Chapter 3-20

I WILL not speak here of that long persecution, which has made so much noise, through a succession of ten years of prisons of all kinds, and of an exile almost as long, which is not yet finished, by trials, calumnies, and all imaginable kinds of sufferings. There are facts too odious on the part of divers persons, which charity makes me cover (and it is in this sense charity covers a multitude of sins), and others on the part of those who, having been seduced by ill-intentioned persons, are for me respectable through their piety and other reasons, although they have showed too bitter a zeal for things of which they had no true knowledge. I am silent as to the one, through respect; as to the other, through charity. What I may say is that through so long a series of crosses, with which my life has been filled, it may be conceived the greatest were reserved for the end, and that God, who has not cast me off through his kindness, took care not to leave the end of my life without a greater conformity with Jesus Christ. He was dragged before all sorts of tribunals: he has done me the favour to be the same. He suffered the utmost outrages without complaining: he has shown me the mercy of behaving similarly. How could I have done otherwise in the view he gave me of his love and of his goodness? In this resemblance to Jesus Christ I regarded as favours what the world regarded as strange persecutions. The inward peace and joy prevented me from seeing the most violent persecutors other than as instruments of the justice of my God, who has always been to me so adorable and so amiable. I was then in prison as in a place of delight and refreshment; that general privation of all creatures giving me more opportunity of being alone with God, and the want of things which appear most necessary making me taste an exterior poverty I could not have otherwise tasted. Thus I have regarded all those great apparent ills, and that universal defamation, as the greatest of all blessings. It seemed to me it was the work of God’s hand, who wished to cover his tabernacle with the skins of beasts to conceal it from the eyes of those to whom he was not willing to manifest it.

I have borne mortal debility, overwhelming, crushing, and painful illnesses without treatment. God, not content with that, abandoned me spiritually to the greatest desolations for some months, so that I could only say these single words:  “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It was at that time I was led to take the part of God against myself, and to practise all the austerities I could think of: seeing God and all creatures against me, I was delighted to be on their side against myself. How could I complain of what I have suffered with a love so detached from all own interest. Should I now be interested for myself, after having made such an entire sacrifice of that “me,”and all that concerns it? I prefer, then, to consecrate all those sufferings by silence. If God permitted, for his glory, one day something of them to be known, I would adore his judgments; but as for me, my part is taken in that, which regards me personally.

With regard to prayer, I must always protest of the truth of its ways. I have defended my innocence with sufficient firmness and truth to leave no doubt in the public mind that the calumnies which are circulated against persons whose prayer is genuine and love sincere, are false, and the talk of their calumniators rash, and contrary to all kinds of truth and justice. The more violent the calumny, the more the heart which loves God and whose conscience reproaches it with nothing, is happy and content. It seems that the persecution and the calumny is a weight which sinks the soul still deeper in God, and makes her taste an inestimable happiness. What matters to her that all creatures are let loose against her, when she is perfectly alone with her God, and she gives him a solid testimony of her love? For when God heaps benefits upon us, it is he who gives us marks of his own. But when we suffer what is a thousand times more terrible than death, we give him testimonies of the fidelity of ours. So, as there is no other means of testifying to God we love him but in bearing for his love the most terrible troubles, we are infinitely indebted to him when he gives us the means.

But, perhaps there will be surprise that, not being willing to write any detail of the most severe crosses of my life, I have written of those which are far less. I have had certain reasons for doing so. I have believed myself bound to touch on some of the crosses of my youth, to make known the course of crucifixion that God has always led me by. As to those other passages which relate to a more advanced state of my life: since the calumnies did not concern me alone, I have felt obliged in conscience to give details of certain facts to expose not only their falsity, but also the conduct of those through whom they have originated, and who are the true authors of those persecutions, of which I have only been the accidental object; particularly in these latter times, since in reality I have been persecuted in this way only to involve therein persons of great merit, who were out of reach by themselves, and could be attacked personally only by mixing up their affairs with mine. I have thought, then, I should enlarge a little more in detail on what had relation to that class of facts: and the more so, that the question being of my faith, which they wished for that purpose to render suspected, it appeared to me of consequence to make known, at the same time, how far I have always been from the sentiments they wish to impute to me. I have thought it due to religion, to piety, to my friends, to my family, and to myself: but as to personal ill treatments, I have felt bound to sacrifice them, to sanctify them by a profound silence, as I have already said.

