UP to this I had been in a state of inexplicable contentment and joy at suffering and being a prisoner. It seemed to me that the captivity of my body made me better taste the liberty of my spirit. The more I was confined externally, the more I was large and extended within. My prayers still the same, simple and nothing; although there are times when the Spouse clasps more closely and plunges deeper into himself. I had been in this way up to the time that I committed the infidelity of trying to watch myself in the manner I have told. On St. Joseph’s Day I was introduced into a more marked state, one rather of heaven than of earth. I went to the Calvary, which is at the bottom of the garden; my gaoler having had permission to take me there. It was in this place (which has always been my delight), and there I remained a very long time; but in a state too simple, pure, and naked for me to be able to speak of it. The most elevated dispositions are those of which one can say nothing. I am not astonished nothing is said of those of the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph. All those which have anything marked are much inferior.
By this state—so much above anything that can be told, although in the same central depth which does not change—I understood there was some new cup for me to drink: like as the Transfiguration of Christ, where he conversed on his sufferings, was, as it were, the pledge of that which he had to suffer, and an introduction into his Passion; where, in fact, he entered internally from that very hour, depriving himself for the rest of his life of the outpourings of the Divinity upon the humanity; so that he was deprived from that moment of all the supports he previously had. Then his Glory, exhibiting itself upon his body, made, as it were, a last effort to withdraw for ever; and having to be altogether shut up in his Divinity, it left the humanity in a privation so much the greater as the state of glory and enjoyment was to him more natural. As, then, from the Transfiguration, so far as I can understand, up to the death of Jesus Christ, all outpourings of beatitudes were suspended, to leave him in pure suffering, I can also say that the same happened to me although unworthy to participate in the states of Jesus Christ, and with the disparity between an insignificant and weak creature and a God Man. For the day of St. Joseph, a saint with whom I am in a very intimate manner united, was as a day of Transfiguration for me. It seemed to me that I had no longer anything of the creature, and from this time a sort of suspension has taken place, so that I have been as much abandoned by God as persecuted by creatures: not that I have any pain or trouble at this abandonment or that my soul has the least inclination for anything else—that can no longer be, for she is without inclination or tendency for anything whatsoever; but nevertheless she is in such an abandonment that I am sometimes obliged to reflect to know if I have a being and subsistence. The whole of St. Joseph’s Day I was the same, and it began to diminish gradually up to the day of the Annunciation, which is the day my heart rejoices in: yet on that day it was signified to me that I must enter upon new bitterness, and drink to the dregs of the indignation of God. The dream that I had where all the indignation of God fell upon me came back to my mind, and I had to sacrifice myself anew. The evening of the Annunciation I was put into an agony I cannot express. The fury of God was entire, and my soul without any support from heaven or from earth. It seemed to me that our Lord desired to make me experience something of his agony in the Garden. This lasted until Easter, after which I was restored to my former tranquillity with this difference, that all co-operation is removed, and that I am, whether in regard to God or in regard to creatures, as that which no longer exists. I have to make an effort to think if I am and what I am; if there are in God creatures and anything subsisting.
Although I have been treated in the manner I have said, and I shall hereafter tell, I have never had any resentment against my persecutors. I have not been ignorant of the persecution they caused me. God has willed that I have seen all and known all; he gave me an interior certainty that it was so, and I have never had a moment’s doubt of it: but although I knew it, I had no bitterness against them, and, had it been necessary to give my blood for their salvation I would have given it, and I would still give it with all my heart. With regard to them, I have never had anything to mention in confession. There are feeble minds who say that we ought not to believe that people do that which nevertheless they do. Did Jesus Christ and the Saints pluck out their eyes to avoid seeing their persecutors? They saw them, but they saw at the same time that they would not have “had any power except it had been given them from above.” Therefore it is that, loving the blows which God inflicts, one cannot hate the hand he uses to strike us, although one well sees which it is.
