It is now our privilege to bid farewell to the noise of battle, and look at the good archbishop in the peaceful retirement of his great diocese, where, as all admit, his episcopal duties were perfectly performed. Even the most captious carpers and cavilers at FÉnelon, who can see little or no good in any other part of his life and try hard to find some unworthy motive at the bottom of the acts that seem so fair, are sore put to it, when they come to this portion, to withhold a meed of hearty praise. They are forced to admit that his misfortunes have helped his character, and that he shines forth with a luster rarely, if ever, equaled. What he would have become spiritually had the world continued to smile upon him is, of course, unknown. Had Louis XIV died and the Duke of Burgundy come to the throne, FÉnelon would undoubtedly have reached the cardinalate for which his birth and abilities so well fitted him, and might even have gone higher. But it is not likely that, in the vitiated atmosphere of the court, and surrounded by the temptations inevitably awaiting on unclouded success, his character could have developed as it did in affliction. Some measure of adversity seems to be essential to bring out the best there is in us. His career has been called by some superficial observers “a splendid failure,” but the words have no meaning except in the sense in which they might be used of Jesus of Nazareth and a multitude of others who have stood for the highest ideals and have died nobly fighting against wrong. FÉnelon did not falter in his course; he obeyed at eve “the voice obeyed at prime;” he held to the end the supreme purpose which had inspired his earliest reflections. But his years of exile, spent in the single-hearted service of his people, are a more impressive and edifying conclusion to a life begun under the auspices of St. Sulpice than if they had been attended with all the glories of the papal court. His reverses of fortune gave him an admirable opportunity, magnificently improved, to show that his high theories of resignation and self-surrender, and a serene acceptance of everything from God’s hand, could work well in practice. Under the stress of his troubles he gained new depth and breadth of piety, new self-reliance and self-control, larger tranquillity, a more thoroughly compacted character.
Cambrai, to which, he was banished in 1697, and where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, was a town of no great size or beauty, on the river Scheldt, in the extreme north, near the Flemish frontier. It was the ecclesiastical center of the Flemish provinces which were conquered during the early half of the reign of Louis XIV, and confirmed to France by the treaty of Nimwegen in 1678. Formerly a dependency of the chaotic Empire, there still clung around it some of the prestige of departed glories when its bishop’s jurisdiction extended over Brussels, and he governed the territory with almost the power of an independent sovereign, having his own fortresses and garrisons and mint. FÉnelon himself ranked both as a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and as a Duke of France, and, though possessing no feudal privileges, he was still the principal landholder of the province, with a floating revenue of some hundred thousand francs, perhaps about a hundred thousand dollars in modern money. It was one of the first positions in the kingdom; but it had some serious drawbacks, especially as a place of permanent residence. He had said on receiving the appointment, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit; I am entering on a state of perpetual servitude in a strange land.” The people there were Flemings, not Frenchmen, in their language, their habits, their modes of thought, with little refinement of any kind, their virtues as coarse-fibered as their manners. It was no small privation for a man like FÉnelon—born for Olympus as it were, bred to the best society, and fitted to shine in it with so much luster, and in a time when, even more than now, everything centered around the court at the capital—to be shut out from it all, losing the sympathy and friendship which his earlier years had brought him, the daily intercourse with minds that reflected his own thoughts yet inspired and exhilarated him. For one in the flower of his manhood and at the zenith of his capacities, possessing the gift of language in a marvelous degree, with a filled and cultured brain, to be thrown so absolutely out of his element, out of the world of books and intellectual equals, exiled to a remote corner of the realm amid strangers, was a calamity whose gravity, on one side, it would be wrong to overlook. His sufferings, as nature goes, must have been acute. Yet he speedily adjusted himself to the situation, and there is no note of repining. For mere court favors, its dignities, pomps, and pleasures, he had no real love, and his whole life bears witness to the truth of his often repeated assertions, that he had no wish to return to Paris or Versailles; no wish, that is, under the divinely appointed circumstances; for he was able always to find in such circumstances his highest pleasure. Writing to the Duke de Beauvilliers in November, 1699, he says: “I am sorry, dear duke, to be separated from you, the dear duchess, and a very few other friends. But for all else I rejoice in being away; I sing my canticle of thanksgiving for deliverance, and nothing would cost me so much as to have to return.”
