Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/753

 PORT ROYAL 733 the grammarian Claude Lancelot ; three neph- ews of Marie Angelique, Antoine Le Maistre, Simon Sericourt, and Isaac de Sacy, the transla- tor of the Bible ; two of her brothers, Robert, called Arnauld d'Andilly, and Antoine Arnauld, the latter known as the "great Arnauld;" Pierre Nicole, Lenain de Tillemont, and later Blaise Pascal and Nicolas Fontaine. Of these the greater number were either pupils or peni- tents of the celebrated Duvergier de Hauranne, commonly called the abbe de Saint Oyran. Both he and Jansenius were living together in Paris at the time that Mere Marie Angelique was busy in perfecting her reforms. She came at first under the influence of St. Francis of Sales, who encouraged her to persevere in restoring the purity of religious discipline, and was next attracted to Duvergier (afterward made abbot of Saint Cyran) by his ascetic life, and swayed by his inflexible temper. He acquired a like ascendancy over her father, Antoine Arnauld (died in 1619), and over his other children, all of whom with their mother became attached to Port Royal and adopted the opinions of Jansenius, or rather of Duvergier, who was the superior intellect and from whom the oth- er had learned. The nuns in Paris, with their numerous and powerful connections, and the recluses at Chevreuse together with their scholars, and the noble or wealthy families to which these belonged, were thus leavened with the new doctrines, and became its apostles. The recluses of Port Royal were brought to- gether by the same ascetic tendency, the desire of living up to a common ideal of Christian perfection, and of laboring to withstand the pervading social corruption by establishing thoroughly Christian schools and publishing the most powerful works in refutation of the prevailing errors. Both Duvergier and Jan- senius considered the Jesuit colleges and the Jesuit theology as the bane of the church. Their followers of Port Royal, acting on this conviction, bent all their efforts toward or- ganizing a system of education in every way antagonistic to that of the society of Jesus. These efforts had been crowned with no in- considerable success, when the enormous in- crease of the community of Port Royal de Paris forced Mere Marie Angelique in 1647 to return to Port Royal des Champs with a large body of nuns. They took possession of the abbey, the recluses retiring to Les Granges with their scholars. The neighboring marshes were now drained, and the abode of Port Royal des Champs was as salubrious as it had been once unhealthy. The nuns opened a fe- male seminary in the abbey, which was soon filled by the daughters of the nobility. At this period, too, Mere Marie Angelique and Mere Agnes began to receive powerful aid from their niece, Mere Angelique de St. Jean. From Les Grangesproceeded those educational works, still unsurpassed in our day, the Port Royal Greek and Latin grammars, known as Nouvelle methode pour apprendre la langue grecque,Nou- velle methode pour apprendre la langue latine, Jardin des racines grecques, Grammaire gene- rale etraisonnee, Elemens de geometrie, and La logique, ou Vart de penser. On these master- pieces labored conjointly Lancelot, Arnauld, Nicole, and De Sacy. Other important works on moral philosophy and theology were also produced, which have preserved their reputa- tion even to the present day. Nor were the nuns without their share in these theological and literary contests. Mere Marie Angelique wrote the first history of the persecution suf- fered by the nuns ; Mere Agnes is the author, among other works, of V Image de la re- ligieuse parfaite et imparfaite ; and their niece Mere Angelique de St. Jean composed The labors of either sex were not confined to the class room, the cloister, or the study ; they made of their domain at Chevreuse a model farm, and encouraged the peasants to improve their methods of tillage as well as their man- ners. During the civil wars of the Fronde and subsequent seasons of distress they displayed the most unbounded charity and hospitality toward the suffering populations. Port Royal became, in the words of a contemporary histo- rian, "a Noah's ark amid the deluge of dis- tress." Its walls protected the fleeing peas- ants from a lawless soldiery ; its vast courts were more than once filled with the flocks of the fugitives; in the church were stored their grain and other movables; the sick and in- firm were lodged in the outhouses, and the able-bodied lay down wherever they found room. The mode of life in Port Royal was distinguished for austerity. The inmates rose at 3 o'clock in the morning, and after the com- mon morning prayer kissed the ground, as a sign of their self-humiliation before God. Then they read, kneeling, a chapter from the Gos- pels and one from the Epistles, and concluded with another prayer. Two hours in the morn- ing and two in the afternoon were devoted to manual labor in the gardens adjoining the con- vent, and they observed with great strictness the season of Lent. This period was also one of continual conflict with the Jesuits. The book of Jansenius entitled Mars Gallicus, pub- lished in Holland about 1634, was a violent at- tack on the French government and people, and led to the elevation of the author to the bishop- ric of Ypres. The warm friendship subsisting between him and Duvergier, and the avowed support given to the theological opinions of both at Port Royal, awakened the suspicions of Cardinal Richelieu, who in 1638 subjected Port Royal and Duvergier to a judicial inquiry, ending in Duvergier's imprisonment. The sus- picions of the government were confirmed by the appearance in 1640 of Jansenius's most celebrated work, Augustinus, twice reprinted in France, in 1641 and 1643, and received with undisguised enthusiasm by the Port Royalists. Jansenism was thenceforward identified with the name of the abbey, and the government be- 677 VOL. xiii. 47