his celebrated controversy with BOSSUET (q. v.) regarding the doctrines of QUIETISM (q. v.), a dispute which brought him into disfavour with the king and provoked the Pope’s condemnation of his “Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie interieure”; the surreptitious publication of his most famous work “Telemache,” the MS. of which was stolen by his servant, accentuated the king’s disfavour, who regarded it as a veiled attack on his court, and led to an order confining the author to his own diocese; the rest of his life was spent in the service of his people, to whom he endeared himself by his benevolence and the sweet piety of his nature; his works are extensive, and deal with subjects historical and literary, as well as philosophical and theological (1651-1715).

FENIANS, an Irish political organisation having for its object the overthrow of English rule in Ireland and the establishment of a republic there.  The movement was initiated in the United States soon after the great famine in Ireland of 1846-47, which, together with the harsh exactions of the landlords, compelled many Irishmen to emigrate from their island with a deeply-rooted sense of injustice and hatred of the English.  The Fenians organised themselves so far on the model of a republic, having a senate at the head, with a virtual president called the “head-centre,” and various “circles” established in many parts of the U.S.  They collected funds and engaged in military drill, and sent agents to Ireland and England.  An invasion of Canada in 1866 and a rising at home in 1867 proved abortive, as also the attack on Clerkenwell Prison in the same year.  Another attempt on Canada in 1871 and the formation of the Skirmishing Fund for the use of the Dynamitards and the institution of the Clan-na-Gael leading to the “Invincibles,” and the Phoenix Park murders (1882) are later manifestations of this movement.  The Home Rule and Land League movements practically superseded the Fenian.  The name is taken from an ancient military organisation called the Fionna Eirinn, said to have been instituted in Ireland in 300 B.C.

FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC, V. of Castile, II. of Aragon and Sicily, and III. of Naples, born at Sos, in Aragon, married Isabella of Castile in 1849, a step by which these ancient kingdoms were united under one sovereign power; their joint reign is one of the most glorious in the annals of Spanish history, and in their hands Spain quickly took rank amongst the chief European powers; in 1492 Columbus discovered America, and the same year saw the Jews expelled from Spain and the Moorish power crushed by the fall of Granada.  In 1500-1 Ferdinand joined the French in his conquest of Naples, and three years later managed to secure the kingdom to himself, while by the conquest of Navarre in 1512 the entire Spanish peninsula came under his sway.  He was a shrewd and adroit ruler, whose undoubted abilities, both as administrator and general, were, however, somewhat marred by an unscrupulous cunning, which found a characteristic expression in the institution of the notorious Inquisition, which in 1480 was started by him, and became a powerful engine for political as well as religious persecution for long years after (1452-1516).