Chapter 1-19

To resume the thread of my narrative, I will say that the small-pox had so injured one eye that I feared losing it. A gland at the corner of the eye was relaxed, and from time to time abscesses formed between the nose and the eye, which caused me very great pain until they were lanced. I could not endure the pillow, owing to the excessive swelling of my whole head. The least noise was torture to me, and providence permitted that during this time a very great noise was made in my room. Although this caused me much pain, the time was nevertheless for me a delightful one for two reasons—first, because I was left alone in my bed, where I kept a very sweet retreat; the second, because it gratified the hunger I had for suffering, which was so great that all bodily austerities would have been like a drop of water to extinguish a great fire. I often had my teeth pulled out, although they did not pain me. It was a refreshment for me, and when my teeth pained me I did not think of having them pulled out; on the contrary, they became my good friends, and I was regretful of losing them without pain. I once poured molten lead on my naked flesh, but it did not cause any pain, because it flowed off and did not stick. In sealing letters I let Spanish wax fall on me, and this causes more pain, because it sticks. When I held a candle, I let it come to an end and burn me for a long time. These are not crosses, nor pains. Our own choice can cause us only light crosses. It is for you, O my Crucified Love, to cut them after your model in order to render them heavy. I do not wonder you are painted in the shop of St. Joseph making crosses. Oh, how skilful you are at this work!

I asked leave to go to Paris to have my eye treated, much less, however, for that reason than to see M. Bertot, whom Mother Granger had a little before given me as director, and who was a man of profound illumination. It was then decided I should go to Paris. I went to say farewell to my father, and he embraced me with very great tenderness. He did not think, any more than I, it was for the last time. Paris was no longer for me a place to be dreaded. The world served only to make me concentrated, and the noise of the streets increased my prayer. I saw M. Bertot, who was not as useful to me as he would have been if at that time I had had the gift of explaining myself; but God so conducted me that, whatever desire I had to conceal nothing, I could not tell him anything. As soon as 1 spoke to him, everything was taken away from my mind, and I could only remember some defects I told him. My inner disposition was too simple to be able to tell anything of it, and as I saw him very seldom, and nothing dwelt in my mind, and I read nothing similar to what I experienced, I knew not how to explain myself; besides, I desired to let him know only the evil that was in me, for which reason M. Bertot has never known me until after his death. This has been very useful for me, in depriving me of all support, and making me die to myself.

I resolved, after having seen M. Bertot, and finished my cure, to go and pass the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost in an abbey four leagues from Paris, the Abbess of which had much friendship for me. I thought I should there conveniently keep a retreat of ten days. I had at that time an extremely strong interior attraction, and it seemed to me, O my God, that my union with you was continual. I experienced that it constantly grew deeper and withdrew from the sensible, becoming more simple, but at the same time closer and more intimate.

On the Day of St. Erasmus, the patron of that convent, at four in the morning, I awoke with a start, having a vivid impression my father was dead. I had no rest till I had prayed for him as for one dead, and, having done it, I was no more troubled; but there remained with me a strong conviction of his death, together with an extreme prostration and a pleasing grief, which so overwhelmed my body that it was reduced to very great weakness. I went to the church, where I no sooner was than a faint seized me, and, after I recovered, there remained a loss of voice, and I could not speak. I could not eat the smallest thing —the concentration and the grief were too powerful. My soul was in a divine contentment and strength, and my exterior was overwhelmed with grief and weakness. I should not have perceived any grief, so great was the contentment of my soul, if it had not made this powerful impression on my body.

In all these blows, and in an infinity of others, I remarked from the beginning that my will was so supple for all your wills, O my God, that it had not even a repugnance to what you were doing, however hard it might appear to nature; so that I had no need of resigning myself and submitting. I could not even do any act, because the thing appeared to me all done in me; there was no longer submission nor resignation, but union of my will to yours, O my God, which was such that it seemed to me mine had disappeared. I knew not where to find that “my will;” but as soon as I sought a will, I found only yours. Mine did not appear even in its effects, which are the desires, tendencies, and inclinations. It seemed to me it would have been impossible to will anything but what you were doing in me. If I had a will, it appeared to me that it was with yours, like two lutes in perfect accord; that which is not touched gives forth the same sound as the one touched: it is only one same sound and one single harmony. It is this union of the will which establishes the soul in perfect peace. Although my state was already such, my will was, however, not lost, though it was so as to its operations; for the strange states it has been necessary for me since to pass through have made me see what it costs before it has lost all that is “own,” in all its circumstances and in all its extent, in order that the soul may no longer retain any interest either of time or of eternity, but the sole interest of God alone in the manner he himself knows, and not in our fashion of conceiving. How many souls there are who think their wills entirely lost, who yet are very far from it! They would see that they still subsist, if our Lord put them to the last proofs. Who is there who does not wish something for himself, be it self-interest, wealth, honour, pleasure, ease, liberty, salvation, eternity? And he who thinks that he does not hold to these blessings, because he possesses them, would soon perceive his attachment if he had to lose them. If in a whole century there are three persons who are so dead to everything that they wish to be the plaything of providence, without any exception, they are prodigies of grace. As I am not mistress of what I write, I follow no order; but it is no matter.

