A LADY that I sometimes used to see, as she was wife of the governor of our town, had taken a liking to me, because, she said, my person and my manners did not displease her. She sometimes told me that she therein noticed something extraordinary. I believe this great attraction I had within shone out upon my exterior; for there was one day a man of the world, who said to an aunt of my husband, “I have seen your niece, but one clearly perceives she never loses the presence of God,” which, having been reported to me, greatly surprised me, for I did not think he understood what it was to have God present in this way. This lady, I say, began to be touched by God, because once, when she wished to take me to the comedy, I was not willing to go; for I never used to go to it, and I made use of the continued illness of my husband for an excuse. She strongly pressed me, and said a continued illness like that ought not to hinder me from diverting myself; that my age was not such that I should confine myself to being a nurse. I explained to her the reasons I had for behaving so, but she concluded it was rather through a principle of piety I did not go, than because of my husband’s illness, and, having strongly urged me to tell her my opinion on the subject of comedy, I told her I did not approve of this diversion, especially for women truly Christian. As she was much older than I, what I said to her made so strong an impression on her mind that she never afterwards went to the comedy.
Once, being with her and with another lady, who spoke much and had even studied the Fathers, they engaged in a conversation where there was much talk of God. The lady spoke of him learnedly. I said hardly anything, for I was drawn to keep silence, being even grieved at this manner of speaking of God. The lady, my friend, came to see me next day, and told me God had so powerfully touched her, she could no longer resist. I ascribed it to the conversation of the other lady, but she said to me, “Your silence had something that spoke to me, even to the depth of the soul, and I could not enjoy what she was saying to me.” On this we spoke with open hearts. It was then, O my God, that you so entered into the depth of her heart, that you never after withdrew up to her death. She continued so a-hungered for you, O my God, that she could not bear to hear anything else spoken of. As you wished her to be entirely yours, at the end of three months you took from her her husband, whom she loved extraordinarily, and by whom she was greatly loved. You sent her crosses so terrible and at the same time graces so strong, that you made yourself absolute master of her heart. After the death of her husband, and the loss of almost all her wealth, she came to within four leagues of us, to an estate she still had. She obtained my husband’s consent for me to go and spend eight days with her, to console her for her losses. God gave her, through my means, all that was necessary for her. She had much cleverness. She was astonished that I said to her things so far above my grasp. I should have been myself surprised at it if I had reflected, for my natural intellect was not capable of those things. It was you, O my God, who gave them to me for her sake, making the waters of your grace flow into her soul without considering the unworthiness of the channel which you willed to use. Since that time her soul has been the temple of the Holy Spirit, and our hearts have been united by an indissoluble bond.
We went together on a little journey, where you caused me, O my God, to exercise abandonment and humiliation without its costing me anything, for your grace was so powerful it sustained me. We were all near perishing in a river. They were in a terrible fright; all cast themselves out of the carriage, which sank in a quicksand. I remained so abandoned and so possessed interiorly, that I could not even think on the danger. You delivered me from it, without my having even thought of avoiding it. I was so concentrated and so seized interiorly that I could do nothing but let myself be drowned, if my God had permitted it. It will be said that I am rash. I believe it is true, but I prefer to perish through too much confidence than to save myself. But what am I saying? We perish only because we cannot trust ourselves to you, O my King. It is this which constitutes my pleasure, to owe all things to you, and it is this which renders me content in my abjectness, which I would rather keep all my life by abandoning myself, than destroy by resting upon myself. I would not, however, advise another to behave in this way, unless he was in the same dispositions I then was.
