Chapter 3-17

I SOON perceived the change in the Bishop of Meaux, and how much I had been deceived in the idea I had formed of him. Although he was very reserved in disclosing his sentiments when he spoke to my friends, he was not the same with persons he believed ill disposed to me. I had confided to him, as I have already said, under the seal of confession, the history of my life, wherein were noted my most secret dispositions; yet I have learned he had shown it and turned it into ridicule. He wished to compel me to show it to these other gentlemen, and insisted so strongly thereon (although it had no connection with the examination in progress), I saw myself obliged to submit to what he wished. I caused it to be given them. I communicated to one of his friends and mine—the Duke de Ch[evreuse]—the alteration in my opinion of the Bishop of Meaux, and how I had reason to believe he was only thinking of condemning me. He had said that, without the history of my life, it could not be done, and that in it one would see the pride of the Devil. It was for this reason he wished it should be seen by those gentlemen.

I begged this friend that the subjects, as they were settled by those persons, should be written out, and, in order to have a sure witness of what would take place there, I most urgently begged him to be present at the conferences. I should have much wished they were not decided till the end, and that, until then, they held their judgment in suspense; not doubting that, as they were all assembled after having prayed God, God would at the moment touch their hearts with his truth independently of their intelligence; for otherwise, as the grace promised to those gathered together for truth escapes and departs, the intellect takes the upper hand, and one judges then only according to the intellect. Moreover, being then no longer sustained by this grace of truth, which has only its moment,—and finding themselves carried away by the clamouring crowd who are supported by credit, authority, and favour,—in listening to them the intellect hinders the heart by the continual doubts it forms. My friend proposed it to these gentlemen. The Bishop of Chalons and M. Tronson would willingly have consented, for they were both acting with all the uprightness and good faith imaginable; but the Bishop of Meaux found means to prevent it. He had so assumed control of the business that it was absolutely necessary everything should bend to what he pleased. He was no longer the same he had been six or seven months before, at the first examination. As at that time he had entered upon it only through a spirit of charity and with a view to know the truth, notwithstanding his extreme vivacity, he altered his opinion on many subjects that his prejudice made him at first reject. He appeared even sometimes touched by certain truths, and to respect things which struck him, although he had not the experience of them. But here it was no longer the same thing, he had a fixed point from which he did not swerve, and, as he wished to produce a striking condemnation, he brought to it everything he thought capable of contributing thereto.

It was in the same spirit that he wrote a long letter to the friend of whom I just spoke, to prove to him that, according to my principles, the sacrifice of eternity was a real consenting to hatred of God, and other things of that nature on trials. I still feel quite moved when I think of it—to consent to hate God! O good God! how could a heart who loves him so passionately mean such a thing? I believe that this view, a little strongly held, would be sufficient to cause my death. This needs explanation, and I will give it here much as I sent it to him at the time. Whether the soul be placed in such terrible trials that she has no doubt of her reprobation (which is called a holy despair): whether she carries in herself the state of hell (which is a feeling of the pain of damnation): if one were to stir her central depth by such a proposition, she would exclaim, “Rather a thousand hells without that hatred.” But what one calls “to consent to the loss of her eternity,” is when the soul in that state of trial believes it certain, and then, with no view but of her own misfortune and her own pain, makes the entire sacrifice of her eternal loss, thinking that her God will be neither less glorious nor less happy. Oh, if one could understand by what excessive love of God and hatred of self this is done, and how far one is from having these thoughts in detail! But how should I be understood and believed? Alas! how often in that state, have I asked my God, graciously, to give me hell that I might not offend him. I said to him, “O my God, hell is in others the penalty of sin: make it in me prevent sin, and make me suffer all the hells that all the sins of all men merit, provided I do not offend you.”

