ounted by the favours of God, and so swallowed up in these
that I can see them no more. One of the things which gave me most pain
in the seven years I have spoken of, especially the last five, was so
strange a folly of my imagination that it gave me no rest. My senses
bore it company. I could no more shut my eyes at church. Thus having
all the gates and avenues open, I was like a vineyard exposed, because
the hedges which the father of the family had planted were torn away. I
saw every one that came and went, and everything that passed in the
church. For the same force, which had drawn me inward to recollection,
seemed to push me outward to dissipation.

Laden with miseries, weighed down with oppressions, and crushed under
continual crosses, I thought of nothing but ending my days thus. There
remained in me not the least hope of ever emerging. Notwithstanding, I
thought I had lost grace forever, and the salvation which it merits for
us, I longed at least to do what I could for God, though I feared I
should never love Him. Seeing the happy state from whence I had fallen,
I wished in gratitude to serve Him, though I looked on myself as a
victim doomed to destruction. Sometimes the view of that happy period
caused secret desires to spring up in my heart, of recovering it again.
I was instantly rejected and thrown back into the depth of the abyss; I
judged myself to be in a state which was due to unfaithful souls. I
seemed, my God, as if I was forever cast off from Thy regard, and from
that of all creatures. By degrees my state ceased to be painful. I
became even insensible to it, and my insensibility seemed like the
final hardening of my reprobation. My coldness appeared to me a mortal
coldness. It was truly so, O my God, since I thus died to self, in
order to live wholly in Thee, and in thy precious love.

To resume my history, a servant of mine wanted to become a Barnabite. I
wrote about it to Father de la Mothe. He answered me, that I must
address Father La Combe, who was then the superior of the Barnabites of
Tonon. That obliged me to write to him. I had always preserved secret
respect and esteem for him, as one under grace. I was glad of this
opportunity of recommending myself to his prayers. I wrote to him about
my fall from the grace of God, that I had requited His favors with the
blackest ingratitude; that I was miserable, and a subject worthy of
compassion; and far from having advanced toward God, I was become
en