Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 03-29-08
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte
Guyon /Madame Guyon (1648-1717)
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"I... WISHED... THAT HE WOULD NOT JUDGE BY HIS REASON, BUT
BY HIS HEART."
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Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte lived the first 33 years of her life in Montargis, about 50 miles south of Paris. Her family was well-connected locally but not wealthy. At 16 she was married to Jacques Guyon, a wealthy neighbor 22 years older than she. The marriage was not a happy one, and she found refuge in "interior prayer," which allowed her to at least temporarily escape the frustrations of her life. Jacques Guyon died in 1676, and his 28-year-old widow was left with a good income but with three young children to care for (two others had died earlier).
Four years later Guyon felt called to leave her home in order to share with others her way of prayer. In 1681, leaving her two sons in the care of her family, she took her daughter and left France for the Duchy of Savoy. Shortly after her arrival, Guyon was assigned as confessor a Savoyard priest of the Barnabite order, Francois La Combe, whom she had met briefly ten years before.
La Combe was already teaching a form of interior prayer which church authorities were nervous about because it seemed to devalue oral prayer and "good works," and so to support the Protestant belief in justification by faith alone. Guyon's beliefs were much the same: her critics would later claim that she had been influenced by La Combe, while she always maintained that she had arrived at her belief independently. At any rate, their association --- a priest and a woman living away from her family --- gave rise to rumors of immorality. In fact, for the five years Guyon was in or near Savoy, she apparently seldom saw La Combe. What she did do was meet with religious and lay people and teach them her method of interior prayer. Out of these meetings grew her writings.
In 1682 Guyon wrote Les torrents spirituels, which was circulated among her friends. She also began, at La Combe's request, to write an account of her spiritual life, which she would continue to work on until 1709; this would become La vie de Madame J.M.B. de la Mothe Guion. In the following year she began a series of reflections on the books of the Bible; these were also circulated among her followers. For a lay person, especially a woman, to comment on Scripture was hazardous, but all this was done privately.
In 1685, however, a friend printed a work in which Guyon described her way of prayer, Moyen court et tres facile pour l'oraison (A short and very easy method of prayer); the publication meant that the work was available not only to those who shared Guyon's views but also to those who opposed them. 1685 was not a good year to be publishing non-traditional ideas: in Rome, a Spanish priest, Miguel de Molinos, was imprisoned for having written a book not much more extreme than Guyon's; in Paris, Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes (which had granted a measure of religious freedom) was followed by much heresy-hunting.
In 1686 Guyon returned to Paris, apparently due to ill health. She was accompanied by La Combe, who had been transferred there; this set off a new train of rumors. It was the rumors of immorality that Guyon always worried about; she believed her and La Combe's teachings so reasonable and natural that they could never get anyone into trouble. She was wrong. A year later, La Combe was put in prison (where he would remain until his death). Three months after that, Guyon received a royal "lettre de cachet," ordering her to go to a convent in a suburb of Paris for interrogation.
Among Guyon's friends were powerful courtiers, and with their help she was released after seven months. Through these friends Guyon met the priest Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon, a rising star in the French church and court, and a protege of the powerful Bishop of Meaux, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet. Guyon and Fenelon became friends; depending on whom one reads, she either corrupted an innocent or taught a worldly young man how to pray.
In the same year, 1688, one part of Guyon's reflections on the Bible was published as Commentaire au Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon (Commentary on the Song of Songs of Solomon). Still, for the next few years Guyon lived safely and continued to teach and write. A long letter to Fenelon written in 1689 circulated widely and would eventually be published as Petit abrege de la voie et de la reunion de l'ame a Dieu (Concise view of the way to God and of the union of the soul with God). With Fenelon, Guyon became a regular visitor to Madame de Maintenon's school at Saint-Cyr, where the older students were urged to read Moyen court.
However, by 1693 his friends saw Guyon as a danger to Fenelon, and the rumors about her re-surfaced. Convinced, as always, that reasonable men would see the reasonableness of her views, Guyon turned to Bossuet for help, and wrote Justifications, a defense of her earlier works. The result was further interrogation followed by seven years of imprisonment, including four years in the Bastille.
In 1703, Guyon was released from prison. She was paroled to her elder son in Blois, and she was ordered not to write or teach. Guyon, of course, continued to do both until her death 14 years later. The final section of La vie was published only in 1992, as Recits de captivite.
Not all of Guyon's writings have been translated into English, but enough is available to reveal a woman still controversial --- still seen by some as a martyred saint and by others as a fool.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from (or information on) translations in print:
Les Torrents spirituels
Moyen court et tres facile pour l'oraison
Petit abrege de la voie et de la reunion de l'ame a Dieu
Commentaire au Cantique des cantiques de Salomon
Justifications
Commentaire sur Livre de Job
Vie de Madame J.M.B. de la Mothe Guyon
Information about secondary sources.
