rame, not to
disguise its emptiness, but to incase its energies, and to ease and
beautify its action. With this reservation, we will allow it to be said
that his mind was more graceful than strong.

His heart was equally balanced with his intellect. Piety and humanity,
dignity and humility, justice and mercy, blended in the happiest
equilibrium. His gentleness never led him to forget due self-respect, or
forego any opportunity of speaking unwelcome truths. Bossuet and Louis, in
their pride, as well as young Burgundy, in his confiding attachment, had
more than one occasion to recognize the singular truthfulness of this
gentle spirit. Measured by prevalent standards, his character may be said
to lack one element--fear. His life was love. The text that the beloved
disciple drew from his Master's bosom was the constant lesson of his
soul: "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love."

His active powers were great, for he filled with efficiency posts of duty
so various as to call for different orders of ability. Priest, preceptor,
prelate, as well as statesman, poet, orator, theologian, he was eminent in
every capacity, and in each sphere took something from his distinction by
being rival of himself in other spheres. Take him for all in all--allowing
to other men superior excellence in single departments--where can we find
a man on the whole so perfect as he was?

I am well aware that he has not escaped disparagement, and that the
animadversions of his contemporary, St. Simon, have been more than
repeated in the suspicions of the over-skeptical historian Michelet. True,
that the courtesy that won the hearts alike of master and servant, the
high-born lady who sought his society and the broken-spirited widow who
asked his Christian counsel, has been ascribed to a love of praise that
rejoiced in every person's homage, or a far-sighted policy that desired
every person's suffrage. True, that his self-denial has been called a deep
self-interest that would win high honors by refusing to accept the less
rewards. True, that his piety has sometimes been called sentimentalism,
and an alloy of baser emotion has been hinted at as running through some
of his letters to enthusiastic devotees. True, that he has been called
very politic and ambitious. We claim for him no superhuman perfection. Nor
do we deny that he was a Frenchman, whilst we maintain that he was every
inch a man.

But let him be judged not by a skeptical suspici