crossed over the third one, and boys he came out twice once with the bread, once with the wine-on which occasions all the people knelt down.

and

bearing ornaments of silver and a large silver cross. The cathedral was a very handsome domed building, with four In about a quarter of an hour he ormolu and glass lustres hanging from came out, ascended the pulpit, and the ceiling, and small glass lamps, in preached a short sermon; he then shape like an inverted bell, painted gave a short address, in which he rewith flowers, round the sides. Oppo-called all his ministry in the town, site the door was a magnificently carved screen of oak, behind which the priests performed what they call the mysteries at the communion service. This screen was covered with sacred pictures, and in the middle was a door covered with a veil or curtain, answering to those which we had seen offered up to the Virgin and the commander-in-chief of heaven.

The decorations were far superior to the music, which was chanted in the harshest and most discordant manner. In fact we all agreed afterwards that we did not think that human voices could compass such a pitch of discord.

took leave of the people. He was constantly interrupted by the sobs of his hearers, and I was pointed out our friend who had treated us so inhospitably, and could perceive that his remorse for his past sins took the shape of deep grief and sobs, but was not followed, I suspect, by any remorse of a pecuniary and practical nature.

I heard on all sides that the archbishop's life had been most exemplary, that he was a highly learned man, a great encourager of literature, charitable and benevolent, and tolerant as far as lay in his power.

After the address the priest and choir chanted a loud and most discordant psalm, and the ceremony ended. We went by invitation to breakfast at the archbishop's palace, where we found a large number of the principal inhabitants of the town assembled, seated round the divan, ostensibly to breakfast, but in reality to drink coffee, smoke, and eat sweetmeats.

The archbishop was now invested with robes of the most costly and splendid description, embroidered profusely with gold. Two priests bore these; two more followed, one carrying on a cushion a Bible blazing with gems and gold, the other an imperial crown of purple velvet, also glittering with gems and gold. The first robe was of pale yellow satin, stiff with gold embroidery, The archbishop, who was now again which fitted close to the figure; then in his plain black dress, received us came a second one, only shorter; a most courteously, seated me beside him thick gold band was then hung over on the divan, and conversed with me his shoulder, and a square piece of through an interpreter for some time. gold-colored silk hung from his side. He said that he had been informed of The outer robe was loose, with large my rank, and that I was travelling in sleeves. Then the priest placed the the East to see things with my own crown on his head, and the other eyes, and would probably write an achanded him the Bible and a silver count of them when I returned home. sceptre; incense was scattered in the He besought me when I did so to air from innumerable censers, and the remember under what disadvantageous archbishop walked down the church a circumstances the Greek people lacrowned and sceptred ecclesiastical bored, having been demoralized by prince, representing one of the apostles, or Council of Twelve, who direct the affairs of the Church along with the patriarch at Constantinople. As he passed down the cathedral he made the usual salutation, holding the second finger extended, and then retired behind the veil into the sanctuary, whence

centuries of slavery, which had destroyed all the best and exaggerated all the worst parts of the national character, so that the astute, clever, diplomatic race, of whom Ulysses might be taken as a type, had been changed to a cunning, lying people under Turkish rule. He did not conceal their bad

qualities

66

portrays. But where Philip is confessedly weak Fénelon has a great attraction, especially for those who love all forms of distinction, but humane letters above everything else. St. Philip, says Newman, was but a poor priest, with no distinction of family or of letters." It is not the least of Fénelon's attractions that he was at once the most finished gentleman of the court of Louis the Fourteenth, and a member of that small but delightful family of literary men of which Virgil is the type; those choice and affectionate spirits whom we admire greatly and love still more.

their drunkenness, which | noble simplicity was far from being showed so disastrously beside the sober the childlike pastor such as Newman Moslems - but he certainly made out a good case in their favor, and removed many prejudices from my mind. In vain I tried to deny my imputed rank; it was useless, and only added the virtue of modesty to all my other ones. When I took leave of him he gave me his benediction, and I left with a deep feeling of respect and admiration, inspired by his benevolent face, noble bearing, grave, courteous manners, and intelligent conversation. The next day Herr P and I started for Smyrna. We took leave of Mitylene with far different feelings from those with which we had entered it, and viewed for the last time its old castle and mountains, its groves of olives, myrtle, and arbutus, and fairy harbors, fading away in the amber light, and mingling with the deep blue of the Egean-all to live with the recollections of the pleasant times we had spent, the memory of the adventures we had encountered, its lovely Grecian girls, to last as long with me as with them probably did the halo of the celebrated English prince who had once visited Mitylene.

