and a warmer heart; the
preceptor, too, was more proper for the work. Bossuet, nevertheless,
labored conscientiously to instruct his little prince, studying for him
and with him the classical authors, preparing grammatical expositions,
and, lastly, writing for his edification the _Traite de la Connaissance
de Dieu et de soi-mime_ (Treatise on the Knowledge of God and of Self),
the _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle_ (Discourse on Universal
History), and the _Politique tiree de l'Ecriture Sainte_ (Polity derived
from Holy Writ). The labor was in vain; the very loftiness of his
genius, the extent and profundity of his views, rendered Bossuet unfit to
get at the heart and mind of a boy who was timid, idle, and kept in fear
by the king as well as by his governor. The dauphin was nineteen when
his marriage restored Bossuet to the church and to the world; the king
appointed him almoner to the dauphiness, and, before long, Bishop of
Meaux.

Neither the assembly of the clergy and the part he played therein, nor
his frequent preachings at court, diverted Bossuet from his duties as
bishop; he habitually resided at Meaux, in the midst of his priests. The
greater number of his sermons, written at first in fragments, collected
from memory in their aggregate, and repeated frequently with divergences
in wording and development, were preached in the cathedral of Meaux. The
dauphin sometimes went thither to see him. "Pray, sir," he had said to
him, in his childhood, "take great care of me whilst I am little; I will
of you when I am big." Assured of his righteousness as a priest and his
fine tact as a man, the king appealed to Bossuet in the delicate
conjunctures of his life. It is related that it was the Bishop of Meaux
who dissuaded him from making public his marriage with Madame de
Maintenon. She, more anxious for power than splendor, did not bear him
any ill-will for it; amidst the various leanings of the court, divided as
it was between Jansenism and Quietism, it was to the simple teaching of
the Catholic church, represented by Bossuet, that she remained
practically attached. Right-minded and strong-minded, but a little
cold-hearted, Madame de Maintenon could not suffer herself to be led away
by the sublime excesses of the Jansenists or the pious reveries of Madame
Guyon; the Jesuits had influence over her, without her being a slave to
them; and that influence increased after the death of Bossuet. The
guidance of the Bi