CHAPTER XIV.

One night in a dream our Lord showed me, that he
would also purify the maid whom he had given me,
and make her truly enter into death to herself. I then
freely resolved to suffer for her, as I did for Father La
Combe. As she resisted God much more than he, and
was much more under the power of self-love, she had
more to be purified from. What I could not tolerate
in her was her regard for herself. I saw clearly that
the devil cannot hurt us, but so far as we retain some
fondness for this corrupt self. This sight was from
God, who gave me the discerning of spirits, which
would ever accept what was from him, or reject what
was not; and that not from any common methods of
judging, not from any outward information, but by an
inward principle which is his gift alone.

That this point be not mistaken, it is needful to
mention here that souls which are yet in themselves,
whatever degree of light and ardor they have attained,
are unqualified for it They often think they have this
discernment, when it is nothing else but sympathy or
antipathy of nature. Our Lord had destroyed in me
every sort of natural antipathy. The soul must be
very pure, and depending on God alone, that all these
things may be experienced in him. In proportion as
this maid became inwardly purified, my pain abated,
till the Lord let me know her state was going to be
changed, which soon happily ensued. In comparison

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of inward pain for souls, outward persecutions, though
ever so violent, scarce gave me any.

The Bishop of Geneva wrote to different kinds of
persons. He wrote in my favor to such as he thought
would show me his letters, and quite the contrary in
the letters which he thought I would never see. It was
so ordered that these persons, having showed each
other their letters received from him, were struck with
indignation to see in him so shameful a duplicity.
They sent me those letters that I might take proper
precautions. I kept them two years, and then burnt
them, not to hurt the prelate by them. The strongest
battery he raised against me was what he did with the
Secretary of State, who held that post in conjunction
with the Marchioness of Prunai’s brother. He used
all imaginable endeavors to render me odious, and to
cry me down. He employed certain abbots for that
purpose, insomuch that, though I appeared very little
abroad, I was well known by the descriptions this
bishop had given of me. This did not make so much
impression as it would have done, if he had appeared
in a better light at Court. Some letters of his, which
her royal highness found after the prince’s death, which
he had written to him against her, had that effect on
the princess, that, instead of taking any notice of what
he now wrote against me, she showed me great respect,
and sent her request to me to come to see her.
Accordingly I waited on her. She assured me of her
protection, and that she was glad of my being in her
dominions.

It pleased God here to make use of me to the con¬
version of two or three ecclesiastics. But I had much
to suffer from their repugnances and many infidelities

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— one of whom had villified me greatly — and even after
his conversion turned aside into his old ways; but God
at length graciously restored him.

As I was undetermined whether I should place my
daughter at the Visitation of Turin, or take some other
course; I was exceedingly surprised, at a time I least
expected it, to see Father La Combe arrive from Ver-
ceil, and tell me, “ I must return to Paris without any
delay.” It was in the evening, and he said, “I must
set off next morning.” I confess this sudden news
startled me. It was for me a double sacrifice to return
to a place where they had cried me down so much;
and towards a family which held me in contempt, and
who had represented my journey, caused by pure neces¬
sity, as a voluntary course, pursued through human
attachments. Behold me then disposed to go off,
without offering a single word in reply, with my daugh¬
ter and my chambermaid, without anybody to guide
and attend us; for Father La Combe was resolved not
to accompany me, not so much as in passing the moun¬
tains; because the Bishop of Geneva had written on all
sides that I was gone to Turin to run after him. But
the Father Provincial, who was a man of quality, and
well acquainted with the virtue of Father La Combe,
told him, “ that it was improper and unsafe to venture
on these mountains, without some person of my
acquaintance; and the more as I had my little daugh¬
ter with me; and that he therefore ordered him to
accompany me.” Father La Combe confessed to me
that he had some reluctance to do it, and that only
obedience, and the danger to which I should have been
exposed, made him surmount it. He was only to
accompany me to Grenoble, and from thence to return

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to Turin. I went off then, designing for Paris, there to
suffer whatever crosses and trials it should please God
to inflict

