Chapter II (1)

O Mensch wiltu geimpffet werdn,
Und sein versetzt in d’himlisch erdn!
So mustu vor dein ästen wilt,
Gantz hawen ab, das früchte milt
Fürkommen nach Gotts ebenbildt.[334]

HYMN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

_Part II.—The Quietist Controversy._

I.

In the year 1686, Madame Guyon returned to Paris, and entered the
head-quarters of persecution. Rumours reached her, doubtless, from
beyond the Alps, of cruel measures taken against opinions similar to
her own, which had spread rapidly in Italy. But she knew not that
all these severities originated with Louis XIV. and his Jesuit
advisers,—that her king, while revoking the Edict of Nantes, and
dispatching his dragoons to extirpate Protestantism in France, was
sending orders to D’Estrées, his ambassador at Rome, to pursue with
the utmost rigour Italian Quietism—and that the monarch, who shone
and smiled at Marly and Versailles, was crowding with victims the
dungeons of the Roman Inquisition.

The leader of Quietism in Italy was one Michael de Molinos, a
Spaniard, a man of blameless life, of eminent and comparatively
enlightened piety. His book, entitled _The Spiritual Guide_, was
published in 1675, sanctioned by five famous doctors, four of them
Inquisitors, and one a Jesuit, and passed, within six years, through
twenty editions in different languages. His real doctrine was
probably identical in substance with that of Madame Guyon.[335] It
was openly favoured by many nobles and ecclesiastics of
distinguished rank; by D’Etrees among the rest. Molinos had
apartments assigned him in the Vatican, and was held in high esteem
by Infallibility itself. But the Inquisition and the Jesuits,
supported by all the influence of France, were sure of their game.
The audacity of the Inquisitors went so far as to send a deputation
to examine the orthodoxy of the man called Innocent XI.; for even
the tiara was not to shield the patron of Molinos from suspicions of
heresy. The courtier-cardinal D’Etrees found new light in the
missives of his master. He stood committed to Quietism. He had not
only embraced the opinions of Molinos, but had translated into
Italian the book of Malaval, a French Quietist, far more extreme
than Molinos himself.[336] Yet he became, at a moment’s notice, the
accuser of his friend. He produced the letter of Louis rebuking the
faithless sloth of the pontiff who could entertain a heretic in his
palace, while he, the eldest son of the Church, toiled incessantly
to root out heresy from the soil of France. He read before the
Inquisitorial Tribunal extracts from the papers of Molinos. He
protested that he had seemed to receive, in order at the proper
juncture more effectually to expose, these abominable mysteries. If
these professions were false, D’Etrees was a heretic; if true, a
villain. The Inquisitors, of course, deemed his testimony too
valuable to be refused. In the eyes of such men, the enormous crime
which he pretended was natural, familiar, praiseworthy. Depths of
baseness beyond the reach of ordinary iniquity, are heights of
virtue with the followers of Dominic and Loyola. Guilt, which even a
bad man would account a blot upon his life, becomes, in the annals
of their zeal, a star. The Spanish Inquisitor-General, Valdes, who
raised to the highest pitch his repute for sanctity, secured the
objects of his ambition, averted the dangers which threatened him,
and preserved his ill-gotten wealth from the grasp of the crown,
simply by his activity as a persecutor, made a practice of sending
spies to mix (under pretence of being converts or inquirers) among
the suspected Lutherans of Valladolid and Seville. Desmarets de St.
Sorlin denounced, and caused to be burnt, a poor harmless madman,
named Morin, who fancied himself the Holy Ghost. Counselled by the
Jesuit confessor of Louis, Father Canard, he pretended to become his
disciple, and then betrayed him. This Desmarets, be it remembered,
had written a book called _Les Délices de l’Esprit_, happily
characterised by a French wit, when he proposed for _délices_ to
read _délires_. Those immoral consequences which the enemies of
Madame Guyon professed to discern in her writings are drawn openly
in the sensual and blasphemous phraseology of this religious
extravaganza. But because Desmarets was a useful man to the
Jesuits—because he had drawn away some of the nuns of the Port
Royal—because he had given the flames a victim—because he was
protected by Canard,—the same Archbishop of Paris who imprisoned
Madame Guyon, honoured with his sanction the ravings of the
licentious visionary.[337] So little had any sincere dread of
spiritual extravagance to do with the hostility concentrated on the
disciples of Quietism. The greater portion of the priesthood feared
only lest men should learn to become religious on their own account.
The leaders of the movement against Madame Guyon were animated by an
additional motive. They knew they should delight his Most Christian
Majesty by affording him another opportunity of manifesting his zeal
for orthodoxy; and they wished to strike at the reputation of
Fénélon through Madame Guyon. The fate of Molinos decided hers, and
hers that of the Archbishop of Cambray.

The only crime brought home to the followers of Molinos was a
preference for the religion of the heart to that of the rosary; the
substitution of a devout retirement for the observance of certain
superstitious forms and seasons. His condemnation was determined.
After an imprisonment of two years he was exhibited in the Temple of
Minerva, his hands bound, and a lighted taper between them. A
plenary indulgence was granted to all who should be present; a vast
concourse listened to the sentence; hired voices cried, ‘To the
fire! to the fire!’ the mob was stirred to a frenzy of fanaticism.
His last gaze upon the world beheld a sea of infuriate faces, the
pomp of his triumphant adversaries,—then to the gloom and solitude
of the dungeon in which he was to languish till death bestowed
release.[338]

II.

