''\%i PQ 1796 B8 WNlVCftSlTY OF 1 CAUFORN'A. I THE LIFE OF FENELON, ARCHBISHOP OF CAM BRAY. CHARLES BUTLER, Esq, LONDON : 3PEINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORMEj PATERNOSTER ROW. « 1810. Qjiare quis tandem me reprehendat, si quanium ctetens ad Jestos ludorum dies celcbrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, et ad ipsam requiem animi et corporis conceditur iemporis : quan- tum alii tempes/ivis conviviis, quantum aleae, quantum pil In one respect, Fenelon was particularly fortunate : every one about the person of tlie royal prince, looked up to him uith veneration, and co-operated in his plans of education. When the duke of Burgundy fell into any of those fits of anger and im- patience to which he was so much subject, the governor, preceptor, masters, officers and servants, who attended him, observed a perfect silence. They avoided answering his questions ; and either did not look- at him, or looked at him with terror, as if they were frighted at being with a person who discovered signs of abberration of in- tellect, or witii pity, as if they beheld a person, whose mental malady made him an object of compassion. His books, every thing used in the way of his instruction were removed from him, as useless to a persop 54 in his deplorable state. They were no^ restored to him, and none of the parties re- sunned their general demeanour towards him, till the fit of passion entirely subsided. It was a rule with Fenelon, to permit the duke to interrupt his studies, whenever he was inclined to enter into any useful and learned conversation. He adopted this plan the more readily, as he found such conver- sation tended to humanize his pupil, to sof- ten his mind, to make him gentle and com- pliant, and to call forth his pleasing qua- lities. But study was resumed the instant the conversation ceased to be useful. So far from lessening the general hours of study, this conduct encreased the duke's ardour for literature, and induced him to dedicate to it a greater portion of his time. Of his own accord, he requested some per- son might always read to him at his meals. The fables which Fenelon composed for the duke of Burgundy are admirable. The great object of them appears to be to sof- ten his pupiPs manners, and to open his 56 mind to humanity, beneficence, and the milder virtues. Heaven and earth aad all animate and inanimate nature are called into action by them, to invite the future monarch to make justice, peace, and happi- ness reign on earth. " Who is the young hero," say the songsters of the groves instructed by the shepherds, " that comes among us, and ap- pears to interest himself in our happiness ? Jle seems pleased with our songs j he loves poetry; it will soften his heart, and make him as amiable as he now appears haughty. May he increase in virtue, as a flower just opened by the spring j may he love the gentle pleasures of the mind ; may the graces dwell on his eyes ! May Minerva reign m his heart! May he equal Orpheus in the sweetness of his strains, and Hercules in his heroic actions ! May he have the valour of Achilles, but none of his ferocity ! May he be good, wise, beneficent ! May he sympathise with men ! He loves our «?ongs j they penetrate his heart as the dew 56 falls on our gardens parched by the sun. May the gods moderate his passions ! May they ever make him happy 1 May he restore the golden age ! May wisdom fill his soul, and spread from it over all mor- tals ! ^lay flowers grow under his feet!" What an effect, exclaims M. de Bausset, must instructions, arrayed in such charms, have on a prince who was all soul and wit ! But then the fables of Melanthos, and the Aledal follow, which the royal pupil could not read without sinking into the earth, at the view they gave him of the deformities of his own character, and almost adoring the being, whose hand was stretched out to save him, to rescue him from himself.— " What terrible woe has befallen i\felanthos ? Out- wardly all is right with him ; inwardly all is wrong. Last night, he went to rest, the delight of the human race ; this morning one's ashamed of him, one must hide himi As he was dressing, a plait of his shirt displeased him j all the long day he is to be in a rage, and every one is to suffer 4 he S7 is an object of fear, an object of compas-r sioii; be cries as a diild, and roars as a lion. A malignant vapour blackens bis imagination, as tiie ink dirties bis fingers. Don't speak to bitn of wbat gave bim de- ligbt a moment since; it is enougb tbat be was pleased with it then, tbat be should not endure it now. The j;)arties of pleasure, which lately be desired so much, now weary him ; they must be broken up ; be must contradict and irritate and complain of every one ; and then is angry that no one will lose his temper with him. When he can find no pretence for being dissatis- fied with others, he turns against himself; he blames himself, finds out tbat he is good for nothing, be despairs of improvement; he takes it ill tbat persons will not comfort bim ; be wishes to be alone -, then be can't endure solitude, and returns to society, y.nd quarrels with all about bim. They are silent, he takes otfence at their silence ; they speak softly, be supposes they Sjjeak against him ; they talk in their common 58 voice, he pretends they talk too much, and is angry that they appear gay while he is sorrowful ; they become serious, he consi- ders it a reproach of his faults j they laugh, he supposes it is at him. What must we do ? be as steady and as patient as he is insupportable, and expect in peace that to- morrow morning he will be as good as he was yesterday. This strange humour passes off as it comes : when it seizes him one -tvould suppose that a spring of the machine was broken, and the whole run backward. He resembles the picture of a person pos- sessed : his reason is inverted ; press him and you may make him say, at full noon, that it is night ; for, when the fit is once on him, there is no longer day or night for his dismounted intellects. Don't say to him to-morrow we will go to such a place, to divert ourselves ; tlie man of to-day \f ill not be the same man to-morrow ; he, who is now making you a promise, will dii^^ap- pear at the instant, and in his place you'll iCe a certain something without shape. S9 without name. It wills, it wills not, it threatens, it trembles, it mixes laughable haughtiness with contemptible littleness ; it cries, it laughs, it plays the fool, it is in a rage. In his fury, however, Melanthos, though wild and mad, and though he do not discover one ray of reason, is witty, is eloquent, is cunning, and abounds in re- partee. Be particularly careful to say no- thing to him, that is not perfectly just, exact, and reasonable ; he has all his senses about him, to take advantage of it, and put you in the wrong j on a sudden he becomes reasonable, to show your errors. Then, a fit of distress comes on him j he loves no one ; he has not a friend ; every one per- secutes him, every one betrays hiui; he has no obligations to any one ; wait a moment, he seems to be in need of every one j he is full of affection, he loves every one; he flatters, insinuates, bewitches those who could not bear him ; he confesses his errors, and laughs at his oddities ; he mimicks himself, and he mimicks himself so well, 60 that you would think him again in his airs. After this comedy, so perfectly well acted at his own expence, you hope at last tlie demoniac is gone for ever. Alas ! you are quite mistaken; to night he will again be the demon, and to-morrow he will again lau2;h at himself, and continue unreclaim- ed." It was impossible for the royal pupil not to recognize himself in this picture ; or to read it without emotions and resolutions of amendment. In a fable less serious, but equally in- structive, Fenelon describes Bacchus inat- tentive to the lessons of Silenus, and a faun laughing at his blunders : Bacchus puts on air of dignity, and asks the faun, " how he dares to laugh at the son of Jupiter;" the faun coolly answers, "why does the son of Jupiter dare to make blun- ders?" The dialogues, which Fenclon composed for tlie duke of Burtfundy, are in a higher style. He brings by them, the most celer brated personages of antient and modern 61 liistoi'y before his pupil ; and all the s[)eak- ers take occasion to mention some incident in their lives, that conveys to him, in fe\T hut impressive uorJs, some salutary truth. In every page of them, the charms of the milder virtues are happily pourtrayed; when vanity or voluptuousness are to be censur- ed, the most pointed ridicule is used; when tyranny is to be execrated, the strongest lan- guage is adopted. A meeting of Caesar and Cato is supposed : " Thou wilt be greatly surprized," says Cajsar, " when I inform thee, that I died of the wounds I received from my friends in the senate house. AV'hat treachery ! '* No," replies Cato, " I am not surprized. Wast thou not the tyrant of those friends as well as of the other citizens ? Was it not their duty to lend their hands to their op- pressed country ? It was their duty to sa- crifice not only a friend but a brother, as was done by Timoleon, and even their own children, as was done by Brutus.- But, •tell me, in the mirlst of thv previous glory. 62 wast thou happy ? — No, thou wast not If thou liadst loved thy country, thy country would have loved thee ; he, whom his coun- try loves, ^vants no guards ; his country watches round him. True security arises from doing good, and from interesting every one in your preservation. Thou vvouldst reign and be feared. Well, thou didst reign, and thou wast feared : but mankind delivered themselves from the tyrant, and their fears of him, by the same stroke. So may all those perish, who wish to be fear- ed by men ! They have every thing to fear ; all the world is interested in anticipating their acts of tyranny, and delivering them- selves from the tyrant." Such were the exertions of Fenclon in educating the duke of Burgundy. We have seen what the duke St. Simon, whose evi- dence cannot be refused on this subject, says of tl:|eir success. Madame de Maintenon, in one of her letters, gives the same testi- mony : ** we saw all those defects, which alarmed us too mucli in the voulh of the 63 duke of Burgundy, gradually disappeair. Every year produced, in him, a visible in- crease of virtue. Rallied at first by every one, he obtained, in the end, the admiration of the freest livers. So much had his piety changed him, that, from being the most passionate of men, he became mild, gentle, and complying ; persons would have thought that mildness was his natural disposition, and that he was innately good." — All the writers of the time, who mention the duke of Burgundy, express themselves of him in the same terms. Fenelon now be^an to enjoy the fruits of his labours J his success in the education of the duke of Burgundy had excited general admiration, and his conciliating manners had obtained him general love. Lewis ilie fourteenth presented him to the Abbey of St. Valery, one of the richest in France ^^ and afterwards named him Arclibishop of Cambray. He was consecrated in the cha- pel'of St. Cyr, in the presence of madame d# Maintenon and his three royal pupils. 61 We enter into the feelings of the preceptor and his pupils on this occasion. Unfortu- nately, it was almost the last. day of the preceptor's happiness ; to use an expression of the chancellor d' Aguesseau, " events soon afterivards took place that revealed the se- cret which caused all his calamities, — his too great taste for the pious excesses of the mystics." — This memorable circumstance in the archbishop's life must now be present- ed to the reader. 6i CHAP. IX. QVtETISM. A. V. I696. ^T. 45. In every age of Christianity, different de- nominations of christians, both orthodox and heterodox, have aimed at a sublime spirituahty above visible objects and natu- ral feelings, and attempted, by assiduous prayer and abstraction from terrene subjects, to raise themselves to an intellectual con- templation of the deity, and communion with him. Among them, the Quietists, to whose doctrines the subject of these pages now leads, were eminently distinguished in the ecclesiastical history of the middle ages, I" 66 and of moJeiii times. The patrfarch of modern quietists is Michael de Molinos, a Spanish, priest, x^ho resided at Rome, to- wards the end of the 16th century. His pious reveries procured him a considerable number of disciples of both sexes ; they were condemned by the pope, and his disciples were persecuted j but they preserved an obscure existence, and, with a slight modi- fication, or rather, under the cover of more guarded language, were levived in the age of Lewis the 14th, and, during several years, distracted the gallican church* In a re- ligious, and even a philosophical point of view, the controversy, to which they gave rise, is a curious subject of enquiry, and it certainly forms the most interesting part of the biography of Fenelon. Quietism is an abuse of the science of sa- cred contemplation, or as it is termed in the schools, of Mystical Theology *, and an un- warranted extension of its language. Every * See Appendix, Note II. 6y age of the christian church furnishes con- templative writers of eminence. To a per- fect understandini ?»=• With great emotion: *' expulerunt -toeptSr Sf»''-y tem, expulerunt consanguincos, expulcwuit \ ^.-^' amicos," they have put out of doors- hkmer- "V '"^ phew, his relations, his friends ! In spite of the odious measures we have;. .; .^^^> mentioned, in spite of the logic and "clot- '.^.;^, ■ quence ofBossuet, the public fayour begAtii;" \o manifest itself more strongly for Fenclorjj 119 and it hourly became more and more un- certain, which would ultimately prove victo- rious, Bossuct, aided by the favour of the sovereign, or Fcnelon, who had nothing to oppose him, but the exquisite beauty of his genius, and the reputation of his virtue. At this critical moment, Bossuct publish- ed his celebrated Relation of Quietism. In composing it, he availed himself of some secret and confidental writings which he had received from madame de Guyon, of private letters written to him by Fenelon, during their early intimacy, and of a letter, which, under the seal of friendship, Fenelon had written to madame de Maintenon, and which, in this trying hour, she unfeelingly communicated to Bossuet. The substance of these different pieces, Bossuet connected with so much art, interwove in them the mention of so many curious facts, so enter- taining an account of madame de Guyon's visions and pretensions to inspiration, and so many interesting anecdotes of the con- duct of Lewis the fourteenth, and madame 120 de Maintenon during the controversy ; he occasionally inserted in it, so much digni- fied and truly episcopal eloquence, he de- plored so feelingly the errors of Fenelon, presented his own conduct, during their dis- putes, in so favourable a view, and put the whole together with such exquisite skill, expressed it with so much elegance, and set it off by such brilliancy of thought and expression, as excited universal admiration, and attracted universal favor to its author. In one part of it, he assumed a style of my- stery, and announced, '* that the time was come, when it was the almighty*s will, that the secrets of the union should be revealed.'