 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon. Volume 2, Chapter 2 Our Lord took pity on the lamentable condition of my daughter and so ordered that the bishop of Geneva wrote to Father Lacombe to come as spitely as possible to see us and to console us. As soon as I saw the Father, I was surprised to feel an interior grace which I may call communication, such as I had never had before with any person. It seemed to me that an influence of grace came from him to me through the inner most of the soul, returned from me to him in such a way that he felt the same effect. Like a tide of grace, it caused the flux and reflux flowing on into the divine and invisible ocean. This is a pure and holy union which God alone operates and which has still subsisted and even increased. It is a union exempt from all weakness and from all self-interest. It causes those who are blessed with it to rejoice in beholding themselves as well as those beloved latent with grosses and afflictions. A union which has no need of the presence of the body. At certain times, absence makes not more absent, nor presence more present. A union unknown to men, but such as are come to experience it. It can never be experienced but between such souls as are united to God. As I never before felt a union of this sort with anyone, it then appeared to me quite new. I had no doubt of its being from God, so far from turning the mind from him, it tended to draw it more deeply into him. It dissipated all my pains and established in me the most profound peace. God gave him at first much openness of mind toward me. He related to me the mercies God had shown him and several extraordinary things which gave me at first some fear. I suspected some illusion, especially in such things as flutter in regard to the future. Little imagining that God will make use of me to draw him from this state and bring him into that naked faith, but the grace which flowed from him into my soul recovered me from that fear. I saw that it was joined with extraordinary humility. Far from being elevated with the gifts which God had liberally conferred upon him or with his own profound learning, no person could have a lower opinion of himself than he had. He told me as to my daughter, it would be best for me to take her to Tunon where she thought she would be very well situated. As to myself, after I had mentioned to him my dislike to the manner of life of the new Catholics, he told me that he did not think it would be my proper place to belong with them. It would be best for me to stay there free from all engagements till God, by the guidance of his providence, should make known to me how he would dispose of me and draw my mind to the place whether he would have me remove. I had already begun to awake regularly at midnight in order to pray. I awoke with these words suddenly put in my mind. It is written of me, I will do thy will, oh my God. This was a covenant with the most pure, penetrating and powerful communication of grace that I had ever experienced. Though the state of my soul was already permanent in nuance of life, yet this new life was not in that immutability in which it has been since. It was a beginning life and a rising day which goes on increasing onto the full meridian, a day never followed by night, a life which fears death no more, not even in death itself, because he who has suffered the first death shall no more be heard of the second. From midnight I continue on my knees till 4 o'clock in the morning, in prayer, in a sweet intercourse with God, and did the same also the night following. The next day after prayers, Father Lacombe taught me that he had a very great certainty that I was a stone which God designed for the foundation of some great buildings. What that building was, he knew no more than I. After whatever manner then it is to be, whether his Divine Majesty will make use of me in this life for some design known to himself only, or will make me one of the stones of the new and heavenly Jerusalem, it seems to me that such stone cannot be polished but by the strokes of the hammer. Our Lord has given to this soul of mine the qualities of the stone, firmness, resignation, insensibility and power to endure hardness under the operations of his hand. I carried my little daughter to the Erselands, a tunon. That child took a great fondness of Father Lacombe saying, he's a good father, one from God. Here I found a hermit whom they call Ansem. He was a person of the most extraordinary sanctity that had appeared for some time. He was from Geneva. God had miraculously drawn him from thence at twelve years of age. He had at nineteen years of age taken the habit of hermit of St. Augustine. He and another lived alone in a little hermitage where they saw nobody but such as came to visit their chapel. He had lived twelve years in this hut, never eating anything but pulse with salt and sometimes oil. Three times a week he lived on bread and water. He never drank wine and generally took but one meal in twenty-four hours. He wore for a shirt, a coarse, hell cloth and lodged on the bare ground. He lived in a continual state of prayer and in the greatest humility. God had done by him many signal miracles. This good hermit had a great sense of the designs of God on Father Lacombe and me. But God showed him at the same time that strange crosses were preparing for us both. That we were both destined for the aid of souls. I did not find as I expected any suitable place for my daughter at Tunon. I thought myself like Ibrahim when going to sacrifice his son. Father Lacombe said, Welcome, daughter of Ibrahim. I found little encouragement to live here and could not keep here with myself because we had no room. The little girls whom they took to make catholics were all mixed and had contracted habits as were pernicious. To live here there I thought not right. The language of the country was scarce anyone understood French and the food which she could not take, being far different from ours, were great hardships. All my tenderness for her was awakened and I looked on myself as her destroyer. I experienced what Hegar suffered when she put away her son Ishmael in the desert that she might not be forced to see him perish. I thought that even if I had ventured to expose myself I ought at least to have spurned my daughter. The loss of her education even of her life was near to me inevitable. Everything looked dark in regard to her. With her natural disposition and fine qualities she might have attracted admiration if educated in France and being likely to have such offers of marriage as she could never hope to meet with in this poor country which if she should recover she would never be likely to be fit for anything. Here she could eat nothing of what was offered her. All her subsystems was a little unpleasant and disagreeable broth which I forced her to take against her will. I seemed like a second Ibrahim holding the knife over her to destroy her. Our Lord would have me make a sacrifice to Him without any consolation and plunge in sorrow. Night was the time in which I gave vent to it. He made me see on one side the grief of her grandmother if she should hear of her death which she would imbue to my taking the child away from her. The greater approach it will be accounted among all the family. The gifts of nature she was in doubt with were now like pointed darts which pierced me. I believed that God so ordered it to purify me from two human and attachment still in me. After I returned from the Erselins at Toonon they changed her manner of diet and gave her what was suitable in a short time she recovered. And of chapter 2, volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2, Chapter 3 As soon as it was known in France that I was gone there was a general outcry. Father Lamant wrote to me that all persons of learning and of piety united in censuring me. To alarm me still more he informed me that my mother-in-law with whom I had entrusted my younger son and my children's substance was fallen into a state of