The sacrifices of particular and distinct things take place only in the exercise itself: as a person who falls into the water makes at first all his efforts to save himself, and does not relax his effort until his weakness renders it useless; then he sacrifices himself to a death that appears to him inevitable. There are anticipated sacrifices, such as are general sacrifices, which distinguish nothing, except that God proposes to the soul the greatest pains, troubles, desertions, confusions, scorn of creatures, discredit, loss of reputation, persecution on the part of God, of men, and of devils, and that, without specifying anything in particular of the means he will use: for the soul never imagines them such as they are, and if he proposed them to her, and she could understand them, she would never consent. What, then, does God? He demands from the soul her freewill, which he has given her, which is the only thing the soul can sacrifice to him, as the only thing which belongs to her as her own. She makes then to him a sacrifice of all she is, in order that he may make of her, and in her, all that shall please him, for time and for eternity, without any reserve. This is done in an instant, without the intellect considering anything. Even from the commencement of the way of faith, the soul bears this radical disposition, that if her eternal loss caused an instant of glory to her God, more than her salvation, she would prefer her damnation to her salvation, and this viewed from the side of the glory of God: but the soul understands she would be unhappy without guilt, and to glorify her God.

This general sacrifice in anticipation for all sorts of sufferings, temporal, and eternal, takes place in some souls with an impetuosity of sovereign master, and with such an interior sweetness that the soul is, as it were, carried away. She experiences that the same God, who demands a general consent for the troubles, makes it be given, and it is given, as promptly as the thing is proposed: and when the sacrifice is pleasant and sweet, the exercises which follow it are infinitely cruel; for then the soul forgets absolutely the sacrifice she has made to her God, and remembers only her wretchedness. Her intellect clouded, her will hardened and rebellious, and her trouble, cause her inexplicable torments. There are others whom God causes to make this sacrifice of their entire selves with such strange pains that one might call it a mortal agony: the bones are broken, and one suffers in giving himself to God a pain that is beyond imagination. These latter suffer less in the trials, and the pain of the consenting has been for them a good purification. But remark, this sacrifice has nothing particular in view but extreme pains, when it anticipates the trial, or the purification.

It is the same with the sacrifice which takes place in the trial, for then the soul is quite plunged, not only in the pain, but in the experience of her wretchedness; in a feeling of reprobation which is such that the soul roars, if one may say so: then, through despair, she makes the sacrifice of an eternity, which seems to escape from her in spite of her. In the first sacrifice the soul thinks only of her trouble and her pain, or the glory of her God; but in this last, it seems she has lost God and that she has lost him through her fault, and that loss is the cause of all her miseries. She suffers at the commencement painful rages and despairs. The fear of offending God makes her desire by anticipation a hell, which, as she believes, cannot fail her. This violence ceases at the end of the trials, and it is as a person who can no longer cry because he has no longer the strength: and then it is, the pain is more terrible, because her violent grief was a support to her: but when in that state there occur in addition mortal maladies, where one believes one’s self at two fingers from the real Hell by death (for this appears in all its terror, without finding refuge or means of assuring her eternity, and the heaven seems of brass—I know it from actual experience,) then the soul sacrifices herself to God very really for her eternity, but with agonies worse than even hell. She sees that all her desire was to please God, and that she is going to displease him for an eternity. Nevertheless there remains to her a certain central depth, which says, without however consoling her: “I have a Saviour who lives eternally, and the more my salvation is lost in me and for me, the more it is assured in him and through him.”

What is astonishing is that in this state the soul is so afflicted and so tormented with the experience of her miseries and the fear of offending God, that she is delighted to die; although her loss appears certain to her, in order to escape from that state and to be no longer in danger of offending God; for she thinks she offends him although there be nothing of the kind. Her folly is such and her grief so excessive that she does not consider that by living she might be converted, and in dying she is lost. Not at all; because she imagines conversion is no longer for her. The reason of it is, that as her will has never wandered by a single self-regard nor the least consent, that will remaining attached to God and not turning aside from him, she no longer finds it to perform the acts of sorrow, detestation, and the rest. It is this which causes her the most trouble.

A further surprising fact is, that there are souls in whom all these troubles are only spiritual, and it is these which are the most terrible: with such persons the body is cold, although the soul sees herself in the will of all evils, and in a powerlessness to commit them; and it is they who suffer most. If I could tell how I have experienced this strange trouble, and, in addition, the disposition of the body (while married) in no correspondence with marriage, and without betraying anything of it, one would see what this trouble is. I call it spiritual hell: for the soul believes she has the will for all evils, without being able to commit any of them and without correspondence of the body. Others suffer less in the spirit and in all ways, and experience very great weaknesses in the body. But I have written so much, there is nothing more to be said.

