To resume, the Almoner of the Bishop of Genoble persuaded me to go and pass some time at Marseilles, to let the tempest blow over, and said that I should there be very well received, that it was his country, and that many good persons were there. I wrote to Father La Combe, that I might have his approval. He permitted it. I might have gone to Verceil, for the Bishop of Verceil had sent me by express the strongest, most pressing, and most attractive letters possible, to induce me to go into his diocese; but deference to man’s opinion and the fear of giving opportunity to my enemies (when I use the term enemy it is not that I consider any person such, nor that I can look upon those whom God makes use of otherwise than as the instruments of his justice, but it is to explain myself)—these two reasons, I say, made me extremely unwilling. Besides, the Marquise de Prunai, who since my departure had been more enlightened by her own experience, having found true some of the things which I had believed were about to happen to her, had conceived for me a very strong friendship, and a very intimate union, so that the most united sisters could not be more so than were we. She wished extremely I should return to her as I had before promised; but I could not resolve upon it, lest it should be thought I was going where Father La Combe was. But, O my God, how this remnant of self-love was overthrown by the action of your adorable providence! I had still this interior support of being able to say that I had never been running after Father La Combe, and that this could not be said of me, nor could I be accused on this head of any attachment to him, since when it depended only upon me to live near him, I did not do so. The Bishop of Geneva had not failed to write against me to Grenoble, as he had done elsewhere. His nephew had been from house to house decrying me. All this was indifferent to me, and I nevertheless procured for his diocese all the good I could. I even wrote politely to him; but his heart was too wounded in the matter of worldly interest, he said, to give in. These were his own words.
Before setting out from Grenoble, that worthy child of whom I have spoken, whom the Devil had severely ill-treated, came to see me, and said to me, weeping, “The Devil has told me that you are going away.” It should be observed that I had not told a single person. The Devil, then, told her that I was going away, and that I had concealed it from her, because I did not wish anyone should know; but that he would soon catch me, and that he would be before me in all the places where I should go; that hardly should I arrive in any town, but he would stir up the whole town against me. And he made her understand that he was enraged against me, and would do me all the ill he could. What had obliged me to keep my departure secret was that I feared being overwhelmed with visits and testimony of friendship from numbers of good people, who had much affection for me.
I embarked, then, on the Rhone, with my maid and a worthy girl of Grenoble, to whom our Lord had through my means given much grace. She was to me a genuine source of crosses. The Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble accompanied me, together with another ecclesiastic, a very excellent man. We had many adventures, and were near perishing; for in a very dangerous place the cable broke, and the boat went right against a rock. The master pilot fell overboard at the shock, and would have been drowned but for the gentlemen who saved him. Another accident also happened to me. Having with the gentlemen gone down the Rhone in a small boat managed by a child, in expectation of finding a large boat, without success, we had to return to Valence, after having gone down more than a league. Everyone got out of the boat because it was too heavy to reascend the river, and as I could not walk I remained in it at the mercy of the waves, which bore us where they pleased without resistance; for the child who managed the boat, and did not know his business, took to tears, saying we were about to be drowned. I encouraged him, so that, having contended for more than four hours with the waves, while those who were on the bank believed us at one time utterly lost, then again saved, at last we arrived.
These manifest dangers, which frightened the others, far from alarming me, increased my peace—a thing which astonished the Bishop’s Almoner, who was in a horrible fright when the boat ran against the rock and split; for, attentively looking at me in his emotion, he noticed that I did not frown, and that my tranquillity was not in the least altered. It is true that I did not feel even the first movements of surprise, which are natural to everyone on these occasions, and which do not depend on us. What caused my peace in these perils that suddenly surprise, was my inmost centre being in an abandonment always fixed and firm in God, and because death is to me far more agreeable than life; I should need much more abandonment to God for living than for dying, if I could have any wish. I am indifferent to everything, and that is why nothing alters my central depth.
