François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon

French religious leader and writer

• Born: August 6, 1651
• Died: January 7, 1715

A major figure in the religious controversies of seventeenth century France, Fénelon was also an accomplished novelist and an early advocate of women’s education. As archbishop of Cambrai, he exhibited tolerance and concern in an era of religious and political conflict.

Early Life

François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (frah-swah duh sah-leen-yahk duh lah-moht-fayn-loh) was born to poor but aristocratic parents. He completed his studies at the Jesuit College du Plessis and the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris and was ordained in about 1675. After early parish work, he directed for ten years the Nouvelles Catholiques, a Parisian school for the education of young female converts from Protestantism.

When the Edict of Nantes was rescinded in 1685, Fénelon became a missionary for six months to the Protestants in the districts of Saintonge and Aunis. His experience at the Nouvelles Catholiques contributed to his Traité de l’education des filles (1687; Instructions for the Education of a Daughter , 1707), an early essay on the importance of the education of girls, for which some have termed him an early feminist . A year later, Fénelon met the mystic Madame Guyon . Struck by her intense personal devotion, he was drawn to her practice of mystical prayer, thus becoming linked to the quietist movement, a branch of mysticism first established in Spain by Father Miguel de Molinos (1640-1696) and promoted by Guyon.

After being inducted into the French Academy in 1693, in 1695 Fénelon became the tutor to King Louis XIV’s rebellious grandson, the duke of Burgundy, and his influence at court broadened. Instrumental in the educational reform of this difficult child was Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699; The Adventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses , 1699), a work of utopian fiction. The king was so pleased with his grandson’s improvement that he made Fénelon the archbishop of Cambrai in 1695, a prestigious position that further expanded his spiritual influence across France.

However, his allegiance to Guyon and quietism began to erode his prominence. Even though he did not agree with the emotional excesses that sometimes marked her work, he nevertheless issued L’Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie intérieure (1697; The Maxims of the Saints Explained, Concerning the Interiour Life , 1698) as a defense against growing criticism that her doctrines were heretical. This work, however, incurred the opposition of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), bishop of Meaux, and Fénelon finally lost all royal support. In 1699, he was banished from court, removed as a royal tutor, and (at the urging of the king and Bossuet) censured by Pope Innocent XIII for his seemingly quietist views.

Throughout this controversy he gained the admiration of many by vigorously defending himself while not descending to the harsh animosity shown by his accusers. In the last two decades of his life, he distinguished himself by exemplary work in his own diocese, leaving it once in eighteen years. His devout life, impressive sermons, and concern for his parishioners were noteworthy. When his diocese was ravaged by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), he gave generously of his resources for care of the injured. Fénelon died in 1715 of complications resulting from a carriage accident.

Life’s Work

Fénelon’s work spanned the fields of religion, education, politics, and literature. Though he opposed both the absolute quietism of Molinos and the doctrines of Jansenism (a reformist Catholic movement that advocated a system of doctrine based on moral determinism opposed by the Catholic Church and considered heretical), he acquired a reputation for being more tolerant than many of the prominent Catholics who clustered around the king, such as Bossuet or Father Michel Le Tellier, King Louis XIV’s confessor after 1709.

Fénelon’s emphasis upon the faith of an individual soul and its relationship with God, rather than upon intellectual assent to particular doctrines, now seems a precursor to what was called “enthusiasm” in the eighteenth century, an emotional devotion aroused by the “the god within” (en-theos), which came to characterize such groups as the Methodists and the Quakers. For traditionalists at the royal court this smacked too much of a reliance upon sola fides (the Protestant emphasis upon being saved by faith alone), without benefit of the Church’s hierarchy. Although Fénelon readily acknowledged the authority of the pope and king, he displayed a tolerance for a variety of practices that, without making him a rationalist, seems to link him with the coming period of the Enlightenment.

His association with Madame Guyon, his wide network of influential friends, and his close relationship with the wife of King Louis XIV, Madame de Maintenon—whose school for girls at St. Cyr had at one time also come under Guyon’s influence—all suffered when Bossuet, Maintenon’s close associate, judged Fénelon and Guyon to be advocating unorthodox beliefs. The rigidly doctrinaire Bossuet viewed their devotional practices with suspicion, even though Fénelon was not a thoroughgoing quietist and had condemned what he called the “damnable teachings of Molinos.” Although it had been Bossuet who had consecrated Fénelon a bishop, the conflict between the two grew bitter, and Bossuet even implied an illicit relationship between Fénelon and Guyon.

