Part 2 Chapters 1-25

Chapter 2-1

I SET out after the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin in a strange abandonment, unable to give an account of what made me set out, leaving my family, which I tenderly loved, and without any positive assurance, hoping, however, even against hope. I reached the New Catholics at Paris, where you worked miracles of providence to conceal me. They sent to fetch the notary who had drawn up the contract of engagement. When he read it to me I felt so strange a repugnance, that it was not possible for me to hear it finished, much less to sign it. The notary was surprised, but he was still more so when Sister Garnier came herself to tell him that there was no necessity for a contract of engagement. It was, O my God, your goodness alone that managed things in this way, for in my then disposition, it seems to me, I would have given the preference to Sister Gamier’s views over my own. It was you, O my Lord, who made her thus speak, for she has been since much opposed to me, when they wished to bind me against my will and by force. You had done me the favour, my God, to put my affairs into perfect order, so that I was myself surprised at it, and at the letters you caused me to write, in which I had hardly any part beyond the movement of the hand. And it was at this time that it was given me to write by the interior spirit, and not by my intellect, which till then I had never experienced. So that my manner of writing was quite changed, and people were astonished, I wrote with such facility. I was not at all astonished; but what was then given me as a sample, has since been given to me with much more force and perfection, as I shall tell in the sequel. You began to render me unable to write in the ordinary human way.

I had with me two servants, to get rid of whom was very difficult, for I did not think of bringing them with me; and if I left them they would have told of my departure, and people would have been sent after me, as was done when it was known. You so well arranged all things, O my God, by your providence, that they desired to go with me. And I have since clearly seen that you had done this only to prevent my being discovered; for, besides their being of no use to me, they very soon after returned to France. I set out from Paris, and although I was extremely grieved to leave my younger son, the confidence I had in the Holy Virgin, to whom I had vowed him, and whom I looked on as his mother, calmed all my griefs. I found him in such good hands that it seemed to me it would be doing an insult to the Queen of heaven to doubt that she was taking a particular care of the child.

I took with me my daughter and two maids to attend us both. We set out by water (although I had engaged the diligence), in order to escape being found if anyone was looking for me. I went to Melun to wait for it. What was astonishing was that in the boat, my daughter, without knowing what she was doing, could not help making crosses. She kept a person employed in cutting rushes, and then she made them into crosses and quite covered me with them. She put more than three hundred on me. I let her do it, and I understood interiorly that there was a mystery in what she was doing. There was then given to me an inward certainty that I was going there only to reap crosses, and that this little girl was sowing the Cross for me to gather. Sister Garnier, who saw that whatever they did they could not prevent the child from loading me with crosses, said to me, “What this child is doing appears to me very mysterious.” She said to her, “My little lady, put crosses on me also.” She answered, “They are not for you; they are for my dear mother.” She gave her one to please her, then she continued putting them on me. When she had put on a very great number, she had river flowers, which were found on the water, given to her, and making a wreath with them, she placed it on my head, and said to me, “After the Cross you will be crowned.” In silence I wondered at all this, and I immolated myself to Love as a victim to be sacrificed to him.

Some time after my departure, a nun, who is a true saint, and a great friend of mine, related to me a vision she had about me. She said she saw my heart in the midst of a great number of thorns, so that it was quite covered with them, and that our Lord appeared in this heart, very well pleased; and she saw that the more strongly the thorns pricked, my heart, instead of being thereby disfigured, appeared more beautiful, and our Lord more pleased.

At Corbeil, on my way, I saw the Father of whom God had made use to draw me so strongly to his love. He approved my design to quit all for our Lord, but he thought that I would not be able to get on with the New Catholics; he even told me particular things on the point, to make me understand that their spirit, and that by which our Lord was conducting me, were almost incompatible. He said to me, “Above all, try that they shall not know you are walking by spiritual ways, for that will bring down on you persecutions.” But, O my God, when it pleases you to make anyone suffer, and he has yielded himself into your hands, it is idle to screen one’s self and take precautions; it is hard to escape from your providence, especially when the soul has no longer any will, and her will is passed into yours. Does she not herself strike where you strike? She seems to clothe herself in indignation against herself. Oh, if this soul could then appear to compassionate herself, to pity herself, with what fury of love and indignation would she not wish for herself greater ills and a more frightful destruction! O King of lovers, you have struck against yourself with all the justice of a God; this soul, destined to imitate you, and to be conformable to you, strikes herself with your justice. O wonderful thing, unknown to those who have not experienced it!

While at Paris I gave the New Catholics all the money that I had. I did not reserve a penny for myself, being delighted to be poor, after the example of Jesus Christ. I brought from my house nine thousand livres, and I gave all to the New Catholics. A contract was drawn up for six thousand livres as a repayment, which they said they had need of; and as in the sequel they declared that they had this money on contract, and I had not reserved it for myself by my settlement deed, thinking it would not be known, it has been returned to my children, and I have lost it; at which I feel not the least vexation, for poverty constitutes my riches. The remainder I gave to the Sisters who were with us, both to meet the expenses of the journey, and to commence providing furniture. I gave them beside that the church ornaments, a chalice, a very beautiful sun of silver gilt, silver dishes, a ciboire, and everything needed by them. I did not even keep back my linen for my use, placing it in the common wardrobe. I had neither a locked cash-box nor a purse. Nevertheless, it was said that I had carried off large sums from my house, although that was very false. I had not even taken any linen but what was needed by me for a journey to Paris, for fear of rousing suspicion, and lest I should be discovered if I tried to carry away clothes. I had little eagerness for the riches of this earth; on the contrary, I had more desire to leave them than to possess them. Those whom God makes use of to torment me, have not hesitated to say that I had carried off large sums of money which I had injudiciously spent and given to the relatives of Father La Combe; but that is as false as it is true, that I had not a penny, and that when I arrived at Annecy, and a poor man asked alms, the inclination I had to give to the poor not being extinguished in my heart, and having nothing whatever, I gave him the buttons which fastened the sleeves of my chemise; and another time I gave to a poor man, in the name of Jesus Christ, a little ring, quite plain, which I wore as a token of my marriage with the Child Jesus.

We joined the diligence at Melun, where I left Sister Garnier, and took my place with the other Sisters whom I did not know. What is wonderful is that, although the carriages were very fatiguing, and I did not sleep during this long journey, while I was then so delicate that the loss of sleep used to make me ill, and my daughter, an extremely delicate child only five years of age, did not sleep either, we nevertheless bore the great fatigue without suffering; and this child had not one hour’s trouble, although she was only three hours in bed each night. You alone, O my God, know the sacrifices you caused me to make, and the joy of my heart to sacrifice to you all things. IfI had had kingdoms and empires, it seems to me I would have given them up with still greater joy to show you more my love. O my God, is it to give up anything when we give it up for you? As soon as we reached the inn, I used to go to the church to adore the Holy Sacrament, and I remained there until the hour of dinner. We held, O my Love, you and I, a conversation in the carriage (or, rather, you alone in me) which the others could not understand, therefore they perceived nothing of it; and the external gaiety I preserved even in the midst of the greatest dangers reassured them. I sung songs of joy to see myself disengaged from wealth, honour, and the embarrassments of the world. You helped us much by your providence, for you protected us in so singular a manner that it seemed you were the pillar of fire during the night, and the cloud during the day. We traversed an extremely dangerous pass between Chambery and Lyons. Our carriage was broken at the exit of this dangerous pass; had it happened sooner we should have perished.

We reached Annecy, the eve of the Magdalen’s Day, 1681; and on the Day of the Magdalen the Bishop of Geneva said Mass for us at the tomb of St. Francis de Sales. There I renewed my marriage, for I used to renew it every year, and, according to my very simple disposition, without introducing anything formal or distinct; but you placed in my central depth, which was pure and freed from species and forms, all that it pleased you should be there. These words were impressed on me: “I will espouse thee in faith, I will espouse thee for ever;” and these others: “You are to me a husband of blood.” I there honoured the relics of St. Francis de Sales, with whom our Lord gave me a particular union. I say union, for it appeared to me that the soul in God is united with the saints, more or less, according as they are more conformed to her; and it is a union of unity, which it pleases our Lord sometimes to awake in her for his glory; and then those saints are rendered more intimately present to her in God himself. And this awakening is like an intercession of the soul, known to the saint and to the soul. It is a request of friend to friend in him who unites them all by an immortal bond. Ordinarily everything remains hidden with Jesus Christ in God.

We set out from Annecy the same Day of the Magdalen, and the next day we went to hear Mass at Geneva, at the house of the French Resident. I had much joy in communicating; and it seems to me, O my God, that you there bound me more strongly to you. I asked of you the conversion of this great people. In the evening, late, we reached Gex, where we found only four walls, although the Bishop had assured us that there was furniture. Apparently he thought so. We slept at the Sisters of Charity, who had the kindness to give us their beds. I suffered a pain and agony, which can be better experienced than described, not so much on my own account, as for my daughter, who was visibly declining. I had a great desire to place her with the Ursulines at Tonon; and I was vexed with myself at not having taken her there in the first instance. Then all perceptible faith was taken from me, and a conviction remained that I had been mistaken. Pain took such possession of my heart that in my bed in secret I could not restrain my tears. The next day I said that I wished to take my daughter to Tonon, to the Ursulines, until I saw how we could arrange ourselves. My design was to leave her there. I was strongly opposed, and in a way cruel enough, and not honourable. I saw my daughter fade and grow thin, and in want of everything. I saw her as a victim, whom I had sacrificed by my imprudence. I wrote to Father La Combe, praying him to come and see me, to take measures thereon, not believing I could conscientiously keep her longer in that place. Many days passed away before I could have any answer. I was, however, very indifferent in the divine will of my God as to whether I received help or did not.  

Chapter 2-2

OUR Lord had pity on my trouble and the deplorable state of my daughter, and caused the Bishop of Geneva to write to Father La Combe to come and see and console us, and that it would oblige him if he made no delay. As soon as I saw the Father I was surprised to perceive an interior grace, which I may call “communication,” that I had never experienced with anyone. It seemed to me that an influence of grace came from him to me by the very inmost of the soul, and returned from me to him, so that he experienced the same effect; but grace so pure, so unalloyed, so separate from all sentiment, that it made a kind of flux and reflux, and then went to lose itself in the Divine and Invisible Unity. There was in it nothing human or natural, but all pure spirit. And this union, so pure and holy, which has always subsisted and even increased, becoming ever more one, has never arrested or occupied the soul for a moment out of God, leaving her always in a perfect freedom; union which God alone effects, and which can take place only between souls who are united to him; union free from all weakness and all attachment; union which makes one rejoice over, rather than compassionate, the sufferings of the other, and the more we see ourselves overwhelmed with crosses and overthrows, separated, destroyed, the happier one is; union which for its subsistence has no need of bodily presence; which absence does not render more absent, nor presence more present; union unknown to any but those who experience it. As I had never had a union of this kind, it appeared to me then quite new, for I had never even heard that there was such; but it was so peaceable, so removed from all sentiment, that I have never had a doubt but that it was from God: for these unions, far from turning away from God, bury the soul more deeply in him. The grace which I experienced, and which caused this spiritual influence from him to me, from me to him, dissipated all my troubles and brought me into a profound calm.

God gave him from the first much openness with me. He told me the mercies which God had shown him, and many extraordinary things. I feared much this way of illumination. As my way had been by simple faith, and not in extraordinary gifts, I did not then understand that God wished to use me to withdraw him from the state of illumination, and to place him in the way of simple faith. These extraordinary things caused me fear at first. I dreaded illusion, especially in things which please, relating to the future, but the grace which came out from him, and which flowed through my soul, reassured me, besides that his humility was the most extraordinary I had yet seen; for I saw that he would have preferred the opinion of a little child to his own, that he did not cling to anything, and that, far from being puffed up, either by the gifts of God or his profound learning, one could not have a lower opinion of one’s self than he had. It is a gift which God had bestowed on him in an eminent degree. He told me I should take my daughter to Tonon, and that there she would be very well off. He told me at once, after I had spoken to him of the internal repugnance I had for the manner of life of the New Catholics, that he did not believe God required me to join them, that I should remain there without an engagement, and that God would let me know by the course of his providence what he desired of me, but that I should remain until God himself by his providence withdrew me from it, or by the same providence established me there. He determined to stay with us two days, and to say three Masses. He told me to ask our Lord to let me know his will. I could neither ask anything nor desire to know anything. I continued in my simple disposition. I had already commenced waking up so as to pray at midnight, but on this occasion I was roused up as if a person had awaked me; and on waking these words were suddenly put into my mind with some little impetuosity: “It is written of me that I will perform your will,” and this insinuated itself into my soul with a flow of grace, so pure, yet so penetrating, that I have never experienced it more sweet, more simple, stronger, or more pure. I should remark here that although the then state of my soul was permanent in newness of life, that new life was not yet in the fixedness it has since been in; that is to say, properly, that it was an opening life and an opening day, which goes on increasing and strengthening itself to the meridian of glory—day, however, where there is no night; life which fears no longer death in death itself, because death has conquered death, and he who has suffered the first death will never taste the second death.

Now, it is well to say here that though the soul be in a state void of movement, and that she participates of the unchangeable, without the soul leaving her sphere or her heaven, steadfast and motionless, where there is neither distinction nor change, God, however, when it pleases him, sends from this very central depth certain influences which have distinctions, and which make known his holy will, or things about to happen; but as this comes from the central depth, and not by the intervention of the powers, it is certain, and not subject to illusion, as are visions and the other matters of which I have a1ready spoken. For it should be known that such a soul as that I speak of receives all immediately from the central depth, and thence it spreads itself over the powers and the senses as may be God’s pleasure; but it is not so with other souls who receive mediately: that which they receive falls into the powers, and thence reunites in the centre, while the former souls discharge themselves from the centre over the powers and the senses. They let everything pass, without anything making impressions either upon their mind or their heart. Moreover, the things which they know or learn, such as prophecy and the rest, do not seem to them extraordinary, as they appear to others. The thing is said quite naturally, without knowledge of what one says, or why one says it, without anything extraordinary. One says and writes what one does not know, and in saying and writing it one sees that they are matters of which one had never thought. It is like a person who possesses in his central depth an inexhaustible treasure, without even thinking of the possession of it. It does not form part of his riches, and he pays no attention to it, but he finds in his central depth all that is necessary when he has use for it. The past, the present, and the future are there in way of the moment, present and eternal—not as prophecy, which regards the future as a thing to come; but in seeing everything in the present, in way of the eternal moment, in God himself; without knowing how he sees and knows; with a certain faithfulness in saying things as they are given, without plan or reflection, without thinking whether it is of the future or of the present one speaks; without troubling one’s self whether the things come to pass or not, in one way or the other, whether they have one interpretation or another. It is from the central depth thus annihilated miracles proceed; it is the Word himself  who effects what he says: “He spoke, and they were made;” without the individual soul knowing what she says or writes. In writing or speaking, she is enlightened with certainty that it is the word of truth which will have its effect; as soon as it is done, she thinks no more of it, and takes no more interest in it than if it had been spoken or written by another. This is that which our Lord in the Gospel has said, “That the man brings from the good treasure of his heart things new and old.” Since our treasure is God himself, and our heart and will is without any reserve entirely passed into him, it is there one finds a treasure which is never exhausted; the more one distributes from it, the richer one is. After these words had been put into my spirit, “It is written of me that I will do your will,” I remembered that Father La Combe had told me to ask God what he desired of me in this country. My recollection was my request; immediately these words were put into my spirit with much quickness: “Thou art Pierre, and on this stone I will establish my church; and as Pierre died on the cross, thou shalt die upon the cross.” I was convinced this was what God wished of me; but to understand its execution was what I took no trouble to know. I was invited to place myself on my knees, where I remained until four o’clock in the morning in very profound and peaceful prayer. I said nothing about it in the morning to Father La Combe. He went to say the Mass; he had an impulse to say it from the service for dedication of a church. I was still more confirmed, and I believed our Lord had made him know something of what had passed within me. I told him so after the Mass; he answered that I was mistaken. Immediately my mind gave up all thought and certainty, thinking no more of it, and remained in its ordinary frame, rather entering into that which the Father said than into that which he had known. The following night I was awaked at the same hour and in the same manner as the previous night, and these words were put into my mind: “Her foundations are in the holy mountains.” I was put into the same state, which lasted until four in the morning, but I did not think at all on what this meant, paying no attention to it. The next day after the Mass the Father told me that he had a very great certainty that I was “a stone which God destined to be the foundation of a great edifice,” but he knew no more than I what that edifice was. In whatever way the thing is to be, whether His Divine Majesty wishes to use me in this life for some design known to him alone, or whether he wishes to make me one of the stones of the celestial Jerusalem, it seems to me that this stone is not polished except by blows of a hammer. Methinks that from this time out they have not been spared to it, as will be seen in the sequel; and that our Lord has indeed given it the qualities of stone, which are firmness and insensibility. I told him what had happened to me in the night.

I brought my daughter to Tonon. This poor child conceived a very great friendship for Father La Combe, saying that he was the good God’s Father. On arriving at Tonon, I there found a hermit named Friar Anselm, of the most extraordinary holiness that had been known for a long time. He was from Geneva, and God had brought him out of it in a very miraculous manner at the age of twelve years, after having made known to him at the age of four years that he would turn Catholic. He had, with the permission of the Cardinal, then Archbishop of Aix in Provence, at nineteen years assumed the habit of an Augustinian hermit; he lived alone with another friar in a small hermitage, where they saw no one save those who came to visit their chapel. He had been for twelve years in this hermitage, eating nothing but vegetables and salt, sometimes with oil; he fasted continually without a moment’s relaxation in the twelve years. Three times a week he fasted on bread and water, never drank wine, and ordinarily made only one meal in twenty-four hours. He wore a shirt of coarse hair, made with great cords of hair, which reached from top to bottom, and he lay only on a board. He had a gift of continual prayer. He prayed specially for eight hours a day, and said his offices—with all this submissive as a child. God had worked through him many striking miracles. He came to Geneva hoping to be able to gain his mother, but he found her dead.

This good hermit had many intimations of the designs of God for me and Father La Combe; but God made him see at the same time that he was preparing strange trials for us both. He knew that God destined us both to help souls. He once during his prayer, which was all in gifts and illumination, saw me on my knees, clothed in a brown mantle, and my head was cut off, but immediately replaced; and then I was clothed in a very white robe, with a red mantle, and a crown of flowers was placed on my head. He saw Father La Combe cut into two pieces, which were soon reunited; and while in his hand he held a palm, he was stripped of his clothes, and reclothed in the white garment with the red mantle; after which he saw us both near a well, and that we were quenching the thirst of numberless people who came to us.

It seems to me, O my God, that this mysterious vision has already had its accomplishment in part, as well in the divisions he has suffered, and I also, however without pain, as in the confidence I have, that you have stripped him of himself to reclothe him in innocence, purity, and charity. Yes, my God, it appears to me that the love you have put into me is altogether pure, disengaged from all self-interest, a love which loves its object in himself and for himself, without any reference to itself; it would fear a self-regard more than Hell, for Hell without self-love would be for it changed into Paradise. Our Lord also has made much use of him and of me to gain souls; but I do not know what design he may have for us in the future. I know that we are his without any reserve. A little after my arrival at the Ursulines of Tonon, Sister M— spoke to me with much openness, following the order Father La Combe had given her. She told me at once so many extraordinary things that I became suspicious, and I thought there was illusion in her case; and I felt angry with myself.

I commenced to feel exceedingly troubled at having brought my daughter; and with regard to her I thought myself indeed an Abraham when Father La Combe accosted me with the words, “You are welcome, daughter of Abraham.” I saw no reason for leaving her there; and I could still less keep her with me, for we had no room, and the little girls they brought to make Catholics of were all mixed up with us, and had dangerous ailments. To leave her there also appeared to me madness, considering the language of the country, where they hardly understood French, and the food which she could not take, being quite different from ours.

I saw her daily grow thin and fade away. This put me in an agony, and I felt as if one was tearing my vitals. All the tenderness I had for her sprung up afresh, and I regarded myself as her murderer. I experienced what Hagar suffered when she put away from her in the desert her son Ishmael, that she might not see him die. It appeared to me that though I had been willing to expose myself without reason, I ought at least to have spared my daughter. I saw the loss of her education, and even of her life, inevitable. I did not mention my troubles on this head, and the night was the time which gave scope to my grief that daily became more violent: because you permitted, O my God, you who have always desired of me sacrifices without reserve, that during the whole time I was there, they provided her with nothing which she could eat. All that kept her alive were some spoonfuls of bad broth which I made her take against her will. I gave her up to you, O my God, an entire sacrifice; and it seemed to me that, like another Abraham, I was holding the knife to kill her. I was not willing to take her back, because I was told it was the will of God I should leave her there; and this will of God was for me preferable to everything, even the life of my daughter; besides, she would have been still worse off for food at Gex. Our Lord wished me to be utterly plunged in bitterness, and to make a sacrifice to him without alleviation.

On one side, he caused me to see the grief of her grandmother if she learned of her death, and that it seemed I had taken her away from her merely to kill her; on the other, the reproaches of the family. All her natural gifts were like arrows which pierced me. It would be necessary to experience what I suffered to understand it. With her natural disposition it seemed she would have done wonders if educated in France, and that I was depriving her of all this, and putting it out of her power to be fit for anything, or to find in the future proposals of marriage such as she might hope for, and that I could not without sin let her die thus. For thirteen days I suffered a trouble almost inconceivable: all that I had given up seemed to have cost me nothing in comparison with what the sacrifice of my daughter cost me. I believe that, O my God, you caused this to purify the too human attachment I had for her natural gifts; for after I had left the Ursulines they changed their mode of diet, and gave what was suitable for the delicacy of my daughter, so that she recovered her health.

Chapter 2-3

As soon as it was known in France that I had gone away I was generally condemned. Those who attacked me most severely were the religious, in the world’s sense, and especially Father La Mothe, who wrote me that all orthodox and pious persons, professional or gentlemen, condemned me. To alarm me the more, he told me that my mother-in-law, on whom I relied for the property of my children and for my younger son, had fallen into second childhood, and that I was the cause of it; this was, however, utterly false. Although there were times when my trouble was excessive, I let nothing of it be seen outwardly. I shut myself up as much as I could, and there I allowed myself to be penetrated by the pain, which appeared to me very profound. I bore it very passively, without being able, or even wishing, to alleviate it; on the contrary, my pleasure was to allow myself to be devoured, without even wishing to understand it. This pain was as peaceable as it was penetrating. Once I desired to open the New Testament to console myself, but I was interiorly hindered; so that I remained in silence, without doing anything, allowing myself to be devoured by the pain. It appeared to me that I then commenced to bear troubles in a divine manner, and that from this time forward, without any sentiment, the soul could be at the same time very happy and very pained, very afflicted and beatified. It was not at all in the same way I had borne my first griefs, nor as I had borne the death of my father. For then the soul was buried in peace, and in a peace that was delightful, but she was not delivered over to pain; what she suffered was only a shock to nature, a weight of delightful pain. Here it is quite different; the same soul is delivered entirely to suffering, and she bears it with a divine strength; and this strength causes the soul to be divided without division from her entire self, so that her unchangeable happiness does not prevent the most severe suffering. But these sufferings are impressed on her by God himself as in Jesus Christ; he suffered as God and man; he suffered in the strength of a God and in the weakness of a man; he was a blessed God and a Man of sufferings; in short, God-Man, suffering and rejoicing, without the beatitude diminishing anything of the pain, or the pain interrupting or altering the perfect beatitude.

I answered all the violent letters they wrote me according to the interior spirit’s dictates, and my answers were found very suitable; they were even much appreciated, so that, God allowing, the complaints and thunders soon changed into praise. Father La Mothe seemed to change his mind, and even to esteem me, but this did not last long: self-interest was what made him act so; but when he found that an annuity, which he fancied I would give him, was not provided, he suddenly changed. Sister Garnier from the first changed, and declared herself against me; whether it was merely a pretence or a real change. As to my body and my health, I took no trouble about it. You gave me, my God, too much grace, for I have been two months without almost any sleep, and the food which we had was little suited to support me. The meat they served us was rotten and full of maggots, for in that country the meat was killed on Thursday for use on Friday and Saturday, and owing to the great heat, it was decayed by Sunday; so that what I once would have looked at with horror was my food. Nothing afflicted me then, for in giving me life you had given me capacity for everything. It seems to me I could do anything, without the necessity of doing it. I could do nothing, without at all minding. It is in you, O my God, that one recovers with increase all one has lost for you.

That intellect which I once thought I had lost in a strange stupidity, was restored to me with inconceivable additions. I was astonished at it myself, and I found that there was nothing for which it was not able, and in which it did not succeed. Those who saw me said I had a prodigious intellect. I knew well that I had but little intellect, but that in God my mind had taken a quality which before it was without. I experienced, it seemed to me, something of the state in which the apostles were after having received the Holy Spirit. I knew, I understood, I comprehended, I was capable of everything, and I did not know where I had acquired this intellect, this knowledge, this intelligence, this power, this facility, nor whence it had come to me. I experienced that I had all kinds of treasures, and that I was not in want of anything whatever; but I did not know whence it was come to me. I recollected that fine passage of Wisdom, which says, “All riches are come to me with her.” When Jesus Christ, eternal Wisdom, is formed in the soul after the death of the sinful man, Adam, and this soul is truly entered into newness of life, she finds that in Jesus Christ, eternal Wisdom, all riches are communicated to her.

Some time after my arrival at Gex the Bishop of Geneva came to see us. I spoke to him with the openness and impetuosity of the Spirit which guided me. He was so convinced of the Spirit of God in me that he could not refrain from saying so. He was even affected and touched by it, opened his heart to me about what God desired of him, and how he had been turned aside from fidelity and grace; for he is a good prelate, and it is the greatest pity in the world that he is so weak in allowing himself to be led by others. When I have spoken to him, he always entered into what I said, acknowledging that what I said had the character of truth; and this could not be otherwise, since it was the Spirit of truth that made me speak to him, without which I was only a stupid creature; but as soon as the people who wished to rule him and could not endure any good that did not come from themselves, spoke to him, he allowed himself to be influenced against the truth. It is this weakness, joined to some others, which has hindered him from doing all the good in his diocese that otherwise he would have done. After I had spoken to him he told me that he had had it in mind to give me as director Father La Combe; that he was a man enlightened of God, who understood well the ways of the spirit, and had a singular gift for calming souls—these are his own words—that he had even told him, the Bishop, many things regarding himself, which he knew to be very true, since he felt in himself what the Father said to him. I had great joy that the Bishop of Geneva gave him to me as director, seeing that thereby the external authority was joined to the grace which seemed already to have given him to me by that union and effusion of supernatural grace.

The wakefulness and fatigues, together with the indifferent climate of this country, caused me a great pulmonary inflammation, with fever and a retention in the stomach of all the water I drank, which caused me violent pains. The doctors thought me in danger, for besides that, I had taken many remedies which I did not pass off. You permitted, O my God, this malady doubtless both as an exercise for my patience (if that can be called patience which costs nothing) and to glorify yourself in the striking miracle which you performed through your servant. As I was very weak, I could not raise myself in the bed without falling in a faint; and I could not remain in bed, for I was bursting from the waters and remedies I could not get rid of. God allowed that the Sisters neglected me utterly, particularly the one in charge of the housekeeping, who did not give me what was necessary for my life. I had not a shilling to provide for myself, for I had reserved nothing, and the Sisters received all the money which came to me from France—a very large sum. Thus I had the advantage of practising a little poverty, and being in want with those to whom I had given everything.

They wrote to Father La Combe to come and take my confession. He very charitably walked all night, although he had eight long leagues; but he used always to travel so, imitating in this, as in everything else, our Lord Jesus Christ. As soon as he entered the house, without my knowing it, my pains were alleviated. And when he came into my room and blessed me, with his hands on my head, I was perfectly cured, and I evacuated all the water, so that I was able to go to the Mass. The doctors were so surprised that they did not know how to account for my cure; for, being Protestants, they were unable to recognize a miracle. They said it was madness, that my sickness was in the imagination, and a hundred absurdities, such as might be expected from people otherwise vexed by the knowledge that we had come to withdraw from error those who were willing.

A violent cough, however, remained, and those Sisters of themselves told me to go to my daughter, and take milk for a fortnight, after which I might return. As soon as I set out, Father La Combe, who was returning and was in the same boat, said to me, “Let your cough cease.” It at once stopped, and although a furious gale came down upon the lake which made me vomit, I coughed no more at all. This storm became so violent that the waves were on the point of capsizing the boat. Father La Combe made the sign of the cross over the waves, and although the billows became more disturbed, they no longer came near, but broke more than a foot distant from the boat—a fact noticed both by the boatmen and those in the boat, who looked upon him as a saint. Thus I arrived at Tonon at the Ursulines, perfectly cured, so that instead of adopting remedies as I had proposed, I entered on a retreat which I kept for twelve days.

It was then I made perpetual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; to obey without resistance whatever I believed to be the will of God and the Church, and to honour Jesus Christ, the Child, in the way he wished. I admit that I do not know why nor how I made these vows. I did not find in myself anything to make a vow, and it seemed to me that I was so entirely yours, O my God, that I did not know where to find that which I vowed to you. I understood at the same time that the end of the vow and its consummation was given to my soul as well interiorly as exteriorly; that the soul, being in her entirety God’s without reserve, without self-regard, without interest, had the perfect chastity of love, since she was even passed into this same love. It appeared to me that you, O my God, had endowed me with the perfect poverty, by the utter stripping you had effected on me as well interiorly as exteriorly, leaving me nothing of “the own.” As to obedience, my will was so entirely lost in yours, that not only it found no resistance, but it had not even a repugnance; the same was its condition as regards the Church. And as to honouring the Childhood of Jesus Christ, I did not know by what means; for that which was proposed to me did not depend on me, but on you, O my God; and it appeared to me that the honour which I paid him was to bear himself in his states. I, however, made all these vows because I was told to make them, and I followed without choice, without inclination, and without repugnance, what I was told to do; and you have drawn from it your glory in a manner known to you alone, the effect of which soon appeared; for you took a new possession of my exterior, to make me the plaything of your providence, as you have since done. You despoiled me of my riches by a new poverty, and you deprived me of dwelling or place on earth, so that I have not where to rest my head. As to obedience, you made me practise it at one time, as will be seen, with the submissiveness of a child; but also how much have you obeyed me yourself; or rather, you, O my God, have rendered my wills wonderful, causing them to pass into you. I seem to understand clearly enough the meaning of that passage of David, “You have made my wills marvellous.” This is meant literally of David in Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ, though Son of David after the flesh, was Son of God by his eternal generation; being Son of God, he had only a single will, which is God. This did not hinder his having his human will also, but so lost in the divine that it was entirely at one with it; and this will is the end of all things, and that which works miracles, as Jesus Christ says, speaking as man, “So it is, my Father, because you have willed it.” But besides this sense, David himself experienced that which it seems to me I experience, O my God, by your grace, which is, that when by the destruction of ourselves we are passed into God, and returned to our source, our will is made one with that of God, according to the prayer of Jesus Christ, the effect of which the soul experiences: “My Father, that they all may be one, as we are one; that they all may be perfected in one;” which takes place by the loss of the soul in God, when all becomes one in unity of principle—the end for which we are created. In this unity the will of the soul so transforms itself into that of God as only to will that which God causes it to will, or rather, what he himself wills. Oh, it is then that this will is made wonderful, as well because it is made the will of God, the greatest of wonders, and its end, as that it works wonders in God; where, as soon as God causes it to will anything, since it is he who wills in it, this will has its effect; hardly has it willed, and the thing is done.

It will be said, But why so many overthrows, so many cruelties inflicted by creatures on these persons? If they have so much power, they should deliver themselves from them. They do not feel even the will to be delivered from them; and if they did, and it was not answered, it would be a will of the flesh, or the will of the human being, not the will of God. For although the soul be altogether lost in God, there is an animal will which the soul well knows to be no true will, but an instinct of the brute, which pursues what is agreeable to it, and flies from what gives it pain; but as to will, that is a different thing, and so little of it has the soul that if you ask her, What do you wish? she would leave God decide for her; and though one should cut her into a thousand pieces, she could only say, “I consent, if it is the will of God.”

As to the Church, what have you not given me for her in that which you have caused me to write? Have you not even communicated to me in a singular manner her spirit—a spirit holy and indivisible, a motive spirit, a spirit of truth, a spirit simple and upright?

And as to that of the Holy Child Jesus, good God, to what a degree have I experienced its effects! Have you not placed me in a state of wonderful childishness? And have I not borne it in a singular manner? To honour Jesus, the Child, was for me to bear the Child Jesus Christ as he has willed me to bear him many times, and many of his states, as will be seen in the sequel. This digression will be of no small use for the remainder of what I have to write.

I used to get up every night at midnight, and I had no need of an alarum, for by your goodness, O my God, as long as you desired it of me, I always woke sufficiently before midnight, to be up at that hour; and when through distrust or thoughtlessness I had set my alarum in the morning, I was never awakened. This led me to abandon myself more to your guidance, O my God, for I saw you had over me the care of a father and a husband. When I had any indisposition, and my body needed rest, you used not to awake me; but at that time, even sleeping, I felt a singular possession of you. For some years I had only a half sleep; my soul was awake to you with the more force as sleep seemed to withdraw her attention from everything else. Our Lord also made known to many persons that he destined me to be the mother of a great people, but a people simple and childlike. They understood these intimations literally, and thought that it related to some new foundation or society; but it appears to me that it means nothing but the persons whom God has willed I should afterwards gain for him, and to whom he has in his goodness willed that I should act as a mother, giving them the same union with me that children have with a mother, but a union much more strong and more inward, and giving me for them all that was necessary, that they might walk in the way by which God was guiding them, as I shall explain hereafter, when I speak of this state of maternity.

Chapter 2-4

BEFORE speaking of what remains forme to write (which, if I had anything of my natural selfhood, I would gladly suppress, as well owing to the difficulty of explaining myself, as that there are few souls able to appreciate a course of guidance so little known and so little understood that I have never read of anything like it) I will yet say something of the inner disposition I was then in, as far as I can make it intelligible—a matter of no small difficulty owing to its extreme simplicity. If this is of use to you, who desire to be among the number of my children; and if it is useful to my children in more thoroughly destroying self, and in leading them to allow God to glorify himself in them in his manner, not in theirs, I shall find my trouble well repaid; and if there is anything which they do not understand, let them truly die to themselves, and they will soon have a more powerful experience of it than I could give them; for description never does come up to experience. After I had emerged from the state of abjectness of which I have spoken, I understood how a state, which had appeared to me so criminal, and which was so only in my idea, had purified my soul, taking from her all selfhood. As soon as my mind was enlightened on the truth of that state, my soul was placed in an immense freedom. I recognized the difference between the graces which had preceded that state and those which have succeeded it. Previously everything was collected and concentrated within, and I possessed God in my centre, and in the inmost of my soul; but afterwards I was possessed of him in a manner so vast, so pure, and so immense, that nothing can equal it. Formerly God was, as it were, enclosed in me, and I was united to him in my centre; but afterwards I was submerged in the sea itself. Before, the thoughts and views were lost, but in a way perceived, though very slightly; the soul let them go sometimes, which is yet an act; but afterwards they had, as it were, entirely disappeared, in a manner so bare, so pure, so lost that the soul had no action of her own, however simple and delicate—at least, which could rise into consciousness.

The powers and the senses are purified in a wonderful manner: the mind is of a surprising limpidity; I was sometimes astonished that not a thought appeared in it. That imagination, once so troublesome, gives no longer any trouble whatsoever; there is no longer embarrassment, nor disturbance, nor occupation of the memory; everything is naked and limpid, and God makes the soul know and think whatever he pleases, without irrelevant species any longer inconveniencing the mind. This is of very great purity. It is the same in the case of the will, which, being totally dead to all its spiritual appetites, has no longer any taste, leaning, or tendency; it remains empty of all human inclination, natural or spiritual. It is this which enables God to bend it where he pleases, and how he pleases.

This vastness, which is not bounded by anything whatever, however simple, increases day by day, so that it seems that this soul, in sharing the qualities of her Spouse, shares especially his immensity. Formerly one was, as it were, drawn and shut up within; afterwards I experienced that a hand far more powerful than the first drew me out of myself, and plunged me, without view, or knowledge, in God, in a way which ravished me; and the more distant the soul thought herself from this state, the more ravished she was to find it. How sweet, then, is it to this soul, which is rather comprehended of it than comprehends it.

At the commencement of this state there happened to me a thing which I do not know how to name. My prayer was of a nakedness and simplicity beyond conception, and yet of an inexplicable depth. I was, as it were, held up high out of myself, and what particularly surprised me was, that my head felt as if violently lifted up. This was all the more unusual, because formerly its first movements were quite in the opposite direction, since I was quite concentrated. I believe that God wished me to have this experience at the commencement of the new life (which was so powerful, although very sweet, that my body fainted away)—I believe, I say, that our Lord permitted that to enable me to understand for the benefit of other souls, this passage of the soul into God; for after it had lasted with me some days, I no longer perceived this violence, although I have always since experienced that my prayer is no longer in me in the way that I formerly experienced it, when I used to say, “I carry in me the prayer that I offer to the God of my life.” It will be difficult to understand what I wish to say without having experienced it. When I went to confession, I could hardly speak, not from internal recollection, nor as I have described when I was at the commencement; it was like an immersion. This is a word which I use without knowing if it is suitable. I was plunged down and raised up. Once, when at confession to Father La Combe at Gex, I felt this elevation so strong that I thought my body was about to be raised from the earth. Our Lord made use of it to let me grasp what that flight of the spirit is, which raised the bodies of some saints to a great height, and the difference there is between that and the loss of the soul in God. Before going on with the events which happened to me, I will say something about this.

