Part 13

Our limits will not allow us to enter, ever so cursorily, into his political career after the renewal of the war. His advice was wise, and consistent with himself; but it was not accepted. The King’s dislike of him was not to be overcome. The death of Mr. Pitt, however, made the admission of Mr. Fox and the Whigs, in conjunction with Lord Grenville, a matter of necessity. Mr. Fox’s desire of peace induced him to take the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and, before his fatal illness, he had begun a negotiation for that main object of his whole life, with every apparent prospect of success. The hopes entertained from his accession to power were prematurely cut off; but his short career in office was honourably marked by the ministerial measure, determined on during his life, and carried after his decease, of the abolition of the Slave Trade.

The complaint of which he died was dropsy, occasioned probably by the duties of office, and the fatigue of constant attendance in the House of Commons, after the comparative seclusion and learned ease in which he had lived for several years. He expired on the 13th of September, 1806, with his senses perfect and his understanding unclouded to the last.

We conclude this brief account of Mr. Fox with the character drawn of him by one who knew him well, and was fully qualified to appreciate him,—Sir James Macintosh.

“Mr. Fox united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, kind, of simple manners, and so averse from dogmatism, as to be not only unostentatious, but even something inactive in conversation. His superiority was never felt but in the instruction which he imparted, or in the attention which his generous preference usually directed to the more obscure members of the company. The simplicity of his manners was far from excluding that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed still more from the mildness of his nature, than from familiar intercourse with the most polished society of Europe. The pleasantry perhaps of no man of wit had so unlaboured an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind, than to be produced by it. He had lived on the most intimate terms with all his contemporaries distinguished by wit, politeness, or philosophy; by learning, or the talents of public life. In the course of thirty years he had known almost every man in Europe, whose intercourse could strengthen, or enrich, or polish the mind. His own literature was various and elegant. In classical erudition, which by the custom of England is more peculiarly called learning, he was inferior to few professed scholars. Like all men of genius, he delighted to take refuge in poetry, from the vulgarity and irritation of business. His own verses were easy and pleasant, and might have claimed no low place among those which the French call _vers de société_. The poetical character of his mind was displayed by his extraordinary partiality for the poetry of the two most poetical nations, or at least languages of the west, those of the Greeks and of the Italians. He disliked political conversation, and never willingly took any part in it.

“To speak of him justly as an orator, would require a long essay. Every where natural, he carried into public something of that simple and negligent exterior which belonged to him in private. When he began to speak, a common observer might have thought him awkward; and even a consummate judge could only have been struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, and the transparent simplicity of his manners. But no sooner had he spoken for some time, than he was changed into another being. He forgot himself and every thing around him. He thought only of his subject. His genius warmed and kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible eloquence swept along their feelings and conviction. He certainly possessed above all moderns that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence, which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since the days of Demosthenes. ‘I knew him,’ says Mr. Burke, in a pamphlet written after their unhappy difference, ‘when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen, by slow degrees, to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw.’

“The quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great objects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt of show, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness and downrightness, and the thorough good nature which distinguished Mr. Fox, seem to render him no unfit representative of the old English character, which if it ever changed, we should be sanguine indeed to expect to see it succeeded by a better. The simplicity of his character inspired confidence, the ardour of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the gentleness of his manners invited friendship. ‘I admired,’ says Mr. Gibbon, after describing a day passed with him at Lausanne, ‘the powers of a superior man, as they are blended, in his attractive character, with all the softness and simplicity of a child: no human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood.’

“The measures which he supported or opposed may divide the opinion of posterity, as they have divided those of the present age. But he will most certainly command the unanimous reverence of future generations, by his pure sentiments towards the commonwealth; by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of all men; by his liberal principles, favourable to mild government, to the unfettered exercise of the human faculties, and the progressive civilization of mankind; by his ardent love for a country, of which the well-being and greatness were, indeed, inseparable from his own glory; and by his profound reverence for that free constitution which he was universally admitted to understand better than any other man of his age, both in an exactly legal and in a comprehensively philosophical sense.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

_Engraved by R. Woodman._

BOSSUET.