What made me pass by Grenoble was the desire I
had to spend two or three days with a lady, an eminent
servant of God, and one of my friends. When I was
there Father La Combe and that lady spoke to me not
to go any farther; that God would glorify himself in
me and by me in that place. He returned to Verceil,
and I left myself to be conducted as a child by Provi¬
dence. This lady took me to the house of a good
widow, there not being accommodations at the inn;
and as I was ordered to stop at Grenoble, at her house
I resided. I placed my daughter in a convent, and
resolved to employ all this time in resigning myself to
be possessed in solitude by Him who is the absolute
Sovereign of my soul I made not any visit in this
place; no more had I in any of the others where I had
sojourned. But I was greatly surprised when, a few
days after my arrival, there came to see me several
persons who made profession of a singular devotion to
God. I perceived immediately a gift which he had
given me, of administering to each that which suited
their states. I felt myself invested, all on a sudden,
with the apostolic state, and discerned the conditions
of the souls of such persons as spoke to me, and that
with so much facility, that they were surprised at it,
and said one to another, “that I gave eveiy one of
them the very thing they had stood in need of.” It
was thou, O my God, who didst all these things; some
of them sent others to me. It came to such an excess,
that, generally from six in the morning till eight in the
evening, I was taken up in speaking of the Lord. Peo-

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pie flocked on all sides, far and near, friars, priests,
men of the world, maids, wives, widows, all came one
after another; and the Lord supplied me with what
was pertinent and satisfactory to them all, after a won¬
derful manner, without any share of my study or medi¬
tation therein. Nothing was hid from me of their
interior state, and of what passed within them. Here,
O my God, thou madest an infinite number of conquests
known to thyself only. They were instantly furnished
with a wonderful facility of' prayer. God conferred on
them his grace plentifully, and wrought marvellous
changes in them. The most advanced of these souls
found, when with me, in silence, a grace communicated
to them which they could neither comprehend, nor
cease to admire. The others found an unction in my
words, and that they operated in them what I said to
them. They said, “they had never experienced any¬
thing like it.” Friars of different orders, and priests of
merit, came to see me, to whom our Lord granted very
great favors, as indeed he did to all, without exception,
who came in sincerity.

One thing was surprising, which was, that I had
not a syllable to say to such as came only to watch my
words, and to criticise them. Even when I thought to
try to speak to them, I felt that I could not, and that
God would not have me do it. Some of them in
return said, “ The people are fools to go to see that
lady. She cannot speak.” Others of them treated me
as if I were only a stupid simpleton. After they left
me there came one and said, “ I could not get hither
soon enough to apprize you not to speak to those per¬
sons; they come from such and such, to try what they
can catch from you to your disadvantage.” I answered

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them, “Our Lord has prevented your charity; fori
was not able to say one word to them.”

I felt that what I spoke flowed from the fountain,
and that I was only the instrument of him who made
me speak. Amidst this general applause, our Lord
made me comprehend what the apostolic state was,
with which he had honored me; that to give one’s self
up to the help of souls, in the purity of his Spirit, was
to expose one’s self to the most cruel persecutions.
These very words were imprinted on my heart : “ To

resign ourselves to serve our neighbor is to sacrifice
ourselves to a gibbet. Such as now proclaim, ‘ Blessed
is he who cometh in the name of the Lord/ will soon
cry out, * Away with him, crucify him.’ ” One of my
friends speaking of the general esteem the people had
for me, I said to her, “ Observe what I now tell you,
that you will hear curses out of the same mouths
which at present pronounce blessings.” Our Lord
made me comprehend that I must be conformable to
him in all his states; and that, if he had continued in a
private life with his parents, he never had been cruci¬
fied; that, when he would resign any of his servants to
crucifixion, he employed such in the ministry and ser¬
vice of their neighbors. It is certain that all the souls
employed herein by apostolic destination from God,
and who are truly in the apostolic state, are to suffer
extremely. I speak not of those who put themselves
into it, who, not being called of God in a singular
manner, and having nothing of the grace of the apos-
tleship, have none of its crosses; but of those only who
surrender themselves to God without any reserve, and
who are willing with their whole hearts to be exposed
for his sake, to sufferings without any mitigation.

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