le of quietism, and his
consequent quarrel with Bossuet, there is no need to enter further.
Whichever of the two may have been theologically in the right, there are
no two opinions on the question that Bossuet was in the wrong, both in
the acrimony of his conduct and the violence of his language. In the
latter respect, indeed, he brought down upon himself a well-deserved
punishment. Fenelon was the mildest of men, but he possessed a faculty
of quiet irony inferior to that of no man then living, and he used it
with effect in the controversy against Bossuet's declamatory
denunciations. When, at last, the matter had been referred to the Pope,
and judgment had been given against himself, Fenelon at once bowed to
the decision and acknowledged his error. Louis, however, had many more
reasons for disliking him than the mere odium theologicum with which
Bossuet had inspired him. Fenelon was known to disapprove of much in the
actual government of France, and the surreptitious publication of
_Telemaque_ completed his disgrace. He was banished from court and
confined to his diocese, in which he accordingly spent the last part of
his life, doing his best to alleviate the misery caused on the borders
by the war of the Spanish succession, and dying at Cambray in 1715.

Fenelon was an industrious writer. Few of his finished sermons have been
preserved; but these are excellent, as are also his fables written for
the Duke de Bourgogne, his already-mentioned _Education des Filles_, and
his _Dialogues des Morts_, also written for the Duke, in which the form
is borrowed from Lucian, but in which moral lessons are substituted for
mere satire. Like Bossuet, Fenelon was a Cartesian, and his _Traite de
l'Existence de Dieu_ is a philosophico-religious work of no small merit.
In literary history he is remarkable for having directly opposed the
victorious work of Boileau. He has left several exercises in literary
criticism, such as his _Lettre sur les Occupations de l'Academie
Francaise_, one of the latest of his works; his _Dialogues sur
l'Eloquence_, and a contribution to the famous dispute of ancients and
moderns in correspondence with La Motte. He regretted the impoverishment
of the language, and the loss of much of the energy and picturesque
vigour of the sixteenth century. In his controversy with Bossuet, though
the matter is not strictly literary, there is, as has been noticed, much
admirable literary work; but his chief claim to a place in