d publish.
Molinos had, for twenty years, been satisfied with sowing his doctrine
noiselessly in Rome, and propagating it gently from palace to palace.
The theology of Quietism was wonderfully adapted to the city of
catacombs, the silent city, where, from that time, scarcely anything
was heard but the faint rustling of worms crawling in the sepulchre.

When the Spaniard arrived in Rome, it had hardly recovered from the
effeminate pontificate of Madame Olympia. The _crucified Jesus_
reposed in the delicate hands of her general Oliva, among sumptuous
_vines_, exotic flowers, lilies, and roses. These torpid Romans, this
idle nobility, and these lazy fair ones, who pass their time on
couches, with half-closed eyes, are the persons to whom Molinos comes
at a late hour to speak--ought I to say _speak_? His low whispering
voice, sinking into their lethargy, is confounded with their inward
dream.

Quietism had quite a different character in France. In a living
country, the theory of death showed some symptoms of life. An infinite
measure of activity was employed to prove that action was no longer
necessary. This injured their doctrine, for noise and light were
hurtful to it. This delicate plant loved darkness and sought to grow
in the shade. Not to speak of the chimerical Desmarets, who could but
render an opinion ridiculous, Malaval seemed to have an idea that this
new doctrine outstepped Christianity. Concerning the words of Jesus,
"_I am the way_," he uses an expression surprising for this century:
"Since He is the way, let us pass by Him; _but he who is always passing
never arrives_."

Our French Quietists by their lucid analysis, their rich and fertile
developments, made known, for the first time, what had scarcely been
dreamed of in the obscure form which Quietism had prudently preserved
in other countries. Many things, that seemed in the bud hardly
developed, appeared in Madame Guyon in full bloom, as clear as
daylight, with the sun in the meridian. The singular purity of this
woman rendered her intrepid in advancing the most dangerous ideas. She
was as pure in her imagination as she was disinterested in her motives.
She had no need to figure to herself the object of her pious love,
under a material form. This is what gives her mysticism a sublime
superiority over the coarse and sensual devotion of the _Sacre-Coeur_,
established by the _Visitandine_, Marie Alacoque, about the same
period. Madame Guyon w