I will, however, further add to answer the difficulty of the Bishop of Meaux, touching the sacrifice of purity, that this proposition never can be as he by anticipation supposed it; for the trial precedes the sacrifice. God permits that virgins (and it is to those that this most ordinarily happens) enter upon trials so much the greater as they were the more attached to their purity, seeing that God tries them either by devils in a well-known manner, or by temptations that appear to them natural; it is for them so great a grief, that hell without those troubles would be a relief. Then they make to God a sacrifice of that same purity which, to please him, they had preserved, though with a taint of selfhood; but they do it with the agonies of death: not that they consent to any sin—they are further removed from it than ever, —but they bear with resignation and sacrifice of their whole selves what they cannot prevent. I beg that attention may be paid to the fact that these souls, thus tried by God, suffer inexplicable torments; that they do not allow themselves a single satisfaction; that it would be even impossible for them to find it: while those other wretches who addict themselves to all kinds of sins, suffer no trouble, granting their senses what they wish, and living in an unbridled licentiousness. It is through persons of this latter character that the persecution against me has commenced. I have said elsewhere, they went from confessor to confessor accusing themselves as converted from all the horrors of Quietism, and, as they supposed I was of the same sentiments with them, they caused all the indignation to fall upon me, while giving themselves the merit of a genuine conversion. For this reason they have been left, not only in peace, while I have been torn in pieces and persecuted in the strangest manner, but they have been canonized, so to say, and left at liberty to spread the poison of their evil principles, based solely on a frightful and unbounded licentiousness. O my God, you see it and suffer it. I have done all that was possible to rescue some from that unhappy state, when providence has placed me in a position to do so. I would still do it, if to rescue a single one it should cost me the same persecution.

I perceived every day that the Bishop of Meaux was going further and further away, and, what was worst for the cause in question, that he was confirming himself in his thoughts; for this confirmation places an almost insurmountable obstacle to the light of truth. What elucidations had I not given at the time of the first conference on the subject of specific requests, desires, and other acts? But nothing found an entrance, because he wanted to condemn. I learned from the Duke de Ch— that he still repeated over again those same difficulties. How not understand that the perceived desire, being an act and an operation of the self, must die with the other acts or, rather, must pass into God, in order no longer to have other desires than those God gives; and as one no more takes back his own will, so one no more takes back his desires? This does not hinder God from making him desire and will as it pleases him, and he who moves the soul can move her to desire, although she no longer has own desires; for if she had them as own, it would be a continued subsistence of the selfhood: but the author of the “Essential Will” says on that all that can be said, as well as St. Francis de Sales “On the Will;” for the same reasoning will apply to both. It is, that it is not a death or loss of desires, or of will, but a flowing of those same desires and of that will into God, because the soul transports with her all she possesses. While she is in herself she desires and wills in her manner; when she is passed into God, she wills and desires in the manner of God. If one does not admit the flowing of the desires into God, one must admit loss neither of own operation nor of own act, nor of will. The one is so attached to the other that they are indivisible. In the same way as one does not resume at any time his operations, after having given them up; as one does not return into the womb of his mother, after having left it: in the same way, one does not resume any more his own desires. But in the same way as one does not give up his own operations in order to become useless, but in order to let God operate, and to operate one’s self by his movement, so one lets his desires flow into God only in order to desire according to his movement, and to will through his will. We cannot condemn the one without condemning the other, for they are necessarily linked. After all, I am not the only person who speaks of the annihilation of the selfhood. If they condemn it in me, the channel is nothing by itself. God will write it in the spirit and in the heart of whom he pleases. That fixation of the Bishop of Meaux caused me infinite trouble, because, whatever I might do to enlighten him from outside, it is God’s part to stir the interior; but how can he do it if one remains shut up, though it should be only by a hair?

