Most of his works are either pious or written for the instruction of his royal pupil. The duke de Beauvilliers had copies of most of those letters and papers, addressed to the duke of Burgundy, which Louis XIV. destroyed. Among these, his directions with regard to the conscience of a king, is full of enlightened morality.
He had a great love for all classic learning. His Telemachus is full of traits which show that he felt all the charm of Greek poetry. He was made member of the French academy the 31st of March, 1693, in the place of Pelisson. His oration on the occasion was simple and short. He afterwards addressed his Dialogues on Eloquence to the academy. These prove the general enlightenment of his mind, and the justice of his views. His remarks on language are admirable. When he speaks of tragedy, he rises far above Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, in his conception of the drama; in that, as in every other species of composition, he tried to bring back his countrymen to simplicity and nature. He desired them to speak more from the heart, less from the head. He shows how what the French falsely deemed to be delicacy of taste, took all vivid colouring and truth from their pictures, giving us a high enamel, in place of vigorous conception and finished execution. He gives just applause to Molière; his only censure is applied to the Misanthrope: "I cannot pardon him," he says, "for making vice graceful, and representing virtue as austere and odious." All his works are essentially didactic; and they have the charm which we must expect would be found in the address of one so virtuous and wise, and calm, to erring passion-tost humanity.
His Telemachus has become, to a great degree, a mere book of instruction to young persons. In its day, it was considered a manual for kings, inculcating their duties even too strictly, and with too much regard for the liberties of the subject. In every despotic country, where it is considered eligible that the sovereign should be instructed and the people kept in ignorance, this work is still invaluable, if such a one can be found; but, in a proper sense, it cannot, except in Turkey and Russia. There is much tyranny, but the science of politics is changed: the welfare of nations rests on another basis than the virtues and wisdom of kings;—it rests on knowledge, and morals of the people. The proper task of the lawgiver and philanthropist is to enlighten nations, now that masses exert so great an influence over governments. A king, as every individual placed in a conspicuous situation, must be the source of much good and evil, happiness or misery, within his own circle; but in England and France the influence of the people is so direct as to demand our most anxious endeavours to enlighten them; while, in countries where yet they have no voice in government, the day is so near at hand when they shall obtain it, that it is even more necessary to render them fit to exert it; so that when the hour comes, they shall not be fierce as emancipated slaves,—but, like free men, just, true, and patient. This change has operated to cast Telemachus into shade; and the decay of Catholicism has spread a similar cloud over Fénélon's religious works; but the spirit of the man will preserve them from perishing. His soul, tempered in every virtue, transcends the priestly form it assumed on earth; and every one who wishes to learn the lessons taught by that pure, simple, and entire disinterestedness, which is the foundation of the most enlightened wisdom and exalted virtue, must consult the pages of Fénélon. He will rise from their perusal a wiser and a better man.
[103]Plato's Symposium.
[104]Among such, how beautifully is the following thought expressed: "On voit tous les dieux de la terre dégradés et abimés dans l'éternité, comme les fleuves demeurent sans nom et sans gloire, mêlés dans l'océan avec les rivières les plus inconnues." More known is the apostrophe on the sudden death of Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, when his audience wept, as he exclaimed, "O nuit désastreuse, nuit effroyable, où retentit tout-à-coup, comme un éclat de tonnerre, cette accablante nouvelle, madame se meurt, madame est morte!" D'Alembert praises yet more the conclusion of his oration on the great Condé, when he took leave for ever of the pulpit, and, addressing the hero whom he was celebrating, said, "Prince, vous mettrez fin à tous ces discours. Au lieu de déplorer la mort des autres, je veux désormais apprendre de vous à rendre la mienne sainte; heureux, si averti par ces cheveux blancs du compte que je dois rendre de mon administration, je réserve au troupeau, que je dois nourrir de la parole de vie, les restes d'une voix qui tombe, et d'un ardeur qui s'eteint." "The touching picture," says D'Alembert, "which this address presents of a great man no more, and of another great man about to disappear, penetrates the soul with a soft and profound melancholy, by causing us to contemplate the vain and fugitive splendour of talents and reputation, the misery of human nature, and the folly of attaching ourselves to so sad and short a life."
