ossuet's character was unamiable, and, despite the affected frankness
with which he spoke to the king, it will always remain a blot on his
memory that he did not seriously protest either against the loose life
of Louis, or against his ruinous ambition and lawless disregard of the
rights of nations. There is, however, no doubt whatever of his perfect
sincerity and of the genuineness of his belief in political autocracy,
provided that the autocrat was a faithful son of the Church. He was a
Cartesian, and was probably not unindebted to Descartes for the force
and vigour of his reasonings, though he was hardly so careful as his
master in enlarging the field of his knowledge and assuring the validity
of his premises. The extraordinary majesty of his rhetoric, perhaps,
brings out by force of contrast the occasionally fallacious character of
his reasoning, but it must be confessed that even as a controversialist
he has few equals. The rhetorical excellence of the _Oraisons_ and the
gorgeous sweep, not merely of the language but of the conception, in the
_Histoire Universelle_, show him at what is really his best; while many
isolated expressions betray at once an intimate knowledge of the human
heart, and a hardly surpassed faculty of clothing that knowledge in
words. Bossuet no doubt is more of a speaker than a writer. His
excellence lies in the wonderful survey, and grasp of the subject
(qualities which make his favourite literary nickname of the 'Eagle of
Meaux' more than usually appropriate), in the contagious enthusiasm and
energy with which he attacks his point, in his inexhaustible metaphors
and comparisons. He has not the unfailing charm of Malebranche, nor that
which belongs in a less degree, and with more mannerism, to Fenelon; he
is very unequal, and small blemishes of style abound in him. Thus, in
his most famous passage, the description of the sudden death of
Henrietta of Orleans, occurs the phrase 'comme un coup de _tonnerre_
cette _etonnante_ nouvelle,' a jingle of words as unpleasant as it is
easily avoided. But blemishes of this kind (and it is, perhaps,
noteworthy that French is more tolerant of them than almost any other
language of equal literary perfection) disappear in the volume and force
of the torrent of Bossuet's eloquence. It is fair to add that, though he
is almost always aiming at the sublime, he scarcely ever oversteps it,
or falls into the bombastic and the ridiculous. Even his elaborate
eulogy (it