O X F ORD B IOGR AP H IES

DANT E By P AGET T O YNB EE

S AV O N A R O L A By E L S H O RS B UR GH
. . .

J
OHN H O WAR D By E C S GI B S O N D D
. . .
,
. .

S IR WA L T ER RA L E I GH By I A TAY L O R
. .

E RA S M US By E F H CAP E Y
. . .

F RA N CO I S D E F E N E L O N By VI S C O UNT ST CY R ES .

T H E YO U N G P RE T E N D E R By C S TE R R Y
. .

R O B ER T B U R N S By T F H END E R SO N
. .

A L F RE D L O R D T E N N YS O N
, By A C B E N SO N
. .

C AN N I NG By W A L I SO N P H I LL I P S
.

CH A T H AM By A S M C D OWALL
. .

GO E T H E By H G AT! I N S
. .

B E ACO NSFIELD By W S IOH E L

.
 F EN EL O N

( Afte r a po rtra z t by t lzpp e de CXza m/vag u e m H e rtfo rd H o us e )

 L

ME T H UE N CO .

36 E S S EX S TR E E T W C
‘

. .

L O ND O N
FR AN C O IS D E FE N EL O N

V I S C O U N T S T C YR E S .

FE LL O W OF TH E R O Y AL H I STO R I C AL S O C I E TY
F O R ME R LY ST UD E N T O F C H R I ST C H UR C H

W ITH E I G HT ILLU S T R ATI O N S

ME T H U E N co .

36 E S S EX S TR EET W C . .

LO ND O N
 P REFAC E

T H I S little b o o k is an abridgment of a larger

work published under the same title some five
e ars ago I t is mainly destined for s u h readers as
y . c

find the story o fFén e lo n s li fe more interesting than

‘
’

a criticism o f his works I have therefore made no

.

change o f importance in the narrative part o f the

book ; but I have either severely pruned or alto
gether cut o ut the chapters dealing with more
abstrac t subj ects I have also taken the liberty of
.

omitting all but a ve ry fe w references and foot notes

-
.

The illustrations are the same as in my former volume ,

ex cept that I have replaced a po rtrait o fMalebranche

by o n e o f F enelon in middle life thus providin g
,

three portraits o f him at di f ferent stages o f his

career For permission to photograph the portrait
.

by Philippe de Champagne which serves as my

,

frontispiece I am again indebted to Sir John Murray

,

Scott and the trustees of the Wallace Collection at

Hertfo rd H ouse And perhaps I may also take this
.

Opportunity o f thanking the many critics o f my

former volume for their most gratifying reception
of a first literary attempt .

2 2 4 16 8
 C O N TE N TS

C HAPTER
P R E F AC E
I . F E N E LO N S
’
Y O UTH

II . T O L E RA TI O N A ND TH E P R O TE S TA NTS
III . EA RLY O CC U PA TI O N S A ND F RI E ND S HI P S
Iv . TH E E DU C A TI O N OF GIRL S

v . TH E CO URT P RE C E PT O RA T E
VI . TH E MA X IMS OF TH E SA INT S
VI I . MM ! GU Y O N

V III . AT W A R W ITH B O SS U E T
I x. TEL EMA Q UE

x . C A MB R A I
x1 . B U RGUNDY A ND PO LITI CA L R E F O RM
X II. TH E E ND

C HR O N O LO GI CA L TAB LE
I ND E X
 LIST O F IL LU STR ATIO N S

F enel o n as a Y o ung Man pbotograp/zed from

a portrait by Pbilip ale Cbampagne in He rt

ford Home) Fro nt i spie ce

Mme de Mai nteno n (from an engrav ing)

. to f
ace p . 2 0

Th e D uk e o f Burgundy (after a portrait by

Mme Guyo n (from an engra v ing)

.
f

B o ssu et (afte r tbe portrait by Rigaud in tbe

-
Lowo re)

F é nelo n (f
a ter a ortrait
p by Bailleul)

Th e C ity o fC ambrai (from an engrav ing)

Fé nelo n (f
a te r a ortrait
p by Vi v ien)
 FR AN C O IS DE FE N E L O N

C HA PTER I

F ENE L O N S Y O U TH
’

Ce ui s urnage o it dans toute sa pe rsonne ,

’
c é tait surtout
la n o b e sse .
— ST. S I MO N

RA N C I S D E S A LAG N A C D E L A M O TH E
F ENE L O N was born at the poor Gothic ‘

Ithaca o f his fathers the Castle o f F enelon in

,
’

Perigord o n the 6 th o f August 16 5 1 H e spran g

, , .

from a yo unger branch o f the distinguished family

of Salagnac — a house of good and ancient nobility ,

says St Simon and rich in the dim glories o f

,

half—forgotten ancestors in governors o f provinces ,

‘

’
and kings C hamberlains i n ambassadors to the ,

leading courts of E urope Its daughters had married .

into the noblest families o f their provinces and its ,

sons had filled every military o ffi ce formerly Open to

men o fgentle blood .
’

T h e s e various dignities however brought little , ,

wealth to the F enelons ; perh aps like other ,

4 FR A N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

devotions far from M Renan s school of voluntary

, .
’

mediocrity It w as founded by a group o f men

.

sprung from that severe and orderly upper middle -

class which had furnished three quarters o fits great

,
-

names to the Age o fLouis Quatorze and in revenge , , ,

had stamped w ith its own characteristics the whole

S pirit of the age There was something of Port
.

’
Royal s obstinate rationality at St Sulpice there was .

a deep sense o fmoral responsibility n o t to be tricked ,

by the elegant chicanery o f J esuit casuists ; there

was a yearning after some closer union with the
Divine than w as a f forded by the sti f
fo fficial Catholic
i s m brought into fashion by King H enry o fN avarre .

Indeed the religious exaltation o f the seminary

,

had a certain danger for temperaments like that o f

Fé n e lo n — always prone to rush into extremes and ,

i ll provided with moral thickness o fskin Before he .

h ad been long at St S ulpice its infl uence began to

.
,

appear in the form of mysterious communications

with M Tro n s o n his Director
.
, I most earnestly .

”
wish he wrote to the Marquis de F enelon that I
, ,
!

could enter into some detail to you o f my conversa

tions wit h M Tro n s o n but indeed sir I cannot do
.
, , , ,

it Fo r although my relation to you is very frank

.
,

and open I must confess — and I do so without fear

,

o f exciting your j ealousy — that I am much more

explicit with him nor would it even be easy to
,

describe to y o u the degree o f union we h ave

reached .

It is likely enough that M Tro n s o n no friend to .

,
 ’
F EN E L O N S Y O U T H 5

spiritual extravagances might have disapproved alike

,

the tone o fthis letter an d its account o fhis relations

to h i s pupil ; even M O lier though himself a .
,

visionary and a mystic could deal in very trenchant

,

fashion with outbursts o f religi ous hysteria But .

perhaps his best cure was the am i able simpli city ‘

o f Homer and the cl as sics At St Sulpice F enelon .

,

began that happy union o f Greek with C hristi an

antiquity whose results will meet us in the Dialogues
o n E loquence and Té lé ma ue At o n e time he even
q .

dream e d o fa missionary j ourney to the Levant d rawn ,

thither not only by a desire to make the voice o f

‘

the Apo stle heard once more in the Church of

Corinth or to stand o n that Areopagus from which
,

St Paul had preached to the Sages o f this world an

u nknow n God but also by a wish to breathe in
,

among those precious monuments and ruins th e very

essence o f the antique After the Sacred comes
.
’
!

the Profane ; I do not scorn to descend from the

Areopagus to the Pir aeus where Socrates sketched
—
,

the plan o f his Republic ; I shall mount to the .

double summit o f Parn assus ; I shall pluck the

laurels o f Delphi I shall revel in the j oys o f
”
T e mp e .

This proj ect however was not doomed to be

, ,

fu lfilled F enelon abandoned it in deference to the

.

wishes o fhis family and devoted himself to work in

,

the parish o fS t Sulpice till in 16 7 8 he was ap

.
, , ,

point e d Superior o f the Ne w Catholics of Paris a ,

position soon to become o fsome importance Mean .

6 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

while his relatives interested themselves warmly in

his fortunes ; the Marquis de F enelon received him
into his house and hastened to introduce him to his
friends Another uncle the Bishop of Sarlat made
.
, ,

over to him the little Deanery of Caré n ac a sinecure , ,

whose value — about £ 4 00 a year o fmodern money

was hardly proportionate to the pomp with which
the new Dean took pos session .

”
!
I m ust certainly wrote Fé ne lo n to o n e o f the
,

ladies o f his family be a man destined to make

,
!

magnificent entri es A deputy o f the local nobility

.
,

the Rector the Prior o f the Monastery with a few

,
-
,

farmers representing the Third E state came to

, ,

escort me in state from Sarlat to the port o fCaré nac .

The quay was lined with masses o f p eople ; two

boats filled with the é lite of the neighbourhood ap
, ,

ro ach e d me o n arrival and I noticed that the most

p ,

warlike soldiery the place could furnish were hidden

by a gallan t stratagem in the pretty island y o u know
well Thence they marched forth in battle array
.
,

and sal uted me with such a deafening roar of

musketry that the air was filled with smoke and my ,

fiery steed would certainly hav e thro wn himself into

the water had I not had the moderation to dismount .

E veryone made instant way for me ; every eye sought

’
to read its owner s destiny in mine as I proceeded ,

to the Cast le with slo w and stately pace the better ,

to lend mysel f to the public curiosity Drums an d .

1

cheers acco mpan i e d my route ; at leas t a thousand

'

voices cried that I should certainly be the darling o f

 ’
F EN E LO N S YO U T H 7

my people At the Castle gate the Consuls harangued

.

me by the mouth o f their Royal O rator an o fficer ,

whose eloquence was fully worthy o f his exalted

station H e compared me to t h e s un ; soon after
.

wards I became the moon ; every o n e o f the more

radiant stars had the honour of res embling me and ,

so we passed o n through the Fo ur E lements and the

meteors and finished up happily with the Creation
,

of the World By this time the s un had sunk to

.

rest ; and I to complete my likeness to him

, ,

hastened to my bedroom and prepared to do the

”
same .

To this early period also belongs the beginning o f , ,

Fé n e lo n s intimacy with Bossuet lately become the

’

leading figure o f the Church o f France By this .

friendsh ip however he forfeited the good will o f

, ,
-

his own diocesan Archbishop de H arlai incensed

.
,

at the brilliant young Abbé s rare appearance at his ’

levées warned him o n e day solemnly that his wish

,

to be forgotten would certainly be respected But .

’
F enelon s career w as no t to be made or marred by
the dispositions of a p ro fl i gat e courtier whose s un o f ,

favour w as already setting before the rise of Mme de .

Maintenon A road to favour at once more sure and

.
,

more congenial w as opened to F é n e lo n when he

,

became acquainted through the good o f fi ces o f his

,

uncle with that devout section o f the aristocracy

,

whic h Mme de Maintenon was soon to raise to

.

power .

Meanwhile the young A bb é in h i s modest situa

, ,
 C HA PTER I I

T O L E RA TI O N A N D TH E PR O T E ST A N TS

Truth is compare d in S cri pture to a stre aming fo untain ;

i f h e r wat e rs fl o w not in a pe r pe tual pro gr e s si o n th e y
,

sic k e n into a mu ddy pool of conformity an d tradition .

M ILT O N

E would write imperfectly indeed o n Fé ne lo n S ’

relation to the Protestants who did not begin

by warning his readers against the legend o f that
’
churchman s tolerance invented by the eighteenth
century The stage F enelon o fRevolutionary drama
.
,

who releases imprisoned nuns from their convents ,

and piteously bewails the bigotry that d uring five ,

reigns had been the curse o fFrance is a being more

, ,

wholly imaginary than most o fthe characters o f his

Té lé maq ue His tolerance is a fata mo rgana pro
.
,

j e c te d in part indeed
, from
, some real acts o f kind
ness towards the Protestants but chiefly from the
,

political idealism o f his writings from his many

,

points of likeness to the coming century or from the ,

tradition o f his Saturnian reign at Cambrai The .

real man who in politics education and literature

, , ,

o ften s aw a long way into the future remained in , ,

9
Io FRA N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

matters of ecclesiastical policy a docile so n o f the ,

Church .

Ag ain and again did F é n e lo n give the anticipatory

lie to the legend o f his tolerance The word in his .
,

mouth is a synonym of godless impiety ; it means

,

that cowardly indulgence that false compassion , ,

which could let the gan grene of disobedience creep

over the whole body of the peop le rather than nerve ,

i tself to sever the festeri ng limb at o n e sharp blow .

The Church must use to wards her sti f fnecked children -

a remedial harshness a terrible kindness and herein

, ,

her e f forts must be seconde d by the civil power :

sword in hand the Prince must stand at the gate o f
,

the sanctuary to protect her from her external

enem ies s o that s h e may freely pronounce approve
, , ,

correct and to enforce her decrees on all i n

,

n o v at o rs and contemners o f her authority within the

’
realm .

N evertheless good men find it easier to utter bad

maxims than to act up to them Bossuet re monstrated .

successfully against some of the most odious clauses

in the E dict o fRevocation F enelon told the E lector
o fCologne that co rre ct i o n lik e those medicines with
'

which poison was mingled must be used spari ngly ,

and with infinite precaution Rigour stirred up the .

last vestiges o f pride and left in the heart a secret

!

and quickly mortifying wound The guide of souls .

would find a better though a slower road to success

, ,

in kindly insinuation care and patience since he

, ,

m ust win the a ffection and confidence o fh i s penitents

TO L E RAT I O N A N D T H E P R O T E STA N TS I I

be fore he could hope to lead them to the love o f

God .

These words describe the method which Fé n e lo n

so ugh t to follow i n all his dealings with the Protes
'
'

tants but especially in the scenes o f his earliest

,

m i ssionary activi ty the convents of N e w Catholics in

,

Paris I f h is conduct often fell below this standard

.
,

the fault lay not so much with himsel f or even his ,

ecclesiastical superiors as with the iron handed

,
-

’
tyranny o f ministers who played the Bishop and ‘

themselves directed th e whole business o fconversion .

E ven the N ew Catholics was far more o fa Govern

ment establishment th an a religious society ; it was
managed and subsidized by the administration in
furtherance o fi ts o ld policy o f sappi n g the fo un da
tions o f Protestantism Long be fore Louis X I V had
. .

begun to persecute in earnest h i s government had ,

encouraged persecution by private e f fort— that i s by ,

legal ly kidnapping H ug uenot children in order to

'

bring th e m up in th e State religion This ab o min .

able practice had brought the N ew Catholic sister

hood into being their convents were the worksho ps ,

in which Protestant girls snatched from their homes

,

against their o w n wish and w ithout their parents ’

consent were transformed into Catholics as ex

,

p e di t i o us ly as possible It i s true
. that o fficial
lan guage otherwise described them— they were
salutary retreats for the newly converted from the
persecution o ftheir relatives and the art i fi ce s o f the
”
heretics — B ut in practice the only actual converts
.
, ,

to Rome were a small number o fladies whose abj ura

 FR A N C O I S D E F EN E LO N
!

I2

tion o fCalvinism had been s o flagrantly insincere as

to fail to satis fy the consciences o f the police The .

bulk o fthe inmates were Protestants committed to ,

the charge o fthe Mother Superior by a Secretary o f

State and ordered in some cases to m ake their
, , ,

submission to the Church within a fortnight o f their

entry. Those who were careless o fthese threats and
deaf to the persuasive eloquence o f F enelon— an d
they were n o t a fe w — were removed to other co n
vents o r subj ected to the sharper discipline o f a
fortress o r a prison ; the oldest were banished the
kingdom as irreclaimable .

I t is not likely that Fé ne lo n had a large share in

these horrors He seems to have been little
.

more than Warden o r Visitor o f the convent its ,

concerns being entirely managed by the Mother

S uperior acting under the minute direction o f the
,

Govern ment Whatever his position h e was power

.
,

less for good or evil ; mild counsels would not be

attended to and m i ght even draw down suspicion o n
,

himself ; severities would only breed hypocrisy and

endanger his influence with his charges As it was .
,

his e f forts were apparently successful and soon led ,

to a m u ch more dignified appointment .

In 16 8 5 Louis X IV by revoking the E dict of

,
.
,

N antes put an end to the legal existence o f

,

Protestantism in France It was not only his bigotry

.

that hated the H uguenots — Louis cared little for the

glo ry o fGod unless it was associated with the glory
,

o fthe King of France — but he believed that religiou s

TO L E RAT I O N A N D T H E P ROT E STA N TS I 3

uniformit y was the best road to political absol utism ,

and that its worst enemy was the sect which had
become a state within the state dependent on the ,

King no more than it chose always loud in com ,

plaints and ready o n the slightest pretext to

, , ,
’
embroil the whole kingdom by an app e al to arms
‘

For about ten years penal edicts had been falling

thick and fast ; and now that the King found
himself at peace with his neighbours yet with a ,

large army idle on his hands he was easily persuaded

,

to strike the final blow Grossly misinformed as to

.

the numbers and courage o f th e H uguenots he ,

believed that their conversion would be easily e ffected .

Force a little more than moral would soon crush the

resistance o f a dyin g sect ; and then as Mme de , .

Maintenon said even if there were some hypocrisy

,

among the adults their children would at any rate

, , ,

be gained to the Church .

’
The Government s plan was alternate force and
moral suasion missionaries in cassocks following o n
,

the heels o fmissionaries in spurs A military force.

w as dra f ted into each o f the infected districts ,

quartered on the Protestant householders and e m ,

co urage d t o neglect no means o f terri fyi n g i ts i n

voluntary hosts o ut o f their heterodox beli efs As .

soon as a satis factory number had been converted

and the process w as rapid twenty four hours often
,
-

s uf
fi ci ng t o conduct the proselyte from torture to
abj uration and from abj uration t o Communion — the
,

soldiers were withdrawn and replaced by preachers

I 4 F RA N CO I S D E F EN E L O N
from the capital Father B o urdalo ue wrote Mme
.
,
.

de S evign e is going to preach at Montpelier where

,
!
,

s o many have been converted without knowi n g why

but the Father will explain it all and will make ,

good Catholics o f them Hitherto t h e Dragoons .

have been excellent missionaries but the clergy now , ,

to be sent will complete the work

, .

What the Jesuit orator was to do in the South the

young S uperior o f the N ew Catholics w as to carry
o ut on the west o f Saintonge in and about the ,

Protestant citadel of La Rochelle The ground had .

been well prepared by dragonades the chapels were

closed the pastors all imprisoned and soldiers
, ,

were still at work in the neighbourh ood when

F enelon arrive d in December 16 85 at the head o f
, , ,

a number of priests The mission lasted till the .

harvest time o f the next year J uly 16 8 6 an d was

-
, , ,

renewed fo r a few months in the year next followin g ,

May to July 16 8 7 , .

F enelon reports the people in a state o f heart

rending agitation clinging with terri ble obstinacy
,

to their creed and turning a deaf ear to t h e voice o f

,

the Roman enchantress yet s o panic stricken at ,

-

t h e sight o f a soldier that they would embrace the

Koran to be rid o fhim The most sanguine longed .

fo r the appearance o fa delivering fleet from H olland ,

the rest were eager to fly the co untry at the first

opportunity E scape even with the sailors was
.
, ,

becomi n g a point o f honour and every deserter , ,

soo n er o r later dragged his family after him

,
.
 TO L E RAT I O N A N D T H E P R O T E STA N TS 5
1

H unger too was conspiring with the Government to

, ,

make their state more miserable T h ey had lost .

their alms from the Protestant consistory ; they were

Oppressed with new taxes ; the salt-trade their o n e ,

resource was at an end ; foolish interference w a

, s

rui n i ng e v e n the commerce o f La Rochelle Fé ne

'

’
lon s first demands were for a largess o f corn the ,

best form o fargument fo r the famine stru ck and fo r -

,

a redoubling o fthe coastguard to prevent desertion

but there could be he said no hope of spiritual
, ,

progress till it had become more agreeable to remain

"

in the country than it was dangerous to leave it .

Against a vile enemy vile arms F enelon w as n o t.

content to alleviate Protestant misery forgetting o ne

o f the noblest maxims o f his Té le m a u e he threw
q ,

h i ms e lf i n to the work o f enco uraging conversion by

’

the us e o f the very earthliest means Among his .

proselytes he promoted wholesale dissimulation ,

bribery and espionage he improvised farcical disputa

tion for th e e di h cat i o n o f H uguenot gentlemen in ,

which he himsel f in the character o f Protestant ad

,

vocate was gloriously routed by o n e o f his s ubo rdi

,

nate prie sts N ay finding the people much e n

.
,

c o ura e d by the pastoral letters which their great

g
leader J urien addressed them from abroad he
, , ,

advised his Government to employ a Dutch Socinian

enemy o f the great 1 H uguenot to write libellous
pamphlets against him such as would find their ,

way to France in the guise of genuine Protestant

literature .
TO L E R A T I O N A N D TH E P R OTE ST A N TS 1 7

Catholic piety printed in large type alms should be

given to the well dispo sed according to the excellent
-

system o f the C onsistories An d F enelon even

’

, .

bro ught down suspicion o n h i s head by leaving o ut

o f his serm ons the customary Inv ocation to th e
Virgin and by proposing that som e special prayers
,

and Bible-reading should be added to the reli gious

services attended by the heretics .

B ut he knew that the harvest was still far from

ripe Very few were really converted though the
.
,

opinions o f all were pro foundly shaken ; and many

held back out of mere shame face dn e s s o r irresolution :
-

The resistance of these last he tho u ght w ould b e

, ,
'

overcome by a few little civilities o n the part o f

the Government But with the maj ority progre ss
'

would b e slow indeed — there was no hope but

patient perseverance Weariness o f their presen t
.

state and confidence in their clergy would d o much ,

but habit would do more ; they would in time b e

come accustomed t o the Catholic services and— such ,

is human nature would be ashamed o f going to

-

church only to save payment o f a fine B ut there .

must be no forcing o f conscience s no throwing o f ,

the body into a sewer because a man had died with

o ut the sacraments such violence might make them
crowd to the altar but it would be only at the price
,

o fsacrilege and hypocrisy .

To us this measure o f clemency seems bare and

scanty eno ugh ; in F enelon s o w n time it was bo th
’

unusual and e ffective H is counsels of mercy had

.

2
18 FR A N C O I S D E F ENEL O N

weight with the Minister and led to the suppression ,

o fvarious abuses civil as well as ecclesiastical

, they
manifestly gained for him the a ffection of his pro
s e l t e s and stirring up against him the bile o f the
y , ,

more ri gid Catholics seem to have stood in the way

,

of his early promotion to a Bishopric .

Yet the Saintonge Mission on the whole is an , ,

’
unpleasant page in F enelon s life Those whose .

view o f history is still a study in sno w and ink !

,

ten der innocents o n one si de and on the other ,

”
bloody pers ecutors will not long hesitate over their
,

verdict ; and even more tolerant spirits may find

somethi ng unpleas ing in this young ecclesiastical
s tatesman s o fertile in expedients s o keen to make
, ,

his wi sdom and succes ses tell in his o w n favour at

O r they m ay ask with F enelon s grea t est
’
Court .
,

living critic whether his z ealous approval of the

,

Revocation shows a really high degree o fstatesman

ship w hether the extermination of these sturdy
,

religionists made in the best interests o fCatholicism

itself whether the purely metaphysical delight o f
,
”
hearing God s praises sung everywhere in Latin
’

was worth the loss of the stro ngest nerve in French

m orality .
 C HA PTE R II I

E A RLY O C C U PATI O N S A N D F R I EN D S H I PS
B oth nature an d condition re quir e th at e ach par
o ur
t i cular man sh ould mak e particular provision fo r h imse l f .

-
B I S H OP B UTL E R

OUwill be unfaithful to God once wrote ,

F enelon to Mme de Maintenon . if you ,

!

hide under a bushel the light H e has s e t upon a

candle s tick
- and certainly the lack o fa reasonable
worldly self assertiveness is one of the last i n fi
- ‘

’ ’
de liti e s that can be laid to F enelon s own account .

From his youth up he held it is duty to build up

,

once more the shattered fortunes of his house Fo r .

the F enelons were many and poor most o fthem too , , ,

feeble ine f fectual creatures who hung o n to their

,

distinguished relative s skirts and begged him t o

’

help s e t their a ffairs in order or get them some ,

little favour from the King Moreover the you n g .

,
’
Churchman s heart was leavened with n o t little pride
o fbirth sco f f as he might from the pulpit at ancient
,

names and pedigrees and titles honours won by ,

ancestors long ago forgotten and now often enough ,

dragged through the mud by th eir unworthy heirs .

2 -
2 19
20 FR A N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

He had a long correspondence with a favourite

cousin as to whether a certain o ffice at Court was
‘
honourabl e enough for her name o f Laval ; and ’

was certainly not ill pleased when tutor to the Duke-

,

o f Burgundy to be allowed a place at his table

,

and in his carriage — t wo privileges denied t o the

middle c lass Bossuet while tutor to the little Prince s
-
,
’

father .

Still F é n e lo n knew Society far to well to exaggerate

,

the value of its good opinion Ifhe lived in outward .

conformity to its standards and forced his penitents ,

to give the world what they could not well refuse

‘

’
it he held the world tightly t o its part o fth e bargain
, ,

and expected t o reap full measure o fits advantages .

Within these limits however he gave Society free , ,

rein H e knew wh at it was to grove ! before those

.

who are in the tide o ffashion and applied himself

to catch a little air o f easy playful raillery that is ,

’
respect ful and even flattering t o the great Christian .

scruple perhaps checked h i m from aiming directly

, ,
”
at any particular place Your friends wrote the .
,

wise o ld Superior o f St Sulpice M Tro n s o n on ,

.
,

F enelon s nomination t o the Court Preceptorate

’
-
,

will doubtless tell you that y o u did n o t ask fo r the

appointment and that 18 certainly j ust matt e r fo r
,
'

rej oicing though you must not pride yourself t o o

,

m uch thereon We have often more part in our o w n

.

elevation than we think for we do not deliberately

seek it but half unthinki ngly we smooth away
, ,
-
,

obstacles and show ourselves in the most favourable

,
MA D A M E DE MA I N I F N O N
‘

(Afte r a p o rtra z t by L e B la n e)
 O CC U P A T I O N S AN D F R I EN DS H I PS 2 1

light to persons in authority and thus we can never ,

be quite sure that we did not call ourselves to the

”
o ffice .But F é n e lo n held o n his course M Tro n s o n ,
.

notwithstanding and told his conscience that it was

,

not mere ambition o r vanity that moved him — only

’

an honourable zeal fo r his own and his family s

”

advancement .

And truly Fenelon at h i s very worst w as far from

, ,

being the shameless scheming fl att e re r some of his

enemies have made him Worldly successes he pur .

sued with m uch of the lively eager disinterestedness

o f the sportsman looked on them as a comedy a
, ,

game of cards as a refuge from the heavy clouds o f

,

gloom and ennui that hung about him in the back

”
ground In this world o f vanities he said the
.
!
, ,
!

truest Wisdom is to let oneself be hoodwinked to fi nd ,

amusement in little childish tri fl e s for if o ur days , ,

are short our hours are long

, .

Moreover to F enelon s rare combination of talents

,
’

such triumphs came almost fo r the asking For .

proof of this we need go no farther than that j ovial ,

downright gossiping Bavarian the Duchess o f

, ,

O rleans and her sketches of the brilliant young

,

Churchman wit h deep s e t ey es and ugly face all

‘ -

skin and bone who talked and laugh ed quite

,

unaf fectedly and eas ily or to Saint Simon s full

,
’ ’

length portrait o four hero as he appeared abo ut the ,

time o f his appointment to Ca mbrai tall thin well , , ,

built pale with t h e exceedi ng pallor that has been

,

called pale/tram v irorum i llus trium co lorem by a Father

 O C C U PAT I O N S AN D FR I EN DS H I P S 2 3

It was by means o f his powers o f speech that

Fenelon first hoped to make his way in the world .

During these earlier years he delivered nearly all his

published sermons and entered upo n a serious study
,

o fthe art o f reaching whose res u lts he has embo died

p ,

in h i s Dialogues o n E loq uence FOr E loquence in .

the days o f Bossuet and B o urdalo ue meant the -

oratory o f the pulpit In this field the Church

.

rei gned without a rival There were no popu lar .

as semblies the language o f the Academy w as stilted

,

and unnatural and o f forensic method o f persuasion

,

o n e o f F e n e lo n s letters gives a su f
ficient account
' ’
.

I stayed an extra day at Sarlat to hear the provincial

Cicero s argue o ut a famous cause T h ey began with .

the Creation of the World and after some remarks , ,

about the Flood descended strai ght t o the matter in

,

hand which was to as k the Court for a dole o fbread

,

f o r some orphans who had none Their appetite was .

alluded to in a number o f graceful e uphuisms ,

mingled with a fe w sterner references to the Cod e ;

and every spectator o f taste applauded the artistic
fash ion in which their counsel passed from the
Metamorphoses of O vid to some o fthe most terrible
passages o f Holy Writ We all thought that the
.

children were sure of their dole and that so rare an ,

eloquence would keep their kitchen fi re fo r ever -

alight But alas for the inconstancy o f fortune !

.

Though the lawyer got plenty o f praises the ,

children go t no bread The cause was adj ourned

. ,

which means that the poor little wretches will have

24 F R A N CO IS DE F EN E LO N

to plead again o u an empty stomach while the

'
,

Bench went gravely t o dinner .

’

E ven the Church had not escaped a taste for

‘
figures ill paired and similes unlike
- The spirit o f .
’

the Ciceros of Sarlat still spoke through the mouth

o fmany a popular preacher of the capital Sermons .

were become a mere display— to the prea ch er a

!

means o f advancem ent more rapid though not less ,

hazardous than the profession o f arms — to his

,

hearers o n e among the thousand amusements of

fashionable li fe Th ey came to criticise not to
.
,

learn ; he strove t o interest n o t to teach ; it was,

m uch if he remembered by an after thought to ,

-
,

slip in a word o r two o f praise to Go d Formerly .

it had been necessary to have enormous learning

in order to preach s o badly and country congre ,

at i o n s were still e di fi e d by sermons in which there

g
w as more Greek and Latin than French But now .

every curate was an orator though he must fly for ,

re fuge to a Concordance or an Anthology or sew ,

together ill fi tting passages from o ld sermons he had

-

bought How ever lacking he might be in solid

.

theology it was easy to abound in phrases and

,

epigrams and showy misapplications of Scripture in ,

a network o freasoning all the m ore bri lliant because ,

superficial and probably false .