On leaving Grenoble a man of rank, a great servant of God and an intimate friend of mine, had given me a letter for a very devout Knight of Malta, whom I have always regarded since I knew him as a man our Lord destines to be very useful to the Order of Malta; to be its example and support through his holy life. I told him even that I believed he would go to Malta and that God would assuredly make use of him to inspire with piety many of the Knights. He has, in fact, gone to Malta, where at once the highest offices were given to him. That man of rank sent him the little book on prayer entitled, “A Short Method,” printed at Grenoble. This knight had an almoner very much opposed to spirituality. He took the book and at once condemned it, and set about stirring up a party in the town, among others seventy-two persons who openly called themselves the seventy-two disciples of M. de St. Cyran. I had only arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, and a few hours after noon everything was in commotion against me. They went to see the Bishop of Marseilles, telling him that, owing to that little book, he must drive me away from Marseilles. They gave him the book, which he examined with his theologian, and which he found very good. He sent to fetch M. Malaval and a worthy Recolet Father who he knew had been to see me a little after my arrival, to ascertain from them whence arose this great tumult (which made me laugh a little, when I saw so soon accomplished what the Devil had told that worthy girl). M. Malaval and the monk told the Bishop what they thought of me, so that he expressed great displeasure at the insult which had been put on me. I was obliged to go and see him. He received me with extreme kindness, and asked my pardon. He prayed me to remain at Marseilles, that he would protect me; he even inquired where I lodged, that he might come and see me. The next day the Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble, with that other priest who came with us, went to see him. The Bishop again expressed to them the vexation he felt at the insults which had been cast upon me without cause, and he said that it was the usual practice of those persons to insult all who were not of their faction; that they had insulted himself. They were not content with that; they wrote me the most offensive letters possible, although these persons did not know me.
I understood that our Lord was commencing in earnest to deprive me of any dwelling-place, and these words came afresh to me: “The birds of heaven have nests, and the foxes have holes, and the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.” I willingly entered upon that state.
Our Lord nevertheless made use of me during the short time I remained at Marseilles to aid in supporting some good souls, among others an ecclesiastic who did not know me. He used to say Mass in a church where I went to hear it. After he had said the Thanksgiving, seeing me go out, he followed me, and having come to the house where I lodged, he told me that our Lord had inspired him to address me, and had made him know that I was the person to whom he should open himself for his spiritual state. He did it with as much simplicity as humility. Our Lord gave me all that was necessary for him, from which he was filled with happiness and gratitude to our Lord; for although many spiritual persons, even near friends of his own, were there, he never had the movement to open himself to them. He was a great servant of God, and had been favoured with a wonderful gift of prayer from even eight years of age. He had employed all his life in missions, and had a very great gift of discernment of spirits. In the eight days that I was at Marseilles I saw there many good souls; for I used to have this consolation, that, in spite of the persecution, our Lord used always to perform some stroke of his hand; and this good ecclesiastic was delivered from a strange trouble in which he had been several years.
As soon as I had left Grenoble those who, without knowing me, hated me, set in circulation libels against me. One person for whom I had had a very great charity, and whom I had even withdrawn from an engagement in which she was for many years, having contributed to remove to a distance the person to whom she was attached, became so furious thereat that she went herself to see the Bishop of Grenoble, to speak to him against me, going so far as to say that I had advised her to do an evil which I had broken off even at my expense; for it cost me money to get away the person. They had lived together for eight years, and I knew her only for one month. She went from confessor to confessor saying the same thing, in order to excite them against me. The fire was kindled in all directions: only those who knew me and who loved God supported my side, and they found themselves more bound to me by the persecution. It would have been very easy for me to destroy the calumny, as well with the Bishop as the town. It was only needed to say who the person was and to exhibit the fruits of her disorder, for I knew everything; but as I could not declare the guilty one without making known her accomplice, who was very repentant and touched by God, I thought it better to suffer everything and remain silent. There was a very holy man who thoroughly knew the whole story; he wrote to her that if she did not retract her lies he would publish her evil life, so as to make known her wickedness and my innocence. That poor girl persevered still for some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, and that she knew it by revelation and many other things. However, some time after she had, according to her account, such cruel remorse of conscience that she wrote to the Bishop and others to retract. She got a letter written to myself, that she was in despair at what she had done, that God had punished her in such a manner that never had she been treated in a similar way. After her retractation the rumour subsided, the Bishop was disabused, and from that time he has shown me great kindness. This creature had said, among other things, that I caused myself to be worshipped, and such strange absurdities that the like were never seen. As she had been formerly mad, I believe there was more weakness than malice in what she did.
