procured for the re-examination of the doctrines of Madame Guyon; who, in the mean time, retired to the convent of Meaux. Bousset was at the head of the committee of examination, and Transon, Fenelon, and the Bishop of Chalons, were associated. At the end of six months, thirty-four articles were drawn up by the commissioners, to which Fenelon added four, to prove the harralessness of Quietism. The thirty-four articles were signed by all the examiners, March 10th., 1695. Madame Guyon also put her signature to them, and signed a submission to censure passed by the Bishop of Meaux the preceding April, against her tracts; by which she declared, that she never meant to advocate anything contrary to the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman church. To this the bishop added an attestation, purporting that he was satisfied with the conduct of Madame Guyon, and had continued her in the participation of the holy sacrament. Thus acquitted, she returned to Paris, in the hope of finding safety and repose.
But the rage of bigotry was not yet exhausted; Madame Guyon became involved in the persecutions of Fenelon, and in less than a year was imprisoned, first in the castle of Vincennes, then in the convent Thomas à Geràrd, and at last in the Bastile. At a meeting of the general assembly of the clergy of France, in 1700, no evidence appearing against her, she was once more set at liberty.
She next went to visit her children, and settled near them at Blois. The remainder of her life she passed in retirement. The walls of her chamber, the tables and furniture, were covered with numerous verses which were printed after her death in five volumes, entitled "Cantiques Spirituels, ou d'Emblemes sur I'Amour divin." She also left twenty volumes of "Commentaries on the Bible;" and "Reflections and Explanations concerning the Inner Life;" and "Christian Discourses;" "Letters to several persons;" her own "Autobiography;" a volume of "Visitations;" and two volumes of "Opuscules." She died June 9th., 1717.
GWENISSA,
Commonly spoken of as Gwenissa the Fair, was the daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and was given in marriage to Arviragus, King of the Iceni, in order to cement the union formed between that monarch and the Romans. Arviragus, however, did not long remain true either to his professions of friendship for the invaders of Britain, nor of love for the beautiful Gwenissa, for whom he had divorced his first wife, the famous Queen Boadicea. On the breaking out of hostilities between her husband and father, Gwenissa was much afflicted, and, it is said, by her importunities brought about an accommodation of their differences, on which account she was called "the winner of peace." This peace was, however, but of short duration; the King of the Iceni joined a confederacy against the Romans, became reconciled to Boadicea, and the deserted Gwenissa, overcome by the extremity of her grief, expired in childbirth, prematurely brought on by the anguish of her mind. She is said to have been as good as she was beautiful, and to have performed many acts of generosity and kindness for which her memory cherished in Britain.