* — a terrible revelation was then expected, it seemed to appal every heart : it seemed that the existence of virtue itself would be- come problematical, if it should be proved that Fenelon was not virtuous. A letter of madame de Maintenon sliews the eagerness with which the extraordinary performance of Bossuet was read j " they lalk here of nothing else ; they lend it, they inatch it from one another, they devour it :** she lierself circulated copies of it every where. Notliiiig could exceed the conster- nation, which this raised among; the friends of Fenelon, at Rome, and at Paris : — His first intention was not to answer it ; but the abbe de Chanterac imformed him, that the impression, which it made against him at Rome was so strong];, that a full refutation of it was absolutely necessary. He there- fore determined to reply. Bossuet*s rela- tion appeared in the middle of June, Fen- elon*s reply was published on the third of August. A nobler effusion of the indignation of insulted virtue and genius, eloquence has never produced. In the first lines of it Fenelon placed himself above his antago- nist, and to the last preserves his elevation. " Notwithstanding my innocence," says Fenelon, '* 1 was always apprehensive of a dispute of facts ; I knew that such a dis- pute between bishops must occasion consi- derable scandal. If, as the bishop of Me- 12? aux has a hundred times asserted, my book be full of the most extravagant contradic- tions, and the most monstrous errors, why does he have recourse to discussion?, which must be attended with the most terrible of all scandals ? why does he reveal to liber- tines what he terms a woeful mystery, a prodigy of seduction ? why, when the pro- priety of censuring my book is the sole question, does he travel out of it's text ? but the bishop of Meaux begins to find it difficult to establish his accusations of my doctrine ; the Ijistory of madame de Guyon then comes to his aid, and he lays hold of it as an amusing tale, likely to make all his mistakes of my doctrine disappear and be forgotten. Thus, when he can no longer argue the point of doctrine, he attacks me personally; he publishes on the house-top M'hat before he only ventured to whisper : he has recourse to all that is most odious in human society. The secret of private letters written in intimate and religious con- fidence, (the most sacred after that of con- 123 fession), has nothing inviolable in him. He produces my letters to Rome ; he prints letters which I writ to him in the strictest conlidencc. — But all will be useless to him; he will find that nothing that is dishonoura- ble ever proves serviceable." He then takes up liossuet's insinuations respecting madame de Guyon ; he produces the very honourable testimonies of the bishop of Geneva, both in respect to her piety and her morals, under which she was first in- troduced to him. He observes to Bossuet, that, after the lona; examination he had made of her doctrine, he permitted her to frequent the sacraments habitually, and even allow- ed her to state, in the declaration which he made hei" sign, that it had always been her wish to write in the most orthodox sense, and that she never thought it was possible to give her words any other meaning. " Now," continues Fenelon, "if the bishop of Meaux, who had a full knowledcje of ma- dame de Guyon's most secret manuscripts, of those vei'y manuscripts, from whiciij.in ats 154 his Relation, he has given such remarkable extracts, with a view of representing her as infected with the most extravagant and dangerous principles ; if, in the full posses- sion of these documents, he still thought her intentions good, might not I, to whom all these manuscripts, all these visions, all these pretended miracles were altogether unknown, be allowed to entertain that pri- vate opinion in favour of madame de Guy- on's intentions, which Bossuet, in a public instrument, admitted to be presumable ?'* This positive assertion by Fenelon, of his absolute ignorance of madame de Guyon*s manuscripts, is of the utmost importance to his character, as it necessarily goes very far in excusing his refusal of subscribing to Bossuet's condemnation of her. It is to be observed, that, throughout the contro- versy, the truth of this assertion was never questioned. Bossuet, in his relation of quietism, ex- claimed, " May I venture to say it ? Yes, I can say it confidently, and in the face of 125 the sun. Could I, the most simple of mortals, the most incapable of artifice and dissimulation ; could I, single and unaided, from the solitude of my cabinet, buried in papers and books, by imperceptible springs, put all the court, all Paris, all the kingdom, all Europe, Rome itself into action, to ruin merely by the strength of my own personal credit the archbishop of Cam- bray?" In answer to this aninated figure, Fenelon cites a passage on which Bossuet deplores the general seduction in Fenelon's favour. " You lament then," savs Fene- Ion, " the sudden and universal seduction in my favour! Permit me to avail myself against you of your own vivid expressions. Could I, in exile at Cambray, from the solitude of my cabinet, by imperceptible springs, attach to me so many disinterested and impartial persons, who, before they read my replies to you, were so prejudiced against me ^ Could I in exile, I contra- dieted, I overwhelmed on all sides, could I do that for my writings, which the bishop of 126 Meaux, in credit, in power, uith so many means of making himself dreaded, could not do against them ? The bishop of Meaux complains that cabals and factions are in motion ; that passion and interest divide the world. Be it so ! But, what interest can any person have to stir in my cause? I stand single and am wholly destitute of human help ; no one, that has a view to his interest, dares look upon me. Great bodies, great powers, says the bishop, are in motion j but where are the great bodies, the great powers that stand up for me ! These are the excuses the bishop of Meaux gives, for the world's appearing to be di- vided on his charges against my doctrine, which at tirst, he represented to be so com- pletely abominable, as to admit of no fair explanation. This division, in the public opinion, on a matter which he represented to be so clear, makes him feel it advisable to shift the subject of dispute from a ques- tion of doctrine to a personal charge." Fenelon thus concludes :— *• If the bi- 127 shop of Meaiix has any further writing, any furtlier evidence to produce against me, I conjure him not to do it by halves. Such a proceeding is worse than any publication ; I conjure him to forward it instantly to Rome. I fear nothing, thank God, that ^vill be communicated and examined judi- cially ; I fear nothing but vague report and unexamined allegation." " I cannot here forbear from calling to witness the adorable beinsj whose eve pierces the thickest darkness, and before whom we must all appear ; he reads my heart ; he knows that I adhere to no per- son, and to no book ; that I am attaclied to him aloncj and to his church ; that in- cessantly, in his holy presence, I beseech liim, with sighs and tears, to restore peace to his church, and shorten the davs of scan- dal; to bring back the shepherds to their flocks ; to reunite all in his holy mansion, and bestow on the bishop of ivieaux as many blessings as the bishop of ^leaux has thrown crosses on me." 128 Never did virtue and genius obtain a more complete triumph. Fenelon's reply, by a kind of enchantment, restored to him every heart. Crushed by the strong arm of power, abandoned^ by the multitude, there Mas nothing to which lie could look but his own powers. Obliged to fight for his honour, it was necessary for him, if he did not consent to sink under the accusation^ to assume a port still more imposing than that of his mighty antagonist. Much had been expected from him, but none had supposed that he would raise himself to so prodigious a height as would not only repel the attack of his antagonist, but actually reduce him to the defen- sive. Bossuet published remarks on Fenelon's reply; Fenelon published an answer to these, which, on the question of facts, fixed the public in his favour. " What an indecency," says Fenelon, ** it is to behold in the hou.^e of God, in his very sanctuary, his principal minister^ H9 unceasingly venting on each oilier, vague declamations which prove nothing. Your age, and my infirmities, must make us soon appear before him, whom credit cannot in- fluence, eloquence cannot seduce. You profess to be afraid of my power, to fear my subtilty. To ^^ hat are you reduced ! You ore under a necessity of proving seri- ously that I have more power than you ! what cannot your subtilty prove if it can prove a fact so contrary to what is known to the whole world?" In one of his works, Bossuet has com- pared Fenelon and madame de Guyon to the heretic Montanus and his prophetess Priscilla. Fenelon exclaimed acrainst the odiousness of the comparison : Bossuet, in his justification, alledged that a criminal in- tercourse between Montanus and Priscilla had never been suspected ; that it was a mere commerce of mental illusion, like that of Fenelon and madame de Guyon. — *' But," says Fenelon," does my illusion, such even as you represent it, resemble K 130 that of JMonianus ? That fanatic had de- tached from their husbands two wives, who followed him ever}' wliere j he delivered them up to a false spirit of prophecy, he was himself possessed by it, and all three in a transport t)f diabolical fury strangled themselves. Such was the ma», the horror of all succeeding times, to whom you com- pare me J me, the dear friend of your lifC; whom you carry in your heart. You say, I have no right to complain of the com- parison. No, my lord bishop, I do not complain : I grieve for you — for j^ou, who can coolly say you accuse me of nothing. when you compare me to Montanus ! Who now believes what you say ? You have done for me more than I could have done for myself. But what a wretched comfort is this, when I see the scandal it brings into the house of God j what a triumph your disgrace is to heretics and liber- lines.*' " The scandal was not so great," says the chancellor D'Aguesseau, "■ while these 131 great antagonists confined their qnarrel to points of doctrine : bnt the scene was truly afflicting to all good men when they at- tacked one another on facts, and differed so much in their accounts, that, as it was impossible that both should speak the truth, persons saw with concern, but saw with certainty, that one of the two prelates must be guilty of untruth. Without say- ing on which side the truth lay, it is certain that the archbishop of Cambray contrived to obtain, in the opinion of the public, the advantage of probability : sut se donner, dans Tesprit du public, I'avantage de la vraisemblance." From this time the ques- tion of facts was abandoned. The apologies of Fenelon did not pro- duce a less effect at Rome, than they did at Paris ; and his friends, to use their own words, experienced the same joy, as if, having seen him for a long time struggling with the waves, and finally sinking under them, they beheld iiim regain the shore in safety. The happiness of the abbe df; K 9 13e Chanterac was pert'ecl : " When I saw," he writes to Fenelon, " your innocence on the point of being overwhehned in conse- quence of your repugnance to answer the unjust charges brought against you, and that your silence put the doctrine of the church in danger of beinas confounded with the most gross errors, I own to you that my soul was often sorrowful, and that as I sate under the juniper branches I could not always keep niy sorrows within bound. ' Cum sederet subter juniperum, petevit animas suas ut moreretur.' (III. Lib. R-Cg. cap. 19') But now, when the truth is known» and you have done all that depend- ed on you to clear it up and defend it, whatever may happen will so clearly ap- pear to be the will of God, in our re- gard, that I shall not venture to complain of it to him, or even to be afflicted at it. 1 shall quietly submit myself to his holy will." The pope and cardinals received Fene- lon*s apology from the abb6 in the most 133 aftcctionatc manner : all of them expressed themselves satisfied with it ; the abb6 men- tions that, when they found iiow completely Fenelon vindicated his iimoccncc, they seemed to him to feel tiiemselves eased of a weight which oppressed them. The mortification of the abb6 Bossuet was equal to their joy. " Fenelon," he M rites to the bishop of Meaux, " is a wild beast, to be hunted down for the honour of the mitre and of truth, till he is quite sub- dued and rendered incapable of doing fur- ther mischief. Did not St. Augustin pur- sue Julian even to death .? It is necessary to deliver the church from the greatest enemy she ever had. It is my opinion that neither the bishops, nor the king, can, in conscience, allow any rest to the arch- bishop of Cambray." In the course of the discussion, it was frequently suggested to Fenelon, that he might make a useful diversion in his favour, by retorting on Bossuet, that the expres- sions which Bossuet used in combattinj^ fl34 disinterested love, went as far to the ruin of charity as the language of Fenelon, in the support of disinterested love, went to the ruin of hope -, but those suggestions were rejected by Fenelon : *' there might," he said, " be prudence in such a measure ; but let me Hve and die in simplicity." It is necessary to mention a circumstance in the controversy, which gave particular scandal. In the days of their intimacy Fenelon had communicated, in writing, to Bossuet, the cardinal de Noailles, and M. Tronson, an account of the most secret dispositions of his conscience. Among them, it was called his confession. Al- luding to it, Fenelon, in the course of the controversy, accused Bossuet of revealing his confession. Bossuet held out this to the public as a charge of having betrayed Fenejon's sacramental confession. Such a disclosure is justly considered, among roman catholics, as a crime of the blackest die. In roman catholic countries it is punishable with death, and none but a 135 villain, in whom every sentiment of religion, virtue, and honour is lost, is supposed to be capable of it, Bossuet's representation of this fact raised a storm of indignation against Fenelonj but it was immediately explained by him to the satisfaction of the public, and Bossuet never returned to the chars^e : but the language in which Fenelon made the charge, was very blameable. The public at large was wholly ignorant of the circumstance which explained it, and could not therefore but suppose that Bossuet stood accused by Fenelon of revealing hU sacramental confession. 136 CHAP. XII. THE POPLS CONDEMNATION OF FENELON S " MAXIMS OF THE SAINTS." A. V). 