Bossuet was then a very old man, but neither growing age nor the care that he took of what he considered the general interests of Catholic Christianity ever kept him from giving the closest attention to the spiritual government of his flock. He was a model bishop. He died April 12th, 1704, aged seventy-six years, six months, and sixteen days.
Bossuet was a very prolific writer. In the best edition, that of Abbé Caron, begun in Versailles in 1815, his writings fill not less than forty-one volumes. But it must be stated at once that a great deal of this production belongs decidedly more to theology than to French literature. Some of it is not even in French, but in Latin; for instance, Bossuet's letter to the Pope on the subject of the education of the Dauphin. Although in French, such works as the 'Treatise on Communion' or the 'Explanation of John the Baptist's Revelation' are decidedly outside the pale of literature, as the word is usually understood. We shall mention here only those works of Bossuet which, by virtue of their perfect form and the accessibility of the subject to the general reader, are to this day more or less familiar to the best educated people in France.
The first to be mentioned among these are the 'Sermons,' the 'Funeral Orations,' and the 'Discourse upon Universal History.'
Bossuet's sermons undoubtedly were among his most perfect productions. He was a born orator; his majestic bearing, his melodious and powerful voice, his noble gestures, made the magnificent sentences, the beautiful and striking imagery of his speeches, doubly impressive. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions Bossuet's sermons have reached us in a very imperfect form. He did not, as a rule, fully write them, and the art of taking down verbatim the utterances of public speakers had not yet been invented. The sermon 'On the Unity of the Church' we possess because Bossuet had committed it to writing before delivering it; other impressive sermons, those on 'Death,' on the 'Conversion of the Sinner,' on 'Providence,' on the 'Duties of Kings,' etc., have reached us in a sufficiently correct form to give us an idea of Bossuet's eloquence: but the reader who really wishes to know the great sacred orator of Louis XIV.'s reign had better turn at once to the 'Funeral Orations.'
Bossuet's funeral orations were prepared with great care. They were delivered as a rule several months after the death of the person to be eulogized, as part of a religious ceremony in which a mass was said for the repose of his soul.
Bossuet delivered eleven funeral orations, one of which--that of Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII. and mother of Louis XIV,--is lost. Of the other ten, four are youthful productions and deal with people of comparatively small importance. Six remain that are known as the great funeral orations, and they were delivered between November 16th, 1669, and March 10th, 1687. They are those on Henrietta of France, Queen of England; Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans; Maria Theresa of Spain, Queen of France; Anne of Gonzaga and Clèves, Princess of the Palatinate; Michel Le Tellier, High Chancellor of France; and Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé.
The most remarkable of these are the first two and the last one. In the funeral oration on Henrietta of France, Bossuet had just the kind of subject which he was best fitted to treat, and it must be considered his masterpiece. It presents in magnificent style, in pompous development, a complete exposition of his historical and political theories, together with a strikingly vivid account of the great English rebellion. His portraits of Charles I. and Oliver Cromwell--the one, of course, altogether too enthusiastic, the other too severe--stand out in as bold relief as the paintings of Van Dyck or Velasquez. His theory of revolutions, which he considers the punishments inflicted by God upon sovereigns for violations of His law, is presented with a wealth of illustrations which was simply overwhelming for the audience that listened to it. It remains to this day one of the most plausible, as it will remain forever one of the most eloquent pieces of historical and theological reasoning.
In the funeral oration on Henrietta of England we find little of history, still less of politics. Here we have a domestic catastrophe of appalling suddenness: a brilliant woman, the worshiped centre of the most brilliant court, one to whom the speaker himself was most tenderly attached, so abruptly snatched away by death that the suspicion of foul play at once arose and has not to this day been entirely dispelled. Nowhere has Bossuet, nor perhaps any other orator, so powerfully depicted the uncertainty of everything human. The closeness with which he treated his subjects is well illustrated by an anecdote that is connected with this oration. Only two or three hours before her death, when already conscious of her desperate position, the unfortunate princess had directed that an emerald ring of hers should be after her death handed to the great preacher. "What a pity," he was told, "that such an incident cannot find place in a funeral oration!"--"Why not" he answered. When he delivered the oration, the emerald ring was on one of the fingers of his right hand; and when speaking of the princess's virtues and charming qualities, he alluded to the art of giving, in which she signally excelled. "And this art," he went on, "never deserted her, not even, I know it, in the throes of death," at the same time raising his right hand and placing the precious jewel in full view of the audience.
The funeral oration on the Prince de Condé shows us how he triumphed over difficulties. He was a warm friend and ardent admirer of the Prince, and at the same time a devoted subject of the King, rebellion against whom he considered a very grievous sin. Yet the Prince had for years been a rebel against the King during the wars of the Fronde, and had continued in the ranks of the hostile Spaniards even after all the other rebels had submitted to the royal authority. After conducting his narrative down to the time when the Prince, still a faithful subject, was unjustly imprisoned by order of Cardinal Mazarin,--"And," he goes on, "since I have to speak of these things over which I would fain keep eternally silent, until this fatal imprisonment he had not even dreamed that anything could be attempted against the State.... This is what made him say (I certainly can repeat here, before these altars, the words I received from his lips, since they so clearly show the bottom of his heart)--he said then, speaking of this unfortunate prison, that he had entered it the most innocent, and had left it the guiltiest of men." Nearly the whole of this oration is devoted to history; it teems with brilliant passages, the most famous of which is the narrative of the Prince's first victory, the battle of Rocroi, in 1643.
Thoughtful readers seldom pass by the funeral oration on Anne of Gonzaga. It forms a curious incident in Bossuet's life. The great preacher's most striking fault was a lack of energy in his dealings with royal characters. "He lacks bones," some one said of him: and thus when his enemies so intrigued as to have him required to eulogize from the pulpit the erratic princess, who had been a political intriguer and the heroine of many scandals before repentance took hold of her, he lacked the courage to decline the doubtful honor. But in the pulpit, or whenever the priest had to appear, and not simply the man, his better manhood, pure and commanding, at once took the upper hand; and so, facing his critics,--"My discourse," he said, "which perhaps you think you are to judge, will judge you when the last day comes; and if you do not depart hence better Christians, you will depart hence guiltier men!"