AFTER such adventures and others which it would be tedious to relate, I arrived at Verceil the evening of Good Friday. Going to the inn, I was very badly received, and I had the opportunity of passing a genuine Good Friday, which lasted very long. I sent to find Father La Combe, believing him already informed by the ecclesiastic I had sent in advance, but the latter had only just arrived. I had many genuine mortifications to swallow for the time I was without this ecclesiastic, which I should have escaped had I had him; for in this country, when ladies are accompanied by an ecclesiastic they are regarded with veneration, as persons of respectability and piety. Father La Combe was strangely displeased at my arrival, God so permitting; he even could not hide it from me. Thus I saw myself at the moment of arrival on the point of setting out again; and I would have done this, notwithstanding my extreme fatigue, but for the Easter festival. Father La Combe could not prevent himself showing his mortification. He said that everyone would think I had come to see him, and this would injure his reputation. He was in very high esteem in that country. I had no less pain in going there, and it was necessity alone which had made me do it, in spite of my objections; so that I was placed in a state of sufferings, and our Lord adding his hand, made them very severe. The Father received me coldly, and in a manner which showed me his sentiments, and this redoubled my pain. I asked him if he wished me to return, that I would set out on the moment, although I was overwhelmed with the fatigues of such a long and dangerous journey; besides that I was much weakened by the Lent fast, which I kept as strictly as if I had not been travelling. He told me he did not know how the Bishop of Verceil would take my arrival, when he had ceased to expect it, after I had so long obstinately refused the obliging offers he had made me; that he no longer showed any desire to see me since that refusal. It was then, it seemed to me, that I was cast out from the surface of the earth, without the means of finding any refuge, and that all creatures were combined together to crush me. I spent the rest of the night in this inn, without being able to sleep, and without knowing what course I should be compelled to take, being persecuted to the degree I was by my enemies, and a subject of shame to my friends.
As soon as they knew at the inn that I was an acquaintance of Father La Combe they treated me very well, for he was there esteemed as a saint. The Father did not know how to tell the Bishop of Verceil that I was come, and I felt his trouble more keenly than my own. As soon as the Prelate knew I had arrived, as he thoroughly understood the proprieties, he sent his niece, who took me in her carriage and brought me to her house; but things were only done for appearance, and the Bishop, not having yet seen me, did not know how to take such an inopportune journey, after my having three times refused to go there, although he had sent expresses to ask me to do so. He was disgusted with me. However, as he was informed that my design was not to remain at Verceil, but to go to the Marquise de Prunai, and that it was necessity owing to the festival which detained me, he let nothing appear; on the contrary, he took care that I was very well treated. He could not see me until after Easter, as he officiated all the Vigil and on the day. In the evening, after all the duty of Easter Day was over, he had himself carried in a chair to his niece’s house to see me, and although he understood French no better than I did Italian, he was none the less very well satisfied with the conversation that he had with me. He seemed to have as much kindness for me as he previously had indifference. The second visit finished in gaining him entirely.
One could not be under greater obligations than I was to this good Prelate. He conceived as much friendship for me as if I had been his sister, and in the midst of his continual occupation, his sole diversion was to spend a half-hour with me, speaking about God. He began a letter to the Bishop of Marseilles to thank him for having protected me in the persecution. He wrote also to the Bishop of Grenoble, and there was nothing he left undone to mark his affection. He no longer thought of anything but devising means to keep me in his diocese. He was not willing to let me visit the Marquise de Prunai; on the contrary, he wrote to her, inviting her to come herself with me into his diocese. He even sent Father La Combe expressly to urge her to come, assuring her that he wished to unite us all and form a small Community. The Marquise de Prunai entered into it readily enough, and her daughter also, and they would have come with Father La Combe but for the Marquise having fallen ill. She thought of sending her daughter to me, and the matter was deferred until she should be in better health. The Bishop commenced by hiring a large house, which he even treated for the purchase of, in order to locate us in it. It was very suitable for a Community. He wrote also to a lady at Genoa, an acquaintance of his, sister to a cardinal, who expressed much desire to unite with us, and the matter was considered already settled. There were also some devout girls, who were quite ready to set out to come to us. But, O my God, your will was not to establish me, but rather to destroy me.
