At the same time with the controversial treatises, the Elevations sur les Mysteres and the Meditations sur l’Evangile were written at Meaux, drawing the bishop away to the serener regions of supreme faith.  There might he have chanced to meet those Reformers, as determined as he in the strife, as attached, at bottom, as he, for life and death, to the mysteries and to the lights of a common hope.  “When God shall give us grace to enter Paradise,” St. Bernard used to say, “we shall be above all astonished at not finding some of those whom we had thought to meet there, and at finding others whom we did not expect.”  Bossuet had a moments glimpse of this higher truth; in concert with Leibnitz, a great intellect of more range in knowledge and less steadfastness than he in religious faith, he tried to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant communions in one and the same creed.  There were insurmountable difficulties on both sides; the attempt remained unsuccessful.

The Bishop of Meaux had lately triumphed in the matter of Quietism, breaking the ties of old friendship with Fenelon, and more concerned about defending sound doctrine in the church than fearful of hurting his friend, who was sincere and modest in his relations with him, and humbly submissive to the decrees of the court of Rome.  The Archbishop of Cambrai was in exile at his own diocese; Bossuet was ill at Meaux, still, however, at work, going deeper every day into that profound study of Holy Writ and of the fathers of the church which shines forth in all his writings.  He had stone, and suffered agonies, but would not permit an operation.  On his death-bed, surrounded by his nephews and his vicars, he rejected with disdain all eulogies on his episcopal life.  “Speak to me of necessary truths,” said he, preserving to the last the simplicity of a great and strong mind, accustomed to turn from appearances and secondary doctrines to embrace the mighty realities of time and of eternity.  He died at Paris on the 12th of April, 1704, just when the troubles of the church were springing up again.  Great was the consternation amongst the bishops of France, wont as they were to shape themselves by his counsels.  “Men were astounded at this mortal’s mortality.”  Bossuet was seventy-three.

A month later, on the 13th of May, Father Bourdaloue in his turn died.  A model of close logic and moral austerity, with a stiff and manly eloquence, so impressed with the miserable insufficiency of human efforts, that he said as he was dying, “My God, I have wasted life; it is just that Thou recall it.”  There remained only Fenelon in the first rank, which Massillon did not as yet dispute with him.  Malebranche was living retired in his cell at the Oratory, seldom speaking, writing his Recherches sur la Verite (Researches into Truth), and his Entretiens sur la Metaphysique (Discourses on Metaphysics), bolder in thought than he was aware of or wished, sincere