1699. X.T. 48. Still the proceedings at Rome lingered: the pope had begun by appointing twelve consultors, who were to hold their meet- ings in the chamber of the master of the Sacred Palace ; they held twelve meet^ ings, and finally, were divided in their opinions. The pope then appointed a congregation of cardinals : they met, in consultation, twelve times without coming to any resolution : he then ap- pointed a new congregation of cardinals j 137 t!iey met in consultation fifty-two times, and at length extracted from Fcnelon's work, several censurable propositions, and reported them to the pope : after which, they had thirty-seven meetings to settle the form of the censure. During all this time private conferences on the subject were continually held by the pope*s direction, and sometimes in his presence. Lewis the fourteenth's impatience at the delay was now shewn in a marked manner. He wrote to the pope in strong terms : he states in his letter to his holiness, that, " while he expected from his zeal and friendship a speedy decision on the arch- bishop's book, he could not hear, without sorrow, that the sentence so necessary to the peace of the church, was delayed by the artifices of those, to whose interest the delay was of advantage." He entreats his holiness, in the most pressing terms, to pronounce sentence inmiediately. He ac- companied his letter with one to the cardinal de Bouillon^ his ambassador at 1S8 Ron^e, making him responsible for the event. It was evident that the pope sought to avoid a final decison : the height of the subject, ahnost always above reason, made it difficult to express an opinion upon it, in such terms as should be both inteilijiible and exact ; and it was difficult to censure any of Fenelon's propositions, without censur- ing a proposition of a similar sound, in the writings of some writer, of whom the roman catholic church thinks with respect. Be- sides,- though Fenelon always declared his determination to submit implicitly to the judgment of the roman see, and much doci- lity might be expected from him, it was felt that such ^n act of submission was an effiDrt of heroic humility, almost beyond the power of human nature, and therefore not to be taken for granted. If Fenelon should not submit, there was a powerful party, and, at a time not very distant, there might be a powerful monarch, who would espouse his cause, and this might bring fresh troubles 139 into the churcli, already too much agitated by the disciples ot Jaiisenius. It was also observed to the pope, that, in many respects, it was merely a dispute of words. On the habitual state of disinterested divine love, the attainment of which was said to be in- culcated in Fenelon's writings, Fenelon him- self uniformly declared his opinion that a permanent state of divine love, without hope and without fear, was above the lot of man; and Bossuet himself alloAved that there miaht be moments, when a soul, dedicated to the love of God, would be lost in hea- venly contemplation, and love, and adore without being influenced either by hope or fear, or being sensible of either. As to the sacrifice of eternal bliss, an offer of which, Fenelon was said to consider as the ultimate effort of heroic resignation to the divine will, Fenelon assimilated it to the wisii of Moses, to be blotted from the book of life, (Ex. c. 32. V. 32, Z'5, 34.), and to the wish of St. Paul, (Rom. c. 9- v. 3.) to be an anathema, - for the sake of those for whom 140 they interceded. Bossuet justly contended, that both the patriarch and the apostle were to be understood, with an implied supposition, that the sacrifice which they offered was consonant to his will, and might tend to his glory. This was ad- mitted by Fenelon, but he contended that the similar expressions of modern my- sties should receive a similar construction. As to the strange comparisons, the extrava- gant suppositions, and the language of fond- ness used by madamc de Guyon and other mystics in expressing their love of God, and their communion with him, which were reprobated in the harshest terms by Bos- suet, Fenelon admitted that they could not be censured too severely, if it were just to construe ihem strictly; but he contended that theological precision could not be re- quired, with justice, from such writers; and that these expressions should be treated, merely as effusions of pure and fervent minds, who, feeling nothing wroni*; in them- selves, suspected nothing wrong in others : 141 and, as to the charge of advocating tliccauiic ofmadamedc Guyon i Fenelon expressly declared his readiness to desist from any defence of her, and even from mentionins lier name i he allowed that her writings were in some respects Justly censurable i but he alledged, that much w as imputed to her, of what she was not guilty, and that her real errors were greatly exaggerated, and, on that account he avowed an unwillingness to subscribe to a general censure either of her conduct or her writings. With these explanations, the real differ- ence between Bossuet and Fenelon was not very great ; and perhaps rather to be felt than very accurately defined or described. On this ground, it was suggested to the pope, that^ w^ithout pronouncing a formal decision on the points in contest, it would be prudent in him, to be satisfied with issu- ing a brief, in which the 2:eneral doctrine of the church should be accurately propound- ed, and both parties required to abstain horn future discussions. It appears that the pope 142 iiimself inclined to this plan j but, unfortu° nately for Fenelon, Lewis the fourteenth had made himself a party in the cause, and Lewis the fourteenth was too powerful a sui- tor, to be denied justice. In spite even of this circumstance, the final decision of the cause was repeatedly postponed, and the papal balance •'emained steady for a pe- liod of time, which the adversaries of Fen- elon thought very long. At last it trem- bled, with a slight preponderance, against Fenelon. — The pope issued a brief, by which twenty three propositions, reduceable to the two we have mentioned, were extracted from the obnoxious work, and condemned : but the expressions used in the condemna- tion of them, were gentle ; the proposition.^ were said to be condemned because the} might insensibly lead the faithful to errors already condemned by the catholic church ; and because they contained propositions, which, in the sense of the words which im- mediately presented itself, and according to the order and connections of the senti- 143 inents, were rash, scandalous, ill-sounding, offensive to pious cars, pernicious in prac- tice, and erroneous j but none of them was said to be heretical, and the name of Fen- elon, as the author of them, was not once mentioned in the brief. Tiiese circum- stances soothed the sorrow of the fiiends of Fenelon, and considerably mortified his adversaries. Their mortification was in- creased by a bon mot of the pope, which was soon in every mouth, that Fenelon was in fault for too great love of God ; and his enemies equally in fault, for too little love of their neighbour. " Now is the time come," wrote the good abb<6 de Chanterac to his friend, " to put in practice whatever religion has taught you to be most holy, in a perfect conformity to the will of God. You and all attached to you, must be obedient to Jesus Christ, to death, even to the death of the cross. You will want all your piety, all the submission which you have so often promised the pope 144 in your letters, to possess your soul in pa- tience, when you read the brief, which he has just published against your book. — It was mentioned to me, that I ought to see him, to assure him of your submission. — All of us together cannot be so much af- fected, as he appears to be, for what may be painful to you in his brief, — most pious, most holy, most learned ; — were epithets he often applied to you. All your friends here think you should receive this brief with the most perfect submission i and that the more simple your submission shall be, the more acceptable it will be to God and man. Jesus Christ agonized on the cross, ex- posed to the judgments of men, appears to me the true model which reliiiion now holds out for your imitation, and to which the Holy Ghost wishes you to conform. It is chiefly in situations like that, in which pro- vidence has now placed you, that the just man lives by faith, and that we ought ta be founded, and rooted in the charity of 145 Jesus Christ. Wlio shall separate us from it ? never was I so intimately united to you for eternity," The first information of the pope's brief Was conveyed by Fcnelon's brother to him at the moment he ascended the pulpit of his cathedral to preach ; and the news of it was immediately circulated through the (Congregation. Fenelon recollected himself, paused for a few minutes, and then, chang- ing the plan of his sermon, preached on the duty of obedience to the church. The isubject of his discourse, the sentiments it (expressed; the religious calm with which it was delivered: the solemn enga2;ement he contracted by it to practise on that trying occasion, the submission which he preach- ed drew tears of sorrow, respect, and ad- miration from the whole audience. The first moment it was in his power, Fenelon published a pastoral letter, ad- dressed to all the faithful of his district: — " Our holy father," he says in it, " has condemned my book, entitled tlie * Maxiin.s. L 14^ of the Saints/ and has condemned, in a par- ticular manner, twenty-three jiroiiositions extracted from it. Wc adhere to his brief^ and condemn the book, and tl)e twenty- three propositions, simply, absolutely, and wittjout a sljadow of reserve." He sent his pastoral letter to the j)0j3e, and solemn- ly assured his holiness, that he would never attempt to elude his sentence, or raise any questions on its regard. " Thus," to use the language of the chancellor d'Aguesscau, "' the archbishop of Cambray, who had fou2,ht like a lion in defence of his work, while there was a chance of victory, or even a chance of not being conquered, submitted in an instant, like the lowliest sheep of his flock. His pastoral letter, short and affecting, com- forted his friends, afflicted his enemies, and l^ilsified every prediction which had been made of tlie nice subtleties and distinc- lioiis with which he w^ould seek to disguise his defeat." ]\f. de Bausset gives extracts ©f several letters written by Fenelon, aboui 147 t!iis time ; all of them breathe an amiable si)irit of peace and resignation, but, in ge- neral, he declined all writing and discourse on the subject, and, at an early moment, almost wholly dismissed the controversy from ills thoughts. After what has been seen of the letters of the abb(^' Phillippeaux and the abbe Eossuet, it will not be surprizing, that the former spoke of Fcnelon's i)astoral letter, as con- sisting of dry expressions, and vague words; or that the latter should say, " that it was easy to discover its ambiguity and pride, and impossible to read it without indig- nation." But, who can read without sur- prize, that the bishop of Aleaux himself, said of it, "the cabal exalts the letter; disinterested persons think it full of ambi- guity and pride ;" — or that he should write to his nepliew, who continued at Rome, "after all, 1 think Home should be satis- fied with the archbishop's letter : it contains the essential, and expresses, however pom- ^HJii-ly, his subinisbion." He sent his ne- L 2 14» phew some remarks on it, but desired him to keep them to himself. The bishop of Chartres thought of it very differently ; he wrote to Fenelon, that " he was dehghted with his perfect submission : I have no words to express how my heart is affected with your humble and generous action." The pope addressed a letter to Fenelon, much less kind, and less honourable to him than it would have been if Lewis the four- teenth's name had not been called in to chill its terms. With the single exception of the cardinal Cassanate, a decided partizcin of France, all the cardinals desired the abb6 de Chan- terac to testify to Fenelon their respect and attachment. With friendly and wise solicitude, they advised him to observe the most rigid silence on the subject, and par- ticularly to avoid further retractions, or ex- planations ; they observed to him, that his act of submission was perfect, that the pope was satisfied with it, and that no one therefore had a right to require more frouv 149 him on the subject : — " It is impossible," writes tlie abbe dc Chanterac to bin], ** to praise, more than they did, your submission, your pastoral letter, your letters to the pope, the whole of your conduct. Some things they said to me on the subject must be reserved for private conversation." It miglit be expected that the ready and perfect submission of Fenelon would soften the mind of Lewis the fourteenth ; but he persisted in the line of extreme rigour, and Fenelon was to drink the cup of his humi- liation to its dregs. The inetropolitan pre- lates of his kingdom were ordered, by the king, to convene their suffragans, and, at an assembly of them, to accept the brief The cardinal of Noailles, as archbishop of Paris, first assembled his suffragans. The assembly consisted of himself and the bi- shops of Meaux, Chartres, and Blois. As the three first of them had been the leaders of the attack on Fenelon, decency seemed to require, that some other metropolitan assembly should take the lead ; but thf 150 court's opinion was known, and zeal was the order of the day. Instead of conlininir themselves to the acceptation of Ore bi icf, the cardinal and liis sulfra^ans petitioned the king for a general suppression of all the vv'ritings, which Fenelon had published in his defence : in this superfluous display of zeal, seven of the remaining fifteen metro - politun assemblies folloued their example. All the metropolitan assemblies spoke in high terms of Fenelon's piety, virtue, and talents : some of them, among w hich was the metropolitan assembly of Paris, com- mended his submission as simple, absolute, and without any restrictioti. The wording of the declaration of that assembly was entrusted to Bossuet ; and he mentions, in a letter to his nephew, that much of it, as he has prepared it, was softened. But, it was among his own suffragans that Fenelon met with the liarshest usage. The bishop of Tournay intimated, that Fenelon's pas^ toral letter did not express an internal ac- quiescence in the brief of the pope. Fene- 151 'Ion, with mild dignity, repelled the imputa- tion j and the bisliops of Arras and St. Omers, his other suffragans, stood up in his support. The next step of the court was to pro- cure the registration of the brief. Tiiis, oil account of some want of formality, was attended with difficulty, but tlie overpow- ering influence of I^wis the fom tenth, le- velled every obstacle. Tlie brief was pre- presented for registration by the chancellor d'Aguesseau, then first attorney general of liis majesty. He pronounced, on that occasi- on, a discourse, which the president Ilcnault describes, " as an immortal monument of the solidity of the church of France, and an eternal honor to the chancellor's memory." M. d'Aguesseau mentions in it Fenclon's submission in terms of high praise; " no discordant voice troubled the holy concert, the happv harmony of the oracles of the church. What was the joy of the church, when she found that he, among the pre- lates, whose opposition she would have 152 had most to fear, if his heart had been an accompHce of his understanding, had, more humble and more docile than the lowliest of his flock, anticipated the judg- ment of the prelates, and, by pronouncing an afflicting but salutary sentence on him- self, hastened to encourage the church, frightened at his doctrine, by professing readily and solemnly, a submission without reserve, an obedience without bound, and an acquiescence without a shadow of res- triction." The chancellor informs us, that in his discourse, as he had originally penned it, he had expressed himself in stronger terms, in the praise of Fenelon^ but that, when the discourse was read in manuscript to the king, he objected to them. — It is remarka- ble that the chancellor, who, in every part of his voluminous works, writes with more than roman gravity, appears always to have a smile on his countenance when he men- tions quietism : he evidently considered it rather as an intrigue of the court than an 153 affair of religion. The celebrated Leibniz, (Torn. 5, page 189, Cogit. Miscellaneae,) observes, that, before the war of words began, the prelates should have agreed on a definition of the word love, and that such a definition would have prevented the dis- pute. After the registration of the pope's brief in parliament, it only remained that a re- port should be made of the affair to the next assembly of the clergy. This was intrusted to Bossuet, and he penned this report in the language of mo- deration. '* It was justly observed," he says in it, " that the archbishop of Cam- bray, who had more interest than any other person, in eluding, if it had been pos- sible, the sentence which condemned him, was the first to submit to it, and expressed his submission by a formal act. We recol- lect-with joy the names of the illustrious bishops whom he imitated on this occa- sion. Following the example of the king, all the provinces united in praising that 154 submission : and thus it was shown, that all, which it had been found necessary to say against the work, had been spoken without any breach of chanty." These expressions of Bossuet, as they apply to Fe- nelon, are very cold ; they are less an eu- logy of Fenelon than an artful conclusion, from premises which did not allow it, in favour of the vehemence of conduct, with which Bossuet knew he was generally re- proached, and which Fenelon's humble submission tended to place in its worst light. In speaking of madame de Guyon, Bos- suet says, — '' As to the abominations, U'hich seemed the necessary consequences of her doctrine, they were wholly out of the question ; she herself alwa3's mentioned them with horror." In this solemn and explicit declaration ^ of the innocence of her morals, ended the various charges and insinuations which had been made against madame de Guyon with so much publicity, and with such pa- rade. 155 Here tlic aflair of fjiilclism ends. At the close of his account of it, IVf. de JBausset expresses himself in term?, which, if \vc make some allowance