dared to mention the name of Telemaque.  Clever (spirituel) “to an alarming extent” (faire peur) in the minutest detail of his writings, rich, copious, harmonious, but not without tendencies to lengthiness, the style of Fenelon is the reflex of his character; sometimes, a little subtle and covert, like the prelate’s mind, it hits and penetrates without any flash (eclat) and without dealing heavy blows.  “Graces flowed from his lips,” said Chancellor d’Aguesseau, “and he seemed to treat the greatest subjects as if, so to speak, they were child’s play to him; the smallest grew to nobleness beneath his pen, and he would have made flowers grow in the midst of thorns.  A noble singularity, pervading his whole person, and a something sublime in his very simplicity, added to his characteristics a certain prophet-like air.  Always original, always creative, he imitated nobody, and himself appeared inimitable.”  His last act was to write a letter to Father Le Tellier to be communicated to the king.  “I have just received extreme unction; that is, the state, reverend father, when I am preparing to appear before God, in which I pray you with instance to represent to the king my true sentiments.  I have never felt anything but docility towards the church and horror at the innovations which have been imputed to me.  I accepted the condemnation of my book in the most absolute simplicity.  I have never been a single moment in my life without feeling towards the king personally the most lively gratitude, the most genuine zeal, the most profound respect, and the most inviolable attachment.  I take the liberty of asking of his Majesty two favors, which do not concern either my own person or anybody belonging to me.  The first is, that he will have the goodness to give me a pious and methodical successor, sound and firm against Jansenism, which is in prodigious credit on this frontier.  The other favor is, that he will have the goodness to complete with my successor that which could not be completed with me on behalf of the gentlemen of St. Sulpice.  I wish his Majesty a long life, of which the church as well as the state has infinite need.  If peradventure I go into the presence of God, I shall often ask these favors of Him.”

How dread is the power of sovereign majesty, operative even at the death-bed of the greatest and noblest spirits, causing Fenelon in his dying hour to be anxious about the good graces of a monarch ere long, like him, a-dying !

Our thoughts may well linger over those three great minds, Pascal, Bossuet, and Fenelon,—­one layman and two bishops; all equally absorbed by the great problems of human life and immortality.  With different degrees of greatness and fruitfulness, they all serve the same cause.  Whether as defenders or assailants of Jansenism and Quietism, the solitary philosopher or the prelates engaged in the court or in the guidance of men, all three of them serving God on behalf of the soul’s highest interests, remained unique in their generation, and without successors as they had been without predecessors.