N or did the evils of the filigree style o f pulpit

oratory rest within that S chool itself ; like all othe r
such absurdities it provoked a violent reaction
, .

U nder pretence of apostolic simplicity numbers of

.
,
 O CC U P A T I O N S AND F R I EN D S H I P S 2 5

zealous young men forswore eloquence altogether ,

and with it learning and l ucidit y and order ; they

, ,

did not even soberly expound the Scriptures but ,

’
‘
froze our blood with their perspiring e fforts as ,

they roared and ranted filling their sermons with ,

the Devil and H ell and thinking th ey had failed in

,

their duty unless they le ft the pulpit breathless and

e x hausted .

But far above these pygmies rose the two giants

Bossuet and B o u rdalo ue B o s s u e t s was the oratory
’

of Scripture H e was above all th ings a divine o n e

.
,

who made o f his eloquence a stately willing vassal ,

o ftheology though it found God tributaries in every

,

realm o f thought and feeling in po etry philosophy , , ,

and history B o urdalo ue stood at the head o f a

.

colder school Far poorer than Bossuet in natural

.

gi fts less daring in thought less S plendid in imagi

, ,

nation he w as a logician and a moralist busied with

, ,

practice rather than dogmas quicker to analyze than ,

to teach His sermons said F é n e lo n were magn i fi

.
, ,

cent reasonings about Christianity but they were ,

not religion Fo r F enelon leaves no doubt about

.

his sympathies ; the Dialogues are through and

through a plea for Bossuet at the expense o f the ,

great Jesuit who had supplanted him in popular

favour B o urdalo ue is brought almost maliciously
.

be fore the reader s eye as he stood in his pulpit

’

with eyes shut fast his arms continually sawing the

,

air his voice melodious but badly managed with no

, , ,

more variety than a peal of bells The colourless .

2 6 FRA N CO I S D E F EN E L O N
’
logic of his sermons grated at every step o n F é n e lo n s
emotional nerves His simpler palate was o f
. fended
by their artifi ci ali ty ~aph o ri s ms only t o o redolent of
the lamp and brilliant useless moral sketches that
, ,

appeared less like a sermon than a satire o r a farce .

H e i s a great man says this stern young censor ;

’

he has done much for the pulpit — but he h as not .

’
eloquence .

From B o urdalo ue F enelon turned back to h is

masters the great orators o f Greece and Rome
, .

For he had studied with Demosthenes who fired ,

‘

and swayed the heart filled even to self forgetful,

-

ness with love o f his Republic and still more had ’

he studied with the poets fo r poetry only di ffers ,

‘

from eloquence in that it points more boldly and

with enth usiasm From Homer he had learned to
.
’

love that antique simplicity for which we have

‘

lost all relish and even Xenophon had taught

him to prefer facts to reasons details to gener ,

ali t i e s
, and prove the greatness o f such a man
as Cyrus by writing the plain story of his life .

But akin to the Greek in form and movement

w as another literature still higher : Demosth enes
must yield place to St Paul and Homer to Moses .
,

and the Prophets ; for the S criptures in their ,

grand simplicity were the true model o f Ch ristian

,

eloquence .

Into a closer analysis o f the art o f preaching

F enelon is t o o wise to enter E loquence w as not .

’
to be learned from Aristotle s dry and curious ‘
 OC C U PAT I O N S A N D FRI EN D S H I PS 2 7

precepts ; the pupil must learn to study the

’ ‘

sublime sublimely among those ancient and modern

masters who s e art it was to have no art Fo r
‘

F é n e lo n was o f the same Opinion as E rasmus who ’

,

once bade men o f letters despise the art of writing

after they h ad learnt to write Th e whole secret
’

‘
.

of eloquence he says lies in watching what N atur e

,
’

,
‘

’
does when s h e i s left alone .

Thus did F é n e lo n carry simplicity to a still higher

point than his master Bossuet had been the Handel
.

o f the pulpit — the inte rpreter o f grand universa .

ideas Providence and Death and I mmortality H e

, , , .

took his station far above mankind j udging and not , ,

being j udged o f men ; they went away from h i s

tribunal more guilty if not more virtuous than they
, ,

came But F enelon s e t before himself a higher

.

model than Daniel o r E zekiel E ven the Apostles .

,

he said stumbled under the burden o fth eir message

, ,

but Jesus Christ had all the calmness of a master . .

H e needed no e f fort but said whatsoever H e would

,

H e spoke of the Kingdom o fH eaven as H i s Father s ’

House The glories that fill us with awe were to

.

Him a matter o f course ; H e had been born among

them and told men only what H e h ad seen H im
,

self
.

The thought was not a new o n e : Pascal had bidden

men notice how Jesus said great things s o simply
that He scarcely seemed to have thought o f them ,

and yet s o clearly that it w as easy to s e e what H e

’
thought o f them And to many F enelon s love o f
.
 FRAN C O I S DE F EN E L O N
I

Simple directness will always seem a little suspect as ,

being but the refinement o f art— not the child like -

golden negligence he praised in La Fontaine b ut ,

the studied nazv eté of the literary craftsman Yet it

’ ‘

taught him the o n e eloquence unknown to Bossuet

an eloquence whose only law is sympathy that speaks ,

to the people not sternly as a prophet but with

, ,

the tenderness o f a fellow—bondsman who does not ,

separate his lo t from theirs and has himself first

,

reached the spiritual haven into whic h he beseeches

,

them to enter .

Bossuet again preached a singl e sermon clear and ,

precise and incapable o f misunderstanding

, He .

spoke to great multitudes of great things and left ,

t h e invisible Monitor within to apply the lesson to

each hearer s needs
’
B ut F enelon s language in
.
’

the informal letters and discourses that are his

truest sermons h as the curiously clinging elasticity
,

peculiar to the mystics Fo r these do n o t imprison

.

their meaning within a single form o f Words They .

give each phrase a double and a treble sense .

They turn and return it till it can be seen in all its

length and breadth — till each hearer can discover
the application most suited to himself and fancy ,

that the preacher is addressing him alone It was .

j ust because F enelon laid aside all general maxims

and abstractions — because he coloured all his writings ,

now with one shade now another of h is o w n most

, ,

complex personality — that he found s o many ready

listeners For he had learned that Wisdom o f the
.
 O CC U P A T I O N S A N D FR I EN D S H I PS 2 9

Spirit which has no rigid form o r substance o f its

’

’
o w n but measures its words by others needs instead
, ,

of by its own enlightenment and tells them j ust s o

,

much as they are abl e to bear .

E ndo w ed with these rare gifts o f social tact and

grace and sympathy F enelon s path lay clear be fore
,
’ ‘

him There was no doubt his true vocation was to

.

be a great Director o fConsciences And the o ppo r .

t un i ty was n o t long in coming While still quite

.

young he had been made known through the good

o ffices o f his uncle the Marquis de F enelon to the
, ,

two men who were destine d to be his early patrons

i n the world and life long disciples in the Spirit the
-
,

Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse .

These two noblemen and their wives were charac

t e ri s t i c figures o f the age o f Mme de Maintenon a.
,

period when France w as atoning fo r the loss o f her

earlier literary and political brilliance in the practice
o fan assiduous and often morbid piety The C loister .
,

it is true h ad ceased to be the only home o freligion

, .

B ut in revenge the monastic spirit had put O ff its

peculiar dress and come o ut into the world There
, .

it stood embodied in the D uke o f B eauvilliers o f ,

whom St Simon records that he was early touched

.

by Go d and never lost the sense o f His Presence

, ,

but lived entirely in the future worl d Fo r places .

,

cabals and worldly inte r

, ests he cared nothing When .

called to the Council Board he was content to state

his true Opinion without much caring whether it w as
,

followed or no H e s at there like a monk who

.
 O CC U P A T IO N S A N D FR I EN D S H I P S 3I

arrangement except to prevent Beauvilliers from

,
'

putting o ne o f Ch e v re us e s magnificent plans into ’

execution For Chevreuse although as devout as his

.
,

brother in ~ law but bro ader minded and much more

-
,
-

able and well informed was the most erratic figure ,

at Versailles a kind o f logical Don Quixote always

, ,
‘

ill of reasoning the greatest distiller o fquintessences

,

there ever was Revelling in the most far fetched

.
’
-

and impracticable paradoxes he had wit and flow o f ,

language enough to give his sophisms an appearance

of perfect cl earness and good sense let him advance
the simplest proposition and his hearer was van ,

ui s h e d Laugh as he might at the absurdity o fthe

q .

’
Duke s conclusions he could find no j oint in his ,

argumentative armour .

His whole life was laid o ut on abstract geometrical

principles Su ch was his desire to live by Reason
.

alone that he could not come to the most trifling

,

decision without brooding fo r hours over the state o f

his mind to make sure that the intellectual purity
,

of his motives was n o t in any way dimmed by passion

o r caprice O f delicate health and a su f
. ferer from
gout he doctored himself on speculative principles
,
‘

’
of medicine eating little but consuming quinine in
, ,

inordinate quantities and ready to poison himself ,

with chicory -water at dinner rather than forego his

bumper of spiced wine at dessert .

His property managed entirely by himself and , ,

according to the strictest axioms o f mathematics ,

fared ev en worse than his health Had it not been for .

32 n R ANC O IS D E F EN E L O N

the King he must have died a beggar for he had littl e

, ,

o f his o w n
’

and h i s wife s large f

,
ortune was wasted
o n costly ,but futile experiments S uch were the , .

'

canals he m ade at enormous expense to float down ,

timber from woods which he sold before ever a tre e

Always behind -hand always lost a m
,

w as felled . ong ,

details and side issues he began many things but

-
, ,

never finished o n e H e had no fixed days o r hours

.

for anything found it as hard to go t o bed as it was

,

to get up in the morning seldom arrived at dinner ,

before the fruits were o n the table would keep his ,

carriage waiting for a dozen hours at a stretch Yet .

with all this says St Simon he was n o t simply loved

, .
, ,

but adored by his family and friends and servants

, .

Throughout h i s troubles — and they were many h e -

w as never for a moment cast down but O f fered up ,

his all to God and fixed his eyes o n Him NO man

,
.

possessed his soul in greater peace t han he ; as the

'

Scripture says he carried it in his hand

, .

The lack of social capacity in the two Dukes — fo r

Chevreuse though more accessible than Beauvilliers
, ,

was sti ff and shy to those who did not know him wel l
-was in some degree atoned fo r by their wives ,

both daughters o f the famous minister Colbert : ,

Br usque and imperious yet kindly and self controlled ,

’
-
,

with a caustic wit that s parkle d in her eyes even when

her piety forbade its utterance and finer taste and ,

intellect than any other woman o f her time Mme , .

de Beauvilliers had s h e chosen might have had the

, ,

whole Court at her feet And Mme de Chevreus e . .

 O C C UP A T I O N S A N D F R I EN D S H I PS 33

did s o choose ; far less gifted than her sister she had ,

all the charm s o f face and figure that in Mme de .

Beauvilliers were rather conspicuously wanting as well ,

as the little social graces which the elder D uchess

despised Her extraordinary virtue and piety were
.

another source o f favour ; for the King and Mme .

de Maintenon were proud of having in their train a

prodigy o f saintliness whose go dly doings passed all,

belief even Of those who had her continually be fore

,

their eyes .

Yet it was not their religion only that brought

these pious persons into royal favour ; to the King ,
’
Beauvilliers merits were hardly more endearing than
his defects Himsel f o f slender intellect but with
.
,

boundless powers of application ambitious enough and ,

firm o f purpose yet woe fully narrow in his ideas

, ,

Louis was ready to sacrifice everything to the fetish

o fhis o w n authority Fo r years he had been thwarted
.

by th e will o f Ministers stronger than himself

Chevreuse says St Simon was the only wise and
, .
,

witty man with whom he really felt at ease for he

was reassured by that air Of trembling modesty which
was also the chief merit of Beauvilliers But Colbert .

died in 16 83 the happy year 16 9 1 deli v ered him o f , ,

two men grown most intolerable Louvois the great , ,

War Minister last o f the tyrannical giants and

, ,

S e i gn e lai Colbert s brilliant s o n — thence forward he

’

could reign alone supreme over a ministry o f titled

,

clerks Beauvi lliers was called to the Treasury in

.

16 8 5 to the Co uncil Board in 16 9 1

, Chevreuse .
,

3
34 F R A N CO IS D E F ENE LO N

though he held no seals was consulted about most

,
!

departments Louis finding both interest and amuse

,

ment in the outbursts O f tumultuo us verbiage that

the D uke was apt to take for inspirations fro m on
H i gh .

B ut Louis alone did not make the Beauvilliers ;

they would scarcely have raised themselves o ut of
the ruck o f virtuous unimportant courtiers had they ,

not gained the favour o f the lady into whose hands ,

the keeping o f the royal conscience passed Their .

rise coincides exactly with the beginning of the reign

o f Mme de Maintenon that strange grandchild of
.
,

the sturdy Old H uguenot Agrippa d Aub ign é whose

,
’

,
’
unexampled career beginning in her father s prison
1
, ,

w as to lead her— fi rs t into marriage with the poet

,

S carron next into the post of governess to the King s

,
’

children by Mme de Montespan and left her the

.
, ,

lawful wi fe o f the proudest King in Christendom .

It was the anomaly o f her situation that first drew

Mme de Maintenon to the Beauvilliers For the
. .

austere little circl e had notoriously refused to bow

down be fore the royal mistresses and their friend ,

ship there fore bore serviceable testimony to the

, ,

honour of this unc rowned queen But there was also .

a natural alliance between the D uke s monas tic piety

1
Mme de M ai n te n o n was b o rn i n Ni o rt gao l i n 16 3 5 ;
.

b e came a Cath o lic, 16 4 9 ; marri e d S carr on, 16 5 2 ; l e ft a

w i do w, 16 6 0 b e cam e go ve rne ss t o Mo n te s pan s ch il dr e n ,
’

16 7 0 ; gradually o uste d M o nte s pan, 16 7 7-16 7 9 I n 16 8 3

.

t h e Qu e e n di e d, an d (pr ob ab l y in th e n e x t ye ar ) Mme de .

M ainte n on was marri e d t o Louis .

 O CC U P A T I O N S A N D FR I EN D S H I P S 35
’
and Mme Maintenon s o w n devotional ideals alive
.

as these were with the whole spirit of seventeenth

century religion in i ts severest most orderly and ,

moral form Di f
ferences there were it is true
.
, ,

between them hidden at present though the Quiet

, ,

i s t controversy later brought them t o light There .

was in Mme de Maintenon a practical sense that

.

w as wanting in the Beauvilliers s h e born a Protes ,

tant took a lawful generous pride i n her reason

, ,

while they were wholly ecstatically Catholic z ealots, ,

’
who gloried in the folly of the Cross .

To the keen eyed Catholic again self respect is a

-
, ,
-

thing intolerable an evil cries F enelon far worse , ,

than long S illy vanity

, vanity echoes his great ,

nineteenth —century analogue changed into a more ,

!

dangerous self conceit as being checked in its natural

-
,
”
eruption B ut Mme de Maintenon s character was
’
. .

built up on a double basis — o n her religion firstly ,

and secondly on her honour on a bonne glo ire that ,

covets the p raises of the virtuous delights in the ,

knowledge o f its o wn moderation in the thought ,

that its merits are beyond its rewards I never

”
wished t o be loved by any particular person s h e ,

wrote late in life

, I wished to be thought well o f
!

by all I cared nothing fo r riches I w as far above

.
,

sel fseeking ; all I wanted was honour Honour was

-
.

my folly honour was my idol for which perhaps I

, , , ,

am now punished by excess o f greatness Would to .

God I had done as much for H im as I have fo r my

own reputation
3— 2
36 FRA N CO I S D E F EN E LO N

And so this Queen o f Prudence held her way ,

regardless of priestly remonstrances and made of her ,

bonne glo ire at once a weapon a protection and a ,

charm —the safeguard o f her chastity in days when

it was perilous fo r an attractive w o man t o w alk alone .

It was the mainspring o f those companionable

q ualities which as s h e said gained her t h e su ffrage
, ,

O f every society — o f the women because she was ,

gentle and kept in the background — o f the me n ,

because s h e had kept some o f the natural graces o f

youth — O f all because she thought only o f what
,

might give them pleasure Her spirit was always .

clear and equable the mind o f o n e who — thanks be

,

to God l — had neither passions nor hatreds nor ambi

tions nothing to fear nothing to hide and nothing
, , ,

to regret Chary o f speech for those who talk

.
,
‘

’
much most often talk nonsense she was prompt and ,

lively in conversation an excellent listener and easily

,

taken with new ideas ; yet at bottom her j udgment

was solid and cautious her powers o f conception
,

puny her intellect narrow though strong the vice

, ,

o f originality never pierced beneath the surface and ,

left her witty enough fo r the brilliant Montespan ,

and n o t t o o clever for the King To her Louis came .

for refuge exhausted by the tempestuous beauty o f

,

his mistress her j ealousies and love philtres her

,
-
,

rage her crushing wit her arrogance ; fo r this new

, ,

guide could lead him into an unknown country into ,

an intercourse o f friendship and conversation where ,

there was no intriguing and no constraint .

 O CC U P A T I O N S AN D FRI EN D S H I P S 37

Providence cried the neglected Q ueen Maria

!
, ,

Teresa has raised up Mme de Maintenon to bring

,
.

”
my husband back to me and this new favourite who ,

was not a mistress believed abundantly in the divine

nature of her mission I n her o wn words s h e .
,

‘
accepted the King s friendship to give him good ’

counsels and end his slavery to vice

, The care o f .
’

his salvation became the first and most ab sorbing of

her duties s h e held herself a monitress charged to ,
’
encourage and console him o r if it were God s , ,

pleasure to grieve him with reproaches that none

,

but s h e dare utter She w as his disinterested adviser

.

Votre S o lidite
’
- Your Seriousness as he used to call
’

, ,

her — who never annoyed him with Opposition never ,

encroached had no will o fher o w n She became as

, .
,

it were t h e King s conception of his o wn better self

,
’

and his second conscience — a magnet quick to draw

him sometimes into the really worthier o f two
,

possible courses always into the more ecclesiastically

,

virtuous .

O ut of this personal sphere s h e did not travel ;

public a f f
airs were barred to her by lack alike of
genius taste and opportunity She was not made
, , .

’
to be a s entinel in the midst of Israel The little .

policy that s h e had w as made up half o f fem inine ,

prej udice and humours half O f anxiety to shield the ,

King fro m worry by always making for the easiest

and S implest course .

’
But it was part of her system t o encourage Louis
attraction to pious persons like Beauvilliers ; for the
 O CC U PAT I O N S A N D FR I EN DS H I P S 39

limiting o f an autocracy which had m uch to s ay o f

,

the Sovereign and his pleasure but little o f the ,

Commonwealth and the laws for the reversal o f a ,

policy o f violence and chicanery that went to war ,

o ut o f sheer vaingloriousness and love o f conquest ,

that robbe d the weak stamped o n i t s treaties turned

, ,

every ally into a slave till the very names o f France

,

and Louis were become intolerabl e to every nation

in E urope They must cast down the idol o f false
.

glory which the King loved more than peace o r

,

j ustice more than the prosperity o f h is Kingdo m

, ,

more than his own salvation they must show him the
miserie s o f a land become nothing other than a vast
hospital desolate and without the necessaries o fli fe
, ,

where the numbers o fthe people were daily diminish

ing co m merce was bankrupt the fields were untilled ;
, ,

wretched and m utinous the poor were daily dying ,

o f hunger the nobles lived only o n doles f

, rom the
King S uch was the great realm o f France once s o
.
,

flourishing under a Prince o fj ust and noble nature

, ,

who even yet was ha i led by courtiers as the darling

, ,

o fthe nation though n o w corrupted by the schemes

, ,

o f W icked men he hardened his heart and ground

,

his people down tearing the very bread from their

,

mouths to pay fo r his frivolous conquests till they ,

cared no more for h is splendour o r victories but their ,

lips were filled with treasonable murmurings their ,

hearts with bitterness and despair 1 .

1
O f cours e , th e l e tte r was not inte nde d fo r th e ! ing s ’

e y e , b ut fo r Mme de M ainte non s and B e auvillie rs and

’ ’
.
,
4o FR A N C O I S D E F ENE LO N

Such criticisms are indeed the manifesto o f a n e w

school o fstatesmanship no distant forerunners of the
,

book that tells how man was everywhere born free ,

and yet is everywhere in chains They are a T el e .

maqu e in little big with al l the faults and merits of

,

that famous dream and uttered it might almost

, ,

seem t o bear o ut Louis o w n descr i ption o f their

,
’

author as the finest and most visionary thinker in

,

his Kingdom Fo r with much that i s grand there

.
, ,

enters into them m uch that is unreasonable and ,

more that is unj ust n o t only to Louis but also to

, ,

his Ministers from t h e dead Louis at the top to the

, ,

bonh omme La Chaise at the bottom o fthe scale there

i s an utter disregard o f historic possibilities Of the ,

guilt which the nation must share with its rulers in

sowing the seeds o fits own decay .

Yet the Letter contains far more ugly truth s than

fancies It was in vain that Mme de Maintenon and
’

. .

her friend tried to console themselves by agreeing to

call F é n e lon s strictures too harsh I n vain s h e
’

listened to a little o fhis teaching and wrote patriot

—
,

as s h e w as -
after the victories o f S te ink e rk and
N amur that what pleased her most in the recent
,

successes w as th at they had not shaken the King in

’
his real desire for peace ; none of his people s woes
were hid from him and he would strain every nerve
,

L ouis ame is only put at th e t op in orde r to av oid th e

’
n ,
i nconve nie nc e O f addre ssing s e ve re r e proach e s di re ctly to
th em .
 O CC U P A T I O N S AN D F RI EN DS H I PS 4 1

’
to s e t them right Matters were long past Louis
.
l

mending ; already through F é n e lo n s Letter rings ’

the D ies In n of the o ld regime already th e dé bczcle ,

’’

w as begun .

1
Th e se victori e s
-
Ste ink e rk, at l e ast a ve ry b arr e n
,

o ne — we r e gaine d in th e summe r o f16 9 2 .

 C HA P T E R I V

TH E E D U C ATI O N O F GIRLS

Es ist s onde rb ar ri e f L o th ario aus das s man e s de m

, ,
Manne v e rargt de r e ine F rau an di e h o ch s te Ste ll e s etze n
,

w ill di e s ie e inzun e h m e n f
, ah ig e s t : u nd w e lch e I S h Oh e r
als das R e gim e nt de s Haus e s P— GO E TH E

ENEL O N and the Beauvilliers had not been

long acquainted be fore the Duchess mother o f ,

many daughters be gged him to put down o n paper

,

some rules for the guidance of their education .

U nder his hand the work swelled out into a larger

compass and indeed applies in all that concerns
, , , ,

early childhood to the other sex as well It was

, .

written soon after F enelon went to the N ew

Catholics and first published in 16 8 7
, .

The times were ripe for such a Treatise The .

seventeenth century loved to argue about women s ’

’
rights and women s position to discuss whether their
,

true place was the kitchen or the drawing room -

,

whether they were born to be the drudge o fa house

hold o r the cherished ornaments o f society There .

were still many who held by the ideas Of the past by ,

Duke John o f Brittany and h is saying that a wife

42
 TH E E D U CAT I O N O F GI RLS 43

knew enou gh when s h e co uld distinguish her h us

band s doublet from his trunk hose These men
’
-
.

would hear o fno education for their daughters they

preferred said F enelon to leave them to the negl ect
, ,

o fa f oolish and indiscreet mother .

S uch were the ideas o f the uppe r bo urgeo is ie (in

Mm e de Maintenon s Opinion the worst educated
.
’

class o f any ) and even o f the rank F enelon more

especially had in V ie w the poorer provincial nobility
, .

I n the gre at families a certain worldly and superficial

education had been in vogue since the beginning of
the previous century Mme de Maintenon has drawn
. .

” ’

its outline The young girl s wit sh e says was , ,

.

carefully embellished ; s h e learn t a thou s and things

by heart that s h e might s h ine in company to the
,

delight of her parents and the credit o fher governess ,

but no o n e thought of strengthening her reason o r

her j udgment nor was it certain s h e would possess
,
” ’
the humblest elements of knowledge In F enelon s .

day few girls could read aloud without stumbling o r

mispronouncing or write legibly and correctly o r
, ,

cast up the simplest household account without

falling into confusion H is friend the Ab b e Fleury
.
, ,

feared that he would gain a reputation for paradox ,

if he proposed to carry their education beyon d the

customary point— beyond the Catechism needle ‘
,

work and a fe w small accomplishments singin g , ,

dancing and the art o fdress deportment and polite

,
’
conversation .

The first light in this darkness had been kindled

44 FR A N CO I S D E F ENELO N

by the Précieuses the o fli cial patronesses o freform

,

both in Letters and E ducation They were apostles .

o fthe S ublime and the Beauti f ul — more especially as

those words are understood by maiden ladies of
tender heart and strong attraction to all that is
romantic or o ut o fthe common groove— creations of
that mysterious law o fnature which sends euphuists
in one age sentimentalists in another and believers
, ,

in art fo r art s sake in a third Yet they did not

’

wholly eschew common sense ; no one protested more

forcibly than Mlle de S cud ery novelist and leader of
.
,

préciosité against the absurdity O f devoting twelve

,

years to the dancing master i n order that the young

-
,

lady might figure at balls fo r half that period and no ,

years at all to the formation of sound habits of

thought though s h e would be expected to speak
,

sensibly and act discreetly all the days of her life .

H ow s h e asked could girls be otherwise than

, ,

c o quettish and empty headed when their education

-
,

fi tted them for nothing but to sleep to grow fat to , ,

look pretty and to s ay s i lly things

Yet in that age o f gallantry and pastorals the
Précieuse could n o t keep her feet a torrent of rose
water sweeps her away when s h e would approach the
re lation between the sexes She revived the medi as
.

val Courts o fLove y e t shuddered at the thought of

,

a husband ; s h e w as the geographer o f the tender

passion yet held that marriage was i t s grave ; s h e
,

sang the praises of melancholy the Vestal who keeps ,

the flame o f love eternally alight yet sighed a fter a ,

 TH E E D U C A T I O N O F GI R LS 45

S piritual union with philosophy rather than carnal

,

slavery to a man At the bottom Of her heart she

.

agreed with that eccentric priest Poulain de la Barre

, ,

who after conversion to Protestantism and a wi fe

, ,

had come forward to preach the equality o fthe sexes .

Man s h e vowed only clung to his exclusive property

, ,

in intellect out o f dread lest women s powers should

’

prove more than a match fo r his .

The E ducation o f Girls leads the way into a

higher world F é n e lo n interposed between the
.

Précieuses and their Opponents t o raise the debate

into a higher atmosphere to remind them of pri n
,

ci le s which both had failed t o apply

p A ll consider
.

ati o n s of mere elegance o r utility drop o ut o f sight .

Women F enelon argued had rights and duties o f

, ,

their o wn which lay at the root of all h uman

,

existence the aim of their education could only be

to fit them fo r the performance o f their tasks To .

the enemies o f their education he answered that

virtue was the same for women as for men H e .

’
replied to the Précieuses that a woman s best orna
ment was the happiness and good order O f h e r
family and household — nay in the godly upbringing
,

of her children the mother uttered her best and

surest prayer had not St Paul declared that through
them she would work o ut her o w n salvation
For F enelon m ade religion the groundwork o f all
education He could not resolve it into a training
.

O f the intellect though that was indispensable nor

, ,

into the formation of virtuous habits tho ugh that ,

 THE E D U C A T I O N O F GI RLS 47

bound to think well Of a good convent he thought ,

still better of a g o od mother who co uld give her ,

whole attention to her child and gradually wean her ,

t o the ways o f a world which the nun had on ce and

for all renounced And therefore he echoed the
.

j udgment pas sed on convents by the grand daughter -

of the foundress of the Visitation the most famo us ,

teaching order of the time Keep Pauline at .

”
home wrote Mme de S evign e and do not think
, .
,
!

that a convent will mend her education either in ,

matters of religion— O fwhi ch the good sisters know

nothing — o r in any other subj ect She will learn far .

more from you if you talk to her freely and make

, ,

”
her read good books And all the wiser mothers
.

o f the coming century agreed with Mme de .

S evign e .

The first step therefore was to educate the

, ,

mothers and that could only be done by impressin g

o n them Mme de Maintenon s great maxim that we
’
.
,

cannot be reasonable to o soon nor overmuch Of .

‘

all the qualities of children says F enelon there is

,
’

,
‘

only o n e o n which we can surely count and that one ,

’
is right reason W ith this principle as a reapin g
.

hook he and his fellows began — perhaps more

,

thoroughly than they thou ght for— t o mow down the

tares o fmedi ae val education Henceforward human .

nature was to be trained and aided n o t crushed and ,

moulded into another S hape Punishment ceased to .

be a second name fo r improvement the child could

no longer be beat e n as in E rasmus story simply to
, ,
48 FRAN C O I S DE F EN E LO N

make him h umble For the wells were no more

.

poisoned by a crushingly real belief in man s original ’

wickedness ; the reign o f Gian t Metaphysical Sin ,

was over and children were born without any

,
‘

na t ural trend to good or evil While from post

.
’

natal s i n they had i n their Reason a means o f

regeneration which every Churchman could recognise
as cO -operative with Grace Grace itself came with
.

n o violent arbitrary shock from outside but grew ,

o ut of a hidden secret germ implanted in the soul at

,

bi rth and only disting uishable from Reason wh en it

,

began to put forth buds and roots This formless .

!

and secret germ is the beginning o f the N ew Man .

It is not reason alone ; it is n o t N ature le ft to

herself ; it is Grace concealing itself under N ature to ,
”
redress it little by little .

And so our grave young Churchman would reform

the nursery with a severity o freasonableness that is
itself sometimes almost unreasonable Away h e .
,

cries with all the petty abuses that breed untruth o r

,

slovenliness o f thought— with the folly o f those silly

women who delight in a child s nonsensical chatter
’

with the hobgoblins I nvented by nurse maids to -

scare charges into right -doing— with the odious h abit

o f praising them for some neat little bit o fdeceit !

Away also with the clumsy glosses by which elders

, , ,

think to hide their own failings from the sharp sight

o fyouth — with the sel findulgent harshness o fthose
-

teachers who demand o ftheir pupil an exactitude o f

thought o f which they are themselves incapable ,
 T H E E D U CAT I O N O F G I R LS 49

with whom all i s silence uncomfortable postures , ,

threats and punishment

, .

