Bossuet had been for some time occupied in writing a work which should demolish with a blow the doctrine of Madame Guyon, and hold her up to general odium. It consisted of ten books, and was entitled Instructions on the States of Prayer. He showed the manuscript to Fénélon, desiring him to append a statement, approving all it contained, which should accompany the volume when published. Fénélon refused. Six months ago he had declared that he could be no party to a personal attack on Madame Guyon: the Instructions contained little else. That tremendous attack was no mere exposure of unguarded expressions—no mere deduction of dangerous consequences, possibly unforeseen by a half-educated writer; it charged Madame Guyon with having for her sole design the inculcation of a false spirituality, which abandoned, as an imperfection, faith in the divine Persons and the humanity of Christ; which disowned the authority of Scripture, of tradition, of morality; which dispensed with vocal prayer and acts of worship; which established an impious and brutal indifference between vice and virtue, between everlasting hate of God and everlasting love; which forbade resistance to temptation as an interruption to repose; which taught an imaginary perfection extinguishing the nobler desires only to inflame the lower, and clothing the waywardness of self-will and passion with the authority of inspiration and of prophecy. Fénélon knew that this accusation was one mass of falsehood. If Bossuet himself believed it, why had he suffered such a monster still to commune; why had he been so faithless to his high office in the Church, as to give his testimonials declaring the purity of her purpose and the soundness of her faith, when he had not secured the formal retraction of a single error? To sign his approval of that book, would be not merely a cowardly condemnation of a woman whom he knew to be innocent—it would be the condemnation of himself. His acquaintance with Madame Guyon was matter of notoriety. It would be to say that he—a student of theology, a priest, an archbishop, the preceptor of princes—had not only refrained from denouncing, but had honoured with his friendship, the teacher of an abominable spiritualism which abolished the first principles of right and wrong. It would be to declare, in fact, such a prelate far more guilty than such a heretic. And Bossuet pretended to be his friend—Bossuet, who had laid the snare which might have been the triumph of the most malignant enemy. It was not a mere question of persons—Madame Guyon might die in prison—he himself might be defamed and disgraced—he did not mean to become her champion—surely that was enough, knowing what he knew,—let her enemies be satisfied with his silence—he could not suffer another man to take his pen out of his hand to denounce as an emissary of Satan one whom he believed to be a child of God.[[358]]
Such was Fénélon’s position. He wished to be silent concerning Madame Guyon. To assent to the charges brought against her would not have been even a serviceable lie, if such a man could have desired to escape the wrath of Bossuet at so scandalous a price. Every one would have said that the Archbishop of Cambray had denounced his accomplice out of fear. Neither was he prepared to embrace the opposite extreme and to defend the personal cause of the accused, many of whose expressions he thought questionable, orthodox as might be her explanation, and many of whose extravagances he disapproved. His enemies wished to force him to speak, and were prepared to damage his reputation whether he appeared for or against the prisoner at Vincennes. At length it became necessary that he should break silence; and when he did, it was not to pronounce judgment concerning the oppressed or her oppressors, it was to investigate the abstract question,—the teaching of the Church on the doctrine of pure love. He wrote the Maxims of the Saints.
IX.
This celebrated book appeared in January, 1697, while Fénélon was at Cambray, amazing the Flemings of his diocese by affording them, in their new archbishop, the spectacle of a church dignitary who really cared for his flock, who consigned the easier duties to his vicars, and reserved the hardest for himself; who entered their cottages like a father, listened with interest to the story of their hardships or their griefs; who consoled, counselled, and relieved them; who partook of their black bread as though he had never shared the banquets of Versailles, and as though Paris were to him, as to themselves, a wonderful place far away, whose streets were paved with gold. Madame Guyon was in confinement at the village of Vaugirard, whither the compassion of Noailles had transferred her from Vincennes, resigned and peaceful, writing poetry and singing hymns with her pious servant-girl, the faithful companion of her misfortunes. Bossuet was visiting St. Cyr—very busy in endeavouring to purify the theology of the young ladies from all taint of Quietism—but quite unsuccessful in reconciling Madame de la Maisonfort to the loss of her beloved Fénélon.
