in the walls of my library, when, twenty-three years afterwards, I found that it had escaped through some chink, and, by I know not whose contrivance, certainly not by mine, had got into the hands of John le Clerc, a man highly celebrated for erudition, at Amsterdam. The critical perspicacity in which he excels, induced him to adhere to my opinion, and he inserted my letter in his "Bibliotheque Choisié," confirmed by new arguments of great acuteness and solidity. The prince of vituperative poets, Despréaux, indignant that any one should presume to differ from him, the arbiter of literary glory and ignominy, left to his friends the office of pouring out upon Le Clerc all the gall which he had collected and prepared before his death; which this insolent faction performed with so much good-will, that, heaping abuse upon abuse, they seemed to think Despréaux guilty of too much moderation. Whatever, therefore, they considered him to have abated of his native petulance and ill language, they added from their own fund; and in the late edition of his works, besprinkled me, then struggling under a severe disease, and almost expiring with the venom of their malignity.

"About the commencement of this quarrel I had just returned to Paris, after half a year's residence at Aulnai, whilst the court was at Fontainebleau. Thence I received a letter from Montausier (1685), in which he informed me that I was designed by his most gracious Majesty for the see of Soissons. Conscious of my own inability to bear a burden which might be formidable Even to angelic shoulders, I considered myself as the more bound to gratitude towards the king, who had conferred a favour upon me which I

had never expected; and I interpreted the circumstance as proceeding from the will and suggestion of the Deity, who directs the course of human affairs, and especially of his church, according to his pleasure. Laying aside, therefore, all other business, and suspending my most beloved studies, I applied all my thoughts to the pious and faithful fulfilment of those duties which were assigned to me by Providence. Early in the next spring, therefore, fore, I went to Soissons, in order more closely to inspect the diocese, and thoroughly examine the place which was to be the theatre of my labours, and that I might know my flock, and be known by them, as became a good shepherd. At this time momentous disputes existed between the courts of Rome and France, the causes of which it is unnecessary here to relate. The consequence was, that almost all intercourse of business between the two was broken off; and seven years elapsed after I was nominated bishop of Soissons, in which every product and grant of papal letters was withheld, and with the empty title of episcopacy, I was without all right of exercising its functions; whilst, in the mean time, there existed great disturbance in ecclesiastical affairs, the flocks of the faithful being in different parts neglected and deserted, and the succession of pastors interrupted. Although this was a great grief to me, and to the whole Gallican church, yet I derived from it this advantage, that the protraction of time rendered more tolerable to me the heavy expenses that this new accession of dignity demanded.' For I then became sensible that I had fallen into great pecuniary dif ficulties, and that I must incur endless expense if I were to administer the office imposed upon me without

meanness

it was necessary to obtain an apostolic diploma, which was to be purchased at a great price from the bankers of the court of Rome; of whom, the person to whom I had committed the management of my affairs dealt with me faithlessly, and with the greatest rapacity and 'dishonesty. Through his unprincipled fraud it happened, that some per sons highly recommended to him, 'who were but lately nominated by the king to bishoprics, received their Roman diplomas before me, who had enjoyed the same title for some years; and by the final ceremonies of consecration obtained a right of precedence over me. To this capital injury he added another, pot dissimilar; for when I had thought it my duty to offer to the pope a copy of my "Demonstratio Evangelica," and having taken care to provide one magnificently bound and ornamented, had left the whole management of the presentation to him, be converted the book to his own use, and defrauded me of the expected acknowledgement and approbation of the pontiff.

"There came to me, during this interval, a young man named Anselm Baudot, of the religious order styled Penitents, who was not deficient in learning, and was especially attached to Greek literature. After he had passed through his philosophical course, he prepared himself, according to custom, to hold public disputations; and disdaining to confine himself on this occasion to the Latin tongue, he wished also to employ the Greek. And as in those literary contests an arbiter is usually appointed, he was desirous of having one who was not ignorant of the Greek language, and was likewise decorated with the episcopal dignity, and therefore fixed upon

with great apparatus, concourse, and applause. His success raised sanguine hopes of him among his friends, when he undertook a voyage to Italy, which proved fatal, first to his liberty, and then to his life; for, being captured by pirates and carried to Tunis, he was thrown into prison, where he died of the plague.

