ONE day, overwhelmed with troubles, and knowing not what to do, it occurred to me to speak to a man of merit and distinction, who often came to the neighbourhood, and who is reputed very spiritual. I wrote him a note to fix a time, as I had need of his advice. As soon as I was before the Holy Sacrament I felt a terrible pain. “What!” (it was reproached me), “thou seekest to console thyself and to shake off my yoke.” My husband was then living. I sent as quickly as possible another note to beg him to excuse me, and as I believed him spiritual, I said to myself, “If he is spiritual, he will not be offended; if he is not so, I should be sorry to speak to him.” I told him that it had only been from self-love I had desired this conversation, and not from a true necessity; that, as I knew he understood what it was to be faithful to God, I had thought he would not be displeased that I used this Christian simplicity with him. He, however, was hurt; and this surprised me the more as I had conceived great ideas of his virtue. He certainly has it, but they are living virtues, which are ignorant even of the paths of death. You have been, O my God, my faithful conductor even in my abjectness, as I have discovered with wonder when it was past. Everlasting praise to you, O my God! I am obliged to render this testimony to your goodness, that you have made me do right by a gentle necessity, and on my side I have paid your bounties only with ingratitude, and I have responded to them only by continual infidelities. How often at sight of your mercies to me have I said that if I was damned, a new hell must be made for me—the hell of the devils being too mild to punish so much ingratitude.
Before continuing my narrative, I must make a remark, that our Lord has suggested to me, on the way by which it has pleased his goodness to conduct me, which is, that in proportion to its obscurity is it more sure; because, leaving the soul no support, she was, in spite of herself, constrained to lose herself. What I have also noticed is, that the soul, although she may not be especially applied to any of the states of Jesus Christ, yet finds herself on emerging from her mire clothed with all the inclinations of Jesus Christ, without having paid any attention to it, and this state communicates to her Jesus Christ himself and his divine states; this is truly to be clothed with Jesus Christ. This soul, previously so impure and self-centred, is here purified like gold in the crucible. This person, full of his judgment and his will, finds himself without resistance, and is obedient to a child. He cannot even find any will in himself. His mind unresistingly puts aside his own thoughts to receive those of others; formerly he would have disputed over a matter of indifference, afterwards he yields at once, not with difficulty, as formerly, or through the practice of virtue, but as if quite naturally. His own views are dissipated of themselves as soon as those of others appear. This creature, formerly so vain, afterwards loves only littleness, poverty, and abjectness. He was formerly a self-worshipper; now he forgets himself incessantly. He used to prefer himself to everybody, and he prefers everybody to himself. At the commencement this is done in a manner perceived and by opposing self, afterwards it appears as quite acquired and without difficulty. In the state of humiliation, of which I have just spoken, everything appears lost. When this state is passed, everything is found in the soul; but in a manner so easy and so natural that it is not discovered until it is necessary to see it. She has also an immense charity for her neighbour, and to endure his defects and weaknesses, which formerly she could only do with extreme difficulty; for one has through lack of light, a bitter zeal against the defects of one’s neighbour. The most defective persons are now become lovable to her; that anger of the wolf is changed into the gentleness of the lamb. At the commencement I loved practices of humiliation, and to do the lowest things, such as to sweep, and when I went to see the poor, to make their bed and do house-work. When I went into the convent I used to wash the plates. I performed penances in public like others, but afterwards I forgot all this, and it did not occur to me to ask for them or perform them. When I was told, I did it with joy, but of myself I took no thought of anything.
During the time of my experience of abjectness, I sought no outward recreations. On the contrary, they were disagreeable to me, and I wished not to see or to know anything. When the others went to see anything, I remained at home. My closet was my sole diversion. I found myself near the Queen, whom I had not seen, and whom I would have well enough liked to see, as well as Monseigneur, who was also there. I had only to open my eyes, and I did not do it. I loved to hear singing, yet I was once four days with a person who was reputed to have the most beautiful voice without asking her to sing; which astonished her, because she was not ignorant, that knowing her name, I must know the beauty of her voice. I have, nevertheless, committed striking infidelities in informing myself of what others said of me in blame. There was a person who told me everything, and though I said nothing in reply, and it served only to crucify me, I saw very well self-love and nature made me ask it. I could not express the number of my paltrinesses, but they are so greatly surmounted by your bounties, O my God, and so lost in them that I can no longer see them. One of the things that caused me the greatest trouble in the seven years I have mentioned, especially the last five, was a strange folly of my imagination that gave me no repose; my senses kept it company, so that I could no longer shut my eyes in church, and thus, all the gates being opened, I had to look upon myself as a vine exposed to pillage, because the hedges that the husbandman had planted were torn down. I then saw all that was done, and all who came and went in the church—a state very different from the other. The same power that had drawn me inwards to concentrate me, seemed to push me outwards to dissipate me.