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1. The Autobiography of Madame Guyon, translated in 1880 by Edward Jones. This is a much abridged translation of La vie de Mme. J.M.B. de la Mothe Guion. For a taste of the whole abridgement, look at these brief chapters:
In Part 1: Chapter 6, on Guyon's marriage and mother-in-law; Ch. 9, on her views of visions and ecstasies; Ch. 22, on her husband's death; and Ch. 27, on her decision to make a new life.
In Part 2: Ch. 11, on Guyon's decision to begin writing in 1682; and Ch. 21, on her meetings with Bossuet, and the end of this version. (For excerpts from sections not given in this abridgement, see below, under "In print.")
2.A Short and very easy method of prayer, an 1804 translation by Thomas Digby Brooke ("corrected" by James W. Metcalf) of Moyen court et tres facile pour l'oraison. Look at Ch. 3, "For those who cannot read"; and at Ch. 23, "An exhortation to ministers." At another site, a passage from an abridged version of the same work, translated by Gene Edwards (1975) as Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ.
3. Concise View of the Way to God; and of the State of Union, an 1855 translation of Petit abrege de la voie et de la reunion de l'ame a Dieu, a letter written to Fenelon, translated by Metcalf; look at the opening of Part 1, Chapter 2, on the ways of the intellect and of the "inward touch."
4. Two of Guyon's commentaries on the books of the Bible:
(a) Links to the seven chapters of the commentary on the Hebrew Bible's Song of Songs of Solomon, published in 1688 and here translated by Metcalf.
(b) At the bottom of the page, links to the 22 chapters of the commentary on the New Testament's Book of Revelations (Apocalypse). The tone of the "Conclusion," dated here to 1683, suggests it may may have been written later; Guyon continued working on her commentaries until at least 1688.
5. Excerpts from other writings:
(a) A translation of a brief passage from the opening of Guyon's first work, the 1682 Les Torrents spirituels, comparing life to a torrent. The page also gives two interesting illustrations: an engraving based on a portrait made during Guyon's lifetime and a later drawing that makes her "prettier."
(b) Use your browser's search function to go to the second use of "Guyon" for several excerpts from Les Torrents, describing the three kinds of persons "flowing toward God as their ocean."
(c) Go to "Guyon" for another brief passage from Les Torrents, describing life as "a journey of unknowables."
(d) Go to "Guyon" for a passage from the 1693 Justifications, on being persecuted and feeling abandoned by God.
(e) Thirty-seven poems by Guyon, translated by William Cowper (1779) from a French collection published in 1722, Poesies et cantiques spirituels.
(f) At the end of an essay on Guyon, another poem, attributed by some to her, "A little bird I am."
6. In this alphabetical list, go to "Guyon" for links to the French originals of five verse passages from the 1722 collection of poetry (four of the five are parts of longer poems).
7. The frontispiece of Guyon's L'ame amante de son Dieu, published anonymously in the year of her death. The work was a translation of two Latin emblem books of the 1600s (for information on an article about the book, see under "Secondary sources").
8. A link to the text of Thomas Cogswell Upham's 1847 biography of Guyon, Life, Religious Opinions and Experience of Madame Guyon: Including an Account of the Personal History and Religious Opinions of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, which sometimes modifies Guyon's words to make her more "Protestant," but which presents generally accurate details of her life; you can also download the work as a PDF file.
9. An abridged translation by Upham of Fenelon's 1697 Explication
des maximes des saints sur la vie interieure (Explanation
of the sayings of the saints on the interior life). Guyon is
never named, but Fenelon's contemporaries believed the work to
be a defence of her writings and teachings. Look at Article 13,
on the "simplicity" of some "experimental writers";
and at Article 39, on misjudgments made because of a holy person's
"imperfect mode of expression."
10. Other views on Guyon:
(a) Henri Daniel-Rops' 1957 essay, "The Quietist Affair," is a useful place to start: after describing the earlier history of "quietism" (abandonment to God), it recounts in detail the relationships of Guyon, Fenelon, and Bossuet. The essay is translated by Bernard B. Gilligan.
(b) A 4-page essay by Dianne Guenin-Lelle, "Friends' Theological Heritage: From Seventeenth-Century Quietists to A Guide to True Peace" (2002), which analyzes the influence of Guyon's Moyen court et tres facile de faire oraison, as well as works by Fenelon and Molinos, upon an early 1800s Quaker text.
(c) In this first volume of his Memoires, see Chapter 8 (near the bottom of the page) for Saint-Simon's caustic view of Guyon and Fenelon, a view probably shared by much of Louis XIV's court; the translation is by Bayle St. John.
(d) The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Guyon; note, though, that Guyon describes her relationship with Father La Combe much differently, and that she denies ever retracting the teachings of Moyen Court. (You may also want to look at the entries on Fenelon and on Bossuet.)
(e) Go to "Guyon" for a brief but interesting abstract of a 2001 dissertation by Sarah Jane Nix Smith, "Balaam's she-ass speaks: Madame Jeanne Guyon and her Justifications."
