Editing François Fénelon

{{Short description|French archbishop, theologian and writer (1651–1715)}}
{{redirect|Fénelon}}
{{redirect|François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon|the missionary in New France|François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (missionary)}}

{{Infobox Christian leader
| type = Bishop
| name = François Fénelon
| title = [[Archbishop of Cambrai]]
| honorific-prefix = 
| church = [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]]
| archdiocese = [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Cambrai|Cambrai]]
| see = [[Old Cambrai Cathedral]]
| term_start = 30 May 1695
| term_end = 7 January 1715
| predecessor = [[Jacques-Théodore de Bryas]]
| successor = Jean d'Estrées
| image = François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon.PNG
| caption = Portrait by [[Joseph Vivien]]
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1651|8|6|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Sainte-Mondane]], [[Kingdom of France|France]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1715|1|7|1651|8|6|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Cambrai]], France
| occupation = Theologian, writer, tutor
| alma_mater = [[University of Paris|Collège du Plessis]]
| honorific_prefix = [[His Grace]], The Most Reverend
| honorific_suffix = [[Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice|P.S.S]]
}}
{{Catholic philosophy}}

'''François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon''', PSS ({{IPA|fr|fʁɑ̃swa də saliɲak də la mɔt fenəlɔ̃|lang}}), more commonly known as '''François Fénelon''' (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French [[Catholic]] [[archbishop]], [[theologian]], [[poet]] and writer. Today, he is remembered mostly as the author of ''[[Les Aventures de Télémaque|The Adventures of Telemachus]]'', first published in 1699. He was a member of the [[Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice|Sulpician Fathers]]. 

==Childhood and education, 1651–75==
Fénelon was born on 6 August 1651 at the [[Château de Fénelon]], in [[Sainte-Mondane]], [[Périgord]], [[Aquitaine]], in the Dordogne river valley, the second of the three children of Pons de Salignac, Comte de La Mothe-Fénelon by his wife Louise de La Cropte. Reduced to the status of "impecunious old nobility"<ref>Louis Cognet, "Fénelon," ''Dictionnaire de Spiritualité,'' 5:151. Ed. M. Viller et al. Paris: Beauchesne, 1964.</ref> by François' time, the La Mothe-Fénelons had produced leaders in both Church and state. His uncle Francois currently served as bishop of nearby Sarlat, a see in which fifteen generations of the Fénelon family had filled the episcopal chair. "In fact, so many members of the family occupied the position that it had begun to be considered as practically a familial apanage to which the Salignac-Fénelon had a right as seigneurs of the locality" <ref>Chad Helms, ed. and tr., ''Fénelon: Selected Writings.'' Classics of Western Spirituality. New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2006, p. 6f.</ref>

Fénelon's early education was provided in the [[Château de Fénelon]] by private tutors, who gave him a thorough grounding in the language and literature of the Greek and Latin classics. In 1663, at age 12, he was sent to the University of Cahors, where he studied [[rhetoric]] and [[philosophy]] under the influence of the Jesuit ''ratio studiorum''. When the young man expressed interest in a career in the church, his uncle, the Marquis Antoine de Fénelon (a friend of [[Jean-Jacques Olier]] and [[Vincent de Paul (saint)|Vincent de Paul]]) arranged for him to study at the [[Collège du Plessis]] in Paris, whose [[Christian theology|theology]] students followed the same curriculum as the theology students at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]].  While there, he became friends with [[Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles|Antoine de Noailles]], who later became a [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|cardinal]] and the [[Archbishop of Paris]].  Fénelon demonstrated so much talent at the Collège du Plessis that at age 15, he was asked to give a public sermon. About 1672 (i.e. around the time he was 21 years old), Fénelon's uncle managed to get him enrolled in the [[Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice]], the [[Sulpician]] [[seminary]] in [[Paris]].{{cn|date=June 2024}}

==Early years as a priest, 1675–85==
Around 1675 (when he would have been 24), Fénelon was [[ordained]] as a [[priest]]. He initially dreamed of becoming a missionary to the East, but instead, and at the instigation of friends, he preached in Sulpician parishes and performed routine pastoral work as his reputation for eloquence began to grow.

