It is not to be denied that the language in which she describes this new ardent devotion has a suspicious similarity to the language of a love which is not at all heavenly. Of God she writes: "It is impossible for me to tell what tenderness burns in my heart, how many tears I shed, what words tremble through my whole being when I feel myself loved thus--I, poor worm of the earth! I said to God the other day: 'What can I say to Thee, O my Beloved! (_O mon bien-aimé!_) Would that I could shout over the whole earth, and through all the heavens, how much I love Thee! Would that I could lead not only all men, but all the rebel spirits back to Thee!"
In the Vatican hangs a picture by a modern Italian painter which represents a nun kneeling at the feet of Christ, who returns her tearful gaze with the tenderest of glances. One involuntarily thinks of this picture when reading Madame de Krüdener's outbursts during her period of divine intoxication. She writes on another occasion: "All we have to do is to love, and to persuade others to love, the kindest, the best, the tenderest of all fathers." During her pious wanderings about the country, preaching and converting, she was joined by a young missionary. He was one of the many in whom she was afterwards disappointed, but shortly after he came to her she describes their feelings when worshipping together in such words as these: "What emotion! Can you imagine the bliss of our communions? No language can express it. We could not even hear the words spoken." It is impossible in reading this not to think of a passage in the writings of one of Madame de Krüdener's early admirers: "Lezay prétend (dit Chênedollé) que Madame de Krüdener dans les moments les plus décisifs avec son amant fait une prière à Dieu, en disant: Mon Dieu, que je suis heureuse! Je vous demande pardon de l'excès de mon bonheur?" He adds: "Elle reçoit ce sacrifice comme une personne qui va recevoir sa communion."[1] Similar pious emotionalism is, however, common to all the mystics of the day.
Madame de Krüdener did not know that both Fontaines and Marie Kummer had a past which was anything but confidence-inspiring.
At the outbreak of the Revolution Fontaines, then aged twenty, was a violent Jacobin; during the Reign of Terror he cast in his lot with Eulogius Schneider, and was one of the most eager of that man's followers in denouncing the clergy, closing churches, plundering Strasburg Cathedral, &c. He held orations in the temples of Reason, got himself appointed a Protestant pastor, married, and behaved in such a scandalous manner that he was compelled to give up his charge. Nevertheless, when the reaction against the Revolution set in, he received another call, as representative of the extremest Pietism, and soon gained a great reputation as an exorciser of evil spirits. When it came out that he had managed in three years (1801-4) to make away with almost all the means of his congregation, he had to retire into obscurity for a time. In 1805 he received a call to Markirch. There, two years later, he took Marie Kummer into his house. This woman, though she was a simple vagrant, and had changed her religion several times, was held in great reverence by the Pietists. A certain Pastor Hiller consecrated her to be the bride of Jesus. In the course of time she bore this same pastor a son, who was destined, they declared, to become the witness mentioned in the third verse of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation. The worldly-minded civil authorities none the less condemned Marie to the pillory and a term of imprisonment. When she came out of prison she proclaimed the end of the world to be at hand, and advised a general emigration of believers to the Holy Land. She actually persuaded a number of foolish persons to set out with her for Jerusalem, and to entrust her with the travelling funds; but when they reached Vienna she was taken into custody. After a term of imprisonment there she went back to Alsace. The comet of 1807 furnished her with a pretext for sensational prophecies of plague, famine, and war, and on hearing the report of the arrival of the Russian baroness she had a vision, in which that lady's high destiny was revealed to her.