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.
CHAPTER III.
PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE.
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.