THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 61
But the Abbe de Fenelon, instead of opposing the new doctrine became a convert to it, and spoke and wrote in defence of it, and of his new friend ; and thus brought upon himself banishment, and upon his book papal censure.
Madame Guyon s first imprisonment was in 1688, on the ground of her Protestant tendencies. It was in a convent, in Paris, and was continued for eight months. Her second im prisonment was in the Castle of Vincennes, in 1695, after Bossuet had failed alike by argument, persuasion, and threatening, to turn her from her new doctrine and life. Thence she was removed to Vaugirard, and in 1698 to the Bastile, where she was imprisoned for four years. From this gloomy dungeon she was taken in 1702, to be banished to Blois. During the remainder of her life she resided with her son at Diziers, near Blois. Her constitution was too much wasted by protracted imprisonment to allow of her still engaging in active effort, but she continued to enjoy to the end that happy "fixed" state which she had pre scribed for others, the state in which the soul, under all circum stances and in all places, is satisfied in God. She departed in peaceful triumph on the 9th of June, 1717, in her seventieth year.
Madame Guyon s works were numerous and extensive. In addition to those already mentioned, she was the author of " Commentaries on the Old and New Testament," in twenty volumes ; and her memoir, published soon after her death, is believed to have been taken chiefly from her own testimony. She was also the author of a work entitled " Spiritual Songs, or Emblems upon Divine love."
Her hymns were published in 1689, in Amsterdam. They are the expression of her religious belief, and of the varied phases of her interior life. They are intensely spiritual, and sometimes mystic. Their sentiment is warm and impassioned, their diction elegant, and their flights of fancy sometimes bold and striking ; but the expressions made use of in reference to the Divine being appear in some instances extravagant, presump-
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