Cambray "Sire," replied the Bishop of Meaux, "I would have ? clamored twenty times as loud." Yes, if his conscience had commanded him to do so; but this is precisely what we may be permitted to doubt. If the king had happened to take a liking to Fénélon's doctrines, would Bossuet have thought them so bad? Would he have felt so strong a desire to attack them? It is scarcely probable; if we have not the right to say that he would have lied to his conscience, we have at least the right to imagine, that if his conscience had been beguiled, it would have been less severe, and less exacting. Some one asking his opinion in regard to frequenting plays, he said, "There are great reasons against it, and great examples for it."* Here is the king's example, even a bad example, weighed against reasons, even good reasons.

In 1682 Louis XIV. had but to say the word, and France broke with the pope,-and but for the Protestants, to whom they did not wish to give the pleasure caused by this species of victory, the separation would have been complete. Now I ask if the clergy who aided in this matter, were not under the influence of an actual fascination ?-this act, which would have rent the church, and renewed the very thing against which there had been most outcry at the time of the Reformation! Was not Bossuet also fascinated; he who prepared the way, who at the first sign from his master, would have become the Cranmer, and aided him to become the Henry VIII. of France?

And lastly,

see

* During the minority of Louis XIV., there was a comedy sometimes performed at the Louvre, and the young king was taken to it. The Curé of Saint-Germain-l'auxerrois, had a memorial presented to the queenmother, designed to prove that it was a mortal sin to be present at these representations. This memorial being signed by seven doctors, the Abbé de Beaumont, the king's preceptor, procured one signed by twelve, and containing a contrary assertion. So they continued without scruple to do as before.

The storm once over, no efforts were spared to conceal how very nearly there had been a rupture, and above all, how easy it would have

was not the pope himself under the charm,-the pope, who re ceived from Versailles, almost word for word, the condemnation which he was to pronounce at Rome, in the quality of infallible judge,* against the Archbishop of Cambray ?

been; but the memoirs of the time, those of d'Aguesseau in particular, leave no doubt upon the subject. Under any other than a Louis XIV. the assembly of 1682 would either never have taken place, or its authors would have been punished by excommunication; but as the Roman church understood very well, that in ceasing to be one, she is no longer anything, Catholics of all opinions and all nations, have an immense interest in obliterating certain pages of her history.

*Nothing ever written against Roman infallibility can be more curious than the whole history of the trial and condemnation of Fénélon. He publishes a book; the pope sees and speaks of it in the most flattering manner. A letter from the king arrives; he requests that the book shall be pronounced a bad one. The pope elects a committee of ten doctors; this committee meets sixty-four times. At length a vote is taken, and the judges are found to be five against five. According to the usual rule, this is an acquittal; the pope openly avows his satisfaction. But the king insists. He demands, he exacts another examination of the book. A committee of cardinals devote thirty-six sittings to it, and finally decide against its author, but in such gentle terms, that the pontiff, also influenced by his personal sympathies, does not know how to express the condemnation. The cardinals propose to him to enact a series of canons, in which he shall not touch upon the book, but in which he shall confine himself to establishing the true doctrines of the church on the contested points. This medium he likes; the committee is deputed to prepare the canons. Thereupon arrives a thundering message from France,—almost a declaration of war. The pope groans, becomes angry-and-pronounces. Fénélon is clearly designated, clearly condemned,-and this judgment, preceded by three years of hesitation, manifestly wrested from the feebleness of the pope, manifestly contrary to the opinion of the majority of the judges, nevertheless presents itself to the Church as infallible,-inspired by the Holy Spirit. We ask now, what was, what could be the belief in the Church's infallibility in the mind of him who had exacted the condemnation; in that of Bossuet, who directed the whole affair; in that of Fénélon, who knew all its details Much has been said of his submission, but what does it prove, save that he found it necessary to submit? Fifteen days after his condemnation, he wrote

1

Can we then be astonished, that a preacher should be ill at ease in confronting a man who had opposed himself to the Pope!

as follows to the Abbé de Chanterac, his agent at Rome: "You have accomplished a hundred times more than I had dared to hope. God has permitted an unjust success." A man who says to you, God has permitted my condemnation, is certainly not very strong in his convictions of the infallibility of the tribunal

CHAPTER XIII.

LETTER FROM CLAUDE TO BOURDALOUE.-SEVERE REPROOFS FOR FLATTERY

TO THE KING.

THE Conclusion to be drawn from all that we have said, is not that a preacher was excusable for eulogizing the king upon all occasions; it is, that we would be unjust if we claimed to be judges of all this, from the middle of the nineteenth century; and also, to return to our story, that Claude would perhaps have done better to take the circumstances a little into consideration. But he was no courtier; he called things by their right names. Here is his letter:

66

Monsieur,

"VERSAILLES, March 15, 1673.

You do not know me

"Do not seek to guess who I am. by sight, and perhaps not by name; and it is scarcely two hours since I saw you for the first time. But God sees us both; that is enough. It is in his sight that I am writing, and it is in his sight that you will read.

"In the eyes of the world, you have just added a new gem to your orator's crown; in the eyes of religion, I much fear that you have but added a new scandal to those which are presented to view at court.

"Yes, Monsieur, you have profaned the pulpit; and if I were not convinced that you had yielded to a miserable impulse, if I did not know how much in reality you respect both your minis

try and the word of God, I should not hope to make you feel how you have just been degrading and prostituting them both.

"In vain would you defend yourself by citing the exaggeration of the praises of all kinds, by which the king is overwhelmed. I know that it would not be difficult for you to quote flatteries an hundred times stronger than yours; but one word from the pulpit means more than twenty in the mouth of a poet or an orator of the Academy, and you may be certain that you have done more harm to the king in half an hour, than his professed flatterers do in a whole month.

"And what is this king, of whom, in the face of religion, you have dared to make a hero, a saint, a demi-god? You represented Europe to him, as full of admiration of his having consented to cease his conquests,* yet you know, with all Europe, how unjust and cruel these conquests have been. It would be necessary to go back to the invasions of the barbarians to find any thing to be

* One of the most artful, and unfortunately one of the easiest tricks to which flattery resorts, is to persuade conquerors that they make war against their will; for no man is so fond of shedding blood, that he is not enchanted at hearing himself called gentle and humane. This unlucky idea is found in almost all the sermons preached before Louis XIV., and nevertheless, in his reign war had become, as it were, the natural state of things. It was so customary to see a new one undertaken every year, that it was spoken of beforehand, as one would speak of a tax to be paid, or of the return of a season. A father would say, "My son will make his first campaign in such and such a year." Against whom? Nobody knew,-perhaps the king himself had not yet decided; but he was to be relied upon for it. And yet this did not prevent the constant presentation to him of touching pictures of the rending of his paternal heart upon seeing himself forced to command fresh bloodshed. The name of pacific, was even added to that of great; witness these words of Cardinal de Rohan, grand almoner of France, on presenting. the body of Louis XIV. to the Chanoine of St. Denis in 1715 :-" The prince whom we lament has left magnificent titles behind him, and the remotest generations will admire as we do, Louis the great, the just, the pacific." This word is frequent in the inscriptions and medals of his reign.