"The most original intellect--if we set Pascal aside--of the seventeenth century"--so Fenelon is described by one excellent critic. "Antique and modern," writes his biographer, M. Paul Janet, "Christian and profane, mystical and diplomatic, familiar and noble, gentle and headstrong, natural and subtle, fascinating the eighteenth century as he had fascinated the seventeenth, believing like a child, and daring as Spinoza, Fenelon is one of the most original figures which the Catholic Church has produced." His first publication was the treatise _De l'Education des Filles_ (written 1681, published 1687), composed at the request of his friends the Duc and Duchesse de Beauvilliers. It is based on a recognition of the dignity of woman and the duty of a serious effort to form her mind. It honours the reason, opposes severity, would make instruction, as far as possible, a delight, and would exhibit goodness in a gracious aspect; commends object-lessons in addition to book-learning, indicates characteristic feminine failings (yet liveliness of disposition is not regarded as one of these), exhorts to a dignified simplicity in dress. The range of studies recommended is narrow, but for Fenelon's time it was liberal; the book marks an epoch in the history of female education. For his pupil the Duc de Bourgogne, Fenelon wrote his graceful prose _Fables_ (which also include under that title short tales, allegories, and fairy stories), the _Dialogues des Morts_, aiming at the application of moral principles to politics, and his _Telemaque_, named in the first (incomplete) edition _Suite du IVe Livre de l'Odyssee_ (1699). In this, for long the most popular of tales for the young, Fenelon's imaginative devotion to antiquity finds ample expression; it narrates the wanderings of Telemachus in search of his father Ulysses, under the warning guidance and guardianship of Minerva disguised as Mentor. Imitations and borrowings from classical authors are freely and skilfully made. It is a poem in prose, a romance of education, designed at once to charm the imagination and to inculcate truths of morals, politics, and religion. The didactic purpose is evident, yet it remains a true work of art, full of grace and colour, occasionally, indeed, languid, but often vivid and forcible.