It is absolutely essential, in studying any character, that we take into careful account the age and land in which he lived. We can not rightly estimate his merits or demerits unless we know the circumstances under which he was brought up, and the influences to which he was subjected. The background of the picture has large importance for showing off in proper light the principal figure. The setting of the gem has something to do with our appreciation of its value. Deeds which in one century would cover their perpetrator with infamy, in another would be regarded as wholly excusable. The amount of light afforded strictly measures the amount of guilt involved. Unavoidable ignorance exculpates. Fullness of knowledge imposes responsibility. No greater mistake could be made than to judge people irrespective of their surroundings. Moreover, it adds immensely to our interest in any person if we can, to some degree at least, look out upon the world with his eyes, see what he saw, and so be helped to feel as he felt. We become the better acquainted with him in proportion as we are able to put ourselves in his place. We can certainly estimate him more equitably according as we reproduce to our mind the scenes of his day.
This being so, before we go further with the personal history of Fénelon the Saint we shall do well to spend a little while familiarizing ourselves with the world of his day both civil and ecclesiastical. How were matters in Church and State during the period in which this great man flourished? What was going on among the nations in general, and in France particularly? A brief survey seems necessary to give us the right point of view. Since Fénelon was born in 1651, the second half of the seventeenth century would appear to be in the main his epoch. What was the condition of things throughout Christendom then?
In America the middle of the seventeenth century saw the English making good their foothold on the rude Atlantic shore, in Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and a few other points, contending with the Indians, the Dutch, and the home government, jealous of their liberties, extending their trade, and inaugurating great enterprises. It was in 1656 that the Quakers arrived in Boston. A bloody persecution sprung up against them in the few years following, and four were put to death. It was still later in the century, 1692, that the horrible proceedings against witchcraft took place in Salem, where many were most unjustly hanged, and many more tortured into confession of abominable falsehoods. It is well to remember this when we grow indignant over the persecution of the Huguenots in France. Further north, in Acadie, or Nova Scotia, and Canada, the French had already explored the St. Lawrence and the great lakes, made some feeble settlements, and converted some of the Indians. Their missionaries and adventurers were full of heroism and zeal. Later in the century they discovered the Mississippi, and claimed all the territory in that Western region from its source to its mouth, calling it, after the great king, Louisiana.
In England, 1650 saw Oliver Cromwell in pretty complete possession of power, Charles I having been beheaded the year before. In 1651 the royal army was totally defeated at Worcester, and Charles II soon after escaped in disguise to France to come back triumphantly in 1660, when the Lord Protector had passed away. During the Commonwealth Roman Catholics were deprived of the privilege of voting or holding office, and the use of the Prayer-book was forbidden to Episcopalians. It was in the short reign of James II (1685-88) that Judge Jeffreys wrote his name with letters of blood in the annals of English history. When the people turned to William of Orange, the perfidious and tyrannical James was forced to flee with his family to France, and spent the remainder of his days at St. Germain, a pensioner on the bounty of Louis XIV. Anne, the younger daughter of James II, reigned over England from 1701 to 1714.
On the continent of Europe the terrible Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) between Protestants and Catholics, memorable for the brave deeds of Gustavus Adolphus, had just closed in the Peace of Westphalia, by which Brandenburg—the forerunner of Prussia—was enlarged, and Saxony strengthened, while Switzerland and the low countries, or Netherlands, were acknowledged as independent States. The Belgic Provinces, between the Netherlands and France, divided among themselves, remained submissive to Spain and the Roman Catholic Church. They became involved in the wars attending the decline of the Spanish monarchy, and during the remainder of the century were the theater of fierce struggles between contending armies, and were subjected to many changes of boundaries.
Central Europe, where were the States of Bohemia, Bavaria, Moravia, Austria, and smaller principalities, was loosely confederated into the German Empire under the Imperial Diet at Frankfort. Ferdinand III at this time held the imperial dignity. His death was followed by the long reign of Leopold I (1657-1705). He attacked the Turks on the East and the French monarch on the West. From the former he obtained a great stretch of territory, and in the combination which kept down the towering ambition of the latter he was one of the chief factors. In the North was the strong kingdom of Sweden—soon to be made still stronger by the victories of Charles X—and the weak kingdom of Denmark. On the East were Poland and Russia and the Turk. On the South were Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Portugal, after a most honorable history had been annexed by Philip II to the Spanish realm; but in 1640, after a forced union of one hundred and sixty years, it was freed by a bold and successful conspiracy of the nobles, from all connection with Spain, although its independence was not formally recognized till 1668. Spain had wholly lost her former headship in European politics and was in a bad way under the last rulers of the Hapsburg dynasty, bigoted, intolerant, incompetent; disordered finances, impaired industries—due largely to the barbarous expulsion of the Moors—and inferior military forces left her in the second rank of powers.
Italy was a mere geographical expression, the territory being split up under the rule of petty princes largely swayed by foreign influence; much of the country indeed was under direct foreign dominion. Among the native rulers the Dukes of Savoy were perhaps the most enterprising and successful. Venice maintained a fair degree of prosperity. Naples was an appanage of the Spanish crown. The popes had larger territorial possessions, in the center of the country, than at any previous or subsequent time. But this local importance was more than offset by loss in the larger sphere of influence and prerogative. Convenience, indeed, occasionally led a prominent sovereign to submit some question to the papal judgment; in many instances his wishes were openly disregarded, and in the leading questions of European politics no deference was paid him.