The Maxims of the Saints was an exposition and vindication of the doctrines of pure love, of mystical union, and of perfection, as handed down by some of the most illustrious and authoritative names in the Roman-catholic Church, from Dionysius, Clement, and Augustine, to John of the Cross and Francis de Sales;—it explained their terminology;—it placed in juxtaposition with every article of legitimate mysticism its false correlative—the use and the abuse;—and was, in fact, though not expressly, a complete justification (on the principles of his Church) of that moderate Quietism held by himself, and in substance by Madame Guyon.[[359]] The book was approved by Tronson, by Fleury, by Hébert, by Pirot, a doctor of the Sorbonne, by Père La Chaise, the King’s Confessor, by the Jesuits of Clermont,—but it was denounced by Bossuet; it was nicknamed the Bible of the Little Church; Pontchartrain, the comptroller-general, and Maurice Le Tellier, Archbishop of Reims, told the King that it was fit only for knaves or fools. Louis sent for Bossuet. The Bishop of Meaux cast himself theatrically at the feet of majesty, and, with pretended tears, implored forgiveness for not earlier revealing the heresy of his unhappy brother. A compromise was yet possible; for Fénélon was ready to explain his explanations, and to suppress whatever might be pronounced dangerous in his pages. But the eagle of Meaux had seen the meek and dove-like Fénélon—once almost more his disciple than his friend—erect the standard of independence, and assume the port of a rival. His pride was roused. He was resolved to reign alone on the ecclesiastical Olympus of the Court, and he would not hear of a peace that might rob him of a triumph. Did Fénélon pretend to shelter himself by great names,—he, Bossuet, would intrench himself within the awful sanctuary of the Church; he represented religion in France; he would resent every attack upon his own opinions as an assault on the Catholic faith; he had the ear of the King, with whom heresy and treason were identical; success was all but assured, and, if so, war was glory. Such tactics are not peculiar to the seventeenth century. In our own day, every one implicated in religious abuses identifies himself with religion,—brands every exposure of his misconduct as hostility to the cause of God,—invests his miserable personality with the benign grandeur of the Gospel,—and stigmatizes as troublers in Israel all who dare to inquire into his procedure,—while innumerable dupes or cowards sleepily believe, or cautiously pretend to do so, that those who have management in a good object must themselves be good.
X.
Fénélon now requested the royal permission to appeal to Rome; he obtained it, but was forbidden to repair thither to plead in person the cause of his book, and ordered to quit the Court and confine himself to his diocese. The King went to St. Cyr, and expelled thence three young ladies, for an offence he could not in reality comprehend,—the sin of Quietism.[[360]] Intrigue was active, and the Duke de Beauvilliers was nearly losing his place in the royal household because of his attachment to Fénélon. The Duke—noble in spirit as in name, and worthy of such a friendship,—boldly told Le Grand Monarque that he was ready to leave the palace rather than to forsake his friend. Six days before the banishment of Fénélon, Louis had sent to Innocent XII. a letter, drawn up by Bossuet, saying in effect that the Maxims had been condemned at Paris, that everything urged in its defence was futile, and that the royal authority would be exerted to the utmost to execute the decision of the pontifical chair. Bossuet naturally calculated that a missive, thus intimating the sentence Infallibility was expected by a great monarch to pronounce,—arriving almost at the same time with the news of a disgrace reserved only for the most grave offences,—would secure the speedy condemnation of Fénélon’s book.
At Rome commenced a series of deliberations destined to extend over a space of nearly two years. Two successive bodies of adjudicators were impanelled and dissolved, unable to arrive at a decision. A new congregation of cardinals was selected, who held scores of long and wearisome debates, while rumour and intrigue alternately heightened or depressed the hopes of either party.[[361]] To write the Maxims of the Saints was a delicate task. It was not easy to repudiate the mysticism of Molinos without impugning the mysticism of St. Theresa. But the position of these judges was more delicate yet. It was still less easy to censure Fénélon without rendering suspicious, at the least, the orthodoxy of the most shining saints in the Calendar. On the one hand, there might be risk of a schism; on the other pressed the urgency and the influence of a powerful party, the impatience, almost the menaces of a great king.
The real question was simply this,—Is disinterested love possible? Can man love God for His own sake alone, with a love, not excluding, but subordinating all other persons and objects, so that they shall be regarded only in God who is All in All? If so, is it dangerous to assert the possibility, to commend this divine ambition, as Fénélon has done? But the discussion was complicated and inflamed by daily slander and recrimination, by treachery and insinuation, and by the honest anger they provoke; by the schemes of personal ambition, by the rivalry of religious parties, by the political intrigues of the State, by the political intrigues of the Church; by the interests of a crew of subaltern agents, who loved to fish in muddy waters; and by the long cherished animosity between Gallican and Ultramontanist. Couriers pass and repass continually between Rome and Cambray, between Rome and Paris. The Abbé Bossuet writes constantly from Rome to the Bishop of Meaux; the Abbé de Chanterac from the same city to the Archbishop of Cambray. Chanterac writes like a faithful friend and a good man; he labours day and night in the cause of Fénélon; he bids him be of good cheer and put his trust in God. The letters of the Abbé Bossuet to his uncle are worthy a familiar of the Inquisition. After circulating calumnies against the character of Madame Guyon, after hinting that Fénélon was a partaker of her immoralities as well as of her heresy, and promising, with each coming post, to produce fresh confessions and new discoveries of the most revolting licentiousness, he sits down to urge Bossuet to second his efforts by procuring the banishment of every friend whom Fénélon yet has at Court; and to secure, by a decisive blow in Paris, the ruin of that ‘wild beast,’ Fénélon, at Rome. Bossuet lost no time in acting on the suggestion of so base an instrument.[[362]]
XI.