childhood. This, however, was false. I answer all these fearful letters as the spirit dictated. My answers were thought very just and those violent explanations were soon changed into uploses. Father Lamant appeared to change his censures into steam but it did not last. Half interest threw him back again being disappointed in his hopes of a pension which he expected I would have settled on him. Sister Garnier, whatever was her reason changed and declared against me. I both ate and slept little. The food which was given us was putrid and full of worms by reason of the great heat of the weather also being kept too long. What I should have formally beheld with the greatest abhorrence now became my only nourishment. Yet everything was render easy to me. In God I found without increase everything which I had lost for him. That spirit which I once thought I had lost in a strange stupidity was restored to me with inconceivable advantages. I was astonished at myself. I found there was nothing which I was not fit for or in which I did not succeed. Those who observed said that I had a prodigious capacity. I knew well that I had butmincum capabilities but that in God my spirit had received equality which it had never had before. I thought I experienced something of the state which the apostles were in after they had received the Holy Ghost. I knew. I comprehend it. I understood. I was unable to do everything necessary. I had every sort of good thing and no want of anything. When Jesus Christ, the eternal wisdom is formed in the soul after the death of the first Adam it finds in him all good things communicated to it. Sometime after my arrival at Yex the bishop of Geneva came to see us. He was so clearly convinced and so much affected that she could not forbear expressing it. He opened his heart to me on what God had required of him. He confessed to me his own deviations and infatilities. Every time I spoke to him he entered into what I said and acknowledged it to be the truth. Indeed, it was the spirit of truth which inspired me to speak to him without which I should be only a mere simpleton. Yet as soon as those persons spoke to him who sought for preeminence and who could not suffer any good but what came from themselves he was so weak as to be imposed on with impressions against the truth. This weakness has hindered him from doing all the good which otherwise he might have done. After I had spoken to him he said that he had it in his mind to give me Father Lacombe for director. He was a man illuminated of God who well understood the inward path and had a singular gift of pacifying souls. Greatly was I rejoiced when the bishop appointed him seeing thereby his authority united with the grace which already seemed to have given him to me by a union an infusion of supernatural life and love. The fatigues I had and watchings with my daughter threw me into a violent sickness attended with exquisite pain. The physicians judged me in danger that the sisters of the house quite neglected me especially the stewardess. She was so penurious that she did not give me what was necessary to sustain life. I had not a penny to help myself with as I had reserved nothing to myself. Besides, they received all the money which was remitted to me from France which was very considerable. I practiced poverty and was in necessity even among those to whom I had given all. They wrote to Father Lacombe desiring him to come to me as I was extremely ill. Hearing of my condition he was so touched with compassion as to walk on foot all night. He traveled not otherwise endeavoring in that as in everything else to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ. As so as he entered the house my pains abated. When he had prayed and blessed me laying his hand on my head I was perfectly cured to the great astonishment of my physicians who were not willing to acknowledge the miracle. These sisters advised me to return to my daughter. Father Lacombe returned with me. A violent storm arose on the lake which made me very sick and seemed likely to upset the boat. But the hand of Providence remarkably appeared in our favor so much so that it was taken notice of by the mariners and passengers. They looked upon Father Lacombe as a saint who arrived of Tunon where I found myself so perfectly recovered that instead of making and using the remedies I had proposed I went into a retreat and stayed 12 days. Here I made vows of perpetual chastity poverty and obedience covenanting to obey whatever I should believe to be the will of God also to obey the church and to honor Jesus Christ in such a manner as he pleased. At this time I found that I had the perfect chastity of love to the Lord it being without any reserve, division or view of interest perfect poverty by the total privation of everything that was mine both inwardly and outwardly perfect obedience to the will of the Lord submission to the church and honor to Jesus Christ in loving himself only the effect of which soon appear when by the loss of ourselves were passed into the Lord our will is made one and the same with that of the Lord according to the prayer of Christ as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee grant that they also may be one of us John 17 verse 21 Oh, but it is then that the will is rendered marvelous both because it is made the will of the Lord which is the greatest of miracles also because it works wonders in him for as it is the Lord who wills in the soul that will has its effect scarcely has it willed but the thing is done but some may say why then so many oppressions endure why do not these souls if they have such a power set themselves free from them we answer that if they had any will to do anything of that sort against divine providence that would be the will of flesh or the will of man and not the will of God John 1 verse 13 I wrote generally at midnight waking at the proper time but if I wound up my alarm watch then I use not to wake in time I saw that the Lord had the care of a father and a spouse over me when I had any in this position and my body wanted rest he did not awake me but at such times I felt even in my sleep a singular possession of him some years have passed were in I have had only a kind of half sleep but my soul waked the more for the Lord a sleep seemed to still from it every other attention the Lord made it known also to many persons that he designed me for a mother of great people but a people symbol and childlike they took these intelligences in a literal sense and thought it related to some institution or congregation but it appeared to me that the persons whom it would please the Lord that I should win over to him and to whom I should be as a mother through his goodness should have the same union of affection for me as children have for a parent but a union much deeper and stronger giving me all that was necessary for them to bring them to walk in the way by which he would lead them as I shall show and of chapter 3 volume 2 of the autobiography of Madame Keon the autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon volume 2 chapter 4 this is a library box recording all library box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org I would willingly suppress what I am now about to write if anything of it were my own also an account of the difficulty of expressing myself as because few souls are capable of understanding divine littings which are so little known and so little comprehended I have myself never read of anything like it I shall say something of the interior dispositions I was then in and I shall think my time will employ it if it serves you who are willing to be of the number of my children it serves such as already my children to induce them to let God glorify himself in them after his manner and not after their own if there be anything which they do not comprehend let them die to themselves they will find it much easier to learn by experience than from anything I could say expression never equals experience after I had come out of the trying condition I have spoken