That you have overcome quietism. Now, in the name of
wonder, how could you manage that?
_Bossuet_. By the grace of God.
_Fontanges_. Yes, indeed; but never until now did God give any preacher
so much of his grace as to subdue this pest.
_Bossuet_. It has appeared among us but lately.
_Fontanges_. Oh, dear me! I have always been subject to it dreadfully,
from a child.
_Bossuet_. Really! I never heard so.
_Fontanges_. I checked myself as well as I could, although they
constantly told me I looked well in it.
_Bossuet_. In what, mademoiselle?
_Fontanges_. In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon-time. I
am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fenelon should
incline to it, as they say he does.
_Bossuet_. Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.
_Fontanges_. Is not then M. de Fenelon thought a very pious and learned
person?
_Bossuet_. And justly.
_Fontanges_. I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about a
knight-errant in search of a father. The King says there are many such
about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before. The
Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written out in
a charming hand, as much as the copybook would hold; and I got through,
I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the grotto, I
never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his own
story, and left them at once: in a hurry (I suppose) to set out upon
his mission to Saintonge in the _pays de d'Aunis_, where the King has
promised him a famous _heretic-hunt_.
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