as charmed with the bright, saintly ex-prisoner,
whose devout spirit shone out in her countenance and breathed in her
fascinating speech. She had many conversations with her, and begged her
to give instruction to the girls of St. Cyr.

It was at this time that Madame Guyon first met the great Fenelon, who
was a director of St. Cyr, as well as one of the most noted characters
of the age. She won his lasting regard. He was cheered by the warmth of
her piety and her unwavering faith, while his more logical and better
disciplined mind would no doubt moderate and tone down her excess of
introspection and rapt emotion. She spent three happy years in Paris,
consulted by many persons on religious matters, admired and honoured by
several distinguished people, and sheltered from storm in the house of
her daughter, now married to the Count de Vaux. But the sunshine was not
to last long. Godet, Madame de Maintenon's confessor and one of the
directors of St. Cyr, was possessed with a jealous hatred of his
co-director, Fenelon, and also disliked Madame Guyon. Breathing into the
mind of the great lady--who, though of Huguenot descent, was nothing if
not "orthodox"--doubts as to Madame Guyon's correctness of belief, he
caused Madame de Maintenon to withdraw her countenance from her
_protegee_, and to discontinue her own visits to St. Cyr. Now was the
time for Madame Guyon's enemies to attack her, when they saw the court
favourite's countenance withdrawn. An attempt was made to poison her,
and so far succeeded that her health was impaired for many years.

Then Bossuet appeared on the scene. In September, 1693, he came to see
her in Paris, feeling, doubtless, that he was the man to settle all
these Pietistic commotions. At Madame Guyon's request he consented to
examine her numerous writings; and when, in the course of some months,
he had performed this task, and had also perused her MS. autobiography,
he had another long conversation with her, which brought out fully the
peculiarities of her doctrine. In this interesting discussion he seems
to have adopted a bullying tone somewhat incompatible with his
remarkably mild Christian name, Jacques _Benigne_, and to have forgotten
the courtesy due to a lady who, whatever her errors might be in his
eyes, was one of the brightest lights and purest saints in the Roman
Catholic Church of that day. Finally, the matter became an affair of
State, and the king appointed a commission to sit, at Issy, up