 The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon, Volume 1, Chapter 18 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org About eight or nine months after my recovery from the small box, Father Lacom passing by our house brought me a letter from Father Delamotte, recommending him to my team and expressing the highest friendship for him. I hesitated because I was very low to make new acquaintances. The fear of offending my brother prevailed. After a short conversation, we both desire and father opportunity. I thought that he either loved God or was disposed to love him, and I wished everybody to love him. God had already made use of me for the conversion of three of his order. The strong desire he had of seeing me again induced him to come to our country house about half a league from the town. A little incident which happened opened a way for me to speak to him. As he was in discourse with my husband, who relished his company, he was taken ill and retired into the garden. My husband bade me go and see what was the matter. He told me he had noticed in my countenance and deep inwardness and presence of God, which had given him a strong desire of seeing me again. God then assisted me to open to him the interior path of the soul and convey so much grace to him through this poor channel that he went away, changed into quite another man. I preserved an esteem for him, for it appeared to me that he would be devoted to God. But little did I then foresee that I should ever be led to the place where he was to recite. My disposition at this time was a continual prayer without knowing it to be such. The presence of God was so plentifully given that it seemed to be more in me than my very self. The sensibility thereof was so powerful, so penetrating, it seemed to me irresistible. Love took from me all liberty of my own. At other times I was so dry, I felt nothing but the pain of absence, which was the kinner to me as the divine presence had before been so sensible. In these alternatives I forgot all my troubles and pains. It appeared to me as if I had never experienced any. In its absence it seemed as if it would never return again. I still, though it was through some fault of mine, it was withdrawn, and that rendered me inconsolable. Had I known it had been a state through which it was necessary to pass, I should not have been troubled. My strong love to the will of God would have rendered everything easy to me. The property of this prayer was to give a great love to the order of God with so sublime and perfect reliance on him as to fear nothing. Whether danger, thunders, spirits, or death, it gives a great abstraction from oneself our own interests and reputation, with an utter disregard to everything of the kind, all being swallowed up in the esteem of the will of God. At home I was accused of everything that was ill done, spoiled or broken. At first I told the truth and said it was not I. They persisted and accused me of lying. I then made no reply. Besides, they told all the tales to such as came to the house. But when I was afterward alone with the same persons, I never undissived them. I often heard such things said of me before my friends as were enough to make them entertain a bad opinion. My heart kept its habitation in the tacit consciousness of my own innocence, not concerning myself whether they thought well or ill of me. Excluding all the world, all opinions or censures, out of my view I minded nothing else but the friendship of God. If, through infidelity, I happened at any time to justify myself, I always failed and drew upon myself new crosses, both within and without. But notwithstanding all these, I was so enamored with it that the greatest cross of all would have been to be without any. When the cross was taken from me for any short space, it seemed to me that it was because of the bad use I made of it that my unfaithfulness deprived me of so great an advantage. I never knew its value better than its loss. I cried, punished me, anyway, but take not the cross from me. This amiable cross returned to me with so much more weight as my desire was more vehement. I could not reconcile two things. They appeared to me so very opposite, to desire the cross with so much ardour, to support it with so much difficulty and pain. God knows well in the admirable economy he observes how to render the crosses more weighty, conformable to the ability of the creature to bear them. Hereby my soul began to be more resigned, to comprehend that the state of absence and of wanting what I longed for was in its turn more profitable than that of always abounding, this latter nourished self-love. If God did not act that's, the soul will never die to itself. That principle of self-love is so crafty and tenturous that it glyphs to everything. What gave me most uneasiness in this time of darkness and crucifixion, both within and without, was an inconceivable readiness to be quick and hasty. When any answer a little too lively escaped me, which served not a little to humble me, they said I was fallen into a mortal sin. A conduct no less rigorous than this was quite necessary for me. I was so proud, passionate, and of a humor naturally thwarting, wanting always to carry matters my own way, thinking my own reasons better than those of others. As thou, oh my God, spurred the strokes of thy hammer, I should never have been farmed to thy will to be an instrument for thy use, for I was ridiculously vain. A plow's rendered me indolourable. I praised my friends to excess and blamed others without reason, but the more criminal I have been, the more I am indebted to thee, and the less of any good can I adrip you to myself. How blind are men who adrip you to others the holiness that God gives them. I believe, my God, that thou hast had children who under thy grace own much to their own fatality. As for me, I own all to thee. I glory to confess it. I cannot acknowledge it too much. In acts of charity I was very assituous. So great was my tenderness for the poor that I wished to have supplied all they once. I could not see their necessity without reproaching myself for the plenty I enjoyed. I deprived myself of all I could to help them. The very best at my table was distributed. There were a few of the poor where I lived who did not partake of my liberality. It seemed, as if thou hast made me, thy only almoner there. For being refused by others, they came to me. I cried, It is thy substance. I am only the steward. I owe to distribute it according to thy will. I found means to relieve them without letting myself be known because I had one who dispensed my alms privately. When there were families who were ashamed to take it in this way, I sent it to them as if I owned them a debt. I clothed such as were nicked, and caused young girls to be taught how to earn their livelihood, especially those who were handsome, to the end that being employed and having were on to live, they might not be under intimidation to throw themselves away. God made use of me to reclaim several from their disorderly lives. I went to visit the sick, to comfort them, to make their beds. I made ointments, dressed their wounds, buried their dead. I privately furnished tradesmen and mechanics where ways to keep up their shops. My heart was much open towards my fellow creatures in distress. Few indeed could carry charity much farther than our Lord enabled me to do, according to my state, both while married and since. To purify me the more from the mixture I might make of his gifts with my own self-love, he gave me interior proportions which were very heavy. I began to