f the directors who interfere even in the
slightest thoughts and affections, _he did not relish this practice_
towards those souls which loved God and had made some progress in
spiritual life."

His correspondence is praiseworthy, noble, and serious. You will not
find in it the too loving tenderness of Saint Francois de Sales, and
still less the refinement and impassioned subtilties of Fenelon.
Bossuet's letters, though less austere, resemble those of Saint-Cyran
by their seriousness. They often contain a grandeur of style little
suited to the humble and ordinary person to whom they are generally
addressed, but very advantageous in keeping her at a distance, and
preventing too close an intimacy even in the most unreserved private
conversation.

If this correspondence has reached us in a more complete form than that
of Fenelon, we are indebted for it (at least for the most curious part
of it) to the veneration which one of Bossuet's penitents, the good
Widow Cornuau, entertained for his memory. That worthy person, in
transmitting these letters to us, has religiously left in them a number
of details, humiliating enough for herself. She has forgotten her own
vanity, and thought only of the glory of her spiritual father. In
this, she has been very happily guided by her attachment for him;
perhaps, indeed, she has done more for him than any panegyrist. These
noble letters written in such profound secrecy, and never intended to
see daylight, are worthy of being exhibited to the public.

This good widow tells us, that when she had the happiness of going to
see him in his retirement at Meaux, he received her occasionally "in a
small, very cold, and smoky room." This is, according to all
appearances, the small summer-house, which is shown even in our time,
at the end of the garden, on the old rampart of the city, which forms
the terrace of the episcopal palace. The cabinet is on the
ground-floor, and above it, in a small loft, slept the valet, who awoke
Bossuet early every morning. A dark narrow alley of yews and holly
leads to this dull apartment: these are old dwarf stunted trees, which
have entwined their knotty branches and their dark prickly leaves.
Dreams of the past dwell for ever here; here you may still find all the
difficulties of those grand polemical questions, now so remote from us,
the disputes of Jurien and Claude, with the stately history of the
Variations, and the deadly battle of Quietism, envenomed