Having been visited by the Abbe de Fenelon, I was suddenly with extreme force and sweetness interested for him. It seemed to me our Lord united him to me very intimately, more so than any one else. It appeared to me that, as it were, a spiritual filiation took place between him and me. The next day, I had the opportunity of seeing him again. I felt interiorly this first interview did not satisfy him: that he did not relish me. I experienced a something which made me long to pour my heart into his; but I found nothing to correspond, and this made me suffer much. In the night I suffered extremely about him.
In the morning I saw him. We remained for some time in silence, and the cloud cleared off a little; but it was not yet as I wished it.
I suffered for eight whole days, after which I found myself united to him without obstacle, and from that time I find the union increasing in a pure and ineffable manner. It seems to me that my soul has a perfect rapport with his, and those words of David regarding Jonathan, that "his soul clave to that of David," appeared to me suitable for this union. Our Lord has made me understand the great designs He has for this person, and how dear he is to Him.
The justice of God causes suffering from time to time for certain souls until their entire purification. As soon as they have arrived where God wishes them, one suffers no longer for anything for them; and the union which had been often covered with clouds is cleared up in such a manner that it becomes like a very pure atmosphere, penetrated everywhere, without distinction, by the light of the sun. As Fenelon was given to me, in a more intimate manner than any other, what I have suffered, what I am suffering, and what I shall suffer for him, surpasses anything that can be told. The least partition between him and me, between him and God, is like a little dirt in the eye, which causes it an extreme pain, and which would not inconvenience any other part of the body where it might be put. What I suffer for him is very different from what I suffer for others; but I am unable to discover the cause, unless it be God has united me to him more intimately than to any other, and that God has greater designs for him than for the others.
Fenelon the ascetic, he of the subtle intellect and high spiritual quality, had never met a woman on an absolute equality. Madame Guyon's religious fervor disarmed him. He saw her often, that he might comprehend the nature of her mission.
In the official investigation that followed, he naturally found himself the defender of her doctrines. She was condemned by the court, but Fenelon put in a minority report of explanation. The nature of the man was to defend the accused person; this was evidenced by his defense of the Huguenots, when he lifted up his voice for their liberty at a time when religious liberty was unknown. His words might have been the words of Thomas Jefferson, to whom Fenelon bore a strange resemblance in feature. Says Fenelon: "The right to be wrong in matters of religious belief must be accorded, otherwise we produce hypocrites instead of persons with an enlightened belief that is fully their own. If truth be mighty and God all-powerful, His children need not fear that disaster will follow freedom of thought."
After Madame Guyon was condemned she was allowed to go on suspended sentence, with a caution that silence was to be the price of her liberty, for before this she had attracted to herself, even in prison, congregations of several hundred to whom she preached, and among whom she distributed her writings.
The earnest, the sincere, the spiritual Fenelon never suspected where this friendship was to lead. Even when Madame Guyon slipped into his simple, little household as a servant under an assumed name, he was inwardly guileless. This proud woman with the domineering personality now wore wooden shoes and the garb of a scullion. She scrubbed the floors, did laundry-work, cooked, even worked in the garden looking after the vegetables and the flowers, that she might be near him.
Fenelon accepted this servile devotion, regarding it as a part of the woman's penance for sins done in the past. Most certainly love is blind, at least myopic, for Fenelon of the strong and subtle mind could not see that service for the beloved is the highest joy, and the more menial the service the better. Madame sought to deceive herself by making her person unsightly to her lord, and so she wore coarse and ragged dresses, calloused her hands, and allowed the sun to tan and freckle her face.
Of course then the inevitable happened: the intimacy slipped off into the most divine of human loves—or the most human of divine loves, if you prefer to express it so.