histofthought1

264 Economic thought before Adam Smithhad no desire to lead his subjects to happiness. In contrast to Machiavelli'sview that 'men are bad', Fleury countered sensibly that 'they are for the mostpart neither very bad nor very good', and that the ruler had the duty toimprove their virtue and happiness.The outstanding clerical opponent of absolutism and mercantilism in lateseventeenth century France, however, was not so much Fleury as his friendand student, Fran~ois de Salignac de la Mothe, Archbishop Fenelon ofCambrai(1651-1715). Fenelon led a powerful cabal at court who were deeply opposedto the absolutist and mercantilist policies of the king and determined toreform them in the direction of free trade, limited government and laissezfaire.By means of his post as religious instructor to the king's mistress,Madame de Maintenon, 5 Fenelon got himself appointed in 1689 as preceptorto the royal children, in particular the young Duke of Burgundy, grandson ofLouis XIV, who seemed destined one day to be king. Assisted by Fleury,Fenelon made the duke into a disciple, surrounding him with ardentoppositionists to the policies of the Sun King.In 1693, Fenelon, incensed at the continuing wars against the English andDutch, wrote the king an impassioned and hard-hitting though anonymousletter, which he probably sent only to Madame de Maintenon. Blaming theking's evil ministers, he declared:Sire...for the past thirty years your...ministers have violated and overturned allthe ancient maxims of state in order to raise your power, which was theirs becauseit was in their hands, to the highest possible point. We no longer heard of the Statenor of its rules; they only spoke of the King and his pleasure. They have increasedyour revenues and your expenditures to the infinite. They have elevated you to theheavens...and impoverished all of France so as to introduce and maintain anincurable and monstrous luxury at Court. They wanted to raise you on the ruins ofall classes in the State, as if you could become great by oppressing your subjects...The king's ministers, Fenelon continued, only wish to crush all who resist.They have made the king's name 'odious', have wanted 'only slaves', andhave 'caused bloody wars'. The wars and their attendant taxes have crushedtrade and the poor, driving the people to desperation 'by exacting from themfor your wars, the bread which they have endeavored to earn with the sweatfrom their brows' . 6Fenelon's magnum opus was his political novel, Telemaque, written for theedification of the young Duke of Burgundy, on whom he and his confrerespinned all the hopes for the radical liberalization of France. Telemaque waswritten during 1695 and 1696, and published without his permission in 1699.Telemaque was a mythical young prince, who travelled through the world ofantiquity seeking instruction on the wisest forms of government. What