markable work dates from this time. Francois
de Sales was born at Annecy in 1567. He was destined for the law, and
completed his education for it at Paris, but his vocation for the church
was stronger, and he took orders in 1593. He soon distinguished himself
by reconverting a considerable number of persons to the Roman form of
faith in the district of Chablais, and at the beginning of the
seventeenth century preached at Paris, and latterly at Dijon. He was
soon made bishop of Geneva, an episcopate which, it need hardly be said,
might almost be described as _in partibus infidelium_. But in the south
of France, in Savoy, and in Paris itself, his influence was great. His
chief works are the 'Introduction to a Devout Life' (1608), the _Traite
de l'Amour de Dieu_, 'Spiritual Letters' (to Madame de Chantal), and
sermons. His style is by no means destitute of archaism, but it is
clear, fluent, and agreeable. He and Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles,
with other preachers whose names are now forgotten, were the chief
instruments in recovering the art of sacred oratory from the low estate
into which it had fallen during the heat of the religious wars and the
League, when it had been disgraced alternately by violence and
buffoonery. But the Thirty Years' War and the Fronde were again
unfavourable to theological discussion, except of a quasi-political
kind, and the best spirits of this time threw themselves into the
unpopular direction of Jansenism. The 'Siecle de Louis Quatorze' proper,
that is the period subsequent to 1660, was the palmy time, from the
literary point of view, of theological eloquence and discussion in
France.

[Sidenote: Bossuet.]

Of the authors already named Bossuet deserves precedence in almost every
respect except that of private character. Jacques Benigne Bossuet[279]
was born at Dijon, in 1627, of a family of distinction in the middle
class. He went to school to the Jesuits in his native town, and finished
his education at the College de Navarre in Paris, receiving his doctor's
degree and a canonry at Metz in 1652. He soon distinguished himself both
as an orator and a controversialist, preached before the king in Advent
1661, and in 1669 was appointed to the bishopric of Condom. His
subsequent appointment to the post of tutor to the Dauphin made him
resign his bishopric; but on the completion of his task (in virtue of
which he had been elected to the Academy in 1680) he was made almoner to
the prince, and