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He gave them full instructions, and they played their parts to perfection. In the first place they appeared to be ravished, and by degrees enchanted, with the new doctrine. Madame Guyon, pleased with this fresh conquest, took the ladies into her most intimate confidence in order to gain them entirely.
I have often speculated on the subject of these mysterious compositions; they were of a nature to have proceeded rather from some mystical quietist, such as Madame Guyon, if with this rapt devotion one can suppose the union of a rebellious and murmuring ambition.
The last lines may be quoted for their singular likeness to one of the most elaborately beautiful stanzas of the Faerie Queene, that which describes the sounds "consorted in one harmony" which Guyon hears in the gardens of Acrasia:
The intrepid Guyon, animated by all the sublime energy which patriotism can inspire, acted up to his word. He had never married, he was rich, and he immediately made a will; he confessed, and in the middle of the night received the sacraments. A man had died of the plague in his house within four and twenty hours.
Lyttelton, in the same paper in which he pronounces his panegyric on Fénelon, calls Madame Guyon a 'mad woman' and 'a distracted enthusiast. So much depends upon the greater or less sobriety with which views are stated; and excellent as Madame Guyon was, her effuse and somewhat morbid form of devotional sentiment can never be altogether congenial to English feeling, still less to English feeling such as it was in the first half of the eighteenth century.
They wear the white Breton caps, and but for these in the reproduction that I have it seems a gloomy picture; but one cannot judge of color from the black and white. The net is well done, as are the hands, and the whole work is true to the character of such a scene in the country of these hard-working women. Mme. Guyon is much esteemed as a teacher.
Now, Jacques Guyon had been at the Bouvier residence on a visit three months before, and had looked the lass over stealthily with peculiar interest, and had intimated that if Monsieur Bouvier wished to get rid of her it could be brought about.
The Emperor learned at the same time that Carahue, King of Mauritania, was assembling an army to come and demand the liberation of Ogier; that Guyon, King of Denmark, was prepared to second the enterprise with all his forces; and, worse than all, that the Saracens, under Bruhier, Sultan of Arabia, had landed in Gascony, taken Bordeaux, and were marching with all speed for Paris.
"Allow me to give the three lucky knights a bit of advice," whispered the Duke de la Roche Guyon, Louvois's son-in-law. "Make use of the king's permission without delay. Who knows, but when the rest of us prefer our petitions, he may not withdraw his consent from you?"
"Messieurs," said the Duke de la Roche Guyon, taking out his watch, "we must give them a quarter of an hour, before we irritate his majesty by preferring our own petitions." When the quarter of an hour had elapsed, the duke replaced his watch, and resumed: "Now let us go and try our luck." "Shall we go together, or one by one?" inquired the Duke de Liancourt.
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