GUYON, JEANNE MARIE BOUVIER DE LA MOTTE- (1648-1717). A French writer on mystical subjects. She was born of noble parents at Montargis, April 13, 1648. She wished to en ter a convent, but her parents prevailed upon her when not quite sixteen to marry Jacques de In Motte-Guyon, the son of the wealthy contractor who constructed the Canal of Briare, for which he was ennobled. M. Guyon was twenty-two years her senior, and at first had no sympathy with his wife's extreme religious tendencies.
Before his death in 1676 he learned to appre ciate her goodness. A widow at twenty-eight with five children, she devoted herself to their education for several years. Later she moved to Paris, where, as an attractive wealthy widow, she had many suitors. About 1680, after settling most of her fortune on her children, she went to Geneva for religious work. At this time she fell into melancholic depression, from which her spiritual director, Pere Lacombe, aroused her. Madame Guyon followed in her director's footsteps, and wrote a Short and Easy Method of Prayer (revised translation, London, 1902), be sides commentaries on the Scriptures, which brought her under ecclesiastical censure. While protesting submission, she continued to write and teach as before. Her life after this is a series of persecutions for her religious ideas. She was accused of laying too much stress on faith and the quietude of contemplation rather than good works in the Christian life. Shut up by a royal order in the Convent of the Visitation (1688), she was set free by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and through her obtained entrance into the highest circles of the French nobility. FeneIon, convinced of her personal goodness, al lowed himself to be led into a false position in her defense. (See FENELON.) Politics became a
factor in her condemnation and the severity of her sentence. For a time Madame Guyon was confined in the Bastille, but her virtuous char acter was acknowledged by the assembly of the French clergy in 1700. She was released from prison, however, only in 1702, and then was banished. She passed the rest of her life in re tirement at Blois, where she died June 7, 1717, professing absolute faith in the Roman Catholic Church and its dogmas. Her life has attracted attention partly because of Fenelon's interest in her, and partly because of her persecution by the Church authorities. Frequent allusions in her autobiography would seem to indicate certain manifestations in her case of what would now be called subconscious personality. The impu tations made against her moral character in her relations to Pere Lacombe are undoubtedly groundless.
Consult: (Euvres spirituelles de Mme. Guyon (42 vols., Cologne. 1713-22) ; Guerrier, .hose. Guyon, sa vie, sa doctrine, son influence (Paris, 1881) ; Upham. Life, Religious Opinions and Experiences of Mine. Guyon (New York. 1870). For her spiritual life, the best work to consult is La vie de Mine. J. M. h. do la :Motto Guyon (Wier par ciic-meme (3 vols.. Cologne, 1720). This was probably not composed by herself as it now exists, but is a compilation of documents left by her. The most complete translation is Autobiography of Madame Guyon (2 vols.. Saint Louis, 1S97). There is a Eccueil de posies spiri tuellcs (5 vols., Amsterdam. 1689). Some of these have been translated by the English poet Cowper.