of I found it had purified my soul instead of blackening it as I had fear I possessed God after a manner so pure and so immense as nothing else could equal in regard to thoughts or desires all was so clean so naked so lost in the divinity that the soul had no selfish movement however plausible or delicate both the powers of the mind and the very senses being wonderfully purified sometimes I was surprised to find that there appeared not one selfish thought the imagination formerly so restless now no more troubled me I had no more perplexity or uneasy reflections the will, being perfectly dead to all its own appetites was become void of every human inclination both natural and spiritual and only inclined to whatever God pleased and to whatever manner he pleased this vastness or enlargeness which is not bounded by anything however plain or symbol it may be increases every day my soul in partaking of the qualities of her spouse seems also to partake of his immensity my prayer was in an openness and singleness inconceivable I was as it were born up on high out of myself I believe God was pleased to bless me with this experience at the beginning of the new life he made me comprehend it for the good of other souls the simplicity and desirableness of this passage of the soul into God when I went to confess I felt such an immersion of the soul into him that I could scarcely speak this ascension of the spirit wearing God draws the soul so powerfully not into its own inmost recess but into himself is not operated till after the death of self the soul actually comes out of itself to pass into its divine object I call it death that is to say a passage from one thing to another it is truly a happy Passover for the soul and its passage into the promised land the spirit which is created to be united to its divine origin has so powerful a tendency to him that if it were not stopped by a continual miracle its moving quality would cause the body to be drawn after it by reason of its impetuosity and nobbled ascent but God has given it a terrestrial body to serve for a counter poise this spirit then created to be united to its origin without any medium or injustice feeling itself drawn by its divine object tends to it with an extreme violence in such sort that God suspending for some time the power which the body has to hold back the spirit it follows with urgency when it is not sufficiently purified to pass into God it gradually returns to itself as the body resumes its own quality it turns to the air the saints who have been the most perfect have advanced to that degree as to have nothing of all this some have lost it toward the end of their lives becoming single and pure as the others because they then had in reality and permanence what they had at first only astrazient in the time of the prevalence or dominion of the body it is certain then that the soul by death to itself passes into its divine object this is what I then experienced I found the farther I went the more my spirit was lost in its suffering who attracted more and more to himself he was pleased at first that I should know this for the sake of others and not for myself indeed he drew my soul more and more into himself till it lost itself in direly out of sight of itself no more it seemed at first to pass into him as one sees a river pass into the ocean lose itself in it its water for a time distinguished from that of the sea till it gradually becomes transformed into the same sea all its qualities so was my soul lost in God who communicated to it his qualities having drawn it out of all that it had of its own its life is an inconceivable innocence not known or comprehended of those who are still shut up in themselves or only live for themselves the joy which such a soul possesses in its God it's so great that it experiences the truth of those words of a royal prophet all they who are in thee all Lord are like persons ravished with joy to such a soul the words of our Lord seem to be addressed your joy no man shall take from you John 16 verse 22 it is as it were plunged in a river of peace its prayer is continual nothing can hinder it from praying to God or from loving Him it humbly verifies these words in the canticles I sleep but my heart wake for it finds that even sleep itself does not hinder it from praying oh unutterable happiness who could ever have thought that the soul which seemed to be in the utmost misery should ever find a happiness equal to this oh happy poverty happy loss happy nothingness which gives no less than God Himself in His own immensity no more circumscribed to the limited manner of the creature but always joining out of that to plunge it wholly into His own divine essence then the soul knows that all the states of self-pleasing visions openings, ecstasies and raptures are other obstacles that they do not serve this state which is far above them because the state which has supports has pain to lose them yet cannot arrive at this without such loss in these are verified the words of an experienced saint when I would, says he possess nothing through self-love everything was given me without going after it oh happy dying of the grain of wheat which makes it produce a hundred fold the soul is then so passive so equally disposed to receive from the hand of God either good or evil as is astonishing it receives both the one and the other without any selfish emotions letting them flow and be lost as they come they pass away as if they did not touch after I finished my retreat with Yersalyn's attunement I returned through Geneva and having found no other means of convenience the French resident lent me a horse as I knew not how to ride I made some difficulty of doing it but as he assured me that it was a very quiet horse I ventured to mount there I was a sort of a smith who looking at me with a wild, haggard look struck the horse below on the back just as I had got upon him which made him give a lip he threw me on the ground with such force that they thought I was killed I fell on my tumble my cheekbone and two of my teeth were broken I was supported by an invisible hand and in a little time I mounted as well as I could on another horse and had a man by my side to keep me up my relations left me in peace at Gaix they had heard at parties of my miraculous cure it made a great noise there many persons in reputation for sanctity then wrote to me I received letters from mademoiselle de la mongonne and another young lady who was so moved with my answer that she sent me a hundred pistols for our house and let me know besides that when we wanted money I had only to write to her and that she would send me all I could desire they talked in paris of printing an account of the sacrifice I had made and inserting in it the miracle of my sudden recovery I don't know what prevented but such is the inconstancy of the creature that this journey which drew upon me at that time so much applause has served for a pretext for the strange condemnation which has since passed upon me End of Chapter 4 Volume 2 The Autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2, Chapter 5 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org My near relations did not signify any eager desire for my return The first thing they proposed to me a month after my arrival at Yex was not only to give up my guardianship but to make over all my estate to my children and to reserve an annuity to myself This proposition coming from people who regarded nothing but their own interests to some might have appeared very unpleasing but it was in no wise so to me I had not any friend to advise with I knew not anyone whom I could consult about the manner of executing the thing as I was quite free and willing to do it It appeared to me that I had now the means of accomplishing the extreme desire I had of being conformable to Jesus Christ poor, naked and stripped of all They sent me an article to execute which had been drawn under their inspection and I innocently sign it not perceiving some clauses which were inserted therein It expressed