Overwhelmed then with abjectness of all kinds, crushed with vexations, wearied under the cross, I made up my mind to finish my days in this way; no hope was left me of ever emerging from this painful state. But, however, believing I had lost for ever grace and the salvation it earns for us, I would have liked at least to do what I could for a God whom I thought I should never love, and seeing the place whence I had fallen, I would have liked to serve him from gratitude, though I deemed myself a victim destined for hell. At another time the view of such a happy state gave rise in me to certain secret desires of returning to it; but suddenly I was cast back into the depth of the abyss, whence I did not utter even a sigh, abiding for ever in the state due to unfaithful souls. I remained some time in this state, like the eternally dead who must never live again. It seems to me that this passage suited me admirably: “I am like the dead, blotted out from the heart.” It seemed to me, O my God, I was for ever effaced from your heart, and from that of all creatures. Gradually my state ceased to be painful. I became even insensible to it, and my insensibility appeared to me the final hardening of my reprobation. My coldness appeared to me a coldness of death. Such was the state of things, O my God, because you made me pass away lovingly into you, as I am about to tell.
To resume my narrative. It happened that one of my footmen wished to turn Bernabite, and I wrote of it to Father La Mothe. He told me that I must address Father La Combe, who was then Superior of the Bernabites at Tonon. This obliged me to write to him. I had always preserved a basis of respect and esteem for his grace. I was very glad of this opportunity of recommending myself to his prayers. As I could speak only of what was most real to me, I wrote him that I was fallen from the grace of my God; that I had repaid his benefits with the blackest ingratitude; in short, that I was abjectness itself and a subject deserving compassion; and that, far from having advanced towards my God, I had entirely alienated myself from him. He answered me as if he had known by a supernatural light, in spite of the frightful picture I drew of myself, that my state was one of grace. He wrote to me in this way, but I was very far from being convinced. During the time of my abjectness Geneva occurred to my mind in a manner I cannot tell. It greatly alarmed me. I said to myself, “What! for crown of desertion wouldst thou proceed to this excess of impiety, to quit the faith by an apostasy?” I believed myself capable of every evil; and the extreme hardening in which I found myself, joined to a general disgust of everything that is called good, made me utterly distrustful of myself. I said, “Should I be capable of leaving the Church, for which I would give a thousand lives? What! this faith that I would have wished to seal with my blood, would it be possible I should alienate myself from it?” It seemed to me I could hope nothing from myself, and that I had a thousand reasons to fear, after the experience I had of my weakness. However, the letter I had received from Father La. Combe, wherein he told me his present disposition, which was similar enough to that preceding my state of abjectness, had such an effect upon me because you thus willed it, O my God, that it brought peace to my mind and calm to my heart. I even found myself inwardly united to him, as to a person of great grace. Some time after this, at night, in a dream, a little deformed nun presented herself to me, who, however, appeared to me both dead and blessed. She said to me, “My sister, I come to tell you that God wishes you at Geneva.” She said something more which I do not remember. I was extremely consoled, but I did not know what it meant. From the portrait of Mother Bon, which I have since seen, I have recognized it was she; and the time when I saw her corresponds with that of her death.
About eight or ten days before the Magdalen’s Day, 1680, it occurred to me to write again to Father La Combe, and to beg him, if he received my letter before the Magdalen’s Day, to say the Mass for me on that day. You caused, O my God, that this letter—unlike others which he received only very late, for want of messengers to fetch them on foot from Chambery—was handed to him the eve of the Magdalen’s, and on the Day of the Magdalen he said the Mass for me. As he offered me to God at the first memento, it was said to him three times with much vehemence, “You shall both dwell in the same place.” He was greatly surprised, as he had never had interior speech. I believe, O my God, that this is rather verified in respect to the interior and the identity of the crucifying circumstances to which we have alike been exposed, and in respect of yourself, O God, who are our dwelling-place, than with regard to temporal residence; for although I have been some time in the same country with him, and that your providence has furnished us with some occasions of being together, it appears to me it is much more verified by the rest, since I have the advantage as well as he of confessing Jesus Christ crucified.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 