MONUMENT TO BOSSUET UNVEILED.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1307, 9 December 1911, Page 10

MONUMENT TO BOSSUET UNVEILED.

A monument to 80-suet, the ' netf preacher of the age of Lonis XIV, w„ unveiled on October 23 in the Cathedral Jl ."V,? 1, The monument, which, on the initiative of the late Bishop do Brier, was erected by subscriptions from every part of the civilised world-Great Britain and America are specially mention-ed-is the work of tho sculptor Ern<t Dubois. . It represents Bossuet in th» canna magna and tho ceremonial robes of a Bishop. At his feet is an eagle—be was the eagle of Meaux"; at the fides are four figures representing on the right Princess Henrietta of England (the Duchess of Orleans on ' whom Bossuet preached ono of his greatest funeral sermons) and tho younj; Duke of Burgundv: on the left the Prince do Conde and Mue.de Vallicre in her nun's robes. Tho ceremony in the Cathedral was at. t*ndfd with groat pomn, and there were present the Bishop of Meaux, Mgr. Marbeau ; the Archbishop of Kheims, Cardinal Lucon; the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Amotte i the Archbishop of Malines, Mgr. Mcrcicr; the Archbishops of Eouen, Auch, and Condom, and the Bishops of Amiens, Angers, Autun, Blois, Beauvais, Orleans. Chartrcs, and many others, in all nearly 30 prelates. Tho Academic Francaise, of which Bossnet became a member in 1671, had also been invited, and was represented by a large deputation, who went to Meaux in motor-cars along the road over which, as M. Jules Claretie remarked, Bossuet used to travel in his State coach. After Mass tho company repaired to the ancient residence of Bossuet, where M. Jules Lemaitro, of tho Acadomie Francaise, delivered an eloquent address on Bossuet aB a great French orator, a dovout Christian, a truo Gallicnn prelate, and a faithful and industrious overseer of his dioceso of Meaux. Ho quoted Bossuofs protest in one of his great orations against the arrogance of the socalled "freethinkers" of his day:— "What is it that they havo seen, then, these rare .geniuses, that thoy s claini to havo secn'-'morb than tho rest 'opus? Do they think that they have had n clearer view of the difficulties because they have succumbed to them, while the others have seen tho difficulties and havo despised them ''."

The faith by which Bossuet surmounted his difficulties was "serene and without hardness." ■ His sublime outbursts and tho roll of his thunder were chiefly remembered, but tenderness and sweetness were still more characteristic of his sermons and his meditations. After tho passage just quoted against the rationalists, ho had continued: "Lot us then belicvo with Saint John in the Lore of God; our faith will seem sweet to us if we approaoh it through such tenderness." .After briefly 'tracing Bossnct's relations with tho peat fig-urea, and movement* of his age, M. Lcmaitro concluded:— "The people know his namo and know that ho was tho most eloquent of men. Ho has hardly had any enemies since his death, and I believe thai to-day ho has nono at all. 110 impresses even minds that are intellectually most remote- from his> by his siucority, his power, his breadth, and the whole harmony of his nature. Ho was frankly and splendidly what ho was."

An equally eloquent panegyric was delivered from tho Cathedral pulpit to a groat congregation, including all the special deputations, by Mgr. Touched Bishop of Orleans.