Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte GuyonJeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon (commonly Madame Guyon; 13 April 1648 – 9 June 1717) was a French mystic, spiritual writer, and lay teacher of prayer whose writings on inward prayer, abandonment to God, and pure love became one of the central subjects of the late seventeenth-century Quietist controversy in France. Her works, especially Moyen court et très facile de faire oraison and her biblical commentaries, circulated widely in manuscript and print. They influenced François Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai, but drew the opposition of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Louis Antoine de Noailles, and other French ecclesiastical authorities.
Guyon was never formally condemned as a heretic by name, but her writings and teachings stood behind the Articles of Issy in 1695, and her Moyen court was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1689. She was imprisoned several times, including in the Bastille, and spent her later years at Blois.