At Paris, Madame Guyon became the centre of a small but illustrious
circle, who listened with delight to her exposition of that Quietism
to which the tender earnestness of her language, and her manner lent
so indescribable a charm. There were the Duke and Duchess of
Beauvilliers, the Duke and Duchess of Chevreuse, the Duchess of
Bethune, and the Countess of Guiche. The daughters of Colbert and of
Fouquet forgot the long enmity of their fathers in a religious
friendship, whose tie was yet more closely drawn by their common
admiration for Madame Guyon.[339] But letters filled with complaints
against La Combe and Madame Guyon poured in upon Harlay, Archbishop
of Paris.[340] He procured the arrest of La Combe, who spent the
remainder of his days in various prisons. A little calumny and a
forged letter obtained from the king a _lettre de cachet_ confining
Madame Guyon to an apartment in the Convent of St. Marie. The
sisters were strongly prejudiced against her, but her gentle
patience won all hearts, and her fair jailors soon vied with each
other in praises of their fascinating prisoner. An examination
elicited nothing decidedly unfavourable. Not a stain could be
detected in her character; she offered to submit all her papers and
her writings to investigation. The intercession of Madame Miramion
and other friends with Madame de Maintenon, procured her release,
after a captivity of eight months.

The most dangerous enemy Madame Guyon had as yet was her own
half-brother, Père La Mothe. He had calumniated her in secret while
in Switzerland; he was still more active now she was in Paris. He
wished to become her Director, but La Combe was in the way. The
artifices of La Mothe procured his arrest. He advised Madame Guyon,
with hypocritical protestations of friendship, to flee to Montargis
from the scandalous reports he himself had circulated, and from
adversaries he himself had raised up. Then she would have been at
his mercy—he would have pointed to her flight as a proof of guilt,
and her own property and the guardianship of her children might have
been secured for himself. He injured her as a relation only could.
People said her cause must be a bad one, since her own brother was
constrained, from regard to the credit of religion, to bear witness
against her. A woman who had committed sacrilege at Lyons, and had
run away from the Convent of Penitents at Dijon, was employed by him
to forge letters which should damage the character of Madame Guyon;
to personate one of her maids, and to go from confessor to confessor
throughout Paris, asserting that after living sixteen or seventeen
years with her mistress, she had quitted her at last, in disgust at
her abominable life.

III.

Released from the Convent of St. Marie, Madame Guyon was conducted
by her court friends to express her thanks to Madame de Maintenon at
St. Cyr. This institution had been founded, ten years previously,
for the education of the daughters of noble but impoverished
families. The idea originated with Madame de Maintenon: it was
executed with royal speed and magnificence by Louis, and St. Cyr
became her favourite resort. In fifteen months two thousand six
hundred workmen raised the structure, on a marshy soil, about half a
league from Paris. The genius of Mansart presided over the
architecture. The style of the ordinances was revised by Boileau and
Racine. There three hundred young ladies of rank, dressed in gowns
of brown crape, with white quilted caps, tied with ribbons whose
colour indicated the class to which they belonged in the school,
studied geography and drawing, heard mass, sang in the choir, and
listened to preachments from the lips of Madame Brinon—who
discoursed, so swore some of the courtiers, as eloquently as
Bourdaloue himself. Tired out with the formal splendours of
Versailles, Madame de Maintenon was never so happy as when playing
the part of lady abbess at St. Cyr. Often she would be there by six
in the morning, would herself assist at the toilette of the pupils,
would take a class throughout the day, would give the novices
lessons on spiritual experience; nothing in its routine was dull,
nothing in its kitchen was mean. She hated Fontainebleau, for it
tore her from her family at St. Cyr. For the private theatricals of
St. Cyr, Racine wrote _Esther_, at the request of Madame de
Maintenon. Happy was the courtier who could obtain permission to
witness one of these representations, who could tell with triumph to
envious groups of the excluded, what an admirable Ahasuerus Madame
de Caylus made, what a spirited Mordecai was Mademoiselle de
Glapion, how the graceful Mademoiselle de Veillenne charmed the
audience in the prayer of Esther—in short, how far the Esther
surpassed the Phedra; and the actresses excelled the Raisins and the
Chammelés of the Parisian boards. Louis himself drew up the list of
admissions, as though it were for a journey to Marly—he was the
first to enter—and stood at the door, with the catalogue of names in
one hand and his cane held across as a barrier in the other, till
all the privileged had entered.[341] But the fashion of asceticism
which grew with every year of Maintenon’s reign threw its gloom over
St. Cyr. The absolute vows were introduced, and much of the
monotonous austerity of conventual life. Religious excitement was
the only resource left to the inmates if they would not die of
ennui. This relief was brought them by Madame Guyon.

Madame de Maintenon was touched with pity for the misfortunes of
Madame Guyon, with admiration for such patience, such forgetfulness
of self,—she found in the freshness and fervour of her religious
conversation, a charm which recalled the warmer feelings of youth;
which was welcome, for its elevation, after the fatigue and anxiety
of state, for its sweetness, as contrasted with the barren minutiæ
of rigid formalism. She invited her constantly to her table—she
encouraged her visits to St. Cyr—she met with her, and with Fénélon,
at the Hôtels de Chevreuse and Beauvilliers, where a religious
coterie assembled three times a week to discuss the mysteries of
inward experience. Thus, during three or four years of favour with
Madame de Maintenon, Madame Guyon became in effect the spiritual
instructress of St. Cyr, and found herself at Paris surrounded by
disciples whose numbers daily increased, and whom she withdrew from
the licentious gaieties of the capital. At St. Cyr the young ladies
studied her books, and listened to her as an oracle—the thoughtless
grew serious—the religious strained every faculty to imitate the
attainments of one in whom they saw the ideal of devotion. In Paris,
mystical terminology became the fashionable language—it was caught
up and glibly uttered by wits and roués—it melted from the lips of
beauties who shot languishing glances at their admirers, while they
affected to be weary of the world, and who coquetted while they
talked significantly of holy indifference or pure love. Libertines,
like Treville, professed reform, and wrote about mysticism,—atheists
turned Christians, like Corbinelli, now became Quietists, and might
be seen in the salon of Madame le Maigre, where Corbinelli shone,
the brilliant expositor of the new religious romanticism.[342]

IV.

