As soon as it was known in France that I had gone away I was generally condemned. Those who attacked me most severely were the religious, in the world’s sense, and especially Father La Mothe, who wrote me that all orthodox and pious persons, professional or gentlemen, condemned me. To alarm me the more, he told me that my mother-in-law, on whom I relied for the property of my children and for my younger son, had fallen into second childhood, and that I was the cause of it; this was, however, utterly false. Although there were times when my trouble was excessive, I let nothing of it be seen outwardly. I shut myself up as much as I could, and there I allowed myself to be penetrated by the pain, which appeared to me very profound. I bore it very passively, without being able, or even wishing, to alleviate it; on the contrary, my pleasure was to allow myself to be devoured, without even wishing to understand it. This pain was as peaceable as it was penetrating. Once I desired to open the New Testament to console myself, but I was interiorly hindered; so that I remained in silence, without doing anything, allowing myself to be devoured by the pain. It appeared to me that I then commenced to bear troubles in a divine manner, and that from this time forward, without any sentiment, the soul could be at the same time very happy and very pained, very afflicted and beatified. It was not at all in the same way I had borne my first griefs, nor as I had borne the death of my father. For then the soul was buried in peace, and in a peace that was delightful, but she was not delivered over to pain; what she suffered was only a shock to nature, a weight of delightful pain. Here it is quite different; the same soul is delivered entirely to suffering, and she bears it with a divine strength; and this strength causes the soul to be divided without division from her entire self, so that her unchangeable happiness does not prevent the most severe suffering. But these sufferings are impressed on her by God himself as in Jesus Christ; he suffered as God and man; he suffered in the strength of a God and in the weakness of a man; he was a blessed God and a Man of sufferings; in short, God-Man, suffering and rejoicing, without the beatitude diminishing anything of the pain, or the pain interrupting or altering the perfect beatitude.
I answered all the violent letters they wrote me according to the interior spirit’s dictates, and my answers were found very suitable; they were even much appreciated, so that, God allowing, the complaints and thunders soon changed into praise. Father La Mothe seemed to change his mind, and even to esteem me, but this did not last long: self-interest was what made him act so; but when he found that an annuity, which he fancied I would give him, was not provided, he suddenly changed. Sister Garnier from the first changed, and declared herself against me; whether it was merely a pretence or a real change. As to my body and my health, I took no trouble about it. You gave me, my God, too much grace, for I have been two months without almost any sleep, and the food which we had was little suited to support me. The meat they served us was rotten and full of maggots, for in that country the meat was killed on Thursday for use on Friday and Saturday, and owing to the great heat, it was decayed by Sunday; so that what I once would have looked at with horror was my food. Nothing afflicted me then, for in giving me life you had given me capacity for everything. It seems to me I could do anything, without the necessity of doing it. I could do nothing, without at all minding. It is in you, O my God, that one recovers with increase all one has lost for you.
That intellect which I once thought I had lost in a strange stupidity, was restored to me with inconceivable additions. I was astonished at it myself, and I found that there was nothing for which it was not able, and in which it did not succeed. Those who saw me said I had a prodigious intellect. I knew well that I had but little intellect, but that in God my mind had taken a quality which before it was without. I experienced, it seemed to me, something of the state in which the apostles were after having received the Holy Spirit. I knew, I understood, I comprehended, I was capable of everything, and I did not know where I had acquired this intellect, this knowledge, this intelligence, this power, this facility, nor whence it had come to me. I experienced that I had all kinds of treasures, and that I was not in want of anything whatever; but I did not know whence it was come to me. I recollected that fine passage of Wisdom, which says, “All riches are come to me with her.” When Jesus Christ, eternal Wisdom, is formed in the soul after the death of the sinful man, Adam, and this soul is truly entered into newness of life, she finds that in Jesus Christ, eternal Wisdom, all riches are communicated to her.