He by no means settled down into “a state of passive quietism,” as some ignorantly prate, wholly misconceiving both quietism and the man. The slightest scanning of the records shows how beautifully and zealously active his last years were. If ever a man threw himself into the interests of others, or made the deep love of God, which he breathed as his native air, take loving shape in strenuous acts, it was FÉnelon. He was quiet, even as was Madame Guyon, and as all other high saints have been, in so far as to rest with an absolute, unhesitating, unquestioning faith in God’s keeping, asking nothing save that His will might be perfected in him; but he was most active and energetic in body, soul, and spirit for his neighbor’s good. The unremitting labors which he undertook, and which his vast diocese if properly administered demanded, involved a life of the most regular industry. He gave but a short time to sleep, and his working hours began early, so that he had done nearly a day’s work before saying mass. His habit was to say this in his own chapel, after a long time spent previously in prayer, except on Saturdays, when he said it in the cathedral, remaining there to hear the confessions of penitents of any and every class who chose to present themselves. He not infrequently preached in the cathedral, but seems to have preferred the town churches, in some one of which he always preached the Lenten discourses. He made no effort at oratory, aiming chiefly to be plain and intelligible, excluding from his sermons superfluous ornaments as well as obscurity and difficult reasonings. He preached from the heart rather than from the head, and generally without notes, but not without much meditation and prayer. He used to say, “I must spend much time in my closet in order to be prepared for the pulpit, and to be sure that my heart is filled from the Divine fountain before I pour out the streams upon the people.” He declared against the practice of committing sermons to writing and then learning them by heart.
To his clergy he was a father and brother in God, gathering them about him as constantly as possible for instruction and inspiration, moving among them with the utmost wisdom, correcting, advising, assisting. One of his first cares was the improvement of the seminary for completing the education of those who were preparing for the Church. It had been at Valenciennes, but he removed it to Cambrai, that it might be under his own eye. It was his great desire to reconstruct it on the lines of the seminary at St. Sulpice, where he himself had been so profited, and to intrust the supervision of the students to priests who were members of that congregation; but he found insuperable obstacles to this scheme in the fear of M. Tronson lest any direct connection between St. Sulpice and Cambrai might draw down upon the former the king’s displeasure. So FÉnelon appointed to the head of it his intimate friend, the AbbÉ de Chanterac, formerly his agent at Rome, saying, “He has the wit, the piety, and the wisdom to govern it peacefully.” But FÉnelon devoted great personal care to the students, examining them himself, and endeavoring to estimate their individual capacities. Besides the instruction he gave them during periods of retreat, and at the chief festivals, he conducted conferences once a week, listening with infinite patience to their difficulties and replying with the kindness of a father. No priest proceeded to ordination until he had been five times examined by FÉnelon himself. In short, no pains were spared to make the priests of this diocese an example to their degenerate colleagues.
In the general administration of his diocese he concentrated all his powers, allowing nothing to escape him, erring, if at all, on the side of mercy and toleration, finding it difficult to believe many of the charges brought against his clergy, and only convinced by the most conclusive evidence. He abstained from unnecessary acts of authority, avoided all unnecessary display, removed what was blamable by meekness and moderation, improved with prudence and sobriety what was good. His administration was uniformly wise, strict in some respects, and yet on broad and liberal lines. There was no harrying of Protestants or Jansenists, no bureaucratic fussiness, no seeking after popularity, but every man, great or small, was treated exactly as was becoming. Between him and his flock, his chapter, or his clergy, there was no discord. Though by his indefatigable zeal he soon made the district committed to his charge the model of a well-regulated diocese, his biographers do not record of him a single instance of what are generally called acts of vigor, or a single instance of gaudy virtue. The peace of heaven was with him, and was communicated to all around. All local customs, down to the humblest, were handled with a delicate touch, and pardonable eccentricities of usage were never dealt with severely. In the matter of patronage he was careful that no outsider, and still less no relative of his own, should swoop down on the richest livings and secure by interest what the natives naturally looked upon as their own by right. He traveled throughout the district, making tours of inspection several times a year, and so coming into touch with every corner, preaching more than once in every one of the six hundred parishes.
The laity adored him for his charities, for the gentle firmness of his government, for the natural grace of manner that enhanced a hundred-fold the value of everything he said and did. Always ready to help, yet always modest in offering assistance, he seemed when about some kindly action to be receiving rather than doing a favor. He was always a perfect gentleman, a high-bred man of rank, a model of politeness, and was equally adapted to every grade of society. Men of all classes were at ease in his company. He directed every one to the subject he best understood, and then disappeared himself, thus giving them an opportunity to produce out of their own stock the materials they were most able to furnish. Thus every one parted from him well pleased with himself. Perhaps no one ever possessed in a higher degree the happy talent of easy conversation. His mind was entirely given up to the person with whom he conversed. No one felt his superiority; every one found him on his own level. In visits to the sick at home, to the hospitals and wounded soldiers, he was indefatigable, nor was he a stranger to the Cambrai prisons. He went into the cottages of the poor, and spoke to them of God, and comforted them under the hardships which they suffered. If, when he visited them, they presented him with any refreshments in their unpretending and unpolished manner, he pleased them by seating himself at their humble table and partaking cheerfully and thankfully of what was set before him.