I further learned that one of the great complaints of the Bishop of Meaux was, that I praised myself and had frightful presumption. I would willingly ask, who is the more humble, he who uses of himself words of humility and says nothing to his advantage (though ordinarily such persons, being praised by others in this matter, would find it hard to bear that people should take them at their word), or he, who simply says of himself the good and the ill, quite unconcerned that all the world may think ill of us and decry us in reality? He who humbles himself, or he who is quite content to be humiliated? As forme, I tell what I know of good in me, because it belongs to my Master; but I am not troubled that nothing of it should be believed, that I should be decried at the sermon, that I should be defamed in the gazette. This does not affect me more than when I praise myself; and, as I do not correct my apparent pride because I have no shame of it, so I do not trouble myself at the public decry, because I think more ill of myself than all the others can do.

The Bishop of Chalons, who had returned, after having taken a holiday, to examine as well the books as the commentaries on scripture, consented to the proposal that was made him, that they should meet at the country house of M. Tronson; because he, being weak and much ailing, could not go to the houses of those gentlemen. I had asked as a favour the Duke de Ch— — should be present as a special friend of those two prelates, through whom everything had passed, very well instructed in the matter in hand, as well as in that which had given rise to this examination. I also asked that, after having examined a difficulty, the decision on it should be written, in order to put the facts beyond question. This appeared to me absolutely necessary, not only for the elucidation of the truth, but in order to have a subsisting proof of what I, as well as the others, had to lay down for myself upon the root of things, and on that which had furnished the matter of the examination. But the Bishop of Meaux, who had promised Madame de Maintenon a condemnation, and who wished to make himself master of the business, raised so many difficulties, sometimes under one pretext, sometimes under another, that he found means of evading all I had asked, and letting nothing appear but what seemed good to him. He said then, I might see M. Tronson separately, after I had seen the Bishop of Chalons with him. The meeting was at the house of the Bishop of Meaux, and the Duke de Ch— was there, expecting to be present at the conference, as I had asked for him. The Bishop of Chalons arrived early. I spoke to him with much ingenuousness, and as he was not yet filled with the impressions which have since been given to him, I had every ground for being satisfied. I had the consolation of seeing him enter with kindness into what I said.

The Bishop of Meaux, after keeping us a long time waiting, arrived towards evening, and, after a moment of general conversation, he opened a portfolio he had brought, and said to the Duke de Ch—, that, the question being about doctrine and a matter purely ecclesiastical, the discussion of which only concerned the Bishops, he did not think it suitable that he should remain present, and it might be a constraint on them. It was a pure evasion, in order to avoid a witness of that character, on whom, clever as he was, it would not have been possible for him to impose: for he knew him far too well instructed to allow himself to be surprised, and too upright not to testify the truth as to facts which should have taken place under his eyes. The business was not a decision on faith, the judgment of which belongs to the Bishops, but a quiet discussion of my sentiments, which it was desirable to elucidate in order to see wherein I went too far, and whether my expressions on the matters of the interior life were conformable, or not, to those of the approved mystic authors, as I believed I had not departed from them: for I had protested hundreds of times my submission in what these gentlemen should tell me to be of faith and of the dogma of the Church; on which I noways pretended to dispute with them. But the Bishop of Meaux pursued his course, and would not for anything deviate from it. I felt in the depth of my heart the refusal of that prelate. I at once knew its consequences, and I no longer doubted the engagements he had undertaken for a condemnation. What more natural than the presence of a person of the character of the Duke de Ch—, who had the merit, the probity, and the depth of knowledge that everyone knows; through whom everything had passed, and who was so much interested in the elucidation on hand, in order to undeceive himself and the others, supposing me mistaken, and that I had, contrary to my intentions, inspired sentiments opposed to the purity of the faith? What, I say, more natural than to have a witness of this character, who would have only served to confound me, if I had spoken differently from what he had heard me say at all times; or who might have disabused himself and disabused the others, in a quiet conference where I might have been shown my errors? It was even the end they had in view when they had commenced to speak of this business: but God did not permit it, and the Duke de Ch— did not deem it proper to insist, seeing the Bishop of Chalons answered nothing: besides this, he only acted through kindness and yielding to my great desire. I remained, then, alone with these two gentlemen. The Bishop of Meaux spoke a long time to prove all ordinary Christians had the same grace. I endeavoured to prove the contrary; but as the business properly was only to justify my expressions on things of more consequence, I did not insist thereon, and only thought of making him see the conformity of my sentiments with those of the approved authors who have written on the interior life. He still reiterated that one gave to that life too perfect a state, and endeavoured to obscure and make nonsense of all I said; particularly when he saw the Bishop of Chalons touched, penetrated, and entering into what I was saying to him. There was no use in disputing, but to submit, and to be ready to believe and act conformably to what they should say. It has always been the true disposition of my heart, and I have no trouble in giving up my own judgment.