that when my children should die I should inherit nothing of my own estate but that it should revolve to my kindred There were many other things which appear to be equally to my disadvantage Though what I had reserved to myself was sufficient to support me in this place yet it was cursely enough to do so in some other places I then gave up my estate with more joy For being thereby conformed to Jesus Christ than they could have who asked it from me It is what I have never repented of nor had any uneasiness about What pleasure to lose all for the Lord The love of poverty that's contracted is the kingdom of tranquility I forgot to mention that toward the end of my miserable state of privation when just ready to enter into nuance of life Our Lord illuminated me so clearly to see that the exterior crosses came from Him that I could not harbor any resentment against the persons who procured me them On the contrary, I felt the tenderness of compassion for them and had more pain for those afflictions which I innocently caused to them than for any which they had hipped upon me I saw that these persons feared the Lord too much to oppress me as they did had they known it I saw His hand in it and I felt the pain which they suffer through the contriity of their humors It is hard to conceive the tenderness which the Lord gave me for them and the desire which I have had with the utmost sincerity to procure them every sort of advantage After the accident which befell me fall from the horse from which I soon wonderfully recovered the devil began to declare himself more openly mine enemy to break loose and become outrageous One night, when I least thought of it something very monstrous and frightful presented itself It seemed a kind face which was seen by a glimmering bluish light I don't know whether the flame itself combos that horrible face of appearance for it was so mixed and passed by so rapidly that I could not discern it My soul rested in its calm situation and assurance and it appeared no more after that manner As I arose at midnight to pray I heard frightful noises in my chamber and after I had lain down they were still worse My bed often shook for a quarter of an hour at a time and the sashes were all burst Every morning, while this continued they were found shatter and torn yet I felt no fear I arose and lighted my walk scandal at a lamp which I kept in my room because I had taken the office of Sacristan and the care of waking the sisters at the hour they were to rise without having once failed in it for my indispositions ever being the first in all the observances I made use of my little light to look all over the room and at the sashes at the very time the noise was strongest As he saw that I was afraid of nothing he left off all on a satan and attacked me no more in person but he stir up men against me and that succeeded far better with him for he found them disposed to do what he prompted them to inasmuch as they accounted a good thing to do me the worst of injuries One of the sisters whom I had brought with me a very beautiful girl contracted an intimacy with an ecclesiastic who had authority in this place At first he inspired her with an aversion for me being well assured that if she placed confidence in me I should advise her not to suffer his visits so frequently she was undertaking a religious retreat that the ecclesiastic was desirous to induce her to make it in order to gain her entire confidence which will have served as a clock to his frequent visits The bishop of Geneva had given father Lacombe for director to our house As she was going to cause retreats to be made I desire her to wait for him As I had gained some share in her esteem she submitted even against her inclination which was to have made it under this ecclesiastic I began to talk to her on the subject of inward prayer and drew her into the practice of this duty Our Lord gave such a blessing there too that this girl gave herself to God in right earnest and with her whole heart and the retreat completely won her over She then became more reserved and on her guard toward this ecclesiastic which exceedingly vexed him It enraged him both against father Lacombe and me These proved the source of the persecutions which afterward befell me in my chamber which may have been traced to him and it as this commenced This ecclesiastic began to talk privately of me with much contempt I knew it but took no notice There came a certain friar to see him who mortally hated father Lacombe on account of his regularity This combined together to force me to quit the house that they might become masters of it All the means they could devise they used for that purpose My manner of life was such that in the house I did not mental in affairs at all leaving the sisters to dispose of the temporalities as they pleased Soon after my entrance into it I received 1800 livers which a lady, a friend of mine lent me to complete a furniture which I had repaid here at my late giving up of my estate This sum they received as well as what I had before given them I sometimes spoke a little to those who retire thither to become Catholics Our lord favored with so much benediction what I said to them that some whom they knew not before what to make of became sensible, solid women and exemplary in piety I saw crosses in abundance to fall to my lot the same time these words came to me Who, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross Hebrews 12-2 I prostrated myself for a long time with my face on the ground earnestly desiring to receive all thy strokes all thou who spare not thine own son Thou calls fine none but him worthy of thee and thou still findest in him hearts proper for thee A few days after my arrival at Yex I saw in a sacred and mysterious dream for as such I very well distinguish it Father Lacombe fastened up to an enormous cross stripped in like manner as they pained our Saviour I saw around it a frightful crowd which covered me with confusion and threw back on me the ink nominee of his punishment He seemed to have most pain but I more reproaches than he I have since beheld this fully accomplished The ecclesiastic one over to his party one of our sisters who was the house cure and soon after the prioress I was very delicate the good inclination which I had did not give strength to my body I had two maids to serve me as the community had need of one of them for they cook and the other to attend the door and other occasions I gave them up not thinking but they would allow them to serve me sometimes Beside this I let them still receive all my income They having had my first half of this year's annuity yet they will not permit either of my maid servants to do anything for me By my office of Sakristan I was obliged to sweep the church which was large and they will not let anyone help me I have several times fainted over the broom and have been forced to rest in corners This obliged me to beg them that they will suffer it sometimes to be swept by some of the strong country girls New Catholics to which at last they had the charity to consent What most embarrassed me was that I never had washed I was now obliged to wash all the vestri linen I took one of my maids to help me because in attending it I had done up the linen most awkwardly These sisters pulled her up by the arms out of my chamber telling her she should do her own work I let it quietly pass without making any objection The other good sister the girl I just mentioned grew more and more fervent By the practice of prayer in her dedication of herself to the Lord she became more and more tender in her sympathy with me It irritated this ecclesiastic After all his important attempts here he went off to ONEC to sow discord and to effect more mischief to Father Lacombe End of chapter 5 Volume 2 of the autobiography of Madame Keon The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2, chapter 6 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org He went directly to the bishop of Geneva who till then had manifested much esteem and kindness