An interesting episode occurring just at this time perhaps deserves mention. Queen Christina of Sweden, the talented but eccentric daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, in 1654 abdicated her throne in favor of her cousin, quitted the land of her fathers, was solemnly admitted into the Roman Catholic Church at Innspruck, and established her permanent residence in Rome till her death in 1689. The pope, Alexander VII, considered it the special distinction of his pontificate that he was permitted to welcome so distinguished a convert; but she did not prove in all things wholly satisfactory, not finding matters quite as she expected—a frequent experience in such cases. To Gilbert Burnet, the English Bishop of Salisbury, who paid her a visit, she said, “It was certain that the Church was governed by the immediate care of God, for none of the four popes that she had known since she came to Rome had common sense.” She called them “the first and the last of men.”
The history of France during the period in which Fénelon flourished must be given at somewhat greater length if we would properly comprehend the part which he took on the stage of action. And especially must we attend to the character of Louis XIV, with whom Fénelon was brought into such exceeding close and fateful relations. Louis came to the throne in 1643, but as he was then only five years old he did not assume personal charge of the government. Cardinal Mazarin, who had succeeded the great Richelieu at his death in 1642, was chief minister in the Council of State which advised the Queen Mother and regent, Anne of Austria. On the death of Mazarin in 1661, Louis took supreme direction of affairs, and retained it until his death in 1715. It was a very long and, in some respects, a very successful reign, the most illustrious in French annals; a sort of Solomonic era, to be compared with the age of Pericles in Greece, Augustus in Rome, and Elizabeth in England. It was brilliant in many directions; an age of conquest and the extension of territory abroad; an age of great personalities in literature and art at home. Among the latter are the well-known names of Corneille, the tragic poet; Moliere, the master of comedy; Racine, La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Pascal, Malebranche, and Madame de Sévigné. Voltaire and Rousseau were born during this reign, but mainly flourished later. Among eminent painters were Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Lebrun, and Mignard. As architects, Mansart and Perrault were famous; among sculptors, Piget; among composers, Lulli. Celebrated in the pulpit were Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, and Flechier; as Church historians, Natalis Alexander, Fleury, and Tillemont. In the field the prestige of the French armies was upheld by the genius of Turenne, Condé, Vauban, Luxemburg, and Catinat. Under these marshals many victories were won in an almost constant succession of wars with Spain, Holland, England, the Empire, and other antagonists. The peace which Louis dictated to Europe at Nimeguen, February 5, 1679, raised him to his highest point of power and glory. The headship of the world seemed to be within his grasp, if indeed it was not already attained. His courtiers worshiped him as a demigod; two triumphal arches were erected to his honor in Paris; foreign governments regarded him with keen apprehension or with servile awe. He excited wonder and fear throughout the continent, for his ambitious projects of still vaster dominion seemed to threaten the safety and independence of all his neighbors. He was possessed of a strong mind, a resolute will, considerable sagacity and penetration, much aptitude for business, and an indefatigable industry. His powers of application were remarkable. When he gave direction in 1661 that he would be his own prime minister, that all business should pass through his hands, and all questions be decided directly by himself, every one expected that he would soon tire of the drudgery which this would impose; but he kept it up till the end of his life, laboring regularly in his cabinet eight hours a day. He had the most extravagant ideas of the royal prerogative. He was an absolute, irresponsible monarch, accustomed to say and mean, “The State: it is myself.” Even the property of the realm he considered as his. In an instruction to his son he declared, “Kings are absolute lords and have naturally the full and free disposal of all the goods possessed, as well by Churchmen as by laymen, to use them at all times according to the general need of their State.” Having this conception of his power, regarding his authority as delegated immediately from heaven, he surrounded himself with those who would be subservient to his will, and the one avenue of advancement was his favor; without this, virtue and merit had little or no chance of recognition. He made his court at Versailles a very splendid one, everywhere praised and admired as the model of taste and refinement. It became the center of fashion for Europe, and the only place of high attraction in the kingdom. Henri Martin, in his “History of France,” says: “Whoever had once tasted this life so brilliant, so animated, so varied, could no longer quit it and return to his native manor without dying of languor and ennui. Everything seemed cold and dead away from this place of enjoyment, which appeared, to town and province, as the very ideal of human life.” It is estimated that a sum, equal to more than 400,000,000 francs at the present rate, was laid out on the palaces and pleasure-grounds of Versailles, transforming an unsightly district into fairy-land.
