he influence of its
dissipation and distraction on the spirit of Mademoiselle de la Mothe
was of course unfavourable to religion. Her parents found themselves not
merely in a fashionable circle, but in a highly-intellectual centre. The
_grand monarque_ posed as the great patron of literature and the arts;
and society presented splendid opportunities for the exercise of the
young lady's conversational powers. She tells us that she began to
entertain extravagant notions of herself, and that her vanity increased.
In such surroundings it could hardly be otherwise. Her faith and love,
such as they were, had died away, and her devotion had dwindled down to
nothing. The dazzling world before her was in her eyes something worth
conquering; and she set herself to gain its acclamation, and was to a
great extent successful. From this high state of worldly gratification,
and low state of religious principle and enjoyment, she was aroused and
rescued in a very rough and painful manner.

II.

MARRIED LIFE.

Early in 1664, when not quite sixteen, Jeanne Marie de la Mothe was
given in marriage to M. Jacques Guyon, a man of thirty-eight, possessed
of great wealth, whom she had seen for the first time only a few days
before the ceremony took place. Many ladies no doubt envied her, but for
her it was an unhappy change. Several suitors had appeared, with whom
she felt she could have been content and happy; but M. Guyon's riches
and perseverance had carried the day with her parents, and marriage, to
which she had looked forward as the period of liberation from restraint,
and of freer enjoyment of the gay Parisian life, proved but the
commencement of a dreary spell of dulness and misery. Her friends, who
came to congratulate her the next day after the wedding, were surprised
to find her weeping bitterly, and, in answer to their raillery, were
told by her, "Alas! I used to have such a desire to be a nun: why, then,
am I married now? and by what fatality has this happened to me?" She was
overwhelmed with this regret, this longing to be a _religieuse_. The
sudden transition from being the admired of all beholders, "the cynosure
of neighbouring eyes," the witty belle whose every word and look were
treasured up, to the hopeless condition of a bird pining in a gilded
cage, was very hard to bear.

The details of the poor girl's sufferings in her new home are painful to
read; but as Madame Guyon relates these early trials, she devoutly
re