In early 1679, François Harlay de Champvallon, [[Archbishop of Paris]], selected Fénelon as director of ''Nouvelles-Catholiques'', a community in Paris for young Huguenot girls, who had been removed from their families and were about to join the Church of Rome.<ref>Cardinal de Bausset, ''Histoire de Fénelon, Archevêque de Cambrai'', 3rd ed., I, pp. 45f. (Versailles: Lebel, 1817).</ref> In 1687, he published a pedagogical work, ''Traité de l'éducation des filles'' (''Treatise on the Education of Girls''), which brought him much attention, not only in France, but abroad as well.<ref name=ccel>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/fenelon François Fénelon profile], CCEL.org. Accessed 8 June 2024.</ref>

From 1681 to 1695, Fénelon was prior of the fortified [[monastery]] at [[Carennac]].<ref name="carennac">{{cite book |last1=Ltd, D.K. |title=DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Dordogne, Bordeaux & the Southwest Coast: Dordogne, Bordeaux & the Southwest Coast |date=2012 |publisher=Dorling Kindersley Limited |isbn=9781409384373 |pages=119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfsIgDHHbe8C |access-date=29 July 2018}}</ref>

==Missionary to the Huguenots, 1686–87==
During this period, Fénelon had become friends with his future rival [[Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet]].  When [[Louis XIV]] revoked the [[Edict of Nantes]] in 1685, the Church began a campaign to send the greatest orators in the country into the regions of France with the highest concentration of [[Huguenot]]s to persuade them of the errors of [[Protestantism]].  Upon Bossuet's suggestion, Fénelon was included in this group,<ref name=ccel/> alongside such oratorical greats as [[Louis Bourdaloue]] and [[Esprit Fléchier]].

He spent the next three years in the [[County of Saintonge|Saintonge]] region of France preaching to Protestants.  He persuaded the king to remove troops from the region and tried to avoid outright displays of religious oppression. But, in the end, he was willing to resort to force to make Protestants listen to his message.  He believed that "to be obliged to do good is always an advantage and that heretics and schismatics, when forced to apply their minds to the consideration of truth, eventually lay aside their erroneous beliefs, whereas they would never have examined these matters had not authority constrained them."{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

==Important friends, 1687–89==

During this period, Fénelon assisted Bossuet during his lectures on the [[Bible]] at [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]]. It was probably at Bossuet's urging that he now composed his ''Réfutation du système de Malebranche sur la nature et sur la grâce'', a work in which he attacked [[Nicolas Malebranche]]'s views on [[optimism]], the [[Creation myth|creation]], and the [[Incarnation (Christianity)|Incarnation]]. This work was not published until 1820, long after Fénelon's death.

Fénelon also became friendly with the [[Paul de Beauvilliers, 2nd duc de Saint-Aignan|Duc de Beauvilliers]] and the [[Charles Honoré d'Albert, duc de Luynes, de Chaulnes et de Chevreuse|Duc de Chevreuse]], who were married to the daughters of Louis XIV's minister of finance [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]. He wrote a ''Treatise on the Existence of God''.

In 1688, Fénelon first met his cousin [[Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon]], usually known simply as Madame Guyon. At that time, she was well received in the social circle of the Beauvilliers and Chevreuses. Fénelon was deeply impressed by her piety and actively discipled her. He would later become a devotee and defend her brand of [[Quietism (Christian philosophy)|Quietism]].<ref>Letters from Baron Van Hugel to a Niece, edited with an introduction by Gwendolen Greene—first published in 1928, p. 110</ref>

==Royal tutor, 1689–97==
[[File:Fenelon and the Duke of Burgundy.jpg|thumb|250px|Fénelon and the Duke of Burgundy by Neuville]]
In 1689, Louis XIV named Fénelon's friend the Duc de Beauvilliers as governor of the royal grandchildren. Upon Beauvilliers' recommendation, Fénelon was named the tutor of [[Louis, Dauphin of France (son of Louis XIV)|the Dauphin]]'s eldest son, the seven-year-old [[Louis, Duke of Burgundy|Duke of Burgundy]], who was second in line for the throne. This brought him a good deal of influence at court.<ref name=ccel/>

As tutor, Fénelon was charged with guiding the character formation of a future [[King of France]]. He wrote several important works specifically to guide his young charge. These include his ''Fables'' and his ''Dialogues des Morts''.