Was this Louis XIV, then, a really great man? Not when tried by tests that go far and reach deep. As one has said: “His claim to renown lies more in the diligent and tireless ambition with which he improved favoring circumstances than in the creation of great results out of small means by force of personal genius and energy. It is also a limiting factor in our estimate of Louis that he exercised no care to husband the resources of his country, and sacrificed to thirst for personal display the chances of future prosperity. This imposing and brilliant reign left France exhausted and harboring within herself the germs of violent revolution.” In the latter part of his reign the coalition against him under Marlborough and Prince Eugene proved eminently successful, and much of his ill-gotten acquisitions had to be disgorged. Moreover, his reign was also a failure in that, for the sake of slight and temporary gains on the continent of Europe, he threw away the opportunity to forestall in Asia and America the progress of England, so soon to pass France in the race for world supremacy, and left his kingdom, at the close of his reign, exhausted and crippled, in no condition to enter upon the decisive stage of the great conflict whose approach he did not foresee. Before his burial the eyes of Frenchmen had begun to be open to the shadowy side of his reign; the glamour and the glory could no longer hide the tyranny and the shame, and very few mourned at the death of the magnificent despot. He was far from great also in his private life; for that was, for a long time, one of unblushing licentiousness. Different mistresses were made successively, and in part simultaneously, the rivals of his dishonored queen, Maria Theresa of Spain, who died in 1683. No less than ten children were born to him out of wedlock, and publicly acknowledged. After the death of his queen he did somewhat better, being privately married to Madame de Maintenon, as already noted.
The cruel persecutions of the Huguenots must also be set down against the king, although in this, surely, we should make much allowance because of the feeling of the age in such matters—a feeling not by any means the same as in our day. Louis, like many others before and since, endeavored to atone for the excesses and frailties of his private life by his public zeal for orthodoxy, fancying that the slaughter of heretics would offset his adulteries. His crowning crime was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. By this arbitrary act of unprovoked despotism he annulled forever all the highly prized privileges granted to the Huguenots, after their large sufferings and heroic efforts in self-defense, by Henry IV and Louis XIII. He absolutely prohibited the exercise of their religion throughout the kingdom, with the sole exception of Alsace; ordered their temples to be leveled with the ground, and their ministers to quit France within fifteen days; forbade the people to follow their pastors into exile under pain of confiscation and condemnation to the galleys; and required their children to be baptized henceforth by the Catholic priests and educated as members of the Established Church. Before this, in the earlier years of the reign, stringent measures had been set in operation for the conversion of the Protestants and the establishment of uniformity of faith and Church government throughout the kingdom. Louis was intolerant of dissent, partly from political motives. He could not brook that any of his subjects should exercise so much independence and freedom of thought as was involved in worshiping God or thinking about Him after a different pattern from the one set by himself. They ought all to take their opinions from the throne, he held, in religious as well as in secular matters, and because they did not they were extremely objectionable and dangerous. As early as 1656 a disposition was shown to interpret the Edict of Nantes—given by Henry IV, April 15, 1598—in a narrow partisan fashion, to the disadvantage of the Protestants. Numbers of the Reformed places of worship were shut up on frivolous pretenses. The worshipers were excluded from all public functions, from the liberal professions, from the universities, from engaging in various branches of commerce and industry. They were forbidden to intermarry with Catholics, and their children were encouraged to forsake the faith of their parents by being declared capable of choosing for themselves at the age of seven years. Every sort of pressure was applied. A Bureau of Conversions was established under the direction of the Minister Pelissier, who disbursed the funds intrusted to him at the rate of six livres for every abjuration of the Reformed religion. Milder measures not proving sufficiently efficacious and speedy, more severe and savage means were employed. Dragoons were sent into the disturbed districts and quartered on the inhabitants; they were permitted, and even encouraged, to abandon themselves to every kind of brutal license, violence, and excess, establishing a veritable reign of terror wherever they appeared. It is no wonder that, under these horrors, wearied and worried well-nigh to death by such intolerable impositions, great numbers of Huguenots recanted, nominally, although, of course, their real beliefs were not changed. And when the protecting Edict was formally revoked, still more fearful cruelties followed. Multitudes of the Reformed, obstinately refusing obedience, were consigned to loathsome dungeons, racked with exquisite tortures, and treated with every kind of outrage short of actual murder. Numbers of females were immured for life in convents; infants were torn from the arms of their mothers; their property was destroyed, and whole districts were laid waste. How far the king was strictly responsible for the whole of these horrors is a matter of some question; but it is certain that he received with great satisfaction the chorus of congratulations, on this memorable Catholic triumph, from the court sycophants, who hailed him as the new Constantine, and who included in their number such men as Bossuet, Massillon, Racine, and La Fontaine. But Louis inflicted almost as deadly a blow upon his country by these persecutions as the rulers of Spain had upon theirs when they drove out the Moors and Jews. France robbed herself of her best citizens, the most enterprising and industrious of her skilled artisans. They fled abroad to the number of at least a quarter of a million, escaping from France to enrich England, Holland, and other countries with the fruits of their labors. Among them was the Duke of Schomberg, one of the best generals of his time, who placed his sword at the disposal of the Prince of Orange. Many also who remained were so crippled and depressed that they could no longer render their best service. Moreover, a bitter and profound resentment was kindled in the Protestant States of Europe, which acted very unfavorably upon the foreign relations of France, and strengthened the hands of the coalition against her. So, in every sense, the policy must be adjudged a mistaken one, counting against the greatness of the king.
