ANSELM, St. (c.1033–1109), Abp. of Canterbury.

Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651–1715), Abp. of Cambrai. He was born in Périgord, of an ancient and distinguished, but impoverished, family. He studied at St-Sulpice, was ordained c.1675, and served in the parish. In 1678 he became superior of the Nouvelles Catholiques, an institution for the education of girls and women recently converted from Protestantism. In 1685–6 he took part in a mission in the Saintonge to instruct those forcibly converted through the Dragonnades; he was strict on orthodoxy, but humane in his approach. In 1687 he published his Traité de l’éducation des filles, written at the request of the Duchess of Beauvillier. Two years later he was appointed tutor to Louis XIV’s grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, for whom he wrote the educational novel Télémaque (pub. 1699, but not in its complete form until 1717). In this work, intended for a future king, he wrote in favour of a limited absolutism, rejected wars of aggression, and held that kings and their policies are subject to moral law in the true interest of the state. The implied criticism of Louis XIV hindered his career. In the autumn of 1688 he met Mme Guyon; he was impressed by her account of her spiritual experiences (which he regarded as authentic), and esp. by her doctrine of pure love and ‘passive’ prayer, though he did not apparently care for her voluminous writings in the Quietist vein. He defended her for a long time and was therefore implicated when she was censured in 1694. In 1693 he was elected a member of the French Academy. In 1695 he became Abp. of Cambrai and later in the same year signed the Thirty-Four Articles of Issy which condemned Quietism. In 1697, however, he published his Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie intérieure (Eng. tr., 1698), defending the concept of disinterested love and citing the works of recognized (esp. canonized) spiritual writers in support of his position. The book was attacked by J. B. Bossuet and a long and bitter controversy ensued, sustained by intrigues in Rome. Fénelon was banished from court in the summer of 1679 and spent the rest of his life in his diocese. Here his charitable giving mitigated suffering, esp., but not only, during the War of Spanish Succession. When, under pressure from Louis XIV, Pope Innocent XII condemned 23 propositions from Fénelon’s book (Brief of 12 Mar. 1699), he submitted unreservedly, and when the Jansenist controversy broke out again, he wrote in defence of the orthodox teaching on grace and other matters. He developed his spiritual teaching in his Traité sur l’existence de Dieu (part pub. in 1712; Eng. tr., 1713; the whole not until 1718; Eng. tr., 1720). He was much sought after as a spiritual director. He had considerable influence in the 18th cent., both inside and outside France, and among Protestants (esp. on J. Wesley), partly because of the Life written by Ramsay.

Œuvres complètes pub. in 35 vols., Versailles and Paris, 1820–30 (‘Édition de Versailles’), and 10 vols., Paris, 1848–52 (‘Édition de Saint-Sulpice’), repr. Geneva, 1971; modern edn. by J. Le Brun (Paris, 1983 ff.). Œuvres spirituelles, also ed. F. Varillon, SJ (Paris [1954]); Correspondance, ed. J. Orcibal and others (vols. 1–5, Paris, 1972–6; vols. 6–17, Geneva, 1987–99). Eng. tr. of selection of his letters by D. Sandford (London, 1957) and J. McEwen, with introd. by T. Merton (ibid. [1964]), and of his Traité de l’éducation des filles, with introd. and notes, by H. C. Barnard (Cambridge, 1966). A. M. Ramsay, Histoire de la vie de Messr. François de Salignac de la Motte-Fénelon (La Haye, 1723; Eng. trs., 1723 and 1897). Introductory studies by K. D. Little (New York [1951]), M. Raymond (Les écrivains devant Dieu, Bruges, 1967), and J. H. Davis (Boston [1979] ). H. *Bremond, Apologie pour Fénelon (1910); É. Carcassonne, Fénelon: L’Homme et l’œuvre [1946]; Dix-septième siècle, nos. 12–14 (1951–2), special issue devoted to Fénelon; J.-L. Goré, L’Itinéraire de Fénelon: Humanisme et spiritualité (1957); L. Cognet, Crépuscule des mystiques: Fénelon, Bossuet (Tournai [1958]); B. Dupriez, Fénelon et la Bible: Les origines du mysticisme Fénelonien (Travaux de l’Institut Catholique de Paris, 8 [1961]); R. Spaemann, Reflexion und Spontaneität: Studien über Fénelon (Stuttgart, 1963); H. Hillenaar, Fénelon et les Jésuites (Archives internationales d’histoire des idées, 21; The Hague, 1967); M. Haillant, Fénelon et la Prédication (Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Paris-Nanterre, Série A, vol. 6; 1969); id., Culture et imagination dans les œuvres de Fénelon (1982–3); H. Gouhier, Fénelon philosophe (Bibliothèque d’histoire de la philosophie, 1977); D. Leduc-Fayette, Fénelon et l’amour de Dieu [1996]. H. Hillenaar (ed.), Nouvel État Présent des Travaux sur Fénelon (Amsterdam and Atlanta, Ga., 2000), with bibl. 1940–2000, pp. 173–97. L. Ceyssens, ‘Autour de la bulle Unigenitus: Fénelon’, Antonianum, 59 (1984), pp 482–540, repr. in id. and J. A. G. Tans, Autour de l’Unigenitus (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 76; 1987), pp. 521–79. Popular account by M. de la Bedoyere, The Archbishop and the Lady (1956). L. Cognet in Dict. Sp. 5 (1964), cols. 151–70; id. in DHGE 16 (1967), cols. 958–87, both s.v. Revue Fénelon (Paris, 1911 ff.).

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