ON leaving St. Mary’s I went to Madame de Miramion. Those who were the cause of my having been placed at St. Mary’s opposed this, and told me it was more suitable that I should retire into a private house. As I penetrated their intention, which was no other than to commit new forgeries, in order to have the opportunity of causing me fresh trouble, I remained firm in the resolution to enter into the Community of that lady. As soon as they saw they could not succeed with me, and that I wished to live in a Community, they bethought themselves to write to Madame de Miramion, assuring her that they themselves saw me go, at least once a week, to Faubourg St. Marceau, into discredited houses, and that I held assemblies. Father La Mothe was the author of these letters, and maintained that, being unwilling to credit it, he had been there several times during the last month, and that he had always seen me enter those houses. It is to be remarked that I had never been to the Faubourg St. Marceau, and that for three months I was confined to bed, where every day an abscess I had in the eye was dressed; besides I had a very severe fever during that time. Madame de Miramion, who was almost always present when they treated me, and who knew I did not leave the bed, was very indignant at this proceeding; so that when Father La Mothe came to see her, to confirm what he had written, and to add still further calumnies, as to things which, he said, I had done within eight days, she spoke very strongly to him on the blackness of his accusations, assuring him she believed all that had been told her of the malignity he had practised on me; as she herself was witness that, for three months, I had not been able even to leave the bed, or go to the Mass in their chapel, and since I was with her I had not gone out four times; and then, it was a responsible member of my family who had come to fetch me in the morning and bring me back in the evening. When he saw himself so ill received, he endeavoured to put other machines in motion. He complained everywhere, I had caused him to be ill-treated by Madame de Miramion; although I was then ignorant of what passed, and only knew it some time afterwards, when, being recovered, Madame de Miramion showed me the letters.
That affection of the eye made me suffer much, and God gave me great patience. In my sufferings my disposition has always been a strong patience, and I blame myself for having made it too apparent. It would have been better to have made some slight complaint, while yet content to suffer everything without a wish that the pain should diminish. This is more free from self-love, and does not attract so much esteem from others. Childlike simplicity allows nature some complaint, especially when one no longer complains through the life of nature; for otherwise as long as nature lives through its complaints, and has a secret joy in attracting compassion, all complaint must be checked: but when it has no longer life in this, something of the selfhood is found in that admirable strength, which does not permit a sigh under the most violent pains; then one should complain in a small humble way, without affecting anything, or keeping back anything. When the soul is again become a child, she acts as a child. It is the same in eating certain things: although one swallows equally the sweet and the bitter, there is a slight spiritual selfhood in taking without a word things which those who give them to you know to be very bad. Thus there are hidden folds in things that appear virtues, which cannot escape the pure eye of divine Love.
My daughter was married at Madame de Miramion’s, and, owing to her extreme youth, I was obliged to go and remain some time with her. I lived there two years and a half. What made me leave her was the desire I had to withdraw into a convent and to live there unknown; but God, who had other designs for me, did not permit it, as I shall tell in the sequel. While I was with my daughter the persecution did not cease. They were constantly inventing something against me. When I was in the country with her, they said I instructed the peasants, although I saw none of them. If I was in the town, according to their story, they made me receive persons, or else I went to see them; and yet I neither saw them, nor knew them. All these things joined to the inclination I had all my life to pass it in retreat, determined me to write to the Mother Prioress of the Benedictines of Montargis, that I wished to end my days with her, unknown to everybody, without seeing there even any nun but her: and without the outside world, or my family, or anyone in the world knowing anything of it. We had agreed upon the matter, and I was to be given a small apartment, where there was a closet with a lattice opening over the altar, and a little garden at the foot. It was what I wanted. The confessor was to be trusted, and I would have communicated in the morning by a little lattice on the days I should have made my devotions. This project made and accepted, I sent my furniture in advance; but as the Mother Prioress spoke of it to her Archbishop, he did not keep the secret. My friends and my enemies, if so one may call persons to whom one wishes no ill, opposed my project with very different views: the former, not to lose me altogether; and the latter, in order to ruin me, and not allow their prey to escape. They considered that a life such as I wished to lead would give the lie to all the calumnies they had hitherto invented, and take from them all means of persecuting me more. I saw myself, then, obliged by both, who prayed the Archbishop to forbid my being received, to live in the world, in spite of my aversion for the world; and to be still the mark for the contradiction of men, the object of their calumnies, the plaything of Divine Providence. I then knew God was not content with the little I had suffered, and that he was about to raise against me strange hurricanes: but as it is almost impossible for me not to desire all that God desires, I submitted cheerfully, and I made him an entire sacrifice of myself; too happy to pay by such slight pains what I owed to his justice, and too honoured by being in some sort conformed to the image of his Son.