Various anecdotes illustrate his benevolence. In one of his rural excursions he met with a peasant in great affliction. Inquiring the cause, he was informed by the man that he had lost his cow, the only support of his indigent family. FÉnelon attempted to comfort him, and gave him money to buy another. The peasant showed gratitude, but still was sad, grieving for the cow he had lost, to which he was much attached. Pursuing his walk, FÉnelon found at a considerable distance from the place of the interview the very cow which was the object of so much affection. The sun had set, and the night was dark, but the good archbishop drove her back himself to the poor man’s cottage.
In February, 1697, before FÉnelon had permanently left Versailles, news came that a fire had burned to the ground the archiepiscopal palace at Cambrai, and consumed many or all of his books and writings. His friend, the AbbÉ de Langeron, seeing FÉnelon conversing at ease with a number of persons, supposed he had not heard these unpleasant tidings, and began with some formality and caution to inform him. But FÉnelon, perceiving his solicitude, interrupted him by saying that he was fully acquainted with what had happened, adding further that, although the loss was a very great one, he would much rather they were burned than the cottage of a poor peasant. This has been adjudged a more touching and pious rejoinder than that of the literary man whose library was destroyed by fire and who replied to the tidings, “I should have profited little by my books if they had not taught me how to bear the loss of them.” FÉnelon was taught compassion for men and acceptance of the Divine will from a higher source than books. At his own expense he rebuilt the palace and furnished it in a suitable style of magnificence, but he did not allow the arms of his family to be affixed or painted on any part of it.
The archbishop’s day was very carefully laid out, and has been quite minutely described. After the early rising, the private devotions, and the public services, he was visible until nine o’clock to those only who attended him by appointment. After that, till he dined, his doors were open to all persons who had business with him. Noon was the hour for dinner. His table was suitable to his rank, handsomely dressed, with a great variety and abundance of good food, that his many guests might enjoy themselves, but he himself was extremely abstemious, eating only the simplest and lightest viands, and of them but sparingly. Contrary to the custom of most prelates, his chaplains, secretaries, attendants, and all officers of the household, sat with him at the same table, making a very harmonious household, among whom conversation was briskly carried on, FÉnelon taking his part, but leaving every one full scope. After dinner all went to the great state bedchamber, which was very finely furnished, but was used mainly as a sitting-room, FÉnelon himself sleeping in a little room adjoining, furnished simply with some gray woolen materials and only adorned with a few engravings. General conversation was continued in the large room; but a small table was placed before FÉnelon, on which he signed his name to papers which required immediate dispatch, and took opportunity to give directions to his chaplains on the affairs of the diocese. He said grace both before and after dinner. He spent the evening with those that were in the house, whoever they might be, supping with the people who happened to be present. Supper was at nine. At ten the whole of the household assembled. One of his chaplains read the night prayers, and at the end of them the archbishop rose and gave his general blessing to the company.
His chief amusement, when he found it necessary to relax a little from his arduous toils, was that of walking and riding. He loved rural scenes. “The country,” he says in one of his letters, “delights me. In the midst of it I find God’s holy peace.” Everything seemed to him to be full of infinite goodness; and his heart glowed with purest happiness as he escaped from the business and cares which necessarily occupied so much of his time, into the air and the fields, into the flowers and sunshine, of the great Creator.
Many visitors came to him from far and near, attracted by his great reputation, and the results of the visits were always the same. Whatever the previous sentiments or opinions, or indifferent or hostile attitude, all were enchanted and moved to highest admiration. The AbbÉ le Dieu, Bossuet’s secretary, and Canon of Meaux, in September, 1704, was a guest at the palace, and noted everything with the most minute and insatiable curiosity. He found himself treated with the utmost consideration, and given every opportunity to pry into all that interested him, and came away with none but words of hearty praise for all he saw.
A Scotchman, Andrew Ramsay, sometimes called the Chevalier de Ramsay, scion of an old Scotch family, exiled for his sympathy with the Stuarts, sickened by many aspects of the Protestantism in which he had grown up, wandered over all Holland and Germany, hoping to find rest amid the philosophers of those countries, but finding it not. In this condition he came to Cambrai, where the archbishop received him with his wonted fatherly kindness, and speedily won his heart. The combination of spiritual religion and practical wisdom which he found in FÉnelon, the height of his personal holiness, and the daily-watched beauty of his life, even more than the clear and helpful teachings received, made so deep an impression oh him that he became a convert to the Roman Church, and, even when permitted to return to England, he remained faithful to the doctrines which he had learned at Cambrai. He continued there for many months, never wearying of studying his host’s mind and soul, and eventually writing the first life of him ever published. His literary powers proved of great value in arranging the writings of his master and defending him from calumny. Subsequently Ramsay became teacher to some of the Pretender’s family; and there is an interesting story on record telling how the friendship of FÉnelon stood him in good stead at Oxford some years after, showing how in England the good archbishop’s virtues attracted highest esteem and his name had more influence than even in France itself. In 1730 Ramsay came to England under a safe conduct, and was received as a member of the Royal Institution on the strength of his connection with the Archbishop of Cambrai. He further desired to take the Doctor’s Degree at Oxford. The Earl of Arran, then chancellor of the university, proposed him for that honor. Opposition arose in Convocation on the double ground that he was a Roman Catholic and had been a servant of the Pretender; but the opposition ceased when Dr. King, head of St. Mary’s Hall, observed, “I present to you a pupil of the illustrious FÉnelon, and this title is a sufficient guarantee to us.” Ramsay was admitted to his degree by a vote of 85 to 17.
