It was on February 4, 1695, that the king announced to Abbé de Fénelon that he had nominated him Archbishop of Cambrai, one of the richest and most important sees in the kingdom. He was taken entirely by surprise, but at once replied, after expressing his thanks, that he could scarcely rejoice in an appointment that would remove him from the preceptorship to the princes. Whereupon Louis graciously answered that the abbé was much too useful to be spared, and that his intention was that he should retain both offices. Fénelon represented that the laws of the Church and his own conscience made this impossible, as both required residence in the diocese. But the king bore witness to his appreciation of Fénelon’s services by overruling this difficulty, and replying, “No, no; the canons only require nine months’ residence; you will spend three months with my grandsons, and during the rest of the year you must superintend their education from Cambrai just as you would at Versailles.” This point settled, Fénelon went on to say that if he was indeed to accept the archbishopric he must resign the Abbey of St. Valery, an act of disinterestedness which Louis altogether refused to allow. But Fénelon quietly persisted, pointing out to the king that the revenues of Cambrai were such as to make it an infringement of canonical law to hold any other preferment with it. Such conscientious indifference to his own interest excited a great deal of astonishment and gossip at court. The Bishop of Rheims remarked that it was all very well for M. de Fénelon, thinking as he did, to act thus, but that thinking as _he_ did, it was better for him to keep his revenues. The age was thoroughly accustomed to this plurality of benefices. In the previous century John of Lorraine was at one and the same time Archbishop of Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Theroneune, Lucon, Alby, and Valence, and Abbot of Gortz, Fecamp, Clugny, and Marmontier. He was also made a cardinal a year or two before attaining his majority. This was doubtless an extreme case, but there were plenty somewhat similar. So that Fénelon’s self-denying course meant a good deal more than it would at the present day.