During this period, Madame Guyon became acquainted with Fénélon. At
their first interview she was all admiration, he all distrust. ‘Her
mind,’ she says, ‘had been taken up with him with much force and
sweetness;’ it seemed to be revealed to her that he should become
one of her spiritual children. Fénélon, on his part, thought she had
neglected her duty to her family for an imaginary mission. But he
had inquired concerning her life at Montargis, and heard only
praise. After a few conversations his doubts vanished: he had
proposed objections, requested explanations, pointed out unguarded
expressions in her books—she was modest, submissive,
irresistible.[343] There was a power in her language, her manner,
her surviving beauty, which mysteriously dissipated prejudice; which
even Nicole, Bossuet, Boileau, Gaillard, could not withstand when
they conversed with her,—which was only overcome when they had
ceased to behold her face, when her persuasive accents sounded no
longer in their ears. She recalled to the thoughts of Fénélon his
youthful studies at St. Sulpice;—there he had perused the mystical
divines in dusty tomes, clasped and brazen-cornered,—now he beheld
their buried doctrine raised to life in the busy present, animating
the untaught eloquence of a woman, whom a noble enthusiasm alone had
endowed with all the prerogatives of genius, and all the charms of
beauty. This friendship, which events rendered afterwards so
disastrous for himself, was beneficial to Madame Guyon. Fénélon
taught her to moderate some of her spiritual excesses. Her
extravagance reached its culminating point at Thonon. At Paris,
influenced doubtless by Fénélon, as well as by more frequent
intercourse with the world, she no longer enjoys so many picturesque
dreams, no more heals the sick and casts out devils with a word, and
no longer—as in her solitude there—suffers inward anguish consequent
on the particular religious condition of Father La Combe when he is
three hundred miles off.[344] It is curious to observe how the
acquaintance of Fénélon with Madame Guyon began with suspicion and
ripened into friendship, while that of Bossuet, commencing with
approval, and even admiration, ended in calumny and persecution.
Bossuet declared to the Duc de Chevreuse that while examining her
writings, for the first time, he was astonished by a light and
unction he had never before seen, and, for three days, was made to
realize the divine Presence in a manner altogether new. Bossuet had
never, like Fénélon, studied the mystics.[345]

V.

The two most influential Directors at St. Cyr were Godet des Marais,
Bishop of Chartres, and Fénélon. These two men form a striking
contrast. Godet was disgusting in person and in manners—a sour
ascetic—a spiritual martinet—devoted to all the petty austerities of
the most formal discipline. Fénélon was dignified and gentle,
graceful as a courtier, and spotless as a saint—the most pure, the
most persuasive, the most accomplished of religious guides. No
wonder that most of the young inmates of St. Cyr adored Fénélon, and
could not endure Godet. Madame de Maintenon wavered between her two
confessors; if Fénélon was the more agreeable, Godet seemed the more
safe. Godet was miserably jealous of his rival. He was not sorry to
find that the new doctrines had produced a little insubordination
within the quiet walls of St. Cyr—that Fénélon would be compromised
by the indiscretion of some among his youthful admirers. He brought
a lamentable tale to Madame de Maintenon. Madame du Peron, the
mistress of the novices, had complained that her pupils obeyed her
no longer. They neglected regular duties for unseasonable prayers.
They had illuminations and ecstasies. One in the midst of sweeping
her room would stand, leaning on her broom, lost in contemplation:
another, instead of hearing lessons, became inspired, and resigned
herself to the operation of the Spirit. The under-mistress of the
classes stole away the enlightened from the rest, and they were
found in remote corners of the house, feasting in secret on the
sweet poison of Madame Guyon’s doctrine. The precise and methodical
Madame de Maintenon was horrified. She had hoped to realize in her
institute the ideal of her Church, a perfect uniformity of opinion,
an unerring mechanism of obedience. We wished, said she, to promote
intelligence, we have made orators; devotion, we have made
Quietists; modesty, we have made prudes; elevation of sentiment, and
we have pride. She commissioned Godet to reclaim the wanderers, to
demand that the books of Madame Guyon should be surrendered, setting
herself the example by publicly delivering into his hand her own
copy of the _Short Method_. She requested Madame Guyon to refrain
from visiting St. Cyr. She began to doubt the prudence or the
orthodoxy of Fénélon.[346] What would the king say, if he heard of
it—he, who had never liked Fénélon—who hated nothing so much as
heresy—who had but the other day extinguished the Quietism of
Molinos? She had read to him some of Madame Guyon’s exposition of
the Canticles; and he called it dreamy stuff. Doctrines really
dangerous to purity were insinuated by some designing monks, under
the name of Quietism. The odium fell on the innocent Madame Guyon;
and her friends would necessarily share it. Malicious voices charged
her with corrupting the principles of the Parisian ladies. Madame
Guyon replied with justice,—‘When they were patching, and painting,
and ruining their families by gambling and by dress, not a word was
said against it; now that they have withdrawn from such vanities,
the cry is, that I have ruined them.’ Rumour grew more loud and
scandalous every day: the most incredible reports were most
credited. The schools, too, had taken up the question of mysticism,
and argued it with heat. Nicole and Lami had dissolved an ancient
friendship to quarrel about it,—as Fénélon and Bossuet were soon to
do. No controversy threatened to involve so many interests, to fan
so many passions, to kindle so many hatreds, as this variance about
disinterestedness, about indifference, about love.

