M. de Harlay, archbishop of Paris, heard of his merits, and named him Superior to the convent of new converts in Paris. The spirit of proselytism was abroad in France, as the only excuse for the persecution of the Huguenots; and missions were sent into various provinces. It was important to select for missionaries men suited to the task, well versed in controversy, benevolent, patient, and persuasive. Louis XIV. was informed of the peculiar fitness of Fénélon to the office through his sweetness and sincerity, and appointed him to the province of Poitou. Fénélon accepted the office, making the sole request, that the military should be removed from the scene of his mission. With a heart penetrated by a love of God, and reverence for the church, he devoted himself to his task with zeal and ability, treating his proselytes with a gentleness and charity that gained their hearts. He listened to their doubts and their objections, and answered all; consoling and encouraging, and adopting, for their conversion, a vigilance, an address, and a simplicity that charmed and persuaded. Do we not find in this occupation the foundation for his toleration for all religious sects? While hearing the ingenuous and sinless objections to Catholicism raised by his young and artless converts, he must have felt that God would not severely condemn a faith to which no blame could be justly attached, except (as he believed) that it was a heresy.
During the exercise of this office, he became acquainted with the celebrated Bossuet. This great man began his career by an engagement of marriage with mademoiselle des Vieux, a lady of great merit, who afterwards, impressed with a sense of the career which his eloquence would procure him in the church, consented to give up the engagement. As a priest, he became celebrated for his sermons, till his pupil Bourdaloue surpassing him, he yielded his place to him. His reputation as an orator rests on his funeral orations: these bear the impress of a lofty and strong mind, and are full of those awful truths which great men ought to hear and mark.[104] Louis XIV. named him governor of the dauphin, on which he resigned his bishopric of Condom, that he might apply himself more entirely to so arduous a task as the education of the heir to the throne of France. He wrote his Discourse on Universal History, which Voltaire and D'Alembert both pronounce to be a sketch bearing the stamp of a vast and profound genius. He describes the manners and government, the growth and fall of empires, with majestic force, with a rapid pen, and an energetic conception of truth. When the education of the dauphin was completed, the king made him bishop of Meaux; and he employed himself in writing controversial works against the protestants.
Fénélon became at once the friend and pupil of this great man. He listened to him with docility: he admired his erudition and his eloquence; he revered his character, his age, his labours. He visited him at Germany, his country residence; where they had stated hours of prayer, meditation, and conversation; and passed their days in holy and instructive intercourse. Fénélon lived also in society with the most distinguished and excellent men of the age. The duke de Beauvilliers, governor of the duke of Burgundy, had begged him to write a treatise on the education of girls; of which task Fénélon acquitted himself admirably. His first chapters, which relate equally to both sexes, are the foundation of much of Rousseau's theory on the subject of education. He insists on the importance of the female character in society, and the urgent reasons there are for cultivating their good sense, and giving them habits of employment. "Women," he says, "were designed by their native elegance and grace to endear domestic life to man; to make virtue lovely to children, to spread around them order and grace, and give to society its highest polish. No attainment can be above beings whose aim it is to accomplish purposes at once so useful and salutary; and every means should be used to invigorate, by principle and culture, their native elegance." In addition to this treatise, he wrote one on the ministry of pastors, the object of which was to prove the superiority of the Roman catholic institution of pastors over the ministers of the reformed religion.
The duke de Beauvilliers was fully aware of the greatness of his merit. He was the governor of the sons of the dauphin; the elder, and apparent heir to the crown, the duke of Burgundy, was a child of ardent temperament and great talents; but impetuous, haughty, capricious, and violent. The duke was a man of virtue; he added simplicity of mind to a love of justice, a gentle temper, and persuasive manners; he felt the importance of his task, and was earnest to procure the best assistance; at his recommendation, 1689.
Ætat.