for his fear of saying any tiling harsh of Lewis the fourteenth, may be considered a fair representation of the merit and demerit of tiie general con- duct of the principal actors. All of them, he says, preserved in it the character of greatness, which posterity has stamped on them. Seduced by his own virtuous mind, Fenelon thought that the highest deiiree of virtue attainable by man, was to unile himself to the divine perfections, by a love of God, free from interest j and he rectified, in the writings which he published in his defence, all that was incorrect or equivocal in the work which was the subject of dispute ;—■ Bossuet, crowned with triumpli and gluiy, preserved his high rank of oracle of llic gallican church : but Fenelon was blame- able for his admiration of the sup[)o.sed spiritual gifts of a visionary womnn, ful' 156 permitting his admiration of them to pre- vail over his better reason, and to prevent his surrendering opinions, perhaps less er- roneous in themselves than in the terms in which he expressed them, to the peace of the church. On the other hand, Bossuet was blameable for connecting a mere question of doctrine with a personal charge of the worst kind, against an estimable and amiable adversary. Having thus assigned to Bossuet and Fenelon, what he considers their due share of praise and blame, M. de Bausset pro- ceeds to his great idol: — Lewis the four- teenth, he says, comes before us in his pro- per light; he does not pretend to be a judge of doctrine, he does not pretend to dictate to the church, he petitions for a clear deci- sion, and when he receives it, then, as the external bishop, he causes it to be executed according to the canons, and as sovereign, he causes it to be executed with legal for- mality. But had not Lewis the fourteenth 157 his share of blame? By his severities to Fcnclon and hiS friends, by his marked support of Bossuet, by his pointed instruc- tions to bis ambassadors, by his letters, almost menacing, to the pope, ' did not the external bishop attempt to influence the decision, did he not anticipate the judgm:ent? On the pope, INI. de Bausset is silent : to this writer, the pope appears the only actor in the business ^ wliose conduct \va» perfectly free from bkme. The real errors in the work of Fenelon, which was denounc- ed to the pope, would have justified a more severe censure, or rather a censure expres- sed in harsher terms than the pope adopted. To the extreme of severity, the pope was repeatedly urged, (and we have seen in what terms,) by the french monarch : but he listened to meekness, and to wisdom, which is always meek. He pronounced a censure, afflicting to Fenelon, but much milder than the king required or extreme justice warranted. He generously wept over t>lie virtue, the piety, and the talents, ther J.58 abuse of vvLich he was forced to condemn, and did every thing in his power to heal the wound he was obhged to inflict. Fenelon's submission, however, made hiui the hero of the day. " It stands a solitary example in history," says the chancellor d'Aguesseau, " of a controversy upon a point of doctrine, which one single sentence terminated, at the instant, with- out its reproduction in any other form, and without any attempt to reverse it by power, or to elude it by distinctions. The glory of it is due to Fenelon." Some attempts were made to effect a reconciliation between Fenelon and his episcopal antagonists, but such a reconcili- ation never took place. M. de Bausset, however, informs his readers, that he has discovered vestiges of a friendly correspon- dence, after the affair of quietism, between Fenelon and the bishop of Chartres ; and cites a letter of madame de Maisonfort, which mentions a projected journey of M. de St. Andre, tho coafidential grand-vicai' 159 of Bossuet, to Canibray, for the purpose of brinijing about a reconciliation bttweeii Bossuet and renel(;n. It appears tliat Fenelon uniformly expressed himself of Bossuet with respect, and mentioned his talents and the services he had rendered to religion, with admiration. It is singular, that at a subsequent time, when Bossuet was worn down with age and infirmity, he applied to Lewis the fourteenth, to nominate his nephew, the abbe Bossuet, of whom such frequent men- tion has been made in the preceding pages, to be his coadjutor, and of coarse his suc- cessor, in the bishoprick of Meaux, and that he met with an absolute refusal. After the deatii of the abb6 de Phillippeaux, the other anient of Bossuet, a relation of quietism, supposed to be written by him, was published at Paris ; and, on the ap- plication of some of the family of Fene- lon, was declared, by an artet du concile, to be scandalous and defamatory, and or- dered to be publicly burnt. 160 A question has been made, whether Fc- nelon was sincere in his retractation. On this point, we have the testimony of the chevaHer Ramsay. In a formal conversa- tion, which he had with" Fenelon, the che- vaher observed to him, that he could not reconcile his condemnation of his book, with his adherence to his avo\\ed opinion of the possible existence of a pure, and absolutely disinterested love of God. Fe- nelon replied, '* that in condemning his book, the church had not condemned the pure love of God j that it had only con- demned the expressions used by him, in cxphininor it, and those," he admitted, " were unfit for a dogmatical work. My book," he said to the chevalier, ** is good for nothing ; it is an abortion of imagina- tion, it is not a work of the heart ; I wish you not to read it." Tiie doctrine it- self remained dear to Fcnelon's till it ceased to beat. He left behind him a vo- luminous manuscript on the subject, to be delivered to the pope after his decease. 161 We have seen tliat madame de Guyon was imprisoned, soon after the dispute on quietism first broke out : a short time after its termination, she was released. She then retired to Blois, where she passed the re- mainder of her days in retirement and devotion, entirely silent on the events of her life, her principles, and her writings. She died at an advanced age, adored by the poor, and universally esteemed. In every vicissitude of life, she preserved the esteem of the hotel de Beauvilliers, and her other distinguished friends. A few days before her death she made her will : she prefixes to it a profession of her faith, of the purity of her intentions, and her submission to the church. To close this account, perhaps too mi- nute, and therefore already too long, of the affair of quietism, it remains only to men- tion, tiie steady affection which all the antient friends of Fenelon, with the single exception of madame de Maintenon, pre- served for hira during the long continu- 1^2 ance of the court's displeasure. No- thincr could exceed their attachment to him. He was a bond of union which ce- mented them together, for many a good and kind purpose. ** They took every opportunity," says the duke de St. Simon, " of meeting together ; it was their delight to talk of Fenelon, to regret him, to express their wishes for his return to them, to con- trive means of seeing him/* But none of them was more warmly or steadily attached to Fenelon than his for- mer pupil, the duke of Burgundy. Lewis the fourteenth enjoined him not to corres- pond with Fenelon, and spies were placed near each of tiiem to prevent their inter- course. Four years elapsed before there was the slightest communication between them : the duke then contrived to send a letter to Fenelon. — *' At length, my dear archbishop," writes the amiable- youth, " I have an opportunity of breaking the silence, which for these four years, I have been obliged to keep with you. I 16S have suffered much since we parted j but one of my greatest sufferings has been, not to have it in my power, during all this time, to testify to you how much 1 felt for you, and to assure you, that my friendship for you has increased with your misfortunes, I shall not say how much I am disgusted with what has been done in your regard.'* He gives the archbishop an account of his studies ; " I think," he says, *' that I per- sist more steadily than I did, in the path of virtue : but pray to God for me, that he will please to strengthen me in my good resolutions, and not suffer me to offend himi auain." Fenelon's answer is most affec- tionate j it contains much good advice, ex- pressed in the most affectionate language, but scarcely one word of himself, or his misfortunes : '* My mind," he says in it, " is at rest ; my greatest misfortune is not to see you. I would give a thousand lives as a drop of water, to see you what God wishes you to be." M 2 164 CHAP. XIIL TELEMACBUS. During the disputes concerning quietism^ a circumstance took place, which increased, and perhaps unalterably fixed the aversion of Lewis the fourteenth to Fenelon : —the publication of Telemaclius. It appears to have been composed by Fenelon, while he was preceptor to the royal dukes. Not long after the affair of quietism broke out, Fenelon gave the ma- nuscript of it to a valet de chambre, to be copied by him ; and the valet sold it to a bookseller at Paris. Tiie police at thai time narrowly \vatched the motions of Fe- 1(55 iielon ; they liad notice of the publication, and, when tlic bookseller was at the 208th page of the impieifsion, seized, in the king's name, all the copies which were found in the possession of the bookseller ; and every precaution was used to annihi- late the work. But it was too late ; the manuscript was preserved ; it was sold to Adrian Moetjens, a bookseller at the Hague, and by him it was immediately printed. This edition appeared in 1699 i and is very incorrect. Editions of it were rapidly mul- tiplied ; it was translated into every euro- pean language, and universally read and admired. Immediately on its appearance, it was supposed to contain an intentional and pointed satyr of Lewis the fourteenth, his court, and his government. Calypso was supposed to be the marchioness of Montes- pani Eucharis, mademoiselle de Fontanges j Telemachus, the duke of Burgundy ; Men- tor, the duke of Beauvilliers ; Antiop^, the duchess of Burgundy ; Protesilaus, Lou- 165 vois ; Idomeneus, our king James the second ; Sesostris, Lewis the fourteenth. It does not appear, and Fenelon himself always denied, that in the composition of the work, he intended to pourtray these objects, or intended to lead the attention of his readers to them : but it is easy to sup- pose, that, as he unavoidably wrote it under a strong impression of what imme- diately passed under his eye, the work ■would contain a more striking resemblance of the scenes passing before him, and of the principal actors in them, than it would have discovered, if the author had lived at a distance from them. Admitting, however, that no such individual resem- blance was intended, or can be fairly traced in Telemachus, still, it contained enough to excite the monarch's highest dis- pleasure. The disrespectful mention which is made, in every part of it, of ambition, of extensive conquest, of military fame, of magnificence, and of almost every thing else, which Lewis the fourteenth considered 167 ns the glory of his reign, could not Ijul prejudice the monarch against the writer. When he reflected that it was the pro- duction of one, on whom he had conferred splendid marks of his favor, he could not but think the publication an act of ingrati- tude J when he recollected that the pre- ceptor had probably instilled the principles of the work into the heir of his throne, the preceptor would naturally become an ob- ject of personal hatred ; and these feelings would be much aggravated by the re- ception which the work met with, in the countries whom Lewis the fourteenth view- ed as his natural enemies, and who, soon after its first publication, confederated for the destruction of him and his family. He knew their hatred of him, and whatever they cherished, he could not but consider as hostile to him. In the monarch's general disHke of the work, madame de Maintenon unavoidably shared ; and, as Lewis the fourteenth sus- pected her of a partiality to Fenelon, her 168 interest required that she should take every opportunity of expressing her disapproba- tion of the author, and that she sliould be forward in condemning the offending work. This was soon perceived by the courtiers : they quickly saw that Telemacims was never to be mentioned. — Fenelon was a member of the french academy : when his successor was received into it, both his successor and the member who pre- sided at that sitting of the academy, pronounced an eulogium of Fenelon, and praised his other works, but neither of thena mentioned Telemachus. After several editions of Telemachus had been printed, on the model of the edition of 1699, Moetjens himself gave a more per- fect edition of it in 1701; and that edi- tion was generally followed, in all subse- quent editions, till the edition of 1717* In that year, the marquis of Fenelon, great nephew to the archbishop, published anew edition of Telemachus, from a copy cor- rected by Fenelon himself. With the leave 169 of the regent, the marquis dedicated this edi- tion to Lewis the fifteenth, who was then in his eighth year. This edition became the textus receptus, or the model tVcnn which all subsequent impressions of Telcmachus have been taken. As a composition, Telemachus has per- haps received its full measure of praise. It is eminently defective in unity of design, abounds with unnecessary details, is often prosaic ; its moral is oftener taught by long discourses, than by action, the proper ve- hicle of moral in an epic poem ; and it con- tain? more of profane love, than might be expected from a man of prayer, always writing at the foot of the cross ; but it abounds with passages of exquisite beauty, and contains some of true sublimity. A soft tinge of poetic, and, it may be said, of religious m.elancholy is shed over tiie whole, which seems to elevate it to real poetry, gives it an indescribable charm, and inte- rests the reader, both for the author and his hero. Wc find, by M. de Bausset, tliat 170 Mentor's apology to Telemachus, for the faults of kings, was inserted in the manu- script, long after the first edition of the work, and consequently long after " The haughty Bourbon's unrelenting hate — " Drvden. had sealed the author's doom. 171 CHAP. XIV. fSNELON^S OTHER LITERARY WORKS, ASD CENE' SAL LITERARY CHARACTER. The mention of Telemachus, naturally leads to some account of the other works of Fenelon, and a general view of his lite- rary character. All his writings show much grandeur and delicacy of sentiment, great fertility of genius, a correct taste, and exquisite sen- sihility. The poetical character appears in them all; but generally, it is poetry, descended from the heavens, to converse familiarly with man, and lead him, by her sweetest and simplest strains, to virtue and 17« happiness. By assiduous study, the works of the best writers of antiquity became familiar to him ; he imbibed their spirit ; and his intimate acquaintance with tlieir w'ritings, was his resource in every vicissi- tude in Hfe, his ornament in prosperity, his comfort in adverse fortune : and, in the memorable contest we have mentioned, in which every thing dear to him was in- volved, the charm which it spread over his writings, enabled him to divide the world in his favor, against his mighty adversary. He appears to have formed himself more on the Greek than the Roman. All the good writers of antiquity are far removed from the extremes of simplicity and refine- ment ; but the greek, by their greater sim- plicity, have an evident advantage over the roman. The writings of Fenelon, when quietism did not entangle him in its refine- ments, are distinguished by simplicity both of sentiment and expression. Without ap- pearing to be measured, his periods are 173 mellifluous, and, by a profusion, sometimes perhaps carried to excess, of the little con- nective words, uhich the french languaije possesses much more than the english, but in no proportion to the greek, each of his sentences always leads to the following, and harmonises with it both in sense and sound. His Telemachus, and his replies to Bossuet, contain many