Such pedantry F enelon h eld to be the death o f

education It destroyed the child s confidence an d
.
’

bred hatred of all lea rn ing ; it replaced the free

organic gro w th o fhis faculties by su bservience to an
authority always arbitrary and external often a
, ,

mere excuse fo r severity It outraged the Gol den .

Rule of Teaching which w as to let the pupil under

,

stand the H o w and the Why of his education the ,

bearing o fo n e kind o f knowled ge upon another the ,

bearing of any kin d of knowledge o n practical li fe .

It destroyed his sense o fthe j us tice o fhis education ,

in th at it gave to his p unishments an appearance O f

caprice not o fa natural following o n his fa ult
, .

But lOng before a child s Reason is fully awake

,
’

the work of education has begun While it still .

slumbers the master must be come as it were its

, , ,

ambassador and stand between his pupi l and the

,

external world to correct the impressions that it

,

made upon him and s e e that each conve ye d the

,

appropriate moral lesson We mu st m ake haste to

.

write upo n the tablets o fa childish brain while it i s

still soft and easy to o ur hand yet making care ful ,

choice o fthe characters we engr ave thereon ; into a

v essel so precious and s o small we must p o ur only
”
exquisite things Thus the teacher wil l follo w
.
!

and assist N ature watching diligently for the ap

,

e aran ce o f each constituent element in the mind

p ,

a nd preparing beds fo r the torrent o fpassions whose ,

5 0 FR A N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

inrush it would be hopeless to resist E ach o fthem .

will serve some use ful purpose Curiosi ty may lead .

o n to valuable instruction imitativeness be turned to ,

virtuous uses ; j ealousy wears another aspect when ,

it i s called emulation ; o ut o f a well bound gilt ,

edged volume vanity quickly learns to read The .

I magination will serve o ur p urp o sie in religious teach

ing . God who knows the hearts O f His creatures
!
,

better than any man has put the whole of religion ,

into popular facts which lodge without e f ,

fort in the
memory And we have only to follow the methods
.

O fScripture with our children awaken their interest , ,

and let pleasure do all .

Pleasure indeed is o n e of F enelon s watch -words

and that fo r reason s as well physiological as m
, , ,

oral .

’
The pedantic H umanists o f Montaigne s time h ad
educated minds not men but F enelon had l earned
,

wisdom from the E ssayist and was resolved to give ,

even the despised body i ts share of attention Doubt .

less his science is not ours — h e would have been

perfect cries an admiring modern physician had he
, ,

had any real knowledge of medicine — but it was

enough to show him that the brain moves quickest
when it is kept at an even temperature o f m o derate
happiness and allowed to refresh itself by many
,

digressions A child s mind is like a candle ex

!
’

posed to the wind H e asks you a question and .

, ,

before you can answer him h is eyes have wandered ,

to the ceiling and he is counting the figures painted

,

there or the number o f panes in the window I f

,
.
 TH E E D U C A T I O N O F GI RLS 5 1

y outry to bring him back to his question you will ,

harass him as m uch as if you kept him in prison .

For this reason matters Of diet fall within the

teacher s province Young blood i s hot and easily
’
.

excited and h e must keep it cool by m eans o f

,

moderate fare and S imple habits must s e e too to , , ,

balls and kites and bodily exercise : with F enelon

d Fleury games fo r the first time take their place
in Christian education .

But F enelon had other uses for Pleasure than

simply sweetening the blood In this field also he .

was a reformer charged to break down the ancient

,

brutal system that thought more of rules than moral

,

sentiments and turned education into the art o f

,

hindering Already over the E ducation of Girls is

.

cast the s hadow o f the eighteenth century ; we hear

but little o f the claims o f law o r discipline o f the ,

good O ftroubles bravely encountered and overcome .

!
We must avoid F enelon says the faults o f
, ,

ordinary teachers who let the child associate nothing

,

but tedi um with his studi es nothing but amusement ,

with his hours o fplay We must make learning and .

virtue agreeable hiding away o ur lessons under an

,

appearance of liberty and enj oyment And with .

,

the exultation o f Pleasure comes that of its correla ,

tive Feeling E motion is prono unced the most i m

, .

portant Of all levers unless the teacher can carry it

with him he will convince but he will n o t persuade
, , .

Af fection o n the other hand will make the pupil do

, ,

all that i s required o fhim Feeling is a goad that .

4 — i2
5 2 F RA N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

may be used to rouse his indolence awaken his ,

interest prick o n h i s self respect ; he should learn

,
-

to take pleasure in his honour in the cleanness o f ,

his conscience in a Stoical contempt fo r all that

,
‘

weakens the body By means o f Feeling we can

.
,

shame the girl o ut of her unworthy habit of shudder

ing at a dream at the upsettin g o f a salt cellar at
,
-
,

the thought o fdeath we can teach her that n o Chris

tian o fany age o r s e x may dare to be a coward
, ,
’
F e n e lo n s appeals to the Feelings will be neither
'

prurient nor mawkish if we think their tone a little

to o delicate too cloistered for a mortal race which
, ,
’
must be run not without dust and heat that is
‘
,

no more than may be said o f h i s whole theory of

E ducation .

In the last p ages o f his book F é n e lo n deals with

girls alone O n this more delicate ground his prin
.

ci le s
p remain the same but some of ,the earli er
kindliness has vanished this friend o f many women
could n o t forget that their brain was even feebler
and more trivial than that of man This father o f .

sentimentalists was also a priest an inheritor of some ,

o f that traditional Catholic disdain which once , ,

speak i ng throu gh the mouth of Bossuet had called ,

.

E ve s daughters the painted dust for whose adorn

’

ment almost all Creation must travail almost every ,

”
trade must toil almost every hour be spent
!
,
For if .
,

his religion often sharpened F enelon s e yesigh t there ’

were times also when it warped his j udgment In h i s .

horror of pré ci o s it e or theology in petticoats he

’

, ,
 TH E E D U C AT I O N O F G I R LS 53

would have women S hrin k from learning almost as

‘

from vice Knowledge only made them long to

.
’

raise themselves above the common grove ; it em

boldened them to have an opinion on every subj ect ,

to j oin in every dispute .

But o n the whole the strain o fsacerdotal aloofness

,

is more than balanced by a patient interest and

understanding Women were no longer a mere
.

’
afterthought to God s scheme of Creation formed ,

out o f Adam s superfl uous rib but a s e x w orthy o f

’

,
’

almost as close an atten tion as men To th e natural .

follies o f th eir age F enelon is merciful eno ugh To .

take wild unreasoning likes and dislikes and live

, ,

habitually in the superlative is a transitory privilege ,

-

o fyouth that Reason and experience will set right

, .

But it i s otherwise with their rooted defects There .

is curiosity to turn the clever girl into a précieuse o r ,

her duller sister into an inquisitive gossip agape for ,

the last n e w novel or the last piece of news A .

diso rdered craving to please leads others to make a

national question o ut o fa ribbon o r a curl slyness is
always ready with its little ruses and its tears O r .

there are indolence and frivolity to give wrong ,

notions o freligion Girls look o n prayer as a tedious

.

exercise o n their Creator as an austere J udge They

, .

behave in H is Presence as though they were in the

company o fone whom they respect b ut rarely s e e , ,

and that only o n the most formal occasions they are

weary they are ill at ease they long to make their
, ,

escape .
 TH E E D U CAT I O N O F GI R LS 55

p li s h me n ther heart was in her still room an d

s ; -

her nursery E ssentially o f noble birth thou gh

.
,

condemned by her poverty to live in the country ,

s h e had learnt to be homely wih those who were

homely and n o t to think fastidiousness a sign o f

,

lively sensibility Within doors she was neat and

.

orderly but n o t to excess a careful stewardess o fher

, ,

fortune yet firm against all avarice and unintelligent

,

economy A knowledge o f the use and prices o f

.

commodities saved her alike from being cheated and

!

from becoming the plague Of her household Sh e was

n o Pharaoh of her kitchen to expect that preserves
,

should be made without sugar H ers was the di tfi

.

cult art o fmanaging servants She remembered that

.

the meanest among them was a fellow Christian -

,

placed in an unnatural state and therefore specially

,

deserving o fpatient counsel and of charity .

Before the heiress F é n e lo n lays a wider programme .

Many a future mistress o f a country house he says , ,

knows no more o frural li fe than o fthe habits o f the

savages in Canada ; she thinks economy and estate
management utterly beneath her ; s h e does not even
know enough of the ways o fJ ustice to avoid going to
law Yet how easy to give her some little notion of
.

her d uties ! She might learn what was meant by

Lord o fthe Manor Tithe I m propriation Rents and
, ,

Fines And sh e should know something o f the

.

moral obligations o fa landowner She must under

.

stand how to prevent the violence and chicanery s o

common in the count ry s h e must found littl e schools ,
56 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

provide food fo r the starving and care for the sick ,

and above everything ensure for all her dependants

, ,

a solid instruction and Christian control .

Thu s F enelon had done much i fhe had not done ,

all H e stood far ahead o f all other contemporary

.

reformers H e i s above Port Royal in his humanity

.
,

in his insistence o n the social duties both o f educa

tion and r eligion H e is above Mme de Maintenon . .

in his adaptiveness in his wish to so ften down the ,

outlines o f a training rigorously practical and

domestic by some little touch o fwider more artistic
, ,

c ulture N or need he fear competi tion with a later

.

world When we turn to modern literature from

.

’
F enelon s pages says Mr Morley who does not, .
,
!

feel that the world has lost a sacred accent as i f ,

some ine ffable essence had passed out from our

”
hearts ?
Gaps there are and contradictions and e xtrav a ,

gances F enelon is open to the charge s o O ften

. ,

brought against the J an se n i s t s o ffirst teaching girls ,

to think fo r the mselves and then forbidding them ,

to express their thoughts We might have wished .

his intellectual programme a little broader Thirty .

years later within his o w n lifetime his co rre spo n

, ,

dent and admirer Mme de Lambert was already , .

,

chafing at its narrowness ; unless their minds were

better stocked with serious knowledge girls s h e , ,

feared would find their way back to the delicious

,

poiso n o fSociety An d i t w as l o n g be fore another

’
.
 T H E E D U CAT I O N O F G I RLS 57

disciple Mme de R é mus at broadened his timid

, .
,

conception o fa house wife busied with much serving

-
,

in the background into the worthier idea of a wi fe

, ,

whose glory it was to be the mother and the consort

o fa citizen — ready though herself holding no cards
,

in the game o f li fe to Si t as a co unsellor beside

,

the players to share in their victories and console

, ,

their defeats Yet it was from the E ducation O f

.

Girls that these later reformers started ; from

F enelon they learned to turn all their knowledge
into character all thei rwisdom into virtu e
,
.
 C HA P TE R V

TH E C O U RT PRE C E PT O RA T E

Tu modo nasce nti pue ro q uo fe rr e a primum, ,

D e s in e t ac t oto s urge t ge n s aur e a mun do ,

Cas ta fav e L ucina
, ,
.

V IR GIL

T H E E ducation of
Girls was destined to bri ng its
author something more than literary glories .

O n the 2 0th o f August 16 8 9 the Duke of Beau

, ,

villiers was gazetted Governor to the little Duke of

Burgundy eldest s o n of the Dauphin and the Abb é
, ,

de F é n e lo n o n Beauvilliers recommendation was

,
’

appointed his Preceptor O n the following day

.

Madame de S evigne wrote that the Ki n g had made

’

three men o ut o f o n e Duke which was quite as it

1
,

should be St Louis could not have made a better

. .

choice This Abb é de F é n e lo n too was a man o f

.
, ,

rare merit fo r intelligence knowledge and piety , , .

Beauvilliers and F enelon had a hard task before

them : they were called upon to do for the son what
1
I n allusion to B eauvilli e rs th r e e ’
fi ce s —
of Gove rnor,
F irst Ge ntl eman o f th e C h amb e r, and si necur e P r e si de nt
o ft h e Cou ncil o fF inanc e .
THE D U! E OF B U R GUN D Y
 T H E C O U RT P R E C E PT O R A T E 59

Bossuet and the Duke o f Mo n taus i e r— a man n o less

excellent than Beauvilliers — had failed in doi ng fo r
the father The education o f the Dauphin says
.
,

St Simon had been s o severe that after it was

.
, ,

finished he never opened a book and read nothing

, ,

but the birth and marriage announcements in the

newspaper The severity indeed came not from the
.
, ,

Preceptor who believed in other methods but from

, ,

the Governor and the King But in any case .

, ,
’
B o s s ue t s herculean e f
forts must have been wasted o n
his pupil a crass obstinate idle boy who grew up to
, , , ,

be a taci t um stubborn indolent man though a

, , ,

brave soldier and a mighty sportsman .

Burg undy was a very di fferent being from his

father H e inherited most o f h is qualities from his
.

mother Mary Anne of Bavari a a delicate melancholy

, , , ,

unattractive princess passionate and proud and ,

caustic Palace customs allowed her little voice in

.

the education o f her children ; we only know that

s h e highly approved the appointment of Beauvilliers ,

and died soon afterwards bitterly regretted by her ,

eldest s o n .

Burgundy himself w as a frail unhealthy creature , ,

a valetudinarian even as a child always thinking that ,

his soul was about to take her flight into his pocket
handkerchief and kingly neither in face nor car
,
’
‘

riage.
’
His body lacked symmetry as much as his
mind O n e shoulder very early outgrew the other
.
,

defying the most cruel e fforts o f the surgeons to s e t

it right and probably doing far more serious mis
,
 T H E C O U RT P R E C E PT O RAT E 6 I

posed to listen to that O ften when it reasserted .

,

itself a fter o ne o f his tornados he w as so much ,

ashamed of himsel fthat he fell into a new fit of rage .

From the very beginning however h e w as frank and , ,

truth ful to a fault .

S uch w as the strange character now put under

’
F enelon s charge although the formal responsibility
,

lay with Beauvilliers 1

The King interfered little.

in the management o f his gran dsons the Dauphin ,

not at all And Of outside influences there was only

.

Chevre use called in occas ionally at leisure moments

,

to mingle instruction with amusement .

Th us the Governor and Preceptor were quite un

trammelled and could peaceably bring up their
,

Princes according to the methods of the E ducation

o fGirls — a book be it remembered written origi nally
, ,

fo r Beauvilliers wife
’
To the great scandal of the
.

’
Court Physicians the D uke carried out F enelon s
,

prescription of simple food and much exercise in the

open air It w as F enelon t o o who made th e
.
, ,
’
Princes hours o fstudy SO agreeable that they entered
the schoolroom almost as readily as they le ft it B ur ,

g undy saying that he should remember all h is life

the pleasure Of having worked without constraint .

Indeed his master kindled in him a hu n ger after

,

Fo r all de tails s ee Lo uv i lle s M e m o ir o n t h e E duca

1 ’

tio n o fth e P rince s i n Fene l o n (Wor k s, vii , p 5 19 et . .

Lo uvill e w as o ne o fth e e q u e rri e s to th e P rince s , and wrote

in 16 96 B ur gun dy was e ducate d i n company with h is two
b roth e rs , t h e D uk e o f A nj o u (afte rwar ds P h ili p V o f .

S pai n) an d t h e D uk e o fB e rry .
62 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

knowledge s o absorbing as afterwards to become a

matter fo r reproach S t Simon compares him to a
'

. .

watchmaker who should be s o much absorbed in the

makin g of his tools as to forget when the time came
to turn them to account For this F é n e lo n was not
.

to blame Always and everywhere an enemy of

.

pedantry he hated it most of all in a Prince

,
.

”
Better says Louville that a ! ing should know
, ,

nothing o fArt or Letters than that he should play

the poet or philosopher on the throne The staple .

o f a royal education is History Politics and the Art , ,

o fWar ; a Prince needs only such garnish o f general

knowledge as will enable h i m to outshine h is courtiers

in a conversation .

The voice i s the voice of the courtly Louvi lle but ,

the thoughts are the tho ughts of F enelon and

F enelon s also was the system which made the
’

’
Princes hours of study as desultory and i nformal as
possible Burgundy being encouraged to break O ff
,

from the matter in hand to any subj ect that inter

e s t e d him Perhaps it is to be regretted that there
.

w as not more systematic education more teaching ,

by rule and less by ear more mental discipline and

,

less enj oyment But the time was S hort and the
.
,

curriculum long ; moreover the dread reproach of ,

pedantry fastened on all such subj ects as were not

immediately use ful ; while for metaphysics which ,

the seventeenth century thought a practical study ,

the pupil was held t o be too impatient and t o o

imaginative — a fault no t wholly unpardonable in one
 TH E CO U RT P R E C E PTO R A T E 63

not yet fourteen Besides Bu rgundy was grandson

.
,

of that Idomeneus who was always absorbed in little

,

things t o o busy over the parts to comprehend the

,

whole too fond of arranging atoms when he should

,

have been conceiving a system And F enelon was .

resolved that his pupil should have the mind not o f ,

a shopkeeper but of a king he must learn to leave

,

the care of detail to others and be content with ,

governi ng those who governed in his name .

The real centre therefore o fhis education was his

, ,

di rect preparation for the throne and more especially , , ,

the magnificent code O f moral lessons the Fables , ,

the Dialogues of the Dead and Té lé maq ue which

, ,

were timed to keep place with h i s gradual develop

ment and lead him from fairy stories to History and
,
-
,

from History to the heights of a political U topia .

’
There is small trace in the Fables of F enelon s
enthusiastic admiration fo r La F o n tain e ; his little
fishes always talk like moralists of the sounder school
of fEsop N early every story h as a personal applica
.

tion much is made o fthe danger o flife at Court of ,

the evils of tyranny and bad faith of the insu fficiency ,

of riches and grandeur without virtue More than .

once Burgundy s sense of humour i s turned against

’

his own defects as in the story o f how the child

,

Bacchus while learnin g to read w as annoyed by a

, ,

Faun who laughed at his mistakes

, H o w dare y o u !

”
mock the s o n of Jove ? exclaims the angry little
god. But the irreverent Faun replies unmoved
How dare the so n o fJove make a mistake ?
64 FRA N C O I S D E F ENE L O N

Or else F enelon sketches his pupil on a l arger

canvas as in the fable Master Whimsical
, What .
!

has happened to Melanthus N othing without ;

everything within There was a wri nkl e in his
.

stocking this morning and we shall all have to su ffer ,

for it H e cries h e roars he alarms he moves pity

.
, , , .

’
Don t S peak to him o f what he likes best ; fo r that
very reason he won t h ear a word in its favour H e ’
.

contradicts others and tries to annoy them ; he is

furious that they will no t be angry O r else he .

turns on himself is wretched and will not be con , ,

soled H e wi s hes fo r solitude but he cann ot bear

.
,

to be alone ; he comes back t o us and at once ,

quarrels with us all We must not be silent we .

,

must not talk we must not laugh we must not be

, ,

sad There is nothing to do but wait until he

.

recovers .

Sometimes he will suddenly drop his rage and ,

be amused at his own fury ; he forgets what has

annoyed him all he kn ows is that he is angry and
-
,

is going to remain so O r rather it is we who are .

, ,

angry ; the whole world is yellow be cause the j aun ,

dice is i n his o wn eyes H e spares no one but rushes .

,

o n the fi rs t comer j ust to vent his rage

- Take care
, .

what you say to him for he has not lost control of ,

his wits — i fyou s ay something foolish he will become ,

reasonable j ust to convince y o u of your folly

,
.

But stay— h e h as changed again he avows his fault ,

laughs at his o w n absurdi ties and imitates them fo r ,

our amusement N ow he i s full o faf .fection caresses ,

 T H E C O U RT P R E C E PT O RAT E 65

and caj oles those he h as o f

fended till you w o uld ,

think that he could never lose his temper again — yo u

are wrong There will be another Outbreak to-night
.
,

at which he will laugh in the morn ing but without ,

”
the least thought o famendment .

The same method is p ursued in the earliest

Dialogues o f the Dead The valetudinari an Prince
.

Bilious mi stakes a S light indigestion for gout in the

stomach ; Achilles lamenting to Chiron that he has
,

often broken his promise O f good behaviour is com ,

forted by the assurance that after long centuries he

will be born again and have another Chiron at his
,

side But fo r the most part the stage is crowded

.
, ,

with the great figures of ancient and modern history .

H erodotus tells Lucian that t oo much belief is better

than too little ; Plato upholds against Aristotle his
E ternal Ideas ; P arrh as i u s and Lionardo da Vinci
criticise the art of Poussin And at their heels follow
.

the great Kings and tyrants and statesmen of the

past disputing together sombrely enough Some
, .

times the good is simply placed side by side with the

bad N uma Pompilius by Romulus Leonidas by
, ,
’
Xerxes the Black Prince by that priest s bastard
,
‘
’

Richard I I Louis X II by Louis XI and Francis I

.
, . . .

sometimes Rhadamanthus calls up cul prits to h i s

'

bar. But most o f the combatants are more equally

matched ; each can overwhelm the other with re
ro ach e s and w ring confessions o ut o f him till o f
p , ,

his vices and defects not o n e remains concealed .

5
 66 FR AN C O I S D E F EN E LO N
Fo r
’
F enelon in h is great desire to make God s and
,
’
the people s enemies look foolish becomes like h i s , ,

o wn Cato the Censor too ardent against all the !

,
”
world Bossuet scarcely overshot the mark when he
.

complained that M de Cambrai s dead did nothing .

’

but insult each other H e looks on History as the .

handmaid o f philanthropy a pillory for scarecro w ,

heroes conquerors and despots made to show

, ,

B y wh at
wre tch e d s te ps th e ir gl o ry gr o ws
F r om dirt and s eawe e d as prou d Ve nic e r o se
I n e ach h ow guilt and gr e atn e ss e q ual ran ,

And all th at rais e d th e h e r o s un k th e man , .

His Alexan der is a madman J ulius Cae sar a mere ,

‘

adventurer climbing to power on the shoulders of his

,

creditors and o f garrulous and licentious women ,

Louis XI a pettifogging trickster Richelieu an

.
,

o dious tyrant an apostate and a m urderer The

, , .

whole book is tainted with a strain o f narrowness .

All the weaker womanish qualities o f Té lé maq ue

,

appear Personal virtue i s proclaimed the first criterion

.

o f statesmanship ; conquest and territorial expansion

are every where condemned on lines which make the ,

feuda l land law identical with the Law of God

-
.

Yet there are times when F é n e lo n himself deserves

the compliment that Virgil in his Dialogue pays to
Horace o fwriting with s uch delicate brevity and wit
,

as to give new meanings to old words There is real .

political wisdom in the aphorisms o f h i s So crate s or

Solon real humour in his mar—plot
, a ‘

lively Libertine more French than Greek or in th e ,

 TH E C O U RT P R E C E PTO R A T E 67

pedantry of Cardinal Bessarion exc using himself by ,

the fia repo v 7rp6 repo v o f Greek philosophy fo r having

‘

visited the Duke of Burgundy before the King o f

France And there is vigour in his portrait o f the
.

last wretched Valois H enry I I I with his monk s and

, .
,

his Macchiavelli an d his painted fac e ; as again in , ,

that o fthe founder o fBurgundy s o wn line Henry of ’

N avarre a prince whose ears were never too fine to

,
‘

’
hear things called by their names .

Thus both in their virtues and de fects the

, ,

Dialogues form a historical introduction to Té lé maq ue ,

a kind of foretaste of its principal lesson For the .

last but not the least sharply criticised figure in the

, ,

long gallery is Cardinal Mazarin dead little more ,

than thirty years and once principal Minister to

,

Louis XIV himself And if Burgundy were taught that

. .

his grand father s famous adviser w as feeble and timid

’
‘
,

treacherous and untrustworthy a great comedian , ,

but n o t a great man w as not this an encouragement

,
’

to raise his eyes still higher and ask whether now the
laws ruled and not the man whether flattery and
, ,

self indulgence were to—day unk nown at Versailles

-
,

whether Louis only ai m in life w as the well being o f

’
-

h i s people ?

To teach the little D uke t o criticise his grand

father was an error not wholly unpardonable in a ‘

young and zealous philanthropist ; it is less easy t o

acquit the tutor o f a dangerous extravagance in the
moral and spiritual education of his pupil .

5— 2
 TH E C O U RT P R E C E PTO R A T E 69

the sea it was only a fter education had made him a

,
’

Saint that his master could think o f making him a

man and King .

In short the Preceptor had the defects of his

,

qualities An apostle o f the Interior Life in an age

.

o f formalism he was incl i ned to refer everything to

,

the conscience to guide his pupil less by a healthy

,

outside discipline than by the inward sting o f con

science and remorse Burgundy s tornadoes o fpassion .
’

were received in perfect silence his books and play

things were taken away and he was left to himself ,

till the reproaches o f conscience overmastered him ,

and he fell at hi s tutor s feet promising never to ’

o ffend again .

Still the Precep tor kne w the real Burgundy far

,

better than we can ever know his fugitive shadow ,

and it is possible that these appeals to the heart and

conscience may have been the only means o freaching
him St Simon and the Abb e Proyart talk lightly
. .

o f his Reason ; but F é n e lo n shows us a Té lé ma ue

q
whose mind was utterly deranged by the violence o f
his passions his feeble will tossed powerlessly from
,

side to side by forces which listened to o n e only

voice obeyed the only guiding hand — i t was the
,

han d o fMentor .

Much no doubt must be s e t down to the count o f

, ,

his environment Versailles was not the place where

.

healthy freedom o f thought and will co uld flourish

abundantly it is no wonder that M de Broglie looks .

wistfully away from L o uv i lle s stu f

fy details to the
7 0 FRA N C O I S D E F ENE LO N

mountain air o f B earn where H enry o f N avarre first

,

learnt t o be a man As F enelon well knew his

.
,
’

pupil s great wealth o f a f fection was slowly starv ing

to death in that vast ice chambe r o f a Court where
-
, ,

as the preacher said even at midsummer all was

,

frozen H e had no mother ; h i s father cared little

.

for any o fhis children and least o fall fo r him ; o fhis

,

grand father he stood not in fear but in positive

, ,

dread What was more natural than that F enelon

.

should eagerly dig a channel for the warm a f fections

thus running grievously to waste — what more in
evitable than that in doing s o he should overlook
, ,

the claims o fthe more masculine qualities and u n co n ,

s ci o us l lead to himself what was meant for God t i ll

y ,

he later turned in alarm at their tumultuou s outflow

and bade Té lé maq ue be less tender and more
courageous in his love o f o n e who would not always
be with him and learn to seek o ut truth and virtue
,

fo r himself rather than lean for ever o n his guide

,

E xcellently as he could discourse o n the following

and assisting o fN ature F enelon himself was wanting
,

in this supreme gift o f h i s profession ; neither as

teacher nor as spiri tual counsellor could he lead men
onward while respecting their individuality while ,

preserving what St Francis o f Sales has called the

.

particular di fference Of each mind St Francis held . .

each soul to be a little world existing in and fo r ,

itself as completely as the whole universe ; but

F enelon s aw in a new soul only a fresh world to
conquer A bitter after -e x perience was to show him
.
 TH E C O U RT P R E C E PTO R A T E 7 1

his mistake to prove what helpless clinging things

, ,

the feelings and the conscience are how vain was ,

the hope o fteaching Burgundy by their means to be

a s o n o fvalour and to fight the battles o fthe Lord .

This intensely personal education was disturbed

by no in fl uence from without The Dauphin had had
.

’
three o r four little Children o f Honour always
round him but B urgundy and his brothers were only
allowed youthful companions out o fdoors and neither ,

to them nor to o n e another might they speak apart

o r in a whisper For F enelon and Beauvilliers had
.

early seen in their Prince the E zra who was to ,

restore the Temple and the People of Go d after the

present Babylonish Captivity and they were resolved
,

to keep him unspotted from that heathen world ,

where the Gospel was but little known .

No t that F é n e lo n had in view the monkish youth

that Burgundy under other influences actually
, ,

became their little Prince he told Beauvilliers must

, , ,

above all men bieu f ai re v e rs lo mo nde s ans te nir

, y .

But it was his mistak e to fancy that he could do the

whole work alone th at with no assistance from the
,

outside world he could tra n s fuse his o w n incomparable

mastery over social graces into a Télé maq ue who was ,

by nature good and thought ful but n o t gracious , ,

S l o w to think o f what w o uld give pleasure to others ,

ignorant how to make a present It w as well enough.

to bid Burgundy be gay without folly di gnified with ,

o ut arro ance amiable without weakness and appear

g , ,

to give himself to all w hile in reality he gave himsel f

,
7 2 FRA N C O I S DE F EN E LO N

to none It was impossible to enforce these lessons

.
,
’
when the pupil s inborn awkwardness and love o f
solitude were being daily intensified by all the
surroun di ngs o fhis li fe .

Moreover time and fortune played him false In

, .

the midst o fhis work he was called away to Cambrai ,

and two years later was banishe d from the Court ,

while the inheritance O fhis labours fell to Chevreuse

and Beauvilliers — poor but willin g substitutes — and
,

to the Jesuit Confessor Father Martineau an influence

, ,

both grotesque and harmful Thus the Burgundy .

that we kn ow is the result Of a hazardous experiment

only half completed or rather finished by bungli ng
, , ,

app re n tices while the master —spirit w as n o longer by .

E very trait in his character witnesses to a suddenly

arrested development His piety had all the feverish
.

ness o f adolescence H e o f fended the prudes by an

.

awkward schoolboy devotion to his wife behaved in ,

the presence of ladies like a semin arist on his!

holidays in camp was helpless undecided and given , ,

to nursery pastimes E ven Chevreuse so late as 17 09

.
, ,

found him indolent childish wanting in vigour and

, ,

tact and knowledge o f m en E xcept in the one .

article of piety where he developed strongly in a

,
’
wro ng direction he remained alike to his master s
,
-
!

glory and his shame — exactly where that master had

left him — a living monument to the capabilities o f
education a warning also against its dangers when
, ,

the whole o f virtue knowledge and religion is

, ,

summed u p in the person o fa singl e Mentor .

 C H A PTE R V I

TH E M A X I M S O F TH E SA I N TS

L o v e se e k eth n o t its e l fto pl ease ,

N or for itse lfh ath any car e ,
B ut fo r anoth e r give s its e as e ,
An d b uil ds a h e ave n in h e ll s de s pair
’
.

Lov esee k e th only S elf to pl ease ,

To b ind ano th e r to its de ligh t

J
,

oys in anoth e r s loss o fea se

’
,

And b uil ds a h e ll in h eav e n s de s pite

’
.