38. Fénélon was named preceptor to the princes.[105] Men of the first talent were associated in the task of education; the duke de Beauvilliers was governor; the abbé de Langeron reader; he was a man of lively and amiable disposition, friendly and kind, with a mind enlightened by study. The abbé de Fleury, under-preceptor, is celebrated by his works. These men, and others, all united in a system which had the merit of success, and was founded on a knowledge of the human heart, joined to that of the peculiar disposition of their pupil: pupil we say, because, though there were three princes, the eldest, who was just seven years of age, was the chief object of their labours. They excited his curiosity in conversation, and awakened a desire to become acquainted with some portion of history, which led also to a geographical knowledge of various countries. He was taught the principal facts of ancient and modern history by dialogues; the knowledge of morals was inculcated by fables. As at first the vehemence of his temper frequently led him to deserve punishment, they contrived that the privation of a walk, an amusement, or even of his accustomed tasks, should take that form; added to these, when he transgressed flagrantly, was the silence of his attendants; no one spoke to him; till at last this state of mute loneliness became intolerable, and he confessed his fault, that he might again hear the sound of voices. Candour, and readiness to ask forgiveness, were the only conditions of pardon; and to bind his haughty will more readily, all those who presided over his education frankly acknowledged any faults which they might commit towards him; so that the very imperfections of his masters served as correctives of his own. This system was admirably adapted to the generous and fervent nature of the young prince. He became gentle, conscientious, and just. His love for his preceptor, under his wise fosterage, was extended to a love for his fellow-creatures. Fénélon had a deep sense of his responsibility to God and man in educating the future sovereign of France. He studied his pupil's character; he adapted himself to it. Nature had clone even more in fitting him: his enthusiasm, joined to his angelic goodness, excited at once the love and reverence of the prince, at the same time that he was the friend and companion of his hours of pastime. He conquered his pride by gentleness, by raillery, or by a dignified wisdom, which convinced while it awed. When the boy insolently asserted his superiority, Fénélon was silent; he appeared sad and reserved, till the child, annoyed by his change of manner, was brought to a temper to listen docilely to his remonstrances. His disinterestedness and truth gave him absolute power, and the boy eagerly acknowledged his error. He spared no labour or pains. We owe his fables, many of his dialogues, and his great work, Telemachus, to his plan of forming the mind and character of his pupil.[106] Religion, of course, formed a principal portion of his system. He often said that kings needed religion more than their subjects; that it might suffice to the people to love God, but that the sovereign ought to fear him. The duke of Burgundy grew devout, and the charity that formed the essence of his preceptor's soul passed into his. It is impossible to say what France would have become if this prince had reigned. The energy of his character gave hope that he would not have been spoilt by power, which, in the course of nature, he would not have inherited till he was more than thirty; when his views would have been enlightened by experience, and his virtues confirmed by habit. He had none of the ordinary kingly prejudices in favour of war and tyranny. He was high-minded, yet humble; full of talent, of energy, and respect for virtue. His early death destroyed the hope of France; and hence ensued the misrule which the revolution could alone correct.
Fénélon continued long unrecompensed. The king bestowed a small benefice on him; but he was passed over when other preferment presented itself. On the death of Harlay, it was expected that he would be named archbishop of Paris; but it was bestowed, on the contrary, on Noailles, whose nephew had married madame Maintenons niece. Soon after, however, he was named archbishop of Cambray. Madame de Coulanges, writing to madame Sévigné, says that Fénélon appeared surprised at his nomination; and, on thanking the king, represented to him that he could not regard that gift as a reward, whose operation was to separate him from his pupil; as the council of Trent had decided that no bishop could be absent more than three months in the year from his diocese, and that only from affairs important to the church. The king replied, by saying that the education of the prince was of the greatest importance to the church, and gave him leave to reside nine months of the year at Cambray, and three at court. Fénélon, at the same time, gave up his two abbeys, having a scruple of conscience with regard to pluralities.[107] We have now arrived at the period when Fénélon's career was marked by persecution instead of reward; and he himself became immersed in controversies and defence, which, though admirable in themselves, absorbed a talent and a time that might have been far more usefully employed. We must go back a short time, to trace the progress of circumstances that led to his disgrace and exile.
The characteristic of the French church during the reign of Louis XIV. was its spirit of controversy and persecution. We do not speak of the Huguenots; they were out of the pale of the church. But first came jansenism, which declared that faith and salvation depended on the immediate operation of the grace of God. This doctrine was supported by the sublime genius of Pascal by the logic and virtues of Arnaud; and boasted of the first men of the kingdom, Racine, Boileau, Rochefoucauld, &c., as its disciples. The king was taught by the jesuits to believe that the sect was dangerous, its supporters intriguers, and the whole system subversive of true piety. Fénélon declared himself the opposer of jansenism. He looked upon the free will of man as the foundation of religion, and considered the elective grace of the jansenists as contradictory of the first principles of Christianity. In his opinion, love of God was the foundation of piety; and he found in the writings and doctrines of madame Guyon the development and support of his ideas. Madame Guyon, a lady of irreproachable life, who from the period of an early widowhood had devoted herself to a life of piety, was an enthusiast. Her soul was penetrated with a fervent love of God, and so far she merited the applause of Christians; but by considering that this heavenly love was to absorb all earthly affection, she impregnated the language, if not the sentiment of divine love, with expressions