Being then at Marseilles, I knew not what to do, for I saw no possibility either of remaining there or returning to Grenoble, where I had left my daughter in a convent. On the other hand, Father La Combe had written me that he did not think I ought to return to Paris. I felt even great repugnance to it, without knowing the reason, which made me think that it was not yet the time. One morning I felt myself interiorly urged to depart. I took a litter to go and visit the Marquise de Prunai, who was, it seemed to me, the most respectable refuge for me in the state things were. I thought to be able to go by Nice, as I had been assured by people; but I was very much astonished, when at Nice, to learn that the litter could not pass the mountain to go where I wanted. I knew not what to do, nor what side to turn to, being alone, abandoned by all the world, without knowing, O my God, what you wished of me. My confusion and my crosses increased each day. I saw myself without refuge or retreat, wandering and vagabond. All the workmen that I saw in their shops appeared to me happy in having a dwelling-place and a refuge, and I found nothing in the world so hard for a person like me, who naturally loved honour, as this wandering life. While I knew not what course to take, I was told that next day a small sloop was about to start, which would go to Genoa in a single day, and that if I wished they would land me at Savona, whence I could be carried to my friend the Marquise de Prunai. I consented to this, having no possibility of other conveyance. I had some joy in embarking on the sea, and I said to you, O my God, “If I am the excrement of the earth, the refuse and scorn of nature, I am about to embark on the element the most faithless of all; you can sink me in its waters, and I shall be pleased to die in that way.” A storm came on in a place dangerous enough for a small boat, and the sailors were very bad. The turbulence of the waves constituted my pleasure, and I was delighted to think that these mutinous waters would serve perhaps for my grave. O God, perhaps I committed some infidelity in the pleasure I took at seeing myself beaten and tossed by these raging waves. I thought I saw myself in the hands of your providence: it seemed to me I was its plaything; and I said to you, O my God, in my language, “Let there be, then, in the world victims of your providence, and let me be one. Do not spare me.” Those who were with me saw my intrepidity, but they were ignorant of its cause. I asked of you, O my Love, a little hole in a rock, to place myself there and to live separated from all creatures. I pictured to myself that a desert island would have ended all my disgraces, and would have placed me in a state to perform infallibly your will; but, O my Love, you destined me to another prison than a rock, another exile than that of the desert isle. You reserved me to be beaten by waves more irritated than those of the sea. Calumny was the mutinous and pitiless sea to which you desired I should be exposed, to be thereby beaten without mercy: blessed for ever, O my, God, be you for this!
We were stopped by the storm, and in place of a short day’s journey, the proper time to reach Genoa, we were eleven days on the way. How peaceable was my heart during this great agitation! The tempest of the sea and the fury of the waves were only the symbol of that which all creatures had against me. I said to you, “O my Love, arm them all to avenge yourself on my infidelities and those of all creatures.” I saw with pleasure your arm raised against me, and I loved more than a thousand lives the strokes it gave me. We could not disembark at Savona; it was necessary to go on to Genoa. We arrived there in the Holy Week. I had to endure the insults of the inhabitants, owing to their irritation against the French for the injuries caused by the bombardment. The Doge had just left, and he had taken with him all the litters; for this reason I could not get one. I had to remain several days at an excessive expense, for these people demanded exorbitant sums, and as much for each person as would be charged in Paris at the best inn for the whole party. I was almost without money; but the fund of providence could not fail me. I begged most earnestly, at whatever cost, that I might be supplied with a litter, so as to be able to go and spend Easter with the Marquise de Prunai; yet there were only three days remaining to Easter, and I could not make myself understood. Owing to my entreaties, a bad litter was brought me, the mules belonging to which were lame, and I was told that for an exorbitant sum they would take me to Verceil, which was two days’ distance, but not to the Marquise de Prunai; because they did not even know where her estate was. I was strangely mortified, for I did not wish to go to Verceil, and yet the nearness of Easter, and the want of money in a country where they practised a sort of tyranny, left me no choice, but under an absolute necessity of allowing myself to be taken to Verceil.
You led me, O my God, by your providence, where I did not wish to go. Although the sum I had to give for such a bad conveyance for two days’ journey was ten louis d’or, each sixteen livres of that country, nevertheless I accepted the unreasonable bargain from extreme necessity, and that in a country where conveyances are very cheap. The voiturier was the most cruel man possible, and for crown to our trouble, I had sent on the ecclesiastic, who accompanied us, to Verceil, in order to break the surprise of their seeing me after I had protested that I would not go there. This ecclesiastic was very badly treated on the road, from hatred against the French, and part of the journey he had to do on foot, so that, although he had set out in advance, he reached only a few hours before me. The man, then, who led us, seeing that he had only women to deal with, insulted us in every way possible.
