in the following year received the bishopric of Meaux.
He was soon after engaged in the Gallican controversy, in which he
defended not so much the rights of the Church as the claims of the royal
prerogative. The most unfortunate incident of his life was his
controversy with Fenelon. Bossuet, though thoroughly learned in some
respects, was not a man of the widest culture, and the whole region of
mystical theology was unknown to him. He, therefore, mistook certain
utterances of the archbishop of Cambray, which were neither new nor
alarming, for heterodox innovations, and began a violent polemic against
him. Supported by the king, he was able to obtain a nominal victory, but
the moral success rested with Fenelon, and still more the advantage in
the literary duel. Bossuet died in 1704. His works were very numerous,
and of very various kinds. His first reputation was, as has been said,
earned as a controversialist (his principal adversaries in this respect
were the Protestant ministers Ferri and Claude) and as a preacher on
general subjects. On his appointment to the see of Condom, however, he
struck out a new line, that of funeral discourses (_oraisons funebres_),
and produced, on the occasions of the death of the two Henriettas of
England, mother and daughter, of the great Conde, of the
Princess-Palatine, and of others, works which are undoubtedly triumphs
of French eloquence, and which, with the exception of the best passages
of Burke, are perhaps the only things of the kind comparable to the
masterpieces of antiquity. His controversial work is equal in perfection
of execution to his oratory, the _Exposition de la Doctrine de l'Eglise
Catholique_, and still more the _Histoire des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes_, being deservedly regarded as models of their kind,
notwithstanding the obvious fallacy pervading the latter. Of his other
works the most remarkable (perhaps the most remarkable of all if
originality of conception and breadth of design be taken into account)
is his _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle jusqu'a l'Empire de
Charlemagne_. This has, though not universally, been held to be the
first attempt at the philosophy of history, that is to say, the first
work in which general history is regarded and expounded from a single
comprehensive point of view, and laws of a universal kind drawn from it.
In Bossuet's case the point of view is, of course, strictly theological,
and the laws are arranged accordingly.

B