The flight of the spirit is far more noble than the simple fainting away of ecstasy, although almost always the flight of the spirit causes weakness to the body, God drawing powerfully the soul, not in her centre, but in himself, in order to make her pass there, this soul not being yet sufficiently purified to pass into God without violence; a thing which can be brought about only after the mystical decease, where the soul veritably goes out of herself to pass into her Divine Object, which I call decease—that is to say, passage from one thing to another. That is indeed the happy Passover for the soul, and passage into the promised land. This spirit, which is created to be united to its principle, has such an impulse to return to it, that if it was not stopped by a continual miracle, it would, by its motive-power, carry the body wherever it wished, owing to its impetuosity and its nobleness; but God has given it an earthly body as counter-weight. This spirit, then, created to be immediately united to its principle, feeling itself drawn by its Divine Object, tends to it with extreme violence, so that God, suspending for a time the power which the body has to keep back the spirit, it follows with impetuosity; but as it is not sufficiently purified to pass into God, it returns gradually to itself, and the body reassuming gradually its quality, it returns to earth. The saints who have been most perfected in this life have not had anything of all this, and even some of the saints to whom it has happened, have lost it at the close of their lives, remaining simple and common like others, because they had in reality and permanence that which formerly they had merely as samples during the elevation of their body.

It is, then, certain that the soul, by death to herself, passes into her Divine Object, and this is what I experienced; and I found that the further I advanced, the more my spirit lost itself in its Sovereign, who drew it to him more and more; and he willed at the commencement I should know this for the benefit of others, not for myself. Daily this spirit lost itself more, and its principle attracted it continually more, until, owing to this drawing, it was so withdrawn from itself, that it lost itself completely from view, and no longer perceived itself. But the same Love which drew it to him brightened and purified it, that it might pass into him and be then transformed into himself. In the commencement of the new life I saw clearly that the soul was united to God without means or medium, but she was not completely lost in him. Each day she lost herself there, as one sees a river which loses itself in the ocean, at first unite with it, then flow into it, but so that the river may for a time be distinguished from the sea; until at last it gradually is transformed into the sea itself, which, while little by little communicating its qualities, changes it so entirely into itself, that it becomes one and the same sea with it. I have experienced the same in my soul, how God gradually makes her lose herself in him, and communicates to her his qualities, drawing her away from everything she has of the “own.”

At the commencement of the new life I committed faults; and these faults, which would not have appeared anything, on the contrary, would have been virtues in a different state, were little assertions of the selfhood, light, and on the surface—a haste, a slight emotion, but as slight as possible. I experienced at once that this raised a partition between God and my soul; it was like a speck of dust, but as this was only on the surface, the partition appeared to me finer than a spider’s web. And then he willed me to go clear myself from it by confession, or else he himself purified me from it; and I saw clearly this partition, which was like a veil that did not break the union nor alter it, but covered it, and this slight partition made noticeable more of distinction between the Spouse and the Bride. I do not know if I make myself understood. The soul suffered from this little partition, but in a peaceable manner; she saw that she could indeed erect the partition, but could not take it away. Little by little all partition was lost, and the fewer and more delicate the partitions, the more union was lost in Unity, until at last there was only one where there had been two, and the soul lost herself so utterly that she could no longer distinguish herself from her Beloved, nor see him. It is that which caused her trouble in the sequel. As to her confession, she was astonished that she knew not what to say, that she no longer found anything; although one would think she must commit more faults, owing to the liberty she had to speak, talk, and act, which formerly she had not; but that no longer troubles her, nor is any more regarded as a fault. An inconceivable innocence, unknown and incomprehensible to those who are still shut up in themselves, is her life. But I must resume where I have broken off.

Before I arrived at this state, being at the confessional, I felt myself so powerfully drawn out of myself, that my body became faint, the perspiration covered my face. I sat down, but perceiving that this increased in a delicious manner—very pure and spiritual, however—I withdrew. A shudder passed through me from head to foot; I could neither speak nor eat the whole day, and from that moment, or rather, that operation, which lasted three days, my soul was much more lost in her Divine Object, although not altogether. The joy the soul then possessed is so great, that she experiences the words of the royal prophet: “All those who are in you, Lord, are like persons ravished with joy,” but the joy is that it appears to the soul that it will never be taken away. It seems that those words of our Lord are addressed to her: “None shall take away your joy.” She is, as it were, plunged in a river of peace, and is so penetrated with it that she is all peace. Her prayer is continual; nothing can prevent her praying and loving. She experiences very really these words: “I sleep, but my heart is awake,” for she experiences that sleep does not prevent the Spirit praying within her. O ineffable happiness, who would ever have thought that a poor soul, which believed herself in the utmost need, could find in need itself a happiness equal to that she tastes, without tasting it! It is not that she does not sometimes experience troubles, which take away even the appetite, and the body, which is not accustomed to this, is quite languishing; but this trouble is so sweet and peaceable that one cannot distinguish whether it is a sweet trouble, or an afflictive sweetness. Daily the soul perceives her capacity increase and grow larger, and what astonishes her is that the light of this state augments the state which she previously possessed without recognizing it.

O happy poverty, happy loss, happy nothingness, which gives no less than God himself in his immensity, no longer adjusted in the limited manner of the creature, by whom he is no longer possessed, but which he entirely possesses, drawing it continually more from itself to sink it in him! The soul then knows that all the states of visions, revelations, assurances are rather obstacles than aids to this state, which is far above them; for the soul accustomed to supports has difficulty in losing them, and she cannot reach this without that loss. Then all intelligence is given without other view than simple faith. And it is here are found true those words of John of the Cross: “When I have not wished to possess anything”—through self-love—“everything has been given me without going after it.” O happy rotting of the grain of wheat, which makes it produce fruit a hundred-fold! The soul is then so passive both as regards goods and ills that it is astonishing. Although before she seemed to be so to a great degree, it is not here the same, for here she is strengthened in a surprising manner. She receives the one and the other without any movement of her own, letting them flow by and perish as they come. I do not know if I speak correctly; for that passes as if it did not touch her at all.

After I made my retreat at the Ursulines of Tonon, I returned by Geneva, and having no other means of travelling, the Resident lent me a horse. As I did not know how to use this means of conveyance, I made some difficulty, but they assured me it was very gentle, and I resolved to make the attempt. There was a kind of farrier present, who, regarding me with haggard eyes, as soon as I was mounted, struck the horse upon the croup. It made a frightful bound, and threw me to the earth with such force that they thought I was killed. I fell upon my temple. I ought certainly to have been killed, for the bone of the cheek was broken in two, and I had two teeth knocked in. In my fall I was upheld by an invisible hand. Nevertheless, I remounted the best I could on another horse which they gave me to finish my journey, and my servant man placed himself beside me to hold me up. But a surprising thing happened; while on the road something was forcibly pushing me on the same side on which I had fallen off, and although I leant with all my strength to the other side, and I was held on firmly enough, I could not resist what was pushing me. I was every moment in danger of being killed, but quite content to see myself at the mercy of the divine providence. I at once understood it was the Devil, but I was quite confident he could do me no hurt but what my Master allowed him.

My relatives, after a slight attempt, left me in quiet at Gex. People even began to esteem me much, and as my miraculous cure had been written about to Paris, it made a great sensation. You permitted it, O my God, that I might fall the lower from the height to which you had elevated me. Almost all the persons then in repute for holiness wrote to me. The Demoiselles of Paris, who were renowned for good works, congratulated me. I received letters from Madame de Lamoignon and another lady, who was so pleased with my answer that she sent one hundred pistoles for our House, and told me when we were in want of money I had only to write to her, and she would send me whatever I wanted. At Paris they talked only of the sacrifice I had made. All approved and praised my action, so that they wanted an account of it printed, together with the miracle which had taken place. I do not know who prevented it. From this we may see the inconstancy of the creature; for the very journey which then brought me such praises is the same which furnished the pretext for such a strange condemnation.

Chapter 2-5

My relatives made no effort to bring me back. The first thing they proposed to me a month after my arrival at Gex was not only to relinquish my wardship, but also to give all my property to my children, reserving only an annuity for myself. Although the proposal, coming from persons who, as the sequel will show, had regard only for their own interests, ought to have appeared to me harsh, it by no means did so. I had neither friends nor advice. I did not know whom to ask as to the mode of effecting it; for as to willingness, I was perfectly ready. It seemed to me I had thus the means of accomplishing my vow and my extreme desire to be conformed to Jesus Christ, poor, naked, stripped of everything. It was necessary to send a power of attorney, which they had drawn up. Clauses which were inserted Our Lord did not allow me to notice, and I, believing it honestly prepared, signed. It was provided that when my children all died, I should not inherit my own property, but it was to pass to collaterals. There were other matters also equally to my disadvantage. Although what I reserved for myself was enough for the place where I then was, it is hardly sufficient to support me elsewhere. I gave up then my property, that I might be conformed to Jesus Christ, with more joy than those who demanded it of me could have from its possession. It is a thing which I have never either repented or regretted. O my God, what pleasure to lose all and to quit all for you! “Love of poverty, kingdom of tranquillity.”

I have forgotten to say that at the close of the state of wretchedness and trouble, when I was ready to enter on newness of life, our Lord enlightened me to see that the external crosses came from him; so that I could not have any grudge against the persons who brought them on me—on the contrary, I felt a tender compassion for them, and I was more troubled from those I caused them innocently than at those they caused me. I had experienced something of the kind at intervals during my husband’s life; but it was not established in me as then, and as it has since been. I saw that those persons feared you too much, my God, to treat me as they did, if they had known it. I saw your hand therein, and I felt the trouble they suffered from the contrariety of their temper. After the accident which befell me in my fall from the horse, which so injured me that I spat blood that came from the brain, and for eight days it also came from my nose (which, through your goodness, O my God, had no permanent consequence), the Devil commenced to declare himself more openly my enemy, and to break loose against me. One night when I least thought of it, he presented himself to my mind in a way so monstrous and terrifying that nothing could be more so; only a face was visible by means of a bluish light. I do not know if the flame itself composed this horrible face, for it was so mixed up and passed so quickly that I could not well distinguish. My soul remained unmoved and untroubled, understanding that it was the Devil. The senses were slightly alarmed, but as for the soul, she remained firm and immovable, without any motion of her own, and did not even allow the body to make the sign of the cross; because although this would have driven away the Devil for the moment, it would have shown I was afraid of him, or that I knew it was he. This way of despising is far more distasteful to him, so he never again appeared in that way; but he got into such a rage that every night, as I got up at midnight, he used to come at that hour and made a terrible knocking in my room. When I lay down it was still worse; he shook my bed for a quarter of an hour at a time. Then he used to go at the paper window-panes, which he broke; and every morning as long as this lasted the panes were found broken. I had no fear, not even a shiver in the senses. I used to get up and light my candle at a lamp which I kept lighted in my room, for I had accepted the office of sacristan, and the duty of waking the Sisters at the hour they should rise, ringing the “Aves;” and in spite of my indisposition I never failed to wake them or to be the first at all the duties. I made use of my little light to look all over the room, and at the window-panes at the very time the Devil was knocking more loudly than usual. As he saw I was not afraid of anything, he went off on a sudden, and did not attack me any more in person; but he did so by stirring up men against me, and this succeeded better for him, for he found them ready to do what he suggested, and to do it with the more zeal as they regarded it as a good deed.

One of the Sisters I had brought, who was a very beautiful girl, became connected with an ecclesiastic who had authority in this place. He inspired her from the first with an aversion to me, judging well that if she had confidence in me, I would not advise her to allow his frequent visits. She undertook a retreat. I begged her not to enter on it until I was there; for it was the time that I was making my own. This ecclesiastic was very glad to let her make it, in order to get entirely into her confidence, for it would have served as a pretext for his frequent visits. The Bishop of Geneva had assigned Father La Combe as director of our House without my asking, so that it came purely from God. I then begged this girl, as Father La Combe was to conduct the retreats, she would wait for him. As I was already commencing to get an influence over her mind, she yielded to me against her own inclination, which was willing enough to make it under that ecclesiastic. I began to speak to her of prayer, and to cause her to offer it. Our Lord therein gave her such blessing that this girl, in other respects very discreet, gave herself to God in earnest and with all her heart. The retreat completed the victory. Now, as she apparently recognized that to connect herself with that ecclesiastic was something imperfect, she was more reserved. This much displeased the worthy ecclesiastic, and embittered him against Father La Combe and me, and this was the source of all the persecutions that befell me. The noise in my room ceased when that commenced. This ecclesiastic, who heard confession in the House, no longer regarded me with a good eye. He began secretly to speak of me with scorn. I knew it, but said nothing to him, and did not for that cease confessing to him. There came to see him a certain monk who hated Father La Combe in consequence of his regularity. They formed an alliance, and decided that they must drive me out of the House, and make themselves masters of it. They set in motion for this purpose all the means they could find. The ecclesiastic, seeing himself supported, no longer kept any bounds. They said I was stupid, that I had a silly air. They could judge of my mind only by my air, for I hardly spoke to them. This went so far that they made a sermon out of my confession, and it circulated through the whole diocese. They said that some persons were so frightfully proud that in place of confessing gross sins, they confessed only peccadillos; then they gave a detail, word for word, of everything I had confessed. I am willing to believe that this worthy priest was accustomed only to the confessions of peasants, for the faults of a person in the state which I was in astonished him, and made him regard what were really faults in me, as fanciful; for otherwise assuredly he would not have acted in such a manner. I still accused myself, however, of a sin of my past life, but this did not content him, and I knew he made a great commotion because I did not accuse myself of more notable sins. I wrote to Father La Combe to know if I could confess past sins as present, in order to satisfy this worthy man. He told me, no; and that I should take great care not to confess them except as passed, and that in confession the utmost sincerity was needed.

My manner of life was such that I had very few opportunities of committing faults, for I took not the least part in the affairs of the House, leaving the Sisters to dispose of the funds as they pleased, persuaded as I was that they made good use of them. A little after coming there I received a sum of eighteen hundred livres, which one of my friends lent me to finish our furnishing, and which I repaid on settling my property; they received this also. They managed as well as they could, and were good economists, but without experience, and they were without what was necessary for an establishment. I took no part in anything, except to perform my duty of sacristan, and to assist at all the offices, which we repeated—the Sister I have spoken of and I; there were only us two to repeat the offices, and we did it with as much exactitude as if we were many, and, with exception of meals and recreation, I remained all day shut up in my room. I let them receive and return all visits, and took no share therein. All I did was to speak an occasional word to those who were in seclusion, with a view to becoming Catholics; and our Lord gave such a blessing to what I said that we saw some whom previously they knew not what to do with, relish God in a wonderful manner, and acquire an incredible affection for remaining in the church. Living in this way, I had no opportunities for sinning.

This worthy gentleman gained over one of the Sisters, who had a weak mind—it was the one who was housekeeper —whereby they commenced causing me a few crosses. Some days before these persecutions were set on foot, at midnight, being with our Lord, I said to him: “It seems to me you promised me here only crosses; where are they, then? I do not see them.” Hardly had this thought occurred to me when there came upon me such a number that, so to speak, they were tumbling one over the other.

Before continuing, I will mention that immediately on our arrival the Bishop of Geneva was so kind as to allow us to have the Holy Sacrament at our House. As soon as ever our chapel was in condition for it, we had this advantage; and as we wished to place it the day of the Holy Cross, which was our fete—and which name I had taken without knowing why, to avoid recognition—the chapel not being yet sufficiently closed, for three nights I guarded the Holy Sacrament, lying by myself in the chapel. I never passed any with greater satisfaction. I had a movement to pray for that unfortunate town which was the object of my tenderness, and which was the occasion of all my disgraces. I had confidence, as I have still more at present, that it would be one day, O my Divine Spouse, the throne of your mercies. I cannot doubt it.

The Bishop, knowing I loved the Holy Child Jesus, sent me to place in our little chamber a simple image of paper of a Child Jesus, who held in his hands crosses for distribution. On receiving it, I was struck with the thought that he came with the hands full to distribute them to me, and I received them with all my heart. For you have always shown this kindness to me, my God, never to give me extraordinary crosses without first having obtained my consent—not to the nature of the cross in itself, but for the suffering an extraordinary cross which was proposed to me; and at the same time those words said of Jesus Christ, my divine model, came to my mind: “For the joy set before him, endured the cross.” It appeared to me then, O my God, that I was offered the choice either of the approbation of men and success, together with the assurance of my salvation; or of the cross, wretchedness, rejection, persecution from all creatures, even privation of all creatures, even privation of all assurance of salvation, and nothing but YOUR GLORY ALONE. O Love, the latter was the object of my choice and of my tender inclination. Yes; “for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.” I prostrated myself, my face to the earth, for a long time, as it were, to receive all your blows, O amiable justice of my God, with which from that moment I felt myself inflamed. All self-interest having perished and been destroyed in me, nothing remained but the interest of your divine justice. Strike, O divine Justice, who have not spared Jesus Christ, God-Man, who gave himself up to death to satisfy you. Him alone you found worthy of you, and in him you still find hearts which are fitted for you to exercise your loving cruelties.

A few days after my arrival at Gex by night I saw in a dream (but a mysterious dream, for I perfectly well distinguished it) Father La Combe fixed on a great cross of extraordinary height. He was naked in the way our Lord is pictured. I saw an amazing crowd who covered me with confusion and cast upon me the ignominy of his punishment. It seemed he suffered more pain than I, but I more reproaches than he. This surprised me the more, because, haying seen him only once, I could not imagine what it meant. But I have indeed seen it accomplished. At the same time that I saw him thus fixed to the cross, these words were impressed on me: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered;” and these others, “I have specially prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not. Satan has desired to sift thee.”

This worthy ecclesiastic, as I have said, gained over that girl, and afterwards the Superior. I was of a very delicate constitution, and, however willing, that did not give bodily strength. I had two maids to serve me, but as the community needed one to cook and the other to attend the gate, and for other duties, I gave them up, thinking that they would not be unwilling I should have their services sometimes; since I besides allowed them to receive the whole of my income; for immediately after my settlement was made they received in advance the half of my annuity. I believed then that they would consent to these two maids rendering me the services which I could not perform myself. But our Lord permitted that they were unwilling. The church was very large to sweep. I had to sweep it by myself. Oftentimes I have fainted over the broom, and remained in corners utterly exhausted. This obliged me to ask sometimes that they would have it done by the grown peasant girls, who were there as New Catholics, and at last they had the kindness to allow this. What troubled me most was that I had never done washing, and it was necessary for me to wash all the linen of the sacristry. I took one of the maids I had brought to do it; for I had spoiled everything. These good Sisters came and dragged her out of my room by the arm, telling her to mind her own business. I did not appear to notice it, and in whatever manner they behaved I made no remonstrance. So the worthy ecclesiastic saw that I would not withdraw for all this. Besides, the other Sister attached herself more and more to our Lord through means of prayer, and contracted great friendship for me. This increased the ecclesiastic’s trouble so that he could not keep in his rage against me. One day he thought proper to bring a very doubtful book to this girl. I handed it back to him, after having opened it, urgently requesting him not to bring books of this kind into the House. He was extremely offended, and set out for Annecy to make mischief.

Chapter 2-6

UP to that time the Bishop of Geneva had shown me much esteem and kindness, and therefore this man cleverly took him off his guard. He urged upon the Prelate that, in order to make certain of me for that House, he ought to compel me to give up to it the little money I had reserved for myself, and to bind me by making me the Superior. He knew well that I would never bind myself there, and that, my vocation being elsewhere, I would never give my capital to that House, where I had come only as a visitor; and that I would not be Superior, as I had many times already declared; and that even should I bind myself, it would be only on the condition that this should not be. I believe, indeed, that this objection to being Superior was a remnant of the selfhood, coloured with humility. The Bishop of Geneva did not in the least penetrate the intentions of that ecclesiastic, who was called in the country the little Bishop, because of the ascendency he had acquired over the mind of the Bishop of Geneva. He thought it was through affection for me, and zeal for this House, that this man desired to bind me to it; consequently he at once fell in with the proposal, resolving to carry it through at whatever price. The ecclesiastic, seeing he had so well succeeded, no longer kept any bounds as regarded me. He commenced by stopping the letters I wrote Father La Combe. Afterwards he intercepted all those I wrote to Paris, and those which were written to me, in order to influence people’s minds as he pleased, and that I might not be able either to know it, or defend myself, or tell how I was being treated. One of the maids I had brought wished to return, not being able to remain in that place, so that only one remained for me, and she was weak and too much occupied to aid me in many things I had need of. As Father La Combe was coming for the retreat, I thought he would soften the bitter spirit of this man, and would advise me. Meanwhile the proposal of binding myself, and becoming Superior, was made to me. I answered, that as for binding myself, it was impossible, my vocation being elsewhere, and for the Superiorship, I could not be a Superior before being a novice; that all of them had completed two years of novitiate before binding themselves, and when I had done as much, I would see what God inspired me. The Superior answered me sharply enough, that if I contemplated quitting them some day, I might do it at once. However, I did not withdraw for this; I behaved still in my usual way, but I saw the heavens grow dark gradually, and storms come from every side. The Superior meanwhile affected a more gentle air; she declared she also wished to go to Geneva, that I should not bind myself, but should promise to take her with me if I went there. She asked me whether I was not bound in some particular matter for Geneva. She wished to sound me, to see if I had not some plan, or perhaps some engagement under vow; but as I had not the advice of Father La Combe, I did not say anything to her. She professed even much confidence in me, and seemed united to me. As I am very frank, and our Lord has given me much uprightness, I believed she was acting in good faith: I even declared to her I was not attracted by the manner of life of the New Catholics, owing to their outside intrigues. I further let her know that certain abjurations and certain shufflings did not please me, because I desired people to be straightforward in everything; so that my refusal to sign things which were not true shocked them a little. She let nothing of it appear. She was a worthy person, and did these things only because that ecclesiastic told her it was necessary to act so, to bring the House into credit, and to attract the charity of Paris. I told her that if we acted uprightly God would not fail us; that he would sooner work miracles. I remarked one thing, which was that as soon as one took to this mode of action, so alien from uprightness and sincerity, and even justice, that what one did in the expectation of attracting charity, had the effect, without anyone knowing anything of it, that people grew cold, and the charity was checked. O God, is it not you who inspire charity, and is it not sister of truth? How, then, attract it by deception? It must be attracted by confidence in God, and then it becomes extremely liberal; any other mode of behaviour ties it up.

One day after the Superior had communicated, she came to me and told me that our Lord had let her know how dear Father La Combe was to him, and that he was a saint, that she felt herself disposed to make a vow of obedience to him. She appeared to say all this in perfect good faith, and I believe she was then speaking sincerely for she had ups and downs of weakness, which are common enough to our sex, and ought to make us very humble. I told her she should not do this: she said she wished it, and she was about to pronounce the vow. I opposed it strongly, saying that these things should not be done lightly, nor without consulting the person whom one wished to obey, to ascertain if he would accept it. She was satisfied with my reasons, and wrote to Father La Combe all which she said had taken place in her, and how she desired to vow obedience to him, that it was God who urged her to it. Father La Combe answered her, and she showed me the letter. He told her she should never make a vow to obey any man; that he would never be her adviser; that the person who is suitable at one time is not so at another; that one should remain free, obeying, nevertheless, with love and charity, all the same as if bound by a vow; that as for himself, he had never received such a vow from anyone and never would, that it was even forbidden him by their rules: that none the less he would serve her to the best of his ability, and that in a short time he would go to conduct the retreats. She had also told him in that letter that she prayed he would ask our Lord to let her know if he destined her for Geneva, whether she should go with me; that she was content whatever the will of God, only that he should tell her exactly what he knew in these things. He wrote her that on this article he would simply tell her what he thought of it.

It is true that the characteristic of Father La Combe is simplicity and straightforwardness. When he came for the retreats, which was the third and last time he came to Gex, on the first day she spoke to him with much eagerness. She asked him if one day she would be united with me at Geneva. He answered her with his usual candour: “My mother, our Lord has let me know that you will never be established at Geneva; as for the others, I have no light.” (She is dead, so that was well verified.) As soon as he made this declaration, she appeared enraged against him and me in a surprising way. She went to find the ecclesiastic, who was in a room with the housekeeper, and they together took measures to compel me either to bind myself or to withdraw. They thought I would rather bind myself than withdraw. And they watched my letters more closely.

The Father preached at her request, which was only to lay a trap for him. He had in the parish made a sermon on charity, which had carried away everyone. She asked him for a sermon touching the inner life. He preached one which he had preached at the Visitation at Tonon: “The beauty of the King’s daughter comes from within.” He explained what the inner life is, and what it is to act from it as a principle. That ecclesiastic, who was present with one of his confidants, said that it was preached against him, and that it was full of errors. He extracted eight propositions, which the Father had not preached, and after dressing them out as maliciously as he could, he sent them to a friend at Rome, in order, as he said, that they might be examined by the Sacred College and the Inquisition. Although they were very badly drawn up, they, nevertheless, passed as quite sound. His friend told him there was nothing whatever wrong in them. This vexed him, for he is not, as I hear, theologian enough to judge anything for himself. Moreover, he came the next day with surprising anger to Father La Combe, and attacked him, saying he had made the sermon to offend him. The Father drew it from his pocket, and showed him that he had thereon written the dates and the places where he had preached it; so that he was confounded, but not appeased. He became still more angry in the presence of many persons who were assembled there. The Father went on his knees, and in that position listened for half an hour to all the abuse which the ecclesiastic chose to utter. They came to tell me, but I did not choose to have anything to do with all that. The Father, after being treated in this way, said to the ecclesiastic with much sweetness and humility, that he was obliged to go to Annecy for some business of their convent, and that if he desired to send anything to the Bishop, he would take charge of his letters. The other answered for him to wait, that he would write. This good Father had the patience to wait for more than three full hours without hearing anything from him. They came and told me, “Do you know that Father La Combe has not started, but is in the church, where he awaits letters from M—?” —mentioning the priest who had so illtreated him that he even tore from his hands a letter, which I had just given him for the good hermit I have mentioned. I went to the church to ask him to send the servant who was to accompany him to Annecy to see if the packet of that gentleman was ready; for the day was so far gone that he would have to sleep on the road. This man found mounted a servant of the ecclesiastic, who told him, It is I who am going there. And as he was going in, this same M— said to another servant, to go as fast as he could so as to reach Annecy before the Father. He had kept him waiting merely to send off a man before him to prejudice the mind of the Bishop; and he sent back word to the Father that he had no letters to give him.

Father La Combe none the less went to Annecy, where he found the Bishop much prejudiced and embittered. He said to him: “My Father, it is absolutely necessary to bind that lady to give what she has to the House at Gex, and to become the Superior.” “My lord,” answered Father La Combe, “you know what she has herself told you of her vocation both at Paris and in this country, and therefore I do not believe she will consent to bind herself. It is not likely that, having given up everything in the hope of going into Geneva, she should bind herself elsewhere, and thus render it impossible for her to accomplish God’s designs for her. She has offered to remain with these good Sisters as a lodger. If they desire to keep her in that capacity she will remain with them; if not, she is resolved to withdraw into some convent until God shall dispose of her otherwise.” The Bishop answered: “My Father, I know all that, but at the same time I know she is obedient, and if you so order her, she will surely do it.” “It is for this reason, my lord, because she is obedient, that one should be very cautious in the commands one gives her,” answered the Father. “It is not likely that I will urge a foreign lady, who has for her whole subsistence merely what she has reserved for herself, to rob herself of that in favour of a House which is not yet founded, and which, perhaps, never will be founded. If the House happens to fail, or to be no longer useful, on what shall the lady live? Shall she go to the almshouse? In fact, before long this House will be of no use, for there will be no Protestants in France.” The Bishop said: “My Father, all these reasons are good for nothing. If you do not cause the lady to do it, I will interdict you.” That mode of speaking surprised the Father, who well enough knew the rules of the interdict, as not allowing it in matters of this nature. He said to him: “My lord, I am ready to suffer not only the interdict, but even death rather than do anything against my honour or conscience,” and withdrew. He wrote me at the same time everything by an express, that I might take my measures thereon. I had nothing left but to withdraw into a convent, but before doing so I said again to these good Sisters that I was going away; for at the same time I received a letter that the nun to whom I had entrusted my daughter, and who was the one spoke French least corruptly, and was very virtuous, had fallen ill, and that she prayed me to go for a time to my daughter. I showed them the letter, and told them that I wished to withdraw into that community; that if they ceased persecuting me as they were doing, and if Father La Combe was left in quiet—who was deemed the apostle of the country because of the wonderful fruit of his missions—I would return as soon as the mistress of my daughter was recovered. It was my intention to do it. Instead of this, they persecuted me with more violence, and wrote against me to Paris, intercepted all my letters, and sent out libels, where it was said, the person would be recognized by a little cross of wood she wore; as a fact, I had on my neck a little cross from the tomb of St. Francis de Sales.

This ecclesiastic and his friend went through all the places where Father La Combe had held his mission, to decry him and speak against him so violently that a woman was afraid to say her Pater because, she said, she had learned it from him. They made a fearful scandal through the whole country. Father La Combe was not in the country, for the day after my arrival at the Ursulines of Tonon, he set out in the morning to preach the Lent sermons at the Valley of Aosta. He came to say adieu to me, and at the same time told me he would go to Rome, and probably would not return, that his superiors might keep him there, that he was sorry to leave me in a strange country without help, and persecuted by everyone. Did not that trouble me? I said to him: “My Father, I am not troubled at it. I use the creatures for God, and by his order; through his mercy I get on very well without them when he withdraws them. I am quite content never to see you again, if such be his will, and to remain under persecution.” When he said that to me he did not know it would become so violent as it did. Afterwards he said he set out well pleased to see me in this disposition, and thus went away.

But before going further, I will tell what happened to me previously. As soon as I arrived at the Ursulines, a very old priest, reputed a very holy man, and who for twenty years had not left his solitude, came to see me, and told me he had a vision about me before my arrival. He saw a woman in a boat on the lake, and the Bishop with some of his priests were doing all they could to sink the boat and drown her. This vision lasted more than two hours, troubling his spirit; that sometimes the woman seemed utterly submerged, and was not visible at all, and then, when she seemed lost, suddenly she reappeared. “In short,” he said, “for two hours I saw this woman, one moment lost, another out of danger, while all the time the Bishop continued to persecute her. The woman was always equally tranquil, but I never saw her altogether free; from which I conclude the Bishop will persecute you, and will never give it up. Such a one thinks he will desist, and I come to assure you he will not; he will die while persecuting you, and will not change.”

I had an intimate friend, the wife of the Governor, of whom I have spoken in this narrative. When she saw I had given up everything for God, she had a strong desire to follow me. She set herself to arrange everything so as to come and see me, but when she learned of the persecution, she saw there was no sense in her going to a place from which I should be obliged to withdraw, and she died soon after.

Chapter 2-7

As soon as Father La Combe was gone the persecution became stronger than before. The Bishop still showed me some politeness, as well to see if he could bring me over to his purpose as to gain time for ascertaining how things would go in France, and for prejudicing people against me, always taking care to prevent my receiving any letters. I let but very few be intercepted, and only those which were indispensable. The ecclesiastic and another had open on their table twenty-two letters which did not reach me; and in one of them was a very important power of attorney sent for my signature. This they were obliged to put in a new envelope to send to me. The Bishop wrote to Father La Mothe, and he had little trouble in making him embrace his interests. He was dissatisfied because I had not given him the annuity he expected, as he has many times plainly told me, and he was offended because I did not follow his advice in everything, added to which were some other personal causes. He from the first declared against me. The Bishop, who cared to humour only him, felt strong enough with Father La Mothe on his side, and even made him his confidant, while he circulated the news written by them. The general opinion was that what caused him and his brother to act in this way was the fear that I might cancel the deed of settlement if I returned, and that, having influence and friends, I might find the means of setting it aside. They were very much mistaken in this; for I never had the thought of loving anything else than the poverty of Jesus Christ. For some time the Father kept terms with me. He wrote me letters addressed to the Bishop; and they so well understood each other that he was the only person whose letters I received. Our Lord gave me very beautiful letters to write to him; but in place of being touched he was irritated at them. I do not think there could be more powerful or more touching.

The Bishop, as I said, kept some terms with me for a time, making me believe that he had consideration for me; but he wrote to people at Paris, and the Sister also wrote to all those pious people from whom I had received letters, in order to prejudice them against me, and to escape the blame that naturally would fall on them for having so shamefully treated a person who had given up everything to devote herself to the service of his diocese; and ill-treated her only after she had stripped herself of her property, and was no longer in a condition to return to France—to avoid, I say, a censure so just they invented every kind of false and fabulous stories. Besides that I was unable to make known the truth in France, our Lord inspired me to suffer everything without justifying myself. I did this with Father La Mothe. As I saw he twisted everything, and showed himself more bitter than the Bishop, I ceased to write to him. On the other hand, the New Catholics, who are in great credit, blamed and condemned me to excuse their violence. People saw only condemnation and accusation without any justification. It was not difficult to blame and cast imputations on one who did not defend herself.

I was in this convent. I had seen Father La Combe only on the occasions I have mentioned. Nevertheless, they circulated a story that I was running about with him; that he had taken me driving in a carriage at Geneva, that the carriage was overturned, and a hundred malicious absurdities. Father La Mothe himself retailed all this, whether he thought it true or otherwise. Yet even had he believed these things true, he was bound to conceal them. But what do I say, my God, or where am I wandering? Was it not you who allowed him and his brother to be impressed with these things, that believing them true they might be able to repeat them without scruple? As for his brother, I believe he accepted them only on the report of Father La Mothe, who made him believe them true. Father La Mothe further retailed that I had been on horseback behind Father La Combe, which is the more false, in that I have never sat in that way.

All these calumnies turned to ridicule persons who were previously esteemed saints. It is here we must admire the dealings of God: for what cause had I given for them to speak in this way? I was in a convent a hundred and fifty leagues distant from Father La Combe, and nevertheless they made out the most disgraceful stories of him and of me.

I did not know that things were pushed so far and so violently, for I had no news. I saw I did not receive letters from any quarter, neither from my friends nor from persons of piety; but as I knew all my letters were intercepted, I was not surprised at it. I lived in this House with my daughter very peacefully, and it was a very great providence, for my daughter no longer could speak French; among the little girls of the mountains she had acquired a foreign air and objectionable manners. She had forgotten the little she had learned in France. In regard to her I had many occasions for new sacrifices. As to cleverness and judgment, she was surprising, and had the best inclinations; but there were little tempers caused by certain unreasonable contradictions, and by caresses out of place. This arose from ignorance in education. God provided for everything in her case, as I will tell.

I could hardly say anything of the interior state I then was in, for it was so simple, so naked, so annihilated that things were in me as if natural. I could only judge of them by the effects. My silence was very great, and I had at the commencement leisure to taste God without distinct consciousness, in himself (dans l’inconnu de lui-meme), in my little cell. But afterwards that good Sister (as I shall tell) continually interrupted me. I gave myself up to whatever she desired of me, both from condescension and because of a certain central principle in me, which would have made me obey a child. Nothing, it seems, could interrupt me. All that tempest did not make the smallest alteration in my mind or my heart. My central depth was in a generality, peace, liberty, largeness, indestructible. And although I sometimes suffered in the senses owing to the continual upsets, that did not penetrate; they were only waves breaking on a rock. The central depth was so lost in the will of God that it could neither will nor not will. I remained abandoned, without troubling as to what I should do, or what I should become, or what would be the end of the frightful tempest, which was only commencing. The leading of providence for the present moment constituted all my guidance without guidance, for the soul in the state of which I speak cannot desire or seek a special or extraordinary providence; but I allowed myself to be led by the daily providence from moment to moment, without thinking of the morrow. I was like a child in your hands, O my God. I did not think from one moment to the other, but I reposed in the shadow of your protection without thinking of anything, without taking more care of myself than if I no longer existed. My soul was in such perfect abandonment, both interiorly and exteriorly, that she could take neither rule nor measure for anything. It was a matter of indifference to her to be in one way rather than another, in one company rather than another, at prayer, or at conversation. Before continuing, I must tell how our Lord worked to bring me to this indifference.

While I was still in my own house, without other director than his Spirit, however possessed of him I might be, or however intently engaged in prayer, as soon as one of my little children knocked at my door, or the most insignificant person came to me, it was his will that I should break off. And once, when I was so penetrated by the Divinity that I could hardly speak, one of my little children knocked at my closet, wishing to play near me. I thought I should not break off for that, and I sent away the child without opening. Our Lord made me understand that all this was an assertion of the selfhood, and that which I thought to preserve was lost. Another time he sent me to call back those whom I had dismissed. It was necessary for me to become supple as a leaf in your adorable hand, O my God, so that I might receive all alike from your providence. Sometime they came and interrupted me for things without a shadow of reason, and that, at every moment; I had to receive them alike the last time as the first, all this being alike to me in your providence.

It is not, O my God, actions in themselves which are agreeable to you, but obedience to all your wills, and a suppleness that clings to nothing. It is by little things that insensibly the soul is detached from everything, and holds to nothing; she is suited for whatever God wishes of her, and ceases utterly to resist. O will of God, indicated by so many petty providences, how good it is to follow you, for you accustom the soul to recognize you, to cling to nothing, and to go with you into whatever place you lead her.

My soul was then, it seemed to me, like a leaf or a feather, which the wind carries where it pleases. She yielded herself to the operation of God, and all that he did externally and internally, in the same manner; allowing herself to be led without any choice, content to obey a child as readily as a man of learning and experience, seeing only God in the man in God, who never permits the soul entirely abandoned to him to be deceived.

I cannot tolerate the injustice which most men are guilty of, who make no difficulty of giving themselves up to another man, and regard this as prudence. They give themselves up to men who are nothing, and they boldly say, “That person cannot be deceived, for he relies on such a one, who is a very honest man;” and if one speaks of a soul entirely abandoning herself to her God, and following him with fidelity, they say loudly, “This person is deceived with his abandonment.” O Love and God! do you lack strength or faithfulness, or love, or wisdom to conduct those who abandon themselves to you, and are your dearest children? I have seen men bold enough to say, “Follow me; you will not be deceived or led astray.” O my Love, how these people are themselves led astray by their presumption, and how far sooner would I go with him who feared misleading me, who, trusting neither in his learning nor his experience, supported himself on you alone! Such was, O my God, the Father you had given me, who was not willing to conduct souls by his own ways, but by abandonment to your divine guidance, endeavouring to follow your Spirit in them.