Another Britisher, the eccentric Earl of Peterboro, in whom the hero, skeptic, and profligate were mingled in about equal proportions, being among the visitors to Marlborough’s headquarters in the Netherlands during the war, turned aside to Cambrai to make its master’s acquaintance. He could have had very little sympathy with the saintly Mystic there, but he could no more resist his charm than could other men. He wrote subsequently to the philosopher, John Locke, that FÉnelon “was cast in a particular mold that was never used for anybody else. He is a delicious creature, but I was forced to cut away from him as fast as I could, else he would have made me pious.” He is also reported to have written while there, “On my word, I must quit this place as soon as possible, for if I stay here another week I shall be a Christian in spite of myself.”
Count Munich, afterwards known as Marshal Munich, one of the most distinguished commanders in the armies of Russia, when young was a lieutenant-colonel in the forces contending in Flanders. Being taken prisoner in battle and conducted to Cambrai, he was deeply affected by what he saw of the peaceful mind and truly Christian generosity of FÉnelon. In all the vicissitudes of his after life, in court and camp, he delighted to the very end of his stormy career to remember the happy days which he passed as a prisoner or ward in the society of FÉnelon. He found the recounting of the things he had witnessed at Cambrai a help in soothing the agitations of his own wild and turbulent spirit and a means of permanent instruction in righteousness.
The celebrated Cardinal Quirini, whose life was devoted to learned researches and useful studies, and who visited all parts of Europe in the prosecution of literary purposes, speaks in the following language of his interview with FÉnelon: “I considered Cambrai as one of the principal objects of my travels in France. I will not hesitate to confess that it was toward this single spot, or rather towards the celebrated FÉnelon, who resided there, that I was powerfully attracted. With what emotions of tenderness I still recall the gentle and affecting familiarity with which that great man deigned to discourse with me, and even sought my conversation; though his palace was then crowded with French generals and commanders-in-chief, towards whom he displayed the most magnificent and generous hospitality. I have still fresh in my recollection all the serious and important subjects which were the topics of our discourse. My ear caught with eagerness every word that issued from his lips. The letters which he wrote me from time to time are still before me; letters which are an evidence alike of the wisdom of his principles and of the purity of his heart. I preserve them among my papers as the most precious treasure which I have in the world.”
His enemies, we are told, practiced the shameful artifice of placing about him an ecclesiastic of high birth whom he considered only as one of his grand vicars, but who was to act as a spy upon him. The man who had consented to take so base an office had, however, the magnanimity to punish himself for it. Utterly subdued by the purity and gentleness of spirit that he witnessed in FÉnelon, he threw himself at his feet and confessed the unworthy part he had been led to act, and withdrew from the world to conceal in retirement his grief and shame.
As will be inferred from these incidents his hospitality to those who came to him from all parts of Europe, as well as from near by, was unbounded. In spite of the urgency and multiplicity of his employments he was always ready, with the greatest kindness of feeling, to pay the utmost attention to all who had the slightest claim upon his time. He did not hesitate to drop his eloquent pen, with which he conversed with all Europe, whenever Providence called him to listen to the awkward utterances of the most ignorant and degraded among his people. His practice and his preference was to suffer any personal inconvenience, or sacrifice any private interest, rather than injure the feelings of a fellow-man or omit an opportunity of usefulness. Writing to a friend about his daily routine he says: “I must confer with the Chapter on a lawsuit; I must write and dispatch letters; I must examine accounts. How dreary would be life made up of these perplexities and details but for the will of God which glorifies all He has given us to do!” This is the keynote on which FÉnelon toned and tuned his life at Cambrai, making himself the servant of all, ministering rather than being ministered unto, glorying in the honor of such services, fearful of the outward pomps the Church conferred upon him, yet accepting them in all simplicity because he fully believed the Church to be directed by his Master.