The politic Madame de Maintenon watched the gathering storm, and
became all caution. At all costs, she must free herself from the
faintest suspicion of fellowship with heresy. She questioned, on the
opinions of Madame Guyon, Bossuet and Noailles, Bourdaloue, Joly,
Tiberge, Brisacier, and Tronson; and the replies of these esteemed
divines, uniformly unfavourable, decided her. It would be necessary
to disown Madame Guyon: her condemnation would become inevitable.
Fénélon must be induced to disown her too, or his career was at a
close; and Madame de Maintenon could smile on him no longer.[347]

Madame Guyon, alarmed by the growing numbers and vehemence of her
adversaries, had recourse to the man who afterwards became her
bitterest enemy. She proposed to Bossuet that he should examine her
writings. He complied; held several private interviews with her, and
expressed himself, on the whole, more favourably than could have
been expected. But these conferences, which did not altogether
satisfy Bossuet, could do nothing to allay the excitement of the
public.[348]

VI.

Madame Guyon now requested the appointment of commissioners, who
should investigate, and pronounce finally concerning her life and
doctrine.[349] Three were chosen—Bossuet; Noailles, Bishop of
Chalons; and Tronson, Superior of St. Sulpice. Noailles was a
sensible, kind-hearted man; Tronson, a worthy creature, in poor
health, with little opinion of his own; Bossuet, the accredited
champion of the Gallican Church, accustomed to move in an atmosphere
of flattery—the august dictator of the ecclesiastical world—was
absolute in their conferences. They met, from time to time, during
some six months, at the little village of Issy, the country
residence of the Superior of St. Sulpice. When Madame Guyon appeared
before them, Bossuet alone was harsh and rude; he put the worst
construction on her words; he interrupted her; now he silenced her
replies, now he burlesqued them; now he affected to be unable to
comprehend them; now he held up his hands in contemptuous amazement
at her ignorance; he would not suffer to be read the justification
which had cost her so much pains; he sent away her friend, the Duke
of Chevreuse. This ominous severity confused and frightened
her.[350] She readily consented to retire to a convent in the town
of Meaux, there to be under the surveillance of Bossuet. She
undertook this journey in the depth of the most frightful winter
which had been known for many years; the coach was buried in the
snow, and she narrowly escaped with life. The commissioners remained
to draw up, by the fireside, certain propositions, which should
determine what was, and what was not, true mysticism. These
constitute the celebrated Articles of Issy.

Bossuet repeatedly visited Madame Guyon at Meaux. The great man did
not disdain to approach the sick-bed of his victim, as she lay in
the last stage of exhaustion, and there endeavour to overreach and
terrify her. He demanded a submission, and promised a favourable
certificate. The submission he received, the certificate he
withheld. He sought to force her, by threats, to sign that she did
not believe in the Incarnation. The more timid she appeared, the
more boisterous and imperative his tone. One day, he would come with
words of kindness, on another, with words of fury; yet, at the very
time, this Pilate could say to some of his brethren, that he found
no serious fault in her. He declared, on one occasion, that he was
actuated by no dislike—he was urged to rigorous measures by others;
on another, that the submission of Madame Guyon, and the suppression
of Quietism, effected by his skill and energy, would be as good as
an archbishopric or a cardinal’s hat to him. Justice and ambition
contended within him; for a little while the battle wavered, till
presently pride and jealousy brought up to the standard of the
latter, reinforcements so overwhelming, that justice was beaten for
ever from the field. After six months’ residence at Meaux, Madame
Guyon received from Bossuet a certificate attesting her filial
submissiveness to the Catholic faith, his satisfaction with her
conduct, authorizing her still to participate in the sacrament of
the Church, and acquitting her of all implication in the heresy of
Molinos.[351]

Meanwhile, Fénélon had been added to the number of the commissioners
at Issy. He and Bossuet were still on intimate terms; but Bossuet,
like all vain men, was a dangerous friend. He knew how to inspire
confidence which he did not scruple to betray. Madame Guyon,
conscious of the purity of her life, of the orthodoxy of her
intention, persuaded that such a man must be superior to the meaner
motives of her persecutors, had placed in the hands of Bossuet her
most private papers, not excluding the _Autobiography_, which had
not been submitted even to the eye of Fénélon. To Bossuet, Fénélon
had, in letters, unfolded his most secret thoughts—the conflicts and
aspirations of his spiritual history, so unbounded was his reliance
on his honour, so exalted his estimate of the judgment of that
powerful mind in matters of religion. The disclosures of both were
distorted and abused to crush them; both had to rue the day when
they trusted one who could sacrifice truth to glory. At Issy, the
deference and the candour of Fénélon were met by a haughty reserve
on the part of Bossuet. The meekness of Fénélon and the timidity of
Madame Guyon only inflamed his arrogance; to bow to him was to be
overborne; to confront him was at once to secure respect, if not
fairness. The Articles were already drawn up when the signature of
Fénélon was requested. He felt that he should have been allowed his
fair share in their construction; as they were, he could not sign
them; he proposed modifications; they were acceded to; and the
thirty-four Articles of Issy appeared in March, 1695, with the name
of Fénélon associated with the other three.[352]

VII.