Immediately on my arrival at the Ursulines of Tonon, our Lord made me see in a dream two ways by which he conducted souls under the figure of two drops of water. The one seemed to me of a brilliance and beauty and clearness unequalled; the other seemed also to have brilliance, but it was all full of little fibres or threads of mud, and as I regarded them attentively it was said to me: “These two kinds of water are both alike good for quenching thirst, but this is drunk with pleasure, the other with something of disgust. The way of faith, pure and simple, is like this very brilliant and clear drop of water; it is highly pleasing to the Spouse, because it is utterly pure, without anything of the selfhood. It is not the same with the way of illumination which does not equally please the Spouse, and is not nearly so agreeable to him.”

It was then shown me that this pure way was the one by which our Lord had had the goodness to conduct me hitherto; that the way of illumination was that by which some illumined souls were proceeding, and that they had led Father La Combe into it. At the same time he appeared to me clothed with a garment all torn, and I suddenly saw that this garment was mended on me. At first was made one quarter of it, and then another quarter; then after a long interval the other half was all made, and he was clothed anew magnificently. As I was troubled to know what this signified, our Lord told me that without my knowing it, he had given him to me, drawing him to a more perfect life than hitherto he had led; that it was at the time of my attack of small-pox he had given him, and that the price to me was that illness and the loss of my younger son; that he is not merely my Father, but my son; and that the other quarter of the garment was made when, passing by the place of my residence, he was more keenly touched, and embraced a life more interior and more perfect; from which time out he has still continued; but now everything must be completed, God willing to make use of me to bring him to walk in the way of simple faith and destruction of the self: which has taken place. The next day this Father, having come to say Mass at the Ursulines, and having asked me, I did not venture to tell him anything —although our Lord very strongly urged me to do it—owing to a remnant of selfhood, which formerly would have passed for humility in my mind. However, I spoke before the Sisters of the way of faith, how far more, glorious to God, and more advancing to the soul it was, than all revelations and assurances, which still keep alive the soul in herself. This at first shocked them and him also, somuch as to raise a feeling against me. I saw they were hurt, as they afterwards acknowledged. I said no more then, but as the Father is most humble, he ordered me to explain what I had wished to say to him. I told him a part of the dream of the two drops of water; he did not, however, then take in what I said to him, the hour not being yet come. But when he came to Gex to conduct the retreats, our Lord made me know, while I was praying at night, that I was his mother and that he was my son; he confirmed the dream I had had, and ordered me to tell it to Father La Combe, and for proof of what I said, he should examine at what time he was touched with a strong contrition, and see whether it was not the time of my small-pox. Our Lord further made me know that he gave to some souls numbers of persons without their knowing it, except sometimes, and that he had given me another, to purchase whom he had taken from me my daughter; which exactly fitted in with that time.

My difficulty was to tell this to the Father, whom I hardly had any acquaintance with. I wished to dissemble with myself, and say that it was presumption, although I perceived very well that it was the self-love which desired to escape, to avoid confusion. I felt myself painfully pressed to tell it to him. I went to see him as he was preparing for the Mass, and having approached him as if for confession, I said to him, “My Father, our Lord desires me to say that I am your mother-in-grace, and I will tell you the rest after the Mass.” He said the Mass, during which he was convinced of what I had said to him. After the Mass he wished me to tell him all the particulars of everything, and of the dream. I told them. He remembered that our Lord had often made known to him that he had a mother-in-grace, whom he did not know, and having asked me the time I had had the small-pox, I told him on St. Francis’ Day, and that my younger son died a few days before All Saints. He recognized that it was the very time when our Lord touched him in such an extraordinary way that he was near dying of contrition. This caused him such an interior awakening that, having retired to pray, he was seized with an interior joy and great emotion, which made him enter into what I had said of the way of faith. He ordered me to write for him what the way of faith and the way of illumination were. It was at this time and for him that I wrote the paper “On Faith,” which was considered good. I have no copy; I believe, however, it is still in existence. I neither knew what I was writing, nor what I had written, no more than in the rest which I have since written. I gave it to the Father, who told me he would read it on the way to Aosta. I tell these things without order as they occur to me.

To resume my narrative, as soon as I left Gex they commenced tormenting in a strange way that good girl who had given herself to God, and on account of whom the whole tragedy was played. The ecclesiastic attacked her more vigorously than ever, and to succeed the better, he depicted me in a contemptible aspect in order that, as she has cleverness, the ridicule into which he turned me should make her lose the esteem she entertained for me, and lead her to give herself to his guidance. She still confessed to him, but she was not willing to enter into anything more special with him; on the other hand, the Sisters represented the friendship she had for me as a frightful crime. They tried to make her say what was not fact; she was persecuted incessantly. The Bishop wrote to her to put full confidence in that ecclesiastic. She said that in the height of her trouble she used to see me every night in a dream, that I encouraged her to suffer, and told her what answers she should make. As they have no vows, particularly in the matter of obedience, and she had not been forbidden, she found means of writing a note to me. They discovered her. There was nothing in it beyond a little friendship. The ecclesiastic refused her for a month both absolution and the Communion owing to that note. The Sisters, on the other hand, caused her very great troubles, but God gave her the grace to suffer all. We could have no communications; however, Our Lord still supported her.

After Easter of the year 1682 the Bishop came to Tonon. I had an opportunity of speaking to him when by himself, and our Lord caused that when I had spoken he was satisfied; but the people who had stirred him up against me returned to the charge. He strongly pressed me to return to Gex, and become Superior. I answered him that as to the Superiorship, none could be Superior without having been novice, and as for the binding myself, he himself knew my vocation, and what I had told him both at Paris and Gex; that, notwithstanding, I spoke to him as a Bishop, who held the place of God, and he should be careful to think only of God in what he should say to me; that if, holding this place, he told me to bind myself, I would do it. He remained quite confused, and said to me, “Since you speak to me in this way, I cannot advise it. You cannot go against your vocation; but I pray you confer benefit on that House.” I promised to do so, and when I received my annuity I sent a hundred pistoles, intending to continue the same as long as I remained in the diocese. He withdrew, well pleased, for surely he loves good, and it is a pity he allows himself to be governed as he does. He even said, “I love Father La Combe; he is a true servant of God. He has told me things I cannot doubt, for I felt them in myself. But,” continued he, “when I say this, I am told I deceive myself, and that he will be mad before six months.” It was the discontented monk, the friend of the ecclesiastic, who had said that. This weakness astonished me. He told me he was very well satisfied with the nuns whom Father La Combe had conducted, and was as far as possible from finding any such thing as had been told him. I took the opportunity thereupon to say to him he should in all things rely on himself, and not on others. He agreed. Hardly, however, had he returned, when he again took up his former suspicions. He sent me word by the same ecclesiastic that it was his opinion I should bind myself at Gex. I requested that ecclesiastic to tell him I held to the advice he had given me; that he had spoken to me as from God, and at present they were making him speak as man.

Chapter 2-8

My soul was, as I have said, in an entire self-surrender, and very great contentment in the midst of these violent tempests. She could do nothing but continue in her former indifference, desiring nothing even of God, whether grace or disgrace, sweetness or cross. Formerly she desired the cross with such eagerness as to be quite languishing; then she could neither desire nor choose, but received all the crosses in a uniform spirit, accepting them all with indifference from the hand of Love, whether of one description or another, severe or light: all was welcome. Those persons came and told me a hundred absurdities against Father La Combe, thinking by this to induce me no longer to follow his advice. The more they told me things to his disadvantage, the more our Lord gave me esteem for him in the depth of my heart. I said to them, “Possibly I shall never see him again, but I am quite ready to do him justice. It is not he who prevents my binding myself, but it is because this is not my vocation.” They asked me who knew it better than the Bishop; and they told me I was under deception, that my state was of no account. I was indifferent to that. I could neither be assured nor uncertain. I surrendered myself as one who had nothing to think or wish, having made over to God the care of willing and executing what he wills, and in the manner which he wills.

A soul in this state has no sweetness nor spiritual relish. It would be unseasonable. She remains such as she is in her nothingness as to herself, and this is her place; and in the all as to God, without reference to, or reflection on, herself. She knows not if she has virtues, gifts, and graces in him who is the author of all that; she does not think of it, and can will nothing, and everything that concerns her is, as it were, foreign. She has not even the desire of procuring the glory of God, leaving to God the care of procuring it for himself, and she is in regard to it as pleases him. In this state God sometimes sets her to pray for some soul; but this is done without choice or premeditation, in peace, without desire for success. What does this soul, then? one will ask.

She lets herself be led by providences and by creatures without resistance. Her outside life is quite common, and as for within, she sees nothing there; she has no assurance, either internal or external, and yet she never was more assured. The more hopeless everything, the more is her central depth tranquil, in spite of the ravage of the senses and of creatures, which for some time after the new life makes some slight cloud and partition, as I have said. I should remark that the reason why there occurs a partition is because the soul is only immediately united, not yet transformed; for as soon as she is mingled and entirely passed into her original Being, there is no longer a partition. If she committed sins, she should be rejected and cast out, so to speak. No longer, then, does she find those partitions, however subtle and delicate—I mean, reflections, light and superficial assertions of the selfhood, the actual faults of a previous state, which the soul then clearly enough perceived to be partitions; as well as the impurity which came from human action, a hasty word, natural action or eagerness, which caused a mist that she could neither prevent nor remedy, nor even wish to, having so often found that her own efforts had not only been useless, but also injurious, and that they defiled her the more owing to the state of self-annihilation in which she was.

At the commencement of the way of faith the soul profits from her defects, being by them humiliated through a reflection, simple, peaceful, tranquil, loving the abjectness which she reaps from them. The more she advances the more this simple action, without action, becomes simplified. At last there is no longer a question of this; the soul remains motionless and unshaken, bearing without movement the trouble her fault causes her, without any action whatsoever. It is what God requires from the soul from the time she is completely passive; and this is the conduct he has observed with me from the early years, long before the state of death. But, however faithful the soul to perform no sensible action to get rid of her trouble, there was yet an almost imperceptible action which the soul then did not know, and which she has become acquainted with only because she afterwards has found herself in a state exempt from this simple—nay, very simple action. It is impossible to understand me without experience. This stage is very difficult, and the soul only after many infidelities is strong in this procedure without procedure: for previously, as the fault is real, and the soul feels her impurity, she feels at the same time a secret instinct to rid herself of it; but in this degree which I am now treating, besides that she would find no remedy in anything coming from herself, it is owing to the love of her own excellence that she is led to exert herself. At the degree of which I speak, it is necessary that all purification come from God; one must wait in repose without perceived repose sometimes, for the Sun of Righteousness to dissipate these mists. Eventually this conduct becomes so natural that the soul has not even a desire to do anything. She leaves herself a prey to the interior burnings with an unshaken firmness; and though she should see all hell armed, she would not change the course of guidance. It is then she says with reason, as the royal prophet, “Though I should see an army ranged in battle I would not fear, and their force would redouble my courage.” She may, indeed, have a little fear in the senses, but she remains fixed and firm as a rock, preferring in her perfect abandonment to be the plaything of demons rather than secure herself by a sigh.

In this state the soul commits no voluntary fault: that is my belief; for it is not likely that, having no will for anything whatsoever, great or small, pleasant or bitter—for honour, wealth, life, perfection, salvation, eternity—she should have a will to offend God; therefore it is not so. All her imperfections are in nature, not in herself; therefore it is on the surface, and that is lost gradually. It is true our nature is so deceitful that it insinuates itself everywhere, and the soul is not incapable of sin; but her greatest faults are her reflections, which are here very injurious, as she then wishes to regard herself under pretext even of telling her state. For this reason one should be in no trouble at all to tell one’s state, or to take any count of it, if God does not put into the mind what he wills one to say of it. And when the director knows the state of the soul, he does not require it; if he required it, or actual light on the subject were given him, one should do it without self-regard or reflection. The selfhood’s look is like that of the Basilisk; it kills.

The same firmness which keeps her from stirring under the troubles of her defects, the soul should preserve under temptations. The Devil greatly fears to approach such souls, and he leaves them at once, no longer daring to attack them. He attacks only those who yield, or who fear him. Souls conducted by faith are not ordinarily tried by the demons; that is for souls conducted by illumination. For it is necessary to know that the trials are always suited to the state of the soul.Those who are conducted by illumination, by extraordinary gifts, ecstasies, etc., have also extraordinary trials which are effected by the intervention of demons; for, as everything with them is in the line of assurance, the trial even is an assurance. But it is not the same with the souls of simple faith: as they are conducted by nakedness, self-annihilation, and by what is commonplace, their trial is also quite commonplace; but that is far more terrible, and destroys the selfhood more. That which causes its death for them is nothing extraordinary, it is only the disturbance of their own temperament; they are troubles they regard as veritable faults, which give them no assurance unless it be that of their total self-annihilation. These two states are found in St. Paul; he says in one place, “An angel of Satan was given to him to buffet him, that he should not be exalted above measure.” Here is the trial suitable to the illumination. But as this great doctor and master of spiritual life had to experience all states, he does not remain there; he has another trial which he calls “a thorn of the flesh,” to show that he has experience of all. “He prayed,” he says, “three times,” and it was said to him, “My grace is enough, for virtue is perfected in weakness.” All this though to humiliate him, yet acted in the way of assurance. However, because these revelations were assured, he has experienced another state which he calls “the body of sin;” and this expression is admirable, for as after death the body decays only from its own corruption, so in this state it seems that the soul experiences the exhalations from the body of sin, that is, from a body corrupted by sin. “Miserable!” says he, “who shall deliver me from the body of death?”—for I feel that it is a body which carries in itself death, and to which I would be unable to give life; and then, convinced of his inability to deliver himself from so great an ill, having deplored his wretchedness, which then is without assurance and with knowledge of his powerlessness—“Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (from this body stinking and corrupt, which I carry, though I am living)—he answers himself: “It will be the grace of God by our Lord Jesus Christ.” And how do you understand that, Paul? It is that Jesus Christ, taking in me the place of my sinful and carnal man, stripping me of that old man, of that body corrupted by sin, will clothe me anew, because he has vanquished death in me, when he said, “O death, I will be thy death; hell, I will be thy destruction.” When Jesus Christ shall have conquered in me death by his life, and in this wonderful duel life shall have surmounted my death, there will be no longer any sting in death, since there will no longer be any sin; and it is then that grace shall deliver me from this body of sin by Jesus Christ my Saviour.

I say, then, that the same firmness which one should have in regard to defects and temptations, so as not to give an opening to the Devil, one should have in regard to gifts and graces. In this state everything is so inward that nothing is perceived. But if anything falls upon the senses the soul is steadfast in letting the grace come and go, making no movement, however simple, either to relish or to recognize it. She leaves everything as though it was passing in another, without taking any part in it. At the commencement, and for a considerable time, the soul sees that nature wishes to take its part, and then her fidelity consists in restraining it, without permitting it the least expansion; but after the habit of restraining it has enabled her to remain immovable, and as if it were a thing that did not affect her, she no longer regards anything, she no longer appropriates to herself anything, and she lets all flow by into God in purity, as it has come forth from him. Until the soul be in this state, she always in some degree defiles by her intermixture the operation of God, like those streams which contract corruption from the places through which they flow; but as soon as the same streams flow in a pure place, they then continue in the purity of their source. This much destroys nature, and drives it out from its abode, leaving it no refuge; but, short of experience, and unless God made known this conduct to the soul, she cannot understand it, or picture it in imagination, owing to its great simplicity. The mind is empty, is no longer traversed by thoughts; nothing occupies a certain void which is no longer painful, and the soul discovers in herself an immense capacity, which nothing can either limit or obstruct. External employments are no longer a trouble, and the soul is in a state of stability, which cannot be expressed, and which will be little understood. Oh, if souls had courage enough to allow themselves to be annihilated without pitying themselves, without looking to anything, supporting themselves on anything, what progress would they not make? But no one is willing to leave land, at most one advances some paces; but as soon as the sea is disturbed one fears, casts anchor, and often gives up the voyage. The love of the selfhood causes all these disorders. It is further of consequence here not to look to one’s state, following the counsel of the Bridegroom to the bride: “Turn your eyes from me, for they make me flyaway;” not only to avoid losing courage, but also because of the self-love, which is so rooted that the soul often discovers its life and the empire it would assume by a certain complaisance and preference for her state. Often, also, the idea one conceives of the grandeur of one’s state makes one wish the same perfection in others. One conceives too low an idea of others; one finds it a trouble to converse with unspiritual people. It is not the same with the soul thoroughly abandoned and dead; she would rather converse with devils by the order of providence than converse with angels of her own choice.

For this reason she knows not what to choose, neither state nor condition, however perfect they may be. She is content with everything she has; she keeps herself at peace wherever she is placed, high or low, in one country or in another; all that she has is all that is needed for her to be fully content; she could not be in trouble at the absence, nor rejoiced at the presence, of persons the most devoted to God, and who might seem most necessary to her, and in whom she has entire confidence; because she is entirely satisfied, and she has all that is needed, though everything be wanting to her. It is this which makes her not seek to see people or to speak, but receive the providences both for the one and the other, without which there is always something of the human, however fair the pretext with which we cover ourselves. The soul feels very well that all which is done by choice and election, and not by providence, instead of aiding, hurts her, or at least brings her little fruit.

But what is it which makes this soul so perfectly content? She knows not. She is content without knowing the subject of her contentment, and without wishing to know it, but content in a way that is vast, immense, independent of external events; more content in the humiliations of her own neediness and the rejection of all creatures in the order of providence, than upon the throne, by her own choice. If a sigh were needed to set her free from the most fearful place she would not give it.

O you alone who conduct these souls, and who can teach these ways, so self-annihilating, and so contrary to the ordinary spirit of devotion, full of itself and its own discoveries, conduct thus souls without number, that you may be loved purely! These are the souls which alone love you as you wish to be loved. All other love, however great and ardent it may appear, is not PURE LOVE, but a love mingled with something of the selfhood. These souls can no longer of themselves practise austerities, nor desire them; but they perform with indifference what they are directed to practise. They have nothing extraordinary on the outside, and their life is most common; they do not think of humiliating themselves, letting themselves be such as they are, for the state of annihilation in which they are is below all humility. Such souls should not be judged by those who are still in the state of perfecting themselves through their exertions, for they would often take for pride the simplicity in which these persons, free from everything of the selfhood, speak of everything, and of themselves. But let them know it is not so: that these souls are the delight of God, who says, “His delight is to be with the children of men;” that is to say, these souls quite childlike and innocent. They are very far from pride, being unable to attribute to themselves aught but nothingness and sin, and they are so one with God that they see only him, and all things in him. They would publish the graces of God with the same readiness as they would tell their own paltrinesses; they tell both indifferently, according as God allows them, and as may be useful for the good of souls.

Those reserves, so good and so holy at a time when our Lord consecrates by a profound silence all his graces and the troubles (as one may see he did in my case), would be an act of selfhood for the soul of which I am speaking, for she is above herself. While the soul is still in the solitude of herself it is necessary she should be content with silence and repose; but then it is necessary for her to pass beyond that, and so strongly raise herself above herself that at last she loses herself in God, and therewith all things; and it is then she no longer knows her virtues as virtues, but she has them all in God as from God, without reference or relation to herself. It is for this reason those who are still in themselves ought not to measure the liberty of these souls, nor compare it with their own restricted action, though the latter be very virtuous and suitable to them; but they should understand that what makes the perfection of their state would be imperfect for the souls of which I am speaking.

That which makes the perfection of one state always constitutes the imperfection and commencement of the following state. It is here as in the degrees of the sciences; he who finishes a class and is perfect in it, is imperfect in that which succeeds. He must give up the way of acting which made him perfect in his class, to enter into another quite different. St. Paul so well says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I acted as a child.” And that was the perfection of the state of childhood, which has a hundred charms; but when one is become a mature man things change their aspect. St. Paul speaks of it again in another way, when speaking of the law (which may also be applied to laws of perfection, that one imposes on himself); he says: “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” That law, then, and that perfection which one imposes on himself, and which our Lord even makes us practise, is very necessary to get to Jesus Christ, but when Jesus Christ is become our life, the schoolmaster who has been so useful to us becomes useless; and if we desired still to follow him, we should not sufficiently give ourselves up to be led by Jesus Christ, and we should never enter into the perfect liberty of the children of God, which is born from the Spirit of God.

When we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God, he makes us enter into the liberty of his children adopted in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty,” because “he gives not his Spirit to us by measure;” for those whom he has predestinated to be his free children, them he has called, and those whom he has called he has justified. It is, then, he who operates in them that righteousness which is conformable to their call. But to what has he destined those cherished souls? “To be conformed to the image of his Son.” Oh, it is here is the great secret of that call and that justification, and the reason why so few souls arrive at that state. It is because there one is predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son of God. But some one will say, Are not all Christians called to be conformed to the image of the Son of God? Yes, everyone is called to be conformed to it in something, for if a Christian did not bear on him the image of Jesus Christ he would not be saved, since he is saved only by this character. But the souls of which I speak are destined to bear Jesus Christ himself, and to be conformed to him in all, and the more perfect their conformity, the more perfect are they. It will be seen in the sequel of what I have to write, how it has pleased our Lord to make my soul conformed to himself.

It is in these souls that God engenders his Word. He makes them bear the inclinations of that same Word, without the soul discovering in herself those same inclinations during a very long time. But when light is given either for speaking or for writing, the soul knows very well that as Jesus Christ has led a common, and apparently natural life, without anything extraordinary, except at the close of his life, such a soul also has nothing extraordinary during a very long time. The guidance of providence blindly followed constitutes all her way and her life, becoming all to all, her heart daily becoming more vast to bear her neighbour, however faulty he may be: and she sees clearly that when she prefers the virtuous to the faulty, she commits a fault by preferring a certain sympathy to the order of God. Until one has arrived at this, one is little suited for helping one’s neighbour: it is only then one commences to aid him effectively. This is difficult, and one has trouble to accept it at first, because one regards this mode of acting as loss of time, defect, amusement; but the soul in which Jesus Christ lives, and of which he is the way, the light, the truth, and the life, sees these things in a different manner. She no longer finds any creature antipathetic or difficult to bear; she bears them through the heart of Jesus Christ.

It is here commences the Apostolic life. But is every one called to this state? Very few, as far as I can understand, and even of the few who are called to it, few walk in it in true purity. The souls in passive illumination and extraordinary gifts, though holy and quite seraphic, do not enter into this way. There is a way of illumination—a holy life, where the creature appears quite admirable. As this life is more apparent, it is also the more esteemed by those who have not the purest lights. These persons have striking things in their life; they have a fidelity and a courage which astonish, and it is this which wonderfully adorns the life of the saints. But the souls which walk in this other path are little known. God despoils them, weakens them, strips them naked bit by bit, so that, depriving them of every support and every hope, they are obliged to lose themselves in him. They have nothing great which is apparent, hence it comes that the greater their interior is, the less they can speak of it, because (as one may remark from what has been said) for a very long time they can see there only want and poverty; afterwards they no longer see themselves. The greatest saints, the most interior are those of whom people have spoken least. As to the Holy Virgin, it is true there was nothing more to be said, after saying she was the Mother of God, her maternity including all the possible perfection of a pure creature; but look at St. Joseph, the Magdalen, St. Scholastica, and so many others—what is said of them? Nothing at all. St. Joseph has passed a part of his life in carpentry. What an employment for the husband of the mother of a God! Jesus Christ just the same. Oh, if I could express what I conceive of this state! but I can only stammer. I have wandered from my narrative; but I am not my own mistress.

Chapter 2-9

BEING, as I have said, at the Ursulines of Tonon, after I had spoken to the Bishop of Geneva, and saw how he changed as he was influenced by others, I wrote some letters to him and to Father La Mothe; but as I saw it was useless, and he was thereby more embittered, and the more I tried to clear up matters, the more trouble the ecclesiastic took to embroil them, I let things be, without further action. I saw the tempest about to break upon our heads without being able to prevent it. I had dreamed that I was drawing a cord which at first seemed of diamond, and afterwards appeared to me to be of iron, and at the same time seeing a terrible storm fall upon my head, I gave myself up to the mercy of the waves. I saw clearly the crosses which were springing up from every side, and my soul remained in a profound peace, waiting for the blows which she could not avoid. I had not done the least thing to draw it upon me, and I watched the torrent rushing down without having contributed to the storm. As I saw I had not contributed to it, and that there was nothing for me to do but to suffer, I kept quiet, without troubling myself as to success. One day they came and told me that this ecclesiastic had again gained over the poor girl I much loved, and who had already cost me much; at the same time they gave me a means of hindering him, but this human mode of acting was repugnant to my inmost spirit, and those words, “Except the Lord,” etc., were suggested to me. I sacrificed her as well as the rest to God. But our Lord, who had permitted this only to detach me from a love I had for her perfection, provided for the matter himself, and prevented her connecting herself with him in a manner the more admirable as it was more natural, and more contrary to their intentions. Afterwards God made this worthy girl see that he had extricated her with a quite fatherly goodness. I did not conceal from her what she had cost me, for assuredly the case was such that I would not have felt so much the death of one of my children as her destruction. While I was with her she was always vacillating, and one could not make sure of her, so that as regards her, one had to live by trust; but—O goodness and infinite power of my God, to save without us what we should lose without you!—no sooner was I at a distance from her than she became steadfast.

For me, there was hardly a day passed that they did not put upon me new insults, and make attacks quite unexpected. The New Catholics, on the report of the Bishop, the ecclesiastic, and the Sisters of Gex, stirred up against me all people of piety. I was not much affected by that. If I could have been at all, it would have been because everything was thrown upon Father La Combe, although he was absent; and they made use even of his absence, to destroy all the good he had done in the country by his missions and sermons, which was very great. The Devil gained much in this business. I could not, however, pity this good Father, remarking herein the conducting of God, who desired to annihilate him. At the commencement I committed faults by a too great anxiety and eagerness to justify him, conceiving it simple justice. I did not the same for myself, for I did not justify myself; but our Lord made me understand I should do for the Father what I did for myself, and allow him to be destroyed and annihilated; for thereby he would derive a far greater glory than he had done from all his reputation.

Every day they invented some new calumny; there was no trick or invention they did not use against me. They came to see me, to try and surprise me in my words, but God guarded me so well that they were themselves taken. I had no consolation from creatures, for the Sister who was in charge of my daughter became my greatest cross. She said I had come too late. There are persons who are only ruled by their lights, and when they do not see things succeed, as they judge only by the success, and do not like the affront of having their lights doubted, they seek elsewhere something to support themselves by. For me, having no light, I did not trouble myself about success, and I found success enough when things tended to destroy us. On the other hand, the maid I had brought, and who remained with me, gave me very great troubles; she was unhappy, and wished to return; she opposed and condemned me from morning to night, representing the wealth I had given up, and that I was useless there. She made me bear all the ill-tempers her discontent gave birth to. Father La Mothe wrote me that I was rebelling against my Bishop, that I remained in his diocese only to cause him trouble. Besides, I saw that there was nothing for me to do in this diocese as long as the Bishop should be opposed to me. I did what I could to win him, but it was impossible to succeed without entering into the engagement he desired, and that was impossible for me. This, joined to the defective education of my daughter, sometimes threw my senses into agony; but the central depth of my soul was so tranquil that I could neither wish nor resolve on anything, letting myself be as though these things had no existence. When some little ray of hope came to me, it was at once taken away, and despair constituted my strength.

During this time Father La Combe was at Rome, where, far from being blamed, he was received with so much honour, and his doctrine so esteemed that the Sacred Congregation did him the honour to take his views on certain points of doctrine, and found them so sound and clear that it followed them. While he was at Rome the Sister would not look after my daughter, and when I undertook the care of her, she was offended; so that I knew not what to do. On the one hand I did not wish to hurt her, and on the other I endured much in seeing my daughter as she was. I urgently entreated this Sister to look after her, and not to allow her to acquire bad habits; but I could not even get her to promise me to exert herself. I thought when Father La Combe returned he would put everything to right, or would give me some consolation; not that I wished for him, for I could neither be afflicted at his absence, nor wish for his return. Sometimes I was faithless enough to desire to examine myself, and see what I might wish, but I found nothing, not even to go to Geneva. I was like the mad people who know not what is fit for them.

When it was known at home that I was at the Ursulines, and had left Gex, and that I was much persecuted, M. de Monpezat, Archbishop of Sens, who had a great kindness for me, knowing that my sister, an Ursuline of his diocese, was obliged to go to the waters for a species of paralysis, gave her his authority to go there, and also to go into the diocese of Geneva, to remain with me at the Ursulines, or to bring me back with her. On the other hand, the Ursulines of Tonon expressed a wish to adopt the constitutions of those of Paris, and that my sister should bring them. She came then, and God made use of her to bring me a maid whom he desired to give me of his own pleasure, to fashion in his mode, and to be suitable for me. My sister came to me with this good girl in the month of July, 1682. Our Lord sent her to me quite at the right moment for teaching my daughter to read, and looking after her a little. I had already taught her so that she read even in Scripture, but during the time I had left her they had given her such a bad accent that it was piteous. My sister mended all that; but if she procured me this advantage in the care of my daughter, she caused me many crosses, for from the first she took a dislike to the Sister who looked after my daughter, and the Sister to her, so that they could not agree. I did what I could to reconcile them, but besides that I could not succeed, the very care I took made my sister believe I had more affection for that Sister than for her, which hurt her extremely; although it was not at all the case, for I had much to suffer from her myself, of which I said nothing; but it grieved me to see a disturbance where I had tasted so profound a peace. The maid I had brought, and who was discontented with that Sister and with being there, because she wanted to return to her relatives, embroiled things still more. She made my sister share in her disgust. It is true my sister practised virtue, and endured certain things which seemed to outrage reason; for she could not understand that, seeing she was a very aged Sister and a stranger, she ought to submit to a Sister still in noviciate, who was in her own House and of very humble origin. I made her see what Jesus Christ had suffered. What astonished me extremely was, that I succeeded better with my sister, who was not at all spiritual, than with the other, who thought herself very exalted in gifts and illumination, and yet whom it was impossible to make change when she had once taken up an idea.

I have learned, O my God, from her, that it is not the greatest gifts which sanctify, if they are not accompanied by a profound humility, and that death to all things is infinitely more useful to us; and this very girl, who believed herself at the height of perfection, has seen from the experiences which afterwards befell her, that she was very far from it, O my God, how true it is that one may have your gifts and be yet very imperfect and full of self; but how necessary it is to be pure and small to pass into you, O true Life! Jesus Christ has told us with a sigh, “Oh, how narrow the gate that leads to life!” Oh, how narrow is the gate which leads to that life in God, and how necessary it is to be small and stripped of all to pass by it! But as soon as one has passed through this narrow door, which is nothing else than death to ourselves, what largeness one finds! David said, O my God, that you had placed him in a large place, and that you had saved him. Salvation is found in the loss of all things. “You have led me,” he says, “into spacious places.” What are these spacious places if it is not yourself, Infinite Being, principle of all being, where all beings end? But in what manner, David, have you been led into these spacious places? Through the mud, nothingness, elevation, and abasement. He says it: “You have lifted me up to the clouds, then you have broken me altogether. I have been in a depth of mud, from which I could not get out. I have been reduced to nothingness, and I have not known it.” He was ignorant of himself. Is it not said elsewhere, “I am destroyed”? It is, then, through ways so bare, so annihilating, that one finds this immense largeness; it is through the “nothing” that one finds “the all.”

After Father La Combe arrived he came to see me, and wrote to the Bishop to know if he approved of my making use of him, and confessing to him as I had done before. The Bishop sent me word to do so, and thus I did it in all possible submissiveness. In his absence I always confessed to the confessor of the House. The first thing he said to me was that all his lights were deceptions, and that I might return. I did not know why he said this. He added that he could not see an opening to anything, and therefore it was not probable God had anything for me to do in that country. These words were the first greeting he gave me. They neither astonished me nor caused me any trouble, for it was a matter of indifference to me to be good for anything, or not to be; that God wished to employ me on anything for his glory, or that he did not wish to employ me for anything—all was alike to me, whether he made use of me or of another. Wherefore these words only confirmed me in my peace. What can a soul fear which wishes nothing, which can desire nothing? If she could have any pleasure, it would be to be the plaything of providence.

The Bishop of Geneva wrote to Father La Mothe to engage him to cause me to return. Father La Mothe sent me word of it, but the Bishop assured me that it was not so. I did not know whom to believe. When Father La Combe proposed to me to return, I felt some slight repugnance in the senses, which did not last long. The soul cannot but allow herself to be led by obedience, not that she regards obedience as a virtue, but it is that she can neither be otherwise, nor wish to do otherwise; she allows herself to be drawn along without knowing why or how, as a person who should allow himself to be carried along by the current of a rapid river. She cannot apprehend deception, nor even make a reflection thereon. Formerly it was by self-surrender, but in her present state it is without knowing or understanding what she does, like a child whom its mother might hold over the waves of a disturbed sea, and who fears nothing, because it neither sees nor knows the danger; or like a madman who casts himself into the sea without fear of destroying himself. It is not that exactly, for to cast one’s self is an “own” action, which here the soul is without. She finds herself there, and she sleeps in the vessel without dreading the danger. It was a long time since any means of support had been sent me. Untroubled and without any anxiety for the future, unable to fear poverty and famine, I saw myself stripped of everything, unprovided for, and without papers.

The first Lent that I passed at the Ursulines I had three times a very painful affection of the eyes, for the same abscess that I had had before broke out afresh three times. The air and the badly shut room where I was, together with the Lenten fare, contributed materially thereto. It is true that all this time I suffered very severe pains, my head was horribly swollen, and with that neither help nor consolation. But what am I saying? My joy and my consolation, was it not in my pain and in the most strange desolation? Yes, surely. It was a peculiar thing to see numbers of good souls who did not know me, love me and pity me, and all the rest animated against me like mad people, without knowing me, and without knowing why they were so. For the crown of my affliction my daughter fell dangerously ill. My sister had not yet come; there was apparently no hope of her life, and then her mistress also fell ill. The doctors had exhausted their remedies. I saw everything we had hoped thereby overthrown; nevertheless, I could not suffer nor have any care for the future. My abandonment without abandonment devoured everything.

Amidst so many trials, which increased each day, and which, far from appearing on the decline, seemed only commencing—as it turned out, in fact—amidst such trials, I say, my soul continued in the same immobility. She desired neither succour nor assurance; the abandonment of creatures, and even of God, constituted all my strength, without strength of my own. O God, when you are the absolute master of a heart, it can have neither trouble nor anxiety; it is you alone who fill all its desires. The heart which you fully possess has none, and it is so peaceable that peace is all its food. It seems that this soul is herself peace. St. Catherine of Genoa had experienced this when she said that she was so penetrated with peace that it went to the marrow of her bones. This peace itself, as I have already said, is quite different from that of previous times; for formerly the peace was more savoury and more perceived, but here it is no longer perceived; none the less, it is infinitely more extended, more stable, more at its source, since, as I have said, this peace is God himself. O expanse of the soul! O wonderful vastness! Thou canst indeed comprehend, but of God alone wilt thou ever be comprehended! O Love, though there should never be other recompense for the little services we render than this fixed state, above all vicissitudes, is it not enough? The senses are sometimes like vagabond children which run about, but they do not trouble the central depth, which is quite annihilated, quite stripped, no longer hindered by anything, as it is no longer supported by anything. The way by which God here conducts the soul is so utterly different from what is ordinarily supposed, that unless God himself makes it known, it cannot be understood.

When I speak of a state fixed and firm in the central depth, I do not pretend that one may no longer fall or stumble (which is true only of heaven); I call it permanent and fixed in relation to the states which have preceded, full as they are of vicissitudes and variations. Nor do I mean to exclude a state of suffering in the senses and the inferior part, or which comes from some superficial impurity, that remains to be cleansed, and that may be compared to gold which has been thoroughly purified in the substance, but which may contract some dirt on the outside. This gold no longer needs purifying in the fire, for it has undergone all the radical purification that he who uses it thought proper for the use to which it is to be put; but as it is tarnished outside, it sometimes needs to be cleaned externally. That was my then state.

There is still a suffering in this state inflicted by God himself, and which can come only from him. All external conflicts are incapable of causing the least suffering in the centre, however light; they only pass lightly and touch the skin. These souls can suffer no pains but what are inflicted by the hand of God, as was the case with Jesus Christ; no sufferings but those God operates, either to make them conformable to him, or for the neighbour’s sake, as I shall hereafter explain. The practice as from the selfhood of the least good deed, or resistance to anything God should wish of them, would be the source of terrible pains. But the self-surrendered soul, which does not resume her selfhood, has nothing to suffer in the state which she has here reached, either from men or devils, although they discharge on her all their rage. It is against such a soul that all hell is stirred up. All this, however, does not properly constitute suffering, and those enemies would have no power, if it was not given them from on high. The true suffering is the application of the hand of God as in Jesus Christ. The Father applied all the force of his arm to make him suffer. He bore the weight of all the avenging justice of a God, and it needed a God to bear the weight of a just and avenging God. It needs, therefore, a soul transformed in God to bear the weight of Jesus Christ, Man-God, crushed by the weight of the justice of his Father. These are the souls which are destined to be victims of the justice of God, to bear all its weight, and to finish “what remains wanting of the suffering of Jesus Christ.” But what was wanting to your suffering, O my Lord? Has not all been finished? You have said it yourself. Oh, it was the extension of your passion in your members. The souls of which I speak bear very strong sufferings without the peace of their central depth being altered or interrupted in the very least, and that peace, however great, does not diminish anything of the force of the suffering; for it is necessary to bear Jesus Christ, Man-God, the most suffering and the most happy of men, since he was God of glory, yet suffering. There may be at the same time perfect peace and contentment, and an excessive suffering. Jesus Christ in the garden is the expression of it, where he suffered excessively from the abandonment of God the Father, and the weight of the sins of all men. There are even sufferings so excessive that the senses weep and cry, and desire their deliverance, without, however, taking anything from that central depth of peace and unity with God’s will, which is the greater as it is less perceived.