But by far the most lasting of his works that Fénelon composed for the duke was his ''[[Les Aventures de Télémaque]]'' [The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses], written in 1693–94.  On its surface, ''The Adventures of Telemachus'' was a novel about [[Odysseus|Ulysses]]' son [[Telemachus]]. On another level, it became a biting attack on the [[Divine right of kings|divine right]] [[absolute monarchy]] which was the dominant ideology of Louis XIV's France.  In sharp contrast to Bossuet, who, when tutor to the Dauphin, had written ''[[Politique tirée de l'Écriture sainte]]'' which affirmed the divine foundations of absolute monarchy while also exhorting the future king to use restraint and wisdom in exercising his absolute power, Fénelon went so far as to write "Good kings are rare and the generality of monarchs bad".<ref>Telemachus, Book XIV. "Ainsi les bons rois sont très rares, et la plupart sont si méchants …". See for example: {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresoftele00fnel|title=Adventures of Telemachus|author=Fenelon, Francois, Tr. Hawkesworth|publisher=Hurd and Houghton / Riverside Press|date=1872|access-date=2019-03-11|page=[https://archive.org/details/adventuresoftele00fnel/page/462 462]}}</ref>

French literary historian Jean-Claude Bonnet calls ''Télémaque'' "the true key to the museum of the eighteenth-century imagination".<ref>''La Naissance du Panthéon: Essai sur le culte des grands homes'' (Paris Fayard, 1998).</ref> One of the most popular works of the century, it became an immediate best seller both in France and abroad, going through many editions and translated into every European language and even Latin verse (first in Berlin in 1743, then in Paris by Étienne Viel [1737-87]). It inspired numerous imitations, such as the Abbé [[Jean Terrasson]]'s novel ''[[Life of Sethos]]'' (1731), which in turn inspired Mozart's ''[[Magic Flute]]''. It also more directly supplied the plot for [[Mozart]]'s opera, ''[[Idomeneo]]'' (1781). Scenes from ''Télémaque'' appeared in wallpaper. The American president Andrew Jackson wallpapered the entrance hall to his slave plantation, The Hermitage, in Tennessee, with scenes from Telemachus on the Island of Calypso.<ref>Winterer, Caroline. ''The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750–1900'' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), page 39.</ref>

Most believed Fénelon's tutorship resulted in a dramatic improvement in the young duke's behaviour.  Even the memoirist [[Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon]], who generally disliked Fénelon, admitted that when Fénelon became tutor, the duke was a spoiled, violent child; when Fénelon left him, the duke had learned the lessons of self-control as well as being thoroughly impressed with a sense of his future duties. ''Telemachus'' is therefore widely seen as the most thorough exposition of the brand of reformism in the Beauvilliers-Chevreuse circle, which hoped that following Louis XIV's death, his brand of autocracy could be replaced by a monarchy less centralized and less absolute, and with a greater role for aristocrats such as Beauvilliers and Chevreuse.

In 1693, Fénelon was elected to Seat 34 of the [[Académie française]].

In 1694, the king named Fénelon Abbot of [[Saint-Valery-en-Caux|Saint-Valery]], a lucrative post worth 14,000 [[French livre|livres]] a year.

The early- to mid-1690s are significant since it was during this period that [[Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon|Mme de Maintenon]] (quasi-[[Morganatic marriage|morganatic]] wife of Louis XIV since roughly 1684) began to regularly consult Fénelon on matters of conscience.  Also, since Fénelon had a reputation as an expert on educating girls, she sought his advice on the house of [[Maison royale de Saint-Louis|Saint-Cyr]] which she was founding for girls.

In February 1696, the king nominated Fénelon to become the [[Archbishop of Cambrai]] while at the same time asking him to remain in his position as tutor to the duke of Burgundy. Fénelon accepted, and he was consecrated by his old friend Bossuet in August.

==Quietist controversy, 1697–99==

As already noted, Fénelon had met Madam Guyon in 1688 and became an admirer of her work.

