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1 


POET  EOYAL 


VOL.   II. 


\ 


LOVDOV 
PSXVTID     BT    BPOTTISWOODl     JLVfi     CO. 
*  Xniir-SRBST   BQUASB 


POET  ROYAL 


A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE 


HISTORY  OF  RELIGION  and  LITERATURE  IN  FRANCE 


BY 


CHARLES    BEAED,   B.A. 


"Poor  moi,  Je  sula  da  Tordra  de  toas  les  Saints,  et  toas  lea  Saints  nont  de  nion 
ordrc"  AnffiUque  Arnauld 


VOLUME  THE   SECOND 


LONDON 

LONGMAN,  GREEN,  LONGMAN,  AND  ROBERTS 

1861 


r  riffht  0/  tratujbtion  if  reeervedl    / 


Th4  riffht 


CONTENTS 


THE  SECOND  VOLUME. 


BOOK  III. 

PORT   ROTAL   IN    ITS   RELATION   TO   LITERATURE   AND   SOCIETY. 


CHAP.  I. 

BLAISE    AHD  JAOQUELimS  PASCAL. 


Materials  for  Pascal's  Life  . 

Pascal  Family 

Birth 

Earlj  mathematical  Promise 
Treatise  on  Conic  Sections  . 
Jacqueline's  Verses  .  .  . 
Bichelieu  and  the  Pascals  . 
RemoYal  to  Normandy  .  . 
Friendship  with  Cornellle  . 
Les  Palinods  de  Bouen  .  . 
Arithmetical  Machine  .  . 
Problem  of  the  Vacuum  .  . 
Torricelli's  Hypothesis  .  . 
Pascal's  Experiments.  .  . 
The  Puy  de  Dome.  .  .  . 
Sidrmish  with  the  Jesuits  . 
Controversy  with  Des  Cartes] 
Des  Cartes'  Plagiarisms  .    . 

His  Jealousy 

Pascal's  first  religions  Impres- 
sions      

Etienne  Pascal  breaks  his  Leg 
Gnillebert,  Cure  of  Bouville. 


Page 

4 

5 

6 

7 

9 

10 

12 

14 

14 

15 

17 

19 

20 

20 

21 

23 

24 

26 

27 

28 
29 
30 


Etienne  Pascal's  Surgeons  .    .  31 

Fr^re  St.  Ange 33 

Jacqueline  at  Port  Boyal     .     .  37 

Her  Father's  unwillingness  .    .  38 

Etienne  Pascal's  Death  ...  38 

Her  Brother  asks  Delay  ...  39 

Jacqueline's  Dowry    ....  41 

Pascal's  worldly  Life  ....  43 

"  Prayer  to  God  in  Sickness  "  .  45 

"Thoughts  on  Death"    ...  46 
"  Discourse  on  the  Passions  of 

Love" 46 

Did  Pascal  love? 47 

The  Due  de  Boannez ....  48 
**  Discourses  on  the  Condition  of 

the  Great" 49 

Madlle.  de  Boannez    ....  50 

Pascal's  Letters  to  her     ...  51 

Her  Marriage  and  Bomorse.     .  52 

Domat 54 

Beoewed  application   to   Sci- 
ence       55 

Carosses  k  cinq  sols    ....  56 

Weariness  and  Dissatisfaction  .  57 
Letter  of  Jacqueline    on  her 

sister's  illness 58 

A  3 


VI 


CONTENTS  OP  THE 


Page 
Accident    on    the    Bridge   of 

Neailly 60 

Pascal's  *•  Vision  "  and  ''Amu- 
let " 61 

Condorcet's  Interpretation   .    .  62 

Voltaire  and  the  «•  Abyss  '*  .    .  63 

Passage  firom  Leibnitz     ...  64 
Pascal's    Interview    with    his 

Sister 65 

Singlin's  Sermon 67 

Pascal    at    Port    Boyal    des 

Champs 67 

Cartesianism  at  Port  Bojal .    .  68 

The  Provincial  Letters    ...  70 

The  Cycloid 71 

Pascal's  increasing  Hi-health   .  73 

Final  Austerity. .74 

Benevolence 76 

Moral  Estimate  of  his  last  Tears  7  8 

Fatal  Illness. 81 

Iteath '82 

Alleged  Becantation  ....  83 

Origin  of  the  Thoughts  ...  84 

Its  Editors:  M.  de  Treville  .    .  85 

M.  de  Brienne 86 

Publication  of  the  Thoughts    .  87 
The  Archbishop  and  the  Pub- 
lisher      88 

Successive  Editions    ....  89 

Voltaire's  Remarks    ....  90 
Condorcet's      and     Voltaire's 

Editions 91 

Bossut's  Edition 91 

M.  Victor  Cousin's  "  Report "  .  92 
Pascal's  original  Notes   ...  93 
Evidence  against  the  First  Edi- 
tors    95 

M.  Cousin's  Statement  of  the 

Case 95 

Condorcet's  and  Bossut's  Edi- 
tions       96 

How  far  is  Port  Royal  guilty? .  97 

Theory  of  the  First;  Preface.    .  98 
Amauld  on  the  Alterations  of 

the  Thoughts 99 

Probable  Motives  of  the  Editors  100 


Page 
Theory  of  Authorship  at  Port 

Royal 102 

The    Thoughts   not  originally 

aphoristic 104 

Plan  of  the  Thoughts.  .  .  .105 
Conversation  onEpictetus  and 

Montaigne 107 

Twofold      Division     of     the 

Thoughts 110 

Theory  of  Human  Nature  .  .111 
Man's  fallen  Grandeur  .  .  .112 
Impossibility  of  Natural  Re- 
ligion     113 

Second  Part  of  the  Thoughts  .113 
Connection  of  Pascal's  Theory 

with  his  Jansenism  .  .  .115 
With  his  Mathematical  Studies  115 
Is  Pascal  a  Sceptic?  .  .  .  .117 
The  Question  answered  .  .  .118 
Style  of  the  ThoughU  ...  120 
Of  the  Provincial  Letters  .  .121 
Character  of  his  Originality .  .122 
Individuality   of   mental    and 

moral  Constitution .  .  •  .123 
Likeness  to  his  Sister ....  123 
Passionate  Love  of  Truth  .  .124 
Conclusion 126 

CHAP.  n. 

THE  SCHOOLS  OF  PORT  KOTAU 

Educational   Theory    of   the 

Jesuits 127 

St.  Cyran  and  Education    .    .  128 
His  Love  of  Children      .    .    .129 
Employs  his  Disciples  in  teach- 
ing   131 

Beginning  of  the  Schools    .    .  132 
Report  of  Dn  Fosse   ....  133 
Schoob  in  the  Rue  St.  Domi- 
nique    135 

Removal  from  Paris  ....  136 
D'Aubrai's  first  Visit  ...  137 
Final  Suppression  .  .  .  .137 
Theory  of  Training  .  .  .  .138 
Daily  Life  in  the  Schools    .    .  140 


SECOND  VOLUME. 


VU 


PAfte 
Friends  and  Teachers  .  .  .141 
Walon  de  Beaupais  .  .  .  .142 
Birth  and  Edncation  ...  142 
Hetires    to   Port    Boyal   des 

Champs 143 

Undertakes  the  Direction    of 

the  Schools 144 

Betirement  to   Beaavais,  and 

Ckdination 144 

Forbidden     to     eocerdse    his 

Functions 145 

Mode  of  Life 145 

Death 146 

Ciande  Lancelot 147 

Edncates  the  Princes  de  Conti  148 
Betires  to  St  Cyran  ....  149 

Death 150 

Port  Bojalist  Method  of  teach- 
ing Languages 151 

Port  Boyal  Latin  Grammar    .151 

Greek  Grammar 152 

Other  Grammars  and  School- 
books  153 

"  Grammaire  Gen^rale  **.  .  .154 
Port  Boyal  Logic  :  its  Origin .  155 
Editions  and  Translations  .  .  156 
Object  and  Method  .  .  .  .157 
Pierre  Nicole:  Birth  and  Edu- 
cation   160 

HisceUaneons  Learning .    .    .161 
Becomes   a   Teacher   at  Les 

Granges 162 

Controversial  Works .    .     .     .163 
•*  Ia  Perpetuite  de  "la  Foi  *' .    .  1 64 
**£6saisde  Morale '*   ....  166 
Renewal  of  the  Jansenist  De- 
bate      168 

Nicole  makes  his  Peace  with 

the  Archbishop 169 

Distrust    and    Anger   of   his 

Friends 170 

Amauld's  Generosity     .    .    .171 

Last  years 173 

Death 174 

Character 175 

Other  Schohurs  of  Port  Boyal  .  176 


Page 
D'Anbigny  :  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth   177 

Tillemont 177 

Birth  and  Education  .    .    .    .178 

Youthful  Studies 179 

Ordination  :  later  Life  •  .  .180 
Habits  and  Character  .  .  .180 
Ecclesiastical  History  .  .  .184 
Circumstances  of  iu  Publication  185 
Character  of  the  Work   .    .    .185 

TiUemont's  Death 186 

Burial 187 

Passage  from  his  Meditations  .  187 

CHAP.  HL 

THE  FOUB  BISHOPS. 

Theory  of  Life  at  Port  Koyal  .  189 
The  Four  Bishops  •  .  .  .190 
Buzanval,  Bishop  of  Beauvais  .191 

Legal  Education 192 

Obtains  the  See  of  Beauvais    .  193 

The  Seminary 194 

Character 196 

Death 197 

Amauld,  Bishop  of  Angers      .197 

Consecration 199 

Character 200 

Caulet,  Bishop  of  Pamiers  .    .  202 

Consecration 204 

Mode  of  Life 205 

Takes  at  first  no  Part  in  the 

Controversy  of  Grace .    .    .  206 

The  Bcgale 207 

Singular  Position  of  Parties  ' .  208 

Death  of  Caulet 209 

The  Four  Articles  .  .  .  .210 
Settlement  of  the  Debate  .  .211 
Pavilion,  Bishop  of  Alet  .  .212 
Influence  of  Vincent  de  Paul  .212 
Offered  the  Bishopric  of  Alet  .213 

Consecration 214 

Description  of  Alet  .  .  .  .215 
Former     Bishops    and    their 

Clergy 216 

Listructionofthe  Parish  Priests  217 


viu 


CONTENTS  OP  THE 


Visits,  Synods,  Missions.    .    .219 

Girls'  SchoolB 220 

Personal  Devotion  of  the  Bishop  222 

His  Household 224 

Conduct  to  Lay  Penitents  .    .  225 
Advice  to  De  Ranc^  ....  226 
Opposition  and  Vexations  .    .227 
Jansenist  Opinions  and  Friend- 
ships     228 

The  Ritoal  of  Alet  ....  229 
Old  Age  and  Death  ....  230 

CHAP.  IV. 

MADAXE  DB  LONOUEYILLE. 

The  House  of  Conde ....  233 
Henri,  Prince  de  Cond^  .  .  .  234 
Birth    of    Mad.    de    Longne- 

ville 235 

Resolves  to  retire  to  the  Car- 
melite Convent 237 

The  Court  BaU 238 

Various  Testimonies  to  her 
Beauty  and  Powers  of  pleas- 
ing   239 

The  Hotel  de  Bamhouillet  .  .  241 
Mad.  de  Rambonillet  and  her 

Family 241 

**  La  Guirlande  de  Julie  "  .  .  244 
Influence  of  the  Hotel  de  Ram- 

houillet  on  French  Literature  245 
Frequenters  of  the  Hotel  de 

Rambouillet 247 

Condi  and  his  Sister  at  Chan- 

tilly 248 

Madlle.  dn  Vigean  ....  249 
The  Due  de  Longueville     .    .  250 

Marriage 251 

Mad.  de  Montbazon  and  the 

lost  Letters 252 

The  Princesse  de  Condi  takes 

up  the  Quarrel 253 

The  fatal  Duel 955 

Death  of  Coligni 1^57 

M.  de  Longueville  at  Mnnster  258 


Page 
Mad.  de  Longueville's  journey 

into  Germany 259 

Return  to  Paris 260 

Fresh  social  Triumph  .  .  .261 
La  Rochefoucauld's  Confession  262 
His  Birth  and  Youth  ....  263 
Intrigues  against  Mazarin  .  .  264 
Motives  of  his  Connection  with 

Mad.  de  Longueville  .  .  .  265 
Beginning  of  the  Fronde  .  .  266 
The  Day  of  Barricades  ...  267 

The  War  of  Paris 268 

Mad.  de    Longueville  at   the 

Hotel  de  Ville 269 

Cessation  of  the  War ....  270 

Fresh  Troubles 271 

Arrest  of  the  Princes.  .  .  .272 
Flight  of  Mad.  de  LongueviUe 

into  Normandy 273 

Attempt  to  escape  by  Sea  from 

Dieppe 274 

With  Turenne  at  Stenai .  .  .  275 
Turenne  loses  the   Battle   of 

Bethel 276 

Counter  Revolution :  Release  of 

the  Princes 277 

Refusal    of    Conti    to    marry 

Madlle.  de  Cherreuse  •  .  .  278 
Renewal  of  civil  War  .  .  .  280 
The  Fronde  of  Bordeaux  .  .281 
Triumph  of  Mazarin  and  the 

Queen 282 

The  Fronde  and  the  English 

Civil  Wars 283 

Mad.  de  Longueville*s  Share  in 

the  Fronde 284 

Alienation  from  La  Rochefou- 
cauld    285 

The  Scuderys  and  the  Grand 

Cyrus 287 

Letter  to  the  Carmelite  Prioress  288 

Religious  Crisis 289 

Return  to  her  Husband  .  .  .  290 
Reconciliation  with  the  Court .  291 
The  Prince  and  Princesse  de 

Conti 291 


SECOND  VOLUME. 


IX 


Page 
Converdon  by  Pavilloii  ,  .  .  292 
Pavilion's    iSreatment   of    his 

Penitents 294 

Inefficacy  of  Mad.  de  Longne- 

yille's  Religious  Guides  .     .296 
MadUe.  de  Vertus     ....  297 

Mad.  de  Sable 298 

Takes  up  her  Residence  at  Port 

Royal 299 

Relation  to  the  Community     .  300 

Fear  of  Infection 302 

liOye  of  Eating 303 

Correspondence  with  Mad.  de 

LongueTille 304 

Singlin*8  Interriew  with  Mad. 

de  Longueville 305 

Her  general  Confession  .  .  .  306 
Exertions  for  Port  Royal  .  .  307 
La  Rochefoucauld's  later  Tears.  309 

His  Memoirs 310 

His  Maxims 813 

Had.  de  LongueviUe's  Children  317 
The  Comte  de  Dunois  .  .  .318 
The  Comte  de  St.  Paul  ...  320 

His  Death 321 

Mad.  de  Longueville's  final  Re- 
tirement     328 

Her  Death:  Conclusion  .    .    .324 

CHAP.   V. 

BACIHB. 

Bacine  and  Pascal  equally  Port 
Royalist,  but  in  a  different 

way 326 

Family  of  Racine 827 

Birth  of  Jean  Racine ;  early 

Education 328 

Close  Connection  with  the  So- 
litaries   329 

Studies  at  Port  Itoyal    ...  330 

Eariy  Verses 331 

**  La  Nymphe  de  la  Seine  "  .  332 
Beginning  of  Rebellion  •  •  .  333 
Journey  to  Languedoc  .  •  .  385 
Betam  to  Paris 338 


Page 
**  La  Renommee  aux  Muses  "  338 
Boileau;  early  Life  ....  3.S9 
Devotion  to  satiric  Poetry  .  .  340 
Racine's    Acquaintance    with 

Moli^re:  *♦  The  Thebaid  "    .  342 
English  and  French  Tragedy  .  343 

"Alexandre" 345 

Quarrel  with  Moli^re ....  346 
Letter  from  La  Mere  Racine  .  347 
Alienation  of  Racine  from  Port 

Royal 348 

Controversy  with  Nicole      .     .  349 

•*  Audromaqne  " 351 

*•  Les  Plaideurs  " 352 

"  Britannicus  " 353 

"Berenice" 354 

**  Bajazet  " 355 

Mad.   de  Sevigne  on   Racine 

and  Corneille 356 

La  Champmele 357 

**Mithridate'* 358 

"Iphigenie" 359 

"Ph^dre" 361 

Pj-adon's"PhMre"  .  .  .  .  362 
Boileau*s  Epistle  to  Racine  .  363 
Boileau's   Friendship  for  Ar- 

nauld 364 

The  "  Arrdt  Burlesque  "  .  .  864 
Racine's  Retirement  from  the 

Theatre 366 

His  Marriage 867 

Reconciliation  with  Nicole  and 

Arnauld 368 

Historiographer 369 

Adulation  of  the  King    .    .    .371 

Explanation  of  it 373 

Racine  and  Boilean  at  Court  .  875 
Boileau  a  MoHno-Jansenist.  .  377 
Racine  Qentleman-in-Ordinary 

to  the  King 379 

His  Happiness  at  Home  .  .  .  380 
Mad.  de   Maintenon  and  St 

Cyr 382 

••Esther" 383 

••Athalie" 385 

Minor  Poems 387 


CONTENTS  OP  THE 


Page 
«*  Abreg4  de  rHistoire  de  Port 

Royal" 388 

Alienation  of  the  King  .  .  .  389 
Letter  to  Mad.  de  Maintenon  .  891 
Last  Illness 393 


Death;  Will;  Borial . 
Last  Years  of  BoUean 

Death 

Character  of  Bacine  . 
OfBoileaa  .    .    .    • 


Page 

.  394 
.  395 
.  396 
.  397 
.  399 


BOOK    IV. 


FROM  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  THE   FINAL  DESTRUCTION  OF 
PORT   ROYAL. 


CHAP.  L 
THB  LAST  TBAR8  OF  PROSPERITT. 

Page 

Introdaction 403 

Simon,  Marqnis  de  Pomponne  404 
Disgrace  and  Recall  ....  405 
Death  and  Character.  ...  406 
D'Andilly's  Interview  with  the 

King 408 

Returns  to  Port  Rojal  and  dies  409 

Mad.  de  S^vign^ 410 

Renaad  de  Sevign6  .  .  .  .411 
DucandDuchessedeLimnoonrt  412 
M.  de  Pontch&teaa  ....  416 
First    Connection  with    Port 

Royal 417 

Pinal  Retirement 418 

Austerities 419 

Death 421 

Alleged  Miracles 422 

Hamon :  Physician  and  Mystic  423 
Origin  of  Mysticism  in  personal 

Character 424 

Hamon's  Retirement  to  Port 

Royal 426 

Physician  of  the  Solitaries  .    .  427 

Method  of  Life 428 

Shares  the  Imprisonment  of  the 

Nunr 429 

Treatises  written  for  their  Edi- 
fication • 430 


Page 
Other  Treatises  of  Piety  .  .  432 
Commentary  on  the  Song  of 

Solomon 433 

Last  Years 434 

Claude  de  Ste.  Marthe   ...  435 


CHAP.  n. 

THB   FINAL  PEB8BCCTI0K. 

Instability  of  the  Peace  .  .  .437 
Harlay,  Archbishop  of  Paris  .  438 
Dispute  at  Angers  ....  439 
The  Bishops'  Letter  to  the  Pope  440 
Amanld  and  the  Regale  .  .441 
Amauld  required  to  leave  Paris  443 

Flight  to  Mons 444 

Harlay  at  Port  Royal     ...  445 
Boarders  and  Confessors   ex- 
pelled   446 

New  Confessors  ,  .  .  •  .  448 
Le  Moine:  Le  Tonmeax    .     .  449 

Eustace 451 

Death  of  DeSagi 452 

Burial 453 

Deaths  of  Ang^lique  de  St  Jean 

and  of  De  Luzan^i ....  454 
Character  of  De  Sa^i ....  454 
De  Sa9i  and  the  Bible  ...  457 
The  New  Testament  of  Mons  .  459 
De  Sayi's  Biblo 462 


SECOND   VOLUME. 


XI 


Page 
Character  of  Angeliqae  de  St. 

Jean 463 

AbbesGes  da  Fargis  and  Ra- 
cine      466 

Fknitless   Application   to   the 

Archbishop 467 

Amanld's  exile 467 

Change  of  Beadence  ....  470 
Arrest  of  his  French  Corre- 
spondents  472 

Incessant  literary  Actirity  .    .  474 
Attitude  towards  the  Protest- 
ants     475 

Last  Tears  and  Death    ...  477 

Burial:  Epitaphs 478 

Character 479 

Death  of  Harlaj 484 

De  Noailles,  Archbishop     .     .  484 
Attack  made  bj  Fort  Royal  de 

Paris 486 

La  Belle  Hamilton     ....  487 


Pig© 

Mar6chal*s  yisit 488 

The  Case  of  Conscience  .  .  .  490 
The  Bull  Vineam  Domini  .  .491 
Seizure  of  Quesnel's  Papers  .  492 
Ball  read  and  received  at  Port 

Rojal 494 

Death  of  the  hist  Abbess    .     .  495 

Seqaestration 496 

Appeal  and  Remonstrance  .  .497 
Balls  for  the  Destruction  of  Port 

Rojal 498 

Le  Tellier,  Royal  Confessor  .  499 
Pablic  Sympathy:  Madlle.  de 

Joncoux 500 

Forcible  Dispersion  ...  502 
Indignation  at  Paris  ....  504 
Imprisonment  of  the  Nans  .  .  505 
Order   for  the  Demolition  of 

the  Baildings. 507 

Exhamation 508 

Epilogue 510 


BOOK  III. 

PORT  ROYAL  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 
AND  SOCIETY. 


Toi.  n. 


BLAISE  AND  JACQUELINE  PASCAL. 

The  name  which  Port  Eoyal  most  confidently  offers  to  the 
admiration  of. the  world  is  indisputably  that  of  Blaise 
Pascal.  The  glory  of  Racine  was  gained  in  an  arena  to 
which  Port  Royal  would  willingly  have  barred  his  entrance. 
St  Cyran,  Singlin,  Nicole,  even  Arnauld,  are  so  completely 
identified  with  a  peculiar  church  party,  and  an  unpopular 
theology,  as  to  be  known  only  to  students  of  ecclesiastical 
history.  They  belong  to  Catholicism  and  Port  Royal ;  Pascal 
to  religion  and  the  world.  His  brilliant  achievements  in 
mathematical  and  physical  science  have  given  him  a  high 
place  among  discoverers:  his  "  Provincial  Letters"  mark 
an  epoch  of  the  French  language,  and  are  still  a  model  of 
style:  his  "Thoughts"  are  a  contribution  to  Christian 
evidence,  much  pondered  by  other  than  Jansenist  theolo- 
gians. And  yet  he  is  Port  Royalist  at  every  point,  and  a 
critic  ignorant  of  Port  Royal  must  fail  to  understand  him. 
His  glory  is  reflected  upon  the  community;  and  it,  in 
return,  has  to  answer  more  than  one  heavy  accusation, 
brought  by  his  modem  admirers.  The  mathematicians 
complain  that  powers,  which  promised  to  add  much  to  the 
positive  knowledge  of  mankind,  were  wasted  in  the  dreams 
of  a  gloomy  and  suicidal  austerity ;  the  students  of  litera- 
ture, that  a  garbled  copy  of  the  "Thoughts"  was  deliberately 
suffered  to  misrepresent  to  posterity  the  mind  of  the 
master.     Before  long  we  shall  have  to  inquire  whether  it 

B  2 


-^-      ^ 


4  PORT  ROYAL. 

is  possible  to  give  a  fiill  answer  to  these  charges :  now  it  is 
sufficient  to  reply,  that  the  world  owes  the  "  Provincial 
Letters"  to  the  danger,  the  "Thoughts  ^  to  the  deliverance 
of  Port  Royal ;  and  that  every  religious  thought  which 
Pascal  has  left,  is  intertwined  with  the  theology  which  St. 
Cjrran  imposed  upon  the  community. 

The  time  has  only  now  arrived,   at  which  the  life  of 
Pascal  could  be  written.     Men  have  long  had  in  their 
hands  the  simple  and  touching  biography  which  his  elder 
sister,  Madame  P^rier,  wrote  soon  after  his  death,  but  which 
was  not  published  till  1684.     Even  then,  however,  all  that 
related  to  Pascal's  share  in  the  debate  of  the  Formulaiy 
was  carefully  suppressed,  as  likely  to  aggravate  the  persecu- 
tion  already  recommenced  against  Port  Royal.*     These 
omissions   were  partly    repaired   in  a  memoir,    entitled 
'^M^moire  sur  la  Vie  de  M.  Paschal,  contenant  aussi  quel- 
ques  particularit^s  de  celle  de  ses  parens," — contained  in 
the  **  Recueil  de  plusieurs  Pi^es  pour  servir  k  I'Histoire  de 
Port  Royal,"  published  at  Utrecht  in  1740.     This  memoir 
was  founded  upon  papers  left  behind  her  by  Marguerite 
P^rier,  the  subject  of  the  famous  miracle,  who,  surviving 
her  cure  by  nearly  eighty  years,  was  the  last  depositary  of 
the  traditions  of  the  palmy  days  of  Port  Royal.     At  this 
point  research   into  the   life  of  Pascal   stood  stUl  for  a 
century.     The  "  Thoughts  "  were  reprinted  again  and  again ; 
now  annotated  by  Voltaire,  now  by  Condorcet :  and  scattered 
sayings  or  fragments  of  Pascal's  composition  were  added 
one  by  one.     A  complete  edition  of  all  his  works  was  pub- 
lished in  1779,  and  reprinted  in  1819.     It  was  reserved  for 
our  own  generation  to  discover  that  the  current  copies  of 
the  "  Thoughts  "  differed  widely  from  the  still  extant  manu- 
script, and  that  the  world  had  mistaken  for  the  genuine 

^  Hayet,  Penseet,  Notei  snr  U  Vie  de  Pascal,  p.  1.    Recaeil  d17treeht, 
p.  350. 


■^^^wr  ■  — ^^w^wi— 1 


BLAISE   PASCAL. 


utterance  of  Pascal,  the  emasculated  work  of  his  editors. 
M.  Victor  Cousin  has  the  merit  of  the  discovery,  but  other 
labourers   have   eagerly   pressed   in   at    the  gate    which 
he  opened.     M.  Prosper  Faug^re,  M.  Ernest  Havet,  and 
M.  Louandre  have  all  published  genuine  editions  of  the 
**  Thoughts,"  each  arranged  after  a  fashion  of  its  own.     At 
the  same  time,  the  new  interest  thus  awakened  in  Pascal's 
works  has  not  failed  to  embrace  also  his  life.     The  manu- 
script stores  of  the  Imperial  and  of  many  private  Jansenist 
libraries  have  been  ransacked.    Every  word  that  could  pos- 
sibly throw  any  light  upon  the  history  of  the  Pascal  family 
has  been  emulously  printed  by  M.  Cousin  and  M.  Faug^re. 
The  papers  of  Marguerite  P^rier,  upon  which  the  memoir 
of  1740  was  founded,  are  edited  by  each;  and  each  has 
devoted  a  volume  to  the  letters,  the  poems,  the  character 
of  Jacqueline  Pascal,  the  subprioress  of  Port  Boyal.     Vol- 
taire held  Pascal  up  to  ridicule  as  a  fanatic ;  M.  Cousin 
has  discovered  that  he  was  a  sceptic ;  and  the  Abb^  May- 
nard,  who  has  since  published  a  refutation  of  the  "Provincial 
Letters,"  employs  two  goodly  volumes  in  proving  that  Pascal 
was  neither  fanatic  nor  sceptic,  but  a  devout  son  of  the 
Church.     Protestant  critics  have  not  abstained  from  the 
fray;   and  M.  Vinet  has  left  behind   him   a   volume    of 
eloquent  essays,  one  object  of  which  seems  to  be  to  show 
that  at  heart  Pascal  was  hardly  a  Catholic  at  all.     Now, 
for  the  first  time,  all  the  necessary  materials  are  at  the 
command  of  the  biographer ;  and  the  critic  who  goes  astray 
in  estimating  Pascal's  philosophical  position,  will  at  least 
not  wander  for  lack  of  guidance. 

The  Pascal,  like  the  Amauld  family,  belonged  to  Au- 
vergne,  and  although  it  boasted  a  patent  of  nobility, 
conferred  by  Louis  XL,  was  of  parliamentaiy  rather  than 
of  noble  condition.  Etienne,  the  fia.ther  of  Blaise  Pascal, 
was  the  son  of  Martin  Pascal,  treasurer  of  France,  and  of 
Marguerite,  daughter  of  M.  Pascal  de  Mons,  seneschal  of 

B  3 


(j  PORT  ROYAL. 

Clermont.  He  was  educated  for  the  legal  profession,  and 
had  become  second  president  of  the  Comii  of  Aids  at 
Clermont,  when  he  married,  in  1618,  Antoinette  Begon. 
By  her  he  had  three  children,  who  survived  to  man's 
estate;  Gilbeite,  bom  in  1620;  Blaise,  in  1623;  and 
Jacqueline,  in  1625.  The  eldest  daughter  married,  in 
1641,  her  cousin  Florin  Perier ;  and  was  mother  of  Etienne, 
Louis,  Blaise,  Marguerite  and  Jacqueline  Perier,  all  of 
whom  maintained  a  close  connection  with  the  second 
generation  of  Port  Boyal.* 

Blaise  Pascal  was  born  at  Clermont,  on  the  19th  of 
June,  1623;  his  sister  Jacqueline  on  the  4th  of  October, 
1625.  In  the  following  year  their  mother  died;  and  the 
father,  a  man  of  considerable  scientific  acquirement  and 
a  serious  turn  of  mind,  began  to  deliberate  upon  the  pro- 
priety of  entirely  devoting  himself  to  the  education  of  his 
son,  who  showed  signs  of  ability  beyond  his  years.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  1631,  he  sold  his  office  at  Clermont  to  his 
brother,  and  removed  with  his  family  to  Paris,  where  he 
invested  the  greater  part  of  his  property  in  bonds  upon  the 
Hotel  de  Ville.  His  house  became  the  resort  of  the  first 
mathematicians  of  the  day,  Mersenne,  Le  Pailleur,Eoberval, 
Carcavi ;  and  the  little  society,  thus  drawn  together,  was 
the  niicleus  of  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences,  first  in- 
corporated in  1666. 

Etienne  Pascal  was  proud  of  his  children,  especially  of 
his  son;  and  would  entrust  their  education  to  no  less 
careful  hands  than  his  own.  He  would  keep  them,  he  said, 
"  above  their  work,"  and  so  did  not  teach  Blaise  Latin  till 
he  was  twelve  years  old.  But  in  the  meantime  the  child's 
mind  was  being  conducted  through  a  kind  of  gymnastic 
training ;  he  acquired  general  notions  of  grammar,  and  of 
the  relations  of  languages  to  each  other,  and  was  encouraged 

*  Marg.  Perier,  ap.  Faug^re,  Jacq.  Pascal,  p.  418. 


EARLY  PROMISE.  7 

to  observe  and  investigate  natural  phenomena.  Wliile 
still  a  child^  says  his  sister,  his  attention  was  drawn  to 
the  sound  produced  by  striking  a  porcelain  plate  with  a 
knife,  and  to  the  fact  of  its  cessation  as  soon  as  the  plate 
was  touched  by  the  hand.  From  this  he  proceeded  to 
make  other  acoustic  observations,  the  result  of  which  was  a 
little  treatise  on  sound,  written  when  he  was  only  twelve 
years  old,  yet  not  deficient  in  power  of  reajsoning  or  ac- 
curacy of  statement. 

The  story  of  Pascal's  early  proficiency  in  mathematical 
knowledge  is  well  known.  His  father,  perhaps  perceiving 
the  bent  of  the  boy's  powers,  refused  to  give  him  any 
mathematical  instruction,  that  he  might  not  be  prevented 
by  it  from  making  due  progress  in  the  study  of  languages. 
Again  and  again  Blaise  vainly  begged  for  lessons  in  geo- 
metry ;  he  was  told  that  he  should  be  taught  as  the  reward 
of  success  in  Latin  and  Greek.  The  mathematical  books, 
which  no  doubt  abounded  in  Etienne  Pascal's  house,  were 
locked  up ;  and  when  the  mathematical  friends  came,  the 
child  was  sent  out  of  the  way.  But  I  will  continue  in 
Madame  Perier's  own  words :  — 

"  My  brother,  seeing  this  resistance,  asked  him  one  day 
what  this  science  was,  and  what  it  treated  of ;  my  father  told 
him>  in  general  terms,  that  it  was  the  way  to  make  correct 
figures,  and  to  find  the  proportions  which  they  bear  to  each 
other,  and  at  the  same  time  forbade  him  to  speak  of  it 
^ain,  or  to  think  of  it  any  more.  But  his  mind  could  not 
remain  within  these  limits,  after  it  had  had  these  simple 
means  of  escape, —  that  mathematics,  namely,  is  the  way  to 
make  figures  infallibly  correct :  he  began  to  meditate  upon 
it  in  his  play  hours ;  and,  being  alone  in  a  room  where  he 
was  accustomed  to  amuse  himself,  took  a  piece  of  char- 
coal and  drew  figures  upon  the  boards,  trying  how  to  make, 
for  example,  a  circle  which  should  be  perfectly  round,  a 
triangle  whose  aides  and  angles  should  be  equal,  and  other 

B  4 


8  PORT  ROYAL. 

such  things.  All  this  he  discovered  by  himself^  and  after- 
wards investigated  the  relative  properties  of  figures.  But 
as  my  father's  care  to  hide  all^  these  things  from  him  had 
been  so  great,  he  did  not  know  even  their  names.  He  was 
obliged  to  make  definitions  for  himself:  he  called  a  circle 
a  round,  a  line  a  bar,  and  so  on  with  the  rest.  After 
these  definitions  he  made  axioms,  and,  at  last,  perfect  de- 
monstrations ;  and,  as  in  these  matters  one  thing  follows 
upon  another,  he  pushed  his  researches  so  far,  that  he 
came  to  Proposition  xxxii.  of  the  First  Book  of  Euclid. 
As  he  was  engaged  upon  this,  my  father  came  into  the 
room  where  he  was,  without  my  brother's  hearing  him,  and 
found  him  so  engrossed  that  it  was  long  before  he  perceived 
his  approach.  It  is  impossible  to  say  which  was  the  more 
surprised ;  the  son  to  see  his  father,  on  accoimt  of  the  ex- 
press prohibition  which  he  had  given,  or  the  father  to  see 
his  son  in  the  midst  of  all  these  things.  But  the  wonder  of 
the  father  was  much  greater  when,  having  asked  him  what 
he  was  doing,  he  replied  that  he  was  trying  to  find  out 
the  theorem  which  forms  Proposition  xxxii.  of  the  First 
Book  of  Euclid.  My  father  asked  him  what  had  made 
him  think  of  investigating  that ;  he  said,  that  it  was  because 
he  had  found  out  such  another  thing ;  upon  which,  the  same 
question  being  repeated,  he  told  him  other  demonstrations 
which  he  had  made;  and,  finally,  still  going  backwards, 
and  always  explaining  himself  by  help  of  his  terms  *  round ' 
and  ^  bar,'  he  came  to  his  definitions  and  his  axioms. 

"  My  father  was  so  amazed  at  the  grandeur  and  power  of 
this  genius,  that  he  left  him  without  saying  a  word ;  and 
went  to  the  house  of  M.  Le  Pailleur,  who  was  his  intimate 
friend,  and  also  very  learned.  When  he  arrived  there  he 
stood  motionless,  like  a  man  out  of  his  mind.  M.  Le 
Pailleur,  seeing  tl^is,  and  noticing  that  he  was  shedding 
tears,  was  shocked,  and  begged  him  not  to  delay  the  com- 
munication of  the  cause  of  his  trouble.   My  father  answered, 


JACQUELINE   PASCAL.  9 

^  I  do  not  weep  for  sorrow,  but  for  joy.  You  know  the 
pains  I  have  taken  to  keep  my  son  from  any  knowledge  of 
geometry,  lest  it  should  divert  him  from  his  other  studies ; 
nevertheless,  see  what  he  has  done!'  Upon  that,  he 
showed  him  all  that  he  had  discovered  ;  how,  so  to  speak, 
the  child  had  invented  mathematics.  M.  Le  Pailleur  was 
not  less  surprised  than  my  father  had  been,  and  told  him 
that  he  did  not  think  it  right  to  keep  such  a  mind  captive 
any  longer,  or  to  hide  this  knowledge  from  it,  and  that, 
without  holding  him  back  any  more,  he  must  let  him  see 
books.*'  * 

Acting  on  this  advice,  Etienne  Pascal  gave  his  son 
Euclid's  "  Elements,"  as  a  book  for  his  hours  of  recreation ; 
still  exacting  from  him  an  exclusive  devotion  of  his  hours 
of  study  to  other  pursuits.  He  soon  read  them  through, 
and  understood  them  without  explanation.  Before  long  he 
became  fit,  by  help,  we  are  to  suppose,  of  other  mathema- 
tical books,  to  take  his  place  in  the  little  society  of  which  his 
father  was  a  member ;  and  no  one,  we  are  told,  was  more 
fertile  than  he  in  the  production  of  new  problems,  or  more 
ingenious  in  the  criticism  of  those  offered  by  others.  At 
the  age  of  sixteen  he  composed  a  treatise  on  conic  sections, 
which,  though  not  printed,  was  pronounced  by  competent 
judges  to  deserve  that  honour.  Des  Cartes,  to  whom  a 
copy  was  sent,  paid  it  the  compliment  of  disbelieving  that 
it  could  possibly  be  the  production  of  its  alleged  author.f 

Meanwhile,  the  little  Jacqueline,  two  years  younger  than 
her  brother,  was  displaying  signs  of  almost  equal  precocity. 
Sisterly  partiality  paints  her  childhood  in  the  brightest 
colours;  she  was  beautiful,  sprightly,  sweet-tempered, 
aimiversal  plaything  and  favourite.  At  seven  years  old 
she  began  to  learn  to  read.     For  a  time  the  work  went  on 

•  Mad.  Perier,  ap.  Faugi^re,  J.  P.  p.  5. 

t  Baillet,  Tie  de  Des  Cartes,  lib.  t.  ch.  y.  p.  39,  quoted  hj  Majnard,  toL 
L  p.  169. 


10  PORT  ROYAL. 

slowly ;  her  attention  could  not  be  held  down  to  the  dull 
lesson,  till,  one  day  hearing  her  sister  read  poetry,  she  cried, 
'  If  you  want  to  teach  me  to  read,  make  me  read  in  some 
book  of  verse ;  I  will  say  my  lessons  as  often  as  you  please.' 
Henceforward  all  her  talk  was  of  verse;  she  committed 
many  poems  to  memory,  and  at  eight  years  old  began  to 
write  poetry  of  her  own.  At  eleven,  she  is  said,  with  the 
help  of  two  companions,  daughters  of  M.  Saintot,  treasurer 
of  France,  to  have  composed  a  regular  comedy  in  five  acts, 
duly  divided  into  scenes,  and  conformed  to  the  dramatic 
rules  of  the  day.  The  play  was  twice  represented  by  the 
young  authors  and  their  friends,  in  presence  of  a  large 
audience,  and  furnished  matter  of  conversation  to  the 
fashionable  circles  of  Paris. 