On Holy Thursday the Official came to see me by himself, and told me he gave me the freedom of the cloister—that is to say, that I could go about in the House; that he would not give any liberty for outside. I could not even obtain permission to speak to the guardian of my children. Yet they did not cease continually urging my daughter to consent to a marriage which would have been her ruin; and, in order to succeed, they had put her into the hands of the cousin of the gentleman to whom they wished to give her. That would have caused me great anxiety if I was capable of feeling it; but I had all my trust in God, and that he would not permit it to take place, the person in question having no tincture of Christianity, and being utterly ruined. The Official told me, at the same time, that I was entirely acquitted; that I was left here only for a short time for form’s sake, that they might have the opinion of the Prioress, whose merit and uprightness was long known. The Prioress and all the community gave me the best character that one can give of a person, and the community conceived a very great affection for me, so that the nuns could not help speaking good of me to everybody. Had I my choice of all the convents in Paris, even those where I am known, I could not be better than in this one. It was there, O my Love, that I recognized yet more your providence over me, and the protection you afforded me; for they had chosen this Community as the one where they believed I should be treated with the greatest rigour, after having in the strongest manner prejudiced it against me.
As soon as Father La Mothe learned they spoke well of me in this House, he persuaded himself they could not speak well of me without speaking ill of him; and although I saw nobody, he wrote and complained to all the world, that I decried him everywhere, and that the community were speaking much ill of him; so that he embittered anew against me the minds of the Archbishop and of the Official, whose confessor he is. Far from releasing me at the end of ten days, as they had said, they left me there many months without saying anything to me. They even circulated new calumnies and, after having said I was innocent, they blackened me worse than ever. The Archbishop said I must expect nothing but from my repentance. He told Pere de la Chaise that I had errors, and that I had even retracted them with tears, but that there was good ground to believe it was only through dissimulation, and therefore it was necessary to keep me shut up. On this I demanded only one thing, that they should punish me if I was guilty, but that they should exhibit my interrogation. It was what they never would do: on the contrary, the only answer was fresh calumnies.
What has been most painful to me in all this affair, is that it was impossible to take any measures. I was continually tossed between hope and despair. They suddenly came to tell me my persecutors had the upper hand, that they had made His Majesty believe I was guilty of all the crimes of which I was accused. Practically all my friends withdrew, and said they did not know me. My enemies cried Victory! and redoubled their rigours and severities against me. I continued content and resigned to remain in disgrace, believing I must there end my days, and no longer thought but of remaining all my life a prisoner. Then suddenly there came days of hope, which showed the business almost concluded in my favour, and that I was on the point of being declared and recognized as innocent. When the matter seemed settled and hope revived, there came a new turn, and a fresh calumny of my enemies, who made it believed they had found new documents against me, and that I had committed new crimes. This was continual, so that I regarded myself in the hands of God as a reed beaten by the wind, laid flat then suddenly lifted up, unable to continue either in disgrace or in hope. My soul has never changed her position from being incessantly beaten: she was always in the same state.
I was suddenly told that Father La Mothe had succeeded in having me placed in a House of which he is the master, and where it was believed he would make me suffer extremely, for he is very harsh. He so fully believed it, that he had given orders to keep a room ready to shut me up in. They brought me this news, which was of all what I should dread. All my friends were weeping bitterly. I did not feel even the first movement of trouble or pity for myself; my soul did not even for an instant change her position. Another time a person of weight offered to speak for me, and was confident of my immediate deliverance. The thing seemed done. I had not a first movement of joy at it. It seems to me my soul is in an entire immobility, and there is in me so entire a loss of all which regards myself, that none of my interests can cause me pain or pleasure. Besides, I belong so entirely to my God, that I cannot wish anything for myself but what he does; death, the scaffold, with which numberless times I have been threatened, does not make the least alteration. Shall I say it, O my Love, that there is in me a sovereign love for you alone above all love, which even inHell would make me content in the disposition in which I am; because I cannot content myself or afflict myself with anything which should be my own, but with the sole contentment of God. Now, as God will be infinitely happy, it seems to me that there isnot any misfortune, either in time or in eternity, which can hinder me from being infinitely happy; since my happiness is in God alone.