experience an insupportable weight in that very piety which had formally been so easy and delightful to me. Not that I did not love it extremely, but I found myself defective in that noble practice of it. The more I love it, the more I labor to acquire what I so failed in. But, alas, I seemed continually to be overcome by that which was the contrary to it. My heart, indeed, was detached from all sensual pleasures. For this several years past it has seemed to me that my mind is so detached and absent from the body that I do things as if I did them not. If I eat or refresh myself, it is done with such an absence or separation as I wander at with the entire mortification of the kindness of sensation in all the natural functions. End of Chapter 18, Volume 1 Volume 1, Chapter 19 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, please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon, Volume 1, Chapter 19. To resume my history, the small box had so much hurt one of my eyes that it was feared I would lose it. The gland at the corner of my eye was injured. An impasse tomb arose from time to time between the nose and the eye which gave me great pain till it was lanced. It swell all my head to that decree that I could not bear even a below. The least noise was agony to me. Though sometimes they made a great commotion in my chamber, yet this was a precious time to me for two reasons. First, because I was left in bed alone, where I had a sweet retreat without interruption. The other, because it answered the desire I had for suffering. Which desire was so great that all the austerities of the body would have been but as a drop of water to quench so great fire. Indeed, the severities and rigors which I then experienced were extreme. But they did not appease this appetite for the cross. It is thou alone, O crucified Saviour, who can make the cross truly effectual for the death of self. Let others bless themselves in their ease or gaiety, grunture or pleasures. Poor, temporary heavens! For me, my desires were all turned another way, even to the silent path of suffering for Christ, and to be united to Him through the mortification of all that was of nature in me, that my senses, appetites and will, being dead to this, might wholly live in Him. I obtained leave to go to Paris for the cure of my eye, and yet it was much more through the desire I had to see Montchère Petraude, a man of profound experience whom Mother Grinchure had lately assigned to me for my director. I went to take leave of my father, who embraced me with peculiar tenderness, little thinking then that it would be our last adieu. Paris was a place now no longer to be dread as in times past. The throngs only served to draw me into a deep recollection, and the noise of the streets augmented my inward prayer. I saw Montchère Petraude, who did not prove of that service to me, which he would have been if I had then the power to explain myself. Though I wished earnestly to hide nothing from him, yet God helped me so closely to him that I could scarcely tell anything at all. As soon as I spoke to him, everything vanished from my mind, so that I could remember nothing but some few faults. As I saw him very seldom, and nothing stayed in my recollection, and as I read of nothing anyway resembling my case, I knew not how to explain myself. Besides, I desired to make nothing known, but the evil which was in me. Therefore, Montchère Petraude knew me not, even till his death. This was of great utility to me by taking away every support and making me truly die to myself. I went to pass the ten days from the accession to which I died at an abbey four weeks from Paris, the abyss of which had a particular friendship for me. Here my union with God seemed to be deeper and more continued, becoming always symbol, at the same time more close and intimate. One day I awoke suddenly at four o'clock in the morning with a strong impression on my mind that my father was dead. At the same time my soul was in a very great contentment, yet my love for him affected with sorrow and my body with weakness. Under the strokes and daily troubles which befell me, my will was so subservient to die. Oh my God, that it appear absolutely united to thee! There seemed indeed to be no will left in me but thine only. My own disappeared and no desires, tendencies or inclinations were left, but to the one sole object of whatever was most pleasing to thee, be it what it would. If I had a will it was in union with thine, us too well tune lutes in concert. That which is not touched renders the same sound as that which is touched. It is but one and the same sound, one pure harmony. It is this union of the will which establishes in perfect peace. Yet, though my own will was lost, I have found since, in the strange states I have been obliged to pass through, how much it had yet to cost me to have it totally lost. How many souls are there which think their own wills quite lost? While they are yet very far from it, they would find they still subsit if they met with severe trials. Who is there who does not wish something for himself, either of interest, wealth, honour, pleasure, convenience and liberty? He who thinks his mind lose from all these objects, because he possesses them, would soon perceive his attachment to them where he stripped of those he possessed. If they are found in a whole age, three persons, so dead to everything, as to be utterly resigned to providence without any exception, they may well pass for prodigies of grace. In the afternoon, as I was with Yabbus, I told here I had strong pre-sentiments of my father's dead. Indeed, I could hardly speak, I was so affected within. Presently one came to tell here that she was wounded in the parlor. It was a messenger coming haste with an account from my husband that my father was ill, and as I afterward found, he suffered only twelve hours. He was, therefore, by this time dead. The Yabbus returning said, Here is a letter from your husband, who writes that your father is taken violently ill. I said to her, he is dead. I cannot have a doubt about it. I sent away to Paris immediately, to hire a coach to go the sooner. Mine waited for me at the midway. I went off at nine o'clock at night. They said I was going to destroy myself. I had no acquaintance with me as I had sent away my maid to Paris to put everything in order there. Being in a religious house, I had no mind to keep a footman with me. The Yabbus told me that since I thought my father was dead, it would be rushness in me to expose myself and run the risk of my life in that manner. Coaches could hardly pass the way I was going, it being no beaten road. I answered it was my indispensable duty to go to assist my father and that I owe not on a bare apprehension to exempt myself from it. I then, when alone, abandoned to Providence with people unknown. My weakness was so great that I could hardly keep my seat in the coach. I was often forced to alight on account of dangerous places in the road. In this way, I was obliged about midnight to cross a forest notorious for murders and robberies. The most intrepid dreaded. But my resignation left me scarce any room to think at all about it. What fears and uneasiness does a resigned soul spare itself? All alone, I arrived within five weeks of my own habitation where I found my confessor who had opposed me with one of my relations waiting for me. The sweet consolation I had enjoyed when alone was now interrupted. My confessor, ignorant of my state, restrained me entirely. My grief was of such a nature that I could not shed a tear and I was ashamed to hear a thing