Chapter 2-10

My daughter recovered her health. I must tell how this happened. She had smallpox, and the purples. They brought a doctor from Geneva, who gave her up in despair. They made Father La Combe come in to take her confession; he gave her his blessing, and at the same instant the smallpox and the purples disappeared, and the fever left her. The doctor, though a Protestant, offered to give a certificate of a miracle. But although my daughter was restored, my crosses were not lessened, owing to her bad education. The persecutions on the part of the New Catholics continued, and became even more violent, without my ceasing on that account to do them all the good I could. What caused me some pain was that the mistress of my daughter came often to converse with me. I saw so much imperfection in these conversations, although spiritual, that I could not avoid making it known to her, and as this hurt her, I was weak enough to be pained at paining her, and to continue out of mere complacency things which I saw to be very imperfect.

Father La Combe introduced order in many things regarding my daughter; but the mistress was so hurt that the friendship she had for me changed into coolness and distance. However, as she had grace, she readily got over it; but her natural character carried her away. I told her my thoughts on the defects I perceived in her because I was ordered to do so; and although at the moment God enlightened her to see the truth of what I said, and that she was afterwards still more enlightened, it all the same made her grow cool. The discussions between her and my sister became stronger and more bitter. Herein I admired the conduct of God and the cleverness he gave my daughter, who was only six and a half years of age: she found out by her little attentions the means of pleasing them both, preferring to do her little exercises twice over so as to do them first with the one, then with the other. This did not last long, for as the mistress generally neglected her, and at one time did things, another time not, she was reduced to learning merely what my sister and I taught her. It is true that the vivacity of my sister is so excessive that it is difficult without a special grace to get on with her; but it seemed to me that she conquered herself in many things. Formerly I had difficulty to put up with her ways, but in the end I loved all in God.

When I say that these differences caused me pain, it is a way of explaining myself, for I looked upon them, like the rest, as permitted by God; so that I was satisfied. Formerly my greatest pain would have been to cause suffering to any one, but then I should have been as content in the order of God to be the cross of the whole world, as to be myself crucified by it. I had, however, a certain instinct to soften matters, and I did it as much as I could. You had given me, O my God, a facility to bear the defects of my neighbour, and a great address for pleasing him, a compassion of his wretchedness which I had not previously. O God, you alone can give this boundless charity. I bore more easily the very great defects of imperfect souls than certain defects, which did not appear to be anything, in the souls which God wished to make perfect. I felt my heart enlarge in compassion for the former, and a certain firmness towards the others, so as not to tolerate them in defects which are all the more dangerous as they are the less suspected, owing to their subtility. Although it seems my own abjectness ought to impose silence on me, I could not refrain from reproving these souls for their defects; otherwise I suffered much. I have suffered not a little for the imperfections of certain souls which God made me feel, and the suffering of whose purification he imposed on me. I will soon tell something of it. The more eminent in grace the soul of which we are treating, the more closely united to me, the greater also is the weight and the suffering which I bear. I see their central depth and their defects (I speak of radical defects, for the others do not astonish me, nor even cause me any trouble)—I see them, I say, as if they were externally uncovered. This sight does not diminish the esteem I have for the person, but it makes me know what is wanting to him, and often engages me to tell him.

I have no trouble in using complacence with imperfect persons: on the contrary, without knowing why, I am led to behave so with them, and I should feel guilty if I failed in it; but with souls of grace I cannot maintain this mere human action, and I cannot endure long and frequent conversations. It is a thing which few people are capable of understanding, and which is little known. Spiritual persons say that these conversations are very useful. I think that is true at one time, not at another, and there is a time when they hurt, especially when it is by choice, our human inclination corrupting everything; so that the same things which would be useful to us when God allows us to be led into them by his providence become defective when we do them of ourselves. This appears to me so clear that it seems to me if by obedience or order of providence I passed all the day with devils, I should be less wearied thereby than by being an hour with a spiritual person from human choice or inclination; and this is so true that, however dead nature may appear when it makes choice of one person rather than another (because he pleases) to converse with unnecessarily, the soul perceives that nature has had a part in it, that she has some pain in separating from him, and that she would rather be with this person than with another—a thing which is an act of selfhood, contrary to a supreme indifference and total abandonment. When it is necessity or providence, any conformity or inclination we may have with it does no harm, for the order and will of God purify all things.

Divine providence constitutes all the rule and guidance of a soul lost in God, and as such a soul can have no eye to herself either to regard herself, or to be on her guard, she may be troubled from the fact of committing faults without being able either to foresee them, or to defend herself from them. But let her leave herself to be led by providence at every moment, and she will find that, without thinking of it, she will perform everything well, and will have all that is necessary for her; for God, to whom she has trusted herself, makes her do at each moment what he desires of her, and furnishes the suitable occasions for this. When I say that she will perform everything well, it is from God’s point of view, who loves what is of his order and his will, but not according to the idea of man, or of reason, even of that which is illuminated, for God conceals these persons from all eyes in order to keep them for himself. But whence comes it, then, that souls of this degree do not cease to commit faults? It is that they are not faithful in giving themselves up at the present moment. Often, even from wishing to be too faithful, you will see very advanced souls commit many faults, which they can neither foresee nor avoid. In truth, they cannot foresee them, and it would be a lack of fidelity for them to wish to do so; and as they are in a great forgetfulness of themselves, neither can they avoid them. What then? Is it that God deserts those souls who trust in him? By no means; God would sooner perform a miracle to hinder them from falling, if they were so self-surrendered. But they all appear to be so. It is true that they are so as to the will of being so, but they are not so as to the present moment; hence, being outside the order of God, they fall and fall again as long as they are outside this divine order, and as soon as they return to it, everything goes on very well.

And assuredly if the souls of this degree were faithful enough to allow no moment of the order of God for them to escape, they would not fall in this way. This appears to me clearer than the day. For example, a bone dislocated and out of the place where the economy of divine wisdom had placed it, does not cease to pain until it is back again in its natural order. Whence come so many troubles, so many conflicts? It is that the soul has not been willing to remain in her place, nor to content herself with what she has and what happens to her from moment to moment. It is the same in the order of grace as in that of nature. Even the Devil would suffer more out of Hell against the order of God than in Hell. Hence it comes that there is mercy even in Hell; and St. Catherine of Genoa asserts that if the soul dying in mortal sin did not find Hell, which is the proper place for her state, she would be in greater torments than those which she feels in that place, and it is this which causes her impetuosity to precipitate herself into it.

If men knew this secret they would be fully content and satisfied. But, oh, too deplorable misfortune! in place of being content with what one has, one is always wishing for what one has not. But when it pleases God to enlighten the soul on this, she commences to be in Paradise. What is it constitutes Paradise? It is the order of God, which makes all the saints infinitely content, though very unequal in glory. Whence comes it that the poor, who want everything, are so content, and that kings, who have everything in abundance, are so unhappy? It is that the man who knows not how to content himself with what he has, will never be without desires, and he who desires anything will never be content.

All souls have desires more or less strong except those which are in the divine moment. There are even great souls which only have them almost imperceptible; others who have them so great that they are the admiration of those who know them. Some languish upon the earth because they burn to go to see God; others long for suffering—are consumed with an ardour for martyrdom; others for the salvation of their neighbour. All this is very excellent; but he who contents himself with the divine moment, although exempt from all these desires is infinitely more content, and glorifies God more.

It is not that in the moment of suffering, since it is then the order of God, the desire of what one has does not accompany the thing itself. It is written of Jesus Christ, when he drove out from the temple those who profaned it, “The zeal of your house has devoured me,” and it was in that moment the order of God that those words should have their effect; for besides then, how many times had not Jesus Christ been at the temple without such desires? Does he not say himself on different occasions that his hour was not yet come? Many saints, like St. Andrew, declare their desire for the Cross when they possess it.

The saints in heaven always desire God and always possess him. It is not properly a desire of these things, it is an appetite, which the present good gives birth to, and which, far from causing pain and inquietude, augments the pleasure of the enjoyment. This desire is looked upon as a flight, or a step forward of the Spirit. The desire of the angels is an advancement in God, whence it comes that they enjoy continually and ceaselessly advance in the enjoyment, discovering new beauties in God, which ravish them, without eternity being able ever to exhaust those treasures, ever new, of that beauty, ever ancient and ever new. They will still know what from the first they knew, and every instant there will be novelties which will charm, and will make them enter into new enjoyments. This is what the desires of the angels mean.

St. Catherine of Genoa asserts that a soul in purgatory could not desire her deliverance, for this would be an imperfection savouring of selfhood, of which these souls are not capable. They remain immersed in the divine order without being capable of reflecting on themselves. She, doubtless, means to speak of that desire which carries with it a reflection tainted by the selfhood, that regards the advantage of its own soul; this desire, being outside the divine order and disposition for those souls, would trouble their tranquillity, and place them in an actual imperfection of which they are absolutely incapable. But as to the radical instinct, which they have to return to their Centre, and which is in their nature, it is so strong, yet peaceful, that it would be capable of annihilating those souls if they were not sustained by a divine virtue. As to desires, taken as products of their will, they have none; but the instinct of union with their Origin is so strong that it is this which constitutes their true torment, hindered as they are from following it by their imperfections. For the inclination of the soul to her Centre is so strong that all the impetuosities, which we see in other inanimate creatures to return to theirs, are not a shadow of the tendency the soul has to her Goal. The reason is to be found in the eminence of the Centre, which has in itself a quality the more attracting as it is more excellent.

The excellence of God being infinite, it is easy to judge of the force of his attraction. The nobleness of the soul which tends only to her elevation, causes her to have a very powerful momentum towards her Centre, and from this infinite attraction of God, as well as from the tendency of the soul to follow that central attraction, one may judge of the pain of souls in purgatory, who are arrested more or less, according as the obstacles, which hinder them from losing themselves in God, are more or less strong.

This is also the pain of damnation to the souls who are in Hell—a pain the greater as it is accompanied with despair of ever being able to be united to their Centre, the end of their creation; for eternally they will be attracted by God with an extreme violence, and repulsed by him with greater force. It is the severest torment of the damned—a torment inconceivable.

The cause why we do not feel in this life this heavy weight that retards and that powerful attraction for our Centre, is to be found in the body, which, while amusing itself with created objects, causes a diversion, and withdraws the attention of the soul, so that she does not feel that attracting virtue of the Centre, except by an inquietude that hinders her finding any repose on earth. A soul truly lost in God would suffer all possible pains in peace, and without any reflection on herself, as well because she would be sunk: in the order and the will of God, as because, being in the central repose, she could not suffer inquietude; which, however, does not prevent suffering in itself and very strong, just as perfect self-surrender does not hinder the suffering of souls in purgatory. I believe it is the same in purification in the other life as in suffering in this. There the souls let themselves be purified by God in perfect passivity, allowing the flames to do what God commands without self-regard or reflection. Here the souls lost in God allow themselves to be purified by God without putting a hand to it, allowing themselves to be devoured by the eternal fire their faults cause them. And like as a soul in purgatory, when she has no longer anything to purify, suffers no longer in the flames, so when God by his divine activity has purified the defects of the creature, the pain ceases, and the soul feels that she is restored to her place; and as in purgatory souls suffer more or less, according as they have more or less to purify, so in this state the soul after her fall suffers more or less, according to the quality of the fault. I have terribly digressed.

(End of year 1682.)

Chapter 2-11

AFTER Father La Combe had returned from Rome much praised for his doctrine, he performed the duties of preaching and confessing as usual, and as I had for myself a permission from the Bishop of Geneva to confess to him, I made use of him. He at once told me I should return, as I have said. I asked him the reason. It is, he said, because I believe God will do nothing by you here, and my lights are deceptive. What made him speak thus was that while at Loretto, at devotion in the chapel of the Holy Virgin, he was suddenly withdrawn from the way of illumination and put into the way of simple faith. Now, as this state causes a failure of all distinct light, the soul which finds herself plunged in it finds herself in a trouble so much the greater as her state had been more full of lights. It is this which makes her think all the lights on which she previously supported herself to be nothing but deceptions. This is true in one sense, and not in another, since the lights are always good and true lights when they come from God; but it is that in resting on them we understand them or interpret them ill: and it is in this lies the deception, for they have a signification known to God, but we give them a different sense; then the self-love, disgusted that things do not happen according to its lights, accuses them of falsity. They are, nevertheless, very true in their sense. For example, a nun had told Father La Combe that God had caused her to know that the Father would one day be confessor of his Sovereign. In one sense this might be taken to mean that he would be confessor or director of the Princess, and it was in this sense it was understood; but I was given to know that it meant the persecution, where he has had occasion to confess his faith, and to suffer for the will of God, which is his Sovereign. And thus with a thousand other things. Have I not also been daughter of the Cross of Geneva—which had been predicted to me—since the journey to Geneva has drawn upon me so many crosses? and mother of a great people, as will be seen in the sequel, by the souls which God has given me, and which he still gives me every day in the midst of my captivity?

I gave an account to Father La Combe of what I had done and suffered in his absence, and I told him the care that you, O my God, took of my affairs. I saw your providence even in the smallest matters, unceasingly spread itself over me. After having been many months without any news of my papers, and when people even pressed me to write, blaming me for my indifference, an invisible hand held me back, and my peace and confidence were so great that I could not interfere in anything. Some time after I received a letter from our domestic ecclesiastic, telling me he was ordered to come and see me, and bring my papers. I had sent to me from Paris a considerable package for my daughter. It was lost on the lake, and I could get no news of it, but I gave myself no trouble. I believed still it would be found. The man who had put it on board had for a month made search in all the neighbourhood, without being able to learn any news of it. At the end of three months a person had it brought to us. It was found in the house of a poor man. He had not opened it, and did not know who had brought it there.

Once when I had sent for all the money which had to supply my wants for an entire year, the person who had been to cash the letter of exchange, having placed the money in two bags on a horse, forgot that it was there, and gave his horse to a boy to lead. He let the money fall from the horse in the middle of the market-place of Geneva. I arrived at that moment, coming from the other side, and having got out of my litter, the first thing I found was my money, over which I walked; and what is surprising is that, though there was a great crowd on that spot, no one had seen it. Many similar things have happened to me, which I do not mention, to avoid tediousness, contenting myself with these examples to show the protection of God.

The Bishop of Geneva continued to persecute me, and when he wrote to me it was always with expressions of politeness and thanks for the charities I bestowed at Gex; on the other hand, he said I gave nothing to that House. He even wrote against me to the Ursulines, where I was staying, commanding them to prevent my having conference with Father La Combe, “for fear of disastrous results.” The Superior of the House, a man of merit, and the Prioress, as well as the Community, were so indignant that they could not avoid declaring it to himself. He excused himself by an outward professed respect, and a “I did not intend it in that sense.” They wrote him that I saw the Father only at the confessional, not in conference, that they were so edified by me that they were very happy to have me, and that they considered it a great favour from God. What they said out of pure love was displeasing to the Bishop, who, seeing I was loved in this House, said that I gained over everyone, and he wished I was out of the diocese. Although I knew all this, and that these good Sisters were much pained at it, I could feel none, owing to the fixedness of my soul, your will, my God, rendering everything alike to me. I find you as well in one thing as in another, and since your will is yourself, everything in this will is to me you, O my Love; so that all the pains which creatures can cause, however unreasonable and even passionate they may appear, are not regarded in themselves, but in God—not that the soul has this actual view, but it is so: and the habitual faith makes everything be seen in God without distinction. So when I see poor souls give themselves so much trouble for idle talk, being always on the watch beforehand, or clearing up matters, I pity them for their lack of enlightenment; and the more of grace souls have, the more strange that appears to me. Nevertheless, one has reasons which self-love makes appear very sound.

To relieve me a little from the fatigue which continual conversations caused me (I say fatigue, for the body was quite languishing from the strength of God’s operation), I asked Father La Combe on his arrival to allow me a retreat, and to say that he wished me to make one. He told them so, but they could hardly leave me in repose. It was then that I allowed myself the whole day to be devoured by love, which had no other operation but to consume me little by little. It was then also that I felt: the quality of “spiritual Mother,” for God gave me a something for the perfection of souls, which I could not conceal from Father La Combe. It seemed to me that I saw into the depth of his soul, and the minutest recesses of his heart. Our Lord made me see that he was his servant, chosen among a thousand to honour him in a special degree, and that there was not a man upon the earth at that time on whom he looked with such complaisance as on him; but that he wished to conduct him by total death and entire annihilation, that he wished me to help in it, and he would make use of me to cause him to travel the road, by which he had first made me pass, only that I might be able to conduct others by it, and to tell them the routes by which I had passed; that at present my soul was far more advanced than his, that God wished to render us one and conformable, but that one day he would pass her by a bold and impetuous flight. God knows what joy I had at it, and with what pleasure I would see my children surpass their mother in glory, and that I would willingly give myself over in any way that it might be so.

In this retreat there came to me such a strong movement to write that I could not resist it. The violence I exercised over myself not to do it made me ill, and took away my speech. I was very much surprised to find myself thus, for this had never happened to me. It was not that I had anything particular to write. I had absolutely nothing, not even an idea of any kind. It was a simple instinct with a fulness I could not support. I was like one of those mothers who have too much milk, and suffer greatly. After much resistance I told Father La Combe the disposition in which I found myself; he answered that on his side he had had a strong movement to command me to write, but owing to my weak state he had not ventured to prescribe it for me. I told him the weakness was only due to my resistance, and I thought it would pass away as soon as I wrote. He asked me, “But what do you wish to write?” “I know nothing about it,” I replied. “I wish nothing, I have no idea, and I think I should commit a great infidelity in giving myself one, or thinking for a moment on what I might be able to write.” He ordered me to do it. On taking up the pen I did not know the first word of what I was about to write. I set myself to write without knowing how, and I found it came to me with a strange impetuosity. What surprised me most was that it flowed from my central depth, and did not pass through my head. I was not yet accustomed to this manner of writing, yet wrote an entire treatise on the whole interior way under a comparison with streams and rivers. Although it was tolerably long, and the comparison was kept up to the end, I have never formed a thought, nor even taken any care where I left off, and, in spite of continual interruptions, I have never read over anything, except at the end, where I read over a line or two owing to a word having been left out; even then I thought I had committed an infidelity. Before writing I did not know what I was going to write. When it was written I thought no more of it. I should have committed an infidelity in retaining any thought to put it down, and our Lord gave me grace that this did not happen. As I wrote I found myself relieved, and I became better.

As the way by which God was leading Father La Combe was very different from that by which he had hitherto walked, which had been all light, ardour, knowledge, certitude, assurance, feelings, and that now he made him go by the narrow path of faith and of nakedness, he had very great trouble in adapting himself to it; which caused me no small suffering, for God made me feel and pay with extreme rigour all his resistance. Who could express what he has cost my heart before he was formed according to yours and according to your will? On1y you, O my God, who have done it, know. The more precious that soul is in your eyes, the more dearly have you made me pay. I can indeed say that it is upon me the robe of the new life you have given him has been remade. Iwas subjected to a double pain; the one was that the possession which God had of my soul became every day more strong, so that sometimes I passed the day without it being possible for me to pronounce a word: for God then wished to bury me more deeply into himself, and to annihilate me more in him, in order to make me pass into him by a complete transformation. Although my state was without sensibility, it was so profound, and God became more and more so powerfully the master, that he did not leave me a movement of my own. This state did not prevent me from condescending to my sister and the other nuns; however, the useless things in which they were occupied could hardly suit my taste, and this was the reason which led me to ask for keeping a retreat, that I might let myself be possessed to the good pleasure of him who held me closely clasped in an inexpressible manner. At this time he purified a remnant of nature, very subtle and delicate, so that my soul found herself in extreme purity. It was then the partitions of which I have spoken were consumed. I have seen nothing of the kind since, for the intimate union of lover and loved took place, so that both were made one and identical.

It was then it was given me to write in a purely divine manner. All I had written formerly was tested, was condemned to the fire by Love, the examiner, who found defects in all that appeared the most perfect. I resisted, as I have said, but God became so powerfully the master that he harassed me to death when I resisted in the least thing. O God, how I then experienced those words, “Who can resist God and live in peace?” I was not yet experienced in the way he makes himself obeyed by a soul which he perfectly possesses. Owing to this I did not surrender at first, but finally I followed the movement of the Spirit in what he caused me to do, and although I did not take thought to arrange the matter, nor even as to what I was writing, it was found as connected and as correct as if I had taken all imaginable care to put it in order.

You desired, O my God, in order to accustom me to the suppleness of your Spirit, to exact of me for a time things which cost me much and caused me serious crosses. Our Lord bound me more closely with Father La Combe, but by a union as pure as it was spiritual. He willed that I should tell him the minutest of my thoughts, or write them to him; for as he was often absent either on missions, which he was continually engaged in, or for the business of the House, he was not often at Tonon. This cost me much, for it was a thing I had never done when formerly I might have conveniently done it, while I was still in myself, and when I could speak to directors; but now it appeared to me mere loss of time. I imagined even for lack of experience that it could not be done without reflection, and as reflection was entirely opposed to my state, it would be very injurious to me. I said with the Bride, “I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them? I have put off my robe; how shall I put it on again?” My mind, which is naked, shall it again be filled? After having been subjected to God alone, must I be so to the creature? For I did not then understand the design of God therein. If I had been mistress of myself, I would have gladly escaped, but I could not; for besides that our Lord chastised me very rigorously when I resisted him in the least, my mind remained always occupied by the thought until I had obeyed, and, far from having its former clearness, it defiled itself by these particulars; and although they were good things, or at least indifferent, that pure and clear void was thereby spoiled. If you stir up water with a rod of gold or of wood, it is none the less disturbed; but as soon as I had mentioned the thought my mind resumed its former peace, its clearness and its emptiness. I was surprised to see that the need of writing to him increased each day in the design and order of God: but what reassured me was, that I was so disengaged from any feeling or attachment in respect of him, that I was astonished. The more powerful the union became, the more we were united to God, and removed from human sentiments. I was still more led to pardon nothing in him, and to desire his self-annihilation, that God alone might reign. With much fidelity I told him all that God gave me to know he desired of him, and this I would gladly have evaded. The obligation God imposed on me to tell him the radical defects of the Sister who had charge of my daughter (as he was prejudiced in her favour, owing to the illumination she had told him she had) irritated him against me several days. When I told him anything, this produced in him disgust for me and alienation. Our Lord made me painfully feel it, although he said nothing to me. I experienced that our Lord obliged me to keep hold on him, and made me pay by suffering for his infidelity. On the other hand, if I wished to say nothing to him, and to keep back views which only served to offend him, our Lord harassed me to death, and gave me no rest until I had declared to him both my pain and my thought; so that I suffered thereby a martyrdom exceeding anything that can be told, and which has been very protracted.

Chapter 2-12

OUR Lord, willing that I should bear him in all his states, from the first to the last, as I shall tell, and willing to make me perfectly simple, gave me in regard to Father La Combe such a miraculous obedience that, in whatever extremity of illness I might be, I grew well when, either by word of mouth or by letter, he ordered it. I believe our Lord did it to make me express Jesus Christ the Child, and also to be a sign and evidence to this good Father, who, having been conducted by evidences, could not leave that way; and in whatever was told him, or which God made him experience, he still kept seeking evidences. It is where he had the greatest trouble to die, and that by which he has made me suffer so much. Our Lord, to make him enter more easily into that which he desired of him and of me, gave him the greatest of all evidences in this miraculous obedience: and to show that it did not depend on me, and that God gave it for him, when he was sufficiently strong to do without any evidence, and God wished to make him enter upon self-annihilation, this obedience was taken away from me, so that, without paying any attention to it, I was unable longer to obey: and this was done to annihilate him the more, and to take from him the support of this evidence; for then all my efforts were useless: I had inwardly to follow him who was my master, and who gave me this repugnance to obeying, which lasted only so long as was necessary to destroy the support he would have found—and perhaps I also—in obedience. I had then so strong an instinct for his perfection and to see him die to himself, that I would have wished him all the ills imaginable, far from pitying him. When he was not faithful, or took things so as to nourish the self-life, I felt myself devoured; and this surprised me not a little after the indifference I had hitherto maintained. I complained of it to our Lord, who with extreme kindness reassured me, and also as to the extreme dependence he gave me, which became such that I was like a child.

My sister had brought me a maid, whom God wished to give me to fashion in his manner, not without crucifying me—a thing that I expect will never be; for when our Lord gives me persons, he always gives them at the same time the means of making me suffer, whether to direct those persons themselves to the interior way, or in order that I should never be without a cross. She was a girl to whom our Lord had given singular grace, and who was so highly reputed in her country that she passed for a saint. Our Lord brought her to me to make her see the difference of sanctity conceived and comprised in gifts—with which she was then endowed—and sanctity which is acquired by our entire destruction, by the loss of those very gifts, and of that which we are. This girl fell seriously ill. Our Lord gave her the same dependence on me as I had on Father La Combe—with some distinction, however. I helped her to the best of my ability, but I found that I had hardly anything to say to her, except to command her ailment and her disposition; and whatever I said was done. Then I learned what it is to command by the Word, and to obey by the same Word. I found in me Jesus Christ commanding and likewise obeying. Our Lord gave power to the Devil to torment this poor girl, as in Job’s case. The Devil, as if he was not strong enough alone, brought with him five, who reduced her to such a state with her disease, that she was at death’s door. These wretches fled when I approached her bed, and I had hardly gone out when they returned with greater fury, and they said to her: “It is to have compensation for the ill she has done us”—speaking of me.

As I saw she was too much crushed, and her weak body could no longer endure the torment they caused her, I forbade their approaching her for a time: they left at once. But the next day at waking I had a strong impulse to allow them to visit her; they returned with so much fury that they reduced her to extremity. After having thus given some relaxation at different intervals, and allowed them to return, I had a strong movement to forbid them to attack her any more. I forbade them: they returned no more. Nevertheless she still continues ill, until one day she had received our Lord in such weakness that she could scarcely swallow the sacred Host. After dinner I had a strong impulse to say to her, “Get up, and be no longer ill.” The nuns were very much astonished, and as they knew nothing of what was going on, and they saw her on foot after having been in the morning at extremity, they attributed her illness to the vapours.

As soon as the devils were withdrawn from this girl, I felt as if by an impression the rage they were in against me. I was in my bed, and I said to them, “Come and torment me if your Master allows it;” but, so far from doing this, they fled from me. I understood at once that the devils fear worse than hell a soul that has been annihilated, and that it is not the souls who are conducted by faith they attack, for the reason I have already given. I felt in myself such an authority over the devils that, far from fearing them, it seemed to me I would make them fly from hell if I was there. It should be known that the soul of whom I speak, in whom Jesus Christ lives and acts, does not perform miracles as those who perform them by a power in them of performing miracles. They are performed by the annihilation of the soul, for as she is no longer anything, nothing of all this can be attributed to her; therefore when the movement urges, she does not say, “Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ,” for this “Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ” is a power in the person of performing miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Here it is not the same; it is Jesus Christ who performs the miracle, and who says through that person, “Be healed,” and the man is healed; “Let the devils depart,” and they depart. When one says this, one knows not why one says it, nor what causes one to say it; but it is the Word who speaks and operates what he says. “He spoke, and they were made.” One does not utter prayers beforehand, for these miracles are performed without any previous design, and without the soul looking upon it as a miracle. One says quite naturally what is given one to say. Jesus Christ willed to pray at the resurrection of Lazarus, but he said that he did it only for the sake of those who were present, for he says to his Father, “I know that you hear me always, but I say it that these may believe you have sent me.” Other servants of God, honoured with the gift of miracles, pray, and thereby obtain what they desire; but here it is the Word who uses his authority, and who acts by the speech of the person in whom he lives and reigns.

Hereupon I must remark two things: one, that the souls of whom I speak do not ordinarily perform miracles by giving anything, or by simply touching; but it is by the word, although they sometimes accompany it with touching. It is the all-powerful Word. The other thing is that these miracles require the consent, or at least that there should be no opposition, in the person on whom they are performed. Our Lord Jesus Christ asked the good people he healed, “Do you wish to be healed?” Was there a doubt in the matter, that people who came to him for it, or who desired nothing else, wished it? Here is the secret of the operation of the Word, and of the liberty of man. On the dead, or on inanimate substances, it is not the same. He said, and his saying is doing; but here the consent of the soul is required. I have many times experienced it, and I felt in myself how God not only respects the liberty of man, but even how he wishes a free consent; for when I said “Be healed,” or for interior pains “Be delivered from your pains,” if they acquiesced without any answer, they were healed, and the word was efficacious; if they resisted under good pretexts, as saying, “I shall be healed when it will please God,” “I do not wish to be healed but when he wills,” or in despair, “I shall never escape from my pain,” then the word had no effect, and Ifelt it in myself. I felt that the virtue retired into me, and I experienced what our Lord said, when the diseased woman touched him, and he asked, “Who touched me?” The apostles answered, “The crowd surrounds you, and you ask who has touched you.” “It is,” answered our Lord, “that a divine virtue has gone out from me.” In the same way Jesus Christ in me, or rather through me, made this divine virtue to flow out by means of his word; but when this virtue was not received in the subject, owing to want of correspondence, I felt it suspended in its source, and this caused me a kind of pain. I would be in a way vexed with those persons; but when there was no resistance, and a full acquiescence, the divine virtue had its full effect. One cannot conceive the delicacy of this divine virtue; although it is so powerful on inanimate objects, on man the least thing either arrests it altogether or restrains it.

There was a worthy nun afflicted with a violent temptation. She went and told a Sister, whom she believed very spiritual and in a state to help her: but, far from finding help, she was violently repulsed. The other despised her, and even harshly treating her because she had temptations, said to her, “Do not come near me, I pray, since you are of that kind.” This poor girl came to see me in terrible distress, believing herself lost, owing to what the Sister had said to her. I consoled her, and our Lord relieved her at once; but I could not refrain from saying that assuredly the other would be punished, and that she would fall into a worse state. The one who had so used her came to see me, very well satisfied with herself; and she told me what she had answered, adding that she had a horror of persons who are tempted, that for herself she was safe from all this, and that she never had had a bad thought. I said to her, “My Sister, for the friendship I have for you, I wish you the trouble of her who has spoken to you, and even a more violent one.” She answered me proudly enough, “If you ask it of God for me and I ask the contrary, I think I shall be as soon heard as you.” I answered her firmly, “If it is my own interest I regard, I shall not be heard; but if it is the interest of God only and yours, he will do it sooner than you fancy.” I said this without reflection. The same night—it was evening when we were speaking—she entered into such a violent and furious temptation, the like of which was hardly ever seen; it continued with the same strength for a fortnight. It was then she had full opportunity to recognize her weakness, and what we should be without grace. At first she conceived an excessive hatred for me, saying I was the cause of her trouble; but as it served, like the mud which enlightened the man born blind, she saw very well what had brought on her such a terrible state.

I fell exceeding ill. This illness was a means to cover the great mysteries which God desired to operate in me. Never was there a malady more extraordinary or more continued in its intensity. It lasted from Holy Cross Day of September to that of May. I was reduced to the state of a little child, but a state which was apparent only to those who could understand; for as to the others, I appeared in an ordinary condition. I was reduced to the dependence of Jesus Christ, the Child, who wished to communicate himself to me in his state of childhood, and that I should bear him as such. This state was communicated to me almost immediately on my falling ill, and a dependence corresponding to the state. The further I advanced, the more was I set free from this dependence, as children gradually emerge from dependence in proportion to their growth. My illness at first was a continuous fever of forty days. From the Holy Cross of September up to Advent it was a less violent fever, but after Advent it seized me in a more violent manner. In spite of my illness the Master willed I should receive him at Christmas midnight. Christmas Day my childhood became greater, and my illness increased. The fever intensified so that I was delirious; besides, there was an abscess at the corner of the eye, which caused great pain. It opened entirely at this time, and they dressed it, for a long time passing in an iron up to the bottom of the cheek. I had such burning fever and so much weakness that they were obliged to allow it to close again without healing, for my exhausted body could not endure the operations without danger of instantly expiring. I suffered with extreme patience; but it was like a child, who knows not what is done to him. I experienced at the same time both the strength of a God and the weakness of a little child, with a corresponding dependence. This mode of action was so foreign to my natural character that nothing less than the power of a God was needed to make me enter into it. I gave myself up to it, however, for my interior was such and was so powerfully urged by God, that I could not resist him. I was, not to press the comparison, like those who are possessed by the Evil Spirit, who makes them do what he wishes; thus the Spirit of God was so completely the master, that I had to do everything that pleased him. His will was not concealed from me; he led me from within like a child, while he rendered my whole exterior childlike. They often brought me the Eucharist; the Superior of the House having ordered that this consolation should be allowed me, seeing the extremity I was in. As Father La Combe often brought it to me, when the confessor of the House was not there, he remarked, and the nuns who were familiar with me also remarked it, that I had the face of a little child. In his astonishment he several times said to me, “It is not you; it is a little child that I see.” For myself, I saw nothing within but the candour and innocence of a little child. I had its weaknesses; I sometimes wept from pain, but this was not known. I played and laughed in a way that charmed the girl who attended me; and those good nuns, who knew nothing about it, said that I had something which surprised and charmed them at the same time.

Our Lord, however, with the weaknesses of his childhood gave me the power of a God over souls, so that with a word I cast them into trouble or peace, according as was necessary for the good of those souls. I saw that God made himself obeyed in me and through me, as an absolute Sovereign, and I no longer resisted him. I took no part in anything; you might have performed, O my God, in me and through me the greatest miracles, and I should not have been able to reflect upon it. I felt within a candour of soul, without taint, which I cannot express. Moreover, I had to continue telling my thoughts to Father La Combe, or else writing them to him and aiding him, according to the light that was given to me. I often was so weak that I could not raise my head to take food, and when God desired I should write to him, either to aid and encourage him, or to explain what our Lord gave me to know, I had the strength to write. As soon as my letters were finished, I found myself in the same weakness. I was very much surprised to understand by experience that what you had wished of me, O my God, in obliging me thus to tell all my thoughts, had been to perfect me in simplicity, and to make Father La Combe enter into it, rendering me supple to all your wishes; for whatever cross it was to me to tell my thoughts, and although Father La Combe often was offended to the point of disgust at serving me, and he let me know it (while yet through charity he got the better of his repugnance), I never for that ceased from telling them to him.

Our Lord had made us understand that he united us by faith and by the cross, so that it has indeed been a union of the cross in every way; as well from what I have made him suffer himself, and he in turn has made me suffer (which was very much more than anything I can tell), as from the crosses which this has drawn upon us from outside. The sufferings I had in respect of him were such that I was reduced to extremity, and they endured many years; for although I have been longer at a distance from him than near him, this has not relieved my ill, which has continued until he has been perfectly annihilated and reduced to the point God wished for him. This operation has made him suffer pains the more severe in proportion as the designs God had for him were the greater, and he has caused me cruel pains. When I was a hundred leagues away from him, I felt his disposition. If he was faithful in allowing himself to be destroyed, I was in peace and free; if he was unfaithful, in reflection or hesitation, I suffered strange torments until it was over. There was no necessity for him to tell me his state, that I should know it. I was often laid upon the ground the whole day, without being able to move, in agony, and after having for a fortnight in this way endured sufferings which surpassed all I ever suffered in my life, I received letters from him, by which I learned his state to be such as I had felt it. Then suddenly I felt that he had re-entered on the state in which God wished him; and then I experienced that gradually my soul found a peace and a great freedom, which was more or less, according as he gave himself up more or less to our Lord. This was not a voluntary thing in me, but compulsory; for if nature could have shaken off this yoke, more hard and painful than death, it would have done so. I said, O union necessary, and not voluntary, thou art not voluntary only because I am not any more mistress of myself, and I must yield to him who has taken so powerful a possession of me after I have given myself to him freely and without any reserve. My heart had in itself an echo and counter-stroke, which told it all the dispositions this Father was in; but while he resisted God I suffered such horrible torments that I sometimes thought it would tear out my life. I was obliged from time to time to throw myself on the bed, and in that way bear the suffering which seemed to me unbearable; for, in short, to bear a soul, however distant the person may be from us, and to suffer all the rigours that Love makes her suffer, and allher resistance: this is strange.

Chapter 2-13

My sister was in no way capable of understanding my state, so that often she was offended at it. She got vexed when one concealed one’s self in the least from her, and she could not appreciate a state that many persons more spiritual than she would have been unable to understand; so that I suffered much from every quarter in this malady. The distress from the great pain was the least; that from the creature was very different. My only consolation was to receive our Lord, and sometimes to see Father La Combe; moreover, I had to suffer much from him, as I have said, bearing all his different dispositions. I was strangely exercised by my sister, by that nun, and by the maid who wanted to return to France. Whatever extremity I might be in, I had to listen to their differences, which they told me, the one after the other; then they quarrelled with me for not taking their side. They did not let me sleep—for as the fever was more intense at night, I could only sleep for an hour, and I would gladly have slept by day: but they would not have it, saying it was only to avoid speaking to them—so that I required very great patience to bear with them. It lasted more than six months. I think this partly was the cause of a revery I had for two days together; for I did not sleep, and I continued to hear a noise, with a terrible headache. I complained of nothing, and I suffered gaily, like a child. Father La Combe commanded them to give me some rest: for some days they did so, but it did not last; they recommenced immediately.