I shall only cursorily say something of the dispositions in which I have been at the different times of my imprisonment. During the time I was at Vincennes and M. de la Reinie interrogated me, I continued in great peace, very content to pass my life there, if such was the will of God. I used to compose hymns, which the maid who served me learned by heart as fast as I composed them; and we used to sing your praise, O my God! I regarded myself as a little bird you were keeping in a cage for your pleasure, and who ought to sing to fulfill her condition of life. The stones of my tower seemed to me rubies: that is to say, I esteemed them more than all worldly magnificence. My joy was based on your love, O my God, and on the pleasure of being your captive, although I made these reflections only when composing hymns. The central depth of my heart was full of that joy which you give to those who love you, in the midst of the greatest crosses.

This peace was spoiled for some moments by an infidelity I committed. It was considering beforehand, one day, the answers that I should make to an interrogation that I was to be subjected to the next day. I answered to it all astray; and God, so faithful, who had made me answer difficult and perplexed matters with much facility and presence of mind, knew how to punish me for my forethought. He permitted that I could with difficulty answer the most simple things, and that I remained almost without knowing what to say. This infidelity, I say, spoiled my peace for some days; but it soon returned, and I believe, my Lord, that you permitted this fault only to make me see the uselessness of our arrangements on such occasions, and the security in trusting ourselves to you. Those who still depend upon human reasoning will say, we must look beforehand and arrange; and that it is to tempt God and to expect miracles, to act otherwise. I let others think what they please; for me, I find security only in abandoning myself to the Lord. All scripture is full of testimonies which demand this abandonment. “Make over your trouble to the hand of the Lord: he will act himself. Abandon yourself to his conduct: and he will himself conduct your steps.” God has not meant to set snares for us in telling us this, and in teaching us not to premeditate our answers. When things were carried to the greatest extremity (I was then in the Bastille), and I learned the defaming and horrible outcry against me, I said to you, O my God, “If you desire to render me a new spectacle to men and angels, your holy will be done. All that I ask of you is, that you save those who are yours, and do not permit them to separate themselves. Let not the powers, principalities, sword, etc., ever separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. For my own case, what matters it to me what men think of me? What matters it what they make me suffer, since they cannot separate me from Jesus Christ, who is implanted in the depth of my heart. If I displease Jesus Christ, though I should please all men, it would be less to me than the dirt.” Let all men, therefore, despise and hate me, provided I am agreeable to him. Their blows will polish what is defective in me, in order that I may be presented to him for whom I die every day until he comes to consume that death. And I prayed you, O my God, to make me an offering pure and clean in your blood, to be soon offered to you. Sometimes it seemed God placed himself on the side of men to make me the more suffer. I was then more exercised within than from outside. Everything was against me. I saw all men united to torment me and surprise me—every artifice and every subtility of the intellect of men who have much of it, and who studied to that end; and I alone without help, feeling upon me the heavy hand of God, who seemed to abandon me to myself and my own obscurity; an entire abandonment within, without being able to help myself with my natural intellect, whose entire vivacity was deadened this long time since I had ceased to make use of it, in order to allow myself to be led by a superior intellect; having laboured all my 1ife to submit my mind to Jesus Christ and my reason to his guidance. During this time I could not help myself, either with my reason, or any interior support; for I was like those who have never experienced that admirable guidance from the goodness of God, and who have not natural intellect. When I prayed I had only answers of death. At this time that passage of David occurred to me: “When they persecuted me, I afflicted my soul by fasting.” I practised then, as long as my health allowed it, very rigorous fasts and austere penances, but all this seemed to me like burned straw. One moment of God’s conducting is a thousand times more helpful.