The fatigue of the journey made me fall ill; the girl I had brought from Grenoble also fell ill. Her relatives, persons very full of self-interest, got into their heads that if she died in my hands I might cause her to make a will in my favour. They were much mistaken; for, far from wishing for the property of others, I had even given away my own. Her brother, full of this apprehension, came as quickly as possible, and the first thing he spoke to her of, although he found her recovered, was to make a will. This caused a great fracas at Verceil; for he wanted to take her away, and she was not willing to go. However, as I noticed little solidity of character in this girl, I thought it was an opportunity which divine providence offered me of getting rid of her, as she was not suited to me. I advised her to do what her brother wished. He formed friendship with some officers of the garrison, to whom he told ridiculous stories, that I wanted to ill-use his sister, whom he represented as a person of quality, although she was of quite humble birth. This brought me many crosses and humiliations. They commenced to say, what I had always dreaded, that I had come for the sake of Father La Combe. They even persecuted him on account of me.
The Bishop of Verceil was extremely vexed, but he could not apply any remedy; for he could not make up his mind to let me go, besides that I was in no state to do so, being ill. The friendship he had for me increased each day, because, as he loved God, he had a friendship for all those he believed wishing to love him. As he saw me so ill, he came to see me constantly, when he was free from his duties and occupations. This caused him and me also no slight crosses. He used to make me little presents of fruit, and other things of that nature. His relatives became jealous, saying I had come to ruin him, and carry away into France the money of the Bishop. It was what was furthest from my thoughts. This worthy Bishop swallowed all the crosses, through the friendship he had for me, and still confidently calculated on keeping me in his diocese as soon as I was recovered.
Father La Combe was his theologian and his confessor: he esteemed him greatly; and the Father did a great deal of good in that garrison, God making use of him to convert many of the officers and soldiers. Some of very scandalous life became models of virtue. He induced the subaltern officers to make retreats; he preached and instructed the soldiers, who profited greatly, and as a consequence made general confessions. In this place there was a constant mixture of crosses and of souls gained for our Lord. There were some of his brother monks, who, after his example, were working for their perfection, and, although I hardly understood their language and they did not at all understand mine, our Lord brought it about that we understood each other in what regarded his service. The Father Rector of the Jesuits, having beard me spoken of, took the opportunity of Father La Combe’s absence from Verceil to come and, as he said, try me. He had studied theological subjects that I did not understand, and put numbers of questions to me. Our Lord gave me the means of answering, and he went away so satisfied that he could not help speaking of it. Fatber La Combe stood well then with the Bishop of Verceil, who looked on him with veneration.
But the Bernabites of Paris, or rather Father La Mothe, bethought himself of bringing him away from there, to make him go and preach at Paris. He wrote of it to their General, saying that they had none at Paris qualified to uphold the House; that their church was deserted; that it was a mistake to leave a man like Father La Combe in a place where he was merely corrupting his language; that his great talents should be exhibited at Paris; that for the rest, he could not bear the burden of the House at Paris, if he was not given a man of that stamp. Who would not have believed that all this was sincere? The Bishop, who was a great friend of the General, hearing of it, offered opposition, and wrote to him that it was to do him the very greatest injury to take away a man who was so useful to him, and at a time when he had the greatest need of him. He was right, for he had a Grand Vicar whom he had brought from Rome, who, after having been Nuncio of the Pope in France, had by his evil life been reduced to live off his Masses, even in Rome itself, where he was in such great need as to attract the compassion of the Bishop of Verceil, who took him, and gave him very good allowances for acting as his Grand Vicar. This Abbe, far from gratitude to his benefactor, following the whim of his humour, was constantly in opposition to the Bishop, and if any ecclesiastic was disorderly or discontented, it was with him the Abbe took part against his Bishop. All those that complained against the Prelate or insulted him, were at once friends of the Grand Vicar, who, not content with this, laboured with all his might to embroil him with the Court of Rome; saying he was entirely devoted to France, to the prejudice of his Holiness’s interests, and as a proof, that he had several Frenchmen with him. He also by his secret intrigues embroiled him with the Court of Savoy; so that this worthy Bishop had very severe crosses from this man. Not being able to bear it, the Bishop requested him to retire, and with great generosity gave him all that was necessary for his return journey. He was extremely offended at having to leave the Bishop, and turned all his anger against Father La Combe, against a French gentleman, and against me.
