ne
enters the avenue at Versailles," said Massillon, "one feels an
enervating air."

He was aware of the rising tide of luxury and vice around him; he
tried to meet it, tracing the scepticism of the time to its
ill-regulated passions; but he met scepticism by morality detached
from dogma. The _Petit Careme_, preached before Louis XV. when a child
of eight, expresses the sanguine temper of the moment: the young King
would grow into the father of his people; the days of peace would
return. Great and beneficent kings are not effeminately amiable; it
were better if Massillon had preached "Be strong" than "Be tender."
Voltaire kept on his desk the sermons of Massillon, and loved to hear
the musical periods of the _Petit Careme_ read aloud at meal-time.
To be the favourite preacher of eighteenth-century philosophers is
a distinction somewhat compromising to an exponent of the faith.

III

Bossuet's great antagonist in the controversy concerning Quietism
might have found the approval of the philosophers for some of his
political opinions. His religious writings would have spoken to them
in an unknown tongue.

FRANCOIS DE SALIGNAC DE LA MOTHE-FENELON was born in Perigord (1651),
of an ancient and illustrious family. Of one whose intellect and
character were infinitely subtle and complex, the blending of all
opposites, it is possible to sustain the most conflicting opinions,
and perhaps in the end no critic can seize this Proteus. Saint-Simon
noticed how in his noble countenance every contrary quality was
expressed, and how all were harmonised: "Il fallait faire effort pour
cesser de le regarder." During the early years of his clerical career
he acted as superior to female converts from Protestantism, and as
missionary among the unconverted Calvinists. In 1689 he was appointed
tutor to the King's grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, and from a
passionate boy he transformed his pupil into a youth too blindly
docile. Fenelon's nomination to the Archbishopric of Cambrai (1695),
which removed him from the court, was in fact a check to his ambition.
His religious and his political views were regarded by Louis XIV.
as dangerous for the Church and the monarchy.

Through his personal interest in Mme. Guyon, and his sympathy with
her mystical doctrine in religion--one which inculcated complete
abnegation of the will, and its replacement by absolute surrender
to the Divine love--he came into conflict with Bossuet, and after
a fierce