As my husband’s ailments became every day severer and more obstinate, he resolved to go to Ste. Reine, for which he had a great devotion. He appeared to me to have a great desire of being alone with me, so that he could not help saying, “If people never spoke to me against you, I should be more pleased and you more happy.” I committed many faults from self-love and self-consciousness on this journey, and as I was in a very great interior abandonment, I had the means of experiencing what I should be without you, O my God. For some time already you had withdrawn from me that sweet interior correspondence, which previously I had only to follow; I had become like one astray, who no longer found either way, path, or route, but as I reserve for another place a description of the terrible darkness through which I have passed, I will continue the course of the narrative. My husband, on his return from Ste. Reine, wished to pass by St. Edme, for, as he had no children but my eldest son, who was often at the gates of death, and he wished extremely to have heirs, he urgently asked for them through the intercession of that saint. As for me, I could ask for nothing; but he was heard, and God gave me a second son. The time when I was near my confinement was for me one of great consolation; for, although I was very ill at my confinement, the love I had for the cross made me face it with pleasure. I rejoiced that nature must suffer so much; besides, as I was some weeks after my confinement without their venturing to make me speak, owing to my great weakness, it was a time of retreat and silence for me, when I endeavoured to compensate myself for the little leisure I had at other seasons for praying to you, O my God, and remaining alone with you.
I will not speak here of the extraordinary things that took place during my pregnancy, having written it elsewhere. I will only say that, during those nine months, God took a new possession of me. He did not leave me an instant, and those nine months passed in continued uninterrupted enjoyment. As I had already experienced interior trouble, weakness, and desertions, this appeared to me a new life. It seemed to me I already enjoyed blessedness; but how dearly this happy time cost me! since this enjoyment, which appeared to me entire and perfect, and so much the more perfect as it was more inward, more remote from the sensible, more constant, more free from vicissitudes, was yet only preparatory to a total privation for many years, without any support or hope of return.
This terrible state commenced with the death of a person who was my sole consolation, after God. I had, before my return from Ste. Reine, learned that Mother Granger was dead. I declare that this blow was the most severely felt of any I yet had. You left me to drink, O my God, all its bitterness, and as you left me then in simple weakness, I suffered much at seeing myself thereby deprived of all created supports. It seemed to me that if I had been present at her death, I should have been able to speak to her, and learn something; but God has willed that I have been absent in almost all my tosses, in order to render the blows more afflictive. It is true, some months before her death, I had a perception (although I could see this Mother only with extreme difficulty, and suffering for it), she was yet a support to me; and our Lord made me know that it would be good for me to be deprived of it. But at the time she died that was no longer present to me. As I felt myself utterly deserted inwardly and outwardly, I thought only of the loss I sustained in a person who would have conducted me on a road where I no longer found track nor path. O my God, how well you know how to inflict your blows! You had left me this Mother at a time when she was but little useful to me, since from the care you had of me and your continual guidance of me, except at certain times, I had nothing to do but to follow you step by step, while at the time that you deprived me as to the interior of all perceived guidance, that you overturned my paths, that you blocked my ways with squared stones—it is at this time you took from me her who could guide me in this road, all devious, covered with precipices and sowed with thorns.
O adorable conducting of my God! There must be no guide for him whom you wish to lead astray, no conductor for him whom you wish to destroy. After having saved me with so much mercy, O my Love, after having conducted me by the hand in your paths, it seems that you have been eager for my destruction. Shall not one say of you that you save only to destroy; that you no longer go to seek the lost sheep? You take pleasure in building that which is destroyed and destroying what is built. Therein, then, is the play of your magnificence, and it is in this way you overthrow the temple so carefully and almost miraculously built by the hand of men, to rebuild one that shall not be made by the hand of men! O secrets of the incomprehensible wisdom of my God, unknown to any other but him! Yet it is an adorable wisdom which the men of the present day wish to penetrate, and to which they impose limits. They anticipate upon the knowledge of God, and desire not merely to equal, but to surpass it. “Oh, depth of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways impossible to find out! for who has known the thoughts of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?” Yet people wish to penetrate this wisdom, although it be “hid from the eyes of all living, unknown even to the birds of the heaven.” Wisdom, of which one can have news only by death to all things, and by total loss. M. Bertot, although a hundred leagues from the place where Mother Granger died, had knowledge of her death and of her blessedness, as also had another monk. She died in lethargy, and as they spoke of me to her in order to rouse her, she said, “I have always loved her for God and in God,” and spoke no more after. I had not any presentiment of her death.