The General of the Bernabites was not willing to grant Father La Mothe’s request, for fear of hurting his great friend the Bishop, and to take away from him a man who in that conjuncture of affairs was very necessary to him. As for me, my ills increased day by day. The air, which there, is extremely bad, caused me a constant cough, together with the fever which I often had, accompanied with inflammation of the chest, so that I had to be severely bled. I became swollen. In the evening I would be swollen to a great size, in the morning nothing was apparent; the fever which I had every night consumed the humours. It was all the right side which first swelled; at first only the right arm, afterwards it extended and became so considerable that it was thought I should die. The Bishop was very much distressed, for he could not make up his mind to let me go, nor yet to see me thus die in his diocese. But after having consulted the doctors, who told him that the air of the place was fatal to me, he said to me with many tears, “I prefer you should live away from me rather than to see you die here.”
He gave up his design for the establishment of a Community; for my friend was not willing to settle there without me, and the Genoese lady could not leave her town, where she was highly thought of. The Genoese prayed her to do there what the Bishop wished to do at his place. It was a Community something like that of Madame de Miramion; for in that country there are only cloistered nuns. From the beginning, when the Bishop proposed the matter to me, I had a presentiment that it would not succeed, and that it was not what our Lord desired of me. Nevertheless, I gave in to all that was wished of me in recognition of the Prelate’s kindness, sure as I was that our Lord would be able to prevent anything he did not desire of me. When this good Prelate saw that he must resolve to let me go, he said to me, “You would like to be in the diocese of Geneva, and the Bishop persecutes and rejects you; and I, who would so gladly have you, am not able to keep you.” The Bishop wrote to Father La Mothe that I would go away in the spring, as soon as the season would allow; that he was very distressed at being obliged to let me go; and he said of me things that might throw me into confusion, if I could take to myself anything. He wrote that he regarded me in his diocese as an angel, and a thousand other things which his goodness suggested. From this out I made my account for returning; but the Bishop expected to keep Father La Combe, and that he would not go to Paris. That would have been the case, indeed, but for the death of the General, as I shall tell hereafter.
Almost all the time I was in this country our Lord made me there suffer many crosses, and at the same time he multiplied upon me graces and humiliations; for with me one has never been without the other. I was almost always ill and in a state of childhood. I had with me only that girl of whom I have spoken, who, in the state which she was in, could not give me any relief, and who seemed to be with me merely to try me and make me suffer strangely. It was there I wrote upon the Apocalypse, and I was given a greater certainty of all I had known of the persecution which should come upon the most faithful servants of God, in accordance with what I wrote touching the future. I was, as I have said, in the state of childhood; when I had to write or speak there was nothing greater than I—it seemed to me I was quite full of God—and yet nothing smaller or feebler than I, for I was like a little child. Our Lord wished that not only should I bear his state of childhood in a way that charmed those who were prepared for it, but he desired further that by an external cult I should commence to honour his Divine Childhood. He inspired that worthy begging friar to send me a Child Jesus of wax, of ravishing beauty, and I perceived that the more I looked at it, the deeper were the dispositions of childhood impressed on me. One cannot believe the trouble I had to allow myself to pass to this state of childhood, for my reason was lost in it, and it seemed to me that it was I who gave myself this state. When I reflected, it was taken away, and I experienced an intolerable pain; but as soon as I allowed myself to go into it, I found myself with the candour, the innocence and simplicity of a child, something divine within. I have committed many infidelities to this state, not being able to bring myself down to a state so low and so small. O Love, you desired to place me in all sorts of positions in order that I should resist no longer, and should be subject to all your wishes without reflection or reserve.
While I still was at Verceil I had a movement to write to Madame de C—. It was some year, since she had ceased writing to me. Our Lord made me to know her disposition, and that he would make use of me to help her. I asked Father La Combe if he would approve of my writing to her, telling him of the movement I had; but he did not wish it. I remained submissive, and at the same time assured that our Lord would unite us, and would provide me one way or another with the means of serving her. Some time after I received a letter from her, which not a little surprised Father La Combe, and he then left me free to write to her whatever I wished. I did it with great simplicity, and what I wrote was like the first foundation of what our Lord desired of her, having willed to use me afterward, to help her, and to cause her to enter into his ways; for she is a soul to whom I am closely tied, and through her to others.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 