ason and to conscience, Bourdaloue is still
without a rival. No one else, certainly, ever earned, so well as he, the
double title which his epigrammatic countrymen were once fond of
bestowing upon him,--"The king of preachers, and the preacher of kings."

* * *

JEAN BAPTISTE MASSILLON became priest by his own internal sense of
vocation to the office, against the preference of his family that he
should become, like his father, a notary. He seems to have been by
nature sincerely modest in spirit. He had to be forced into the
publicity of a preaching career at Paris. His ecclesiastical superior
peremptorily required at his hands the sacrifice of his wish to be
obscure. He at once filled Paris with his fame. The inevitable
consequence followed. He was summoned to preach before the king at
Versailles. Here he received, as probably he deserved, that celebrated
compliment in epigram, from Louis XIV.: "In hearing some preachers, I
feel pleased with them; in hearing you, I feel displeased with myself."

It must not, however, be supposed that Massillon preached like a prophet
Nathan saying to King David, "Thou art the man;" or like a John the
Baptist saying to King Herod, "It is not lawful for _thee_ to have
_her_;" or like a John Knox denouncing Queen Mary. Massillon, if he was
stern, was suavely stern. He complimented the king. The sword with which
he wounded was wreathed deep with flowers. It is difficult not to feel
that some unspoken understanding subsisted between the preacher and the
king, which permitted the king to separate the preacher from the man
when Massillon used that great plainness of speech to his sovereign. The
king did not, however, often invite this master of eloquence to make the
royal conscience displacent with itself. Bourdaloue was ostensibly as
outspoken as Massillon; but somehow that Jesuit preacher contented the
king to be his hearer during as many as ten annual seasons, against the
one or two only that Massillon preached at court before Louis.

The work of Massillon generally judged, though according to Sainte-Beuve
not wisely judged, to be his choicest, is contained in that volume of
his which goes by the name of "Le Petit Careme,"--literally, "The Little
Lent,"--a collection of sermons preached during a Lent before the king's
great-grandson and successor, youthful Louis XV. These sermons
especially have given to their author a fame that is his by a title
perhaps absolutely unique in literature.