Possibly Fénelon has owed his great reputation as much to his famous quarrel with Bossuet as to the authorship of "Telemachus" or to his own personal merits. It pleased the sceptical writers of the eighteenth century to regard Fénelou as in some measure an Encyclopædist who had been born a century too soon. He was the angel of sweetness and patience, while in the same legend Bossuet was the fanatical, overbearing ecclesiastic, who in the interest of the Church would have burned Fénelon and every other liberal spirit. This view was unjust both to Fénelon and Bossuet, for the first was From Macmillan's Magazine. not the uncomplaining man this legend SOME THOUGHTS ON FENELON. makes him out to be, nor was the other FOR nearly two centuries Fénelon cruel, or unscrupulous in any unworthy has been remembered as the most sense. The " Eagle of Meaux" was winning and human of theologians; exclusively a churchman, but he was a and it was in accordance with this tra- good man, according to his own narrow dition that Landor described him as conception of righteousness. The re"the fairest apparition that Christian-gard which the eighteenth century had ity ever presented." It is possible to for Fénelon is illustrated in a curious feel the charm of his personality without going so far as the impetuous Landor, though it is certain that if Fénelon had been canonized, he would have been the most popular saint of the last five centuries. He was a larger and more interesting personality than even Philip Neri, Francis of Sales, or Charles Borromeo. The enchanting picture which Newman gives us of St. Philip could not indeed be made to stand for Fénelon, who with all his

way by a saying of Rousseau's. "If Fénelon were living," said a friend to him, "you would be Orthodox." "Ah," replied Jean Jacques, "I would be his lackey, in the hope that I might come to be his valet." M. Brunetière would doubtless explain the vulgarity of this saying by Rousseau's origin and democratic sympathies; but we remember that Thackeray made use of a similar expression respecting Shakespeare, and even M. Brunetière

would hardly charge Thackeray with | cated, Fénelon received his training in being a democrat in literature. Rous- theology; and in about his twentyseau had the veneration for Fénelon fourth year he was made a priest. Like which the other Encyclopædists had; and he shared too their hatred of those severe ecclesiastics who, like Becket, regard the Church as all in all. But the true lover of literature refuses to be a partisan in these matters; he will not exalt the one too much, nor debase the other at all.

other young men with a vein of romance, he had generous dreams, which were colored by his surroundings. He wished to visit the East, and perchance win there a martyr's crown. Martyrdom is sometimes noble and beautiful; but it is too often merely useless and prosaic, and is desired chiefly by young We read that Bertrand de Salignac, persons who know nothing of life, and Marquis de Fénelon, of whom the are full of the "heavenly homesickauthor of "Telemachus" was greatness." There was at all times a touch grand-nephew, was French ambassador of this sickness in Fénelon, though in in London at the time of the massacre his maturity it was combined with of St. Bartholomew. Charles the singular clearness of vision. He reNinth, it is said, asked the marquis to mained in Paris, and found pleasant soothe Queen Elizabeth, who was duties there as superior of a religious known to be indignant at this slaughter house for the training of the New of the Huguenots. The story goes Catholics, who were girls recently conthat the marquis proudly answered, verted to Catholicism. This was a "Let the request be made, sire, to suitable position for the man who wrote those who counselled the massacre." the treatise "On the Education of Whether true or not, it is not difficult Girls," -a work originally composed to believe that the ancestors of the for his friends the Duke and Duchess great Archbishop of Cambray were de Beauvillier in 1681, when Fénelon men of high spirit. The archbishop, was thirty years of age, but not pubFrançois de Salignac de la Mothe-Féne- lished until 1687. lon, did not inherit the marquisate; he was the son of a younger member of the family, and was born in Périgord on the 6th of August, 1651. The Fénelons were noble and distinguished, but whether they belonged to the innermost circle of the nobility, we are not able to say. Until his twelfth year the boy was educated at home, under what conditions we are not told, and was then sent to the University of Cahors. In the mean time his father had died, and he had been adopted by his uncle, as St. Dominic, for instance. It is the Marquis de Fénelon, who hence- not given to any man to be altogether forth looked after his nephew's edu- above his age; and Fénelon, with all cation. The marquis was a man of his graces and accomplishments, was a sincere piety, and probably influenced child of his century. If at that time the youth in his choice of an ecclesias- one man might, without a shock to tical career. Few particulars remain public opinion, be hanged for a petty of Fénelon's early life, and perhaps it theft, might not another man conis best so; for it is not when a man of genius is young, without sureness of taste or solidity of character, that he is most interesting.