passages of great splendor and pathos ; but their greatest beauty is their tender simplicity. This at- tached every reader to him, and gave Bos- suet those sleepless nights which he inge- nuously owned. The greatest fault of his writings is, that they abound with what, in music, is called rosalia, a repetition of the same idea in the next higher notes. After TelemachuS; the principal literary work of Fenelon is, iiis Dialogues sur V Eloquence en general, et sur celle de la chaire en particuUer : it was published after his death. The chief aim of it is to shew, that the real object of eloquence, is to excite in the auditors, virtuous and noble 174 sentiments, and to impel them to generbu^ anr} virruous deeds ; and that, when elo- quence falls short of this, it fails of its end. He particularly applies this observation to the eloquence of the pulpit: we shall pre- sent the reader vvith a general view of what he says on this subject, when we shall have occasion to mention his own sermons. On popular oratory he observes, that the first thing to be required of a public speaker is, that he should be a virtuous man : this, he pronounces to be indispensible to the success of his eloquence. He asks, *' how is a mercenary and ambitious orator to cure his country of corruption and ambition } If riches are his aim, how is he to correct the venality of his countrymen ? I know," says Fenelon, " that a virtuous and dis- intcfested orator should not be permitted to want the necessaries of life ; but let him put himself in the way of not wanting them ; let his manners be simple, unpre- tending, frugal, and laborious ; if necessary, let him work with his own hands, for hh 17^ subsistence. The public may confer lienors on him, may invest him with authority: but, if he is master of his passions, if he is really disinterested, he will never make any use of his authority for his private ad- vantage ; he will always be ready to resign it, when he cannot preserve it without dis- simulation or flattery. To persuade the people, an orator should be incorruptible : his eloquence and talents will otherwise ruin the state. Where a man has his fortune in view, he must please every one, and manage every one ; how is such a man to obtain an ascendant over his countrymen ? Does he seek riches ? let him embrace some of the professions by which riches are required: but, let him not make his speeches in the public cause, the means of acquiring them." Fenelon observes of Cicero, " that the speeches which he made, while he was young, rather amuse the mind than move the heart;'* that, he seems rather occupied 176 by a wish of exciting admiration, than bj his dient's cause ; yet that even in the most flowery of these harangues, he shows great talents of persuasion and of moving the passions. But it is in the harangues which he made in the cause of the repubhc, when he was advanced in Hfe, that he appears to advantage. Then experience in affairs of magnitude, the love of liberty, and the view of the dangers which surrounded him, raised him to efforts worthy of a great orator. When he is to support the cause of dying liberty, to animate the republic against Anthony, you have no longer a play of words, no longer an antithesis ; then, he is negligent; he finds in nature, all that is wanting to seize, to animate, to carry off his hearers. Of antithesis, the bane of modern wri- tings, Fenelon says : — " I do not absolutely proscribe antithesis j when the things to be expressed are naturally opposed to each other, it is proper to mark their opposition. There, antithesis is the natural and simple 177 form of expression ; but to go out of tlie way to form batteries of words is child- ish." In the same work, Fenelon observes, that, " to a perfect intelligence of the sacred writings, some previous acquaintance with the works of Homer, Plato, Xcnophon, and other celebrated writers of antiquity, is ab- solutely necessary. After this, the scrip- ture," he says, " will no longer surprise." The same customs, the same mode of narrative, the same splendid imagery, the same pathetic touches are found in each. Where they ditier, the advantage is wholly on the side of the scripture ; it infinitely surpasses all the writers of antiquity in sim- plicity, in spirit, in grandeur. Homer him- self never approaches the sublimity of the canticles of Moses ; of that canticle in particular, which all the children of Israel were obliged to learn by heart. No greek 9r latin poetry is comparable to the psalms. That, which begins, " The God of Gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath called up N 178 the earth/' exceeds uhatever human ima- gination has produced. Neither Homer, nor any other poet, equals Isaiah, in des- cribing the majesty of God, in whose pre- sence empires are as a grain of sand, the whole universe as a tent, which, to day is set up, and removed to morrow^ Some- times, as when he paints the charms of peace, Isaiah has the softness and sweet- ness of an eclogue ; at others, he soars above mortal conception. But, what is there in profane antiquity, comparable to the wailings of Jeremy when be mourns over the calamities of his people ? or to Nahum, when he foresees, in spirit, the downfal of Nineveh, under the assault of an innumerable army ? We almost behold the formidable host, and iiear the arms and the chariots. — Read Daniel, denouncing to Balthazar, the vengeance of God, ready to fall upon him j compare it with the most sublime passages of pagan antiquity ; you- find nothing comparable to it. It must be added that, in the scriptures, every thing 179 sustains itself; whether we consider the the liistorical, the iei^al, or the poetical part of it, the proper character appears in all. On the writings of the antient fathers, lie hds the following judicious observations. " Some well informed persons have not al- ways done to the fathers the justice due to them. They seem to have formed their opinion of them by a harsh metaphor of TertuUian, a swollen period of St. Cyprian, an obscure passage of St Ambrose, a subtle jingling antithesis of St. Augustin, or a quibble of St. Peter Chrysologus. But we ought to consider how much the fathers were necessarily influenced by the generally depraved taste of the times in which they lived. Good taste began to decay at Rome, soon after the Augustan asra. Juve- nal possesses less delicacy than Horace; both Seneca the tragic writer, and Lucan, have a disagreeable and turgid style. In Greece, attic literature had fallen into ne- glect, before St. Paul or St. Gregory Na- 7.ianzen wrote. A kind of minute scholas- X 2 180 tic subtlety had taken j)lace of sound taste and judgment. The fathers were generally educated by the wrangling ihetoricians of their times, and naturally fell into the gene- ral manner : yet they seem continually to struggle against it. To speak in a simple and natural manner was then generally es- teemed a fault : declamation, not elo- quence, was the leading object. But if we bestow on the writings of the fathers a patient and impartial perusal, we shall discover in them pearls of inestimable^ value. St. Cyprian possesses a greatness of spirit, and a vehemence, resembling those of Demosthenes. We find in St; Chrysostom an exquisite judgment, noble images, a feeling and amiable morality. St. Augustin is at once sublime and popu- lar; he rises into dignit}', by the most sim- ple expressions. He converses, he inter- rogates, he answers. It is a conversation between him aiid his hearers ; his similesj generally introduced very opportunely, throw liiiht on his subject. He sometimes 161 descends to the coarseness of the populace, but it is to reform them, and he leads them by it to what is right. St. Bernard was a prodigy, in a barbarous age. We find in him delicacy, elevation, sentiment, tender- ness, and vehemence. We shall be asto- nished at the beauty and grandeur which we nieet in the fathers, if wc take into con- sideration the times in which they wrote. We readily pardon the pompous diction of Montaigne, the obsolete diction of Marot ; why not shew the same indulgence to the fathers ? Why not ascribe their defects to the defects of the times in w hich they lived?" The letters of Fenelon have been gene- rally admired ; they appear to have been chiefly written on the impulse of the moment, witiiout study, and without the least view to publication. The greater part of them are on subjects of piety : but many of them are addressed to persons in public situations, or engaged in the ordina- ry affairs of life, and abound with profound 182 and delicate observations. " What you have most to fear," he writes to a young nobleman, *' is idleness and dissipation. Idleness is as prejudicial in the world, as it is criminal before God. A soft and indolent man, must always be a poor crea- ture. If he is placed in any considerable situation, he is sure to diso-race it. If he has the most brilliant talents, idleness pre- vents his making any use of them. He cannot cultivate them, or acquire the infor- n^ation wanted for the proper discharge of his duties, or make necessary exertions, or accommodate himself, for any length of time, to those, whom it is his duty or his interest to conciliate. What can be done for such a man .? Business vvearies him, serious reading fatigues him, military duty interrupts his pleasures, attendance at court is irksome to him. — Pride alone should make such a being insupportable to himself. ** Do you beware of this wretched exist- ence. At court, with the king, in the 183 army, among the generals, wherever you may be, exert yourself to behave with civility. Endeavour to acquire that polite- ness, which shev\s a respectful defcrenqe to every one. No airs of dignity, no affecta- tion, no bustle ; learn to behave to every one according to his rank, his reputation, his merit, and his creriit. Give to merit, esteem j to talents, when virtue and confi- dence accompany them, confidence and attachn^entj to rank, civility, and cere- mony. On days of general representation, speak to every one, but enter into particular conversation with none. Bad company is always disgraceful ; it is ruinous to a young man, who has not yet an established cha- racter. It is excusable to see few persons, but nothing excuses your seeing a single person of a blasted reputation. Shew such persons no indignity, but keep them at a great distance. ** A seclusion from the world to induce iq idleness is dishonorable; but a retire- 184 ment, employed in acts of duty or profes- sional exertions, acquires general esteem. *' As to general acquaintance, consider them as a kind of imperfect friends, upon whom YOU should not rely ; and whom, except from urgent necessity, you should never trust ; but you should serve them, as opportunity offers, and endeavour to lay them under obligations to you. Among these persons, you are not to look for per- fect characters; be most connected with such among them, as arc most worthy. *' As to true friends, chusc them with great care; but their number must be small. Have no friend, who does not fear God, who is not wholly governed by the truths of religion. They should be a little older than yourself. To friends like those, open your heart without reserve; and keep nothiug secret from them, except the secrets of others." Soon after Fenelon was appointed pre ceptor of the royal [)rinces, he was elected 185 a member of the frencli academy. Con- formably to an cstablisticd rule of that in- stitution, he pronounced a discourse before the academy on iiis reception. Few of the discourses pronounced on these occasions, have survived the day on which they were dehvered. Fenelon's was generally ad- mired ; the authors of the Bibhotheque Britannique, (vol. IQ. p. 54,) spoke of it, jn terms of great commendation. In one part of it, Fenelon illustrates, by an inge- nious comparison, what should be a great object of every writer in the general ordo- nance of his work ; " the beauties of a literary composition," he says, " should resemble those of architecture •, the boldest works are not always the best. .No part of an edifice should be constructed with a view to its own particular beauty; each should be constructed with a view to the strength and beauty of the whole.'' When the academy projected their Dic- tionary, they directed M. Uacier, their secretary, to communicate the plan of it to 186 Fenelon, and to request his thoughts on the design, and the best mode of carrying it into execution. Fenelon replied by a letter, published after his decease, with the title, Lettre a rAcademie Francaise, He does not confine himself to the parti- cnlar point to which his attention was cal- led by the academy, but throws out many general observations, replete with judgment and taste, on the actual state of literature in France. His remarks on french poetry are interesting, and shew, that in a very advanced age, for they were not written till a very late period of his life, his soul was still wedded to immortal verse. He ad- mits the imperfection of the heroic poetry of his countrymen. " Our versification,'* he says in this letter, " loses, if I not deceived, much more than it gains by rhyme. It loses by it, much of its vivacity, its ease, and its harmonyx It frequently happens, that the rhyme, which has cost the poet so much labour, reduces him to ihe necessity of ex- 187 tending and weakening iiis period. He is often forced to enij^loy tv\o or tlirec super- fluous verses for the sake of one whicli he particularly wishes to introduce. We are scrupulous in the choice of rhytnes, and anxiously seek for those, which are thought to be rich ; but we are not as scrupulous as we should be about solidity of thought and sentiment, clearness of expression, natural arrangement, and real dignity of language. By rhyme, we gain little except an irksome uniformity of cadence, which is so far from being grateful to the ear, that we carefully avoid it in prose. The repetition of final syllables fatigues us in heroic verses. There is more harmony in those odes and stanzas, in w hich the rhymes are irregularly arranged ; but our grand heroic strains, which require the most harmonious, the most varied, and the most majestic sound, frequently consist of verses which have no pretence to perfection." Fenelon's other works principally relate to religious subjects ; a considerable por- 188 tion of them are of a polemic nature, on the subject of the jansenistical controversy, in Avhich, in his latter years, he took an active part. His Treatise on the Exist- ence of God, was addressed, in a course of letters, to the duke of Orleans, the cele- brated regent. M. de Bausset shews, that a work, intitled. Lives of the PliilosopherSy often published with his name, is unjustly ascribed to Fenelon. I 189 CHAP. XV. FENELOK IN HIS DIOCKSE. When Feiielon was nominated to the see of Cambra}^, every motive of interest and ambitioH must have prompted him, (in op- position to the canons whicli called him to his diocese,) to make the court his liabitual residence, and must have allured him to it by very specious reasons. In the opinion of the public, and even in his own consci- ence, if it were usually pliable, such a re- solution would require no other apology, than his office of preceptor to the young princes. It would naturally suggest to him, that personal attendance on them was his first obligation. 