Four of the seven years had now elapsed since I had begun to be called bishop of Soissons, according to the custom prevailing among us, of taking the title of the destined see, without waiting for consecration, when the illustrious abbot Fabio Brulart de Sillery, promoted to the bishopric of Avranches, frequently sounded me, by means of friends, on a project of petitioning from the king the faculty of exchanging our sees; alleging as a reason, the vicinity of Avranches to my uative place, Caen, and of Soissons to his of Sillery. In order more effectually to persuade me, he came to Aulnai, and by various arguments, and the intercession of friends, especially of Segrais, who on many accounts was much attached to his family, and whom he sent for on purpose, and also of Charles de la Rue, the Jesuit, who was then rusticating with me, he at length overcame my resistance, and I gave my consent. Brulart took upon himself the care of obtaining the royal rescripts; and the business being concluded according to his wishes, I immediately went to Avranches, where, on examining the state of things, I found much labour and trouble awaiting me.. I was therefore obliged to make fre quent journeys thither during three years, until, upon the accommodation of the differences between Rome and France, having received

the

the papal diploma, in 1692 I was consecrated bishop of Avranches. For three years Brulart stood to the compact made between us; but he then began to seek remote causes why he should no longer submit to the conditions which he had voluntarily imposed upon himself. Our difference was about to undergo the decision of the supreme tribunal, when the illustrious prelates of Rheims, Meaux, and Troyes, brought it to a friendly termination This province I administered nearly ten years; and I had nothing more at heart than to restore the relaxed discipline of a diocese which had for so long a time been without a bishop. Wherefore, having maturely weighed the regulations of the ancient prelates, which are commonly termed Synodal Statutes, and having collected others from various sources, I drew up and duly promulgated a new set. And as in process of time my flock became better known to me at the diocesian assemblies, which were annually convoked, I curbed rising disorders by new injunctions, But I found at length, by my own experience, that he undertakes a task of infinite labour, and almost beyond the power of man to sustain, who attempts to administer the episcopal office according to its real importance, to watch over the salvation of souls, to destroy the germinations of vice, to promote the growth of virtue, to defend the purity of piety and religion, and to form himself to those morals which may present a rule of life to his whole flock.

"Having turned my view on all sides, for the purpose of inspecting the affairs of the church of Avranches, I discovered that Charles Marquetel de St. Evremond belonged to my flock. He had long been an exile in England, whither he had

retired on account of the displeasure of the court, which he had brought upon himself, with the fear of something worse, by indulging to excess a spirit of ridicule. Well remembering that it is the office of a good shepherd to track the footsteps of a wandering sheep, and bring him back to the fold, I wrote to Henry Justell, our common friend, and requested him that he would call upon St. Evremond in my name, and awaken in him the desire of revisiting his country; adding, that perhaps, by the intervention and solicitation of my friends, I might ob tain for him the liberty of returning to his family. But he had struck such deep root in England, that he appeared almost to have forgotten France; and besides, pleading the infirmity of age, he said that he chose to die and be buried there.

"It was my determination to devote the remainder of my life to the episcopal functions, had not the inclemency of the climate, and the hardness of the water flowing through hollow and flinty rocks, which brought upon me severe pains in the bowels, at length driven me from the spot. The effects of the water were so noxious, that for the two last years I was obliged to abstain from a single draught of it. My gracious king, on being informed of the circumstance, not only granted me permission (in 1699) to abdicate my bishopric, but in his bounty conferred upon me the abbacy of Fontenai, that I might not undergo the humiliation of being reduced to a narrow income. I then appeared to myself restored to my own country, for Fontenai, situated on the river Orne, is only two miles from Caen; and there I hoped to have found a harbour for my old age; remembering that I had frequented the place