which I knew but too well without giving any exterior mark of grief. The inward and profound peace I enjoy down on my countenance. The state I was in did not permit me to speak or to do such things as are usually expected from persons of piety. I could do nothing but laugh and be silent. I found on my arrival at home that my father was already buried because of the excessive heat. It was ten o'clock at night. All were the hubby of morning. I had travelled thirty weeks in a day and a night. As I was very weak, not having taken any nourishment, I was instantly put to bed. About two o'clock in the morning my husband got up and having gone out of my chamber he returned presently crying out with all his might. My daughter is dead. She was my only daughter as dearly beloved as truly lovely. She had so many graces both of body and mind conferred on her that one must have been insensible not to have loved her. She had an extraordinary share of love to God. Often was she found in corners at prayer. As soon as she perceived me at prayer she came and joined. If she discovered that I had been without her she would weep bitterly and cry, ah, mama, you pray, but I don't. When we were alone and she saw my eyes closed she would whisper, are you asleep? Then she would cry out, ah, no, you are praying to our dear Jesus. Dropping on her knees before me she would begin to pray too. She was several times weeped by her grandmother because she said she would never have any other husband but our Lord. She could never make her say otherwise. She was innocent and modest as a little angel. Very beautiful and endearing and with all very beautiful. Her father doted on her. To me she was very dear. Much more for the qualities of her mind than those of her beautiful person. I looked upon her as my only consolation on earth. She had as much affection for me as her brother had aversion and condemned. She died of an unseasonable bleeding. But what shall I say? She died by the hands of him who was pleased for wise reasons of his own to strip me of all. There now remained to me only the son of sorrow. He fell ill to the point of death but was restored at the prayer of Mother Granger who was now my only consolation after God. I no more wept for my child than for my father. I could only say, Thou, O Lord, gave her to me. It pleases thee to take her back again. For she was thine. As for my father, his virtue was so generally known that I must rather be silent than enter upon the subject. His reliance on God, his faith and patience were wonderful. Both died in July 1672. Henceforth crosses were not spare me and though I had abundance of them, hitherto, yet they were only the shadows of those which I have been since obliged to pass through. In the spiritual marriage I claim for my dowry only crosses, scorches, persecutions, ignominies, loneliness and nothingness of self which in God's great goodness and for wise ends as I have seen has been pleased to grant and confer upon me. One day, being in great distress on account of the redoubling of outward and inward crosses, I went into my closet to give vent to my grief. Mosheer Betroth was brought into my mind with this wish. Oh, that he was sensible of what I suffer. Though he wrote but very seldom and with great difficulty, yet he wrote me a letter dated the same day about the cross. It was the finest and most consolatory he ever wrote me on that subject. Sometimes my spirit was so oppressed with continual crosses which scarcely gave me any relaxation that when alone my eyes turned every way to see if they could find anything to give relief. A word, a sigh, a trifle or to know that anyone took part in my grief would have been some comfort. That was not granted me, not even to look toward heaven or to make any complaint. Love held me then so closely that it would have this miserable nature to perish without giving it any support or nourishment. Oh, my dearest Lord, thou yet gavest my soul a victorious support which made it triumph over all the weaknesses of nature and seized thy knife to sacrifice it without sparing. And yet this nature so perverse and full of artifices to save its life at last took the course of nourishing itself on its own despair, on its fatality under such heavy a continual oppression. It so to conceal the value it attributed there too but thy eyes were too penetrating not to detect the subtlety where for thou, oh, my shepherd, changed thy conduct toward it. Thou sometimes comforted it with thy crook and thy staff that is to say by thy conduct as loving as crucifying but it was only to reduce it to the last extremity a social show hereafter. End of chapter 19 volume 1 The Autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon 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 1 chapter 20 A lady of rank whom I sometimes visited took a particular liking to me because as she was pleased to say my person and manners were agreeable. She said that she observing me something extraordinary and uncommon. I believe it was the inward attraction of my soul that appear on my very countens. One day a gentleman of fashion said to my husband's aunt, I saw the lady your knees and it is very evident that she lives in the presence of God. I was surprised at this as I little thought such an one as he could know what it was to have God that's present. This lady of rank began to be touched with the sense of God. Wanting once to take me to the play I refused to go. I never went to place making use of the pretext of my husband's continual indispositions. She pressed me exceedingly and said I shall not be prevented by his sickness from taking some amnusement and I was not of an age to be confined with the sick like a nurse. I told her my reasons. She then perceived that it was more from a principle of piety than the dispositions of my husband. Insisting to know my sentiment of place I told her I entirely disapprove of them and especially for a Christian woman. And as she was far more advanced in years than I was what I then said made such an impression on her mind she never went again. Once with her and another lady who was fond of talking and who had read the Fathers they spoke much of God. This lady spoke learnedly of him. I said scarcely anything be inwardly drawn to silence and trouble at this conversation about God. My acquaintance came next day to see me. The Lord had so touched her heart she could hold out no longer. I adripute this to something that the other lady had said but she said to me your silence had something in it which penetrated to the bottom of my soul. I could not relish what the other said. We spoke to one another with open hearts. It was then that God left indelible impressions of his grace on her soul and she continued so a thirst for him that she could scarcely endure to converse on any other subject. That she might become holy his he deprived her of the most affectionate husband. He visited her with such severe crosses and at the same time poured his grace so abundantly into her heart that he soon became the sole master thereof. After the death of her husband and the loss of most of her fortune she went to recite four leaks from our house on a small estate which was left. She obtained my husband's consent to my going to spend a week with her to console her. God gave her by my means all she wanted. She had a great share of understanding but was surprised at my expressing things to her so far above my natural capacity. I should have been surprised at it myself. It was God who gave me the gift for her sake diffusing a float of grace into her soul without regarding the unworthiness