Fexelon. I. Francois de Salignac de la Mothe, or Lamotte, a French prelate and author, born at the chateau of Fenelon, in Perigord, Aug. 6, 1651, died in Cambrai, Jan. 7, 1715. He was the son of Pons de Salignac, count de la Mothe Fenelon, and a nephew of the marquis de Fenelon, under whose care he received much of his education. At the age of 12 he was sent to the university of Cahors, and a few years later he removed to Paris in order to complete his course of philosophy in the college of Plessis. He next entered the theological seminary of St. Sulpice, under the direction of the abb6 Tronson, and about 1675 received holy orders. He wished at first to devote himself to foreign missions, but this design was overruled; and after three years passed as a preacher and cate-chist at the church of St. Sulpice, he was appointed by the archbishop of Paris superior of the society of Nouvelles Catholiques, established for the instruction of female converts. Meanwhile he cultivated the friendship of the abbe Fleury and of Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, and was a frequent guest at the brilliant reunions which took place at the bishop's country seat. The distinguished society into which he was thus thrown, the charm of his manners, and his eloquence in the pulpit, soon drew him into public notice.

To enable him to meet his expenses, one of his uncles, the bishop of Sar-lat, gave him a small living at which' he was not required to reside permanently. It yielded him 3,000 francs a year, much of which he spent upon the poor, and this until 1694 was his only income. His first public service was in the capacity of missionary to the Protestants in Saintonge and Poitou, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was presented to Louis XIV. by Bossuet, and the only favor he asked of the king in accepting the office was that no violence should be used within the field of his mission. Aided by the abbes de Lan-geron and Fleury, but still more by his own mild and amiable character, he succeeded in winning over large numbers of the Protestants, and soon tranquillized a population whom persecution had roused to a dangerous excitement. After his return to Paris in 1689 Louis appointed him preceptor to his grandsons, the dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and Berry. For their use Fenelon composed "Dialogues of the Dead, "Directions for the Conscience of a King,"

"Abridgment of the Lives of Ancient Philosophers," and the "Adventures of Telemachus." The success with which he discharged his important and delicate trust gained him for some time neither praise nor pecuniary reward. Louis, though not blind to his merit, was never his friend; but Mme. de Maintenon had long been one of his warmest admirers, and it was probably through her influence that he received in 1694 the rich abbacy of St. Valery. Toward the close of this year he drafted the famous anonymous letter to the king, setting forth the disorders and abuses of his reign, which was first published by D'Alembert, and whose authenticity, after much dispute, was settled by the discovery of the original MS. in 1825. It is not probable that Louis suspected the author, for in the following February he nominated Fenelon to the archbishopric of Cambrai. The ceremony of consecration was performed in the chapel of St. Cyr, July 10, 1G95, but the new prelate retained his connection with his pupils, with whom it was arranged that he should pass three months of every year.

Honored by the king, beloved by the young princes, esteemed and consulted by the most influential person of the court, and holding high stations in the church and the palace, he was now at the height of his prosperity; but his disgrace was already preparing. With a natural tendency to all that is mild and spiritual in religion, he had long felt a sympathy for the doctrines of Mme. Guyon, whose system of quietism was attracting a large share of attention at court, and had gained proselytes in the king's household. She was charged with heresy, and demanded a commission to inquire into the | matter. Bossuet, the bishop of Chalons, and ! Tronson were appointed. Besides the writings of Mme. Guyon, the commission was obliged to investigate what Fenelon was daily writing and preaching on the subject, perhaps with the intention of turning upon himself the condemnation that was threatening his friend. Fenelon was so humble in his intercourse with the commission, that his judges, though startled at his errors, would urge nothing against him. These conferences had lasted nearly a year, and it was necessary to put an end to them. Bossuet and his two colleagues agreed upon a series of articles which should settle the matter; and making a sort of formulary, they invited Fenelon to subscribe to it.

He hesitated for a long time, but at last acceded to the demands of the prelates. During the interval of editing and signing the formulary, Fenelon was called to the archbishopric of Cambrai, and after his consecration occurred between him and Bossuet that celebrated controversy which forms almost an epoch in French literature. As Archbishop Fenelon assumed a more decided tone, Bossuet explained the articles of the formulary in an abridged report of the previous conferences, and asked Fenelon to give this book, entitled Instructions sur les etats d'orai-son, his ecclesiastical approbation, as the other two prelates of the commission had done. Fenelon refused; he would not even read the book; and from this refusal dates the literary war between these two great prelates. Fenelon published his famous book, Maximes des saints. Bossuet denounced him to the court as a fanatic; the king struck his name from the list of preceptors to the royal family, and ordered him to retire to his diocese; Mme. de Maintenon withdrew her favor, and his friendship for Mme. Guyon was even made a theme for the grossest calumnies. He sent the obnoxious book to Rome, where Louis used all his influence to obtain its condemnation.

