Part 31

The glories of Louis XIV. were fast vanishing. Added to the more circumscribed miseries, resulting to a portion of his subjects from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, was the universal distress of the people, loaded by taxation for the purpose of carrying on the war. Madame de Maintenon felt for all those who suffered. Her notions of religion, though not jansenist, yet rendered her strictly devout. To restore Louis to the practice of the virtues she considered necessary to his salvation, she had thrown him, as much as possible, into the hands of the jesuits. When the question had been his personal pleasures, she had ventured far to recall him to a sense of duty; but she never went beyond. If she governed in any thing, it was with a hidden influence which he could not detect: she never appeared to interfere; and her whole life was spent in a sacrifice of almost every pleasure of her own to indulge his tastes and enjoyments.

Madame de Maintenon was very partial to Racine. His conversation, his views, his sentiments, all pleased her. One day they conversed on the distress into which the country was plunged. Racine explained his ideas of the remedies that might be applied with so much clearness and animation, they appeared so reasonable and feasible to his auditress, that she begged him to put them in writing, promising that his letter should be seen by no eyes but her own. He, moved somewhat by a hope of doing good, obeyed. Madame de Maintenon was reading his essay when the king entered and took it up. After casting his eyes over it, he asked who was the author; and madame de Maintenon, after a faint resistance, broke her promise--and named Racine. The king expressed displeasure that he should presume to put forth opinions on questions of state:--"Does he think that he knows every thing," he said, "because he writes good verses? Does he wish to be a minister of state, because he is a great poet?" A monarch never expresses displeasure without giving visible marks of dissatisfaction. Madame de Maintenon felt this so much that she sent word to Racine of what had passed, telling him, at the same time, not to appear at court till he heard again from her. The poet was deeply hurt. He feared to have displeased a prince to whom he owed so much. He grew melancholy--he grew ill: his malady appeared to be a fever, which the doctors treated with their favourite bark; but an abscess was formed on the liver, which they regarded lightly.

Being somewhat embarrassed in his means at this time, he was desirous of being excused the tax with which his pension was burdened; he made the request. It had been granted on a former occasion--now it was refused; yet with a grace: for the king, in saying "It cannot be," added, "If, however, I can find some way of compensating him I shall be very glad." Heedless of this promise, discouraged by the refusal, he brooded continually over the loss of royal favour. He began to fear that his adherence to the tenets upheld by the Port Royal might have displeased the king: in shore, irritated by illness, depressed by his enforced absence from court, he gave himself up to melancholy. He wrote to madame de Maintenon on this new idea of being accused of jansenism. His letter does him little honour--it bears too deeply the impress of servility, and yet of an irritation which he ought to have been too proud to express. "As for intrigue," he writes, "who may not be accused, if such an accusation reaches a man as devoted to the king as I am: a man who passes his life in thinking of the king; in acquiring a knowledge of the great actions of the king; and in inspiring others with the sentiments of love and admiration which he feels for the king. There are many living witnesses who could tell you with what zeal I have often combatted the little discontents which often rise in the minds of persons whom the king has most favoured. But, madame, with what conscience can I tell posterity that this great prince never listened to false reports against persons absolutely unknown to him, if I become a sad example of the contrary?"

Madame de Maintenon was touched by his appeal: she wished to, yet dared not, receive him. He wandered sorrowfully about the avenues of the park of Versailles, hoping to encounter her--and at last succeeded: she perceived him, and turned into the path to meet him. "Of what are you afraid?" she said. "I am the cause of your disaster, and my interest and my honour are concerned to repair it. Your cause is mine. Let this cloud pass--I will bring back fair weather."--"No, no, madam," he cried, "it will never return for me!" "Why do you think so?" she answered; "Do you doubt my sincerity, or my credit?"--"I am aware of your credit, madam," he said, "and of your goodness to me; but I have an aunt who loves me in a different manner. This holy maiden prays to God each day that I may suffer disgrace, humiliation, and every other evil that may engender a spirit of repentance; and she will have more credit than you." As he spoke there was the sound of a carriage approaching. "It is the king!" cried madame de Maintenon--"hide yourself:" and he hurried to conceal himself behind the trees.

What a strange picture does this conversation give of the contradictions of the human heart. Here is a man whose ruling passion was a desire to attain eternal salvation and a fear to miss it; a man who believed that God called men to him by the intervention of adversities and sorrow; and that the truly pious ought to look on such, as marks of the Saviour's love: and yet the visitation of them reduced him to sickness and death. He had many thoughts of total retirement; but he felt it necessary, for the good of his family and the advancement of his sons, to continue his attendance at court: for, though not allowed to see the king and madame de Maintenon privately, he still appeared at the public levees. The sadness he felt at the new and humiliating part he played there, rendered this, however, a task from which he would gladly have been excused.