I cannot express the mercies which God showed me in this illness, and the profound lights be gave me on the future. I saw the Devil let loose against prayer and against me, and that he was about to stir up a strange persecution against people of prayer. I wrote all this to Father La Combe, and unless he has burned the letters, they ought to be still in existence. The Devil did not dare attack me myself; he feared me too much. Sometimes I defied him, but he did not venture to appear, and I was for him like a thunderbolt. I understood then what power a self-annihilated soul has. Our Lord made me see all that has since happened, as the letters of that time prove. One day that I was thinking to myself of the nature of a dependence so great, and a union so pure and intimate, twice in a dream I saw Jesus Christ, the Child, of surpassing beauty, and, it seems to me, he united us very closely as he said, “It is I who unite you, and who wish you to be one.” Another time he made me see the Father, as he was wandering away from me through want of fidelity, and he brought him back with extreme kindness, and willed him to aid me in my state of childhood, as I aided him in his state of death; but I did not cause suffering to him. It was only I who had to suffer. He had an extreme charity for me, treating me as a real child, and he often said to me, “When I am near you I am as if I was near a little child.” I was repeatedly reduced to extremity every ninth day, and ready to die, without, however, dying. I had, as it were, the last agony. I was many hours without breathing, except at long intervals; then I came back on a sudden. Death flattered me, for I had for it a great tenderness, but it only appeared as flying away. The Father forbade me to rejoice at dying, and I at once knew that it was imperfect, and did it no more. I remained in supreme indifference. During this illness so many extraordinary things happened that it would be impossible for me to relate them. God continually performed miracles by Father La Combe, as well to relieve me and give me new strength when I was at extremity, as to show to him the care he ought to have of me, and the dependence I should have on him. I was like a little child, without thinking of myself or my illness. I would have gone without food every day for want of thinking of it, and whatever was given I took, though it might be fatal to me. In my illness I was wrongly treated; the remedies increased it, but I could not trouble myself in the matter. I always had a smiling face in my greatest sufferings, so that everyone was astonished. The nuns had extreme compassion for me; it was I alone who had no feeling for myself. Many times in dreams I saw Father La Mothe stirring up persecutions against me. Our Lord made me know that he would greatly torment me, and that Father La Combe would leave me during the time of persecution. I wrote to him, and this hurt him much, because he felt his heart too united to the will of God, and too desirous of serving me in this same will, to act so. He thought that it was through distrust, but it turned out perfectly true; he left me in the persecution, not of his will, but through necessity, having been himself the first persecuted.

The day of the Purification, when I had relapsed into a very severe fever, the Father ordered me to go to the Mass. For twenty-two days I had had continued fever, more violent than ordinary. I did not give a single thought to my state, but I got up and attended at the Mass, and returned to my bed much worse than before.

It was a day of grace for me, or, rather, for the Father. God showed him very great grace in regard to me. Near Lent the Father, without giving attention to the fact that he had to preach at Lent, when he saw me so ill, said to our Lord to relieve me, and that he would bear a part of my disease. He told our maids to ask the same thing, namely, that he might relieve me in the way he meant.

It is true I was a little better, and he fell ill, which caused great alarm in the place, seeing he had to preach. He was so much run after that people used to come from five leagues’ distance and pass several days there to hear him. When I learned he was so ill on Shrove Tuesday that they thought he would die, I offered myself to our Lord to become more ill, and that he would restore health to him, and enable him to preach to his people, who were hungering to hear him. Our Lord heard me, so that he mounted the pulpit on Ash Wednesday.

It was in this illness, my Lord, that by degrees you taught me that there is another way than by speech for conversing with the creatures, who are entirely yours. You made me conceive, O Divine Word, that as you are always speaking and working in a soul, although you there appear in a profound silence, there was also a means of communication in your creatures, and by your creatures in an ineffable silence. I learned then a language unknown to me before. I perceived gradually that when Father La Combe was brought in either to confess me or give me the Communion, I could no longer speak to him, and that there took place in my central depth towards him the same silence which took place towards God. I understood that God wished me to learn that even in this life men might learn the language of the angels. Little by little I was reduced to speaking to him only in silence; it was then that we understood each other in God, in a manner ineffable and quite divine. Our hearts spoke and communicated to each other a grace which cannot be told. It was an altogether new country for him and me, but divine beyond expression. At the commencement this took place in a more perceptible manner, that is to say, that God so powerfully penetrated us with himself, and his divine Word made us so entirely one in him, but in a manner so pure and so sweet, that we passed hours in this profound silence, still communicating, without being able to say a single word. It was there we learned by our experience the communications and operations of the Word, in order to reduce souls into his unity, and to what purity one may attain therein. It was given me to communicate in this way with other good souls, but with this difference, that for the others I alone communicated the grace with which, in this sacred silence, they were filled from me, communicating to them an extraordinary strength and grace; but I received nothing from them. In the case of the Father, I experienced that there was a flux and reflux of communication of graces, which he received from me and I from him; that he gave to me and I to him the same grace in an extreme purity.

It was then I understood the ineffable intercourse of the Holy Trinity communicated to all the Blessed, how there is an outflow from God into all the souls of all the Blessed, and that this same God who communicates himself to them causes in them a flux and reflux of his divine communications; that the Blessed spirits and the saints of a like degree or hierarchy reciprocally give by a flux and reflux of communication these divine outflowings, which then they distribute upon the inferior hierarchies, and that everything is reduced to its first principle, whence all these communications proceed. I saw that we were created to participate during this life in the ineffable happiness of intercourse with the Trinity, and in the flux and reflux of the divine Persons, which end in Unity of principle, and become again Unity without ever for a moment arresting the fruitfulness and communication between them; principle without principle, which incessantly communicates, and receives all it communicates; that it was necessary to be very pure to receive God in simplicity, and to allow him to flow back in himself in that purity; and that it was necessary also to be very pure to receive and communicate the Divine Word, and then to distribute him by a flux and reflux of communication upon the other souls which God gives us. It is this which makes us one in God himself, and perfects us in the divine Unity, where we are made one same thing in him from whom all originates.

I learned by experience then this hierarchic order, and these reciprocal communications between the saints of a similar rank and the angels of a similar order, and this outflow on the inferior saints and spirits, and that with such fulness that they were all filled according to their degree. This communication is God himself, who communicates himself to all the Blessed in a personal flux and reflux; such as he communicates himself from within, such he communicates himself from without, to his saints, and they are all rendered participators of the ineffable commerce of the Holy Trinity. It is to render the soul capable of this communication, that it is necessary for her to be purified so powerfully and so radically; otherwise she would still be self-moved; she would still retain something in her, and by such retention would not be suitable for the ineffable commerce of the Holy Trinity. Further, it is necessary to enlarge her capacity of reception, which, being extremely restricted and limited by sin, can only by fire and hammer-blows be put in a state suitable to the eternal designs of God in her creation. It was shown me how this hierarchic order existed even in this life, and that there were souls who without knowing it communicated with an infinity of others, and to whom grace for the perfection of the others was attached; and that this hierarchy would last through all eternity, where the souls of the Blessed would receive from the same persons through whom grace had been communicated to them; and that those who mutually communicated would be in the same degree. It was then I learned the secret of spiritual fruitfulness and maternity; and how the Holy Spirit renders souls fruitful in himself, giving them to communicate to others the Word which he communicates to them—what St. Paul calls “the formation of Jesus Christ, and begetting in Jesus Christ”—and that it was in this way that children without number would be given to me, as well known as unknown. All those who are my true children have from the first a tendency to remain in silence near me, and I have an instinct to communicate to them in silence what God has given me for them. In this silence I discover their wants and their deficiencies, and I communicate to them in God himself all that is needed for them. They very well feel what they receive and what is communicated to them in abundance. When once they have tasted this manner of communion, all others become troublesome. For myself, when I use speech and pen with souls, it is only owing to their weakness I do it, and because either they are not sufficiently pure for the interior communication, or it is still needful to use condescension, or to settle external matters.

Our Lord made me experience with the saints of heaven the same communication as with the saints on earth; and this is the way of being truly united to the saints in God. I experienced these communications very strong and very intimate, especially with those with whom one has a greater relation of grace, and to whom one will be more closely united in heaven. At the commencement it was more sensible, because our Lord had the kindness to instruct me by experience. It is the way he has always acted with me; he has not enlightened me by illumination and knowledge, but while making me experience the things, he has given me the understanding of what I experienced.

I understood also the maternity of the Holy Virgin, and in what manner we participate in her maternity, and how the saying of Jesus Christ is real, when he says, that he who does the will of his Father, becoming one will with his, is made his mother, his brother, and his sister. They are truly made his mothers, producing him in souls.

It was in this ineffable silence I understood the manner in which Jesus Christ communicated himself to his intimates, and the communication of St. John on the breast of our Lord at the Last Supper. It was not the first time that he had so placed himself, and it was because he was very fit to receive those divine communications that he was the chosen and loved disciple. It was at this great banquet that Jesus Christ, as Word, flowed into John, and discovered to him the most profound secrets, before communicating himself to him in the mastication of his body. And it is then there was communicated to him that wonderful secret of the eternal generation of the Word, because he was rendered a participator in the ineffable intercourse of the Holy Trinity. He knew that therein is the characteristic of the true children of God, and how the silent speech operated; for this speech in silence is the most noble, the most exalted, the most sublime of all operations. It was then he learned the difference of being “born of the flesh, of the will of man, or of the will of God.” The operations of the flesh are those of carnal men, those of the will of man are those which are virtuous, being done by the goodwill of the man; but those of which I speak are those of the will of God, where man has no other part but the consent which he gives to them, as Mary did: “Let it be unto me according to thy word.” She not only gave her consent for herself alone that the Word should become incarnate in her, but she gave it for all men who are her children—that is, for all those who are regenerated in Jesus Christ; she gave, I say, a consent for them that the Word should communicate himself to them and that, as the consent which Eve had given to the Devil for sin, had caused death to enter into all her children, so the consent which Mary would give should communicate the life of the Word to all her children.

It is for this that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that he comes “to enlighten every man who comes into the world.” “He has come unto his own, and his own have not received him.” He is not known in his most intimate communications except to those to whom he has given “to be made children of God,” and to become children. It was this wonderful mystery which was effected at the foot of the cross, when Jesus Christ said to St. John, “Behold your mother,” and to the Holy Virgin, “Behold your son.” He taught St. John that he wished him to receive from the Holy Virgin what he used to receive immediately from himself before his death; and he made known to the Holy Virgin, that he had given to her to communicate herself to St. John as to her son, and through him to all the Church. It was at that moment that those divine communications were given to men through Mary and St. John, and it was for this that he wished that his heart should be opened, to show that he sent his Spirit through his heart, and that it was the spirit of his heart that he communicated. Mary received then the gift of producing the Word in all hearts: and as Jesus Christ gave himself by the mastication of his body to all men, he wished also to communicate himself as the Word to all spirits of which he is the life. It was not only to St. John that this communication was made, but it was for us a sensible example of this kind of communication. Therefore our Lord said of St. John, “If I will that he tarry until I come, what is it to thee?” He did not say that he should not die, but if I will that he continue thus, in this ineffable communication, what is it to thee? I propose to communicate myself also to the men prepared to receive me in that way.

O wonderful communications, those which passed between Mary and St. John! O filiation quite divine, who art willing to extend thyself even to me, all unworthy as I am! O divine Mother, who art willing to communicate your fruitfulness and your altogether divine maternity to this poor nothing! I mean this fecundity of hearts and spirits. In order to instruct me thoroughly in this mystery, for the sake of others, our Lord willed that a maid—she is the one I have spoken of—should have need of this help. I have experienced it in all ways, and when I did not wish her to remain near me in silence, I used to see her interior gradually sink, and even her bodily powers diminish, until she was on the point of falling in a faint. When I had made sufficient experiments of this to understand these ways of communication, her extreme needs passed away, and I commenced to discover, especially with Father La Combe when he was absent, that the interior communication took place at a distance as well as near. Sometimes our Lord made me stop short in the midst of my occupations, and I experienced that there went out an outflow of grace, like that I had experienced when with him—a thing I have also experienced with many others, not altogether in a similar degree, but more or less, feeling their infidelities and infallibly knowing their faults by inconceivable impressions; as I shall tell in the sequel.

Chapter 2-14

IN this long sickness, your love alone, O my God, constituted my occupation without occupation. I was consumed night and day. I could not see myself in any way, so was I lost in you, O my Sovereign Good, and it seems indeed to my heart that it has never gone out from this Divine Ocean, although you have dragged it through the mud of the most severe humiliations. Who could ever comprehend, O my Love, that you made your creatures to be so one with you, that they so lose sight of themselves as no longer to see anything but you? O loss, which is the blessing of blessings, although all is effected in crosses, deaths, and bitterness!

Jesus the Child was then all living in me, or rather, he was existing alone; I was no longer. You taught me, O my Love, that your state of childhood would not be the only one I must bear; you impressed upon me these words as of a real state, into which you wished me to enter: “The birds of the heaven have nests, and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has not where to rest his head.” You have indeed made me experience this state in all its extent since that time, having never left me even an assured dwelling, where I could rest for more than a few months, and every day in uncertainty as to being there on the morrow; besides this, in a total deprivation of all creatures, finding refuge neither with my friends, who were ashamed of me, and who openly renounced me when they saw me decried, nor among my relatives, the greater part of whom have declared themselves my adversaries and my greatest persecutors. The rest have never regarded me but with contempt and indignation. My own children ridiculed me in society. It is indeed, O my Love, this second time much more strongly than the first, although in a manner less sensible, that the state of Job should be attributed to me; “I was,” as David says, “a reproach to my neighbours, the object of public ridicule.” But before going on I must continue what took place in my illness.

One night that I was quite awake you showed me to myself under the figure—who says figure does not say reality; the brazen serpent which was the figure of Jesus Christ was not Jesus Christ—you showed me, I say, under the figure of that woman in the Apocalypse, who has the moon under her feet, encircled with the sun, twelve stars upon the head, who, being with child, cried in the pains of childbirth. You explained to me its mystery. You made me understand that the moon, which was under her feet, signified that my soul was above the vicissitude and inconstancy of events; that I was surrounded and penetrated by yourself; that the twelve stars were the fruits of this state, and the gifts with which it was honoured; that I was pregnant of a fruit, which was that spirit you wished me to communicate to all my children, whether in the manner I have mentioned, or by my writings; that the Devil was that terrible dragon who would use his efforts to devour the fruit, and cause horrible ravages through all the earth, but that you would preserve this fruit of which I was full in yourself, that it should not be lost—therefore have I confidence that, in spite of the tempest and the storm, all you have made me say or write will be preserved—that in the rage in which the Devil would be at not succeeding in the design he has conceived against this fruit, he would attack me, and would send a flood against me to swallow me up; that this flood would be that of calumny, which would be ready to sweep me away, but the earth would open—that is to say, the calumny would little by little subside.

You made me see, O my God, all the world incensed against me, without anyone whatever for me, and you assured me in the ineffable silence of your eternal speech that you would give me millions of children that I should bring forth for you by the Cross. I was no longer in a state to interest myself in this in the way either of humility or joy. I let you do with me, O my Divine Love, what you pleased, as with a thing that was yours, in which I no longer took any personal interest; my sole interest was yours. You made me know how the Devil was about to stir up against Prayer a strange persecution, which would be the source of this very Prayer, or rather, the means you would make use of to establish it. You made me further know how you would lead me into the desert, where you would support me a time, times, and half a time; the wings which were to carry me were the utter abandonment of myself to your holy will and the love of that same will. I believe that I am now in the desert, separated from all the world by my captivity, and I see, O my God, already one part of what you made me know in course of accomplishment. I wrote all this to Father La Combe, to whom you united me still more strongly, impressing upon me in relation to him the same words that you had yourself impressed upon me: “I unite you in faith and in cross.” O God, you promise nothing in the matter of crosses that you do not abundantly give. Could I tell, O God, the mercies you showed me? No, they will remain in yourself, being of a nature that cannot be described, owing to their purity and their depth, free from all distinction.

During my illness I was often at the point of death, as I have said. One day, when they thought me almost well, at four o’clock in the morning I perceived the Dragon, not under any form. I did not see him, but I was certain it was he. I had no fear, for, as I have said, I could not fear him, because my Lord protects me, and keeps me safe under the shadow of his wings. He emerged as if from the place between the side of my bed and the wall, and gave me a furious blow on the left foot. I was immediately seized with a great shivering, which lasted continuously four hours; it was followed by a very sharp fever. Convulsions seized me, and the side on which he had struck was half dead. The attacks came every morning at the same hour as the blow, and the convulsions increased in a marked way every day. On the seventh day, after having been all the night sometimes without pulse and without speech, and sometimes a little better, in the morning I felt the convulsions were coming on. I felt at the same time that life left the lower parts in proportion as the convulsions came higher: they fixed themselves in my entrails. I felt then very great pains, and a movement in my entrails, as if I had thousands of children, who all moved at the same time. In my life I have never felt anything approaching that. This lasted a very long time with extreme violence. I felt little by little my life was contracting itself round the heart. Father La Combe gave me the Extreme Unction, the Prioress of the Ursulines having prayed him to do so, as they had not their ordinary priest. I was very glad to die, and he was not troubled at it. It would be difficult to understand without experience how a union, so close that there is nothing like it, can bear, without feeling any pain, a division such as that of seeing a person die to whom one is so firmly attached; he himself was astonished at it. But, nevertheless, it is not difficult to conceive that, being united only in God himself, in a manner so pure and so intimate, death could not divide us; on the contrary, it would have united us still more closely.

It is a thing I have many times experienced, that the least resistance he made to God caused me to suffer inexplicable torments; and to see him die, a prisoner, at a distance for ever, did not cause me the shadow of pain. He showed then great contentment at seeing me die, and we laughed together at the moment which constituted all my pleasure; for our union was different from any that can be imagined. However, death still drew near my heart, and I felt the convulsions which seized my entrails mount up there. 1 can say I have felt death without dying. The Father, who was on his knees near my bed, remarked the change in my face, the clouding of my eyes; he saw I was on the point of expiring. He asked me, Where was death and the convulsions? I made a sign that they were reaching the heart, and I was about to die. O God, you did not want me yet; you reserved me for far other pains than those of death, if one can call pains what one suffers in the state in which you have placed me by your goodness alone. You inspired Father La Combe to place his hand over the coverlet in the region of my heart, and with a strong voice, heard by those in the room (which was almost full), he said to death to pass no further. It obeyed his voice, and my heart, recovering a little life, came back; I felt those same convulsions descend again into my entrails, in the same way as they had mounted up, and they continued all the day in the entrails with the same violence as before, then descended gradually to the place where the Dragon had struck, and this foot was the last revivified. For two months on that side a very great weakness remained, and even after I was better, and in a condition to walk, I could not support myself on that foot, which could hardly bear me. I continued still ill, and in languor, and you gave me, my God, yet new evidence of your love. How many times did you make use of your servant to restore life to me, when I was on the point of expiring!

As they saw that my ailments did not cease, it was thought the air of the lake, on which the convent was built, was entirely unsuited to me, and was the cause of so many mishaps. It was settled that I must leave it. While I was thus ill, our Lord gave Father La Combe the idea of establishing a hospital in this place, where there was none, to receive the sick poor, and also of instituting a congregation of Dames of Charity, to furnish those who could not quit their family to go to the hospital with the means of living during their sickness—such as we have in France; no institution of the kind being in this country. I readily entered into it, and without any capital but providence and some useless rooms that the authorities of the town gave, we commenced it. It was dedicated to the Holy Child Jesus, and he willed to give the first beds there from the money of my annuity which belonged to him. He gave such a blessing that many other persons joined. In a little time there were about twelve beds, and for the service of this hospital he gave three persons of great piety, who, without any payment, consecrated themselves to the service of the sick. I gave them ointments and remedies which they distributed to rich people, who paid, to the profit of the sick poor, and to the poor of the town they gave them without charge. These good Dames are so well disposed that through their charity, and the care of these nuns, this hospital is very well maintained. These Dames formed a union also to provide for the sick who could not go to the hospital; and I gave them some little rules I had observed when in France. They have kept this up with love and charity. We had also the devotion to cause every twenty-fifth of the month a service of blessing to be celebrated in the chapel of the Congregation, which is dedicated to the Holy Child Jesus; and for this we gave a complete outfit to the chapel.

All these trifling things, which cost little, and which succeeded only in the blessing that you gave them, O my God, drew upon us new persecutions. The Bishop of Geneva was more offended than ever, and because he saw, that these little things made me to be loved, he said I gained over everyone. He openly declared that he could not endure me in his diocese, where, however, I had done nothing but good, or, rather, you through me. He commenced even to extend his persecutions to the worthy nuns who had kindness for me. The Prioress had severe crosses through me, but they did not last long; for as I was obliged, owing to the air, to withdraw, after having been there about two years and a half, they had greater quiet. On the other hand, my sister was very tired of that House, and as the time for the mineral waters approached, the occasion was seized to send her back, together with the maid I had brought, and who tormented me so much during all my illness. I kept with me only her whom Providence had sent me by means of my sister; and I have always believed that God had permitted her journey merely that she might bring her to me, God having chosen her for me, as suitable for the state he wished me to bear.

While I was still ill at the Ursulines, the Bishop of Verceil, who was a very great friend of the Father General of the Bernabites, urgently asked him to select among his monks a man of merit, piety, and doctrine, in whom he could have confidence, and who might serve him as theologian and adviser; that his diocese was in great want of this help. The General at once cast his eyes on Father La Combe. This was the more feasible, as his six years of priorship were coming to an end. The Father General, before engaging him with the Bishop of Verceil, wrote to him to know if he would have any objection, assuring him he would do only what was pleasing to him. Father La Combe answered that his only wish was to obey him, and he might give whatever order he pleased. He told me of this, and that we were about to be entirely separated. I had no chagrin thereat. I was very well content that our Lord should make use of him under a Bishop who knew him, and did him justice. There was still some delay in sending him off, as well because the Bishop was still at Rome, as that the period of the Father’s priorship was not yet completed.

Before leaving the Ursulines, the good hermit, of whom I have spoken, wrote me that he urgently prayed me to go to Lausanne, which was only six leagues from Tonon on the lake, because he still hoped to withdraw his sister, who lived there, and convert her. One cannot go there and speak of religion without risk. As soon as I was in a state to walk, although still very weak, I resolved to go at the request of the worthy hermit. We took a boat, and I asked Father La Combe to accompany us. We got there easily enough; but as the lake was still a quarter of a league distant from the town, in spite of my weakness, I had to summon strength to make the journey on foot. We could find no carriage. The boatmen supported me as well as they could, but this was not enough for the state in which I was. When I reached the town, I did not know if I had a body; if it was upon my legs I walked, or on those of somebody else. I spoke to that woman with Father La Combe: she had been just married, and we could do nothing but incur risk ourselves; for this woman assured us that, except for her regard for her brother, whose letters we brought, she would have denounced us as having come to corrupt the Protestants. We were afterwards near perishing on the lake in a dangerous place, where a tempest came on that would have swallowed us up, had not God protected us in his usual way. A few days later, in that very spot, a boat with thirty-three persons perished.

Chapter 2-15

I LEFT then the Ursulines, and a house at a distance from the lake was sought for me. The only empty one available had every appearance of the utmost poverty. There was no chimney except in the kitchen, through which we had to pass to reach the room. I took my daughter with me, and gave the largest room to her and the maid who attended her. I was placed in a little hole with some straw, which we went up to by a wooden ladder. As I had no furniture but our bedsteads, which were white, I bought some rush-seated chairs, with plates and dishes of earthenware and wood. Never have I tasted such contentment as I found in this little spot; it seemed to me so in harmony with Jesus Christ. I relished everything better on wood than on silver. I made all my little provisions, thinking to live there for a long time. But the Devil did not allow me to enjoy so sweet a peace. It would be difficult to tell the persecutions I was subjected to. Stones were thrown through my windows, falling at my feet. I had got the little garden put in order; at night people came, tore up everything, broke the trellis-work, and overturned everything, as if soldiers had been through it. All night long they came to the door and abused me, making a show of breaking in the door. These persons have since told who had set them on. Although from time to time I gave in charity at Gex, I was none the less persecuted. A lettre de cachet was offered to a person to compel Father La Combe to remain at Tonon, in the belief that it would be a support to me during the persecution; but we prevented it. I did not then know God’s designs, and that he would soon withdraw me from the place. I can say I have never tasted an equal pleasure to that in this poor and solitary little place where I lived; I was happier than kings. But, O my God, it was still a nest for me, and a place of repose, and you willed I should be like you. The Devil, as I have said, embittered my persecutors. I was requested to leave the diocese, and the good which you caused me to do there, O my Lord, was more condemned than the greatest crimes: the latter were tolerated; they could not endure me. During all this time I never felt grief or regret at what I had done in giving up all, nor even a trouble as to not having done your will; not that I was assured of having done it—that assurance would have been too much for me—but I was so lost that I could neither see nor regard anything, taking all equally as from the hand of God, who served out to me these crosses either through justice or mercy. The Marquise de Prunai, sister of the chief State Secretary and Minister of His Royal Highness, had sent an express from Turin during my illness, to invite me to go to her; that, being persecuted as I was in this diocese, I should find an asylum with her; that meantime things would soften down; and when people should be well disposed, she would return with me, and join me and my friend from Paris, who also wished to come to work there according to the will of God. I was not then able to carry out what she desired, and I made my account to remain at the Ursulines until things changed. She spoke no more of it. This lady is of the most extraordinary piety, having quitted the Court for retirement and to give herself to God. At twenty-two yeas of age, with good natural advantages, she remained a widow, and has refused all offers in order to consecrate herself to our Lord, whose she is without any reserve. When she knew I was obliged to quit the Ursulines, without knowing the manner in which I was treated, she obtained a lettre de cachet to oblige Father La Combe to go to Turin, and spend some weeks for his own business, and to bring me with him, where I should find a refuge. She did all this without our knowledge, and, as she has since said, a superior power made her do it without knowing the cause. If she had thought on the matter, being so prudent as she is, she perhaps would not have done it, for the persecutions, the Bishop of Geneva brought on us in that place caused her many humiliations. Our Lord has permitted him to pursue me in a surprising manner in all the places where I have been, without allowing me truce or respite, although I have never done him any ill; on the contrary, I would have given my blood for the good of his diocese.

As this was done without our participation, unhesitatingly we believed it was the will of God, and perhaps a means that he wished to use to withdraw us from disgrace and persecution, seeing that I was hunted away on the one side and sought for on the other; so that it was settled I should go to Turin, and that Father La Combe should escort me, and go thence to Verceil. I took in addition, in order to do things with perfect propriety, and deprive our enemies of all subject for talk, a monk, a man of merit, who for fourteen years was teaching theology. I further took with me a boy I had brought from France, who had learned the trade of tailor. They hired horses, and I had a litter for my daughter, my maid, and myself. But all these precautions are useless when it is God’s pleasure to crucify. Our adversaries wrote at once to Paris, and they invented a hundred ridiculous stories—pure fictions, and utterly false—about this journey. It was Father La Mothe who set all that going—perhaps he believed it true; even had it been so, out of charity he should have concealed it, but, being as false as it was, he was still more bound to do this. They said that I had gone alone with Father La Combe, running from province to province, and a thousand malicious fables. We suffered all in patience without justifying ourselves or complaining. If things were looked at without passion, could I have done better under the circumstances? and was it not honourable, and even advantageous, according to all rules of propriety, to be in the house with a lady of that rank and merit? Was it not enough to cut short slander? and when one is irregular, does one select houses of that character? But passion has no eyes, and calumny is a torrent which carries away everything. Hardly had we arrived at Turin when the Bishop of Geneva wrote against us. He persecuted us by his letters, being unable to do it any other way.

Father La Combe went to Verceil, and I remained at Turin, in the house of the Marquise de Prunai. What crosses had I not to endure from my family, the Bishop of Geneva, the Bernabites, and numberless persons? My elder son came to see me on the subject of my mother-in-law’s death, which was a very serious addition to my crosses; but after we had heard all his reasons—seeing without me they had sold all the movables, elected guardians, and settled everything independently of me—I was quite useless. It was not thought well for me to return, owing to the severity of the season. You alone, O my God, know what I suffered; for you did not make me know your will, and Father La Combe said he had no light to guide me. You know, my Lord, what this dependence has made me suffer; for he, who to everyone else was gentle, often had for me an extreme hardness. You were the author of all this, O my God; and you willed that he should so behave in order that I might remain without consolation; for those who applied to him he advised very correctly; but when it was a question of deciding me on any matter, he could not, telling me he had no light to guide me, that I must do what I could. The more he said these things to me the more I felt myself dependent on him, and unable to decide. We have been a real cross, the one to the other; we have truly experienced that our union was in faith and in cross, for the more we were crucified, the more were we united. It is fancied that our union was natural and human: you know, O my God, that we both found in it only cross, death, and destruction. How often did we say that if the union had been natural, we should not have preserved it a moment amidst so many crosses. I avow that the crosses which have come to me from this quarter have been the greatest of my life. You know the purity, the innocence, and the integrity of that union, and how it was all founded on you yourself; as you had the goodness to assure me. My dependence became greater every day; for I was like a little child who neither can nor knows how to do anything. When Father La Combe was where I was (which was seldom, since my departure from the Ursulines), I could not exist long without seeing him, as well owing to the strange ills which overwhelmed me suddenly, and reduced me to the point of death, as owing to my state of childhood. When he was absent, I was not troubled at it, and I had no need. I did not even think of him, and I had not the slightest desire to see him, for my need was not in my will, nor in my choice, nor even in any leaning to him or inclination; but you were the author of it, and as you were not contrary to yourself, you gave me no need of him when you took him away from me.

At the commencement of my stay at Turin, Father La Combe remained there some time waiting for a letter from the Bishop of Verceil; and he availed of the opportunity to pay a visit to his intimate friend the Bishop of Aosta, who was acquainted with my family. As he knew the bitter persecution which the Bishop of Geneva set on foot against us through the Court at Turin, he made me an offer to go into his diocese, and he sent me the kindest letters possible by Father La Combe. He wrote that previous to his acquaintance with St. Paulina, St. Jerome was a saint; but how was he spoken of afterwards? He wished me thereby to understand how Father La Combe had always passed for a saint before that persecution that I had innocently brought on him. At the same time he showed me that he preserved a very great esteem for him. He even desired, as he was very old, to give up the Bishopric in his favour. The Marquise de Prunai, who had so much wished for me, seeing the great crosses and the abjectness of my state, became disgusted with me: my childlike simplicity, which was the state God then kept me in, seemed to her mind stupidity  although in that state our Lord made me utter oracles; for when it was a question of helping anyone, or of anything our Lord wished of me, with the weakness of a child, which appeared only in the candour, he gave me a divine strength. Her heart remained closed for me all the time I was there. Our Lord, however, made me tell what would happen to them, and which, in fact, has happened, not only to her, but also to her daughter and the virtuous ecclesiastic who lived with her. She, nevertheless, towards the end, took to me with more friendship, and she saw that our Lord was in me. But it was the self-love and the fear of abjectness (seeing me so decried), which had shut her heart. Besides, she believed her state more advanced than it was, owing to the time she was without trials; yet she soon saw by experience that I had told her the truth. She was obliged for family reasons to quit Turin, and go to her estate. She strongly urged me to go with her, but the education of my daughter did not permit me. It was out of the question to remain at Turin without the Marquise de Prtmai, and the rather, as having lived very retired in that place, I had made no acquaintances. I knew not what to do. Father La Combe, as I said, lived at Verceil. The Bishop of Verceil had written to me most kindly, strongly urging me to go to Verceil and live near him, promising me his protection and assuring me of his esteem, adding that he would look upon me as his own sister, that from the account he had received of me he extremely desired to have me.

It was his sister, a nun of the Visitation at Turin, a great friend of mine, who had written to him about me; also a French gentleman he knew. But a certain point of honour prevented me. I did not wish that anyone could say that I had been running after Father La Combe, and that it was with a view to going there I had come to Turin. His reputation was also at stake, which would not allow him to consent to my going there, however strongly the Bishop of Verceil urged it. If, however, he and I had believed it was the will of God, we would have got over all other considerations. God kept us both in such a dependence on his orders that he did not let us know them; but the divine moment determined everything. This served much to annihilate Father La Combe, who had very long walked by certainties. God in his goodness deprived him of them all, for he willed him to die without reserve.

During all the time I was at Turin our Lord showed me very great favours, and I found myself every day more transformed into him, and I had still greater knowledge of the state of souls, without being mistaken, or deceiving myself therein, however they might try to persuade me of the contrary, and though I might myself have used all my efforts to entertain other thoughts; which has cost me not a little. For when I told Father La Combe, or wrote to him the state of some souls, which appeared to him more perfect and more advanced than what I was given to know of them, he attributed it to pride, got very indignant against me, and even conceived a repugnance to my state. My grief was not because he esteemed me less—by no means; for I was not even in a state to reflect whether he esteemed me or not—but it was that our Lord did not allow me to change my thoughts, and he obliged me to tell them to him. He could not reconcile—God so permitting it in order to destroy him more thoroughly, and take from him every support—he could not, I say, reconcile a miraculous obedience in a thousand things and a firmness which seemed to him then extraordinary, and even criminal in certain things. This made him even distrustful of my grace: for he was not yet established in his way, and did not enough understand that it in no way depended on me, the being of one manner or the other; and that if I had had any power, I would have reconciled myself to what he said, in order to spare myself the crosses which it caused me; or at least would have cleverly dissimulated. But I could do neither the one nor the other; and though everything should perish, I had to tell him matters as our Lord made me tell them. God has given me in this an inviolable fidelity to the end, without the crosses and griefs having made me for one moment fail in this fidelity. These things, then, which seemed obstinacy to him for want of light, and which God so permitted to deprive him of the support he would have found in the grace that was in me, set him in division from me; and although he told me nothing of it, and, on the contrary, tried with all his power to conceal it, however distant from me he might be, I could not be ignorant; for our Lord made me feel it in a strange way, as if I had been divided from myself. This I felt with more or less pain, according as the division was more or less strong; but as soon as it diminished or ended, my pain ceased, and I was set at large, and this at however great a distance I might be from him. On his side he experienced that when he was divided from me he was also from God, and many times he has said and written to me: “When I am well with God, I am well with you, and as soon as I am ill with God, I am ill with you.” These were his own words. He experienced that when God received him into his bosom, it was in uniting him with me, as if he did not want him except in this union. And our Lord made me very heavily pay for all his infidelities.

While he was at Turin a widow came to him to confession. She is a good servant of God, but all in illumination and sensibility. As she was in a state of sensibility she told him wonders. The Father was delighted, for he felt the sensible of her grace. I was at the other side of the confessional. After I had waited a long time, he said one or two words to me; then he sent me away, saying he had just found a soul which was devoted to God; that it was truly she who was so; that he was quite refreshed by her; that it would be a long time before he would find this in me; that I no longer produced anything in his soul but death. At first I was glad that he had found such a holy soul, for I am always, my Lord, greatly rejoiced to see you glorified. I returned home without giving it any more attention, but while returning our Lord made me see clearly the state of that soul, which was in truth very good, but which was only at the commencement, in a mixture of affection and a little silence, quite full of the sensible; that it was owing to this the Father felt sympathetically her state; that as for me, in whom our Lord had destroyed everything, I was very far from being able to communicate to him the sensible. Moreover, our Lord made me understand that, being in him, as I was, without anything of my own, he communicated to Father La Combe through me only what he communicated to him directly himself, which was death, nakedness, a stripping of everything; and that anything else would make him live his self-life and hinder his death; that if he stopped at sentiment, it would be hurtful to his interior. I had to write all this to him. On receiving my letter, he remarked in it at first a character of truth, but reflection having succeeded, he judged all I told him to be only pride, and this caused him some estrangement from me; for he had still in his mind the ordinary rules of humility, conceived and understood in our manner, and did not see that there could be no other rule for me but to do the will of my God. I thought no longer of humility nor of pride, but I let myself be led as a child who says and does without distinction all he is made to say or do. I easily understand that all persons who are not entered into self-annihilation will accuse me of pride in this, but in my state I cannot give it a thought. I allow myself to be led where I am led, high or low; all is for me equally good.

He wrote to me that at first he had found in my letter something which seemed to him true, and that he entered into it, but after having re-read it with attention he had found it full of pride, obstinacy, and a preference of my lights to others. I could not give a thought to all this, to find it in myself, nor, as formerly, to convince myself, believing it though I did not see it. That was no longer for me; I could not reflect on it. If he had thought, he might have seen that a person who has neither will nor inclination for anything, is far removed from obstinacy, and he would have therein recognized God. But our Lord did not then permit him. I wrote again to him to prove the truth of what I had advanced; but this only served to confirm him in the unfavourable sentiments he had conceived of me. He entered into division. I knew the moment he had opened my letter, and had entered into it, and I was thrown into my ordinary suffering. When the maid who went to him with that letter (and who was the same I have spoken of, whom our Lord had brought to me) had returned, I told her, and she said it was precisely at that hour he had read my letter. Our Lord did not give me any thought of writing to him again on this subject; but the following Sunday, when I went to confess, and was on my knees, he at once asked me if I still persisted in my sentiments of pride, and if I still believed the same thing. Up to this I had not made any reflection either upon what I had thought or what I had written to him; but at this moment having done so, it appeared to me pride, as he told me. I answered, “It is true, my Father, that I am proud, and that person is more devoted to God than I.” As soon as I had pronounced these words, I was cast out as if from Paradise to the depth of Hell. I have never suffered such torment; I was beside myself. My face changed suddenly, and I was like a person about to expire, whose reason is gone. I sank back. The Father at once perceived it, and was at the moment enlightened as to the little power I had in these things, and how I was obliged to say and do without discernment what the Master made me do. He said to me at once, “Believe what you before believed. I order you.” As soon as he said this to me I commenced gradually to breathe and to come to life; in proportion as he entered into what I had said to him my soul recovered her freedom, and I said as I turned away, “Let no one speak to me again of humility. The ideas people have of the virtues are not for me; there is but one single thing for me, which is to obey my God.” A little time after, from her manner of acting, he recognized that that person was very far from what he had thought. I relate a single example, but I could give many similar.