In 1697, following a visit by Mme Guyon to Mme de Maintenon's school at Saint-Cyr, [[Paul Godet des Marais]], [[Bishop of Chartres]] (Saint-Cyr was located within his [[diocese]]) expressed concerns about Mme Guyon's [[orthodoxy]] to Mme de Maintenon. The bishop noted that Mme Guyon's opinions bore striking similarities to [[Miguel de Molinos]]' [[Quietism (Christian philosophy)|Quietism]], which [[Pope Innocent XI]] condemned in 1687. Mme de Maintenon responded by requesting an ecclesiastical commission to examine Mme Guyon's orthodoxy: the commission consisted of two of Fénelon's old friends, Bossuet and de Noailles, as well as the head of the Sulpician order of which Fénelon was a member.  The commission sat at [[Issy-les-Moulineaux|Issy]] and, after six months of deliberations, delivered its opinion in the ''Articles d'Issy'', 34 articles which briefly condemned certain of Mme Guyon's opinions, as well as set forth a brief exposition of the Catholic view of [[Prayer in Christianity|prayer]]. Both Fénelon and the Bishop of Chartres signed the articles, as did all three commission members.  Mme Guyon immediately submitted to the decision.

At Issy, the commission asked Bossuet to follow up the Articles with an exposition. Bossuet thus proceeded to write ''Instructions sur les états d'oraison'', which he submitted to the commission members, as well as to the Bishop of Chartres and Fénelon, requesting their signatures before its publication. Fénelon refused to sign, arguing that Mme Guyon had already admitted her mistakes and there was no point in further condemning her.  Furthermore, Fénelon disagreed with Bossuet's interpretation of the Articles d'Issy, as he wrote in ''Explication des Maximes des Saints'' (a work often regarded as his masterpiece - English: ''Maxims of the Saints''). Fénelon interpreted the Articles d'Issy in a way much more sympathetic to the Quietist viewpoint than Bossuet proposed.

Louis XIV responded to the controversy by chastising Bossuet for not warning him earlier of Fénelon's opinions and ordered Bossuet, de Noailles, and the Bishop of Chartres to respond to the ''Maximes des Saints''. Shocked that his grandson's tutors held such views, the king removed Fénelon from his post as royal tutor and ordered Fénelon to remain within the boundaries of the archdiocese of Cambrai.

This unleashed two years of pamphlet warfare as the two sides traded opinions.  On 12 March 1699, the [[Inquisition]] formally condemned the ''Maximes des Saints'', with Pope [[Innocent XII]] listing 23 specific propositions as unorthodox.

Fénelon immediately declared that he submitted to the pope's authority and set aside his own opinion.  With this, the Quietist matter was dropped.

However, that same year, ''The Adventures of Telemachus'' was published. This book also enraged Louis XIV, for it appeared to question his regime's very foundations. Thus, even after Fénelon abjured his Quietist views, the king refused to revoke his order forbidding Fénelon from leaving his archdiocese.

==Later years==

[[File:Bust of François Fénelon.jpg|thumb|right|[[Bust (sculpture)|Bust]] of François Fénelon in [[Carennac]], [[France]]]]

As Archbishop of [[Cambrai]], Fénelon spent most of his time in the archiepiscopal palace, but also spent several months of each year [[Canonical Visitation|visiting]] churches and other institutions within his archdiocese. He preached in his cathedral on festival days, and took an especial interest in seminary training and in examining candidates for the priesthood prior to their ordination.

During the [[War of the Spanish Succession]], Spanish troops encamped in his archdiocese (an area France had only recently captured from Spain), but they never interfered with  the exercise of his archiepiscopal duties. Warfare, however, produced refugees, and  Fénelon opened his palace to refugees fleeing the ongoing conflict.

{{Quote|For Fénelon all wars were civil wars. Humanity was a single society and all wars within it the greatest evil, for he argued that one's obligation to mankind as a whole was always greater than what was owed to one's particular country.<ref>[[Sylvana Windsor, Countess of St Andrews|Sylvana Tomaselli]], "The spirit of nations," in [[Mark Goldie]] and [[Robert Wokler]], eds., ''The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp.&nbsp;9–39. Quote on p.&nbsp;11.</ref>}}

During these latter years, Fénelon wrote a series of anti-[[Jansenist]] works.  The impetus was the publication of the ''Cas de Conscience'', which revived the old Jansenist distinction between questions of law and questions of fact, and argued that though the church had the right to condemn certain opinions as heretical, it did not have the right to oblige one to believe that these opinions were actually contained in [[Cornelius Jansen]]'s ''[[Augustinus (Jansenist book)|Augustinus]]''. The treatises, sermons, and pastoral letters Fénelon wrote in response occupy seven volumes in his collected works. Fénelon particularly condemned [[Pasquier Quesnel]]'s ''Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament''. His writings contributed to the tide of scholarly opinion which led to [[Pope Clement XI]]'s 1713 bull ''[[Unigenitus]]'', condemning Quesnel's opinions.