_From the original Picture by H. Rigaud, in the Collection of the Institute of France._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._ ]

[Illustration]

BOSSUET

The life of the Bishop of Meaux, a theologian and polemic familiarly known to his countrymen as the oracle of their church, forms an important part of the ecclesiastical history of the seventeenth century. A short personal memoir of such a man can serve only to excite curiosity, and in some measure to direct more extended inquiries.

Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, whose father and ancestors were honourably distinguished in the profession of the law, was born at Dijon, September 27, 1627. He was placed in his childhood at the college of the Jesuits in his native town; whence, at the age of fifteen, he was removed to the college of Navarre in Paris. At both these places his progress as a student was so rapid that he passed for a prodigy. It may be mentioned, not more as a proof of precocious intellect than as characteristic of the times, that soon after his removal to Paris, whither the fame of his genius had preceded him, he was invited to exhibit his powers as a preacher at the Hotel de Rambouillet in his sixteenth year. His performance was received with great approbation.

In the year 1652 he was ordained priest, and, his talents having already made him known, he soon after received preferment in the cathedral church of Metz, of which he became successively canon, archdeacon, and dean. It was here that he published his Refutation of the Catechism of Paul Ferri, a protestant divine of high reputation. This was the first of that series of controversial writings which contributed, more than all his other works, to procure for him the high authority which he enjoyed in the church. He came forward in the field of controversy at a time when public attention was fixed on the subject, and when the favourite object both with Church and State was the peaceable conversion of the Protestants.

Richelieu in the preceding reign had crushed, by the vigour of his administration, the political power of the Protestant party. He, in common with many other statesmen, Catholic and Protestant, had conceived a notion that uniformity of religious profession was necessary to the tranquillity of the state. But, though unchecked in the prosecution of his objects by any scruples of conscience or feelings of humanity, he would have considered the employment of force, where persuasion could be effectual, to be, in the language of a modern politician, not a crime but a blunder. When therefore the army had done its work, he put in

## action a scheme for reclaiming the Protestants by every species of

politic contrivance. The system commenced by him was continued by others; and of all those who laboured in the cause, Bossuet was indubitably the most able and the most distinguished.

His first effort, the Refutation of the Catechism, recommended him to the notice of the Queen-Mother; and the favour which he now enjoyed at court was further increased by the fame of his eloquence in the pulpit, which he had frequent opportunities of displaying at Paris, whither he was called from time to time by ecclesiastical business. He was summoned to preach at the chapel of the Louvre before Louis XIV., who was pleased to express, in a letter to Bossuet’s father, the great delight which he received from the sermons of his son; for the versatile taste of the great monarch enabled him in one hour to recreate himself with the wit and beauty of his mistresses, and in the next to listen with undiminished pleasure to the exhortations of a Christian pastor. But Bossuet had still stronger claims on the gratitude of Louis by converting to the Roman Catholic faith the celebrated Turenne. This victory is said to have been achieved by his well-known Exposition, written in the year 1668, and published in 1671.

So great was his influence at this time, that he was requested by the Archbishop of Paris to interfere in one of those many disputes which the Papal decrees against the tenets of Jansenius occasioned. The nuns of Port-Royal, who were attached to the doctrine and discipline of the Jansenists, were required to subscribe the celebrated Formulary, which selected for condemnation five propositions said to be contained in a certain huge work of Jansenius. Those excellent women modestly submitted, that they were ready to accept any doctrine propounded by the Church, and even to affix their names to the condemnation of the obnoxious propositions; but that they could not assert that these propositions were to be found in a book which they had never seen. In this difficulty the assistance of Bossuet was requested, who, after several conferences, wrote a long letter to the refractory nuns, highly commended for its acute logic and sound divinity. Much of the logic and divinity was probably thrown away upon the persons for whose use they were intended; but there was one part of the letter sufficiently intelligible. He congratulated them on their total exemption from all obligation to examine, and from the task of self-guidance; and assured them that it was their bounden duty, as well as their happy privilege, to subscribe and assent to every thing which was placed before them by authority. The nuns were not convinced. They escaped however for the present; but in the end they paid dearly for their passive resistance to the decision of Pope Alexander VII. on a matter of fact.

