“Never let them show themselves off,” he says, “but do not be worried by their questions; rather encourage them; they are the most natural opportunities of teaching.” He discovered that children are always watching others, endowed with a great faculty of imitation, so that it is impossible to over-estimate the responsibility of their first guardians. He recognized the necessity of discipline; but if the child has merited disgrace, he pleads that there should be some one to whom she can turn for sympathy, thus showing that he had fathomed that overwhelming sense of loneliness which is one of childhood’s chief terrors. He says: “Make study pleasant, hide it under a show of liberty and amusement. Let the children interrupt their lessons sometimes with little jokes; they need such distraction to rest their brain. Never fear to give them reasons for everything. Never give extra lessons as a punishment.” His method was to treat children as reasonable beings instead of unruly animals whom it was necessary to coerce against their will; and his object was to make them regard learning as a privilege and delight, not as a penance forced upon them by the tyranny of their elders. He made religion the groundwork of all education, but he would have it guarded against superstition. He stood strongly for the true, best rights of women, counting their occupations no less important to the public than those of men. He would give the young girl useful solid tastes that would fill her mind with real interests and prevent idle curiosity and the dissipations of romance-reading. “Give them something to manage, on condition that they give you an account of it,” he pleads; “they will be delighted with the confidence, for it gives an incredible pleasure to the young when one begins to rely upon them and admit them to serious concerns.”
This will suffice to show something of the trend of his work. Much that he urged is, of course, commonplace now, but it was not so in his day. He shows in his book so much knowledge of the needs and characteristics of little children not only, but of the special difficulties and infirmities of women, that it remains a marvel where, at this period of his life, he could have gained such insight into both. And all is illumined with his beautiful style and gentle spirit. Mr. John Morley remarks, “When we turn to modern literature from Fénelon’s pages, who does not feel that the world has lost a sacred accent, as if some ineffable essence had passed out from our hearts?”
Madame de Maintenon has been mentioned as one of the little circle to whose intimacy Fénelon was introduced when beginning his Parisian career. The full particulars of her remarkable history must be sought in larger works. Yet it is essential that we know something concerning her, since for a while she was one of Fénelon’s best supporters, and then became one of his most persistent foes. She was the grandchild of Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigne, a noted Protestant warrior and a noble friend of Henry of Navarre, who died at Geneva in 1630.[3] Her father was a scamp, her mother a jailer’s daughter. She was a stout Protestant in her younger days, but being left penniless at an early age, and wholly dependent upon charitable relatives, she was placed in a Parisian convent, and there converted to Catholicism. She was still only seventeen and uncommonly good-looking when, to escape the pressure of dependence, she consented to become the wife of Scarron, a writer of comic poetry and a cripple. So Frances d’Aubigne became Madame Scarron, and somewhat improved her position. Her husband died in five years, leaving her a pension. Falling in with Madame de Montespan, the king’s mistress, that lady took a liking to her, and it was not long before she was established at a fine house in one of the suburbs, with a large income and a numerous staff of servants, as governess of the king’s illegitimate children by this mistress. At the end of four years the children, with their governess, were housed in the palace, and the influence of the said governess over the king, who was naturally thrown much in contact with her, steadily increased. By the savings from her salary and the presents of the king she was able to purchase the estate of Maintenon, not far from Paris, and the king, who never had liked the harsh name of Scarron, soon began to call her Madame de Maintenon, which henceforth became her title. In the midst of all the vicissitudes of her life she had maintained a good character, inheriting much from her grandfather, and now she became yet more austere in her piety. The Abbé Gobelin, a severe Jesuit confessor, directed her conscience, and Bossuet impressed his strong personality upon her. They persuaded her that she was the chosen instrument for the conversion of the king. So she set herself to the task, finding it on many accounts congenial, and achieving a remarkable degree of success. There seems to have been in the complex character of the king, in spite of his many sins, no little regard for religion—it is said that he never missed going to mass but once in his life—and he was already weary of Montespan, whose influence on him was unquestionably evil. So the new influence more and more prevailed; the mistress was dismissed to a convent, and the wise, devout, good-looking governess became a power at court, first lady in waiting to the crown princess, and female friend to the monarch. The king spent hours daily in her company, and was the better for it. She was a strict moralist, and none of the slanders rife about her seem to have any good foundation. She enjoyed the respect of the best people about the court, and was a friend of the neglected queen, who cried, “Providence has raised up Madame de Maintenon to bring my husband back to me.” And this new favorite, who was not a mistress, believed abundantly in the divine nature of her mission. She accepted the king’s friendship to give him good counsels and end his slavery to vice. The care of his salvation became the first and most absorbing of her duties. She held herself a monitress, charged to encourage and console him, or to check him with reproaches that none but she dared utter. He called her “Your Seriousness.” She never annoyed him with opposition, never encroached, had no will of her own, but became, as it were, the king’s conception of his better self, his second conscience, a magnet quick to draw him, sometimes into the really worthier of two opposing courses, always into the more ecclesiastically virtuous. The queen died in her arms in 1683. Two years after, she was privately married to the king by the Archbishop of Paris in the presence of Père Lachaise, the king’s confessor, after whom the famous cemetery in Paris is named. Such was the woman who ruled at Versailles when Fénelon came into office. He excited her interest on their first meeting, at or before 1683; for she wrote, under that date, to Madame de St. Geran: “Your Abbé de Fénelon is very well received; but the world does not do him justice. He is feared; he wishes to be loved; and is lovable.”
