marie Bigex, long before they became the norm elsewhere in France. Restoration years 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. (Both Piedmont and the Duchy of Savoy were again part of what anglophone sources tend to