His brother-in-law, the Duke de Chevreuse, was different in disposition, though equally devoted to religion. He was abler, broader-minded, better informed, more genial and witty, but less systematic, and a very poor business man. He had no fixed hours for anything, and was always behindhand. Had it not been for the king he must have died a beggar; for he had little of his own, and his wife’s large fortune was wasted on costly but futile experiments, such as canals made at enormous expense to float down the timber from woods which he sold before even a tree was felled. He was charming in his manners, and was not simply loved, but adored by his family, and friends, and servants. Throughout his troubles, which were many, he was never for a moment cast down, but offered up his all to God and fixed his eyes on Him. “Never man possessed his soul in peace as he did,” wrote St. Simon, “as the Scripture says, ‘He carried it in his hands.’” He was even nearer to Fénelon in some ways than the other duke, and equally stanch in his attachment. He had no special portfolio in the ministry, but was consulted by the king about most departments, and was very highly esteemed by him. The two sisters, wives of these dukes—there were indeed three, the third having married the Duke de Mortemart, but of this family we hear almost nothing—were linked by the strongest bonds of sympathy and affection, and the three families lived in the closest union of principle and action, which gave them great strength amid the profligate, time-serving court. Twice a week there were dinners at the Hotel de Beauvilliers, where the society was at once select, intellectual, and devout. A bell was on the table, and no servant was present, that they might converse without restraint. It was in this society that Fénelon, being introduced, became speedily the leader. He was accepted by the two dukes, not as director simply but as spiritual master, as the mind of their mind, says St. Simon, the soul of their soul, the sovereign ruler of their heart and conscience. Such he remained all his days. Fénelon and the Beauvilliers had not been long acquainted before the duchess, mother of eight daughters, begged him to set down some rules for the guidance of their education. This request is a proof not only of the versatility of his powers, but of the strength of his faculty of intuition, that a court lady should have turned to him for help in such matters. He had been educated from childhood to his sacred calling, shut off from any experience of some of the strongest of life’s influences, and therefore on some accounts might seem poorly fitted to prove an apt adviser; but it was strongly felt that he possessed the secret of truest wisdom, that what he taught was drawn from too high a source to be greatly affected by the limits of personal experience. Throughout his life, indeed, it was his power of sympathy, of entering into the difficulties of others, of realizing temptations that can never have