of the channel of which she was pleased to make use. Since that time her soul has been the temple of the Holy Ghost and our hearts have been indissolubly united. My husband and I took a little journey together in which both my resignation and humility were exercised. Yet without difficulty or constrained so powerful was the influence of divine grace. We had all liked to have perished in a river. The rest of the company in desperate fright threw themselves out of the coach which sank in the moving sand. I continue so much inwardly occupied that I did not once think of the danger. God delivered me from it without my thought of avoiding it. I was quite content to be drowned had he permitted it. It may be said I was rushed. I believe I was so. Yet I rather chose to perish trusting in God than make my escape in a dependence on myself. What say I? We do not perish but for one of trusting him. My pleasure is to be indebted to him for everything. This renders me content in my miseries which I will rather endure all my life long in a state of resignation to him than put an end to them in a dependence on myself. However, I will not advise others to act that unless they were in the same disposition which I was in. As my husband's malities daily increased he resolved to go to St. Rhine. He appeared very desirous of having known but me with him and told me one day if they never spoke to me against you I should be more easy and you more happy. In this journey I committed many faults of self-love and self-seeking. I was become like a poor traveller that had lost his way in the night and could find no way, path or track. My husband in his return from St. Rhine passed by St. Edom. Having now no children but my first born son who was often at the gates of death he wished exceedingly for heirs and prayed for them earnestly. God granted his desire and gave me a second son. As I was several weeks without anyone daring to speak to me on account of my great weakness it was a time of retreat and of silence. I tried to indemnify myself for the loss of time I had sustained in the others to pray to the my God and to continue alone with thee. I may say that God took a new possession of me and left me not. It was a time of continual joy without interruption. As I had experienced many inward difficulties and weaknesses it was a new life. It seemed as if I was already in the fruition of beatitude. How dear did this happy time cost me since it was only a preparative to a total privation of comfort for several years without any support or hope of return. It began with the death of Mr. Crencher who had been my only consolation under God. Before my return from St. Rand I heard she was dead. When I received the news I confess it was the most afflicting stroke I had ever felt. I thought that had I been with her at her death I might have spoken to her and received her last instructions. God has so ordered it that I was deprived of her assistance in almost all my losses in order to render the strokes more painful. Some months indeed before her death it was shown to me that though I could not see her but with difficulty and suffering for it yet she was still some support to me. The Lord let me know that it will be profitable for me to be deprived of her but at the time she died I did not think so. It was in the trying season when my paths were all blocked up she was taken from me she who might have guide me in my lonesome and difficult road bounded as it were with precipices tangled with briars and thorns. Adorable contact of my God there must be no guide for the person whom thou art leading into the regions of darkness and death no conductor for the man whom thou are determined to destroy that is to cause to die totally to himself. After having saved me with much mercy after having led me by the hand in rocked paths it seems thou was bent on my destruction may it not be said that thou dost not save but to destroy nor go to seek the lost ship but to cause it to be yet more lost that thou are pleased in building what is demolished and in demolishing what is built thou wasst overturned the temple built by human endeavors with so much care and industry in order as it were miraculously to erect a divine structure a house not built with hands eternal in the heavens. Secrets of the incomprehensible wisdom of God are known to any besides himself. Man sprang up only of a few days wants to penetrate and to set bounds to it who is it that had known the mind of the Lord or who had been his counselor? Is it a wisdom only to be known through death to everything and through the entire loss of all self? My brother now openly showed his hatred for me he married at Orleans and my husband had the complacence to go to his marriage he was in a poor state of health their own spot and so covered over with snow that we had like to have been overturned twelve or fifteen times yet far from appearing obliged by his politeness my brother quarreled with him more than ever and without reason I was the bud of both their resentments while I was at Orleans meeting with one whom at that time I thought highly of I was too forward and free in speaking to him of spiritual things thinking I was doing well but had their remorse for it afterwards how often we mistake nature for grace one must be dead to self when such forwardness comes from God only my brother treated me with the utmost contempt yet my mind was so full-drawn inward that although we had much more danger on the road than when doing I had no thought about myself but all about my husband seeing the coach overturning I said fear not it is on my side that it falls it will not hurt you I believe had all perished I shall not have been moved my peace was so profound that nothing could shake it if this time continued we should be too strong they now began to come but seldom and were followed with long and weary some privations since that time my brother has changed for the better has turned on the sight of God but he has never turned to me it has been by particular permission of God and the conduct of his providence over my soul that has caused him and other religious persons who have persecuted me to think they were rendering glory to God and doing acts of justice therein indeed it is just that all creatures should be treacherous to me and declare against me who have too many times been treacherous to God and cited with his enemy after this there was a very perplexing affair to me it goes great crosses and seemed design for nothing else a certain person conceived so much malice against my husband that he was determined to ruin him if possible he found no other way to attempt it but by entering into a private engagement with my brother he obtained a power to demand in the name of the king's brother two hundred thousand lives which he pretended that my brother and I own him my brother signed the processes upon an assurance given him that he should not pay anything I think his youth engaged him in what he did not understand this affair so chakrin my husband that I have reason to believe it shorten his days he was so angry with me although I was innocent that he could not speak to me except in a fury he would give me no light into the affair and I did not know in what it consists in the height of his rage he said he will not meddle with it but give me my portion and let me live as I could on the other side my brother will not move in it nor suffer anything to be done the day of the trial after prayer I felt myself strongly pressed to go to the judges I was wonderfully assisted even so as to discover and unravel all the turns and