It is important to inquire what was the state of the French Church at this period. It is impossible, of course, for us to enter into extended details, but we can hardly understand either Fénelon or his times without knowing something about the ecclesiastical religious questions which were then agitating the public mind. Religion was by no means in a stagnant state, or treated with indifference and apathy; it everywhere excited keenest attention. No subject was more eagerly discussed or occupied a larger share of thought. Besides the general controversy between Protestants and Romanists, there were many divisions in the ranks of the latter. There was fierce conflict between the Jesuits and Jansenists, also between the Gallicans and Ultramontanists. For a full recital of the story our readers will be obliged to consult Church histories and cyclopedias.
Of the Jesuits little need here be said; their history is very well known. Established by Ignatius Loyola in 1540, the system was, in the period we are considering, something over a hundred years old, and numbering about fifteen thousand members, of whom half were priests. Its leading purposes were the overthrow of Protestantism and the strengthening of the papacy. It had a magnificent organization, it largely controlled the education of the youth of the better classes of society, and it was intensely zealous in missionary operations, Francis Xavier, so illustrious in this matter, being one of its original founders. In politics it often favored popular rights, especially if it would benefit the papacy by reducing the power of the sovereign; yet it usually secured control over the princes by obtaining their ear in the confessional. In doctrine it was opposed to Augustinianism, and in ethics became notorious for most dangerous looseness. It should not be forgotten, however, that the order had at all times many members eminent for piety and strict morality, some of the highest saints being numbered with them. In France the important office of confessor to the king was filled by members of this order under Henry IV, Louis XIII, XIV, XV; and, of course, in this way an enormous influence was exercised upon the royal policy at home and abroad. The connivance of these confessors with the scandalous lives of the kings did more than anything else to undermine respect for the Roman Catholic Church and for religion in general among the educated classes. Between the Jesuits and Jansenists there was fierce war.
The latter took their name from Bishop Cornelius Jansen, of Ypern, who died in 1638, after devoting his whole life to the study of the works of St. Augustine. His followers were Augustinians in the fullest sense of the term, accepting the extreme doctrines of election and predestination which are known among Protestants as Calvinism; but this in no way predisposed them to favor the Huguenots. On the contrary they seemed to hate them all the more because of this manifest approach to them in some of their principles, partly because it exposed them to a galling criticism from the Jesuits. The Jansenists in many ways recommend themselves to our approval. They opposed a simply formal righteousness, insisted on the necessity for an inward preparation to receive benefits from the sacraments, and laid stress upon the reading of the Scriptures. In regard to morals, they advocated rigid self-discipline, were foes of luxury, the theater, and other doubtful or noxious pleasures. They also had more independence than most classes of society. They were not ready to surrender everything to the absolute sovereignty of the king; they stood for liberty in the Church. In point of ability and culture they furnished some of the best minds of France, and some of the best models of literary excellence which the age could boast. Blaise Pascal, whose “Provincial Letters” (1656) against the Jesuits inflicted upon them so severe a blow by their scathing exposures, was of this party. So was De Sacy, who translated the Bible into the version in general use; and Antoine Arnauld, the celebrated scholar and Doctor of the Sorbonne, the theological department of the University of Paris. His sister, Jacqueline, became abbess of the convent of Port Royal near Paris, and made it renowned for its purity and piety. Jansenism or “Calvinistic Catholicism,” as it has been called, finally went down before its enemies, the popes deciding against it more than once. On many accounts it deserved a better fate; but we can not regret that such a travesty of Christianity as the sole salvation of an arbitrarily limited and eternally selected few was as conclusively defeated in the Roman Catholic Church as it has since been in the Protestant.
The Jesuits were Ultramontanes; that is, they did everything they could to strengthen the authority from beyond the mountains, residing in the city on the Tiber. The Jansenists favored Gallicanism. A few words are necessary about this latter, for it had a large place in the discussions of the time, and echoes of it have continued to our day, the long conflict coming to an end in the recent rupture of the Concordat between France and the Vatican. The quarrel is of very long standing. It is historically certain that at a very early period the National Church of France had a character of freedom peculiar to itself. The Frankish Church in the time of Charlemagne gave evidence of a spirit and temper obviously different from the Italian ideal of the Church as organized under the popes. The French Parliaments from time to time manfully resisted encroachments on their powers or those of their kings, from beyond the mountains. As early as 1269, Louis IX of France issued an edict—so it is alleged—called the Pragmatic Sanction, in which he strove to protect the freedom of Church elections and the rights of patrons from the interference of the popes, and forbade papal taxation without the consent of the monarch. This conflict went on through the centuries with various incidents and differing results, which need not here be followed, although it is a very interesting story. In the time of Louis XIV matters naturally came to a head through the determination of that monarch to extend his absolute authority over the Church as well as the State, and through the support which he received from the strong feeling of nationality which dominated the French people during his reign, Louis’s aim was to exercise such power in ecclesiastical matters in France as Henry VIII had taken to himself in England, but not to effect a complete rupture with Rome. In particular he determined to enforce the right of the crown to the revenue and the patronage connected with vacant sees, which had long been exercised over a large part of the realm; he insisted on extending it to all the provinces. An assembly of the clergy was called in 1682, under the lead of Bossuet, the chief champion of the king in these matters. Four important articles formulating the opposition of France to the high claims of the papacy were drawn up by Bossuet, subscribed to by this assembly, and confirmed by the civil authorities. They contained in substance the following specifications: (1) The pope’s authority, as also that of the Church in general, is confined to things spiritual. He has no prerogative to depose kings and princes or to release their subjects from allegiance. (2) The decrees promulgated at Constance respecting the authority of Ecumenical Councils subsist in full force. (3) In the use of his power the pope must respect the ecclesiastical canons, as also such constitutions as are received in the kingdom and Church of France. (4) While the pope has the principal voice in matters of faith, his judgment is subject to amendment until it has been approved by the Church.
