IN this long sickness, your love alone, O my God, constituted my occupation without occupation. I was consumed night and day. I could not see myself in any way, so was I lost in you, O my Sovereign Good, and it seems indeed to my heart that it has never gone out from this Divine Ocean, although you have dragged it through the mud of the most severe humiliations. Who could ever comprehend, O my Love, that you made your creatures to be so one with you, that they so lose sight of themselves as no longer to see anything but you? O loss, which is the blessing of blessings, although all is effected in crosses, deaths, and bitterness!
Jesus the Child was then all living in me, or rather, he was existing alone; I was no longer. You taught me, O my Love, that your state of childhood would not be the only one I must bear; you impressed upon me these words as of a real state, into which you wished me to enter: “The birds of the heaven have nests, and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has not where to rest his head.” You have indeed made me experience this state in all its extent since that time, having never left me even an assured dwelling, where I could rest for more than a few months, and every day in uncertainty as to being there on the morrow; besides this, in a total deprivation of all creatures, finding refuge neither with my friends, who were ashamed of me, and who openly renounced me when they saw me decried, nor among my relatives, the greater part of whom have declared themselves my adversaries and my greatest persecutors. The rest have never regarded me but with contempt and indignation. My own children ridiculed me in society. It is indeed, O my Love, this second time much more strongly than the first, although in a manner less sensible, that the state of Job should be attributed to me; “I was,” as David says, “a reproach to my neighbours, the object of public ridicule.” But before going on I must continue what took place in my illness.
One night that I was quite awake you showed me to myself under the figure—who says figure does not say reality; the brazen serpent which was the figure of Jesus Christ was not Jesus Christ—you showed me, I say, under the figure of that woman in the Apocalypse, who has the moon under her feet, encircled with the sun, twelve stars upon the head, who, being with child, cried in the pains of childbirth. You explained to me its mystery. You made me understand that the moon, which was under her feet, signified that my soul was above the vicissitude and inconstancy of events; that I was surrounded and penetrated by yourself; that the twelve stars were the fruits of this state, and the gifts with which it was honoured; that I was pregnant of a fruit, which was that spirit you wished me to communicate to all my children, whether in the manner I have mentioned, or by my writings; that the Devil was that terrible dragon who would use his efforts to devour the fruit, and cause horrible ravages through all the earth, but that you would preserve this fruit of which I was full in yourself, that it should not be lost—therefore have I confidence that, in spite of the tempest and the storm, all you have made me say or write will be preserved—that in the rage in which the Devil would be at not succeeding in the design he has conceived against this fruit, he would attack me, and would send a flood against me to swallow me up; that this flood would be that of calumny, which would be ready to sweep me away, but the earth would open—that is to say, the calumny would little by little subside.
You made me see, O my God, all the world incensed against me, without anyone whatever for me, and you assured me in the ineffable silence of your eternal speech that you would give me millions of children that I should bring forth for you by the Cross. I was no longer in a state to interest myself in this in the way either of humility or joy. I let you do with me, O my Divine Love, what you pleased, as with a thing that was yours, in which I no longer took any personal interest; my sole interest was yours. You made me know how the Devil was about to stir up against Prayer a strange persecution, which would be the source of this very Prayer, or rather, the means you would make use of to establish it. You made me further know how you would lead me into the desert, where you would support me a time, times, and half a time; the wings which were to carry me were the utter abandonment of myself to your holy will and the love of that same will. I believe that I am now in the desert, separated from all the world by my captivity, and I see, O my God, already one part of what you made me know in course of accomplishment. I wrote all this to Father La Combe, to whom you united me still more strongly, impressing upon me in relation to him the same words that you had yourself impressed upon me: “I unite you in faith and in cross.” O God, you promise nothing in the matter of crosses that you do not abundantly give. Could I tell, O God, the mercies you showed me? No, they will remain in yourself, being of a nature that cannot be described, owing to their purity and their depth, free from all distinction.
During my illness I was often at the point of death, as I have said. One day, when they thought me almost well, at four o’clock in the morning I perceived the Dragon, not under any form. I did not see him, but I was certain it was he. I had no fear, for, as I have said, I could not fear him, because my Lord protects me, and keeps me safe under the shadow of his wings. He emerged as if from the place between the side of my bed and the wall, and gave me a furious blow on the left foot. I was immediately seized with a great shivering, which lasted continuously four hours; it was followed by a very sharp fever. Convulsions seized me, and the side on which he had struck was half dead. The attacks came every morning at the same hour as the blow, and the convulsions increased in a marked way every day. On the seventh day, after having been all the night sometimes without pulse and without speech, and sometimes a little better, in the morning I felt the convulsions were coming on. I felt at the same time that life left the lower parts in proportion as the convulsions came higher: they fixed themselves in my entrails. I felt then very great pains, and a movement in my entrails, as if I had thousands of children, who all moved at the same time. In my life I have never felt anything approaching that. This lasted a very long time with extreme violence. I felt little by little my life was contracting itself round the heart. Father La Combe gave me the Extreme Unction, the Prioress of the Ursulines having prayed him to do so, as they had not their ordinary priest. I was very glad to die, and he was not troubled at it. It would be difficult to understand without experience how a union, so close that there is nothing like it, can bear, without feeling any pain, a division such as that of seeing a person die to whom one is so firmly attached; he himself was astonished at it. But, nevertheless, it is not difficult to conceive that, being united only in God himself, in a manner so pure and so intimate, death could not divide us; on the contrary, it would have united us still more closely.