Although confined to the Cambrai archdiocese in his later years, Fénelon continued to act as a spiritual director for Mme de Maintenon, as well as the ducs de Chevreuse and de Beauvilliers, the duke of Burgundy, and other prominent individuals.

Fénelon's later years were blighted by the deaths of many of his close friends.  Shortly before his death, he asked Louis XIV to replace him with a man opposed to Jansenism and loyal to the Sulpician order.  He died on 7 January 1715.

==Fénelon as reformer and defender of human rights==
Fénelon wrote about the dangers of power in government. Historian [[Paul Hazard]] remarks that the author posed hard questions for his fictional hero Telemachus to put to Idomeneus, King of Salente: 
{{quote|text=...those same questions, in the same sorrowing tone, Fénelon puts to<!--not a mistake--> to his pupil, the Duc de Bourgogne, against the day, when he will have to take over the royal power: Do you understand the constitution of kingship? Have you acquainted yourself with the moral obligations of Kings? Have you sought means of bringing comfort to the people? The evils that are engendered by absolute power, by incompetent administration, by war, how will you shield your subjects from them? And when in 1711, the same Duc de Bourgogne became Dauphin of France, it was a whole string of reforms that Fénelon submitted to him in preparation for his accession|source=Paul Hazard, ''The European Mind, 1680-1715'', translated by J. Lewis May (Cleveland Ohio: Meridian Books [1935] [1963], 1967) p. 282.}}

Fénelon defended [[universal human rights]], and the unity of humankind. He wrote:

{{Quote|text=A people is no less a member of the human race, which is society as a whole, than a family is a member of a particular nation. Each individual owes incomparably more to the human race, which is the great fatherland, than to the particular country in which he was born. As a family is to the nation, so is the nation to the universal commonweal; wherefore it is infinitely more harmful for nation to wrong nation, than for family to wrong family. To abandon the sentiment of humanity is not merely to renounce civilization and to relapse into barbarism, it is to share in the blindness of the most brutish brigands and savages; it is to be a man no longer, but a cannibal.|source=Fénelon, "Socrate et Alcibiade", ''Dialogue des Morts'' (1718), quoted in Paul Hazard, ''The European Mind, 1680-1715'' (1967), pp. 282–83.}}

He also wrote of women's education as a means against heresy.

{{quote|text=The world is not abstraction; it is the sum total of families; and who can civilize it more effectively than women .  .  .  .  [The concerns of women] are scarcely less important to the public than those of men, since women have a household to rule, a husband to make happy, and children to bring up well .  .  .  .   In short, one has to consider not only the good which women do when they are well brought up, but also the evil which they cause in the world when they lack an education which inspires them to virtue..."|source=H.C. Barnard, Fénelon on Education:  A Translation of the 'Traité de l'education des filles' and Other Documents Illustrating Fénelon's Educational Theories and Practice, Together with an Introduction and Notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966),  2-3., quoted in {{cite thesis |title=Finding their Place in the World: Meiji Intellectuals and the Japanese Construction of an East-West Binary, 1868-1912.|last1=Racel|first1=Masako N. Thesis|institution=Georgia State University|year=2011|url=https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/26}} }}

==Works==
*''[[Les Aventures de Télémaque|The Adventures of Telemachus]]'', [[doi:10.3931/e-rara-79368]] (Digitized Edition at [[E-rara]]).
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47621 ''Treatise on the Education of Daughters'']
*[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001080128 ''Dialogues of the dead'']
*[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008621023 ''Lives of the ancient philosophers'']
*''Christian Perfection''
* ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11044 The Existence of God]''
*''Let Go''
*''The Royal Way of the Cross''
*[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011257887 ''Maxims of the Mystics'']
*''[http://www.passtheword.org/DIALOGS-FROM-THE-PAST/innerlife.htm The Inner Life]''
* Spiritual Letters (2 volumes, letters to men; letters to women, Rivingtons, London, 1877)