190 But Fenelon considered residence in his diocese too sacred a duty to be neglected ; and therefore, before he acquiesced in his nomination, he stipulated, that his office should, on no account, prevent his residing with his flock, during nine months of every year. The royal mandate now made his constant residence among them a matter of necessity ; and probably, except so far as it separated liim from his friends, he found the compliance ^vith it, no great mortifica- tion. A letter written by him to the duke of Beauvilliers, gives a pleasing view of the situation of his mind, soon after he was settled among his flock. " I work," he says, in it, " softly and gently, and endea- vour, as much as I can, to put myself in the way of being useful to my flock. They begin to love me, I endeavour to make them find me easy of access, uniform in my conduct, and without haughtiness, rigour, interest, or artifice : they appear alreadv to have some confidence in me ; m and let me assure you, that even these good Flemminders, \vith their homely appear- ance, have more finesse than I wish to put into my conduct towards them. They en- quire of one another, M^hether I really am banished; and they question my servants about it ; if they put the question to me, I shall make no mystery of it. It cer- tainly is an aftiiction to me to be separated from you, and the good duchess, and my other friends ; but, from the general scene, I am happy to be at a distance, and sing the canticle of deliverance," From the recent occurrences of Fene- lon's life, it might be natural to expect, that, in the administration of his diocese, he would err by excess of zeal; but from that defect no one was ever more free. To do the kind and common thing while consci- ence allowed it, to abstain from unnecessary acts of authority, to avoid every display of talent or virtue, to remove by meekness and moderation what was blameable, to improve, with prudence and sobriety, what was good, and always to kce^) himself and 192 his own exertions from the public eye, was the uniform tenor of his conduct. Durincr the fifteen years, for which he governed his diocese, his administration of it was uni- formly wise and meek j between him and his flock, his chapter, or his clergy, there never was an appearance of discord : though, by his indefatigable zeal, he soon made the district committed to his charge, the model of a well regulated diocese : his biographers do not record of him, a single instance of what are generally called acts of vigour, or even a single instance of star- ing virtue. The peace of heaven was with him, and was communicated by him to all his flock. He allowed himself a short time for sleep, rose at a very early hour, gave some time to prayer and pious meditation, and then arranged with one of his grand-vicars, the employments of the day. Except on Saturdays, or on festivals particularly cele- brated in some church of his diocese, when he ofiiciated there, he said mass every day in liis private chapel ; on Saturdays, he 103 said it in his metropolitan church, and, durinjy the rest of that morning heard in- discriminately, the confessions of all who presented themselves. Till nine o'clock, he was visible to those only who attended him by appointment; after that hour, till he dined, his doors weic opeti to all per-" sons who professed to have real business ^vith him. At noon, he dined; his table wa3 suitable to his rank, but he himself was extremely aljstemious, eating only the simplest and lightest food, and of that, sparingly. All his chaplains were admitted to his table ; it was his general rule to shew them the greatest respect ; if he sent them into the country, on any business of his diocese, it was always in one of his own carriages, and with one of his own atten- dants, that the respect, which he shewed them, might conciliate to them the general respect of his flock. Both before and after dinner, he himself said grace with serious- ness, but without affectation : the reader ^Vill hear with pleasure that his tried friends o 194 the virtuous and faithful abbe de Chante- rac, was always placed next him, on his left hand. During dinner, the conversation was general, and strangers were struck equally, with its ease and politeness. After dinner, all the company retired to a large apartment, for about an hour; there, tha same stile of conversation was continuedy but a small table was sometimes placed before Fenelon, on which he signed his name to papers which required immediate dispatch, and he sometimes took that op- portunity of giving directions to his chap- lains, on the affairs of his diocese. An hour was spent in this manner, after which, unless he was prevented by ur- gent business or necessary visits, he lived to himself till nine o'clock, then he supped, and at ten, the whole of his household assembled : one of his chaplains said night- prayers ', at the end of them, the arch- bishop rose, and gave his general blessing to the assembly*. * See Appendix, Note III. 195 The only recreation of Fenelon was to walk in his garden or in tlie open country. His letters, like those of Cicero, often ex- press the satisfaction which he felt in retiring, after the agitation and hurry of business, to the simple and interesting scenes of nature. By their stillness and calm, any ruffle of the day was quickly smoothed, and his mind, wearied by study oi: business, soon recovered its freshness and elasticity. There too, his piety was often invigo- rated. " The country," he says in one of his letters, " delights me. In the midst of it, I find God's holy peacfe. O ! what excellent company is God! with him one never is alone.*' — In his country walks with his friends, his conversation was par- ticularly instructive and pleasing : this cir- cumstance is frequently mentioned by his contemporaries. " No person," says the duke de St. Simon, *' ever possessed in a higher degree than Fenelon, the liappy talent of easy, light, and ever decent con- versation; it was perfectly enchanting; o 9. 196 his mild uniform piety troubled no onej, and was respected by all. No one felt hi& superiority j every one found him on his own level. If you quitted him for a mo- ment, you instantly ran back to him." He often joined the peasants, set down on the grass with them, talked to them, com- forted them, went into their cottagesy placed liimself at table with their families, and partook of their meals. In the midst of the vexations of Fenelon-, during the disputes on quietism, a fire burned to the ground, the archiepiscopal palace at Cambray, and consumed all his books and writino-s. He bore his misfor- tune with great resignation. As soon as the abbe de Langeron was informed of it, he hastened to ap{)rize Fenelon of it, and found him conversing with his friends, so much at ease, that he concluded he was ignorant of it, and began with much prepa- ration, to apprize him of it. Fenelon in- terrupted the abb6 j he told him that he was informed of his loss, and remarked to I 197 hiin, that ** it was better his palace should be burnt to the ground, than the cottage of a peasant." At his own expence, he re- built the palace, and furnished it in a suitable style of magnificence ; but he did not allow the arms of his family to be fixed or painted on any part of it: he probably recollected how severely, in his dialogues, he had censured the cardinal de Richelieu, for almost covering the Sorbonne with his arms. An early care of Fenelon, after his set- tlement in his diocese, was to establish a seminary for completing the education of such of his flock as were intended for the church. He always presided at the examination of those who presented them- selves to take orders. These examinations were conducted with such a happy mixture of ease and solemnity, that none ventured to present themselves for ordination, M'ho had not gone through a serious course of previous study, while all were sufficiently at ease to discover, by tlieir behaviour, 198 their real dispositions and talents. This was so well arranged, that in Fenelon's time, no priest Avas ordained, who, pre- viously to his ordination, had not been five times examined by Fenelon himself. It was Fenelon's wisli to put his seminary under the direction of his beloved sulpi- cienS; and he intimated his wish to M. Tronson their superior; but fearful of in- volving his friends in his own disgrace, he avoided pressing it on him. Twice a week during the lent, he preach- ed in some parish church of his diocese ; on solemn festivals, he preached in his metropolitan church -, in his visitations of his diocese, he always made a familiar dis- course, in the church of the parish which he visited j so that, in his large diocese, there was not a single parish church, in which he had not preached more than once. It was his opinion that, in general, sermons were not sufficiently instructive. ** The people," he says, in his dialogues pn the eloquence of tlie pulpit, " hear 199 continually of the scripture of the church, of the two laws, of the priesthood of Moses, Aaron, Melchisedeck, and of the prophets and apostles ; but little pains are taken to inform them from the pulpit what all this means, or what these persons have done. A preacher should explain to the people regularly and in great detail, the gospels, the mysteries, the origin and institution of the sacraments, the traditions, the disci- pline, the ofEces, and the ceremonies of the church. —Such instructions will strengthen their faith, give them a just notion of reli- gion, and, by degrees, enable them to pro- fit of all they see or hear in their churches. Sermons should be short, but frequent, ?ind the same sermon should be often re peated." He disliked the divisions and subdivi- sions of sermons : *' These," he says, " were unknown to the fathers. St. Ber- nard, the last in time of the fathers, often remarks the natural division of his subject, but does not observe it in his sermons.'* 2G0 Fenelon declares against the practice of committing sermons to writing, and then learning tliem by heart. " Consider,-* he says, " the advantage of speaking without minute preparation. The preacher pos- sesses Ijimself; he expresses himself na- turally, his words flow immediately from his own sources ; his expressions, (if he has a natural talent for eloquence), are lively and moving. The warmth of the moment sugi^ests to him expressions and images, which would not have occurred to him, in his cabinet. His action is natural, and has no appearance of art. — Above all, a preacher, who has learned by experience to discern the effect of his oratory on his audience, observes what fixes their atten- tion, what makes an impression on them, where he fails. He sees where the imagery should be bolder, the principles more fully expressed, the conclusions more distinctly or forcibly pointed. In all these particu- lars, how generally must a {)reacher fail, ■who learns his sermons by heart.'' Such a 201 preacher dares not say a word more than is in his lesson ; liis style inevitably smells of its labour ; his compositions, as was said of those of Isocrates, are better read than heard. In spite of all his care, there is a monotony, a something forced, in the inflections of his voice. He is not so much a man who speaks, as an orator wlio recites ; his action is confined, his look shews his dependence on his memory, he dares not abandon himself to the feelings of the moment, least the thread of his discourse should slip from him. The Jiearer per- ceives the mechanism of the exhibition, and remains unmoved." In support of his opinion, Fenelon cites St. Augustine, who declares, that *' those preachers, who speak their discourses word for word, as they have written them down, cannot re- peat and enforce a truth till they perceive that it is perfectly understood ; and thus deprive themselves of one of the most powerful means of instruction." Still, Fe- nelon admitted a considerable degree of 202 preparation : he presupposes, that the preacher has seriously meditated his sub- ject ; and, (what certainly is taking much for granted), that the speaker has a natu- ral gilt of extemporaneous oratory. As the subject is interesting, we have given Fenelon's sentiments upon it at length : yet perhaps, it is a mere question of words. If an unprepared and a prepared sermon be equal in other respects, the former, being the most natural, must necessarily have a great advantage over the latter: but it must be taken into consideration, that the gift of unpremeditated eloquence is very rare. On the general question, tliere- fore, as leading to practical inference, we must weigh the advantages of extempore eloquence, against the small number of those on whom the gift of it is generally conferred ; and, viewing it in tliis light, we shall be tempted to conclude, that the number of those to whom extempore pre- dication should be recommended, is verv small. 203 This leads to the further enquiry, — which is best, that sermons should he read, or, that they should be spoken by heart. On this point, great authorities differ It is remarkable, that Bourdaloue, who had no action, and spoke, though distinctly, very rapidly, with his eyes almost closed, and with little inflection of voice, was a decided advocate for the sermons being prepared with great attention, learned by heart, and exactly spoken as it was com- mitted to paper : while Massillon, whose action was both elegant and vehement, and father de la Rue, more celebrated for action than any other preacher in France, maintained the contrary opinion. Father Segaud, (himself a preacher of eminence), thought Fenelon's sermons were evidently the worse for their want of preparation ; he admitted that they contained splendid and beautiful passages, but thought the effect of them was destroyed by the weak- ness of other passages. Father Segaud, however, listened to Fenelon with the cool 204 attention of a critic : the flock of Fenelon heard him with other ears : to them, he was the good shepherd, \fho knew his flock; whom his flock knew, and whose voice they loved. We have already had occasion to men-- tion the attachment of Fenelon's friends to him ; M. de Bausset relates many facts, and presents us with extracts of many let- ters of Fenelon, which show his attachment to them, the warm interest which he took in their concerns, and his great anxiety that the displeasure of the court, under which he laboured, should not be extended to them. To every part of his own family, he was uniformly kind. The extracts of his letters to them, which M. de Bausset has published, are equally replete with religion and good sense. It was natural that his relations should feel, very strongly, the harsh treatment, which Fenelon received from the court, that it should wound their feelings, and sour them against society in general. Fenelon sooths their resenlments. 205 and izives them excellent advice. In a letter to the marquis de Fenelon, one of his great nephews, be says, " If you can find a sensible friend, one who really pos- sesses the fear of God, endeavour to alle- viate your mortifications, by opening your- self to him, as far as it is prudent : but be assured, that God is the true friend of the heart, and that there is no comforter like him. — No one so well understands, or so kindly enters into the afflictions of those M'ho have recourse to him ; no one accom- modates himself so much to their wants." In another letter, he says, *'you must be })ersuaded of the pleasure it would give me to have you constantly about me, but your duty calls you to Versailles : you should become acquainted with its inhabitants, and they with you. While even my sha- dow continues on earth, I wish it to be useful to you ; but I am old and at a dis- tance, and our family has now no other help or hope, than what it can derive from vour success in the world. — God forbid 206 that I should make you an ambitious man ! But without being indiscreet or obtrusive, you should put yourself in the way of per- sons in power, and cultivate all fair oppor- tunities of attracting their good will. Some- times idleness, sometimes timidity, some- times a love of ease, assumes an appear- ance of modesty, and makes a person retire from commerce with the great, when in fact it is mere idleness, or timidity, or a re- fined self love, which induces him to prefer the company of a few persons with whom he is at ease, and whom he sees pleased with his society. But this is wrong ; — it is proper to despise the world ; but it is also proper to make it subservient to one's laudable views : it is proper to be detached from it from motives of religion, but there is no merit in abandoning it from sloth and caprice. Attend to it, so far as it is your duty, but do not love it from motives of ambition ; neither neglect it from idleness, nor follow it from vanity." The marquis de Fenelon, to whom this letter was written,- ( 207 -Jlppears to have profited by the advice it contained ; he served with distinction in the ariny, and was appointed ambassador to Holland, in which situation his conduct gave great satisfaction. Many of Fenelon's other relations were happy imitators of his virtues. The abb6 de Fenelon, may be particularly mentioned. After a length of years, uniformly devoted to religion and virtue, he retired to Paris, and spent the remainder of his life in endeavouring to procure a religious and moral education for the poor Savoyard boys, with whom, under the antient goverment, Paris abound- ed. Allowing himself no more than was necessary for his mere subsistence, he con- trived, with the remaining part of his in- come, and, with the contributions which he raised upon his friends, to accomplish this edifying work. — The horrors of the revolu- tion forced him from it, and he retired to the delightful solitude of the Mont St. Va- lerian. He was pursued to his retreat, and conveyed to the prison of the Luxembourg; 208 hfe was then in his eightieth year, — Wheri this became pubHc, all the little Savoyard boys assembled, and went in a body to the National assembly : they loudly petitioned tlie assembly for his liberty : and offered, that any number of them should be con- stituted prisoners in his stead, as hostages for his good conduct. This, for a time, delayed his fate : but a day was at length fixed for his execution. One of the poor Savoyards, whom the abbe had instructed and assisted, was, at that time, turnkey of the prison of the Luxembourg. Perceiving- his benefactor among the victims led out to execution, he sprang forward, and in a state of distraction, strained him in his em- brace, and cried aloud, *' My father I my father ! are you then going to die ! You, whose life has been an uniform act of good- ness !'