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Anecdotes
of Bossuet
by Jean Baptiste Le Rond
D'Alembert
Bossuet's talents for the pulpit disclosed
themselves almost from his infancy. He was
announced as a phenomenon of early oratory at the
hotel de Rambouillet, where merit of all kinds was
summoned to appear, and was judged of, well or ill.
He there, before a numerous and chosen assembly,
made a sermon on a given subject, almost without
preparation, and with the highest applause. The
preacher was only sixteen years old, and the hour
was eleven at night; which gave occasion to
Voiture, who abounded in plays on words, to say
that he had never heard so early or so late a
sermon.
One of those persons who made a parade of their
unbelief, wished to hear, or rather to brave him.
Too proud to confess himself conquered, but too
just to refuse the homage due to a great man, he
exclaimed, on leaving the place, "This man to me is
the first of preachers; for I feel it is by him I
should be converted, if I were ever to be so."
He one day presented to Louis XIV Father
Mabillon, as "the most learned Religieux of his
Kingdom." -- "And the humblest too," said le
Tellier, Archbishop of Rheims, who thereby thought
to epigrammatize adroitly the modesty of the
prelate. The famed Archbishop, however, humiliated
as he felt himself by the elevated genius of
Bossuet, was too just to suffer it to be slighted.
Some young court chaplains, one of whom has since
occupied high stations, talking one day in his
presence, with French levity, of the works and
abilities of the Bishop of Meaux, whom they
ventured to ridicule; "Be silent, said le Tellier,
"respect your master and outs."
Excerpted from Anecdotes of
Bossuet, by Jean Baptiste Le Rond
D'Alembert
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