She was led to go to the south of France, to Gex, Thonon, Grenoble, Nice, Marseilles; and as she taught these things to those who came within her reach—and great numbers resorted to her—she began straightway to endure the persecutions which are promised by St. Paul to those who follow the godly life. She preached reality rather than forms. The two great principles which she clearly, strongly proclaimed were self-renunciation and perfect union with the Divine will; nothing in ourselves, but all in God. She urged also the reading and study of the Bible, which she constantly practiced herself. These things, of course, brought down upon her the severest opposition from the ruling authorities in the Church. Some were jealous of her because she was a woman; some were rebuked in their sins; some felt that she was preaching the heresies of Protestantism; some were offended at the unaccustomed terms she employed. The doctrine of full salvation by faith and complete conformity to Christ crucified, never popular in any age or land, was particularly obnoxious then and there. When persecuted in one city she fled to another, as the Savior directed, being in no haste to justify herself, leaving her vindication, for the most part, with God. She was able to do a great deal for the Master in spite of continual opposition, being occupied sometimes from six in the morning till eight at night with those who came to her for spiritual help, writing incessantly also, and scattering her productions. She established a hospital in Grenoble, and was at all times assiduous in rescuing the fallen and doing good to the needy. In one of her books written at this time, called “The Method of Prayer,” she rightly says: “No man can know whether he is wholly consecrated to the Lord except by tribulation. That is the test. To rejoice in God’s will when that will imparts nothing but happiness is easy, even for the natural man. But none but the religious man can rejoice in the Divine will when it crosses his path, disappoints his expectations, and overwhelms him with sorrow. Trial, therefore, instead of being shunned, should be welcomed as a test, and the only true test of the true state.” She nobly endured this test, not only at this time, but still more signally as the years went on. She arrived again in Paris, five years after her departure from that city, July 22, 1686. Here she became one of the little circle which met frequently for religious and social purposes at the Hotel de Beauvilliers, a circle which included Madame de Maintenon and Fénelon.
When Fénelon was in the province of Poitou, at work among the Huguenots in 1686, he first heard of Madame Guyon and became somewhat acquainted with her writings, which deeply interested him, as they were drawn so largely from Francis of Sales, his own chief teacher. On returning from his mission in 1687, he passed through the city of Montargis, and made there careful inquiries concerning this woman. He was impressed, says M. de Bausset, one of his biographers, “by the unanimous testimonies which he heard of her piety and goodness.” On returning to Paris he met her for the first time at the house of the Duchess of Charost, a few miles beyond Versailles, and again soon after at the house of the Duchess of Bethune. This was in the latter part of 1688, after her release from her first imprisonment. For her enemies, among whom was her half-brother, the Abbé la Mothe, had followed her to Paris, accused her to Monsieur de Harlai, the notoriously wicked archbishop, and he easily obtained from the king, to whom it was represented that her doctrines were substantially the same as those of the heretic Molinos, a lettre de cachet, or sealed order, putting her in confinement, January 29, 1688. She refused to purchase her liberty by the sacrifice of her little daughter, only twelve years of age, whom the king wished to force into a very unseemly marriage with a person who wished to get possession of her large property. She refused also to take other means for her release which did not commend themselves to her as right. She answered them, “I am content to suffer whatever it pleases God to order or permit, but I would sooner die upon the scaffold than utter the falsehoods you propose.” Whether written at this time or at some of her subsequent imprisonments, the following hymn of hers so well represents her constant attitude that it is eminently proper to insert it here:
“A little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air;
And in my cage I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleases Thee.
Nought have I else to do;
I sing the whole day long;