88 ART. III.-1. The Preacher and the King; or, Bourdaloue in the Court of Louis XIV., being an Account of the Pulpit Eloquence of that distinguished era. Translated from the French of L. Bungener; with an Introduction by the Rev. GEORGE POTTS, D.D., Pastor of the University Place Presbyterian Church, New York. London: Trübner & Co. 1853. 2. Sermons Choisis de Bossuet. Paris: 1845. 3. Sermons du Père Bourdaloue, de la Compagnie de Jésus. À Liege. 1784. 4. Sermons et Morceaux Choisis de Massillon. Paris: 1848. WE are informed in the Introduction to this work that it has attained a wide popularity among those who use the French language, having reached the thirteenth edition. In its translated form we hardly anticipate the same result, though few subjects could have been better adapted to command the attention and excite the interest of the English literary public. There is something too circuitous about the whole character of the book, its external history, as well as its internal construction, to attract confidence, or to gain the respect of truth-loving readers. Anything which claims to admit us into the society of the great French preachers, Bourdaloue and Bossuet, must be a tempting contribution to modern literature; but we require that the images thereby created in our minds shall be authentic, shall be founded on reality-and not only the picture of some third person's imagination, about whom we know or care little. Biographical notices of any kind appeal most strongly to our love of truth. We are most unwilling that the pictures of those whom we wish to admire or study, should be represented to us under suspicious forms or untrustworthy colours. In the case before us, the memory of these great men is handed down to us through a French Protestant, that is, through one naturally prejudiced position, and his work, again, is translated in America, and prefaced by an American Presbyterian. Why, under these circumstances, it is even printed in England, we know not, except to make its history still more circuitous. The internal construction of the book is far also from clearing up this want of authenticity. Dr. Potts says, that 'the slight thread of fiction by which the disquisitions are held together, instead of injuring the effect of the work, as a contribution to sacred literature, imparts a life-like air of reality to the ́ whole.' The entire book, then, by its very design, is a fiction, an historical romance, in which the opinions and the actions of the persons represented are entirely at the mercy of the writer. in a To make an historical romance at all correct in the portraiture of distinguished characters, is a talent which few possess; for it requires a singular power of entering into their whole minds, and personating their very selves. Even the greatest writers in this style have always been most careful to append their narrative to undoubted events of history, and to give, moreover, some kind of references by which the faithfulness of their personal descriptions may be tested. In the book before us we look in vain for these references, nor are the facts which ought to have been referred to, sufficiently well known to dispense with the act on the part of the writer. The result, then, is that we can place no credit whatever on the truth of any ideas which have been pictured to us in this pretended account of 'Bourdaloue in the Court of Louis XIV. But then comes the question, What can have been the motive for which this book was written? It was not to undermine the reputation of theological opponents, for those opponents are described as the most powerful, the most sincere, the most amiable of their time, and the points on which objection is made to them are too trivial to constitute the design of the work. The great preachers are eulogised in the warmest language, and indeed the apparent object of the whole story is to draw the attention of modern preachers to their powers of eloquence. The design of the writer, we would rather take it, is suffered to come out in the prominence given to another than the pretended hero of the work. Claude, the Protestant controversialist, is the man whose sentiments are really given, while Bossuet maintains a reverential silence in his presence, and Bourdaloue trembles before his stern admonitions, and receives from his dictation a portion of the sermon he is to preach before the King. Neither Bossuet, indeed, nor Bourdaloue, are allowed to talk to us, or to present to us any vivid picture of themselves; and even when they do say anything it is more or less directly under the influence of Claude that they are acting. This is the obvious absurdity of the thread of fiction' which constitutes the book: two great, powerful-minded, and distinguished characters are introduced into an historical romance; the public are invited to a literary treat, in hearing about these men, and then it is discovered, after all, that they are but the tools and mouth-pieces of a third person, one of some mark in his way, but about whom we are not now concerned to hear, and who moreover, as here represented, does not approve himself to our notice by the long and prosy disquisitions which are supposed to be uttered by him. The real object of the writer was clearly to obtrude the sentiments of his own hero into close connexion with the eloquence of those great preachers of whom France is so justly proud; and he uses an apparent liberality of tone in speaking of them, as the means of undermining the real boldness of their character as theologians. He gives no references to substantiate the most extraordinary personal combinations, and therefore we take the liberty of altogether disbelieving them, though we do not pretend to trace out the exact nature of any friendly communication that may have taken place. We have read the Life of Bourdaloue, and Claude's name does not occur in it, while Bossuet was only brought into contact with him as a controversialist. The Introduction explains thus the singular conferences which are to be described:-' Claude is introduced by our author into the current of his narrative, not so much for 'the purpose of dramatic effect as to afford a channel for some 'doctrines and strictures, which could not so well be put into 'the mouth of any of the other actors of the book.' No doubt the reason here alleged served the writer's part, but yet we do not consider it fair play to the memory of great men to exhibit them in false and absurd positions, in order that we may hear the doctrines or strictures of any other third person whatever. Claude no doubt was a worthy champion of Protestantism, a man of power and talent, and as such was spoken of in an honourable and fair manner by his opponent, Bossuet; but we do not believe that Bossuet ever listened to his disquisitions in the gardens of Versailles, or that Bourdaloue ever hid him