Note 108 — CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA. (continued 7)

A letter of Fénélon is preserved, addressed to Louis XIV., and written before he was made archbishop. This letter predicts all the disasters that afterwards befel France; it speaks of the wrongs and sufferings of the people, and the misrule of the ministers, with freedom, vigour, and truth. There can be no doubt that the king never saw it. He would never have forgiven such interference with his measures or censures of the people about him. The language of truth would have been so odious that the speaker of it would never have been archbishop. The dislike of the king arose from another circumstance. After his elevation to the see of Cambray, Louis heard his peculiar sentiments discussed, and began to fear that the lessons of so good and pious a man would form a prince whose austere virtue and contempt for vain-glory would be a censure on his own reign—so filled with useless sanguinary wars—and magnificent pleasures, paid for by the misery of his people. That he might form a judgment on the subject, he had conversation with the new prelate upon his political principles. Fénélon, full of his own ideas, disclosed to the king a portion of that theory afterwards detailed in Telemachus. The king, after this conversation, said he had discoursed with the most clever, but most chimerical author in his kingdom This story is told by Voltaire in his "Age of Louis XIV." It was related to him by cardinal de Fleury, and M. Malezieux. The latter taught geometry to the duke of Burgundy, and learnt from his pupil the judgment of his royal grandfather. The letter to the king, alluded to above, is to be found in the notes to D'Alembert's "Éloge de Fénélon."