for me He persuaded him that it would be proper to secure me to that house to oblige me to give up to it the annual income I had reserved to myself to engage me there too by making me priores He had gained such an ascendancy over the bishop that the people in the country called him the little bishop He drew him to enter heartily and with zeal into his proposition and to resolve to bring it about whatever it should cost The ecclesiastic having so far carried his point and being swelled with his success no longer kept any measures in regard to me He began with causing all the letters which I sent and those which were directed to me to be stopped That was in order to have it in his power to make what impressions he pleased on the minds of others and that I should neither be able to know it nor to defend myself nor to give or send to my friends any account of the manner in which I was treated One of the maids I had brought wanted to return She could have no rest in this place The other that remained was infirm too much taken up by others to help me in anything As father Lacombe was soon to come I thought he would soften the violent spirit of this man and that he would give me proper advice In the meantime they proposed to me the engagement and the post of priores I answered that as to the engagement it was impossible for me since my vocation was elsewhere and I could not regularly be the priores till after passing through the novitiate in which they had all served two years before they being engaged When I should have done as much I should see how God would inspire me The priores replied quite tartly that if I would ever leave them it were best for me to do it immediately Yet I did not offer to retire but continued still to act as usual I saw the sky gradually thickening and storms gathering on every side The priores then affected a milder air She assured me that she had a desire as well as I to go to Geneva that I should not engage but only promise her to take her with me if I went thither She pretended to place a great confidence in me and professed a high esteem for me As I am very free and have nothing but uprightness I let you know that I had no attraction for the manner of life of the new Catholics by reason of the intrigues from without Several things did not please me because I wanted them to be upright in everything She signified that she did not consent to such things but because that ecclesiastic told her they were necessary to give the house a credit in distant parts and to draw charities from Paris I answer that if we walk uprightly God will never fail us He will sooner do miracles for us I remark to her that when instead of sincerity they had recourse to artifice charity grew cold and kept herself shut up It is God alone who inspires charity How then is it to be drawn by disguises? Soon after Father Lacom came about the retreats this was the third and last time that he came to Ghex The priors after she had been tampering a good deal with me having written him a long letter before his coming and received his answer which she showed me now went to ask him whether she would one day be united to me at Geneva He answered with his usual uprightness Our Lord has made it known to me that you shall never be established at Geneva Soon after she died When he had uttered this declaration she appeared enraged against both him and me She went directly to that ecclesiastic who was in a room with the house steward and they took their measures together to oblige me either to engage or retire They thought that I would sooner engage than retire and they watched my letters With a design to lay snares for him he requested Father Lacom to preach He did on this text The king's daughter is beautiful within That ecclesiastic who was present with his confidant said that it was preached against him and was full of errors He drew up eight propositions and inserted in them what the other had not preached adjusting them as maliciously as ever he called then sent them to one of his friends in Rome to get them examined by the sacred congregation and by the inquisition Though he had very ill digested them at Rome they were pronounced good that greatly disappointed and vexed him After having been treated in this manner and appropriately reviled by him in the most offensive terms the father with much mildness and humility told him that he was going to Tennessee about some affairs of the convent If he had anything to write to the bishop of Geneva he would take care of his letter He then desired him to wait a while as he was going to write The good father had the patience to wait above three hours without hearing from him Though he had treated him exceedingly ill so far as to snatch out of his hands a letter I had given him for that worthy hermit I have mentioned Hearing he was not gone but was still in the church I went to him and beg him to send to see if the other's packet was ready The day was so far gone that he would be obliged to lodged by the way When the messenger arrived he found a servant of the Ecclesiastic on horseback ordered to go at full speed to be at Tennessee before the father He then returned an answer that he had no letters to send by him This was so contrived that he might gain time to propose the bishop for his purposes Father Lacombe then sent off for Tennessee and on his arrival found the bishop prepossessed and in an ill humor This was the substance of the discourse Bishop, you must absolutely engage this lady to give what she has to the house at Gex and make her the priors of it Father Lacombe, my lord you know what she has told herself of her vocation both at Paris and in this country I therefore do not believe that she will engage Nor is there any likelihood that after quitting her all in the hope of entering Geneva she should engage elsewhere and thereby put it out of her power to accomplish the designs of God in regard to her She has offered to stay with those sisters as a border If they are willing to keep her as such she will remain with them If not, she is resolved to retire into some convent till God shall dispose of her otherwise Bishop, I know all that but I likewise know that she is so very obedient that if you order her she will assuredly do it Father Lacombe It is for that reason, my lord that one ought to be very cautious in the commands which they lay on her Can I induce a foreign lady who for all her substance has nothing but a small pittance She has reserved to herself to give that up in favor of a house which is not yet established and perhaps never will be If the house should happen to fail or to be no longer of use what shall that lady live on? Shall she go to the hospital? And indeed this house will not long be of any use since there are no protestants in any part of France near it Bishop, these reasons are good for nothing If you do not make her do what I have said I will decree and suspend you This manner of speaking somewhat surprised the father He well enough understands the rules of suspicion which are not executed on such things He replied My lord, I am ready not only to suffer the suspension but even death rather than do anything against my conscience Having said that, he retired He directly sent me this account by an express to the end that I might take proper measures I had no other course to take but to retire into a convent I received a letter informing me that the nun to whom I had entrusted my daughter had fallen sick and had been desiring me to go to her for some time I showed this letter to the sisters of our house telling them that I had a mind to go but if they cease to persecute me and would leave Father Lacombe in peace I will return as soon as the mistress of my daughter should be recovered Instead of this they persecuted me more violently wrote to Paris against me stopped all my letters and sent libel against me around the country The day after my arrival at Tunon Father Lacombe set off for the valley of Alst to preach there in Lent He had come to take leave of me and told me that he should go from