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Power of style, properly so-called, as manifested in masters of style like Dante or Milton in poetry, Cicero, Bossuet or Bolingbroke in prose, is something quite different, and has, as I have said, for its characteristic effect, this: to add dignity and distinction.
"I think the poor man would be very thankful," said the Baron with a smile, "if he were always sure of eating it in one. He is what the Transcendentalists call a god-intoxicated man; and I advise him, as Sauteul advised Bossuet, to go to Patmos and write a new Apocalypse."
The average good man of those days must have thought on most subjects as Bossuet thought though less finely and intensely; and Bossuet never spoke a sentence from his pulpit which went beyond the mental vision of the most ordinary of his congregation. He saw all round his age, but he did not see beyond it. Thus, in spite of his intelligence, his view of the world was limited.
I hear he was on the battlefield from the beginning, and that the first ambulances to reach Meaux found the seminary full of wounded picked up under his direction and cared for as well as his resources permitted. He has written his name in the history of the old town under that of Bossuet and in the records of such a town that is no small distinction.
I do not speak of theologians like Quesnel or Bossuet who, between ourselves, I consider as the lees of human spirit, and who have no better understanding than a simple captain of guards. Don't let us hamper ourselves by despising those brains comparable in volume, as well as in construction, to wrens' eggs, but let us at once enter fully into the object of our conference.
The age, unlike that which followed it, was one of order and specialty in literature; and in classifying its literary riches, we shall find the principal authors presenting themselves under the different subjects: Racine with tragedy, Moliere with comedy, Boileau with satirical and mock- heroic, La Fontaine with narrative poetry, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon with pulpit eloquence; Patru, Pellisson, and some others with that of the bar; Bossuet, de Retz, and St.
Roch: "He failed completely, and on coming out every one said, 'Though he may be a man of talent, he will never be a preacher." Again and again he tried until he succeeded; and only two years after his DEBUT, Lacordaire was preaching in Notre Dame to audiences such as few French orators have addressed since the time of Bossuet and Massillon. When Mr.
And in our modern times, what orators have arisen like those whom the Reformation produced, both in the Roman Catholic church, and among the numerous sects which protested against her? What orator has Germany given birth to equal in fame to Luther? What orator in France has reached the celebrity of Bossuet, or Bourdaloue, or Massillon?
Ultramontanism they at first looked upon as merely a convenient method of appealing to a distant and often ill-informed authority from one nearer at hand, and less easy to inveigle. The older members, who had gone through their studies at the Sorbonne before the Revolution, were uncompromising partisans of the four propositions of 1682. Bossuet was their oracle on every point.
Christophe observed to his amazement that the French, who are said to be so clever, had no sense of the ridiculous. He was lucky when religion was not dragged in to fit the fashion! Then, during Lent, certain actors read the sermons of Bossuet at the Gaite to the accompaniment of an organ. Jewish authors wrote tragedies about Saint Theresa for Jewish actresses.
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