The theological principles of quietism were reviewed in a conference at Issy in 1695; the result was a list of thirty-four articles condemning the movement. Bossuet, Fénelon, and Guyon all signed the document, but Fénelon and Bossuet quarreled again two years later upon appearance of Fénelon’s The Maxims of the Saints Explained, Concerning the Interiour Life, whose publication led to Fénelon’s banishment to Cambrai.

Several works mark Fénelon’s importance in education. His Instructions for the Education of a Daughter especially rejected the more inflexible practices of educating women in favor of a broad grounding in religion and classical literature, combined with lessons in moral uprightness and practical domestic skills for the management of households and servants. His schooling of the duke of Burgundy also was grounded in the educational value of literature.

From 1689 to 1699, Fénelon composed several books that were graduated to match a child’s growing maturity: Contes et fables, Dialogues des morts, Demonstration de l’existence de Dieu, Direction pour la conscience d’un roi, and The Aventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses. The last, an epic novel in which Telemachus, son of Odysseus, follows the advice of his teacher Mentor, is a didactic work whose young hero is the model of youthful behavior. Through a series of adventures, they visit Salente, a new city for which Mentor offers guidance and instruction. Mentor’s comments are Fénelon’s own thinly disguised beliefs on the design of an ideal political state. Critical of absolutist rulers and praising humanitarian practices in peace and war, the novel was seen as a critique of Louis XIV’s administration, and it contributed to Fénelon’s fall from influence in 1699. The year before he died, Fénelon also wrote the Dialogues sur l’éloquence. Mémoire sur les occupations de l’Académie Française (Dialogues Concerning Eloquence in General, and Particularly That Kind Which Is Fit for the Pulpit , 1760), one of several works of literary criticism that praised the virtues of classical literature.

Significance

Fénelon was a major figure in the religious controversies of seventeenth century France, supporting, especially, the quietism of the mystic Madame Guyon, for which he was deeply criticized. A critic of royal absolutism, he was an accomplished author and an early advocate of women’s education. He acquired a reputation for tolerance, and as a bishop showed a saintly concern for those under his care.

Bibliography

Carcassonne, Elie. Fénelon: His Life and Works. Translated by Victor Leuliette. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1970. An English translation of a detailed French biography, which includes an introduction and notes.

De la Bedoyere, Michael. The Archbishop and the Lady: The Story of Fénelon and Madame Guyon. New York: Pantheon, 1956. A popular account of Fénelon’s friendship with Madame Guyon. Contains a short bibliography, with most entries in French.

Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe-. The Adventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses. Translated by Tobias Smollett, edited by O. M. Brack, Jr. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. A modern translation of Fénelon’s epic novel, with an introduction and notes by Leslie A. Chilton, a map, a bibliography, and an index.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Instructions for the Education of a Daughter. Translated by George Hicks. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1994. A facsimile reprint of the first English translation (1707) of Fénelon’s treatise on the education of girls, with an introduction by Jeffrey Stern and with illustrations.

Hillenaar, Henk. Nouvel etat present des travaux sur Fénelon. Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000. A collection of essays, in French, discussing Fénelon’s views on such topics as politics, religion, and pedagogy. Contains a bibliography of works about Fénelon that appeared from 1940 to 2000.

Kanter, Sanford B. “Archbishop Fénelon’s Political Activity: The Focal Point of Power in Dynasticism.” French Historical Studies 4, no. 3 (Spring, 1966): 320-334. Argues that Fénelon is more accurately termed a political activist than a political theorist because of his efforts to influence Louis XIV’s regime through his personal friendships and his role as royal tutor.

Leduc-Fayette, Denise, ed. Fénelon: Philosophie et spiritualité. Geneva: Droz, 1996. An anthology of essays, in French, on various aspects of Fénelon’s life and work, covering such topics as his education, spirituality, and his links with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Guyon, and Augustinianism.

Lougee, Carolyn C. “Nobelesse, Domesticity, and Social Reform: The Education of Girls by Fénelon and Saint-Cyr.” History of Education Quarterly 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1974): 87-113. Reviews the nature and purpose of Fénelon’s treatise on the education of girls.

Ward, Patricia A. “Fénelon Among the New England Abolitionists.” Christianity and Literature 50, no. 1 (Autumn, 2000). Traces Fénelon’s influence among American antislavery figures, Unitarians, Transcendentalists, and Quakers. Comments on his influence upon Harriet Beecher Stowe and her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.