Some time after my arrival at Gex the Bishop of Geneva came to see us. I spoke to him with the openness and impetuosity of the Spirit which guided me. He was so convinced of the Spirit of God in me that he could not refrain from saying so. He was even affected and touched by it, opened his heart to me about what God desired of him, and how he had been turned aside from fidelity and grace; for he is a good prelate, and it is the greatest pity in the world that he is so weak in allowing himself to be led by others. When I have spoken to him, he always entered into what I said, acknowledging that what I said had the character of truth; and this could not be otherwise, since it was the Spirit of truth that made me speak to him, without which I was only a stupid creature; but as soon as the people who wished to rule him and could not endure any good that did not come from themselves, spoke to him, he allowed himself to be influenced against the truth. It is this weakness, joined to some others, which has hindered him from doing all the good in his diocese that otherwise he would have done. After I had spoken to him he told me that he had had it in mind to give me as director Father La Combe; that he was a man enlightened of God, who understood well the ways of the spirit, and had a singular gift for calming souls—these are his own words—that he had even told him, the Bishop, many things regarding himself, which he knew to be very true, since he felt in himself what the Father said to him. I had great joy that the Bishop of Geneva gave him to me as director, seeing that thereby the external authority was joined to the grace which seemed already to have given him to me by that union and effusion of supernatural grace.
The wakefulness and fatigues, together with the indifferent climate of this country, caused me a great pulmonary inflammation, with fever and a retention in the stomach of all the water I drank, which caused me violent pains. The doctors thought me in danger, for besides that, I had taken many remedies which I did not pass off. You permitted, O my God, this malady doubtless both as an exercise for my patience (if that can be called patience which costs nothing) and to glorify yourself in the striking miracle which you performed through your servant. As I was very weak, I could not raise myself in the bed without falling in a faint; and I could not remain in bed, for I was bursting from the waters and remedies I could not get rid of. God allowed that the Sisters neglected me utterly, particularly the one in charge of the housekeeping, who did not give me what was necessary for my life. I had not a shilling to provide for myself, for I had reserved nothing, and the Sisters received all the money which came to me from France—a very large sum. Thus I had the advantage of practising a little poverty, and being in want with those to whom I had given everything.
They wrote to Father La Combe to come and take my confession. He very charitably walked all night, although he had eight long leagues; but he used always to travel so, imitating in this, as in everything else, our Lord Jesus Christ. As soon as he entered the house, without my knowing it, my pains were alleviated. And when he came into my room and blessed me, with his hands on my head, I was perfectly cured, and I evacuated all the water, so that I was able to go to the Mass. The doctors were so surprised that they did not know how to account for my cure; for, being Protestants, they were unable to recognize a miracle. They said it was madness, that my sickness was in the imagination, and a hundred absurdities, such as might be expected from people otherwise vexed by the knowledge that we had come to withdraw from error those who were willing.
A violent cough, however, remained, and those Sisters of themselves told me to go to my daughter, and take milk for a fortnight, after which I might return. As soon as I set out, Father La Combe, who was returning and was in the same boat, said to me, “Let your cough cease.” It at once stopped, and although a furious gale came down upon the lake which made me vomit, I coughed no more at all. This storm became so violent that the waves were on the point of capsizing the boat. Father La Combe made the sign of the cross over the waves, and although the billows became more disturbed, they no longer came near, but broke more than a foot distant from the boat—a fact noticed both by the boatmen and those in the boat, who looked upon him as a saint. Thus I arrived at Tonon at the Ursulines, perfectly cured, so that instead of adopting remedies as I had proposed, I entered on a retreat which I kept for twelve days.
