Molinos had written with the object of “breaking the fetters” which hindered souls in their upward course.  Unfortunately for himself, he also loosened some of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood desires to keep the laity[306].  And so, instead of the honours which had been grudgingly and suspiciously bestowed on his predecessors, Molinos ended his days in a dungeon[307].  His condemnation was followed by a sharp persecution of his followers in Italy, who had become very numerous; and, in France, Bossuet procured the condemnation and imprisonment of Madame Guyon, a lady of high character and abilities, who was the centre of a group of quietists.  Madame de Guyon need not detain us here.  Her Mysticism is identical with that of Saint Teresa, except that she was no visionary, and that her character was softer and less masculine.  Her attractive personality, and the cruel and unjust treatment which she experienced during the greater part of her life, arouse the sympathy of all who read her story; but since my present object is not to exhibit a portrait gallery of eminent mystics, but to investigate the chief types of mystical thought, it will not be necessary for me to describe her life or make extracts from her writings.  The character of her quietism may be illustrated by one example—­the hymn on “The Acquiescence of Pure Love,” translated by Cowper:—­

  “Love! if Thy destined sacrifice am I,
     Come, slay thy victim, and prepare Thy fires;
   Plunged in Thy depths of mercy, let me die
     The death which every soul that loves desires!

   “I watch my hours, and see them fleet away;
     The time is long that I have languished here;
   Yet all my thoughts Thy purposes obey,
     With no reluctance, cheerful and sincere.

   “To me ’tis equal, whether Love ordain
     My life or death, appoint me pain or ease
   My soul perceives no real ill in pain;
     In ease or health no real good she sees.

   “One Good she covets, and that Good alone;
     To choose Thy will, from selfish bias free
   And to prefer a cottage to a throne,
     And grief to comfort, if it pleases Thee.

   “That we should bear the cross is Thy command
     Die to the world, and live to self no more;
   Suffer unmoved beneath the rudest hand,
     As pleased when shipwrecked as when safe on shore.”

Fenelon was also a victim of the campaign against the quietists, though he was no follower of Molinos.  He was drawn into the controversy against his will by Bossuet, who requested him to endorse an unscrupulous attack upon Madame Guyon.  This made it necessary for Fenelon to define his position, which he did in his famous Maxims of the Saints.  The treatise is important for our purposes, since it is an elaborate attempt to determine the limits of true and false Mysticism concerning two great doctrines—­“disinterested love” and “passive contemplation.”