No justice was rendered me; on the contrary, they endeavoured to invent new calumnies against me, and thereby to conceal the strange persecution to which I was subjected. The only confessor allowed me was one who hears confession from the nuns, and he is deaf; so that they were obliged to have extraordinary ones brought. All I could obtain was on the eve of Pentecost to make my confession to a monk, who came because the confessor was ill, and it was out of the question to pass that festival without confession. I admit the very frequent confession practised in this House has been my greatest trouble; for our Lord keeps me in such an oblivion of myself, that I could not confess anything but generalities, or matters long passed: but as to the present, I do not know where I am and what I am; I can say nothing of it. A lady of the world whom Providence caused me to meet in this House, and who has conceived much affection for me, and has rendered me all the services she was able, seeing the injustice done to me, resolved to ask a Jesuit Father of her acquaintance to speak to pere de la Chaise. This worthy Father did it: but he found pere de la Chaise much prejudiced against me, because they had made him believe that I was in errors, and that I had even retracted them, but that many still clung to me; so that this worthy lady advised me to write to pere de la Chaise. I wrote him this letter:—
“My REVEREND FATHER,
“If my enemies had attacked only my honour and my liberty, I would have preferred silence to justifying myself, it being my habit to adopt this course; but at present, when they attack my faith, saying that I have retracted errors, and when I am even suspected of having still more, I have been obliged, while asking the protection of your Reverence, to inform you of the truth. I assure your Reverence I have done nothing of the kind, and what surprises me is, that, after the Official himself has acknowledged that the memoirs which were given in against me were false, and that the letter forged against me was recognized as coming from a forger, as a consequence of the incontestable proofs I gave him it was not mine: after those who have been given me for examiners, who have never demanded from me a retractation, but petty explanations, with which they appeared satisfied, have declared me innocent, and I have even placed in their hands writings which I had only made for my own edification, offering them to their judgment with all my heart—that after, I say, these things, I have reason to believe your Reverence is not informed of my innocence. I cannot, my Reverend Father, dissimulate that, for any other article but that of faith, it would be easy for me to suffer calumny, but how could I keep silence for the most righteous grief that ever was? I have all my life made so open a profession of the most orthodox sentiments, that I have even thereby attracted enemies. If I dared open my heart to your Reverence with the secrecy of a perfect confidence, it would be very easy to prove to you, by incontestable facts, that it is temporal interests which have brought me where I am. After having refused things which in conscience I could not do, I was threatened with being involved in trouble. I have seen the menaces; I have even felt their effects, without being able to defend myself, because I am without intrigue and without party; and how easy is it, my Reverend Father, to oppress a person destitute of all protection! But how can I expect your Reverence to believe me, when, unfortunately, I am only known to you by calumny? However, I advance nothing that I cannot prove, if you consent to be informed of it. It would be a favour that would win the eternal gratitude of your, etc.”
This letter had an effect the exact opposite of what was anticipated. I wrote it only through complaisance and to avoid scandal; for they regarded as obstinacy my resolution to make no step for my justification. They said that I was expecting God to do everything, and that this was to tempt him. I felt within that this letter and all they made me write would be without effect; that, on the contrary, they would do more harm than good. Yet our Lord willed I should write, to make them see that all one does for a soul given up to God is an exceedingly small thing, if he does not himself do it. I had known from the commencement that our Lord wished to be my sole deliverer. Therefore I had a joy that cannot be expressed when I saw all the intrigues of the best-intentioned creatures only serve to spoil everything. Pere de la Chaise spoke of me to the Archbishop. This only served to give rise to new falsifications and new persecutions. The Archbishop assured him I was very criminal, and, the better to prove it, he feigned to wish to show me favour. He sent here a Bishop, one of his friends, to solicit the Prioress underhand that she should make me write a letter of submission and civility, in which I should declare that I was criminal and that I had retracted, promising that, if I wrote this letter, they would release me at once.
I forgot to say that, a month previous to this, the Official came with the Doctor to see me, and, in the presence of the Mother Superior, proposed to me that, if I would consent to the marriage of my daughter, I should be released from prison before eight days. I said I would not purchase my liberty at the price of sacrificing my daughter; that I was content to remain in prison as long as it should please our Lord. He answered that the King would not do any violence but he desired it. I said that I knew the King was too just and too equitable to act otherwise. Yet, a few days afterwards, they reported to pere de la Chaise, that I had said that the King wished to keep me in prison until I had consented to the marriage of my daughter; that the Archbishop had himself told the guardian of my children that I should not be released until I had consented to it; and, although I saw nobody and had no communication with outside, they accused me of having invented this, and they said I was a State criminal, and should again be shut up under key. But before this they made another attempt to see if I would write the letter they desired of me, as preliminary to my deliverance. They had no intention to deliver me, but a strong wish to have an incontestable proof against me, in order to confine me for the rest of my days—the one object my enemies had in view.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 