The abscess on the liver closed, and his depression and sense of illness increased. One day, while in his study, he felt so overcome that he was obliged to give over his occupation and go to bed. The cause of his illness was not known: it was even suspected that he gave way pusillanimously to a slight indisposition--while death had already seized on a vital part. He was visited by the nobles of the court, and the king sent to make inquiries.

His devotion and patience increased as his disease grew painful, and strength of mind sprang up as death drew near. He occupied himself by recommending his family to his friends and patrons. He dictated a letter to M. de Cavoie, asking him to solicit for the payment of the arrears of his pension for the benefit of the survivors. When the letter was finished, he said to his son, "Why did you not include the arrears due to Boileau in the request? We must not be separated. Write your letter over again; and tell Boileau that I was his friend till death." On taking leave of this dear friend he made an effort to embrace him, saying, "I look on it as a happiness that I die before you."

When it was discovered that an internal abscess was formed, an operation was resolved on. He consented to undergo it, but he had no hopes of preserving his life. "The physicians try to give me hope," he said, "and God could restore me; but the work of death is done." Hitherto he had feared to die--but its near approach found him prepared and courageous. The operation was useless--he died three days after its performance, on the 21st of April, 1699, in his sixtieth year.

It will be perceived that we have not said too much in affirming, that the qualities of his heart compensated for a certain weakness of character, which, fostered by a too enthusiastic piety, and the gratitude he owed to him whom he considered the greatest of monarchs, led him to waste at court, and in dreams of bigotry, those faculties which ought to have inspired him, even if the drama were reprehensible, with the conception of some great and useful work, redounding more to the honour of the Creator (since he gifted him with these faculties) than the many hours he spent in his oratory. It is plain from his letters that something puerile was thus imparted to his mind, which, from the first, needed strengthening. Yet one sort of strength he gained. He had a conscience that for ever urged him to do right, and a mind open to conviction. Under the influence of his religious system, he was led rather to avoid faults than to seek to attain virtues. He had an inclination for raillery, which, through the advice of Boileau, he carefully restrained: he was fond of pleasure; religion caused him to prefer the quiet of his home: and, as the same friend said, "Reason brings most men to faith--faith has brought Racine to reason." Fearful of pain himself, he was eager to avoid causing it to others. In society he was pliant; striving to draw others out rather than endeavouring to shine himself. "When the prince of Condé passes whole hours with me," he said to his son, "you would be surprised to find that I perhaps have not uttered four words all the time; but I put him into the humour to talk, and he goes away even more satisfied with himself than with me. My talent does not consist in proving to the great that I am clever, but in teaching them that they are so themselves." His faithful friendship for Boileau is one of the most pleasing circumstances of his life. His letters show the kindly nature of the intimacy. His wife and family often visited Auteuil; and Boileau, grown deaf, yet always kind, exerted himself to amuse or instruct, according to their ages, the children of his friend.

Of his tragedies the most contradictory opinions will, of course, be expressed. We cannot admire them as the French do. We cannot admit the superior excellence of their plan, because they bring the most incongruous personages into one spot; and, crowding the events of years into a few hours, call that unity of time and place: generally we are only shocked by the improbabilities thus presented; and when the author succeeds, it seems at best but a piece of legerdemain. Grandeur of conception is sacrificed to decorum, and tragedy resembles a dance in fetters. To this defect is added that of the choice of heroic subjects; which, while it brought the author into unmeet comparison with his masters, the Greeks, rendered his work a factitious imitation, leaving small space for the expression of the real sentiments of his heart; and he either fell into the fault of coldness, by endeavouring (vainly) to make his personages speak and feel as Greeks would have done, or incurred the censure applied to him of making his ancient heroes express themselves like modern Frenchmen. "Phædra" is the best of his heroic tragedies; and much in it is borrowed from Euripides. "Berenice" and "Britannicus" must always please more, because the conception is freer, as due solely to their author. "Athalie" is best of all; most original in its conception, powerful in its execution, and correct and beautiful in its language. There is, indeed, a charm in Racine's versification that wins the ear, and a grace in his characters that interests the heart. There is a propriety thrown over all he writes, which, if it wants strength, is often the soul of grace and tenderness. Had he, at the critical moment when he threw himself into the arms of the priests, and indulged the notion that to fritter away his time at court was a more pious pursuit than to create immortal works of art, had he, we repeat, at that time, dedicated himself to the strengthening and elevating his mind, and to the composition of poetry on a system at once pure and noble, and yet true to the real feelings of our nature, "Athalie" had, probably, not been his _chef d'œuvre_; and, on his death bed, he might have looked back with more pride on these testimonies of gratitude to God, for having gifted him with genius, than on the multitudinous times he had counted his rosary, or the many hours loitered away in the royal halls of Versailles.