artifices of this affair without knowing how I would have been able to do it the first judge was so surprised to see the affair so different from what he had thought it before that he himself exhorted me to go to the other judges and especially to the intendant who was just then going to court he was quite misinformed about the matter God enabled me to manifest the truth in so clear a light and gave such power to my words that the intendant thanked me for having so seasonably come to antecy and set him right had I not done this he assured me the cause had been lost as they saw the falsehood of every point they would have condemned the plaintiff to pay the cost if he had not been so great prince who lent his name to the shim to save the honor of the prince they ordered us to pay him 50 crowns here by the 200,000 livers were reduced to only 150 my husband was exceedingly pleased at what I had done my brother appeared as outrageous against me as if I had caused him some great loss that's moderately and at once ended an affair which had at first appeared so very weighty and alarming and of chapter 20 volume 1 volume 1 chapter 21 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 please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon volume 1 chapter 21 about this time I fell into a state of total privation which lasted nearly 7 years I seemed to myself cast down like nebuconazer to live among beasts a deplorable state yet of the greatest advantage to me by the use which divine wisdom made of it this state of emptiness, darkness and impotency went far beyond any trials I had ever yet met I have since experienced that the prayer of the heart when it appears most dry and barren nevertheless is not ineffectual nor offer in vain God gives what is best for us though not what we most relish or wish for where people but convinced of this true they will be far from complaining all their lives by causing us death he will procure us life for all our happiness, spiritual, temporal and internal consists in resigning ourselves to God leaving it to him to doing us and with us as he pleases and with so much the more submission as things please us less by this pure dependence on his spirit everything is given us admirably our very weaknesses in his hand prove a source of humiliation if the soul were faithful to leave itself in the hand of God sustaining all his operations whether gratifying or mortifying suffering itself to be conducted from moment to moment by his hand and annihilated by the strokes of his providence without complaining or desiring anything but what it has it will soon arrive at the experience of the eternal truth though it might not at once know the ways and methods by which God conducted it there people want to direct God instead of resigning themselves to be directed by him they want to show him a way instead of possibly following with that wherein he leads them hence many souls call to enjoy God himself and not barely his gifts spend all their lives in running after little consolations and feeding on them resting there only making all their happiness to consist therein if my chains and my imprisonment in any way afflict you I pray that they may serve to engage you to seek nothing but God for himself alone and never to desire to possess him but by the death of your whole selves never to seek to be something in the ways of the spirit but choose to enter into the most profound nothingness I had an internal strive which continually wracked me two powers which appear equally strong seemed equally to struggle for the mastery within me on the one hand a desire of pleasing thee oh my God a fear of offending and a continual tendency of all my powers to thee on the other side the view of all my inward corruptions the depravity of my heart and the continual stirring and rising of self what torrents of tears what desolations have this caused me is it possible I cried that I have received so many graces and favors from God only to lose them that I have loved him with so much ardor but to be eternally deprived of him that his benefits have only produced ingratitude his fatality being repaired with infatality that my heart has been empty of all creatures and created objects and filled with his blessed presence and love in order now to be holy void of divine power and only filled with wanderings and created objects I could now no longer pray as formally heaven seemed shut to me and I thought justly I could get no consolation or make any coblaint nor had I any creature on earth to apply to I found myself banished from all beings without finding a support of refuge in anything I could no more practice any virtue with facility alas said I is it possible that this heart formally all on fire should now become like eyes I often thought all creatures combined against me latent with a weight of past sins and a multitude of new ones I could not think God would ever burden me but looked on myself as a victim designed for hell I would have been glad to do penances to make use of prayers pilgrimages and vows but still whatever I try for a remedy seemed only to agree the malady I may say that tears were my drink and sorrow my food I felt in myself such a pain as I never could bring any to comprehend but such as have experienced it I had within myself an executioner who tortured me without respite even when I went to church I was not easy there to sermons I could give no attention they were now of no service or refreshment to me I scarcely conceived or understood anything in them or about them and of chapter 21 volume 1 volume 1 chapter 22 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 please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon chapter 22 as my husband drew near his end his destembers had no intermission no sooner was he recovered from one when he fell into another he bore great pains with much patience offering them to God and making a good use of them yet his anger toward me increased because reports and stories of me were multiplied to him and those about him did nothing but vex him he was the most susceptible of such impressions as his pains gave him a stronger band to vexation at this time the maid who used to torment me sometimes took pity on me she came to see me as soon as I was gone into my closet and said come to my master that your mother-in-law may not speak any more to him against you I pretended to be ignorant of it all but he could not conceal his displeasure nor even suffer me near him my mother-in-law at the same time kept no bounds all that came to the house were witnesses of the continual sculptings which I was forced to bear and which I bore with much patience notwithstanding my being in the condition I have mentioned my husband having sometimes before his death finished the building of the chapel in the country where we spent a part of the summer I had the convenience of hearing prayers every day and of the communion not daring to do it openly every day the priest privately admitted me to the communion they solemnized the dedication of this little chapel I felt myself all on a sudden ill-wordly ceased which continued more than five hours all the time of the ceremony when our Lord made a new consecration of me to himself I then seemed to myself a temple consecrated to him both for time and for eternity I said within myself speaking both of the one and the other may this temple never be profaned may the praises of God be sung therein forever it seemed to me at that time as if my prayer was granted but soon all this was taken from me not so much as my remembrance left to console me when I