but which, finding every avenue to the heart laid open, allowed the orator to approach without effort and affift. ance; and made him conqueror, even before he had engaged. His action perfectly correfponded with the kind of eloquence he had cultivated. The moment he entered the pulpit, he feemed deeply impreffed with the great truths he was about to declare; with eyes caft down, a modest and collected air, without any violent motions, with few or no geftures, but animating all by an affecting and impreffive voice, he communicated to his hearers the religious fentiment which his external appearance announced; he commanded that profound filence, which is a higher compliment to eloquence, than the most tumultuous plaudits. He appeared on that great and dangerous theatre, equally devoid of pride as of fear: His first attempt was uncommonly brilliant, and the exordium of his first discourse is one of the mafter-pieces of modern eloquence. Lewis XIV. was then in the zenith of his power and glory; he had been victorious in every part of Europe; he was adored by his fubjects, intoxicated with fame, and furfeited with adulation. Maffillon choffe for his text that paffage of Scripture which feemed the least adapted to fuch a prince, "Bleffed are they who weep ;" and from that text he conveyed a compliment the more new, and artful, and flattering, as it appeared to be dictated by the gospel itself, and fuch as an Apostle might have paid. "Sire," faid he, 'addressing the king, "if the world were to speak “to your Majesty from this place, it would not fay, Blef"fed are they who weep. Happy, would it say, that 86 prince who has never fought but to conquer; who hath "filled the univerfe with his fame; who, in the courfe of "a long and profperous reign, has enjoyed all that men ad "mire, the splendour of conqueft, the love of his people, "the esteem of his enemies, the wisdom of his laws. But, "Sire, the gospel does not speak the language of the world.".. The audience of Versailles, accustomed as it was to Bourdalous and Boffuets, had never witneffed an eloquence at once fo delicate and noble; and accordingly, it excited in the congregation an involuntary movement of admiration. Our orator was always firm, but always refpe&tful, while he announced to his fovereign, the will of Him who is the Judge of Kings; he fulfilled the duty of the miniftry, but he never exceeded it; and the Monarch, who perhaps retired from his chapel diffatisfied with fome other preachers, never left the fermons of Maffillon, without being diffatisfied with himself. This the Prince was honeft enough to confefs to Maffillon; the greatest compli ment he could pay him, but a compliment which many others before and after Maffillon never wifhed to obtain, being more anxious to send away a hearer enraptured, than a finner converted. Lewis XIV. died; and the Regent, who honoured the talents of Maffillon, and defpifed his enemies, named him to the bishopric of Clermont; he wanted, moreover, that the Court fhould hear him once more, and engaged him to preach fome Lent fermons before the King, then of the age of nine years. These fermons compofed in lefs than three months, are known by the name of Petit Carime. Though they are not in the highest degree finished, they are a true model of pulpit eloquence. The great fermons of the fame author may poffefs more pathos and vehemence; but the elo quence quence of thefe is more infinuating and delicate, and the charm resulting from them is enhanced by the importance of the subject, by the inestimable value of those simple affecting leffons, which being fitted to penetrate, as agreeably as forcibly, the heart of the young Monarch, seem calculated to procure the happiness of millions, by acquainting the Prince with what was expected of him. The fame year in which thefe difcourfes were pronounc ed, Maffillon was admitted into the French academy. Maffillon had just been made a bishop; but no place at Court, no bufinefs, no pretence of any kind, could detain him at a diftance from his flock. He departed for Clermont, whence he never returned, but on account of indispensable occafions, and consequently very rarely. He gave all his attention to the happy people whom providence had confided to his care. He benevolently dedicated to the instruction of the poor, thofe fame talents, fo much esteemed by the great of this world, and preferred to the loud applaufes of the courtier, the fimple and earnest attention. of an auditory, lefs brilliant, but more teachable. Perhaps the most eloquent of his fermons are the conferences he held with his curates. He preached to them the virtues of which he fet an example, difinterestedness, fimplicity, forgetfulness of himself, the active and prudent earneftness of an enlightened conviction, very different from that fanaticism which proves nothing but the blindness of zeal, and which makes the fincerity of it very doubtful. A wife moderation was indeed his predominant character. Deeply impreffed with a sense of the true duties of his ftation, Maffillon fulfilled the principal function of a bishop, that which attracts love and refpect from incredulity itself, the delightful exercife of humanity and benevolence. He fent, ent, in the fpace of two years, twenty thousand livres to he Hotel Dieu at Clermont. His whole revenue was at the service of the poor. His diocese retain the remembrance of his benefits, now after thirty years, and his memory is still honoured by the most eloquent of all funeral orations, the tears of an hundred thousand people whom his bounty made happy: This funeral oration he enjoyed in his life time. Whenever he appeared in the streets of Clermont the people proftrated themselves before him, calling him father, and invoking bleffings on his head. Among the immense alms which he bestowed, there were fome acts of charity which he carefully concealed, not only to spare the delicacy of unhappy individuals, who received them, but to relieve whole communities from feelings of inquietude, and the fears which such alms might inspire them with. Not only was he liberal of his fortune to the indigent, but he employed for them befides, with as much zeal as fuccefs, both his intereft and his pen. Being a witnefs, in his diocefian vifitations, of the misery under which the inhabitants of the country groaned, and his revenue not being fufficient to give bread to fuch a multitude of indigent creatures, that implored it of him, he wrote to the Court in their favour, and, by the energetic and affecting picture which he drew of their neceffities, he obtained either actual contributions for them, or a confiderable abatement of their taxes. I am affured that his letters on this subject are master-pieces of eloquence and pathos, fuperior even to the most affecting of his fermons; and what emotions, indeed, must not the spectacle of human nature, fuffering and oppreffed, have excited in the virtuous and compaffionate foul of Maffillon ! He He died as Fenelon died, and as every bishop ought, A circumftance which happened not long ago, calculated CONTENTS. |