rtue.
Fenelon seems to have been reported as preaching a funeral sermon on
the dead prelate. "I have wept and prayed," he wrote to a friend, "for
this old instructor of my youth; but it is not true that I celebrated
his obsequies in my cathedral, and preached his funeral sermon. Such
affectation, you know, is foreign to my nature." The iron must have gone
deep, to wring from that gentle bosom even so much cry as this of
wounded feeling.

It is hard to tell what might now have befallen Fenelon, in the way of
good fortune,--he might even have been recalled to court, and
re-installed in his office of tutor to the prince,--had not a sinister
incident, not to have been looked for, at an inopportune moment
occurred. The "Telemachus" appeared in print, and kindled a sudden flame
of popular feeling which instantly spread in universal conflagration
over the face of Europe. This composition of Fenelon's the author had
written to convey, under a form of quasi-poetical fiction, lessons of
wisdom in government to the mind of his royal pupil. The existence of
the manuscript book would seem to have been intended to be a secret from
the king,--indeed, from almost every one, except the pupil himself for
whose use it was made. But a copyist proved false to his trust, and
furnished a copy of "Telemachus" to a printer in Holland, who lost no
time in publishing a book so likely to sell. But the sale of the book
surpassed all expectation. Holland not only, but Belgium, Germany,
France, and England multiplied copies, as fast as they could; still,
Europe could not get copies as fast as it wanted them.

The secret of such popularity did not lie simply in the literary merits
of "Telemachus." It lay more in a certain interpretation that the book
was supposed to bear. "Telemachus" was understood to be a covert
criticism of Louis XIV., and of the principle of absolute monarchy
embodied in him. This imputed intention of the book could not fail to
become known at Versailles. The result, of course, was fatal, and
finally fatal, to the prospects, whatever these may have been, of
Fenelon's restoration to favor at court. The archbishop thenceforward
was left to do in comparative obscurity the duties of his episcopal
office in his diocese of Cambray. He devoted himself, with exemplary and
touching fidelity, to the interests of his flock, loving them and loved
by them, till he died. It was an entirely worthy and adequate employment
of his powers. The onl