THE first monk whom you had used, O my God, to draw me to you, to whom I used to write at his own request, in the very depth of my desolation, wrote to me to cease writing to him; that he had nothing but repugnance for everything that came from me; that I greatly displeased you. O my God, you doubtless inspired him to write thus to me, in order that my desolation might be complete, and no hope might remain for me. A Jesuit Father, who had much esteemed me, wrote me something similar. I had not the least thought of justifying myself. I thanked them for their charity, and recommended myself to their prayers. I was at this time so indifferent to being universally condemned, and by the greatest saints, that I had no pain at it; for I gradually ceased to feel the loss of my reputation. Towards the end I would have liked everybody to have known me as I knew myself. The pain of displeasing you, O my God, without being able to remedy it, was too keen for me to feel the other crosses, although the domestic ones became daily more severe. The recollection of the time I had lost in talking and writing; infidelities I had committed; the strong impulse I felt in me to every kind of defect, was a far more sensible pain.
From the commencement you had accustomed me to dryness and privation. I even preferred it to abundance, because I knew it made me seek you above everything. I had even from the very commencement an instinct in my inmost depth to pass beyond everything, and to leave the gifts in order to run to the Giver; but at this time there was no longer question of that, nor even of losing you, for I no more wished to possess you in myself, having abused you. I could not accustom myself to sin; for at this time I had the mind and senses so struck through your permission, who wished to destroy me without mercy, that the further I advanced, the more everything appeared sin to me: even the crosses appeared to me no longer crosses, but real faults. I thought I brought them on myself through imprudences. I was like those who, looking through a coloured glass, see everything the same colour as it. My illnesses became for me times of the greatest impotence and desolation. If I could have performed some exterior good, or some penances, this would have assured me; but besides that I had been forbidden, I feared them so much, and found such weakness in myself, that it seemed to me it was impossible to do them. I looked on them with horror, and in this matter I found myself as weak as I had been strong. It has been the same on every subject.
It seems to me I omit many things, both the providences of God towards me and the rough paths he made me traverse; but as I have only a general view, I leave them in the knowledge of God alone. Afterwards, the abandonment of my director, and the coolness I remarked in persons he conducted, no longer caused me pain, owing to the humiliation I felt within. My brother also joined himself to those who decried me, although he would not previously have looked at them. I believe, my Lord, it was you alone who brought things to this state; for he has virtue, and he surely believed he was doing good in behaving so. I was compelled by some business to go into a town where there are near relatives of my mother-in-law. When I had been there previously there was no civility I had not received from them, each vying with the other to entertain me. They treated me now with the utmost scorn, saying they thereby avenged the suffering I caused their relative.
When I saw the thing went so far, and that, despite my efforts, I had not been able to succeed in pleasing her, I resolved to have an explanation with her. I told her every one said I ill-treated her and made her suffer, although I laboured for nothing else but to give her marks of my respect; that if it was so I begged her to consent to my withdrawing, as I had no intention of living with her in order to cause her trouble; that I lived there only to please her; that having the aversion she knew I had for the place where I dwelt, she could well believe I remained there only out of regard for her; that if I was burdensome to her I would withdraw. She answered me very coldly: I might do what I pleased; that she had not spoken of it; but that she was resolved to keep house separately. This was to give me my dismissal. I thought of taking measures secretly to withdraw. As since my widowhood I paid no visits but those of pure necessity or charity, there were only too many dissatisfied persons who formed a party against me with her. I stood alone, for you did not then permit me, O my God, to open myself to anyone; and you exacted of me an inviolable secrecy on all my troubles, exterior and interior. There is not anything which costs so much, nor which so effectually kills nature; it dies at finding neither support nor consolation. As I could have no help from M. Bertot, who was very far away from Paris—who even would not have given it to me had he been nearer, or would not have given it in time, I knew not what to do. In short, I saw myself obliged to turn out in the depth of winter with the children and my daughter’s nurse, without knowing what would become of us. It was Advent. There was no house vacant in the town. The Benedictines offered me an apartment with them. I suffered inconceivable torture. On the one hand, I feared by withdrawing to withdraw from the cross; on the other, it did not seem right to remain with a person to crucify her, when I had no other desire than to please her. Yet, however careful I was, everything turned out equally ill. She complained I did things without consulting her; and when I consulted her, she would not answer me. When I asked her advice, she said I could do nothing myself; that at her age she was obliged to have the charge of everything. If I endeavoured to forestall her inclinations, doing things as I believed she would have herself advised, she told me I despised her; that young persons had nothing but contempt for the aged; that they thought they knew everything better. When I went into the country for rest, she complained of it, saying I left her alone. If I begged her to come there, she would not. If I said I did not venture to ask her to come for fear of inconveniencing her and making her sleep away from home, she complained I did not wish her to come, and I went there only to escape from her. When I learned she was vexed at my being in the country, I returned to the town, and she could not endure me nor speak to me. None the less I conversed with her; for at that time, O my God, you gave me the grace of going counter to all my dislikes, though I did not know it. I conversed with her without appearing to see how she behaved. She did not answer me, and turned to the other side. I often sent her my carriage, and begged her to come and pass a day in the country; that it would amuse without inconveniencing her, since, being so near, she could return in the evening. She sent it back empty without an answer; and if I was some days without sending it to her, there were complaints. In short, all I did to please her, embittered her, God so permitting it. She had a very good heart, but her temper was perhaps there in spite of her, and I nevertheless have much obligation to her.