13. Reviews (for information on the books' treatment of Guyon, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Benjamin J. Kaplan on the 2004 essay collection, The Low Countries as a Crossroads of Religious Beliefs.
(b) Claire Carlin on Elizabeth C. Goldsmith's 2001 study, Publishing Women's Life Stories in France, 1647-1720: From Voice to Print.
(c) Larissa Juliet Taylor on Marie-Florine Bruneau's 1998 study, Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie de l'Incarnation (1599-1672) and Madame Guyon (1648-1717)
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In print
Les Torrents spirituels (1682)
[The first half of this book presents a "modernization" (with substantial changes and omissions) by Gene Edwards of part of an 1853 translation by E.A. Ford; the second half reprints the remainder of the un-modernized 1853 version. One note: Edwards' introduction says that Torrents was Guyon's last work; it was, in fact, her first:]
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte. Spiritual torrents.
Augusta, ME: Christian Books, 1984. (xvi, 113 p.)
LC#: BV5099 .G8; ISBN: 940232189
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"...running with impetuousity."
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[The modernized first half of this version uses "Christian" or "believer" where Guyon's word would translate as "soul." From the opening:]
...[A] Christian might be compared to a river. The river comes forth from its source and flows relentlessly to the sea. One river flows majestically, slowly. Another flows very rapidly. There are also some rivers which flow as a torrent, running with impetuosity as though there were nothing that could check them. Dikes may be erected, other hindrances to the course may be found but this only doubles the river's determination to plunge into the sea.
We who are believers are like rivers. There are rivers that flow very slowly, arriving late to their destination. Others move more rapidly than that. The third moves so fast, so quickly, that none dare sail upon them. They are mad, headlong streams.
It is the purpose of this small writing that we might look at these three figures, and learn from each of them. [pp.1-2]
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"Let him love his Lord in his own way and not in your way."
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[In speaking of the slower river and the soul who may be misled by an impatient director, Guyon identifies the two groups for whom her book is intended:]
I would address you, the believer, that you as much as anyone else are fit to know God's design for your life. If you are faithful you may come to know Him better than those with great intellect and reasoning---those who would rather study about prayer and spiritual matters than to experience them....
I would address you who lead other Christian in their walk with Christ! A person comes to you who knows little of the deeper things of Christ. You need do only one thing. Teach him to love God.... And let him love his Lord in his own way and not in your way. [pp.9-10]
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"He sometimes cannot understand the weaknesses of others."
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[The rapidly flowing river is the soul which does not need help, but which may not be able to help others:]
The reason is that this Christian is very strong in God and he sometimes cannot understand the weaknesses of others: for instance, a Mother Superior who may be a Christian of this kind and will, therefore, find it hard to have motherly compassion for the weak. Such a Christian can be quite astonished at the confessions they hear from weaker believers.
A person of this disposition often expects a high degree of perfection from others and cannot lead a believer in the course of "little by little".... Such a person often works best alone and accomplishes much in his charity toward God in this manner. [pp.13-14]
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"He wants to exhort everyone to love God."
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[After the first few chapters, it is the tumultuous river that the book focuses on. Guyon appears to be describing her own early years:]
Left to his own designs, he would accept the love of the Lord perpetually and allow no interruptions. That in itself is a sign of his weakness. He is afraid of conversation. He is afraid of any type of commerce with other people. He has a fragile relationship with the Lord that he fears can be dispelled so easily. If he does fall into sin he will always consider it serious sin....
If the Lord seems to leave this poor believer, then the believer is swallowed up in confusion.... Once restored to fellowship he wants to exhort everyone to love God. [p.20]
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"I leave it to those who know them...."
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[Describing the advanced stages of prayer of the "mad, headlong streams," Guyon identifies her own limits:]
As the soul can make boundless advances in this state, I leave it to those who know them by experience to describe them; the necessary light not being given me as regards its higher degrees, and my soul not being sufficiently advanced in God to see them or know them. [p.80]
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"...that you may distinguish the false from the true."
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[In the original conclusion of this, her first work, Guyon addresses La Combe, who had apparently told her not to revise, but just to write as God inspired her:]
...I have not distinguished... what is natural and what is divine, what is God and what is my own. I pray God that He will show it to you.
I have not read this paper after writing it, and I have been much interrupted. When I left the sense unfinished, I read over a line or two, or a few words, in order to continue. I know not if I have done against your wishes....
I leave this all to your discernment, praying our Lord to enlighten you, that you may distinguish the false from the true, and what my self-love has sought to mix with His light. [pp.83-84]
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"They consider this... something fit only for women or feeble
minds."
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[The last pages of the book appear to be clarifications, perhaps requested by La Combe, but near the end Guyon regains her enthusiasm, urging her readers to abandon themselves to God:]
A whole and entire abandonment excepts nothing, reserves nothing, neither death or life, nor perfection nor salvation, nor paradise nor hell....
Why cannot I persuade all the world to this holy abandonment? And why do preachers preach any thing beside?