[Footnote 96: Life by Louis Racine. The authentic accounts of Racine are chiefly founded on this sketch, and on his correspondence.]

[Footnote 97: M. de Valincour says, "I remember one day at Auteuil, when on a visit to Boileau, with M. Nicole and other friends of distinguished merit, that we made Racine talk of the Œdipus of Sophocles, and he recited the whole play to us, translating it as he went on." Racine often said that he treated subjects adopted by Euripides, but he never ventured to follow in the steps of Sophocles.]

[Footnote 98: Racine polished French poetry, and inspired it with harmony, though, even in his verses, we are often annoyed by trivialities induced by the laws of rhyme. It was left for La Martine to overcome this difficulty--to put music into his lines, and bend the stubborn material to his thoughts. Some of the earlier poems, in particular, of this most graceful and harmonious poet make you forget that you are reading French--you are only aware of the perfection of his musical pauses, the expressive sweetness of his language, and feel how entirely his mind can subdue all things to its own nature, when French verse, expressing his ideas, becomes sublime, flowing, and graceful. We cannot believe, however, that any poet could so far vanquish its monotony as to adopt it to heroic narrative; it is much that it has attained this degree of excellence in lyrics.]

[Footnote 99: Grimarest, Vie de Molière.]

[Footnote 100: His aunt, a nun of Port Royal, wrote him a letter to intimate this, which may well be called an excommunication:--"I have learnt with grief," she says, "that you more than ever frequent the society of persons whose names are abominable to the pious; and with reason, since they are forbidden to enter the church, or to partake in the sacraments, even at the moment of death, unless they repent. Judge, therefore, my dear nephew, of the state I am in, since you are not ignorant of the affection I have always felt for you; and that I have never desired any thing except that you should give yourself up to God while fulfilling some respectable employment. I conjure you, therefore, my dear nephew, to have pity on your soul, and to consider seriously the gulf into which you are throwing yourself. I should be glad if what I am told proves untrue; but, if you are so unhappy as not to have given up an intercourse that dishonours you before God and man, you must not think of coming to see us, for you are aware that I could not speak to you, knowing you to be in so deplorable a state, and one so contrary to Christianity. I shall, moreover, pray to God," &c.]

[Footnote 101: Boileau's virile and independent mind was far above the weakness of his friend, and doubtless deplored it. At once to console, and to elevate him to a higher tone of feeling, he addressed an epistle to him, in which are the following lines:--

"Toi donc, qui t'elevant sur la scene tragique, Suis les pas de Sophocle, et seul de tant d'Esprits, De Corneille vielli sait consoler Paris, Cesse de t'étonner, si l'envie animée, Attachant à ton nom sa rouille envenimée, La calomnie en main, quelquefois te poursuit. En cela, comme en tout, le ciel qui nous conduit, Racine, fait briller sa profonde sagesse; Le mérite en repos s'endort dans la paresse: Mais par les envieux un genie excité, Au comble de son art est mille fois monté. Plus on veut s'affloiblir, plus il croit et s'élance; Au Cid persécuté, Cinna doit sa naissance; Et peut-être ta plume aux censeurs de Pyrrhus Doit les plus nobles traits dont tu peignis Burhus."]

[Footnote 102: Vide 2 Kings, chap, XI., 2 Chronicles, chap. XXIII.]

FÉNÉLON

1651-1715

There is no name more respected in the modern history of the world, than that of Fénélon. In the ancient, that of Socrates competes with him. It might be curious and useful to compare Christian humility with pagan fortitude in these illustrious men. The death of Socrates crowned his life with undying fame. Fénélon suffered no martyrdom for his faith, but he was unchanged by the temptations of a court, and bore injustice with cheerful resignation. Amidst the roughness and almost rusticity of Socrates, there was something majestic and sublime, that inspired awe:[103] the gentleness and charity of Fénélon, so simple and true in all its demonstrations, excites a tender reverence. The soul of both was love. Socrates mingled wisdom with his worship of the beautiful, which to him typified the supreme Being. Fénélon, in adoring God, believed, that to love the supreme Being was the first, and, if properly accomplished, the only duty of human beings.