W ILLI A M B LA ! E

f
F
RO M the Preceptorate Burgundy and the
o

Letter to the King is a long step to the Maxims

o fthe Saints Inasmuch however as that ill starred
.
, ,
-

volume and the controversy to which it gave rise

, ,

are little intelligible in themselves some few remarks ,

on mysticism in general may be o f service to the

reader.

In the Catholic Church Mystical Theology has

always borne a special and restricted meaning that ,

o ften di f
fers as widely from our vague a p ri o ri notion
of mysticism as a handbook of Chancery practice
from o ur idea o f natural equity We loosely give
.

the name o fmystical to every vivid realization O fthe

73
74 FRA N CO IS D E F EN E LO N

Divine whether in the realm o f N ature o r the realm

,

o fthought And in this sense F enelon shows him

.

sel f a mystic in his Treatise on the E x istence o f

Go d . But eminently mystical as many o f its ideas
w ill seem t o day it was not on their account that he
-
,

claimed a place amo n g the theori sts o f the subj ect .

That word betokened in his age and Church no vague

congeries o ffeelings but a definite science o fspiritual
,

perfection a m eans O fs upernatural approach to God

, .

Based o n a recog nition o f the boundless gulf that

separates the finite from the Infinite it was an ,

attempt to bri dge that gul fby transformation o f th e

so ul in Go d The E lect were to be raised up to a
.

state o fE cstasy where they could contemplate their

,

God in peace endowed with faculties o f perception

,

in a higher Light with fac ulties o f action under a

,

higher Freedom than falls to the common lo t o fman

, .

O nly thus could he rise to the state o f thrice holy -

Contemplation wherein as every mystic believed

, , ,

the H eavens were Opened as once to Monica and ,

Augustine in the garden — when the tumult of the

flesh and the phantoms of the earth and air were
still vanished w as every dream and image from the
,

mind no mortal voice disturbed the silence o f t h e

,

soul But fo r a moment it attained up w ards to the

.

wisdom that abides above all things and heard Him ,

speaking — n o t by tongue of flesh o r voice o f angel ,

not by parable or S ign but speaking as H e IS ,

.

The great medi ae val mystics had tried to approach

this gOal by a course o f rigorous asceticism possi ble ,
 T H E MAXI MS OF T H E S A I N TS 75

only in the C loister But in the seventeenth century

.

it was become an error even a heresy to banish this

, ,
’

higher devotion from the haunts of men And in .

’
the hands o f St Francis o f Sales the w h o le t h e o ry
.

took a milder form God dwelt no more apart in

.

maj esty immeasurable but was to be seen and loved

,

o f all men as the H eavenly Beauty But the note .

of mystery still remained as be fore The new .

mystics like the o ld held that the best and truest

, ,

knowledge Of God was reached in a state o f super

natural enlightenment ; where the soul was well
assured o f the Presence Of its Lord though Reason ,

had grown dim and Feeling died away

,
N ay a .
,

vocation to this state was the mark that set apart

the mystic from among the ge n erality o fmen They .

when they prayed could only meditate passing

, ,

slowly and with di fli culty from o n e thought to

another ; they held converse with their Maker in
words borrowed from some human tongue But .

mystics had no need o f speech or language They .

fled to their higher prayer o f Contemplation where , ,

as even une cs tatic Bossuet allows the soul spoke in ,

a voice heard of God alone ; only through Himself

did they approach Him only in loving did they tell
H i m o ftheir love .

S uch was the burden o fF enelon s Spiritual Letters

’
.

Piety he told his penitents w as not like worldly

, ,

business it needed no long stretch of uninterrupted

attention b ut much might be accomplished in a
,

sh o rt space o f ti me even i n those S pare moments of

,
 TH E M AX I M S O F TH E SA I N TS 77

come O thers took a passionate interest in their own

.

condition grew tender to their trials and maudlin

, ,

over their faults ; they felt their pulses twenty

times a day and sent continually to the Dire ctor to
, ,

beg n e w drugs and promises of q uick re covery .

But F enelon only described this disease s o well ,

because he had su ffered much himsel f His pen .

ran naturally in h i s more intimate letters into a

morbid analysis o f emotions There he describes at
.

length h o w he must weep for himself while he w as

weeping fo r the death o f a dearly loved frie nd and ,

find h i s only consolation in the exhaustion caused by

grief O thers might struggle ; he wrapped himself
.

in a dry and bitter peace without pleasure or weari

,

ness without great su f

, fering as withou t consolation
, ,

took n o thought fo r the future but lived in a dry ,

and thorny present letting his crosses come an d go

, ,

as o n e sees a servant enter and leave a room again

without speaking and looked upon life as a third

,

rate comedy o n which the curtain soon would fall

, .

For h e had plucked a Dead Sea apple from the

coming century ; we have n o t far to travel to the
melancholy voluptuousness o f Rousseau o r the ,
”
!
drowsy stifled unimpassioned grief o flater poets
, , ,

whose rule it was

No t to th in k at I ne e ds must fe e l
o fw h
B ut t o be still and pati e nt all I c an ,

An d haply b y abstrus e r es e arch to ste al

F rom my o wn natur e all th e natural man
Till th at w h ich suits a part infe cts th e wh o l e ,

And no w is almost grown th e h ab it o fmy s o ul .

78 FRA N C O I S D E F E N E L O N

TO j usti fy this m urder the Self the Quietist of

theory was invented During th e first half o f the

.

seventeenth century it spread rapidly over Southern

E urope although without attracting any general
,

notice Its first father the Spanish monk Falconi

.
, , ,

died quite unremarked (in A D nor did . .

authority meddle with the more striking figures o f

Mme Guyon (A D 16 4 8
. . .o r Francis Malaval ,

the blind seer o f Marseilles (A D 16 2 7 till in . .

,

16 8 7 a E uropean notoriety was given to Quietism

,

by the trial of Michael de Molinos This enigmatical .

personage by birth a Spaniard but by O fli ce a

, ,

Director o f fashionable consciences in Rome w as , ,

’

after enj oying many years popularity convicted by ,

the Inquisition o f grave transgressions b oth in doc

trine and morals and sentenced to lifelong imprison
,

ment Sixty eight Propositions purporting to be

.
-
,

extracts from his writings were condemned by the ,

Pope and these have ranked thence forward as the

,

o fficial definition o fthe Quietist heresy .

Whether they fairly represent his teaching is a point

that need not be here discussed All that is n e ce s .

sary to know is what contemporaries thought about

it and that has been s e t down once forall by a very
ac ute and independent writer Father An dre pupil , ,

and biographer of the philosopher Malebranche .

’
The Quietists maintain he says that Christian, ,

perfection means a love o f God so absolutely free

from all desire of happiness that it is indi f ferent to
salvation The soul i s moved neither by hope nor
.
 TH E M AX I M S O F TH E SAI NTS 79

fear, nor even by the foretaste o f eternal bliss Its .

only mo tive is to do the will and to promote the ,

glory o f God — not the glory accruing to Him from

human holiness s o much as the abstract glory of God
,

considered for Himself alone O ther things are o f .

no account — neither Grace nor merit no r happiness , , ,

nor even perfection in s o far as it attaches to us

, .

N ay the soul must be ready t o renounce its hopes o f

,

H eaven and the scrupulous will often feel themselves

,

bound to do s o fo r in the last and fiercest spiritual

trials they are invincibly persuaded o f their o w n
damnation In this sentence of condemnation they
.

generously acquiesce ; and thenceforward having ,

nothing more to lose they stand quiet and intrepid

,

witho ut alarm and without remorse T h at is what .

the Q uietists call the state o f holy indi f ference .

Their soul h as lost all wish for action all sense o f ,

proprietorshi p in itself and has thereby reached the

,
’
summit of Christian perfection .

S uch in brief outline was Quietism — a theory

, ,

weird and unaccountable enough though not without ,

its barren grandeur A t the worst it was an honest

.
,

attempt to send away Moses and h is Law —a

‘

reminder to that Church ridden age that religion is

-

something other than forms and ceremonies and

pocket rules and that our Maker does not j udge us
-
,

by a debit and credit account Its bes t apology is .

i ts utterance in an age when Jesuit cheap j acks were -

accusto med to haggle with Go d for the price of a

soul to discuss whether it was necessary to love Him
,
80 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

once in the week o r once in the year o r whether ,

salvation might more cheaply be purchased at the

price o fone act o flove in a li fetime .

B ut the intemperance o f the movement robbed it

of all possible e ffectiveness The earlier mystics had .

preached that God was All in All Dogmas S acra .

,

ments and Grace were means to Him but they were

, ,

not God Himself : they were deifo rmes s od non D eus , ,

and only allowed a secondary place But Quietism .

allowed them no place at all they were suppressed

as unnecessary to the perfect and with them went ,

the Person of a Redeemer Molinos was always bid .

din g the soul rise above pictures and attributes and

dogmas beyond the Trinity and the Incarnation to
, ,

a view wholly obscure and indistinct and general o f

, ,

the Divine E ssence as It was If Christ be the .

!

”
Way said Malaval n o t without a touch of sublimity
, , ,

!
let us certainly pass by H im to Go d but he
who is al ways passing never arrives at his j o um e y s
’

” ’
end . Mme Guyon s carnal perversions of spiri
.

t uali ty as Bossuet called them — are more redolent

-

o f earth ; notably when s h e compared God s Att ri

’

butes to the threescore valiant warriors who stand

round the bed of the true royal Solomon to ward o ff ,

such as have not been wholly annihilated B ut .

Molinos wastes few words o n this and hurries o n to ,

describe the state where the soul i s dead and buried

to itself after all thought and action all li fe and
, ,

feeling are laid aside There dying and not dying

.
, ,

resigned and not resigned su ffering and not su f fering

, ,
 TH E MAX I M S O F T H E S A IN TS 81

it is encompassed by the S pouse with the soft and

savoury sleep o f nothin gness wherein it receives i n ,

silence and enj oys it knows not what For n o w the

,
.

soul exercised all the virtues without knowing that it

did s o without power of distinguishing o n e action
,
-

from another N ow its only occupation was a general

.

love without motive o r reason for loving prayer was

,

become action and action prayer ; and all things

,

were indi fferent to this holy soul for all were o n e , ,

and all were Go d .

Such language smacks no t a little o fAntinomianism .

And Antinomianism was freely s e t down to the

Q uietists not ,only by their Roman C atholic j udges ,

but also by more dispassionate critics such as the ,

great H uguenot leader Jurien , .

By their perpetual Sleep of N othingness their ,

abiding surrender o ftheir will by bidding the upper ,

and lower souls live together as next door neighbours -

that had no acquaintance Molinos and Mme Guyon ,

’

seemed to be ruining the foundations Of m oral

responsibility and layi n g the axe to the root o f
,

Repentance .

This being s o it i s strange that F enelon should

,

have been found amongst them ; and to do him

j ustice F enelon had n o wish to pose as their de
,
’
fender Molinos book he had never read and was
.
,

full of reprobation o fits author ; Mme Guyon though .

,

an excellent pe rson and speaking q u ite correctly ‘

’
enough for a woman he found grossly ignorant o f
,

the fi rst pri nciples o ftheology B ut he thought that .

6
82 F RA N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

certain changes of language would be enough to save

Quietism from all suspicion of Antinomian excess ,

while doing n o violence to so much o f its spirit as

was worth preserving The Sleep o fN othingness he
.

threw over in place o fa state of peaceful other world -

serenity in no way peculiar except that it was free

, ,

from the j ading restlessness o f commoner souls

always s o ready to run before Grace to co operate ,
-

with it more violently than they need N ever more .

truly active than when it was wholly passive in God s ’

H and the soul became a feather blown about by all

,

the winds o f Grace Like a ball o n a plane it had

.
,

no natural resting~ place o r movement o fi t s own but ,

ran with equal readiness to every side obedient to ,

’

the lightest whisper of God s Voice for love o fHim

was n o w its life its substance and its soul the o n e
, ,

determinant o fall its acts .

In more familiar language he anticipated the theory

attacked in Bishop Butler s Sermons and de fended
’

by Willia m Cowper that the more love we keep fo r

,

ourselves the less we have to give to God .

Th e l ov e o fTh e e fl ows j ust as much

AS th at o f e bbing s e l fs ub si de s ;
O ur h e arts th e ir scantine ss is s uc h
, ,

B e ar n ot t h e c o nfl ict o ftw o rival ti de s

The key note there fore o f h is doctrine is dis

-
, ,

interestedness in the widest sense complete in di ffe r

,

ence to ourselves F enelon is always dwelling o n

.

abandonment o f self s o perfect that it abandons the

abandonment itself ; an d he bids the sinner endure
 TH E M A X I MS O F TH E SA I N TS 83

the sight o fhis defects with patience and hate them ,

because they are faults not because they are his own
, .

But still more dangerous were the consolations o f

religion— feelings that bore the soul comfortabl e
witness o fits own fidelity F é n e lo n was obsessed by
.

the fear that his penitents would make their piety

the servant of their pleasures They would tell over
.

their own triumphant victories over temptation o r ,

dwell with delight o n their outbursts o f emotion ;

till they came to lean on these alone and think that ,

there was no true piety without a transport Of the

imagination And so he declared that the soul which
.

prayed with j oy and fervour was a hireling serving ,

its Creator for a wage but he who persevered through

darkness and despondency was a loyal vassal fighting ,

fo r his Master at his o w n e x pense The Many .

,

indeed might struggle o n buoyed up with present

, ,

Graces and hopes o ffuture Paradise But the perfect .

soul disdained these hireling Righteous and loved ,

the H eavenly Beauty for itself alone tearing o ut ,

from its heart all feeling of pleasure o r complacency

- nay o f all reflection On God s love No r was the
,
’

sacrifice o fself completed if the soul still l oved Him

as its Bene factor Gratitude and friendship and
.

desire o fU nion m ust go the way o f Hope and Fear ;

fo r the Per fect must love God as He loved Him
self by passionless high abstraction as the Divine
, , ,

Goodness self subsisting — n o t as th eir Maker th e i r

-
,

Redeemer not as the eternal reward o f man N ay

, .
,

F enelon carried his thesis to a still furth er extreme .

6—2
 TH E M A XI M S O F TH E S A I N TS 85

man must pass . B ut

it i s no more than a stadium
an emanation o f the Trinity ; j ust as the Trinity in
,

turn is an emanation o fthe O ne —the ultimate God

, .

The Quietist Saint it is true never rej ects these

, ,

earlier emanations but he comes more and more t o

regard them as S hadows veiling a greater Substance
,

beneath That is why Bossuet denounced the Maxims

.

and the Spiritual Guide for destroying Christianity ,

under pretence of making it more pure .

’
 C H A P TE R V II

M ME . GU Y O N

C e styl e inusité n e p e ut s aut o ris e r

’

E t, cr oye z -mo i, ma dame , o n pe ut e n ab us e r .

P ar l é po ux q u e l q ue fois un e j e un e mys ti qu e
’

E nte n d un autr e é po u x q ue c e l ui du Canti q u e .

B I S H O P FL ECH I E R

F E W months before he went to the Court ,

é n e lo n became acquainted with the woman

’

who was destined to be the evil genius o f h i s life .

J eanne Marie de la M otte Guyon was the daughter

o f a gentleman of Montargis o f considerable wealth

and position and ardently devoted like all his family

, , ,

to the interests o fthe Church Born i n 16 4 8 three

.
,

years be fore F enelon s h e w as married very young to

,

an invalid twice her age and left a widow before S he

,

w as thirty with three small children and a large

,

fortune From her youth up S he had been a victim

.
,
’
to the religious experiences common to hysterical
‘

women and these were turned in a definitely

,

mystical direction by the D uchesse de B ethune ,

d aughter of the disgraced Minister Fouquet w h o ,

spent some years at Montargis after her father s fall ’

86
IVI A D A M E GU YO N
F r o m a n e ng r
av i ng
 MME G U Y O N
. 87
'

But the lode star O fMme Guyon s mystical career

-
.

was a certain Father Lacombe a Ba rnabite monk o f ,

ready wit and attractive presence though at bottom ,

a poor creature eaten up with vanity unabl e

, ,

to exist outside o f a circle o f feminine admirers ,

’

albeit willing enough to S it at t h e rich widow s

feet.

Their close friendship did n o t begin till a fter the

husband s death D uring the earlier years o f her
’

widowhood the mystical attraction grew steadily in

,

violence Mme Guyon fell from o n e nervous crisis

. .

into another ; s h e could no longer pray S he could not ,

withstand temptation s h e had fallen from Grace

, ,

H ell was opening its mouth to receive her She fell .

at last into a state of utter insensibility that seemed ,

the consummation o fall her woes .

From this s h e w as awakened by the voice o f

Lacombe A single Mass freed her from her pains
.

her soul awoke and conceived a violent desire to

,

j oin Lacombe in Geneva there to renew o n the , ,

Same spot the famous spiritual friendship which

,

had bo und her patron saint Mme de Chantal to St , .

, .

Francis o fSales J us tifi cat io n s for this craving were

.

easy to find Like Mme de Chantal s h e must have

. .
,

been called to forsake home and family for God her

late despondencies were the Mystical Death the last ,

stage in the p urgatory of the soul By the time she s e t .

o ut fo r Geneva (J uly 16 8 1) s h e was already Perfect ;

,

s h e n o w practised all the v irtues without knowing

that s h e did s o ; s h e could n o t morti fy hersel f b e ,

88 F R A N CO I S D E F EN E LO N
cause she was beyo nd the reach o f mo rtifi cat io n .

Virtually s h e could no t sin because the s in i s in the

,

Sel f and the Self had been stripped o ff all Sh e now

,

did w as done in God and done divinely , .

Yet it was not enough to enj oy all the happin ess !

o fthe Ble ssed i n Heaven except participation in the

,

B e at i fi c Vision a fter the Resurrection came the

Apos tolic State in which assistance must be given to
,
.

o thers No w s h e could teach and preach w ith mar

.

vello n s cas e because her words were given her from

,

Above ; s h e could write without thinking what she

was saying because an excellent Penman held her
,

hand She could perform miracles knew wh at was

.
,

passing in the mI nds o f oth ers had absolute power ,

over their souls and bodies And at her first meeting

.

with Lacombe s h e developed a n e w mas tery over

Graces physically bestowed — the Plenitudes and
Spiritual Maternity and Fecundity that an indignant
Bossuet w as o n e day to declare unexampled in the
Church — and later defined as an influence s o pure
th at there was nothing o f human sentiment in it a ,

mere fl ux and refl ux that went from her to Lacombe

,

and back again to lose itself in the Divine and

,

I nvisible U nity I n her later career these Graces

.

came upon her in such numbers that s h e must

take to her bed till s h e could discharge them on
someone ; it was only a fter long practice that s h e
learned how to bestow them in silence and from a
distance .

For five years (16 8 1-16 8 6 ) she rambl e d about

 MME G U YO N . 89

Savoy and the south -east of France some times with ,

Lacombe sometimes at his hee ls

,
E verywhere it .

was the same story first a rain of spiritual blessings , , ,

conversions miracles devils cast o ut exclaiming as

, , , ,

they went that Mme Guyon Was one of their

, .

deadliest ene mies ; later the a ffrighted Satan stirred ,

up wicked men to accuse her of heresy or sorcery

o r impure relations with her friend E ventually .

Lacombe was recalled to Pari s and Mme Guyon , .

went with him little thinking that both o f them

,

were marching to their doom Fi fteen months later .

,

he w as arrested convicted Of teachin g Quietist ,

heresy and imprisoned for life in the castle of

,

Lourdes ; Mme Guyon was shut up in a convent .

and examined but discharged a few month s later

,

throu gh the influence o f some devout ladies of the

Court who had become interested in h e r case (Sep
‘

tember ,

A very notable change n o w took place in her

state H er o ld friend the D uchess de B ethune had
.
, ,

returned t o Court to become a chief figure in the ,

devout Beauvilliers circle ; and through her Mme , .

Guyon made her way into the confidence o f the

whole society They were none o f them critical ;
.

besides the D uchess was a masterful woman before

, ,

whom F enelon himself bent in reverence and s h e ,

had lately married her younger brother to Mme .

’
Guyon s rich little daughter .

Moreover that lady bore about her none of the

,

marks of the shady religious adventuress Though .

 MME . GU Y O N 9 1

matters as did not touch on her own reputation .

N either o f them would have been led captive by

Spiritual Maternity o r the Apostolic State ; but they
’

were charmed by Mme G uyon s ecstatic zeal an d

.

singularity by language about Disinterestedness

,

and absolute surrender to th e will o f God such as

might Often pass for F é n e lo n s own Shorn o f a few
’

theological niceties and correctives The prophetess .

well knew the temper of her disciples For F é n e lo n .

s h e had his o w n favourite ideas dressed up in all ,

the heady eloquence of which s h e was a mistress ;

for the superstitious many— among whom it is to
be feared that S he numbered Chevreuse — there were
the Plenitudes and all the nauseous thaumaturgy o f
her voyages with Lacombe .

But her exact relation to F enelon is a secret that

lies buried in their lost correspondence hidden o r ,

destroyed at the outbreak o f trou ble All the world .

knows the traditional story F enelon was led away by

.

the voice of a woman not into a pitfall o fthe senses

, ,

but into an ill usion o f the intellect into fancying ,

himsel fa theologian and a philosopher when he was ,

no more than a master o f eloquence And in a .

,

certain sense the traditional j udgment is right

, .

Posterity can only echo the amazement o fBossuet ,

when it sees o n e o f F enelon s transcendent ability

’

and insight duped by a visionary s o ignorant s o ,

pu ffed up by hysterical pride Ye t it i s easy to over

.

rate her hold both on his heart and his a ffections .

Mme Guyon w as his friend but it was according t o

.
,
9 2 FRA N C O I S D E F EN EL O N

the laws of that hieropathic a ffection o f which the ,

female bosom is the seat an d the ministers o f ,

religion the obj ects sh e had all the feelings !

”
o f extraordinary f orce and sweetness that come
natural to an enthusiast full of belief in h e r own
irresistible charm when s h e wishes to capture a
,

priest who is kept like a relic by the greatest

‘
’

ladies o f the land Before s h e ever s e t eyes on

.

F enelon Christ had united her to him more closely

,
’
than to any other human being : after a week s
acquaintance her soul was knit to his as the soul of
,

David to the soul o fJonathan .

But F enelon was not o n e o f those who feel s o

keenly — his friendships were subj ect to the law o f
charity : they were sober and discreet For Mme .
’
.

Guyon he had sympathy and esteem in plenty but ,

’
no special attraction either natural o r supernatural
,
.

She was a very excellent woman an d a persecuted ,

saint whom he had never scrupled to admire him

,

self o r to recommend to others as very experienced

,

in the ways of prayer But he never introduced her

.

to anyone he never put her books into any man s

,

hand ; he well knew h o w S hocking to many would

be her ignorance o f theology her extrav agant ,

incautiousness of lan guage how hard she w as to ,

understand except by the fe w who knew her well

,

and had her confidence .

N or was F enelon even secretly her disciple — self

confi dence like his swears al legiance to no mas ter ,

much l ess a mistress ; h i s doctrine was h i s o w n ,

 MME GU Y O N
.
93

though fo r a while it ran parallel with hers Th e .

true link between them was a strong community o f

sentiment : they met ,said an enemy they ,

pleased each other and th eir sublimity amalgamated

,
.

And even this was dangerous e n o ugh f Mme Guyon s

’

gentle yielding pressure could tempt him to carry

his o w n principles o f sacrifice and renouncement to
lengths whence his genius would otherwise have
shrunk s h e could entice o n e who was always o n the
quest o fS piritual beauty into giving so lid theological
form and substance to the thoughts that were
racking through her brain into finding it may be
, , ,

some dim reflection some Brocken ph antom o f his

,

o w n ideas thrown o ut all garbled and distorted upon

, ,

this whi rling clo udb ank o f confusion

’

F enelon s.

insight was keen but it was not the supreme impe r

,

sonal faculty o fthe greatest masters H e saw others .

as he wished to s e e them as they corresponded with

,

himsel f fastening closely o n all the points Of agree

,
’

ment and blind or careless o fthe rest Mme Guyon s . .

v agaries were nothing to him ; it was enough if he

could find behind her frothy unrealities o f doctrine ,

behind the boldness that was n o t force the unworld ,

li n e s s that was not spiritual th e chastity that was

,

not pure some ray of humble loving pathos some

, ,

g leam o fa gray spirit u al grandeur like h i s o wn .

Had she never put pen t o paper his purpose ,

might have been achieved her enemies would have

had no gro und to attack her and F enelon might ,

have peacefully gathered up her scattered intuitions

 MME GU YO N .
95

tongues in E urope would never have bestirred itself

to sing her praise .

The first act in the drama w as played o ut at

’
Mme de Maintenon s college at St Cyr Thither had
. . .

come a certain Mlle de la Mai s o n fo rt a cousin o f .

,

Mme Guyon whose wit and attractions soon gained

.
,

the special favour o f the foundress and marked her ,

o ut as a f uture Superior of the house B ut St Cy r . .

,

from the first was more than half a convent and

, ,

Mai s o n fo rt s anxiety was t o find a husband n o t to

’

take the vows To Mme de Maintenon s plans h o w

. .
’

,
’
ever a fl igh ty girl s will w as no great obstacle ; if
,

Mais o n fo rt was not naturally drawn to Religion an ,

unnatural vocation must be found for her and ,

F é n e lo n the most persuasive of men should find it

, , .

I n December 16 9 0 a committee o f ecclesiastics sat

, ,

o n her case decided that s h e ought to take the veil

, ,

and handed her over to F enelon with an admonition ,

to tie a bandage over her eyes and prepare herself ,

for the sacrifice .

F enelo n showed himself more than worthy o f

’

their confidence Vocations he told his victim

.
‘
, ,

shew themselves in the will o fothers as clearly as ,

in our own heart ; when the Spirit does n o t call u s

from within He sends an outward authority to
,

decide . This frightful and truly Quietist maxim

’

brought her to her knees ; fi fteen months later

( M arch ,
in an a gony of grief and terror she ,

receive d the veil .

9 6 F R A N CO I S DE F EN E LO N .

Hardly w as the crime committed when punish ‘

ment be gan to follow in its wake O nce fettered to .

the Church Mai s o n fo rt threw herself with enthusiasm

,

into her cousin s system o f devotion rushed with

’

irresponsible and fl igh ty logic to the farthest extreme ,

and forced her Director to sustain his own ab o min

able beginnings by a series of more and m ore
dangerous arguments With Mme Guyon at her . .

’
side the task was easy ; F enelon s l etters to
,

Mai s o n fo rt are the milestones o n his j ourney to the

Maxims o fthe Saints .

The victim also worked a more immediate reve n ge .

E ven be fore her Pro fession sh e had plu n ged wildly ,

into propagandism begun to make public property o f

,

F enelon s most private letters and gathered round

’

her a little coterie o f ladies who looked to Mme , .

Guyon as their com mon Directress For a long time .

Mme de Maintenon took no notice O nly when

. .

responsible persons began to revive old stories about

Lacombe did the prudent lady take alarm and beg
, ,

Mme Guyon to go no more to St Cyr (May

. .
,

H er agitation was shared by F enelon At o n ce he .

broke o f f all direct relations with the prophetess ,

yet feeling sure of her perfect innocence urged her

, ,

through Chevreu se to take a bold step and appeal

from all her critics to the supreme authority o f
Bossuet .

Bossuet on his side welcomed this opportunity o f

, ,

coming to an explanation with his former disciple .

As high -priest o f Authority and common sense he ,

 !
MME G UY O N
.
97

had little s y mpathy with a preaching woman as one

"

o f the o ld e n e rat i on to whom Versailles w as th e

g ,

centre o f the universe he had watched the rise o f ,

Mme Guyon with a concern scarcely warranted by

.

her importance H e readily consented to examine

.

her books o n condition that she o ffered no com

,
‘

mentary ceased in the meantime from writing

,

or dogmatizing and submitted abso l utely to his

‘
,
’

j udgment once it was pronounced It was hard for .

Mme Guyon to desert even for a few months the

.
, ,

spiritual children who cried s o piteously for foo d ;

nevertheless there was no alternativ e — s h e accepted
B o s s ue t s terms (Septemb e r
’

By the following January the examination was

over Bossuet found in the books much that was ‘
'

intolerable as well in matt e r as in form but in the

’
end B o s s u e t s firmness and her friends wiser counsels ’

carried the day She submitted without reasoning

.

to his condemnation o f her errors promised to write ,

and preach no more and retired to the country ,

(April ,

Bossuet then confronted F enel on with some o fthe

more extravagant passages from her manuscripts ,

wherein s h e claimed precedence over the Madonna o r

compared herself with the Woman o fthe Apocalypse .

But F é n e lo n only re plied in great amazement that

he had never heard anything o f the kind from her
lips ; it was clear that Bossuet had failed to under
stand her .

But Mme de Maintenon s suspicions o f the

.
’
 MME G U YO N.
99

public service and secure the obj ect Bo ss uet and

,

Mme de Maintenon really had at heart namely

.
— s
,

the rescue o f F enelon from h is own extravagances .

As Mme Guyon s advocate h e could be encouraged

.
’

to s e t forth h i s views in all their length and bre adth ,

until the Commissioners understood exactly what he

meant Then they would draw up the i r Fo rmulary
.

with eyes really fixed on him and bind his conscie nce
for the future by compelling h i m to Sign it H is .

honour would not be wounded his future prospects ,

not be marred fo r Mme de Maintenon undertook to

, .

hide from th e King all he need n o t know ; and

Bossuet w as s o to draft the j udgment as to safe
guard his o ld pupil s faith while sparing him the
’

shado w Of a retractation .

For Bossuet presided though Mme Guyon herself , .

had named the j udges and w ith him sat as assessors

, , ,

Louis de N oailles Bishop o f Ch alons (soon after

,

wards made Cardinal and Archbishop o f Paris ) and ,

M Tro n s o n F enelon s o ld tutor at St S ulpice m g

.
,
’

. .

to the great age and i n fi rmi ti e s o f the latter t h e ,

S ittings were held at Issy a village within a walk o f ,

Paris where the Sem i nary had its country house an d

,

thence the resulti ng Articles have taken their n ame .

F enelon well knowing that his o w n future and

,

’
h i s doctrine s were at stake made haste to assure the ,

Commissioners o f h i s perfect docility Be fore the .

proceedings began he gave into M Tro n s o n s keep

, .
’

i n g a written document in which he took God t o

witness that he would accept without equ ivocation
7— 2
I OO FRA N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

or reserve whatever the Commissioners might decide .

