no room given to any body to accuse me of any indecent attachment to him; for when it depended on myself not to continue with him, I did not do it. The Bishop of Geneva had not failed to write against me to Grenoble, as he had done to other places. His nephew had gone from house to house to cry me down. All this was indifferent to me; and I did not cease to do to his diocese all the good in my power. Leven wrote to him in a respectful manner; but his heart was too much closed to yield to such things.

Before I went off from Grenoble, that good girl I have spoken of came to me weeping, and told me, "I was going, and that I hid it from her, because I would have nobody know it; but that the devil would be before me in all the places I should go to ; that I was going to a town, where I should scarce be arrived, but he would stir up that whole town against me; and would do me all the harm he possibly could." What had obliged me to conceal my departure, was my fear of being loaded with visits, and testimonies of friendship, from a number of good persons, who had a very great affection for me.

I embarked then upon the Rhone, with my chambermaid and a young woman of Grenoble, whom the Lord had highly favoured through my means. The Bishop of Grenoble's Almoner also accompanied me, with another very worthy Ecclesiastic. There befell us many adventures, and we had like to have perished; for on a sudden, in a very dangerous place, the cable broke, the boat ran with force and struck against a rack. The master-pilot with the stroke fell backward, and would have been drowned, had not? the gentlemen saved him. There was another acci

dent which befell me, which was, that having gone: down with all our company, on the Rhone, in a little boat rowed by a small boy; hoping to overtake the large boat, but not being able to do it, after having gone about thrée miles down, the rest went ashore ; the boat was obliged to return against the stream up to Valence. As I was unable to walk, I stayed in the boat, at the mercy of the waves, which carried us wildly without resistance; for the child who rowed the boat, and was unequal to the task, fell a weeping, and crying out continually that we were going to be drowned. I encouraged him. After having disputed above four hours against the waves, while those who were on the shore thought me one time lost, another time saved, we at last arrived at Valence.

I

Such manifest dangers, which affrighted the others, far from alarming me, augmented my peace. This › astonished the Bishop of Grenoble's Almoner not a little, as he was in a desperate fright, when the boat struck against the rock, and opened at the stroke; for in his emotion looking attentively at me, he remarked that I did not change my countenance, or move my eyebrows, retaining all my tranquility. did not so much as feel the first movements of surprise, which are natural to every body on thése occasions, and which depend not on ourselves. What i caused my peace in such dangers as terrify others at once, was my resignation to God, and because death is much more agreeable to me than life, if such were his will, to which I desire to be ever patiently sub→ missive. ]}

As I was going off from Grenoble, a man of quality, a great servant of God, and one of my inti mate friends, had given me a letter for a knight, of

*

Malta, who was very devout, and whom I have esteemed since I have known him, as a man whom our Lord designed to serve the order of Malta greatly, and to be its ornament and support by his holy life. I had told him that I thought he should go thither, and that God would assuredly make use of him to diffuse a spirit of piety into many of the knights. He is actually gone to Malta, where the first places were soon giyen him. This man of quality sent him the little book of prayer written by me, and printed at Grenoble, He had a chaplain very averse to the spiritual path. He took this book and condemned it at once, went to stir up a part of the town, and amongst the rest a set of men who call themselves the seventy-two disciples of St. Cyran.+ I arrived at Marseilles at ten o'clock in the morning, and that very afternoon all was in a noise against me. Some went to speak to the Bishop, telling him that, on açcount of that little book, it was necessary to banish me from that city. They gave him the book, which he examined with one of his prebends. He liked it well. He sent for Monsieur Malaval and a father Recollect, who he knew had come to see me a little after my arrival, to enquire of them from whence that great tumult had its rise; which indeed had no other, effect on me than to make me smile, seeing so soon accomplished what that young woman had foretold me. Monsieur Malaval and that good Religious told

Malta, an Island in the Mediterranean, 60 miles south of Cape Passaro in Sicily, of an oval figure, 20 miles long and 12 broad. The Emperor Charles V. gave it to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, after they had left Rhodes, which they defended 200 years, against the power of Turkey; and these Knights hold it ever since.

t Chief of the Jansenists in France.

the Bishop what they thought of me; after which he testified much uneasiness at the insult given me I was obliged to go to see him. He received me with extraordinary respect, and begged my excuse for what had happened, desired me to stay at Marseilles, and assured me that he would protect me. He even asked where I lodged, that he might come

to see me.

Next day the Bishop of Grenoble's Almoner went to see him with that other Priest who had come with us. The Bishop of Marseilles again testified to themhis sorrow for the insults given me without any cause; and told them that it was usual with those persons to insult all such as were not of their cabal; that they had even insulted himself. They were not content with that. They wrote me the most offensive letters possible, though at the same time they did not know me. I apprehended that our Lord was beginning in earnest to take from me every place of abode ; and those words were renewed in my mind, "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head."

In the short time of my stay at Marseilles, I was instrumental to support some good souls, and amongst: others an Ecclesiastic, who till then was unacquainted with me. After having finished his thanksgiving in the church; seeing me go out, he followed me into the house in which I lodged: then he told me; "the Lord had inspired him to address me, and to open his inward condition to me." He did it with as much simplicity as humility, and the Lord gave him through me all that was necessary for him, from whence he was filled with joy, and thankful acknowledgments to God for though there were many spiritual persons

there, and even of his intimate friends, he had never been moved to open himself to any of them. He was a servant of God, favoured by him with a singular gift of prayer. During the eight days I was at Marseilles, I saw many good souls there; for, through all my persecutions, our Lord always struck some good stroke of his own right hand; and that good Ecclesiastic was delivered from an anxiety of mind, which had much afflicted him for some years past.

After I had left Grenoble, those who hated me without knowing me, spread libels against me. A woman for whom I had a great love, and whom I had even extricated from an engagement which she had continued in for several years, and contributed to her discarding the person to whom she had been attached, suffering her mind to resume its fondness for that pernicious engagement, became so violently enraged against me for having broke it off; though I had freely been at some expence to procure her freedom from it, that she went to the bishop of Grenoble, to tell him that I had counselled her to do an act of injustice. She then went from confessor to confessor to repeat the same story, to animate them against me. As they were too susceptible of the prejudices infused, the fire was soon kindled in all quarters. There were none but those who knew me, and who loved God, that took my part. They became more closely united to me in sympathy through my persecution. It had been very easy for me to destroy the calumny, as well with the Bishop of Grenoble as in the town. I had only to tell who the person was, and to shew the fruits of her disorder: but as I could not declare the guilty person, without making known at the same time the other

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