We come now to the central period of Fénelon’s career, that wherein he put forth his greatest mental exertion, fighting, as it were, for his very life, and for that truth which he held much dearer than life. It is a period which every sketch of him, however brief, touches upon, and which we must set forth at some length. The last chapter, on Mysticism and Quietism, will have prepared us to consider somewhat sympathetically the career of Madame Guyon, who was so closely linked with Fénelon during these few years, and who was the chief exponent of the Quietist or Mystic beliefs at this time in France. She was born, as Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe, April 13, 1648, at Montargis, about fifty miles south of Paris, and wedded before she was sixteen, by the arrangement of her parents, to a man of thirty-eight, M. Jacques Guyon, who was very wealthy. She had an unhappy married life, closed by the death of her husband when she was twenty-eight. She had five children, two of whom died in infancy. Suffering was her portion, and religion her consolation, through all her days. When not yet thirteen she read with eagerness the Life of Madame Chantal, Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ,” and the works of Francis of Sales, making a vow at this time to aim at the highest perfection and to do the will of God in everything. Later, when seventeen, this determination was renewed with fuller purpose and intelligence; yet it was not till she was twenty, so limited were her privileges of instruction, that her heart became thoroughly changed, the pleasures of the world put definitely aside, and her life devoted entirely to God. Her education, in a convent, was quite defective, but her natural abilities were very great. She had remarkable powers of conversation, her intellect was keen, her ascendency over other minds, even some of the greatest, in after years was very striking. She learned Latin subsequently, that she might carry on her studies more profoundly. She prepared extensive commentaries on the Scriptures, and her writings, in their collective form, were issued in forty volumes. Afflictions many were used by the Lord to chasten her spirit and deepen her experience. She lost her mother and father, lost a dearly beloved son and darling daughter, lost her beauty by the scourge of smallpox at the age of twenty-two, lost her dearest friend and religious confidante, Genevieve Granger, prioress of the Benedictines, in 1673, and then her husband in 1676.