O nce the sittings had begun he wrote prodigiously

’

, ,
’
still defending Mme Guyon s doctrine but chiefly .
,

busied with his o w n : S he w as as n o thing in h is eyes ,

he told M Tro n s o n now that the Interior Life was

.
,

on its trial .

The examination dragged wearily on during the

latter half o f 16 94 At Chris tmas Mme de Main
. .

tenon persuaded the King to give F enelon the rich

abbey of St Val ery as a reward for his docility and as
.
, ,

compensation should another proj ect miscarry Fo r .

the Archbishopric o fCambrai was vacant and she had ,

already decided o n her candidate In the end little .

,

as he loved her p rotege the Kin g raised no obj ection

’ ’

no whisper of Quietism reached his ears ; on the 4 th

o fFebruary 16 9 5 F enelon was named Archbishop
, , .

H e at once resigned St Val ery but remained .

,

Preceptor to the Princes .

Just a month later the Commission finished its ,

work o n the 6 th o f March the Articles were ready

for signature What really happened d uring the
.

next four days will never be known Accordi n g to .

F enelon thirty Articles were first o ffered him and

, ,

these he refused t o sign except out o f deference to

their superior authority : the Commissioners then
added four more Articles which met his obj ections , ,
’
and he signed the whol e with his blood But ‘
.

Bossuet and de N oailles deny that he h ad any part

whatsoever in the composition o fthe Articles : there
had never been less than thirty four and these -
,
 F é n e lo n only S igne d with great di fli culty and again st
his o wn conviction O n the whole the latter story
.
,

is the more credible The Thirty Articles seem to

.

have been a mere rough dra ft by Bossuet to which ,

he added far more unwillingly than h e would hav e

,

it appe ar four more Articles all favourable to

, ,

F enelon b efore the latter was invited to S ign O n e

, .

o r two small points were conceded to him at the last

moment but the b ulk o f his proposed alterations

,

was overruled — they would as de N o aille s said

, ,

have nullified the Articles — and on the l oth of March

he signed with the rest .

So Bossuet w o n the first battle though his victory ,

was very far from complete Fo r the Articles drawn

.
,

up wit h s o many prayers and sacrifices were a co m

‘
,
’

promise between a great power and a growing one ,

a treaty o f peace o f that aimless sort which is

commonly the best incentive to future war Their .

chie fcharacteristic was their want of character they

condemned certain Quietist errors but they were not ,

a censure ; they laid down certain regulations but ,

they were not a code O f doctrine o r o f practice .

The more crucial the question the more oracular was

,

their reply ; they struck out Disinterestedness with

o n e hand (9 th Article
) but
, wrote it in again with
the other (3 3 rd Article ) they gave no definition of
Passive Prayer yet explained that it was as rash to
,

deny i ts e x istence (2 l s t Article ) as it w as dangerous

,

to engage in its practice (2 9t h Article ) They went .

to o far for Bossuet not far enough for F enelon

, each
 MME G U YO N
. IO3

pared the S pirituality of Issy to the quick ? At all

hazards an independent pretext fo r refusal must be
found and at once his thoughts fell on Mme G uyon
, .

and the inj ustice that Bossuet probably would do

her Six months be fore the prelate s man uscript was
.
’

in hand he told M Tro n s o n that he should n o t ap

, .

prove i t if it attacked either her writings o r her

,

character .

’
The position was shrewdly taken Bo s s ue t s first .

kindness to Mme Guyon had melted away duri n g th e

.

S I X months January to July 16 9 5 that s h e spent half

( ) , ,

willing peni tent half prisoner under his charge at

, ,

Meaux ; it changed to violent indignation when she

escaped fro m her convent without his leave full o fwild ,

impossi ble accusations against him and flourishing in ,

his face his garbed attestation of her perfect orthodoxy .

N evertheless F é n e lo n was mistaken in his reckon

,

ing Bossuet could descend to virulent personalities

.

’ ’
in a pamphlet ; he had no place for them in th e
solemn dogmatic treatises addressed to the City and
the World And to this class b elonged the forth
.

comi ng Instruction on the States o f Prayer Though .

it dealt largely With Mme Guyon s writings it had

.
’

no word against her candour or her morals ; it did

not even mention her by name Fo r Bossuet w as at .

war not with the wom an but with the books ; and
, ,

with the books only in s o far as he tho ught them part

of a system of extravagant and i n novating spirituality ,

common in principle to a great num ber o f writers ,

though expressed with very di fferent de grees o f

m4 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

clearness Some might not s e e whither they were

.

drifting but Bossuet was not concerned with their

,

intentions ; he had not to decide o n the guilt o r

innocence of individuals but to prove that all alike ,

were hurrying to a goal outside Christianity beyond ,

the Trinity and the Incarnation .

In July 16 9 6 F é n e lo n received the manuscript o f

, ,

the Instr uction but returned it after a very cursory

,

inspection explaini n g that he could n o t approve a

,

book which attributed to Mme Guyon monstrous .

and diabolical errors o f which the rudest country

,

woman would not have been guilty ; no r would he

have anything to do w ith a dis guised retraction o f
his o w n Opinions but would bide his time and s e t
,

matters before the public at a favourable o pp o r

t un i ty
. Do ubtless in these protestations there was
,

an element of real sympathy for Mme Guyon a .

,

feeling that Bossuet had treated her harshly and ,

mistaken her vaporous inconsequences for artful and

deliberate errors Still F é n e lo n s apologies fo r her are
.
’

not the work o f a whole heart confidence Against -

.

the j ustice o f the censure he can only plead the

purity o f her intentions an issue never raised by ,

Bossuet nor considered by the general j urisprudence

,

o f the Church O r else he takes somewhat firmer

.

’
ground H e admits the reasonableness o f B o s s ue t s
.

attack is ready to S ign a Formulary imposed by

,

law ful authority ; yet excuses himsel ffrom taking an

active part against her lest he should seem to be ,

wantonly flouting a former friend .

 MME G U YO N
. I 05

Bossuet it seems would have admitted the j ustice

, ,

o f this argument and been satisfied to forego his

,

demand fo r an O fficial approbation if F enelon had ,

promised to express general agreement with his

censures whenever con versation t urned o n Mme
,
.

Guyon and her books But F enelon was too filled

.

with terror for the sa fety of his doctrine to consent

to utter even informally o n e word of censure o n
her seemed in h i s presen t state o f panic like th e
, ,

suicide o f his independence his abj ect confession o f ,

defeat.

And therefore he did not pronounce it though his ,

silence caused unspeakable dismay to M Tro n s o n .

,

lost him Mme de Maintenon s friendship meant an

.
’

open breach with Bossuet At this great p rice he .

had bought his freedom ; the coast was clear he ,

could publish what he pleased .

N or did he long delay In O ctober he sent to de

.

N oailles (no w Archbishop o fParis ) the manuscript of

a book dealing with the whole question o f th e
Interior Li fe a domain he said little understood
, , ,

by th ose who did n o t love it and never before ,

su fficiently explained by those who did Luckless .

de N o aille s could never follow an argument o r s e e a

di fficulty but he knew it and sent the book back
, ,

with a few vague compliments and an earnest re co m

me n dati o n not to publish till B o s s ue t s Instruction
’

had appeared This advice F é n e lo n promised to

follow; he spent some time collecting Opinions from
.

other theologians but at last grew impatient and

, ,
 C HA P T E R VI I I

AT WA R W ITH B O S S UE T

D a ns ce s c omb ats o nn o s pr é lat s de F ran c e

S emb l e nt ch e r ch e r la v é rit é ,
dit q u o n dé truit l e sp eran c e
’ ’ ’
L un
L autr e q ue c es t la ch arité
’ ’

C ’
e st la fo i q u on dé truit, e t pe rs onn e n y pe n s e
’ ’
.

-00n
temp orary Ep igram

F
RO M the first moment of its appearance the
M axims was doomed The world had looked .

’
for something worthy of F é n e lo n s name : it found
the Interior Li fe red uced to a code of forty—fi v e
dreary theorems all phrases an d subtleties and
,
‘

’
abstractions And it was drawn up in a style that
.

invited hostility ; F enelon as his enemies said , ,

arrogated to his book all the authority o fa Pontifical

Definition and dealt o ut approbations and censures
with no sparing hand giving to each proposition i ts ,

false as well as its tr ue meaning this last the voice -

,
‘

o f a tradition uninterrupted bet w een the Apostles

’
and St Francis o f Sales th e other its heretical
.
,

counterpart its caricat ure by the Quietists 1

, .

1
B ossu e t, h owe ve r, sai d with some truth th at th e Fals e
M ax i ms w e r e m e r e dummi e s, m eant to satis fy t h e po pular
h atre d o f M o li n o s with o ut s e riously c o nde mning h is doc
tri n e s .
 I 08 FRA N CO I S D E F EN E LO N

The book shocked everyone said St Simon the , .

,

ignorant because they understood not a word of it ,

the more intelligent because they could not accustom

themselves to its strange and barbarous terminology ,

the b i shops because they believed that even u nder

the Maxims s o called True grave errors lay con
- ‘ ’

ce ale d Some thought the book very bold others

.
,

very heterodo x others that the design was bad but

,

the execution subtl e others that F enelon would have

,

done better now that s o much false mysticism w as

,

abroad to limit himself to attacks o n that and leave

,

t h e r e s t to God .

N early all F enelon s friends forsook him feeling

’

sure said o n e o fthe most pious that he was em bark

, ,

ing on a voyage which would bring him n o profit and

’
w as not called f o r by God s glory ; there remained

only a fe w faithful intimates such as Beauvilliers who ,

cared nothing fo r his place at Court but believed ,

that F é n e lo n was in the right and would do nothin g ,

that might embitter his hour o fdeath Some enemies .

o f h i s enemies also gathered round F é n e lo n chief o f ,

them Cardinal Bouillon nephew of Turenne and , ,

lately appointed French Ambassador at Rome .

Bouillon a prelate o f the o ld worl dly school cared

, ,

little for theology but he sided naturally with a man

,

o f rank again st the middle-class Bossuet or that

‘
snob in purple the Bishop o f Chartres And his
,
’
.

help was well worth having ; however great his

‘
ridicul o us vanity it went hand in hand with a
,
’

z e al o us friendship fo r F é n e lo n and a kind o f para

 B OSS U E T

ter th
( Af e po rtr t by !
ai ’
i g ana i n th e L on v
'
re )
 AT WAR W I T H B O SS U E T 10 9

do xi cal Quixotism an adventurous championship o f

,

losi n g causes that was marked rather by energy and

,

dash and worldly wisdom than by the scruples o f a

t o o sensitive conscience Moreover at Rome said .
, ,

the Abb é Bossuet an Ambassador was almost o f,

more consequence than the Pope himsel f .

O f the adversaries Bossuet was the life and soul .

U ntil he declared himsel f they had been full o f ,

doubt and hesitation even F enelon s m ost implacable ’

enemy the King w as inclined to go no farther than

, ,

an icy silence o fdisapproval 1

But Bossuet had fore .

told a terrible scandal if ever the Maxims was

published and now he was grimly determined that
,

history should take him at his word To convert the .

King to v iolent measures was no di fficult task fo r in ,

’
Louis eyes a man accused o f heresy was already
condemned ; and Bossuet need only fling this dead
accusation o n the gale to change h i s doubts into
furious anger not only with F é n e lo n but also with
, ,

those who had conspired together to get him made

Archbishop Mme de Maintenon even s aw hersel f
. .
, ,

compromised and followed trembling in her husband s

,
’

w ake As t o the place hunters and hangers o n o f

.
- -

Versailles it was incredible wrote Bossuet co m

, ,

1
B o ssu e t, during th ec ontro ve rsy pri de d h imse l fon h is
mo de rati o n and sai d th at h e was t h e last t o spe ak to
,
‘ ’

Louis . A fte r it w as o v e r h e to l d L e D i e u th at it w as
,

o nly h i s o w n fi rmne ss wh ich h ad ov e rc om e th e ! i ng s

’

irres o luti on Th e re ade r Sh oul d re me mb e r th at a b o o k

.

may we l l be dange r o us an d e rr one o us with out des e rving

all th e pains and pe nalti e s o f h e r e sy .
’
I IO FR A N CO I S D E F EN E L O N

p lace n tl ,
y how odious F enelon had become to them
now that he w as fallen into disgrace .

’
O nce installed at the he ad o f his forces Bo s s ue t s ,

plan of action was soon made up : with De N oailles

and Godet des Marais o fChartres — henceforward the
Triumvirate o fQuietism — h e would draw up a list o f
erroneous propositions to be h and ed to F enelon by
,

t h e Ki ng together with a demand f o r explanation .

But F enelon would neither confer with Bossuet n o r

’

be j udged by him ; in April he got the King s per

mission to carry his cause t o Rome N ot a line o f .

his book would he alter o r even admit that its

,

meaning w as ever dubious all he asked fo r was leave

to go to Rome th ere to defend h is case himsel f
, .

Louis answered him with a curt command to go to

his diocese and stay there ; with his own hand he
wrote to the Pope begging a speedy j udgment on
,

this scan dalous book .

So F é n e lo n w as banished from the Court (Aug ust

l s t ) yet his cause w as still far from desperate
, The .

matter w as going to Rome ; he had gained time to

prepare his de fences” had turned his j udges into
prosecutors was to appear be fore a friendly tribunal
,
.

If the Roman authorities were not very mystical

themselves they had lately canonized a number o f
,

mystical Saints ; moreover they could not but feel

,

kindly to an Archbishop o fFrance who had appealed

to them o f his o wn free will and was known to be
-
,

utterly unlike those Gallican fi ondeurs in that he

‘
,
’

ascribed th e fullest authority to the Holy See So .

 AT WA R W IT H B OSS U E T I I I

strongly was this danger felt at Co urt that the King

would not have sanctioned th e appeal had n o t ,

Bossuet guaranteed a condemn ation E ven Rome .

,

said the Bishop o fMeaux was better than a N ational

,

Council ; alone among Frenchmen, he could no t

believe that the Pope would make himself a partaker
in F enelon s iniquities it was no t yet time fo r those
’

in J udaea to flee to the mountains .

’
The appe al once lodged F enelon s courage began
,

to revive At first he h ad bent before the storm o f

.

troubles that fell s o thickly upon him fi rst the icy , ,

reception of h is book next the burning of his palace

,

at Cambrai (February 16 9 7 ) a few months afterwards

, ,

the expulsion by the King in person of Mme de la .

Mais o n fo rt from St Cy r— the prelude as all th e

.
,

world suspected to the dismissal o f Beau v i lliers and

,
’
B urgundy s other tutors from their place At Easter .

time he had moved even B o s s ue t s compassion shut

,
’

up S ick and dispirite d in a little cottage near Ver

, ,

sailles and venturing neither to Cambrai nor to Court .

But he was S lowly gathering together his forces ;

soon Bossuet reports him full of pride and with no
noti o n o f surrender ; h is conduct becomes a mass of
trickery artifice and my s ti fi cati o n he plays the part
,

o f the martyr with the most surpassing arrogance .

His voice had lost tho s e tones o f strained hysteric ,

vehemence which marred all his defences o f Mme

, .

Guyon ; n o w there was no more cause t o think o f

her — the fight was all his own and wit h the need of ,

combat came the power Bossuet S t Simon all

.
, .
,
 AT WAR W I T H B O SS U E T 1 13

played by N ature what by Grace in determining

, ,

man to the Love o fGod

’
There were many reasons for B o ss ue t s wrath .

Like h i s friends at Versailles he thought mysticism ,

rare and not very necessary ; it shoul d n o t be paraded

in the streets b ut be kept carefully hidden from the
,

eyes o fa world that would neither valu e nor under

stand i t H e had little o f the mystical temper him
.

sel f; his magnificent imagination fastened only o n

hard realities seeing far deeper into these than other
,

men b ut never travelling beyond them H e was no

,
—
.

’
master in that vague cloud land o f Fenelon s where
-
,

o n e chance word could stir whole tumults of emotion ,

set loose whole trains o f echoing fancy ; and those

who could do s o necessarily seemed to him full o f
"
‘
amorous extravagance and pious excess F enelon .

had good reason to charge h i s adversary with i gn o

rance o f the mystical w ritings with unre adiness to ,

make d ue allowance for their language with hasty ,

indiscriminate censure o fall he did not understand .

Again the first o f mystical virtues was Charity— a

,

Charity that had fo r i t s outward Sign th e singular

knowledge and sympathy fo r human character that ,

has turned many a dreamy monk into a forcible

realist B ut B o s s ue t s virtue was Faith not Charity
.
’

, .

H e was a preacher rather than a counsellor an ,

abstract thinker stro n g o n the type but fo r whom

, ,

the individual had scarce an existence — a man o f

reason order and traditions loving to go forward
, , ,

bonnement ro ndement s i mp lement in the accustomed

, , ,

8
4 14 FR A N CO I S D E F EN E LO N

ways H e w as a dogmatist— one who s aw in creeds

.

an institution rather than an idea Creeds enshrined .

fo r Bossuet that idea of U nity o f which his mind ,

was so full and h is life s o true an e xe mpli fi cati o n ;

,

he could n o t bear to s e e the white radiance of

E terni ty stained by the many coloured dreams and -

fantasies o fmen From the strange records of the

.

mystics he turned back to the Apostles and the

Prophets ; for him their experiences together with ,
’

the Fathers were enough

, .

In short had F enelon been the very greatest of

,

the mystics he would have made no convert of

,

Bossuet ; as it was the awkward cr udeness of his

,

system seemed to its critic to endanger the whole

oneness o f the C hristian life There w as no longer .

any law true for the whole o f mankind The .

Righteous were split up into classes each with their ,

several aims and motives their several rules of guid

,

ance — here the Perfect living by Pure Love alone

, ,

there the Hireling J ust still tainted by the leaven

,

of H ope and Fear Between them rose a spectre o f

.

metaphysical Disinterestedness— an idea s o abstract

that it could be intellectually grasped by few and ,

practically followed out by none yet this invention

w as the bar that shut out countless numbers from
,

the higher spiritual state To Bossuet above all

.
,

men this exclusiveness was detestable

, H e had .

ever been the friend o f many had e v e r w alke d in ,

the safe middle of the path ; he had pitched his

demands neither too low n o r too high but was ready ,
 AT WAR W I T H B OSS U E T 1 15

even to sacrifice something of the ideal if he might ,

be the better understanded of the people H e had .

asked fo r no Disinterestedness ; but like another ,

great Bishop had treated the favourite passion o f

,
!

self love with the utmost tenderness and con cern for
-

its interests H e had taught that the desire fo r

.

pleasure was an unalterable law of nature true even ,

fo r spiritual man who could not love his God unless

,

H e made him happy The earliest statements o f .

his doctrine are distinguished by an almost brut al

fra nkness — there w as no love without hope no hope ,

without self-interest therefore no love without desire

,

of heaven — and from this first position he never

swerved ; though as the quarrel went o n an elo
, ,

ue nce which never touched without adorning threw

q
veil after veil of increasing grandeur over i ts original
nakedness Might not the holiest ever reflect he
.
,

asked that God had meant them to be happy ?

,

Might they not yield a free consent to this wise pro

vision o ftheir nature ? Where was the harm where ,

w as the peril provided that they found their only

,

happiness in God ? To wish to be happy was i m

pli ci tl
y to wish for H im to wish for Him was to wish
,

intelligently to be happy Theorists might draw .

their careful distinctions between the love o f H ope

and the love o f Charity between love o f Him as ,
'

good in Himself and love o f Him as good to man ,

b ut practice gladly seized on every motive and held

him best who loved the most whatever the reason o f ,

his love .

8— 2
 AT WAR W IT H B OSS U E T 1 17

academic thesis— itself no cause but o n e o f the ,

symptoms of a maladie du s i e cle n o t to be cured by

‘

papal censures from which moreov er since the fall

, , ,

o f Mme Guyon and Mo linos the world was already

.
,

beginn ing to recover O r he might have reflected

.

that violent and prolonged attacks would give the

book a notoriety otherwise unobtainable would bring ,

into chief prominence its most mischievous features

and awaken new sympathy fo r its author — h e
might have trusted more generously t o his country
men s good sense and let the weight of its o w n
’

extravagances bury F enelon s ill starred volume in’

-

oblivion .

But he was growing o ld and with advance of years

,

came increasin g disinclinati o n to let things find their

natural level greater anxiety to protect the public
,

against themselves greater hatred also o f that easy

,

accommodating secular spirit which called itsel f

j udi ci o us n e s s o r worldly wisdom or sense of proportion .

Its votaries might j udge things by their practical

workings instead o f by first principles might spare ,
’

bad books o ut o f regard fo r their author s name ,

o r because they were dull and unintelligible and

seldom read — but Bishops he cried enter into no
, ,

such cynical connivances : with them truth is truth

and error error ; they speak to one another ap erté
with all the holy rigour o f the theological
‘

a e rte
p ,

tongue .

Bossuet w as troubled by the new conditions o fthe

warfare Hereto fore he had fought against open
.
I 18 FRA N C O I S D E F E N E L O N

enemies and in purely theological battles ; now he

,

was at war with the master o fa great cabal who had ,

a hundred voices tuned to sing his praise a hundred ,

busy hidden hands to scatter h i s answers thro ugho ut

the Court the Town the Provinces
, , .

Present intrigues seemed but the earnest o f a

’
greater future danger What if F enelon s real aim .

went beyond mere devotional innovations w h at if the ,

Maxims and its cryptic language were the password

of a great political conspiracy i fbeh ind this prod igious ,

versatility and cleverness behind the genius that ,

struck terror into the heart 1 lay all the worldly ,

ambitions o f a scheming and meddlesome priest ?

The tutor o f Burgundy had seized with the s o n an

opportunity that Bossuet had let slip w ith the father .

This rash reformer this high priest o f every novelty

,
-
,

’
was heir t o all and more than all his senior s influence
at the Court ; and Bossuet m ight well look forward
with a real concern to the day wh en F enelon would
return to Court in triumph after I and two o r three
’
others are dead an d there brushing aside the God
, ,

appointed order in which the priest stood second to

,

the law giver would rule from his confessional every

-
,

thing even the State

,
.

’
All these things gave to B o s s u e t s voice a certain
savage harshness a brutal irony unknown to his
,

earlier controversies with the Protestants and J an

1
Q
ui lui cont e st e l e s prit ? 11 e n a j us q u e f
’
air e pe ur
’
,

e t s o n mal h e ur e s t de s e tr e ch argé d un e caus e o n i l e n

’ ’

faut tant .
 AT WAR W IT H B OSS UE T 1 19

se n i s ts There as he said there was plenty o f

.
, ,

moderation there he had borne himself with all the

dignity o fa great Ambassador treatin g with a hostile
power or o f a mediator bringing peace and content
,

ment to the disa ffected party in a State H ere he .

was at best a Brutus doing j ustice o n the body o f a

,

single traitor an d that traitor a s o n who once had

, ,

been near to his heart .

It i s hard fo r us E nglishmen for whom ecclesiastical

,

discipline h as ceased to be even an impertinence ,

rightly to appraise the conduct of one who had not

only grown up under i ts shadow but had become ,

its very embodiment— nay who w as called in n o

,

spirit o f imbecile flattery the l ast o f the Fathers

,

o f the Church N o man was ever more convinced

.

’ ’
than Bossuet that his was God s and the Church s
cause H e thought himself the apostle of Christian
.

manliness and courage against a gospel o f nervous

debility that found its highest perfection in despair .

H e w as the champion o f reverence against the

ignorant presumption that laid Go d down a method
‘

and mapped out H is Graces in degrees — in short ,

o f universal obj ecti v e Catholicism against that re

b e lli o us spirit o f individuality which had been the

mother o f all the heresies A nd it may be granted
.

that Bossuet did right to be angry that to the great ,

master o fsolid argument F é n e lo n s ironical deference ’

his quibbles and irrelevancies his saintly airs o f ,

martyrdom were a provocation intolerable I t may

, .

be allowed that by the disposition o f nature Bossuet

 AT WAR W I T H B OSS U E T 12 1

drowned in a drop o f water ; had he only been able

to be simple fo r a single moment he would have ,

been saved O n h i s side there was scheming

’
.
,

shu ffling downright lying my s ti fi catio n fo r its o w n

, ,

sake pamphlets barbed with an irony benignly

,

outrageous at times even outrage without the

,
’

benignity as when he charges his adversary with

,

employing to write down falsehoods the same hand

which at the Altar O f ered the Incarnate Go d o f
f
Truth o r begs him remember h o w great is his age
, ,

h o w soon he will be answering be fore a J ud ge Whom

reputation does not dazzle n o r eloquence appease .

O r he teems with the s up e rbia quce s ita meri tis the

tale of his hardships never loses in the tellin g often ,

bids a bold defiance t o the facts as his enemy com

plains he could obscure the cl earest reasonings ,

embroil the simplest issues never spoke without ,

glancing over his S houlder to find some loophole o f

retreat H e was a master too in all the arts o f
.
, ,

anonymity in shi fting o n to other shoulders the

,

burden of his actions in letting his o w n fingers,

weave the rope that was to drag him a seemingly ,

bound and helpless victim into some underhand ,

trick.

And yet Mme de Maintenon was right— with him

.

also there was per fect sincerity ; no impostor could

have been s o obstinate have piled up such masses ,

o f relentless tortuosity in defence o f his opinion .

Through all this coil o f tangled falsehood runs a

thread of hig h er feeling a real desire to spare h i s ,
I 2 2 FRA N C O I S D E F EN E LO N

enemies to give back peace to the Church a real

, ,

consideration fo r Beauvilliers and Chevreuse a fear ,

lest t o o great vigour o n his part should be visited o n

their heads by the King In this strange character
.
,

where all contradictories were reconciled virtues ,

could lie down peacefully beside their Opposing evils ,

merits became failings and shadows lustres there

was no disengaging th e goo d from the bad no ,

frontier post to mark where generous forbearance

ended and where the pose o f dove like unco m
’
‘ -

plaining martyrdom began 1

.

It was a poor quarrel and a S ign o f degeneracy ,

says Dean Church and few will wish to se t his

,

verdict aside O nly the Genius of Misdirected E nergy

.

can take pleasure in the spectacle — o u o n e si de ,

F enelon s brilliant persuasiveness and sleight o fhand

’
- -

wasted o n the explainin g of problems either i n

’
soluble o r beneath solution ; o n the other Bo s s ue t s ,

maj estic eloquence and logic breaking these airy

phantoms o n his wheel There is something more
.

than mournful in the h undreds o f pages that discuss

whether the desire o f happiness is necessarily an
imperfection in the sight of Go d o r determine the ,

precise degree o f beatitude sacrificed by St Paul .

when he wished to be accursed fo r his b re th re n s

sake — S t Paul of whom o n e antagonist allows that
.
,
’
‘
he never exactly measured the value o f his acts ,

1
Th e
me e k and dov e-li k e Fene lon,
’
says M r Vaugh an
.

Hours with th e M ystics, ii , p 2 6 4

. . .
 AT WA R W IT H B OSS U E T 12 3

whose words said the other were a mere transport

, ,

o f ecstatic love meaningless ,

because beyond possi ,

b ili ty and impossibility alike Well might F enelon .

declare that both o f them would have been happier ,

if instead o fbecoming the laughing stock o f i n fi de ls

,
-

by this war o f words they had spent their time

,

teaching the Catechism to the poor children o f their

villages
B ut it was far worse when the Abb é Bossuet his ,
’
uncle s Rom an agent had his way and to disputed
, ,

points o fdogma succeeded wrangles over facts No w .

began the reign of innuendo o f vague suggestions ,

fl ung with careless artifice upon the air to be lovingly ,

dwelt o n o r ignored or denied j ust as the environ

ment m ight demand in themselves mere bodiless
,

nothings whispers with only half a meaning that

, ,

lodged without e f fort in the reader s brain their

’

service more than rendered when they had called

forth a shrug o f the shoulders o r an indolent Wh o ‘

’
knows ?
Fo r this work F enelon was pre eminently fitted by -

a quality o f character which was n o t all o r even ,

chiefly artifice but rather a con stitutional infirmity

'

, , , ,

o f his nature a powerlessness to s e e things in their

,

true proportion whenever his sympathies o r his

,

interests were deeply engaged The emptiest compli .

ment became a solemn attestation the most acci ,

’
dental slight a mortal inj ury Louis X IV s grudging .

allowance of his appeal to Rome grew into a kindly

warning almost an order to carry his cause away o ut
, ,
 AT WA R W I T H B O S S U ET 12
5

much the trial of the filthy Curé of Seurre co n

of ,

de mn e d at this very time to the stake f o r Quietism

and S piritual incest to hunt up the reco rds o fmystical

,

scandals in Italy and Spain to keep the Roman ,

gossips agog fo r new letters new discoveries new , ,

abominations but especially for that imaginary cor

,

respondence between Mme Guyon and F enelon . ,

which w as s o terrible that it could only be printed at

the last extremity And there w as policy even in
.

callin g F enelon the Montanus o f this new Priscilla ;

not all the courtiers who chuckled over the R e lation
da Quietis mo had read their E usebius o r knew that
’

the Phrygian heretic s virtue w as sounder than his

’

doctri ne .

It was at Rome that this crop of weeds grew

thickest There each prelate had his confidential
.

agents at the head o fa whole battery o fsubterranean

,

wires of S pies and secret allies o f the hundred

, ,

voices tuned to S ing h i s praise at Rome at Paris at , ,

’
Louvain Florence Salamanca even in F é n e lo n s
, , ,

case in all the newspapers of Holland E ach took

, .

’
particular count of the other s correspondence ;
Bossuet had his sandalled detectives to pry into
every letter that came o r went from Cambrai
F enelon w as indebted for many kind o ffices to the
mas t er o f the Brussels post ; over the secrets o f his
E mbassy mail bag Bouillon reigned supreme
- There .

’
w as much intriguing also f o r a sight o f the enemy s
, ,

defe n ces ; fo r the short and piquant narratives better ,

than anythi n g in Terence that Bossuet intended fo r

,
’
12 6 FR AN C O I S D E F E N E LO N
’
the Pope s ear alone for the innumerable answers ,

and apologies which F é ne lo n would not publish in

France but sent direct to Rome O r arrangements
, .

were made with some discreet and friendly Jesuit

for denouncing B o s s ue t s doctrine o f Charity to the ’

Holy O ffice ; pamphlets from Cambrai whose Cice ,

ronian style would fatally betray their orgin were to ,

be broken up into the kitchen Latin of the P ro pa -

ganda printed and returned to France as evidence of

,

the trend of Roman opinion .

