people,” he said, “in order that, the character of M. de Cambrai being known, his eloquence may, with God’s permission, no more impose upon anybody.”  Fenelon replied with a vigor, a fullness, and a moderation which brought men’s minds over to him.  “You do more for me by the excess of your accusations,” said he to Bossuet, “than I could do myself.  But what a melancholy consolation when we look at the scandal which troubles the house of God, and which causes so many heretics and libertines (free-thinkers) to triumph!  Whatever end may be put by a holy pontiff to this matter, I await it with impatience, having no wish but to obey, no fear but to be in the wrong, no object but peace.  I hope that it will be seen from my silence, my unreserved submission, my constant horror of illusion, my isolation from any book and any person of a suspicious sort, that the evil you would fain have caused to be apprehended is as chimerical as the scandal has been real, and that violent measures taken against imaginary evils turn to poison.”

Fenelon was condemned on the 12th of March, 1699; the sentence of Rome was mild, and hinted no suspicion of heresy; it had been wrested from the pope by the urgency of Louis XIV.  “It would be painful to his Majesty,” wrote the Bishop of Meaux in the king’s name, “to see a new schism growing up amongst his subjects at the very time that he is applying himself with all his might to the task of extirpating that of Calvin, and if he saw the prolongation, by manoeuvres which are incomprehensible, of a matter which appeared to be at an end.  He will know what he has to do, and will take suitable resolutions, still hoping, nevertheless, that his Holiness will not be pleased to reduce him to such disagreeable extremities.”  When the threat reached Rome, Innocent XII. had already yielded.

Fenelon submitted to the pope’s decision completely and unreservedly.  “God gives me grace to be at peace amidst bitterness and sorrow,” he wrote to the Duke of Beauvilliers on the 29th of March, 1699.  “Amongst so many troubles I have one consolation little fitted to be known in the world, but solid enough for those who seek God in good faith, and that is, that my conduct is quite decided upon, and that I have no longer to deliberate.  It only remains for me to submit and hold my peace; that is what I have always desired.  I have now but to choose the terms of my submission; the shortest, the simplest, the most absolute, the most devoid of any restriction, are those that I rather prefer.  My conscience is disburdened in that of my superior.  In all this, far from having an eye to my advantage, I have no eye to any man; I see but God, and I am content with what He does.”