s of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, at court, began
to feel themselves all at once transported to the heights with the prince
whom they had educated, and who had constantly remained faithful to them.
The delicate foresight and prudent sagacity of Fenelon had a long while
ago sought to prepare his pupil for the part which he was about to play.
It was piety alone that had been able to triumph over the dangerous
tendencies of a violent and impassioned temperament. Fenelon, who had
felt this, saw also the danger of devoutness carried too far. "Religion
does not consist in a scrupulous observance of petty formalities," he
wrote to the Duke of Burgundy; "it consists, for everybody, in the
virtues proper to one's condition. A great prince ought not to serve
God in the same way as a hermit or a simple individual."

"The prince thinks too much and acts too little," he said to the Duke of
Chevreuse; "his most solid occupations are confined to vague applications
of his mind and barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix in
it, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly,
and acquire a gentle authority. If he do not feel the need of possessing
firmness and nerve, he will not make any real progress; it is time for
him to be a man. The life of the region in which he lives is a life of
effeminacy, indolence, timidity, and amusement. He will never be so true
a servant to the king and to Monseigneur as when he makes them see that
they have in him a man matured, full of application, firm, impressed with
their true interests, and fitted to aid them by the wisdom of his
counsels and the vigor of his conduct. Let him be more and more little
in the hands of God, but let him become great in the eyes of men; it is
his duty to make virtue, combined with authority, loved, feared, and
respected."

Court-perfidy dogged the Duke of Burgundy to the very head of the army
over which the king had set him; Fenelon, always correctly informed, had
often warned him of it. The duke wrote to him, in 1708, on the occasion
of his dissensions with VendOme: "It is true that I have experienced a
trial within the last fortnight, and I am far from having taken it as I
ought, allowing myself to give way to an oppression of the heart caused
by the blackenings, the contradictions, and the pains of irresolution,
and the fear of doing something untoward in a matter of extreme
importance to the State. As for what you say to me abou