France to Rome and perhaps not return as his superiors might detain him there that he was sorry to leave me in a strange country without succour and persecuted of everyone I replied my father that gives me no pain I used the creatures for God and by his order through his mercy I do very well without them when he withdraws them I am very well consented never to see you and to abide under persecution if such be his will he said he will go well satisfied to see me in such a disposition and then departed As soon as I got to the Erselins a very aged and pious priest who for 20 years passed had not come out of his solitude came to find me He told me that he had a vision relative to me that he had seen a woman in a boat on the lake and that the bishop of Geneva with some of his priests exerted all the efforts to sink the boat she was in and to drown her that he continued in this vision above two hours with pain of mine that it seemed sometimes as if this woman were quite drawn as for some time she quite disappeared but afterward she appeared again and ready to escape the danger while the bishop never ceased to pursue her this woman was always equally calm but he never saw her entirely free from him from hence I conclude at it he that the bishop will persecute you without intermission I had an intimate friend wife of that governor of whom I have made some mention as she saw I had quitted everything for God she had a warm desire to follow me with diligence did she dispose of all her efforts and settle her affairs in order to come to me but when she heard of the persecution she was discouraged from coming to a place from hence she thought she obliged to retire soon after she died and of chapter 6 volume 2 volume 2 chapter 7 of the autobiography of Madame Keon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org after father Lacombe was gone the persecution raised against me became more violent but the bishop of Geneva still show me some civilities as well to try whether he could prevail on me to do what he desire as to sound out how matters passed in France and to prejudice the minds of the people there against me preventing me from receiving the letters send me the ecclesiastic and his family had 22 intercepted letters opened on their table there was one were in or send me a power of a attorney to signed of immediate consequence they were obliged to put it under another cover and send it to me the bishop wrote to father Lamant and had no difficulty to draw him into his party he was displeased with me on two accounts first that I had not settle on him a pension as he expected and as he told me very roughly several times second I did not take his advice in everything he at once declared against me the bishop made him his confidant it was he who uttered and spread abroad the news about me they imagine as was supposed that I would annul the donation I had made if I return that having the support of friends in France I would find the means of breaking it but in that they were mistaken I had no thought of loving anything but the poverty of Jesus Christ for some time yet the father acted with caution toward me he wrote me some letters which he addressed to the bishop of Geneva and they agreed so together that he was the only person from whom I received any letters to which I return very moving answers he instead of being touched with them became only more irritated against me the bishop continued to treat me with a show of respect yet at the same time he wrote to many persons in Paris as did also the sisters of the house to all those persons of piety who had written letters to me to bias them as much as possible against me in order to avoid the blame which owe naturally to fall upon them for having so unworthily treated person who had given up everything to devote herself to the service of that diocese after I had done this I was not in a condition to return to France they treat me extremely ill in every respect there was scarcely any kind of false or fabulous story likely to gain any credit which they did not invent to cry me down beside my having no way to make the truth known in France our lord inspire me with a willingness to suffer everything without justifying myself so that in my case nothing was hurt but condemnation without any vindication I was in this convent and had seen father Lacombe no feather than I had mentioned yet they did not cease to publish both of him and me the most scandalous stories as utterly false as anything could be for he was then a hundred and fifty leaks from me for some time I was ignorant of this as I knew that all my letters were kept from me I ceased to wander at receiving none I lived in this house with my little daughter in a sweet repose which was a very great favor of Providence my daughter had forgotten her French and among the little girls from the mountains had contracted a wild look and disagreeable manners her wit, sense and judgment were indeed surprising and her disposition exceedingly good there were only some little feats of pivishness which they had caused to arise in her through certain contrioties out of season caresses ill applied and forewarned of knowing the proper manner of education but the Lord provided in regard to her during this time my mind was preserved calm and resigned to God afterward that good sister almost continually interrupted me I answer everything she desired of me both out of condensation and from a principle which I had to obey like a child when I was in my apartment without any other director than our Lord by his spirit as soon as one of my little children came to knock at my door he acquired me to admit the interruption he showed me that it is not the actions in themselves which please him but the constant radiopedians to every discovery of his will even in the minutest things which such a suppleness as not to stick to anything but still to turn with him at every call my soul was then I thought like a leaf or a feather which the winds moves whatsoever way it pleases and the Lord never suffers a soul so dependent upon and dedicated to him to be deceived most men appear to me very unjust when they readily resign themselves to another man and look upon that as prudence they confined in men who are nothing and bothly say such a person cannot be deceived but if one speaks of a soul wholly resigned to God which follows him faithfully they cry aloud that person is deceived with his resignation O divine love does thou want either strength, fatality, love or wisdom to conduct those who trust in thee and who are thy dearest children? I have seen men bold enough to say follow me and you shall not be misled how subtly are those men misled themselves by their presumption how much sooner should I go to him who would be afraid of misleading me who trusting neither to his learning nor experience would rely upon God only our Lord show me in a dream two ways by which souls steer their course under the figure of two drops of water of an unparalleled beauty, brightness and purity the other to have also a brightness yet full of little tricks both good to quench thirst the former altogether pleasant the latter not so perfectly agreeable by the former is presented the way of pure and naked faith which pleases the spouse much it is so pure, so clear from all self-love the way of emotions or gifts is not so yet it is that in which many enlightened souls walk and in which they had drawn father Lacombe but God show me that he had given him to me to draw him into one more pure and perfect I spoke before the sisters he being present of the way of faith how much more glorious it was to God an unfat nature for the soul than all those gifts, emotions and assurances which ever cause us to live to self these discourage them at first and him also I saw they were pained as they had confessed to me since I said no more of it at that time but as he is a person of great humility he beat me unfold what I had wanted to say to him I told him a part of my dream of the two drops of water yet he did not then enter into what