WHO would not have thought, after all these examinations, apparently satisfactory, that I should have been left in peace? Quite the contrary happened; because, the more my innocence appeared, the more those who had undertaken to make me criminal, set in motion springs to reach their end. Things were on this footing when the Bishop of Meaux, to whom I had offered to go and spend some time in a Community of his diocese, that he might know me of himself, proposed to me “The Daughters of St. Mary,” of Meaux. This offer had pleased him immensely; for he expected, as I have since learned, to draw from it great temporal advantages. He believed them even still greater; and he said to Mother Picard, Superior of the convent where I entered, that it would be worth the Archbishopric of Paris or a Cardinal’s hat to him. I answered the Mother, when she told it to me, that God would not permit him to have either the one or the other. I set out as soon as he told me. It was the month of January, 1695, in the most frightful winter there has been for a long time, either before or since. I was near perishing in the snow, where I remained four hours; the carriage having got into it, and being almost covered in a hollow way. I and my maid were drawn out through the window. We sat upon the snow, awaiting the mercy of God, expecting only death. I have never had more tranquillity, although benumbed and wetted with the snow we melted. These are the occasions that show if one is perfectly abandoned to God. That poor girl and I were without inquietude, in perfect resignation, certain of dying if we passed the night, and seeing no prospect of help. We were there when some carters passed, and they extricated us with difficulty. It was ten at night when we arrived. We were not expected; and when the Bishop of Meaux first learned it, he was astonished, and very pleased that I had thus risked my life to obey him punctually. I had an illness of six weeks, a continued fever.
But that which had at first appeared so good to the Bishop of Meaux, afterwards only seemed “artifice” and “hypocrisy.” It is thus they described, and still describe, the little good God makes me do; and far from believing the gospel, which assures us that a tree cannot be bad whose fruits are good, as they will have it that the tree is bad, they attribute the good to a malicious and hypocritical artifice. It is a strange hypocrisy that lasts a whole life, and which, far from bringing us any advantage, causes only crosses, calumnies, troubles and confusions, poverty, discomfort, and all sorts of ills. I think one has never seen the like; for ordinarily one is only a hypocrite to attract the esteem of men, or to make one’s fortune. I am assuredly a bad hypocrite, and I have badly learned the trade, since I have so ill succeeded. I take my God to witness, who knows that I do not lie, that if to be Empress of all the earth and to be canonized during my life, which is the ambition of hypocrites, I had to suffer what I have suffered for wishing to be my God’s without reserve, I would have rather chosen to beg my bread and die as a criminal. These are my sentiments without disguise. Therefore I bear this testimony to myself in the presence of my God: that I have desired to please but him alone; that I have sought only him for himself; that I abhor my own interest more than death; that this long series of persecutions which is not finished, and which to all appearance will last as long as my life, has never made me change my sentiments, nor repent of having given myself to God and having abandoned all for him. I have found myself at times when nature was fearfully overburdened; but the love of God and his grace have rendered sweet for me, without sweetness, the most bitter bitterness: not that I had within any sensible support—by no means; for my dear Master struck me still more rudely than men. Thus was I, on the part of God and men, without support, or perceived consolation: but his invisible and unfelt hand supported me; without that, I had succumbed to so many troubles. “All your waves,” I sometimes say, “have fallen upon me;” “you have drawn against me all the arrows from your quiver.” But a hand one adores and loves cannot give rough blows. I was not afflicted with the sort of afflictions which one pities and which are honourable. I appeared severely chastised for my crimes. It is that which made everyone think he had a right to ill treat me and believe he rendered a great service to God. Methinks I then understood that it was the manner in which Jesus Christ had suffered. The sufferings and the death of St. John were glorious for him, but those of Jesus Christ were full of confusion. “He has been numbered among the malefactors,” and it will be always true to say he was condemned by the sovereign Pontiff, by the chief priests, the doctors of the Law: even judges that did not belong to their nation, deputed by the Romans, who prided themselves on doing justice. “Happy those who suffer with all these circumstances, so closely related to the sufferings of Jesus Christ; who was further struck by God, his Father. But how bitter are sufferings of this kind, the most bitter of all to him who has not the same taste as Jesus Christ! The condemnation of the impious is nothing; but the condemnation of persons esteemed just in everything, appears a condemnation arrived at with knowledge of the case, by judges, equitable and full of light, after complete examination.