François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon, was born at the château of Fénélon, in Périgord, on the 6th of August, 1651. His family was ancient and illustrious. His father had been previously married, had several children, and was advanced in years; which caused his relations to oppose his second marriage, especially as the lady of his choice had but small fortune. She was, however, of a high family, being of the same, though a younger branch, as the countess of Soissons, wife of the famous prince Eugène's elder brother. Mademoiselle de la Cropte added beauty and merit to her distinguished birth. As the child of his old age, the count de Fénélon educated his younger son carefully; his gentle, affectionate nature soon displayed itself, and caused him to be beloved. His constitution was delicate, even to being weakly; but such care was taken to fortify it, that he became capable of great bodily and mental labour. His lively, just, and penetrating mind,--his upright, generous, and feeling heart,--his peculiarly happy dispositions, were perceived by his father in childhood, and cultivated: he was early taught to aspire to regulate his conduct by virtuous principles; and the natural instinct for justice which distinguished him, inclined him to listen and obey. His disposition being flexible and mild, he soon took pleasure in fulfilling his duties, in order, and in attention. Anecdotes are told of his display of reason and his gentleness, during childhood. Religiously and kindly educated, he early learnt to examine his own motives, and to restrain himself; docility was natural to him; but added to this, he already showed toleration for the faults of others. His health being delicate, it was resolved not to send him to any school; a tutor was engaged, happily formed for the task. The young Fénélon was treated neither with severity nor caprice; his lessons were made easy and agreeable, and his capacity rendered the acquisition of knowledge agreeable. At the age of twelve he wrote French and Latin with elegance and facility, and was well advanced in Greek. He had studied with care, and even imitated, the historians, poets, philosophers, and orators of the ancient world. His mind was thus refined and enriched, and he never lost his taste for ancient learning, while he carried into religious studies the good taste, grace, and variety of knowledge he acquired. Being early destined for the ecclesiastical state, no doubt care was taken to direct his studies in such a way as best accorded with a taste for retirement; and that submission and docility were inculcated as virtues of the first order. Submission and docility he had, but they were based on nobler principles than fear or servility. They arose from a well-regulated mind, from charity, gentleness, and a piety that animated rules and obedience with the warm spirit of love of God.

It was necessary for the purposes of a clerical education, that he should quit his paternal roof. There was a university at Cahors, not far distant, and the abbé de Fénélon (as he was then called) was sent there, at the age of twelve. He did not at first enter on the course of philosophy; although sufficiently advanced, it was feared that his young mind was not as yet capable of the attention that it required, and that he might be disgusted by its dryness, and the difficulties presented. He began, therefore, with a course of rhetoric, which forced him to retread old ground, and to relearn what he already knew. Being so well advanced, he was, of course, greatly superior in knowledge to his equals in age: but this excited no vanity; he felt that he owed the distinction to the cares bestowed on his early years. By the age of eighteen, he had finished his course of theology; he took his degree in the university of Cahors, and returned to his family.

The marquis de Fénélon, his uncle, invited him to his house in Paris, and treated him as his son. The marquis was lieutenant-general of the armies of the king, a man of distinguished valour, and a friend of the great Condé, who said of him, that "he was equally qualified to shine in society, in the field, and in the cabinet." He added piety to his more worldly qualities, and soon perceived and took pride in the admirable dispositions of his nephew. At the age of nineteen, the abbé preached sermons that were generally applauded. This success alarmed his uncle. He perceived the pure and upright character of his nephew; but, aware of his sensibility, he feared that public applause might spoil him, and substitute vanity for the holy love of duty that had hitherto actuated his conduct. From these reasons, he counselled him to retire from the world, and to enter a seminary, where in solitude and silence he might cultivate the virtues best suited to an ecclesiastic. Fénélon yielded; he entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice, and put himself under the direction of the abbé Tronson, who was its superior-general. The house was celebrated for its piety, its simple manners, its pure faith, and, added to these, its studious and laborious pursuits. He passed five years in this retreat, devoted to his duties and to the acquirement of knowledge. Thus were the ardent years of early youth spent in religious silence and obedience--in study and meditation. There was no worldly applause to flatter, no fame to entice; his happiness consisted in loving his companions, and being attached to his duties. His mind became strengthened in its purposes by example, and his virtues confirmed by habit. At the age of twenty-four he entered holy orders; and his future destiny as a priest was unalterably fixed.

[Sidenote: 1675. Ætat. 24.]

A catholic priest's duties are laborious and strict. Fénélon fulfilled them conscientiously; he visited the sick, he assisted the poor. He was attentive at the confessional, and in catechismal examinations; the obscure labours which, when sedulously followed up, amount to hardships, but which are the most meritorious and useful of an ecclesiastic's duties, were so far from being neglected, that Fénélon devoted himself to them with zeal and assiduity. He had an exalted notion of the sacred office which he had taken on himself, looking on it as that of mediation between God and man. Humble, gentle, and patient, he never sought the rich, nor disdained the poor; nor did he ever refuse his counsel and assistance to any one who asked them. Content to be in the most useful, but the humblest class of priests, he neither sought to rise, nor even to be known.