with great delight in my youth, upon the invitation of the worthy abbot, William Boivin. I therefore set about repairing and beautifying the abbatial mansion, providing it with suitable furniture, and putting the gardens in order, on which objects I spared neither expense nor pains. But I found too late, that a place cursorily viewed acquires a very different aspect when it becomes a place of abode. My old friends and kinsmen, too, the inhabitants of the surrounding lands, from whose neighbourhood I expected the comforts of society, proved my greatest adversaries. Such is the perversity of mankind, that the person whom they most love, or affect to love, when absent, is the object of their open enmity, when present. To my vexations were added numberless lawsuits brought upon me on all sides, especially those arising from the demands upon me for dilapidation on account of the house I left at Avranches, or from those which I myself made on account of that to which I succeeded. In this matter I experienced some unkindness (why should I conceal it?) from Francis de la Chaise, of the society of Jesus, the king's confessor. For when, in consequence of our ancient friendship, and his authority over me, he was nominated the arbitrator in these disputes, he treated me with a rigour that rendered him the instrument of the greatest injuries I sus tained in my affairs. My successor in the see was also very hard to be dealt with, for he seemed to consider himself rather as my heir, than my successor, with so much avidity and pertinacity did he lay claim to my goods. Brulart joined in the persecution, by attempting, if possible, to rescind our former agreements; but both of them were foiled

in their projects. These, however, were trifles, in comparison with the obstinate contests which I had to maintain, for ten entire years, with the renters of the produce of my farms: nor could I extricate myself from their chicane, without the aid of several decrees of parliament, and my own resolute exertions. Still I was not at the end of my troubles; for the very person whom I had employed to defend me against these attacks, and to whom I had committed the care of my whole property, who was joined to me by consanguinity, and the kindnesses of many years, and who lay under the highest obligations to me, entered into such secret machinations for my ruin, that had not his frauds been timely detected and exposed before equitable judges, who obviated their effects, I should have been stript of every thing.

"I gladly here insert the name Judith Barbara Tiliac, a matron wor thy of the highest commendation, both for the suavity of her disposition and correctness of her manners; and much more for her knowledge of sacred antiquity and the Hebrew tongue, which, however, her singular modesty prevented her from disclosing. Although I had been familiar with her from our earliest years, neighbourhood having been the first bond of our acquaintance; yet she concealed her studies from me with so much care, that I suspected nothing in her beyond the usual attainments of her sex. Nor did she make me the confident of her secret, till, becoming a refugee to Holland on account of religion, she betrayed herself, on consulting me by letter relative to several obscure passages in the sacred books. But the remembrance of so much worth, and such a sincere friendship, is still vivid in my mind, and will

continue

continue to be so, as long as life remains.

"When I first settled at Fontenai, John Mabillon, a Benedictine monk, came thither, not so much for the purpose of visiting me, as of examining the registers and old charters of this abbey, in the course of collecting materials for the History of the Benedictine Order, which he had undertaken to compose. I should have been glad to detain with me some days a man with whom I had been well acquainted for many years, and who was singularly skilled in ecclesiastical his tory, of which his long study of an

cient records and diplomas had made him the most learned and scientific critic in the present age. Neither was he unwilling to spend some time with me; but the affairs of his order hastily recalled him to Paris.

"From early youth I had been intimate with Ezekiel Spanheim; for we were attached to the same studies, and his experienced urbanity and kindness induced ́me more and more to cultivate his friendship. Hence, neither length of time, nor distance of place, nor difference of occupations, but his death alone, could sever our cordial union."

OUIS XIV. saw the period approaching, when the education of his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, would require the cares, of a tutor. A prince, who had always connected his own grandeur with the employment of men of talents, and who had appointed Montausier and Bossuet to be the governor and tutor of his son, was well qualified to make as good a choice for his grandson. In seeking a tutor for him, he had only one wish to accomplish, which was, to confide him to the care of the most virtuous man in his court; and he had the good fortune to find a man, possessing virtue and every other quality necessary to form a great prince. This man was the Duke de Beauvilliers.

"This was a choice which none could condemn. The Duke de Beauvilliers was no less distin

guished for the good qualities of his heart and mind, than for his birth. He was, originally, intended for the church. He had married the second daughter of Colbert; and he had the rare felicity of finding in his wife an entire conformity of opinions and of taste relatively to the discharge of the highest duties of piety. In being appointed by Louis XIV. to be the governor of the Duke of Burgundy, his post became arduous and important. In fact, the duty of providing a good king for the French nation devolved upon him. But that modesty and simplicity, which were inherent in his character, rendered him diffident, rather than ambitious, of an employment, the difficulties and the delicacy of which he so accurately appreciated.

Louis XIV. when he fixed upon the Duke de Beauvilliers, wished

to