But alas! people are so blind, that they consider this as madness, lack of prudence, something fit only or women or feeble minds, but quite unsuitable for great minds....
This track is unknown to them, because they are wise and prudent to themselves; but it is revealed to the humble, who can submit to be annihilated, and who are willing to be the foot-ball of the Divine Providence, leaving to It full power to exercise and treat them as It will, making no resistance, and giving themselves no concern about what the world will say. [pp.90-91]
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Moyen court et tres facile pour l'oraison (1685); Petit abrege de la voie et de la reunion de l'ame a Dieu (1689)
[This collection contains the print version of the translations by Thomas Digby Brooke of Moyen Court... and by James W. Metcalf of Petit abrege... that are available online:]
Metcalf, James W. Spiritual progress; or, instructions in
the divine life of the soul... Part I. Christian counsel ...Spiritual
letters, by Fenelon; Method of prayer... Concise view, by Mad.
Guyon; Spiritual maxims by La Combe. New York, Dodd & Mead
1855. (348 p.)
LC#: BX2349 .F4
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Commentaire au Cantique des cantiques de Salomon (1688); Justifications (1694)
[A modernized version of an 1879 translation by Metcalf, The Song of Songs of Solomon. The notes at the end of each chapter are excerpts from the relevant passages of Guyon's Justifications, written for her 1694 interrogators. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte. Song of the bride.
Sargent, GA: The Seedsowers, 1990. ([10] 123 p.)
LC#: BS1485.3 .G88 1990; ISBN: 0940232383, 0883686821
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"Certainly this does not mean...."
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[Although much of Cantique seems to have been written earlier, Guyon's introduction is from 1688; she had already been accused of teaching that the advanced soul could become God and so permanently sinless. The phrasing here is very careful:]
What I am suggesting in this commentary is not an experience that you need to have. No, I am explaining that your spiritual life is a journey toward Christ possessing you more completely....
There is a deep fellowship where you stop preserving the self, and lovingly and perfectly sink into God. Certainly this does not mean that you lose your own personality and become God.
If you allow a drop of water to fall into a cup of wine, the water loses its own form and character. The water is apparently changed into wine; however, the water will always remain distinct in some way. So you see that you will never become God, and you do have the choice to separate yourself from Him. [unpaged]
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"...some semblance of the external trappings of faith."
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[As in all of her biblical commentaries, Guyon quotes some passages and then gives her thoughts on what they mean for the "journey toward Christ." On a phrase from Cantiques' 1:7, "go out by the footsteps of the flock," she acknowledges (although not with enthusiasm) the need to conform to authority as well as to the Spirit:]
The Bridegroom desires that you also not neglect your duties in the place where He has called you. You must follow the Holy Spirit's leading in all the freedom of the inward life.
You must also conform to some semblance of the external trappings of faith by being obedient to proper authority. To "go forth" in the footsteps of the flock is to go forth in the common, ordinary way. [p.12]
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"...certain apparent, but not real, false steps."
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[In 1694 Guyon gathered together sources from Christian writers to justify to her interrogators what she had said in her biblical commentaries; the most interesting parts are those in which she uses her own words to explain her points. From Justifications' comment on Cantiques' 5:3: "I have washed my feet; how can I dirty them?":]
There are many people who abandon themselves to certain crosses, but not to all; who can never prevail upon themselves to be willing that their reputation in the sight of men should be taken away. This is the very point God is here aiming at....
When God intends that some followers of His shall really die to self, He sometimes permits in them certain apparent, but not real, false steps, by the effect of which their reputation among men is destroyed. [p.78]
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"...clearer in my own mind that I can make it in words."
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[And on 8:14's "Flee away, my beloved." Guyon had begun her original commentary on the passage with the phrase, "When you have lost all self-interest..."; some readers had found this too extreme so, in the 1694 Justifications, she defended it:]
It seems to me very easy to understand that one who places his happiness in God alone can no longer desire his own felicity. None but he who dwells in God by love can place all his happiness in God alone; and when a Christian is thus disposed, he desires no other felicity than that of God in Himself and for Himself; and thus no enjoyment with an end of self, not even the glory of heaven, can be a source of satisfaction, nor consequently an object of desire....
All this seems to me infinitely clearer in my own mind that I can make it in words. [pp.120-121]
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Commentaire sur Livre de Job (1714)
[This is a reprint of a 1915 translation by M. W. Russell of another of Guyon's biblical commentaries. Russell's introduction includes her translation of the passage from the Vie in which Guyon describes the composition of the commentaries:]
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte. The Book of Job:
with explanations and reflections regarding the interior life;
translated from the French by Mrs. M.W. Russell. Jacksonville,
FL: Seedsowers, [2003?], c1985. (260 p.)
LC#: BS1415 .G89 2003; ISBN:094023288X
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"This book must be read only by persons truly interior."
