Jeanne Marie Guyon

GUYON, Jeanne Marie (‘Madame Guyon’). b. Montargis, France, 13 April 1648; d. 9 June 1717. She was born Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe, of a well-to-do family. After a convent education, she was married (1664) to the wealthy Jacques Guyon (he was then aged 38, she was 16), who died in 1676. The years of her marriage were not happy, according to JJ ‘partly from disparity of years, partly from the tyranny of her mother-in-law, partly from her own quick temper’ (JJ, p. 475). She had been religious as a child, and in the years that followed her husband’s death she became a passionate figure in the Quietist movement in France and Switzerland. Her enthusiastic and mystical nature led to her...