We must briefly introduce one more personage to our readers before we can safely resume the current of the narrative. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, who was for a while Fénelon’s friend and then became the bitterest of his foes, was born at Dijon, 1627. In his boyhood he was a brilliant scholar. At Paris he soon surpassed his teachers in acquirements. He took the Doctor’s bonnet in 1652, and in the same year was received into priest’s orders. He was first canon to the cathedral of Metz; in 1669, Bishop of Condom; in 1681, bishop of Meaux. In 1670 he was appointed preceptor to the dauphin, and gave most of his time for ten years to this office, resigning his bishopric for the purpose. In the pulpit his oratorical powers elicited universal applause. His celebrated Funeral Discourses, six in number, were, and still are, accounted masterpieces of rhetorical skill. Two words, strength and majesty, describe the dominant characteristics of his oratory. He had a mind well stored with noble sentiments. His sermons were almost entirely extempore, springing from a mind filled with his subject, guided by a few notes on paper. Attracted by the strength and sublimity of the Bible he moved largely within its circle of thought, rather than with saints, relics, and images, which were for the most part below the plane of his vision. Besides being one of the first preachers of the age, he was a celebrated polemic and a powerful writer, having also a Roman aptitude to rule. One of the strongest personalities which the French Church has produced, he exercised a commanding influence in various directions. The principles of Gallicanism as opposed to Ultramontanism found in him their stalwart champion. He was a famous apologist. His knowledge was completely at command, so that he did not shrink from oral disputation with the most learned adversaries. And he wielded a very strong pen. His “Exposition of the Catholic Faith” presents the doctrines of Rome in a liberal and plausible form. In his “History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches,” and also in other treatises, he made out what was considered at the time a very strong defense of the Roman Catholic faith, but he has since been convicted, not merely of inaccuracy, but of false and garbled quotations. He died in 1704.
Bossuet, it will be seen, was twenty-four years older than Fénelon, and for a time was almost a father to him. At the zenith of his great reputation he was much attracted by the younger man and took great pains to attach him to himself. He invited him often, with one or two others, to his country residence at Germigny. They had stated hours of prayer and private study and relaxation, and in these last periods the bishop took pleasure in unfolding to his humbler companions all his sacred and literary stores of knowledge. Nothing could exceed the bishop’s regard for Fénelon, or Fénelon’s fondness for the bishop. The intercourse with a masculine intellect so much more developed than his own was, no doubt, a benefit to Fénelon, as well as a high compliment to him, for it compelled him to think for himself and brace himself somewhat in order to take a worthy part in the conversation. One can but regret that the friendship which seemed so suitable, and was prolific of such advantage to the Church, as well as mutual pleasure between these two great and good men, should in a few years, largely through misapprehensions and verbal disagreements, have been turned to bitterness and scandal.
It is probable that the ten years during which Fénelon held the post of superior at the New Catholics was the sunniest of his life. It was at least the freest from difficulties and complications. He was discovering the large possibilities of his own powers, developing healthfully in all directions, with a pleasant occupation, bright prospects, and an ever-widening circle of friends, who looked to him as an influence for good, and increasingly hung upon his words. He was called in this period to mourn the loss of his dear uncle, the marquis, who had been in many ways, both spiritually and temporally, such a help to him, and who passed away October 8, 1683. Just how much he had to do in these years at the convent is not clear. It seems likely that he was little more than warden or visitor, in general charge of the instruction, the other matters being managed by the mother superior acting under the minute directions of the government. For converting to the old faith those who had been born and trained in heresy—many of them, it would appear, brought there early, against their will, or in violation of the proper rights of their parents—Fénelon was marvelously equipped, knowing the controversy perfectly, and knowing also what points to touch upon with infinite tact, what appeals would be most effective in individual cases, what arguments to use, what influences to exert, what spirit to exhibit. He undoubtedly proved himself the tenderest and most persuasive of advocates and ministers, modifying, so far as possible, the harshness of the state which he was powerless to prevent.
It was his success at the head of this institution which called forth the next commission with which the king honored him, and which brought him into yet closer connection with the troubled current of affairs. In order the better to understand it we shall do well to pause at this point and consider for a little the ecclesiastical and political condition of France, and to some degree of the world at large.
CHAPTER II.
THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE.
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?