“I have seen him,” says the Chevalier Ramsay, “in the course of a single day, converse with the great and speak their language, ever maintaining the episcopal dignity; afterwards discourse with the simple and the little, like a good father instructing his children. This sudden transition from one extreme to the other, was without affectation or effort, like one who, by the extensiveness of his genius, reaches to all the most opposite distances. I have often observed him at such conferences, and have as much admired the evangelical condescension by which he became all things to all men as the sublimity of his discourses. While he watched over his flock with a daily care, he prayed in the deep retirement of internal solitude. The many things which were generally admired in him were nothing in comparison of that divine life by which he walked with God like Enoch, and was unknown to men.”
The AbbÉ Galet, another of FÉnelon’s contemporaries, bears loud witness to the fact that, however grand the outside accommodations were, the archbishop’s personal appointments were of the most modest description. He says that “in the meager simplicity of his private living rooms, fitted up plainly in serge, of his dress—a long velvet cassock trimmed with scarlet, but without gold tassels or lace—even of his ecclesiastical vestments, FÉnelon did homage to that idea of holy poverty whose actual practice was forbidden by his station in the world.”
But when it came to others, FÉnelon was very considerate and very generous. When he had cause to send his chaplains into the country on any business of the diocese, it was always in one of his own carriages and with one of his own attendants, that the respect which he showed them might conciliate to them the general respect of his flock. He took, so far as possible, the burdens of his clergy on himself, offered to pay more tax than he needed to, even wasted (as it would now seem) money on beggars whose appearance moved his sympathies. Yet he also practiced sound economy, that he might have the more to give, held a careful audit of his household accounts, and set aside large portions of his income for the starving soldiers, or the interests of his seminary, or the education of his nephews and their maintenance in the army. He educated great numbers of students at his own expense, sending them to Paris; especially the young men that were likely to prove good priests, but were too poor to bear the financial burden. He had always a whole string of his nephews and grandnephews or other relatives gathered about him, young people whose education he was asked to take charge of or those whose interests, for friends’ or relationship’s sake, he was desirous to promote. He was never without the presence of children in the palace. A suite of rooms above his own was reserved for them. Not only his relatives, but the sons of his intimate friends, were placed in his care, that he might train them to be good and chivalrous gentlemen. Very few of these boys were intended for the priesthood, but the confidence that FÉnelon inspired was so great that it was believed a child reared under his eye would be better fitted for court or camp than if he spent his early years in the company of princes at St. Germain or Versailles. The last of his little guests were the grandchildren of his friend, De Chevreuse, and, harassed though he was by national disasters, he could spare time to study and report upon them and express his pleasure in their company. He wrote of the children, “I delight to have them here; I love them dearly; they cheer me much; they do not trouble me in any way.” They were with him to the end; so that from the day he entered on his duties at Versailles until his death he may be said to have given a definite proportion of his time and energy to the practical demonstration of his excellent theories of education.
During the contest for the Spanish succession, in the early years of the eighteenth century, between France and Bavaria on the one side, and England, Holland, and Austria on the other, the diocese of Cambrai, not far from the Netherlands, which has sometimes been denominated the battle-field of Europe, was within the realm of war, and suffered much from the cruel ravages of the advancing and retreating armies. Under these circumstances, FÉnelon continued his constant visitations to every part of the district, and all the writers dwell upon the singular marks of homage paid on these occasions to his eminent virtue by people of every name. So far from putting any obstacle in his way, the English, Germans, and Dutch took every means of showing their admiration and veneration for the archbishop. All distinctions of religion and sect, all those feelings of hatred or jealousy which divide nations, disappeared in his presence. He was often obliged to resort to artifice to avoid the honors which the armies of the enemy intended him. He refused the military escorts which were offered him for his personal security in the exercise of his functions, and, with no other attendants than a few ecclesiastics, he traversed the countries desolated by war. His way was marked by his alms and benefactions, and by a suspending of the calamities which armies bring. In these short intervals the people breathed in peace, so that his pastoral visits might be termed a truce of God. The Duke of Marlborough, the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Ormond, the distinguished commanders who were opposed to France, embraced every opportunity of showing their esteem. They sent detachments of their men to guard his meadows and his corn; they caused his grain to be transported with a convoy to Cambrai, lest it should be seized and carried off by their own foragers. St. Simon, by no means his friend, can not say enough in panegyric for his never-ending kindness to the troops brought through Cambrai during the war. The duke paints him as moving among the sick and the whole, the known and the unknown, the officers and the common soldiers, with a knowledge of the world which understood how to gain them all by treating each in his due degree, and yet a true and cheerful shepherd of their souls, as constant in his ministration to the humblest as though he had no other business in life. And he was no less careful for their bodily comfort; lodged officers innumerable in his palace; hired other houses besides for the same purpose; filled them with the sick and wounded, and with poor people driven from the neighboring villages; tended the sick with his own hands, sometimes for many months, until their entire recovery; supplied the hospitals with costly drugs and endless streams of food and delicacies, sent out, for all their abundance, in such perfect order that every patient had exactly what he needed. He was on the best of terms with the nobles and government officials, not only of his diocese but of all Flanders, even as far as Brussels, and used his influence with them to beg many temporal favors for his people; got his village schoolmasters exempted from service in the army, saved the farmers and their horses from forced labors in the winter, and even warned the Ministry at Paris that the devastated country could be the theater of no more campaigns. When the commissariat of the king was in extreme want of corn, the archbishop emptied his immense granaries for their subsistence, and absolutely refused all compensation. He said, “The king owes me nothing, and in times of calamity it is my duty as a citizen and a bishop to give back to the State what I have received from it.” It was thus he avenged himself for his disgrace. At another critical moment, only a timely advance from his own purse prevented the garrison of St. Omer from going over in a body to the enemy, as other unpaid regiments had done. It is no wonder that he became the idol of the troops, who sang his praises even in the antechambers of Versailles. And his fame stood equally high with those who were fighting against the king.