In the year 1669, Bossuet was promoted to the bishopric of Condom, which he resigned the following year on being appointed to the important office of Preceptor to the Dauphin.

History has told us nothing of the pupil, but that his capacity was mean, and his disposition sordid. To him, however, the world is indebted for the most celebrated of Bossuet’s performances. The Introduction to Universal History was written expressly for his use; and this masterly work may serve to confirm an opinion, entertained even by his friends, that Bossuet was not peculiarly qualified for his situation. To compose such a work for such a boy was worse than a waste of power.

Though devoted closely and conscientiously to the duties of his new office, he was not altogether withdrawn from what might be called his vocation, the prosecution of controversy. It was during the period of his connexion with the Court, that his celebrated conference occurred with the Protestant Claude. Mlle. de Duras, a niece of Turenne, had conceived scruples respecting the soundness of her Protestant principles, from the perusal of Bossuet’s ‘Exposition.’ She consulted M. Claude, who promised to resolve her doubts in the presence of Bossuet himself. The challenge was accepted, and the memorable conference was the result. Both parties published an account of it; and their statements, as might be expected without suspicion of dishonesty on either side, did not entirely agree. The lady was content to follow the example of her uncle.

Bossuet’s engagement with the Dauphin was concluded in the year 1681, when he was rewarded with the bishopric of Meaux. In so short a memoir of such a man, where only the most prominent occurrences of his life can be noticed, there is danger lest the reader should regard him only in the character of a controversialist, or in the proud station of acknowledged leader of the Church. It is the more necessary, therefore, in this place to observe, that, to the comparatively obscure but really important duties of his diocese, he brought the same zeal and energy which he displayed on a more conspicuous theatre; and that he could readily exchange the pen of the polemic for that of the devout and affectionate pastor.

Louis, however, was not disposed to leave the Bishop undisturbed in his retirement. He was soon called forth to be the advocate of his temporal against his spiritual master.

The Kings of France had long exercised certain powers in ecclesiastical matters, which had rather been tolerated than sanctioned by the Popes. Louis was determined not only to preserve, but considerably to extend, what his predecessors had enjoyed. Hence a sharp altercation was carried on for many years between him and the See of Rome. But, in 1682, in consequence of a threatening brief issued by that haughty pontiff, Innocent XII., he summoned, by the advice of his clergy, for the purpose of settling the matters in debate, a general Assembly of the Church. Of this famous Assembly Bossuet was deservedly regarded as the most influential member. He opened the proceedings with a sermon, having reference to the subjects which were to come under consideration. In this discourse the reader may find, perhaps, some marks of that embarrassment which he is supposed to have felt. He had the deepest sense of the unbounded power and awful majesty of kings in general, and the highest personal veneration for Louis in particular; but then, on the other hand, the degree of allegiance which he owed to his spiritual head it was almost impiety to define. So, after having illustrated, with all the force of his eloquence, the inviolable dignity of the Church, and fully established the supremacy of St. Peter, he carries up, as it were in a parallel line, the loftiest panegyric on the monarchy and monarchs of France.

The discourse was celebrated for its ability, and without doubt the conflicting topics were managed with great skill. His difficulties did not cease with the dismissal of the Assembly. The question of the Régale, or the right of the King to the revenues of every vacant see, and to collate to the simple benefices within its jurisdiction, was settled not at all to the satisfaction of the Pope; and the declaration of the Assembly, drawn up by Bossuet himself, was fiercely attacked by the Transalpine divines. It was, of course, as vigorously defended by its author, who was in consequence accused by all his enemies, and some of his friends, of having forgotten his duty to the Pope in his subserviency to the King.

Nothing wearied by his exertions in the royal cause, he had scarcely left the Assembly, when he resumed his labours in defence of the Church against heresy. Several smaller works, put forth from time to time, seemed to be only a preparation for his great effort in the year 1688, when he published his ‘History of the Variations in the Protestant Churches.’ In this book he has made the most of what may be called the staple argument of the Catholics against the Protestants.