[105]D'Alembert well remarks, that the criterion by which to judge of kings, is the men in whom they place confidence. He enumerates those most trusted and favoured by Louis XIV. The dukes de Montauzier and Beauvilliers, governors to his son and grandson; Bossuet and Fénélon, their preceptors; with Huet and Fleury, men of learning and rare merit, under them. Added to these selections for one especial object, we may name Turenne, Condé, Luxembourg, Colbert, and Louvois, as his generals and ministers; and when we also recollect the appreciation he displayed for Boileau, Racine, Molière, and others, we may conclude that this monarch deserved much of the applause bestowed on him. Had madame de Maintenon been a woman of enlightened and noble mind, and added to her persuasive manners and the charms of her intellect a knowledge of the true ends of life, and have induced Louis to seek right in the study of good, instead of the dicta of churchmen, his latter days had been as glorious as his first, and it would not have remained for evermore a stain on the French church, that his persecutions and bigotry sprung from his confidence in its clergy. We are told, indeed, that she exerted herself meritoriously on occasion of the choice of Fénélon. Louis did not perceive the merit of this admirable man, calling him a mere bel-esprit. Madame de Maintenon advocated his being chosen preceptor, from his being the most virtuous ecclesiastic at court; a consideration which persuaded the king.
[106]Voltaire asserts that this idea is a mistake. He assures us (Siècle de Louis XIV., chap. 32.) that the marquis de Fénélon, the archbishop's nephew, declared the contrary, and related that the writing of Telemachus was his uncle's recreation, when exiled at Cambray. Voltaire considers this statement supported by his notion that no priest would have made the loves of Calypso and Eucharis the subject of a work to be placed in a young prince's hands. His assertion, however, is liable to many objections. Fénélon was exiled in 1697. Telemachus was put into a printer's hands in Paris in 1698; and was published in Holland in 1699, the year in which the brief of the pope, condemning the Maxims of the Saints, was issued. This interval, which did not include, when the months are numbered, more than a year and a half, was employed by the archbishop in composing replies to Bossuet's attacks; and we discover no moment of leisure for Telemachus. Nothing can be more futile than Voltaire's other objection. The loves of Calypso and Eucharis are, indeed, touched with the tenderness and warmth that characterised Fénélon, but are such as he would consider exemplifying the temptations and corruptions of a court, and suited both to warn his pupil against them, and to show him the path of escape. Fénélon was in the habit of composing fables for the instruction of the prince, while a child, and dialogues for the same purpose, as he advanced in age. There is every reason to believe that he prepared Telemachus to be put into his hands at the dawn of manhood. This idea is the great charm of the work. It excuses its monitorial tone; it explains the nature of the instruction it conveys. It is a monument of the principles of government and morals which he deemed adapted to the sovereign of a great kingdom. As merely a work written to amuse himself, it is pedantic, and, in parts, almost childish; as a manual for the young and ardent prince, who was destined to succeed Louis XIV., to consult when entering into life, it is the best book that was ever written.
[107]Le Tellier, archbishop of Rheims, remarked on this, that Fénélon did right, thinking as he did; and he did right, with his opinions. The worldly-mindedness of Le Tellier was so open as to cause him to say good things himself, and to be the cause of them in others. It was he who said of our James II., "There is a good man, who lost three kingdoms for a mass." He said no man could be honest under five hundred a year. Inquiring of Boileau concerning a man's probity, the satirist replied, "He wants an hundred a year of being an honest man."