To any one who reads these Articles, and the letter written by
Fénélon to Madame de la Maisonfort, after signing them, it will be
obvious that the Quietism of Fénélon went within a moderate compass.
When he comes to explain his meaning, the controversy is very much a
dispute about words. He did not, like Madame Guyon, profess to
conduct devout minds by a certain method to the attainment of
perfect disinterestedness. He only maintained the possibility of
realizing a love to God, thus purified from self. He was as fully
aware as his opponents, that to evince our love to God by
willingness to endure perdition, was the same thing as attesting our
devotion to Him by our readiness to hate Him for ever. This is the
standing objection against the doctrine of disinterested love. The
great Nonconformist divine, John Howe, urges it with force. It is
embodied in the thirty-second of the Articles in question. But it
does not touch Fénélon’s position. His assertion is, that we should
will our own salvation only because God wills it; that, supposing it
possible for us to endure hell torments, retaining the grace of God
and our consciousness that such suffering was according to His will,
and conducive to His glory, the soul, animated by pure love, would
embrace even such a doom.[353] It is but the supposition of an
impossible case,—a supposition, moreover, which involves a very
gross and external conception of hell. It could find no place in a
mysticism like that of Behmen or Swedenborg, where hell is regarded,
much more truly, less as an infliction from without, than as the
development of dominant evil from within. The Quietism of Fénélon
does not preclude the reflex actions of the mind, or confine the
spirit of the adept to the sphere of the immediate. It forbids only
the introspection of self-complacency.[354] It does not merge
distinct acts in a continuous operation, nor discourage effort for
self-advancement in holiness, or for the benefit of others—it only
teaches us to moderate that impatience which has its origin in self,
and declares that our own co-operation becomes, in certain cases,
unconscious—is, as it were, lost in a ‘special facility.’[355] The
indefatigable benevolence of his life abundantly repudiates the
slanderous conclusion of his adversaries, that the doctrine of
indifference concerning the future, involves indifference likewise
to moral good and evil in the present. Bossuet himself is often as
mystical as Fénélon, sometimes more so.[356] St. Francis de Sales
and Madame de Chantal said the very same things,—not to mention the
unbridled utterances of the earlier and the mediæval mystics
canonized by the Church of Rome. Could the controversy have been
confined to the real question, no harm would have been done. It
would have resembled the duel, in Ben Jonson’s play, between
Fastidious Brisk and Signor Puntarvolo, where the rapiers cut
through taffeta and lace, gold embroidery and satin doublets, but
nowhere enter the skin. Certain terms and certain syllogisms, a
well-starched theory, or an argument trimmed with the pearls of
eloquence—might have been transfixed or rent by a dexterous pen, on
this side or on that, but the prize of the conqueror would not have
been court favour, nor the penalty of the conquered, exile.
Theologians might have written, for a few, the learned history of a
logical campaign, but the eyes of Europe would never have been
turned to a conflict for fame and fortune raging in the Vatican and
at Versailles, enlisting every religious party throughout
Roman-catholic Christendom, and involving the rise or fall of some
of the most illustrious names among the churchmen and nobility of
France.

VIII.

The writings of Madame Guyon had now been condemned, though without
mention of her name; Bossuet had intimated that he required nothing
further from her; she began to hope that the worst might be over,
and returned with her friends from Meaux to Paris, to live there as
much retired as possible. This flight, which he chose to call
dishonourable, irritated Bossuet. She had suffered him to see that
she could trust him no longer. He endeavoured to recover the
certificate he had given. An order was procured for her arrest. The
police observed that a house in the Faubourg St. Antoine was always
entered by a pass-key. They made their way in, and found Madame
Guyon. They brought away their prisoner, ill as she was, and the
king was induced, with much difficulty, to sign an order for her
incarceration at Vincennes. The despot thought a convent might
suffice,—not so the persecutors.[357]

Bossuet had been for some time occupied in writing a work which
should demolish with a blow the doctrine of Madame Guyon, and hold
her up to general odium. It consisted of ten books, and was entitled
_Instructions on the States of Prayer_. He showed the manuscript to
Fénélon, desiring him to append a statement, approving all it
contained, which should accompany the volume when published. Fénélon
refused. Six months ago he had declared that he could be no party to
a personal attack on Madame Guyon: the _Instructions_ contained
little else. That tremendous attack was no mere exposure of
unguarded expressions—no mere deduction of dangerous consequences,
possibly unforeseen by a half-educated writer; it charged Madame
Guyon with having for her sole design the inculcation of a false
spirituality, which abandoned, as an imperfection, faith in the
divine Persons and the humanity of Christ; which disowned the
authority of Scripture, of tradition, of morality; which dispensed
with vocal prayer and acts of worship; which established an impious
and brutal indifference between vice and virtue, between everlasting
hate of God and everlasting love; which forbade resistance to
temptation as an interruption to repose; which taught an imaginary
perfection extinguishing the nobler desires only to inflame the
lower, and clothing the waywardness of self-will and passion with
the authority of inspiration and of prophecy. Fénélon knew that this
accusation was one mass of falsehood. If Bossuet himself believed
it, why had he suffered such a monster still to commune; why had he
been so faithless to his high office in the Church, as to give his
testimonials declaring the purity of her purpose and the soundness
of her faith, when he had not secured the formal retraction of a
single error? To sign his approval of that book, would be not merely
a cowardly condemnation of a woman whom he knew to be innocent—it
would be the condemnation of himself. His acquaintance with Madame
Guyon was matter of notoriety. It would be to say that he—a student
of theology, a priest, an archbishop, the preceptor of princes—had
not only refrained from denouncing, but had honoured with his
friendship, the teacher of an abominable spiritualism which
abolished the first principles of right and wrong. It would be to
declare, in fact, such a prelate far more guilty than such a
heretic. And Bossuet pretended to be his friend—Bossuet, who had
laid the snare which might have been the triumph of the most
malignant enemy. It was not a mere question of persons—Madame Guyon
might die in prison—he himself might be defamed and disgraced—he did
not mean to become her champion—surely that was enough, knowing what
he knew,—let her enemies be satisfied with his silence—he could not
suffer another man to take his pen out of his hand to denounce as an
emissary of Satan one whom he believed to be a child of God.[358]

Such was Fénélon’s position. He wished to be silent concerning
Madame Guyon. To assent to the charges brought against her would not
have been even a serviceable lie, if such a man could have desired
to escape the wrath of Bossuet at so scandalous a price. Every one
would have said that the Archbishop of Cambray had denounced his
accomplice out of fear. Neither was he prepared to embrace the
opposite extreme and to defend the personal cause of the accused,
many of whose expressions he thought questionable, orthodox as might
be her explanation, and many of whose extravagances he disapproved.
His enemies wished to force him to speak, and were prepared to
damage his reputation whether he appeared for or against the
prisoner at Vincennes. At length it became necessary that he should
break silence; and when he did, it was not to pronounce judgment
concerning the oppressed or her oppressors, it was to investigate
the abstract question,—the teaching of the Church on the doctrine of
pure love. He wrote the _Maxims of the Saints_.