After dinner, while I was with the Abbess, whom I told I had very strong presentiments my father was very ill, if not dead—we were conversing together a little about you, O my God, although I could hardly speak, So powerfully was I seized within and prostrated without—they came to tell her she was wanted in the parlour. It was a man who had come in haste, sent by my husband, because my father had fallen ill, and as he was so only twelve hours, he was dead when the man arrived. The Abbess came and told me, “Here is a letter from your husband, who sends you word your father is seriously ill.” I said to her, “He is dead, Madame; I cannot doubt it.” I sent at once to Paris to hire a carriage, in order to travel more quickly. Mine was waiting for me half-way. I started at nine o’clock in the evening. They said that I would be lost, for I had with me no one I knew. I had sent my maid to Paris to put everything in order, and, as I was in a religious house, I had not kept lackeys with me. The Abbess told me that, since I believed my father dead, it was rashness for me to expose myself in this way; that carriages with difficulty passed, even the road I must follow not being marked out. I replied that it was for me an indispensable duty to go and succour my father; that I ought not, for a simple presentiment, to excuse myself from this duty. I set out then alone, abandoned to providence, with persons strangers to me. My weakness was so great that I could not support myself at the back of the carriage, and I had often to get out, in spite of my weakness, in consequence of the dangerous state of the road. In this way I had to pass by night through a forest which is a cut-throat place. I was still in it as midnight struck. That forest is celebrated for the murders and robberies which have been there committed. The boldest persons feared it. As for me, O my God, I could not fear anything. The abandonment I was in to your care made me so utterly forget myself, that I could not reflect upon all this. Oh, what fears and vexations does a soul that is abandoned spare herself!

I travelled, then, within five leagues of our residence by myself, with my grief and my Love as companions; but at this place I found my confessor and a female relative, who were waiting for me. I could not tell the trouble I suffered when I saw my confessor; for besides that, while quite alone, I tasted an inexplicable contentment, he, having no knowledge of my state, opposed it, and gave me no freedom. My grief was of a nature that I could not shed a tear, and I was ashamed at learning a thing I knew only too well, without giving any external sign of grief and shedding tears. The peace I possessed within was so profound that it spread over my countenance. Moreover, the state I was in did not permit me to speak, nor perform those external acts which are ordinarily expected from persons of piety. I could only love and keep silent.

I arrived at home, and found they had already buried my father, owing to the great heat. It was ten o’clock at night. Everyone was already dressed in mourning. I had travelled thirty leagues in one day and one night. As I was very weak, as well because my state undermined me, as because I had not taken food, I was at once put to bed. About two hours after midnight my husband got up, and, having left my room, he suddenly returned, crying, with all his strength, “My daughter is dead!” It was my only daughter, a child as much loved as she was amiable. You had provided her, O my God, with so many graces, spiritual and corporal, that one must have been insensible not to love her. There was noticeable in her a quite extraordinary love for God. She was constantly found in corners in prayer. As soon as she perceived that I prayed to God, she came near me to pray, and when she knew I had done it without her, she wept bitterly, and said, “You pray to God, and I do not pray to him.” As my concentration was great, as soon as I was at liberty I used to close my eyes, and she used to say to me, “You sleep?” then suddenly, “Oh, it is you are praying to my good Jesus!” and place herself near me to pray. Holy Wednesday, four months before her death, she was given the cross in church to kiss. But when she saw them take it from her to give to others, she cried out in the church, with all her might, “They are taking away my Spouse! Give me back my Spouse!” They had to give her the crucifix. She took it, and pressing it to her heart she cried, “Here is my Spouse. I will never have any other.” She oftentimes suffered the whip of her grandmother, because she said she would never have any other Spouse than our Lord, without their being able to make her say otherwise. She was pure and modest as a little angel, very sweet and obedient. Her father, to test her obedience, gave her very nasty things to eat, and she ate them, in spite of her dislike, without saying anything. She was very beautiful, and had a very good figure. Her father loved her with passion, and she was very dear to me, much more for the qualities of her soul than for those of her body. I regarded her as my sole consolation on earth, for she had as much attachment for me as her brother had alienation.

She died of an unseasonable blood-letting. But what am I saying? She died by the hand of Love, who wished to despoil me of all. There remained to me only the son of my sorrow. He fell mortally ill. God gave him back to the prayers of Mother Granger, my only consolation after God. The news of the death of my daughter surprised me very much. My heart was, nevertheless, not shaken, although I saw myself deprived at the same time, without my having known it, of my father and my daughter, who were how dear to me, you know, O my God. My interior state was such that I could not be either more afflicted for all imaginable losses, nor more content for all possible blessings. It is necessary to have experienced these delicious griefs to comprehend them. I no more wept the daughter than the father. All I could say was, “You had given her to me, Lord. It pleases you to take her back. She was yours.” The virtue of my father was so well known, and there would be so much to say, that I must keep silence instead of speaking of it. His confidence in God, his faith and his patience, were admirable. He was the scourge of heresies and novelties. My father and my daughter died in the month of July, 1672.