Bossuet, the leading spirit of this assembly, and indeed the most powerful and commanding Churchman of his day, esteemed the boasted infallibility of the pope a baseless fiction. He allowed that indefectibility belongs to the chair of Peter in the sense that heresy can not find there any continuous and stubborn support. But this, he maintained, in no wise precluded a temporary aberration of the individual pontiff or the competency of the universal Church to administer correction to the pontiff. Such principles had been at home in France ever since the era of the great Reform Councils of the fifteenth century. The pope—Innocent XI was then in the chair—was highly incensed, and refused confirmation to those members of the assembly of 1682 whom the king nominated to episcopal sees. Affairs remained in a very unsettled condition for a considerable interval, no mode of accommodation being reached, each party standing its ground; but in 1691 the French Church found itself with thirty-five bishoprics vacant, and the king allowed the twelve signers of the declaration whom he had nominated as bishops, but whom the pope had thus far refused to recognize as such, to retract all that had displeased the pontiff. The pope also gained some advantage from the bitter partisan conflicts within the Gallican Church during the closing years of Louis XIV.
As to the amount of spiritual life in the Church during these years it is not so easy to acquire reliable information as it is concerning the more outward events. But there are many indications that it was very considerable, that the Roman Catholic Church at that period was in a very much better state than it is at present. There was an evident desire among a large number of its clergy to rid it of its gross superstitions. They opposed some of its absurdities, omitted many of its ridiculous ceremonies, endeavored to render Catholicism more rational and intelligent, more Scriptural and pious. There are tokens that France had then a very large number of true followers of the Savior; some in elevated stations whose virtues shine afar, but many more in obscure positions, God’s hidden ones, known only to Him and to those immediately around them. Among the more prominent of the writers on spiritual subjects flourishing at this time in France may be mentioned Antoinette Bourignon (died 1680), whose published works amount to twenty-five volumes: one of her hymns, “Come, Savior, Jesus, from above,” translated by John Wesley, is in our Hymnal, No. 379. Peter Poiret (died in 1719), court preacher of the Palatine, was an admirer of Madame Bourignon, whose works he published; he also brought out the works of Madame Guyon in thirty-nine volumes; he was both a philosopher and a deeply pious man. The Baron de Renty (1611-1649) was a man of the profoundest spirituality, greatly admired by Wesley, who spoke of him in the highest terms, and published his life. Alphonsus de Sarasa (died in 1666) gave to the world “The Art of Always Rejoicing,” a beautiful book, filled with the deepest Christian philosophy. The Abbé Guilloré, also a contemporary of Fénelon and belonging to the same school of piety, left to the world as his monument a treatise on “Self-Renunciation,” or the “Art of Dying to Self and Living for the Love of Jesus.” And Nicholas Herman, better known as Brother Lawrence, admitted, in 1666, as a lay brother among the barefooted Carmelites at Paris, is still known in the realm of pure and undefiled religion by his letters on “The Practice of the Presence of God,” published at the instance of the Cardinal de Noailles. St. Vincent de Paul (died 1660), to mention but one more of these illustrious names, founder of the order of Sisters of Charity, was a philanthropist of the first rank. Neglected children, condemned criminals, prisoners of the cell and the galley, all classes of the poor and the unfortunate, received from him a sympathy as practical as it was warm and persevering. Consecrated activity he regarded as the essence of religion. The spirit of his life is well expressed in his own words: “The genuine mark of loving God is a good and perfect action. It is only our works which accompany us into the other life.” From all this it is seen that the age and land which produced Fénelon had many other sons and daughters of very similar excellence.
Louis XIV, being bent upon the subjection of the Huguenots, and knowing full well that violence alone could accomplish the matter only in part, cast about in his mind for a suitable person to undertake the milder rôle of persuasion. Fénelon had already attracted notice both by his good work at the community of New Catholics and also by the treatise which he had written in defense of the Apostolic Succession. So when Bossuet suggested him as a suitable commissioner for the districts of Poitou and Saintonge, in the West, not far from the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle, districts where great confusion and irritation prevailed, and where only a tender, judicious hand could hope to guide matters, the king very gladly made the appointment. Fénelon, before accepting it, made two stipulations. One was that he should be allowed to choose his fellow-workers. He selected the Abbé de Langeron, his lifelong friend, the Abbé Fleury, the well-known historian, the Abbé Bertier, and the Abbé Milon, who later on became respectively Bishops of Blois and of Condom. The other stipulation was that the troops, together with all that savored of military terrorism, should be withdrawn before he entered on what should be solely a work of peace and mercy. There had been terrible doings and violent outrages with which Fénelon could have no sympathy. There is no doubt whatever upon this point. His own words are abundantly on record. Although the country was so disturbed, he positively refused a military escort; and when the king represented the danger he might be exposed to, he answered: “Sire, ought a missionary to fear danger? If you hope for an apostolical harvest, we must go in the true character of apostles. I would rather perish by the hands of my mistaken brethren than see one of them exposed to the inevitable violence of the military.” In a letter to a duke he says, “The work of God is not effected in the heart by force; that is not the true spirit of the Gospel.”