IX.

This celebrated book appeared in January, 1697, while Fénélon was at
Cambray, amazing the Flemings of his diocese by affording them, in
their new archbishop, the spectacle of a church dignitary who really
cared for his flock, who consigned the easier duties to his vicars,
and reserved the hardest for himself; who entered their cottages
like a father, listened with interest to the story of their
hardships or their griefs; who consoled, counselled, and relieved
them; who partook of their black bread as though he had never shared
the banquets of Versailles, and as though Paris were to him, as to
themselves, a wonderful place far away, whose streets were paved
with gold. Madame Guyon was in confinement at the village of
Vaugirard, whither the compassion of Noailles had transferred her
from Vincennes, resigned and peaceful, writing poetry and singing
hymns with her pious servant-girl, the faithful companion of her
misfortunes. Bossuet was visiting St. Cyr—very busy in endeavouring
to purify the theology of the young ladies from all taint of
Quietism—but quite unsuccessful in reconciling Madame de la
Maisonfort to the loss of her beloved Fénélon.

The _Maxims of the Saints_ was an exposition and vindication of the
doctrines of pure love, of mystical union, and of perfection, as
handed down by some of the most illustrious and authoritative names
in the Roman-catholic Church, from Dionysius, Clement, and
Augustine, to John of the Cross and Francis de Sales;—it explained
their terminology;—it placed in juxtaposition with every article of
legitimate mysticism its false correlative—the use and the
abuse;—and was, in fact, though not expressly, a complete
justification (on the principles of his Church) of that moderate
Quietism held by himself, and in substance by Madame Guyon.[359] The
book was approved by Tronson, by Fleury, by Hébert, by Pirot, a
doctor of the Sorbonne, by Père La Chaise, the King’s Confessor, by
the Jesuits of Clermont,—but it was denounced by Bossuet; it was
nicknamed the Bible of the Little Church; Pontchartrain, the
comptroller-general, and Maurice Le Tellier, Archbishop of Reims,
told the King that it was fit only for knaves or fools. Louis sent
for Bossuet. The Bishop of Meaux cast himself theatrically at the
feet of majesty, and, with pretended tears, implored forgiveness for
not earlier revealing the heresy of his unhappy brother. A
compromise was yet possible; for Fénélon was ready to explain his
explanations, and to suppress whatever might be pronounced dangerous
in his pages. But the eagle of Meaux had seen the meek and dove-like
Fénélon—once almost more his disciple than his friend—erect the
standard of independence, and assume the port of a rival. His pride
was roused. He was resolved to reign alone on the ecclesiastical
Olympus of the Court, and he would not hear of a peace that might
rob him of a triumph. Did Fénélon pretend to shelter himself by
great names,—he, Bossuet, would intrench himself within the awful
sanctuary of the Church; he represented religion in France; he would
resent every attack upon his own opinions as an assault on the
Catholic faith; he had the ear of the King, with whom heresy and
treason were identical; success was all but assured, and, if so, war
was glory. Such tactics are not peculiar to the seventeenth century.
In our own day, every one implicated in religious abuses identifies
himself with religion,—brands every exposure of his misconduct as
hostility to the cause of God,—invests his miserable personality
with the benign grandeur of the Gospel,—and stigmatizes as troublers
in Israel all who dare to inquire into his procedure,—while
innumerable dupes or cowards sleepily believe, or cautiously pretend
to do so, that those who have management in a good object must
themselves be good.

X.

Fénélon now requested the royal permission to appeal to Rome; he
obtained it, but was forbidden to repair thither to plead in person
the cause of his book, and ordered to quit the Court and confine
himself to his diocese. The King went to St. Cyr, and expelled
thence three young ladies, for an offence he could not in reality
comprehend,—the sin of Quietism.[360] Intrigue was active, and the
Duke de Beauvilliers was nearly losing his place in the royal
household because of his attachment to Fénélon. The Duke—noble in
spirit as in name, and worthy of such a friendship,—boldly told _Le
Grand Monarque_ that he was ready to leave the palace rather than to
forsake his friend. Six days before the banishment of Fénélon, Louis
had sent to Innocent XII. a letter, drawn up by Bossuet, saying in
effect that the _Maxims_ had been condemned at Paris, that
everything urged in its defence was futile, and that the royal
authority would be exerted to the utmost to execute the decision of
the pontifical chair. Bossuet naturally calculated that a missive,
thus intimating the sentence Infallibility was expected by a great
monarch to pronounce,—arriving almost at the same time with the news
of a disgrace reserved only for the most grave offences,—would
secure the speedy condemnation of Fénélon’s book.

At Rome commenced a series of deliberations destined to extend over
a space of nearly two years. Two successive bodies of adjudicators
were impanelled and dissolved, unable to arrive at a decision. A new
congregation of cardinals was selected, who held scores of long and
wearisome debates, while rumour and intrigue alternately heightened
or depressed the hopes of either party.[361] To write the _Maxims of
the Saints_ was a delicate task. It was not easy to repudiate the
mysticism of Molinos without impugning the mysticism of St. Theresa.
But the position of these judges was more delicate yet. It was still
less easy to censure Fénélon without rendering suspicious, at the
least, the orthodoxy of the most shining saints in the Calendar. On
the one hand, there might be risk of a schism; on the other pressed
the urgency and the influence of a powerful party, the impatience,
almost the menaces of a great king.