behind the door of his study to hear an undignified conversation between himself and Father La Chaise. The plot of the story rests on a certain peroration which Bourdaloue added to a sermon preached before the King at Versailles, on a Good Friday. We need not trouble our readers with all the absurd details in the history of this much-talked of peroration. It is enough to state that Bourdaloue on this occasion had as usual prepared the flattering remarks which he was accustomed to address to the King, even during the time that he was living in open adultery with Madame de Montespan. This state of affairs at Court is made the subject of conversation in a coterie of philosophers'-of a different type, however, from those who on the same spot made the title infamous-assembled in the gardens of Versailles. The confessor of Madame de Montespan happened at the same time to refuse her absolution, at which the King is enraged. Bossuet has conferences with the King, and endeavours to amend the scandal, by representing the necessity of Madame's departure from Versailles. He also visits Bourdaloue, whom he finds in what is said to have been the agony of learning his sermon by heart, and he discourses with him on the necessity of making certain alterations which might perhaps move the King, and thus obtain a victory for morals and religion. This conference is interrupted by Claude, who had beforehand written to Bourdaloue, announcing his intention to call as an expression of his esteem. The Fénélons, uncle and nephew, then also come in, and much talk follows to the hindrance of any alteration in Bourdaloue's sermon. At last all go, except Claude, who slips back, and takes Bossuet's place as adviser in the sermon. Bourdaloue reads him the whole sermon, and Claude then commences to dictate a new peroration. This time also the attempt was interrupted by the arrival of a third person, Father La Chaise. Then it is that Claude rushes into concealment behind the door, and hears much conversation from the intruder, of a kind to expose the office which he held—that of confessor to the King himself to contempt and ridicule. At length the concealed Protestant bursts forth upon the talkers -the detected Confessor skulks away, and Claude finishes his dictation. Meanwhile Bossuet has a conference with the King, and Versailles is in a tumult. Madame de Montespan perceives that things are going wrong, writes notes to the King, and retires from the palace in a fit of disgust. The King is weak and vacillating, and refuses to hear the sermon of next day, suspecting that he is to be attacked in it. Meanwhile, on the morning itself of Good Friday, the usual number of philosophers' promenade the palace gardens. Bossuet is late, having been so occupied with the strange commotions; Claude takes his place, and expounds the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, making it the type of a rebuke to kings. At length the whole Court, having a mysterious notion that something great was to happen, meets in the chapel; the King at the last moment is dragged unwillingly to his place, and Bourdaloue begins the sermon. He is nervous and frightened at the rebuke which is to terminate his discourse; his courage fails; he actually commences the flattering peroration, but stops short at the first words; and why does he stop? It is Claude who ominously glares at him from behind a pillar, and shames him into fulfilling his bargain: all goes off triumphantly, the King is vanquished before all his Court; the Queen sobs with a holy joy, and Bourdaloue perceives that he is a great man, but in borrowed plumes. His conscience smites him. According to custom, he is complimented by the King in the anteroom of the chapel-royal, but again Claude is behind the door, and the story ends by the introduction of Claude to the King as the true author of the peroration just recited. 6 All this absurd history of pretended scenes at Versailles, is not only fiction, but it is an historical falsehood on the memory of those names which are introduced. Little notice, indeed need be taken of such foolish misrepresentations, if it was not that the study of the great French preachers would be, as we think, most useful to the sermon-writers of the present day, and of our own Church. M. Bungener, the French Protestant, and Dr. Potts, the American Presbyterian, both no doubt appreciate their value as models of style and fertile storehouses of original thought, and on this very account desire to direct attention to them; but if we are also to study them, it is well to clear their memory of any misrepresentations which it may serve the purpose of these sectarians to connect with them. Bourdaloue, these men would say, was eloquent, was a man to be esteemed and venerated, was a keen searcher into the motives of the human heart, was an accuser of the religious faults of his day, was charitable in his way of speaking, and therefore must have been somewhat lax in his convictions with respect to church government and discipline. He was indeed a severe witness against many tendencies and practices which are still associated with Romanism; but he had little in common with the Protestants of his day, or with American Presbyterians. He denounced formalism; but he so abounds in the exposition of sound doctrine, that, except on particular subjects, where we essentially differ from the Romish Church, we listen to his words, ever with an increasing confidence in their truth, and with an increasing conviction that the Reformed Church of all lands will find that she has a common ground with him, which sectarians will in vain seek for. But this book has not even the openness to say, why the writer admires Bourdaloue. He wishes to profit by his eloquence, and at the same time cavils at him for one particular fault, which he knows is the very reverse from the common tone of his sermons. The great charge against him is, that be flattered the King in his perorations; but no mention is at the same time made of passages in the body of the sermon, acceptable no doubt for their plain speaking on some tendencies in members of his own Church, but calculated by their severity and the closeness of their appeals, to make a flattering peroration a mere empty form, little able to erase the moral axioms which had preceded it. We are not defending this practice of ending a sermon with a laudation of the King, but it was one of those court fashions, which were part of the age, for which it is difficult indeed to find a reason consistent with a Christian preacher's duty, but which cannot be laid to the account of the individual preacher. We can hardly enter into the state of things which required it, but we can understand the force of custom, and the imperative calls of court etiquette. It is also clear, that the more obvious the necessity of flattering the King was felt to A |