He was loved by so many because he was himself so full of love. An instance of his largeness both of mind and heart occurred during these closing years, which deserves to be recorded, for it certainly does not stand alone. The English prince known as the Old Pretender was an officer in the French army in 1709, and his duty took him near to Cambrai. In the conversations which passed between them, the archbishop recommended to him very emphatically never to compel his subjects to change their religion. “Liberty of thought,” said he, “is an impregnable fortress which no human power can force. Violence can never convince; it only makes hypocrites. When kings take it upon them to direct in matters of religion instead of protecting it, they bring it into bondage. You ought therefore to grant to all a legal toleration; not as approving everything indifferently, but as suffering with patience what God suffers; endeavoring in a proper manner to restore such as are misled, but never by any measures but those of gentle and benevolent persuasion.”
Even against the Jansenists, who were fierce Augustinians, the ultra Calvinists of that time in the matter of the Divine decrees, and whom he thoroughly disliked, being himself a firm friend of free will, he would by no means have harsh measures taken. The sweetness of his disposition and his idea of the meekness of God, made him strongly averse to the doctrines of Quesnel and Jansen, which he considered as leading to despair. “God,” he said, “is to them only a terrible Being; to me He is a Being good and just. I can not consent to make Him a tyrant who binds us with fetters, and then commands us to walk, and punishes us if we do not.” In this he was at one with John Wesley. But he would not, any more than the Methodist, permit persecution of them in his diocese. “Let us,” said he, “be to them what they are unwilling that God should be to man, full of compassion and indulgence.” He was told that the Jansenists were his declared enemies, that they left nothing undone to bring him and his doctrine into discredit. “That is one further reason,” said he, “for me to suffer and forgive them.”
On hearing that some peasants in Hainaut, who were descended from Protestants, and who held still the same opinions, had received the sacrament from a minister of their own persuasion, but that, when discovered, they disguised their sentiments and even went to mass, he said to the Reformed minister: “Brother, you see what has happened. It is full time that these good people should have some fixed religion; go and obtain their names, and those of all their families; I give you my word that in less than six months they shall all have passports”—that is, to go where they like. The same clergyman, whose name was Brunice, he received at his table as a brother, and treated him with great kindness.
To an officer of the army who consulted him to know what course he should adopt with such of his soldiers as were Huguenots, FÉnelon answered: “Tormenting and teasing heretic soldiers into conversion, will answer no end; it will not succeed; it will only produce hypocrites. The converts so made will desert in crowds.”
The closing years of FÉnelon’s life were inexpressibly saddened by the number of deaths that swept away in melancholy succession nearly all with whom his heartstrings were most closely intertwined. The first to go was his very dear friend Langeron, who died at Cambrai, November 10, 1710. He probably held a deeper measure of his love than any one else, possessed his entire confidence, which was never in the least degree shaken by mutual disagreement and reproof. He chose him for a coadjutor on the mission to Saintonge, shared with him the loving care of the little prince, to whom he was reader, kept him with him at Cambrai as one of his chief assistants and a principal amelioration of the bonds which tied him there. Three days after the death he wrote: “I have lost the greatest comfort of my life, and the best laborer God has given me in the service of His Church, a friend who has been my delight for thirty-four years. O, how full of sorrow life is! O God, how much our best friends cost us! The only solace of life is friendship, and friendship turns into irreparable grief. Let us seek the Friend who does not die, in whom we shall recover all the rest. Nothing could be deeper or truer than the virtues of him who has died. Nothing could be a greater witness of grace than was his death. I have never seen anything more lovely and edifying.... God’s will is done. He chose to seek my friend’s happiness rather than my comfort; and I should be wanting alike to God and my friend, if I did not will what He wills. In the sharpest moment of my grief I offered up him I so dreaded to lose.”