Chapter 2-16

ONE night our Lord made me see in a dream that he wished also to purify the maid he had given me, and to make her truly enter upon the death of Self, but that it was necessary this also should be done through me, and by means of suffering. I, therefore, had to make up my mind to suffer for her what I suffered for Father La Combe, although in a different manner. She has made me suffer inconceivable torments. As she resisted God much more than he, and the selfhood was far stronger in her, she had more to purify; so that I had to suffer martyrdoms that I could not make conceivable should I tell them: but it is impossible for me. What augmented my trouble was that Father La Combe never understood this as long as it lasted, always attributing it to defect and imperfection on my part. I bore this torment for that girl three entire years. When the resistances were strongest, and the Father approved her, without my knowing it, I entered into torments I cannot tell. I fell sick from it, so I was almost continually ill. Sometimes I passed whole days upon the ground, supported against the bedstead, without being able to stir, and suffering torments so excessive that had I been upon the rack I think I should not have felt it, so terrible was the internal pain. When that girl resisted God more strongly, and came near me, she burned me; and when she touched me I felt so strange a pain that material fire would have been only its shadow. Ordinarily I allowed myself to burn with inconceivable violence; at other times I asked her to withdraw, because I could not any longer support the pain. She sometimes took this for aversion, and told Father La Combe, who was angry at it, and reproved me. However, when herself, she could not judge altogether in that manner, for our Lord made me constantly perform miracles for her. I had absolute power over her soul and her body. However ill she was, as soon as I told her to be cured, she was so; and as to the interior, as soon as I said to her, “Be at peace,” she was so; and when I had a movement to deliver her to pain, and I delivered her to it, she entered into an inconceivable pain; but almost all her pain it was I bore, with inexpressible violence.

O my God, it seems to me you have made me understand by my own experience something of what you have suffered for men; and it seemed to me, by what I suffered, that a part of what you have suffered for men would have consumed ten thousand worlds. It needed no less than the strength of a God to bear that torment without being annihilated. Once, when I was ill, and this girl was in her resistances and her selfhood, she approached me. I felt so violent a fire that I could not, it seemed to me, bear it without dying. This fire, it appears to me, is the same as that of purgatory. I told her to withdraw, owing to what I suffered. As she thought it was only opposition to her, she persisted, out of friendliness, in remaining. She took me by the arms. The violence of the pain was so excessive, that without paying any attention to what I did, being altogether beside myself from the excess of pain, I bit my arm with such force that I almost took out the piece. She saw the blood and the wound I had caused myself before perceiving the manner. This made her understand that there was something extraordinary in it. She informed the Father, as he was then at Turin, and for sometime he had not come to see me, because he was in division and in trouble. He was much surprised at the hurt I had caused myself: he could not understand what caused me to suffer; and I had difficulty to explain myself to him, and make him know it. In the evening she wished to approach me. I commanded the pain which I suffered for her to seize upon her. At once she entered into so strange a pain that she believed she was about to die, and I was delivered from it for the moment; but as she could not bear it, I took it back away from her, leaving her in peace.

Our Lord made me see in a dream the resistances she would make to me under the figure of numerous animals which issued from her body, and he made me feel the pain of that purification, as if when the animals were drawn out I was burned with a red hot iron on the right shoulder. Those animals appeared to me transparent, so that the outside looked pure and clear as a glass, and the inside full of unclean animals; and I was given to know that she had passed through the first purification, which is that of the exterior, and for this reason she had been held a saint in the world; but she had not yet been purified radically, and so far from it, the exterior purification had, as it were, fortified her self-love, and rendered the selfhood more dominant in the central depth of her being. I saw that in proportion as I suffered, those animals destroyed one another; so that at last only one remained, who devoured all the others. He appeared to have in himself all the malice of the others, and he struggled against me in a surprising manner.

It should be known that as soon as this was shown me, and it was given me to suffer for her, she exteriorly entered into a state which might have passed for madness. She was no longer fit to render me any service; in continual anger, everything offended her without rhyme or reason—jealousy of everybody, and a thousand other defects. Although she exercised me enough for the exterior, all this gave me no trouble; it was only that extreme pain which made me suffer. She became frightfully awkward, breaking and destroying everything, not being able to endure anyone. All who saw me served in this way, pitied me, for she had the disgrace that, whatever eagerness she had to do well, she did everything ill; our Lord so permitting it. If I was ill in a sweat or a shivering fit, she, without thinking, threw pots of water over me; if anyone, or she herself, had prepared anything, hoping to give me an appetite, she threw it in the cinders; if I had anything useful, she broke or lost it; and I never said anything to her, although things went so far that there was reason to think my income would not suffice for the half year. She was greatly distressed because I never said anything to her about what concerned me; for her affection for me was such that she was more grieved at this than at other faults which did not affect me, while for me it was the contrary. I had not the shadow of trouble from this. What I could not suffer in her was the self-love and the selfhood. I strongly reproved her for it, and I said to her, “All which concerns me gives me no trouble, but I feel such a terrible opposition for your self-love and selfhood, I could not have greater for the Devil.” I saw clearly that the Devil could not hurt us, but for our self-love and selfhood; and I had more aversion and more horror for that self-love and that selfhood than for all the devils. At the beginning I was pained at the opposition I had for this girl, whom I otherwise so loved, that it seemed to me I would rather have sent away my own children than get rid of her. Father La Combe, not understanding this, reproved me, and made me suffer much. However, it was not in me from myself, but from God; and when the Father supported her, it made me suffer doubly, for I suffered from the infidelity of the one and the selfhood of the other. Our Lord made me understand that this was not a defect in me, as I persuaded myself; that it was because he gave me the discernment of spirits, and my central depth would reject, or accept, that which was of him, or was not.

Since that time, although I have not borne the purification of other souls, as in her case, I nevertheless recognize them not by any light, nor by what they tell me, but by the central depth. It is well to say here that one must not mistake; and souls which are still in themselves, whatever degree of light and ardour they may have arrived at, should not apply this to themselves. They often think they have this discernment, and it is nothing but the antipathy of nature. It has been seen that our Lord (as I have told) had previously destroyed in me all sorts of natural antipathy. It is necessary that the central depth be annihilated—that it depend on God alone, and that the soul no longer possess herself, for these things to be from God. This lasted three years.

In proportion as this soul was purified the pain diminished, until our Lord made me know that her state was about to change, and that he would have the goodness to harmonize her to me. So it suddenly changed. Although I suffered such strange torments for the persons our Lord desired to purify, I did not feel all the persecutions from without; and yet they were very violent. The Bishop of Geneva wrote to different kinds of persons: to those who he thought would show his letters to me he spoke well of me, and in the letters which he thought I should not see he wrote much evil. Our Lord permitted that those persons, having mutually shown each other the letters, were indignant at a procedure so contrary to good faith. They sent them to me, that I might be on my guard. I kept them for more than two years; then I burned them, in order not to do harm to that prelate. The strongest battery was that he opened through one of the Ministers, co-Secretary of State, with the brother of the Marquise de Prunai. Moreover, he took all the trouble imaginable to render me an object of suspicion, and to decry me. For this he used certain Abbes; and although I did not go out, and did not show myself, I was well-known from the unflattering portrait the Bishop made of me. It did not make as much impression as it would have done had he stood better with the Court; but certain letters, which Madame Royale found after the death of the Prince, which he had written him against her, made her for her part attach no weight to what the Bishop of Geneva wrote; on the contrary, she sent me friendly messages, and invited me to go and see her. I went to pay my respects; she assured me of her protection, and that she was very glad I was in her State.

Our Lord made me know in a dream that he called me to aid my neighbour. Of all the mysterious dreams I have had, there is none made more impression than this, or the unction of which has lasted longer. It seemed to me that, being with one of my friends, we were ascending a great mountain, at the bottom of which was a stormy sea, full of rocks, which had to be crossed before coming to the mountain. This mountain was quite covered with cypresses. When we had ascended it, we found at its top another mountain, surrounded with hedges, that had a locked door. We knocked at it; but my companion went down again, or remained at the door, for she did not enter with me. The Master came to open the door, which was immediately again shut. The Master was no other than the Bridegroom, who, having taken me by the hand, led me into the wood of cedars. This mountain was called Mount Lebanon. In the wood was a room where the Bridegroom led me, and in the room two beds. I asked him for whom were those two beds. He answered me, There is one for my mother, and the other for you, my Bride. In this room there were animals fierce by nature, and hostile, who lived together in a wonderful manner—the cat played with the bird, and there were pheasants that came to caress me; the wolf and the lamb lived together. I remembered that prophecy of Isaiah, and the room that is spoken of in Canticles. Innocence and candour breathed from the whole place. I perceived in this room a boy of about twelve years of age. The Bridegroom said to him to go and see if there were any persons coming home from the shipwreck. His only duty was to go to the bottom of the mountain to discover if he could see anyone. The Bridegroom, turning to me, said, “I have chosen you, my Bride, to bring here to you all who shall have courage enough to pass this terrible sea, and to be there shipwrecked.” The boy came to say he did not see anyone yet returned from the shipwreck. On that I woke up so penetrated by this dream that its unction remained with me many days.

My interior state was continually more firm and immovable, and my mind so clear, that neither distraction nor thought entered it, save those it pleased our Lord to put there. My prayer, still the same—not a prayer which is in me, but in God—very simple, very pure, and very unalloyed. It is a state, not a prayer, of which I can tell nothing, owing to its great purity. I do not think there is anything in the world more simple and more single. It is a state of which nothing can be said, because it passes all expression—a state where the creature is so lost and submerged, that though it be free as to the exterior, for the interior it has absolutely nothing. Therefore its happiness is unalterable. All is God, and the soul no longer perceives anything but God. She has no longer any pretence to perfection, any tendency, any partition, any union; all is perfected in unity, but in a manner so free, so easy, so natural, that the soul lives in God and from God, as easily as the body lives from the air it breathes. This state is known of God alone, for the exterior of these souls is very common, and these same souls, which are the delight of God, and the object of his kindness, are often the mark for the scorn of creatures.

Chapter 2-17

WHILE I was still in Savoy God made use of me to draw to his love a monk of merit, but one who did not even dream of taking the road to perfection. He sometimes accompanied Father La Combe when he used to come to assist me in my illness, and the thought occurred to me to ask him from our Lord. The evening that I received the Extreme Unction he came near my bed. I said to him that if our Lord had pity on me after my death, he would feel the effects of it. He felt himself internally so touched as to weep; he was one of those who were most opposed to Father La Combe, and he who, without knowing me, had made out the most stories against me. Quite changed, he returned home, and could not help wishing to speak to me again, being extremely moved because he believed I was about to die. He wept so much that the other monks rallied him on it. They said to him, “Can anything be more absurd? A lady of whom only two days ago you said a thousand bad things, now that she is about to die, you weep for her as if she was your mother!” Nothing could prevent his weeping, nor take away the desire of again speaking to me. Our Lord heard his wishes, and I grew better. I had time to speak to him. He gave himself to God in an admirable manner, although he was advanced in age. He changed even as to his natural character, which was cunning and insincere, and became simple as a child. He could not call me anything but his mother. He also acquired confidence in Father La Combe, even making his general confession to him.

People no longer knew him, and he did not know himself. For many years he was thus disposed to me. One day he exhibited more confidence and friendship than ordinary; having come a considerable distance expressly to see me and to open his soul to me, he had had a fall from his horse, from which he suffered pain, and had a dangerous swelling, that might be attended by serious consequences owing to the locality of the hurt. He told me he felt great pain, and that he was anxious about the consequences of such a dangerous hurt. I said to him, “You will never be inconvenienced by it.” He believed, and was entirely cured, without ever since having felt it. As owing to that he showed me more confidence, he said to me, like St. Peter—I mean no comparison—“Though all the world should renounce you, I will never renounce you.” As soon as he said this, I had a strong movement that he would renounce me and lose hold through want of fidelity, and at the same time it seemed to me that if he sacrificed himself to it and lost the esteem of himself, and of the strength he believed himself to have, this would not happen. I said to him, “My Father, you will renounce me, assuredly you will do it, and you will lose hold.” He was vexed with me for this, continuing to protest the contrary; that he was not a child, that no one was more firm and constant than he. The more he protested, the more I had an inward certainty of the contrary. I said to him, “My Father, in the name of God I pray you to sacrifice yourself to him, to renounce me, and to turn against me for some time, if he permits,” assuring him that if he did not enter into this disposition of sacrifice, he would infallibly do it. He never would submit to this, and became very grieved because, as he said, I distrusted him. Six months from that he came to see me, more affectionate than ever, and said, “You see how false a prophetess you are, and that I am very far from renouncing you.”

A year after, while I was with Father La Combe, I said to him, Father N— is certainly changed, for our Lord has made me feel it. When he gives me anyone specially I must always suffer something. O my God, how indeed true is it that I have brought forth children only with pain! But also, when they became unfaithful I felt that they were taken away, and that they were no longer anything to me; but for those whom our Lord did not remove from me, who were only wavering or unfaithful for a time, for them he made me suffer. I clearly felt that they were unfaithful, but they were not removed from me, and I knew that in spite of their infidelities, they would one day return. When, then, I said to Father La Combe that he was changed—and I had told him more than a year before that he would change—he said to me that it was my imagination. A few days after he received from him a letter full of friendship, and he said to me, “See how he is changed.” While reading the letter I had again a very strong certitude that he was changed, and that a remnant of respect and shame made him continue to write thus, and that he would yet do so for some time. It happened exactly; he continued still for some time forced letters; then he ceased to write; and Father La Combe learned that the fear of losing certain friends had changed him. There are some for whom our Lord makes me pray, or makes me take some steps to aid them, and others for whom it is not even given me to write a letter to strengthen them.

There was one, who was the most violent man in the world, who kept no measure, and was much more of a soldier than a monk. As Father La Combe was his Superior, and tried to gain him both by his words and his example, he could not endure him; he even broke out in great passions against him. When he was saying the Mass in the place where I was, I felt, without knowing him, that he was not in a good state. One day that I saw him pass with the chalice, which he held in his hand to go and say Mass, a great tenderness for him seized upon me, and an assurance that he was changed. I even knew that he was a chosen vessel, whom God had chosen in a special manner. I had to write it to Father La Combe, who sent me word that this was the falsest idea he had yet seen in me, and that he knew no man more ill-disposed than that person; and he regarded what I had said as the most ridiculous dream that ever was. He was very much surprised when, about four or five o’clock in the evening, this Father went to see him in his room, and from the proudest of men, appeared the most gentle. He asked pardon for all the annoyance he had caused him, and said to him with tears, “I am changed, my Father, and I have suffered an utter overthrow which I do not understand.” He related to him how he had seen the Holy Virgin, who had showed him that he was in a state of damnation, but that she had prayed for him. Father La Combe at once wrote me that what I had told him of a certain Father was indeed true, that he was changed, but changed in a good way, and that he was full of joy at it. I remained all night on the bare ground without sleeping a moment, penetrated with the unction of God’s designs for that soul. Some days after, our Lord again made me know the same thing, with much unction, and I was again a night without sleeping, quite full of that sight. I wrote to him the designs which our Lord had for him, and I gave the letter open to Father La Combe to give him. He hesitated some time whether he should give it, not daring so soon to trust him; but that Father passing by at the moment, he could not prevent himself giving it to him. Far from ridiculing it, he was much touched, and resolved to give himself to God utterly. He has a difficulty in breaking away from all his ties, and seems still divided between God and connections which seem to him innocent, although God gives him many blows to thoroughly subdue him; but his resistances do not make me lose hope of what he will one day do. Before his change I saw in a dream a number of very beautiful birds that everyone was eagerly hunting and desirous of catching, and I looked at them all without taking any part in it, and without wishing to catch them. I was very much astonished to see them all come and give themselves up to me, without my making any effort to have them. Among all those who gave themselves up to me, and which were numerous enough, was one of extraordinary beauty, which far surpassed all the others. Everybody was eager to catch that one; after having flown away from all, and from me also as well as the others, he gave in, and gave himself up to me, when I did not expect it. There was one of the others, which, after having come, flew about for a long time, sometimes giving himself, sometimes withdrawing; then he gave himself altogether. This last appeared to me to be the monk of whom I have spoken. Others withdrew altogether. For two nights I had the same dream; but the beautiful bird which had no fellow is not unknown to me, although he has not yet come. Whether it be before or after my death that he gives himself entirely to God, I am assured that it will take place.

While I was with the Marquise de Prunai, undecided whether I should place my daughter at the Visitation of Turin, to go with her, orwhether I should take some other step, I was much surprised, when I least expected it, to see Father La Combe arrive from Verceil, and tell me that I must return to Paris without a moment’s delay. It was evening. He told me to set out the next morning. I confess this unexpected news surprised me, without, however, disturbing me in the very least. It was for me a double sacrifice, to return to a place where I knew I had been so grievously decried, to a family which had nothing but scorn for me, and had represented my journey (that necessity alone had forced me to make) as a voluntary tour caused by the human attachment I had for Father La Combe; although it was strictly true that providential necessity alone had led me to it. You alone, O my God, knew how far we were from such sentiments, and that we were equally ready never to see each other, should it be your will, or to see each other continually should that be your will. O God, how little do men comprehend these things, which you yourself do for your glory, and to be the source of an infinity of crosses, that were increasing instead of diminishing. Here, then, was I, without answering a word, ready to set out together with my daughter and a maid-servant, without any person to escort me; for Father La Combe was resolved not to accompany me, even across the mountains; because the Bishop of Geneva had written everywhere that I had gone to Turin, running after him.

But the Father Provincial, who was a man of quality of Turin, and who knew the virtue of Father La Combe, told him that I must not be allowed to go among those mountains, especially as I had my daughter with me, without some one I knew, and that he ordered him to accompany me. The Father admitted to me that he had some repugnance, but his duty of obedience and the danger to which I should have been exposed in going alone, made him get over his objections. He was to accompany me as far as Grenoble, and thence return to Turin. I set out then with the intention of going to Paris to suffer all the crosses and submit to all the confusion it might please God to make me suffer.

What made me pass by Grenoble was the wish I had to spend two or three days with a great servant of God, a friend of mine. When I was there, Father La Combe and this lady told me to go no further, and that God wished to glorify himself in me and through me in that place. Father La Combe returned to Verceil, and I let myself be led by providence, like a child. This worthy Mother at first took me to a widow, not having found room at the inn, and I expected to spend only three days there; but as they told me to remain at Grenoble, I remained in her house. I placed my daughter in a convent, and resolved to employ all this time in giving myself up in solitude to him who is absolutely master of me. I made no visit in that place, no more than in any of the other places where I had dwelt; but I was very much surprised when, a few days after my arrival, many persons came to see me, who made profession of being in an especial manner devoted to God. I at once became aware of a gift of God, which had been communicated to me without my understanding it—namely, the discernment of spirits, and the giving to each what was suitable to him. I felt myself suddenly clothed with an Apostolic state, and I discerned the state of the souls of the persons who spoke to me, and that with such facility that they were astonished, and said one to the other that I gave to each that of which he had need. It was you, O my God, who did all these things. They sent each other to me. It reached such a point that ordinarily from six in the morning until eight in the evening I was occupied in speaking of God. People came from all sides, from far and near—monks, priests, men of the world, girls, women, and widows—all came, the one after the other, and God gave me wherewith to satisfy all in an admirable manner, without my taking any thought, or paying any attention to it. Nothing in their interior state, nor what passed in them, was concealed from me. You made, O my God, an infinity of conquests that you alone know. There was given them a surprising facility for prayer, and God gave them great graces and worked marvellous changes. I had a miraculous authority over the bodies and souls of these persons whom our Lord sent to me; their health and their interior state seemed to be in my hand. The more advanced of those souls found near me that, without speech, there was communicated to them a grace which they could not comprehend, nor cease to wonder at. The others found an unction in my words, and that they operated in them what I said to them. They had not, said they, ever seen, or rather, ever experienced anything similar. I saw monks of different orders, and priests of merit, to whom our Lord gave very great graces; and God gave grace to all, without exception—at least, to all who came in good faith.

What is surprising is, that I had not a word to say to those who came to surprise and to spy on me; and when I wished to force myself to speak to them, besides being unable, I felt that God did not desire it. Some went away, saying, “People are mad to go and see that lady: she cannot speak;” others treated me as stupid, and I did not know those persons had come to spy on me. But when they had gone out, some one came and said to me, “I was not able to come soon enough to tell you not to speak to those persons; they came from So-and-so to spy on you, and to catch you.” I said to them, “Our Lord has been beforehand with your charity, for I have been unable to say a word to them.”

I felt that what I said came from the fountain-head, and that I was merely the instrument of him who made me speak. In the midst of this general applause our Lord made me understand what was the Apostolic state with which he had honoured me, and that to be willing to give one’s self up to aid souls in the purity of his Spirit, was to expose one’s self to cruel persecutions. These very words were impressed upon me: “To sacrifice yourself to aid your neighbour is to sacrifice yourself to the gibbet. Those who now say of thee, ‘Blessed be ho who cometh in the name of the Lord,’ will soon say, ‘Take away; crucify.’ ” One of my friends speaking of the general esteem in which I was held, I said to her, “Notice what I say to you this day, that you will hear curses proceed from the same mouths which are giving blessings;” and our Lord made me understand that it was necessary for me to be conformable to him in all states, and that if he had always remained with the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph in an obscure life, he would never have been crucified; and when he wished to crucify any of his servants in an extraordinary manner, he employed him in the service of his neighbour. It is certain that all the souls who are thus employed by God by an Apostolic destination, and who are truly placed in the Apostolic state, have to suffer extremely. I do not speak of those who intrude themselves into it, and who, not being called there by God in a special manner, and having nothing of the grace of the Apostolate, have also nothing of the crosses of the Apostolate; but for those who give themselves up to God without any reserve, and who are willing with all their heart to be the plaything of providence without restriction or reserve—ah, as for those, they are assuredly a spectacle for God, for angels and for men: for God, of glory, by the conformity with Jesus Christ; for angels, of joy; and for men, of cruelty and disgrace.

Chapter 2-18

BEFORE I came to Grenoble, on the road, I went into a convent of the nuns of the Visitation. Suddenly I was struck by a picture of Jesus Christ in the garden, with these words: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass; however, your will be done.” At once I understood that this was addressed to me, and I sacrificed myself to the will of God. There I experienced a very extraordinary thing; it is, that among so great a number of souls all good and with grace, and for whom our Lord, through me, did much, some were given me as simple plants to cultivate, in whom I did not feel our Lord desired me to take any interest. I knew their state; but I did not feel in myself that absolute authority, and they did not in especial manner belong to me. Here I understood better the true maternity. The others were given to me as children, and for these I always had something to pay, and I had authority over their souls and their bodies. Of these children some were faithful, and I knew they would be so, and they were united with me in charity. Others were unfaithful, and I knew that of these last some would never recover from their faithlessness, and they were taken away from me; as for others, that it would be merely a temporary straying. For both the one and the other I suffered heart-pains that are inconceivable, as if they were being drawn out of my heart. These are not those heart-pains which are called failure or faintness of the heart. It was a violent pain in the region of the heart, which was yet spiritual, but so violent that it made me cry out with all my strength, and reduced me to my bed. In this state I could not take food, but I had to allow myself to be devoured by a strange pain. When these same children left me, and by cowardice, lack of courage to die to themselves, they gave up everything, they were torn from my heart with much pain.

It was then I understood that all the predestinated came forth from the heart of Jesus Christ, and that he gave birth to them on Calvary in pangs that are inconceivable, and it was for this reason he wished his heart to be opened externally, to show that there was the fountain whence came forth all the predestinated. O heart which has brought me forth, it will be in thee we shall be received for ever! Our Lord, amongst so many who followed him, had so few true children. It is for that reason he said to his Father, “I have lost none of those whom thou hast given me, except the son of perdition,” making us thereby see that he did not lose, not only any of the Apostles, although they made so many false steps, but even of those whom he was about to bring forth on Calvary by the opening of his heart. O my Love, I can say that you have made me a participator in all your mysteries, making me experience them in an ineffable manner. I was then associated in this divine maternity in Jesus Christ, and it has been that which caused me most suffering; for two hours of this suffering changed me more than several days’ continued fever. I have sometimes so borne these pains as for two or three days to cry out with all my strength, “The heart!” The maid who attended me saw that the ailment was not natural, but she did not know what caused it. If we could understand the least of the pangs we have cost Jesus Christ, we should be in amazement.

Amongst the various monks who came to see me, there was one order which felt more than any other the effects of grace; and it was some members of this very order who had been to a small town where Father La Combe had held a mission, and by a false zeal troubled all the worthy souls who had given themselves sincerely to God, tormenting them inconceivably, burning all their books which spoke of prayer, refusing absolution to those who used it, throwing into consternation, and even despair, those who had withdrawn from a criminal life and preserved themselves in grace by means of prayer, and lived in a perfect manner. Those monks proceeded to such excess in their indiscreet zeal that they caused a sedition in the town, and in the open street they had a respectable and meritorious Father of the Oratory beaten with sticks, because he used prayer at evening, and on Sundays made a short and fervent prayer, which insensibly accustomed those good souls to use prayer.

I have never in my life had so much consolation as in seeing in that little town so many good souls who vied with each other in giving themselves to God with their whole heart. There were young girls of twelve and thirteen years of age, who worked all day in silence in order to converse with God, and who had acquired a great habit of it. As they were poor girls, they joined in couples; and those who knew how to read, read out something to those who could not read. It was a revival of the innocence of the early Christians. There was a poor washerwoman, who had five children and a husband paralysed in the right arm, but more halt in his spirit than in his body: he had no strength except to beat her. Nevertheless, this poor woman, with the sweetness of an angel, endured it all, and gained subsistence for that man and her five children. This woman had a wonderful gift of prayer, preserving the presence of God and equanimity in the greatest miseries and the most extreme poverty. There was also the wife of a shopkeeper greatly influenced by God, and the wife of a locksmith. They were three friends. Both of them sometimes read for that washerwoman, and they were surprised how she was instructed by our Lord in all they read for her, and how she spoke of it divinely. These monks sent for this woman, and threatened her if she would not give up prayer, saying it was only for monks, and that she was very audacious to use prayer. She answered them—or, rather, he who taught her, for she was in herself very ignorant—that our Lord had told all to pray; and that he had said, “I say unto you all,”not specifying either priests or monks; that without prayer she could never support the crosses, nor the poverty she was in; that she had formerly been without prayer, and she was a demon; and that since she used it, she had loved God with all her heart; and therefore to give up prayer was to renounce her salvation, which she never could do. She added, let them take twenty persons who have never used prayer, and twenty of those who use it; then, said she, make yourselves acquainted with their lives, and you will see if you have reason in condemning prayer. Such words as those from a woman of that condition ought to have convinced them; they only served to embitter them. They assured her she should not have absolution unless she promised to give up prayer. She said it did not depend on her, and that our Lord was the Master to communicate himself to his creature, and to do what pleased him. They refused her absolution; and after having gone so far as to abuse a worthy tailor, who served God with all his heart, they had brought to them all the books which treated of prayer, without any exception, and themselves burned them in the public place. They were greatly puffed up with their expedition; but the town rose up because of the blows given to the Father of the Oratory; and the principal men went to the Bishop of Geneva, to tell him the scandal created by these new missionaries, so different from the others, alluding to Father La Combe, who had on another occasion been there on a mission; and it was said that the only object of sending these last was to destroy the work he had done. The Bishop of Geneva was obliged himself to come to that town, and to get into the pulpit, protesting that he had no part in it—that the Fathers had pushed their zeal too far. The monks, on the other hand, said that they had done everything under orders. There were also at Tonon girls who had withdrawn together into retirement; they were poor village girls, who, in order the better to gain their subsistence and serve God, had several in number joined together. There was one who read from time to time, while the others worked; and they never went out without asking leave to go out from the senior. They made ribbons; they spun and gained a livelihood, each in her own trade: the strong supported the weak. These poor girls were separated, and others also, and dispersed among several villages; they drove them away from the Church. It was, then, monks of this same order of whom our Lord made use to establish prayer in I know not how many places, and they carried a hundred times more books on prayer into the places where they went than their brothers had burnt. God appears to me wonderful in these things. I had then opportunity of knowing these monks in the way which I am about to tell.

One day that I was ill a friar, who is well versed in the treatment of sick persons, came begging, and having learnt I was ill, came in. Our Lord made use of him to give me the proper remedies for my illness, and permitted that we entered into a conversation, which woke up in him the love which he had for God, and which was, according to him, stifled by his important occupations. I made him understand that there is no occupation which could hinder him from loving God, or thinking of him. He had no trouble in believing me, having already much piety and disposition for spiritual religion. Our Lord showed him great grace, and gave him to me as one of my true children. What is admirable is, that all those whom our Lord has given me in this way, I felt that he accepted them in me to be my children; for it is he who accepts them, and who gives them. I only bring them forth upon the cross, as he has brought forth all the predestinated on the cross; and it is further in this sense that he makes me “fill up what remains wanting of his passion,” which is the application of the divine filiation. O goodness of a God, to associate poor petty creatures in such great mysteries!

When our Lord gives me some children of this kind, he gives them, without my having ever exhibited anything of this, very great inclination for me; and without themselves knowing why or how, they cannot help calling me their mother—a thing which has happened to many persons of merit, priests, monks, pious girls, and even to an ecclesiastical dignitary, who all, without my having ever spoken to them, regard me as their mother—and our Lord has had the goodness to accept them in me, and to give them the same graces as if I was in the habit of seeing them. One day a person who was in a very trying state, and in manifest danger, without thinking what she did, cried aloud, “My mother, my mother!” thinking of me. She was at once delivered, with a fresh certainty that I was her mother, and that our Lord would have the goodness to succour her in all her needs through me. Many whom I knew only by letters, have seen me in dreams answer all their difficulties, and those who are more spiritual took part in the conversation, or intimate union of unity; but these last are few in number, who at a distance have no need for letters nor for discourses to understand; the others are interiorly nourished from the grace which our Lord abundantly communicates to them through me, feeling themselves filled from that outflow of grace.

For when our Lord honours a soul with spiritual fecundity, and associates her in his maternity, he gives her what is necessary to nourish and sustain her children according to their degree. It is in this way that, willing to bring forth all the predestinated, he gives them his flesh to eat. It is for this reason those who eat his flesh and drink his blood dwell in him and he in them, and they are thereby made his children; but those who do not eat the flesh cannot be his children, because they are not associated in the divine filiation, the new bond of which is effected in his blood, at least, unless by their conversion at death the efficacy of that blood be applied to them. It is true that to the holy Anchorites the Word communicated himself from the centre, and gave them through the central depth the food of angels, which is no other than himself as Word, although they may have been unable to eat his flesh with the bodily mouth.

I say, then, that when Jesus Christ associates anyone in spiritual maternity he provides a means of communicating himself; and it is this communication of pure spirit which forms the nourishment and essential support of souls, but a sustenance which they taste, and which they find by experience to be all they need. I know that I shall not be understood, for only experience can make this intelligible. I was sometimes so full of these pure and divine communications, which flow out from “that fountain of living water which shall spring up to eternal life,” mentioned by St. John the Evangelist, that I used to say, “O Lord, give me hearts on whom I may discharge from my abundance, otherwise I must die,” for these outflowings from the Divinity into the centre of my soul were sometimes so powerful that they reacted even on the body, so that I was ill from it. When some of those whom our Lord had given me as children approached, or he gave me new ones in whom grace was already strong, I felt myself gradually relieved, and they experienced in themselves an inconceivable plenitude of grace and a greater gift of prayer, which was communicated to them according to their degrees; and it surprised them much at the commencement, but afterwards by their experience they understood this mystery, and they felt a great need of me; and when necessity separated me from them, or—as I have said—I was unacquainted with them, from not having seen them, things were communicated to them from a distance.

Chapter 2-19

THERE were some worthy girls here who were specially given to me, in particular one, and over her I had great power, both over her soul and her body, to establish her health. At the commencement, when this girl came to me, she felt a great attraction to come, and our Lord gave her through me all she had need of; but as soon as she was at a distance, the Devil excited in her mind a frightful aversion to me, so that when it was necessary for her to come and see me, it was with repugnance and terrible efforts that she did it, and sometimes when half way she turned back through faithlessness, not having the courage to continue; but as soon as she was faithful to persist she was delivered from her trouble. When she came near me it all vanished, and with me she experienced that abundance of grace which has been brought to us by Jesus Christ. It was a soul greatly influenced by God from her childhood, to whom our Lord had given much grace, and whom he had led with great gentleness. One day she was with me I had a movement to tell her she was about to enter on a serious trial. She entered on it the next day in a very violent manner. The Devil put into her mind a terrible aversion to me. She loved me by grace, and hated me through the impression, which in a strange manner the Devil made on her; but as soon as she came near me he fled, and left her in quiet. He put into her mind that I was a sorceress, and that it was by this means I drove off the devils, and that I told her what was about to happen, in consequence of which things happened as I had told them to her. She had a continual vomiting, and when I told her not to vomit, and to retain the food, she retained it. One day before entering on the trial which I shall tell, she came to see me in the morning (because it was my fete), intending to come to Mass with me, and to communicate. She could hardly speak to me, such was her then aversion for me; and the Devil did not wish her to tell it, lest I should drive him off. He closed her mouth, and put into her mind that all I said or did was by sorcery. As she did not say a word, I knew her trouble, and I told it to her. She acknowledged it. When I was in the church I said to her: If it is through the Devil I act upon you, I give him the power to torment you; but if it is another spirit who possesses me, I will that during the Mass you participate in that spirit. The little time we were there before they commenced the Mass, the Devil made use of his interval, and more forcibly impressed on her that I was a sorceress, and it was this which made me act, and that she saw how she was worse since I had said that to her. While she was in the crisis of her pain, and an aversion to me that amounted to rage, the Mass commenced. As soon as the priest made the sign of the cross, she entered into a heavenly peace, and so great a union with God, that she knew not whether she was on earth, or in heaven. We communicated in the same manner, and she was saying to herself during this time, “Oh, how certain I am it is God who moves and leads her!” After the Mass was over, she said to me, “O my mother, how have I felt what God is in you! I have been in Paradise.” These are her words. But as I had only said “until after Mass,” the Devil came to attack her with more rage than before.

The greatest mischief he did was hindering her from telling me her state, for although our Lord made me well enough acquainted with it, he yet wished her to tell it to me. She was very ill; she thought she had an abscess, and the faints she fell into, joined to a pain of the head, made the doctor think so. She believed that when I touched the place on her side the abscess broke; but our Lord gave me no knowledge that it was so. I said nothing to her about it, and I have not attached faith to it, although she tried to persuade me; but what is certain is that our Lord made use of me many times to cure her. The Devil attacked her violently, and not being content alone, he took as allies a fine gang, and caused her much trouble. I drove him away when I had the movement for it, or I handed her over as I had done before, according as our Lord inspired me; but always as soon as she approached me and kept herself in silence to receive grace, he left her in repose. In my absence he thought he would be revenged to his full; as many as sixteen of them came to torment her. She wrote it to me. I told her when they came to torment her more violently, to threaten them that she would write to me. They left her for moments.

Then I forbade them for a time to approach her, and when they presented themselves at a distance she said to them, “My mother has told me that you should leave me in quiet until she permits it.” They did not approach her. At last I forbade them once for all, and they left her in quiet. She was faithless to God, and practised on me evasions and deceptions, which only came from self-love. I at once felt it, and that my central depth rejected her, not that she ceased for that to be among the number of my children; but it is that our Lord could not endure her deception or her duplicity. The more she concealed things, the more our Lord made me know them, and the more he rejected her from my central depth.

I saw, or rather, I experienced therein, how God rejects the sinner from his bosom, and especially those who act with concealment and deceit; that it is not God who rejects them, by a volition of rejecting them, or by hatred, but by necessity, owing to their sin; that in God the unchangeableness of love is entire for the sinner, so that as all the cause of that rejection is in the sinner, God cannot receive him into himself or into his grace until the cause of this rejection cease. Now, this cause does not subsist in the effect of the sin, but in the will and inclination of the sinner; so that as soon as this will and inclination ceases on the side of the sinner, however foul and horrible he may be, God purifies him by his charity and his love, and receives him into his grace; but as long as there remains in the man the will of sin, although from powerlessness or lack of opportunity he does not commit the sin he wills, it is certain he would be rejected from God, owing to this perverse will. It must be understood that the rejection does not come from a will in God to reject this sinner, “for his will is that all should be saved,” and that they should be received into him, who is their Origin and their End; but the indisposition which the sinner contracts, which is entirely opposed to God, and which he cannot, God though he be, receive into himself without destroying himself, causes a necessary rejection on the part of God of that sinner, who returns into his proper place (which is no other than God) as soon as the cause of this rejection ceases. It is for this reason the Scripture says, “Turn unto me, I will return unto you;” cease to will that sin which obliges me, in spite of my love, to reject you, and I will return to you, to take you, and draw you to me, far from rejecting you.

When this sinner is rejected by God, as I have said, because the matter of his rejection subsists, he can never be admitted into grace until the cause ceases, which is in the will to sin. However disorderly and however abominable the sinner may have been, he ceases to be a sinner as soon as he ceases to will to be so: for all rebellion is in the will. This rebellious will causes all the incongruity, and hinders God from acting on this sinner; but as soon as the sinner ceases to be rebellious, in ceasing to will sin; God by an infinite goodness incessantly works to purify him from the filth and the consequences of the sin, in order to make him fit to be received into himself. If all the life of this sinner pass in falling and getting up again, all the operation of God on this same sinner during all his life will be to purify him from the fresh stains which he contracts, and nothing will be done for his perfection. But if this sinner dies during the time that his will is rebellious, and turned towards sin, as death fixes for ever the disposition of the soul, and the cause of his impurity is still subsisting, this soul can never be purified by the charity of God, and can consequently never be received into him; so that his rejection is eternal. And this rejection is the pain of damnation, for this soul necessarily tends to her Centre, owing to her nature, and is continually rejected from it, owing to her impurity subsisting in the cause, and not merely in the effect. For if it subsisted only in the effect, as I shall immediately tell, it would be purified; but her sin being still subsisting in the cause, which is the rebellious will, it is utterly impossible for God to purify the sinner after his death; because he can only purify the effect and not the cause, as long as it subsists. Now, as it is rendered subsisting and immortal by the death of the sinner, it is of necessity that the sinner should be eternally rejected, owing to the absolute opposition there is between essential purity and essential impurity. No; God, all God though he be, cannot admit a sinner into his grace as long as his sin subsists in the cause, which is rebellion to God, because he cannot ever be purified as long as the cause subsists. It is the same in this life. But as soon as the cause is removed, and no longer subsists, the sin is no longer subsisting, but in its effect, and thus this sinner can be purified, and God works at this from the moment the cause no longer subsists, for that cause absolutely hinders God from working, the sinner being then in actual revolt.