The  pregnancy  of  Anne  of  Austria  in  1638  afforded 
Jacqueline  Pascal  the  opportunity  for  one  of  those  frigid 
conceits,  which,  by  a  great  stretch  of  French  courtesy,  are 
called  epigrams.  **  The  invincible  child  of  an  invincible 
father "  had  moved  in  his  mother's  womb,  and  therefore 
"  is  already  more  powerful  than  the  Grod  of  War.  For 
before  his  eyes  have  ever  seen  the  firmament,  his  slightest 
motion  is  an  earthquake  to  the  enemies  of  France."  This, 
with  a  sonnet  on  the  same  subject,  was  thought  sufficient 
to  wairant  the  presentation  of  the  young  poetess  to  the 
Queen.  She  was  taken  to  St.  Germains  by  Madame  de 
Morangis,  a  friend  of  the  Pascal  family,  and  introduced 
into  the  royal  ante-room,  where  Mademoiselle,  Madame  de 
Hautefort,  and  other  ladies  were  waiting  for  the  Queen,  who 
was  busy  in  the  adjoining  boudoir.  The  gay  circle  crowded 
round  the  child ;  read  and  praised  her  rhymes.  "  If  you 
are  so  clever  at  making  verses,"  said  Mademoiselle,  '*  make 
some  for  me."  The  little  one  retired  soberly  into  a  corner 
and  soon  produced  the  required  stanza.  Madame  de 
Hautefort  had  laid  the  same  command  upon  her,  with  the 
same  result,  when  the  Queen  sent  for  Jacqueline  and  her 


o 


JACQUELINE   PASCAL.  11 

guide.  The  royal  incredulity  as  to  the  verses  which  had 
formed  the  pretext  for  the  visit  was  removed  by  the  pro- 
duction of  the  two  impromptu  stanzas,  and  for  the  day 
the  child  was  the  plaything  of  the  court.  Her  sister  relates, 
with  not  unnatural  pride,  that  at  the  Queen's  private  repast 
Jacqueline  shared  with  Mademoiselle  the  honour  of  attend- 
ing to  the  royal  wants.  The  verses  of  this  memorable  day 
were  printed  in  1638  under  the  title  of  "  Vers  de  la  petite 
Pascal,"  and  dedicated  to  Anne  of  Austria  in  a  prose  letter 
written  by  Jacqueline  herself.  How  strange  the  contrast 
between  this  brief  sunshine  of  court  favour,  and  the  heart 
so  soon  broken  by  the  troubles  of  Port  Royal  !* 

About  the  same  time  Etienne  Pascal  was  unlucky  enough 
to  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  all-powerful  Cardinal.  He 
had  invested  the  savings  of  his  life  in  bonds  upon  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  at  Paris ;  and  the  government  had  arbitrarily 
curtailed  the  interest,  and  so  lessened  the  value  of  the  pro- 
perty. Etienne  Pascal  encountered  one  day  some  of  his 
feUow-sufiferers  at  the  house  of  the  Chancellor  Seguier ; 
hard  words  were  uttered,  as  often  by  men  who  compare 
their  wrongs ;  and  Gilberte  Pascal  hints  that  words  were 
not  imaccompanied  by  acts  of  violence.  The  Cardinal 
dealt  summarily — as  was  his  wont — with  such  symp- 
toms of  disaffection ;  the  principal  offenders  were  thrown 
into  the  Bastille,  and  Etienne  Pascal,  though  innocent, 
was  obliged  to  hide  himself  in  the  houses  of  various  friends. 
Jacqueline,  who,  in  spite  of  her  poetical  precocity,  was  yet  a 
child  in  all  her  ways,  and  exercised  over  the  whole  household 
the  sweet  fascination  of  its  youngest  member,  was  the  chief 
consolation  of  his  tedious  concealment.  But  in  September 
of  the  same  year  she  was  seized  at  her  father's  house  with 
the  small-pox,  and  lay  in  extreme  danger.  It  is  a  pleasing 
proof  of  the  affection  which  boimd  together  this  remark- 

•  Mad.  Pericr,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  pp.  54—57.    V.  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  61. 


12  PORT  BOYAL. 

able  family,  that  Etienne  Pascal  forgot  his  own  risk  in  that 
of  his  motherless  daughter ;  he  hastened  to  her  bedside, 
and  did  not  leave  it,  even  to  take  necessary  repose,  till  her 
safety  was  ajssured.  But  returning  health  did  not  bring 
returning  beauty :  the  disease  left  behind  it  only  too  visible 
marks  of  its  power.  Jacqueline,  unable  to  mingle  with  the 
gay  world  of  Paris — always  ready  to  caress  her — passed 
the  winter  contentedly  with  her  childish  playthings,  and 
thanked  God  for  His  mercies  in  a  poem,  which,  both  in  its 
construction  and  in  the  sober  piety  which  it  breathes,  is 
far  beyond  her  years.* 

In  February  1639,  the  Cardinal  took  a  fancy  to  see  a 
comedy  represented  by  child  actors,  and  placed  the  neces- 
sary arrangements  in  the  hands  of  his  niece,  the  Duchesse 
d'Aiguillon.  We  are  to  suppose  that  the  remembrance  of 
Jacqueline's  former  success  had  not  passed  away;  for 
Madame  d'Aiguillon  sent  to  ask  for  her  services  and  for 
those  of  her  friend.  Mademoiselle  Saintot.  "  M.  le  Car- 
dinal does  not  give  us  pleasure  enough,  for  us  to  take 
any  pains  to  please  him,"  was  Gilberte  Pascal's  proud  reply 
to  a  request  which,  in  most  Parisian  households,  would 
have  been  taken  as  a  command.  Madame  d'Aiguillon, 
who  always  appears  in  the  stories  of  the  period  as  a  kind- 
hearted  woman,  did  not  take  offence,  but  pointed  out  to 
Mademoiselle  Pascal  that  her  compliance  might  be  turned 
to  her  father's  advantage ;  and  promised  all  her  own  in- 
fluence with  her  uncle.  After  some  consultation  with 
the  friends  of  the  family  Gilberte  yielded,  and  Jacqueline 
studied  her  part  in  Scudery's  long-forgotten  play  "  L'Amoiu- 
Tyrannique."  The  3rd  of  April,  1639,  was  the  important 
day.  A  fashionable  crowd  assembled  at  the  Hotel  Eiche- 
lieu ;  and  the  Cardinal's  mind  had  been  carefully  disabused 
of  his  prejudices  against  M.  Pascal.     The  play  succeeded 

♦  V.  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  70. 


JACQUELINE  PASCAL.  13 

beyond  expectation :  the  little  actress  of  thirteen  was  the 
heroine  of  the  night.  No  sooner  was  the  representation 
over,  than  she  left  the  stage,  intending  to  speak  to  her 
patroness,  Madame  d'Aiguillon ;  but  seeing  the  Cardinal 
turn  away,  feared  to  lose  the  occasion,  and  ventured  to 
accost  him  without  introduction.  He  sat  down  again, 
took  her  on  his  knee,  and  seeing  that  she  wept,  caressingly 
asked  her  the  reason.  She  faltered  out  a  complimentary 
address  in  verse,  which  she  had  herself  written,  asking 
pardon  for  her  father:  Madame  d'Aiguillon  supported, 
and  Kichelieu  good-naturedly  granted,  the  petition.  In  a 
letter  dated  the  next  day,  which  is  still  extant,  Jacque- 
line had  the  happiness  of  assuring  her  father  that  he  might 
safely  return.  She  naively  recounts  the  compliments  and 
caresses  which  had  been  lavished  upon  her,  and  does  not 
forget  the  comfits  and  dried  fruits  with  which  the  little 
performers  were  regaled.  Her  brother's  mathematical 
talents  had  not  been  passed  over ;  the  Cardinal  was  anxious 
to  become  better  acquainted  with  the  whole  family.  On 
his  return,  therefore,  Etienne  Pascal  hastened  to  thank 
Richelieu,  and  took  his  three  children  with  him.  The 
Cardinal  was  all  affability :  the  talk  was  no  more  of  the 
Bastille,  but  of  employment  and  promotion ;  he  was  ravish- 
ed to  restore  M.  Pascal  to  a  family  which  so  urgently 
required  all  his  attention ;  and  he  recommended  the  chil- 
dren to  his  care,  for  he  hoped  himself  one  day  to  make 
them  something  great  Richelieu  was  nearer  the  end  of 
his  course  than  perhaps  he  thought,  when  he  made  these 
courtly  speeches.  But  they  remind  us  of  his  offers  to  St 
Cyran,  of  his  visit  to  Antoine  Amauld ;  and  are  another 
proof  that  he  possessed  one  characteristic  of  greatness,  the 
&culty  of  seeing  greatness  in  others.* 


*  Mad.  P^rier,  ap.  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  34.    Marg.  Perier,  ibid.  p.  55.    Let- 
treg  de  Jacq.  Pascal,  ibid.  p.  72. 


14  PORT  ROYAL. 

Not  long  after  this  interview,  Etienne  Pascal  was  ap- 
pointed Intendant  of  Normandy.  The  province  was  greatly 
disturbed ;  not  only  were  all  the  concerns  of  the  revenue 
in  disorder,  but  government  oflBces  had  been  plundered, 
and  tax-gatherers  murdered.  The  parliament  of  Bouen 
was  interdicted  from  th«  performance  of  its  functions, 
and  the  administration  of  justice  entrusted  to  officers  sent 
from  Paris.  To  remedy  such  a  condition  of  things 
Richelieu  employed  both  the  military  and  the  civil  power 
of  the  state ;  Marshal  de  Grassier  was  ordered  to  march 
troops  into  the  province,  and  M.  de  Paris  sent  with  him 
as  intendant  of  the  army.  The  other  intendant,  Etienne 
Pascal,  was  especially  charged  with  the  reform  and  collec- 
tion of  the  revenue.  He  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office 
with  great  success,  for  several  years  after  the  death  of  his 
patron,  and  was  recalled  only  when,  in  1648,  the  parliament 
of  Paris  took  advantage  of  the  Fronde  to  demand  the 
removal  of  all  provincial  intendants.* 

The  residence  of  Etienne  Pascal  in  Bouen  was  the  occa- 
sion of  a  new  literary  triumph  for  his  daughter,  the  more 
interesting  as  it  brings  her  into  friendly  relations  with  one 
of  the  greatest  of  French  poets,  Pierre  Comeille.  Corneille 
was  a  native  of  Rouen,  and  had  now  retired  thither  to 
avoid  the  acknowledged  animosity  of  the  great  Cardinal. 
His  powers  and  his  reputation  were  alike  at  their  highest ; 
he  had  produced  the  "Cid"  in  1636, "  Cinna"  in  1639 ;  "  Les 
Horaces"  is  about  to  follow  in  1641,  "Polyeucte"  in  1643. 
The  competitors  with  whom  he  strove  for  public  favour 
were  contemptible,  and  the  world  only  laughed  when 
Bichelieu  avowed  his  preference  of  **  L' Amour  Tyranniqiie  " 
over  the  "  Cid."  Eacine  was  born  in  the  very  year  in  which 
•Etienne  Pascal  came  to  Bouen ;  and  the  days  in  which 
Corneille  saw  his  senile  efforts  rejected  by  the  players  are 

*  Marg.  Perier,  ap.  Cousin,  itadea  sor  Pascal,  p.  313. 


"S 


PAUNODS  DE   ROUEN.  15 

yet  far  distant.  We  do  not  know  whether  any  old  tie  of 
friendship  united  Comeilie  with  the  family  of  Pascal; 
literaturey  and  the  fact  that  both  belonged  to  the  par- 
liamentary society  of  Bouen,  are  sufficient  to  account  for 
.  the  intimacy  which  certainly  existed.  Will  it  be  a  quite 
unwarranted  flight  of  imagination  to  suppose  that  the  poet, 
still  in  the  first  vigour  of  manhood,  and  eagerly  mounting, 
step  by  step,  the  ladder  of  fame,  may  have  come  sometimes 
to  the  house  of  M.  I'lntendant-Gr^n^ral,  and  read  to  the 
quick,  bright-eyed  girl,  or  the  thoughtful,  sickly  boy  whom 
he  found  there,  the  ringing  phrases  of  "  Les  Horaces,"  yet 
unheard  upon  the  boards  ?  It  is  at  least  easy  to  believe 
that  the  grave  piety  of  the  household  may  have  turned 
his  thoughts  to  the  display  of  Christian  heroism  in  the 
"Polyeucte." 

There  existed  at  Rouen  a  brotherhood  of  the  Conception 
of  the  Virgin,  founded  by  some  of  the  chief  inhabitants  of 
that  city  as  far  back  as  1072.  After  the  lapse  of  400 
years  a  poetical  competition  was  established  in  connexion 
with  it :  an  annual  assembly  was  held,  and  prizes  awarded 
to  compositions  in  various  forms  of  verse,  but  all  strictly  in 
accordance  with  fixed  rules,  and  devoted  to  the  single 
object  of  celebrating  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the 
Virgin.  The  whole,  from  the  restrictions  of  versification 
anciently  imposed  upon  the  competitors,  was  called,  "  Les 
Palinods  de  Bouen."  Comeilie  himself  had  won  a  prize  in 
1633,  and  now  proposed  to  Jacqueline  that  she  should 
enter  the  lists.  His  successful  poem,  rescued  from  a  not 
quite  undeserved  obscurity  by  M.  Faug^re  *,  is  a  compari- 
son between  Eve  and  Mary,  drawn  out  in  a  series  of  well- 
balanced  antitheses,  and  of  course  all  in  favour  of  the  latter. 
Who  can  resist  the  theological  conclusion  ?    If  Eve  was 

*  Jacq.  Paflcal,  preface,  p.  xiz. 


W  1 


16  PORT  HOYAL. 

fonned  without  taint  of  original  sin,  how  much  more  Mary  ? 
So  the  devout  poet  concludes : — 

"  Ce  que  Dieu  donne  bien  i  la  mdre  des  hommes 
Ke  le  refiuons  pas  i  la  mdre  de  Dien." 

Perhaps  a  special  method  of  treatment  was  prescribed  to 
the  poets  who  competed  at  Rouen ;  more  probably  Jacque- 
line modelled  her  eflFort  on  that  of  her  friend  and  adviser. 
Whichever  was  the  case,  the  poems  display  a  strong  family 
likeness.  But  the  object  of  comparison  is  now  the  ark  of 
the  covenant ;  and  the  point  of  the  stanzas — neither  better 
nor  worse  than  those  of  Corneille —  is : 

**8i  done  nne  arche  simple,  et  bien  moins  n^oeasairei 
Ne  saurait  habiter  dans  an  profane  lien ; 
Comment  penserez  Tons  que  cette  sainte  m^re, 
£tant  an  temple  impur,  fOit  le  temple  de  Dieu  ?  " 

The  prize  of  December  1640  was  adjudged  to  the  young 
poetess,  and  brought  to  her,  as  her  sister  narrates,  with 
sound  of  drum  and  trumpet  But  Corneille,  who  was 
present  at  the  adjudication,  stepped  into  the  place  of  her 
whom  he  gallantly  called  "  the  young  absent  muse,"  and 
thanked  the  presiding  judge  in  an  impromptu  stanza,  which 
is  as  good  as  impromptu  verses  usually  are.  Jacqueline 
appeared  in  the  following  year  with  a  poetical  offering  of 
thanks  more  carefully  composed,  and  so  ended  her  public 
career  as  a  muse.  Her  poems  were  henceforward  only  for 
her  family  and  her  intimate  friends,  and  in  our  own  day 
have  been  recovered  from  some  dusty  cabinet  of  MSS.  by 
the  zeal  of  those  who  affectionately  coUect  everything  that 
relates  to  the  household  of  Pascal.* 

Meanwhile  the  brother's  education  had  not  beenneglected. 
^^  During  all  this  time,"  says  Grilberte  Pascal,  speaking  of 
the  period  before  her  father's  removal  to  Rouen,  "  he  con- 

*  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  78.    Fang^re,  J.  P.  appendix,  p.  4S4. 


ABITHMETICAL  MACHINE.  17 

tinued  to  learn  Latin  and  Greek ;  and  besides  that,  during 
and  after  meals  my  tather  conversed  with  him,  sometimes 
on  logic,  sometimes  on  physics,  and  other  parts  of  philo- 
sophy ;  and  this  is  all  that  ever  he  learned,  never  having 
been  at  college  or  had  other  masters  for  these  things 
any  more  than  for  the  rest.  My  father  took  a  pleasure, 
which  may  very  easily  be  conceived,  in  the  great  progress 
which  my  brother  made  in  all  these  sciences ;  but  he  did 
not  discern  that  great  and  constant  application,  at  so  tender 
an  age,  might  seriously  aflfect  his  health  ;  and,  in  truth,  it 
began  to  be  weakened  from  his  eighteenth  year.  But  as 
the  inconveniences  which  he  experienced  were  not  yet  very 
great,  they  did  not  prevent  him  from  continuing  his  ordi- 
nary occupations;  so  that  it  was  at  this  time,  and  at  the  age 
of  eighteen,  that  he  invented  that  arithmetical  machine,  by 
which  not  only  are  all  kinds  of  calculations  made  without 
pen  and  without  counters,  but  without  a  knowledge  of  any 
rule  of  arithmetic,  and  yet  with  infallible  accuracy."  * 

This  famous  machine  is  said  to  have  owed  its  origin  to 
filial  piety.  The  finances  of  Normandy  were  in  great  con- 
fusion, and  Pascal  saw  with  pain  the  long  and  monotonous 
calculations  through  which  his  father  was  compelled  to 
struggle  in  the  attempt  to  reduce  them  to  order.  He  con- 
ceived, therefore,  the  idea  of  a  machine,  which,  by  the  simple 
turning  of  a  handle,  should  perform  all  the  elementary 
operations  of  arithmetic.  The  conception  was  a  new  one, 
and  seems  to  us,  accustomed  to  the  mechanical  wonders  of 
a  later  age,  to  have  excited  an  over-strained  admiration  in 
the  contemporaries  of  Pascal.  It  was  no  less  than  an  act  of 
creation,  they  said ;  an  inspiration  of  intellect  into  wheels 
of  wood  and  brass.  The  execution  was  harder  than  the  con- 
ception, for  it  cost  the  inventor  all  that  was  left  to  him  of 
youthful  health  and  vigour.     If,  as  his  sister  says,  the  idea 

♦  Mad.  Pericr,  ap.  FaagSre,  J.  P.  p.  9. 
VOL.  n.  C 


r^. 


18  PORT  ROYAL. 

occurred  to  him  in  his  eighteenth  year^  the  complete  realisa- 
tion of  it  occupied  eight  years  of  labour  and  anxiety.  He 
made  no  less  than  fifty  models  of  various  form  and  materials. 
He  had  to  contend  against  both  the  treachery  and  the 
stupidity  of  his  work-people.  At  one  time  he  gave  up  the 
project  in  disgust,  and  resumed  it  only  at  the  request  of  the 
Chancellor  Seguier,  to  whom,  in  1645,  he  dedicated  the  result 
of  his  labours.  At  last  in  1649,  he  obtained  a  royal  patent, 
which  protected  him  from  imperfect  imitations,  by  imposing 
a  fine  of  3000  livres  upon  the  vendor  of  any  instrument  not 
certified  as  genuine  by  himself.  In  1650,  he  sent  his 
machine  to  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden,  with  a  letter  in 
which  he  complimented  her  as  empress  of  the  realm  of 
science.  The  compliment  was  not  inapt  to  one  who,  though 
already  resolved  to  lay  aside  her  crown,  had  prevailed  upon 
Des  Cartes,  Grotius,  Salmasius,  Vossius,  Huet^  and  many 
other  strangers  of  less  illustrious  name,  to  adorn  her 
court  at  Stockholm. 

To  enter  upon  a  description  of  Pascal's  machine  would 
lead  us  too  far  from  our  main  purpose;  and  would  also,  in 
the  absence  of  diagrams,  be  a  difficult  and  thankless  task. 
We  have  no  certain  intelligence  of  its  fate.  Like  other 
arithmetical  machines,  it  appears  to  have  been  rather  a 
marvel  of  inventive  skill  than  a  source  of  practical  advan- 
tage; its  construction  was  complicated  and  easily  dis- 
arranged ;  and  its  powers  neither  great  nor  various.  It  was 
altered  and  improved  by  the  illustrious  hands  of  Leibnitz ; 
and  with  all  the  earlier  machines  upon  a  similar  principle, 
fell  into  disuse  as  logarithms  became  more  and  more  a  part 
of  general  mathematical  knowledge.  One  which  bears  the 
autograph  of  Pascal,  ^^Esto  probcUi  i/nstrumerUi  sigrvaculurri 
hoc,  Bladvs  Paschal,  ArvemuSy  1 652,"  was  long  preserved 
in  the  royal  library  at  Paris,  and  is  now  in  the  possession 
of  the  Conservatoire  des  Arts  et  Metiers.      M.  Prosper 


N 


THEORY  OF  THE  VACUUM.  19 

Faug^re  also  states  that  he  saw  three  at  Clermont,  Pascal's 
native  place.* 

It  has  been  a  subject  of  justifiable  regret  that  Pascal's 
inventive  skill  should  have  been  bestowed  upon  a  machine 
which  has  proved  of  little  real  benefit  to  mankind,  and  that 
so  many  years  of  his  short  life  should  have  added  nothing 
to  the  stock  of  human  knowledge.  While,  however,  he  was 
still  poring  over  his  machine,  his  attention  was  turned  to 
a  department  of  science,  where  his  eflfort  soon  yielded  a 
brilliant  result.  The  hydraulic  engineers  of  Cosmo  de 
Medicis,  Duke  of  Florence,  had  been  surprised  to  find  that 
a  pump  constructed  upon  the  common  principle,  would  not 
raise  water  to  a  greater  height  above  the  reservoirs  from 
which  it  was  drawn  than  thirty-two  feet.  The  received 
explanation  of  the  action  of  the  pump  was,  that  nature 
abhorred  a  vacuum ;  and  that  consequently,  as  fast  as  a 
vacuum  was  formed  by  the  elevation  of  the  piston,  the 
water  rushed  upwards  to  fill  it.  But  why  should  not  this  be 
the  case  at  any  height  ?  Gralileo  was  asked  to  solve  the 
mystery.  For  some  imknown  reason  he  did  not  seriously 
apply  himself  to  the  question,  but  reaflSrming  the  ancient 
principle,  asserted  that  it  had  its  limits  of  application,  and 
that  nature  did  not  abhor  a  vacuum  at  a  greater  height 
than  thirty-two  feet.  He  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have 
been  satisfied  with  his  own  reply;  for  he  is  said  to 
have  commended  the  difficulty  to  the  researches  of  his 
friend  and  pupil  Torricelli.  The  latter  at  once  perceived 
that  the  weight  of  the  water  was  an  element  in  the  problem, 
and  proceeded  to  try  the  experiment  with  some  other  liquid. 
He  found  that  a  column  of  mercury  twenty-eight  inches  in 
height,  stood  in  a  tube  inverted  in  a  reservoir  of  the  same 
fluid ;  and  as  the  specific  gravities  of  water  and  of  mercury 

*  Becneil  d'Utrecht,  p.  244.  Havet,  Notes  to  Vie  de  Pascal,  p.  xvii.  Fan- 
gere,  J.  F.  p.  9.  Majnard,  rol.  i.  p.  171.  GiuTres  de  Pascal,  ed.  Bossut, 
roL  ir.  pp.  7—50. 

c  2 


20  PORT  ROYAL. 

were  in  the  ratio  of  thirty-two  feet  to  twenty-eight  inches, 
concluded  that  the  columns  of  water  and  of  mercury,  of 
these  respective  heights,  exercised  an  equal  pressure  upon 
their  bases.  What  natural  force  was  it,  then,  which  counter- 
balanced each  of  these  columns  ?  Torricelli  had  received 
from  Gfalileo  the  truth,  that  the  air  was  a  fluid  of  a  certain 
weight,  and  now  applied  it  to  explain  the  new  phenomenon* 
In  1645,  he  publicly  announced  that  the  cause  of  the 
suspension  of  the  water  in  the  pump  at  the  height  of  thirty- 
two  feet,  of  the  mercury  in  the  tube  at  the  height  of 
twenty-eight  inches,  was  the  pressure  of  the  air  upon  the 
reservoir  from  which  each  fluid  was  drawn.  But  at  the 
same  time,  this  theory,  however  true,  was  in  Torricelli's 
hands  only  an  hypothesis ;  he  had  devised  and  executed  no 
experiments  to  test  it. 

He  died  in  1647,  and  his  theory  was  unable  to  make 
head  against  the  maxim  which,  strong  in  the  prescription  of 
centuries,  tyrannised  over  men's  minds  and  senses.  Some 
vapours  disengaging  themselves  from  the  water  or  the 
mercury,  some  "subtle  matter,"  generated  no  one  knew 
whence  or  how,  stood  in  the  apparently  empty  space  above 
the  liquid,  and  prevented  its  ascent.  Such  were  the  ideas 
which  satisfied  even  the  powerful  mind  of  Des  Cartes, 
when,  about  1646,  his  friend  and  correspondent,  P^re 
Mersenne,  brought  the  news  of  Torricelli's  experiments 
from  Italy  to  France.  From  him,  Pascal,  still  at  Eouen, 
heard  the  story;  and  in  conjunction  with  M.  Petit,  in- 
tendant  of  fortifications,  commenced  a  course  of  experi- 
ments. He  did  not  yet  know,  we  are  told,  the  explanation 
oflFered  by  Torricelli ;  but  had  been  led  by  an  independent 
course  of  thought,  to  doubt  the  principle  of  the  abhorrence 
of  a  vacuum.  He  tried  experiments  similar  to  those  of 
Torricelli,  under  every  variety  of  circumstance.  He  con- 
trived a  pipe  fifty  feet  in  height ;  but  the  water  showed  no 
more  alacrity  to  fill  a  great  void  than  a  small  one.     He 


\ 


IHE   PUT  DE   D6ME.  21 

satisfied  himself  by  repeated  observations  that  the  vacuum 
was  real,  and  not  apparent  only;  and  found  that  the 
supposed  "matter''  was  so  subtle  as  to  escape  the  action 
both  of  the  senses,  and  of  all  scientific  tests  then  known. 
Accordingly  in  1647  he  published,  as  an  earnest  of  a 
greater  work  on  the  same  subject^  a  little  book  entitled 
*' Experiences  Nouvelles  touchant  le  Vide,"  in  which  he 
maintained  the  reality  of  the  vacuum  formed  under  the 
circumstances  above  described. 

In  order,  however,  to  place  the  question  beyond  the 
possibility  of  doubt,  some  crucial  experiment  was  still 
wanting ;  and  the  happy  thought  occurred  to  Pascal,  that 
if  the  height  of  the  water  in  the  pump,  or  of  the  mercury  in 
the  barometrical  tube,  depended  upon  the  pressure  of  an 
atmospherical  column,  it  would  necessarily  vary  with  any 
variation  in  the  weight  of  that  column.  The  diflSculty 
was  to  contrive  an  experiment  in  which  the  weight  of  the 
atmospherical  column  should  vary  sufficiently  to  produce 
a  corresponding  perceptible  variation  in  the  mercury  or 
the  water.  He  hit  at  last  upon  the  expedient  of  canying 
a  barometer  to  the  top  of  a  high  mountain,  and  noting 
whether  the  mercury  rose  in  proportion  to  the  supposed 
diminution  of  the  counterbalancing  atmospheric  weight. 
The  Puy  de  Dome,  a  mountain  4839  feet  in  height, 
which  rises  abruptly  from  the  town  of  Clermont,  seemed  to 
affon}  a  favourable  place  for  the  experiment,  and  in 
November,  1647,  Pascal  requested  his  brother-in-law.  Florin 
Perier,  to  undertake  it.  From  various  causes  it  did  not 
actually  take  place  till  September  19th,  1648,  when  it 
was  minutely  recorded  in  a  paper  published  in  the  same 
year.* 

This  celebrated  experiment,  which  was  witnessed  by  a 
party  of  scientific  inquirers,   including  more   than   one 

^  The  narratiTe  may  be  found  in  Pascal's  works,  ed.  Bossut,  toI.  iv.  p.  345. 

c  3 


w 


22  PORT  ROYAL. 

clerical  philoeopher,  was  begun  in  the  garden  of  the  Minim 
Fathers,  supposed  to  be  the  least  elevated  spot  in  the  town 
of  Clermont.  Two  tubes,  each  4  feet  long,  and  hermetically 
sealed  at  one  end,  were  filled  with  mercury  and  inverted  in 
a  reservoir  of  the  same  fluid.  In  each  the  mercury  was 
seen  to  stand  at  26  in.  3^  lines.  One  tube  was  left  in 
this  position  in  charge  of  a  Minim  Father,  who  was 
instructed  to  watch  and  report  its  variations  throughout  the 
day.  A  portion  of  the  same  mercury,  together  with  the 
second  tube,  was  carried  by  P^rier  and  his  friends  to  the 
top  of  the  mountain,  which  was  fortunately  free  from 
clouds.  There  the  experiment  of  the  garden  was  repeated, 
and  to  the  joy  and  astonishment  of  all,  the  mercury  refused 
to  rise  higher  than  23  in.  2  lines.  Five  times  the  ex- 
periment was  made  under  different  circumstances:  in  a 
little  chapel  which  stood  on  the  summit,  and  in  the  open 
air ;  while  the  weather  was  fine,  and  amid  the  rain  and 
wind  which  swept  over  them ;  but  always  with  the  same 
effect.  On  the  way  down  another  trial  was  made,  which 
confirmed  the  former  by  producing  an  intermediate  result. 
In  the  meantime  the  tube  in  the  garden  had  shown  no 
sign  of  variation  during  the  day,  and  its  travelled  com- 
panion, on  being  inverted  in  the  mercury  by  its  side,  in- 
dicated precisely  the  same  atmospherical  pressiu^e.  The 
next  day  a  tube  was  carried  up  the  tower  of  Notre  Dame 
de  Clermont,  and  again  a  fall  of  the  mercurial  column, 
corresponding  to  the  height  above  the  garden  in  which  the 
stationary  tube  still  remained,  was  observed.  A  similar 
experiment  was  afterwards  made  by  Pascal  himself,  at  the 
church  of  St.  Jacques  de  la  Boucherie  at  Paris.  In  all 
these  cases  an  invai-iable  ratio  between  the  elevation  at 
which  the  trial  was  made,  and  the  height  of  the  mercurial 
column,  was  noted.  The  observation  of  the  changes  of  the 
barometer,  as  we  may  venture  by  anticipation  to  call  this 
rude  instrument^  was  continued  during  two  or  three  years, 


SKIRMISH  WITH   THE   JESUITS.  2;i 

by  Florin  P^rier  at  Clermont,  as  well  as  by  Des  Cartes 
and  Chanut,  the  French  Ambassador,  at  Stockholm.  The 
results  were  transmitted  to  Pascal,  and  together  with  some 
remarks  upon  similar  experiments  which  had  been  made 
in  England  by  the  celebrated  Eobert  Boyle,  are  preserved 
in  Bossut's  edition  of  his  works.* 

The  publication  of  the  "  Experiences  Nouvelles "  was 
followed  by  a  controversial  skirmish  with  the  Jesuits, 
which  presents  a  curious  analogy  with  St.  Cyran's  duel  with 
Garasse.  It  seems  as  if  the  defenders  of  Port  Eoyal  were 
feAed  to  sharpen  upon  other  fields  the  weapons  which  they 
were  to  use  in  the  great  coming  battle  of  Jansenism. 
P^re  Noel,  a  member  of  the  Society,  writes  in  courteous 
phrase  to  Pascal,  suggesting  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the 
new  theory,  A  like  courteous  answer  is  returned ;  and  the 
correspondence,  so  far,  is  merely  a  private  interchange  of 
argument  between  two  men  of  science,  and  was  indeed 
not  printed  till  1779.  A  personal  interview  is  talked  of 
to  save  Pascal,  now  seriously  ill,  the  labour  of  writing; 
when  all  at  once  Noel  publishes  a  treatise,  "  Le  Plein  du 
Vide,"  in  which  he  brings  to  bear  upon  the  investigator, 
who  so  hardily  despises  the  authority  of  ages,  all  his  force 
of  reasoning  and  sarcasm.  Pascal,  indignant  at  what  he 
conceives  to  be  a  breach  of  faith,  rejoins  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  mathematician,  Le  Pailleur ;  while  in  the 
following  year,  1648,  Etienne  Pascal  mingles  in  the  fray, 
and  reduces  P^re  Noel  to  affrighted  silence.  In  1651,  a 
Jesuit  professor  in  a  college  at  Clermont  rekindled  the 
dying  ashes  by  a  statement  made  in  the  course  of  instruc- 
tion, that  Torricelli  and  some  unknown  Polish  Capuchin 
had  preceded  Pascal  in  his  experiments.  Pascal  promptly 
replied  in  a  letter  to  Eibeyre,  a  distinguished  magistrate  of 

*  (Eavres  de  Pascal,  vol  iv.  p.  364,  et  seq 
C  4 


24  PORT  ROYAL- 

Clermont;  the  Jesuit  explained,  retracted,  made  compli- 
ments; and  the  controversy  came  to  an  end.* 

A  more  important  matter  was  the  claim  which  Des  Cartes 
made  to  the  original  suggestion  of  the  experiment  of  the 
Pny  de  Dome,  and  the  alienation  of  feeling  which  it 
evidently  produced  between  him  and  Pascal.  On  the  1 1th 
of  Jime,  1649,  Des  Cartes,  then  at  Stockholm,  wrote  to  the 
mathematician  Carcavi  to  ask  whether  Pascal's  projected 
experiment  upon  the  mountains  of  Auvergne  had  succeeded. 
"  t  might  justly,"  he  proceeds,  *'  look  to  know  this  from 
himself  rather  than  from  you,  because  it  was  I  who  advised 
him  two  years  ago  to  make  the  experiment,  and  assured 
him  that,  though  I  had  not  made  it  myself,  I  did  not 
doubt  of  its  success.  But  as  he  is  a  friend  of  M.  de  Rober- 
val,  who  seems  to  profess  himself  none  of  mine  .... 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  adopts  his  prejudices,  and 
that  it  is  not  prudent  for  me  to  address  myself  to  him  for 
what  I  want."  f  Carcavi  showed  the  letter  to  Pascal,  who, 
according  to  Bossut,  **  despised  it  and  made  no  answer." 
But  in  the  letter  to  Ribeyre,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  he  says,  '^  It  is  true,  sir,  and  I  assert  it  without 
hesitation,  that  this  experiment  is  of  my  own  invention ; 
and  in  so  far,  I  may  say  that  the  new  knowledge  which  it 
has  revealed  to  us,  is  wholly  my  own."  The  contradiction 
is  sufficiently  direct;  are  we  to  believe  Des  Cartes  or 
Pascal  ? 

The  collateral  evidence  on  either  side  is  scanty  and  con- 
flicting. Several  passages  in  Des  Cartes'  letters,  prior  to  this 
date,  may  be  admitted  to  prove  that  with  Galileo  and  Tor- 
ricelli,  he  was  acquainted  with  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere; 
one  J  seems  to  show  that  he  had  anticipated  Torricelli's 
explanation  of  the  problem  of  the  pump.     On  the  other 

*  Bossnt,  (EuTrei  de  Pascal,  vol  iv.  pp.  69 — 221. 

f  Des  Cartes,  Lettres,  part  iii.  no.  67,  conf.  nos.  68,  69,  70. 

X  Quoted  bj  Hallam,  Lit.  Hist.  toI.  iii.  p.  424. 


DES  CARTES  AND   PASCAL,  25 

hand  Jacqueline  Pascal,  in  a  letter  dated  September  25th; 
1647*,  relates  the  particulars  of  two  visits  which  Des  Cartes 
paid  to  her  brother  in  Paris.  The  conversation  turned 
upon  Pascal's  recent  experiments,  and  Des  Cartes,  if  the 
reporter  may  be  trusted,  still  held  to  the  theory  of  some 
subtle  matter,  which  occupied  the  apparent  vacuum.  A 
corroboration  of  Jacqueline  Pascal's  statement  is  afforded 
by  the  fact,  which  the  critics  do  not  seem  to  have  noticed, 
that  in  both  the  letters  to  Carcavi  in  which  Des  Cartes 
asserts  his  claim,  he  directly  or  indirectly  reaffirms  the 
theory  of  subtle  matter,  which  he  seems  to  think  is  con- 
firmed by  the  experiment  of  the  Puy  de  Dome.  It  is  true 
that  this  theory  is  not  necessarily  inconsistent  with  that  of 
atmospheric  pressure ;  and  in  so  far,  Jacqueline  Pascal's 
statement  does  not  invalidate  Des  Cartes'  assertion.  But 
the  two  theories  are  so  closely  connected,  as  to  make  it 
improbable  that  the  adherent  of  the  one  should  have  fore- 
seen the  new  truth  involved  in  the  other.  The  fact  too,  that 
Des  Cartes  busied  himself  at  Stockholm  in  the  year  which 
followed  the  experiment,  in  making  barometrical  observa- 
tions which  were  transmitted  to  Pascal,  is  an  argument  on 
the  same  side.  It  is  hard  to  suppose  that  any  man,  especi- 
ally a  confessedly  jealous  man  like  Des  Cartes,  would  labour 
in  behalf  of  a  rival  who  was  withholding  from  him  a  share 
in  the  glory  of  an  immortal  enterprise. 

On  the  other  hand,  Des  Cartes'  character  in  matters  of 
this  kind  is  not  clear.  No  man's  mind  ever  comprehended 
the  imiverse  of  human  knowledge  in  a  more  imperial  grasp ; 
few  can  be  compared  with  him  for  the  worth  and  variety  of 
his  contributions  to  the  intellectual  treasury  of  the  race. 
By  his  side  Pascal  appears  narrow,  and  we  turn  to  the  in- 
tensity of  his  genius  to  compensate  us  for  its  comparative 
want  of  breadth.     But  it  remains  a  fact,  that  while  Des 

*  Cousin,  J.  F.  p.  94. 