The eve of the Magdalen’s Day of the same year, Mother Granger sent me—I know not by what inspiration—a little contract already drawn up. She told me to fast that day and to bestow some extraordinary alms, and next morning, the Magdalen’s Day, to go and communicate with a ring on my finger, and when I had returned home to go into my closet, where there was an image of the Holy Child Jesus in the arms of his holy mother, and to read my contract at his feet, sign it, and put my ring to it. The contract was this: “I, N——, promise to take for my Spouse Our Lord, the Child, and to give myself to him: for spouse, though unworthy.” I asked of him, as dowry of my spiritual marriage, crosses, scorn, confusion, disgrace, and ignominy; and I prayed him to give me the grace to enter into his dispositions of littleness and annihilation, with something else. This I signed; after which I no longer regarded him but as my Divine Husband. Oh, how that day has been since for me a day of grace and of crosses! These words were at once put into my mind, that he would be to me “a Husband of blood.” Since that time he has taken me so powerfully for his own, that he has perfectly consecrated to himself my body and my spirit through the cross.

O Divine Spouse of my soul, it seems to me that you then made of me your living temple, and that you yourself consecrated it as churches are consecrated. Accordingly, at the celebration of festivals for the dedication of the church, did you not make me understand that this consecration was a figure of the consecration that you had made of me for yourself? And as churches are marked with the sign of the cross, you marked me also with this same sign. It is this admirable sign with which you mark your most chosen friends, according to what St. John shows in his Apocalypse. And as at the consecration of churches there are candles, which are lighted in the place for the crosses, and the candle represents faith and charity, so I have ground to believe that you have not permitted those virtues to abandon me since that time; but as the characteristic of the candle is to gradually consume itself by its own fire, and to destroy itself by the light and heat which make it live, so it seemed to me that it was necessary for my heart to be perfectly destroyed and annihilated by this fire of love, and that this fire was attached to the cross only to teach me that the cross and love would be the immortal marks of my consecration.

Since that time crosses have not been spared me, and although I had had many previously, I may say they were only the shadow of those that I have had to suffer in the sequel. As soon as crosses gave me any moment of respite, I said to you, “O my dear Spouse, I must enjoy my dowry; give me back my cross.” You oftentimes granted my request. At other times you made me wait for it, and ask more than once, and I then saw I had rendered myself unworthy of it through some infidelity towards this same cross. When the overwhelming and abandonment were more severe, you sometimes consoled me, but ordinarily my nourishment was a desolation without consolation.

The Day of the Assumption of the Virgin, the same year 1672, I was in a strange desolation, whether owing to the redoubling of the exterior or the overwhelming of the interior crosses, and I had gone to hide myself in my closet to give some outlet to my grief. I said to you, “My God and my Spouse, you alone know the greatness of my trouble.” There occurred to me a certain wish, “Oh, if M. Bertot knew what I suffer!” M. Bertot, who rarely wrote, and even with considerable trouble, wrote me a letter of this very date on the cross—the most beautiful and the most consoling he has written on that subject. It must be noted he was more than a hundred leagues from where I was. Sometimes I was so overwhelmed, and nature so distracted by the continual crosses, which gave me no respite, or, if they seemed to give me an instant of repose, it was only to return with more fury, and nature was sometimes at such a point from them that, when alone, I perceived without paying attention to it, that my eyes turned from side to side as if distracted, seeking if they could not find some relief. A word, a sigh, a trifle, or to know that some one sympathized in my grief, would have relieved me; but this was not granted to me; not even to look towards the heaven, or make a complaint. Love held me then so close, that he willed that this miserable nature should be allowed to perish without giving it any food. It would have sometimes wished relief, and wished it with so much violence, that I suffered infinitely more in restraining it than from all the rest.

You gave my soul, O my dear Love, a victorious support, which made her triumph over the weaknesses of nature, and you even put the knife into her hand to destroy it without giving it a moment’s respite; yet this nature is so malignant, so full of artifices to preserve its life, that at last it took on the role of nourishing itself from its despair. It found succour in the absence of all succour. This faithfulness during so continual an overwhelming served it for secret food—a fact which it concealed with an extreme care, in order not to be discovered; but your divine eyes were too penetrating not to discover its malignity. It is for this reason, O my Divine Shepherd, you changed your conduct towards it. You consoled it for a time with your crook and your staff; that is to say, by your conduct, as loving as it was crucifying; but it was only to reduce it to the last extremities, as I shall tell in the sequel.