[108]A letter of Fénélon is preserved, addressed to Louis XIV., and written before he was made archbishop. This letter predicts all the disasters that afterwards befel France; it speaks of the wrongs and sufferings of the people, and the misrule of the ministers, with freedom, vigour, and truth. There can be no doubt that the king never saw it. He would never have forgiven such interference with his measures or censures of the people about him. The language of truth would have been so odious that the speaker of it would never have been archbishop. The dislike of the king arose from another circumstance. After his elevation to the see of Cambray, Louis heard his peculiar sentiments discussed, and began to fear that the lessons of so good and pious a man would form a prince whose austere virtue and contempt for vain-glory would be a censure on his own reign—so filled with useless sanguinary wars—and magnificent pleasures, paid for by the misery of his people. That he might form a judgment on the subject, he had conversation with the new prelate upon his political principles. Fénélon, full of his own ideas, disclosed to the king a portion of that theory afterwards detailed in Telemachus. The king, after this conversation, said he had discoursed with the most clever, but most chimerical author in his kingdom This story is told by Voltaire in his "Age of Louis XIV." It was related to him by cardinal de Fleury, and M. Malezieux. The latter taught geometry to the duke of Burgundy, and learnt from his pupil the judgment of his royal grandfather. The letter to the king, alluded to above, is to be found in the notes to D'Alembert's "Éloge de Fénélon."
[109]Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. VI.
[110]D'Alembert, in his Éloge de Fénélon, pronounces these works on quietism to be his best. "Let us pardon this active and tender mind," he says, "for having lavished so much fervour and eloquence on such a subject. He spoke of the delight of loving; as a celebrated writer says, 'I know not if Fénélon were a heretic in asserting that God deserved to be loved for himself, but I know that Fénélon deserves to be thus loved.'" Bossuet felt his power, and said of him, as Philip IV. had said of Turenne, "That man made me pass many a wakeful night." And a lady having asked him if the archbishop of Cambray had the talents that were attributed to him, Bossuet replied, "Ah, madam, he has sufficient to make me tremble." Nettled by this talent, Bossuet was driven to attack his adversary by abuse. "Monseigneur," replied Fénélon, "why do you use insults for argument? Do you then consider my arguments insults?" We must in justice record a noble reply of Bossuet to the king: "What should you have done," said Louis, "if I had not supported you in your outcry against Fénélon?" "Sire," replied the bishop, "my cry would have been yet louder."
[111]Poor madame Guyon, thus thrown over by both, suffered much persecution, and was frequently imprisoned. After her liberation from the Bastille she lived in obscurity; but Fénélon always regarded her with affection and respect. She was an enthusiast, full of imagination and talent, and though in error, yet ever declared herself an obedient daughter of the catholic church.
[112]His pastoral letter is, at length, as follows:—"Nous nous devons à vous sans réserve, mes très chers frères, puisque nous ne sommes plus à nous, mais au troupeau qui nous est confié: c'est dans cet esprit que nous nous sentons obligés de vous ouvrir ici notre cœur et de continuer à vous faire part de ce qui nous touche sur le livre des Maximes des Saints. Enfin notre très saint père le pape a condamné ce livre avec les vingt-trois propositions qui en ont été extraites, par un bref daté du 12 Mars. Nous adhérons à ce bref, mes très chers frères, tant pour le texte du livre que pour les vingt-trois propositions, simplement, absolument, et sans ombre de restriction.
"Nous nous consolerons, mes très chers frères, de ce qui nous humilie, pouvu que le ministère de la parole que nous avons reçu du Seigneur pour votre sanctification n'en soit point affobli, et que non obstant l'humiliation du pasteur, le troupeau croisse en grace devant Dieu.
"C'est donc de tout notre cœur que nous vous exhortons à une soumission sincère et à une docilité sans réserve, de peur qu'on n'altère insensiblement la simplicité de l'obéissance, dont nous voulons, moyennant la grace de dieu, vous donner l'exemple jusqu'au dernier soupir de notre vie.
"A Dieu ne plaise qu'il ne soit jamais parlé de nous, si ce n'est pour se souvenir qu'un pasteur a cru dévoir être plus docile que la dernière brebis de son troupeau, et qu'il n'a mis aucune borne à son obéissance. Donné à Cambrai, ce 9 Avril, 1699."
[113]Historie de la Vie de M. de Fénélon, par le chevalier Ramsay.