He was next sent to Saintonge and Poitou, to fix the faith of the unhappy folk who by law were compelled to abandon the Protestant religion and to return to the bosom of the Romish Church. Much has been written upon this subject, and Fénelon's defenders have tried to prove that he was against the use of force in matters of religion, while others have said that he was as much in favor of such methods as any great churchman of the Middle Ages,

sistently be burned for heresy ? Even the Encyclopædists, who hated the intolerance of the Inquisition, do not appear to have had a similar hatred for At Saint-Sulpice, where a century the cruelties of the old criminal law. and a half later Ernest Renau was edu- So far as Fénelon is concerned, it

seems that he was not opposed to theme with a great deal of shooting; the

use of force for the repression of heresy; but he insisted upon the need of persuasion, and was as much in favor of gentleness and conciliation as any one could be who was not utterly opposed to such methods.

air is already obscured by the smoke, and nothing is heard but the terrible noise of the gunpowder. The spirited horse which I ride, urged on by a noble earnestness, wishes to throw himself into the water; but my own desires We have no evidence as to his suc- are more moderate, so I get down and cess in this singular missionary enter-stand upon the earth. Here I am at prise; but from what we know of him the gate; the consuls begin their we may be sure he preached then, as harangue; you will not fail to picture always, that the doctrine cannot save to yourself everything lively and pomwithout the life, nor is it likely he pous in the way of eulogy. The orator would knowingly do violence to any likened me to the sun; shortly after one's convictions. Yet at the best, this I was the moon; every glittering was it not a poor, almost an ignoble star had the honor of resembling me, kind of mission? It is associated in and at the finish there was an allusion. the mind of the writer with a picture, to the beginning of the world. By this "The Expulsion of Heresy," that used time the sun had gone to rest, and I to be attributed to Paul Veronese; a went to my room and prepared to do singular kind of angel (for if we re-likewise."

member rightly she has no wings) It was not until the year 1689 that is chasing, sword in hand, several wretched men, ragged and unorthodox ; on the observer's right hand three or four ecclesiastics, self-contained and well-fed, are looking calmly on; one thinks they might enjoy the work of the wingless angel, if custom had not staled their appetite a little. If the missionary must be accompanied by the soldier, he should have the executioner also, to be in readiness to end the tragedy if the fifth act should begin to drag.

Let us, after the example of M. Janet, set against this rather gloomy picture, a pleasant and humorous passage from one of Fénelon's letters; it is dated May the 22nd, 1681, and was written to his cousin the Marchioness de Laval, to describe a public reception given to him at Carennac, on the occasion of his going to take possession of a living there. "I walk," writes Fénelon, "accompanied by the whole body of deputies in their majesty, and I behold the quay crowded with the people. Two boats, full of the pick of the burgesses, come up; and I notice that, by a generous piece of strategy, those soldiers of the place who have seen most fighting are hidden in a corner of the pretty isle which you know; they come in order of battle and greet

