Coup de Foudre
THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE LADY: The Story of Fenelon and Madame Guyon. By Michael de la Bedoyere. (Collins, 16s.) THE duc de Saint-Simon, in his encyclopxdic memoirs, devotes some particularly vivid and entertaining pages to his impressions of the celebrated prelates of his time. For example, there was Harlay, the worldly Archbishop of Paris, a man so attentive to the minor elegances of life that, when he and a devout duchess walked deep in spiritual conversation up and down his garden paths, one of his gardeners usually walked behind, carefully brushing away the trace of footsteps. Then, of course, there was the famous Archbishop of Cambrai, Francois de Salignac de La Motte Fdnelon, who (Saint-Simon informs us) had `long been knocking at every door' before the great portals that guarded the innermost sanctuary of Versailles finally flew open to him; after which, as Preceptor to Louis XIV's seven-year-old grandson, he proceeded to take 'giant strides.'
Yet, like many cynicS, Saint-Simon tended to over-simplify the complex pattern of human motives. Ambitious though Finelon may have been, he was also sensitive, intelligent and profoundly pious. That he was equally obstinate and courageous is shown by the strange story of his relationship with his extra- ordinary protegee Madame Guyon : a relationship that earned him the hatred of Bossuet—the 'Eagle of Meaux,' whereas, among his many fervent admirers, Fenelon was affectionately styled the `Swan of Cambrai.'—involved him in grave charges of heretical teaching, and elicited stern criticism from Rome itself. The story has now been retold by Mr. Michael de la Bedoyere, whose fascinating volume, The Archbishop and the Lady, will appeal not only to those who share his faith but to every inquisitive student of the human heart and mind. 'I feel nothing for you' (confessed Fenelon to Madame Guyon), 'and I am closer to no one than to you.' Emotionally, their association remained entirely innocent; it might be described, nevertheless, as a love affair upon the spiritual plane; while Fenelon's first meetings with the voluble enthusiast had something of the quality of a coup de foudre. Suddenly he had come 'face to face' (writes Mr. de la Bedoyere) `with someone who, he believed, had manifestly experienced the authentic Divine . . .'; and the revelation happened to correspond with a secret crisis in his own existence. Spiritually, as many mystics have done, he felt that he was drying up. His new friend's expansive simplicity—although that simplicity often assumed a somewhat foolish, and even questionable, form—her insistence that, if we are to know God, we must first become as little children, found immediate response in this delicate and saintly, but self-doubting, spirit. He emulated the humility, and adopted the `little language' of Madame Guyon's favoured disciples.
He could not rescue his friend from the hands of her per- secutors, who soon included the terrible Bossuet; but he refused to denounce the doctrines she taught, and continued to support her, so far as he might, through all the tribulations by which she was overwhelmed. For Madame Guyon was accused of `Quietism,' suspected of having imbibed the heresies of the false priest Molinos, an enthusiast whose spiritual practices had led him and his followers into devious sexual bypaths. Moreover, Madame Guyon herself had been somewhat unwise in her friend- ship with the zealous but unfortunate Father La Combe, and had accompanied him on his spiritual meanderings as far afield as Northern Italy. La Combe was incarcerated in a prison from which he never re-emerged. Madame Guyon was also imprisoned, subjected to the ecclesiastical `third degree' and eventually released, still undaunted but in broken health.
As for Fenelon, he lost his appointment at Court but, having submitted to a Papal reprimand, continued, as Archbishop, to g0 his charitable and pious way. Few men have defended their own beliefs so valiantly, It is a moving story of spiritual fortitude; and, to make it more interesting, the background of the story is the religious development of seventeenth-century France at a time when the Sun King, grown elderly and tired and sick of power, fell under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, his unacknowledged second wife, whose middle-class domestic virtues gradually transfigured the royal circle. Religious problems were now as passionately absorbing as questions of dignity, and prece- dence had been only ten or fifteen years earlier; and it was this preoccupation with the life of the spirit, and with the doctrinal niceties of the Catholic faith, that stirred up such a whirlwind of resentment about the blameless Fenelon and about his high- minded, but far too impetuous and too loquacious, protegee. Despite the manifold complications of his subject, and the diffi- culty of explaining the issues debated by seventeenth-century mystics in terms that a modern reader may reasonably be expected to understand, Mr. de la Bedoyere has produced an extremely lucid and entertaining book. He writes well, with a lively sense of character. But, here and there, his text appears to require revision; and at least one phrase has been allowed to slip through that sets the reviewer's teeth on edge. Madame Guyon's eyes 'had a soupcon of a twinkle,' we learn. This soupcon of journalistic vulgarity spoils the agreeable taste of the opening chapters.
' PETER QUENNELL
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