Of her life in this famous prison we have little or no detail. Like all
its unfortunate inmates, she was forbidden to reveal its secrets; but we
gather from her own words that, amid sickness and the many hardships of
her prison life, one of her severest trials was found in the rumours
which reached her of "the horrible outcry," outside the walls, against
herself and her sympathisers. But in this dark season she held fast her
confidence in God, and her spirit found utterance and relief in some of
those songs, full of love and trust, which are included in the four
volumes of her poetical works.
VII.
LAST YEARS.
She was confined in the Bastille for four years, and when at last, in
1702, she was released, her health was completely ruined by the
privations she had suffered, the bitter cold of winter, and in the
warmer weather the poisonous exhalations from the stagnant waters of the
moat. When once more she issued into the sweet air of liberty, "My
afflicted spirit," she says, "began to breathe and recover itself; but
my body was from that time sick and borne down with all sorts of
infirmities." Even now, however, she was not free to go where she liked.
After a brief visit to her daughter in Paris, she was required to take
up her residence at Blois, a hundred miles south-west, and there, in
complete retirement, she spent her remaining days, still writing cheery
words of counsel to her disciples in France and other lands, and
enjoying spells of happy converse with the steadfast friends who sought
her out in her exile.
She lived on in peace and quiet, though often in pain and weakness, for
fifteen years after her release from the Bastille. Her final release
from all earthly trials and sorrows took place on June 9, 1717, when she
had entered about three months into her seventieth year. That her
beautiful spirit of resignation was maintained to the last, and that her
faith was pure and steadfast, we have proof in these expressions in her
will, written a short time before her death: "Thou knowest that there is
nothing in heaven or in earth that I desire but Thee alone. In Thy
hands, O God, I leave my soul, not relying for my salvation on any good
that is in me, but solely on Thy mercies and the merits and sufferings
of my Lord Jesus Christ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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