==Homage==
Rev. [[A. W. Tozer]] highly praises François Fénelon's ''Inner Life (Christian Perfection)'', valuing its profound spiritual insights and practical guidance for deepening one’s relationship with God.<ref name="AllianceW">{{cite web|url=https://cdn.cmalliance.org/archives/alifepdf/AW-1947-05-10.pdf|title=The Alliance Weekly Volume 82 May 10, 1947 Number 19|access-date=}}</ref> Tozer regards it as an essential read for those earnest in pursuing a devout Christian life, emphasizing its timeless significance.<ref name="AllianceW"/> Tozer cherished Fénelon's ''Christian Perfection'' deeply, never lending it out,<ref>{{cite book |title=The Crucified Life: How To Live Out A Deeper Christian Experience|publisher=Bethany House |year=2011 |isbn=978-0830759224}}</ref> and considered it an unparalleled aid to spiritual life.<ref name="AllianceW"/>

[[William Godwin]] later referenced Fénelon in book II, chapter II of his [[Enquiry Concerning Political Justice]], as an example of man whose life and continued authorship of important works was so valuable to society at large, that if his palace was in flames and someone was in a position to rescue either Fénelon or his valet (some editions say ''chambermaid''), we should rescue Fenelon, even if the servant was our close relative.<ref>{{cite sep|url-id=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/|title=William Godwin|date=17 April 2025|author-last=Philp|author-first=Mark|edition=Summer 2025}}</ref>

==Biography==
* H. L. Sidney Lear, ''Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai: A Biographical Sketch'' (London, 1877)
*[[Stafford Harry Northcote, Viscount Saint Cyres]], ''François de Fénelon'' (London: Methuen & Co., 1901)

==See also==
*[[Human rights]]
*[[Christian mysticism]]
* [[François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (missionary)]] - half brother and missionary

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*"François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon." ''Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed''. Gale Research, 1998.
*Sabine Melchior-Bonnet, ''Fénelon''. Paris; Éditions Perrin, 2008.
*Peter Gorday, ''François Fénelon, a Biography: The Apostle of Pure Love''. Brewster, MA; Paraclete Press, 2012.
*Kanter, Sanford B., "Archbishop Fenelon’s Political Activity: The Focal Point of Power in Dynasticism", French Historical Studies 4, no. 3 (1966): 320–34. [https://doi.org/10.2307/285906].
*MANSFIELD, ANDREW, "The Political Principles of Fénelon", In ''Ideas of Monarchical Reform: Fénelon, Jacobitism, and the Political Works of the Chevalier Ramsay'', 83–104. Manchester University Press, 2015. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1mf70gv.8].
*Randall, Catharine. "'LOOSENING THE STAYS': MADAME GUYON’S QUIETIST OPPOSITION TO ABSOLUTISM", Mystics Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2000): 8–30. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/20717392].
*Christoph Schmitt-Maaß, Stefanie Stockhorst and Doohwan Ahn (eds.). 'Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations'. Amsterdam - New York, Rodopi, 2014.
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe|volume=10|pages=252–254|first=Stafford Henry|last=Northcote|author-link=Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commons category|François Fénelon}}
{{wikisource|Author:François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=3810}}
* {{Librivox author |id=11557}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Fénelon, François (de la Mothe-Fénelon, François de Salignac)|name=François Fénelon|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=François Fénelon |sopt=t}}
* {{OL author|65062A|cname=François Fénelon}} 
*''[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/fenelon/progress.html Avis Chretiens]'' "Christian Counsel" (1810) English translation
* [https://librivox.org/author/11557?primary_key=11557&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results ''Fenelon''] Librivox free audio
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06035a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]
*[http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/showcase/kantzios1.html "Educating Telemachus: Lessons in Fénelon's Underworld" by Ippokratis Kantzios]

{{Académie française Seat 34}}
{{History of Catholic theology|collapsed}}

{{Subject bar |portal1=Poetry |portal2= Biography |portal3= Christianity |portal4= France}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenelon, Francois}}
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