to
sorrow after him, to yearn for him, to bind themselves more and more to
him, as the Jews to Jerusalem, and to sigh after his return and hope
continually for it, just as that unfortunate people still expects and
sighs after the Messiah."

Those faithful friends were dropping one after another. The death of the
Duke of Burgundy and of the Duke of Chevreuse in 1712, and that of the
Duke of Beauvilliers in 1714, were a fatal blow to the affections as well
as to the ambitious hopes of Fenelon. Of delicate health, worn out by
the manifold duties of the episcopate, inwardly wearied by long and vain
expectation, he succumbed on the 7th of January, 1715, at the moment when
the attraction shown by the Duke of Orleans towards him and "the king's
declining state" were once more renewing his chances of power. "He was
already consulted in private and courted again in public," says St.
Simon, "because the inclination of the rising sun had already shown
through." He died, however, without letting any sign of yearning for
life appear, "regardless of all that he was leaving, and occupied solely
with that which he was going to meet, with a tranquillity, a peace, which
excluded nothing but disquietude, and which included penitence,
despoilment, and a unique care for the spiritual affairs of his diocese."
The Christian soul was detaching itself from the world to go before God
with sweet and simple confidence. "O, how great is God! how all in all!
How as nothing are we when we are so near Him, and when the veil which
conceals Him from us is about to lift!" [_Euvres de Fenelon, Lettres
Spirituelles,_ xxv. 128.]

[Illustration: Bossuet----591]

So many fires smouldering in the hearts, so many different struggles
going on in the souls, that sought to manifest their personal and
independent life have often caused forgetfulness of the great mass of the
faithful who were neither Jansenists nor Quietists. Bossuet was the real
head and the pride of the great Catholic church of France in the
seventeenth century; what he approved of was approved of by the immense
majority of the French clergy, what he condemned was condemned by them.
Moderate and prudent in conduct as well as in his opinions, pious without
being fervent, holding discreetly aloof from all excesses, he was a
Gallican without fear and without estrangement as regarded the papal
power, to which he steadfastly paid homage. It was with pain, and not
without having sought to esc