The Bishop of Meaux, annoyed at the action of Fenelon, denounced the book to Louis XIV., who appointed a commission to examine it (1697). Fenelon, fearing that a commission, one of the members of which was his rival Bossuet, would not be likely to give an impartial judgment, forwarded his book to Rome for judgment. While the Roman authorities were at work a violent controversy was carried on between Fenelon and Bossuet, which, however much it may have added to the literary reputation of the combatants, was neither edifying nor instructive. On the side of Bossuet especially it is clear that personalities played a much greater part than zeal for orthodoxy. In Rome opinion was very much divided about the orthodoxy of Fenelon's work. Louis XIV. left no stone unturned to secure its condemnation. In the end Innocent XII. condemned twenty propositions taken from the book (1699).[2] This sentence was handed to Fenelon just as he was about to mount the pulpit in his own cathedral on the Feast of the Annunciation. After mastering its contents he preached on the submission that was due to superiors, read the condemnation for the people, and announced to them that he submitted completely to the decision of the Pope, and besought his friends earnestly neither to read his book nor to defend the views that it contained. ---------- [1] Denzinger, op. cit., nos. 1221-88. [2] In the Brief, /Cum alias/, Denzinger, op. cit., nos. 1327-49. CHAPTER VIII RATIONALISM AND ITS EFFECTS (a) Anti-Christian Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century. Lecky, /History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe/, 1913. Windleband-Tufts, /A History of Philosophy/, 1898. Uberweg-Morris, /History of Philosophy/, 2nd edition, 1876. Turner, /History of Philosophy/, 1906. Binder, /Geschichte der philosophie ... mit Rucksicht auf den Kirchlichen Zustande/, 1844- 45. Lanfrey, /L'Eglise et les philosophes au XVIIIe siecle/, 1879. Faguet, /Etude sur le XVIIIe siecle/, 1890. Lange, /History of Materialism/, 1877 (Tr. from German). Stephen, /History of English Thought in the XVIIIth Century/, 1881. Taine, /Les origines de la France contemporaine/ (vol. ii.), 1907.