26  POET  ROYAL. 

Cartes  was  loud  in  the  ajBsertion  of  bis  own  originality,  no 
man  of  real  eminence  in  science  or  in  letters  was  ever  ex- 
posed to  so  many  accusations  of  plagiarism.  The  age  was 
one  which  teemed  with  new  truth  ;  and  it  is  possible  enough 
that  the  same  discoveries  rewarded  the  search  of  more  than 
otie  inquirer,  working  from  the  old  landmarks  in  the  same 
direction.  But  this  will  not  account  for  all  the  charges 
against  Des  Cartes.  Leibnitz,  in  a  remarkable  passage 
quoted  by  Hallam,  has  drawn  up  an  extraordinary  list  of 
discoveries  claimed  by  him,  which  are  to  be  found  more  or 
less  definitely  indicated  in  the  writings  of  his  predecessors. 
"  In  fine,"  he  concludes,  "  Des  Cartes,  as  has  long  been 
noticed  by  learned  men,  and  as  is  too  clear  in  his  letters, 
was  an  immoderate  contemner  of  others,  and  through 
greediness  of  fame,  did  not  abstain  from  artifices  which 
would  seem  to  have  been  hardly  honourable."  *  And  one 
instance  in  which  the  charge  of  plagiarism  was  all  but 
brought  home  to  Des  Cartes,  is  not  without  instructive 
points  of  resemblance  to  his  controversy  with  Pascal.  In 
1631,  a  little  work,  entitled  "  Artis  analyticas  Praxis,"  by 
Harriott,  a  companion  of  Sir  Walter  Ealeigh,  was  posthu- 
mously published,  in  which  important  additions  were  made 
to  the  theory  of  equations.  In  that  year  Des  Cartes  was  in 
England.  By  and  by 'he  adopted  in  a  work  of  his  own, 
the  whole  of  Harriott's  labour;  not  only  making  no  ac- 
knowledgment, but  in  a  letter  to  Mersenne,  positively 
claiming  the  merit  of  entire  originality.  It  is  true  that  he 
gave  to  algebraic  science  an  extension  of  which  neither 
Harriott,  nor  any  previous  mathematician  had  ever 
dreamed ;  but  the  glory  of  his  great  achievement  cannot 
wipe  out  the  stain  of  his  small  theft  The  charge  of  pla- 
giarism in  this  matter  was  urged  against  him  more  than 
once  during  his  lifetime,  but  without  drawing  forth  any 
reply.t 
*  HaUam,  Lit.  Hist.  toL  iii.  p.  97.  f  l^id.  toI.  iii.  p.  406. 


DES  CAETES  AND   PASCAL.  27 

We  must  add  to  this  the  fact  mentioned  by  Leibnitz  in 
the  passage  above  quoted,  that  Des  Cartes  lived  on  noto- 
riously bad  terms  with  nearly  all  contemporary  men  of 
science.  He  had  a  quarrel  with  Format,  the  famous  geome- 
trician of  Toulouse,  as  to  their  respective  claims  to  the 
discovery  of  the  theory  of  maxima  and  minima ;  in  which 
all  the  advantage,  at  least  in  point  of  temper,  was  on  the 
side  of  the  latter.  His  disagreement  with  fioberval  was 
one  of  the  standing  scandals  of  the  day  in  literary  circles ; 
it  comes  out  in  the  letter  to  Carcavi  about  the  experiment 
of  the  Puy  de  Dome ;  and  Jacqueline  Pascal  mentions  an 
altercation  between  them,  which  took  place  at  her  brother's 
lodging.  And  Pascal,  who  was  a  member  of  the  same 
scientific  society  as  Koberval  and  Fermat,  might  easily  be 
r^arded  by  Des  Cartes  as  leagued  with  his  foes.  The  great 
philosopher  had  already  heard  with  uneasy  mind  of  Pascal's 
wonderful  promise;  and  while  sharing  the  throne  of 
European  science  with  Bacon,  had  condescended  to  depre- 
ciate the  performance  of  a  boy  of  fifteen.  I  cannot  there- 
fore think  it  wonderful,  that  remembering  some  train  of 
ideas  which  had  passed  through  his  mind,  or  recalling  some 
expression  which  had  dropped  from  his  lips,  during  his 
interview  with  Pascal,  he  should  have  persuaded  himself 
that  the  merit  of  the  experiment  was  unjustly  appropriated 
by  the  latter.  This  would  be  as  characteristic  of  him,  as 
the  assertion  of  an  unfounded  claim  to  originality  would 
be  unlike  Pascal.  The  isolation  and  self-dependence  of 
Pascal's  genius;  his  ignorance  of  books,  and  of  others' 
labours ;  the  character  of  individuality  which  is  so  strongly 
impressed  upon  all  the  processes  and  results  of  his  thought, 
ought  to  protect  him  from  the  charge  of  plagiarism  even 
when  brought  by  Des  Cartes.* 

But  there  is  another  side  of  Pascal's  education  of  which 

*  Montncla,  Histoire  des  Mathematiquesy  toI.  il  p.  205.  Maynard,  vol.  l 
J>.  176,  et  »eq. 


28  PORT  ROYAL. 

we  have  almost  lost  sight,  in  tracing  the  early  triumphs  of 
his  mathematical  and  physical  genius.  From  the  very  first, 
the  germ  of  his  final  devotion  to  religious  thought  is  visible 
in  his  character.  Whatever  contradictions  seem  to  be  in- 
volved in  the  two  halves  of  his  intellectual  activity,  appear 
and  demand  reconciliation  at  the  hands  of  his  biographer, 
almost  as  much  in  the  first  as  in  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
At  present  our  task  is  confined  to  the  accurate  apprehen- 
sion of  the  character,  which  afterwards  we  must  endeavour 
to  describe  as  a  whole ;  to  tracing  the  growth  of  the  rival 
forces,  which  afterwai'ds  came  into  rude  collision,  and 
shattered  the  feeble  body  which  was  the  arena  of  their 
struggle.  Etienne  Pascal's  was  a  quiet,  grave  household. 
The  eldest  daughter,  four  years  older  than  her  brother, 
appears  to  us,  by  more  glimpses  than  one,  as  the  little 
housewife,  ruling  with  childish  dignity  and  trying  to  fill 
her  mother's  place  with  a  thoughtful  love  beyond  her  years. 
In  1 641,  she  married  her  cousin  Florin  Perier;  but  remained 
for  two  years  in  Eouen,  dividing,  no  doubt,  her  cares 
between  her  sister  and  her  own  little  one.  We  have  seen 
already,  that  the  elder  Pascal  had  a  deep  sense  of  parental 
responsibility,  for  he  undertook  the  whole  labour  of  his 
children's  education,  A  sincere  believer  in  the  authority  and 
doctrines  of  the  Church,  he  was  anxious  to  make  them 
like  himself.  But  let  G-ilberte  Pascal  tell  her  simple  story 
of  the  religious  spirit  which  pervaded  her  father's  house- 
hold. She  is  speaking  of  her  brother's  twenty-fourth 
year*:  — 

**  Up  to  this  time  he  had  been  preserved  by  a  special 
protection  of  God  from  the  vices  of  youth ;  and  what  is 
still  more  strange  in  a  mind  of  that  tone  and  character, 
had  never  been  inclined  to  free  thinking  in  matters  of 
religion,  having  always  confined  his  attention  to  natural 

*  Mad.  Perier,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  p.  10. 


EABLY  REUGIOUS   IMPRESSIONS.  29 

phenomena.  He  has  often  told  me  that  he  owed  this,  as 
well  as  everything  else,  to  my  father,  who,  having  himself 
a  very  deep  respect  for  religion,  had  inspired  it  into  him 
from  his  childhood ;  impressing  upon  him  that  whatever 
is  the  object  of  faith,  cannot  be  that  of  reason,  and  much 
less  subject  to  it.  These  maxims  which  were  often  re- 
peated to  him  by  a  father  whom  he  much  esteemed,  and 
in  whom  he  observed  great  scientific  knowledge,  accom- 
panied by  a  power  of  strong  and  close  reasoning,  made  so 
deep  an  impression  upon  his  mind,  that  he  was  not  at  all 
shaken  by  any  free-thinking  conversation  which  he  heard ; 
and  although  very  yoimg,  he  looked  upon  freethinkers  as 
men  who  held  the  false  principle  that  the  human  reason 
is  above  all  things,  and  so  knew  not  the  nature  of  faith. 
And  thus  this  mind,  so  great,  so  vast,  so  full  of  curiosity, 
was  at  the  same  time  submissive  as  a  child's  in  all  matters 
of  religion ;  and  this  simplicity  has  reigned  in  him  all  his 
life,  so  that  even  after  he  resolved  to  pursue  no  other 
study  than  that  of  religion,  he  never  applied  himself  to 
the  carious  questions  of  theology,  but  employed  all  the 
strength  of  his  mind  in  seeking  to  know  and  practise  the 
perfection  of  Christian  morality,  to  which  he  consecrated 
all  the  talents  that  Grod  had  given  him,  having  no  other 
occupation  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  than  that  of 
meditating  upon  the  law  of  God  day  and  night." 

But  these  general  religious  impressions  were  deepened 
by  an  event  which  first  brought  the  Pascal  family  into 
connection  with  the  religious  party  now  beginning  to  be 
designated  by  the  name  of  Port  Royal.  In  January,  1646, 
Etienne  Pascal,  who  had  left  his  house  on  some  errand  of 
charity,  fell  and  broke  his  thigh.  He  appealed  for  surgical 
aid  to  two  brothers,  men  of  independent  fortune  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Souen,  who,  possessing  a  natural  aptitude 
for  bone-setting,  had  not  disdained  either  to  improve  the 
faculty  by  education,  or  to  hold  themselves  at  the  service 


32  PORT  ROYAL. 

ments"  (on  the  weight  of  the  air),  says  his  sister,  "and 
when  he  was  not  yet  twenty-four  years  of  age.  Providence 
having  brought  about  an  occasion  which  compelled  him  to 
read  books  of  piety,  God  so  enlightened  him  by  this  read- 
ing, that  he  perfectly  understood  that  the  Christian  religion 
obliges  us  to  live  for  God  only,  and  to  have  no  other  object 
than  Him ;  and  this  truth  appeared  to  him  so  clear,  so 
neces8ary,and  so  useful,  that  it  ended  all  his  researches,  so 
that  from  this  time  forward  he  renounced  all  other  know- 
ledge, to  apply  himself  exclusively  to  the  one  thing  which 
Jesus  Christ  calls  needful."*  As  we  shall  presently  see,  this 
is  far  too  broad  a  statement  to  be  literally  true.  Even  the 
famous  experiment  of  the  Puy  de  Dome  is  not  yet  made : 
the  royal  patent  for  the  arithmetical  machine  dates  only 
from  1 649.  At  the  same  time  an  impulse  was  given,  which, 
however  it  needed  in  Pascal  himself  to  be  afterwards 
more  powerfully  renewed,  determined  from  that  moment 
the  destiny  of  the  family.  That  in  the  youth  eagerly 
weighing  the  air,  or  pondering  night  and  day  the  machine 
that  was  to  do  the  work  of  human  brains,  lay  undeveloped 
the  author  of  "  The  Thoughts,"  is  enough  to  explain  the 
effect  produced  upon  his  mind  by  the  passionate,  and  yet 
stem  and  self-restrained  theology  of  Port  Royal.  Why 
seek  further  for  reasons  ?  Yet  the  very  severity  of  the 
Christian  ideal  which  it  presented  would  be  attractive  to 
his  strong  and  patient  will ;  its  theory  of  the  omnipotence 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  work  of  human  enlightenment  and 
sanctification,  strangely  fell  in  with  the  keenness  of  his 
mathematical  intellect.  We  cannot  doubt  thathe  possessed, 
in  no  common  degree,  the  power  of  spiritual  perception 
which  distinguishes  the  deeply  religious  man.  That  as  he 
penetrated  with  ihe  swift  stride  of  genius  into  the  mysteries 
of  nature,  he  had  seen,  besetting  him  behind  and  before, 

^  Mad.  Ferier,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  p.  10. 


PESRE   ST.   ANGE.  33 

Still  deeper  and  less  penetrable  mysteries.  He  had  ruined 
his  healthy  which  had  never  been  strong,  by  excess  of 
application.  From  his  eighteenth  year  to  the  hour  of  his 
death  he  never  passed  a  day  without  pain.  In  periods  of 
sickness  things  strangely  change  their  shape  and  relative 
importance :  to  one  who  stood  face  to  face  with  an  early 
death,  the  conditions  on  which  the  Church  oflfered  salvation 
would  dwarf  in  interest  all  pneumatic  problems,  and  a 
"  horror  of  a  vacuum  ^  take  possession  of  the  spirit,  not 
to  be  explained  away  by  any  Torricellian  methods.  WTiat 
wonder  then,  if  the  sight  of  such  a  commentary  upon  St. 
Cyran's  earnest  theology,  as  was  supplied  by  the  benevolence 
of  his  father's  good  surgeons,  awoke  in  him  new  thoughts 
of  the  beauty  of  the  Christian  life  ? 

The  first  fruits  of  Pascal's  religious  zeal  are  seen  in  an 
affair  at  which  Condorcet  sneers  as  a  proof  of  his  fanaticism, 
which  Maynard  brings  forward  in  testimony  of  his  unim- 
peachable orthodoxy,  which  Victor  Cousin  has  put  in  the 
fullest  light,  by  help  of  hidden  manuscript  authorities,  and 
pronounces  at  last,  somewhat  unwillingly,  to  need  the 
apologies  of  a  fair  biographer.  A  Capuchin  friar,  whose 
real  name  was  Jacques  Forton,  but  who  was  better  known 
as  the  Fr^re  St.  Ange,  came  to  Rouen  in  1647,  and  was 
received  in  the  society  which  Pascal  frequented.  He  had 
some  pretensions  to  philosophy ;  had  written  a  book  "  on 
the  connection  of  faith  and  reason,"  and  in  Paris,  whence 
he  came,  had  held  frequent  discussions  upon  religion  with 
doctors  of  the  Sorbonne.  Madame  Perier,  in  her  apolo- 
getic account  of  the  affair,  says  that  he  taught  in  Rouen  "  a 
new  philosophy  which  attracted  all  the  curious.  My 
brother,"  she  proceeds,  "  having  been  pressed  to  go  to  him 
by  two  young  men  of  his  own  friends,  went,  but  they  were 
much  surprised  to  find,  from  the  conversation  which  they  had 
with  this  man,  that  after  stating  the  principles  of  his 
philosophy,  he  drew  from  them  consequences,  as  to  points 

VOL.  II.  D 


34  POET  HOYAL. 

of  faith,  contrary  to  the  decisions  of  the  Church."  *  But 
the  proc^-verbal  discovered  by  M.  Cousin  sets  the  matter  in 
quite  another  light.  Nothing  is  here  said  of  philosophical 
lectures.  On  the  contrary,  "  M.  de  St.  Ange,  accompanied 
by  a  gentleman,  his  friend,  came  to  the  house  of  M.  de 
Montflavier  ...  to  see  the  Sieur  Dumesnil  his  son, 
who  had  wished  to  become  acquainted  with  him,  and  who 
was  then  with  the  Sieur  Auzoult."  Conversation  followed, 
first  on  indifferent,  then  on  philosophical  subjects ;  and  the 
Capuchin  began  to  state  his  peculiar  opinions.  What  these 
were  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say ;  by  and  by  Pascal  acci- 
dentally came  in ;  the  previous  discourse  was  communicated 
to  him,  and  the  discussion  went  on  with  renewed  ardour. 
Fr^re  St.  Ange  was  able,  he  said,  to  prove  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  to  demonstration,  and  by  strict  process  of  reason- 
ing to  deduce  from  that  ail  other  truths  of  philosophy 
and  religion.  Hence  the  only  office  of  faith,  taking  the 
word  in  its  Catholic  sense,  was  to  give  us  the  knowledge 
that  God  is  our  "  fin  sumaturelle,"  supernatural  object  of 
all  thought  and  striving;  and  he  asserted  that  though 
without  faith  we  could  not  arrive  at  this  conviction,  all  other  v 
mysteries  might  be  attained  by  a  mind  of  sufficient  vigour, 
with  the  help  of  its  own  reasoning  powers  alone.  But  this 
was  only  the  beginning  of  heresies.  Jesus  Christ  was  not 
truly  man,  or  possessed  of  a  human  nature.  He,  as  well  as 
the  Virgin,  was  of  a  different  species  from  the  human. 
The  object  of  creation  was  the  purification  of  matter,  by 
contact  with  mind.  All  the  matter  in  the  universe  would 
be  gradually  worked  up  in  the  production  of  human  bodies, 
which,  by  becoming  the  receptacles  of  a  Divine  Spirit,  were 
brought  into  union  with  G-od.  And  so  on,  through  many 
more  absurdities  of  scholastic  theology. 

The  conversation  was  broken  off  at  last,  ^'with  many 

*  Mad.  Ferier,  ap.  Fangke,  J.  P.  p.  12. 


FRfeKB   ST.   AKGE.  85 

civilities  on  both  sides,"  and  a  day  fixed  for  its  resumption  at 
St  Ange's  rooms,  in  the  house  of  the  Procureur-General. 
The  interlocutors  were  the  same,  with  the  addition  of  a 
doctor  of  the  Sorbonne,  named  Le  Cornier,  whom  the  party 
met  on  their  way,  and  carried  with  them.  The  same  sub- 
jects were  discussed ;  and  Frdre  St  Ange  did  not  hesitate 
to  explain  and  develope  his  opinions  to  an  attentive  and 
apparently  friendly  audience.  Only  when  they  parted, 
once  more  with  the  usual  courtesies,  he  reminded  them,  as 
they  left  his  door,  that  he  had  not  stated  these  things  as 
doctrines,  but  as  the  results  of  his  own  private  speculations. 
Let  Madame  Perier  again  tell  her  tale:  "Having  con- 
sidered one  with  another  the  danger  of  leaving  a  man,  who 
held  erroneous  opinions,  at  liberty  to  instruct  young  people, 
they  resolved  to  warn  him  in  the  first  place,  and  next,  if  he 
resisted  the  advice  which  they  gave,  to  inform  against  him. 
Thus  the  matter  turned  out,  for  he  despised  their  warning, 
so  that  they  thought  it  their  duty  to  denounce  him  to  M. 
de  Bellay*,  who  then,  under  a  commission  from  the  arch- 
bishop, exercised  episcopal  functions  in  the  diocese  of  Bouen. 
M.  de  Bellay  sent  for  the  man,  and  having  interrogated 
him,  was  deceived  by  an  equivocal  confession  of  faith,  which 
he  wrote  to  him,  and  signed  with  his  own  hand,  making 
besides,  little  account  of  a  warning  in  a  matter  of  such  im- 
portance, given  him  by  three  young  men."t 

The  documents  discovered  by  M.  Cousin  say  nothing  of 
the  private  warning  given  by  Pascal  and  his  friends  to  the 
tmlucky  St  Ange,  while  Madame  Perier's  whole  account 
of  the  transaction  is  so  inaccurate,  as  to  warrant  a  suspicion 
of  its  exactness  in  this  particular.  The  long  proc^^verbai, 
signed  by  Blaise  Pascal  and  his  three  associates,  itself  proves 
that  St  Ange,  so  &iX  from  being  actively  engaged  in  propa- 

*  Camas,  Biahop  of  Bellay,  the  friend  of  IVanets  de  Sales, 
t  Had.  Perier,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  F.  p.  12. 
D  2 


36  PORT  ROYAL. 

gating  his  heresies  among  the  Catholic  youth  of  Rouen,  was 
almost  entrapped,  under  pretence  of  friendly  philosophical 
dispute,  into  the  statement  of  his  obnoxious  opinions.  M. 
de  Bellay  sided  with  him  as  far  as  he  dared,  and  tried  to 
hush  up  the  whole  matter,  but  in  vain.  Pascal  applied  to 
the  archbishop,  who  was  enjoying  himself  at  his  coimtry 
house ;  and  he,  a  Harlay,  uncle  of  the  Harlay  who,  as  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris,  so  long  harassed  Port  Boyal,  was  only 
too  ready  to  spur  on  his  reluctant  subordinate.  The 
matter  was  brought  before  the  bishop  in  council,  a  new  de- 
claration made  by  the  accusers,  and  an  answer  to  the  charges 
demanded  of  Fr^re  St  Ange.  The  preamble  to  his  reply 
shows  the  light  in  which  he  looked  upon  the  accusation: 
"Although  these  propositions,"  he  says,  '*  ought  not  to 
be  received,  since  he  had  neither  preached,  dogmatised,  nor 
taught  in  the  town  of  Rouen,  and  although  the  very  words, 
*  advanced  in  private  conferences '  form  more  than  half  his 
justification,  yet,  as  it  is  always  advantageous  to  a  priest 
and  doctor  to  have  an  opportunity  of  proving  his  orthodoxy, 
he  is  willing  to  meet  the  articles  of  accusation."  This  he 
does,  in  an  apparently  conclusive  way,  by  placing  side  by 
side  with  the  inculpated  propositions,  passages  from  a  book 
of  his,  called  "  Meditations  Theologiques,"  which  had 
been  printed  with  learned  approbations  and  the  royal 
privilege,  two  years  before.  But  Pascal  was  not  yet 
satisfied,  and  again  prevailed  with  the  archbishop  to  set 
M.  de  Bellay  in  motion.  A  second  declaration,  even  more 
precise  than  the  first,  was  exacted  from  St.  Ange,  and  then 
the  bishop  absolutely  refused  to  go  further.  The  father 
was  called  in  to  moderate  the  theological  zeal  of  the  son,  and 
by  his  intervention  peace  was  restored  to  all  the  contend- 
ing parties.  Madame  Perier,  and  after  her,  the  Abbe  May- 
nard,  see  nothing  in  all  this  that  is  not  honourable  to 
Pascal's  orthodoxy ;  shall  we  not  act  most  wisely  in  falling 
back  upon  his  youth,  and  the  fresh  impulse  just  given  to  the 


JACQUELINE  AT  PORT  ROYAL.  37 

religious  side  of  his  character  as  his  best  excuses?  He 
has  yet  to  learn  in  the  school  of  painful  experience  what 
orthodoxy  and  persecution  mean.  After  the  affair  of  the 
Formulary,  I  think  that  he  would  have  been  more  just  to 
Fr^re  St  Ange.  That  now  his  zeal  for  truth  should  have 
outrun  his  fairness  and  his  charity,  is  a  fact,  unhappily,  not 
without  many  parallels  in  Church  history.* 

From  Blaise  Pascal  the  new  religious  influence  radiated 
through  the  family.  First  Jacqueline,  then  Gilberte  and 
her  husband,  who  visited  Eouen  in  1646,  last  of  all  even 
Etienne  Pascal  yielded  to  the  impulse,  and  henceforward 
observed,  with  greater  or  less  consistency,  the  maxims  of 
life  current  at  Port  Royal.  But  the  impression  made  upon 
Jacqueline  was  the  deepest  and  most  lasting.  At  the  close 
of  1646  she  received  from  M.  de  Bellay  the  sacrament  of 
confirmation,  for  which  she  had  prepared  herself  by  study- 
ing the  writings  of  St.  Cyran.  "  From  that  moment,"  says 
her  sister, "  she  was  entirely  changed."  The  monastic  life, 
to  which  she  had  hitherto  been  averse,  began  to  present 
itself  to  her  mind  as  the  only  condition  in  which  she 
could  work  out  her  conception  of  Christian  duty.  When 
in  1647  she  accompanied  her  brother  on  a  journey 
to  Paris,  which  he  made  in  the  hope  of  shaking  off 
his  painful  and  incapacitating  ailments,  the  desire  was 
strengthened  and  made  more  definite  by  the  preaching  of 
Singlin.  She  now  wished  to  enter  Port  Eoyal  de  Paris, 
and  to  submit  herself  to  the  authority  of  Angelique  Arnauld. 
>L  Guillebert  supplied  the  necessary  link  between  the 
Pascals  and  Port  Eoyal :  Singlin  joyfully  accepted  so 
promising  a  penitent ;  and,  with  her  brother's  full  approval, 
Jacqueline  made  many  visits  to  the  sisterhood  and  their 
Abbess.     But  in  May  1648,  Etienne  Pascal  came  to  Paris, 

*  Coarin,  Etades  sur  Pascal,  p.  343,  et  »eq.    Maynard,  toI.  i.  p.  30,  etteq, 

D  3 


38  PORT  BOYAL. 

and  Singlin  insisted  that  he  should  be  informed  of  his 
daughter's  new  schemes.  Blaise  imdertook  the  task,  but 
did  not  meet  with  the  ready  acquiescence  which  he 
expected.  The  elder  Pascal,  divided  between  natm-al 
feeling  and  a  Catholic  belief  in  the  superior  perfectness  of 
the  monastic  life,  first  asked  time  for  consideration,  and 
then  sternly  refused  his  assent.  Neither  son  nor  daughter 
had,  he  thought,  dealt  openly  and  fairly  with  him.  The 
change  in  Jacqueline's  mind  had  been  made  known  to  him 
only  when  it  was  about  to  issue  in  irrevocable  action. 
He  could  trust  them  no  longer ;  henceforward  they  must 
be  content  to  be  watched.  It  is  a  significant  instance  of 
the  moral  confusion  which  ensues  firom  the  conflict  of  the 
monastic  theory  with  common  home  duties,  that  Jacqueline 
Pascal  submitted  to  the  supervision,  yet  contrived  to  see 
Singlin,  and  to  receive  letters  from  Port  Royal,  and  that 
her  sister  tells  the  story  of  deceit  with  ill-concealed 
complacency.  She  withdrew,  as  far  as  possible,  from 
society,  gave  up  the  amusements  of  her  age  and  station, 
and  lived,  to  the  best  of  her  ability,  a  nun's  life  in  her 
father's  house.  At  last,  seeing  that  her  determination  was 
not  to  be  overcome,  Etienne  Pascal  gave  way.  It  was  not, 
he  said,  that  he  at  heart  disapproved  of  her  wish,  but  he 
felt  that  he  had  not  long  to  live,  and  if  she  would  postpone 
the  execution  of  her  plans  till  after  his  death,  he,  on  his 
part,  would  not  trouble  her  with  any  proposals  of  marriage, 
and  would  leave  her  free  to  regulate  her  life  as  she  pleased. 
This  conversation  took  place  in  May  1649,  and  the  com- 
promise lasted  till  the  death  of  Etienne  Pascal  in 
September  1651.  The  intervening  time,  seventeen 
months  of  which  Jacqueline  spent  with  her  father  and 
sister  at  Clermont,  was  passed  in  careful  preparation  for 
life  at  Port  Eoyal.  She  rarely  left  her  room,  except  to 
visit  the  sick,  or  to  attend  the  offices  of  religion.  She 
disciplined  herself  by  silence,  by  fasts,  by  watching.     She 


JACQUELINE  AT  PORT  ROYAL.  39 

abjured  the  exercise  of  her  poetical  talents  at  a  word  from 
Agnds  Arnauld.  She  wore,  as  far  as  possible,  the  monastic 
garb.  And  when  her  filial  duties  had  been  completely 
performed,  she  hastened  to  the  refuge  which  had  so  long 
appeared  to  her  all  that  was  holy  and  desirable.* 

But  now  an  opposition  arose  from  a  quite  new  and  un- 
expected source.  Her  brother,  who  three  years  before  had 
fostered  and  aided  her  design,  preferred  a  request,  like  that 
which  from  Etienne  Pascal  had  been  equivalent  to  a  com- 
mand. He  had  been  deeply  moved  by  his  father's  death ; 
his  own  life  was  a  constant  struggle  with  pain ;  his  only 
other  sister  was  busy  with  her  husband  and  children  in 
Auvergne ;  would  not  Jacqueline  at  least  postpone  for  a 
time  the  execution  of  her  purpose  ?  He  asked  the  delay 
so  much  as  a  right,  that  she  was  afraid  to  wound  him  by  a 
direct  denial,  and  without  promising  anything  for  the 
future,  announced  her  intention  of  making  a  ^  retreat '  at 
Port  Royal.  Even  this  was  done  swiftly  and  secretly. 
"We  said  no  good-bye  "  writes  Madame  Perierf,  "lest  we 
should  give  way  to  our  feelings,  and  I  went  out  of  her  sight, 
when  I  saw  her  ready  to  leave  the  house."  She  was  a  little 
more  than  twenty-six  years  of  age,  when  on  the  4th  of 
January,  1652,  she  thus  entered  Port  Eoyal.  The  years 
which  she  had  already  spent  in  half  monastic  seclusion, 
were  accepted  in  place  of  the  twelve  months'  trial  in  the 
house  as  a  postulant ;  and  in  May  she  was  received  as  a 
novice.  But  first  she  announced  her  intention  to  her 
brother  in  a  letter,  which,  in  its  grave  eloquence,  is  worthy 
of  the  sister  of  Pascal.  She  is  free  to  do  as  she  will :  God, 
whose  favours  and  whose  chastisements  are  inextricably 
intertwined,  has  removed  the  only  lawful  obstacle  to  her 


•  Mad.  Pericr,  ap.  Cousin,  J  P.  p.  40,  et  seq.    Recneil  d*Utrecht,  p.  252, 
a  $§q,    Lettrcs  de  la  M^re  Agnds,  vol.  i.  pp.  165—196. 
t  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  53. 

D  4 


-40  PORT  ROYAL. 

liberty  of  action.  But  that  she  may  take  the  vows  with  peace 
and  joy,  she  needs  her  brother's  consent.  "  For  this  reason," 
she  continues,  "  I  address  myself  to  you,  as  in  some  sort 
the  master  of  my  future  fate,  to  say  to  you.  Do  not  take 
away  from  me  that  which  you  cannot  give.  For,  although 
God  made  use  of  you  to  procure  for  me  progress  in  the  first 
movements  of  His  grace,  you  know  suflSciently  well  that 
from  Him  alone  proceed  all  your  love  for  what  is  good,  and 
all  your  joy  in  it ;  and  that  thus  you  are  quite  able  to  dis- 
turb my  joy,  though  not  to  restore  it  to  me,  if  once  I  lose 
it  by  your  fault.  You  ought  to  know,  and  in  some  degree 
to  feel  my  tenderness  through  your  own ;  and  to  be  able  to 
judge  if  I  am  strong  enough  to  bear  the  trial  of  the  grief 
which  I  shall  suffer.  Do  not  reduce  me  to  the  necessity  of 
putting  off  what  I  have  desired  so  long  and  so  ardently, 
and  thus  expose  me  to  the  chance,  either  of  losing  my 
vocation,  or  of  doing  poorly  and  with  a  languor,  which 
would  partake  of  ingratitude,  an  action  which  ought  to  be 
all  fervour,  and  joy,  and  charity."* 

It  would  be  hard  to  quote  more  of  this  touching  letter 
without  transcribing  the  whole.  Pascal  was  not  convinced 
by  it,  and  came  to  Port  Boyal  next  day  to  try  the  effect 
of  personal  persuasion.  At  first  he  had  asked  for  a  delay 
of  two  years ;  now  he  begged  only  for  a  postponement  to 
the  festival  of  All  Saints.  Even  this  was  denied  him : 
Jacqueline  stood  firm;  and  the  arguments  of  D'Andilly,  who 
acted  as  mediator  between  the  brother  and  sister,  effected 
at  least  an  external  agreementf  But  when,  in  June  of  the 
succeeding  year,  the  time  came  for  Jacqueline's  final  pro- 
fession, a  new  difficulty  arose.  She  was  unwilling  to  enter 
the  monastery  without  a  dowry :  some  small  sum  of  ready 


♦  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  152. 

t  Mad.  P^rier,  ap.  Coasio,  J.  P.  p  52.    Letties  do  J.  P.  ibid.  pp.  150 
—160. 


JACQUELINE   AT  PORT  ROTAL.  41 

money  which  had  come  into  her  possession  at  her  father's 
death,  had  been  expended  in  charity,  and  the  dowry  could 
be  raised  only  on  the  security  of  the  yet  undivided  inheri- 
tance  of  the  family.     Pascal  had  by  this  time  attained 
to   a  position   in  the  society  of  the   capital  which  his 
moderate  means  were  no  more  than  able  to  support ;  and 
he,  if  not  Madame  Perier,  had  begun  to  reckon  upon 
Jacqueline's  share  of  the  property.     Soeur  Euph^mie,  as 
she  now  called  herself,  has  left  a  long  memoir,  in  which, 
desiring  to  give  her  testimony  to  the  disinterestedness  of 
Port  Royal,  she  has   narrated  all  her  troubles-     Neither 
Singlin,  nor  Angelique,  nor  Agn^  Amauld,  would  suffer 
her  to  delay  her  profession,  or  to  make  a  legal  claim  upon 
her  relations.     They  were  ready  to  receive  her  with  or 
without  a  dowry ;  better  a  thousand  times  that  she  should 
come  to  Christ  portionless,  than  break  the  ties  of  love 
which  had  hitherto  bound  her  to*  her  brother  and  sister. 
Temporal   were  absolutely  valueless  in   comparison  with 
spiritual  things ;  food  and  raiment  would  not  be  wanting 
either  to  her  or  her  companions  in  the  house ;  what  more 
was  needed  ?     So  when  her  brother  came  to  see  her,  she 
made  neither  complaint  nor  claim,  and  left  it  to  his  love 
to  conjecture  the  cause  of  the  sadness  which  overclouded 
her  usually  gay  spirits.     He  began  to  recite  his  grounds  of 
vexation ;  but  could  not  persevere,  when  she  told  him  that 
the  whole  matter  was  settled  as  he  had  wished.     "  I  declared 
to  him,"  she  says,  "  with  all  the  gaiety  which  my  then  state 
of  mind  allowed,  that  since  the  house  was  charitable  enough 
to  receive  me  gratuitously,  and  my  profession  would  there- 
fore not  be  deferred,  I  was   no    longer   in   any  anxiety, 
except  to  act  rightly,  and  to  draw  down  upon  myself  the 
grace  which  I  needed  in  order  to  become  a  true  nun."  * 
Pascal  yielded,  and  promised  to  take  upon  himself  the 

*  Memoires  pour  scrvir.  vol.  iii  p.  93. 


42  POET  ROYAL. 

duty  of  providing  for  Jacqueline's  life  at  Port  Royal ;  a  duty, 
which  we  are  allowed  to  suppose,  though  we  are  not  directly 
told,  that  he  discharged  in  a  liberal  spirit.  But  La  M^re 
Ang^lique,  not  unwilling  to  accept  a  gift,  was  too  proud  to 
take  one  which  was  grudgingly  bestowed.  WTien  the  neces- 
sary deeds  were  to  be  signed,  she  said  to  Pascal,  that  in  case 
Jacqueline  should  have  failed  to  set  the  matter  in  its  true 
light,  she  felt  it  her  duty  to  speak  to  him.  '*  I  conjure 
you,  in  God's  name,  to  do  nothing  from  any  human  motives ; 
and  except  you  are  disposed  to  do  this  alms  in  the  spirit  of 
almsgiving,  not  to  do  it  at  all.  See,  Monsieur,  we  have 
learned  from  the  late  M.  de  St.  Cyran  to  receive  nothing 
for  God's  house  which  does  not  come  from  God.  What- 
ever is  done  from  any  other  motive  than  charity,  is  not  a 
fruit  of  God's  Spirit,  and  is  consequently  such  as  we  ought 
not  to  receive."  *  Pascal  professed  the  simplicity  of  his 
motives,  and  the  aflfair  ended  there.  Jacqueline  took  the 
veil  as  a  sister  of  Port  Eoyal  on  the  6th  of  June,  1653.t 

In  December  1654,  Blaise  Pascal  followed  his  sister's 
example,  and  exchanged  the  free  gaiety  of  his  life  at  Paris 
for  the  austere  solitudes  of  Port  Eoyal  des  Champs.  But 
of  the  period  between  what  his  biographers  call  his  first 
and  second  conversions  it  is  not  easy  to  gain  an  accurate 
conception.  The  technical  terms  of  a  sect  are  not  absent 
from  the  lips  of  its  most  sincere  adherents,  and  are  rarely 
to  be  interpreted  in  their  literal  meaning.  A  worldly  and 
ill-regulated  life  might  signify,  from  the  mouth  of  a 
Jansenist,  any  which  was  not  formed  upon  the  monastic 
model,  as,  even  yet,  to  magnify  the  sins  of  a  sinner  is  a 
common  way  of  magnifying  the  glory  of  his  conversion. 
We  must  walk  warily,  according  to  the  indications  afforded 
by  the  facts  of  the  case ;  for  they  are  plainly  distorted,  on 


*  Memoires  pour  serrir.  vol.  iii.  p.  100. 

f  Ibid,  part  ii.  rel  xxitu  vol.  iii.  p.  54,  et  seq. 


PASCAL'S   LIFE   IN  PAEIS.  43 

the  one  side,  by  the  supposed  necessities  of  a  religious 
theory,  and  perhaps  bent  back,  on  the  other,  by  the  loving 
force  of  sisterly  partiality. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1647  Pascal  tore  himself  away 
from  his  mathematical  and  physical  studies,  and  went,  by 
medical  advice,  to  Paris.  His  health  was  completely 
ruined.  He  could  swallow  no  liquids  that  were  not  warm, 
and  even  these  only  drop  by  drop,  an  incapacity  which 
inflicted  frightful  torture  upon  a  patient  in  those  days  of 
quart  doses  and  daily  purgatives.*  The  headaches,  which 
dated  from  this  period,  became  a  matter  of  common  talk 
in  Paris;  Madame  de  S^vignet  alludes  to  them  as  too 
well  known  to  require  explanation.  Another  account  J 
adds  that  for  some  time  he  was  paralysed  from  the  waist 
downwards,  so  as  to  be  unable  to  walk  without  the  aid  of 
crutches ;  and  that  he  wore  socks  steeped  in  brandy  in  the 
hope  of  restoring  some  vital  warmth  to  his  feet.  He  was 
still  in  the  first  glow  of  his  religious  enthusiasm  when  he 
arrived  in  Paris;  and  the  impression  which  had  been 
made  upon  him  by  the  cure  of  Rouville  was  naturally 
deepened  by  the  personal  influences  of  Port  Royal.  We 
have  already  seen  that  Jacqueline  Pascal  never  swerved 
from  the  path  in  which  her  first  relations  with  Singlin 
seemed  to  place  her ;  why,  for  a  year  or  two,  the  tie  of 
companionship  with  her  brother  should  have  been  broken, 
is  not  easy  to  say.  The  distractions  of  Paris  could  not 
have  been  the  sole  cause;  for  from  May  1649  to  Novem- 
ber 1650,  he  was  with  his  father  in  Auvergne.  Etienne 
Pascal's  death  deeply  touched  him,  but  did  not  prevent 
him  from  trying  to  interpose  between  Jacqueline  and  her 
scheme  of  retirement.     After  the  lapse  of  another  year. 


♦  Mad.  Pcrier,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  p.  15. 

t  Lett.  Ixxx. 

X  Marg.  Pcrier,  ap.  Fang^re,  J.  P.  p.  453. 


