THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP.
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.