François Fénelon

1651-1715 · French · Sacred Rhetoric, Homiletics, Educational Theory

True eloquence has nothing of the inflated or the ambitious.

François Fénelon was Archbishop of Cambrai and tutor to the heir of Louis XIV, and almost everything he wrote was written to teach somebody: the Treatise on the Education of Daughters for a noblewoman with a daughter to raise, Telemachus for the boy who would be king, and the Dialogues on Eloquence for anyone who had to stand in a pulpit.

Topics François Fénelon addresses

• the three ends of preaching
• to prove and to portray and to move
• the plain style
• ornament in the pulpit
• the conceit
• moving the passions
• persuasion and proof
• Scripture as a model of eloquence
• the Fathers as preachers
• Cicero and Demosthenes as models
• the preacher who recites
• simplicity in speech
• true eloquence
• the education of a prince
• Mentor as teacher
• the ruin brought by conquest
• luxury and the corruption of a court
• flattery in the household of a king
• the prosperity of the fields as the measure of a reign
• the reforms at Salentum
• the shepherd as an image of rule
• a king exists for his subjects
• the education of girls
• teaching by pleasure rather than fear

Questions to put to François Fénelon

The Three Ends of Preaching

• What do you mean by the three ends of preaching?
• What's the difference between proving something and portraying it?
• How does a sermon that pleases its hearers but changes nothing fail?
• Why do you say the fashionable preacher recites rather than speaks?
• What makes moving the passions honest persuasion rather than manipulation?
• How should a preacher use Scripture as a model of eloquence?

Plain Style and the Attack on Ornament

• What's wrong with the ornamental preaching of your day?
• Why do you object to announcing divisions in advance?
• What do you mean when you say true eloquence has nothing of the inflated?
• How do the ancients teach us about persuasion without being Christian?
• What makes the Fathers better models than the fashionable preachers?
• Why is simplicity in speech more powerful than studied conceits?

The Education of a Prince

• What were you trying to teach the Duke of Burgundy through Telemachus?
• Why does conquest impoverish the conqueror?
• How do you measure whether a reign has been good?
• What's the danger of flattery in the household of a king?
• Why does luxury corrupt a court before it corrupts a country?
• Was Telemachus an attack on Louis XIV or a lesson for his grandson?

The Education of Girls and Women

• Why did you argue that girls should be educated when it wasn't usual?
• How does the neglect of girls' instruction produce the frivolity it's used to prove?
• What does a woman who has been taught to reason gain?
• How should a governess form the judgment of a child?
• Why is teaching by pleasure better than teaching by fear?
• What does governing a household well require?

A King Exists for His Subjects

• What does a ruler owe his people?
• Why is the prosperity of the fields the measure of a reign?
• What reforms did you have Mentor introduce at Salentum?
• How is a king like a shepherd?
• What makes a king exist for his subjects rather than the reverse?

Converse with François Fénelon on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in François Fénelon's own writing, cited to the page.