44  PORT  ROYAL. 

we  find  him  reckoning  upon  Jacqueline's  share  of  the 
common  inheritance  as  a  means  of  maintaining  his  social 
position ;  and  Marguerite  Perier  tells  us  that  he  had  formed 
a  definite  plan  of  buying  an  appointment  and  marrying. 
Her  language  is  explicit  enough*:  "As  he  had  been 
forbidden  to  study,  he  was  little  by  little  induced  to  see 
the  world ;  to  play  and  to  amuse  himself  by  way  of  passing 
time.  At  first  this  was  moderate ;  but  afterwards  he  gave 
himself  wholly  up  to  vanity,  to  uselessness,  to  pleasure, 
and  to  amusement,  without^  however,  proceeding  to  any 
irregularity  of  life.  The  death  of  his  father  only  gave 
him  more  opportunity  and  greater  means  of  continuing 
this  way  of  living.  But  when  he  was  most  ready  to  enter 
into  engagements  with  the  world,  to  marry,  and  to  buy  an 
appointment,  God  touched  him  a  second  time."t  His 
sister,  who,  however,  gives  no  details  of  this  period  of  his 
life,  speaks  less  decidedly,  and  bears  additional  testimony 
to  his  freedom  from  all  gross  vice.  Having  alluded  to  the 
opinion  of  his  physicians,  she  goes  on  to  sayf:  "My 
brother  had  some  diflSculty  in  yielding  to  this  advice,  for 
he  saw  danger  in  it,  but  at  last  followed  it,  believing  that 
he  was  under  an  obligation  to  use  every  possible  means 
for  the  restoration  of  his  health ;  and  he  imagined  that 
honourable  amusements  could  not  harm  him,  and  so  went 
into  the  world.  But  although,  by  the  mercy  of  God,  he 
was  always  free  from  vice,  nevertheless  as  God  called  him 
to  a  great  perfection,  He  would  not  leave  him  there,  and 
made  use  of  my  sister  for  this  design,  as  He  had  formerly 
used  my  brother,  when  He  wished  to  withdraw  her  jfrom 
her  engagements  with  the  world."  So  when  La  M^re 
Angelique,  in  her  conversation  with  Jacqueline,  represents 


♦  Hecaeil  d'Utrecht^  p.  257. 

t  Conf.  Marg.  Perier,  ap.  Fang^re,  J.  P.  p.  453. 

X  Fang^re,  J.  P.  p.  15. 


LIFE  IN   PARIS.  45 

her  brother  as  devoted  to  the  world,  its  vanities  and  its 
amusements*,  and  Jacqueline,  writing  to  Madame  Perier 
from  Port  Eoyal  des  Champs,  uses  similar  expressions!,  we 
must  make  some  allowance  for  the  necessary  unfairness  of 
monastic  judgment  on  such  a  point,  as  well  as  for  regret 
that  so  brilliant  a  convert  should  have  eluded  the  grasp  of 
their  directors. 

But  we  are  not  without  positive  evidence  on  the  other 
side.  One  of  the  earliest  of  Pascal's  compositions  is  a 
"  Prayer  to  God  for  help  to  make  a  good  use  of  sickness," 
written,  it  is  supposed,  about  the  end  of  1647,  or  the  begin- 
ning of  1648.  It  is  too  long  to  admit  of  the  idea  that  it 
formed  a  part  of  his  habitual  devotions;  it  resembles  rather 
those  meditations  addressed  to  Grod,  which  so  abound  in  the 
Confessions  of  St  Augustine.  But  its  spirit  is  that  of  the 
purest  and  most  self-sacrificing  piety ;  it  soars  above  the 
level  of  resignation  into  the  upper  air  of  joyful  acquiescence 
in  the  Divine  Will.  "  SuflTer  my  pains  to  appease  Thine 
anger.  Make  them  the  occasion  of  my  salvation  and  my 
conversion.  May  I  never  more  wish  for  health  and  for  life, 
except  to  employ  it,  and  end  it  for  Thee,  and  with  Thee, 
and  in  Thee.  I  ask  of  Thee  neither  health  nor  sickness, 
nor  life,  nor  death ;  but  that  Thou  shouldest  dispose  of  my 
health  and  my  sickness,  my  life  and  my  death,  for  Thy  glory, 
for  my  salvation,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church,  and  of 
Thy  saints,  of  whose  fellowship  I  hope,  by  Thy  grace,  to 
form  a  part.  Thou  alone  knowest  what  is  expedient  for  me ; 
Thou  art  the  sovereign  Lord ;  do  as  Thou  wilt.  Give  me 
Thy  mercies  or  take  them  away ;  only  conform  my  will  to 
Thine,  and  grant  that  in  humble  and  perfect  submission, 
and  in  holy  trust,  I  may  apply  myself  to  receive  the  com- 
mands of  Thine  Eternal  Providence,  and  adore  equally  all 
that  descends  upon  me  from  Thee."  J 

♦  Mem.  ponr  Bcrrir.  vol.  iii.  p.  75.  f  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  232. 

X  Pensees,  ed.  Faug^rc,  toI  L  p.  75.  « 


46  PORT  BOYAL. 

This  was  probably  writtea  soon  after  what  is  called  his 
first  conversion,  and  before  he  had  fallen  away  to  the 
worldly  life  which  Port  Boyal  deplored.  But  three  years 
later,  when  in  September  1651,  his  father  died,  at  the 
very  threshold  of  the  difference  in  feeling  between  himself 
and  Jacqueline,  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Florin  and  Gil- 
berte  Perier,  which  furnished  to  the  first  edition  of  the 
"  Pensees "  a  series  of  thoughts  on  death,  but  which  has 
only  lately  been  printed  in  its  original  shape.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  describe  it ;  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  whatever 
the  theological  value  of  its  speculations,  it  is  evidently  the 
product  of  a  truly  religious  mind,  startled  for  the  moment 
into  a  deeper  than  its  ordinary  solemnity.  There  is  no 
trace  in  it  of  the  passion  which  we  might  expect  to  see,  if 
any  remorse  had  mingled  with  Pascal's  filial  sorrow ;  he 
stands  by  the  grave  of  a  good  and  wise  father,  with  eyes 
indeed  filled  with  tears,  but  with  clean  hands  and  a  quiet 
heart.  He  claims  the  consolations  of  religion  as  if  he  had 
a  right  to  them;  and  confidently  assumes  the  duty  of  inter- 
preting the  sorrow  and  resignation  of  his  sisters  as  well  as 
his  own.* 

The  only  other  work  of  Pascal's  which  dates  from  this 
period,  is  one  which  has  recently  been  discovered  by  M. 
Victor  Cousin,  among  the  MSS.  of  the  Abbey  of  St 
Germain  des  Pr^  The  copy  thus  disinterred,  the  only 
one  known  to  exist,  is  not  in  Pascal's  familiar  handwriting, 
and  even  in  its  title  does  not  confidently  assert  its  author- 
ship :  but  M.  Cousin's  judgment  is  formed  upon  internal 
evidence,  and  has  been  approved  by  critics  who  are  usually 
not  unwilling  to  differ  from  him.  Here  at  least  we  may 
expect  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  nature  of  Pascal's  world- 
liness ;  for  in  a  "Discourse  on  the  Passions  of  Love," — so 
the  fragment  is  entitled, — neither  the  mathematician  nor 

*  Pens^cs,  ed.  Fang^re,  vol.  up.  17,  et  ^cq. 


DISCOUBSE  ON  THE  PASSIONS  OP  LOVE.  47 

the  theologian  speaks.*  The  little  treatise  is  such  as  we 
might  expect,  not  from  one  whose  pleasures  overpassed  the 
bounds  of  purity,  but  from  the  young  man  who  had  formed 
his  conception  of  the  female  character  in  a  religious  house- 
hold, and  whose  observations  of  the  connexion  between  the 
sexes  had  been  made  in  a  society  from  which  the  tradition 
of  a  grave  and  courtly  gallantry  had  not  yet  departed. 
He  begins  with  high  metaphysical  theories,  in  the  manner 
of  Plato,  as  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  love ;  and  then 
descends  upon  the  characteristics  of  human  love  in  a  series 
of  remarks  which  irresistibly  suggest  the  idea  that  he 
had  felt  the  passion,  whose  growth  and  changes  he  so  well 
describes.  The  whole  paper  has  a  fragmentary  air,  as  if  it 
were  only  the  sketch  of  a  fuller  work ;  the  sentences  are 
short  and  aphoristic ;  the  divisions  of  the  subject  are  not 
so  much  discussed  as  indicated  in  a  few  pregnant  words. 
But  what  we  have  especially  to  note  now  is,  that  the  air 
throughout  is  pure  and  sweet  There  is  no  trace  of  moral 
miasma  on  the  breezes.  The  utterance  is  that  of  a  virgin 
heart,  throbbing  with  new  passion,  yet  hardly  daring  to 
reveal  its  secret  to  the  beloved  object ;  learning  to  inter- 
pret the  hidden  indications  of  look,  and  tone,  and  manner ; 
and  indemnifying  itself  for  enforced  silence  by  sweet 
soliloquy.f 

Is  it,  then,  true  that  Pascal  loved  ?  And  if  so,  who  was 
the  object  of  his  passion?  Those  who  feel  that  the 
conBciousnessof  love  is  a  revelation  of  that  which  no  books 
can  teach,  will  easily  answer  the  first  question  in  the 
affirmative,  of  the  anonymous  author  of  the  ^'  Discourse  on 
the  Passion  of  Love."  No  tradition  remains  to  throw  light 
upon  this  doik  place  of  Pascal's  life :  Port  Boyal  was  not 

*  This  '*  Disconne  **  was  pablished  for  the  first  time  in  the  **  Rerae  des 
Benx  Mondes,**  Sept.  15th,  1843. 

f  For  the  discourse  and  the  account  of  its  discoveiy,  see  Coosin,  Etudes  snr 
FUcal,  p.  475. 


48  PORT  EOTAL. 

interested  in  preserving  such,  and  to  Port  Royal  we  owe 
nearly  all  our  knowledge  of  Pascal.  But -we  know  that  he 
lived  much  with  his  superiors  in  rank ;  and  of  this  fact, 
together  with  a  passage  in  the  **  Discourse/'  his  biographers 
have  made  warp  and  woof  to  weave  a  long  conjectural 
romance.     The  passage  is  the  following  *  :  — 

"  Man,  by  himself,  is  an  imperfect  thing :  to  be  happy 
he  needs  to  find  a  second.  He  often  searches  for  this  in  a 
condition  of  life  equal  to  his  own,  because  the  liberty  and 
opportunity  of  declaring  himself  are  there  most  easily  to 
be  met  with.  Nevertheless,  we  sometimes  look  far  above 
ourselves,  and  feel  the  fire  increase,  although  we  dare  not 
confess  it  to  her  who  is  its  cause. 

"  When  one  loves  a  lady  of  unequal  rank,  ambition  may 
accompany  the  beginning  of  love;  but  in  a  little  while  the 
latter  becomes  the  master.  He  is  a  tyrant  who  endures  no 
companion ;  he  will  be  alone ;  all  the  passions  must  bend 
and  obey  him. 

"  A  high  friendship  fills  the  heart  of  man  much  more 
completely  than  a  common  and  equal  one ;  little  things 
float  to  and  fro  in  its  space ;  only  great  ones  fix  themselves 
and  remain  there." 

M.  Faug^re  and  M.  Cousin  agree  in  believing  that 
Pascal  vainly  loved  some  lady  of  exalted  rank ;  but  while 
the  former  conjectures  that  the  object  of  his  affection 
might  have  been  Mademoiselle  de  Boannez,  the  sister  of  his 
bosom  friend,  the  Due  de  Boannez,  the  latter  rejects  the 
supposition  as  "  an  insult  to  Pascal's  loyalty  and  good 
sense."  It  is  necessary  that  we  should  learn  to  know  the 
brother  and  sister ;  without  committing  our  faith  to  any 
uncertain  love  story,  we  may  do  so  now. 

Gouffier,  Due  de  Boannez,  was  seven  or  eight  years 
younger  than  Pascal,  and  bound  to  him  by  a  love,  in  which 

*  Cousin,  Etudes  snr  FcscaI,  p.  490. 


DUG  DE    ROAXNEZ.  49 

admiration  of  his  intellectual  superiority  had  no  small 
share.  We  do  not  know  how  they  were  first  brought 
together ;  but  soon  M.  de  Roannez  could  not  live  without 
Pascal,  gave  him  apartments  in  his  house,  and  took  him  more 
than  once  to  Poitou,  of  which  province  he  was  governor. 
His  appears  to  have  been  one  of  those  natures  which, 
without  much  force  or  originality  of  their  own,  possess 
the  happy  faculty  of  recognising  and  honouring  these 
qualities  in  others.  He  yielded  to  his  friend  the  whole 
direction  of  his  life ;  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  Singlin 
when  Pascal  went  to  Port  Royal ;  offended  his  relations  by 
refusing  to  marry  the  richest  heiress  of  the  kingdom; 
ranged  himself  on  the  Jansenist  side  in  the  afifair  of  the 
Formulary;  and,  finally,  transferred  title,  estate,  and 
ancestral  debts  to  his  brother-in-law,  content  that  the  last 
Due  de  Roannez  should  be  remembered  only  as  the  friend 
of  Pascal.  That  the  intercourse  involved  no  unmanly 
subservience  on  the  part  of  Pascal,  we  might  conjecture, 
even  if  we  did  not  know  it.  But  Nicole,  in  his  "  Treatise 
on  the  Education  of  a  Prince,"  published  in  1670,  has 
preserved  three  short  "  Discourses  on  the  Condition  of  the 
Great,"  being  his  recollection  of  an  exhortation  given  by 
Pascal  to  a  young  person  of  high  rank,  whom  tradition,  in 
spite  of  some  chronological  difficulties,  identifies  with 
M.  de  Roannez.  We  have  space  for  only  one  extract, 
which,  however,  sufficiently  exemplifies  the  spirit  of  the 
whole.*  After  speaking  of  the  two  kinds  of  greatness, 
the  natural  and  the  social,  Pascal  says :  "  One  must  speak 
to  kings  upon  one's  knees;  one  must  stand  up  in  the 
chambers  of  princes.  To  refuse  them  this  respect  is  folly 
and  meanness  of  spirit. 

"But  as  for  the  natural  respect,  which  consists  in  esteem, 
we  owe  it  only  to  natural  greatness ;  and  to  the  qualities 

•  Pens^cs,  ed.  Faug^re,  yoL  i.  jx  345. 
VOL.  IL  E 


50  POET  ROYAL. 

contrary  to  this  natural  greatness  we  owe,  on  the  contrary, 
contempt  and  aversion.  It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should 
esteem  you  because  you  are  a  duke,  but  it  is  necessary 
that  I  should  salute  you.  If  you  are  both  a  duke  and  an 
honourable  man,  I  shall  render  what  is  due  to  both.  I  shall 
not  refuse  the  ceremony  which  you  deserve  in  your  quality 
of  duke,  nor  the  esteem  which  you  deserve  in  your  quality 
of  honourable  man.  But  if  you  were  a  duke  without  being 
an  honourable  man,  I  should  still  do  justice;  for  in  rendering 
to  you  the  external  respect  which  social  order  has  attached 
to  your  birth,  I  should  not  fail  to  feel  for  you  the  internal 
contempt  which  the  baseness  of  your  spirit  would  deserve." 

Is  not  this  passage  a  proof  that  Pascal,  like  all  other 
kings  of  men,  was  too  conscious  of  his  royalty  to  acknow- 
ledge, with  more  than  an  outward  respect,  the  artificial 
distinctions  of  social  rank  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
yoimg  duke,  who  attached  himself  for  life  to  so  honest  a 
teacher,  could  not  have  been  destitute  of  some  of  the 
noblest  elements  of  character. 

Charlotte  Gouj£er  de  Roannez,  his  sister,  was  born  in 
1633,  and  would,  therefore,  be  in  the  earliest  bloom  of 
womanhood  at  the  time  of  Pascal's  first  intimacy  with  her 
brother.  Her's  is  a  sad  history.  Of  her  early  life  we 
know  little :  two  sisters,  of  whom  one  was  Abbess  of  Kiel, 
had  embraced  the  monastic  life ;  she  lived  "  in  the  world '' 
with  her  mother.  The  inheritance  of  the  family  was  con- 
centrated upon  the  duke ;  so  that,  although  more  than  one 
ofier  of  marriage  was  made  to  Mademoiselle  de  Eoannez, 
none  of  the  proposed  bridegrooms  were  men  of  very  high 
rank  or  large  possessions.  Why  should  not  Pascal  have 
looked  up  to  her  ?  asks  M.  Faug^re ;  his  family  boasted 
an  ancient  patent  of  nobility;  his  means,  if  not  ample, 
were  sufficient ;  the  ineflFaced  recollection  of  his  youthful 
fame  lent  a  charm  to  a  fine  face  and  agreeable  manners ; 
the  superiority  of  his  genius  would  help  to  overbear  dis- 


MADEMOISELLE  DE  BOANNEZ.  51 

tinctions  of  rank.  Who  can  tell  that  the  hopelessness  of 
such  a  passion  may  not  have  had  something  to  do  with 
that  weariness  of  the  world  which  stole  over  him  in  1654? 
We  know  not ;  probably  never  shall  know.  In  December 
1654  he  flies  to  Port  Royal  des  Champs ;  at  the  end  of 
1656  we  find  him  engaged  in  a  religious  correspondence 
with  Mademoiselle  de  Eoannez.  The  friends  of  Port 
Royal  have  preserved  for  us  extracts  from  nine  of  these 
letters,  in  which  one  critic  at  least  has  been  able  to  trace 
"  a  tender  solicitude  not  explicable  by  chaudty  alone."  *  To 
us  the  only  fact  which  throws  any  light  on  the  possible 
relations  between  Pascal  and  Mademoiselle  de  Roannez  is 
the  existence  of  the  correspondence;  for  its  Jansenist 
editors  have  made  their  extracts  with  too  much  care  to 
permit  any  expression,  which  passes  the  limits  of  religious 
exhortation,  to  come  down  to  posterity.  Next  year  the 
result  of  his  influence  became  plain.  Mademoiselle  de 
Roannez,  perhaps  to  avoid  the  importunities  of  a  suitor, 
took  advantage  of  some  trifling  ailment  in  her  eyes  to 
make  a  nine  days'  round  of  prayer  before  the  Holy  Thorn, 
then  the  object  of  enthusiastic  popular  veneration  at  Port 
Royal  de  Paris.  The  desire  of  the  religious  life  took 
entire  possession  of  her;  and,  disregarding  her  mother's 
strenuous  opposition,  perhaps  relying  on  her  brother's  tacit 
approval,  she  fled  one  morning  to  Port  Royal,  where  she 
was  received  by  the  Abbess  and  Singlin.  In  vain  her  mother 
implored  her  to  return ;  she  entered  upon  the  novitiate 
with  "  extraordinary  fervour,"  and,  as  Soeur  Charlotte  de  la 
Passion,  prepared  to  live  and  die  in  the  house.  Madame 
de  Roannez  then  had  recourse  to  the  Queen-mother,  who 
caused  a  lettre^de-cachet  to  be  issued,  commanding  the 
Abbess  of  Port  Royal  to  restore  the  novice  to  her  friends. 
The  parting  was  efiected  only  by  a  display  of  legal  force ; 


Pensees,  cd.  Faug^rc,  LurodL  p.  Ixv. 


E  2 


62  POET  ROYAL. 

and  Mademoiselle  de  Roannez  returned  home  to  live  the 
monastic  life  in  her  mother^s  house.  She  cut  off  her  hair, 
took  voluntary  vows  of  chastity  and  retirement,  and  for  a 
time  steadfastly  resisted  every  attempt  made  by  her  friends 
to  procure  her  settlement  in  marriage.  The  influence  of 
Port  Royal  was  still  strong  with  her ;  Singlin  and  La  M^re 
Agn^  directed  her  conscience ;  and  Pascal,  either  in  his 
own  person,  or  through  his  sister  Madame  P6rier,  maintained 
his  old  ascendancy.  But  in  1665  she  was  left  to  her  own 
weakness.  Pascal  and  Singlin  were  dead.  Port  Royal  in 
the  agony  of  persecution,  Agn^  Amauld  imprisoned,  and 
Madame  P^rier  compelled  to  leave  Paris  for  Auvergne.  It 
was  now  well  known  in  the  family  that  her  brother  had 
resolved  not  to  marry;  and  all  the  energy  of  her  sisters, 
themselves  nuns,  was  exerted  to  persuade  her  to  some 
fitting  match.  Such  was  before  long  found  in  the  person 
of  M.  de  la  Feuillade,  a  younger  son  of  a  noble  house,  to 
whom,  with  the  King's  sanction,  the  lands,  title,  and  debts 
of  the  Due  de  Roannez  were  to  be  transferred.  She  yielded, 
and  never  after  ceased  to  repent.  Her  husband  exchanged 
the  dukedom  of  Roannez  for  that  of  Feuillade,  which  was 
created  in  his  person,  and  the  name  which  she  had  sacrificed 
herself  to  perpetuate,  passed  away  from  the  roll  of  French 
noblesse.  Till  her  death  in  1683,  she  was  a  martyr  to 
disease,  and  underwent  many  painful  operations,  which  she 
bore  quietly  and  bravely,  in  the  hope  that  they  might  be 
accepted  as  some  expiation  of  her  weakness.  Of  her  four 
children,  one  did  not  live  to  be  baptized ;  another  was  a 
cripple ;  the  third,  a  daughter,  did  not  attain  womanhood  ; 
in  the  fourth  the  dukedom  of  Feuillade  expired.  She  died 
at  last  under  the  knife,  leaving  by  her  will  3000  livres  to 
support  a  lay  sister  in  Port  Royal,  who  should  fill  the  place 
which  she  had  left,  and  procure  pardon  for  her  sin  by 
prayer  and  mortification.  The  first  lay  sister  admitted  on 
this  foundation  was  the  last  nun  that  Port  Royal  was 
suffered  to  receive. 


MADEMOISELLE  DE  ROANXEZ.  63 

Did  I  not  truly  say  that  this  was  a  sad  history?  The  saddest, 
I  think,  which  the  annalist  of  Port  Eoyal  has  to  tell ;  and 
yet  one  repeated  in  hundreds  of  cases,  which,  had  they  been 
those  of  a  duke's  daughter,  might  have  been  told  as  circum- 
stantially as  this.  To  say  that  disappointed  love  drove 
Charlotte  de  fioannez  into  the  cloister,  is  to  utter  a  conjec- 
ture which  will  never,  in  all  likelihood,  receive  either 
confirmation  or  denial ;  but,  in  the  absence  of  evidence,  to 
ascribe  the  retirement  of  Pascal  to  such  a  motive  is  wilfully 
to  misunderstand  the  depth  and  force  of  his  character.  He 
was  not  a  man  to  abjure  the  world,  as  a  child,  who  cannot 
reach  its  toy,  sulks  in  a  corner ;  he  weighed  the  world  and 
the  cloister  in  his  Catholic  balance,  —  the  only  balance  he 
had,  —  and  chose  what  appeared  to  him  the  better  part. 
Even  so  he  did  not  finally  withdraw  from  the  conflict  of 
human  interests,  but  re-entered  it  from  another  side.  The 
author  of  the  "  Provincial  Letters  "  cannot  be  said  to  have 
abdicated  his  influence  on  society ;  and  the  "  Thoughts  " 
have  swayed  the  mind  of  posterity  more  than  the  experi- 
ment of  the  Puy  de  Dome.  She  sought  in  the  cloister's 
living  death,  repose  from  temptations  which  she  doubted 
her  ability  to  overcome,  and  deliverance  from  a  haunting 
weakness,  in  the  regularity  of  monastic  prayer  and  obser- 
vance. The  trial  was  never  made ;  she  did  not  know  that 
it  might  have  failed ;  she  felt  that  her  worldly  life  had 
betrayed  even  more  than  the  instability  which  she  had 
feared ;  and  so  looked  upon  Port  Eoyal,  from  the  day  of 
ber  marriage,  as  a  paradise  of  holiness,  from  which  her  own 
sin  had  shut  her  out.  Who  can  tell  how  many  there  have 
been  to  whom  the  other  side  of  the  alternative  has  revealed 
its  hoUowness ;  who,  imprisoned  in  the  changeless  round  of 
convent  devotion,  have  panted  for  the  free  air  of  worldly 
love  and  duty?* 

*  Marg.  Peiier,  ap.  Coasio,  Etudes  sar  Pascal,  pp.  390 — 396.  Lettres  de 
Fkical,  ibid.  pp.  431— -451.    Necrologe,  p.  76,  el  nq.    Bee.  d'Utrecht,  p.  301. 

X  3 


54  PORT  ROYAL. 

Another  friendship,  which  dates  from  this  period,  may 
help  to  throw  light  upon  PascaPs  so-called  worldly  life. 
Jean  Domat  was  also  a  native  of  Clermont,  and  two  years 
younger  than  Pascal.  His  family  was  bourgeois,  but  main- 
tained through  the  Church  a  connexion  with  a  higher  rank  in 
society ;  for  his  great  uncle  was  the  Jesuit  Father  Sirmond, 
confessor  of  Louis  XIII.,  and  Antoine  Arnauld's  first  an- 
tagonist* One  brother  became  a  Jesuit ;  Jean  Domat,  the 
care  of  whose  education  Sirmond  assumed,  passed  through 
the  seminaries  of  the  Society  with  brilliant  success,  and 
applied  himself  to  the  law.  Mathematics  first  brought  him 
into  contact  with  Pascal ;  together  they  made  experiments 
on  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere;  till  at  last  a  close  friend- 
ship united  them,  and,  in  spite  of  Domat's  Jesuit  education, 
he  became  Pascal's  ally  in  his  resistance  to  Amauld  and 
Nicole  in  the  matter  of  the  Signature.  To  Domat  Pascal 
confided  his  writings  on  the  Formulary,  to  be  published  or 
suppressed,  according  to  the  necessities  of  the  case,  and  his 
was  the  hand  which  tended  Pascal  in  his  last  illness.  But  a 
long  and  useful  life  waited  for  the  younger  of  the  two  friends^ 
He  had  married  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  and  a  family  of 
thirteen  children  rose  about  him.  For  thirty  years  he 
filled  with  honour  a  high  legal  office  at  Clermont;  resolute 
and  impartial  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  noted  for  his 
firm  opposition  to  Jesuit  intrigue  and  encroachment.  His 
treatise  "  Les  Lois  Civiles  dans  leur  ordre  naturel "  f  was  ac- 
complished under  royal  patronage,  and  was  acknowledged 
at  once  to  be  the  greatest  work  on  jurisprudence  which 
France  had  yet  produced.  Boileau  X  pronounced  him  "  the 
restorer  of  reason  to  jurisprudence."  "  He  is  incomparably," 
says  Victor   Cousin  §,  **the  greatest  jurisconsult  of  the 

Lett.  d'Ang^liqne  Arnaald,  toI.  iil  p.  407.     Lett.  d*Agn^8  Arnaald,  toI.  i. 
p.  445.    Fensees,  ed.  Faug^re,  Introd.  p.  Ixv. 

♦  Vol  i.  p.  182.  t  3  ▼0^8.  4to,  1694. 

t  Qaoted  by  St*  Beare,  il  500.  §  Jacq.  Pascal,  p.  425. 


DOMAT.  55 

seventeenth  century*:  he  inspired,  and  almost  formed 
D'Aguesseau ;  he  has  sometimes  anticipated  Montesquieu, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  that  general  legal  reform  which 
was  undertaken  by  the  republic,  and  executed  by  the 
empire.  *  Les  Lois  Civiles  dans  leur  ordre  naturel '  is,  as 
it  were,  the  preface  to  the  Code  Napoleon,"  Domat  died  in 
1696,  in  his  seventy-first  year,  having  just  finished  the  work 
of  his  life,  and  leaving  behind  him  the  reputation  of  one 
whose  grave  and  steadfast  character  enabled  him  to  fulfil 
the  requirements  of  his  Christian  calling  without  flying 
from  the  temptations,  or  abandoning  the  duties  of  common 
social  life.  His  only  conversion  was  from  the  prejudices  of 
his  Jesuit  education  to  Jansenism :  we  hear  of  no  excesses  of 
worldliness,  which  should  lead,  by  natural  recoil,  to  excesses 
of  monasticism.  Yet  we  may  note  that  he  was  the  friend  of 
Pascal's  worldly,  as  well  as  of  his  religious  years,  and  that 
the  amity  which  began  in  the  one  period,  was  continued, 
apparently  without  break  or  change,  in  the  other.* 

If  for  a  moment  we  resume  in  this  place  the  story  of 
Pascal's  scientific  activity,  we  shall  see  that  he  did  not  long 
regard  the  prohibition  of  study  with  which  his  physicians 
sent  him  to  Paris  in  1647.  He  never  again  applied  himself 
to  it  with  the  painful  assiduity  which  had  been  necessary 
for  the  perfection  of  his  arithmetical  machine,  and  which 
had  so  ruined  his  health.  The  wonderful  rapidity  and  ac- 
curacy of  his  mental  operations,  enabled  him  to  produce 
great  results  at  the  cost  of  comparatively  little  exertion. 
His  barometrical  experiments  were  continued  during  the 
years  1649,  1650,  1651,  and  the  results  embodied  in  his 
"  Treatise  on  the  Weight  of  the  Air,"  written  in  1 653.t    The 


*  Cousin,  J.  P.  Appendix  IIL  Documents  in^dits  but  Domat,  p.  425. 
Bee.  d'Utrecht,  p.  273. 

t  The  "Traite  de  la  Pesantetir  de  la  Masse  de  TAir,"  and  the  "Traite  de 
TEqailibre  des  Liqueurs,'*  both  intended,  according  to  Bossut,  to  form  part 

E  4 


56  PORT  ROYAL. 

royal  patent  for  the  arithmetical  machine  is  dated  May  22nd 
1649,  and  he  sends  the  machine  itself  to  Queen  Christina 
of  Sweden  in  1650.  He  investigates  the  laws  of  the  equi- 
librium of  fluids,  and  lays  the  foundation  of  hydrostatical 
science.  He  determines  many  curious  numerical  problems 
by  his  *  Arithmetical  Triangle,'  which  Montucla*  charac- 
terises  as  "  a  truly  original  and  singularly  ingenious  inven- 
tion." He  engages  in  a  long  correspondence  with  Fermat, 
the  celebrated  geometrician  of  Toulouse ;  at  the  request  of 
the  Chevalier  de  Mere,  a  well  known  gambler,  he  investi- 
gates the  theory  of  probabilities ;  and  in  1654,  the  year  of 
his  final  retirement,  he  presents  to  the  learned  Society,  of 
which  his  father  had  been  a  member,  eleven  geometrical 
treatises  in  the  Latin  language.  To  this  period  of  his  life 
also  we  must  refer  a  scheme  which  was  not  put  into  exe- 
cution till  1662.  Pascal  was  the  inventor  of  the  omnibus. 
The  privilege  of  placing  what  were  called  "  carrosses  a  cinq 
sols  "  upon  certain  routes  through  the  city  of  Paris,  was 
granted  by  royal  patent,  dated  January  1662,  to  the  Due 
de  Boannez  and  two  other  noblemen;  and  we  possess  a 
lively  letter  from  Gilberte  Pascal  to  M.  de  Pomponne,  giving 
a  glowing  account  of  the  first  success  of  the  experiment. 
An  independent  tradition  ascribes  the  origination  of  the 
idea  to  Pascal ;  it  is  certain  that  he  had  an  interest  in  the 
undertaking,  for  he  mortgaged  his  share  of  the  first  year's 
profits  to  raise  money  for  immediate  almsgiving.f 

In  face  of  all  these  facts^  of  his  sister's  and  his  niece's 
attestations  to  bis  exemption  from  gross  vice,  of  his  distinct 
expression  of  religious  faith  at  various  intervals,  and  of  the 
character  of  his  known  friendships — I  cannot  agree  with 
those  biographers  who  speak  of  this  period  of  Pascal's  life, 

of  a  larger  work  on  the  Tacaam,  were  written  in  1653,  bat  not  published  till 
1 663,  the  year  after  Pascal's  death. 

*  Histoire  des  Mathdmatiqnes,  vol.  ii.  p.  63. 

t  Fang^re,  J.  P.  pp.  26,  80. 


WORLDLY   LIFE.  57 

in  terms  which  cany  with  them  the  suspicion  of  profligacy 
or  sensual  indulgence.  An  Augustinian  theology  makes 
another  and  a  darker  estimate  of  conduct  than  a  philoso- 
phical morality ;  and  inverting  the  old  maxim,  supposes  the 
greatest  saint  to  have  been  the  greatest  sinner.  The  theory 
of  monasticism  works  in  the  same  direction,  and  mistrusts  the 
purity  of  any  life,  the  ardour  of  any  devotion,  which  do  not 
assume  its  forms  and  own  its  restraints.  There  were  reasons 
enough  why  Pascal  should  have  returned  to  the  eagerness 
of  piety  which  once  before  possessed  him,  without  adding 
remorse  to  the  number.  His  life  was  one  long-continued 
pain.  Of  his  sisters,  Grilberte  was  far  away  in  Auvergne, 
filled  with  the  thousand  solicitudes  of  a  wife  and  mother ; 
and  Jacqueline,  the  best  beloved,  from  whom  he  had  parted 
half  in  anger,  seemed  to  beckon  him  to  her  side  at  Port 
Soyal.  The  society  of  either,  or  still  more  surely  an 
honourable  and  happy  love,  might  have  preserved  him  to  the 
world.  The  strong  man,  who  willingly  yields  himself  to  the 
influence  of  a  wise  and  gentle  woman,  asserts  his  superiority 
over  friends  of  his  own  sex ;  and  so  Pascal  carried  Boannez 
and  Domat  with  him  into  the  Jansenlst  ranks.  He  was,  as 
Le  Maitre  feared  himself  might  be,  "demi-vivant,  ou  demi- 
mort,"  imable,  for  health's  sake,  to  throw  his  vast  energies 
into  physical  studies;  profoimdly  dissatisfied  with  the 
littleness  and  hoUowness  of  common  social  life;  a  great 
heart  half  empty,  a  great  mind  half  idle.  A  keen  conscience 
needs  uo  more  to  produce  the  deep  discontent,  which  in 
duller  spirits  is  awakened  only  by  the  consciousness  of  gross 
and  wilful  sin ;  there  are  passionate  and  energetic  souls, 
which  recoil  more  eagerly  from  moral  listlessness,  than  even 
from  the  feverish  excitement  of  self-indulgence.  And  the 
time  had  now  come  at  which  the  great  struggle  between 
religion  and  the  world  was  to  be  fought  out  in  Pascal's 
heart,  which,  despairing  of  reconciling  the  rival  duties,  shall 
give  itself  wholly  up  to  God. 


58  PORT  BOTAL. 

In  July  1653  Madame  Perier  was  dangerously  ill,  and 
Jacqueline  expected  to  hear  by  every  post  that  all  was 
over.  In  this  extremity  she  wrote  to  her  brother-in-law 
a  letter^  which  in  its  mixture  of  sisterly  tenderness  and 
absolute  faith  in  the  purposes  of  God,  reveals  all  the 
strength  and  depth  of  her  character.  She  loved  her  sister 
better  than  she  had  ever  done  when  they  were  together ;  at 
the  very  moment  of  writing  she  was  hardly  able  to  endure 
the  agony  of  suspense.  Nevertheless  she  doubted  whether 
it  was  right  to  ask  her  life  of  God.  **  I  have  done  so,"  she 
continues,  "  on  behalf  of  you  and  of  her  children ;  but 
when  I  recollected  that  God  took  away  our  deceased  mother 
from  us  when  we  were  much  younger  than  they  are,  and 
in  more  critical  circumstances  than  those  which  will  follow 
this  loss,  and  that  nevertheless  He  has  by  no  means  for- 
saken us,  but  has  deigned  to  testify  in  our  persons  that 
He  is  the  Father  of  the  orphan  and  the  Consoler  of  the 
afflicted,  I  thought  that  we  ought  not  to  oppose  ourselves 
to  His  commands,  but  to  cast  ourselves,  with  all  that  is 
dearest  to  us,  into  His  arms. 

**  Your  children  are  more  His  than  ours ;  let  us  not  fear 
lest  He  should  abandon  them,  so  long  as  we  commit  them 
to  His  hands.  And  as  for  you,  I  surely  believe  that  if  God 
deprives  you  of  so  great  a  consolation,  it  is  to  draw  you 
wholly  to  Himself;  for  although  your  union  may  be  en- 
tirely lawful,  and  entirely  holy,  there  is  something  more 
perfect  still ;  and  possibly  God,  knowing  by  His  divine 
wisdom  that  you  would  not  have  been  disposed  to  listen  to 
the  inspiration  which  He  might  have  given  to  you,  to 
aspire  to  so  pure  a  state,  and  to  resolve  to  anticipate, 
by  a  holy  and  voluntary  divorce,  that  hard  separation, 
which  is,  sooner  or  later,  inevitable;  wishes  to  show 
you  that  the  fictitious  obstacles  which  self-love  suggests 
on  these  occasions  are  removed  in  a  moment  when  He 
pleases,  and  that  when  it  is  His  will,  we  must  do  under 


SEOOND   CONVERSION.  59 

pressure  of  necessity,  what  we  could  not  do  of  our  own 
accord.     .     .     . 

"I  cannot  refrain  from  telling  you,  that  the  only 
wish  I  am  able  to  form  for  any  one  is  that  it  may  please 
God  to  place  him  in  a  more  perfect  repose,  and  a  fuller 
assurance  in  drawing  him  to  Himself,  who  is  the  sole  end 
towards  which  we  move  in  all  that  we  do.  If  it  pleases 
Him  to  grant  this  mercy  to  my  dear  sister,  rather  than  to 
us,  why  should  we  oppose  ourselves  to  her  happiness  ?  I 
see  no  other  happiness  in  the  world  than  an  entire  retreat 
and  a  complete  abandonment  of  all  things,  for  the  purpose 
of  serving  God  alone ;  but  even  this  is  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  bliss  of  possessing  Him  with  an  entire 
fulness  and  a  certain  assurance  of  never  losing  Him  more. 
Let  us  then  stifle  as  much  as  possible  all  the  sentiments  of 
nature  which  oppose  themselves  too  sti*ongly  to  those 
which  faith  and  charity  ought  to  give  us  upon  this  subject; 
and  since  all  eflForts  and  wishes  are  useless  against  the 
decrees  of  God,  do  with  a  good  heart,  what  we  must  do  if 
He  has  willed  it"  • 

In  another  passage  of  this  fine  letter,  Jacqueline  desires 
to  unite  her  prayera  with  those  of  jher  brother-in-law 
that  they  may  both  approve  themselves  wholly  faithful 
to  God  in  this  trial.  "  I  implore  you  to  ask  of  Him  this 
favour  for  me,  as  I  ask  it  for  you ;  and  as  I  know  that  God 
is  near  the  afflicted,  and  listens  favourably  to  their  prayers, 
I  include  my  poor  brother  in  the  request,  and  beg  you  to 
do  as  much  for  him,  that  God  may  please  to  use  this  afflic- 
tion to  cause  him  to  return  to  his  better  self  {rentrer  dans 
lui-meme),  and  to  open  his  eyes  to  the  vanity  of  all  worldly 
things."  May  we  not  date  the  new  soberness  of  Pascal's 
thoughts  and  plans  from  these  moments  of  domestic  agony  ? 
Jacqueline,  writing  in  December  1654,  after  her  brother 

♦  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  227. 