To return to my subject. I entered the convent in the state I was in. I waited more than an hour in the porter’s lodge, benumbed and without fire, because it was necessary to inform the Bishop of Meaux, and to rouse up the nuns. There was in their lodge a good-natured man, who, as I have since learned, was a man of prayer: he said quite aloud, “That lady must indeed belong to God, and be spiritual, to wait in the state she is in with so much tranquillity.” By this remark he impressed some sort of esteem for me upon persons who had been strongly set against me. The Bishop of Meaux wished me to change my name, that, as he said, it should not be known I was in his diocese, and that people should not torment him on my account. The project was the finest in the world, if he could have kept a secret; but he told everyone he saw, I was in such a convent, under such a name. Immediately, from all sides, anonymous libels against me were sent to the Mother Superior and the nuns. This did not prevent Mother Picard and the nuns from esteeming and loving me. I had come to Meaux in order that the Bishop should examine me, as he told everybody; and yet he set off for Paris the day after my arrival, and did not return till Easter. He ordered I should communicate as often as the nuns, and even oftener if I wished it; but I did not care to do so, conforming as much as possible to the Community.
It happened, meantime, that those who persecuted me circulated a letter that they said was from the Bishop of Grenoble, in which it was stated, he had driven me from his diocese; that I had been convicted, in the presence of Father Richebrac, then Prior of the Benedictines of St. Robert of Grenoble, of horrible things, although I had letters from the Bishop of Grenoble since my return, which proved quite the contrary, and which showed the esteem he had for me. I wrote to Father Richebrac. Here is the answer I received: —
“MADAME,
“Is it possible that it should be necessary to seek me in my solitude in order to fabricate a calumny against you, and that they made me the instrument of it? I never thought what they put in my mouth, nor of making the complaints of which they pretend I am the author. I declare, on the contrary, and I have already many times declared, that I have never heard of you anything but what is very Christian and very honourable. I should have taken good care not to see you, Madame, if I had believed you capable of saying what I would not dare to write, and what the Apostle forbids us to name. If it is, however, necessary in your justification I should name it, I will do it on the first notice, and I will distinctly say: there is absolutely nothing of the kind; that is to say, I have never heard you say anything similar nor anything which has the least resemblance to it; and, for my part, I have said nothing which could lead anyone to believe I had heard it of you. They have already written to me on the subject, and I have already given the same answer. I would do it a thousand times more if I was asked a thousand times. Two stories are mixed up, which should not be confounded. I know that of the girl who retracted; and you, for your part, know, Madame, the part I took in the business with the Prelate—simply through zeal for the truth, and not to wound my conscience by a cowardly silence. I then spoke freely, and I am ready to do the same, if God at present requires it of me, as then he did. I shall believe he requires it if I am asked. But what shall I say more precise than what I say here? Nevertheless, if anything more is necessary, take the trouble to inform me. I will render testimony to the truth. It is in this disposition I am, sincerely in our Lord, while asking your prayers to him,
“F. RIOHEBRAO.
“Blois, April 14, 1695.”
The Bishop of Grenoble wrote, at the same time, to the person who had set going that pretended letter [it was the Cure of St. James of Haut-pas] in a manner to make him feel how indignant he was that he should be put forth as the author of such calumnies. In fact, how would it be possible to reconcile the horrors it imputed to me at the time of my sojourn at Grenoble, with the letters he had written in my favour to his brothers at Paris, to recommend my interests to them, more than a year after I had left his diocese. Here is the copy of that which was for the Civil Lieutenant, that he sent in the letter he did me the honour to write me: —
“I could not refuse to the virtue and the piety of Madame de la Mothe Guyon the recommendation she asks to you, Sir, in favour of her family, in a business which is before you. I should have some scruples if I did not know the uprightness of her intentions and your integrity: therefore permit me to solicit you to do her all the justice which is due to her. I ask it with all the cordiality with which I am yours,
“CARDINAL CAMUS.
“Grenoble, Jan, 25, 1688.”
Here is the letter he wrote me: —
“MADAME,
“I should wish to have, more often than I have, opportunities of letting you know how dear to me are your interests, temporal and spiritual. I bless God that you have approved the counsels I have given you for these latter. I omit nothing to engage the Civil Lieutenant to render you the justice which is due to you for the former. Praying you to believe you will always find me disposed to prove to you by everything that I am truly, Madame,
“Your affectionate servant,
“CARDINAL CAMUS.”
“Grenoble, January 28, 1688.”
Yet nothing contributed more to the general defaming than that other pretended letter of the Bishop of Grenoble. For how contradict a testimony such as that of the Cure of St. James, so well known at that time by his connection with a great number of persons of merit, to whom he had given a copy of that letter, so that in fifteen days’ time all Paris was full of it! The Bishop of Meaux, who had a copy like the rest, was strangely surprised at the answer of Father de Richebrac, as well as at the letters of the Bishop of Grenoble, which I let him see. He protested against the blackness of the calumny. He had good moments, which were afterwards destroyed by the persons who urged him against me, and by his self-interest. A Cure of Paris made out another very terrible and very ridiculous story. He went to the house of a person of the highest rank, and, speaking of me, he said I had taken away a woman from her husband, a person of position, and had made her marry her Cure. He was strongly pressed to say how that could be done. He persisted still, that nothing was more true. That gentleman and his wife no longer doubted, and immediately told one of their friends, who went to see them, and who knew me. The thing at first appeared to him incredible; but they maintained so strongly the Cure had assured them of it, that he had the curiosity to clear up the matter, firmly determined never to see me again if the thing was so. He went to see that Cure. He questioned him about me, and pressed him closely. At last the Cure said to him, I was capable of that, and even worse. This gentleman said to him, “But, Sir, I do not ask you what she is capable of. You do not know her. But I ask you if it is true she has done that?” He said no, but I was capable of doing worse. The Cure had never seen me, so this judgment was astonishing. At last it turned out that it was in Auvergne the thing had happened. I believe he even said it was forty years ago. This strangely astonished those to whom he had related the fable, when they had learned its falsehood. I wonder how they could have credited it.