But above all there must be abundan ce of such

, ,
’
facts as every Monsignore could understand Bo s s ue t s .

whole conduct must be explained by j ealousy and ,

F enelon s by love o fMme G uyon ; the quarrel must

’

become an organized plot to ruin F enelon who alone ,

had stood out for the honour of the Crown w h en ,

Bossuet and de N oailles were urgent for the pro

clamation of Mme de Maintenon s marriage with the
.
’

King .

And every prel a ’

te s taste was carefully consulted .

To Scholastic logicians F enelon was pictured as a

follower o f Descartes to strict disciplinarians as a ,
,

lax administrator to the secular clergy as a friend

,

o f none but monks and friars The Roman ladies .

were assured that de N oailles did not love the

Madonna ; the many friends of Jansenism learnt
that Bossuet w as no better than a Jesuit admirers ,

of the Society that he was the worst abettor o f Port

Royal .

E ven the history o fMme Guyon was trans formed .

 AT WAR WI TH B O SS U E T 12 7

in this marvellous crucible ; it was Boss uet not ,

F é n e lo n who had been her friend had treated her

, ,

during her s i x months stay at Meaux with a warm

’

’
indulgence strangely contrasting with F enelon s
invariable coolness and reserve The more light .

minded among the Cardinals even had their j ests

about Bossuet and this pretty woman to the no ,
’

small scandal of F enelon s agent the Abbe de

’

Chanterac who could not bear good honourable

, ,

respecter o fdignities as he was that even the arch ,

persecutor should be suspected of impropriety .

Yet Chanterac was far from being the prolix

simple-minded fool the Abbé Bossuet thought him .

Certai nly he w as no match for the Abbé in uns crup u

lous diplomacy nor for B o s s ue t s second agent the ’

shre w d and caustic P h é li ppe aux in his knowledge of

,

theology ; yet that mattered little when F enelon

himself controlled the arguments and Bouillon was ,
’
at hand to manage the intrigues Ch an t e rac s busi .

ness w as to excite compassion to enlist the sympathy

,

of the Cardinals o n behalf o f dignity and virtue in

distress ; nor could F e n e lo n himsel fhave better played
'

the part than this loyal modest and single minded

,
-

gentleman as he wandered sadly round from prelate

,

to prelate bewildered at their florid Italian politeness

,

which said s o much and meant s o little and told in ,

stumbling Latin h i s little touching stories o f his

’
master s goodness and misfortune .

’
The Abbé Bossuet shared neither in Ch an t e rac s
scruples nor in his pleasant illusions ; right was o n
 AT WAR WI T H B O S S U E T 12 9

episcopate the worst enemy the Church of Fran ce

,

had ever had .

N or could they ignore him as an empty boaster

wh en letters and perempt ory messages kept pouring
in from Versailles Rome as a friendly prelate said
.
,

t o Chanterac could not answer France with cannon

,

balls or throw away her friendship for a book when ,

any moment Charles o f Spain might die and plunge ,

t h e world into w ar f o r his inheritance Louis X IV

'

. .

might not be t o Rome the best loved o f Most Chris

tian Princes Bossuet was still re m embered by many
.

as the a utho r o f a certain noxious Declaration o f

Gallican Right but not a fe w o ftheir E minences we re
abilz a n d dared n o t mortally o f fend a Sovereign
'

p pa

who carri ed the Tripl e Crown in his pocket .

But B o s s ue t s fi rme s t allies were the enemies o f

’

the Jesuits for that dreaded Society had taken up

,

the matter as a personal challenge It was not with .

o ut fear that the A bbé Bossuet s aw their black ‘

moles working everywhere against the interests o f

’

France ; for the S ociety though h ated and crie d ,

down by Bishops and laity and rival O rders generally ,

arrived by s ubterranean channels at i ts end And .

behind the Jes uits there w as Bo uillon more violent ,

and more crafty th an the Abbé Bossuet himsel f who ,

almost told the Cardi nals they were as ses and

’
,

turned o n the senile Pope himsel f with the fury of ‘

’
a wounded boar And he could play more adroitly
.

’
o n the timid Romans fears It w as no small matter .
,

he told them to condemn an Archbishop o fFranc e ;

,

9
13 0 FR A N C O I S D E F E N E L O N
F é n e lo n would prove a terrible fello w when roused
he would s e t the whole kingdom in a blaze o fschism .

And these as all our Frenchmen c ontemptuously

,

agreed were the right kind o f argument s for Rome

!

.
,

Interest in theology the Monsignori had none ;

Divinity was left to the Friars who had no other
means of advancement The Pope him sel f Inno .
,

cent XI I understood but little o f the controversy ;

.
,

though that said the Abbé Bossuet did n o t matter

, ,
'

for he had g r eat confidence in the H oly Ghost H e .

'

was an old man often ailing and with none t oo cle ar

, ,

a head H e was vaguely anxious to be civil to the

.

King of France to whom he owed his election but

,

on the whole his sympathies were for F é n e lo n who ,

had erred as he said from lo v ing God too much

, , ,

j ust as Bossuet had erred from loving his brother t o o

little But the Pope was a reed o n which neithe r
'

p arty could lean with safety H is yie lding temper .

and failing m emory left him helpless in the hands o f

others he was al ways on the side o fthe speaker who
had j ust s at down .

N evertheless Innocent and his Cardinal s were

,
’
somewhat nettled by Bo s s ue t s pretensions to dictate
to them — Ep is cop us Me lde ns is they said es t P ap a , ,

Gallus — and were resolved to show the great master

o f Tradition that they could be as accurate as he .

The Maxims w as thrice examined— fi rs t by a com

m i tt e e o f monastic experts who after hearing the , ,
’

parties as in a m urde r-trial dre w up a list o f pro

‘ '
,
’

positions to censure But great care was taken that

.
 AT WA R W I T H B O SS U E T 13 1

the balance o f Opinion should be neatly trimmed .

On e j udge w as removed to please the B o s s ue ts ; but

when the Court seemed to be inclining too strongly

to their side Bouillon suggested that no one in
,

France thought m uch o f the theology o f monks ,

and two Bishops both favourable to F enelon were

, ,

promptly added This man oe uvre had the desired

.

e ffect o f equally dividing the j udges ; in May 16 9 8 , ,

five reported for the Maxims five against and the , ,

matter went up to the Cardinals o f the Holy O ffice ,

’
with whom pr udential rather than dogmatic con
‘ t

siderations were expected to weigh Las t of all the .

question came before the Pope himself .

E xcept to F enelon and his immediate following ,

the real issue of the struggle was never for a moment

doubtful At times even the invincible hope fulness
.

o f Chanterac w as over cast especially when events in

,

France made t o o plain that tide o f outside Opinion ,

with which it was at once the policy and the glory

o f the Roman Court always to coincide S uch were .

the marriage o f de N oailles nephew to Mme de ’

Maintenon s niece (April

’
the dismissal of B ur
,

gundy s inferi or tutors from their place and with

’

,
’
them F enelon s brother an E xon of the Guard for
, ,

the sole crime o fhis relationship (June Still ,

worse was it when this lightni n g was followed by

thunder by the expulsion o f F enelon himsel f from
,

his nominal preceptorship (January but worst ,

o f all was the appearance of B o s s u e t s R e latio n s ur le

’

Quietis me which covered F en elon and Mme Guyon

’

.
,

9— 2
 AT WA R WI T H B O SS U E T 13 3

sion to the voice of God s infallible Vicar but in an

’

ignoble scu ffle behind the scenes by the unworthy ,

hand of Bossuet .

H i s first aim therefore w as to guard against this

, ,

danger his second to inveigle Rome into openly

,

becoming his Protectress to melt her by the tragic

,

pathos of his bearing and yet by the fiery energy of

,

his de fences encourage her to pluck up heart o f

grace Was s h e afraid o f public Opinion in France
.

— F enelon scoured the U niversities for proselytes

,

filled his letters with assurances that Paris was veer

ing round to him and did his best to hasten on
,

the change by wearing h is most fasci nating air of

martyrdom .

For i n the t wo countries F enelon played t w o

di f ferent parts . To his Italian j udges he w as inno
cence meekly but bravely fighting fo r its rights to
his own countrymen at home he Was helple ss unco m ,

plaining i nnocence Oppressed In France as Chan .

,

t e rac noticed with horror appeared none o fhis vali ant

,

Roman pleadings for the Truth ; t h ere sile nt at first

fo r the sak e o fBeau v illiers and Chevreuse he became ,

still more silent as a matter o f policy There he let .

Bossuet run his c ourse unchecked counting securely

'

o n the reaction that must f o llO W wh e n men grew

' '
'

tired o f a warf are s o eternally one sided and began -

,

to think co mpassionately O f its victi m; T h e re he

w as de termined that the w o rld should s e e him as in
his letters he pictured himsel f sitting stricken but ,

silent in his Palace at Cambrai peace fully indi f,

feren t
13 4 F R A N C O IS D E F EN E L O N
to the sounds o ffar O ffbattle forgetful of the ill his
-
, ,

enemies wished to do him in the remembrance o f

the good they had done him against their will .

Still there remained two men in France Louis X IV ,

.

and Bossuet who were wholly impenetrable by h is

,

gentler arts and Louis XIV and Bossuet were the

, .

two men whom Innocent feared the most Yet even .

these Goliaths had a j oint in their armour— J There

are two sides declared F enelon to the character
,
’

,
‘

of the King o f France ; with him th e self willed

. -

autocrat is doubled by a timorous devotee ; the first

will bribe and threaten unscrupulous ly so long as ,

the final decision goes unpronounced ; the second

will bow before the lightest whisper from St Peter s .
’

Throne And once the King has failed them my

.
,
’

adversaries sol e support is gone Whatever the .

verdict neither the clergy no r the So rbonne will

,

open their mouths while the Bishop of Meaux is a

cowardly bully ready enough to bluster while he has
,

an army at his back but when he fi nds himself alone

, ,
’
he will become meek an d supple as a glove .

There was but one drawback to this brilliant

strategy it was built up o n an entire illusion .

Rome tho ugh full of sympathy fo r F enelon s woes

,
’

w as n o t led captive by his logic ; nor— to borrow one

o fBouillon s choice expressions
’
—could s h e send such

pre lates as Bossuet and de N oailles flying from the

Vatican (2 co up s de p ied p ar le de rriere Long before ‘

’
the end Infallibility had made up its mind F enelon s
,

enemies were to win but not to triumph and the, ,

 AT WA R WI T H B O SS U E T 13 5

o ne obj ect o f his allies w as to make that victory as

’
cheap as possible Hence Bouillon s long duel with
.

the Abbé Bossuet e ach striving to hurry o n a j udg

,

ment when the stream O f opinion seemed making in

’
his favour each anxious to eternalize the matter
, ,

whenever the verdict w as goin g against him .

But F enelon himself was obliged to allow that ,

the longer the battle the more envenomed did h i s

,

enemies become The Romans too were weary of

.
, ,

the whole a f fair By the middle o f February 16 9 9

.
, ,

Chanterac had given up all hope A few days later .

Bouillon s last resistances were overcome and o n the

’

12 th o fMarch the A bbé Bossuet could raise h i s song

Of victory God is stronger than man ; the Truth

has triumphed ; the gates of Hell have not prevailed
”
against the Church .

The Maxims was prohibited twenty-three extracts ,

from it specially condemned though the Pope refu ,sed

to brand them as heretical o r to order the book to ,

be burned by t h e executioner Dogmatically speak .

ing t o o the Brief walked in the safe path o fRoman

, ,

precedent and decided as little as possible D is .

interestedness in the larger sense w as neither

, ,

asserted nor denied nor even defined and all that ,

w as done w as to prune Fé n e lo n s system o fits wilder

’

extravagances Habitual Passivity (Prop

. In .

di fference to Self (Prop to Hope and Fear

.

(Prop . neglect of virtues other than Charity

(Prop . 1 8 ) went the same way as deliberate sacrifice
of all wish for Heaven (Prop though perhaps the .
 AT WAR W I T H B O S S U E T 13 7

be pl eased with it or why I should act as if I were .

Show no unnecessary civi lity and leave as soon as

possible though it would be well if you could get
,

from Rome some assurance o f the underlying purity

of my doctrine and int entions B ut do not wait o n e .

quar ter o fan hour for a papal message si mply praising

my piety and submissiveness ; if Rome is resolved
not to bear witness to me I fancy I can do without ,

it My patience my moral standard my labours in

.
, ,

my diocese will prove my innocence far more e f

,
fe c
’
t ually than a few vague compliments in a Brief
m
.

Bossuet o n hearing the j udg ent was overj oyed

, , .

The Brief he said would have a unive r

, , sal welcome
it w as long since Rome had g1v e n s o good or s o
precise a j udgment N ay in this first outburst of
.
,

tri umphant relief he could be merciful even to his

,

adversary and rej ected his a m

’

, iable nephew s pro

o s als to work for a second stronger co n demnatio n
p ,

on the double ground that he w as sure F enelon

meant to submit and that to ask Rome for more than
,

Rome had given would see m like a confession of

failure .

But th is mildness vanished s o soon as F é n e lO n— to

use the famous phrase o f Fontenelle b e gan to -w

import coquetry into his submission B Os s uet s wrath .

’

’
was easily kindled by his rival s cool placidity and
airs of resi gnation but especial ly by the O fficial
,

Pastoral o f submission wherein as he said F enelon

, , ,

had simply tried to set himsel f right in t h e eyes of

Rome and dwelt o n nothing but his own docility
, ,
13 8 F RA N C O IS DE F EN E L O N
the one th in g that redounded to his credit
. It was .

’
not thus, he cried that men recanted in the E arly
,
‘

Church forgetting that as F enelon had not been

-
,

declared a heretic there was no need fo r recantation

, .

But Bossuet was haunted by a fear which the ,

Chanterac l etters show to have been not wholly

groundless that F enelon would manage even now
, , ,

t o slip the cab le o f his condem n ation by obtaining ,

’
the Pope s approval o fhis explanations and defences .

I ndeed the struggle at Rome was not yet over ;

,
’
both parties still laid eager siege to Innocent s ear .

Chanterac besought him to establish f o r ever the

‘

doctrine o fthe Saints by declaring that F enelon had

’

erred only through inadvertency o f language while

t h e B o s s ue ts begged that the bad and wicked argu
ments by which the Maxims had been defended
, ,

might be delivered Over to a simi lar condemnation .

And when Rome preserved a prudent j silence ,

Bossuet appealed to Louis and the Bishops o fFrance ,

whose rati fi cat i o n was necessary on the Gallican

principle be fore the Papal Brie fcould have the force
,

of law O ut of sixteen Provincial Assemblies eight

.
, ,

act i ng o n a hint f rom Versailles asked fo r the s up ,

‘

pression o fth e defences and Bossu et did not scruple,

’
to stir up o n e o fF é ne lo n s su f
fragans Valbelle Bishop , ,

o f St . O mer to demand it in the Metropolitan

,

A ssembly of Cambrai itsel f And he was delighted .

w hen Valbelle exceeded his instructions He dashed .

into the fray says Chancellor d Ague s s e au with all

,
’

the h o t h eadedness of a Southerner and all the

-
 AT WAR WITH B O SS U E T 13 9

chican ery of a N orman ; and not content with seeing

,

his Archbishop drink the cup of humiliation made ,

him drain it to the very dregs in that he threw , ‘

unworthy suspicion o n his good intentions and robbed ,

him o f the paltry consolation o f s a ying that if his ,

words were bad his thoughts were good St Simon

, . .

also j oins with d Ague s s e au in blaming the conduct

’

o f this courtier in purple — but neither St Simon .

nor the Chancellor knew that St O mer s inspiration .

’

came from Meaux .

Thus ends a long and painful story and only those ,

who are free from the banalite e cce um nte o f believing ’ ’

that there are generally t wo sides to a quarrel will be

ready wi th their j udgment To many the whole .

matter will seem a mere futility a dispute over things ,

’
that pass man s understanding conducted o n o n e side ,

by a pragmatical bully and o n the other by a , , ,

hysterical hypo crite An d not a fe w m ust have risen

.

from its study to find new zest in a saying Of the

great contemporary sceptic Bayle that God i s too , ,

essentially good and reasonable to be the author o fa

thing s o charged with odious S ophistries as a positive
religion .

Yet if the Quietist battle brings its warriors no

,

new glory at least it must not h e su f

, fered to Obscure
the glories won on other fields All human idol s .

have their feet o f clay yet h e is not a noble minded

,
-

critic whose spying glass is always turned towards the

-

m ud For all his false steps in this dismal quarrel

.
,
 C HA PTE R I X
T E L E MA Q U E

Le s pe u pl e s v e rront au x montaign e s
La pai x cro is tre e t m ourir,
E t par c o stau x e t par campai gn es
La j ustic e fl e urir .

D e pe u de grains fo rc e blé somme ,

L e s e spys ch as cun an
S ur le s montz bruy ro nt e n l air comme
’
,

Le s arb r e s de Ly ban .

S ans fi n bruy ra le nom e t gloire

De ce roi n ompare il
D e s o n r e nom se ra me moir e
Tant qu y aura sol e il
’
.

M A B OT

T ELEMAQUE wrote F enelon to Father le Tellier

Confessor
,

of Louis XIV ten years after his

.
,
,

book s appearance is a fabulous narrative in the form

’

of a heroic poem like those o f H omer or Virgil in

, ,

which I have s e t down the truths m ost necessary to

be known by one who is about to reign ; there also
are described the faults that cling most closely to the
sovereign power But I have borrowed from no real
.

persons I have sketched no characters o f our own

,

14 1
14 2 F R A N C O I S D E F EN E L O N
time My book was written at chance moments
. .

hurriedly and piece by piece it was s ent to the press

by an unfaith ful copyist and was never intended for,

1
the world .

E nmities contemporary and modern have raised

, ,

more than one Obj ec tion to this account F enelon .

,

it i s said lays on the copyist o r the proof reader the

,
-

b urden Of all his literary indiscretions I t is the same .

story here as with the Maxims ; both were hurried

untimely into the world without his knowledge ;
neither owed its most dangerous passages to its
’

author s hand But there is no good reason here to

.

disbelieve him o r even to set down the publication

,

to the pious treachery o f his friends acting in the ,

hope that this new marvellous work o f genius would

blot out all memory o f the Maxims of the Saints .

The venal transcriber was not unknown to an age

guiltless o f all respect for copyright ; others besides
F enelon had su ffered from h is machinations though ,

o n none had the blow fallen at a more disastro us

moment Fo r the existence of Té lé m aq ue first became

.

known in the autumn o f 16 9 8 j ust when the Quietist ,

controversy was at its fiercest ; it was published by

the piratical booksellers o f Holland early in the
following year at the time F é n e lo n was making his
,

submission to the Pope .

E ven without Té lé maq ue F enelon could never have ,

returned t o Court ; as it w as the book filled the ,

King s cup o fw rath to over flowing For in those

’

1 Work s ,
V 11 ,.
p 6 6
. 5 .
 FE NE LO N

ter
( Af a p o rt ra z t by B ra /Ze n !)
 TE L E MAQU E 14 3

days it w as di fficult to treat of courts and gov ern '

ments without writing a satire ; F é n e lo n had wished

to s ay everything and in the cautious measured
!
, ,

undertone befitting a royal antechamber everything

, ,

had been said Loui s his Court h is Minist ers his

.
, , ,

mistresses— all were there .

’
Then t o o F enelon s pages held a still sharper
, ,

sting The book that for us is the very symbol o f

.

elegant monotony had fo r contemporaries all the

,

interest of a political manifesto all the terrors O f a ,

threatened Puritan reformation If Sale n t um as a .

,

whole had scarcely even the vitality o f the might

,

have—been many o f its principles were in dan ger o f

,

actual transplantation t o France when Louis and two

o r three others should be dead and F é n e lo n stood
'

,
’

on the steps of the D uke o f B urgundy s throne .

Many a courtier groaned in spirit as he foresaw the , ‘

changing o f the grandfather s tiresome outwar d ’

decorum into the intense moral inwardness of the

grandson the rise o f a new spirit o f unwearying
,

insistence on duty o n forced simplicity o f life o f

, ,

Inquisition into conduct almost Genevan in its

severity Bond holders in darkness heard the doom
.
-

o f their privileges and places and tax farms pro -

n o un ce d in this apostolate o f abstract s uperhuman

J ustice which bowed before no o ld traditions stayed

, ,
’
for no lawyer s parchment e xplanations but t urned ,

o n every sullen f o bank i t s searchlight of unfaltering

-
g
Truth and Reason With Fenelon Letters ceased t o
.

be the handmaid of the Co urt and bec ame the mouth ,

14 4 F RA N C O I S DE F E N E LO N
piece of a new era o fcriticism and c h ange ; Té lé maq ue
is a prelude to the E ighteenth Century the first low , ,

muttering o f a storm that was to end with Rousseau

and the Revolution .

Fo r F enelon s book is one o f those outbursts o f

’

saddening hopefulness that ind i ct the wh o le Present

,

at the bar o f a fancied glorious Past They care .

nothing fo r the la v i s o f organic growth o r develop

ment b ut strike out with a simple App e llo Naturam
’

all the complexities o fo ur modern civili z ati on Like .

the writers of the dawn i ng Age o f Reaso n F enelon ,

strai ned his eyes back to the firs t beginnings o f the

’

world back to a Golden Age whence man by his

,

o wn fault h ad issued trailing behind him in h i s

,

progress through the centuries a lengthe ning chain

o f laws and customs and traditions that shackled ,

more and more his first divine s i mpli ci ty th i s m

cherished darling o f Catholicism was o n e of the '

earliest to teach mankind to cry

ES rb e n S ich Ge s e tz un d R e ch te
’
'

e
Wi e e in e e wi ge ! rank h e it fo rt
S ie sch l e ppe n von Ge sch l e ch t Sich z u Ge sch l e ch te
Un d rii cke n sach t v o n O rt z u O rt .

V e rnu nft wir d Uns inn W oh lth al P lage

,

W e h D ir das s D u e in E n k e l b ist
,
.

And as in these ideal politics no thou ght is taken

o fthe lapse of Time so also F enelon looks aw ay from
,

Space : Té lé maq ue is a sermon on the fraternity o f

nations o n the w h ole human race regard e d as o n e
,

vast family bound together by ties o f natural law

,
 TEL E MAQU E 14 5

and a f fection that rise superior to the petty ordinances

of any single State Limitless as i s our debt to o ur
.

own country he cries we o w e far more to the great

,
’

fatherland Mankind
,
All men are brothers all
.
,

wars are civil wars It would be well if we could

.

blot o ut history and save all future generations the

shame of knowing that man has shed the blood of
man .

Yet if history itsel f must remain as a warni ng to

, ,

erase i ts results from the brains o f its makers w as n o

di fficult task ; F é n e lo n uproots all the inherited
instincts and characteristics of th e man as eas ily as h e
sweeps away the traditions and customs Of the nation .

He h as the true eighteenth century belief in th e

tabula ras a .Man made in the image o fGod was in
, ,

himself a feeble helpless creature at the mercy o f ,

h abit and caprice and the promptings of others clay ,

’
to be moulded at the law giver s will
,
And there
-
.

fore F enelon says

, we the masters S hould seize o n
,
‘
, ,

o ur subj ects in their early youth We shall chan ge .

the tastes and habits o f the whole p e O ple : we shall

build up again from the very fo undations and teach ,

the people to live a fru gal innoce n t busy life after

, ,

the pattern o fo ur laws .

’

A ll must be done from abo ve for the people could ,

n o t be leaders in the work Ofth e i r o w n regeneration

’

Though all were by nature reas onable animals they ,

could take no step forward by themselves the

tho ughts o f the many were the heritage of fools .

The Prince must be th e tireless pivot of the State

10
 TE LE MAQU E I 47

meneus the danger o fluxury and arrogance Sesostris ,

o fbland mediocrity the throne H e is shown h o w

on .

Princes are corrupted by the false and wicked maxims

of Mazarin and Maz ari n s master Machiavel They
’

, .

are told t h at Plenty is the mother o f Revolution ,

that fo r the sake O f safety the people must be

, ,

weakened and brought low As though rebellions .

were n o t born o fdespair o f harshness and arrogan ce

,

and nerveless brains at t h e head of the S tate .

” ’
!
These cries Rousseau s great forerunner are the
, ,
!

true causes of Revolution and n o t the bread the

,

la b o urer is su f fered to eat a ft er he h as e arned it wi th

,
”
the sweat o fhi s brow .

B ut F é n e lo n does not p ai nt always in su ch gloomy

Idomeneus grasping pride and love o f co n
’
co lurs .

q uest had unit ed all other peoples in league against

him .But B urg undy would asse rt fo r France in
a n other fashion a glorious primacy o f peace N ot by .

war fare but by rivalry would he break the pride of

, ,

Lo ndon and Amsterdam What Tyre had been the

.
,

city o fIdomeneus must become

,
sh i ps would pass in
and out of its harbours like the fl ux and reflux O fthe
s ea f,
o r in i ts port dwelt j ustice ste m and even ,

handed under the sh adow o fits stately towers each

alien found h imself at home Ye t it w as not t o Free
.

Trade alone that he looked for social salvation In .

matters o fcommerce he was no more than a humane

k e e n wi t t e d observer b ut it was from his heart that
‘

he was speakin g when he bade France mak e fas t her

ascendancy over o ther nation s by ensuring the moral
10— 2
14 8 F R AN C O IS D E F EN E L O N
and physical wel fare o f her sons The true cure fo r .

all her evils he found in agriculture — a pursuit ever

dear to refor mers For can it not o f
. fer to the hus
bandman the most natural and best natured o f all
!

delights the satisfaction of looking around him and

,

seeing nothing but the e ffects and improvements o f

his o w n art and diligence and seeing like Go d that
, , ,

all his works were good

It is easy to make merry over forg otten ideals and ,

the vogue O f agriculture is among them Pastorals .

and Theocritean idylls have long lost their savour .

We do n o t now believe that the E arth becomes more

bounteous the more mouths s h e h as to feed ; nor do
,

all the miseries of o ur modern We ssex finish be fore ‘

’
the fall O f night .
’
Yet although in F enelon s eyes
, , ,

the country was still the hom e of streaming udders

and unwithering fruits it was not merely a towns
,
’
man s banal Paradise There food was plentiful and
.

life was free ; there the healthy freshness of the

body was but an outward inde x to the healthier
freshness o f the mind There the h umblest might
.

marry when and whom he would unchecked by hope ,

o f dowries or fear o f master s due s ; fo r avarice was

"

banished the old degrading servitude was gone ; the

,

calling o fthe labourer was no longer a disgrace .

Blurs and extravagances in the picture the re Were

bound to be for F enelon s ends were always wiser
,
’

than his means Political E conomy brings many

.

’
reproaches against him Does not the patriot s wish
.

fo r commerce clash with the Churchman s scruples

 T E LE MAQU E 14 9

against money lent at interest ? Besides if luxury is ,

forbidden what is the need o f commerce ? Who

,

will be its servants i f almost all the workmen are

,

drafted o n to the fields ? And what shall we say

when F é n e lo n passes beyond these ge neral precepts
to construct his famous Dream City o f Sale n t um a ,

State where life is brought back to the level Of

Homeric simplicity and discipline enforced with the
,

rigidity of Plato s Laws The moral philosopher will

’

be ready with still weightier accusations ; F enelon ,

he will say has piled up law upon law till the

,

citizens private liberty i s lost till the harmonies o f

’

the Perfect State are lost behind its whirring

mechanism H e makes no provision for ch an ge o r
.

develop ment forgetting as all theorists o f Optimism

, ,

forget that the good Present i s the worst enemy o f

,

the better Future that there is no custom s o sacred

-

but it will in time corrupt the world And fo r all

, , .
,

patriotism he stands further away than other political

,

dreamers from the realities around him The Re .

public could have been written only by a Greek o r ,

U topia by an E n glishman ; but in the streets o f

S ale n t um every nationality feels itsel f dep ay s e e very
’ ’

generation homeless and astray .

Still the blemishes in Té lé maq u e must not blind

,

us t o i ts greater merits —t o the pulse o f generous

large humanity that beats through every page — to
’
the voice that made reach even to Kings houses , ,

the cry of that helpless hopeless downtrodden class ,

which was fast losing not only the rights and dignity
, ,
 TE L E MAQU E I 5 I

Beside the political significance o f Té lé maq u e ,

its drama tic interest is b ut s mall F enelon whose

'

.
,

letters are agallery of speaking portraits equal t o the

pages Of St Simon could n o t endo w the personage s
.
,

of h is sto ry with life ; Té lé maq u e Mentor P h ilo c , ,

tetes Idom eneus flit by us cloudy and impalpable

, , ,

the baseless fabric of a vision .

N ot Once in all those eigh t een books does their

hero rise to the dignity of a real existence Setting .

out like Bunyan an d Go ethe to embody a moral

, ,

doctrine in the history o fa S ingle character F enelon ,

h as mi s s e d the pec uliar excellence of each Télé .

maqu e is too vague to be a royal Wilhelm Meister a ,

fi gure typical y e t also flesh and blood ; he i s too

,

heavily colo ured by the idiosyncrasies o f B urgundy

to ran k among such purely abstract figures as the
Christian Of the Pilgri m s Progress At bottom he
’
.
,

is the boy whom F enelon had once taught at Ver ‘

sailles B ut gra fted on Burgundy as he w as is some

.
, ,

times Burgundy as he should n o t be and sometimes ,

Burgundy as he might become ; and there results

fro m the mixture a shadowy inorg anic whole as , ,

lifeless as those creations o f the unskilful novelist ,

which are drawn from a half made fusion o f several

-

living persons .

N or can a poem be complete in all but metre

’
‘
,

when i ts author must apolo gize t o Roman Cardinals

fo r i ts existence and explain that it was written to
,

charm the ears of young Princes with song while it ,

i nstilled into them the purest an d most weighty

 15 2 F R AN CO I S DE F E N E LO N

principles of kingly rule Seldom was Voltaire wider .

from the mark than when he named the book a

Greek poem written in French prose It is throu gh .

o ut a pedagogic epic too mo tiv e too full o fingenious

’

, ,

contrivance to be really Greek as H omer s chie f ’

’
merit is his amiable simplicity so F é ne lo n s is the
‘
,
’

art which gives to each adventu re its hidden mean

ing to every landscape its sly re fl e xi o n o n Versailles
, .