* *' Be comforted," the abbe said to him, " death is not an evil to him, who can no longer do good. My dear child,r your sensibility at this moment, comfort? my heart. Farewell, my friend ! farewell/ S09 Josepii ! think sometiuies upon me.'* — ** Alas !" answered the poor Savoyard, " I shall never forget you." Tlieabb6 ascended the fatal cart, with sixty-eight other victims. He exhorted them, during the whole way, to sorrow for their sins, to confide in God, and to offer up to liim, with resignation, the sacrifice of their lives. Having arrived at the guillotine, he once more addressed them : he exhorted them to form, with all their hearts, in an act of repentance for their sins : all of them humbly inclined their heads j he pronounced over them the words of absolution ; and continued to suggest to them sentiments of religion, till it was his turn to submit to the instrument of death. Notwithstanding the disgrace of Fenelon at court, his virtues attracted the friendship of many respectable persons ; among them, his first biographer, the chevalier Ramsay, deserves particular notice. It has been mentioned, that he was preceptor of the children of our James the second, and that p 210 he spent several years in the family of Fe- nelon. He afterwards obtained leave to return to England, and presented himself to receive an honorary degree of doctor of laws, at the university of Oxford. On the day of his installation, two nicmbers of the university opposed his election, on the ground of his former connection with the princes of the Stuart family, and his religious principles. The celebrated doctor King, advocated his cause. Artfully passing over his connections and religion, he mentioned, with due praise, his writings, and observed that they breathed the purest principles of religion and virtue : then addr sssing himself to the audience, be told them, he had the honour to present to them the disciple of the great Fenelon ; and that title, he said, answered for every thing. This address almost entirely disarmed the opposition ; upon a division, the chevalier was elected , by a majority of eighty-five voices to seven- teen. In the disputes on the subject of jansen- 211 ism, Fenelon appeared several times in print, against the disciples of Jansenius : but, though he combated their errors, he left them in quiet. The duke de St. Simon observes, that throughout the whole diocese of Cambray, the jansenists were unmolested by the arclibishop, and gave him no trou- ble. At that time the head of the jan- senists was father Quesnell, an oratorian. In answer to a letter, which he received from the father, Fenelon writes to him as follows : '* I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for all your civilities. Thougli I have never had an opportunity of seeing you, or had any correspondence with you, I recollect with pleasure, tiie desire you expressed, some years since, of paying me a visit at Cambray. I wish you would now put this design in execution. I sliould re- ceive such a mark of your confidence with the most religious fidelity, and the most sincere attention. I should make it a point never to introduce into our conversation, those subjects on which we differ, except p 2 212 jt should be perfectly agreeable to yourself Yet with your permission to rr.ention them, I should hope to shew you, with the book in hand, how much they, who profess them- selves the disciples of St. Augu^tin, are op- posed to his real doctrine. If we could not bring ourselves to agree upon the points in question, we might, however, give anexample of a dispute, carried on without any breach of charity^" This appears to be the true languasesof religion. These amiable over^ tures of peace to fatlier Quesnell, were the more worthy of praise, as Fenelon consi- dered the jansenists as dangerous enemies of the church. In a letter to the duke de Beauvilliers, he says, *' As to the provincial letters of Pascal, I think the prince should read them : in fact, sooner or later he will read them. His curiosity, his taste for entertaining books, and the great reputation of the letters, will not suffer him to remain long in ignorance of them. But I wish all possible precautions should be taken, that he should know what measure of truth they 213 contain, and not be seduced by the appear- ance of truth, vvliich these letters wear. Part of the memorial, which I send you furnishes an antidote against the two first letters of Pascal. It is more than suffi- cient to shew the hidden poison of the letters, and to prove that, in her censures of jan- senisu), the church does not combat a phantom." Still it is among his flock, that Fenelon appears to most advantage ; in every sense of the word he was their father. His esta» blishment and stile of living, were suitable to his public situation ; but far beneath the scale ofexpence and shew, which even good men would have thought justifiable. This left him an ample income, but it sunk under his acts of beneficence. His principal at- tention was directed towards the labouring peasantry ; he appears to have felt strongly the hardship of their lot. A curate com- plained to him, that, after the evening ser- vice of Sunday, his parishioners, in spite of his remonstrances, would dance 5 '* My 214 dear friend," replied Fenelon, " neither you nor I should dance ; but let us leave these poor people to dance as they please i their hours of happiness are not too nume- rous/' During the contest for the Spanish suc- cession, the diocese of Cambray was often the theatre of war, and of course experi- enced the cruel ravages of advancing and retreating armies. Under these circum- stances, Fenelon frequently made visitations of every part of his diocese : and all the wri- ters of his life mention a singular mark of homage, which was shewn, on those occa- sions, to his eminent virtue. *' From their high respect for his character," says M. de Bausset, " from their general admiration of Telemachus, and possibly from a secret wish of revenging the archbishop of Cam- bray, against the injustice of Lewis the fourteenth, the hostile armies permitted Fenelon to visit every part of his diocese. The English, Germans, and Dutch, ri- valled the inhabitants of Cambray in vene- 215 ration for the archbishop. All distinctions of rehgiou and sect, all fGclings of hatred or jealousy, which divide nations, disap- peareil in his presence. IJe was often obliged to have recourse to artifice to avoid the honours, which the armies of the enemy intended him. He refused tlie military escorts which were offered him, for his per- sonal security in the exercise of his func- tions J and, without any other attendant, than a few ecclesiastics, he traversed the countries desolated by war. His way was marked by his alms and benefactions, and by the suspence of the calamities which armies bring. In these short intervals, the people breathed in peace, so that his pasto- ral visits might be termed the truce of God." In one of those visits he met a peasant, still young, but plunged in the deepest affliction. He had recently lost a cow, the only support of his indigent family. Fenelon attempted to comfort him, and by giving him money to buy another, allevi- 216 ated his sorrow ; still, he had lost his own cow, and the tear continued to fall. Pur- suing his journey, Fenelon found the very cow which was the object of so much af- fliction; and like the good shepherd, he 1 himself drove it back before him, in a dark night, to the young man's cottage. " This," says the cardinal de Maury, *'is perhaps the finest trait in Fenelon's life. Woe to those who read it without being affected ! " '' The virtues of Fenelon," continues the cardinal, " give his history something of the air of romance : but his name will never die. To this moment ; the Flemminders bless his memory, and call him the good archbishop.'* 217 GHAP. XVI. THE LATTER YEARS OF TUE LIFE OF FE\ELON : BIS DEATH I2f 1715. Year after year, Fenelon continued in this noiseless tenor of well-regulated, and edifying virtue, beloved and revered by his whole diocese, and by every person, to whom his wise and exemplary conduct was known. Still the indignation of his royal master against him continued una- bated : tiie court was shut against his relations ; his friends, with the exception of the duke of Beauvilliers, and the duke of Chevreuse, were discountenanced, and it was generally understood that the name of 218 Fenelon was never to be pronounced at Versailles. But nothing could weaken the duke of Burgundy's attachment to him. The preceptor and the ro\al pupil corres- ponded frequently, and when, in 1702, Lewis the fourteenth gave the duke of Burgundy the command of tiie army in Flanders, the duke petitioned him, with great earnestness, that he might be allowed, in his passage to the army, to see Fenelon ; the monarch consented, with an express condition, that their interview should be public. The duke apprized Fenelon of the circumstance by an affectionate letter. Wiien the courier who carried the letter to him arrived at Cambray, Fenelon had left it, from a motive of delicacy, not to put himself, unasked, in the way of the duke. Tlvey met at a public dinner, at the town- house of Cambray j it is evident that they were observed, and every thing pas- sed in great ceremony. Once or twicC; Fenelon said something to enliven the conversation, but it did not succeed. 219 According to etiquette, lie presented the duke, at the end of dinner, vvitli a napkin to wipe liis hands : the duke received it, returned it to him ; tiien raising his voice, loud enough to be heard by all persons present, said to him, " 1 am sensible, my lord archbishop, what I owe to you, and you know what I am." They met once more ; but letters passed fre- quently between them. Nothing can be more affectionate than the letters which the duke wrote to Fenelon. " My love of virtue," he writes in one of them, " conti- nues, and I think, gains strength ; but I have many faults. Do you assist me with your advice, and prayers ; in mine, you come every day ; but you will easily sup. pose I don't pray for you in a very loud voice. I say nothing of my dispositions in your regard : they are always the same. If the abbe de Langeron is at Cambray, say to him a little kind word from me, but re- commend silence to him.'* Fenelon's let- ters to the duke abound with good advice. 220 •' Religion," he writes him, *' does not consist in a scrupulous observance of little forms, but in the steady observance of the duties proper for one's state ; a great prince is not to serve God in the same manner as a hermit, or an obscure individual. I must tell you the truth ; the public esteems you, respects you, forms great hopes of you, and wishes to see you without fault : but the public thinks you stern, timid, and scrupulous, and that you have not the ta- lent of uniting moderation and firmness in your decisions. Shew them they are mis- taken : if you wish that religion should be honoured, let your's be simple, accommo- dating, sensible, noble, enlightened, proper for your rank. You cannot regulate the court or the army, as you might a religious community. I am glad you see, by your own experience, what war really is ; how much it is to be dreaded ; how the greatest armies often prove unserviceable i how easi- ly the most splendid monarchies are shak- en ; how rigorously princes, in the midst qf 221 the incense of their flatterers, are censured by tlie pubhc. VV'hilc despotism abounds with ways and means, it acts with more proptitude and energy than a hmited mo- narchy ; but, as soon as the ways and means begin to fail; it sinks for ever. AVlicn despotism becomes bankrupt, how are you to expect that tlie venal herd, wlio have fattened so long on the spoils of their country, will, by their exertion in her sup- port, expose themselves to ruin. Should you ever come to the throne, you should wish to be the father, not the master of your people. You should know that all were not made for one i that the one was made for all,- and to work for the happiness of all." One is at a loss, whom most to admire, the preceptor, who so eloquently taught, or the royal youth, who so willingly listened to these excellent lessons. It appears, that, fop the duke's informa- tion, Fenelon committed to paper the heads of a project for remedying the abuses of the french government. He evidcntlv saw 222 that the time was come, when public opini- on called loudly for an intermediate body between the monarch and the people, to iattach them more to each other, and to increase the general interest of the public in the welfare of their country. With this view, Fenelon suggested an assembly of the notables ; and for this suggestion M. de Bausset thinks Fenelon requires an apo- logy; and he accordingly makes an elabo- rate apology for him. The humanity and attentions which Fe- nelon shewed to the sufferers in the war in Flanders, endeared him to the whole nation. *' Charity," says the duke de St. Simon, *' was among Fenelon's most strik- ing virtues : it embraced equally, the rich, the poor, his friends, and his enemies. He found frequent occasions for the exertion of it in the crowds of the w^ounded and sick, who, in the wars in Flanders, were carried, in great numbers, to Carabfay. He was regular in his visitations of the hospitals, shewed constant attention to the 223 lowest officers, and generally, during tlieir illness, lodged a considerable number of the principal officers in his palace. Like a true shepherd of Christ, he watched conti- nually over their spiritual welfare. The fine manners which his habits of hidi life gave him, attached them to him, and none of them ever had occasion to re[)ent of the contidence which he reposed in Fenelon. In sickness, and in health, they always found him willing to listen to their humble con- fessions, and anxious to replace them in the path of virtue. If the lowest person in the hospital requested his attendance, Fenelon never refused his request. Their corporeal necessities were equally an object of his compassionate zeal. Broths, meat, physic, comfortable food of every description, and always of the best kind, were sent them in well regulated plenty, from his palace. Fenelon presided at the consultations of 'the physicians, with the tender concern of a warm and kind friend. It is impossible to conceive how greatly he became the idol 224 of the military^ and how Versailles, in spite of her stern master, resounded with his name. It happened that the commissariat was in extreme want of corn for the troops : the archbishop emptied his granaries for their subsistence, and refused to be paid. On that occasion, Lewis the fourteenth himself became his panegyrist. His charity and polite attentions extended equally to the prisoners of war, as to his countrymen. In all he did, there was an indescribable propriety ; the true episcopal character appeared in it ; and virtue herself became more beautiful, from Fenelon's manner of being virtuous. The death of the dauphin^ advanced his royal pupil to the rank next the throne ; and the good effects of the education he had received from Fenelon, were then per- ceived by all. From that moment the duke appeared to be every thing which the nation wished. He threw off his reserve, (lid the honours of the court with majesty and gracefulness. His easy, instructive^ ^25 and well adapted conversation, cliarmed tile better kind of courtiers, pleased every ear, gained every heart, shewed his talents, and the use wliich it was to be expected he would make of them. He was never want- ing in attention to birth, to age, to natural or acquired endowments ; it is wonderful,^ with what rapidity he gained universal es- teem, admiration, and love. The joy of the public made it the theme of every con- versation. Is this the man, they asked, till lately so reserved, and unacconiodating? — The dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse answered, He is the man ; he is the very man we always knew him to be ; but the time is now arrived, when it is proper for him to unfold his real character; and, such as you now see him, such you will ever find him. It will easily be supposed, that, from this moment, all the attention of the cour- tiers, veered to the acknowledged friends of the duke of Burgundy. The dauphin died in April, and that very spring revealed 226 at Cambray, to the happy and delighted flock, the change which had taken place at Versailles, in their pastor's regard.