The Autobiography of Madame Guyon
By Madame Guyon
- Release Date: 2026-05-12
- Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Description
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) was the most influential figure of the late-seventeenth-century French Quietist movement, the spiritual teacher of François Fénelon, the object of Bossuet's furious refutation, and a prisoner of the Bastille and Vincennes for nearly four years. She wrote her *Autobiography* over more than twenty years in obedience to the request of her confessors. Part One covers her childhood, her unhappy marriage, her widowhood, the awakening of what she calls the *inward state*, her work among the poor on the Swiss frontier, and the years before her arrest. Part Two covers the persecution, the long imprisonments, and the final years. This edition reproduces the standard public-domain English translation in full, in fifty chapters across two Parts. A short editor's preface places the work in its biographical and historical context.