[114]We cannot refrain from quoting Bourdaloue's remarks on the disputes of these two prelates, which are quoted by Mr. Butler, in his life of Fénélon. "There is not a luminary in the heavens that does not sometimes suffer eclipse; and the sun, which is the greatest of them, suffers the greatest and most remarkable. Two circumstances in them particularly deserve our consideration; one, that in these eclipses, the sun suffers no substantial loss of light, and preserves its regular course; the other, that during the time of its eclipse, the universe contemplates it with most interest and watches its variation with most attention. The faults of Fénélon and Bossuet, in their unfortunate controversy, are entitled to the same benign consideration. The lustre of their characters attracted universal attention, and made their errors the more observable, and the more observed. But the eclipse was temporary, and the golden flood remained unimpaired."
[115]Most of the applications made of the personages are stupid enough, and we are convinced, that though Fénélon might have referred to the Dutch, when he wrote of the Phenicians, and even have shadowed forth an ideal likeness of Louis XIV. in Sesostris, and perhaps of Louvois in Protesilaus, and of Pomponne in Philocles,—he had no thought of the king's mistresses, Montespan and Fontanges, nor of madame de Maintenon, when he wrote of Calypso, Eucharis, and Antiope. In addition to these allusions, we are told that Pygmalion meant Cromwell; Baleazer, Charles II.; Narbal, Monk; and Idomeneus, James II. The first of these is absurd. Still, as we have said, without portraying individuals, Fénélon very likely referred to certain questions of policy, and to the actual state of some neighbouring countries, in sketching the government and people of some of the lands which Telemachus visited.
[116]The marquis de Fénélon was the archbishop's great nephew. His uncle, who first brought him forward in Paris, left a daughter, who married a brother of Fénélon by his father's first marriage. The marquis in question was the grandson of this pair. He was brought up at Cambray by his great uncle. The most affectionate and intimate of Fénélon's letters are addressed to him. He was appointed ambassador to Holland, and second plenipotentiary under cardinal Fleury at the congress of Soissons. He was killed at the battle of Raucoux, October 11. 1746. Voltaire knew him well, and says on this occasion, "The only general officer France lost in this battle was the marquis de Fénélon, nephew of the immortal archbishop of Cambray. He had been brought up by him, and had all his virtue with a very different character. Twenty years employed in the embassy to Holland had not extinguished a fire and rash valour, which cost him his life. Having been formerly wounded in the foot, and scarcely able to walk, he penetrated the enemy's entrenchments on horseback. He sought death, and he found it. His extreme devotion augmented his intrepidity. He believed that to die for his king was the act most agreeable to God. We must confess that an army composed of men entertaining this sentiment would be invincible."
[117]Fénélon a caractérisé lui-même en peu de mots cette simplicité qui le rendoit si cher à tous les cœurs. 'La simplicité,' disoit-il, 'est la droiture d'une ame qui s'interdit tout retour sur elle et sur ses actions. Cette vertu est différent de la sincérité, et la surpasse. On voit beaucoup de gens qui sont sincères sans être simples. Ils ne veulent passer que pour ce qu'ils sont, mais ils craignent sans cesse de passer pour ce qu'ils ne sont pas. L'homme simple n'affecte ni la vertu, ni la vérité même; il n'est jamais occupé de lui, il semble avoir perdu ce moi dont on est si jaloux.' Dans ce portrait Fénélon se peignoit lui-même sans le vouloir. Il étoit bien mieux que modeste, car il ne songeoit pas même à l'être; il lui suffisoit pour être aimé de se montrer tel qu'il étoit, et on pouvoit lui dire:
—Éloge de Fénélon, par D'Alembert.
[118]There is reason to think that the principles to which Ramsay alludes, regarded government. Bent upon destroying the power of the church, then at its height, Voltaire and the philosophers of that day regarded monarchical power with an eye of favour. Fénélon had much more enlightened opinions. "Every wise prince," he said, "ought to desire to be only an executor of the laws, and to have a supreme council to moderate his authority." D'Alembert's remarks on this expression, show how totally he misapprehended its true meaning. Fénélon had conversed with Ramsay and other Englishmen; he knew the uses of a constitution; he was fully aware of the benefit a nation derived, when the legislative power was above the executive.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.