M. Gosselin was more remarkable for his erudition than his theology.
He was a safe critic within the limits of an orthodoxy which he never
thought of questioning, and he was placid to a degree. His _Histoire
Litteraire de Fenelon_ is a much esteemed work, and his treatise on
the power of the Pope over the sovereign in the Middle Ages[2] is
full of research. It was written at a time when the works of Voigt and
Hurter revealed to the Catholics the greatness of the Roman pontiffs
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This greatness was rather an
awkward obstacle for the Gallicans, as there could be no doubt that
the conduct of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. was not at all in
conformity with the maxims of 1682. M. Gosselin thought that by means
of a principle of public law, accepted in the Middle Ages, he had
solved all the difficulties which these imposing narratives place in
the way of theologians. M. Carriere was rather inclined to laugh at
his sanguine ideas, and compared his efforts to those of an old woman
who tries to thread her needle by holding it tight between the lamp
and her spectacles. At last the cotton passes so close to the eye of
the needle that she says "I have done it now!"--'Not so, though she
was scarcely a hairsbreadth off; but still she must begin again.
At my own inclination, and the advice of Abbe Tresvaux, a pious and
learned Breton priest who was vicar-general to M. de Quelen, I chose
M. Gosselin for my tutor, and I have retained a most affectionate
recollection of him.
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