It is a thing I have many times experienced, that the least resistance he made to God caused me to suffer inexplicable torments; and to see him die, a prisoner, at a distance for ever, did not cause me the shadow of pain. He showed then great contentment at seeing me die, and we laughed together at the moment which constituted all my pleasure; for our union was different from any that can be imagined. However, death still drew near my heart, and I felt the convulsions which seized my entrails mount up there. 1 can say I have felt death without dying. The Father, who was on his knees near my bed, remarked the change in my face, the clouding of my eyes; he saw I was on the point of expiring. He asked me, Where was death and the convulsions? I made a sign that they were reaching the heart, and I was about to die. O God, you did not want me yet; you reserved me for far other pains than those of death, if one can call pains what one suffers in the state in which you have placed me by your goodness alone. You inspired Father La Combe to place his hand over the coverlet in the region of my heart, and with a strong voice, heard by those in the room (which was almost full), he said to death to pass no further. It obeyed his voice, and my heart, recovering a little life, came back; I felt those same convulsions descend again into my entrails, in the same way as they had mounted up, and they continued all the day in the entrails with the same violence as before, then descended gradually to the place where the Dragon had struck, and this foot was the last revivified. For two months on that side a very great weakness remained, and even after I was better, and in a condition to walk, I could not support myself on that foot, which could hardly bear me. I continued still ill, and in languor, and you gave me, my God, yet new evidence of your love. How many times did you make use of your servant to restore life to me, when I was on the point of expiring!
As they saw that my ailments did not cease, it was thought the air of the lake, on which the convent was built, was entirely unsuited to me, and was the cause of so many mishaps. It was settled that I must leave it. While I was thus ill, our Lord gave Father La Combe the idea of establishing a hospital in this place, where there was none, to receive the sick poor, and also of instituting a congregation of Dames of Charity, to furnish those who could not quit their family to go to the hospital with the means of living during their sickness—such as we have in France; no institution of the kind being in this country. I readily entered into it, and without any capital but providence and some useless rooms that the authorities of the town gave, we commenced it. It was dedicated to the Holy Child Jesus, and he willed to give the first beds there from the money of my annuity which belonged to him. He gave such a blessing that many other persons joined. In a little time there were about twelve beds, and for the service of this hospital he gave three persons of great piety, who, without any payment, consecrated themselves to the service of the sick. I gave them ointments and remedies which they distributed to rich people, who paid, to the profit of the sick poor, and to the poor of the town they gave them without charge. These good Dames are so well disposed that through their charity, and the care of these nuns, this hospital is very well maintained. These Dames formed a union also to provide for the sick who could not go to the hospital; and I gave them some little rules I had observed when in France. They have kept this up with love and charity. We had also the devotion to cause every twenty-fifth of the month a service of blessing to be celebrated in the chapel of the Congregation, which is dedicated to the Holy Child Jesus; and for this we gave a complete outfit to the chapel.
All these trifling things, which cost little, and which succeeded only in the blessing that you gave them, O my God, drew upon us new persecutions. The Bishop of Geneva was more offended than ever, and because he saw, that these little things made me to be loved, he said I gained over everyone. He openly declared that he could not endure me in his diocese, where, however, I had done nothing but good, or, rather, you through me. He commenced even to extend his persecutions to the worthy nuns who had kindness for me. The Prioress had severe crosses through me, but they did not last long; for as I was obliged, owing to the air, to withdraw, after having been there about two years and a half, they had greater quiet. On the other hand, my sister was very tired of that House, and as the time for the mineral waters approached, the occasion was seized to send her back, together with the maid I had brought, and who tormented me so much during all my illness. I kept with me only her whom Providence had sent me by means of my sister; and I have always believed that God had permitted her journey merely that she might bring her to me, God having chosen her for me, as suitable for the state he wished me to bear.
While I was still ill at the Ursulines, the Bishop of Verceil, who was a very great friend of the Father General of the Bernabites, urgently asked him to select among his monks a man of merit, piety, and doctrine, in whom he could have confidence, and who might serve him as theologian and adviser; that his diocese was in great want of this help. The General at once cast his eyes on Father La Combe. This was the more feasible, as his six years of priorship were coming to an end. The Father General, before engaging him with the Bishop of Verceil, wrote to him to know if he would have any objection, assuring him he would do only what was pleasing to him. Father La Combe answered that his only wish was to obey him, and he might give whatever order he pleased. He told me of this, and that we were about to be entirely separated. I had no chagrin thereat. I was very well content that our Lord should make use of him under a Bishop who knew him, and did him justice. There was still some delay in sending him off, as well because the Bishop was still at Rome, as that the period of the Father’s priorship was not yet completed.
Before leaving the Ursulines, the good hermit, of whom I have spoken, wrote me that he urgently prayed me to go to Lausanne, which was only six leagues from Tonon on the lake, because he still hoped to withdraw his sister, who lived there, and convert her. One cannot go there and speak of religion without risk. As soon as I was in a state to walk, although still very weak, I resolved to go at the request of the worthy hermit. We took a boat, and I asked Father La Combe to accompany us. We got there easily enough; but as the lake was still a quarter of a league distant from the town, in spite of my weakness, I had to summon strength to make the journey on foot. We could find no carriage. The boatmen supported me as well as they could, but this was not enough for the state in which I was. When I reached the town, I did not know if I had a body; if it was upon my legs I walked, or on those of somebody else. I spoke to that woman with Father La Combe: she had been just married, and we could do nothing but incur risk ourselves; for this woman assured us that, except for her regard for her brother, whose letters we brought, she would have denounced us as having come to corrupt the Protestants. We were afterwards near perishing on the lake in a dangerous place, where a tempest came on that would have swallowed us up, had not God protected us in his usual way. A few days later, in that very spot, a boat with thirty-three persons perished.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 