he found himself on the way towards realizing one of the great desires of his life; for Fénelon, however little he talked about it, was a man of high ambition; he would certainly have liked to be first minister, with as much power as Richelieu. In this year he was made preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy, son of the dauphin, and in the work of training the young prince was associated with the Duke de Beauvillier. It was then a post of great honor, as is shown by the fact that Bossuet in the meridian of his career was proud to be tutor to the dauphin. Time changes or modifies everything, and the preceptors of princes are not so honored in Europe to-day. Féuelon's task was not at first a pleasant one, for his pupil was violent and unamiable. "The Duke of Burgundy," says Saint-Simon, 66 was terrible from his birth, and made those about him tremble even in his early boyhood. Hard, given to paroxysms of anger, incapable of suffering the least resistance to his will without showing such heat of passion that everybody feared he might injure himself fatally; of all this I have often myself been witness, and I have seen too how headstrong he was, how greedy and how fond of pleas ure." Yet there was a brighter side.

"He had much insight and great bril-gundy, Fénelon made the acquaintance liance of mind; his repartees were of Madame Guyon, the lady who figsurprising, his answers were profound ures so prominently in the history of and just; he seemed to play with abstruse knowledge." It was Fénelon's first task to exorcise the dark spirit, and in this he was successful almost beyond belief. "The marvel is," continues Saint-Simon, "that through selfdevotion and by grace he was utterly changed; the terrible defects of his character were transmuted into perfectly opposite virtues. From this abyss arose a prince mild and courteous, generous and humane, patient and modest, humble, and severe with himself."

Quietism. Voltaire, certainly not an impartial critic, but always worth hearing as spokesman for one side of the genius of France, says: "Theological subtlety and want of mental balance was at the bottom of the Quietist controversy, which would quite have vanished from the memories of men but for the quarrel of two illustrious rivals. A woman without influence or real brilliance of mind, a woman with an overheated imagination, set the two greatest churchmen of the time against each other. Her name was Bouvières By what means was this singular re- de la Mothe, and her family belonged sult obtained? Fénelon was certainly to Montargis; she had been married to a great teacher, and, notwithstanding the son of Guyon, contractor for the his meekness, was a man of rare Briare canal. Left a widow while still strength of character; he had, too, a young, possessed of means, pretty and power of impressing himself upon oth- with a worldly disposition, her fancy ers, like a great Englishman of our was set on fire over what is called spirown century, of whom it was finely ituality; her director was a monk said that you could not be in his pres- named La Combe, from Annecy, near ence for a few minutes without feeling Geneva . . . The desire to become a impelled to take a moral step onwards. St. Theresa in France made her blind It has been contended that Fénelon to the difference between the French transformed the Duke of Burgundy by and the Spanish genius, and caused her depriving him of individuality; but as to go much farther than St. Theresa. the young prince died in his thirtieth Heart and soul she was seized with the year, before he had occupied a position ambition to gain disciples, perhaps of of real power, such a statement need all ambitions the strongest." Voltaire not trouble us. The death of this does his best to make the poor woman prince in 1712 struck Fénelon alike in ridiculous, nor does he altogether fail; his affections and in his ambition, for his judgment is of course provokingly thus ended his last hope of becoming a one-sided, for almost the whole provminister of state. Fénelon gave his ince of religion was closed to him, and pupil that purely literary education much of the province of poetry also. which some men of science in our time Yet he had a keen eye for anything have affected to despise. What is the strained or unreal in life, and it is true aim of culture? Is it not to humanize of Madame Guyon that she found it an us, to give us tact, urbanity, delicacy, easier matter to rhapsodize about heavand sureness of taste? Now so far as enly things than to talk good sense the experience of mankind has gone, about the things of earth. We are this can be done only in two ways, only concerned with her in this place - by constant social intercourse with because Fénelon had a great regard for well-bred and refined persons, or by her, and defended her when she stood the study of the great masterpieces of much in need of it; he was at all times literature. However fine may be the a loyal friend, as a true gentleman mental discipline of science, it cannot could not fail to be. "Like the first give us these things. mau," says D'Aguesseau, "he was perIn 1688, the year before he was ap- verted by the voice of a woman; his pointed preceptor to the Duke of Bur-talents, his fortune, even his reputa