was at this country house which was only a little place of retreat before the chapel was built I retired for prayer to woods and caverns how many times here has God preserved me from dangerous and venomous beasts sometimes unawares I kneel upon serpents which were there in great plenty they fled away without doing me any harm once I happened to be alone in a little wood wherein was a mud ball but he betook himself to flight if I could recount all the providence of God in my favor it would appear wonderful they were indeed so frequent and continual that I could not but be astonished at them God everlastingly gives to such as have nothing to repay him if there appears in the creature any fatality or patience it is he alone who gives it if he seizes for an instant to support if he seems to live me to myself I cease to be strong and find myself weaker than any other creature if my miseries show what I am his favors show what he is the extreme necessity I am under of ever depending on him after twelve years and four months of marriage crosses as great as possible except poverty which I never knew though I had much desire it God drew me out of that state to give me still stronger crosses of such a nature as I had never met with before for if you give attention sir to the life which you have ordered me to write you will remark that my crosses have been increasing till the present time one removed to give place to another to succeed it still heavier than the former emit the troubles imposed upon me when they said I was in a mortal scene I had nobody in the world to speak to I could have wished to have had somebody for a witness of my conduct but I had none I had no support no confessor no director no friend no counselor I had lost all and after God had taken from me one after another he withdrew also himself I remained without any creature and to complete my distress I seemed to be left without God who alone could support me in such a deeply distressing state my husband's illness grew every day more obstinate he apprehended the approach of death and even wished for it so oppressive was languishing life to his other eels was great dislike to every sort of nourishment he did not take anything necessary to sustain life I alone had the courage to get him to take what little he did the doctor advised him to go to the country there for a few days at first he seemed to be better when he was suddenly taken with a complication of diseases his patients increased his pain I saw plainly he could not live long it was a great trouble to me that my mother-in-law kept me from him as much as she could she infused into his mind such a displeasure against me that I was afraid less he should die in it I took a little interval of time when she happened not to be with him and drawing near his bed I kneeled down and said to him that if I had ever done anything that displeased him I begged his pardon assuring him it has not been voluntary he appeared very much affected as he had just come out of the sound sleep he said to me it is I who beg your pardon I did not deserve you after that time he was not only pleased to see me but gave me advice what I should do after his death not to depend on the people on whom now I depended he was for eight days very resigned and patient I sent to Paris for the most careful surgeon but when he arrived my husband was dead no mortal could die in a more Christian disposition or with more courage than he did after having received the sacrament in a manner truly edifying I was not present when he expired for out of tenderness he made me retire he was above twenty hours unconscious and in the agonies of death it was in the morning of July 21 1676 that he died next day I entered into my closet in which was the image of my divine spouse the Lord Jesus Christ I renewed my marriage conduct and added there to a vow of chastity with a promise to make it perpetual if Mr. Betroth my director would permit me after that I was filled with great joy which was new to me as for a long time past I had been plunged in the deepest bitterness as soon as I heard that my husband had expired oh my God I cried thou hast broken my bones I will offer thee a sacrifice of praise after that I remained in a deep silence both exterior and interior quite dry and without any support I could neither weep nor speak my mother-in-law said very fine things and was very much commented for it by everyone they were offended at my silence which they adiputed to want of resignation a friar told me that everyone admired the fine acts which my mother-in-law did but thus for me they heard me say nothing that I must sacrifice my loss to God but I could not say one single word let me strive as I would I was indeed very much exhausted although I was but recently delivered of my daughter yet I attended and sat up with my husband four and twenty nights before his death I was more than a year after a recovery from fatigue joined to my great weakness and pain both of body and of mind the great depression or dryness and stupidity which I was in was such that I could not say a word about God it bore me down in such a manner that I could hardly speak however I entered for some moments into the admiration of thy goodness oh my God I saw well that my crosses will not fail since my mother-in-law had survived my husband also I was still tight in having two children given me in so short a time before my husband's death which evidently appeared the effect of divine wisdom for had I only my eldest son I would have put him in a college and have gone myself into the convent of the Benedictines and so frustrated all the designs of God upon me I was willing to show the esteem I had for my husband in causing the most magnificent funeral to be made for him at my own expense I pet off the legacies he had left my mother-in-law violently opposed everything I could do for securing my own interests I had nobody to apply to for advice or help for my brother would not give me the least assistance I was ignorant of business affairs but God independent of my natural understandings always made me fit for everything that pleased him and supplied me with such a perfect intelligence that I succeeded I omitted not the least minutia and was surprised that in this matters I shall know without ever having learned I digested all my papers and regulated all my affairs without assistance from anyone my husband had abundance of writings deposited in his hands I took an exact inventory of them and send them separately to their owners which without divine assistance would have been very difficult for me because my husband having been a long time sick everything was in the greatest confusion this gained me the reputation of being a skillful woman there was one matter of great importance a number of persons who had been contending the law for several years applied to my husband to settle their affairs though it was not properly the business of a gentleman yet they applied to him because he had both understanding and prudence and as he had a love for several of them he consented there were 20 actions one upon another and in all 22 persons concerned who could not get any end put to their differences by reason of new incidents continually falling out my husband charged himself with getting lawyers to examine their papers but died before he could make any procedure therein after his death I sent for them to give them their papers but they will not receive them begging of me that I would accommodate them and prevent their ruin it appeared to me as ridiculous as impossible to undertake an affair of so great