JOHANNA MARY BOURIERS DE LA MOTHE, a French lady, memorable for her writings, and for her sufferings in the cause of Quietism, was descended from a noble family, and born at Montargis in 1648. She gave some extraordinary symptoms of illumination from her earliest infancy, and tried to take the veil before she was of age to dispose of herself; but her parents obliged her to marry a gentleman to whom they had promised her. She was a widow at the age of 28; when distinguishing herself in, and making many converts to, the way of contemplation and prayer known by the name of Quietism, complaints were made of her spiritualism, and she was confined by order of the king, and severely examined for eight months. She was discharged; but was afterwards involved in the persecution of the archbishop of Cambrai, and thrown into the Bastile, where she underwent many examinations: but nothing being made out against her, she once more obtained her liberty, and lived private to her death in 1717. She spent her latter years in mystical reveries; covering her tables, ceilings, and every thing that would receive them, with the fallacies of a visionary imagination. Her pious verses were collected after her death in 5 vols. entitled Cantiques spirituels, ou d'Emblemes sur l'Amour Divin. Her publications were, Le moyen court et tres facile de faire Oraisons; and Le Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon interprete selon le sens mystique; which were condemned by the archbishop of Paris.