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[Unlike the Commentaire au Cantique des cantiques de Salomon, the other biblical commentaries were not published until Guyon was at Blois after she left prison: Le Nouveaux Testament in 1713, the Livres de l'Ancien Testament in 1714-15. It is generally assumed that the prefaces were written at Blois. From Guyon's preface to her commentary on Job:]
This book must be read only by persons truly interior and already advanced in experience, in order that they may be sustained and comforted by such an admirable example as Job and his happy end.
If I have misinterpreted anything, I submit it to the correction of all enlightened persons, not having any other interest than the glory of God and the welfare of souls. [p.12]
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"This simple path... is as old as the world."
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[Guyon comments on the words of one of Job's "comforters": "Examine the former generations, consult carefully the history of our father" (Job, 8:8). She compares his words to those of the people who would urge the followers of the "simple path" to rely instead on books and tradition:]
They desire still to convince them that the path which they follow is entirely new. The tell them to examine the elders, to consult books....
Nevertheless, if the persons who talk in that way would themselves consider which is the older, they would see that this simple path was given to Adam before his transgression, and it is as old as the world. [p.94]
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"The remedy... is the silence of reason and that of the
will."
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[And near the end of the commentary, she speaks about Job's apology to God for having complained of his harsh treatment: "Since I have spoken with too much imprudence, how shall I be able to answer?... I will not add anything more to it" (Job, 39:33-35):]
Job plainly confesses by these words that all his fault consists in having spoken. We reason concerning the way in which God leads us; and by this reasoning we lose our peace and silence, and get into difficulty; and as one act of reasoning leads to another, we get perplexed in this trouble and our sorrow is increased.
The remedy for so many evils is the silence of reason and that of the will: the result of the first is, that not enquiring into anything we are always peaceful; and the second brings us into perfect submission. [pp.242-43]
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Vie de Madame J.M.B. de la Mothe Guyon (1682-1709)
[Thomas Taylor Allen's appears to be the only complete
translation of Vie de Madame J.M.B. de la Mothe Guyon. The
work is in two volumes: Volume 1 goes to mid-1682; the second
volume, covering the later years, includes much that is not in
other available translations. Allen's preface is almost solely
occupied with criticism of Thomas Cogswell Upham's biography
of Guyon (see below in "Secondary sources), and there are
very few notes:]
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte. Autobiography of Madame
Guyon / translated in full by Thomas Taylor Allen. London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1898. (2 v.)
LC#: BX4705.G8 A32
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"They asked me if it was not he who had composed the little
book."
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[Most of the excerpts given here are from sections not available online. In January of 1688, Guyon was "sequestered" in a suburban Paris convent. La Combe had already been in the Bastille for three months:]
Immediately after I came into this House, Monsieur Charon, the Official, and a Doctor of the Sorbonne came to interrogate me. They commenced by asking me if it was true that I had followed Father La Combe, and that he had taken me from France with him. I answered that he was ten years out of France when I left it, and therefore I was very far from having followed him.
They asked me if he had not taught me to practise prayer. I declared I had practised it from my youth; that he had never taught it to me; that I had no acquaintance with him except from a letter of Father La Mothe [her half-brother], which he [Father La Combe] had brought me on his way to Savoy, and that, ten years before my departure from France....
They asked me if it was not he who had composed the little book, "Short and Easy Method." I said, "No;" that I has written it in his absence, without any design it should be printed; that a Counsellor of Grenoble, a friend of mine, having taken the manuscript from my table, found it useful, and desired it might be printed; that he asked me to make a preface for it and to divide it into chapters, which I did in a single morning.
When they saw all I said tended to acquit Father La Combe, they no longer questioned me about him. [pp.174-75]
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"I asked him if he meant to say 'errata.'"
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[Describing the last of four interrogations, in August. Guyon's concern here over the word "error" was justified. To accept the phrase as it was given her would have been an admission of heresy --- a civil as well as a religious crime:]
They told me if I signed all they requested of me the door of the convent would infallibly be opened, but if I refused there was no longer any safety for me. They wished to put into their deed that I had been in error; and, in order to oblige me to sign a thing which I would rather have given my life than sign, they told me that everyone makes mistakes---that this is what is meant by errors. I asked him [Charon] if he meant to say "errata," as we read in books; I would willingly do this, but as to "errors" I would never consent to that....
I wished to make them write that I protested I had never wandered from the faith, and that I would give a thousand lives for the Church. They would not. He spoke to me again about my books, although I had submitted them, and asked me if I did not condemn them of error. I said that if sentiments that were not altogether orthodox had slipped in, I submitted them, as I had always done. [pp.210-11]
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"I flattered my self... that he would support me."