It may be thought strange that I say I made a sacrifice to God, after having in so many places noticed that I no longer found a will in me, or repugnance for anything that God would desire. Yet it is certain when God wishes to charge the soul with new crosses, different from those she has had, and to make her bear heavier ones, however conformed she may be to the will of God, yet, as he respects the freewill he himself has given man, he still obtains her consent, which never fails to be given. This I believe it is which makes the sufferings of these persons have some merit owing to the free consent of the will. We have examples of it in Jesus Christ, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross;” and David, speaking of Jesus Christ, says, “Sacrifices are not agreeable to you, therefore I have said, Here am I; you have given me a body, and there it is written at the head of the book, I will do your will.” The same Jesus Christ, at the time of his death and of his agony, did he not make a striking immolation: “Not my will, but yours”? Did not the angel ask the consent of Mary to be the mother of the Word? Did she not immolate him upon the cross, where she remained standing like a priest assisting at the sacrifice that the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek made of himself?
Some time before the marriage of my daughter, I had become acquainted with the Abbe F—, as I have already said, and the family into which she had entered being among his friends, I had the opportunity of seeing him there many times. We had some conversations on the subject of the inner life, in which he offered many objections to me. I answered him with my usual simplicity, and I had reason to believe he had been satisfied. As the affairs of Molinos were making great noise at that time, people had conceived distrust on the most simple things, and on terms the most common with those who have written on these matters. That gave me opportunity to thoroughly explain to him my experiences. The difficulties he offered only served to make clear to him the root of my sentiments; therefore no one has been better able to understand them than he. This it is which, in the sequel, has served for the foundation of the persecution raised against him, as his answers to the Bishop of Meaux have made known to all persons who have read them without prejudice.
Having left my daughter, I took a small secluded house, to follow there the disposition I had for retreat. I confined myself to seeing my family, who hardly inconvenienced me, and a small number of friends, whom I saw there only at long intervals—the greater part not ordinarily residing at Paris. Since my release from St. Mary’s, I had continued to go to St. Cyr, and some of the girls of that House having declared to Madame de Maintenon that in the conversations I had with them they found something which led them to God, she permitted them to put confidence in me; and on many occasions she testified, owing to the change of some with whom hitherto she had not been satisfied, that she had no cause for repenting it. She then showed me much kindness, and, during three or four years that this lasted, I received from her every mark of esteem and confidence; but it is this very thing in the sequel which has drawn down upon me the greatest persecution. The entree Madame de Maintenon gave me at St. Cyr, and the confidence shown me by some young ladies of the court, distinguished by their rank and by their piety, began to cause uneasiness to the persons who had persecuted me. They stirred up the directors to take offence, and, under the pretence of the troubles I had had some years before, and of the great progress, as they said, of Quietism, they engaged the Bishop of Chartres, Superior of St. Cyr, to represent to Madame de Maintenon that I disturbed the order of her House by a private Direction; and that the girls whom I saw were so strongly attached to what I said to them, that they no longer listened to their Superiors. Madame de Maintenon caused me to be told in a kindly way. I ceased to go to St. Cyr. I no longer answered the girls who wrote to me, except by open letters, which passed through the hands of Madame de Maintenon.
A person of my acquaintance, a particular friend of Monsieur Nicole, had heard him often declaim against me, without knowing me; and he thought it would be easy to make him get over his prejudice if I could have some interviews with him, and by this means to disabuse many persons with whom he had relations, and who declared themselves in the most open manner hostile to me. That person urged me strongly to it, and, notwithstanding the repugnance I at first felt, certain of my friends, to whom I made known the urgency employed with me for this purpose, advised me to see him. As his ailments did not permit him to go out, I promised, after some civilities on his part, to pay him a visit. He at once referred to the “Short Method,” and told me that little book was full of errors. I proposed to him we should read it together, and begged him to kindly tell me those which struck him, and that I hoped to remove his difficulties. He told me he was quite willing, and commenced to read the little book, chapter by chapter, with much attention; and when I asked him if there was nothing in what we had just read which struck him, or caused him trouble, he answered, “No; that what he was looking for was further on.” We went through the book, from one end to the other, without his finding anything that struck him. Oftentimes he said to me, “Here are the most beautiful comparisons possible.” At last, having long sought the errors he thought he had seen in it, he said to me, “Madame, my talent is to write, and not to hold such discussions, but if you will see one of my friends, he will state his difficulties to you, and you will perhaps be very glad to profit by his light; he is very clever, and a very good man. You will not be sorry to make his acquaintance, and he understands all this better than I. It is Monsieur Boileau, of the Hotel Luines.” I excused myself for some time, to avoid controversies, which did not suit me, not pretending to defend the little book, and letting it pass for what it was worth. But he pressed me so strongly, I could not refuse him. Monsieur Nicole proposed to me to take a house near him, and to go to confession to Father de la Tour, and spoke to me as if he had much wished me to be of his friends, and connected with his party. I answered all his proposals as civilly as possible; but I let him know that the little property I had kept for myself did not allow me to hire the house he proposed; that, wishing to live in a perfect retreat, the distance of that I occupied put it beyond my power to see there much society, which was in accordance with my inclination; and that, not having a carriage, the same distance offered an obstacle to the proposal he made me of going to confession to Father de la Tour, because he lived at one end of Paris, and I at the other. We parted none the less good friends, and I knew he greatly praised me to some persons to whom he had spoken of my visit.
