It was in 1678 that Fénelon, while attending quietly to his duties at the parish of St. Sulpice, preaching on Sundays and visiting among the poor during the week, received the important appointment of superior to the community called the Nouvelles Catholiques, or New Catholics. He was twenty-seven at this time, and had developed into a very lovable, charming, attractive, and every way promising young man. His high birth, solid education, brilliant parts, spotless life, eloquence of speech, and influential friends, all tended to bring him forward into the public eye. The words of the Chancellor d’Aguesseau on Fénelon, found in the memoirs of the life of his father, although applying perhaps in fullest measure a little later, may be inserted here, as showing what it must have been felt, by discerning observers, he would erelong become. “Fénelon,” says the chancellor, “was one of those uncommon men who are destined to give luster to their age; and who do equal honor to human nature by their virtues, and to literature by their superior talent. He was affable in his deportment and luminous in his discourse, the peculiar qualities of which were a rich, delicate, and powerful imagination, but which never let its power be felt. His eloquence had more of mildness in it than of vehemence; and he triumphed as much by the charms of his conversation as by the superiority of his talents. He always brought himself to the level of his company; he never entered into disputation, and he sometimes appeared to yield to others at the very time that he was leading them. Grace dwelt upon his lips. He discussed the greatest subjects with facility; the most trifling were ennobled by his pen; and upon the most barren he scattered the flowers of rhetoric. The peculiar but unaffected mode of expression which he adopted made many persons believe that he possessed universal knowledge as if by inspiration. It might indeed have been almost said that he rather invented what he knew than learned it. He was always original and creative, imitating no one, and himself inimitable. A noble singularity pervaded his whole person, and a certain undefinable and sublime simplicity gave to his appearance the air of a prophet.” His personal appearance has been well sketched by one of his contemporaries, the Duke de St. Simon, a satirical, misanthropical, utterly worldly man. “Fénelon,” says St. Simon, “was a tall man, thin, well-made, and with a large nose. From his eyes issued the fire and animation of his mind, like a torrent; and his countenance was such that I never yet beheld any one similar to it, nor could it ever be forgotten if once seen. It combined everything, and yet with everything in harmony. It was grave, and yet alluring; it was solemn, and yet gay; it bespoke equally the theologian, the bishop, and the nobleman. Everything which was visible in it, as well as in his whole person, was delicate, intellectual, graceful, becoming, and, above all, noble.