I said the time for it being not yet come when he came to Gex it was to make the retreats I told him the circumstances of a certain time past he recollected that it was the time of so extraordinary a touch with which the Lord favored him that he was quite overwhelmed with contrition these gave him such an interior renovation that having retired to pray in a very ardent frame of mind he was filled with joy and seized with a powerful emotion which made him enter into what I had told him of the way of faith I give these things as they happen to come to my remembrance without carrying them on in order after Easter in 1682 the bishop came to Tunon I had occasion to speak to him which when I had done our Lord so pointed my words that he appear thoroughly convinced but the persons who had influenced him before returned he then pressed me very much to return to Gex to take the place of Priarest I gave him the reasons against it I then appealed to him as a bishop desiring him to take care to regard nothing but God in what he should say to me he was struck into a kind of confusion and then said to me since you speak to me in such a manner I cannot advise you to do it it is not for us to go contrary to our vocations but do good I pray you to this house I promised him to do it having received my pension and send them a hundred pistols with the design of doing the same as long as I should be in the diocese the bishop said to me I love Father Lacombe he is a true servant of God and he has told me many things to which I was forced to ascend for I felt them in myself but added he when I say so they tell me I am mistaken that before the end of six months he will run mad he told me he approved of the nuns which had been under the care and instruction of Father Lacombe finding them to come up fully to what he had heard of them from thence I took occasion to tell him that in everything he owed to refer himself to his own breast or to the instructions there immediately received and not to others he agreed to what I said and acknowledged it to be right yet no sooner was he return than so great was his weakness that he re-enter into his former dispositions he sent the same ecclesiastic to tell me that I must engage myself at Yex that it was his sentiment I answered that I was determined to follow the counsel he had given me when he had spoken to me as from God since now they made him speak only as man End of chapter 7 of volume 2 The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon Volume 2 chapter 8 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org My soul was in a state of entire resignation and very great content in the midst of such violent tempests Those persons came to tell me a hundred extravagant stories against Father Lacombe The more they said to me to his disadvantage the more esteem I felt for him I answered them Perhaps I may never see him again but I shall ever be glad to do him justice It is not he who hinders me from engaging at Yex It is only because I know it to be none of my vocation They asked me who could know that better than the bishop They further told me I was under a deception and my state was good for nothing This gave me no uneasiness having referred to God the care of requiring and of exacting what he requires and in what manner he demands it A soul in this state seeks nothing for itself but all for God Some may say, what then does this soul? It lives itself to be conducted by God's providence and creatures Outwardly, its life seems quite common Inwardly, it is wholly resigned to the divine will The more everything appears adverse and even desperate, the more calm it is In spite of the annoyance and pain of the senses and of the creatures which for some time after the new life raise some clouds and obstructions as they have already signified But when the soul is entirely passed into its original being all these things no more cause any separation or partition It finds no more of that impurity which came from self-seeking from a human manner of acting from an unguarded word from any worm emotion or eagerness which caused such a mist as it is then could neither prevent nor remedy having so often experienced its own efforts to be useless and even hurtful as they did nothing else but still more and more defile it There is in such case no other way or means of remedy but in waiting till the son of righteousness dissipate those folks The whole work of purification comes from God only Afterward this conduct becomes natural Then the soul can say with the royal prophet Though host should encamp against me my heart shall not fear Though war should rise up against me in him will I confide For then, though assaulted on every side it continues fixed as a rock Having no will but for what God sees me to order Be what it may, high or low great or small, sweet or bitter honor, wealth, life or any other object what can shake its peace It is true, our nature is so crafty that it warms itself through everything A selfish side is like the basilisks it destroys Trials are suited to the state of the soul whether conducted by lights, gifts or ecstasies or by the entire destruction of self in the way of naked faith Both these states are found in the Apostle Paul He tell us Unless I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations that I was given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me he prayed thrice and it was said to him my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness He proved also another state when he that's express himself or raged man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death to which he replies I thank God it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord it is he who conquered death in us through his own life then there is no longer a stink in death or thorn in the flesh capable of paining or hurting anymore at first indeed and for a pretty long time after the soul sees that nature wants to take some part with it in its trials then its vitality consists in withholding it without allowing it the least indulgence till it leaves everything to go on with God in purity as it comes from him till the soul be in this state it always solace by its own mixture the operation of God like those rivulets which conduct the corruption of the place they pass through but flowing in a pure place they then remain in the purity of their source unless God through experience makes known his guidance to the soul he can never comprehend it or if souls had courage enough to resign themselves to the work of purification without having any weak and foolish pity on themselves what a noble, rabid and happy progress will they make but few are willing to lose the earth if they advance some steps as soon as the sea is ruffled and they are dejected they cast an anchor and often deceased from the prosecution of the voyage such disorders doth selfish interest and self-love occasion it is a consequence not to look too much at one's own state not to lose courage not to afford any nourishment to self-love which is so deep rooted that its empire is not easily demolished often the idea which a man falsely conceives of the greatness of his advancement in divine experience makes him want to be seen and known of men and to wish to see the very same perfection in others he conceives too low ideas of others and too high of his own state then it becomes a pain to him to converse with people too human whereas a soul truly mortified and resigned would rather converse with the worst by the order of providence than with the best of its own choice wanting only to see or to speak to any as providence directs knowing well that all beside far from helping only hurt it or at least prove very unfruitful to it what then renders this soul so perfectly content it neither knows nor wants to know anything but what God calls it to hearing it enjoys divine content after a manner vast immense and independent of exterior events more satisfied in its humiliation in the opposition of all creatures by the order of providence than on the throne