consequence and which would require so long a discussion nevertheless relying on the strength and wisdom of God I consented I shut myself up about 30 days for all these affairs without ever going out but to mass and to my meals the arbitration being at length prepared they all signed it without seeing it they were all so well satisfied their will that they could not for bear publishing it everywhere it was God alone who did those things for after they were settled I knew nothing about them and if I now hear any talk of such things to me it sounds like Arabic End of chapter 22 verse 1 volume 1 chapter 23 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 please visit LibriVox.org being now a widow my crosses which one would have thought should have abated only greed that turbulent domestic I have often mentioned instead of growing milder now that she depended on me became more furious than ever in our house she had amazed a good fortune and I settle on her besides an annuity for the remainder of her life for the services she had done my husband she swelled with vanity and hotness having been used to sit up so much with an invalid she had taken to drink wine to keep up her spirits this had now passed into a habit as she grew aged and weak a very little of fit affected her I tried to hide this fault but it grew so that it could not be concealed I spoke of it to her confessor in order that he might try softly and artfully to reclaim her from it but instead of profiting by her directors advice she was outrageous against me my mother-in-law who could hardly bear the fault of intemperance and had often spoken to me about it now joined in reproaching me and vindicating her this strange creature when any company came would cry out all her might that I had dishonored her thrown her into despair and would be the cause of her domination as I was taking the ready course to my own yet God gave me an unbounded patience I answered only with mildness and charity all her passionate invectives giving her besides every possible mark of my affection if any other maid came to wait on me she would drive her back in a rage crying out that I hated her on account of the affection with which he had served my husband when she had not a mind to come I was obliged to serve myself and when she did come it was to chide me and make a noise when I was very unwell as was often the case this girl would appear to be in despair from hence I thought it was from thee, O Lord that all this came upon me without thy permission she was cursely capable of such uncountable conduct she seemed not sensible of any faults but always to think herself in the right all those whom thou hast made use of to cause me to suffer thought they were rendering service to thee in so doing before my husband's death I went to Paris on purpose to see Monsieur Bedroth who had been of very little service to me as a director not knowing my state and I being incapable of telling him of it he grew wary of the charge at length he gave it up and wrote to me to take another director I made no doubt but God had revealed to him my wicked state and this desertion of me seemed a more certain mark of my repropation this was during the life of my husband but now my renewed solicitations and his sympathy with me on my husband's death prevailed on him to resume my direction which to me still proved of very little service I went again to Paris to see him while there I visited him 12 or 15 times without being able to tell him anything on my condition I told him indeed that I wanted some ecclesiastic to educate my son to read him of his bad habits and of the wrong impressions he had conceived against me he found one for me of whom he had received very good recommendations I went to make a retreat with Mr. Bedroth and Madame DC all the time he spoke to me not a quarter of an hour at most as he saw that I said nothing to him for indeed I knew not what to say as I had not spoken to him of the favours which God had conferred on me not from a desire to conceal them but because the Lord did not permit me to do it as he had over me only the designs of death he therefore spoke to such as he looked upon to be more advanced in grace he led me alone as one from whom there was nothing to be done so well did God hide from him the situation of my soul in order to make me suffer that he wanted to refer me thinking that I had not the spirit of prayer and that Mr. Granger was mistaken when she told him I had I did what I could to a pachyne but it was entirely impossible on this account I was displeased with myself because I believed Mr. Bedroth rather than my experience through this whole retreat my inclination which I discern only by my resistance to it was to rest in silence and nakedness of thought in the settling of my mind therein I feared I was disobeying the orders of my director these made me think that I had fallen from grace I kept myself in a state of nothingness content with my poor low degree of prayer without envying the higher degree of others of which I judge myself unworthy I would have however desire much to do the will of God and to please him but despair altogether of ever attaining that desirable end there I was in the place where I lived and had been for some years one whose doctor was suspected he possessed a dignity in the church which always obliged me to have a difference for him as he understood how a verse I was to all who were suspected of unsoundness in the faith and knowing that I had some credit in the place he used his utmost efforts to engage me in his sentiments I answer him with so much clearness and energy that he had not a word to reply this increased his desire to win me in order to do it to conduct a friendship for me he continued to importune me for two years and a half as he was very polite and of an obliging timber and had a good share of learning I did not mistrust him I even conceived a hope of his conversion in which I found myself mistaken I then seized going near him he came to inquire why he could see me no more at that time he was so agreeable to my sick husband in his asituities about him that I could not avoid him though I thought the shortest and best way for me would be break off all acquaintance with him which I did after the death of my husband Mr. Betroth would not permit me to do it before when he now saw that you could not renew it he and his party raised up strong persecutions against me this gentleman had at that time a method among them by which they soon knew who were of their party and who were opposite they sent to one another circular letters by means of which in a very little time they cried me down on every side after a very strange manner yet this gave me little trouble I was glad of my new liberty intending never again to enter into an indemnity with anyone which would give me so much difficulty to break this inability I was now in of doing those exterior acts of charity I had done before served this person with a pretext to publish that it was owing to him I had formally done them willing to ascribe to himself the merit of what got alone by his grace had made me do he went so far as to preach against me publicly as one who had been a bright pattern to the town but was now become a scandal to it several times he preached very offensive things though I was present at those sermons and they were enough to weigh me down with confusion for they offended all that hurt them I could not be troubled I carried in myself my own condemnation beyond utterance I thought I merited abundantly worse than all he could say of me and that if all men knew me they