60  rORT  BOTAU 

had  placed  himself  under  Singlin's  direction,  says,  that 
"  for  more  than  a  year  he  had  felt  a  great  contempt  of  the 
world,  and  an  almost  insupportable  disgust  of  the  persons 
who  are  in  it."  *  It  is  not  easy  to  trace  the  operations  of 
the  Spirit  in  another's  heart;  ** whence  it  cometh,  or 
whither  it  goeth  "  is  not  always  revealed,  even  to  the  soul 
upon  which  it  works.  The  great  crises  of  life  often  pass 
away  without  result,  while  some  little  stumbling-block 
of  circimistance  is  the  beginning  of  new  things.  And  so, 
all  that  we  can  truly  say  of  Pascal  is,  that  soon  after  his 
sister's  dangerous,  yet  not  fatal  illness,  he  began  to  turn 
away  his  face  from  the  world* 

An  almost  contemporary  tradition  ascribes  to  a  remark- 
able escape  from  danger  the  first  special  impulse  in  the 
new  direction.  One  f§te  day,  probably  in  October  or 
November  1654,  he  was  driving  a  carriage,  drawn  by  four 
or  six  horses,  on  the  Pont  de  Neuilly.  The  leaders  sud- 
denly took  fright,  ran  away,  and  swerving  from  their  course 
at  a  point  where  no  balustrade  protected  the  road,  fell  into 
the  river.  The  traces  broke  at  the  critical  moment ;  and 
the  carriage,  with  its  occupant,  remained  safe  upon  the 
verge.  Upon  a  sensitive  mind,  especially  if  already  oscil- 
lating between  the  religious  and  the  worldly  life,  such  an 
adventure  could  not  have  been  without  its  eflFect.  **  But 
it  was  necessary,"  says  the  compiler  of  the  memoir  in  the 
Recueil  d'Utrechtt,  "that  God  should  take  away  from  him 
that  vain  love  of  science  to  which  he  had  returned ;  and 
it  was  without  doubt  for  this  purpose  that  He  caused  him 
to  have  a  vision,  of  which  he  never  spoke  to  any  one  except 
his  confessor."  The  word  "  vision  "  in  this  passage  is  the 
result  of  inference,  not  a  direct  statement  of  fact.  All  we 
know  is,  that  after  Pascal's  death,  a  servant  discovered  a 
little  parcel,  carefully  stitched  up  in  his  waistcoat,  which 

*  Coaain,  J.  P.  p.  S34.  f  P*  ^^' 


PASCAL'S   VISION.  61 

he  had  evidently  worn  from  day  to  day,  and  sewn  and  un- 
sewn  when  he  changed  his  clothes.  The  packet  contained 
two  copies  of  a  document  in  his  own  handwriting,  one  on 
parchment,  the  other  on  paper ;  plainly  a  record  of  some 
event  or  train  of  meditation  which  he  wished  to  keep  ever 
in  remembrance.  The  following  copy  has  been  preserved 
by  the  pious  care  of  Madame  Perier :  — 


>h 


L'an  de  gr&ce,  1654. 

Lundi,  23me  Novembre,  jour  de  St.  Clement,  Pape  et 
Martyr,  et  autres  au  Martyrologe. 

Veille  de  St  Chrysogone,  Martyr  et  autres. 
Depuis  environ   dix  heures  et  demie  du  soir,  jusques 
environ  min'uit  et  demi. 

Feu. 
Dieu  d' Abraham,  Dieu  d'Isaac,  Dieu  de  Jacob, 

Non  des  Philosophes  et  des  Savans. 
Certitude,  certitude,  sentimens,  vue,  joie,  paix. 

Dieu  de  Jesus  Christ 
Deum  Tn&wffiy  et  Deum  veatrwm.    Jean  x.  17. 
Ton  Dieu  sera  mon  Dieu.     Ruth. 
Oubli  du  monde  et  de  tout  hormis  Dieu. 
II  ne  86  trouve  que  par  les  voies  enseign^es  dans  I'Evangile. 
Grandeur  de  Tame  humaine. 
P^re  juste,  le  monde  ne  t'a  point  connu,  mais  je  t'ai 
connu.     Jean  17. 
Joie,  joie,  pleurs  de  joie. 
Je  m'en  suis  s^par& 
Derdiquerunt  Tnefontem  aqvuce  viva. 
Mon  Dieu  me  quitterez-vous. 
Queje  n^en  sois  pomt  sipari  UemeUement 
Cette  eat  la  vie  HeraeUe,  quails  te  connoiasent  seul  vrai 
DieUf  et  celui  que  tu  as  envoyL 


62  PORT  EOTAL. 

Je6iL8  Christ 

Jiaua  Christ 

Jisiia  Christ 

Je  m*en  suis  separS.    Je  Vai  fuiy  renonce. 

Crucifix. 

Que  je  rCen  sois  jamais  skparL 

Dieu  ne  se  conserve  que  par  les  voies  enseignies  dans 

VEvangile. 

RSconcUiation  totals  et  douce. 

Soumission  totale  k  J6sii8  Christ  et  k  mon  Directeur. 

Eternellement  en  joie  pour  iin  jour  d'exercice  sur  la  terre. 

Non  obliviscar  sermones  tv^s.  Amen.^ 


^ 


What  judgment  are  we  to  form  of  this  paper  ?  Condor- 
cet,  in  his  edition  of  the  "  Thoughts,"  throws  discredit  upon 
it,  after  the  manner  of  his  school,  by  calling  it  "une  amu- 
lette  mystique,"  insinuating  under  that  phrase  that  Pascal 
attached  a  superstitious  value  to  the  parchment,  or  the 
form  of  words,  apart  from  the  meaning  which  they  convey. 
By  and  by,  a  shapely  edifice  of  misrepresentation  was 
built  upon  this  sandy  base,  intended  to  prove  that  the  reli- 
gious fervour  of  Pascal's  last  years  was  the  result  of  a  dis- 
ordered brain ;  really  proving  that  spiritual  things  can  only 
be  spiritually  discerned,  and  that  the  school  of  the  Ency- 
clopedie  was  blind  of  the  inner  vision  of  the  soul.     On  the 

*  As  the  various  copies  of  this  singular  docoment  are  not  yerbally  the 
same,  I  hare  exactly  reproduced  that  of  the  Becaeil  d*Utrecht,  pp.  259, 260. 
M.  Prosper  Faog^re  departs  from  his  usual  accuracy  in  the  statement 
(Pcnsees  de  Pascal,  Introd.  p.  xxix.,  repeated,  vol.  L  p.  228,)  that  Condorcet 
published  it  for  the  first  time.  The  date  of  Condorcet^s  **Eloge  et  Pens^es 
de  Pascal"  is,  according  to  M.  Fangire  himself,  1776;  that  of  the  Becueil 
d'Utrecht,  1740. 


PASCAL'S  VISION.  63 

1st  of  June  1738,  Voltaire,  speaking  of  his  remarks  upon 
Pascal's  "  Thoughts,"  and  the  animadversions  which  they 
had  called  forth,  had  written  thus  to  the  mathematician, 
S'Gravesende: — *  **  Pascal,  throughout  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  believed  that  he  saw  an  abyss  by  the  side  of  his  chair ; 
need  we  on  that  account  have  the  same  fancy  ?  I,  too,  see  an 
abyss,  but  it  is  in  the  very  things  which  he  believed  that  he 
had  explained.  You  will  find  in  Leibnitz's  *  Miscellanies,' 
that,  towards  the  end,  melancholy  led  Pascal's  intellect 
astray ;  he  even  says  so  somewhat  harshly.  It  is  not  after 
all  wonderful,  that  a  man  of  delicate  temperament  and 
gloomy  imagination  like  Pascal,  should  end  in  deranging, 
by  bad  management,  the  organs  of  his  brain.  Such  a 
malady  is  not  more  surprising  or  more  humiliating  than 
fever  or  headache.  For  the  great  Pascal  to  be  attacked  by 
it  is  for  Samson  to  lose  his  strength."  How  plain  the 
inference  I  A  mystic  amulet — a  haunting  hallucination — 
Ls  it  to  this  that  the  discoverer  of  atmospheric  weight,  the 
inventor  of  the  arithmetical  machine,  has  fallen  ?  If  a 
brilliant  career  of  scientific  discovery,  which  seemed  to 
promise  great  conquests  for  the  kingdom  of  positive  know- 
ledge, has  ended  in  entanglement  in  the  old  religious  mists, 
what  better  explanation  than  that  the  fine  intellect  broke 
down,  and  left  the  philosopher  a  prey  to  superstitious 
fancies  ?  But,  unfortunately  for  this  theory,  the  facts  upon 
which  it  is  founded  will  not  bear  examination.  The  Pascal 
of  the  "  Thoughts  "  is  he  of  the  "  Provincial  Letters  "  and  the 
resolution  of  the  Cycloid,  labours  which  give  no  evidence 
of  failing  powers.  The  story  of  the  abyss  rests  upon  the  un- 
supported testimony  of  the  Abbe  Boileau,  — not  the  brother 
of  the  poet,  but  a  later  churchman  of  the  same  name — 
who  tells  it  in  a  volume  of  letters  published  in  1737,  four 
years  after  the  death  of  Marguerite  Perier,  the  last  of 

♦  CEuvrcF,  vol.  Ivii.  j*.  91. 


64  PORT  ROYAL. 

Pascal's  contemporaries.  The  passage  in  the  "  Leibnitziana," 
to  which  Voltaire  so  confidently  refers,  is  no  more  than  this : 
**In  endeavouring  thoroughly  to  investigate  matters  of 
religion,  he  became  scrupulous  even  to  folly."  What  is 
this  but  a  moral  judgment,  which  every  Protestant  must 
express  in  terms  more  or  less  tender,  upon  the  austerities 
of  Pascal's  religious  life  ?  Only,  it  may  be  a  half  j  udgment, 
so  long  as  it  is  not  accompanied  by  a  hearty  recognition  of 
the  sublime  conscientiousness  which  expended  itself  in  these 
excesses ;  but  still,  from  its  own  side,  right  and  true.* 

Other  critics  have  endeavoured  to  explain  the  terms  of 
this  paper  without  recourse  to  the  supposition  of  a  vision, 
under  the  idea  that  in  so  doing  they  were  protecting 
Pascal's  memory  from  the  reproach  of  superstitious  cre- 
dulity. M.  Faug^re  uses  the  term  '^ravissement,"  which 
may  probably  be  translated  by  "  ecstasy,"  or  **  trance ; "  the 
Abbe  Maynard  adopts  the  phrase,  with  the  addition  of  the 
words,  "  de  pridre."  The  line  of  demarcation  which 
separates  these  words  from  "  vision  "  is  easy  to  define  in 
thought,  but  hardly  discoverable  when  we  seek  to  apply 
it  to  the  discrimination  of  facts.  The  first  denote  only  a 
subjective,  the  latter,  in  addition,  an  objective  phenomenon  : 
the  first  place  the  whole  scene  of  action  within  Pascal's 
mind,  the  latter  supposes  an  appearance  perceptible  to  his 
senses.  Then,  in  order  to  define  our  notion  of  a  ^dsion, 
we  must  ask  whether  we  conceive  of  it  as  something  which 
might  also  have  been  visible  to  other  senses  than  his,  and 
the  answer,  in  the  attempt  to  make  a  fundamental  distinc- 
tion between  the  real  and  the  phenomenal,  leads  us  away 
into  depths  of  metaphysical  obscurity.  There  are  peculi- 
arities in  the  paper,  such  as  the  use  of  the  word  *^  feu," 
and  the  exact  specification  of  time,  which  aid  the  theory 
that  it  is  the  record  of  what  Pascal  saw,  as  well  as  of  what 

♦  CoDf.  Sv  Beure,  rol.  iii.  pp.  285—287. 


PASCAL'S  VISION.  65 

he  felt  On  the  other  hand,  may  be  alleged  the  marks  of 
mental  change  and  conflict  which  it  contains,  as  if  it  were 
an  epitome  of  the  varying  thoughts  and  impulses  of  many 
weeks,  rather  than  the  picture  of  two  hours'  trance  or 
struggle.  Nevertheless,  the  main  fact  is,  that  it  records  the 
crisis  in  the  Divine  dealing  with  Pascal's  soul;  and  the 
single  principle  which  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind, 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  works  far  more  frequently,  and  as 
effectually  in  the  recesses  of  the  soul,  as  through  the 
senses.  It  is  impossible,  it  would  be  imphilosophical  if  it 
were  possible,  to  deny  the  reality  of  that  class  of  spiritual 
fects  which  we  call  visions ;  the  error  lies  in  setting  them 
apart,  and  limiting  to  them  the  presence  of  a  Divine 
element  in  himian  affairs.  With  me,  to  suppose  that  on  the 
23rd  of  November,  1654,  Pascal  was  convinced  that  he  saw 
a  vision  of  Divine  truth,  would  not  detract  from  the  truth- 
fulness and  soberness  of  his  mind :  as  I  should  not  the  less 
believe  that  God  had  been  with  him,  had  the  spiritual 
struggle  been  accompanied  by  no  external  manifestations. 
Jacqueline,  in  a  letter  to  her  sister,  dated  January  25th, 
1655,  gives  a  full  account  of  her  brother's  change  of  pur- 
pose, but  represents  it  as  of  more  gradual  accomplishment 
than  we  should  suppose,  if  we  concentrated  our  attention 
only  upon  these  exceptional  facts.  For  more  than  a  year 
she  had  marked  a  difference  in  him  ;  an  unwonted  weari- 
ness of  society,  and  of  all  whom  he  met  in  it.  About  the 
end  of  September,  she  says*,  "He  came  to  see  me,  and  at 
this  visit  opened  his  heart  to  me  in  a  way  that  made  me 
feel  sorry  for  him ;  avowing  that  in  the  midst  of  constant 
occupation  and  surrounded  by  circumstances  which  might 
contribute  to  make  him  love  the  world,  and  to  which  we 
had  reason  to  believe  him  much  attached,  he  was  in  such 
sort  anxious  to  quit  them  all,  both  on  account  of  the  ex- 

*  Cousin,  J.  P.  p.  236. 
VOL.  n.  F 


66  POET  EOTAL. 

treme  aversion  whicli  he  felt  to  the  follies  and  amusements 
of  the  world,  and  of  the  constant  reproaches  of  his  con- 
science, as  to  find  himself  detached  from  everything  in  a 
way  which  he  had  never  before  experienced,  or  indeed,  any- 
thing approaching  to  it ;  but  that,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was 
so  utterly  forsaken  of  God,  as  to  feel  no  attraction  on  that 
side ;  that  nevertheless,  he  forced  himself  with  all  his 
might  in  that  direction,  though  he  was  very  conscious  that 
it  was  rather  his  own  intellect  and  spirit  which  roused  him 
to  what  he  knew  to  be  better  things,  than  the  movement 
of  the  Spirit  of  God :  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  so 
separated  from  all  earthly  things,  as  to  be  in  a  condition  to 
undertake  everything,  if  only  he  had  the  same  sentiments 
towards  God  as  before :  and  that  at  these  times  he  must  have 
been  boimd  in  horrible  bonds  to  resist  the  grace  which  God 
gave  him,  and  the  movements  which  He  aroused  in  him. 
This  confession  surprised  as  much  as  it  rejoiced  me,  and 
from  that  time  I  conceived  hopes  such  as  I  had  never 
before  entertained,  and  of  which  I  thought  that  I  ought  to 
give  you  some  tidings,  in  order  to  compel  you  to  prayer. 
If  I  told  the  tale  of  all  his  other  visits  as  particularly  as 
this,  I  should  need  to  write  a  volume ;  for  from  this  time 
they  were  so  frequent  and  so  long,  that  it  seemed  as  if  I  had 
no  other  work  to  do." 

This  then,  was  the  state  of  mind  upon  which  the  pre- 
servation of  the  bridge  of  Neuilly  came  like  a  warning 
voice;  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  mysterious  experience 
of  the  23rd  of  November.  But  it  was  on  the  8th  of 
December,  that  the  final  resolution  was  taken:  the  feast 
of  the  Conception  of  the  Virgin,  which  long  ago  had  wit- 
nessed Jacqueline's  triumph  at  the  Palinods  de  Rouen,  and 
was  now  to  mark  the  date  of  a  greater  victory.  On  the 
afternoon  of  that  day,  Pascal  was  in  the  parlour  of  Port 
Boyal  with  his  sister,  when  the  bell  sounded  for  nones 
and  a  sermon.    They  entered  the  church  together ;  Singlin 


PASCAL  AT  PORT  ROYAL.  67 

was  the  preacher.  Pascal  knew  that  his  own  attendance 
there  that  day  was  accidental^  and  saw  that  no  communi- 
cation could  take  place  between  his  sister  and  her  director ; 
yet  the  sermon  seemed  as  if  it  had  been  intended  for  him- 
self alone.  It  spoke  of  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life, 
and  of  the  necessity  of  making  it  holy;  it  declared  that  God 
ought  to  be  consulted  upon  every  change  of  purpose ;  that 
modes  of  life  should  be  examined  with  reference  to  the 
great  interest  of  individual  salvation.  Jacqueline  fed  the 
flame  of  devotion  which  now  burned  with  unwonted  ardour ; 
so  that  before  long,  her  brother  resolved  to  put  himself 
imder  the  guidance  of  some  austere  director,  and  to  spend 
all  his  strength  in  the  work  of  his  own  religious  education. 
Who  was  the  director  to  be  ?  Jacqueline  naturally  suggested 
Singlin  ;  but  Pascal  felt  at  first  some  undefined  aversion  to 
the  great  confessor  of  Port  Boyal ;  and  when  this  was  over- 
come, Singlin's  own  reluctance  to  accept  the  charge  of 
fresh  penitents  stood  in  the  way.  At  last  the  confessor, 
now  at  Port  Boyal  des  Champs,  consented  to  give  Jacque- 
line the  needful  instruction;  and  for  a  little  time  the 
brother  eagerly  and  humbly  followed  the  sister's  guidance. 
Then  room  was  found  for  him  among  the  solitaries  of  the 
sacred  valley,  and  De  Safi  filled  the  place  of  Jacqueline. 
There  all  was  well.  He  wrote  to  his  sister  that  he  "was 
lodged  and  treated  like  a  prince."  The  early  rising,  the  long 
round  of  service,  even  the  fasts  appeared  to  suit  his  weak 
health  better  than  the  rules  of  the  physicians.  "  I  first," 
writes  Jacqueline  to  him  about  this  time,  "  found  out  by  ex- 
perience that  health  depends  more  upon  Jesus  Christ  than 
upon  Hippocrates,  and  that,  unless  God  wishes  to  prove  and 
fortify  us  by  our  weakness,  the  regimen  of  the  soul  cures  the 
body."  His  spirits  rose  in  proportion  to  the  improvement  of 
his  health.  ^^  I  am  as  glad,"  writes  his  sister  again,  **  to  find 
you  gay  in  solitude,  as  I  was  sorry  to  have  you  so  in  the  world. 
For  all  that,  I  do  not  know  how  M.  de  Sa9i  puts  up  with  so 

r  2 


68  PORT  BOTAL. 

light-hearted  a  penitent,  who  pretends  to  balance  the  vain 
joys  and  amusements  of  the  world,  by  joys  somewhat  more 
reasonable,  and  by  more  allowable  sallies,  instead  of  ex- 
piating them  with  continual  tears."  * 

But  Port  Royal  des  Champs  was  hardly  itself  when 
Pascal  first  found  his  way  thither.  The  new  philosophy  of 
Des  Cartes  had  penetrated  even  into  these  holy  solitudes ; 
Amauld,  after  a  brief  preliminary  controversy  with  the 
master,  had  become  a  zealous  Cartesian,  perhaps  not  the 
less  zealous  because  the  Jesuits  took  the  side  of  authority 
and  Aristotle.  But  we  will  let  Fontaine  tell  his  own  story 
in  a  more  lively  passage  than  often  relieves  the  pious 
monotony  of  his  pages :  t 

'^  How  many  little  agitations  raised  themselves  in  this 
desert  touching  the  human  science  of  philosophy,  and  the 
new  opinions  of  M.  Des  Cartes  I  As  M.  Amauld  in  his 
hours  of  relaxation  conversed  on  these  subjects  with  his 
more  intimate  friends,  the  infection  insensibly  spread  on 
every  side ;  and  the  solitude,  in  the  hours  devoted  to  social 
intercourse,  resounded  only  with  these  discussions.  There 
was  hardly  a  solitary  who  did  not  talk  of  'automata.'  To 
beat  a  dog  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  any  consequence. 
The  stick  was  laid  on  with  the  utmost  indifference,  and 
those  who  pitied  the  animals,  as  if  they  had  any  feeling, 
were  laughed  at.  They  said  that  they  were  only  clock- 
work, and  that  the  cries  they  uttered  when  they  were 
beaten,  were  no  more  than  the  noise  of  some  little  spring 
that  had  been  moved  —  and  that  all  this  involved  no  sen- 
sation. They  nailed  the  poor  animals  to  boards  by  the 
foiu:  paws  to  dissect  them  while  still  alive,  in  order  to 
watch  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which  was  a  great  sub- 


•  CoQBin^  J.  p.  pp.  237—246.     Marg.  Perier,  ap.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  p.  463. 
Bee  d*Utrecht,  p.  261,  et  seq. 
t  M^m.  Tol.  iil  p.  74. 


•POBT  KOYAL  DBS  CHAMPS.  69 

ject  of  discussion.    The  cMteau  of  M.  le  Due  de  Luynes 
was  the  source  of  all  these  curious  affairs— a  source  that 
was  inexhaustible.     There  all  ceaselessly  talked  about  and 
admired  the  new  system  of  the  world,  according  to  M.  Des 
Cartes ;  but  you  could  never  see  M.  de  Saf  i  enter  upon 
these  curious  speculations.     *  What  new  idea  of  the  gran- 
deur of  God  does  it  give  me,'  he  said,  'to  come  and  tell 
me  that  the  sun  is  a  heap  of  shreds  (om<w  de  rognures) 
and  that  animals  are  clockwork?'     And  then,   smiling 
gently  when  they  talked  to  him  of  these  matters,  he  showed 
more  pity  for  those  who  occupied  themselves  with  them, 
than  desire  to  investigate  them  himself." 

The  situation  was  characteristic.     Amauld's  singularly 
wide  and  versatile  intellect  had  not  suffered  this  great  crisis 
of  philosophical  thought  to  pass  by  unmarked;  in  the 
midst  of  his  professional  duties  and  controversies,  he  had 
found  time  to  examine  the  new  philosophy ;  after  a  period 
of  hesitation  he  had  enrolled  himself  as  a  follower  of  Des 
Cartes,  and  was  about,  in  the  Port  Royal  Ix)gic,  to  apply 
and  develop  the  system.    De  Safi,  no  more  than  a  theo- 
logian, and  concerned  even  with  theology  in  none  but  its 
practical  aspects,  seized  only  upon  the  accidents,  the  ex- 
crescences of  Cartesianism;  was  indignant  with  the  new 
theory  of  animal  life ;  thought  that  Des  Cartes'  doctrine 
of  the  universe  emptied  it  of  all  power  of  religious  instruc- 
tion ;  and  welcomed  the  new  phUosophy,  if  at  all,  because 
it  made  reprisals  upon  the  authority  of  Aristotie,  whom 
theologians  had  long  elevated  to  an  unnatural  equality  with 
the  Bible  and  St.  Augustine.    It  was  then,  into  this  divided 
society,  that  Pascal  was  sent,  « that  M.  Amauld"  as  Fon- 
taine naively  says*  «  might  cope  with  him  {J.ui  prderoU 
le  collet)  in  all  that  regarded  the  sciences,  and  that  M.  de 
Saji  might  teach  him  to  despise  them."     It  needs  no  great 

•  M«m.  Ui-  ^  78. 
V8 


70  POM  ROTAL. 

knowledge  of  human  nature  to  prophefify  the  result.  Pas- 
cal was  flying  from  the  world  to  God ;  presently,  when  we 
look  at  his  ^^  Thoughts  "  we  shall  see  that  with  him  this 
meant  no  less  than  taking  refuge  in  faith  from  the  incom- 
pleteness of  science,  and  the  uncertainty  of  philosophy. 
Singlin  and  De  Sa^i  conquered  Des  Cartes  and  Amauld. 
The  new  solitary  threw  all  the  ardour  of  his  nature  into 
his  self-mortification ;  so  that  before  long,  Jacqueline  wrote 
to  remind  him  that  neglect  of  personal  cleanliness  is  not 
a  necessary  accompaniment  of  perfect  holiness.* 

At  this  point  the  biography  of  Blaise  and  Jacqueline 
Pascal  almost  merges  in  the  history  of  Port  Royal,  and 
I  have  no  choice  but  to  refer  my  readers  to  previous 
pages,  or  to  repeat  a  tale  already  told.  It  was  in  De- 
cember, 1654,  that  Pascal  retired  to  Port  Royal  des  Champs; 
at  the  beginning  of  1655  that  the  Due  de  Liancourt  was 
refused  absolution  at  St  Sulpice ;  at  the  end  of  that  year 
that  Arnauld's  "Second  Letter  to  a  Duke  and  Peer"  was  ex- 
amined by  the  Sorbonne ;  and  on  the  23rd  of  January,  1656, 
that  the  first  "  Provincial  Letter  "  was  published.  From 
this  time  Pascal  seems  to  have  lived  chiefly  in  Paris.  He 
came  thither  to  superintend  the  piinting  of  the  "  Letters,** 
apparently  before  the  voluntary  dispersion  of  the  solitaries 
in  March,  1656,  and  did  not  return  with  them  to  Port 
Royal  during  the  temporary  respite  obtained  for  the  com- 
mimity  by  the  miracle  of  the  Holy  Thorn.  The  deep 
impression  which  that  singular  event  made  upon  him  and 
Jacqueline  I  have  already  recorded,  and  shall  again 
refer  to  when  it  is  necessary  to  speak  of  the  origin  and 
literary  history  of  the  "  Thoughts."  No  sooner  were  the 
**  Provincial  Letters,"  and  the  subsequent  controversy  be- 
tween the  Cur&  and  the  Jesuits  brought  to  an  end,  than 
the  miracle  seemed  to  fill  all  his  thoughts,  and  for  a  year  he 

*  ConBin,  J.  P.  p.  246. 


THE  CYCLOID.  71 

busied  himself  in  laying  the  foundation  of  an  elaborate 
work  on  the  evidences  of  religion.  Then  his  maladies 
returned  with  redoubled  force,  and  the  four  years  before 
his  death/ in  1662,  were  one  long  languishing. 

The  first  form  taken  by  Pascal's  renewed  illness,  was 
a  violent  toothache,  which  altogether  deprived  him  of 
sleep.  One  night,  early  in  the  year  1658,  as  he  lay  awake 
distracted  with  pain,  his  mind  reverted  to  old  pursuits, 
and  he  began  to  reflect  upon  the  properties  of  the  Cycloid, 
a  curve  which  had  long  been  a  fertile  source  of  diflSculty 
and  contention  to  geometers.  One  happy  thought  suc- 
ceeded another;  the  problem  was  solved,  the  toothache 
it  is  to  be  hoped,  at  least  forgotten,  and  in  eight  days  the 
whole  investigation  reduced  to  mathematical  form  and 
order.  There  Pascal  himself  was  willing  to  have  left  the 
matter ;  but  the  Due  de  fioannez,  jealous  for  the  reputation 
of  his  friend,  and  anxious  to  prove  that  Catholic  piety  was 
not  incompatible  with  the  successful  pursuit  of  science, 
persuaded  him  to  issue  a  series  of  problems,  and  to  offer  a 
prize  for  their  solution  within  a  given  time.  Accordingly, 
in  June  1658,  Pascal,  under  the  name  of  Amos  Dettonville 
(an  anagram  of  his  old  pseudonym,  Louis  de  Montalte), 
published  his  **  Questions."  *    The  answers  were  to  be  sent  to 

*  I  may  introdnce  in  this  place  a  contribation  to  the  elucidation  of  the 
**  Thoughts.'*  In  Art.  VII.  No.  17  (Havet,  p.  108)  Pascal  speaks  of  a  certain 
Salomon  de  Tultie  as  a  writer  whom  he  places  bj  the  side  of  Epictetns  and 
Montaigne.  The  passage  has  greatly  puzzled  the  critics.  Who  could  this 
unknown  person  be,  whom  Pascal,  a  man  of  scanty  erudition,  thinks  worthy 
of  being  named  in  such  good  company  ?  M.  Faug^re  says,  **  Nos  recherches, 
et  celles  de  plusieurs  erudits  n'ayant  pu  nous  procurer  aucune  notion  snr 
Salomon  de  Tultie,  nous  supposons  que  Mad.  Ferier,  de  la  main  de  laquelle 
ce  passage  se  trouye  6crit  dans  le  manuscrit,  aura  alt^re  le  nom  de  Tecriyain 
cite  par  Pascal."  M.  Havet,  in  rejecting  this  hypothesis,  goes  on  to  say, 
**  On  serait  tent6  de  croire  que  Salomon  de  Tultie  n'est  qn'un  pseudonyme, 
un  ami  de  Pascal,  par  ezemple,  qui  lui  avait  soumis  quelque  recueil  de  pen- 
s^es,  on  Pascal  ayait  remarqu^  celle  qu'il  cite.  On  qui  sait  si  ce  n*est  pu 
lui-meme  que  Pascal  designe  ainsi  ?  "    M.  Havet  trembles  upon  the  verge 

f4 


72  PORT  ROYAL. 

his  father's  old  friend,  the  mathematician  Carcavi,  before 
the  Ist  of  October ;  the  first  in  point  of  date  was  to  receive 
a  prize  of  forty,  the  second  of  twenty  pistoles.  If  before 
the  appointed  time  no  correct  answer  was  sent  in,  Pascal 
engaged  to  publish  his  own  solutions. 

The  Cycloid  is  the  curve  generated  by  a  point  in  the 
circumference  of  a  circle,  which  makes  a  single  complete 
revolution  along  a  horizontal  base.  The  learned  historian 
of  the  mathematical  sciences,  Montucla,  calls  it  the  Helen 
of  geometers ;  so  numerous  and  tangled  were  the  contro- 
versies to  which  it  gave  rise,  both  before  and  after  the 
publication  of  Pascal's  "  Questions."  Its  very  discovery  is 
a  matter  of  dispute,  and  the  honour  of  having  solved  the 
first  problems  which  presented  themselves  in  relation  to 
it  was  hotly  contested  by  French  and  Italian  mathema- 
ticians. Des  Cartes  and  fioberval  quarrelled  about  it,  as 
about  everything  else ;  and  Torricelli  was  accused,  unjustly 
as  it  appears,  of  having  stolen  his  method  of  determining 
its  area  and  tangents.  Into  so  perplexed  a  matter  it  is 
not  for  us  to  penetrate ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  Pascal  im- 
peached the  accuracy  or  the  completeness  of  all  the  answers 
sent  to  him,  and  ended  by  publishing  his  own,  in  a  treatise 
which  entered  not  only  into  the  properties,  but  the  history 
of  the  famous  curve.  Christopher  Wren  and  Wallis  were 
among  the  English  competitors  for  the  prize,  and  the 
latter  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  he  had  been  unfairly 
treated.  Another  competitor,  P^re  Laloudre,  a  Jesuit  of 
Toulouse,  was  more  energetic  in  his  remonstrances  than 
Wallis ;  but  the  public  waa  accustomed  to  take  part  with 
Pascal  against  the  Jesuits,  and  did  not  fail  him  this  time. 
I^ibnitz*   decides   that  both  Wallis  and   Laloudre  had 

of  the  truth.    The  cnrioas  reader  will  find  that  Salomon  de  Tultie  is  only 
an  anagram  of  Loois  de  Montalte,  the  anther  of  the  Provincial  Letten,  and 
of  Amo«  Dettonville,  the  proposer  of  the  problems  of  the  Cycloid. 
*  Quoted  by  Maynard,  toI.  i.  p.  241. 


mCBBASma  WEAKNESS.  78 

solved  the  problem,  but  then  neither  of  them  published 
his  treatise  on  the  Cycloid  till  after  the  appearance  of 
Pascal's.  Perhaps  the  end  of  the  whole  matter  was  not 
BO  much  to  prove  the  thesis  which  the  Due  de  Eoannez 
had  in  his  mind,  as  to  show  that  ascetics  take  up  their 
old  passions  when  once  more  they  enter  the  world's 
struggles ;  and  that  the  purity  of  the  monastic  life  is  due 
rather  to  the  absence  of  temptation  than  to  the  vigour  and 
discipline  of  the  moral  nature.  To  turn  from  the  pages 
in  which  Madame  Perier  describes  her  brother's  life  during 
these  last  years,  to  the  volume  of  his  works  which  is  almost 
wholly  occupied  by  the  controversy  of  the  Cycloid,  is  suf- 
ficient to  prove  that  no  eagerness  of  austerity  could  smother 
the  fire  of  intellectual  emulation  in  Pascal's  soul,  no 
spiritual  affections  bar  the  access  to  his  heart  of  the  old 
love  of  abstract  truth.* 

The  glimpses  which  we  catch  of  Pascal  during  the  last 
four  years  of  his  life  are  but  few ;  nearly  all  our  knowledge 
is  drawn  from  his  sister's  affectionate  record.  In  August, 
1660,  he  is  at  Clermont,  and  writes  to  Format  with  an 
apology  for  not  hastening  to  meet  him  as  had  been  pro- 
posed. "  He  cannot  walk  without  a  stick,  or  hold  himself 
on  horseback ;  three  leagues,  or  four  at  most,  is  a  day's 
journey  in  a  vehicle ;  it  has  taken  him  twenty-two  days  to 
come  from  Paris  into  Auvergne."t  Then  we  have  seen 
how,  at  the  end  of  1661,  he  took  up  a  bolder  position  even 
than  Arnauld  in  regard  to  the  Formulary,  and  discarding 
the  distinction  between  "  fait "  and  "  droit,"  which  he  had 
defended  in  the  "  Provincial  Letters,"  insisted  that  any  form 
of  signature  should  reserve  not  only  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
Augustinus,  but  the  true  doctrine  of  grace.  So  in  like 
manner  we  have  already  conducted  Jacqueline  to  the  end 

*  Montncla,  yol.  ii.  p.  65,  el  atq.    Maynard,  toI.  i.  p.  2S4,  et  9eq, 
t  St*  Beaye,  vol.  uL  p.  245. 


74  POET  ROYAL. 

of  her  career,  in  October,  1661.  The  cure  of  her  niece,  the 
perils  of  the  convent,  the  necessity  of  signature ;  her  duties, 
first  as  mistress  of  the  novices,  and  then  as  sub-prioress 
of  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  —  these  things  were  her  life 
during  the  seven  years  which  remained  after  her  brother's 
conversion.  A  few  letters,  which,  except  those  already 
quoted,  have  but  little  interest ;  an  enthusiastic  poem  on 
the  Miracle ;  a  code  of  regulations  for  the  children  who 
were  being  educated  at  Port  Royal,  and  her  last  sublime 
letter  of  grief  and  protest,  are  all  that  now  remain  to 
break  the  silence  of  that  conventual  secrecy  in  which  her 
life  was  hidden.  Pascal,  falling  lifeless  to  the  ground, 
when  he  saw,  as  he  thought,  the  truth  betrayed  by  those 
to  whom  God  had  entrusted  its  defence ;  Jacqueline  slowly 
dying  in  the  cloisters  of  Port  Royal,  of  remorse  for  having 
ilnwittingly  aided  in  the  treachery — do  not  these  things 
reveal  to  us  a  diviner  strength,  and  a  higher  possibility  of 
attainment,  than  even  the  powers  which  compelled  wheels 
of  wood  and  iron  to  do  the  work  of  human  brains,  and 
tracked  the  secret  of  the  Cycloid  in  a  single  sleepless  night? 
The  last  years  of  Pascal's  life  were  passed  in  rigid  self- 
mortification.  He  resolved  to  "renounce  every  pleasiire 
and  every  superfluity."  He  dispensed,  as  far  as  possible, 
with  all  attendance,  requiring  others  to  perform  for  him 
only  those  services  which  he  could  not  perform  for  himself. 
He  reduced  the  furniture  of  his  room  to  the  standard  pre- 
scribed by  bare  necessity.  He  accustomed  himself  to  eat 
so  carelessly,  as  to  be  ignorant  of  the  composition  of  his 
meal ;  although,  on  account  of  his  delicate  digestion,  there 
were  but  few  kinds  of  food  which  his  stomach  would  retain. 
Savoury  meats  or  nauseous  medicine  he  accepted  with  the 
same  indifference ;  either  must  necessarily  be  taken,  and 
that  was  all.  His  whole  time  was  spent  in  prayer  and  in 
reading  the  Scriptures,  of  which  he  acquired  so  accurate  a 
knowledge,  as  to  be  able  at  once  to  name  the  chapter  from 


PINAL  AUSTEKITY.  75 

which  any  given  text  was  taken.  The  hundred  and 
nineteenth  Psalm  was  an  especial  favourite  with  him ;  he 
could  not  talk  of  it  without  rapturous  admiration.  After 
the  aggravation  of  his  illness  had  compelled  him  to  postpone 
or  abandon  the  execution  of  his  great  work,  he  spent  much 
of  his  time  in  going  from  church  to  church,  according  to  a 
register  which  he  had  compiled  of  the  special  services  in 
each.  Many  persons  resorted  to  him  either  for  practical 
religious  advice,  or  for  the  resolution  of  their  theological 
doubts;  but  he  regarded  even  such  intercourse  with  the 
world  as  this  as  a  possible  snare.  After  his  death,  it  was 
discovered  that  he  had  worn  next  his  skin  an  iron  girdle, 
studded  with  spikes,  which  he  was  wont  to  press  close  with 
his  elbow,  whenever  some  real  or  fancied  temptation  pre- 
sented itself  in  the  midst  of  this  pious  discourse. 

But  this  was  not  all ;  he  aimed  at  fixing  himself  in  an 
unnatural,  perhaps  impossible  isolation  from  all  human 
affections.  They  were  but  so  many  weaknesses  of  the  flesh; 
shackles  which  the  strong  runner  for  God  would  cast  away 
from  his  feet.  He  rebuked  Madame  Perier  for  allowing 
her  children  to  caress  her ;  true  love  could  be  shown  in  a 
thousand  better  ways.  Jacqueline  had  more  than  once  to 
assure  her  sister,  that  the  brother  who  received  all  her 
kindnesses  so  coldly  really  loved  her  as  well  as  heart  could 
desire.  When  Madame  Perier  proposed  to  marry  her 
youngest  daughter,  and  a  suitable  match  presented  itself, 
Pascal  protested  against  the  marriage  in  a  letter  which  is 
almost  savage  in  its  fanaticism.  ^^  The  married  state  is  no 
better  than  paganism  in  the  eyes  of  God ;  to  contrive  this 
poor  child's  marriage  is  a  kind  of  homicide,  nay,  Deicide, 
in  her  person."*  So  at  Jacqueline's  death,  he  sternly  shut 
up  his  grief  in  his  own  heart,  and  had  not  even  a  word  of 
sympathy  for  his  sister's  sorrow.     "  God  give  us  grace  to  die 

*  Fens^es,  ed.  Faag^re,  toI.  L  p.  56. 