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[Despite her refusal to admit "error," highly-placed friends arranged Guyon's release, and for a few years, all was well. But in 1693, new rumors about both her morals and her teachings were abroad, and she went for help to the very wrong person, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, whose reputation was that of a fierce opponent of anything that hinted of Protestantism:]
Some of my friends thought it would be advisable for me to see the Bishop of Meaux [Bossuet], who was reported not to be opposed to spiritual religion. I knew that, eight or ten years before, he had read the "Short Method" and the "Canticles," and that he had thought them very good. This made me consent to it with pleasure; but, O my Lord, how have I experienced in my life that everything which is done through consideration and human views, although good, turns into confusion, shame and suffering! At that time I flattered my self (and I accuse my self of my faithlessness) that he would support me against those who were attacking me....
One of my friends, of the highest rank, the Duke of Chevreuse, brought the Bishop of Meaux to my house.... They spoke of the "Short Method," and this Prelate told me he had read it and also the "Canticles," and that he thought them very good.... The Duke gave him the "Torrents," on which he made some remarks: not of things to be condemned, but which needed elucidation....
The Bishop of Meaux having then accepted the proposal to examine my writings, I caused them to be placed in his hands; not only those printed, but all the commentaries on Holy Scripture. It was a great labor for him, and he required four or five months to have leisure to go to the bottom of everything, which with much exactitude he did in his country house, where he had gone to escape interruption. To show the more confidence in him, and lay open the inmost recesses of my heart, I made over to him... the history of my life, where my most secret dispositions were noted with much simplicity. [pp.252-55]
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"...things...which were entirely new and unknown to me."
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[After Bossuet had read Guyon's work, they met again. The theologian who delighted in intellectual argument and the woman who wrote whatever her heart suggested were simply on different planets:]
He ordered me to justify my books. I excused myself as I could; because, having submitted them with my whole heart, I did not desire to justify them: but he insisted on it. I first of all protested I only did it through obedience, condemning most sincerely all that was condemned in them.... He still wished me to render a reason for an infinity of things I had put into my writings, which were entirely new and unknown to me....
There is little imagination in what I write; for I often write what I have never thought. What I should have wished of the Bishop of Meaux was that he would not judge me by his reason, but by his heart. [pp.362-64]
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"God has made use of laics and women without learning."
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[Bossuet made many objections to Guyon's comments on Scripture, but his greatest irritation seems to have been with the Vie:]
The Bishop of Meaux raised great objections to what I had said, in my Life, of the Apostolic state. What I have meant to say is, that persons, who, by their state and conditions (as, for example, laics and women) are not called upon to aid souls, ought not to intrude into it of themselves: but when God wished to make use of them by his authority, it was necessary they should be put into the state of which I had written....
That this state is possible, we have only to open the histories of all times to show, that God has made use of laics and women without learning to instruct, edify, conduct, and bring souls to a very high perfection....
As to what regards me, I am ready to believe that my imaginations are mixed up as shadows with the divine truth, which may indeed conceal it, but cannot injure it. [pp.266-67]
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"The ignorance... ought to make him see at least that I
speak the truth."
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[In the summer of 1694, Guyon met (again at her own request!) with Bossuet, another bishop, and the head of a male religious order:]
He [Bossuet] reproached me numbers of times with my ignorance, that I did not know anything: and, after having made nonsense out of all my words, he kept incessantly crying out, he was astonished at my ignorance. I answered nothing to these reproaches: and the ignorance, of which he accused me, ought to make him see at least that I speak the truth, when I assert it is by an actual light I write, nothing otherwise remaining in my mind....
But it is impossible to answer a man who knocks you down, who does not listen to you, and who incessantly crushes you. As for me, I lose then the thread of what I wish to say, and remember nothing. [p.304]
-------------------------------------------
"I am assuredly a bad hypocrite."
-------------------------------------------
[At the start of 1695, Guyon agreed to stay at a convent in Meaux, so that she could be questioned by Bossuet and so "that he might know me of himself" (p.306). She believed that he willingness to put herself in his hands would convince Bossuet of her sincerity. At first that seemed to be so:]
But that which at first appeared so good to the Bishop of Meaux afterwards only seemed "artifice" and "hypocrisy."...
It is a strange hypocrisy that lasts a whole life, and which far from bringing us any advantage, causes only crosses, calumnies, troubles and confusions, poverty, discomfort, and all sort of ills. I think one has never seen the like; for ordinarily one is only a hypocrite to attract the esteem of men, or to make one's fortune. I am assuredly a bad hypocrite, and I have badly learned the trade, since I have so ill succeeded. [p.307]
---------------------------------------------
"Besides that I climb very badly...."
---------------------------------------------
[After six months of frustration for both Guyon and Bossuet, she left Meaux (with or without Bossuet's permission, depending on the source):]
He [Bossuet] gave out, I had climbed over the walls of the convent to fly. Besides that I climb very badly, all the nuns were witnesses of the contrary: yet this has had such a currency many people still believe it. [p.323]
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"...although I made these reflections only when composing
hymns."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[By the end of 1695, Guyon was arrested --- no charges, no trial. She was first taken to Vincennes, a chateau-prison outside Paris, where she was kept for eight months. Apparently, it was there, allowed a maid but no visitors or writing materials, that she composed many of her poems:]
During the time I was at Vincennes and M. de la Reinie [head of the Paris police] interrogated me, I continued in great peace, very content to pass my life there, if such was the will of God.