of ecstasy and transport that might well shock the simple-minded. In exposing this objectionable part of her writings, Bossuet apostrophises the seraphs, and entreats them to bring burning coals from the altar of heaven to purify his lips, lest they should have been defiled by the impurities he is obliged to mention. The language of love is fascinating; and Fénélon, who believed the love of God to be the beginning and end of wisdom and virtue, might well use expressions denoting the dedication of his whole being to the delightful contemplation of divine perfection; but that he should approve expressions that diverge into bombast and rhapsody, is inexplicable, except as a proof that the wisest and best are liable to error. It is true that the catholic religion is open to such sentiment and phraseology. Nuns, who are declared the spouses of Jesus, are taught to devote the softer feelings of their hearts to their celestial husband; but certainly a well-regulated mind will rather avoid mingling questionable emotions and their expression with piety, even in their own persons; and, above all, they ought to be on their guard against misleading others, by inciting them to replace a reasonable sense of devotion and gratitude to the supreme Being by ecstatic transports, which defeat the chief aim of religion, which is to regulate the mind. Madame Guyon thought far otherwise; at least, as regarded herself. Living in solitude, and in distant provinces, she indulged her enthusiastic turn, and wrote down effusions dictated by emotions she believed to be praiseworthy. She wrote simply, and without art; but her works were full of ardour. She allowed others to read them, and a portion was copied and published. Some of her readers were edified; others naturally recoiled from a style of sentiment and expression which, however we may love God, is certainly not adapted to any spiritual state of feeling. Her faith was, that we ought to love God so entirely for himself alone, that our salvation or damnation becomes indifferent to us, since we should be willing gladly to endure eternal misery, if such were the will of God. A notion of this kind confounds at once all true religion, since we ought to love God for his perfection; and the infliction of pain on the just, cannot be the work of a perfect Being. However, by reasoning on our imperfect state of ignorance and error, madame Guyon was able to make some show of argument, while her expressions are in many parts incomprehensible. She says, that "the soul that completely abandons itself to the divine will, retains no fear or hope respecting any thing either temporal or eternal,"—a doctrine subversive of the Christian principle of repentance. She asserts that man is so utterly worthless, that it scarcely deserves his own inquiry whether he is to be everlastingly saved or not; that the soul must live for God alone, insensible to the turpitude and debasement of its own state. Added to this heresy, was her notion of prayer, which she made consist, not in the preferment of our requests to God, such as Jesus Christ taught, but in a state of mind embued with the sense of God's presence, and an assimilation of the soul with God's perfection.
Her health suffered from the constant excitement of her mind. It was considered that the climate of the province where she resided was injurious, and she visited Paris to recover. She became acquainted with the dukes de Beauvilliers and Chevreuse; her doctrines became known and discussed in Paris; madame de Maintenon was struck and attracted; Fénélon, his own heart full of love, became almost a convert; madame Guyon herself was full of talent, enthusiasm, and goodness; Fénélon became her friend, and denied the odious conclusions which her enemies drew from her doctrines.
As the doctrine gained ground, it met opposition. Des Marais, the bishop of Chartres, in whose diocese was Saint Cyr, the scene of these impassioned mysteries, became alarmed at its progress; and, with the deceit which a priest sometimes thinks he is justified in using in what he deems a righteous cause, he made use of two ladies of great repute for piety, as spies, and from their accounts of what passed in the society of Quietists, found sufficient cause of objection to the sect. Madame de Maintenon listened to his censures, and withdrew her favour. Fénélon saw the danger that threatened madame Guyon, and, steady in his attachment to one whom he considered worthy his friendship, he assisted her by his counsel. Following his advice, and secure in her own virtue, she applied to Bossuet. His manly and serious mind, strengthened by age, rejected at once her mysticism, while her personal merits won his esteem and condescension. It is a singular circumstance, and shows her candour, that she confided her thoughts and her writings far more unreservedly to Bossuet than to Fénélon. Bossuet saw her, explained his objections; and she acquiescing in every thing he suggested, he administered the sacrament to her; a token at once of her submission and his good opinion.
Bossuet penetrated the real piety of the lady, and was unwilling to distress her by opposition, as long as her tenets were confined to her own mind. For what would be highly injurious if spread abroad, was innocuous while it related solely to herself. He therefore recommended retirement and quiet, to which she for a time adhered; but as she had the spirit of proselytism awake in her, she soon grew weary of obscurity, and applied to madame de Maintenon to prevail on the king to appoint commissioners to inquire into her doctrines and morals. The bishops of Meaux and Chartres, and M. Tronson, were accordingly named. For six months they held conferences, and discussed the subject. Bossuet admitted that he was little conversant with the writings of the mystical saints, whose doctrines and expressions were the model of those of madame Guyon; and Fénélon made a variety of extracts, at his request, which were to serve as authorities for the lady's writings. At the conclusion of the conferences, thirty articles were drawn up, to which Fénélon added four; in which, without direct allusion to madame Guyon, the commissioners expressed the doctrines of the church of Rome on the disputed points. In these they name salvation as the proper subject of a Christian's desire and prayer; and assert, that prayer does not consist in a state of mind, but in an active sense of resignation: they do not reprobate passive prayer; but they regard it as unnecessary; while they agree in the propriety of direct addresses to the Deity, and frequent meditation on the sufferings of the Saviour. Although these articles subverted her favourite doctrine of the holy state of mind being the life in God necessary to a Christian, Madame Guyon, as a dutiful daughter of the church, signed the articles without hesitation.