of its own choice it is here that the apostolic life begins but do all reach that state? very few indeed as far as I can comprehend there is a way of lights, gifts and graces a holy life in which the creature appears all admirable as this life is more apparent so it is more esteemed of such at least as have not the purest light the souls which walk in the other path are often very little known for a length of time as it was with Jesus Christ himself till the last years of his life or if I could express what I conceive of this state but I can only stammer about it and of chapter 8 volume 2 chapter 9 of volume 2 of the autobiography of Madame Keon this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org being as I have said with the earthlings are too known after having spoken to the bishop of Geneva and seeing how he changed just as others turn him I wrote to him and to Father Laman but all my efforts were useless the more I endeavor to accommodate matters the more the ecclesiastic try to confound them hence I cease to meddle one day I was told that the ecclesiastic had won over the good girl whom I dearly loved so strong a desire I had for her perfection that it had cost me much I should not have felt the death of a child so much as her loss at the same time I was told how to hinder it but that human way of acting was repugnant to my inward sense these words arose in my heart except the Lord built the house and indeed he provided hearing himself hindering her from yielding to this deceitful man after a manner to be admired and very thwarting to the designs of him and his associates as long as I was with her she still seemed wavering and fearful but oh the infinite goodness of God to preserve without our aid what without his we should inevitably lose I was no sooner separated from her than she became immovable as for me they are scarcely past a day but they treated me with new insults the assaults came on me at unawares the new Catholics by the instigation of the bishop of Geneva the ecclesiastic and the sisters at Ghex stared up all the persons of piety against me I had but little uneasiness on my own account if I could have had it at all it would have been an account of Father Lacombe whom they violently asperced though he was absent they even made use of his absence to overset all the good he had done to the country by his missions and pious labours which were inclusively great at first I was too ready to vindicate him thinking it justice to do it I did not do it at all for myself and our Lord show me that I must cease doing it for him in order to leave him to be more thoroughly annihilated because from thence he would draw a greater glory than ever he had done from his own reputation every day they invented some new slander no kind of strategy or malicious device in their power did they omit they came to surprise and is near me in my words but God guarded me so well therein they only discovered their own malevolence I had no consolation from the creatures she who had the care of my daughter behaved roughly to me such are the persons who regulate themselves only by their gifts and emotions when they do not see things succeed and as they regard them only by their success and are not willing to have the effron of their pretentions being thought uncertain and liable to mistake they seek without force supports as for me who predented to nothing I thought all succeeded well in as much as all tended to self annihilation on another side the mate I had brought and who stayed with me grew tired out wanting to go back again he stunned me with her complaints thwarting and shouting me from morning till night abrading me with what I had left and coming to a place where I was good for nothing I was obliged to bear all her ill humor and the glamour of her tongue my own brother, Father Lamont wrote to me that I was rebelled to my bee shop staying in his diocese only to give him pain indeed I saw that I was nothing for me to do here so long as the bee shop should be against me I did what I could to gain his good will but this was impossible on any other terms than the engagement he demanded and that I knew to be my duty not to do this joined to the poor education of my daughter affected my heart when any glimmering of hope appear it soon vanished and I gained strength from a sort of despair during this time Father Lacombe was at Rome where he was received with so much honour and his doctrine was so highly esteemed that the sacred congregation was pleased to take his sentiments on some points of doctrine which were found to be so just and so clear that it followed them meanwhile the sister would take no care of my daughter when I took care of her she was displeased I was not able by any means to prevail on her to promise me that she would try to prevent her from contracting bad habits however I hoped that Father Lacombe at his return would bring everything into order and renew my consolation yet I left it all to God about July 1682 my sister who was an Ursula got permission to come she brought a maid with her which was very seasonable my sister assisted in the education of my daughter but she had frequent jarring with her tutors I labor but in vain for peace by some instances which I met with in this place I saw clearly that it is not great gifts which sanctify unless they be accompanied with a profound humility that death to everything is infinitely more beneficial for there was one who thought herself at the summit of perfection but she has discovered since by the trials which have befallen her that she was yet very far from it oh my God how true it is that we may have of thy gifts yet be very imperfect and full of ourselves how very straight is the gate which leads to life in God how little one must be to pass through it it being nothing else but death to self but when we have passed through it what enlargement do we find? David said he brought me forth into a large place Psalm 18 verse 19 and it was through humiliation and abasement that he was brought thither Father Lacombe on his arrival came to see me the first thing he said was about his own weakness that I must return he added that all seemed dark there was no likelihood that God would make use of me in this country the bishop of Geneva wrote to Father Lamant to get me to return he wrote to me accordingly to do it the first land which I passed with the Erselins I had a very great pain in my eyes for that same embossed tomb which I formerly had between the eye and the nose returned upon me three times the bad air and the noise some room which I was in contributed here too my head was rightfully swallowed but great was my inward joy it was strange to see so many good creatures who did not know me, love and pity me all the rest enraged against me and most of them on reports entirely false neither knowing me nor why they so hated me to swell the stream of abliction yet more my daughter fell sick and was likely to die there was but little hope of her recovery when her mistress also fell ill my soul, living all to God continued to rest in a quiet and peaceable habitation O principal and sole object of my love were there never any other reward of what little services we do or of the marks of homage we render thee that this fixed state above the vestigitudes in the world it is not enough the senses indeed are sometimes ready to start a sight and to run off by truance but every trouble flies before the soul which is in direly subjected to God but speaking of a fixed state I do not mean one which can never decline or fall that being only heaven I call it fixed and permanent compared with the states which have preceded which were full of vestigitudes and variations I do not exclude a state of suffering in the senses or arising from superficial impurity which remains to be done away as one may compare to refined but tarnished gold it has no more need to be purified in the fire having undergone that operation but needs only to be burnished so it seemed to be with me at that time End of chapter 9, volume 2