The real question was simply this,—Is disinterested love possible?
Can man love God for His own sake alone, with a love, not excluding,
but subordinating all other persons and objects, so that they shall
be regarded only in God who is All in All? If so, is it dangerous to
assert the possibility, to commend this divine ambition, as Fénélon
has done? But the discussion was complicated and inflamed by daily
slander and recrimination, by treachery and insinuation, and by the
honest anger they provoke; by the schemes of personal ambition, by
the rivalry of religious parties, by the political intrigues of the
State, by the political intrigues of the Church; by the interests of
a crew of subaltern agents, who loved to fish in muddy waters; and
by the long cherished animosity between Gallican and Ultramontanist.
Couriers pass and repass continually between Rome and Cambray,
between Rome and Paris. The Abbé Bossuet writes constantly from Rome
to the Bishop of Meaux; the Abbé de Chanterac from the same city to
the Archbishop of Cambray. Chanterac writes like a faithful friend
and a good man; he labours day and night in the cause of Fénélon; he
bids him be of good cheer and put his trust in God. The letters of
the Abbé Bossuet to his uncle are worthy a familiar of the
Inquisition. After circulating calumnies against the character of
Madame Guyon, after hinting that Fénélon was a partaker of her
immoralities as well as of her heresy, and promising, with each
coming post, to produce fresh confessions and new discoveries of the
most revolting licentiousness, he sits down to urge Bossuet to
second his efforts by procuring the banishment of every friend whom
Fénélon yet has at Court; and to secure, by a decisive blow in
Paris, the ruin of that ‘wild beast,’ Fénélon, at Rome. Bossuet lost
no time in acting on the suggestion of so base an instrument.[362]

XI.

At Paris a hot war of letters, pamphlets, and treatises, was
maintained by the leaders, whose quarrel everywhere divided the city
and the court into two hostile encampments. Fénélon offered a
resistance Bossuet had never anticipated, and the veteran polemic
was deeply mortified to see public opinion doubtful, whether he or a
younger rival had won the laurels in argument and eloquence. In an
evil hour for his fame he resolved to crush his antagonist at all
costs; he determined that the laws of honourable warfare should be
regarded no more, that no confidence should be any longer sacred. In
the summer of 1698 the storm burst upon the head of the exile at
Cambray. Early in June, Fénélon heard that the Abbé de Beaumont, his
nephew, and the Abbé de Langeron, his friend, had been dismissed in
disgrace from the office of sub-preceptors to the young Duke of
Burgundy; that Dupuy and De Leschelles, had been banished the Court
because of their attachment to him; that his brother had been
expelled from the marine, and a son of Madame Guyon from the guards;
that the retiring and pacific Fleury had narrowly escaped ignominy
for a similar cause: that the Dukes of Beauvilliers, Chevreuse, and
Guiche, were themselves menaced, and the prospect of their downfall
openly discussed; and that to correspond with him was hereafter a
crime against the State. Within a month, another Job’s messenger
brought him tidings that Bossuet had produced a book entitled _An
Account of Quietism_—an attack so terrible that the dismay of his
remaining friends had almost become despair. Bossuet possessed three
formidable weapons—his influence as a courtier, his authority as a
priest, his powers as an author. He wielded them all at once, and
all of them dishonourably. If he was unfair in the first capacity,
when he invoked the thunders of royalty to ruin the cause of a
theological opponent—if he was unfair in the second, when he
denounced forbearance and silenced intercession as sins against
God,—he was yet more so in the third, when he employed all his
gifts, to weave into a malignant tissue of falsehood and
exaggeration the memoirs of Madame Guyon, the correspondence of
Fénélon with Madame de Maintenon, and his former confidential
letters to himself—letters on spiritual matters to a spiritual
guide—letters which should have been sacred as the secresy of the
Confessional. The sensation created by the _Account of Quietism_ was
prodigious. Bossuet presented his book to the King, whose approval
was for every parasite the authentication of all its slanders.
Madame de Maintenon, with her own hand, distributed copies among the
courtiers; in the salon of Marly nothing else was talked of; in the
beautiful gardens groups of lords and ladies, such as Watteau would
have loved to paint, were gathered on the grass, beside the
fountains, beneath the trees, to hear it read; it was begged,
borrowed, stolen, greedily snatched, and delightedly devoured; its
anecdotes were so piquant, its style so sparkling, its bursts of
indignant eloquence so grand; gay ladies, young and old, dandies,
wits, and libertines, found its scandal so delicious,—Madame Guyon
was so exquisitely ridiculous,—La Combe, so odious a
Tartuffe,—Fénélon, so pitiably displumed of all his shining virtues;
and, what was best of all, the insinuations were worse than the
charges,—the book gave much and promised more,—it hinted at
disclosures more disgraceful yet, and gave free scope to every
malicious invention and every prurient conjecture.[363]

XII.

The generous Fénélon, more thoughtful for others than for himself,
at first hesitated to reply even to such a provocation, lest he
should injure the friends who yet remained to him at Versailles. But
he was soon convinced that their position, as much as his, rendered
an answer imperative. He received Bossuet’s book on the 8th of July,
and by the 13th of August his defence had been written, printed, and
arrived at Rome, to gladden the heart of poor Chanterac, to stop the
mouth of the enemy, and to turn the tide once more in behalf of his
failing party. This refutation, written with such rapidity, and
under such disadvantages, was a masterpiece,—it redeemed his
character from every calumny,—it raised his reputation to its
height,—it would have decided a fair contest completely in his
favour. It was composed when his spirit was oppressed by sorrow for
the ruin of his friends, and darkened by the apprehension of new
injuries which his justification might provoke,—by a proscribed man
at Cambray, remote from the assistance and appliances most
needful,—without a friend to guide or to relieve the labour of
arranging and transcribing documents and of verifying dates, where
scrupulous accuracy was of vital importance,—when it was difficult
to procure correct intelligence from Paris, and hazardous to write
thither lest he should compromise his correspondents,—when even his
letters to Chanterac were not safe from inspection,—when it would be
difficult to find a printer for such a book, and yet more so to
secure its circulation in the metropolis. As it was, D’Argenson, the
lieutenant of police,—a functionary pourtrayed by his contemporaries
as at once the ugliest and most unprincipled of men,—seized a
package of seven hundred copies at the gates of Paris. The _Reply_
appeared, however, and was eagerly read. Even the few who were
neutral, the many who were envious, the host who were prejudiced,
could not withhold their admiration from that lucid and elegant
style—that dignified and unaffected eloquence; numbers yielded, in
secret, at least, to the force of such facts and such arguments;
while all were astonished at the skill and self-command with which
the author had justified his whole career without implicating a
single friend; and leaving untouched the shield of every other
adversary, had concentrated all his force on exposing the
contradictions, the treachery, and the falsehood of Bossuet’s
accusation.[364]