I used to compose hymns, which the maid who served me learned by heart as fast as I composed them; and we used to sing your praise, O my God! I regarded myself as a little bird you were keeping in a cage for your pleasure, and who ought to sing to fulfil her condition of life.... My joy was based on your love O my God, and on the pleasure of being your captive; although I made these reflections only when composing hymns. [p.328]
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"When I prayed I had only answers of death."
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[For at least part of the time during her four years in the much harsher conditions of the Bastille (with no companion, no visitors, no writing material), Guyon lost the peace she had felt at Vincennes:]
Sometimes it seemed God placed himself on the side of men to make me the more suffer.... I saw all men united to torment me and surprise me---every artifice and every subtlety of the intellect of men who have much of it, and who studied to that end; and I alone without help, feeling upon me the heavy hand of God, who seemed to abandon me to myself and my own obscurity.... When I prayed I had only answers of death.
At this time that passage of David occurred to me: "When they persecuted me, I afflicted my soul by fasting." I practised then, as long as my health allowed it, very rigorous fasts and austere penances, but all this seemed like burnt straw. One moment of God's conducting is a thousand times more helpful. [p.330]
--------------------------------------------------
"I cannot do otherwise than be simple."
--------------------------------------------------
[Guyon's release from the Bastille in 1703 was conditional; she could be returned there at a single word from the authorities. Yet at Blois she continued to teach, to correspond, and to write. Her friends worried about some of her visitors; Guyon didn't:]
I do not fear the snares they spread for me. I am not on my guard for anything, and everything goes well. I am sometimes told, "Take care what you say to So-and-so." I forget it immediately, and I cannot take care. Sometimes I am told, "You have said such-and-such a thing: those people may put an ill interpretation on it. You are too simple." I believe it, but I cannot do otherwise than be simple. [p.333]
---------------------------------------
"If the Life was not written...."
---------------------------------------
[In 1709, Guyon concluded the Vie by speaking directly to her readers, about herself and this book:]
It is an empty beacon: one may in it light a torch. It is perhaps a false light, which may lead to the precipice. I know nothing of it. God knows it. It is not my business. It is for you to discern that. There is nothing but to extinguish the false light. The torch will never light itself if God does not light it. I pray God to enlighten you always to do only his will....
If the Life was not written, it would run a great chance of never being so; and yet I would rewrite it at the least signal, without knowing why, nor what I wished to say. [p.334]
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[This is the print version of the abridged 1880 translation
of La vie by Edward Jones that is available online:]
Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte. Madame Guyon: an autobiography.
Chicago: Moody Press, 1988, 1986. (382 p.)
LC#:JG 7 G98 X G993m
=======================================================================
[This collection includes an essay by Patricia A. Ward
that acts as a valuable introduction to Guyon's life and thought,
presenting her as neither saint nor fool. Quoted passages (some
from works not yet available in English) are given in Ward's
own translation. Other essays in the book illustrate Guyon's
influence on later writers (for these references, see the index)
For information on two earlier articles by Ward, see below. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
The pietist theologians: an introduction to theology in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries / edited by Carter Lindberg (The great
theologians ). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2005. (xvi, 282 p.;
26 cm)
LC#: BR1650.3 .P54 2005; ISBN: 0631235175, 0631235205
Includes bibliographical references and index
-----------------------
[That portion of Marie-Florine Bruneau's study which deals with Guyon focuses on the opposition she met and on its effect on her. Bruneau gives her own translation of passages from La vie and from other of Guyon's works. Bruneau's notes and bibliography are useful. (See the book's table of contents online):]
Bruneau, Marie-Florine. Women mystics confront the modern
world: Marie de l'Incarnation (1599-1672) and Madame Guyon (1648-1717)
(SUNY series in Western esoteric traditions) . Albany: State
University of New York Press, c1998. (x, 279 p.)
LC#BV5095 .A1 B69 1998; ISBN:0791436616, 0791436624
Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-274) and index
----------------------
[Chapter 3 of Nicholas D. Paige's study includes a substantial discussion (pp.151-78) of Guyon's La vie. Paige traces the work's changing purpose, from the early optimism of Guyon's teaching to the cautious self-defense of the last years. He gives the original and his translation of all quoted passages, including quite a few from the as-yet-untranslated last section of the work, Recits de captivite. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Paige, Nicholas D. Being interior: autobiography and the contradictions
of modernity in seventeenth-century France (New cultural studies)
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. (viii,
297 p.: ill.)