But if this sinner dies penitent—that is to say, that the cause, which is the will to sin, is removed, and only the effect remains, which is the impurity caused by sin—however horrible and filthy the sinner may be, he ceases to be a sinner, although he does not cease to be filthy. He is then in a state to be purified. God, by an infinite charity, has provided a bath of love and justice, but a painful bath, to purify this soul, and that bath is Purgatory, which is not in itself painful, yet is so in the cause of the pain, which is impurity. Were this cause removed, which is nothing else than sin in its effect, the soul, being quite purified, would suffer nothing in that place of love. Now, God rejects from his grace the cause of the sin, that is the rebellious will, and he rejects from himself the damned owing to his impurity, which causes that not only can he not be received into God, but he cannot be received into his grace, owing to the rebellion of the will, entirely opposed to grace. It is not the same with the soul in Purgatory, who, having no longer the cause of sin, that is, the rebellion, is admitted into the grace of God, but she cannot for that be received into God until all impurity, the effect of sin, is removed; so that the pain of damnation and of the senses both proceed from her impurity and incongruity; as soon, however, as all impurity is removed, according as it pleases God to give a degree of glory to this soul, then she ceases to be rejected from God, and to suffer. There are, however, souls who die so pure that they do not suffer the pain of the senses, only some retardation. I have explained it elsewhere, therefore will not say anything of it here.

Now, I say that in this life it is quite the same; souls are received into grace as soon as the cause of sin ceases, but they are not received into God until all effect of sin is purified. If one continually defiles himself, or also, if being defiled, one has not the courage to allow himself to be purified by God as much as he wishes, one never enters into God in this life. Those souls who have not the courage to allow God to act are not thoroughly purified in this life, because these purifications are effected only by pain and overthrow, and this it is which makes many holy and wonderful souls still need Purgatory; for it must be known there are in us two things which need purifying: the effect of sin, and the cause of sin. I have said that those who die have subsisting in them only that which is there at their death. If they die in grace, their will not being rebellious, they no longer have the cause of sin, and cannot have it, since their will remains fixed in good. It is not the same on earth with a man who is not confirmed in charity; for, not being in the unmovable, he can always change, and his will may rebel until it dies and passes into that which renders it immovable. It is, therefore, necessary on the earth for God to purify not only the impurity and the remains of sin, but also the cause in its source, which is that root of sin, that leaven, that ferment, which may always give birth to it, and render our will rebellious, and consequently make us fall from grace, that is, the SELFHOOD. And herein is that radical purification of our nature, ever disposed to revolt, which God desires to purify in this life, and which he effectively purifies in the souls, that he wills not only to receive into his grace, but into himself. He purifies them not merely from the effect of sin, but from the radical cause, from that leaven, from that ferment, which always may make the will revolt; and this is effected only by the death of the soul through her annihilation, which is attended by extreme pains, and by the loss of all. It is for this reason that an extraordinary courage is needed to pass into God in this life, and to be annihilated to the necessary point, losing all that is “own.” Therefore the souls truly “transformed into him,” as St. Paul says, who are transformed, not merely in grace, but into himself, are more rare than I can tell.

To return to my subject. I say, this girl was rejected from my central depth; the cause was subsisting in her; not in my will. I experienced that she was still held to me by a certain bond, as the sinner to his God, which renders it possible for him always to be received into him in this life, as soon as the cause of the rejection ends. God incessantly solicits that will to cease to be rebellious, and he spares nothing on his side, but it is free; yet grace never fails, for as soon as the will ceases to rebel, it finds grace at its door, quite ready to give itself. Oh, if people conceived the goodness of God, and the wickedness of the sinner, they would be surprised, and it should make us die of love. I felt then how this girl, and many other souls, were bound to me by a link of filiation, but I could no longer communicate myself to this girl as I did before, owing to the want of simplicity, which was not in fleeting matters, but in her will to dissemble, and that it was impossible for that flow of grace to take place until this subsisting voluntary dissimulation was destroyed. I said to her what I could, but she dissimulated afresh to conceal her dissimulation, so that this caused God to reject her still more in me, and she became more opposed to me; not that I ceased to love her, for I knew well that I loved her, but it was she who caused her rejection, which could be ended only by her. O God, how admirable are you, to be willing to give petty creatures the knowledge by experience of your most profound secrets! What I experienced with this girl I have experienced with many souls: I have given this as an example. Father La Combe was not yet in a state to discern these things, and I could not explain them to him, except by saying that this person was artful and dissembling; but he took it in the sense of virtues, with which I had no longer anything to do, and he told me I formed rash judgments. I did not even understand what was a rash judgment—all that was far removed from my mind; and I remember that once, when I was in Piedmont, he wanted to make me confess it. I did so because he told me, and thereby suffered inconceivable torments; for our Lord was angry because they regarded that in me as a defect, in place of regarding it in him, the Supreme Truth, who judges things not as man judges, but who sees them as they are. Father La Combe made me suffer much in regard to this person; he was, however, himself enlightened, our Lord making him see falsities and manifest duplicity. Before my arrival at Grenoble, the lady, my friend, saw in a dream that our Lord gave me an infinity of children: they were all children and small, clothed in the same way, bearing on their dresses the marks of their candour and innocence. She thought I was coming there to take charge of the children of the Hospital, for the meaning was not given to her; but as soon as she related it to me, I understood itwas not this; that our Lord by spiritual fecundity meant to give me a great number of children, that they would be my true children only by simplicity and candour, and that he would draw them through me into innocence. Therefore there is nothing I have so much opposition to as trickery and duplicity. I have wandered far from what I commenced; but I am not my own mistress.

Chapter 2-20

THIS worthy friar of whom I have spoken, and who had already previously received from God sufficient grace to dispose him to spiritual views, though for want of help and, perhaps, of faithfulness, he had not advanced—this good friar, I say, felt himself led to open his heart to me like a child. Our Lord gave me all that was necessary for him, So that, not being able to doubt the impression of his grace, he said to me, without knowing what he was saying, “You are my true mother.” From that time our Lord had the goodness to show him much mercy through this petty nothing, and I felt indeed that he was my son, and one of the most united and faithful. Whenever he came to see me, our Lord showed him fresh mercies, and he used to go away full, strengthened, encouraged to die really to himself, and certified of the power of God in me, which he experienced with his dependence. Our Lord gradually taught him to speak in silence, and to receive grace without the intervention of words; but this took effect in him only in proportion as he died to himself. Our Lord had promised that where several should be assembled in his name, he would be in the midst of them. It is in this way the promise takes effect very really. As he was already far advanced in prayer, and was only arrested and retarded, he was soon re-established.

In proportion as his soul advanced so as to be able to remain in silence before God, and the Word operated in him in this silence—which is fruitful and full, not a mere indolence, as those who have not experienced it imagine—he increased in grace and prayer. O immediate speech, ineffable speech, who say everything without articulating anything, who are the expression of what you say! He who has not experienced you knows nothing, however wise he may think himself. It is in you is the source of all knowledge, and when you are in plenitude in a soul, what is she ignorant of? In proportion, then, as the Word communicated himself to him in silence ineffable, it was given him in silence to communicate with me, and to receive through me in silence the operations of the Divine Word—operations which he could not be ignorant of, for the plenitude became in him more abundant; like a sluice opened up which profusely discharges itself, and that with such force and such grace in well-disposed souls, that a river does not run with greater impetuosity. But, alas, how few souls there are pure enough for it to pass thus in them! This plenitude which he continually received, emptied him more of himself, and put him into a state of greater silence before God and profounder death and separation from all things. The more he died to everything, the more he was inclined towards God and towards me. O my God, I understood so well that it is in this manner you communicate yourself profusely to those souls, who are entirely yours; it is in these souls that your grace flows as a river, and it is in them that you become a “spring of water springing up unto life eternal,” and that with such abundance that there is enough to fill an infinity of hearts, each according to his degree, without ceasing to be full. It was that plenitude, great and unrivalled, with which the angel saluted the Holy Virgin. She was in such perfect plenitude that she flowed out and will flow out eternally into all the saints as their Hierarchic Queen, and it is in this sense that all the graces which God gives men pass all through Mary. What abundance do not you experience, you who communicate to all, and who are the first receptacle, who, overflowing from your plenitude, furnish to other souls all that is needed for them!

O wonderful Hierarchy, which commences in this life to continue through all eternity! Yes, there is a Hierarchy among the Saints as among the angels, and those who shall have served as a channel in their plenitude to water other souls will so serve through all eternity in Hierarchic manner.

And it is in this sense that the divine Eve is mother of all living, since there will be an outflow from her plenitude into the souls of all those who will live by grace, greater or less, according as the hearts are more disposed, more extended and dilated to receive from that plenitude and superabundance. It needs a great largeness and extent of soul to receive much and enough to give to others. Those who are dead through sin receive nothing from this plenitude of life, and that is the reason they are dead; because all the passages by which life might flow into them are stopped; but for souls living in charity, they all receive of that plenitude, more or less according as they are more or less disposed by purity and largeness of soul. The good friar then received in this way, as well as many others of my spiritual children; for what I say of him, I say of many others, but I give him as an example. He was also given the means of aiding other souls, not in silence, but by words; for as to the communication in silence, those who are in a state to receive are not thereby in a state to communicate: there is a long road to travel before. Father La Combe communicated and received, as I have said; but as for the others, they received without communicating. This same worthy friar had occasion to bring to me some of his companions, and God took them all for himself. Not that they were my children, as he was; they were only conquests. And it was at the very time God was giving me these worthy monks, that the other monks of the same order were committing the ravages of which I have spoken, and endeavouring to destroy spiritual religion. I marvelled how our Lord compensated himself on these worthy monks—in pouring out his Spirit upon them with fulness—for what the others tried to make him lose, but without much effect; for those other good souls which were persecuted were strengthened by the persecution, instead of being shaken. The Superior and the master of the novices of the House where this worthy friar was declared against me without knowing me, and were vexed that a woman, they said, should be so sought after. As they regarded things in themselves and not in God, who does what he pleases, they had only scorn for the gift which was contained in so miserable a vessel, in place of esteeming only God and his grace, without regard to the baseness of the subject in which he pours it out. This worthy friar contrived that his Superior came to thank me for the charities, he said, that I gave them. Our Lord permitted that he found in my conversation something which pleased him. At last he was completely gained over, and it was he who, being made Visitor some time afterwards, distributed so great a quantity of those books, which they, out of extreme charity, purchased at their expense, and which the others had tried to destroy by causing them even to be burnt. How admirable are you, O my God, in your conduct, all wise and all loving, and how well you know how to triumph over the false wisdom of men and over all their precautions!

In the Noviciate there were several novices. He who was the senior of them was so disgusted with his vocation that he did not know what to do. The temptation was such that he could neither read, nor study, nor pray, nor perform almost any of his duties. The begging friar, one day that he acted as his companion, had a movement to bring him to me. We talked a little together, and our Lord made me discover the cause of his trouble and the remedy. I told it to him, and he set himself to pray, but a prayer of affection. He suddenly changed, and our Lord gave him great grace. In proportion as I spoke to him, an effect of grace was produced in his heart, and his soul opened herself like a parched land to the dew. He felt he was changed and freed from his trouble before leaving the room. He performed at once with joy, and even to perfection, all his exercises, which previously he performed with disgust, or did not perform at all. He studied and prayed with ease, and discharged all his duties, so that he no longer knew himself, nor did the others. But what astonished him more was a germ of life which had remained with him, and a gift of prayer. He saw that there was given to him without trouble what previously he could not have, whatever trouble he took; and that vivifying germ was the principle which made him act, and gave him grace for his occupations and a root of God’s presence, which brought with it all good. He gradually brought to me all the novices, who all felt the effects of grace, but differently and according to their degree; so that never did Noviciate appear more flourishing.

The Father, who was master, and the Superior, could not help wondering at so great a change in their novices, although they did not penetrate the cause; and one day as they spoke of it to the begging friar, and said to him—for they had him in great esteem, being men of merit and virtue—that they were surprised by the change in the novices, and the blessing that the Lord had given to their Noviciate, he said to them, “My Fathers, if you permit me, I will tell you the cause. It is that lady, against whom you cried out so strongly without knowing her, of whom God has made use for this.” They were very much surprised, and that Father, although very aged, had the humility, as well as his Guardian, to use prayer in the way taught in a little book which our Lord had made me compose, and of which I shall speak immediately. They so much profited by it that the Guardian said, “I am a new man. I could not pray because my reasoning was dulled and exhausted, and now I do it without trouble as much as I wish, with much fruit and a quite different presence of God.” The other Father said to him, “For forty years I am a monk, and I can say that I have never known how to pray, nor known and tasted God until this time.” As my true children I had only the first of the novices of whom I have spoken, the begging friar, and another Father, nephew of the begging friar. There were many others won for God in a special manner. I saw clearly that they were gained, but I did not feel in their case that maternity and that inward flowing out of which I have spoken, although they were, however, our Lord’s through my means. I do not know if I can make myself understood.

Our Lord gave me a very great number of children, and three famous monks, from an order by which I have been, and am still, much persecuted. These are very closely bound to me, especially one. He made me help a great number of nuns and virtuous girls, and even men of the world, among others a young man of rank, who has given himself to God, and is his in a very special manner. He is a man very spiritually minded, and who, while married, is very holy. Our Lord sent me also an Abbe of rank, who had left the Order of Malta, to take up that of the priesthood. He was relative of a Bishop of that neighbourhood, who had plans for him. Our Lord gave him great grace, and he is very faithful to prayer. I could not write the great number of souls then given to me—maids and wives, monks and priests; but there were three cures, and one canon, who were more especially given to me, and a grand vicar. There was also a priest who was given to me very intimately, for whom I suffered much; but as he was not willing to die to himself, and too much loved himself, he was entirely torn away from me, and I suffered terribly. I suffered before he was torn from me, and I knew by my suffering that he was about to be torn from me, and to fall. As for the others, some remained unshaken, and others were a little shaken by the tempest, but they are not torn away: although these stray, they still return; but those who are torn away never return.

Among the great number of persons whom our Lord caused me to aid, and who all entered on the way of spirituality, and gave themselves particularly to God, there were some who were given to me as true daughters, and all recognized me as their mother, and of these last some were in a state to remain in silence: but that was rare. There was one whom our Lord made use of to gain many others to him. She was in a strange state of death when I saw her. Our Lord gave her peace and life. She afterwards fell sick to death, and although the doctors said she would die, I had a certainty to the contrary, and that God would make use of her, as he did, to gain souls. There was in a convent a girl whom people without light had caused to be confined because she was in trouble. I saw her; I understood her distress, and that she was not what she was thought to be. As soon as I had spoken to her she was restored; but the Prioress was displeased at my telling her my thoughts, because the person who for want of light had reduced her to that state was her own friend. So that they tormented her more than before, and threw her back into her trouble.

A Sister of another convent was for eight years in an inconceivable trouble without finding anyone to relieve her; for her director increased it by giving her remedies quite unsuited to her disease. I had never been in that convent, as I used not to go to convents unless I was sent for. Our Lord gave me no inclination nor movement to thrust myself in of myself; but I used to allow myself to be led by providence, and to go where I was sent for. I was very much surprised, when, at eight in the evening, I was sent for by the Prioress. It was in summer, and the days long. As I was very near I went at once. I found a Sister who told me her trouble, and that she had been driven to such a point that she had taken a knife to kill herself, seeing no other remedy; but that the knife had fallen from her hand, and a person who had been to see her, without her disclosing the nature of the trouble, had advised her speak to me. Our Lord made me recognize at once what the matter was, and that he wished her to abandon herself to him, instead of resisting him, as they had made her do for eight years. I made her give herself up to our Lord, and she entered at once into a heavenly peace; all her pains were taken away in a moment, and since that time have never returned. She is the most capable girl in that House. She was at once so changed that she was the admiration of the community. Our Lord gave her a very great gift of prayer, his constant presence and ability for everything. She was given to me as a daughter; and a Sister, who was servant, a very holy woman, troubled for twenty-two years, was also delivered from her pain. This caused a friendship to be formed between the Prioress and me (and in her manner she was a very holy person), because the change and the peace of that Sister surprised her, having seen her in such terrible pains. I formed yet other connections in that convent, where there are souls to whom our Lord has shown great mercies through the means he had chosen.

Chapter 2-21

You were not content, my God, with making me speak, you further gave me an impulse to read the Holy Scripture. There was a time that I did not read, for I found in myself no want to fill up; on the contrary, rather too great a plenitude. As soon as I commenced reading the Holy Scripture, it was given me to write out the passage I read, and immediately the explanation of it was given to me. In writing out the passage I had not the least thought on the explanation, and as soon as it was written out it was given to me to explain it, writing with inconceivable quickness. Before writing I did not know what I was going to write; while writing I saw that I was writing things I had never known, and during the time of the manifestation light was given me that I had in me treasures of knowledge and understanding that I did not know myself to possess. As soon as I had written I remembered nothing whatever of what I had written, and there remained to me neither species nor images. I could not have made use of what I had written to aid souls; but our Lord gave me while I spoke to them ( without my paying any attention to it) all that was necessary for them. In this way our Lord made me explain all the Holy Scripture. I had no book except the Bible, and that alone I used without searching for anything. When, in writing on the Old Testament, I took passages from the New to support what I was saying, it was not that I sought them out, but they were given to me at the same time as the explanation; and exactly the same with the New Testament. I there made use of passages from the Old, and they were given to me without my searching for anything. I had no time to write except at night, for I had to speak all day, without reflection any more for speaking than for writing, and as little careful of my health, or of my life, as of myself. I used to sleep only one or two hours every night, and with that almost every day I had fever, ordinarily a quartan, and yet I continued to write without inconvenience, without troubling myself whether I should die or live. He whose I was without any reserve did with me as he pleased, without my meddling in his work. You yourself, O my God, used to wake me up, and I owed such an entire dependence and obedience to your will that you were not willing to suffer the least natural movement. When the least thing mingled therewith you punished it, and it ceased at once.

You made me write with such a purity that I had to stop and begin again as you wished. You tried me in every way; suddenly you made me write, then stop immediately, and again begin. When I wrote by day I was suddenly interrupted, and often left words half written, and you gave me afterwards what you pleased. What I wrote was not in my head; my head was so free that it was a perfect vacuum. I was so detached from what I wrote that it seemed strange to me. A reflection occurred to me: I was punished for it; my writing at once dried up, and I remained like a fool until I was enlightened thereon. The least joy in the graces you gave me was very rigorously punished. All the faults which are in my writings come from this, that, not being accustomed to the operation of God, I was often unfaithful: thinking I was doing well in continuing to write when I had the time without having the movement for it, because I had been ordered to finish the work; so that it is easy to see passages which are beautiful and sustained, and others which have neither taste nor unction. I have left them as they are in order that people may see the difference between the Spirit of God and the natural human spirit; being, however, ready to correct them according to the present light which is given me, in case I am ordered to do so.

Previous to this time what test did you not make of my abandonment? Did you not give me a hundred different aspects to see if I was yours without reserve, under every test, and if I had yet some little interest for myself? You still found this soul supple and pliable to all your wishes. What have you not made me suffer? Into what humiliation did you not cast me to counterbalance your graces? To what, my God, did you not deliver me, and by what painful straits did you not make me pass? That which before I could not touch with the tip of my finger became my ordinary food. But I was not troubled at all that you did to me. I saw with pleasure and complaisance—taking no more interest in myself than in a dead dog—I saw, I say, with complaisance your divine play. You lifted me up to heaven, then immediately you cast me down into the mud, then with the same hand you replaced me in the place from which you had cast me down. I saw that I was the sport of your love and of your will, the victim of your divine justice, and all was alike to me. It seems to me, O my God, that you treat your dearest friends as the sea does its waves. It drives them at times with impetuosity against the rocks, where they are broken; at other times against the sand or the mud, and then immediately it receives back into its bosom and buries there that wave with so much the more force as it had with greater impetuosity cast it forth. This is the play which you make of your friends who, nevertheless, are one in you, changed and transformed into yourself, although you make a continual play of casting them off and receiving them back into your bosom; like as the waves are a part of the sea, and after a wave has been thrown forward with greater impetuosity, the gulf which swallows it up is deeper in proportion. O my God, what things I should have to tell! but I am not able to say anything of the operations of your just and beneficent love, because they are too subtle.

This love delights in making those whom it has made one in you the continual victims of its justice. It seems that these souls are made holocausts to be burnt up by love on the altar of the divine Justice. Oh, how few the souls of this kind! They are almost all the souls of Mercy, and it is much; but to belong to the divine Justice, Oh, how rare that is! but how great it is! These are the souls of God alone, who have no longer any interest in themselves, or for themselves; all is for God, without reference or relation to themselves as to salvation, perfection, eternity, life, or death. All that is not for them: their business is to let the divine Justice satiate itself in them, as says Deborah, with blood of the dead; that is to say, with this soul already dead through love; and take on her vengeance for the sins of the others. This is too little; it satiates itself with a glory which is peculiar to that attribute—glory which does not permit the smallest reference to the creature, and which desires everything for itself. Mercy is altogether distributive in favour of the creature; but Justice devours and carries off everything, and cannot desire anything save for itself, without having any regard for the victim which it sacrifices; it is for this reason that it does not spare. Yet it desires voluntary victims, who have no other object than itself in what they suffer, no more than it has any other object than itself in what it makes them suffer. It is not that the soul thus devoured pays attention to this loving cruelty, which treats her pitilessly; no, she has neither thought nor reflection. She thinks on it only when it is given her to write or to speak on the subject. This Justice, thus devouring, nourishes itself only from sufferings, opprobrium and ignominy, and with the same hand with which it has struck the Author of justice, it strikes with so much the more force those who are predestinated, the more conformed they are to be to him.

But it will be said, How, then, is such a soul sustained in the cruelty of the divine Justice? She is sustained without sustenance by the same cruelty; the more she is deserted, as it seems, by God, the more is she sustained in God above all sustenance: for it must not be thought that such a soul has anything for herself which can satisfy her, either within or without—absolutely nothing. All is rigour without any rigour; all that is given her is only given for the neighbour, and to make him know and love and possess his God.

My friend commenced to conceive some jealousy at the applause which was given me, God so permitting in order to further purify that holy soul through this weakness and the pain which it caused her. Her friendship changed into coolness and something more. It was you, O my God, who permitted it, as I have said. Certain confessors also commenced to stir themselves, saying that it was not for me to meddle with helping souls, that there were some of their penitents who had for me an entire openness. It was here one might easily remark the difference between those confessors who sought only God in the conduct of souls, and those who sought themselves; for the former used to come to see me, and were delighted with the graces which God bestowed on their penitents, without paying attention to the channel of which he made use. The others, on the contrary, secretly moved to stir up the town against me. I saw that they would have been right in opposing me if I had intruded of myself; but besides that I could only do what our Lord made me do, it was a fact that I did not seek anyone. Each one came to me from every direction, and I received all indifferently. Sometimes they came to oppose me. There were two monks of the same order as the begging friar of whom I have spoken; the one was Provincial, very learned, and a great preacher, the other was Lent preacher at the cathedral. They came separately, after having studied a quantity of difficult subjects to propose to me. They did this, and although they were matters beyond my scope, our Lord made me answer with as much correctness as if I had studied them all my life; after which I said to them myself what our Lord gave me. They went away not only convinced and satisfied, but smitten with your love, O my God.

I still continued to write, and with incredible quickness, for the hand could hardly follow the spirit which dictated, and during this long work I did not change my conduct, nor make use of any book. The copyist could not, however diligent, copy in five days what I wrote in a single night. What is good in it comes from you alone, O my God; and what is bad comes from me. I mean to say, from my unfaithfulness and the mixture which, without knowing it, I have made of my impurity with your pure and chaste doctrine. At the commencement I committed many faults, not being yet broken in to the operation of the Spirit of God, who made me write. For he made me stop writing when I had time to write and I could conveniently do it, and when I seemed to have a very great need of sleeping, it was then he made me write. When I wrote by day there were continual interruptions, and I had not time to eat, owing to the number who used to come. I had to give up everything as soon as I was asked for, and in addition I had the maid who served me in the state of which I have spoken, and she without cause used to come and suddenly interrupt me, according as her whim took her. I often left the meaning half finished, without troubling myself whether what I was writing was connected or not. The places which may be defective are so only because sometimes I wished to write as I had the time, and then it was not grace at its fountain head. If these passages were numerous it would be pitiable. At last I accustomed myself to follow God in his way, not in mine. I wrote the Song of Songs in a day and a half, and in addition received visits. The quickness with which I wrote was so great that my arm swelled up and became quite stiff. At night it caused me great pain, and I did not believe I could write for a long time. There appeared to me as I slept a soul from purgatory, who urged me to ask her deliverance from my divine Spouse. I did so, and it seemed to me that she was at once delivered. I said to her, If it is true that you are delivered, cure my arm; and it was instantly cured, and in a condition for writing. I will add to what I have said about my writings, that a very considerable part of the Book of Judges was lost. I was asked to make it complete. I rewrote the lost parts. A long time afterwards, having broken up house, it was found where one never would have looked for it. The earlier and the later were found to be exactly alike—a thing which astonished many persons of learning and merit, who verified the fact.

There came to see me a counsellor of the Parliament, who is a model of holiness. This worthy servant of God found on my table a “Method of Prayer,” which I had written a long time before. He took it from me, and having found it much to his taste, he gave it to some of his friends, to whom he thought it would be useful. All wished to have copies of it. He resolved with that worthy friar to have it printed. The printing commenced and the approbation given, they asked me to put a preface to it. I did so, and it is in this way that the little book, which has been made the pretext for my imprisonment, was printed. This counsellor is one of my closest friends, and a great servant of God.

This poor little book, notwithstanding the persecution, has nevertheless been printed five or six times, and our Lord gives a very great blessing to it. These worthy monks took fifteen hundred copies. The begging friar wrote perfectly, and our Lord inspired him to copy my writings, at least a part. He also gave the same idea to a monk of a different order, so that each of them took some to copy. Being one night engaged in writing something which he thought urgent (for he had misunderstood what had been said to him), as it was extremely cold, and his legs were naked, they so swelled that he could not move. He came to see me, quite sad, and as if disgusted with writing. He told me his ailment, and that he could not go on his begging rounds. I told him to be cured; he was so on the instant, and went away very well pleased and very desirous of transcribing that work, through which he declares our Lord has bestowed on him great graces. There was also a worthy girl, but very fickle; she had a great pain in the head. I touched it for her, and she was immediately cured.

The Devil became so enraged against me, owing to the conquests that you made, O my God, that he beat some of the people who came to see me. There was a worthy girl of great simplicity, who gained her livelihood by her work; she is a girl who has received very great grace from our Lord. The Devil broke two teeth in her mouth; her jaw swelled to a prodigious size, and he told her that if she came to see me any more he would give her worse treatment. She came to see me in this state, and said to me in her innocence, “The villain! he has done this to me because I come to you; he utters great abuse against you.” I told her to forbid him from me, touching her. Seeing that he was caught, and dared not touch her, for he could not do what God through me forbade him to do, he uttered much abuse, and made horrible gestures before her, and assured her he would stir up against me the most strange persecution I ever had. I laughed at all this, for I have no apprehension of him. Although he stir up persecutions against me, I know that in spite of himself he will serve for the glory of my God.

Chapter 2-22

THIS poor girl came to see me one day quite distressed. She said to me, “O my mother, what strange things I have seen!” I asked her what it was. “Alas!” she cried, “I saw you like a lamb in the midst of a pack of furious wolves. I have seen a terrible gang of people of all kinds, of every age, sex, and condition—priests, monks, married people, maids, wives—with pikes, halberts, naked swords, who were trying to stab you. You let them do so without stirring, or showing astonishment, or defending yourself. I looked on all sides if anyone would come to assist or defend you, but I have not seen anyone.” Some days after those who through envy were preparing a secret battery against me suddenly broke out like a thunderbolt. Libels commenced to circulate everywhere, and letters were shown me of the most dreadful character, which, without knowing me, envious persons had written. They said that I was a sorceress; that it was by magic I attracted souls; that whatever was in me was diabolic; that if I bestowed charities, it was with false money I did so; and a thousand other crimes they accused me of, which were as false and as ill founded the one as the other. As the tempest each day increased, and they in truth said “Crucify!” exactly as our Lord had at the first let me know, some of my friends advised me to withdraw for a time. The Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble told me to go to St. Baume and to Marseilles, to spend some time; that they wished for me there, where were some very spiritually minded persons; that he would accompany me, together with a worthy maid and another ecclesiastic, and meantime the tempest would pass off. But before speaking of my departure from Grenoble, I must say something more of the state which I bore in that country.

I was in such a great plenitude of God that I was often either lying down or entirely confined to bed, without being able to speak; and when I had no means of pouring out this plenitude, our Lord did not permit it to be so violent, for in that violence I could no longer live. My soul only wished to pour out into other hearts her superabundance. I had the same union and the same communication with Father La Combe (although so far away) as if he was near. Jesus Christ was communicated to me in all his states. It was then his Apostolic state, which was most marked. All the operations of God in me were shown me in Jesus Christ, and explained by the Holy Scripture; so that I bore in myself the experience of what was there written. When I could not write or communicate myself in another manner, I was then quite languishing, and I experienced what our Lord said to his disciples: “I desired with ardour to eat this Passover with you.” That was the communication of himself through the Last Supper, and through his Passion, when he said, “All is consummated, and bowing the head, gave up the ghost” (because he communicated his spirit to all men capable of receiving him), “and returned it into the hands of his Father” and his God, as well as his kingdom; as if he had said to his Father, “My Father, my kingdom is to reign through you, and you through me, over men. This can only be by the pouring out of my Spirit upon them. Let, then, my Spirit be communicated to them through my death.” And herein is the consummation of all things. Often a too great plenitude took from me the capacity to write, and I could do nothing except lie down without speech. I used, notwithstanding, to have nothing for myself; everything was for the others, like those nurses who are full of milk, and who for this reason are not the more supported—not that anything was wanting to me, for since my new life I have not had one moment of emptiness.

Before writing on the Book of Kings of all that refers to David, I was put into such a close union with this holy patriarch that I communicated with him as if he had been present, not in images, species, or figures—my soul was far removed from these things—but in a divine manner, in an ineffable silence, and in perfect reality. I understood what this holy patriarch was; the greatness of his grace, the conduct of God with him, and all the circumstances of the states through which he had passed; that he was a living figure of Jesus Christ, and a shepherd chosen for Israel. It seemed to me that all our Lord made me, or would make me, do for souls, would be in union with this holy patriarch, and with those to whom I was at the same time united in a manner similar to what I had been with David, my dear King. O Love, did you not make me know that the wonderful and real union between this holy patriarch and me would never be understood by anyone? for none was in a state to understand it. It was then you taught me, O my Love, that by this admirable union it was given me to carry Jesus Christ, Word-God, into souls. Jesus Christ is born of David according to the flesh. Oh, how many conquests did you cause me to make in this quite ineffable union! My words were efficacious, and produced effects in hearts. It was the formation of Jesus Christ in souls. I was in no way the mistress of speaking or saying things; he who led me made me speak them as he wished, and for as long as was pleasing to him. There were souls to whom he did not let me say a word, and others for whom there were deluges of grace. But that pure love did not suffer any superfluity nor trifling. Sometimes there were souls who asked several times the same things, and when they were answered according to their need, and it was only a desire of speaking, without my paying any attention to it, I could not answer them. They then said to me, “You said this last; must we hold to this?” I used to say to them, “Yes,” and then I was enlightened that because the answer would have been useless, it was not given to me. It was exactly the same with those whom our Lord was leading through the death of themselves, and who came to seek for human consolation. I had for them merely the strictly necessary, after which I was unable to speak. I would rather have spoken of a hundred indifferent matters (because that is what comes of myself, which God allows, that I may be all things to all, and not vex my neighbour), but as for his Word, he himself is the dispenser of it. Oh, if preachers spoke in this spirit, what fruit would they not have! There were others, as I have said, to whom I could communicate myself only in silence, but a silence as ineffable as efficacious. These last are the most rare, and it is the special characteristic of my true children. It is (as perhaps I have already said) the communication of the Blessed Spirits.

It was then that I learned the true manner of treating with the Saints of heaven in God himself, and also with Saints on earth. O communication so pure, who will be able to comprehend thee, save he who experiences thee? If men were spirit, we would speak in spirit, but because of weakness we must have recourse to words. I had the consolation some time ago to hear this read from St. Augustine in a spiritual conversation he had with his mother. He complains that he must have recourse to words, owing to our feebleness. I used sometimes to say, “O Love, give me hearts large enough to contain such a great plenitude.” It seemed to me that a thousand hearts would be too small. I had intelligence of the communication between Jesus Christ and St. John during the Last Supper. My intelligences were not lights, but intelligences of experience. How did I truly experience, O well-beloved disciple, the communication of my divine Master to your heart, and the manner in which you learned ineffable secrets, and how you continued a like commerce with the Holy Virgin! Oh, how one may well call that communication a wonderful intercourse! It was given me to understand that herein was the language of the cradle, and how the Holy Child communicated himself to the kings and shepherds, and gave them the knowledge of his Divinity.

It was also (as I have said somewhere) in this way that when the Holy Virgin came to Elizabeth, a wonderful intercourse took place between Jesus Christ and St. John—intercourse which communicated to him the spirit of the Word, and the holiness which was so efficacious that it always continued. It is for this reason St. John Baptist showed no eagerness to come and see Jesus Christ after this communication, for they used to communicate at a distance as well as if near; and in order to receive these communications with more plenitude, he retired into the desert. So when he preached penitence, what did he say of himself? He did not say he was the Word, for he knew quite well that was Jesus Christ, Eternal Word, but he only said he was a voice. The voice serves as passage to the word, and emits it; so that after being filled with the communication of the divine Word, he was made the expression of that same Word, propelling by his voice that divine Word into souls. He knew it from the first: he had no need anyone should tell him who he was; and if he sent his disciples to him, it was not for himself, but for them, to make them disciples of Jesus Christ. He baptized only with water, to let it be seen what was his function, for as the water in flowing away leaves nothing, so the voice leaves nothing. It is only the Word who impresses himself. He was made, then, to carry the Word, but he was not the Word ; and he who was the Word baptized with the Holy Spirit, because he had the gift to impress himself on souls, and to communicate himself to them by the Holy Spirit. I understood that Joseph and Mary mutually communicated through Jesus. Jesus was the principle and the end of their communications. O adorable intercourse! It is not observable that Jesus Christ said anything during his obscure life, although it is true that none of his words will be lost. O Love, if all you have said and operated in silence were written, I do not believe that all the world could contain all the books which should be written. All that I experienced was shown me in the Holy Scripture, and I saw with wonder that nothing passed in the soul which is not in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Scripture. When I communicated with narrow hearts I experienced a very great torment. It was like an impetuous stream of water, which, not finding an issue, returns upon itself, and I was sometimes ready to die. O God, could I describe or make to be understood all I suffered in that place, and the mercies you showed me there? I must pass over many things in silence, as well because they cannot be expressed as that they would not be understood. What caused me the most suffering was Father La Combe; as he was not yet established firmly in his state, and that God exercised him in crosses and overthrows, his doubts and his hesitations gave me strange blows. However far distant from me he was, I felt his pains and his dispositions. He was bearing a state of interior death and alternations the most cruel and terrible that ever were. According to the knowledge which God has given me of it, he is therefore of all his servants now on earth the most agreeable to him. It was impressed upon me that he is a vessel of election, whom God had chosen to carry his Name among the Gentiles; but that he would show him how much he must suffer for that very Name.

When in those trials he found himself, as it were, rejected by God, he found himself at the same time separated from me. He doubted of my state, and had great griefs against me; and as soon as God received him into himself, he found himself more powerfully united to me than ever, and he found himself enlightened on my state in a wonderful manner, God giving him an esteem which went as far as veneration: so that he could not conceal his sentiments, and he often repeated to me, “I cannot be united to you out of God, for as soon as I am rejected by God, I am the same by you, and I feel myself divided from you, in continual doubt and hesitation as to what concerns you; and as soon as I am well with God, I am well with you. I know the grace he bestows on me in uniting me to you, and how dear you are to him, and the central depth he has put into you.”

O God, who will ever comprehend the pure and holy unions which you form among your creatures! The carnal world only judges of them carnally, attributing to a natural attachment that which is the highest grace. You alone, O God, know what I have suffered on this head. All the other crosses, although very hard, appeared to me shadows beside that. Our Lord made me one time understand that when Father La Combe should be established in him in a permanent state, and he should have no more interior vicissitudes, he would have none also in regard to me, and that he would remain for ever united to me in God. That is so at present. I saw that he felt the union and the division only owing to his weakness, and that his state was not yet permanent. I felt it only because he divided himself, and that I had to bear all this; but ever since the union has been without contrariety, without hindrance and in its perfection, he has no longer felt it, no more than I; except by an awakening in interior conversation in the manner of the Blessed.

The union of the soul with God is felt only because it is not entirely perfect; but as soon as it is consummated in unity, it is no more felt: it becomes, as it were, natural. One does not feel the union of the soul and the body. The body lives and operates in this union without one thinking, or paying attention to the union. It exists—we know it; and all the functions of life which the body performs do not allow us to be ignorant of it—yet one acts without attention to that. It is the same for the union with God and with certain creatures in him, for what shows the purity and eminence of this union is that it follows that with God; and it is so much the more perfect as that of the soul to God and in him is more perfected. Yet were it necessary to break this pure and holy union, one would feel it the more, in proportion as it is more pure, perfect, and insensible; as one very well feels when the soul is about to separate from the body by death, although one does not feel the union.