76  PORT  ROYAL. 

as  good  a  death,"  was  all  he  said;  and  rebuked  Grilberte's 
tears  with  the  declaration  that  the  death  of  the  just  was  no 
subject  for  lamentation,  and  that  they  ought  to  thank  G-od, 
that  He  had  so  recompensed  their  sister  for  the  trifling 
service  which  she  had  rendered  to  Him.  "  It  is  wrong,"  he 
wrote  in  the  "Thoughts,"  •  "that  any  one  should  attach 
himself  to  me,  even  though  it  be  done  voluntarily,  and  with 
pleasure.  I  must  deceive  those  in  whom  I  awaken  this 
desire,  for  I  am  not  the  final  end  of  any  being,  and  have 
not  wherewith  to  satisfy  any.  Am  I  not  about  to  die? 
Thus,  then,  the  object  of  their  attachment  would  perish. 
In  the  same  way  as  I  should  do  wrong  to  give  currency  to 
a  falsehood,  although  I  persuaded  men  gently,  /tnd  it  was 
believed  with  pleasure,  and  so  gave  pleasure  to  me  too — I 
do  wrong  to  make  myself  beloved,  and  to  attract  persons 
to  attach  themselves  to  me.  Whatever  advantage  may 
result  to  me,  I  ought  to  warn  those  who  are  about  to 
assent  to  a  falsehood,  not  to  believe  it ;  and  in  the  same  way 
not  to  attach  themselves  to  me,  in  as  much  as  they  oiight 
to  give  their  life  and  strength  to  please  Grod,  and  to  seek 
after  Him." 

But  it  is  hardly  possible  that  ny  form  of  Christianity, 
how  imperfect  or  distorted  soever,  should  not  include  some 
social  duty ;  and  so  Pascal  expelled  personal  love  from  his 
heart,  to  enthrone  general  philanthropy  in  its  place.  He 
begins  a  sort  of  confession  of  faith  with  the  words  "  I  love 
all  men  as  my  brethren,  because  they  are  all  ransomed.  I 
love  poverty  because  Jesus  Christ  loved  it.  I  love  wealth 
because  it  gives  me  the  means  of  assisting  the  wretched."! 
Few  men  have  more  consistently  carried  out  these  prin- 
ciples. We  have  already  seen  how  in  the  last  year  of  his 
life  he  mortgaged  his  expected  profits  from  the  caroaaea  cb 
ci/nq  aola  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  of  Blois.    Although 

*  Penseei,  ecL  Havet,  p.  324.  f  Ibid.  p.  343. 


SEEVICE  OF  THE  POOE.  77 

his  infirmities  compelled  him  year  hy  year  to  exceed  his 
income,  he  never  refused  an  alms.     "  I  have  noticed  that 
however  poor  one  is,  something  is  always  left  behind  when 
one  dies,"  was  his  answer  to  remonstrance  on  this  head. 
He  exhorted  his  sister  to  devote  herself  and  her  children 
to  the  work  of  ministering  to  the  poor ;  no  religious  disci- 
pline could  be  better  than  familiarity  with  misery  and 
privation.     And  this  should  be  done  by  every  one  accord- 
ing to  their  several  ability ;  "  to  serv0  the  poor,  poorly, 
was  most  agreeable  to  God ; "  the  foundation  of  hospitals 
was  not  every  man's  work,  like  the  daily  and  private  as- 
sistance  of  the   indigent     One  instance  of  his  charity, 
which    occurred   about  three  months  before   his   death, 
Madame  Perier  must  tell  in  her  own  words ;  "  As  he  was 
returning  one  day  from  mass  at  St.  Sulpice,  there  met  him 
a  young  girl,  about  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  very  beautiful, 
who  asked  an  alms.     Being  touched  to  see  this  person 
exposed  to  so  manifest  a  danger,  he  asked  her  who  she 
was,  and  what  obliged  her  thus  to  ask  alms ;  and  having 
learned  that  she  was  from  the  country,  that  her  father  was 
dead,  and  that  her  mother,  having  fallen  ill,  had  been 
taken  to  the  Hotel  Dieu  that  very  day,  he  thought  that 
God  had  sent  her  to  him  as  soon  as  she  was  in  want ;  so 
that  without  any  delay  he  took  her  to  the  Seminary,  and 
put  her  into  the  hands  of  a  good  priest  to  whom  he  gave 
money  and  whom  he  begged  to  take  care  of  her,  and  to 
place  her  in  some  situation,  where,  on  account  of   her 
youth,  she  might  have  good  advice  and  be  safe.     And  to 
assist  him  in  this  care,  he  said  that  he  would  send  next 
day  a  woman  to  buy  clothes  for  her,  and  all  that  might  be 
necessary  to  enable  her  to  go  to  service.     The  next  day  he 
sent  a  woman  who  worked  so  well  with  this  good  priest, 
that  after  having  clothed  her,  they  placed  her  in  a  good 
situation.   And  this  ecclesiastic  having  asked  of  the  woman 
the  name  of  him  who  was  doing  this  charitable  act,  she 


78  PORT  BOYAL. 

said  that  she  was  not  empowered  to  tell  it,  but  that  she 
would  come  from  time  to  time  to  see  him,  and  to  provide 
for  the  wants  of  the  girl.  And  he  begged  her  to  obtain 
permission  to  reveal  the  name,  saying,  *  I  promise  you  that 
I  will  never  speak  of  it  as  long  as  he  lives ;  but  if  it  should 
be  God's  will  that  he  dies  before  me,  it  would  console  me 
to  make  this  action  known ;  for  I  think  it  so  noble,  that  I 
cannot  suflfer  it  to  remain  in  obscurity.' "  * 

What  are  we  to  say  of  these  latter  years  of  Pascal's  life  ? 
I  have  described  them  as  I  find  them  described  by  his 
sister ;  the  story,  so  far  without  comment,  lies  under  the 
reader's  eye.  Hardly  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  yet  at  the 
very  point  of  death ;  with  intellectual  powers  capable  of 
any  achievement,  yet  crippled  by  unremitting  bodily 
torment;  exorcising  doubt  by  arguments  which  lend  a 
majesty  to  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  yet  rebelling  against 
the  Church,  to  fulfil  a  higher  allegiance  to  truth ;  with  a 
heart  made  for  love,  and  household  angels,  such  as  fall  to 
few  men's  share,  turning  his  back  upon  all  affections  but 
the  holiest,  and  in  comparison  with  that,  heaping  fierce 
depreciation  upon  every  other;  spying  a  danger  to  purity 
in  a  child's  caress,  and  paganism  in  faithful  wedlock; 
having  fled  from  the  world  to  avoid  temptation,  yet  needing 
the  help  of  a  spiked  girdle  to  overcome  it — what  ideal  is 
this  of  the  Christian  life  ?  We  are  not  allowed  to  find  the 
key  to  the  mystery  in  Pascal's  infirmities,  which  prevented 
the  devotion  to  theological,  of  the  powers  which  he  had 
withdrawn  from  scientific  study.  "  Sickness,"  he  said  in 
his  last  illness,  "is  the  Christian's  natiural  state;  for  it 
places  us  in  the  condition  in  which  we  ought  always  to  be ; 
sufiering  evil,  deprived  of  all  the  goods  and  all  the 
pleasures  of  sense,  exempt  from  all  the  passions  which  are 
busy  during  the  whole  course  of  life ;  without  ambition, 

♦  Mad.  Perier,  op.  Faug^re,  J.  P.  p.  29. 


LAST  STRUGGLE.  79 

Without  avarice;  in  the  constant  expectation  of  death.  Is 
it  not  thus  that  Christians  ought  to  pass  life? "  And  yet, 
what  would  become  of  the  world,  if  all  Christians  did  thus 
pass  their  lives? 

To  what  a  height  of  moral  grandeur  does  not  this  last 
struggle  after  perfectness  raise  itself?  We  lose  sight  at 
first  of  all  but  the  divine  strength  of  will,  the  ai:dour  and 
constancy  of  self-sacrifice,  the  upward  rush  of  aspiration, 
which  enable  a  human  life  so  to  deprive  itself  of  all 
earthly  delights,  that  it  may  find  its  single,  all-sufficient 
delight  in  God.  In  Pascal,  at  least,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  purity  of  the  motive ;  no  wild  remorse  for  a  pro- 
fligacy as  wild,  drove  him  to  solitude  and  self-maceration ; 
no  popular  renown  for  sanctity  rewarded  his  past,  or 
spurred  him  to  fresh  austerity.  His  mode  of  life  was 
deliberately  adopted  as  that  which  alone  became  a  Christian 
man ;  and  its  very  obscurity  was  a  necessary  constituent  of 
its  worth.  And  men  to  whom  virtue  comes  in  winning 
guise,  and  brings  her  own  charms  with  her  in  home 
pleasures,  and  innocent  recreations  of  art  and  literature 
and  society,  wonder,  not  without  awe,  at  the  fortitude  which 
cuts  away  all  these  things  from  life,  as  possible  occasions  of 
sin,  and  is  content  to  live  and  die,  deprived  of  every  gift 
of  God,  save  the  gift  of  Himself.  So,  not  seldom,  we  are 
blinded  to  the  real  proportion  of  things;  as  the  crag  that  rises 
riven  and  bare  in  one  clear  sweep  from  our  feet^  impresses 
us  with  its  height  more  than  the  loftier  hill  which  swells 
gently  from  the  plain,  and  is  corn-covered  to  the  top.  Is 
then  the  ascetic's  life  the  hardest?  Not  so  thought  St.  Cyran, 
when  he  doubted  whether  even  D'Andilly  could  make 
his  peace  with  God  in  the  world ;  he  would  have  his  friend 
fly  to  the  desert,  as  the  less  arduous  post  in  life's  battle. 
To  live  a  holy  life  by  shunning  temptation,  and  by 
conquering  it,  are  not  the  same  thing ;  and  this,  the 
Protestant,  not  that,  the  Catholic  ideal  is  the  noblest. 


80  PORT  BOTAL. 

I  cannot  pause,  nor  is  it  necessary,  to  develop  the  argu- 
ments which  make  against  the  monastic  theory,  of  which 
Pascal's  latter  years  were  no  more  than  a  practical  exaggera- 
tion. When  first  I  began  to  write  this  story,  it  was 
necessary  to  learn  to  move  and  think  within  the  limits  of 
monasticism ;  to  accept  it  as  a  fact  which  could  not  be 
folly  understood  by  one  who  watchfully  kept  the  attitude 
of  suspicion  and  attack.  And  now  the  cry  of  protest  which 
I  cannot  but  utter,  is  not  against  Pascal,  still  less  against 
Port  Eoyal,  but  against  the  whole  theory  of  life,  which  is 
involved  in  the  monastic  system,  and  not  always  repudiated 
by  Protestants  of  the  purest  blood.  The  doctrine  of  Port 
Boyal  only  informs  that  theory  with  a  religiousness  not 
necessarily  its  own :  the  eager  strength  of  Pascal's  character 
pushed  it  to  its  farthest  logical  extreme.  It  is  a  theory 
which,  by  concentrating  the  undivided  attention  of  the  soul 
upon  the  conditions  of  existence  in  another  life,  makes 
it  deaf  to  the  demands  of  love  and  duty  in  this.  The 
question  which  its  votary  asks  himself  is  not.  How  can  I  best 
fill  my  place  here?  but.  In  what  way  shall  I  most  certainly 
insure  my  safety  there  f  So,  as  it  is  part  of  the  world's 
moral  constitution,  that  opportunities  of  duty  should  be  also 
possible  occasions  of  sin ;  that  there  should  be  a  point  at 
which  innocent  enjoyments  cease  to  be  innocent,  and 
domestic  affections  traverse  the  coiurse  of  a  higher  duty ; 
this  theory  bids  men  apply  themselves  to  win  heaven,  by 
evading  the  problem  of  earth :  and  for  very  dread  of  sin, 
to  turn  their  backs  upon  the  possibility  of  virtue.  I  say 
nothing  of  the  inherent  selfishness  of  such  a  view  of  life ; 
of  the  way  in  which  it  turns  inward  upon  himself,  and  his 
spiritual  state,  all  a  man's  thought  and  striving,  and  roots 
up  the  faculty  of  unconscious  affection,  and  natural  enjoy- 
ment One  thought  sufficiently  condemns  it;  that  the 
highest  type  of  human  life  cannot  be  such  as,  realised  in  all 
men,  would  make  the  world  a  howling  wilderness.  It  seems 


LAST  ILLNESS.  81 

to  xne  that  Pascal,  feeling  the  lore  of  Crod  on  his  life  in 
the  love  of  wife  and  children ;  pressing  on  with  swift  step 
into  the  mysteries  of  the  physical  universe ;  striving  too 
(there  is  nothing  inconsistent  in  the  doable  task)  to 
strengthen  the  defences  of  revealed  religion,  and  presenting 
the  example  of  one  more  faithful  and  G-od-fearing  life  to 
the  foul  license  of  court  and  city,  might  have  learned 
secrets  of  Divine  wisdom  and  human  possibility,  of  which 
the  recluse  of  Port  Eoyal,  the  haunter  of  Parisian  churches, 
must  have  remained  ignorant. 

And  yet  the  image  of  the  poor  girl  rescued  from  the 
pavement  of  the  wicked  city,  and  of  many  another  wretched 
one  who  owed  to  that  kind  hand  some  brief  respite  from 
wretchedness,  rises  up  to  rebuke  our  judgment.  Let  us 
turn  to  the  brief  story  of  his  death. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  last  four  years  of  Pascal's 
life  were  no  more  than  one  unremitting  struggle  against  the 
maladies  of  his  youth,  which  had  returned  with  redoubled 
force,  and  were  probably  aggravated  by  his  unnatural  mode 
of  living.  The  fatal  illness  began  in  June  1662,  with  a  dis- 
gust of  all  food,  followed  in  a  few  days  by  a  very  violent  colic. 
He  needed  his  sister's  help,  yet  was  in  danger  of  being 
deprived  of  it;  for  a  child,  one  of  a  large  family,  to  whom 
from  motives  of  compassion  he  gave  an  asylum  in  his  house, 
being  ill  of  small-pox,  he  would  neither  suflFer  the  little 
patient  to  be  removed,  nor  expose  his  sister  to  the  risk  of 
carrying  the  infection  to  her  own  children.  *The  least 
danger,'  he  said,  *  would  be  in  his  own  removal ; '  and  so, 
forgetful  of  himself  to  the  last,  was  carried  to  his  sister's 
house,  Eue  Neuve  St*  Etienne.  Here  he  lingered  for 
nearly  two  months ;  now  shaking  off  the  disease  for  a  time, 
and  now  yielding  to  its  renewed  attacks,  but  always  per- 
suaded, in  opposition  to  the  opinion  of  his  physicians,  that 
the  end  was  not  far  off.  The  friends  of  Port  Boyal,  from 
whom  his  difference  of  judgment  had  involved  no  estrange- 

VOL.  IL.  o 


82  POET  ROYAL. 

ment  of  heart,  were  often  with  him ;  he  confessed  not  only 
to  the  Cure  of  the  parish,  but  to  St^  Marthe,  one  of  the 
directors  of  the  community.  His  last  wish,  which  his  sister, 
however,  did  not  think  fit  to  gratify,  was  that  he  might  be 
carried  to  the  Hospital  of  Incurables,  to  die  among  the 
poor.  For  a  few  hours  before  his  death  he  was  insensible, 
but  a  brief  interval  of  restored  consciousness  and  freedom 
from  pain  enabled  him  to  receive  the  last  sacraments  of  the 
Church.  He  died  on  the  19th  of  August  1662,  having  just 
completed  his  thirty-ninth  year,  and  was  buried  in  the 
church  of  St.  Etienne  du  Mont.* 

To  believe  that  Pascal  died  in  the  conviction  that  the 
resistance  of  Port  Eoyal  to  the  Formulary  had  been  a  mis* 
take  and  a  sin,  and  that  after  all  P^re  Annat,  and  M.  de 
Perefixe  were  on  the  right  side,  must  have  been  a  hard 
trial  even  to  Jesuit  credulity.  Yet  such  a  story  was 
sedulously  propagated.  M.  Beurrier,  the  Cure  of  St.  Etienne 
dii  Mont,  had  visited  Pascal  on  his  death-bed,  and  had 
administered  to  him  the  sacraments  of  communion  and 
extreme  unction.    Two  years  and  a  half  after  Pascal's  death, 

*  For  details  of  Pascal's  later  life,  see  Mad.  Ferier,  ap.  Fang^re,  J.  F.  pp. 
16—45. 

A  singular  story,  apparently  without  much  historical  foundation,  haa 
been  published  by  Michelet;  Histoire  de  la  B^Tolution  Franyaise  (toI.  i  p.  77, 
quoted  by  St*  Benve,  vol.  iii.  p.  293).  Madame  de  Genlis  told  some  name- 
less person  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  being  much  engaged  in  processes  of 
alchemy  about  the  year  1789,  needed  a  skeleton  for  some  mysterious  pur- 
pose, and  that  the  bones  of  Pascal  were  disturbed  from  their  resting-place, 
and  brought  to  him.  Parallel  with  this,  is  another  wonderful  tale  which  I 
have  not  thought  it  worth  While  to  quote  from  Marguerite  Ferier's  memoirs ; 
that  at  a  year  old,  Blaise  Pascal  was  struck  by  a  mysterious  illness,  the 
result  of  witchcraft ;  and  that  the  graye  and  learned  Etienne  Pascal  was  not 
ashamed  to  haye  recourse  to  a  wise  woman,  who  succeeded,  by  powerful 
charms,  in  diverting  the  spell  to  an  unlucky  cat,  whose  death  was  the  signal 
for  the  child's  recoyery.  M.  Pascal's  scientific  acquirements  may  not,  in 
that  age,  have  elevated  him  above  such  vulgar  superstition ;  but  the  tale 
agrees  ill  with  his  well-known  devotion  to  the  Church.  Those  who  wish  to 
^am  the  strange  details  will  find  them  in  Faug^re,  Jacq.  Pascal,  p.  447. 


I 

> 


I 


ALLEGED   RECANTATION.  83 

in  the  very  heat  of  the  persecution  of  the  nuns,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris   sent  for  M.   Beurrier,   and  asked  him 
whether  Pascal  had    not  died   without  the  sacraments. 
When  the  Cure  replied  that  he  had  himself  administered 
them  to  the  dying  man,  the  Archbishop  angrily  inquired 
how  he  had  dared  to  give  them  to  so  notorious  a  Jansenist. 
M.  Beurrier,  in  a  fright,  bethought  himself  of  some  aliena- 
tion from  Arnauld  on  the  subject  of  the  Formulary,  of  which 
Pascal  had  spoken,  and  interpreting  the  fact  to  suit  his 
present  need,  told  M.  de  Perefixe  that  his  penitent  had 
blamed  the  friends  of  Port  Royal  for  their  obstinate  resist- 
ance to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.     Such  a  story  was  too 
good  to  be  lost ;  the  Archbishop  at  once  put  it  into  the  form 
of  a  declaration,  and  compelled  the  half-reluctant  Cure  to 
sign  it.     A  year  after,  P^re  Annat  published  the  statement 
in   one  of  his  controversial   pamphlets,  and  under  pre- 
tence of  doing  justice  to  Pascal,  inflicted  what  his  friends 
felt  to  be   a  grievous  wound   upon   his  memory.     The 
matter  was  at  once  explained :  the  cause  of  Pascal's  difier- 
ence  with  Arnauld  was  shown  to  be  his  more  ardent,  not 
his  failing  Jansenism,  and  M.  Beurrier  acknowledged  his 
mistake.     But  the  declaration  still  remained  in  the  Arch- 
bishop's hands,  and  the  Cure  was  too  timid,  at  the  moment 
when  the  cause  of  Port  Royal  seemed  irretrievably  lost,  to 
brave  the  displeasure  of  his  superior.     Again,  when  the 
"Thoughts"  were  published  at  the  beginning  of  1670,  the 
Archbishop,  in  the  first  fervour  of  reconciliation  with  Port 
Royal,  said  many  polite  things  of  the  book,  and  proposed 
to  the  publisher  to  prefix,  at  least  to  the  second  edition,  a 
document,  which  so  signally  redounded  to  the  orthodox 
credit  of  the  author.     Fresh  explanations  were  made,  new 
affidavits  signed,  when  at  last  the  death  of  M.  de  Perefixe 
in  1671  took  the  seal  from  the  Cure's  lips,  and  the  mistake 
was  promptly  and  authoritatively  corrected.* 

•  Mad.  Perier,  ap.  Fang^re,  J.  P.  p.  87.    Rec.  d'Utrccht,  p.  347,  el  itq, 

Q  2 


84  POBT  BOTAL. 

Before  we  attempt  to  form  a  general  estimate  of  Pascal's 
mind  and  character^  it  is  necessary  to  become  acquainted 
with  his  posthumous  work,  the  "  Thoughts,"  The  singular 
fortunes  of  this  celebrated  book  compel  me  to  speak  at 
some  length  of  its  literary  history. 

The  miracle  of  the  Holy  Thorn  was  the  occasion  of  the 
**  Thoughts."  The  event  impressed  itself  deeply  upon  the 
mind  of  Pascal,  then  in  the  first  glow  of  religious  fervour. 
Such  a  cure  performed  upon  his  niece  and  god-daughter 
presented  itself  in  the  light  of  a  special  mercy  voucl^/safed 
by  God  upon  himself.  I  have  before  told  *  how  he  thence- 
forward adopted  as  his  armorial  bearings  an  eye,  suiv 
rounded  by  a  crown  of  thorns,  with  the  motto  "  Sew  cwi 
credidi ; "  and  have  quoted  passages  from  the  new  recen- 
sion of  the  "  Thoughts "  to  show  the  argumentative  use 
which  he  made  of  the  miracle.  From  considerations  on 
the  place  and  function  of  miracles  in  religious  evidence, 
he  passed  to  the  larger  question,  and  set  to  work,  to  use 
the  words  of  Madame  Perierf,  "to  refute  the  principal  and 
most  false  reasonings  of  the  atheists."  The  last  year  in 
which  he  wa6  able  to  work  continuously,  was  devoted  to 
the  new  scheme,  in'  the  execution  of  which  he  expended 
all  his  wonted  ardour ;  then,  for  three  years  more,  he  was 
able  only  to  write  or  dictate  brief  memoranda  at  intervals 
of  relief  from  pain.  When  after  his  death,  his  friends 
jealously  collected  his  papers,  they  found  no  partially 
finished  treatise,  not  even  the  plan  or  outline  of  such,  but 
a  confused  mass  of  fragments.  None  were  of  any  con- 
siderable length,  many  consisted  of  only  a  word  or  two ; 
some  were  carefully  elaborated  in  form,  others  were  written 
in  a  kind  of  mental  short-hand,  designed  rather  to  recall 
than  to  express  a  train  of  thought.  These  were  the  mate- 
rials which  Port  Royal  and  the  family  of  Pascal  undertook 
to  edit. 

♦  VoL  L  p.  308.  t  Faagdre,  J.  P.  p.  19. 


THE  THOUGHTS.  85 

The  task,  both  from  the  fragmentary  condition  of  Pas- 
cal's notes,  and  the  state  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  was  one 
of  extreme  difficulty.  The  Due  de  Boannez  was  conspic- 
uous among  the  editors  by  his  zeal ;  Etienne  Perier,  the 
eldest  son  of  Gilberte  Pascal,  represented  the  feelings  of 
his  family.  Besides  these,  Amauld,  Nicole,  Treville,  Du 
Bois,  and  De  la  Chaise,  are  mentioned  as  forming  a  com- 
mittee of  supervision.  The  first  two  are  already  well 
known  to  us ;  MM.  du  Bois  and  de  la  Chaise  belong  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  Jansenist  army,  and  will  disappear  into 
obscurity  when  they  have  done  this  work.  M.  de  Treville  was 
a  gentleman  of  Beam,  who  had  been  brought  up  with  Louis 
XIV.,  and  had  acquired  a  degree  of  scholarship  which  in  a 
subaltern  of  the  royal  guards  excited  much  wonder.  About 
1666  he  became  one  of  Madame  de  Longueville's  coterie,  and 
took  a  share  in  the  revision  of  De  Sa9i's  "  New  Testament ; " 
but  his  "  conversion  "  was  publicly  annoimced  only  after  the 
sudden  and  frightful  death  of  Henrietta  Stuart,  Duchess 
of  Orleans,  in  1670,  of  which  he  was  a  witness.  Then  for 
a  time  he  formed  one  more  link  between  Port  Eoyal  and 
the  fashionable  society  of  the  day ;  on  the  one  hand  en- 
gaging in  all  the  secret  deliberations  of  the  Jansenists,  on 
the  other,  not  forfeiting  by  any  monastic  retreat,  or  no- 
table austerity,  his  place  in  the  salons  of  Paris.  His  con- 
versation was  esteemed  the  perfection  of  polite  intercourse, 
and  from  his  judgment  in  matters  of  taste  there  was  no 
appeal.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who  impress  their 
contemporaries  with  a  great  sense  of  ability,  yet  who  from 
fear  of  falling  below  their  reputation,  or  indolence,  or  a 
secret  consciousness  of  inferior  powers,  are  careful  not  to 
run  the  risks  of  authorship.  Aft^r  some  ten  or  twelve 
years  the  man  of  taste  conquered  the  Jansenist ;  he  began, 
■ays  St.  Simon,  "to  make  verses,  to  give  recherchS  dinners  " 
—  in  short,  to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  world  the  refinement 
which  had  been  all  but  thrown  away  at  Port  Eoyal.     But 

o  3 


86  l^OM  ROYAL. 

Port  Royal  never  wholly  lost  its  hold  upon  any  heart  which 
it  had  once  possessed,  and  after  many  vibrations  between 
society  and  the  cloister,  Treville  died  a  penitent  at  last.* 

An  active  negotiator  in  this  matter,  if  not  himself  an 
editor,  was  the  Comte  de  Brienne,  an  eccentric,  changeful 
man,  the  vicissitudes  of  whose  career  can  only  be  accounted 
for  on  the  supposition  of  partial  insanity.     He  was  the  son 
of  Lomenie,   Comte  de   Brienne,  Secretary  of  State  for 
Foreign  Affairs  during  the  minority  of  Louis  XIV.,  and 
was  himself,  from  a  very  eai*ly  age,  destined  to  the  highest 
employments.     He  married  the  daughter  of  M.  de  Cha- 
vigni,  another  minister  of  the  Regency,  and  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three   succeeded  to   his  father's   oflSce.     But  the 
death  of  his  wife,  or,  as  others  hint,  a  less  creditable  cause, 
developed  the  latent  insanity  of  his  blood ;  he  resigned  his 
post,  retired  to  the  Oratory,  and  in  due  time  took  orders. 
Of  this  he  soon  repented,  but  in  vain ;  he  could  not  rid 
himself  of  the  sacerdotal  character,  and  alP  his  efforts  to 
reinstate  himself  in  his  old  office  were  fruitless.     Hence- 
forward his  whole  life  was  a  succession  of  escapades,  more 
or  less  befitting  the  priestly  character,  which  sat  some- 
times heavily,  sometimes  lightly  upon  his  shoulders.     In 
1664,  Madame  de  Longueville,  who  was  his  godmother, 
brought  him  into  relations  with  Port  Royal,  and  for  a  time 
he  was  an  ardent  Jansenist.     With  Lancelot  he  made  a 
pious  pilgrimage  to  Alet,  the  diocese  of  the  good  Pavilion. 
In  1667  he  contracted  an  intimate  friendship  with  the  Perier 
family  at  Clermont.     But  one  by  one  the  Jansenist  leaders 
learned  to  mistrust  his  eccentric  zeal;  and  a  year  after 
the  publication  of  the  "  Thoughts,"  Lancelot  writes  to  M. 
Perier,  that  M.  de  Brienne's  friends  "  are  in  despair  and  are 
devising  some  means  of  placing  him  in  confinement."     The 
last  eighteen  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  the  madhouse 

•  St*  Bcttve,  voL  iv.  p.  474,  ei  seq.    SL  Simon,  Mem.  vol.  vii.  p.  222. 


FIRST  EDITION.  87 

of  St.  Lazaxe^  and  bis  only  son,  in  whom  an  iUustrious 
family  became  extinct^  died  cbildless  and  insane.* 

At  the  time  of  which  we  are  now  speaking,  Brienne's 
friendship  for  Madame  P^rier  and  his  zeal  for  Port  Eoyal 
were  alike  warm«  From  two  still  extant  letters,  which  he 
wrote  to  Madame  Perier  in  September  and  November  1668, 
we  gain  some  little  insight  into  the  editorial  councils.  How 
was  the  work  to  be  done  ?  The  omission  of  such  passages 
as  referred  to  the  Society  of  Jesus,  or  to  the  controversy  of 
the  Formulary,  was  a  manifest  necessity :  to  publish  them 
would  be  to  endanger  the  peace  of  the  Church.  Other 
thoughts  were  in  too  fragmentary  a  state ;  others  again, 
perhaps  from  their  incompleteness,  appeared  unedifjdng, 
even  dangerous.  But  when  such  needful  omissions  had 
been  made,  Madame  Perier  desired  that  the  volume  should 
contain  nothing  that  was  not  from  her  brother's  hand,  and 
in  the  form  in  which  he  had  left  it.  She  heard  with  alarm 
of  alterations,  transpositions,  explanations,  embellishments. 
She  fancied  that  M.  de  Boannez's  work  upon  Pascal's  notes 
amounted  to  '^  a  great  commentary."  In  answer  to  all  this, 
M.  de  Brienne  assures  her,  with  anxious  reiteration,  that 
nothing  has  been  done  which  was  not  absolutely  necessary, 
which  she,  and  Pascal  himself,  were  he  living,  would  not 
approve.  Nothing  has  been  added ;  nothing  changed.  The 
readers  of  the  book  will  be  fully  informed  in  the  preface,  as 
she  wishes,  of  the  exact  nature  of  the  materials  with  which 
the  editors  have  had  to  deal,  and  of  the  fact  that  their  work 
has  been  simply  one  of  arrangement.  After  all,  the  proposed 
preface  did  not  fulfil  these  promises,  and  M.  and  Madame 
Perier  insisted  on  the  substitution  in  its  place  of  one  written 
by  their  son.  The  book,  a  little  duodecimo  volume,  was  pub- 
lished in  January  1670,  bearing  upon  its  title-page  the  apt 
Virgilian  motto,  "  Pendent  opera  iTderrupta,^^  f 

*  St*  Benve,  vol.  iv.  p.  415,  et  uq.    St  Simon,  Mem.  vol.  xii.  p.  160. 
f  Bee  d'Utiecht,  p.  354.    For  Brienno's  Letters,  see  PeoB^es,  ed.  Fan* 

O  4 


88  POET  BOYAL. 

The  perils  of  the  book  began  with  its  birth.  It  wsw 
customary  that  all  theological  works  should  before  publi- 
cation receive  testimonies  to  their  orthodoxy  from  men  of 
learning  and  repute.  Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "  appeared  with 
nine  such  testimonies,  signed  by  three  bishops,  one  arch- 
deacon, and  thirteen  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne;  among  whom 
were  Ghoiseid,  Bishop  of  Gomminges,  and  the  Abb4  le 
Camus,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Grenoble,  and  Cardinal 
When  the  volume  was  about  to  be  issued,  M.  de  Perefixe 
sent  to  the  bookseller,  Desprez,  to  ask  for  a  copy,  and  to 
interdict  the  sale  until  it  had  undergone  his  inspection. 
After  consultation  with  Amauld  and  others,  Desprez  him- 
self took  the  book  to  the  Archbishop ;  resolved,  though 
complaisant  thus  far,  to  resist  any  ecclesiastical  encroach- 
ment upon  the  liberty  of  the  press.  The  Archbishop  had 
heard  that  the  work  had  a  taint  of  Jansenism  in  it ;  M. 
Desprezfell  back  upon  the  character  of  the  examiners.  Why 
had  he  not  submitted  it  for  approval  to  the  Professors  of 
the  University  ?  Those  learned  gentlemen,  said  the  book- 
seller, were  so  busy  that  they  often  kept  a  book  six  months 
without  giving  their  opinion ;  a  man  might  as  well  shut  up 
his  shop  as  wait  for  them.  The  Archbishop  thought  it  very 
hard,  and  his  almoner  dutifully  agreed  with  him,  that  books 
should  be  published  in  his  diocese  without  his  permission ; 
but  as  the  law  was  against  him,  he  confined  himself  to  a 
promise  that  he  would  consider  the  matter.  He  tried  to 
coax  Desprez  into  publi^ng  the  declaration  of  Pascal*s 
altered  opinions,  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  by 
declaring  that  he  was  all  but  ready  to  add  his  own  signa- 
tiure  to  those  of  the  other  examiners.  The  cautious  book- 
seller thanked  his  Grandeur,  but  said  nothing  of  the  declara- 
tion; and  so  the  interview  ended.   The  Archbishop's  death, 

gdre,  ToL  i.  p.  390.    Letter  of  Mad.  P^rier  to  Mad.  de  Sabl£,  St*  Beave, 
ToL  iii.  p.  306. 


BEPBINTS  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  89 

not  many  months  afterwards,  probably  prevented  any 
fiirther  proceedings.* 

A  second  edition  was  published  in  the  course  of  the  same 
year,  and  a  third  in  1671,  both  reprints  of  the  first.  A 
fourth  followed  in  1678,  "  augmented,"  as  the  title-page 
bears,  "  by  many  thoughts  of  the  same  author,"  and  also 
by  three  dissertations  of  no  great  value  from  the  pen  of 
M.  du  Rois.  With  this  edition  it  was  originally  intended 
to  publish  the  Life  of  Pascal  by  his  sister,  which  had  been 
written  as  far  back  as  the  year  1667.  But  the  time  had  not 
yet  come  to  tell  the  whole  truth  about  Pascal.  The  stoiy  of 
the  "Provincial  Letters"  might  give  the  Jesuits  the  occasion 
of  attack,  for  which  they  were  anxiously  waiting.  It  would 
be  a  wrong  to  Pascal's  memory  not  to  deny  the  reality  of 
his  pretended  recantation,  while  to  do  so  would  probably 
cause  the  suppression  of  the  book.  The  publication  of  the 
Life  was  accordingly  postponed  till  the  edition  of  1678 
was  reprinted  in  1687.  Even  then  —  and  in  the  form  in 
which  we  now  have  it  —  it  makes  no  allusion  either  to  the 
"Provincial  Letters"  or  to  Port  Royal ;  and  the  student  who 
derived  his  whole  knowledge  of  Pascal  from  Madame  Perier's 
biography  would  be  ignorant  of  his  relations  to  both. 

It  is  not  necessaiy  to  enumerate  the  various  reprints  of 
this  edition,  which  were  published  at  Paris  and  elsewhere. 
The  work  retained  the  same  shape  till,  in  1727,  the  Bishop 
of  Montpellier  took  occasion,  in  a  letter  to  M.  de  Soissons,  to 
give  some  hitherto  inedited  thoughts  of  Pascal  on  miracles. 
In  1728,  P^re  Desmolets,  librarian  of  the  Oratory  at  Paris, 
included  in  his  "Memoires  de  litterature  et  d'histoire" 
several  new  fragments.  One  was  a  dialogue  between  Pascal 
and  De  Sa^i  on  the  study  of  Epictetus  and  Montaigne,  which 
he  had  extracted,  without  however  giving  his  authority,  from 
Fontaine's  still  unprinted  memoirs.     The  others  were  taken 

*  Becueil  dlJtrecht,  p.  356,  et  seq. 


90  PORT  EOYAL. 

from  the  papers  of  Pascal's  nephew,  the  Abbe  Perier,'and  in- 
cluded essays  of  some  length  on  *^  Self-love  "  and  the  "Art  of 
Persuasion."  On  each  of  these  occasions  Marguerite  Perier, 
still,  in  extreme  old  age,  the  faithful  guardian  of  her  uncle's 
reputation,  asked  for  evidence  that  the  fragments  newly 
published  were  really  his.  The  required  proof  was  given, 
and  the  additional  materials  remained  for  the  first  critical 
editor. 

The  next  period  through  which  the  "Thoughts"  passed 
was  one  of  controversy.  It  is  true  that  in  1733  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Embrun  had  raised  a  cry  of  objection,  and  P^re 
Hardouin,  in  his  "  Athei  detecti,"  had  placed  Pascal  among 
a  goodly  company  of  hitherto  reputed  Christians.  But  the 
first  serious  opposition  came  from  Voltaire,  and  was  con- 
tained in  certain  "  Bemarks  upon  Pascal's  Thoughts,"  pub- 
lished with  his  Philosophical  Letters  in  1734.*  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  Pascal's  whole  object  and  plan  were  dis- 
tasteful to  him  ;  that  he  looked  upon  him  as  a  servant  of 
true  and  sound  knowledge,  whom  the  old  superstition  had 
seduced  from  his  duty,  and  imprisoned  in  perpetual  useless- 
ness.  That  Port  Boyal  should  have  inspired  the  "  Provincial 
Letters "  was  well  enough,  but  it  was  simply  melancholy 
that  such  fine  powers  should  have  been  wasted  upon  the 
evidences  of  Christianity.  Nevertheless,  though  Voltaire 
in  his  correspondence  about  this  date  shows  that  he  heartily 
despises  the  whole  of  Pascal's  theory  of  miracle  and  pro- 
phecy, he  confines  his  attack  to  the  doctrine  of  human 
nature  contained  in  the  "  Thoughts."  He  was  not  yet  the 
Voltaire  of  later  years ;  this  was  his  first  essay  in  philo- 
sophical criticism,  and  men  wondered  to  see  the  author  of 
"  Zaire"  and  the  "Henriade"  enter  upon  so  strange  a  contro- 
versy.    He  found  sufficient  matter  of  dispute  in  Pascal's 

*  The  statement  in  the  text  is  that  of  M.  St*  Beuve  (P.  R.  toI.  iii.  p.  315). 
In  the  edition  of  Voltaire's  works,  from  which  I  have  quoted,  the  Remarks 
are  dated  1738. 


MODERN  EDITIONS.  91 

exaggerated  statement  of  human  corruption  and  depravity  5 
and  for  a  time,  the  battle  raged  only  about  that  position. 
It  is  singular  that  no  French  Catholic  divine  was  willing  or 
able  to  take  up  Pascal's  cause ;  Voltaire's  only  opponent 
was  a  Huguenot  refugee  of  Utrecht^  M.  Boullier. 

