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An ancestor of the French divine who under the name of Fénelonhas made for himself a household name in England as in France, was Bertrandde Salignac, Marquis de la Mothe Fénelon, who in 1572, as ambassadorfor France, was charged to soften as much as he could the resentmentof our Queen Elizabeth when news came of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Our Fénelon, claimed in brotherhood by Christians of every denomination,was born nearly eighty years after that time, at the château ofFénelon in Perigord, on the 6th of August, 1651. To theworld he is Fénelon; he was François de Salignac de laMothe Fénelon to the France of his own time.
Fénelon was taught at home until the age of twelve, then sentto the University of Cahors, where he began studies that were continuedat Paris in the Collège du Plessis. There he fastened upontheology, and there he preached, at the age of fifteen, his first sermon. He entered next into the seminary of Saint Sulpice, where he took holyorders in the year 1675, at the age of twenty-four. As a priest,while true to his own Church, he fastened on Faith, Hope, and Charityas the abiding forces of religion, and for him also the greatest ofthese was Charity.
During the next three years of his life Fénelon was amongthe young priests who preached and catechised in the church of St. Sulpiceand laboured in the parish. He wrote for St. Sulpice Litaniesof the Infant Jesus, and had thought of going out as missionary to theLevant. The Archbishop of Paris, however, placed him at the headof a community of “New Catholics,” whose function was toconfirm new converts in their faith, and help to bring into the foldthose who appeared willing to enter. Fénelon took partalso in some of the Conferences on Scripture that were held at SaintGermain and Versailles between 1672 and 1685. In 1681 an uncle,who was Bishop of Sarlat, resigned in Fénelon’s favourthe Deanery of Carenas, which produced an annual income of three orfour thousand livres. It was while he held this office that Fénelonpublished a book on the “Education of Girls,” at the requestof the Duchess of Beauvilliers, who asked for guidance in the educationof her children.
Fénelon sought the friendship of Bossuet, who revised forhim his next book, a “Refutation of the System of Malebrancheconcerning Nature and Grace.” His next book, written justbefore the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, opposed the lawfulnessof the ministrations of the Protestant clergy; and after the Edict,Fénelon was, on the recommendation of Bossuet, placed at thehead of the Catholic mission to Poitou. He brought to his workof conversion or re-conversion Charity, and a spirit of concession thatbrought on him the attacks of men unlike in temper.
When Louis XIV. placed his grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy,under the care of the Duke of Beauvilliers, the Duke of Beauvillierschose Fénelon for teacher of the pupil who was heir presumptiveto the throne. Fénelon’s “Fables” werewritten as part of his educational work. He wrote also for theyoung Duke of Burgundy his “Télémaque”—usedonly in MS.—and his “Dialogues of the Dead.” While thus living in high favour at Court, Fénelon sought nothingfor himself or his friends, although at times he was even in want ofmoney. In 1693—as preceptor of a royal prince rather thanas author—Fénelon was received into the French Academy. In 1694 Fénelon was made Abbot of Saint-Valery, and at the endof that year he wrote an anonymous letter to Louis XIV. upon wrongfulwars and other faults committed in his reign. A copy of it