I had previously written a letter to the Bishop of Meaux with my ordinary simplicity, in which I told him that I would be noway distressed to believe I had been mistaken. He produced it with a malignant turn, as an avowal I had made of having been mistaken in matter of faith; and that, recognizing my errors after he had made me know them, I had declared, as if in scorn, I was noway concerned at it: and it was in the same spirit I had said, in the same letter or in another, that I was as content at writing absurdities as good things; not at all taking into account the obedience in which I wrote, and how I expected my director, who had to judge it, would correct all, and thus my mistakes would serve to make known the unworthiness of the channel which God had pleased to make use of. The Bishop of Meaux made a crime out of a letter so full of littleness and written with so much simplicity. He reproached me numbers of times with my ignorance, that I did not know anything: and, after having made nonsense out of all my words, he kept incessantly crying out, he was astonished at my ignorance. I answered nothing to these reproaches: and the ignorance, of which he accused me, ought to make him see at least that I speak the truth, when I assert it is by an actual light I write, nothing otherwise remaining in my mind. He made another crime of what I have said—that to adhere to God is a commencement of union; and he continually reverted to his attempt to prove to me, that all Christians with ordinary faith, without spiritual life, can arrive at deification. But it is impossible to answer a man who knocks you down, who does not listen to you, and who incessantly crushes you. As for me, I lose then the thread of what I wish to say, and remember nothing.

That conference was of no use for the root of the matters. It only put the Bishop of Meaux in a position to tell Madame de Maintenon that he had made the proposed examination, and that, having convinced me of my errors, he hoped with time to make me alter my opinion, by engaging me to go and spend some time in a convent of Meaux, where he would be able to finish more tranquilly what he had, as it were, sketched out. As for me, when they spoke to me of being examined by these gentlemen, I rejoiced at it, because I believed, according to all ordinary usage, they would all three together see me: and, as a consequence, Jesus Christ would preside there. I hoped thereby to win my cause: because I did not doubt the Lord would make them know the truth, my innocence, and the malice of my accusers. But God, who apparently willed I should suffer all that has since happened to me, did not permit it to be thus. He gave power to the Devil to act, to hinder the union of those three gentlemen, and to introduce disorder in everything.

As the Bishop of Meaux had come only at night, I had had previously full opportunity of conversing for a long time with the Bishop of Chalons, in presence of the Duke de Ch—. That prelate appeared very well satisfied with me, and even said to me I had only to continue my manner of prayer, and he prayed God to augment more and more his graces to me. In the outbursts of the Bishop of Meaux he softened the blows as much as he could, and made me see, on this occasion, that, when he acted of himself, he did it with all the kindness and equity possible. All he could do was to write down some answers I made, addressing myself to him, because the Bishop of Meaux, in the heat of his prejudice, abused me without being willing to listen to me.

I wished to see this prelate once again. I saw him alone, and although he had been already prejudiced, he appeared satisfied with the conference, and repeated to me, that he saw nothing to change either in my manner of prayer or the rest: that I should continue: that he would pray God to augment his mercies upon me, and that I should remain concealed in my solitude, as I had been doing for two years. I promised him. It was deemed proper I should go and see M. Tronson. I went to Issi. The Duke de Ch— had the kindness to be present. M. Tronson examined me with more exactness than the others. The Duke de Ch— had the kindness himself to write the questions and the answers. I spoke to him with all the freedom possible. The Duke de Ch— said to him, “You see she is straightforward.” He answered, “I feel it indeed.” That word was worthy of so great a servant of God as he was, who judged not only by the intellect but by the taste of the heart. I withdrew then, and M. Tronson appeared satisfied, although a false letter against me had been sent to him, which purported to come from a person who denied it.