The severity of the new dauphin caused some little dread.
"Here is a prince who will succeed me before long," said the king on presenting his grandson to the assembly of the clergy; "by his virtue and piety he will render the church still more flourishing, and the kingdom more happy." That was the hope of all good men.

Fenelon, in his exile in Cambrai, and the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, at court, began to feel themselves all at once transported to the heights with the prince whom they had educated, and who had constantly remained faithful to them.
The delicate foresight and prudent sagacity of Fenelon had a long while ago sought to prepare his pupil for the part which he was about to play.
It was piety alone that had been able to triumph over the dangerous tendencies of a violent and impassioned temperament.

Fenelon, who had felt this, saw also the danger of devoutness carried too far.

"Religion does not consist in a scrupulous observance of petty formalities," he wrote to the Duke of Burgundy; "it consists, for everybody, in the virtues proper to one's condition.

A great prince ought not to serve God in the same way as a hermit or a simple individual." "The prince thinks too much and acts too little," he said to the Duke of Chevreuse; "his most solid occupations are confined to vague applications of his mind and barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix in it, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly, and acquire a gentle authority.