E choes of the Ancients there are in plenty and ,

F é n e lo n s love o f i i cos tume has gathered a surfeit o f

’

gods and nymphs and pagan temples round him .

But at bottom his theme i s purely Christian Mentor

, ,

is an allegory o ft h e Catholic Church his deities are

attributes o fthe O n e True Go d, and if in his moral '

teaching there is much of Socrates there is more of

, ,

the distinctive lessons of the G ospel And yet in .

this transfusion there is no absurdity o r violence far

as we may be from the gloomy netherworld of Homer ,

even from the lucis tam dim cup ido o fVirgil s Shad es
’

there is room fo r Plato beside the Christian Mystics

in F enelon s E lysi an Fields ’
.

Fo r the F enelon o fT é lé maq ue was still the young

S ulpician who once had dreamed o f a missionary »

j ourney to the Levant ! Still at no great distance ,

’
a fter the Sacred followed the Profane ; still he
‘
,
’
‘

turned t o his classics as no study but a loved diver ,

sion and refreshment And Té lé maq ue is the measure .

o fh i s love I tself perhaps Greek in no one sin gle

.

feature there yet hangs round it an atmosphere a

, ,

moral fragrance only to be called o ut by o n e who

,
 TE LE MAQU E 1
53

had fulfilled the wish o f his youth and learned to ,

breathe as purely as o n the double summit o f Par

,

nassus the very essence o fthe antique

,
’
.

It w as this that earned him the dis favour of those

rigid spirits who had forsaken Cicero fo r the Bible .

E asy to imagine is B o s s ue t s scorn for the florid

’
‘

e ffeminacy the amorous gallantries of M de

,
’
‘
’
‘
.

’
Cambrai s romance And certainly here and there
.
’

are passages startling in a Christian priest : the loves

o f Jupiter mi ht have been less frequently paraded
g ,

nor need Calypso have lusted quite so Openly to

forget the father in the embraces o f the s o n B ut .

t hese are passing faults o f taste of a kind not um ,

common i n Té lé maq ue H ereditary kingship might.

have be en left uncriticised in a boo k intended fo r

the s o n o f kings and there are more dignified way s
o f sa v ing a youth from temptation than casting him

violently into the s e a .

But the chief cause o f B o s s ue t s anger will seem ’

t o modern readers an absurdity ; to d ay the most

’
prudish cheek need scarcely bl ush at F enelon s men
t i on o f the blind and shameful tyrant Love N ot .

o ut o f inclination did he write the history o f its

ravages o n Té lé maq ue since this strange student o f

,

Sophocles held it unworthy o f a place in literature .

But how would B urgundy withstand the t e mp ta

tions o fthe Court if he knew nothing o f this fearful
,

appetite ? In a book destined for his private eye

alone Té lé maq ue must pass by impurity in all its
,

forms Yet the least o f his dangers was naked

.
,
 TE L E MAQU E I 55

Calypso , as s h e stands watching the escape o f her

prey There is an ugly reality to o abo ut the gaudy
.
, .

flowers o f Cy prian vice as they flit across the stage

,

‘
with dissolute air and fl aun ti n g d ress and wanton
gait their eyes wandering over the men in search o f
,

an answering loo k their hearts agog to rival each

,

’
other in the kindling of so me lawless passion And .

’
with the most hazardou s figure o f all F é n e lo n s dis
cretion h as played h im false E ucharis indeed is
.
, ,
’
carefully hidden from the reader s eye He catches .

on ly distant glimpses of a girl with hair flying idly

in the breeze wrapped in a long light robe drawn
,

carelessly around her he knows her graces only by

the havoc that they make with Té lé maq ue And .

yet s o faith fully are all his transports drawn that ,

E ucharis i s o fall F é ne lo n s characters the most life

’

, ,

like and the most attractive worth y of a place if n o t

, ,

amon g the heroines of literature at least among the ,

attendant maidens o ftheir train .

Some little o f the vividness o f E ucharis has over

’
fl o w e d o n to F enelon s pagan deities True they are .

not the gods Of Homer ; yet there is a dim reality

about them rare enough in the poems o f that age
, .

Their creator knew his Classics far to o well to treat

them as simple dieux é clos da cem eau des p oetes decora ,

tive synonyms invented by Homer fo r th e virtues o r

’
the forces o fthe earth and air N o product o fBoileau s
.

frigid receipts would have drawn the following

strange confession from Joseph Blanco White
I read Té lé maq ue s o often when only s i x or seven
 1
56 F R AN CO I S DE F E N E LO N
years Old that I k new it almost by h eart Its e f fect .

on my imagination was very powerful my first doubt

o f the truth o f Christianity originated in t hat book

before I was eight years o ld My delight in the

.

description o f t h e sacrifices O ffered to the gods was

intense ; I felt besides a strong sympathy for the
, ,

p rincipal personages of the story the di fference

between their religion and my o w n struck me very
forcibly and my admiration o f their wisdom and
,
!

virtue suggested the question — Wh y should we feel .

s o perfectly assured t h at those who worshipped in

that manner were wrong ? The next time I went to

confession I perceived the necessity o f accusing
, .

’
myself of doubts against the Faith The priest s .
!

astonishment was unbounded but on learning t h at

, ,

I read no books but Té lé maq ue h e t o ld me not to

,

trouble my foolish head with such subj ects gave me ,

'

”
absolution and did not even interdict the book .

O ur N orthern coldness is less fortunate Télé .

maque su f fers m uch in E nglish eyes from its a uthor s

’

faith fulness to h is own literary canons O nly at rare .

moments does its style rise t o warmth and brilliancy

o fcolouring For the most part F é n e lo n pre fers the
.

amiable to the surprisin g or the marvellous grace ful ,

tranquillity to hard endeavour harmony is his watch

word and serenity his peculiar note — not the serenity
that comes from victory over strong emotions b ut ,

the peaceful e fllo re s ce n ce that has never known a

struggle H is o w n style carries to perfection a quality
.

he much admired in others that noble and ethereal

,
 TE L E MAQU E 15 7

diction which sets n o foot o n earth but like the , ,

divinities o f fable w ings i t s course lightly through

,

the air And he pays for this aloofness by m onotony

.
’
.

’
There is little to arrest the reader s mind The .

weightiest incid ents rise to the surface and sink

again without a splash ; and as the tale draws on the , ,

force o fi ts most vigorous passages is smothered more

and more under the cadence o f the words as they ,

fall in one unending stream of soft and even melody .

( Yet there i s a curious richness in this prose s o full

Of rhythm and harmony that breaks at every instant
into verse as it drags itself along i t s slow and weary
,

way fainting under an overload o f epithets ) Its

, .

periods have the ease and fulness of one who while ,

dri fting down the stream o f h is fancy w as ever ,

mindful of Augustine s rule — E loc utionis p ulckritudinem

’

re rum ra as s umit
’'

s i occurrerit, v i i
p ,i n on curcz deco ris
all naturally and unconsciously he stretches o ut his
hand and takes it For F é n e lo n at once a man of
.
,

genius and a man O f rank claimed his double pri v I ,

lege o f peerage le ft scrupulous accuracy to the pro

,

fe s s i o n al writers or to such purblind critics as had no

’
taste for the S ublime ; and indulged himself in a
nonchalant freedom sometimes to day resented in the -

Land o fE quality as savouring both o fliterary heresy

,

and of aristocratic impertinence But it was this .

independence O f established order that made him a

discoverer o f the possibilities o f language ; he is o n e
of the first o f his countrymen to make music in h i s
prose the first to treat it as o f itself a thing of
,
 TE L E MAQU E I
.
59
’
success ; his landscapes di f
fer from his mas ters by all
the gulf that separates the m o dern from the ancient
”
world . Greek literature says Schi ller w as na i f
, ,
!
' '

but ours is s e ntimental die Ali en empfanden natii rlic/z ,

”
wi r aber e mpfi nden das N atii rlicke
, , The Greeks had
.

S een no sp ecial char m in natural scenery be cause to ,

them all things alike were natural the seas and ,

forests o f creat e d nature no more s o than the sculp

t ure d glories o fcreative Art But F an clon headed a
.

long school of writers with whom the N atural and

the A rtificial stood i n sharpest contrast ; he was the
prophet o fan E xodus back to rustic simplicity away ,

out O f the E gypt of the seventeenth century whe re ,

N ature had become the foil of man the humble back

,

ground o f his dignity and pride abandoned to the

,
’
gardener and the architect Round Calypso s grotto
.

Té lé maq ue s aw no marble columns no strangely ,

lopped trees no artificial rockeries or cascades only

,

a cavern hollowed out o f the rock adorned wi th ,

many shells and pebbles and tapestried with a vine .

And in the blessed land o f B aetica F enelon s vision

,
’

within a vision a common w ealth s o ethereal as to be

,

inimitable even at Sale n t um the very art of archi

,

tecture was unknown fo r the inhabitants never built

a house It was enough for them to be sheltered
.

from the wind and rain they would not bind them
selves too closely to the earth by building dwellings
that would last beyond their lives .

Thus there enters a note o f polemical bitterness

into F enelon s pictures o fthe Golden Age His love
’
.
16 0 F R A N C O IS D E F E NE L O N
of N ature was not wholly single hearted with h i s -
;
invectives against sumptuous gardens and rich
!

parterres mingles the childish petulance o f Perdita

among her gilli v o rs needing t o be remind e d that
,

We marry
A ge ntl e r sci on to th e wil de st stoc k
An d make c o nce iv e a b ar k o fbas e r k ind
B y bud O fnob l e r race th is i s an art
W h ich doe s ch ange nature mend it rath e r , , , b ut
Th e art its e l fis nature .

Already in Té lé maq ue are traces o f the morbid

spirit o f the coming century powerless to enj oy a ,

forest solitude without thanking God it was not in a

city o r to admire the foliage of a tree W
,
ithout pluck
ing a switch to belabour the back o fmankind O nly .

t oo often does F é n e lo n s N ature approach the veiled

’

and shadowy goddess o f the preaching Rouss eau ;

She is a lifeless dead imagining— the s um Of all the
,

qualities that man has not She is a p attern o f .

s ilence to his vain discourses o f frugal manners to ,

h i s spendthrift richness of generous bounty to his

,

grasping selfishness .

A view o f N ature s o amiably imperfect bears the

marks o f poetical weak ness on its face F enelon s .
’

landscapes have their beauty but it is beauty only o f , .

a superficial kind ; they are a sentimental gloss on

his teachings a decorative adj unct ~
, t o his story ,

h o riz ons
f ormé s d p s o uhait o ur le p lais i r des y eux .

E xcept perhaps f
o r Ph i loctetes farewell to Lemnos ’

, ,
’
and the sweet waters that his misery found s o bitter ,
 TE LE MAQU E 16 1

there i s no sign in Té lé maq ue o fthat inward modern

feeling fo r N ature which converts a landscape into a
mood bids Rousseau appeal to trees and flowers as
,

accomplices in his emotions and creates o ut of o n e

,

country scene a Paradise for the hopes o f Werther ,

but fo r his despondency a Hell

, , .

And yet the final victory o f N ature owes not a

little to Té lé maq ue H ere as in much else its
.
, ,

author was a prophet fated to lead others to a

,

Promised Land which his o w n feet might never

,

tread It was F enelon who in a Golden Age o f

.
,

art i fi ci ali ty first preached the graciousness o f simple

,

N ature F enelon whom Rousseau made his idol an d

, ,

— i s not the writer O f the Nouv e lle H elo is e a lineal

ancestor o fWordsworth ?
 C AM B R AI 16 3

in Louis gift was n o t without its geographical thorns

, .

Quite half the diocese lay altogether beyond the

frontiers of France and F é n e lo n s administration had
,
’

much to suffer from its local government the j ealous ,

Hainault E states And matters became far worse

.

with the outbreak o f the War o fthe Spanish Succes

sion N ow fo r several years h is diocese was a principal
.

th eatre of the war the great battles of Malplaquet and

,

Denain being fought within its borders N or were .

the inhabitants o fCambrai — Flemings not Frenchmen

in their language their habits their modes o fthought
, ,

- very eager to we lcome an Archbishop born in

s o utherly P erigord and coming to them straight from
,

Versailles O n his first appearance he overawed

.
,

them by his elaborate courtesies and delicate fine

gentleman airs perhaps to o he did n o t hide his lo w , ,

Opinion o ftheir capacities or his amusement at their

blunt straightforwardness O f S peech There were no .

refinements o f piety at Cam brai he told Mme de , .

Maintenon nor indeed was there refinement of any

, ,

kind ; the vi rtues o fthe natives were as coarse fi b re d -

as their manners The ecclesiastical arrangements

.

in particular s truck him by their primitive simplic ity

,

the nuns received whom they would in their parlours ,

without a thought Of gratings o r enclosure and many ,

o f the country priests engaged a fiddler o n winter

evenings and gave dances to their parishioners and

,

friends But on the whole F enelon thought th e

.
, ,

moral level fairly high ; the heavy Flemings were

neither as virtuous nor as vicious as the French but ,
 C AMB R AI 16 5

was treated exactly as became his station in th e

world .

To certain more rigid spirits indeed F é n e lo n s

’

, ,

administration seemed almost wrong fully tolerant

— une ure o liti ue said Bossuet full o f concession
p p q , ,

to the prej udices o f the Flemish law courts o r to -

,

those detestably irregular practitioners in souls the ,

Jesuits and the other Religious O rders B ut as .

,

F é n e lo n urged in sel f-defence the Friars and the

,

Douai Parliament had proved too strong for every

prelate who stood up against them ; nor w as it wise
t o claim the full privileges o f a Gallican Bishop in a

j ealous and newly conquered country where the

Gallican Canon Law did n o t run At Cambrai he .
,

said there w as no room for tranchots slashing young

, ,

reformers red h o t from the Sorbonne All local .

customs down to the humblest were handled with a

, ,

delicate touch as the priest of J ume n t found to h i s

,

cost when he quarrelled with his flock fo r j oining in

,

a cer tain Church procession with drums and flags and

-

arrows in their hands Speak to the parishioners

.
‘

very severely in my name Fé n e lo n wrote to the

,
’

Rural Dean but also try to make the rector s e e

,
‘

that he will never gain any authority over them ,

unless he learns to meet them half way over these -

little pardonable eccentricities of usage .

’

N or in fulfilment o f the d uties of his o fli ce did

, ,

F enelon shrink fro m their very exuv iae Thus in .

March 17 00 he w rote to the Intendant of Hainault

, , ,

proposing to restore the ancient discipline o f the

16 6 F R A N C O I S D E F EN E L O N
Church with regard t o the eating o f eggs in Lent ,

because after several years indulgence a prescri ption ’

w as arising in its favo u r j ust as had already happened

,

in the case Of b utter milk and cheese ,

I am sorry, .
,
’

he said to trouble you with these tiresome details

,
‘
,

and fear I may cause inconvenience to many excellent

people ; but that we Bishops are o ften bound to do
in spite o f ourselves— besides i f we once proved un ,

faith ful to th e law w h o would be left to k eep it ?

,
’

Yet h i s heart w as not in this religion o f the

buttery hatch but was resolved that Cambrai at
-
, ,

l east should not S hare the common impression that a

,

Bishop was a rich gentleman w h o lived in a Palace ,

and governed severely and did n o thi n g use ful except

, ,

give dispensations and blessings and indulgences .

And it was n o t m e re lv fo r his spiritual services that

he deserved the praises o f St Simon ; being o n the .

best o f terms with the Governor o f Cambrai and the

Intendant with the nobles and Government o fficials
, ,

not only o f his diocese but Of all Flanders F enelon , ,

used his influence with them to beg many temporal

favours for his peopl e H e got his vi llage school
.

masters exempted from service in the army he sav ed

the farmers and t h eir horses from forced labours in
the winter and even warned the Ministry at Paris
,

that that devastated country could be the theatre o f

no more campaigns .

F enelon governed his house h old o n the same

principles as his diocese There he lived say s
, .
,
 C AMB RA I 16 7

St Simon with all the piety and dignity o f a true

.
,

Pastor yet with the splendour of a gre at nobleman

, ,

who had renounced nothing and w as still on excellent ,

terms with the world But his magnificence mad e .

no o n e angry for it was kept up chiefly for the sake

,

of o thers and w as exactly proportionate to his place ;

,

with all its l uxuries and courtly ease his house ,

’
remained a true Bishop s Palace breathing the ,

strictest d iscipline and restraint And o f all this .

chastened dignity the Archbishop was himsel f the

,

ever present ever inimitable model in all that he

-
,
-
,

did the perfect Ch urchman in all things th e high ,

bred man o f rank in all things also the author o f

, , ,

Té lémaq ue .

But St Simon only j udged from hearsay An

. .

observer o fa very di fferent order B o s s ue t s gossiping

’

and inquisitive secretary the Abbé Le Dieu managed , ,

to penetrate to the Cambrai Palace and has sketched ,

i t s master from the li f

e Finding himsel fat that city .

’
in September 17 04 a fe w months a fter B o s s ue t s
, ,

death he called on F én e lo n to pay his respects and

, , ,

ti ming his visit opportunely was invited by the

,

Archbishop to remain to dinn er O n arriving at .

!

”
the dining hall proceeds this incomparable narrator
-
, ,

we fo und the other guests awaiting u s washed o ur ,

hands without ceremony and the Archbishop taking , ,

the head o f the table said Grace M de Chanterac , . .

sat o n h is left hand the rest Of the party placed ,

themselves indiscriminately I taking a h umble seat ,

among them and s o up had already been han ded

, ,
 C AM B R AI 16 9

though he had only that morn ing returned from a

three weeks visitation he did not S how the slightest
-
’

S ign o f fatigue I think that it is really chagri n

.

which gnaws him for kindly and courteous as he

, ,
-

was he had an air of extreme mo rti fi cati o n and the

,

drawn face o f a St Charles 1 When we were alone

. .

together he talked o n none but S piritual subj ects as

, ,

though he wished to keep up his reputation o f a

man altogether mystical and holy wrapped up entirely ,

in another world .

After dinner we adj ourned to his great state bed

,
-

chamber where he never sleeps and the Archbishop

, , ,

taking a chair be fore the fire began to S ign some ,

documents which had to be sent o f f at once Co f

fee .

was then brought i n ; there was some fo r all and ,

the Archbishop gave orders that mine should be

served with a napkin The conversation t urned .

’
chiefly o n th e Archbishop s recent pastoral visitation ,

and from what w as said I gathered that he w as the

only prelate in Flanders looked upon as capable o f
doing much fo r religion Presently the Archbishop .

left us to visit M de Montb eron t h e Go v e rn o r o f

, .
,

the place with whom he i s o n very friendly terms

, ,

and left me free to wander about and inspect the

”
buildin gs O fthe palace .

With these the Abb e was much impressed espe ’

ci all with the superb edifice f brick faced with

‘
y o ,

stone work elaborately carved which F é n e lo n had

-
,
’

1
S t C h arl e s B o rr ome o, th e famous asc e ti c and
. r e for m
ing A rch b ish o p o fM il an i n th e S i xt e e nth c e ntury .
1
7 0 F R ANCOI S DE F EN E L O N
put up o n the site O fthe old council hall and library -
,

destroyed by the great fire o fFebruary 16 9 7 though ,

perhaps a modern taste might have found its Renais

sance decorations sadly out o f keeping with their
h uge Gothic neighbour the Cat h e dral But in those , .

days neither Le Dieu n o r his betters thought much

o f medi a e val architecture ; did not F enelon himsel f

consider it the very type o f all that w as pretentious

and unmeaning a twin sister o f bombastic mere
,
-
,

tricious eloquence ?
Le Dieu h as much to say also of the interior , ,

arran gements o f th e palace o f its stables full o f , ,

post chaises in which s o many p o or co untry c urates

-
,

had travelled at their ease of its halls o f reception ,

’

with their beauti fully polished floors their marble

‘
,

chimney pieces their upholstery o f crimson velvet

-
,

fringed and garlanded with gold But he agrees .

’

with the Abb e Galet F é n e lo n s contemporary pane ,

’

ri s t that however grand and comm o dious the o ut

gy , ,

side the Archbishop s personal appointments were

,
’

mod est indeed ; in the meagre simplicity of his

private living rooms fitted up plainly in serge o f
-
,
‘
,
’

his dress a long violet cas s ock trimmed with scarlet

, ,

but without gold tassels or lace even o f his eccle ,

’

s i as t i cal vestments F enel on did homage to that

,

idea o fH oly Poverty whose act ual practice was fo r

’
bidden by his station in the world .

But for others F enelon loved to do things un p eu

largement to Obey the generous impulse O fa moment
,

and take the burdens o f h i s cl e rgy o n himsel f O ffe r ,

 C AM B RA I 17 1

to pay more taxes than he need or even squander ,

money o n the beggars whose appearance moved him .

Yet he could also practise a sounder economy held ,

a care ful audit of his household accounts s e t aside ,

large portions o fhis income fo r the starving soldiers ,

or the necessities o fhis diocese and seminary o r the ,

education of his nephews and their maintenance in

the army .

These last with o n e o r two o fhis old subordinates

,

o f the Preceptorship Langeron the witty and , ,

cheerful Little Ab bé O f h i s correspondence and

‘ ’

Dupuy or P ut e us the easy—chair in which o n e

,
’
‘

could be sure of finding rest at any moment formed ,

’

almost the whole o f F enelon s society during the ’

early days o f his disgrace At their head w as the .

Big Abbé o r Panta Pantal eon de Beaumont a

,
’

,
’

nephew scarcely younger than his uncle a j ovial ,

energetic personage not without learning though

, ,

‘
rather simple minded perhaps fo r at Cambrai we
-
, ,

all wear o ur hearts upon o ur sleeve To Beaumont .

’

as controller of the household and one o fthe Vi cars

General O fthe diocese many o fF enelon s letters are
’

addresse d uncle and nephew took counsel to gether

about appointments to the Seminary o r o n the
vagaries o f the Dean and Chapter o r again o n the , , ,

far more delicate matter o f the servan ts h o w they ,

mi ght introduce into the palace kitchen an assistant

to the S ick head cook without running the risk o f
-
,

hurting his feelings by appearing t o give him a s ue

cessor
.
 C AM B R AI 17 3

de Beauvilliers a list of those who might sa fely come ,

as well as write to Cambrai At first there w as good

, .

reason for precaution ; but as time went o n and , ,

Louis showed no fresh aggressiveness fear Of his ,

postal detectives dwindled to a pleasant sense o f

mystery honoured only by a little cryptic language
,

and copious use o fnoms de p lume A fter six years o f .

waiting Chevreuse ventured over to Cambrai from

,

his not very distant country house of Chaulnes and -

,

later received F enelon there o n an annual visit

, ,

p aying however
,
fo r this last privilege o n his ret urn
, ,

to Court by some weeks quarantine from Burgundy s

’ ’

,
’

society O therwise F en e lo n s sentence o f banish

.
,
’

ment w as strictly enforced its only formal relaxation ,

in eighteen years being a permit to go t o the Baths

o f Bourbon and even so late as 17 13 he had ,

to apologize to the Minister fo r having s eemed to

wish to visit a sick niece in Paris .

For with the knitting up again of friendships cam e

no slackening in the enmities Louis X IV was . .

adamant and Mme de Maintenon made no S ign for

, .

good o r evil nor is it any great reproach to F é n e lo n

,

that he had no thought o f reconciliation with the

Triumvi rs o fQuietism There is a world o fmeaning
.

in one of his questions to Le Dieu Wh o helped

M de Meaux to die
.

But a pleasanter picture is presented by his co r

respondence — long his one great relief from the
1
As Le D i e u h ims e l f s aw , th e q u e sti o n impli e d th at
B o ss ue t h ad a gr eat deal to re pe nt of .
17 4 F R A N C O IS D E F EN E L O N

intolerable ennui o f a life stigmatized by himself as

slow and sedentary and monotonous as the ticking of
a clock There he listened wi th tireless patience
.

to the irrepressible Chevreuse spreading himsel fout ,

over realms of futile ingenuity where theories o n ,

gout j ostled theories o n Jansenism and my good ,

‘

Archbishop s advice was asked on every kind of

’ ’

question betwe en the Interior Li fe and sales o f land

and mortgages between the probable fortune of a
,

Cambrai heiress and the moral guidance o fthe D uke

o f Burgundy And Fé n e lo n s a uthority m ust be ’
.

exerted in as many spheres to persuade the Duke ,

( who had oft en been cheated ) n o t to draw up h i s

children s marriage settlements himself but to leave

’
-
,
’
them to a conveyancer afraid of his own shadow
‘
.

H e must prevent the incorrigible theorist from

applying to his daughters i n law either the re pre s - -

’
sive O r the laissez -faire system Of education by
‘ ’

insisting o n a happy union of b oth H e must beg .

the D uke bring some steady method and applica

tion into his a f
rhetorical artifice alone
a
fairs and l e ve hair splitting and
,

Yo uwaste t o o much time

.
-

’
o n everything he wrote you are not slow but y o u ‘
, ,

fly rapidly from one thi n g to another and yet let ,

each one carry y o u t o o far Sobriety is what you .

chiefly need sobriety o f thought and language and

, ,

that is only t o be gained by prayer you should pro

claim a solemn fast from argument and cut things
short from mo m to night .
’

As the father sinned through logical irrelevancy ,

 C AM B R AI 17 5

so indecisiveness was the capital error o f the s o n .

The Vidame d Ami e ns could neither enj oy the world

’

nor quit it b ut halted uneasily a Mr Facing both

, , .
-

ways between the life o f pleasure and devotion

,
.

Him F enelon pursued with a genial unrelenting

patience ran after him the faster the more he fled
, ,

and twitted him with the mingled conscientiousness

and terror that used to bring him to the Cam b rai
Pala ce door and send him away again rej oicing ,

whe n ever the Archbishop w as from home Fo r the .

Vida m e was not without a likeness to that elder

brother who once had written to F é n e lo n to be g to
be excluded from h i s prayers as he was a fraid that
,

they were curing him of a t o o delicious vice .

But when the young man married and reformed ,

F enelon began to ti ghten his grasp none the less ,

because the s o n showed signs o f following in his

father s traces and losing himself among letters and
’

Yo u will be
’
documents and stewards reports .
‘

failing in your duty to Go d and man wrote Mentor ,

’

‘
if you bury under a pile o f papers the talents that
’

were given y o u fo r your country s service You .

cannot choose your o wn path in li fe — i t is appointed

fo r you by your rank and for S ins against one s
’

worldly station there is no excuse and no forgiveness .

Get a good secretary and leave the details to h i m ;

read and pray and go o u t in to the world s e e others
and be seen o fthem — that is your vocation as it is ,

mine t o be your tormentor .

’

The same co unsels are repeated I n a warmer tone

 C A M B R AI 17 7

he S peaks to a charming and ill ustrious correspondent ,

w h o did not love the world too little but t o o much ,

.

Mme de Grammont wi fe o fthe hero o fthe Grammont

.
,

Memoirs was famous fo r her wit and beauty and

, ,

vain o f her great position at the Co urt To her .

F enelon uses a tone O f gay decorous pleasantry that ,

’
‘
little air o f play ful flatteri ng banter he was s o
anxious that h i s nephew should adopt towards the
great He rallied her on the petulant unre asonable
.

ness in hersel f, which made her neighbours failings

seem intolerable o r he called her a good watch that
soon runs down and must o ften be wo und up by
,

th e key o f pi ety ; or sometimes he lapsed into the

tumid style o f Mme Guyon and spoke O f her as .
,

a nau ghty child that must be swaddled and given

,

its soup and put to bed .

No t indeed that he woul d have her become the

, ,

S port o fevil tongues all t oo prone to make a mock

,

of v irtue She might repair the breaches which the

.
‘

world had made by stray quarters o f an hour o f

’

meditation entered upon at times wh en her friends

,

th ought her more becomingly engaged at her ,

dressin g table o ut dri v i ng o r even at dinner d urin g

-
, ,
‘

that first course which hunger ge nerally devours in

O r this Director who was himself a fellow
’
silence .
,

su fferer from la demangeais on de la Critique finds her

’

means o f mo rt i fi cati o n in the little tedious duties of

Society bids her remember that God o ften hides
,
‘

H is Presence under bores and imposes on her ,

’

caustic lips a self denying ordinance o f silence

-
I .
‘

12
17 s F RA N C O IS DE F E N E LO N
’
do not think he wrote that you can possibly talk
, ,
‘

t o o little provided you are silent o ut o f deference to

,

others I should be charmed to hear that you never

.

opened your mouth except to praise or edify your

neighbours ; though I am sure that if y o u lay this ,

constraint o n yoursel f y o u will never talk at all and

, ,

will find listening very dull .

’

There i s many a gleam o fthis breadth and humo ur

’
in F enelon s letters to another lady Mme de Mont , .

b é ro n wi fe of his friend the Governor o f Cambrai

, ,

the most doleful and exacting of all his penitents .

For this poor woman had man y troubles her husban d s ,

’

debts her o w n ill health and worst O f all a j ealou s

,
-
, , , ,

unrestful feverishness o f temper which turned I n ,

religion to a wearing scrupulosity and in daily li fe ,

became a martyrdom to social usage and to a certain

’
super excellent politeness
- O f the more fanciful .

’
terrors F é n e lo n made short work For you he .
,

wrote doubts and scruples are a forbidden fruit ; let

,
‘

them bu z z in your im agination like bees in a hive ; if

you excite them they will get angry and sting you
, ,

but if you leave the m alone y o u will be quit fo r the ,

buzz ing and the fear If they come upon y o u in .

prayer time try to follow the example o fSt Bernard

-
, .
,

who o n being assai led in the middle of a sermon by

,

admiration o f his own eloquence said to himself : ,

Vanity did n o t bring me here and vanity shall not ,

’
drive me hence And when her husband and her
.

doctor wished to prevent excessive church going -

,

Fé n e lo n loyally came to the ir assistance an d bade ,

 C AM B RAI 17 9

her sacrifice a sermon to her husband s wish and ’

fast from masses j ust as Chevreuse had been told to

’

,
”
fast from reasoning In future he said I shall
.
, ,

j udge o f your spiritual by yo ur bodily state and not ,

believe that Go d i s pleased wit h you until I know ,

the doctor i s But I S hall think you a very Saint in

.

Paradise when y o u can sleep well at night an d be

, ,

”
free o fscruples in the day time - .

