FÉNELON was born at the Château de Fénelon, Dordogne, France, August 6th, 1651, in a century which produces the most famous pulpit orators of modern times. Fénelon himself belonged to the group of great preachers who made the French pulpit of the age of Louis XIV. illustrious, but he is even more celebrated for his “Telemachus” and other writings than for his oratory. Among his important prose works are “Telemachus,” “Dialogues of the Dead,” “Treatise on the Education of Girls,” “Lives of the Philosophers,” “Dialogues on Eloquence,” and “The Existence of God.” He wrote his “Dialogues of the Dead,” as well as the more celebrated “Telemachus,” for the education of the young Duke of Burgundy. In 1695 he was appointed Archbishop of Cambrai, but the dignity did not deprive him of the sweetness of disposition which characterized his life, as it does his writings. He died January 7th, 1715. His style as a prose writer is so greatly admired by his countrymen that for French prose he is said to be what Racine is among the writers of French verse.