Guyon was the daughter of "Claude Bouvier", a procurator of the tribunal of Montargis, 110 kilometers south of Paris and 70 kilometers east of Orléans. Of a sensitive and delicate constitution, she was sickly in her childhood and her education was neglected. Her childhood was spent between the convent, and the home of her well–to–do parents, moving nine times in ten years. Guyon's parents were very religious people, and they gave her an especially pious training. Other important impressions from her youth that remained with her came from reading the works of St. Francis de Sales, and from certain nuns, her teachers. Prior to her marriage she had wanted to become a nun, but this desire did not last long.