François de La Mothe-Fénelon
born Aug. 6, 1651, Château de
Fénelon, Périgord, Fr.
died Jan. 7, 1715, Cambrai
French archbishop, theologian, and man
of letters whose liberal views on
politics and education and whose
involvement in a controversy over the
nature of mystical prayer caused
concerted opposition from church and
state. His pedagogical concepts and
literary works, nevertheless, exerted a
lasting influence on French culture.
Descended from a long line of
nobility, Fénelon began his higher
studies in Paris about 1672 at
Saint-Sulpice seminary. Ordained a
priest in 1676, he was appointed
director of Nouvelles Catholiques (“New
Catholics”), a college for women who
instructed converts from French
Protestantism. When King Louis XIV
heightened the persecution of the
Huguenots (French Calvinists) in 1685 by
revoking the Edict of Nantes, Fénelon
strove to mitigate the harshness of
Roman Catholic intolerance by open
meetings with the Protestants (1686–87)
to present Catholic doctrine in a
reasonable light. While unsympathetic to
Protestant belief, he equally repudiated
forced conversions.
From his pedagogical experiences at
Nouvelles Catholiques, he wrote his
first important work, Traité de
l’éducation des filles (1687; “Treatise
on the Education of Girls”). Although
generally conservative, the treatise
submitted innovative concepts on the
education of females and criticized the
coercive methods of his day.
In 1689, with the support of the
renowned bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet,
Fénelon was named tutor to Louis, Duke
(duc) de Bourgogne, grandson and heir to
Louis XIV. For the prince’s education,
Fénelon composed his best-known work,
Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), in
which the adventures of Telemachus in
search of his father, Ulysses,
symbolically expressed Fénelon’s
fundamental political ideas. During the
period of his popularity in official
circles, Fénelon enjoyed various
honours, including his election to the
French Academy in 1693 and his selection
as archbishop of Cambrai in 1695.
Anxious about his spiritual life,
Fénelon sought an answer from the
Quietist school of prayer. Introduced in
October 1688 to Quietism’s leading
exponent, Mme Guyon, Fénelon sought from
her some means of personally
experiencing the God whose existence he
had intellectually proved. But his
search for spiritual peace was
short-lived. Bossuet and other
influential people at court attacked Mme
Guyon’s teaching, and a document
investigating Quietism’s doubtful
orthodoxy even obtained Fénelon’s
signature. When Bossuet, however, next
launched a personal attack on Mme Guyon,
Fénelon responded with Explication des
maximes des saints sur la vie intérieure
(1697; “Explanation of the Sayings of
the Saints on the Interior Life”).
Defending Mme Guyon’s integrity, Fénelon
not only lost Bossuet’s friendship but
also exposed himself to Bossuet’s public
denunciation. As a result, Fénelon’s
Maximes des saints was condemned by the
pope, and he was exiled to his diocese.
