The modern student of history is surprised to discover the loose courtiers of Louis XIV., both men and women, hotly engaged in a controversy on an abstract point of ascetic theology; to see the ungrateful king banishing from his presence the saviour of his grandson, and the most honest man in his court; to see Bossuet allowing his powerful mind to be used as a weapon for the persecution of Fénelon; to see Fénelon, in a position of so great difficulty and delicacy, always consistent, always conscientious, always refined, always eloquent, always pious, and yet speaking out boldly and bravely, without regard to consequences, what seemed to him to be right and true.
The controversy, in course of time, was narrowed down to the question whether the doctrine taught in a book of Fénelon's, entitled the Maxims of the Saints, was or was not the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. After a long investigation, the pope, as final judge in the matter, condemned the book, while extolling the personal virtues of the author. Without the slightest hesitancy, Fénelon bowed to the decision of the tribunal of final appeal, and condemned the book himself from the pulpit of his own cathedral. There was no mistaking his motive. He had shown clearly that he was beyond the influence of hope and fear, and that he humbled himself only because he truly believed now that he had been faulty, at least in expression. So noble an act of self-denial, humility, and obedience was attributed on all sides to its true source, namely, his sense of duty, and nothing else. Honest and upright dealing, according to the dictates of his conscience, proved the very best policy he could have followed in self-protection; for good and bad alike admired and applauded him all over the world. The book, abandoned by its author, ceased henceforth to be an object of interest, and Fénelon was the only one who gained any credit from a controversy in which good men and bad men had been strangely mixed up together, and fair means and foul were used in a fruitless endeavor to crush him.
The last years of Fénelon were passed in Cambrai, of which he was both archbishop and duke, and in which he was admired and beloved by all, whether rich or poor. Faithful in the discharge of every pastoral duty, he divided his time among the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the young, and the ignorant, helping, relieving, instructing, consoling all. The rest of the day he spent among his books, or in the company of intellectual and virtuous friends. The poorest villagers feared not to approach and speak to one whose simplicity and gentleness they well understood, and to whose goodness of heart no one ever appealed in vain.
His peaceful diocese soon became the theatre of scenes of bloodshed and desolation, caused by that war of succession during which the star of Louis XIV. began finally to pale before the rising glories of the Duke of Marlborough. Fénelon gave up his property and his palace itself for the relief and accommodation of the sick and the wounded. He distributed among the poor the grain and the fruits over which he had control, and ordered his steward to give food and lodging to all who needed it. When he was told that such liberality would absolutely ruin him, "God will help us," he replied; "his resources are infinite. Meanwhile let us give as long as we have any thing to give, and we shall have done our duty." His episcopal mansion was occupied by officers and soldiers as a hospital, his barns and outhouses were used as asylums by the peasantry who had fled before the troops of the allied army, and his courts and gardens were filled with the cattle the poor country people had driven in, protected by the influence of Fénelon's name.
So powerful was that name that the invading commanders spared all property belonging to the archbishop, and Marlborough even ordered a quantity of grain which had been taken at Chateau Cambresis, and which he had been informed was the property of the archbishop, to be placed on wagons and driven into the public square of Cambrai under an escort of British troops.
But in his fatherly kindness and attention to the wants of those around him, Fénelon did not cease to take a lively interest in the fortunes of the whole country. He could not witness the threatened downfall of his beloved France without the deepest feelings of sorrow. The danger of the nation was extreme. Louis was engaged in a ruinous war with a powerful and conquering enemy. He could not retire from the contest with honor, and he had neither funds nor credit to carry it on with success. In this desperate strait, the king declared that he would die at the head of his nobles, a brave resolution that could not, however, save the country. In this trying emergency the genius of Fénelon saw a solution better than that proposed by the king. It was bodied forth in a letter to the Duke de Chevreuse, and is probably the most striking production that ever came from his pen. He tells the duke that the nobles cannot save the king, that the danger is extreme, and that his true friends must advise him to turn for countenance and relief to the people. The nation is in a critical position. Let the nation be consulted. Let not France be taxed without her consent to carry on a war in which she feels no interest. The people have been badly governed. Let them be called upon to take part in their own government for the future. "There is danger," he grants, "in passing suddenly from unqualified dependence to an excess of liberty. Great caution will be necessary; but it is nevertheless certain that arbitrary authority will not save the country from ruin." "Despotism," he adds, "with plenty of means, is a government of prompt action; but when despotism becomes bankrupt, the first who abandon it to ruin are the venal men whom it has allowed to fatten on the blood of the people." The priest from whom these remarks are quoted is not Lamennais or Gioberti, but an archbishop of the time of Louis XIV. The whole letter reads like a prophecy, or like a history of what took place less than a century later. If Fénelon's advice had been acted upon, how gloriously would France have entered the first of nations upon the march of improvement. Religion and order would not have been made to seem enemies of the people, and the names of Diderot and the Encyclopædia, of Robespierre and the Directory, might have remained unknown for ever!
We need not delay here further than to say that, while Fénelon looked into the heart of the people for the source of national strength, a succession of rapid events saved the king from the terrible alternative in which he was placed. The Emperor Joseph I. died, Marlborough fell into disfavor at home, Marshal Villars gained the victory of Denain, and the whole face of Europe was changed. A treaty of peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713.
Several of Fénelon's friends died in rapid succession, and his loving spirit was penetrated with grief at their loss. His death was hastened beyond doubt by the poignancy of his regret at these repeated afflictions. Why delay the sequel? His work was done, his views of life, his principles of duty to God, to one's country and to one's self, had been faithfully chronicled by his pen, and taught by the example of his serene and patient virtue. His hour was come, and in loving peace with all mankind, with words of faith on his lips, and the bright smile of Christian hope on his countenance, he breathed forth his pure spirit into the hands of his Maker. After his death, no funds were discovered belonging to him. They had been all distributed among the poor. He was buried without pomp in his church of Cambrai. During the Reign of Terror, the ancient tombs of that church were rifled, the leaden coffins were sent to the arsenal to be melted into bullets, and their contents thrown into the common burial ground. But when the invaders came to the bier of Fénelon, it was borne with decency and veneration into the city, and placed in a monument erected to his memory at a time when the sepulchres of emperors and kings were ruthlessly dismantled, and their ashes scattered pitilessly to the four winds of heaven.
Other great men of the age of Fénelon still live in history; few are admired more than he, and none is so much loved by men who upon other points are far from agreeing together. The wish expressed by one of his distinguished countrymen, that his memory might have the same advantage as his life, namely, that of making men love religion, has been fulfilled.
He wrote learnedly and eloquently in defence of his faith, and in refutation of the views of his opponents; and yet he avoids in all his works the extremes both of flattery and of harshness. Men of all religions recognize in him a friend, for all were embraced in his world-wide Christian charity; and yet they must bear with us, his fellow-Catholics, when we claim for our church the special honor of having made him the great and good man which all acknowledge him to have been. The earliest lessons he received came from the lips of devoted Catholic parents; and when his will was opened after his death, the first words read were the following emphatic expressions: "I declare that I wish to die in the arms of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, my mother. God, who reads the heart, and will be my judge, knows that there has not been an instant of my life in which I have not cherished for her the submission and docility of a little child." A noble tribute this, and one which leads us to look not despondingly to the tree which is capable of producing such sound and genial fruit.