To increase my exterior crosses, my brother changed towards me, for his hatred was noticed by everybody. His marriage took place at this time, and my husband had the amiability to go to it, although he was ill, and the road so bad and so covered with snow that we were on the point of upsetting more than fifteen times; but my brother, far from being grateful, quarrelled more than ever with my husband. I had to suffer from two persons who made me the mark for their vexation. On this occasion all the right was with my husband, and the wrong with my brother. The whole time I was at Orleans, where this wedding took place, I had a remnant of affection so strong that it devoured me. I committed many faults, for I gave way to it too much, remaining too long at church, at the expense of the attention I owed my husband; but I was then so intoxicated with love that I only perceived the fault when the remedy was past. I committed also another, which was in being too expansive in speaking to a Jesuit Father of what I then felt, which was very strong. He was one of those who admire these sorts of things, and, as it appeared to do him good, and I felt a great gratification in speaking to him, I gave way to it. It was a notable fault which happened to me sometimes at that period, but never since. Oh, how often one mistakes nature for grace! and how dead to self one must be for these outpourings to be from God! I had so many scruples at it, that I at once wrote to M. Bertot.
While returning from Orleans, I had the same preoccupation as in going there, so that, though there was much greater danger on the return, I had no attention for myself, but only for my husband, and on seeing the carriage upsetting, I said to him, “Have no fear; it is on my side it is turning over: you will not be injured.” I believe everything might have perished, and I should not have been disturbed, and my peace was so profound nothing could shake it. If these times lasted, one would be too strong, but, as I said, they began to come only very rarely, and for a short period, and to be followed by longer and trying privations. On the return from the wedding, my brother treated me with extreme contempt. As I had had much attachment for him, these blows were keenly felt by me. Since that time he has greatly changed, and has turned towards God, although he has never altered as regards me. I am, however, glad he is reformed. The loss of my brother has been the more felt by me, as he cost me many crosses, both on the part of my husband and of others. I can say the crosses he has caused me and has procured for me since that time have been some of my greatest. It is not that he is not virtuous, but it is an altogether special permission of God and his providence in conducting my soul, which has brought to pass that he and all the other persons of piety who have persecuted me have thought to render glory to God by doing it, and to acquire merits; and they were right; for what greater justice than this, that all creatures should be unfaithful to me, and declare themselves against her who had been so many times unfaithful to her God, and had taken the opposite side?
We had, further, after this, an affair that cost me great crosses, and which seemed to have been brought about simply for that. There was a person who conceived such an ill feeling towards my husband, that he determined to ruin him if he could. The only means he found was to make friends with my brother, in order to induce him to do readily what he wished. He agreed with him to demand from us in the name of Monsieur, the brother of the King, two hundred thousand livres, which he made out my brother and I owed him. My brother signed the documents under an assurance that he should not pay anything of it for his part. I believe his extreme youth engaged him in a business he, perhaps, did not understand. This affair gave so much annoyance to my husband, and justly, that I have reason to believe it greatly hastened his end. He was so indignant with me at this, for which I was no way responsible, that he could not speak to me without anger. He would not instruct me in the matter, and I knew not its nature. He said he was not willing to mix himself up in this business, that he was going to hand over my property and leave me to live as I could, and a hundred things still more harsh. On the other hand, my brother was not willing to canvass, nor that anyone else should do so. The day it was to be decided, there was one portion of the judges who were both judges and parties. After Mass I felt myself strongly urged to go and see the judges. I was extremely surprised to find that I knew all the twists and niceties of this business, without knowing how I had been able to learn it. The first judge was so surprised to see a thing so different from what he thought, that he himself urged me to go and see the other judges, and especially the Intendant, who was acting uprightly, but who was misinformed. You gave, O my God, so much power to my words for making known the truth, that the Intendant could not sufficiently thank me for having made it known to him. He assured me that if I had not been to speak to him, the affair was lost; and when they saw the falsity of the whole business, they would have condemned the party to the costs, if we had not had to do with so great a Prince, who had only lent his name to officers that had misled him. To save the honour of Monsieur, judgment was given against us for fifty crowns, so that two hundred thousand livres were reduced to one hundred and fifty. My husband was very pleased at what I had done, but my brother appeared to me so angry at it, that if I had caused him a very great loss he could not have been more so.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 