My affliction was very great, for I felt almost always repugnance to do what I did, and as I did it by conquering myself, the contrariety I felt appeared to me a sin. On Christmas Day, being with her, I said with much affection: “My mother, the King of Peace has been born this day to bring it to us. I ask of you peace in his name.” I believe this touched her, though she did not let it appear. The ecclesiastic I had in the house, far from supporting and consoling me, served only to weaken and afflict me more, showing me I ought not to put up with certain things; and when in compliance I wished to introduce some order, as well in what concerned my mother-in-law as my domestics, besides being unsuccessful, it augmented my crosses and my troubles. For it is a strange thing that, no longer having a husband, when I ought to be mistress, I yet was unable to dismiss a servant, however faulty he might be. As soon as anyone ought to go she took his part, and all her friends mixed themselves up in it.
When I was ready to leave, one of the friends of my mother-in-law (a good man who has always esteemed me, without daring to let it appear to her), having learned of it, was very apprehensive I might quit the town, for some of my alms passed through his hands. He thought it would be a great injury to the neighbourhood. He resolved to speak to my mother-in-law with the greatest caution he could, for he knew her. After he had spoken to her, she said that she would not turn me out of her house, but if I left it, she would offer no obstacle. He came to see me then, and begged me to go and make excuses to her, to satisfy her. I told him that I would do it a hundred times for one, although I knew not about what; that I was continually making them to her for whatever I saw vexed her; but that this was not the question, that I made no complaint against her, and that I was content to remain with her as long as it should please her; but that, being in her house, it was not right I should remain there to annoy her, that it was right I should secure her ease. I nevertheless went with him into my mother-in-law’s room. I said to her that I asked her pardon, if I had displeased her in anything, that it had never been my intention; that I begged her to tell me, in the presence of this gentleman, who was her friend, in what I might have caused her vexation, and if I had ever done anything designedly to offend her. You permitted, O my God, that she herself declared the truth in the presence of this man. She said she was not a person to allow herself to be offended, she would not have put up with it; that she had no other complaint against me except that I did not love her, and that I would have wished her dead. I answered her, these thoughts were very far from my sentiments, and that, instead of ever having this thought, I would have wished with all my heart to have prolonged her life by my attentions to her; that my affection was entire, but that she never would believe it, whatever proof I tried to give her, as long as she listened to persons who spoke to her to my disadvantage; that she even had a servant who, far from showing respect to me, ill-treated me to such a degree that she would push me when she wished to pass—she had even done it in church, making me get out of her way with as much violence as scorn, and many times in the room even insulting me with words; that I had never complained of her, but that I was glad to let her know it, because a spirit of that stamp might give her trouble some day, and put into her mind things that would torment her.
She took the part of her servant; yet we kissed each other, and it rested there. But you, O my God, who were the more watchful over me the more you appeared to forget me, permitted that, after I had gone to the country, this maid, having no longer me to vent her vexation on, behaved so ill to her mistress that she was obliged to dismiss her before my return. I must mention here that the behaviour of my mother-in-law was rather God’s conducting of me than a defect on her part; for she had virtue and intelligence, and, putting aside certain failings, which people who do not use prayer keep ignorant of, she had good qualities. Perhaps I have caused her crosses without intending it. She has caused them to me, perhaps, without knowing it, for the dislike she had for my manners might have been a severe cross to her. I hope this will not be seen by anyone who might be scandalized at it, and who is not in a state to see things in God. One of the penitents of that person whom I have mentioned, who had caused me trouble because I had broken with him, was, owing to her husband’s affairs, obliged to quit the country. That person was himself accused of the very same things of which he had accused me, and of others much more serious, and with much greater notoriety. You gave me the grace, O my God, although I knew the things he was accused of, never to speak of them, and when people spoke to me I defended him; and you so well restrained my heart that it never gave way to the vain joy of seeing him overwhelmed with the ill he had procured for me. And although I knew my mother-in-law was acquainted with it all, I never spoke to her on the subject, for fear of pleasing nature and nourishing its life; and when she spoke to me of it and of the confusion he had occasioned in another family, I did not seize the opportunity to show her the wrong he had done me. I simply answered her a few words without blaming him; for it is true, my God, that you have willed such a silence about my crosses for more than sixteen years, that it would be difficult to find anything more complete.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 