He had the extremely difficult task of showing to Protestants whose property had been pillaged, whose families had been scattered, whose blood had been shed like water, the truth and excellence of the religion of their persecutors. That this could be done to any very extensive degree might well be questioned. But the missionaries were characterized by ability, mildness, prudence, benevolence, and sound judgment, and they did all that any reasonable persons could expect. The people of these provinces were amazed to see men of high birth and position leaving the court and capital to come among them. They supposed that, at all events, such men would be luxurious and haughty, as they had been told; but when, on the contrary, they saw the missionaries nothing but lowly, self-denying, simple-mannered priests, whose real aims seemed to be the temporal as well as spiritual advantage of those among whom they lived, prejudice began to melt away. In February, 1686—the mission began in December, 1685, and lasted till July, 1686, being renewed for a few months in the next year, May to July, 1687—Fénelon wrote to the Marquis de Seignelai, Secretary of State, and brother to the Duchess de Beauvilliers: “In the present condition of men’s minds we could easily bring them all to confession and communion if we chose to use a little pressure and so glorify our mission. But what is the good of bringing men to confession who do not yet recognize the Church? How can we give Jesus Christ to those who do not believe they are receiving Him? We should expect to bring a terrible curse upon us if we were satisfied with hasty, superficial work, all meant for show. We can but multiply our instructions, invite the people to come heartily to sacraments, but give them only to those who come of their own accord to seek them in unreserved submission. I must not forget to add that we want a great quantity of books, especially New Testaments.” Again he writes later: “The corn you have sent so cheaply proves to the people that our charity is practical. It is the most persuasive kind of controversy. It amazes them, for they see the exact reverse of all their ministers have taught them as incontrovertibly true. We need preachers to explain the Gospel every Sunday with a loving, winning authority; people brought up in dissent are only to be won by the words spoken to them. We must give New Testaments profusely everywhere, but they must be in large type; the people can not read small print. We can not expect them to buy Catholic books. It is a great thing if they will read what costs them nothing; indeed the greater proportion can not afford to buy.” He wrote also to Bossuet in March, 1686, “Our converts get on, but very slowly; it is no trifling matter to change the opinions of a whole people.” It is very evident that Fénelon had the most sincere desire for the conversion of the Protestants, believing, of course, as he did, from the bottom of his heart, that they were destined to eternal woe. Brought up in the atmosphere in which he was, he could not possibly sympathize with their position, could not regard their heroism as other than obstinacy. But such was the natural mildness of his disposition and his acquaintance with the demands of genuine religion, that he could in no way be content with a merely nominal acquiescence or consent, and with the use of that force by which such acquiescence was obtained.
His mission to Saintonge has been called a dark page in his life. Yet the strongly prejudiced writer who so characterizes it says in the same connection, after referring to Fénelon’s firm stand against violence and the forcing of conscience: “To us this measure of clemency seems bare and scanty enough; in Fénelon’s own time it was both unusual and effective. His counsels of mercy had weight with the minister, and led to the suppression of various abuses, civil as well as ecclesiastical. They manifestly gained for him the affection of his proselytes, and, stirring up against him the bile of the more rigid Catholics, seem to have stood in the way of his promotion to the bishopric.” It was a little after this that he was appointed to the See of Poitiers, which was the chief city of Poitou, but De Harlai, who by this time was anything but a friend, succeeded in getting it immediately revoked; and the next year the archbishop was again successful in his unworthy maneuvers. The Bishop of Rochelle had been greatly impressed by the zeal and gentle wisdom of the young missioner, and he now came to Paris, without giving Fénelon any hint of his intention, to ask the king to appoint him as Coadjutor Bishop of Rochelle. It would have been done but for the insinuations of De Harlai that the attraction between the two men was a mutual leaning to Jansenism, and as this was always a sore point with Louis, he at once refused to make the appointment. Fénelon might easily have refuted these assertions—for there was not a word of truth in them, as his close friendship with Bossuet, Tronson, and others, showed—but he did not take the trouble so to do. He was not ambitious of dignities.
Was his mission to Saintonge and Poitou a dark page in his history? We can hardly look upon it in this light. It seems to us that he comes out of it with considerable credit. Can we take it amiss in him that he was a stanch adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, not only at this time, but throughout all his life? Not if we are reasonable, and do not demand miracles where there is no occasion for expecting them. Shall we withhold our admiration from those who do not rise entirely superior to all their surroundings, and see things as we, in totally different conditions, see them? In that case, dealt with after so harsh a judgment, we ourselves might come off badly, and we should most certainly have to bar out from our favor a very large proportion of the men who have done the most for the world’s advancement.