As I was in the state of childhood of which I have spoken, and Father La Combe got offended, and separated himself from me, I used to weep like a child, and my body became quite languishing; and what is surprising is that I found myself at the same time weaker than a little child and strong as God. I found myself quite divine, enlightened on everything, and firm for the severest crosses; and yet the weakness of the smallest child. O God, I can say that I am perhaps the creature in all the world from whom you have desired the greatest dependence. You placed me in all kinds of states and in different positions, and my soul neither wished to, nor had the power to resist. I was so utterly yours that there was nothing in the world that you could have exacted of me, to which I would not have submitted with pleasure. I had no interest for myself, and if I could have perceived that “myself,” I would have torn it into a thousand pieces; but I no longer perceived it.

Ordinarily I do not know or recognize my state, but when God wishes anything from this miserable nothing, I feel that he is absolute master, and that nothing, not to say, resists him, but even objects to his wishes, however rigorous they may seem. O Love, if there is a heart in the world over which you are fully victorious, I can say that it is this poor nothing. You know it, O Love, and that your most rigorous volitions are its life and its pleasure; for it subsists no more but in you. I have wandered; that is a common thing with me, as well owing to interruptions and that I have had two severe illnesses since I commenced to write, as that I give myself up to what carries me away.

Chapter 2-23

To resume, the Almoner of the Bishop of Genoble persuaded me to go and pass some time at Marseilles, to let the tempest blow over, and said that I should there be very well received, that it was his country, and that many good persons were there. I wrote to Father La Combe, that I might have his approval. He permitted it. I might have gone to Verceil, for the Bishop of Verceil had sent me by express the strongest, most pressing, and most attractive letters possible, to induce me to go into his diocese; but deference to man’s opinion and the fear of giving opportunity to my enemies (when I use the term enemy it is not that I consider any person such, nor that I can look upon those whom God makes use of otherwise than as the instruments of his justice, but it is to explain myself)—these two reasons, I say, made me extremely unwilling. Besides, the Marquise de Prunai, who since my departure had been more enlightened by her own experience, having found true some of the things which I had believed were about to happen to her, had conceived for me a very strong friendship, and a very intimate union, so that the most united sisters could not be more so than were we. She wished extremely I should return to her as I had before promised; but I could not resolve upon it, lest it should be thought I was going where Father La Combe was. But, O my God, how this remnant of self-love was overthrown by the action of your adorable providence! I had still this interior support of being able to say that I had never been running after Father La Combe, and that this could not be said of me, nor could I be accused on this head of any attachment to him, since when it depended only upon me to live near him, I did not do so. The Bishop of Geneva had not failed to write against me to Grenoble, as he had done elsewhere. His nephew had been from house to house decrying me. All this was indifferent to me, and I nevertheless procured for his diocese all the good I could. I even wrote politely to him; but his heart was too wounded in the matter of worldly interest, he said, to give in. These were his own words.

Before setting out from Grenoble, that worthy child of whom I have spoken, whom the Devil had severely ill-treated, came to see me, and said to me, weeping, “The Devil has told me that you are going away.” It should be observed that I had not told a single person. The Devil, then, told her that I was going away, and that I had concealed it from her, because I did not wish anyone should know; but that he would soon catch me, and that he would be before me in all the places where I should go; that hardly should I arrive in any town, but he would stir up the whole town against me. And he made her understand that he was enraged against me, and would do me all the ill he could. What had obliged me to keep my departure secret was that I feared being overwhelmed with visits and testimony of friendship from numbers of good people, who had much affection for me.

I embarked, then, on the Rhone, with my maid and a worthy girl of Grenoble, to whom our Lord had through my means given much grace. She was to me a genuine source of crosses. The Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble accompanied me, together with another ecclesiastic, a very excellent man. We had many adventures, and were near perishing; for in a very dangerous place the cable broke, and the boat went right against a rock. The master pilot fell overboard at the shock, and would have been drowned but for the gentlemen who saved him. Another accident also happened to me. Having with the gentlemen gone down the Rhone in a small boat managed by a child, in expectation of finding a large boat, without success, we had to return to Valence, after having gone down more than a league. Everyone got out of the boat because it was too heavy to reascend the river, and as I could not walk I remained in it at the mercy of the waves, which bore us where they pleased without resistance; for the child who managed the boat, and did not know his business, took to tears, saying we were about to be drowned. I encouraged him, so that, having contended for more than four hours with the waves, while those who were on the bank believed us at one time utterly lost, then again saved, at last we arrived.

These manifest dangers, which frightened the others, far from alarming me, increased my peace—a thing which astonished the Bishop’s Almoner, who was in a horrible fright when the boat ran against the rock and split; for, attentively looking at me in his emotion, he noticed that I did not frown, and that my tranquillity was not in the least altered. It is true that I did not feel even the first movements of surprise, which are natural to everyone on these occasions, and which do not depend on us. What caused my peace in these perils that suddenly surprise, was my inmost centre being in an abandonment always fixed and firm in God, and because death is to me far more agreeable than life; I should need much more abandonment to God for living than for dying, if I could have any wish. I am indifferent to everything, and that is why nothing alters my central depth.

On leaving Grenoble a man of rank, a great servant of God and an intimate friend of mine, had given me a letter for a very devout Knight of Malta, whom I have always regarded since I knew him as a man our Lord destines to be very useful to the Order of Malta; to be its example and support through his holy life. I told him even that I believed he would go to Malta and that God would assuredly make use of him to inspire with piety many of the Knights. He has, in fact, gone to Malta, where at once the highest offices were given to him. That man of rank sent him the little book on prayer entitled, “A Short Method,” printed at Grenoble. This knight had an almoner very much opposed to spirituality. He took the book and at once condemned it, and set about stirring up a party in the town, among others seventy-two persons who openly called themselves the seventy-two disciples of M. de St. Cyran. I had only arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, and a few hours after noon everything was in commotion against me. They went to see the Bishop of Marseilles, telling him that, owing to that little book, he must drive me away from Marseilles. They gave him the book, which he examined with his theologian, and which he found very good. He sent to fetch M. Malaval and a worthy Recolet Father who he knew had been to see me a little after my arrival, to ascertain from them whence arose this great tumult (which made me laugh a little, when I saw so soon accomplished what the Devil had told that worthy girl). M. Malaval and the monk told the Bishop what they thought of me, so that he expressed great displeasure at the insult which had been put on me. I was obliged to go and see him. He received me with extreme kindness, and asked my pardon. He prayed me to remain at Marseilles, that he would protect me; he even inquired where I lodged, that he might come and see me. The next day the Almoner of the Bishop of Grenoble, with that other priest who came with us, went to see him. The Bishop again expressed to them the vexation he felt at the insults which had been cast upon me without cause, and he said that it was the usual practice of those persons to insult all who were not of their faction; that they had insulted himself. They were not content with that; they wrote me the most offensive letters possible, although these persons did not know me.

I understood that our Lord was commencing in earnest to deprive me of any dwelling-place, and these words came afresh to me: “The birds of heaven have nests, and the foxes have holes, and the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.” I willingly entered upon that state.

Our Lord nevertheless made use of me during the short time I remained at Marseilles to aid in supporting some good souls, among others an ecclesiastic who did not know me. He used to say Mass in a church where I went to hear it. After he had said the Thanksgiving, seeing me go out, he followed me, and having come to the house where I lodged, he told me that our Lord had inspired him to address me, and had made him know that I was the person to whom he should open himself for his spiritual state. He did it with as much simplicity as humility. Our Lord gave me all that was necessary for him, from which he was filled with happiness and gratitude to our Lord; for although many spiritual persons, even near friends of his own, were there, he never had the movement to open himself to them. He was a great servant of God, and had been favoured with a wonderful gift of prayer from even eight years of age. He had employed all his life in missions, and had a very great gift of discernment of spirits. In the eight days that I was at Marseilles I saw there many good souls; for I used to have this consolation, that, in spite of the persecution, our Lord used always to perform some stroke of his hand; and this good ecclesiastic was delivered from a strange trouble in which he had been several years.

As soon as I had left Grenoble those who, without knowing me, hated me, set in circulation libels against me. One person for whom I had had a very great charity, and whom I had even withdrawn from an engagement in which she was for many years, having contributed to remove to a distance the person to whom she was attached, became so furious thereat that she went herself to see the Bishop of Grenoble, to speak to him against me, going so far as to say that I had advised her to do an evil which I had broken off even at my expense; for it cost me money to get away the person. They had lived together for eight years, and I knew her only for one month. She went from confessor to confessor saying the same thing, in order to excite them against me. The fire was kindled in all directions: only those who knew me and who loved God supported my side, and they found themselves more bound to me by the persecution. It would have been very easy for me to destroy the calumny, as well with the Bishop as the town. It was only needed to say who the person was and to exhibit the fruits of her disorder, for I knew everything; but as I could not declare the guilty one without making known her accomplice, who was very repentant and touched by God, I thought it better to suffer everything and remain silent. There was a very holy man who thoroughly knew the whole story; he wrote to her that if she did not retract her lies he would publish her evil life, so as to make known her wickedness and my innocence. That poor girl persevered still for some time in her malice, writing that I was a sorceress, and that she knew it by revelation and many other things. However, some time after she had, according to her account, such cruel remorse of conscience that she wrote to the Bishop and others to retract. She got a letter written to myself, that she was in despair at what she had done, that God had punished her in such a manner that never had she been treated in a similar way. After her retractation the rumour subsided, the Bishop was disabused, and from that time he has shown me great kindness. This creature had said, among other things, that I caused myself to be worshipped, and such strange absurdities that the like were never seen. As she had been formerly mad, I believe there was more weakness than malice in what she did.

Being then at Marseilles, I knew not what to do, for I saw no possibility either of remaining there or returning to Grenoble, where I had left my daughter in a convent. On the other hand, Father La Combe had written me that he did not think I ought to return to Paris. I felt even great repugnance to it, without knowing the reason, which made me think that it was not yet the time. One morning I felt myself interiorly urged to depart. I took a litter to go and visit the Marquise de Prunai, who was, it seemed to me, the most respectable refuge for me in the state things were. I thought to be able to go by Nice, as I had been assured by people; but I was very much astonished, when at Nice, to learn that the litter could not pass the mountain to go where I wanted. I knew not what to do, nor what side to turn to, being alone, abandoned by all the world, without knowing, O my God, what you wished of me. My confusion and my crosses increased each day. I saw myself without refuge or retreat, wandering and vagabond. All the workmen that I saw in their shops appeared to me happy in having a dwelling-place and a refuge, and I found nothing in the world so hard for a person like me, who naturally loved honour, as this wandering life. While I knew not what course to take, I was told that next day a small sloop was about to start, which would go to Genoa in a single day, and that if I wished they would land me at Savona, whence I could be carried to my friend the Marquise de Prunai. I consented to this, having no possibility of other conveyance. I had some joy in embarking on the sea, and I said to you, O my God, “If I am the excrement of the earth, the refuse and scorn of nature, I am about to embark on the element the most faithless of all; you can sink me in its waters, and I shall be pleased to die in that way.” A storm came on in a place dangerous enough for a small boat, and the sailors were very bad. The turbulence of the waves constituted my pleasure, and I was delighted to think that these mutinous waters would serve perhaps for my grave. O God, perhaps I committed some infidelity in the pleasure I took at seeing myself beaten and tossed by these raging waves. I thought I saw myself in the hands of your providence: it seemed to me I was its plaything; and I said to you, O my God, in my language, “Let there be, then, in the world victims of your providence, and let me be one. Do not spare me.” Those who were with me saw my intrepidity, but they were ignorant of its cause. I asked of you, O my Love, a little hole in a rock, to place myself there and to live separated from all creatures. I pictured to myself that a desert island would have ended all my disgraces, and would have placed me in a state to perform infallibly your will; but, O my Love, you destined me to another prison than a rock, another exile than that of the desert isle. You reserved me to be beaten by waves more irritated than those of the sea. Calumny was the mutinous and pitiless sea to which you desired I should be exposed, to be thereby beaten without mercy: blessed for ever, O my, God, be you for this!

We were stopped by the storm, and in place of a short day’s journey, the proper time to reach Genoa, we were eleven days on the way. How peaceable was my heart during this great agitation! The tempest of the sea and the fury of the waves were only the symbol of that which all creatures had against me. I said to you, “O my Love, arm them all to avenge yourself on my infidelities and those of all creatures.” I saw with pleasure your arm raised against me, and I loved more than a thousand lives the strokes it gave me. We could not disembark at Savona; it was necessary to go on to Genoa. We arrived there in the Holy Week. I had to endure the insults of the inhabitants, owing to their irritation against the French for the injuries caused by the bombardment. The Doge had just left, and he had taken with him all the litters; for this reason I could not get one. I had to remain several days at an excessive expense, for these people demanded exorbitant sums, and as much for each person as would be charged in Paris at the best inn for the whole party. I was almost without money; but the fund of providence could not fail me. I begged most earnestly, at whatever cost, that I might be supplied with a litter, so as to be able to go and spend Easter with the Marquise de Prunai; yet there were only three days remaining to Easter, and I could not make myself understood. Owing to my entreaties, a bad litter was brought me, the mules belonging to which were lame, and I was told that for an exorbitant sum they would take me to Verceil, which was two days’ distance, but not to the Marquise de Prunai; because they did not even know where her estate was. I was strangely mortified, for I did not wish to go to Verceil, and yet the nearness of Easter, and the want of money in a country where they practised a sort of tyranny, left me no choice, but under an absolute necessity of allowing myself to be taken to Verceil.

You led me, O my God, by your providence, where I did not wish to go. Although the sum I had to give for such a bad conveyance for two days’ journey was ten louis d’or, each sixteen livres of that country, nevertheless I accepted the unreasonable bargain from extreme necessity, and that in a country where conveyances are very cheap. The voiturier was the most cruel man possible, and for crown to our trouble, I had sent on the ecclesiastic, who accompanied us, to Verceil, in order to break the surprise of their seeing me after I had protested that I would not go there. This ecclesiastic was very badly treated on the road, from hatred against the French, and part of the journey he had to do on foot, so that, although he had set out in advance, he reached only a few hours before me. The man, then, who led us, seeing that he had only women to deal with, insulted us in every way possible.

We passed through a wood full of robbers. The muleteer was afraid, and told us that if anyone met us on the road we were lost, and that they spared no one. Hardly had he told us this, when four well-armed men appeared. They at once stopped the litter. The muleteer was very much terrified. They came to us and looked at us. I made them a bow with a smile, for I had no fear, and I was so abandoned to providence, that it was equal to me to die in that way or another, in the sea, or by the hand of robbers. But, O my God, what was your protection over me, and what was my surrender into your hands! How many dangers have I run on the mountains, and on the edge of precipices! How many times have you stopped the foot of the mule, already sliding over the precipice! How many times have I expected to be precipitated from those frightful mountains into terrible torrents, which were hid from view by the depth, but which made themselves heard by their fearful noise! Where the dangers were more apparent, it was there my faith was stronger, as well as my intrepidity, which sprung from an inability to desire anything else but what would happen, whether it should be to be smashed on the rocks, to be drowned, or to be killed—all being alike in your will, O my God. The people who led me said they never saw a similar courage, for the most terrifying dangers, and where death seemed most certain, were those which pleased me more. Was it not you, O my God, who held me back in the danger, and prevented me from rolling into the precipice, to which we were already slipping down? The more reckless I was of a life, which I endured only because you yourself endured it, the more did you take care to preserve it. It was, O my God, like a challenge between us two: I to abandon myself to you, and you to preserve me. The robbers then came to the litter, but I had no sooner saluted them than you made them change their purpose, one pushing the other to hinder him from hurting me. They saluted me very politely, and with an air of compassion, unusual in such persons, they withdrew. I was at once impressed, O my Love, that it was a stroke of your right hand, which had other designs for me than to make me die by the hands of robbers. Yon are, O my divine Love, that famous robber, who yourself take away everything from your lovers, and after having spoiled them of all, you become their pitiless murderer. Oh, how different is the martyrdom you make them endure, from that which all men taken together could invent! The muleteer, seeing me alone with two maids, thought he could ill-treat me as much as he pleased, perhaps imagining to extort money. Instead of taking me to the inn, he took me to a mill, where there was no woman; there was only a single room, with several beds, where the millers and the muleteers slept together. It was in this room he wanted to compel me to remain. I said I was not a person to lie down where he had brought me, and I tried to oblige him to take me to the inn. He would do no such thing. I had to set out on foot at ten o’clock at night, carrying a part of my clothes, and travel more than a quarter league of that country (where the leagues are very long) in the midst of darkness, without knowing the road, crossing even one end of the robbers’ wood, to go and find the inn. That man, seeing me leave the place where he had wanted to make us sleep, not without wicked intentions, cried out after us, abusing and ridiculing us. I bore my humiliation with pleasure, not without seeing and feeling it; but your will, my God, and my abandonment made everything easy to me. We were very well received at the inn, and those worthy people did their best to refresh us from our fatigue, assuring us that the place where we had been taken was very dangerous. The next day we had again to return on foot to find the litter, that man refusing to bring it to us. On the contrary, he poured out insults, and for crown of disgrace, he sold me to the post, and forced me thereby to go in a post-chaise, instead of in the litter.

I reached Alexandria in that conveyance. It is a frontier town dependent on Spain, on the side of the Milanais. Our postilion wished to take us, as usual, to the post. I was much astonished to see the mistress of the house come to meet him, not to receive, but to hinder him entering. She had been told that there were women, so, thinking us other than we were, she did not wish for us. The postilion wished to persist. Their dispute grew so warm that a number of officers of the garrison, with a great crowd, assembled at the noise, astonished at the strangeness of the woman not wishing to lodge us. They thought she knew us for persons of bad livelihood, so that we had to submit to insults. However I urged the postilion to take us elsewhere; he would not do it, and persisted obstinately in trying to enter, assuring the mistress that we were honourable and even pious persons, the signs of which he had seen. By his persistence he compelled the woman to come and see us. As soon as she had looked at us she did like the robbers, allowed herself to yield, and made us come in. I had no sooner got out of the chaise than she said to me, “Go and shut yourself in that room, and do not stir, that my son may not know you are there, for if he knows it, he will kill you.” She said this to us with so much emphasis, and her servant also, that if death had not for me the many charms it has, I should have died of fear. The two poor girls were in terrible alarm; when anyone stirred, or came to open the door, they thought that our throats were about to be cut. In short, we remained between death and life until the next day, when we learned that the young man had taken an oath to kill all women who should lodge at his house, because a few days before he had had a very serious business which threatened his ruin; a woman of evil life having assassinated a respectable man at their house. This had cost them much, and with reason he feared similar persons.

Chapter 2-24

AFTER such adventures and others which it would be tedious to relate, I arrived at Verceil the evening of Good Friday. Going to the inn, I was very badly received, and I had the opportunity of passing a genuine Good Friday, which lasted very long. I sent to find Father La Combe, believing him already informed by the ecclesiastic I had sent in advance, but the latter had only just arrived. I had many genuine mortifications to swallow for the time I was without this ecclesiastic, which I should have escaped had I had him; for in this country, when ladies are accompanied by an ecclesiastic they are regarded with veneration, as persons of respectability and piety. Father La Combe was strangely displeased at my arrival, God so permitting; he even could not hide it from me. Thus I saw myself at the moment of arrival on the point of setting out again; and I would have done this, notwithstanding my extreme fatigue, but for the Easter festival. Father La Combe could not prevent himself showing his mortification. He said that everyone would think I had come to see him, and this would injure his reputation. He was in very high esteem in that country. I had no less pain in going there, and it was necessity alone which had made me do it, in spite of my objections; so that I was placed in a state of sufferings, and our Lord adding his hand, made them very severe. The Father received me coldly, and in a manner which showed me his sentiments, and this redoubled my pain. I asked him if he wished me to return, that I would set out on the moment, although I was overwhelmed with the fatigues of such a long and dangerous journey; besides that I was much weakened by the Lent fast, which I kept as strictly as if I had not been travelling. He told me he did not know how the Bishop of Verceil would take my arrival, when he had ceased to expect it, after I had so long obstinately refused the obliging offers he had made me; that he no longer showed any desire to see me since that refusal. It was then, it seemed to me, that I was cast out from the surface of the earth, without the means of finding any refuge, and that all creatures were combined together to crush me. I spent the rest of the night in this inn, without being able to sleep, and without knowing what course I should be compelled to take, being persecuted to the degree I was by my enemies, and a subject of shame to my friends.

As soon as they knew at the inn that I was an acquaintance of Father La Combe they treated me very well, for he was there esteemed as a saint. The Father did not know how to tell the Bishop of Verceil that I was come, and I felt his trouble more keenly than my own. As soon as the Prelate knew I had arrived, as he thoroughly understood the proprieties, he sent his niece, who took me in her carriage and brought me to her house; but things were only done for appearance, and the Bishop, not having yet seen me, did not know how to take such an inopportune journey, after my having three times refused to go there, although he had sent expresses to ask me to do so. He was disgusted with me. However, as he was informed that my design was not to remain at Verceil, but to go to the Marquise de Prunai, and that it was necessity owing to the festival which detained me, he let nothing appear; on the contrary, he took care that I was very well treated. He could not see me until after Easter, as he officiated all the Vigil and on the day. In the evening, after all the duty of Easter Day was over, he had himself carried in a chair to his niece’s house to see me, and although he understood French no better than I did Italian, he was none the less very well satisfied with the conversation that he had with me. He seemed to have as much kindness for me as he previously had indifference. The second visit finished in gaining him entirely.

One could not be under greater obligations than I was to this good Prelate. He conceived as much friendship for me as if I had been his sister, and in the midst of his continual occupation, his sole diversion was to spend a half-hour with me, speaking about God. He began a letter to the Bishop of Marseilles to thank him for having protected me in the persecution. He wrote also to the Bishop of Grenoble, and there was nothing he left undone to mark his affection. He no longer thought of anything but devising means to keep me in his diocese. He was not willing to let me visit the Marquise de Prunai; on the contrary, he wrote to her, inviting her to come herself with me into his diocese. He even sent Father La Combe expressly to urge her to come, assuring her that he wished to unite us all and form a small Community. The Marquise de Prunai entered into it readily enough, and her daughter also, and they would have come with Father La Combe but for the Marquise having fallen ill. She thought of sending her daughter to me, and the matter was deferred until she should be in better health. The Bishop commenced by hiring a large house, which he even treated for the purchase of, in order to locate us in it. It was very suitable for a Community. He wrote also to a lady at Genoa, an acquaintance of his, sister to a cardinal, who expressed much desire to unite with us, and the matter was considered already settled. There were also some devout girls, who were quite ready to set out to come to us. But, O my God, your will was not to establish me, but rather to destroy me.

The fatigue of the journey made me fall ill; the girl I had brought from Grenoble also fell ill. Her relatives, persons very full of self-interest, got into their heads that if she died in my hands I might cause her to make a will in my favour. They were much mistaken; for, far from wishing for the property of others, I had even given away my own. Her brother, full of this apprehension, came as quickly as possible, and the first thing he spoke to her of, although he found her recovered, was to make a will. This caused a great fracas at Verceil; for he wanted to take her away, and she was not willing to go. However, as I noticed little solidity of character in this girl, I thought it was an opportunity which divine providence offered me of getting rid of her, as she was not suited to me. I advised her to do what her brother wished. He formed friendship with some officers of the garrison, to whom he told ridiculous stories, that I wanted to ill-use his sister, whom he represented as a person of quality, although she was of quite humble birth. This brought me many crosses and humiliations. They commenced to say, what I had always dreaded, that I had come for the sake of Father La Combe. They even persecuted him on account of me.

The Bishop of Verceil was extremely vexed, but he could not apply any remedy; for he could not make up his mind to let me go, besides that I was in no state to do so, being ill. The friendship he had for me increased each day, because, as he loved God, he had a friendship for all those he believed wishing to love him. As he saw me so ill, he came to see me constantly, when he was free from his duties and occupations. This caused him and me also no slight crosses. He used to make me little presents of fruit, and other things of that nature. His relatives became jealous, saying I had come to ruin him, and carry away into France the money of the Bishop. It was what was furthest from my thoughts. This worthy Bishop swallowed all the crosses, through the friendship he had for me, and still confidently calculated on keeping me in his diocese as soon as I was recovered.

Father La Combe was his theologian and his confessor: he esteemed him greatly; and the Father did a great deal of good in that garrison, God making use of him to convert many of the officers and soldiers. Some of very scandalous life became models of virtue. He induced the subaltern officers to make retreats; he preached and instructed the soldiers, who profited greatly, and as a consequence made general confessions. In this place there was a constant mixture of crosses and of souls gained for our Lord. There were some of his brother monks, who, after his example, were working for their perfection, and, although I hardly understood their language and they did not at all understand mine, our Lord brought it about that we understood each other in what regarded his service. The Father Rector of the Jesuits, having beard me spoken of, took the opportunity of Father La Combe’s absence from Verceil to come and, as he said, try me. He had studied theological subjects that I did not understand, and put numbers of questions to me. Our Lord gave me the means of answering, and he went away so satisfied that he could not help speaking of it. Fatber La Combe stood well then with the Bishop of Verceil, who looked on him with veneration.

But the Bernabites of Paris, or rather Father La Mothe, bethought himself of bringing him away from there, to make him go and preach at Paris. He wrote of it to their General, saying that they had none at Paris qualified to uphold the House; that their church was deserted; that it was a mistake to leave a man like Father La Combe in a place where he was merely corrupting his language; that his great talents should be exhibited at Paris; that for the rest, he could not bear the burden of the House at Paris, if he was not given a man of that stamp. Who would not have believed that all this was sincere? The Bishop, who was a great friend of the General, hearing of it, offered opposition, and wrote to him that it was to do him the very greatest injury to take away a man who was so useful to him, and at a time when he had the greatest need of him. He was right, for he had a Grand Vicar whom he had brought from Rome, who, after having been Nuncio of the Pope in France, had by his evil life been reduced to live off his Masses, even in Rome itself, where he was in such great need as to attract the compassion of the Bishop of Verceil, who took him, and gave him very good allowances for acting as his Grand Vicar. This Abbe, far from gratitude to his benefactor, following the whim of his humour, was constantly in opposition to the Bishop, and if any ecclesiastic was disorderly or discontented, it was with him the Abbe took part against his Bishop. All those that complained against the Prelate or insulted him, were at once friends of the Grand Vicar, who, not content with this, laboured with all his might to embroil him with the Court of Rome; saying he was entirely devoted to France, to the prejudice of his Holiness’s interests, and as a proof, that he had several Frenchmen with him. He also by his secret intrigues embroiled him with the Court of Savoy; so that this worthy Bishop had very severe crosses from this man. Not being able to bear it, the Bishop requested him to retire, and with great generosity gave him all that was necessary for his return journey. He was extremely offended at having to leave the Bishop, and turned all his anger against Father La Combe, against a French gentleman, and against me.

The General of the Bernabites was not willing to grant Father La Mothe’s request, for fear of hurting his great friend the Bishop, and to take away from him a man who in that conjuncture of affairs was very necessary to him. As for me, my ills increased day by day. The air, which there, is extremely bad, caused me a constant cough, together with the fever which I often had, accompanied with inflammation of the chest, so that I had to be severely bled. I became swollen. In the evening I would be swollen to a great size, in the morning nothing was apparent; the fever which I had every night consumed the humours. It was all the right side which first swelled; at first only the right arm, afterwards it extended and became so considerable that it was thought I should die. The Bishop was very much distressed, for he could not make up his mind to let me go, nor yet to see me thus die in his diocese. But after having consulted the doctors, who told him that the air of the place was fatal to me, he said to me with many tears, “I prefer you should live away from me rather than to see you die here.”

He gave up his design for the establishment of a Community; for my friend was not willing to settle there without me, and the Genoese lady could not leave her town, where she was highly thought of. The Genoese prayed her to do there what the Bishop wished to do at his place. It was a Community something like that of Madame de Miramion; for in that country there are only cloistered nuns. From the beginning, when the Bishop proposed the matter to me, I had a presentiment that it would not succeed, and that it was not what our Lord desired of me. Nevertheless, I gave in to all that was wished of me in recognition of the Prelate’s kindness, sure as I was that our Lord would be able to prevent anything he did not desire of me. When this good Prelate saw that he must resolve to let me go, he said to me, “You would like to be in the diocese of Geneva, and the Bishop persecutes and rejects you; and I, who would so gladly have you, am not able to keep you.” The Bishop wrote to Father La Mothe that I would go away in the spring, as soon as the season would allow; that he was very distressed at being obliged to let me go; and he said of me things that might throw me into confusion, if I could take to myself anything. He wrote that he regarded me in his diocese as an angel, and a thousand other things which his goodness suggested. From this out I made my account for returning; but the Bishop expected to keep Father La Combe, and that he would not go to Paris. That would have been the case, indeed, but for the death of the General, as I shall tell hereafter.

Almost all the time I was in this country our Lord made me there suffer many crosses, and at the same time he multiplied upon me graces and humiliations; for with me one has never been without the other. I was almost always ill and in a state of childhood. I had with me only that girl of whom I have spoken, who, in the state which she was in, could not give me any relief, and who seemed to be with me merely to try me and make me suffer strangely. It was there I wrote upon the Apocalypse, and I was given a greater certainty of all I had known of the persecution which should come upon the most faithful servants of God, in accordance with what I wrote touching the future. I was, as I have said, in the state of childhood; when I had to write or speak there was nothing greater than I—it seemed to me I was quite full of God—and yet nothing smaller or feebler than I, for I was like a little child. Our Lord wished that not only should I bear his state of childhood in a way that charmed those who were prepared for it, but he desired further that by an external cult I should commence to honour his Divine Childhood. He inspired that worthy begging friar to send me a Child Jesus of wax, of ravishing beauty, and I perceived that the more I looked at it, the deeper were the dispositions of childhood impressed on me. One cannot believe the trouble I had to allow myself to pass to this state of childhood, for my reason was lost in it, and it seemed to me that it was I who gave myself this state. When I reflected, it was taken away, and I experienced an intolerable pain; but as soon as I allowed myself to go into it, I found myself with the candour, the innocence and simplicity of a child, something divine within. I have committed many infidelities to this state, not being able to bring myself down to a state so low and so small. O Love, you desired to place me in all sorts of positions in order that I should resist no longer, and should be subject to all your wishes without reflection or reserve.

While I still was at Verceil I had a movement to write to Madame de C—. It was some year, since she had ceased writing to me. Our Lord made me to know her disposition, and that he would make use of me to help her. I asked Father La Combe if he would approve of my writing to her, telling him of the movement I had; but he did not wish it. I remained submissive, and at the same time assured that our Lord would unite us, and would provide me one way or another with the means of serving her. Some time after I received a letter from her, which not a little surprised Father La Combe, and he then left me free to write to her whatever I wished. I did it with great simplicity, and what I wrote was like the first foundation of what our Lord desired of her, having willed to use me afterward, to help her, and to cause her to enter into his ways; for she is a soul to whom I am closely tied, and through her to others.

Chapter 2-25

THE Father-General of the Bernabites, the friend of the Bishop of Verceil, died. As soon as he was dead Father La Mothe wrote to the person who was Vicar-General, and who held his place until a new election. He told him the same things he had told the other, and the necessity there was to have at Paris men like Father La Combe; that he had no one to preach the annual sermon in their church. This worthy Father, who believed Father La Mothe was acting in good faith, having learned that I was obliged to return to France owing to my indisposition, sent an order to Father La Combe to go to Paris, and to accompany me the whole journey, Father La Mothe having asked him to do so, on the ground that as he would accompany me, their House at Paris, which was already poor, would be saved the expenses of such a long journey. Father La Combe, who did not penetrate the venom concealed under this fair appearance, consented to accompany me, knowing that it was my custom to take with me ecclesiastics or monks. Father La Combe set out twelve days before me, in order to attend to some matters of business, and to accompany me only at the crossing of the mountains, which appeared to him the place where I had most need of escort. I set out in Lent, the weather being very fine, to the grief of the Prelate, who excited my compassion by the trouble he was in at losing Father La Combe, and seeing me go away. He had me taken at his expense to Turin, giving me a gentleman and one of his ecclesiastics to accompany me.

As soon as the resolution was taken that Father La Combe should accompany me, Father La Mothe at once set going everywhere the story that he had been obliged to do it, in order to make me return to France; although he knew very well that I was intending to return before we knew that Father La Combe would return. He exaggerated the attachment I had for him, making himself out a subject of pity; and on this everyone said that I ought to put myself under the direction of Father La Mothe. However, he dissimulated towards us, writing to Father La Combe letters full of esteem and of tenderness to me, praying him to bring his dear sister, and to serve her in her infirmity on such a long journey, and that he would be deeply obliged for his care, and a hundred similar things.

I could not bring my mind to leave without going to see my friend the Marquise de Prunai, notwithstanding the difficulty of the journey. I had myself carried, for it is impossible to go there otherwise, except on horseback, owing to the mountains, and I could not go in that way. I spent twelve days with her. I arrived exactly the Eve of the Annunciation, and as all her tenderness is for the mystery of the childhood of Jesus Christ, and she knew the part our Lord gave me in it, she received extreme joy at seeing me arrive to spend that festival with her. Nothing could be more cordial than what passed between us with much openness. It was then she told me that all I had said to her had happened, and a worthy ecclesiastic who lived with her, a very holy man, told me the same. We together made ointments, and I gave her the secret of my remedies. I encouraged her, and so did Father La Combe, to establish a hospital in that place, which she did while we were there. I gave the little contribution of the Holy Child Jesus, who has always made successful all the hospitals which have been established in reliance on providence. I think I forgot to say that our Lord also made use of me to establish a hospital near Grenoble, which subsists without other capital than providence. My enemies have made use of this subsequently to calumniate me, saying that I had spent my children’s property in establishing hospitals; although the truth is, that, far from having expended their money, I had even given them my own, and that these hospitals have been established merely on the capital of divine providence, which is inexhaustible. But our Lord has had this goodness for me, that all he has ever made me do for his glory is always turned into a cross. I have forgotten to speak in detail of many crosses and illnesses, but there are so many some must be kept back. In the illnesses I had at Verceil I had still the same dependence on Father La Combe, owing to my state of childhood, with the impression of these words: “And he was subject to them.” It was that state of Jesus Christ which was then impressed on me.

As soon as it was determined that I should come into France, our Lord made me know that it was in order to have there the greatest crosses I had ever yet had, and Father La Combe also had knowledge of it; but he said to me, that I must immolate myself to all the divine wishes and anew be a victim immolated to new sacrifices. He wrote to me: “Would it not be a fine thing, and very glorious to God, if he desired to make us in that great city serve as a spectacle to men and angels!” I set out, then, on my return with a spirit of sacrifice, to immolate myself to new kinds of sufferings. All along the road something within said to me the same words as St. Paul: “I go up to Jerusalem, and the Spirit tells me everywhere that crosses and chains await me.” I could not prevent myself from expressing it to my most intimate friends, who used their efforts to stay me on the road. They even wished all to contribute of what they had to stop me and prevent my going to Paris, in the belief that the presentiment I had was very true. But I had to go on and come there to immolate myself for him who first immolated himself.

At Chambery we saw Father La Mothe, who was going to the election of a General. Although he affected friendship, it was not difficult to see that his thoughts were other than his words, and that he had formed in his mind the design of destroying us. I speak of the behaviour of this Father only in obedience to the command which has been laid upon me to omit nothing. I shall be obliged, in spite of myself, to speak often of him. With all my heart I would gladly suppress what I have to say. If what he has done regarded only myself, I would willingly suppress it; but I think it a duty I owe to truth and the innocence of Father La Combe, who has so long been grievously oppressed and overwhelmed by calumny and by an imprisonment of many years, which according to all appearance will continue as long as his life. I feel myself, I say, obliged to expose all the artifices made use of to blacken him and render him odious, and the motives which have led Father La Mothe to adopt such a course. Although Father La Mothe appears heavily charged in what I say of him, I protest before God that I yet omit many facts.

I saw, then, very clearly his design. Father La Combe also remarked it, but he was resolved to sacrifice himself and to immolate me to all which he believed the will of God. Some even of my friends informed me that Father La Mothe had evil designs, but yet they did not imagine them so extreme as they were in reality. They thought he would send away Father La Combe after having made him preach, and that for this purpose he would get him into trouble. At Chambery it was interiorly said to Father La Combe, in the same way as it had been told him that we should be together, that “we should be separated.” We separated at Chambery. Father La Mothe went to the Chapter after begging Father La Combe with affected urgency every day not to leave me, but to accompany me as far as Paris. Father La Combe asked his permission to leave me alone at Grenoble, because he was very desirous of going to Tonon to see his family, and he expected to rejoin me at Grenoble after three weeks. It was with difficulty this was granted, such was the affectation of sincerity.

I set out for Grenoble and Father La Combe for Tonon. As soon as I arrived I fell ill of a continued fever, which lasted fifteen days, when that worthy begging friar had an opportunity of practising his charity. He gave me remedies, and these, joined to the fever and the change of climate, gradually consumed my disease. All those whom God had given me on my first visit to Grenoble came to see me during my illness, and exhibited extreme joy at seeing me again. They showed me the letters and retractations of that poor impassioned girl, and I did not see a person who continued influenced by her stories. The Bishop of Grenoble expressed more kindness than ever, assured me he had never believed any of them, and even offered me to remain in his diocese. They again pressed me to remain at the General Hospital, but it was not where you wished me, O my God; it was upon Calvary. Father La Combe and I were so penetrated by the cross that everything announced to us Cross. That good girl of whom I have spoken, who had seen so much persecution, and whom the Devil, so threatened, had many presentiments of the crosses that were about to pour upon us, and she said, “What do you want to go there for, to be crucified?” All along the road souls that were spiritual and influenced by grace spoke to us only of crosses, and this impression that “chains and persecutions await me” never quitted me for a moment. I came then, O my Love, to sacrifice myself to your hidden will. You know what crosses I have had to bear from my relatives. Oh, in what ill fame am I! In spite of all that, you nevertheless win souls in every place and at every time; and one deems such troubles amply paid should they procure the salvation and perfection of a single soul. It is in this place that you desired, O God, to make a theatre of your designs through the cross and the good that you will to do to souls.