Still keener, in some respects, was the loss he experienced in the death of the Duke of Burgundy, who passed away February 18, 1712. The ties between them were of the closest description, and the long separation of fifteen years had made no difference in their mutual affection. When the young man—fifteen years old at the time of FÉnelon’s banishment in 1697—heard of the sad event, he ran to his grandfather and flung himself at his feet, and implored with tears his clemency, and as a proof of FÉnelon’s doctrine appealed to the change in his own conduct and character. Louis was deeply affected, but said that what he solicited was not a matter of favor; it concerned the purity of the Church, of which Bossuet was the best judge. All intercourse between the two was interdicted, and as both were closely watched by spies, it was four years before the slightest communication could pass between them. Then the duke contrived to send a letter in which he declared his unshaken love, saying that indeed his friendship but increased with time, and that he was proceeding more steadily than before in the path of virtue. When, in 1702, Louis gave the Duke of Burgundy command of the army in Flanders, he petitioned with great earnestness that he might be allowed in his passage to the army to see FÉnelon. The king consented only on condition that the interview should be in public. They met at a public dinner, where, of course, but little could be said, as everything was closely watched. But the duke in a loud voice exclaimed, in the hearing of all present, “I am sensible, my Lord Archbishop, what I owe to you, and you know what I am.” FÉnelon writes concerning the interview as follows: “I have seen the Duke of Burgundy after five years’ separation, but God seasoned the consolation with great bitterness. I saw him only in public for a short quarter of an hour. One must take things as they come and give one’s self up unreservedly to God’s providence.” After this, there was opportunity for a more frequent correspondence, and it is most creditable to both parties, filled with affection and profoundest deference on the part of the younger man, and with the deepest solicitude and wisest counsels on the part of the elder.
The duke’s father, the dauphin, or heir apparent, died in April, 1711, leaving, of course, his son as next in the succession to the throne. Then, indeed, did FÉnelon’s hopes and the hopes of the nation rise high. Cambrai became thronged with people who thought it well to be in the good graces of one who might very soon be the power behind the throne and the most important man in France. But alas! alas for human plans and prospects! The dauphine, Burgundy’s wife, died February 12th, of a strange malady which baffled all the physicians; then the duke himself, having caught the infection, died February 18th, and their eldest son succumbed to the same complaint, March 18th. The royal household was overwhelmed, the nation was stunned, and no one felt the loss more than, probably no one as much as, FÉnelon. He writes: “I am struck down with grief; the shock has made me ill without any malady. My health has suffered terribly, and whatever revives my grief brings on a certain amount of feverish agitation. I am humbled by my weakness. All my links are broken; there is nothing left to bind me to earth; but the ties which bind me to heaven are strengthened. O, what suffering this true friendship breeds! But if I could restore him to life by turning a straw I would not do it, for it is God’s will.” It was undoubtedly the darkest hour of his days. He never wholly rallied from the blow, or took the same interest in his labors that he did before. But there is the best of evidence that his faith in God did not fail, and that in all the suffering, both for himself and for his country, around which the gloomiest shadows seemed now to be gathering, he had no thought of the Almighty unworthy of his goodness.
In November, 1712, died another most dearly loved and life-long friend, the Duke of Chevreuse, opening up all his wounds afresh, as he says; but he adds, “God be praised, be it ours to adore his impenetrable purposes!” In August, 1714, FÉnelon lost the last of that special group who had stuck to him more closely than brothers, the Duke de Beauvilliers. They had never met since he left Versailles, but their hearts were most closely knit. “Our best friends,” he wrote, “are the source of our greatest sorrow and bitterness. One is tempted to say that all good friends should wait and die on the same day. Friendship will be the cause of my death.”
It was to be even so. His frame was feeble, and these fierce attacks affected him severely. In the following November a carriage accident entailed another shock to his system, from which he had not strength to recover. In the month that followed, his friends recognized that he was failing visibly. On the first of January he was attacked by a sharp fever, and it began to be evident that the end was near. For the whole of the six days that remained to him on earth he permitted only the reading of the Holy Scriptures. Over and over they read to him 2 Cor. iv and v, especially the part about the “building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” “Repeat that again,” he said more than once. Other texts of Scripture particularly suited to his condition were read to him again and again. He would try to repeat them himself with a failing voice, while his eyes and his whole countenance were lighted up with a bright expression of faith and love which the sacred words inspired. Several times he asked those around to repeat St. Martin’s dying words, “Lord, if I am yet necessary to Thy people I refuse not labor; Thy will be done.”