It was about this same time that Sir Matthew Hale in England (he died in 1676)—who was reckoned the best judge of his time, acute, learned, sensible, setting himself strongly against bribery, one of the serious vices of his age, a friend of Richard Baxter, an austere scholar, leaning to the side of the Puritans—sentenced women to be executed for witchcraft, and sent John Bunyan to jail for frequenting conventicles, politely dismissing, without redress, his wife, who pleaded for his discharge. And in our own time we have seen the Earl of Shaftesbury, who did such wonderful things for the oppressed in some directions, most bitter against the reformers in all other lines except his own, the stanchest of Tories, and the most rigid of Churchmen, denouncing the democratic principle as anti-Christian, and upholding the infamous Conventicle Act, which forbade worship in a private house by more than twenty persons. Similar inconsistencies can be pointed out in the record of nearly all good men. What does it prove? Simply that it is given to very few to rise much above the age in which they live, or to be at all points independent of the impress placed upon them in their early years. We see no reason to believe that Fénelon’s attitude toward the Protestants of his day was other than an entirely sincere and conscientious one, such as might be fairly looked for in a person of his surroundings.
It is possible to impute sinister and selfish motives to any, if one is so disposed, but we see no benefit from this policy. It is not the way we would wish to be treated ourselves. Almost every act of a man’s life is susceptible of an evil construction, if sufficient pains is taken and sufficient force applied. But we can not join with those who appear to delight in pulling down from their pedestals all that have been lifted above their fellows in goodness by the general suffrage of mankind. Truth, of course, is to be sought at all costs. But it makes a vast difference from what standpoint the facts are approached, whether with suspicion and aversion, or cordial appreciation and comprehension. There is often an underlying dislike to a certain type of character or to certain sentiments and opinions, because of the wide difference between them and those which the writer himself holds and practices, which makes it impossible that he should see them in an unbiased light. We can not escape the conclusion that Fénelon has been treated by some recent writers in this manner, and we protest against its unfairness.
It may be truthfully said that Fénelon, while doing faithfully what appeared to him the duty of the hour on this mission, did not particularly enjoy it. He had no love for life in the country or for the work in which he was engaged. He longed for the quiet of his former post, with its larger opportunities for study and reflection, and for the time when he should be free to return to Paris. In a letter to Bossuet he playfully threatens to bring suspicion of heresy upon himself or “incur a lucky disgrace” that might give him excuse for his recall. He was permitted, shortly after this, to go back to his place at the New Catholics, where for some two years more he occupied himself in a quiet, inconspicuous manner. Summing up the results of his controversial work among the Huguenots, we are disposed to conclude, with one of his biographers, that “if his moderation and humanity in an age in which such qualities were not esteemed, were remembered against him when other clouds were gathering, and contributed to his ultimate ruin, they add no less grace to the record of his life, and must have deepened his influence with those whose eyes were undimmed by prejudice and bigotry.”
The most important period in the life of Fénelon was now to begin; that for which the earlier years were but a preparation; that which would color and dominate all his succeeding days. The time had come when the little grandson of the king, the Duke of Burgundy, the hope of France (for his father, the dauphin, was a failure, wholly incompetent to fill any large place), should pass from the hands of nurses to masculine rule. What could be of greater importance, considering how much was at stake for the kingdom, than the proper selection of those who should take this weighty charge? When the dauphin had been at a similar stage of his education he was committed to the care of the Duke de Montausier and Bossuet as the greatest and most celebrated men of their day. But though they did their best, the course they took was not in all respects well advised, and the results, at least, had not been satisfactory. This would make the utmost care now all the more imperative. Happily the king was fully alive to his responsibility, and, in addition to his own penetration, had the benefit of good counsel in the matter. Madame de Maintenon was now a power at court, and was using her influence in the best directions. She was a warm friend of the Duke de Beauvilliers, who also stood high in the good graces of Louis; for the monarch, in spite of his own serious lapses from virtue, admired it in others, and knew its importance with the young. The duke was accordingly made governor of the royal grandchildren, Burgundy and his two younger brothers, with unlimited power of nominating all the other officers about them and all the inferior attendants. He had no hesitation as to the best preceptor France could produce for the little prince, and immediately named Fénelon, a choice which was loudly applauded by the public throughout the kingdom. The people said that Louis the Great had once more outshone all earlier monarchs, and shown himself wiser than Phillip of Macedon when he appointed Aristotle tutor to his son. Bossuet was overjoyed at the good fortune of Church and State, and regretted only that the Marquis de Fénelon had not lived to see an elevation of the merit which hid itself with so much care. It was a great surprise to the recipient, who was leading his ordinary retired life, neither seeking nor expecting court favor. It was a great gratification to his friends, who poured in lavish congratulations. But M. Tronson, the wise old tutor from St. Sulpice, wrote that his joy was mixed with fear, considering the perils to which his favorite pupil would now be exposed. He says: “It opens the door to earthly greatness, but you must fear lest it should close that of the real greatness of heaven. You are thrown into a region where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is little known, and where even those who know it use their knowledge chiefly as a means to win human respect. If ever the study and meditation of Holy Scripture were necessary to you, now indeed they have become overwhelmingly indispensable. Above all, it is of infinite importance that you never lose sight of the final hour of death, when all this world’s glory will fade away like a dream, and every earthly stay on which you may have leaned must fail.” This counsel was most creditable to both tutor and pupil, showing a love stronger than ordinary friendship. The post which seemed so dazzling and so promising did indeed prove one of much danger as well as glory, but not exactly in the way that the aged teacher anticipated.