Yet another stratagem was practised; this was, to send to confession to all the Cures and confessors of Paris a wicked woman, who assumed the name of one of my maids. This woman was La Gautiere. She confessed to several in a single day, in order to let none escape. She told them she had served me sixteen or seventeen years, but she had left me, being unable in conscience to live with such a wicked woman; that she had left me owing to my abominations. In less than eight days I was decried through all Paris, and I passed, without contradiction, for the most wicked person in the world. Those who so spoke believed themselves well informed, and that they knew it from a very reliable source. It happened that the maid who served me was at confession to a canon of Notre Dame. She spoke to him of the troubles that were caused to her mistress, who was, she said, very innocent. The Canon begged her to tell him her name. She told it to him. He replied, “You astonish me, for a person who does not in the least resemble you, has come here saying she is you, and has told me horrible things.” She disabused him, and showed him the blackness of that procedure. The same thing happened to four or five others. But could she disabuse all the confessors? And I never would suffer her to use confession to make known the truth, leaving everything to God, and not wishing to lose any of the crosses or humiliations he has himself chosen for me. In the midst of so many contradictions, I have not been without illness and very acute pain.
I was, then, all the time from my arrival at Meaux to Easter without seeing the Bishop, who returned from Paris only for that festival. I was still very ill. He came into my room, and the first thing he said to me was, that I had many enemies, and that everything was let loose against me. He brought me the articles composed at Issi. I asked him the explanation of some passages, and I signed them. I was much more ill afterwards. He came back the day of the Annunciation, which had been put back after Easter. I have a very great devotion to the Incarnate Word, and while the nuns were finishing the burning of a triangular candle before an image I had of the Child Jesus, as they were singing a musical motet, the Bishop of Meaux entered. He asked what was the meaning of the music in my closet. They answered, that, as I had a very great devotion to the Incarnate Word, I had given them a treat that day, and they were come to thank me, and sing the motet in honour of the Incarnate Word. They were hardly out of my chamber, when he came to my bed, and said to me that he wished me to sign immediately that I did not believe in the Incarnate Word. Several nuns who were in the antechamber near my door heard him. I was greatly astonished at such a proposition. I told him I could not sign falsehoods. He answered, he would make me do it. I answered him, that I knew how to suffer by the grace of God; I knew how to die; I did not know how to sign falsehoods. He answered, that he begged me, and if I did that, he would re-establish my reputation, which they were endeavouring to tear to pieces; that he would say of me all the good in the world. I replied, that it was for God to take care of my reputation if he approved of it, and for me to sustain my faith at the peril of my life. Seeing he gained nothing, he withdrew.
I am under this obligation to Mother Picard and the Community, that they gave him the most favourable testimony about me. Here is one they gave me in writing: —
“We the undersigned, Superior and nuns of the Visitation of St. Mary of Meaux, certify, that Madame Guyon having lived in our House by the order and permission of the Bishop of Meaux, our illustrious Prelate and Superior, for the space of six months, she has not given us any cause for trouble or annoyance, but much of edification; having never spoken to a person within or without except with special permission; having, besides, neither received nor written anything except as the Bishop has permitted her; having observed in all her conduct and all her words a great regularity, simplicity, sincerity, humility, mortification, sweetness, and Christian patience, and a true devotion and esteem of all that is of the faith, especially in the mystery of the Incarnation and Holy Childhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. That if the said lady wished to choose our House to live there the rest of her days in retirement, our Community would deem it a favour and gratification. This protest is simple and sincere, without other view or thought than to bear witness to the truth.
“(Signed) SISTER FRANCOIS ELIZABETH LE PIOARD, Superior.
“SISTER MAGDALEN AMY GUETON.
“SISTER CLAUDE MARIE AMOURI.
“July 7,1695.”
When they spoke to the Bishop of Meaux of me, he answered, “Just as you, I see in her nothing but good; but her enemies torment me, and want to find evil in her.” He wrote one day to Mother Picard, that he had examined my writings with great care; that he had not found in them anything except some terms which were not in all the strictness of theology; but that a woman was not bound to be a theologian. Mother Picard showed me that letter to console me, and I swear before God I write nothing but what is perfectly true.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 