After a delay of nine months Innocent XII. pronounced a mild censure of the Maximcs des saints, but addressed at the same time to certain prelates who had been most severe in their attacks on the author the following caustic rebuke: Peccavit excessu amoris divini, sed vos peccastis defectu amoris proximi (" He has sinned through excess of love of God, but you have sinned through lack of love for your neighbor"). Immediately on receiving the sentence, in March, 1G99, Fenelon hastened to declare his submission, and to publish the condemnation of his own book in a mandatory letter. In the following month his Arentures de Telemaque, which had hitherto remained in manuscript, was given to the world by the dishonesty of a servant who had been employed to have the work copied, but who sold it to a bookseller without disclosing the author's name. The king having been told that it was from the pen of the archbishop of Cambrai, and probably sharing a suspicion then current that the book was designed as a satire on the court, took measures to suppress it. A few copies escaped seizure, and an imperfect edition was printed in Holland in 1699, and others followed rapidly.

This event destroyed all hope of restoration to royal favor, and for the rest of his life Fenelon devoted himself exclusively to the affairs of his diocese and to literary pursuits. It was now that his character was seen in its brightest light. He visited the peasants in their cottages, shared their humble fare, heard their complaints, relieved their wants, and made his palace an asylum for the unfortunate. His charities were enormous. When his diocese was traversed by hostile armies during the war of the Spanish succession, he was allowed to pass unhindered through the ranks of the enemy on his errands of benevolence. He founded the theological seminary of Cambrai, and devoted himself to the instruction of the clergy. When his pupil the duke of Burgundy became dauphin by the death of his father, he addressed to him a "Plan of Government," proposing the establishment of states general and provincial, with many reforms in public administration; and had the prince lived to reign, it is thought that Fenelon would have been his prime minister. The archbishop did not long survive his pupil. -Of the excellence of Fenelon's best work, the "Adventures of Telemachus," no better proof could he given than its general and lasting popularity.

Hallam denies it the high character of an epic, but gives it the first place among classical romances. It has been translated into nearly all European languages, and has been turned into verse in English, Latin. Greek, etc. His controversial writings, which comprise works against the Jansenists and Gal-licans, on quietism, etc., are distinguished by an unwonted preference of individual Christian experience to the testimony of the traditions of the church, and Catholic critics stigmatize them as chimerical. His spiritual works, a collection of which {(Euvresspirituelles, 5 vols.

12mo) appeared at Amsterdam in 1731, are used by persons of all denominations. His sermons (12mo, 1744), written during his youth, hold no very high place among productions of their kind, though not without eloquent passages. Among his other works are: Traite de Veducation des filles (12mo, 1687), written at the request of the duchess de Beauvilliers; Traite du minister'e des pasteurs (1688); Demonstration de Vexistence de Dieu (1713), after "Telemachus his longest and most important work; and Dialogues sur Veloquence en general, et sur celle de la chaire en particiilier, with a Lettre surla rhetorique et la poesie, addressed to the French academy (1718). An edition appeared at Paris in 1787-92 (9 vols. 4to), at the cost of the assembly of the clergy of France, but does not contain the Maximes des saints, the Mandements, nor the writings on Jansenism and quietism. The best editions of Fene-lon's complete works are those by Gosselin and Caron (34 vols., Versailles and Paris, 1820-30), Adrien Leclere (38 vols., Paris, 1827-30), and the abbe Gosselin (10 vols, large 8vo, Lille, 1852). The best editions of his literary works are Didier's (Paris, 1861) and Ducrocq's (1862); of his philosophical works, Charpentier's (Paris, 1843) and Hachette's (1860); and that of his educational works, Didot's (Paris, 1850). Of the English translations ofTelemachus," the most esteemed is that of John Hawkesworth, LL. D. (4to, London, 1768, and 12mo, New York, 1859). His life has been written by the chevalier Ramsay (the Hague, 1723), his grand-nephew Francois Louis, marquis de la Mothe-Fenelon (1747), Y. M. de Querbeuf (published with the Paris edition of 1787-92), Cardinal Bausset (3 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1808-'9; translated into English by Mudford, London, 1810, and abridged by Charles Butler, 1810), Lemaire (Paris, 1826), Celarier (Paris, 1844), Villemain, Lamartine, etc.

The Histoire litteraire de Fenelon, ou Revue nistorique et analytique de ses ceuvres, by the abbe Gosselin, appeared in 1843.

II. Francois de Salignae de la Mothe, a French missionary, half brother of the preceding, born in 1641, died in 1679. He entered the congregation of St. Sul-pice, and was sent to Canada in 1667. He was soon after missionary to some Cayuga Indians who had settled on Quinte bay, Canada, and founded an establishment for Indian children. During the collision between church and state he preached a sermon at Montreal in 1674, for which the count de Frontenac arrested him and brought him to Quebec. Fenelon refused to recognize the governor's authority or to remove his hat, on which Frontenac sent him out of the colony to France. The identity of names and profession led Hennepin to confound the two brothers, and some American writers have thus been led to believe that the author of Tele-machus was a missionary in New York.