We passed through a wood full of robbers. The muleteer was afraid, and told us that if anyone met us on the road we were lost, and that they spared no one. Hardly had he told us this, when four well-armed men appeared. They at once stopped the litter. The muleteer was very much terrified. They came to us and looked at us. I made them a bow with a smile, for I had no fear, and I was so abandoned to providence, that it was equal to me to die in that way or another, in the sea, or by the hand of robbers. But, O my God, what was your protection over me, and what was my surrender into your hands! How many dangers have I run on the mountains, and on the edge of precipices! How many times have you stopped the foot of the mule, already sliding over the precipice! How many times have I expected to be precipitated from those frightful mountains into terrible torrents, which were hid from view by the depth, but which made themselves heard by their fearful noise! Where the dangers were more apparent, it was there my faith was stronger, as well as my intrepidity, which sprung from an inability to desire anything else but what would happen, whether it should be to be smashed on the rocks, to be drowned, or to be killed—all being alike in your will, O my God. The people who led me said they never saw a similar courage, for the most terrifying dangers, and where death seemed most certain, were those which pleased me more. Was it not you, O my God, who held me back in the danger, and prevented me from rolling into the precipice, to which we were already slipping down? The more reckless I was of a life, which I endured only because you yourself endured it, the more did you take care to preserve it. It was, O my God, like a challenge between us two: I to abandon myself to you, and you to preserve me. The robbers then came to the litter, but I had no sooner saluted them than you made them change their purpose, one pushing the other to hinder him from hurting me. They saluted me very politely, and with an air of compassion, unusual in such persons, they withdrew. I was at once impressed, O my Love, that it was a stroke of your right hand, which had other designs for me than to make me die by the hands of robbers. Yon are, O my divine Love, that famous robber, who yourself take away everything from your lovers, and after having spoiled them of all, you become their pitiless murderer. Oh, how different is the martyrdom you make them endure, from that which all men taken together could invent! The muleteer, seeing me alone with two maids, thought he could ill-treat me as much as he pleased, perhaps imagining to extort money. Instead of taking me to the inn, he took me to a mill, where there was no woman; there was only a single room, with several beds, where the millers and the muleteers slept together. It was in this room he wanted to compel me to remain. I said I was not a person to lie down where he had brought me, and I tried to oblige him to take me to the inn. He would do no such thing. I had to set out on foot at ten o’clock at night, carrying a part of my clothes, and travel more than a quarter league of that country (where the leagues are very long) in the midst of darkness, without knowing the road, crossing even one end of the robbers’ wood, to go and find the inn. That man, seeing me leave the place where he had wanted to make us sleep, not without wicked intentions, cried out after us, abusing and ridiculing us. I bore my humiliation with pleasure, not without seeing and feeling it; but your will, my God, and my abandonment made everything easy to me. We were very well received at the inn, and those worthy people did their best to refresh us from our fatigue, assuring us that the place where we had been taken was very dangerous. The next day we had again to return on foot to find the litter, that man refusing to bring it to us. On the contrary, he poured out insults, and for crown of disgrace, he sold me to the post, and forced me thereby to go in a post-chaise, instead of in the litter.
I reached Alexandria in that conveyance. It is a frontier town dependent on Spain, on the side of the Milanais. Our postilion wished to take us, as usual, to the post. I was much astonished to see the mistress of the house come to meet him, not to receive, but to hinder him entering. She had been told that there were women, so, thinking us other than we were, she did not wish for us. The postilion wished to persist. Their dispute grew so warm that a number of officers of the garrison, with a great crowd, assembled at the noise, astonished at the strangeness of the woman not wishing to lodge us. They thought she knew us for persons of bad livelihood, so that we had to submit to insults. However I urged the postilion to take us elsewhere; he would not do it, and persisted obstinately in trying to enter, assuring the mistress that we were honourable and even pious persons, the signs of which he had seen. By his persistence he compelled the woman to come and see us. As soon as she had looked at us she did like the robbers, allowed herself to yield, and made us come in. I had no sooner got out of the chaise than she said to me, “Go and shut yourself in that room, and do not stir, that my son may not know you are there, for if he knows it, he will kill you.” She said this to us with so much emphasis, and her servant also, that if death had not for me the many charms it has, I should have died of fear. The two poor girls were in terrible alarm; when anyone stirred, or came to open the door, they thought that our throats were about to be cut. In short, we remained between death and life until the next day, when we learned that the young man had taken an oath to kill all women who should lodge at his house, because a few days before he had had a very serious business which threatened his ruin; a woman of evil life having assassinated a respectable man at their house. This had cost them much, and with reason he feared similar persons.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 