It was then I made perpetual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; to obey without resistance whatever I believed to be the will of God and the Church, and to honour Jesus Christ, the Child, in the way he wished. I admit that I do not know why nor how I made these vows. I did not find in myself anything to make a vow, and it seemed to me that I was so entirely yours, O my God, that I did not know where to find that which I vowed to you. I understood at the same time that the end of the vow and its consummation was given to my soul as well interiorly as exteriorly; that the soul, being in her entirety God’s without reserve, without self-regard, without interest, had the perfect chastity of love, since she was even passed into this same love. It appeared to me that you, O my God, had endowed me with the perfect poverty, by the utter stripping you had effected on me as well interiorly as exteriorly, leaving me nothing of “the own.” As to obedience, my will was so entirely lost in yours, that not only it found no resistance, but it had not even a repugnance; the same was its condition as regards the Church. And as to honouring the Childhood of Jesus Christ, I did not know by what means; for that which was proposed to me did not depend on me, but on you, O my God; and it appeared to me that the honour which I paid him was to bear himself in his states. I, however, made all these vows because I was told to make them, and I followed without choice, without inclination, and without repugnance, what I was told to do; and you have drawn from it your glory in a manner known to you alone, the effect of which soon appeared; for you took a new possession of my exterior, to make me the plaything of your providence, as you have since done. You despoiled me of my riches by a new poverty, and you deprived me of dwelling or place on earth, so that I have not where to rest my head. As to obedience, you made me practise it at one time, as will be seen, with the submissiveness of a child; but also how much have you obeyed me yourself; or rather, you, O my God, have rendered my wills wonderful, causing them to pass into you. I seem to understand clearly enough the meaning of that passage of David, “You have made my wills marvellous.” This is meant literally of David in Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ, though Son of David after the flesh, was Son of God by his eternal generation; being Son of God, he had only a single will, which is God. This did not hinder his having his human will also, but so lost in the divine that it was entirely at one with it; and this will is the end of all things, and that which works miracles, as Jesus Christ says, speaking as man, “So it is, my Father, because you have willed it.” But besides this sense, David himself experienced that which it seems to me I experience, O my God, by your grace, which is, that when by the destruction of ourselves we are passed into God, and returned to our source, our will is made one with that of God, according to the prayer of Jesus Christ, the effect of which the soul experiences: “My Father, that they all may be one, as we are one; that they all may be perfected in one;” which takes place by the loss of the soul in God, when all becomes one in unity of principle—the end for which we are created. In this unity the will of the soul so transforms itself into that of God as only to will that which God causes it to will, or rather, what he himself wills. Oh, it is then that this will is made wonderful, as well because it is made the will of God, the greatest of wonders, and its end, as that it works wonders in God; where, as soon as God causes it to will anything, since it is he who wills in it, this will has its effect; hardly has it willed, and the thing is done.
It will be said, But why so many overthrows, so many cruelties inflicted by creatures on these persons? If they have so much power, they should deliver themselves from them. They do not feel even the will to be delivered from them; and if they did, and it was not answered, it would be a will of the flesh, or the will of the human being, not the will of God. For although the soul be altogether lost in God, there is an animal will which the soul well knows to be no true will, but an instinct of the brute, which pursues what is agreeable to it, and flies from what gives it pain; but as to will, that is a different thing, and so little of it has the soul that if you ask her, What do you wish? she would leave God decide for her; and though one should cut her into a thousand pieces, she could only say, “I consent, if it is the will of God.”
As to the Church, what have you not given me for her in that which you have caused me to write? Have you not even communicated to me in a singular manner her spirit—a spirit holy and indivisible, a motive spirit, a spirit of truth, a spirit simple and upright?
And as to that of the Holy Child Jesus, good God, to what a degree have I experienced its effects! Have you not placed me in a state of wonderful childishness? And have I not borne it in a singular manner? To honour Jesus, the Child, was for me to bear the Child Jesus Christ as he has willed me to bear him many times, and many of his states, as will be seen in the sequel. This digression will be of no small use for the remainder of what I have to write.
I used to get up every night at midnight, and I had no need of an alarum, for by your goodness, O my God, as long as you desired it of me, I always woke sufficiently before midnight, to be up at that hour; and when through distrust or thoughtlessness I had set my alarum in the morning, I was never awakened. This led me to abandon myself more to your guidance, O my God, for I saw you had over me the care of a father and a husband. When I had any indisposition, and my body needed rest, you used not to awake me; but at that time, even sleeping, I felt a singular possession of you. For some years I had only a half sleep; my soul was awake to you with the more force as sleep seemed to withdraw her attention from everything else. Our Lord also made known to many persons that he destined me to be the mother of a great people, but a people simple and childlike. They understood these intimations literally, and thought that it related to some new foundation or society; but it appears to me that it means nothing but the persons whom God has willed I should afterwards gain for him, and to whom he has in his goodness willed that I should act as a mother, giving them the same union with me that children have with a mother, but a union much more strong and more inward, and giving me for them all that was necessary, that they might walk in the way by which God was guiding them, as I shall explain hereafter, when I speak of this state of maternity.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 