The controversy now draws to a close. Bossuet published _Remarks_ on
the _Reply_ of Fénélon, and Fénélon rejoined with _Remarks_ on the
_Remarks_ of Bossuet. Sixty loyal doctors of the Sorbonne censured
twelve propositions, in the _Maxims_, while Rome was yet undecided.
Towards the close of the same year (1698) Louis wrote a letter to
the Pope, yet more indecently urgent than his former one, demanding
a thorough condemnation of so dangerous a book; and this epistle he
seconded by depriving Fénélon, a few weeks afterwards, of the title
and pension of preceptor—that pension which Fénélon had once nobly
offered to return to a treasury exhausted by ambitious wars.[365]

Innocent XII. had heard, with indignant sorrow, of the arbitrary
measures adopted against Fénélon and his friends. He was mortified
by the arrogance of Louis, by the attempts so openly made to
forestall his judgment. He was accustomed to say that Cambray had
erred through excess of love to God; Meaux, by want of love to his
neighbour. But Louis was evidently roused, and it was not safe to
provoke him too far. After a last effort at a compromise, the Pope
yielded; and the cardinals pronounced a condemnation, far less
complete, however, than the vehemence of the accusers had hoped to
secure. Twenty-three propositions extracted from the _Maxims_, were
censured, but the Pontiff openly declared that such censure did not
extend to the explanations which the Archbishop of Cambray had given
of his book. This sentence was delivered on the 12th of March, 1699.
The submission of Fénélon is famous in history. He received the
intelligence as he was about to ascend the pulpit; he changed his
subject, and preached a sermon on the duty of submission to
superiors.[366] Bossuet endeavoured, in vain, to represent the
obedience which was the first to pronounce the sentence of
self-condemnation, as a profound hypocrisy.

XIII.

Madame Guyon lingered for four years a solitary prisoner in the
dungeons of the Bastille. In the same tower was confined the Man of
the Iron Mask, and she may have heard, in her cell, the melancholy
notes of the guitar with which her fellow-prisoner beguiled a
captivity whose horrors had then lasted seven-and-thirty years.
There, a constitution never strong, was broken down by the stony
chill of rigorous winters, and by the noxious vapours which steamed
from the stagnant moat in summer.[367] She was liberated in 1702,
and sent to Blois,—a picturesque old city, whose steep and narrow
streets, cut into innumerable steps, overlook the Loire,—crowned on
the one side by its fine church, and on the other by the royal
chateau, memorable for the murder of the Guises; its massive
proportions adorned by the varying tastes of successive generations,
then newly beautified after the designs of Mansart, and now a ruin,
the delight of every artist. There she lived in quiet, sought out
from time to time by visitors from distant provinces and other
lands,—as patient under the infirmity of declining age as beneath
the persecutions of her earlier years,—finding, as she had always
done, some sweet in every bitter cup, and a theme for praise in
every trial, purified by her long afflictions, elevated by her hope
of glory, full of charity and full of peace, resigned and happy to
the last. Her latest letter is dated in 1717,—Bossuet had departed,
and Fénélon,—and before the close of that year, she also, the
subject of such long and bitter strife, had been removed beyond all
the tempests of this lower world.

In the judicial combats of ancient Germany, it was the custom to
place in the centre of the lists a bier, beside which stood the
accuser and the accused, at the head and at the foot, leaning there
for some time in solemn silence before they laid lance in rest and
encountered in the deadly shock. Would that religious
controversialists had oftener entered and maintained their combat as
alike in view of that final appeal in the unseen world of truth—with
a deeper and more abiding sense of that supreme tribunal before
which so many differences vanish, and where none but he who has
striven lawfully can receive a crown. Bossuet was regarded as the
champion of Hope, and drew his sword, it was said, lest sacrilegious
hands should remove her anchor. Fénélon girded on his arms to defend
the cause of Charity. Alas! said the Pope—heart-sick of the
protracted conflict—they forget that it is Faith who is in danger.
Among the many witty sayings which the dispute suggested to the
lookers-on, perhaps one of the most significant is that attributed
to the daughter of Madame de Sévigné. ‘M. de Cambray,’ said she,
‘pleads well the cause of God, but M. de Meaux yet better that of
religion, and cannot fail to win the day at Rome.’ Fénélon undertook
to show that his semi-Quietism was supported by the authority of
ecclesiastical tradition, and he was unquestionably in the right. He
might have sustained, on Romanist principles, a doctrine much less
moderate, by the same argument. But it was his wish to render
mysticism as rational and as attractive as possible; and no other
advocate has exhibited it so purified from extravagance, or secured
for it so general a sympathy. The principle of ‘holy indifference,’
however, must be weighed, not by the virtues of Fénélon, but
according to the standard of Scripture,—and such an estimate must,
we believe, pronounce it mistaken.

XIV.