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No doubt she was unaware that M. de Rohan had received the sacrament at the midnight mass said for the salvation of his soul by Father Bourdaloue, for she said nothing about it, and hearing the doctor's answer, only sighed. "Besides," he continued, "in recalling examples of the kind, madame, you must not build upon them, please: they are extraordinary cases, not the rule.
Bossuet addressed the conscience through the imagination, Bourdaloue through the judgment, and Massillon through the feelings. For the instruction of the Dauphin, to whom he had been appointed preceptor, he wrote his "Discourse upon Universal History," by which he is chiefly known to us. The Protestant controversy elicited his famous "Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine."
Less than a hundred years after the Revocation, the Church had lost its influence over the people, and was despised. The Deists and Atheists, sprung from the Church's bosom, were in the ascendant; and Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Mirabeau, were regarded as greater men than either Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fléchier, or Massillon.
A few hours after he had lost the most tender and beloved of all his friends, he was delivered from the most formidable of all his enemies. Death had been busy at Paris as well as in London. While Tenison was praying by the bed of Mary, Bourdaloue was administering the last unction to Luxemburg.
The three boys had just reached the house, all in tears and frightened to death, brought home from Bourdaloue College by a good Father in their own interest, poor little fellows; they had been given temporary leave of absence so that they might not hear any unkind remarks, any cruel allusions in the parlor or the courtyard.
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?
"I imagine you know the villain that gave me this little decoration, that night I was walking along the Rue Bourdaloue. That being the case, you know, I have a slight claim upon you, and shall expect you to relate to us your little story." But Raoul was so terrified that he could not utter a word. "Your modesty keeps you silent," said M. Verduret.
Our ci-devant chanoine, who married that little Meudon, is as miserable as possible, and as ridiculous: for he is jealous of his young wife, and she is a franche-coquette. The poor man looks as if he repented sincerely of his errors. What a penitent a coquette can make of a husband! Bourdaloue and Massillon would have tried their powers on this man's heart in vain. Did I tell you that Mad.
Gaston Cheverny and I made bold to correct Count Saxe's theology, but he called us a couple of cheek turners, and declared he knew that the Psalmist, as well as Bourdaloue, had the Courlanders in mind when he denounced liars and hypocrites. Next to sermons my master liked the verses and songs of that rogue of rogues, François Villon.
Among those who often come to look at new books and converse familiarly among themselves there are historians as learned as Tillemont, sacred orators the equals of Bossuet and Bourdaloue in eloquence, comic and tragic poets, theologians who unite purity of morals with solidity of doctrine, the esteemed authors of "Spanish" novels, geometers and philosophers capable, like M. Descartes, of measuring and weighing the universe.
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