LC#: CT25 .P35 2001; ISBN: 0812235770
Includes bibliographical references (p [235]-287) and index
---------------------
[Elizabeth C. Goldsmith's study includes a chapter on Guyon, which discusses Guyon's portrayal of herself in La vie and in her letters as a "spiritual mother." Goldsmith sees this self-presentation as Bossuet's chief objection. Goldsmith gives the French original and her translation of all quoted passages, including passages from Recits de captivite. (See the book's table of contents online):]
Goldsmith, Elizabeth C. Publishing women's life stories in
France, 1647-1720: from voice to print (Women and gender in the
early modern world). Aldershot: Ashgate, c2001. (viii, 172 p.:
ill., ports.)
LC#: PQ 149 .G66 2001; ISBN: 0754603709
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------
[Two essays in this collection deal with Guyon: (1) Goldsmith's "Mothering Mysticism: Mme. Guyon and Her Public" discusses Guyon's evolving view of her reading audience that is illustrated in La vie and in her correspondence. (2) Philippe-Joseph Salazar's "Toward a Genealogy of Women's Rhetoric in Seventeenth-Century France: The Eloquence of Ecstasy" sees Commentaire de Cantique des Cantiques as an example of the use of divine inspiration as authority for women to speak publicly. Both authors give their own translation of quoted passages. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women writers in pre-revolutionary France: strategies of emancipation
/ edited by Colette H. Winn, Donna Kuizenga (Garland reference
library of the humanities; v.1990. Women writers of the world;
v.2). New York: Garland Pub., 1997. (xxx, 454 p.)
LC#: PQ149 .W64 1997; ISBN: 0815323670
Includes bibliographical references (p. 415-441) and index
------------------------
[Leon S. Roudiez's translation of Julia Kristeva's 1983 study of the psychological aspects of love, Histoires d'amour, includes a section, "A Pure Silence: The Perfection of Jeanne Guyon" (pp. 297-317). Kristeva discusses Guyon's views on God and on prayer, and looks at the effects of Guyon's childhood on her later relationships with God and with other people. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Kristeva, Julia. Tales of love; translated by Leon S. Roudiez.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. (ix, 414 p.)
LC#: BF575.L8 K7413 1987; ISBN: 0231060246
Bibliography: p. [385]-414. Includes index
-----------------------
[This collection includes Agnes Guiderdoni-Brusle's essay,
"L'ame amante de son Dieu by Madame Guyon (1717):
Pure Love Between Antwerp, Paris and Amsterdam, at the Crossroads
of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy," which discusses a series of
poems written by Guyon (perhaps before 1696, perhaps after) for
the combined publication of two older books of emblems. Although
those of Guyon's poems that are quoted are not translated, Guiderdoni-Brusle's
discussion shows how Guyon re-interpreted an older tradition
about the soul's movement toward God.
(See the book's table of contents online.):]
The Low Countries as a crossroads of religious beliefs / edited
by Arie-Jan Gelderblom, Jan L. de Jong, Marc van Vaeck (Intersections;
v. 3). Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004. (viii, 331 p.)
LC#: BR395 .L69 2004; ISBN: 9004122885
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------
[Patricia A. Ward's 1998 article describes the use and adaptation of Guyon's thought in the United States of the 1700s and 1800s. Ward gives an objective account of Guyon's beliefs and explains the way in which her works were abridged and edited by writers like Thomas Cogswell Upham, below. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Ward, Patricia A. Madame Guyon and experiential theology in
America. Church History, 67 (1998), 484-98.
LC#: BR140 .A45; ISSN: 0009-6407
------------------------
[Because Guyon's works have been translated into English under such a variety of titles, Ward's earlier article, which provides an annotated list of all known translations through the 1980s, is valuable for anyone trying to find to what original a particular title refers:]
Ward, Patricia. Madame Guyon in America. Bulletin of Bibliography,
52 (1995). 107-111.
LC#: Z1007 .B94; ISSN: 0007-4780
-------------------------
[Available online, Thomas Cogswell Upham's 1847 biography
of Guyon presents her as a Protestant saint. Upham has been criticized
for mis-translating those passages of La vie in which
Guyon expresses loyalty to the Catholic Church (and for often
incorporating his own thoughts into hers), but his presentation
of the factual details of her life is still generally accepted
(and is clearer than the sometimes vague information given by
Guyon herself):]
Upham, Thomas Cogswell. Life, religious opinions and experience
of Madame Guyon: including an account of the personal history
and religious opinions of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray;...
an introduction by W. R. Inge. New York : Fleming H. Revell,
[1926?]. (xvi, 500 p.)
LC#: PQ1799.G8 Z7 1926
-----------------------
[Michael De La Bedoyere's study focuses on Fenelon, but he does translate parts of the correspondence between Guyon and Fenelon. For De La Bedoyere, Guyon was an enthusiast, a foolish but honest woman who hindered Fenelon's advancement but who gave him the opportunity to show his loyalty to an ideal:]
De La Bedoyere, Michael. The archbishop and the lady: the
story of Fenelon and Madame Guyon. [New York] Pantheon [c.1956].
(256 p. illus.)
LC#:BX4705.F3 D4 1956
Bibliography: p. 253
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Updated 03-29-08