— Cam- bray immediately became the general road to the army of Flanders ; every person of rank, who served in it, found some reason for passing through Cambray, and prolong- ing his stay there, as long as he could find a real or pretended cause. But the hopes, which the duke of Bur- gundy raised, he was destined not to re- alize : he died in 1712, and was regretted by the whole kingdom. His eyes vvere scarcely closed, when Lewis the fourteenth ordered that his papers should be brought to him ; he examined them with minute and anxious attention, and burned them with his own hands. Madame de ^Iain- tenon informed the duke de Beauvilliers of this circumstance : she adds, ** I am sorr}^ they are burned -, nothing so beautiful or so good was ever written : if the prince, whose loss we deplore, had some faults, it was not because the councils given him. 227 were feeble, or because he was too much flattered. Well may we say, that those who keep the strait path shall not be confounded." One important manuscript, the Dh^ections for the Conscience of a King, happened to be in the hands of the duke de Beauvilliers, and thus escaped the flames. Every line of it breathes moderation and virtue ; every line censures ostentation, inordinate love of glory, thirst of conquest, injustice, luxury, yielding to flattery, and the wish of absolute power. It was not printed till several years after Fenelon's decease, when a superb impres- sion of it was printed by the marquis de Fenelon, then ambassador at the Hague. The court of Versailles took the alarm, and peremptorily ordered the marquis to suppress all the copies : he obeyed the order, preserving two copies of it only; one of which found its way to the librarv of M. Gaignat, and is noticed by De Bure. A surreptitious edition of it was published at the Hague in 1747; in 1774, it wa'^ Q 2 22S published at Paris, with tlie express jier-' mission of Lewis the sixteenth. WE are now arrived at the term of our biography : — and we cannot close it better than in the M^ords of the duke de St. Simon. " Fenelon," says the duke, *' survived his disciple two years. Neither in the life time of the prince, nor after his decease, did a word once escape Fenelon, which shewed regret for what he had lost, or a Avisli concerning the future. Concentrated in his pastoral duties, he died, if the expres- sion may be allowed, in the field of honor. Returning froni an episcopal visit, his coach was overturned ; no one was wounded, and he himself run no particular danger : but the shock was too great for his feeble jrame. When he arrived at Cambray, he \\as feverish, and in a few days, was be- vond the reach of remedy. During his whole iUness, he appeared insensible to what lie quitted, and occupied only with the thought of what he was going to find. 229 Penetrated with the most lively sentiments of religion, he placed his soul in the hands of God, with a resignation full of confi- dence and humility. He wrote a letter to the king, containing no request for himself, but earnestly recommending to him, the wants of his diocese. — Lewis the four- teenth declared, on perusing the letter, that he had never read any thing more affecting, or more worthy of the last mo- ments of a bishop. Fenelon died at the age of 65, in the arms of his friends, and his clergy, mourned by all his diocese, equally lamented by catholics and protest- ants. — To complete his eulogium, he left behind him, neither debt nor money.'* THE END. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. NOTE I. On the reunion of chriatians. ^ VIEW of the fatal effects which religious ani- rtiosity has produced in the christian world, has often fnade wise and peaceful men endeavour to reunite all denominations of christians in one religion. With this v^ew, at an early period of the reformation, IMe- lancthon formed his celebrated distinction of the points in dispute between the roman catholics and protestants, into the essential, the important, and the indifferent: — in a later period of the reformation, Grotius, the most learned man of his age, employed the last years of his life in projects of religious paci- fication : towards the end of the seventeenth century, a correspondence for the reunion of the roman catho- lic and lutheran churches was carried on between Bossuet on one side, and Leibniz and Molanus on the other: it may be seen in the benedictine edition of the works of Bossuet, and JNIr. Dutens's edition of the works of Leibniz. In the beginning of the last 234 century, a similar correspondence, for the reunion of the roman catholic and english churches, was carried on under the direction, or at le»st with the connivance of cardinal de Noailles and archbishop Wake: a full account of it is inserted in the last volume of Mos- heim's ecclesiastical history. With a view of facili- tating this reunion, doctor Courayer wrote his dis- course on the validity of english ordinations. A cu- rious history of the controversy, to which that treatise gave rise, is contained in Commentatio historica- theologica de Consecratione Anglorum Episcoporum, ab Olao Kiorningio, 4to, Helmstadii, 1739- That such men as Melam thon, Grotius, Bossuet, Leibniz, and Moianus, should engage in the project of reunion, is a strong argument in favour of it's practicability ; that it failed in their hands, may shew that it is more than an herculean labour, but does not prove it utterly impracticable. It is evident, that at one time more than another, the public mind may be moie disposed to peaceful councils, and to feel the advantage of amicable explanation : — " The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decayed, Lets in new lights through chinks which time has made." Waller. Through the flaws and breaches, the yawning chasms, (as they are termed by Mr. Burke,) which 235 the events of the timos have m;u1e in the civil and ecclesiastical institijtions of almost every country, a flood of light seems to break in. and to point out to all, who invoke the name of Christ, the expediency of a general exertion in defence of their common Christianity. In many of the essential articles of the christian religion they are already agreed. All christians be- lieve, 1st. that there is one God; '2d. ibat he is a being of infinite perfection ; 3d. that he directs all things by his providence ; 4th. that it is our duty to love him with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves ; 5th. that it is our duty to repent of the sins we commit; 6th. that God pard(His the truly penitent ; 7th. that there is a future state of rewards and punishments, when all mankind shall be judged according to their works ; 8th. that God sent his son into the world, to be its saviour, the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him ; 9lh. that he is the true Messiah; 10th. that he worked miracles, suffer- ed, died, and rose again, as is related in the four gos- pels ; 1 1th. that he will hereafter make a second ap- pearance on the earth, raise all mankind from the dead, judge the world in righteousness, bestow eter- nal life on the virtuous, and punish the workers of iniquity. In the belief of these articles, all christians, romau catholics, lutherans, calvinists, and socinians are 236 agreed. In addition to these articles, each division and subdivision of christians has its own tenets. Now, let each sett]e among it's own members, what are the articles of belief, peculiar to them, which, in their cool deliberate judgment, theyconsider as ab- solutely necessary that a person should believe, to be a member of the church of Christ ; let these articles be divested of all foreign matter, and expressed in perspicuous, exact, and unequivocal terms ; and above all, let each distinction of christians earnestly wish to find an agreement between themselves and their fellow christians : — the result of a discussion con- ducted on this plan, would most assuredly be to con- vince all christians, that the essential articles of re- ligious credence, in which there is a real difference among christians, are not so numerous, as the ver- bal disputes and extraneous matter in which contro- versy is too often involved, make them generally thought. NOTE II. This account of quietism is principally taken from Bossuet's Instruction sur les Etats d'Oraison, and from two works of very opposite characters, the Me- moirs Chronologiques et Dogmatiques du Pere d'Av- rigni, and Jurieu's Traite Historiquc, contenant le Jugement d'un Protestant sur la Theologie Mystique, 2S7 siir le Quietisme, et sur les Demelez de I'Eveque de Meaux, avec I'Archeveque de Catnbray. NOTE III. For many of these details we are indebted to a' letter, which M. de Bausset has published, from IM. ie Dieu, the secretary of Bossuet, to madame de Mai- sonfort. Some time after Bossuet's decease, M. le Dieu, whose family resided in the neighbourhood ol Cambray, spent a day with Fenelon, by his desire, and appears to have been highly pleased with hi& recep- tion. — He mentions in his letter to madame de Mai- sonfort, that, after supper the conversation turned on the recent death of Bossuet, and that he was asked, whether in his last illness, Bossuet had received the sacraments of the church,— by whom they were ad- ministered to him,— who prepared him for death. " I thought within myself," says the abbe, " that Fenelon, who put the last of these questions to me, recollected at the time, what had passed between them, and sup- posed that Bossuet stood in need of a good confes- sor." Without a fuller investigation of the conduct of the Kontending prelate than the writer has been able to bestow on the subject, it would be presumptuous in him to pretend to assign to them their exact de- grees of blame, (for blameable tliey both were), in their uersonal hostilities. It seems evident to the 2S8 writer, that Bossuet had a just, a kind, and a generou^ mind, and that nauch of what appeared reprehensible in his conduct towards Feneloii, was owing to the violent councils of the cabal of the duke de Maine, who were jealous of the party attached to the duke of Burgundy, and likely to enjoy his exclusive favour if he should come into power. Of that party, Fen- elon was confessedly the head : it was therefore the interest of the cabal to effect his ruin, and unfortun- ately for Bossuet, they made him, unknown to him- self, the Instrument of their designs, and thus drew him by exaggerated representations of the danger of the church from Fenelon's writings, into measures equally repugnant to his natural judgment and feelings. Bossuet left behind him the character of great igno- rance in common affairs. Fenelon was allowed to possess great knowledge of men and manners ; and, notwithstanding his sublime spirituality, Fenelon had probably a much greater knowledge of the affairs of this world, than his serious and severe adversary. — Besides, in extenuation of Bossuct's violence, it should never be forgotten, that, in the main object of the controversy, he v.as perfectly in the right. Pople and MilUr, PruiUrs, 22, Old Bosweil Court, Strand. New JVorks printed for Longman, Ilnrst , Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row. MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF COLONEL HUTCHINSON, Governor of NoUinghani Custle and Town, Representative of the County of Notting- ham in the Long Parliament, and of the Town of Nottingham in the lirst Parliament of Charles H. &c. With original anecdotes of many of the most distin- guislted of his contemporaries, and a sumr.ary Review of Public Affairs : written by his Widow, Lucy, (Haugliter of Sir Allen Aspley, Lieutenant of the Tower, &c. X'ow first published from the original Manuscript, By the Rev. JULIUS HUTCIIINbON. To which is prefixed, the Life of Mrs. Hutchinson, written by herself, a Fragment. Embellished with two elegantly engraved Portraits, and a view of Not- tingham Castle. The 3d Edit. Jn two vols. 8vo. Price l7. Is. A few Copies of the 4to. are remaining on large paper, price i2/. 12s. 6d. in boards. *' The present volume forms a valuable addition to our re- cords, and is justly entitled to stand by the side of those of Rushworth, Clarendon, and Luiilow." Mmt. Rev. " We have not often met with any thing more interesting and curious than this volume." Edin. Rev. MEMOIRS of the LIFE of PETER DANIEL HUET, Bishop of AVRANCIIES. Written by him- self, and translated from the original Latin, with copious Notes, Biographical and Critical. By JOHN AIKIN, M. D. In 2 vols. Svo. Price 1/. Is. Bds. The original of this Work has always been regarded as an interesting Memorial of the State of Litera- ture and learned INlen in France, and some other Countries, during a period comprising the whole Reign of Louis XIV. The translator has annexed a New works printed Jar LongmaUy Hurst, jReeS, aiid Orme, Paternoster How. large Body of Notes, in which Sketches are given of the Ciaaracters, private and literary, of all the distin- guished Persons mentioned in the Work. ANECDOTF-S of the LIFK of the Right Hon. WILLIAM PITT, EARL of CHATHAM, and of the Principal Events of his Time, vv'ith his Speeches in Parliament, from the Year 1736 to the Year 1778. The 7th Edit. In 3 vols 8vo. Price 1/. lis. 6d. boards. A Genuine and corrected REPORT of the SPEECHES of the late Right Honourable WTL- LIAINI PITT, in the House of Commons, from his Entrance in Parliament in 1781 to the Close of the Session in 1805. The Second Edition. Dedicated by permission, to Lord Grenville, and aided by com- munications from distinguished Members of both Houses of Parliament. Second Edition. In 3 vols. 8vo. Price U. lis. 6d. in Boards. MEMOIRS of the LIFE and ADMINISTRATI- . ON of SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, Earl of OR- Of'ORD, with original Correspondence and authentic Papers never belbie published. By the Rev. WILLI- AM COXE, M. A. F. R. S. F. A. S. Archdeacon of Wilts, and Rectoi <.»f Benierton. In 3 vols. 4to. with a Portrait of Sir Robert Walpole. Price 51. js. in boards. *^* Also an Edition, in 3 vols. 8vo. Price l/. 4a'._ in boards. * LIFE of HORATIO LORD WALPOLE. l^y the lute Rev. WILLIAM COXE, M.A. F. A. S. Archcleacou of Wills, and Rector of BeuiertQU. A new edition, in 2 \uls. 8vo< Price 1/. IS.v. iilin^.n'^'^' "'^ ^^ ^'"^AL LIHHARY FACILITY I' '1''l'''ll!'!||ir'l''i!||||'l||l|l'!IIII':|i||H!| AA 000 871 564