On the morning of the 4th he took the blessed sacrament, being carried into the large state bedchamber for the purpose, and gathering about him his attendants, to whom he spoke a few farewell words of tender exhortation. On the 6th he received extreme unction, as one about to depart. And immediately after, bidding every one, save his chaplain, leave the room, summoning all his strength, he dictated to him a few lines addressed to PÈre Lachaise, the king’s confessor. Being thus about to appear before God, he said: “I have never felt aught save docility to the Church and abhorrence of the novelties attributed to me. I accepted the condemnation of my book with the most absolute unreserve. There never was a moment in my life when I did not entertain the liveliest gratitude and most honest zeal for the king’s person, as also the most inviolable respect and attachment. I wish long life for His Majesty, of whom both Church and State have so great need. If it be permitted me to come before the presence of God, I will continually ask this of Him.” He makes in the letter two requests of the king, neither of them for himself or his family: First, that he will appoint to Cambrai a pious, worthy, orthodox prelate; and secondly, that he will allow the Cambrai seminary to be intrusted to the Sulpician Fathers to whom he owed so much. The rest of that day and the night following he had much agony, and, in a feeble, broken voice, said many times, “Thy will, not mine.” He was surrounded by those who loved him best, his two favorite nephews, the AbbÉ de Beaumont and the Marquis de FÉnelon, arriving in haste from Paris. He gave them all his blessing as long as he could speak. He passed away peacefully, amid the tears of all around, at quarter past five in the morning; aged sixty-three years, five months, and one day.
He was buried in the cathedral of Cambrai, with every tribute of honor and respect, but with all simplicity and without ostentation, as he himself directed. In his will, dated May 5, 1705, he wrote, after declaring that he cherished no thought concerning those who had attacked him save those of prayer and brotherly love: “I wish my burial to be in the metropolitical church at Cambrai, as simple as may be, and with the least possible expenditure. This is not a mere conventional expression of humility, but because I think the money laid out on funerals other than simple had better be kept for more useful purposes; and also I think the modesty of a bishop’s funeral should set the example to the laity and lead them to diminish useless outlay in their burial arrangements.” The last clause says: “While I love my family deeply, and am aware of the needy state of their affairs, I do not think it right to leave anything to them. Ecclesiastical property is not meant to support family wants, and should not pass out of the hands of those who minister in the Church.” It was found, when his affairs were settled up, that after administering for twenty years the great income of his office, which was at his own absolute disposal, he ended a life of persistent and rigorous self-denial with no money in his coffers, and no debts to any man. His public and private life had been ruled by the fundamental principle which he did not fear to proclaim again and again as his conception of truest patriotism: “I love my family better than myself; I love my country better than my family; I love the human race better than my country.” All his days declared, also, that he loved God best of all.
He stood for union with the Divine. He lived ever in the eye of the All-Searcher. All his thoughts and actions had been ruled by the purpose to be perfectly pleasing unto Him. He had, no doubt, failed at some points. He was ever ready to confess it, and lament his weaknesses; for he was human. But not many of mortal frame ever kept more steadily before them from youth to age the high endeavor to be as much as possible like Christ. Neither disgrace nor disappointment daunted him. The failure of earthly ambitions only impressed on him the more that he had a message for mankind that was above such things. And though there were probably not many in his generation that were ready to receive his lofty words, though there are even now not many who are prepared to accept fully his sublime teachings and follow him as he followed the Master, yet there will always be an inward witness in the hearts of some of every age that responds to such voices, and leaps with joy at the summons to put everything away, that God may take full possession of His own. He was absorbed in the hot pursuit of highest holiness. On this his strength was concentrated. Only thus did he attain the success that was vouchsafed him. The spiritual life was to him the only real life. The Presence Divine was ever with him. The Spirit of God filled his heart.
During the outrages of the French Revolution, in 1793, when the graves of the dead were being brutally violated by order of the government with wanton cruelty and savage merriment, and the bodies of the great and noble, the learned and pious, were being scattered to the four winds, an order from government reached Cambrai directing that all the leaden coffins that were there be sent to the arsenal at Douay to be converted into instruments of warfare. The agents proceeded to the Metropolitan Cathedral, entered the vault under the altar, took away the bodies of others, but left the remains of FÉnelon; not designedly, it would seem, for they had no veneration for the talents and virtues of the illustrious prelate; not accidentally, for what men call chance is only the providence of God. It was the counsel of unerring wisdom that issued the commission, “Touch not mine anointed and do my prophet no harm.” There are official documents describing the finding of the body afterwards by the mayor of Cambrai. The remains, in a fair state of preservation, were reverently sealed up and replaced in the vault. In 1800 the Emperor Napoleon ordered that “a monument or mausoleum be erected to receive the ashes of the immortal FÉnelon;” to which they were to be transferred in due time. This was probably not carried out, as the existing monument to FÉnelon is in the new cathedral of the date of 1825. But his chief monument is in the hearts of men, in the veneration and affection felt for him by the whole of Christ’s Church without distinction of name, and in the gratitude of the many, many souls who have been helped on their heavenward journey by his strong, wise words and beautiful example.