A few days after, I saw M. Boileau, as he had wished it. He spoke to me of the “Short Method.” I repeated to him what I have so often said, of the disposition in which I had composed that little book, and of that in which I still was regarding it. He told me he was truly persuaded of the sincerity of my intentions, but that this little book, being in the hands of a great many people, might injure many pious souls, through the mischievous consequences that might be deduced from it. I begged him to be so kind as to tell me the passages which caused him trouble, and I said I hoped to remove his difficulties. We read the little book, and while reading he told me the difficulties he found. I explained the matter to him, so that he appeared to be satisfied; after which he no longer insisted. Thus we went through the whole book—he insisting more or less on the passages that stopped him, and I explaining to him simply my thoughts and my experience, without disputing on matters of doctrine, in which I relied on him entirely, as more capable than I of deciding.
This discussion finished, he said to me, “Madame, there would have been no difficulty with regard to this little book, if you had explained things somewhat more fully, and it might be very good if you explain in a preface that which is not clear in the book;” and he urged me strongly to work at it. I answered him, that never having had the intention of making public this little book (which was properly only a private instruction I had written at the entreaty of one of my friends, who had asked it from me, in consequence of some conversations we had had together on the matter), I had not been able to foresee either that it would be printed, or that the meanings he had just explained to me could be put upon it; but that I would always be ready to give the explanations that should be desired, in order to remove objections that might be taken to it. He greatly praised me, and made me promise that I would explain, in a sort of preface, the difficulties he had proposed, after which, he assured me, the book might be good and useful. I did this some days afterwards, and sent him an explanation, with which he appeared very well satisfied. I saw him again, once or twice, and he urged me to have the little book reprinted with this preface. I represented to him, that this little book had furnished the pretext for the persecution and troubles I had been exposed to; that it was not suitable for me to put myself forward as the author; that I did not think I ought to contribute to the printing of this any more than of the former; but the strongest reason I had, was the promise I had given the Archbishop not to write any more on this subject. He approved my resolution, and we separated very well satisfied with one another.
I fell ill some time after, and as the nature of my ailment was little understood by the doctors, they prescribed the waters of Bourbon, after having in vain tried to cure me by ordinary remedies. It was a very strong poison, which had been given me: a servant had been gained over for the purpose. Immediately after he gave it, I suffered such violent pains that, without prompt help, I should have died in a few hours. The lacquey at once disappeared, and has not since been seen. That he had been instigated to do it, many circumstances proved; which I do not mention for the sake of brevity.
While I was at Bourbon, the water I threw up burned like spirits of wine. As I take no care of myself I should not have thought I had been poisoned, if the Bourbon doctors, after throwing the water on the fire, had not assured me of it. The mineral waters gave me little benefit, and I still suffered for seven years and a half. Since then people have three or four times tried to poison me. God preserved me through his goodness, and by the presentiments he gave me of it. This illness and the journey to Bourbon caused me to lose sight of M. Nicole, of whom I no longer heard mention, except that, about seven or eight months afterwards, I learned he had composed a book against me on the subject of that little book we had read together, with which both he and his friend had appeared satisfied by the explanations I had given them: I believe his intentions were good; but one of my friends, who read that book, told me that the quotations were not exact, and that he had little understanding of the subject on which he had written. Shortly afterwards, I learned that Dom Francis L’ Ami, a Benedictine of merit, well known, with whom I was not acquainted, a friend of M. Nicole, struck by the little solidity in his book, had undertaken to refute it, and, without having any knowledge of the “Short Method,” in order to justify it from M. Nicole’s imputations, he made use only of passages from his own book and what he quoted: he himself not having the little book. He has not printed that refutation; but it is still in existence, being in the hands of one of his friends. I let everything pass without thinking of justifying myself.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 