A few days after my arrival at Gex by night I saw in a dream (but a mysterious dream, for I perfectly well distinguished it) Father La Combe fixed on a cross of extraordinary height. He was naked in the way our Lord is pictured. I saw an amazing crowd who covered me with confusion and cast upon me the ignominy of his punishment. It seemed he suffered more pain than I, but I more reproaches than he. This surprised me the more, because, having seen him only once, I could not imagine what it meant. But I have indeed seen it accomplished. At the same time I saw him thus fixed to the cross, these words were impressed on me: "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered"; and these others, "I have specially prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith shall fail not—Satan has desired to sift thee."
Up to that time the Bishop of Geneva had shown me much esteem and kindness, and therefore this man cleverly took him off his guard. He urged upon the prelate that, in order to make certain of me for that House, he ought to compel me to give up to it the little money I had reserved for myself, and to bind me by making me Superior. He knew well that I would never bind myself there, and that, my vocation being elsewhere, I could never give my capital to that House, where I had come only as a visitor; and that I would not be Superior, as I had many times already declared; and that even should I bind myself, it would only be on the condition that this should not be. I believe, indeed, that this objection to be Superior was a remnant of the selfhood, colored with humility. The Bishop of Geneva did not in the least penetrate the intentions of that ecclesiastic, who was called in the country the little Bishop, because of the ascendancy he had acquired over the mind of the Bishop of Geneva. He thought it was through affection for me, and zeal for this House, that this man desired to bind me to it; consequently, he at once fell in with the proposal, resolving to carry it through at whatever price.
The ecclesiastic, seeing he had so well succeeded, no longer kept any bonds as regarded me. He commenced by stopping the letters I wrote to Father La Combe.
Father La Combe none the less went to Annecy, where he found the Bishop much prejudiced and embittered.
He said to him, "My Father, it is absolutely necessary to bind that lady to give what she has to the House of Gex, and to become the Superior."
"My Lord," answered Father La Combe, "you know what she has herself told you of her vocation both at Paris and in this country, and therefore I do not believe she will consent to bind herself. It is not likely that, having given up everything in the hope of going to Geneva, she should bind herself elsewhere, and thus render it impossible for her to accomplish God's designs for her. She has offered to remain with these good Sisters as a lodger. If they desire to keep her in that capacity she will remain with them; if not, she is resolved to withdraw into some convent until God shall dispose of her otherwise." The Bishop answered, "My Father, I know all that, but at the same time I know she is obedient, and if you so order her, she will surely do it."
"It is for this reason, my lord, because she is obedient, that one should be extremely cautious in the commands one gives her," answered the Father.
This ecclesiastic and his friend went through all the places where Father La Combe had held his mission, to decry him and to speak against him so violently that a woman was afraid to say her "Pater" because, she said, she had learned it from him. They made a fearful scandal through the whole country; for the day after my arrival at the Ursulines of Thonon, he set out in the morning to preach lenten sermons at the Valley of Aosta. He came to say adieu to me, and at the same time told me he would go to Rome, and probably would not return, that his superiors might keep him there, that he was sorry to leave me in a strange country without help, and persecuted by every one. Did not that trouble me? I said to him; "My Father, I am not troubled at it. I use the creatures for God, and by His order; through His mercy I get on very well without them.
"I am quite content never to see you again, if such be His will, and to remain under persecution."
For me, there was hardly a day passed that they did not put upon me new insults, and make attacks quite unexpected. The New Catholics, on the report of the Bishop, the ecclesiastic, and the Sisters of Gex, stirred up against me all people of piety. I was not much affected by that. If I had been at all, it would have been because everything was thrown upon Father La Combe, although he was absent; and they made use even of his absence, to destroy all the good he had done in the country by his missions and sermons, which was very great. The Devil gained much in this business. I could not, however, pity this good Father, remarking herein the conducting of God, who desired to annihilate him.