N evertheless F enelon did not speak always in

,

these breezy tones Like h i s other penitents Mme

.
, .

de Montb eron must morti fy the flesh and lay the axe ,

to the root o f her favourite vices O ver—re fi n e me n t .

o f manner must give wa to simplicity and striking

y ,

extremes to a mean n o t golden but dowdy N ay , , .

,

this all-governing Director will descend t o the details

of her wardrobe and bids her dress neither well
,

enough to be above — n o r badly enough to be beneath

— the reach o f criticism but in a way that would
,

suggest an absence o f all taste and give her the ,

appearance o fa tradesman s wife ’

.

From her as o n e of the chief and most interior

,
‘
’

Of the penitents mo rt i fi catio n asked fo r more than

,

t ri fl e s it was no longer what it had been with Mme .

de Grammont o r the Vidame d Ami e n s a simple ’

discipline 3 health ful correction O f their faults but

, ,

widened into that whole system of sacrifice and death

to sel fwhich circled round the Maxims of the Saints .

The change o f spirit was wholly fo r the worse ; the

more F enelon le ft the solid earth the more did his ,

kindly reasonableness desert him the more he held ,

12 — 2
 C A MB R A I 18 1

come without a call were n o t my presence at such a

,
’

moment likely t o be a burden on the household .

Fo r Fé n elo n s Direction had done more than purge

’

Mme de Montb eron o f un s e lfi s h n e s s ; it had spell

.

bound her j udgment and eaten away her will till she
could exist no longer for an hour without h i m .

Cursed be he that maketh flesh his arm was a text ,

O ften but vainly in F enelon s mouth ; the history o f

, ,
’

Mme de Mo n tb é ro n s conscience with its nightmare

.
’

terrors i ts frantic yearnings after the Director and

,

no less frantic repugnances is the history Of the ,

penalty paid by all those who yield up t o another th e

key o f their heart and listen to the precepts O f a
,

man as always and necessarily the oracles of God .

Let us hurry away from these piti ful scenes to

company with whom F é n e lo n could again be human .

Fo r F enelon I s not to be found whole and entire

among his penitents and priests at Cambrai he was
too good a Frenchman says M de Broglie ever to , .
,

forego the national taste fo r gaiety and wit and con

versation Throughout his exile he still kept touch
.

with Paris corresponded with many men o fmark and

,

bade them welcome at his palace To Cambrai .

came the famo us and eccentric Peterborough and , ,

later a l o ng train o f diplomatists o n their way t o

,

U trecht amon g them perhaps an Old acquaintance

, , , ,

M Prior an E nglishman known througho ut E urope

.
,

for his wit and parts And fro m o ur own country .

’

came a stranger figure a young Scottish Jacobite , ,

18 2 F R A N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

known in France as the Chevalier de Ramsai who , ,

a fter scouring Protestant Christendom in search

O f a religion found it at Cambrai o n the lips o f
,

F enelon and settled there — a kind o f Boswell with

,

o ut the genius — to stenograph his mas t e r s t ab le talk

’ ’
-
.

But the chie f among those outside friends w as a

certain Chevalier Destouches a brother O ffi ce r of his
,
-

nephew Gabriel altho ugh already entering on middle

,

life The bond between them was entirely mundane

.
,

for Destouches though singularly pleasing in manner

,

and not without pretensions to scholarship was a ,

great glutton and worse things beside s — indeed as

, ,

F enelon said there was nothing respectable in his

,

manner o f life except its absence o f hypocrisy H e .

was himsel f a little puzzled at t h e closeness o f their

friendship .Why he once asked should an o ld
!
, ,

Bishop be so fond o f a man o f your profanity unless ,

it is that your character has two S ides you are an

evil genius to yoursel f but true an d noble to your
,

friends
’
But even F enelon had n o hope o f the Chevalier s
reformation unless indeed the pe ccant bachelor
, , ,

became u xorious and fell into the cl utches o f a

,

masterful wi fe Fo r once the great Director ac

.

quiesces in the moral s tatus quo goes to theology ,

only for j ests about this sluggard s o sunk in poly

phagy that Irresistible Grace itself could hardly
’

save him and preaches a doctrine no more in terior

,
‘

than that of Horace and the p cirv oque beatus a strict ,

re i me and many suppers suppressed

g .
 CA M B R A I 18 3

And in return these letters too light and delicate

, , ,

of structure to bear transplanting to the h o rtus s iccus

o f an extract give us Fe n e lo n in his brightest
'

, ,

happiest vein — F enelon as he appeared during these

latter years at Cambrai no longer the condescending
,

aristocrat no longer und uly disquieted for his own

, ,

or others Perfection no longer merely a great man

’

, ,

but as his people proudly boasted become a man

, ,

both great and small .

And the friendship with this o fficer is a pleasant

appendix to St Simon s panegyrics on o ur hero for
.
’

h i s never ending kindness to the tr0 0 ps brought

-

through Cambrai by the progress o f the Spanish

War There th e D uke paints him moving amon g
.

the sick and the whole th e known and the unknown

, ,

the o f ficers and the common soldiers w ith a know ,

ledge o f the world which understood how to gain

them all by treating each in his due degree and yet ,

a true and watchful shepherd o ftheir souls as constant ,

in his ministrations to the humblest as though he had

no other business in life An d he was n o less care ful
.

for their bodily comfort lo dged o fficers innumerable

,

in his palace tended the wounded among them

, ,

sometimes for many months until their enti re re ,

co v e r
y supplied
, the hospitals with costly drugs and
endless streams o f food and delicacies sent out fo r , ,

all their abundance in such perfect order that eve ry

, ,

patient had exactly what he needed And in return .

, ,

they sang his praises even in th e antechambers o f

 C HAPTER X I

B URGUND Y AND P O L ITI CAL R E FO R M

Ni s r D o minus aedifi cav e rit do m um, i n v an um lab o rav e
runt q ui aedifi cant e am -P s c xx vi
. . .

F li fe at Cambrai was peaceful enough Fenelon s ,

’

latter years were overshadowed by the last and

g loomiest o fLouis X I V s wars This was the War o f
.
’

t he Spanish S uccession undertaken in the hope o f

,

per forming the impossible o f gaining the whole of ,

that vast and heterogeneous empire fo r Louis grand ’

son ,
Burgundy s ne x t brother the Duke o f Anj ou
’

, .

Against him was arrayed a Grand Alliance o f all the

Powers who dreaded the time when the Pyrenees
mi ght no longer be : the E mpire Prussia and most , ,

o f the German States together with the two great

,

maritime enemies o f France Holland and o ur own ,

count ry furious with Louis fo r having recognised the

,

O ld Pretender as King of E ngland o n the death o f ,

James I I (September
.
,

E ven i fthe French King s hands had been cleaner

’

and he had restored by a strict observance o ftreaties

!
t h at belie f in his honour which it was s o important
,

18 5
186 F R A N C O I S D E F EN E L O N

to re establish the War o f Succession wou ld have

-
,

been a crime Louis at the very height o fhis power

.
, ,

could ill have endured the strain o fcampaigns whose

theatre shi fted from Calabria to Ghent from Gibraltar ,

t o the Danube and required in the one year 17 08 no

, , ,

less than eight of his armies in the field B ut no w .

,

the tide o f fortune was flowing steadily against the

French Blenheim (17 04 ) taught Louis that no man
.

might call himself great o r happy before h i s death ;

Ramillies (17 06 ) lost Spain her possessions in the
N etherlands Turin (17 07 ) the Milanese ; in the next
,

year her N eapolitan kingdom fell without a struggle ,

and Louis was driven to sue fo r peace B ut peace .

was refused and in 17 08 the o ld King girdin g

, , ,

himsel f up fo r a mighty e ffort despatched the D uke

,

o fB urgundy to command the army in Flanders .

With the appearance o f his o ld pupil in the fi eld ,

F enelon s more personal interest in the war began .

H e had always been anxious that the Prince should

serve a d Burgundy had already gone through the
,
n
insi gnificant campaigns of 17 02 and 17 08 with some
small credit to his name and great advan tage to his
character B ut between 17 03 find 17 08 matters had
.

altered imme asurably for the worse th en France

still cou ld boast that fo r more than half a century
s h e had not known what it was to be de f eated now
her forces were utterly demorali z ed and the army ,

o f Flanders worst o fall .

Yet Burgu ndy had a W orse misfortune than the

weakness o fhis army ; often as Louis X IV blundered .
 FE N E LO N

r
!f o m a n e ng ra z/
'
ter s
mg af
’

en )
B U R G U N D Y A N D P O LI T I C AL R E F O R M 18 7

in his choice o f men he never made a more fatal

,
'

error than when he named the D uke o f Vend ome

Chief o f the Sta f f and virtual leader o f his grandson .

Beside these two fire and water Were congenial

elements . The Prince had grown up mild and
devout ; the General was o n e o f the most pro fligate
cynics in the kingdom and allowed his men all the
,

license that he took himself Burgundy w as timid .

and i rresolute a man o fbooks and many precautions

, .

Vend ome was a great winner o fvictories and the idol

o f the common soldier but reckless and indolent
, ,

with no settled plans no care fo r detail believing

, ,

all he wished to believe and treating the W hole art o f

,

war in t h e spirit o fa gamble .

Between these two there could be nothing but

discord,
deliberations more like a tumult than a
‘

sober Council o f War Di v ided counsels lost them

.
’

the great battle o f O udenarde (11th July ) kept ,

them inactive while the enemy invested Lille (12 t h

August ) and once invested thwarted all serious
, ,

e ffort to relieve it When Burgundy at the end o f

.
,

N ovember was recalled to Versailles the town o f

, ,

Lille had already fallen ; a fter a few more weeks o f

heroic defence the citadel also surrendered and the
, ,

great barrier fortress between Paris and the N ether

lands was wholly i n the hands o f the enemy .

Vend ome would have been fo r ever disgraced had ,

not his friends thrown the greater blame o n Burgundy .

”
!
A s fo r o ur Little Prince cried F enelon his reputa
, ,

tion has been damaged incalculably ; not a soul has a

 18 8 F R AN CO I S D E F EN ELO N
word in h is favour And Saint Simon though an
.
,

admirer o f Burgundy is more luridly dramatic ; it ,

!

w as thought disgrace ful not to load the Prince s

’

name with abuse even within the precincts o f the

,

royal Palace .

U nreasonable as was this verdict when taken as a ,

whol e no man kn ew better than F é n e lo n that his

,

o ld pupil was much to blame I n a series of letters .

written to Burgu ndy at the seat of war he s e t down ,

‘
simply in the manner of a histo rian the principal ’

charges generally brought against him First his .

,

incapacity as a commander ; his alternate feeble

defiance and still feebler trucklings to Vend ome ; his
irresolute precautions and unstable resolves ; his wish
never to fight except with a full certitude o f victory .

N ay F enelon w as a fraid a fter O udenarde he would

,

remove his precious person from the army as though ,

‘

a field o f battle were a picnic to be deserted at the ,

’

first sound o fdanger .

In the army he had made himself neither popular

n o r respected was seldom seen on horseback did not
, ,

know his o fficers by sight H e shut himself up in .

his tent to read and pray was ted his time on little ,

childish amusements even ta lked t o o freely over his

,

wine And worst of all he degraded religion in the

.
, ,

eyes o f the Libertines by his narrow and timorous

.

devotions H e scrupled to spend a n ight in the

.

guest house o fa convent and would not risk a battle

-
, ,

l est he should send man y s o uls post haste to H ell

'

- .

!
Your piety, wrote F enelon in despair tries to ,
!
 B U R GU N DY A N D P O LI T I C AL R E F O R M 18 9

govern an army like a nunnery and wears itsel f o ut ,

on little trifling details W hile it neglects everything

,

that is essential to your honour and to the glory o f

the arms o f France .

It is possible that this exceeding bitterness was

inspired by a pang o f sel freproach - I hear that .
!

o u feel annoyance at the education which I gave

y
ou he says in o n e o f h i s letters ; and certainly
y ,
’
more than once the pupil s scruples are a distorted
N o r can
’
reproduction o f the master s teaching .

F enelon well h ave ignored how o ften pop ular outcry

coupled his o w n with his pupil s name ; the modern ’

critics Wh o make F enelon and Burgundy the text o f

,

their sermon on the evils o fa to o religious education ,

were forestalled by the soldiers who cried o ut Télé

maque as their commander passed by o r by the ,

gutter po ets who f looded Paris with such rhymes

as these

Ac k now l e dge your pu pil , my lor d o fCam b rai ,

‘Vh e n L ill e is b lock ade d, h e s far from th e fray,
’

I n action ta k e s n e ve r a part .

Hi s face i s s o dol e ful , h i s mi e n i s s o s ad,

Th at— answe r me — i s not th e sanctifi e d lad
A Qui e tist afte r yo u r h e art ?

Yet this charge o f e x cessive religiosity has o ften

been indiscriminately and un fairly pressed Bur .

gundy w as no follower of Mme Guyon n o r w as his .

,

back brave with the needle work o fnoodledom ; his

’
-

w as a religion all terrors and scruples and sick room -

austerities the melancholia o f a miniature Pascal

, .

H e had never out grown the nervous disorders o f his

B U R G U N D Y A N D P O LI T I C AL R E F O R M 19 1

N ever fo r a moment did he that his means and se e

his end were in flagrant contradiction that manly ,

independence o f thought and will is something more

than mere absence o fchi ldishness H e plied his two .

lieutenants with orders t o enlarge sustain redress

‘
, , ,

the Prince s mind and take it in turns to tell him

’
‘

the truth H e pressed into his service the D uchess

’
.

o f Burgundy a charming and devoted wi f

( e though ,

more o f a E ucharis than an Antiop ) even Mme de e

,
.

Maintenon and the King Fro n this benevolent .

Inquisition no act o f Burgundy li fe was safe .

Though fast approaching his thi i e t h year his .

,

studies amusements opinions were all minutely con

, ,

trolled ; n o r did F enelon scruple to interfere in

matters y et more personal and regulate his behaviour
,

to his wife Well might Mme de Maintenon declare

. .

that if the Duke o fBurgundy had his defects it w as

, ,

not for lack o fhonest counsellors

For a time it seemed as though these labours
would have their reward In April 17 11 Go d
.
, , ,

often most merciful when H e seems to st rike most

”
cruelly , took away the wretched Dauphin at a
sudden blow ; and le ft B urgundy heir—apparent to
the Crown The change of outward dignity was
.

great but the inner personal change w as greater ;

, ,

with the death o f the father disappeared the most

blighting influence o n the li fe o f the s o n For the .

Dauphin utterly v acuous and insignificant in himsel f

, ,

had been the friend o f Vend ome and the most

ro fl i at e nobles at the Co urt He w a the rallying
p g s .
19 2 F R A N C O IS D E F EN E L O N
'

point o f all w h o s n e e re d at Burgundy fo r his tactless

virtue or dreaded the conscienti o us ze a
, l o f a Prince ,

fo r whom no sweeping re f orm was t o o drastic no ,

petty ecclesiastical detail too small — who was pledged

at once to redress the miseries o fthe common people
and to force o n the Court a stri cter observance o f
Lent Th e Dauphin alive it was easy to sco f
.
,
f; the
Dauphin dead and the King over seventy the world ,

made haste to humble itself before i t s coming master .

In th e glories of their master Beauvilliers and ,

Chevreuse sh ared to the full but the great est change

of all was in the position o f F enelon The late .

Dauphin had hated him almost more th an he Hated

Beauvilliers ; the new Dauphin begged fo r h i s recall
from exile as the one supreme favour beside which ,

all others w ere as nothing The prayer was not

.

granted though Louis showed some signs of relent

,

ing an d all those courtiers who had n o t yet made

their advances became busy with le tters and visits
to Cambrai scattering a few grains of seed in the
,
‘

fut ure f
On F enelon s o w n side neither ambition nor phil
’

an th ro p was allowed to sleep N ow more eagerly

y .
,
’
than ever he watched such scraps o f government
,
‘

as came before him in his frontier diocese and po sted -

,

Reports o n the state o f t h e country to Versailles .

They all centre round the War and its appalling evils .

It is intolerable he cried that a struggle entered

, ,
‘
,

upon only fo r a point of honour should be still ,

continued when it bri ngs us nothing but disgrace

,
.
B U R GU N D Y AN D P O LI TI C AL R E FO R M 19 3

We must lower o ur heads and sue fo r peace for the ,

whole Kingdom is o n e great beleaguered city— all

o f us are prisoners o f war w e are at o ur Caudine —

Forks .
’

F enelon s words are strong but they are borne out

’

by his o w n experience H e had been forced to turn

.

his palace and seminary into a hospital Year a fter .

year he threw Open his granaries t o the starving ; fo r

‘
men would n o t fight unless they were fe d and, , ,

sooner than die they had taken t o pillage till the

, ,
’
country folk dreaded them more than the enemy .

O nly a timely advance from h i s own archiepiscopal

revenues had saved the garrison of St O mer from .

goi n g over in a body to the enemy as other regiments ,

had done E verywhere there was mutiny every

.
‘
,

where streams o f deserters ; the best fortified places

tumbled like a pack o fcards Yet the King and his .
’

Ministers shut their eyes and ruined the coun try ,

witho ut consulting it in order badly to carry o n a

,

useless war .

Fo r F enelon laid the whole blame o n Lou i s

shou lders ( H i s tyranny once the most prompt and
.
,

e fficacious o f govern ments was become the weakest ,

and the most behind hand busily occupied in doing

-
,

to day what should have been done t w o years ago

-
,

and hope ful o f accomplishing two years hence the

work that should have been begun to day ) Yet as - .
,

the sick man shrinks from the violent remedies that

are his only cure so Louis pride would hear of no
,
’

re form E ven now this formalist to whom re ligion

.
,

13
B U R G UN DY A ND P O L I T I C AL R E F O R M 19
5

decentralization o f the E xecutive which ever since , ,

h as been loud in the mouths of French re formers .

’
Yet i f many o f F é n e lo n s proj ects show the hand
o f the generous and large minded re f ormer whose -
!

sleepless humanity h ad noted the horrors of the

press gang and felt fo r the deserter and the galley
-
,

slave there are also traces not a fe w o f the moon

, , ,

light economics o f S ale nt um In t ime of peace the .

King must live o fhis o w n and if he we nt to war

‘
,

on some point o fpurely dynastic i mpo rt an ce h e must ,

’

pay fo r the luxury o u t of h is private revenues ,

together wi th such subsidies as his people might vote

’
him o ut of pure afl e ctio n And F é n e lo n falls i nto
'
‘
.

other errors more unpardonable H e stood aghast at .

that breaki ng up of the feudal organization of society

which had been the chief merit o f Louis reign ’
.

He resented almost in the spirit o f St Simon the

,
‘

.
,

royal policy o fhumbling the greatest nobles of France

be fore a mob o f middle class Ministers of kneading -
,

every rank and every station int o o n e ml p eup le en

’

toute égalzte Colberts and Louvois he would utterly

’
’ !

abolish — the King m ust be his own Prime Minister ,

aided only by his Councils o fState The aristocracy .

must lay aside their vexatious p rivileges and their

i dleness and take their right ful p lace at the head of
,

the nation Co mmerce and the Bar m ight be thrown

.

open to them but there must be no minglin g with

,
'

the people ; now more than ever t h e doors o f the

, ,

Peerage must be closely guarded and mé s allzances i n

’

either sex be checked It was not for F é n e lo n

.

l3 -
2
19 6 F R AN C O I S D E F E N E LO N
to that many a Pisgah is beset with mirage that
see ,

often the gorgeous vision o f the Future is no more

than the dressed up phantom of the Past
- .

N or had Burgundy the practical wisdom o r breadth

’

of mind necessary to correct the errors in his master s

perspective Real knowledge o f men w as not to be
.

looked for in a Prince o f whom his Jesuit Confessor

,

proudly records that h e was not content to possess

the mere substance o fmodesty but must make public ,

profession o fhis virtue by a demeanour that put to the

bl ush the most irreproachable ladies And it w as in .

vain that F enelon had warned him against trusting

entirely to any o n e man Although in fourteen years
.

they h ad only met twice the spell of the m aster s,

’

fascination w as as strong as ever B urgundy would .

often bid his wi fe choose between three courses o f

action the go o d the better and the perfect way
,
!
, , ,
” ’

which last would assuredly be M de Cambrai s . .

N one the less it may be doubted whether the

,

living Té lé maq ue ever really understood his mentor .

Little as he spared the Kin g in private F enelon ,

always respected the claims o foutward decorum ; but

B urgundy once caused a grave court scandal by blurt -

ing out that France s present miseries were the

’

heaven-sent punishment o f her past transgressions .

H is virtue hardened into an almost J an s e n i s t austerity ;

as fo r instance when he refused to go in State to
, ,
’
the theatre because the best theatre fo r a Dauphin s
,

energy was the improvem ent of the provinces And .

’

it i s to be feared that if he had succeeded his grand

,
B U R G U N DY A N D P O LI TI C AL R E F O R M 19 7

father this pragmatical righteousness would have

,

worked mischie f o n wider fields than Vers ailles .

O ften enough it has been asked whether Burgundy

and his master might not have saved the crown o fthe
Bourbons but all our fi nge r posts point to one answer
,
-
.

Té lé maq ue excepted F é n e lo n s best political service

’

to h is country was his devotion to her wounded ,

starving soldiers ; and Burgundy hailed before his

,

death as o mnium cons ens u cap ax imp erii— w as more

m

fortunate than Galba .

 THE END 19 9

nephew Gabriel to a young lady o f po sition ; but

, ,

her father on Burgundy s death broke o f

,
fthe match
’

”
fo r which wrote the courtier prelate
,
I cannot -
,

blame him to do s o would be to announce myself a

’

m i san t h ro pe All we can do in this world is to avoid

t

such pit falls ourselves and n o t co n de mm t o o sharply ,

”
the shortcomings of o ur neighbour B ut Gabriel .

soon fettered his uncle s attention o n himsel f in a ’

more pain ful fashion F é n e lo n al m ost forgot his .

grie f fo r Burgundy when a wound received by the , ,

young o fficer at the engagement of Landrecies in the

previous year broke o ut afresh into a dangerous
,

malady E very co m rt that love could devise o r

.
,

money buy w as placed at the invalid s service H e

,
’

was lodged at Cambrai in the little grey room that ‘

,
’

opened out o f the Archb i shop s own ; and to him

were addressed during the two years o f his slow
,

and wearisome recovery some o f the tenderest and ,

most beautiful letters that ever came from F é n e lo n s ’

pen H ere is no more o fthose counsel s o f Polonius

.
,

w hich j ar a little in their earlier correspondence .

Hal fj estingly as he might write as havin g to get

-
,
!

rid o f somehow the stu ffleft over from my Lenten

”
sermons F é n e lo n treats only o fthe highest themes
, ,

the mystery o f pain its value as an e x planation of ,

the deepest problems o f existence the s u fl e re r s

’
’
,

need o f borrowing not fro m a heaped up sto re of ,

-

human coura ge but from that he aven sent gi ft o f

,
-

patience which is lent only fo r the day And .

through the mystical jargon that still remaine d with

z oo FR A N C O IS D E F E N E LO N
hi m, as a scar to remind us o f his bygone conflicts
over the Maxims of the Saints pierces the deepest ,

and most spiritual a f fection I love you he wrote

.
, ,

!
fo r yoursel f and not for my amusement with a
, ,

love that now y o u cannot understand though some ,

day Go d will make it clear to you I love you fo r .

His sake and not for mine even as I would have

, ,

”
myself all in all to you through Him .

H i s li fe still ran its ordinary course Though .

n o w little more than a skeleto n that walked and

‘

talked he had still many episcopal duties to perform ;

,
’

the Peace o f U trecht brought no peace to him who ,

had more than s ix h undred parishes t o visit And .

there were new nephews and grand nephews to -

entertain— the fo llet bambzn o f Beaumont s sister

’
’

Mme de Che v ry who ate and played an d laughed

.
,

and chattered all the livelong day or Ch e v re us e s ,

’

little grandson the Comte de Mont fort o n whom

, ,
!
,

”
had I been younger I sho uld have had great designs
, ,

who rose to be Cardinal and Archbishop o fSens and , ,

dyi ng j ust be fore the outbreak o f the Revol ution ,

brings down the F enelon tradition within a genera

tion of living memory .

B ut already F enelon was gathering up his robes ,

as though impatient to be gone All go od friends .

,

he told Destouches some little time after the death

,

of Chevreuse (N ovember should m ake up

,

their minds to die together o r better still like , , ,

Philemon and Baucis o n e should become an oak

, ,

when he sees the other changing into a poplar .

 T HE END 201

And when Beauvilliers some months later (August

, ,

followed Che v reuse to the grave F enelon ,

felt that his own time was nearly come We shall .

!

soon find again him whom we hav e lost he wrote ,

to the widowed D uchess ; we come a long step !

nearer to him every day It is only the imagination .

and the senses that miss their obj ect ; he whom we

can no longer s e e is closer to us than be fore ; we
,

meet him continually in o ur common centre God , .

As for me who was deprived o f seeing him fo r so

,

many years I talk to him I open my heart to him

, , ,

I seem to find him in God and althou gh I wept , ,

bitterly at the news o fh is death I cannot feel that I ,

have lost him .

The prophecy was not long in being fulfilled I n .

N ovember 17 14 F enelon w as retu rning from a

, ,

visitation in the country when one o f his horses ,

shied at a wind mill and almost overturned the

-
,

carriage At first it seemed as though he would

.

recover from the shock but in the evening o f N ew

,
’
Year s Day 17 15 he was attacked by a sharp fever
, ,
!

o f unknown origin whose fatal nature soon became

,

apparent D uring the next few days says his

.
,

secretary the Bible was read to him continually

, ,

and at his special request the end o f the fourth

, ,

and the beginning o fthe fi fth chapter of the Second

E pistle to the Corinthians were several times
repeated O n the morning o f the 6 th o f January
.

he dictated a letter to Father Le Tellier wherein ,

S peaking as one who had received E xtreme U nction ,

 T H E EN D 2 03

an d on his tomb was graved the legend : mutus No n

cinis s pi rat adh uc s ple n de tq ue praes uli b us perpetuum
,

decus i ntamin at us Christi discipulus forma factus

, ,

re i s
g g
l
.There let us leave him choosing for o ur o w n
,

last tribute the words he once wrote o fCharlemagne ,

that i famong such splendid talents and virt ues some

weaknesses are mingled these may serve to remind us ,

that we are dealing no t with the vague impossibly

, ,

perfect hero of a story but with the chequere d ,

courses o fa li v ing man .

v b e i ng e nsample s to th e fl ock
’
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 Ii IQ I ' IEIECL J
'

AGUE SS E AU , CH ANCE LL O R 2 2 , , D auph in (fath e r ofBurgundy) ,

13 8 5 9 , 191
Ami e ns V idame
, ,
17 5 i
D auph n ess (mo h e t r of B ur
André , P ere 7 8 ,
y
gund ) , 5 9
D e s to uch es , Ch e v al e ir , 182, 2 00
B arre P o ulai n de la 45
, ,

Bayle Pi erre 13 9
, , Euge ne P ri nce , 184
.

B e aumo nt Abb é 17 1, 2 02
, ,

B eauvillie rs D uch e ss o f 3 2
, , , Fenelon , Ant oi ne Marq uis de ,

(un cle o f Fen elo n ) , 3 ,

D uk e o f, 2 9 , 3 7 58, 6 1, 7 1, .

8 9 106 , 108, 111, 12 2 ,

. Gab ri el , Marq uis de
(grand n eph e w o fFé ne
-

B eth une Du ch ess 86 89

, , , lon L
Blanco Wh ite on Té lé maq ue , Fleury, Abb é de ,
43
15 5
Bo ss ue t , 2 , 7 , 10, 20, 2 5, 5 2 , Grammo nt , Comte s s e de 17 7 ,

5 9 , 6 6 , 7 5 8 5, 9 1, 9 6 , Guyo n Mad ame h er o pi ni ons ,

, ,

7 8 e t s eq h e r li f
e
.
, 8 6 -
105 ,
th e Abbé (n e ph e w o fpre 12 4 -12 7
ce d ng i ) ,
12 3 1 8, 13 5
- 2

B o uillo n ,
i
Card nal, 108, 12 5 B ari ai , Arch b is h op 7 , 9 8 ,

13 6
B ourdaloue 14 , 2 5 , 9 8 , I nnoce n t X I I .
,
P ope 13 0 13 4
. ,

B u g und , Du k e o f, 5 8-7 2 ,
r y et seq .

14 5 , 151, 153 , 17 3 , 185-19 8 I s sy Con fere nces

, and Articles
of, 99
Ch an terac, th e Abb é de , 12 7 ,
13 2 et s eq J uits
es 12 9
J
.
,

Ch e v re us e ,
D uch es s o f 3 2 , uri n e , 15 , 81
Duk e of
, 3 0-3 3 , 7 2 , 9 1,
106 , 17 2 -17 4, 19 2 , 19 4 , La Ch ai s e , P ere , 3 8
2 00 La Combe , P ere , 87 -89 , 12 4
2 07
2 08 I N D EX
Lamb er t Marqui s e de , 56
, Noailles , B is h op, 9 9, 105
Le D i e u Abb e 16 7 -17 0
, ,

L o ui s X IV , 11-13 , 3 3 3 6 4 1,
.
,
-
O li er, 3
58-6 1, 6 7 , 7 0, 9 9 , 100, 106 , Orleans D uch ess of 21, 116
, ,
109, 12 8, 12 9, 13 1,
13 4 , 142 , 14 6 , 17 3 , 18 5 -18 7 ,
P e te rb orough , Lord, 16 2
19 2 -19 4, 2 02
L ou v lle , Marq u s de , 6 1
i i
Qui etis m . S ee Moli nos
Mai nte n o n Mme , . de 13 3 4
, ,

4 0 4 3 4 7 , 5 4,
, , 5 6 , 9 0, 9 4 Rams ai , Ch evali er de 18 1 ,

100, 109 , 17 3 , 19 0, 19 1 Renan , Ern e s t on Télé maq ue , ,

Mai s on fort , Mdlle de la, 95, .

15 8
9 6 , 111
Mala al, 7 8, 80
v S cudery, Mdlle . de , 4 4 .

Marlb o o ugh , 184

r
Maz ar n, Card n al, 6 7, 147
i i Tron so n, 4 , 2 0, 99, 103 , 105
Mol n o s , 7 8 -85
i
Mon tb eron , Mme de , 17 8 . V alb elle B i sh op 13 8
, ,

18 1 V e ndfime Duk e of 187

, ,

B I L L I N G AN D S O N S , L I MI TE D , P R I NTE RS , GU I L D F O R D