The Duke of Burgundy, now seven years old, was, in the most emphatic sense, an enfant terrible. He was very different from his heavy, stupid father, inheriting some of his qualities, it is said, from his mother, Mary Anne of Bavaria, a delicate, melancholy, unattractive princess, passionate, proud, and caustic. Burgundy was a frail, unhealthy creature, whose body lacked symmetry as well as his mind. One shoulder very early outgrew the other, defying the most cruel efforts of the surgeons to set it right, and doing serious mischief to his general health. His nervous system was much deranged, so that he was subject to hurricanes of passion. The least contradiction made him furious. He would fall into ungovernable fits of rage even against inanimate objects. He had an insatiable appetite for all sorts of pleasure. His pride and arrogance were indescribable. Mankind he looked upon as atoms with whom he had nothing in common; his brothers were only intermediate beings between him and the human race. He had a quick, penetrating mind, and a marvelous memory. He was stiff against threats, on his guard against flattery, amenable only to reason; but by no means always to that. Often when it reasserted itself, after one of his tornadoes, he was so much ashamed of himself that he fell into a new fit of rage. He was, however, frank and truthful in the extreme.
Such was the prince who—with his brothers, the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Philip V of Spain, and the Duke of Berri—was committed entirely to the care of Fénelon. When he accepted his new appointment he abandoned all other offices and occupations, permitting himself no distractions even of friendship, that he might concentrate all his powers of insight and reflection upon his charges. Now, indeed, his studies of education would be fully tested, and on the most conspicuous conceivable field his theories must be reduced to practice. It is said that “he pursued only one system, which was to have none.” In other words, he devoted his fertile mind to meeting the necessities of the hour as they arose in his volatile, chameleon-like pupil, instead of subjecting him to a Procrustean system which could only have had the worst outcome. His facile pen was employed without stint in the service of his pupil. Many fables, some in French, some in Latin, full of poetry and grace, were written to convey special lessons to the little duke. “Dialogues of the Dead” also were composed for the same purpose, bringing in the principal personages of antiquity to converse on such themes as would instruct in regard to history and morals. And all this was but a preparation for “Telemaque,” or Telemachus, composed for the instruction of the heir to the throne, and endowed with such unfailing charm by the beauty of its style and the admirable nature of its sentences, that it has been read ever since in many nations and by many classes. The same mythology is employed in it that was used by Homer and Virgil, but refined by the knowledge of the Divine revelation and adorned by a tincture of Christianity that runs easily through the whole narrative. The best classical and moral maxims are placed before the mind of the reader, animated with love and heightened with action. The author shows that the glory of a prince is to govern men in such a way as to make them good and happy; that his authority is never so firmly established as in the love of his people; that the true riches and prosperity of a State consists in taking away what ministers to general luxury, and in being content with innocent and simple pleasures.
But, as may well be supposed, it was not the intellectual means alone—the text-books that were prepared, the treatises that were written, the pains taken with instruction—which most awaken our admiration, but rather the good sense shown in the various special expedients that were employed as from time to time they were found adapted to the needs of the case. Every effort was made to relieve study from tedium. Lessons were abandoned whenever the prince wished to begin a conversation from which he might derive useful information. There were frequent intervals for exercise. Learning was turned into a pleasure. The real struggle was with his fiery temperament, which had been hitherto so badly mismanaged, and which could only be met by patience and gentleness with firmness. When one of the evil moods seized him, it was an understood thing in the household that every one should relapse into an unwonted silence. Nobody spoke to him if they could help it; his attendants waited upon him with averted eyes as though reluctant to witness his degradation through passion. He was treated with the sort of humiliating compassion which might be shown to a madman; his books and appliances for study were put aside as useless to one in such a state, and he was left to his own reflections. Such a course was the destruction of self-complacency; he ceased to find relief in swearing when his hearers ceased to be disconcerted by his abuse, and, being left to consider the situation in solitude, he saw himself for the first time as others saw him. Gradually this treatment would bring the passionate but generous child to a better mind, and then, full of remorse and penitence, he would come to throw himself with the fullest affection and trust upon the never-failing patience and goodness of the preceptor, whom he almost worshiped to his dying day.
Fénelon had studied childhood, and knew how deeply rooted is the child’s fear of ridicule; in the prince it was exaggerated by his abnormal vanity, and a system which showed him how he degraded himself, and lost all shadow of dignity when he lost his self-control, was the surest to produce a radical reform. There are still in existence two pledges of his childish repentance, testifying to the difficulty with which his faults were conquered. “I promise, on my word as a prince to M. l’Abbé de Fénelon, that I will do at once whatever he bids me, and will obey him instantly in what he forbids; and if I break my word I will accept any kind of punishment and disgrace. Given at Versailles, November 29, 1689. Louis.” This promise, in spite of the word of a prince, was probably broken; for many months later he enters on another engagement pathetic in its brevity: “Louis, who promises afresh to keep his promise better. This 20th of September, I beseech M. de Fénelon to take it again.” He was at this time but eight years old. The child loved his teacher passionately, and it was seldom that he did not yield speedily to Fénelon’s wise and loving discipline.