The  next  edition  of  the  "  Thoughts  "  proceeded  from  the 
school  of  Voltaire.  In  1776  Condorcet  published  "  Eloge 
et  Pensees  de  Pascal,"  adding  one  or  two  yet  unknown 
fragments;  and  in  1778,  Voltaire,  who  died  the  same  year, 
reprinted  it,  with  a  few  introductory  remarks,  in  which  a 
comparison  is  drawn  between  Pascal  and  Condorcet,  very 
much  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter.  The  thirty  years 
which  have  passed  since  the  publication  of  Voltaire's 
"  Bemarks,"  have  not  been  without  their  influence.  He 
has  no  scruples  now  about  attacking  Christianity;  Jesuit^ 
Jansenist,  Calvinist,  are  abused  with  savage  impartiality. 
Why  either  Condorcet  or  Voltaire  should  have  troubled 
themselves  to  edit  Pajscal  is  not  easy  to  say.  Neither 
suppression  nor  annotation  could  transform  him  into  a 
disciple  of  their  school. 

The  "  Thoughts  "  received  the  form  in  which  they  re- 
mained up  to  our  own  day,  in  the  edition  of  Pascal's  whole 
works,  in  5  vols.  8vo.  published  in  1779,  by  the  Abbe 
Bossut  It  is  a  singular  illustration  of  the  virulence  of 
the  Jansenist  controversy,  that  though  the  debate  had  long 
ago  subsided,  and  the  Jesuits  had  been  banished  from 
France  for  nearly  twenty  years,  M.  de  Malesherbes,  the 
minister  to  whose  department  the  matter  belonged,  hesi- 
tated to  authorise  the  edition,  and  advised  that  it  should 
bear  the  impress  of  a  foreign  printer.  The  advice  was 
taken,  and  the  edition,  which  was  really  published  in  Paris  by 
Nyon,  purports  to  come  from  the  establishment  of  Detune, 
at  the  Hague.  It  gathered  together  the  various  fragments 
which  had  successively  appeared,  and  added  one  or  two 
others ;  among  them  the  "Discourses  on  the  Condition  of  the 


92  POET  EOTAL. 

Great,"  extracted  from  Nicole's  **  Treatise  on  the  Education 
of  a  Prince.'*  But  with  this  exception,  Bossut  did  not 
refer  to  the  authority  upon  which  these  additions  were 
made,  and  arbitrarily  divided  the  "  Thoughts "  into  two 
parts,  one  containing  those  immediately  relating  to  religion ; 
the  other  those  which  refer  to  philosophy,  morals,  and 
belles  lettres.  Such  as  it  was,  Bossut's  became  the  model 
of  subsequent  editions.  The  most  important  of  these  is 
that  of  Lef^vre,  which  also  includes  Pascal's  whole  works, 
and  was  published  in  1819.  An  isolated  effort  of 
amendment  was  made  in  1835,  byM.  Frantin,  who  issued 
at  Dijon,  "  The  ^Thoughts'  of  Blaise  Pascal,  restored  in 
accordance  with  the  plan  of  the  Author."  But  the  new 
editor  did  not  avail  himself  of  the  only  means  for  the 
execution  of  his  purpose  —  consultation  of  the  original 
MS.  —  and  his  title-page  held  out  hopes  which  were  not 
fulfiUed. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  when,  in  1842,  on 
occasion  of  a  public  competition  for  the  best  eulogium  on 
Pascal,  M.  Victor  Cousin  read  to  the  French  Academy  his 
now  celebrated  **  Report  on  the  Necessity  of  a  new  Edition 
of  Pascal's  *  Thoughts.' "  •  He  had  conceived  the  happy 
idea  —  strange  that  it  should  have  occurred  to  none  of 
Pascal's  numerous  editors  —  of  comparing  the  printed  text 
of  the  "Thoughts"  with  the  original  MS.,  which  had 
long  lain  in  the  "Biblioth^ue  du  Roi."  It  had  been 
brought  thither  from  the  library  of  St  Germain  dee  Pr^, 
and  bore  marks  of  its  authenticity,  not  only  in  the  well- 
known  handwriting  of  Pascal,  but  in  three  attestations, 
carefully  specifying  its  contents,  and  signed  by  the  Abb6 
P^rier.  Besides  this,  two  copies  of  the  original  MS.  were 
known  to  exist,  which,  on  comparison  with  it,  were  found 

*  Pablished  in  the  Joarnal  des  SarantB,  April  to  November,  1842 ;  and 
afterwards  enlarged  with  prefaces  and  snpplementarf  matter  into  Etades  sur 
Pascal,  5th  ed.  1857. 


M.   COUSIN'S  EEPOET.  93 

to  be,  in  the  main,  faithful*  One  of  them  had  actually 
been  in  the  hands  of  Bossut,  but  without  preventing  him 
from  reproducing  the  errors  of  previous  editions.  To  these 
authorities,  then,  M.  Cousin  turned,  with  startling  result. 
For  nearly  two  himdred  years  the  world  of  letters  had  been 
deceiving  itself  with  the  idea  that  it  possessed  a  work  on 
the  Evidences  of  Christianity  from  the  hand  of  PascaL 
The  statement  in  the  preface  of  1670  that  "  nothing  had 
been  added  or  changed,"  was  entirely  false.  The  genuine 
fragments  had  undergone  alterations  of  every  kind, 
abridgment,  amplification,  transposition,  total  suppression. 
Each  succeeding  editor  had  dealt  as  hardly  as  the  firsts 
with  such  new  material  as  had  come  to  his  hand.  ^^  There 
are  not,"  says  M.  Faug^re,  "  twenty  successive  lines,  either 
in  the  first  or  any  subsequent  edition,  which  do  not  pre- 
sent some  alteration,  great  or  small."  •  We  must  return 
upon  our  steps,  and  briefly  trace  the  history  of  this  process. 
Pascal,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  had  been  accustomed 
to  perform  the  work  of  composition  in  his  mind,  and  to 
have  recourse  to  pen  and  paper  only  to  record  the  finished 
conception.  But  in  the  years  which  immediately  preceded 
his  death,  his  frequent  paro3cy8m8  of  pain  rendered  this 
process  too  difficult,  and  he  fell  into  the  habit  of  com- 
mitting his  thoughts,  as  they  occurred  to  him,  to  slips 
of  paper,  which  his  editors  found  put  together  in  diflferent 
files  or  bundles.  Most  of  these  fragments  were  in  his 
own  handwriting ;  others  he  had  dictated  to  any  amanuensis 
whom  chance  threw  in  his  way.  Some  slips  were  written 
by  Madame  P^rier,  one  by  Domat,  one  by  Amauld,  and 
one  or  two  are  conjectured,  from  the  rudeness  of  their 
orthography,  to  be  from  the  hand  of  Pascal's  servant. 
The  whole  are  now  carefully  inserted  in  a  large  folio 
volume  of  491  pages.     This  was  probably  done  by  the 

*  Pensees,  Introd.  p.  xxii. 


94  PORT  ROYAL. 

original  editors,  as  they  state  that  the  bundles  in  which  they 
found  the  papers  were  altogether  without  arrangement; 
an  assertion  which  remains  true  of  the  MS.  in  its  present 
condition.  The  diflSculty  of  restoring  order  to  such  a  chaos 
was  increased  by  the  illegibility  of  almost  every  fragment. 
Many  bore  marks  of  frequent  erasure  and  correction  :  and 
the  handwriting  of  Pascal  at  the  best  has  more  resemblance 
to  the  traces  which  an  insect  with  inked  feet  might  leave 
in  crawling  over  the  pages,  than  to  any  human  calligraphy. 
It  was  impossible  to  say  whether  all  these  fragments 
were  or  were  not  intended  to  form  part  of  the  work  on  the 
Evidences :  they  were  the  disjointed  record  of  all  that  had 
passed  through  Pascal's  mind  for  the  last  four  years  of  his 
life.  Some  of  them  were  no  more  than  passages  firom 
Montaigne's  **  Essays ; "  which  he  had  transcribed,  say  one 
set  of  dieorists,  that  he  might  refute  them  at  his  leisure ; 
according  to  another,  with  the  intention  of  adopting  them 
as  part  of  his  argument.  Many  belonged  to  the  period  of 
the  "  Provincial  Letters,"  or  were  at  least  the  relics  of  that 
controversy ;  others  plainly  referred  to  the  Jansenist 
debate.  When,  therefore.  Port  Royal  is  cited  at  the  bar  of 
criticism  to  answer  the  accusation  of  altering  and  suppressing 
the  remains  of  Pascal,  the  indictment  should  be  fairly 
drawn.  It  had  not  to  deal  with  a  finished  work,  of  with 
materials  that  could  be  said  in  any  conceivable  sense  to  make 
up  a  book  at  alL  The  task  was  to  edit  a  mass  of  confused 
and  intractable  fragments :  to  collect  from  the  shipwreck 
of  Pascal's  health  and  life  such  relics  as  might  be  worthy 
of  himself  and  precious  to  the  Church.  To  have  inter- 
cepted the  "Provincial  Letters"  on  their  way  to  the  press;  to 
have  abridged,  embellished,  garbled  them,  and  then  to  have 
sent  them  forth  under  Pascal's  name,  would  have  been  quite 
a  different  thing  from  the  treatment  which  the  **  Thoughts  ^ 
underwent  at  the  hands  of  Port  Royal.  In  a  work  which 
approaches  completion,  the  author's  intention  is  plain, 


ALTERATIONS  OP  THE  THOUGHTS.  05 

while  the  notes  which  fill  his  portfolio,  if  published  at  all, 
must  leave  room  for  a  large  exercise  of  editorial  discretion. 
Such  an  edition  as  that  of  M.  Faug^re  (1844),  which  simply 
reproduces  the  original  MS.,  even  in  parts  of  sentences  and 
words,  however  useful  now,  as  a  reaction  against  former  in- 
accuracy, would  have  been  absurd  in  1670.  And  thus  the 
accusation  against  Port  Royal  divides  itself  into  two  parts, 
one  of  editorial  incompetence  and  indiscretion,  one  of 
literary  dishonesty  to  Pascal  and  his  readers. 

With  M.  Victor  Cousin's  report  in  our  hands,  it  is 
difficult  to  overstate  the  evidence  against  the  first  editors. 
He  divides  it  into  three  parts ;  in  the  first  he  treats  of  the 
interpolations;  in  the  second,  of  the  alterations;  and  in 
the  third,  of  the  omissions  of  the  edition  of  1670.  It 
published  .the  "  Prayer  for  Aid  to  make  a  good  Use  of 
Sickness,"  though  with  a  warning  that  it  did  not  form  a 
part  of  Pascal's  projected  work.  It  contained  ^^  Thoughts 
on  Death,"  which  are  now  discovered  to  be  extracts  from 
the  letter  which  Pascal  wrote  to  Florin  and  Gilberte  Perier 
on  the  death  of  his  father.  The  chapter  entitled  "Thoughts 
on  Miracles  "  is  almost  wholly  made  up  of  fragments  of 
his  letters  to  Mademoiselle  de  fioannez,  torn  firom  theii*  con- 
nexion, and  printed  without  a  hint  of  their  original  form.* 
Almost  every  page  of  the  book  is  an  imperfect  represen- 
tation of  Pascal's  manuscript.  It  is  impossible  in  this 
place  even  to  describe  the  voluminous  evidence  of  the 
fact:  let  M.  Cousin  speak  for  himself f:  — 

^*  Analysis  cannot  invent  a  way  of  altering  the  style  of 
a  great  writer,  which  that  of  Pascal  has  not  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  Port  Royal.     There  was  no  Jesuit  censure 

*  It  ma^  be  remarked,  that  in  1670,  Mademoiselle  de  Roaonez,  then 
Madame  de  la  Feuillade,  was  still  living,  a  fact  which  may  have  interposed 
a  difficnlty  in  the  waj  of  publishing  eyen  such  extracts  from  Pascal's  letters 
io  her  as  we  now  possess. 

f  Etudes  sur  Pascal,  pref.  p*  t. 


96  PORT  BOTAL. 

to  apprehend  here;  no  other  censure  was  applied  than 
that  of  mediocrity  upon  genius ; — we  allude  to  the  younger 
Perier  and  the  Due  de  Roannez,  for  there  are  in  truth 
alterations  such  as  we  have  not  the  courage  to  impute  to 
Nicole  and  Amauld.  It  is  very  probable  that  Nicole  and 
Amauld  were  consulted  upon  certain  Thoughts,  and  upon 
the  edifying  character  which  it  was  thought  right  to  give 
to  the  book ;  but  as  far  as  regarded  the  details,  that  is  to 
say,  the  style,  Pascal  was  given  up  to  his  nephew  and 
M.  de  fioannez.  And  thus  he  has  come  down  to  us, 
mutilated  and  disfigured  in  every  way.  We  have  given 
numerous  examples  of  every  kind  of  alteration ;  alterations , 
of  words,  alterations  of  terms,  alterations  of  phrases ;  sup- 
pressions, substituti(His,  additions ;  arbiftrary  compositions, 
sometimes  of  a  paragraph,  sometimes  of  a  whole  chapter, 
by  help  of  phrases  and  paragraphs  foreign  to  one  another ; 
and  what  is  worse,  decompositions  more  arbitrary  still, 
and  quite  inconceivable,  of  chapters  which  in  Pascal's  MS. 
were  profoundly  elaborated,  and  perfectly  connected  in 
all  their  parts."  I  am  bound  to  add,  after  a  careful  exami- 
nation of  the  evidence,  that  M.  Cousin  proves  his  case. 

A  few  words  will  finish  the  enumeration  of  the  editorial 
sins  which  have  been  committed  against  Pascal.  Condorcet 
had  consulted  the  original  MS.,  but  did  not  introduce  a 
single  correction  into  the  text.  He  published  for  the  first 
time,  but  with  much  arbitrary  abridgment,  a  fragment 
entitled  "  De  I'Esprit  Greometrique."  He  suppressed  some 
Thoughts,  the  mystic  piety  of  which  was  displeasing  to  his 
cold  and  material  philosophy,  although  they  had  appeared 
in  previous  editions.  Nor  did  Bossut,  whose  labours  gave 
the  form  to  subsequent  impressions  of  the  "  Thoughts," 
treat  the  unfortunate  author  with  more  consideration.  He 
had  in  his  possession  one  of  the  copies  of  the  MS.  of  which 
I  have  spoken,  but  reprinted  the  text  in  all  its  former 
inaccuracy.     The  new  fragments  which  he  published  tm- 


ALTERATIONS  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  97 

derwent  alteration  at  his  hands.     He  made  an  arbitrary 
division  of  the  work  into  two  parts,  the  titles  of  which 
correspond  to  nothing  in  Pascal's  intention.     He  adopted 
from  P^re  Desmolets  the  extract  from  Fontaine,  relating 
Pascal's  conversation  with   De    Sa9i   on    Epictetus    and 
Montaigne.     But  he  has  cut  out   De  Sari's  part;   con- 
verted a  dialogue,  which  was  highly  characteristic  of  the 
interlocutors,  into  a  dissertation;  omitted  all  the  lively 
background  of  the  scene,  and  taken  upon  himself  to  amplify 
and  abridge  at  pleasure.    He  has  interpolated  in  the  midst 
of  the   "Thoughts,"  with  which   it   has   no   connection 
whatever,  Nicole's  report  of  Pascal's  "Discourses  on  the 
Condition   of  the  GTeat."     He  has  added   certain  short 
treatises  on  philosophical  and  mathematical  subjects,  which 
have  no  reference  to  Pascal's  work  on  Christian  evidence, 
and  belong  to  the  earlier  part  of  his  literary  life.     He  has 
recorded,  as  if  it  proceeded  from  Pascal's  pen,  a  half 
jocular  judgment  of  Des  Cartes'  philosophy,  which  is  a  relic 
of  his  conversation  preserved  by  Marguerite  P^rier.     On 
the  same  footing  stands  the  declaration  of  the  spirit  in 
which  he  wrote  the  "Provincial  Letters,"  which  I  have 
already  quoted.*     He  has  extracted   sayings   of  Pascal's 
from  Madame  Perier's  Life,  and  has  even  turned  into  an 
aphorism  an  opinion  ascribed  to  him  in  the  "Logic  of 
Port  Eoyal."     Last  of  all,  M.  Frantin,  in  the  edition  of 
1835,  which  promised  a  restoration  of  the  work  to  its 
first  form,  suppressed  every  fragment  which  referred,  how- 
ever indirectly,  to  the  Society  of  Jesus.      Surely  never 
author  had  such  reason  to  complain  of  his  friends,  as 
Pascal  of  the  editors  of  the  "  Thoughts  I" 

To  what  extent,  then,  is  Port  Eoyal  guilty  in  regard 
to  Pascal  ?  Let  the  circumstances  be  more  narrowly  looked 
at  before  we  attempt  to  reply.     I  have  described  the  con- 

♦  Vol.  i.  p.  28S. 
TOL.  n,  H 


98  PORT  ROYAL. 

dition  in  which  Pascal's  notes  were  left,  and  so  have  ac- 
quitted the  editors  of  the  charge  of  wilfully  deforming  a 
finished  production.  What  was  to  be  done  with  them? 
"  Of  three  possible  methods  of  dealing  with  them,"  says 
Etienne  Perier  in  the  preface^  '^  the  first  was  to  print  the 
whole  just  as  it  stood ;  the  second  was  to  follow  the  in- 
dications left  by  Pascal,  to  use  his  materials,  and  to  attempt 
to  finish  his  work.  The  first  was  rejected  as  unproductive 
of  practical  good,  and  unjust  to  the  author's  memory;  the 
second,  after  a  fiair  trial,  was  laid  aside  as  impracticable. 
Thus,"  he  continues,  "  to  avoid  the  inconveniences  which 
presented  themselves  in  both  these  methods  of  editing,  an 
intermediate  one  was  chosen,  which  has  been  foUowed  in 
this  collection.  Among  this  great  number  of  thoughts,  we 
have  taken  only  those  which  appeared  the  clearest  and  most 
finished;  and  we  give  them  as  we  have  found  them,  without 
addvng  or  changing  cmythvng;  except  that,  where  they 
were  without  arrangement  or  connection,  and  confusedly 
dispersed  up  and  down,  we  have  put  them  in  some  sort 
of  order,  and  brought  under  the  same  title  those  which 
were  upon  the  same  subject,  and  suppressed  all  which 
were  either  too  obscure  or  too  imperfect."  * 

A  most  sensible  theory !  —  the  only  fault  to  be  found 
with  it  being  that  the  performance  of  the  work  belied  the 
promises  of  the  preface.  Nor  is  there  any  excuse  for  the 
falsehood  of  the  statement.  Etienne  Perier  took  a  chief 
share  in  the  preparation  of  the  MS.  for  the  press,  and 
must  have  known  the  exact  amount  of  alteration  which 
the  fragments  had  imdergone.  I  can  only  account  for  it, 
and  at  the  same  time  furnish  some  slight  excuse,  by  sup- 
posing that  he  was  embarrassed  between  conflicting  autho- 
rities tod  interests.  He  was  but  twenty-^ix,  and  this  was 
the  first  important  matter  with  which  he  had  been  in- 

*  Quoted  by  Fang^re,  FeiueeF,  Introd.  p.  xxi. 


^HW 


ALTERATIONS  OP  THE  THOUGHTS.  99 

larusted.  His  mother,  at.  Clermont,  insisted,  as  we  learn 
from  Brienne,  that  nothing  should  appear  in  the  book 
which  was  not  her  brother's,  and  in  the  state  in  which  he 
left  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Arnauld,  Nicole,  Boannez, 
Treville,  assured  him  that  the  alterations  which  they  had 
made  were  absolutely  necessary.  To  such  opinions  he 
could  not  but  bow ;  perhaps  was  persuaded  that  Madame 
P^rier's  objections  were  no  more  than  the  result  of  her 
womanly  and  provincial  ignorance  of  literary  matters. 
And  the  preface  which  he  was  suddenly  called  upon  to 
substitute  for  that  which  had  displeased  his  mother,  was 
probably  his  attempt  to  reconcile  all  differences  and  quiet 
all  suspicions. 

The  difficulty  was  indefinitely  increased  by  the  number  of 
hands  through  which  the  book  necessarily  passed.  Not  only 
all  the  editors  whom  I  have  enumerated,  but  also  each  of  the 
churchmen  with  whose  testimonials  it  was  issued,  assumed 
the  right  of  suggestion  and  alteration.  A  letter  from  M. 
de  Comminges,  in  which  he  thanks  Etienne  P^rier  for 
having  made  the  changes  which  he  had  proposed,  is  still 
extant.*  But  a  letter  from  Antoine  Arnauld  to  the  elder 
P^rier,  in  reference  to  certain  objections  which  had  been 
made  by  the  Abbe  le  Camus,  puts  the  matter  in  the  clearest 
lightf  "  You  see,  Sir,  what  it  is  which  has  prevented 
me,  not  only  from  writing  to  you  sooner,  but  also  from 
conferring  with  those  gentlemen  on  M.  le  Camus'  diffi- 
culties in  regard  to  the  *  Thoughts.'  I  hope  that  the 
whole  thing  will  settle  itself,  and  that  except  some  pas- 
sages, which  it  will  be  quite  right  to  change,  they  will 
agree  to  leave  the  rest  as  it  is.  But  permit  me.  Sir,  to 
tell  you,  that  one  ought  not  to  be  so  rigid  and  scrupulous 
in  leaving  a  book,  which  is  to  be  exposed  to  public  criti- 

*  Pensees,  ed.  Faag^re,  toI.  I  p.  389. 
f  Lettrcs  d'A.  Aniaald,  yol  ix.  p.  184. 
H  2 


100  POET  EOYAL. 

cisniy  in  precisely  the  state  in  which  it  came  from  the 
author's  hands.  It  is  impossible  to  be  so  very  exact,  when 
one  has  to  do  with  enemies  as  spiteful  as  ours.  It  is  much 
more  to  the  purpose  to  anticipate  frivolous  objections 
by  some  little  change,  which  only  softens  an  expres- 
sion,  than  to  reduce  oneself  to  the  necessity  of  making 
apologies. 

**  This  has  been  the  rule  of  our  conduct  in  regard  to  the 
*  Considerations  sur  les  Dimanches  et  les  FStes '  of  M.  de 
St.  Cyran,  printed  by  the  late  Savreux ;  some  of  our  friends 
revised  it  before  it  went  to  press,  and  M.  Nicole,  who  is 
very  accurate,  having  examined  it  again  after  it  was  printed, 
made  many  erasures.  Nevertheless  the  Doctors,  to  whom 
I  gave  it  for  their  approbation,  found  occasion  for  many 
remarks,  some  of  which  appeared  to  us  to  be  reasonable, 
and  rendered  fresh  erasures  necessary.  Friends  are  less  fit 
to  examine  a  book  in  this  way  than  indifferent  persons, 
because  the  affection  which  they  have  for  a  work  makes 
them  more  indulgent  and  less  clear-sighted." 

What,  then,  were  the  considerations  by  which  this  free 
treatment  of  Pascal's  remains  was  regulated  ?  The  peace 
of  the  Church  had  been  just  concluded,  and  it  was  essential 
that  no  book  which  came  from  Port  Royal  should  contain 
any  irritating  reference  to  former  debates.  Pascal  had  died 
in  the  very  heat  of  the  controversy ;  would  assuredly  have 
held  aloof  from  the  peace  had  he  lived ;  and  there  were 
numerous  passages  in  his  notes  which  would  displease 
Jesuit  and  Molinist,  as  much  as  the  ** Provincial  Letters" 
themselvea  These,  then,  were  remorselessly  expunged ;  a 
proceeding  for  which  the  stoutest  stickler  for  Pascal  will 
hardly  blame  the  friends  of  Port  Royal,  who,  in  1670,  saw 
before  them  the  promise  of  a  new  period  of  peace  and 
usefidness.  Some  fragments  had  been  cancelled  by  Pascal 
himself;  others  contained  palpable  errors  of  historical 
or  theological  statement;  what  could  Port  Royal  do  but 


ALTERATIONS  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  101 

omit  and  correct?  One  or  two  passages  again  had  a  freer 
political  tone  than  would  have  been  acceptable  at  court ; 
Pascal,  whose  character  was  at  all  times  singularly  inde- 
pendent^ had  passed  his  youth  amid  the  troubles  of  the 
Fronde,  while  the  period  from  1655  to  1670  had  witnessed 
a  great  development  of  royal  power,  and  a  corresponding 
growth  of  restriction  upon  private  liberty  of  speech  and 
action.  Port  Royal  had  long  lain  under  the  imputation  of 
favouring  the  Fronde,  and  in  the  critical  posture  of  its 
affairs  may  be  readily  pardoned  even  an  undue  political 
caution.  In  the  next  place,  the  book,  if  possible,  was  to  be 
made  orthodox  and  edifying.  By  and  by,  when  we  find  out 
what  Pascal's  real  theological  position  was,  we  shall  see 
how  much  is  involved  in  this ;  now  it  is  enough  to  note 
the  difficulties  occasioned  by  the  form  of  his  thought  and 
the  turn  of  his  phrase.  The  style  of  Port  Royal  is  grave, 
sedate,  cautious ;  if  not  destitute  of  a  certain  dignity  and 
elevation,  yet  rarely  rising  to  any  heights  of  passionate  elo- 
quence ;  correct  rather  than  felicitous  in  the  choice  of  words ; 
intolerant  of  new  combinations  and  unexpected  transitions. 
Pascal's  writing  is  something  different  from  this;  is  the 
work  not  only  of  an  accurate  and  elegant  scholar,  but  of  a 
man  of  original  mind  and  ardent  imagination.  His  soul 
is  written  in  every  line ;  almost  every  phrase  has  an  indi- 
viduality of  its  own.  In  such  rough  notes  as  form  the 
materials  of  the  "  Thoughts  "  these  qualities  appear  with 
increased  distinctness ;  what  the  half-formed  sentences  lose 
in  polish  they  gain  in  power ;  while  their  bold  generality 
is  often  more  startling  than  orthodox.  And  so  his  editors, 
even  Amauld,  the  greatest  of  them,  did  not  understand  him ; 
they  knew  not  that  they  were  con*ecting  the  thoughts  of  a 
more  powerful  thinker,  embellishing  the  work  of  a  more 
consummate  artist,  than  themselves.  It  is  in  the  modem 
editions  of  the  '*  Thoughts"  that  we  must  look  for  the  vivid 
and  nervous  style  of  the  '^  Provincial  Letters." 

b3 


102  POET  EOYAL. 

It  is  now  difficult  to  say  what  share  of  responsibility  the 
real  leaders  of  the  Port  Royalist  party  must  assume  for  the 
first  edition  of  the  "Thoughts."    The  historian  of  Port  Royal 
is  not  concerned  to  defend  M.  de  Roannez,  or  Treville, 
Du  Bois,  or  La  Chaise.     But  with  these  the  names  of 
Amauld  and  Nicole  are  conjoined ;  while  in  the  absence  of 
positive  proof,  successive  critics,  according  to  the  predilec- 
tions or  prejudices  of  each,  conjecture  them  to  have  taken 
a  greater  or  less  share  in  the  work,  which  all  agree  to  con- 
demn.    And  it  is  fair  to  add,  that  the  theory  of  authorship 
which  prevailed  at  Port  Royal,  from  the  times  of  St.  Cyran  to 
a  period  subsequent  to  the  publication  of  the  *'  Thoughts," 
was  peculiar.   We  have  already  seen  that  St.  Cyran's  literary 
activity  was  all  anonymous ;  that  it  was  to  the  last  uncertain 
whether  he  was  the  Petrus  Aurelius,  whose  fame  had  been 
so  great  in  the  GWllican  Church.*     A  good  and  true  book, 
he  thought,  was  a  work  done  for  God,  with  which  no  selfish 
considerations   should   be  permitted   to   mingle  ;   if  the 
service  were  well  done,  it  mattered  nothing  who  or  what  the 
servant  might  be.     So  through  all  the  flouiishing  period  of 
Port  Royal  the  rights  of  authorship  were  willingly  abdi- 
cated.    The  directors  of  the  party  set  each  man  to  do  such 
work  as  was  fittest  for  him;  many  pens  were  employed 
upon  one  book,  and  the  name  which  appeared  upon  the 
title-page  was  sometimes  an  assumed  one,  often,  when  real, 
not  that  of  the  workman  who  had  performed  the  greatest 
share   of  the  labour.     Amauld   and  Nicole  found  facts, 
and  sometimes  arguments  for  the  "Provincial  Letters:" 
the  "  Facta  "  of  the  Cures  of  Paris  were  from  many  hands ; 
the  numberless  memoirs  and  statements  which  appeared 
throughout  the  controversy  of  the  Formulary,  were  of  doubts 
ful  or  double  authorship.     The  school  books  for  which 
Port  Royal  was  so  long  famous,  circulated  as  the  production 

♦  VoL  i  p.  135. 


ALTERATIONS  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  '  103 

of  '*  Messieurs  de  Port  Royal : "  the  "  Logic  "  was  the  joint 
work  of  Amauld  and  Nicole:  the  "New  Testament^"  which 
goes  under  the  name  of  De  Sa^i,  engaged  in  its  translation 
and  revision  the  attention  of  six  or  seven  others.  We  have 
seen  in  Amauld's  letter,  that  Port  Royal  did  not  scruple 
to  treat  a  posthumous  work  of  St.  Cyran's  much  as  it 
treated  Pascal's  "  Thoughts.''  But  the  crowning  instance  of 
the  application  of  this  theory,  is  the  celebrated  treatise 
on  the  Eucharist,  "  De  la  Perp^tuite  de  la  Foi."  It  bears 
the  name  of  Amauld ;  was  formally  approved  by  twenty- 
seven  bishops ;  its  three  volumes  were  dedicated  to  three 
successive  Popes,  and  won  the  universal  applause  of  the 
Church.  Yet  it  was  really  the  work  of  Nicole.  The 
modest  author  thought  it  fittest  that  a  priest  and  doctor 
should  uphold  the  orthodox  faith,  and  transferred  to  his 
friend  the  honour  which  arose  from  so  triumphant  an 
apology  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Church. 

I  do  not  defend  this  theory ;  it  is  enough  to  state  it 
But  men  who  were  so  careless  of  their  own  literary  rights 
were  not  likely  to  be  careful  of  the  rights  of  others.  They 
thought  that  they  could  improve  and  adorn  Pascal ;  make 
an  edifying  book  out  of  his  fragments ;  erect  another 
monument  to  the  letters  and  theology  of  Port  Royal.  To 
us  the  mistake  would  be  half  ludicrous,  if  it  were  not 
wholly  sad ;  but  it  involves  from  their  point  of  view  no 
moral  delinquency.  They  had  found  a  diamond,  and,  like 
unskilful  lapidaries,  needlessly  lessened  its  size  and  dulled 
its  lustre  in  the  cutting.  For  the  unlucky  statement  in 
the  preface,  that  the  diamond  had  been  neither  cut  nor 
polished,  let  Etienne  Perier  be  responsible.* 

^  For  many  of  the  facts  stated  above,  and  in  general  for  the  literary 
history  of  the  •*  Thoughts,"  I  refer  to  Coasin,  i^tudes  snr  Pascal,  pp.  1—310. 
St*  Beure,  toL  iii.  pp.  294^336,  and  especially  to  M.  Prosper  Faagdre's 
Introdnction.    Pensees  de  Pascal,  vol.  i. 

Three  editions  of  Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "  which  have  been  published  since 

B  4 


104  POET  ROYAL. 

A  necessary  pre-requisite  to  a  just  estimate  of  this  cele- 
brated book  is  to  dismiss  from  the  mind  the  idea  suggested 
by  the  title,  and  to  some  extent  by  the  form  of  its  contents, 
that  Pascal  intentionally  threw  his  thoughts  on  religion 
into  the  aphoristic  shape.  The  brevity  of  many  of  these 
fragments,  the  clear  and  incisive  style  in  which  they  are 
written,  and  the  difficulty  .of  assigning  to  each  a  place  in 
any  connected  argument,  combine  to  produce  an  impression 
upon  the  reader's  mind  which  belies  their  whole  history. 
For  the  most  part  they  do  not  express  in  brief  and  com- 
pressed phrase  an  independent  and  rounded  thought. 
Many  of  them  are  mere  memoranda,  incapable  of  deliver- 
ing their  full  meaning  to  any  mind  but  the  writer's. 
Others  state  only  one  view  of  a  subject,  one  side  of  an 
alternative,  and  either  receive  the  needful  modification  in 
other  statements,  as  incomplete  and  one-sided  as  them- 
selves, or  are  left  to  illustrate  the  fitness  of  the  motto 
prefixed  to  them,  "  pendent  opera  interrupta."  It  is  im- 
possible now  to  say  how  far  the  extraordinary  hardihood 
of  certain  thoughts  and  phrases  was  due  to  Pascal's  desire 
to  preserve  for  future  use  his  conception  in  all  ita  first 
force,  and  to  what  extent  the  same  quality  would  have 
characterised  the  finished  work.    No  book  could  be  more 

M.  Cousin's  Report  maj  be  thus  characterised.  That  of  H.  Faugire,  8  to1& 
Svo.  1844,  is  a  careful  reprodnction  of  the  MS.  in  its  minutest  details,  pre- 
ceded hj  an  excellent  introduction,  and  including  in  their  new  form  the 
letters  and  fragments  which  Bossut  had  incorporated  with  the  **  Thoughts.** 
It  is,  however,  deformed  hy  a  new  and  arbitrary  arrangement  of  the  whole. 
That  of  M.  Havet,  1  toL  8to.  1852,  is  at  present  the  best  that  has  been 
issued,  containing  not  only  the  amended  text,  and  all  the  documents  which 
are  necessary  for  its  illustration,  but  a  careful  and  minute  body  of  annota- 
tions. In  short,  M.  Havet  has  edited  the  **  Thoughts "  as  he  would  have 
edited  an  obscure  and  imperfect  work  of  some  Greek  or  Latin  author. 
The  edition  of  M.  Lonandre,  1  vol.  12mo.  1854,  has  little  that  is  distinctive. 
It  is  called  a  '* variorum"  edition,  and,  making  free  use  of  its  predecessors^ 
contains  all  (with  the  exception  of  M.  Uavet'i  notes)  diAt  the  ttodeat  of 
JPascal  needs. 

• 


PLAN  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  105 

unjustly  judged  upon  a  system  of  textual  interpretation ; 
especially  at  the  present  time,  when  editors  have  scrupu- 
lously reproduced  even  the  half-written  words  of  the 
original  MS.  It  is  true  that  every  phrase  directly  pro- 
ceeded from  Pascal's  mind ;  but  also  true  that  the  book,  as 
now  edited,  contains  the  refuse  of  his  portfolio,  as  well  as 
the  finished  conceptions  of  his  genius.  We  may  think  our- 
selves fortunate  if  we  can  surely  trace  the  general  course  of 
his  argument;  we  have  no  right  to  build  theories  upon  the 
careless  notes,  which  were  designed  only  to  fiimish  matter 
for  future  meditation.  There  is  a  singular  biographical 
interest  in  thus  penetrating  into  the  secret  workings  of 
such  a  mind ;  and  the  student  of  Pascal's  life  will,  I  ven- 
ture to  say,  more  constantly  see  in  this  book  the  man 
than  his  thought.  But  any  conclusion  which  we  draw, 
both  as  to  the  cogency  of  his  argument,  and  its  relation  to 
his  own  mental  history,  must  be  drawn,  not  from  the 
balance  of  conflicting  passages,  still  less  from  the  obscure 
indications  of  one  or  two  isolated  fragments,  but  from  the 
general  complexion  of  his  thought,  and  the  position  which 
he  plainly  takes  up  before  the  difficulties  of  natural  and 
revealed  religion. 

The  plan  of  Pascal's  projected  work  is  preserved  for  us 
in  a  remarkable  conversation,  reported  by  Etienne  P6rier, 
in  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of  the  **  Thoughts."  Some 
ten  or  twelve  years  before,  that  is  about  1657  or  1659, 
Pascal,  at  the  request  of  several  friends,  developed,  in  a  dis- 
course which  occupied  two  or  three  hours  in  the  delivery, 
the  conception  which  he  had  formed  of  a  work  on  the 
evidences  of  religion.  Human  nature  is  the  starting-point. 
A  man  of  adequate  intelligence,  who  has,  up  to  a  certain  time, 
lived  a  quite  unconscious  life,  begins  to  examine  himself. 
He  is  perplexed  by  the  unexpected  mysteries,  obscurities, 
contradictions  which  the  examination  brings  to  light,  and 
can  no  longer  refrain  from  an  inquiry  into  his  origin  and 


106  POET  EOTAL. 

destiny.  He  turns  first  to  the  philosophers,  but  finds  in 
their  theories  of  human  nature  so  much  that  is  defective, 
contradictory,  and  manifestly  false,  as  to  compel  him  to 
•  seek  elsewhere  a  firm  foothold  of  faith.  His  search  into  the 
various  religions  of  the  world  is  rewarded  by  no  bett^ 
result,  until  he  is  arrested  by  the  singularity  of  the  pheno- 
menon presented  by  the  Jewish  people.  He  opens  their 
sacred  books ;  he  finds  there  a  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  the 
world  and  the  creation  of  man,  which  at  first  sight  strikes 
him  as  incomparably  more  reasonable  than  any  hypothesis 
to  account  for  tiiese  things  which  he  has  found  in  any  other 
system.  The  account  of  man's  first  state  of  innocence  and 
strength,  of  his  fall,  and  of  the  consequent  corruption  of 
human  nature,  next  forces  itself  upon  his  attention  as  an 
adequate  explanation  of  the  strange  mixture  of  power  and 
weakness,  of  grovelling  and  aspiration,  of  which  he  has 
become  conscious  in  himself.  But  these  books  not  only 
describe  the  symptoms  of  the  great  human  malady,  but 
provide  a  medicine,  inasmuch  as  they  contain  the  clear 
promise  of  a  deliverer  to  come ;  in  short,  could  any  external 
proof  of  their  authority  be  produced,  nothing  would  be 
wanting  to  complete  the  scientific  accordance  with  all  the 
conditions  of  the  problem  to  be  solved,  in  which  they 
already  stand.  Such  proof  Pascal  next  proceeds  to  give. 
He  dwells  alternately  on  the  internal  evidence  of  the 
authenticity  and  authority  of  the  books  of  Moses,  and  on 
the  external  force  of  conviction  exerted  by  his  miracles. 
But  then  all  the  law  is  to  be  received  by  us  in  a  figurative 
sense,  as  the  type  and  shadow  of  better  things  to  come ; 
and  the  realisation  of  these  figures  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
especially  the  fulfilment  in  him  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  upon 
which  great  stress  was  laid,  naturally  lead  the  mind  firom 
the  Mosaic  to  the  Christian  dispensation.  Here  the  course 
of  proof,  both  in  regard  to  the  Saviour  and  his  apostles,  is 
the  same  —  an  appeal  to  the  historical  verisimilitude  of 


PLAN  OP  THE   THOUGHTS.  107 

their  lives,  to  the  character  of  their  teaching,  and  to  the 
evidence  of  their  miracles.  And  the  singularity  of  these  facts^ 
together  with  their  extraordinary  coincidence  and  harmony, 
is  employed  to  prove  that  the  Christian  religion,  as  finally 
established  in  the  world,  is  the  work,  not  of  man,  but  of 
God.* 

The  following  fragment,  which  has  been  published  only 
since  1842,  points  to  a  similar  course  of  argument.  It  is 
evidently  a  brief  summary  of  the  same  plan  as  is  indicated 
in  the  conversation  reported  by  Etienne  P^rier. 