would tremble me under their feet my reputation then was plastered by the industry of this ecclesiastic he caused all such as past for persons of piety to declare against me I thought he and they were in the right and therefore quietly bore it all confused like a criminal that there's not lift up his eyes I looked upon the virtue of others with respect I saw no fault in others and no virtue in myself when any happened to praise me it was like a heavy blow struck at me and I said in myself they little know my miseries and from what state I have fallen when any blamed me I agreed to it as right and just natural wanted sometimes to get out of such an object condition but could not find any way if I tried to make an outward appearance of righteousness by the practice of some good thing my heart in secret rebuked me as guilty of hypocrisy in wanting to appear what I was not and God did not permit that to succeed oh how excellent are the crosses of providence all other crosses are of no value I was often very ill and in danger of death and knew not how to prepare myself for it several persons of piety who had been acquainted with me wrote to me about those things which the gentleman spread about me I did not offer to justify myself although I knew myself innocent of the things were of they accused me one day being in the greatest desolation and distress I opened the new testament on these words my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness that for a little time gave me some relief and of chapter 23 volume 1 volume 1 chapter 24 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 please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon volume 1 chapter 24 the Lord took from me all the sensibility which I had for the creatures or things created even in an instant as one takes off a rope after that time I had known for any whatsoever though he had done me that favor for which I can never be sufficiently grateful I was however neither more contented nor less confused by it my God seemed to be so estranged and displeased with me that there remain nothing but the grief of having lost his blessed presence through my fault the loss of my reputation every day increasing became sensible to my heart though I was not allowed to justify or bewail myself as I became always more impotent for every kind of exterior works as I could not go to see the poor nor stay at church nor practice prayer as I became colder toward God in proportion as I was more sensible of my wrong steps always destroy me the more both in my own eyes and in those of others there were some very considerable gentlemen who made proposal for me and even such persons as according to the rules of fashion ought not to think of me they presented themselves during the very depth of my outward and inward desolation at first it appeared to me a means of drawing me out of the distress I was in but it seemed to me then not withstanding my pains of body and mind that if a king had presented himself to me I would have refused him with pleasure to show thee, oh my God that with all my miseries I was resolved to be thine alone if thou was not accept of me I should at least have the consolation of having been faithful to thee to the utmost of my power for as to my inward state I never mention it to anybody I never spoke thereof nor of the sweeters though my mother-in-law would say that if I did not marry it was because none would have me it was sufficient for me that thou, oh my God newest that I sacrifice them to thee without saying a word to anybody especially one whose high birth and amiable exterior qualities might have tempered both my vanity and inclination oh could I but have hoped to become agreeable to thee such a hope would have been like a change from hell to heaven so far was I from presuming to hope for it that I fear this sea of affliction might also be followed by everlasting misery in the loss of thee I dare not even desire to enjoy thee I only desire not to offend thee I was for five or six weeks at the last extremity I could not take any nourishment and spoonful of broth made me faint my voice was so gone that when they put their ears close to my mouth they could scarcely distinguish my words I could not see any hope of salvation yet was not unwilling to die I bore a strong impression that the longer I lived the more I would sin of the two I thought I would rather choose hell than sin all the good which God made me do now seem to me evil or full of fault all my prayers, penances, alms and charities seem to rise up against me and hindered my condemnation I thought they appeared on the sight of God on my own and from all creatures one general condemnation my conscience was a witness against me which I could not appease what may appear strange the sins of my youth did not then give me any pain at all they did not rise up in judgment against me but there appeared one universal testimony against all the good I had done and all the sentiments of evil I had entertained if I went to confersors I could tell them nothing of my condition if I could have told them they would have not understood me they would have regarded as eminent virtues what, oh my God, thy eyes all pure and chaste rejected us in fatality it was then that I felt the truth of what thou had said that thou judged our righteousness oh, how pure at thou who can comprehend it it was then that I turned my eyes on every sight to see what way soccer might come to me but my soccer could come no way but from him who made heaven and earth as I saw there was no safety for me or spiritual health in myself I entered into a secret complacency in seeing no good in myself were on to rest or presumed for salvation the nearer my destruction appeared the more I found in God himself were with to augment my trust and confidence notwithstanding he seemed so justly irritated against me it seemed to me that I had in Jesus Christ all that was wounding in myself oh ye, stout and righteous men observe as much as ye please of excellence in what ye have done to the glory of God as for me I only glory in my infirmities since they have merited for me such a savior all my troubles joined to the loss of my reputation which yet was not so great as I apprehended it been only among a party rendered me so unable to eat that it seemed wonderful how I lived in four days I did not eat as much as would make one very moderate repast I was obliged to keep my bed through mere weakness my body being no longer able to support the burden laid upon it if I had thought known or heard tell that there had ever been such a state as mine it would have exceedingly relieved me my very pain appeared to me to be seen spiritual books when I tried to read them all contributed only to augment it I saw in myself none of those states which they sat down I did not so much as comprehend them and when they treated the pains of certain states I was very far from attributing any of them to myself I said to myself these persons feel the pains of divine operation but as to me I see and feel nothing but my own wicked state I could have wished to separate the sin from the confusion of sin and provided I had not offended God all would have been easy to me a slight sketch of my last miseries which I am glad to let you know because in their beginning I omitted many infidelities having had too much of an earnest attachment vain complacence unprofitable and tissues conversations though self-love and nature made a sort of necessity for them but toward the latter part I could not have bore a speech to a human nor the listing of the kind End of chapter 24 volume 1