The course of the narrative has now brought us beyond the period of the memorable revocation of the Edict of Nantes; and it will naturally be asked, in what light Bossuet regarded this act of folly and oppression. Neither his disposition nor his judgment would lead him to approve the atrocities perpetrated by the government; but, in a letter to the Intendant of Languedoc, he labours to justify the use of pains and penalties in enforcing religious conformity; that is, he justifies the act of Louis XIV. In this matter he was not advanced beyond his times; but, whatever may have been his theory of the lawfulness of persecution, his conduct towards the Protestants was such as to obtain for him the praise even of his opponents.

Hitherto we have seen Bossuet labouring incessantly to reconcile the Huguenots of France to the established religion. But, about this time, he took part in a more grand and comprehensive measure, sanctioned by the Emperor, and some other sovereign princes of Germany, for the reunion of the great body of the Lutherans throughout Europe with the Roman Catholic Church. They engaged the Bishop of Neustadt to open a communication with Molanus, a Protestant doctor of high reputation in Hanover. With these negotiators were afterwards joined Leibnitz on the part of the Protestants, and Bossuet on that of the Roman Catholics. Between these two great men the correspondence was carried on for ten years, in a spirit worthy of themselves and the cause in which they were engaged; and it terminated, as probably they both expected that it would terminate, in leaving the two Churches in the same state of separation in which it found them.

It would have been well for the fame of Bossuet if the course of his latter days had been marked only by this defeat,—if it had not been signalized, when grey hairs had increased the veneration which his genius and services had procured him, by an inglorious victory over a weak woman, and a friend. The history of Madame Guyon, and the revival of mysticism under the name of Quietism, principally by her means, will more properly be found in a Life of Fenelon. The part which Bossuet took in the proceedings respecting her must be here very briefly noticed. As universal referee in matters of religion, he was called upon to examine her doctrines, which began to excite the jealousy of the Church. His conduct towards her, in the first instance, was mild and forbearing; but either zeal or anger betrayed him at length into a cruel persecution of this amiable visionary. Fenelon, who had partly adopted her views of Christian perfection, and thoroughly admired her Christian character, was required by Bossuet to surrender to him at once his opinions and his feelings. Fenelon was willing to do much, but would not consent to sacrifice his integrity to the offended pride of the irritated prelate. He defended his opinions in print, and the points in debate were, by his desire, referred to the Pope; and to him they should in common decency have been left: but we are disgusted with a detail of miserable intrigues, carried on in the council appointed by the Pope to examine the matter, and of vehement remonstrances with which his holiness himself was assailed, with the avowed object of extorting a reluctant condemnation. The warmest friends of Bossuet do not attempt to defend him on the plea that these things were done without his concurrence; they insist only on his disinterested zeal for religion. But let it be remembered, that this interference with Papal deliberation proceeded from one who believed the Vicar of Christ to be solemnly deciding, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, a point of faith for the benefit of the whole Catholic Church. Bossuet triumphed; and from that moment sunk perceptibly in the general esteem of his countrymen.

During the few remaining years of his life he maintained his wonted

## activity, and in his last illness we find with pleasure that the Bible

was his companion, and that he could employ his intervals of repose from severe suffering in composing a commentary on the 23d psalm. He died April 12, 1704, in his 76th year.

The authority which Bossuet acquired was such, that he may be said not only to have guided the Gallican Church during his life, but in some measure to have left upon it the permanent impression of his own character. Of this authority no adequate notion can be formed from the preceding sketch. Few even of his works, which fill twenty volumes quarto, have been noticed. It should, however, be mentioned that he was employed by Louis XIV. in an attempt to overcome the religious scruples of James II., whose conscience revolted from that exercise of the prerogative in favour of the Protestant Church, which his restoration to the throne would have required. The laboured and somewhat extraordinary letter which Bossuet wrote on this occasion is dated May 22, 1693.