hat she
called to mind the pathetic words in Matthew viii. 20: "The foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not
where to lay His head." "This," she writes,[1] "I have since experienced
to its full extent, having had no sure abode where I could remain more
than a few months, and every day in uncertainty where I should be on the
morrow, and besides, finding no refuge, either among my friends, who
were ashamed of me and openly renounced me just when there was an outcry
against me, or among my relations, most of whom have declared themselves
my adversaries and been my greatest persecutors, while the others looked
on me with contempt and indignation."

[Footnote 1: _La Vie_, seconde partie, ch. xiv., 1.]

At Turin she found temporary refuge and rest in the house of the
Marchioness of Prunai, but appears to have spent only a few months of
1684 in that city. She longed to return to evangelistic work in France.
Accordingly in the autumn she went to Grenoble, and had great success in
her labours, but, through the hatred of her enemies, was obliged to quit
the place secretly, leaving her little daughter in charge of her
faithful maid La Gautiere. She had already commenced authorship, at
Thonon, by writing, during an interval of much-needed rest, her book
entitled _Spiritual Torrents_. At Grenoble she began her commentaries on
_The Holy Bible_, and here she published her famous work, _A Short and
Very Easy Method of Prayer_, which speedily ran through several
editions. So, by word of mouth, and by pen, she taught, and "the new
spirit of religious inquiry," as she calls it, spread and prevailed. It
was indeed the _old_ spirit of inquiry, as old as the days of the
apostles, and its basis was the principle which she clearly enunciates,
"that man is a sinner, and that he must be saved by repentance and faith
in Christ, and that faith in God through Christ subsequently is, and
must be, the foundation of the inward life." Such a bold proclamation of
Gospel truth could not but rouse the anger of the clerical party at
Grenoble. The persuasive missioner was soon the centre of a storm of
wrath and indignation, which the friendly Bishop Camus, afterwards a
cardinal, was unable to allay. Early in 1686 she left Grenoble for
Marseilles, where she hoped to find refuge for a while. But her fame had
preceded her. "I did not arrive in Marseilles," she records, "till ten
in the morning, and it was only a few h