He objected that the holding of this office was inconsistent with
his duties as preceptor of the King's grandchildren. Louis replied
that he could live at Court only for three months in the year, and
during the other nine direct the studies of his pupils from Cambray.
Bossuet took part in the consecration of his friend Fenelon as
Archbishop of Cambray; but after a time division of opinion arose.
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe Guyon became in 1676 a widow at the
age of twenty-eight, with three children, for whose maintenance she
gave up part of her fortune, and she then devoted herself to the
practice and the preaching of a spiritual separation of the soul
from earthly cares, and rest in God. She said with Galahad, "If I
lose myself, I save myself." Her enthusiasm for a pure ideal,
joined to her eloquence, affected many minds. It provoked
opposition in the Church and in the Court, which was for the most
part gross and self-seeking. Madame Guyon was attacked, even
imprisoned. Fenelon felt the charm of her spiritual aspiration,
and, without accepting its form, was her defender. Bossuet attacked
her views. Fenelon published "Maxims of the Saints on the Interior
Life." Bossuet wrote on "The States of Prayer." These were the
rival books in a controversy about what was called "Quietism."
Bossuet afterwards wrote a "Relation sur le Quietisme," of which
Fenelon's copy, charged with his own marginal comments, is in the
British Museum. In March, 1699, the Pope finally decided against
Fenelon, and condemned his "Maxims of the Saints.
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