•*  First  Part :  Misery  of  man  without  God. 

Second  Part :  Happiness  of  man  with  God. 
(Otherwise :) 

First  Part :  That  natiure  is  corrupt :  By  nature  herself. 

Second  Part:  That  there  is  a  Redeemer:  By  the 
Scriptures.* 

The  second  form  of  the  scheme  plainly  indicates,  not  only 
the  subject  matter  of  each  division,  but  the  kind  of  evidence 
to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  it.t 

That  a  characteristic  portion  of  this  argument  had  long 
been  in  Pascal's  mind  appears  from  his  famous  conversa- 
tion with  De  Safi  upon  Epictetus  and  Montaigne,  which 
took  place  soon  after  his  first  retirement  to  Port  Boyal 
in  1655.  A  report  of  this  conversation  was  first  pub- 
lished in  1728,  by  P^re  Desmolets,  who  extracted  it 
from  the  then  unprinted  memoirs  of  Fontaine.  Who  the 
reporter  was  it  is  now  impossible  to  guess.  Fontaine, 
the  only  person  who  could  throw  any  light  on  the 
matter,  had  been  dead  nearly  twenty  years  when  it  was 
first  given  to  the  world.  But  the  genius  of  Pascal  is 
visible  in  every  line  of  the  report,  especially  as  printed  by 
Desmolets,  before  Fontaine's  editors  had  planed  away  the 
few  roughnesses  which  relieved  the  otherwise  level  surface  of 

*  Pens^es,  ed.  Fang^re,  vol.  I  p.  372. 
f  Pens^ei,  cd.  Havet,  p.  267. 


108  PORT  ROYAL. 

his  style.*  "Pascal  had  been  sent  to  Port  Royal,"  says  Fon- 
taine, "  that  M.  Amauld  might  cope  with  him  in  all  that 
regarded  the  high  sciences,  and  that  M.  de  Sa^i  might 
teach  him  to  despise  them."  Now  M.  de  Sa9i's  "manner  in 
talking  with  people  was  to  adapt  his  conversation  to  those 
with  whom  he  spoke.  If  he  saw,  for  example,  M.  Cham- 
pagne, he  talked  with  him  of  painting ;  if  M.  Hamon,  he 
discoursed  of  medidne;  if  the  surgeon  of  the  place,  he 
questioned  him  on  surgery  ....  every  subject 
helped  him  to  pass  to  God,  and  to  bring  others  to  Him 
also."  So  when  Pascal  came,  he  began  to  talk  to  him  of 
his  philosophical  studies,  and  as  these  were  for  the  most 
part  confined  to  Epictetus  and  Montaigne,  those  authors 
formed  the  subject  of  conversation.  The  situation  was 
sufficiently  singular ;  each  of  the  interlocutors  was  a  man  of 
but  little  reading ;  Augustine  and  the  Bible  were  to  De 
Sa9i  what  Epictetus  and  Montaigne  had  been  to  Pascal. 
The  one  reposed  securely  in  the  arms  of  his  religious  system, 
and  saw  in  philosophical  study  only  a  source  of  superfluous 
knowledge  and  painful  disquietude.  The  other  was 
deterred  from  much  meditation  on  other  men's  minds,  by 
the  introverted  activity,  the  restless  self-questioning  of  his 
own.  The  issue  of  such  an  encounter  could  not  be  doubt- 
ful. The  real  battle  had  been  fought  in  the  long  weariness 
of  Pascal's  Parisian  life,  and  won  in  the  ecstasies  of  the 
23rd  of  November.  This  is  no  more  than  a  mimic  fight, 
in  which  armies,  only  apparently  hostile,  deploy  their  forces, 
and  struggle  and  yield,  according  to  a  preconcerted  plan. 

For  more  than  the  briefest  outline  of  this  conversation 
the  reader  must  betake  himself  to  Fontaine,  or  to  one  of  the 
recent  editions  of  the  "  Thoughts."  Pascal  first  dwells  on 
the  lofty  conception  of  human  duty  which  characterises 
the  half  Christian  stoicism  of  Epictetus;  upon  his  clear 
perception  and  systematic  development  of  the  truth  "that 
♦  Pen!>^es,  cd.  Havet,  Introd.  p.  zxxir.    Fontaine,  vol.  iii.  p.  77. 


EPICTETUS  AND  MONTAIGNE.  109 

man's  whole  study  and  desire  ought  to  be  to  know  and  obey 
the  will  of  Grod."  He  would  have  been  worthy  even  of 
divine  honours  had  he  been  equally  well  acquainted  with 
his  weakness.  But  he  knows  only  one  side  of  human 
nature ;  is  ignorant  of  a  whole  series  of  facts  in  regard  to  it ; 
and  so  is  led  into  innumerable  practical  errors.  To  him, 
both  in  his  knowledge  and  his  ignorance,  Montaigne  is  pre- 
cisely contrary.  Human  weakness  is  his  constant  theme ; 
of  human  aspiration  after  better  things  he  knows  nothing. 
Our  faculties  are  deceptive ;  the  single  refuge  from  dogma- 
tism is  universal  doubt,  and  in  the  very  assertion  that  we 
doubt,  we  dogmatise.  As  a  Christian  and  a  Catholic,  he 
receives  the  faith  submissively ;  and  then  turns  round  and 
attacks  heretics  with  his  accustomed  weapons.  How  is  it 
possible  that  their  theories  should  be  true,  since  truth  and 
certainty  are  altogether  beyond  the  reach  of  human  intel- 
lects ?  Eevelation  apart,  what  presumption  for  a  finite  mind 
to  form  a  conception  of  an  infinite  being !  On  what,  but 
on  the  very  truth  that  Grod  is,  and  that  He  is  just  and  true, 
do  we  rest  our  faith  on  the  trustworthiness  of  those  facul- 
ties which  we  illogically  use  to  search  after  and  find  Him? 
Nor  does  any  other  human  knowledge  rest  on  a  more  certain 
foundation ;  geometry  is  based  upon  axioms  which  are  in- 
capable of  proof;  physical  science  is  full  of  assumptions ; 
the  doubtfulness  of  history  is  an  old  reproach ;  politics, 
morals,  jurisprudence  have  no  foundation  except  in  force 
and  usage.  "  What  know  I  ?  "  is  the  wise  man's  motto ; 
and  as  for  action,  since  all  actions  are  equally  justifiable  or 
unjustifiable,  custom  weighs  on  the  side  of  one  alternative, 
and  he  does  as  others  do.  What  then  is  the  reconciliation 
of  these  two  philosophies?  Each  is  true  in  part,  and  in 
part  false ;  where  are  we  to  find  the  doctrine  which  will 
weld  them  into  a  homogeneous  whole?  In  the  Catholic 
dogma  of  the  fall  of  man.  The  theory  of  Epictetus  assumes 
that  man  still  possesses  all  the  pristine  strength  and  beauty  of 


ff 
HO  POET  ROYAL. 

his  nature,  and  ignores  the  absolute  incapacity  of  his  present 
condition.  The  theory  of  Montaigne  describes  him  as  he 
is,  but  does  not  take  into  the  account  his  dim  recollections 
and  irrepressible  desire  of  a  more  perfect  state.  The  one 
is  the  parent  of  pride,  the  other  of  inertness ;  the  one 
denies  that  man  wants,  the  other  forgets  that  he  can 
receive,  any  help  that  is  not  in  himself.  And  thus  we  are 
led  back  once  more  to  Pascal's  characteristic  position,  that 
all  revealed  truth  rests  upon  the  incapacity  of  the  human 
mind,  all  moral  achievement  upon  the  corruption  of  the 
human  heart. 

Bossut's  division  of  the  "Thoughts"  into  two  parts,  one 
containing  **  Thoughts  on  Philosophy,  Morals,  and  Belles 
Lettres, "  the  other,  "  Thoughts  immediately  relating  to 
Beligion,"  is  not  without  an  accidental  conformity  with  the 
plan  of  the  book.  It  consists  of  two  halves,  philosophical 
and  theological,  which  correspond  to  the  common  distinc- 
tion between  natural  and  revealed  religion.  The  first  is 
occupied  with  the  career  of  the  supposed  inquirer  up  to 
the  point  where  he  becomes  acquainted  with  the  books  of 
Moses.  It  paints  human  nature,  and  brings  into  strong  relief 
the  inability  of  philosophy  to  e3q)lain  its  mysteries.  The 
second,  which  is  still  less  complete  than  the  first,  treats  of 
the  correspondence  between  the  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
as  conceived  by  Pascal,  with  the  facts  of  human  nature 
already  stated,  and  draws  out  the  arguments  in  favour  of 
revealed  religion,  derived  from  miracle,  type,  and  prophecy. 
Many  sections  of  the  argument^  as  sketched  by  Pascal  in 
the  conversation  before  alluded  to,  are  altogether  wanting. 
Some  fragments  which  found  a  place  in  the  MS.  volume 
probably  record  other  trains  of  thoughts  The  most  finished 
portion  of  the  whole  will  be  found  in  the  thoughts  on 
the  nature  and  condition  of  man,  upon  which  his  whole 
fabric  of  evidence  was  made  to  rest.  And  these  clearly 
reveal  to  us  that  peculiar  theory  of  the  relation  of  man 


PASCALS  PYRRHONISM.  Ill 

to  religion,  which  at  once  distinguishes  this  book  from  others 
on  the  same  subject. 

Pascal  is  Montaigne  with  a  diflference.     He  adopts  the 
whole  of  his  doctrine  of  human  nature,  and  states  it  with  a 
vehemence  and    a   precision  altogether   foreign  to   the 
Epicurean  philosopher  of  Perigord.     For  the  latter  was 
quite  content  with  it,  believed  it  as  much  as  he  believed 
anything,  and  held  his   Catholicism   only  as  a  point  of 
prudence,  and  in  deference  to  the  prejudices  of  his  time 
and  country;  while  the   former   would  have   found   this 
level  waste  of  uncertainty  a  howling  wilderness  of  despair, 
if  he  had  not  seen  in  it  the  way  to  a  happy  region  of  faith. 
Man  is  but  a  point  in  the  universe,  midway  between  two 
infinitudes ;  one  of  which  escapes  him  by  its  magnitude, 
the  other  by  its  littleness.     He  thinks,  and  the  dispropor- 
tion between  the  finite  faculty  and  the  infinite  object  of 
thought  mocks  all  his   efforts   in  the  pivsuit   of  truth. 
Imagination  always  lies  in  wait  to  entice  reason  from  her 
straight  path ;  the  meanest  physical  hindrances  distract  a 
mind  mated  with  a  frame  of  flesh  and  blood.     It  is  hard  to 
say  whether  our  dreams  or  our  waking  thoughts  are  realities. 
True  philosophy  laughs  at  philosophy;  the  confession  of 
ignorance  is  the  end  as  well  as  the  beginning  of  the  high- 
est wisdom ;  only  Pyrrhonism  is  truth.     The  moral  is  as 
helpless  as  the  intellectual  nature.     We  are  the  playthings 
of  pride,  vanity,  self-love,   hypocrisy.     Right  and  justice 
are  based  on  usage,  and  derive  their  authority  from  force. 
"  Three  degrees'  elevation  of  the  pole  overturns  all  juris- 
prudence.    A  meridian    determines  truth;    after  a  few 
years'  possession,  fundamental  laws  are  changed ;  right  has 
its  epochs.     The  entry  of  Saturn  into  the  Lion  marks  the 
origin   of  such   or  such   a  crime.     Fine  justice  that  is 
bounded  by  a  river  1  Truth  on  this  side  of  the  Pyrenees, 
error  on  that"  *     "  Justice  is  that  which  is  established." f 
*  Pens^es,  ed.  Hayet,  p.  40.  f  Ibid.  p.  73. 


112  FOBT  EOTAL. 

^Justice  18  subject  to  dispute;  force  is  easily  to  be  recog- 
nised, and  is  beyond  dispute.  Thus  men  have  not  been 
able  to  give  force  to  justice,  because  force  has  contradicted 
justice,  and  has  asserted  that  it  was  unjust,  and  itself  just. 
And  thus,  being  unable  to  effect  that  what  was  just  should  be 
also  strong,  men  have  ordained  that  what  was  strong  should 
be  also  just"  *  To  sum  up  all  in  one  phrase,  **  We  are 
incapable  alike  of  truth  and  goodness."  f 

But  Pascal,  however  accordant  with  Montaigne  in  his 
estimate  of  human  faculties,  cannot  be  satisfied,  like  him, 
to  leave  the  matter  there ;  to  utter  a  garrulous  philosophy 
while  all  these  floods  of  uncertainty  are  seething  below,  or 
to  wander  contentedly  through  life,  possessing  and  asking 
for  no  moral  guidance.  Man,  as  described  by  him,  has 
not  lost  all  his  dignity,  inasmuch  as  he  is  conscious  of  his 
misery.  Only  a  dethroned  king  is  unhappy  in  the  loss  of 
a  kingdom ;  no  man  afflicts  himself  for  the  want  of  that 
which  he  never  possessed.  The  knowledge  of  our  wretched- 
ness is  itself  our  grandeiir.  **  Man  is  no  more  than  a  reed, 
the  feeblest  thing  in  nature,  but  it  is  a  reed  that  thinks. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  the  whole  universe  should  arm  itself 
for  his  destruction.  A  vapour,  a  drop  of  v^ter  suffices  to 
kill  him.  But  even  if  the  universe  were  to  crush  him,  he 
would  be  more  noble  than  that  which  kills  him,  because 
he  knows  that  he  dies,  and  the  advantage  which  the  world 
has  over  him.  The  universe  knows  nothing  of  ifj  Our 
sense  of  the  grandeur  of  the  human  mind  appears  in  the 
disproportionate  value  which  we  set  upon  one  another's 
good  opinion ;  our  consciousness  of  misery  in  the  whole  of 
our  amusements,  which  are  only  eager  attempts  to  forget 
an  ever-present  woe.  It  is,  then,  to  this  mixed  frame  of 
mind  that  revealed  religion  addresses  itself,  at  once  explain- 
ing the  contradictions  and  satisfying  the  wants  of  human 

*  Fentees,  ed.  Haret,  p.  75.       f  Ibid.  p.  45.        t  Il>>d.  p.  30. 


SECOND   PART   OF  THE   THOUGHTS.  113 

nature.  The  story  of  the  original  innocence  of  man  reveals 
the  source  of  our  aspiration ;  the  promise  of  a  Saviour 
answers  to  our  acknowledged  incapacity  and  wretchedness. 
God  does  for  us  in  the  Bible  what  we  could  never  have  done 
for  ourselves,  and  brings  down  to  our  level  a  truth  other- 
wise inaccessible  to  our  striving.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  natural  religion ;  revealed  religion  is  alone  possible.* 

It  is  not  necessary  to  describe  Pascal's  method  of  dealing 
with  the  evidences  of  revealed  religion.  The  most  interest- 
ing section  of  the  second  portion  of  the  work  is  that  which 
treats  of  miracles ;  though  here  it  is  quite  plain  that  not 
the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures,  but  those  of  the  Holy  Thorn 
were  chiefly  in  his  view.  The  Biblical  science  of  Pascal's 
age  and  Church  was  shallow,  credulous,  illogical ;  and  there 
is  no  proof  that  he  was  up  to  the  level  even  of  his  age  and 
Church.  He  never  quotes  the  Old  or  New  Testament  in 
the  original  languages,  but  always  in  the  Yulgat-e.  He 
sometimes  falls  in  his  citations  into  mistakes  of  simple 
ignorance.  Of  the  existence  of  all  the  branches  of  inquiry 
included  in  the  words  "  Biblical  Criticism,"  he  evidently 
knows  nothing.  We  might  have  expected  from  him  in  this 
half  of  his  work,  many  striking  and  suggestive  remarks  on 
the  events  of  the  evangelical  history ;  many  profound  inter- 
pretations of  single  texts  or  phrases  of  Scripture.  But  the 
incompleteness  of  his  labour  has,  to  a  great  extent,  deprived 
us  of  these ;  and  the  value  and  interest  of  the  "  Thoughts  " 
lie  almost  wholly  in  the  first  or  philosophical  section. 

The  phrases  natural  and  revealed  religion  in  themselves 
imply,  that  man's  religious  knowledge  may  be  divided  into 
two  parts ;  that  which  he  has  or  might  have  discovered  by 
the  exercise  of  his  own  faculties,  and  that  which  flows  in 

*  The  reader  maj  remark,  in  connection  with  this  part  of  the  subject, 
that  the  God  on  whom  Pascal  seems  to  rest,  in  that  singular  record  of  the 
23rd  of  November,  is  **  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,  not  of 
philosophers  and  learned  men.*' 

VOL.  !!•  I 


114  POBT  ROYAL. 

upon  hiia  from  a  supernatural  source.  The  line  between 
them  will  be  diflferently  drawn  by  different  religious  systems. 
Some  conceive  it  to  be  for  the  honour  of  revealed  religion 
to  narrow  the  extent  and  impair  the  validity  of  the  con- 
clusions of  natural  theology ;  while  others  are  willing  to 
find  in  its  arguments  a  confirmation  of  the  teachings  of 
Scripture.  Philosophers  and  divines  make  this  a  con- 
stant battle  ground;  each  party  anxious  to  reduce  the 
pretensions  of  the  other  to  the  narrowest  possible  limits. 
But  even  when  this  question  is  settled,  others  still  more 
difficult  rise  up  for  solution*  What  is  the  function  of 
reason  in  regard  to  revelation?  Has  it  a  critical  office 
to  perform  towards  the  truth  which  it  is  confessedly 
unable  to  originate  ?  Is  that  function  of  criticism  con- 
fined to  the  evidence  of  revelation^  and  out  of  place  in 
regard  to  its  substance?  Is  it  right  that  reason  should 
freely  test  even  the  external  authentication  of  revealed 
truth,  or  is  there  not  an  authority  which  may  stand  in  the 
place  of  evidence,  and  impose  a  system  of  doctrines  upon 
the  unwilling  mind?  I  do  not  pretend  to  answer  these 
questions,  which  the  theological  student  will  recognise  as 
lying  at  the  basis  of  all  Christian  controversies ;  I  only 
indicate  them  for  the  purpose  of  clearly  defining  Pascal's 
theory  of  religious  evidence.  He  confined  the  functions  of 
the  human  intellect  within  the  straitest  limits.  It  has  no 
power  of  discovering,  of  testing,  of  combining  religious 
truth.  An  universal  doubt  is  the  only  end  in  which  it  can 
reasonably  rest.  He  does  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
trouble  his  readers  with  the  metaphysical  reasonings, 
or  with  the  argument  from  nature,  in  proof  of  the  being 
and  attributes  of  Crod ;  they  have  no  true  force  of  conviction 
in  them.  He  founds  revealed,  on  the  impossibility  of 
natural  religion.  The  powers  of  reason  in  regard  to  revela- 
tion are  simply  receptive. 

Were  my  attitude  towards  Pascal's  "  Thoughts  "  one  of 


THE  JA^'SENISM  OF  THE  THOUGHTS.  115 

philosophical  criticism,  I  might  point  out  the  inconsistency 
of  his  theory  of  human  reason  with  the  task  which  he  under- 
took, and  so  adduce  his  work  as  an  answer  to  itsel£  What 
object  in  producing  evidence  to  faculties  which  are  inca- 
pable of  estimating  it  ?  Is  not  the  whole  Protestant  habit 
of  thought  towards  religious  truth,  logically  deducible  from 
the  very  idea  of  a  book  on  "  The  Evidences  ?  "  But  it  is  more 
to  the  present  purpose  to  show  the  close  connection  in 
which  the  theory  of  the  "Thoughts"  stands  to  the  whole 
of  Pascal's  thought  and  life.  His  contempt  of  philosophi- 
cal research  had  a  double  source  in  his  Jansenism  and  in 
his  mathematical  studies.  The  only  theory  of  Christianity 
which  exercised  any  powerful  influence  upon  him,  takes  its 
root  in  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  Human  faculties,  by 
reason  of  the  primal  transgression,  have  become  hopelessly 
weak  and  corrupt.  The  heart,  formed  for  disinterested 
affection,  stirs  only  with  self-love ;  the  conscience  errs  in 
its  discrimination  of  right  and  wrong.  Only  the  omni- 
potent grace  of  God,  the  single  and  all-sufficient  helper 
of  the  soul,  can  begin  and  complete  the  work  of  restoration. 
And  we  have  only  to  extend  the  same  theory  to  the  intel- 
lectual powers  of  man,  to  find  ourselves  in  Pascal's  position. 
The  human  reason  as  originally  given  by  God,  was  fitted 
for  the  investigation  and  discovery  of  truth.  But  it,  too,  has 
suffered  by  the  general  malady,  and  can  no  longer  perform 
its  functions,  except  by  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Strength- 
ened and  purified  by  Divine  grace,  it  is  able  to  apprehend 
the  truths  of  revelation,  while  its  independent  strivings 
after  God,  necessarily  end  in  uncertainty  and  error. 

It  is  not  uninstructive  to  mark,  that  Pascal's  mind,  when 
left  to  itself,  took  a  mathematical  direction  ;  and  that 
mathematical  methods  of  investigating  truth  were  those 
which  he  most  successfully  used.  And  a  great  familiarity 
with  necessary  truths,  and  with  the  precise  and  cogent 
reasonings  used  in  their  demonstration,  often  unfits  the  mind 

I  2 


116  PORT  ROYAL. 

for  dealing  with  philosophical  and  religions  theories.  The 
possibility  of  absolute  proof,  the  exclusion  of  a  diflTerence 
of  belief,  the  manifest  absurdity  of  an  opposite  hypothesis 
in  the  one  case,  contrast  strangely  with  the  diverse 
readings  of  evidence,  the  conflict  of  testimony,  the  con- 
stant inconclusiveness  of  demonstration,  the  existence  of 
diverging  and  even  contradictory  opinions  in  the  other. 
An  inquirer  trained  in  the  schools  of  mathematics,  comes 
to  religion,  asking  for  proof  of  a  kind  which  she  is  not  pre- 
pared to  give ;  her  historical  evidences  appear  to  him  full 
of  breaks  and  flaws,  her  certainties  of  consciousness  no 
better  than  bold  assertions.  His  researches  have  been  into 
relations  of  number  and  magnitude  which  precisely  accord 
with  the  constitution  of  his  own  mind,  and  do  not  stretch 
beyond  his  grasp ;  here  the  soul  is  in  contact  with  infinite 
existence,  whose  many-sidedness  perplexes  its  survey,  whose 
depth  mocks  its  insight,  the  very  characteristic  of  whose 
infinity  it  is  to  transcend  and  confound  its  methods  of 
proof.  We  know  God  only  by  a  direct  act  of  conscious- 
ness prior  to,  and  independent  of  all  argument :  analogous  to 
the  operation  of  the  mind,  by  which  we  apprehend  the  ideas 
which  are  the  foundation  of  all  mathematical  reasoning. 
These  very  ideas  Pascal,  in  his  later  speculations,  came  to 
regard  as  requiring,  and  yet  incapable  of  proof ;  and  thus 
vitiating  by  their  primal  uncertainty  all  the  mathematical 
conclusions,  which,  with  whatever  cogency  of  reasoning, 
were  drawn  from  them.  His  habit  of  mind  therefore,  was 
such  as  to  misapprehend  and  exaggerate  the  inconclusive- 
ness  which  his  religious  theory  encouraged  him  to  find  in  the 
speculations  of  natural  theology.  The  arguments  for  the 
existence  of  God  did  not  compel  conviction  like  the 
demonstrations  of  Euclid,  and  were  therefore  contemptu- 
ously thrown  aside. 

A  passage  in  the  "Thoughts,"  which  Pascal  himself 
struck  out,  and  replaced  by  another  less  startling  in  phrase. 


ALLEGED  SCEPTICISM.  117 

comprehends  the  whole  of  his  theory  of  human  know- 
ledge: 

"  II  faut  avoir  ces  trois  qualites,  pyrrhonien,  g^om^tre, 
Chretien  soumis :  et  elles  s'accordent,  et  se  temp^rent,  en 
doutant  oti  il  faut,  en  assurant  oii  il  faut,  en  se  soumettant 
oil  il  faut"* 

However  logically  accordant  with  Jansenism  Pascal's 
position  might  be,  it  was  hardly  likely  to  find  favour  with 
his  editors ;  all  of  them  men  of  a  less  eager  spirit  than 
himself,  and  some  of  them  famous  for  the  philosophical 
speculations  at  which  he  scornfully  laughed.  Antoine 
Amauld  in  a  letter  to  Florin  Perier,  which  I  have  already 
quoted  t,  animadverts  upon  the  doctrine  that  justice  is 
altogether  based  upon  force  and  usage,  and  defends  his 
opinion  that  the  passage  which  contains  it  should  be 
omitted  from  the  published  work.  It  was  perhaps  owing 
to  such  changes  and  omissions  as  were  made  by  Port 
fioyal,  in  hope  of  accommodating  the  book  to  the  standard 
of  Jansenist  orthodoxy,  that  the  charge  of  scepticism 
was  not  definitely  brought  against  Pascal  until  it  was 
made  in  M.  Cousin's  "  Beport."  Since  that  time  the  con- 
troversy has  been  bitter.  The  philosophers  impeach  Pascal 
as  a  traitor  to  philosophy.  Even  the  Jesuits  forget  his 
Jansenism  in  the  desire  to  claim  him  as  a  defender  of  reli- 
gion. And  as  usual,  neither  party  succeeds  in  convincing 
the  other. 

To  enter  upon  the  details  of  this  debate  would  be  foreign 
to  the  general  purpose  of  my  work,  and  would  besides,  in- 
volve the  necessity  of  copious  quotation  and  minute 
criticism  of  Pascal's  text.  The  materials  for  a  general 
judgment  of  the  strife  have  already  been  afforded.  If  the 
summary  of  Pascal's  argument,  which  I  have  given,  be 

*  FenBees,  ecL  Havet,  p.  184. 
t  Lettres  d'A.  Araauld,  vol.  ix.  p.  184. 
X  3 


H8  PORT  EOYAL. 

in  the  main  true ;  if  I  have  at  all  rightly  described  his 
method  of  proof,  he  must  be  held  to  belong  to  the  sceptical 
school  of  philosophy.  The  question  is  not  one  which  can 
be  decided  by  quoting  fragment  against  firagment;  by 
balancing  an  isolated  declaration  of  doubt  with  an  isolated 
declaration  of  belief.  This  method  is  especially  inapplicable 
to  such  imperfect  notes  and  hints  as  alone  Pascal  hajB  left, 
and  could  prove  at  best  only  that  he  was  more  or  less  con- 
sistent in  his  adherence  to  a  governing  principle  of  thought. 
The  scepticism,  if  it  is  there  at  all,  leavens  the  whole  book ; 
is  involved  in  the  assumptions  from  which  it  starts,  and 
the  methods  by  which  it  proceeds ;  lurks  in  the  conclusions 
to  which  it  arrives.  It  may  be  wholly  or  in  part  unconscious : 
believing  men  often  write  and  say,  what  to  other  minds 
appears  to  contain  the  very  essence  of  unbelief.  And  with- 
out wishing  to  adopt  the  words  in  which  M.  Cousin  states 
his  case,  or  to  take  a  side  in  the  debates  to  which  that 
statement  has  given  rise,  I  am  compelled  to  believe,  that 
in  regard  to  all  philosophical  truth,  Pascal  was  as  much  a 
sceptic  as  his  favourite  teacher  Montaigne. 

Montaigne  rested  quietly  in  his  philosophical  doubt; 
Pascal,  with  marvellous  mental  dexterity,  built  his  edifice 
of  religious  faith  upon  its  uncertain  foundation.  And  thus  he 
was  not  a  sceptic,  if  we  use  the  word  in  its  common  English 
meaning.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  the  almost  fanatical 
sincerity  of  his  religious  belief.  Eeligion  appeared  to  his 
conscience  to  ask  the  sacrifice  of  all  that  had  hitherto  made 
the  brightness  of  his  life ;  his  intercourse  with  the  world, 
his  domestic  affections,  his  mathematical  and  physical 
studies,  the  comforts  which  alone  could  prolong  and  make 
endurable  his  frail  and  painful  existence ;  and  the  sacrifice 
was  unhesitatingly  offered.  He  ranged  himself  from  the 
first  upon  the  side  of  a  persecuted  minority  of  the  Church, 
and  devoted  his  wonderful  powers  to  its  defence  with  such 
eagerness  and  persistence,  as  to  overrun  the  zeal  of  the 


ALLEGED  SCEFTICISM.  119 

great  captains  who  had  enlisted  him  in  the  service.  There 
is  no  proof  that  he  betook  himself  to  the  Church  as  the  one 
refuge  open  to  him  from  the  torments  of  doubt ;  or  that  b j 
any  eflfort  of  Will,  he  compelled  a  mind,  which  would  other- 
wise have  wandered  through  boundless  fields  of  specula- 
tion, to  rest  uneasily  beneath  the  shadow  of  authority. 
His  faith  was  clear,  calm,  imdoubting ;  his  book  is  not  so 
much  the  rtecord  of  any  personal  struggles  through  which 
he  had  himself  arrived  at  Christian  belief,  as  the  exhibition 
of  what  he  considers  the  best  way  of  dealing  with  atheists. 
He  finds  that  his  keen  mathematical  intellect  can  detect 
flaws  in  the  ordinary  evidences  of  religion.  He  sees  that 
those  evidences  are  not  logically  accordant  with  the  doc- 
trine which  shapes  his  theory  of  Christianity.  And  there- 
fore he  resolves  to  accept  the  conclusions  of  the  sceptics  up  to 
a  certain  point,  and  yet  to  deduce  from  them  the  doctrines 
of  Boman  Catholicism.  Other  men  need  a  rock  upon 
which  to  build  their  lighthouse ;  he  will  erect  his  beacon 
upon  the  quicksands,  or  the  heaving  waves  themselves; 
they  attach  their  argument  to  the  assumption  of  faith 
in  human  faculties;  he  will  chain  his  reasoning  to  the 
confession  of  their  incapacity.  I'he  doctrine  is  sceptical 
enough ;  but  the  teacher,  if  we  look  only  to  his  personal 
belief,  no  sceptic* 

*  To  cite  passages  from  the  "  Thoughts  **  in  sapport  of  the  opinions  ex* 
pressed  ahove,  wonld  be  to  plange  into  the  textual  debate  which  I  am 
anxious  to  avoid.  Bat  I  may  generallj  refer  the  reader  to  the  celebrated 
argnment  for  the  existence  of  God,  which  substitutes  for  the  rejected  d 
priori  and  a  potlenari  arguments,  a  proof,  that  according  to  the  theory  of 
probabilities,  it  is  most  advantageous  to  believe  in  God,  although  it  is 
impossible  to  demonstrate  that  He  exists.  (Havet,  art  x.  p.  145.)  Passages 
similar  in  spirit,  are  scattered  throughout  the  first  or  philosophical  half  of  the 
**  Thoughts  ;**  and  in  the  new  editions  may  be  read,  in  all  their  original  force 
and  abruptness  of  phrase. 

The  following  quotation  from  Locke  is  not  without  instruction  in  this 
connection : — 

••Ueason  is  natural  revelatioa,  whereby  the  Eternal  Father  of  light,  and 

J  4 


120  PORT  ROYAL. 

It  shows  the  vitality  of  Pascal's  style,  that  any  trace  of 
the  qualities  displayed  in  the  "Provincial  Letters"  was  still 
to  be  found  among  the  corrections  and  embellishments  in- 
troduced by  his  editors  into  that  recension  of  the 
"Thoughts,"  which  under  different  modifications  passed 
current  till  1842.  And  now  the  restored  text  exhibits  a 
style  like  that  of  the  "Provincial  Letters"  in  the  making. 
The  force,  the  life,  the  precision  of  phrase  are  all  there ; 
more  rarely  the  exquisite  polish  which  almost  lifts  Paflcal's 
finished  works  above  the  reach  of  criticism.  Never  was 
a  book  so  full  of  unconscious  autobiography,  as  the 
"Thoughts "  in  their  new  form.  In  the  case  of  some  of 
the  more  polished  fragments  we  can  trace  the  thought 
from  the  first  rude  hint  or  exaggerated  statement,  through 
more  stages  than  one,  up  to  the  epigrammatic  neatness 
and  perfection  which  stand  out  in  bold  relief  from  the 
page.  It  is  a  singular  privilege  to  be  thus  admitted  into 
the  studio  of  a  great  artist  in  words,  and  to  watch  him  at 
his  work.  But  beyond  this,  the  life  of  the  man  is  as 
plainly  revealed  as  the  habits  of  the  author.  The  Jan- 
senist,  the  friend  of  Port  Eoyal,  the  destroyer  of  casuistry, 
the  doubter  of  Papal  infallibility,  the  geometrician,  the 
ascetic,  the  devout  Catholic,  the  sick  man,  are  all  there. 
The  whole  argument  rests  upon  the  doctrine  of  grace,  and 
the  correlative  doctrine  of  original  sin.  If  he  speaks  of 
miracles,  his  thoughts  are  of  the  Holy  Thorn;  of  the 
Church,  he  cannot  be  silent  as  to  the  scandals  which  afflict, 

Fountain  of  all  knowledge,  commonicates  to  mankind  that  portion  of  truth 
which  He  has  laid  within  the  reach  of  their  natural  faculties.  Revelation  is 
natural  reason  enlarged  hj  a  new  set  of  discoTeries  communicated  by  God 
immediately,  which  reason  vouches  the  truth  of,  by  the  testimony  and  proofs 
it  gives  that  they  come  from  God.  So  that  he  that  takes  away  reason,  to 
make  way  for  revelation,  puts  out  the  light  of  both,  and  does  much-what  the 
same,  as  if  he  would  persuade  a  man  to  put  out  his  eyes,  the  better  to  receive 
the  remote  light  of  an  invisible  star  by  a  telescope.** — Essay,  book  iv.  chap, 
xix.  §  4. 


pascal's  style.  121 

and  the  debates  which  divide  it.  His  heart  goes  with  his 
mind  into  every  subject  of  discussion.  He  condemns  the 
use  of  the  personal  pronoun  by  authors,  and  yet  leaves  his 
soul  upon  every  page.  He  not  unfrequently  calls  up  some 
imaginary  interlocutor,  with  whom  he  argues,  upon  whom 
he  spends  all  his  persuasions.  His  eagerness  vents  itself 
in  apostrophe  and  ejaculation.  Had  his  work  been  com- 
pleted, it  might  have  lost  in  life  and  movement,  what  it 
would  have  gained  in  polish  and  correctness ;  incomplete, 
it  remains  the  transcript  of  the  writer's  heart. 

For  the  perfection  of  Pascal's  style  —  I  had  almost  said 
for  the  perfection  of  prose  composition — we  must  go  to  the 
"  Provincial  Letters,"  At  first  the  reader  forgets  to  notice 
the  style,  so  natural,  so  complete  is  its  presentation  of  the 
author's  thought;  as  sometimes  the  distant  hills  stand  out 
so  clearly  as  to  encourage  the  belief  that  no  atmospheric 
medium  floats  between.  Some  happy  turn  of  phrase,  some 
subtle  touch  of  irony  reveals  the  hand  of  a  master ;  and 
he  begins  to  discover  that  every  sentence  possesses  the 
polish,  and  many  the  point  of  an  epigram.  Yet  the 
point  is  in  the  matter,  not  merely  in  the  words;  the 
phrases  are  not  padded  to  fill  out  the  limb  of  an  antithesis ; 
each  fully  expresses  its  thought  and  no  more.  But  every 
thought  is  expressed  in  a  way  which  defies  amendment ;  a 
word  more  or  less  is  felt  to  destroy  the  fine  harmony  and 
proportion  of  the  whole.  The  naturalness  of  the  dialogue, 
the  keenness  of  the  wit,  the  grave  and  quiet  irony,  the 
Socratic  ait  with  which  the  inquirer  compels  his  various 
interlocutors  to  speak  as  serves  his  purpose,  would  be  alone 
sufiicient  to  account  for  the  fame  of  the  book.  In  them 
speaks  the  Pascal  of  the  salons  of  Paris ;  the  Pascal  of 
Port  Eoyal  utters  himself  in  the  sublime  moral  vehemence, 
the  eloquent  invective,  of  the  later  letters.  The  gay 
mockery  of  the  debate  on  sufficient  and  eflBcacious  grace, 
seems  to  proceed  from  other  lips  than  those  which  de- 


122  FORT  fiOTAL. 

nounce  the  calumniators  of  Port  SoyaL  And  the  change 
is  great  from  either  to  the  almost  savage  sarcasm,  which, 
in  the  *' Thoughts,"  attempts  to  cut  away  the  ground 
of  certainty  from  all  human  knowledge,  and  denies,  that 
apart  from  revelation,  there  are  such  things  as  truth  and 
justice. 

The  perfectness  of  Pascal's  style  is  an  indication  of  a 
similar  quality  in  his  mental  constitution.  Whatever  he 
did  was  done  with  wonderful  force,  precision,  complete- 
ness. I  do  not  know  how  far  this  remark  would  apply  to 
the  method  of  his  mathematical  investigations;  it  certainly 
is  true  of  their  results.  The  experiment  of  the  Puy  de 
Dome  exactly  supplied  the  missing  link  in  the  chain  of 
discovery,  and  established  for  ever  the  fact  of  atmospheric 
pressure.  The  arithmetical  machine  was,  so  to  speak,  a 
creation  out  of  nothing,  the  offspring  of  his  own  brain,  and 
was  patiently  improved  till  it  answered  its  purpose.  The 
theory  of  the  Cycloid  was,  in  like  manner,  swiftly,  surely, 
independently  worked  out,  and  surpassed  the  labours  of 
the  competing  geometers  as  much  in  completeness  and 
symmetry  of  execution  as  in  rapidity  of  conception.  And 
this  is  the  character  of  Pascal's  originality.  He  does  not 
construct  systems  of  the  universe,  or  mark  an  era  in 
philosophical  thought,  or  compass  the  whole  sphere  of 
human  knowledge,  like  Des  Cartes.  He  is  not  conversant 
with  all  the  literature  which  it  becomes  a  learned  man  to 
know,  like  Amauld.  He  probably  knew  little  Greek  and 
no  Hebrew ;  much  of  his  classical  learning  came  to  him  at 
second  hand  from  Montaigne ;  all  the  books  with  which 
his  writings  betray  any  acquaintance  might  be  enumerated 
in  half-a-dozen  lines.  What  he  thought  and  knew  came 
almost  wholly  out  of  himself,  was  the  result  of  his  inde- 
pendent thought,  and  bears,  in  the  completeness  of  its 
symmetry,  the  impress  of  his  nature.  If  sometimes  his 
originality,  in  regard  to  any  special  thought  or  investig»- 


INDIVIDUALITY   OP  CHARACTEIB.  128 

tion,  has  been  called  in  question^  the  explanation  will  be 
found  in  his  ignorance  of  what  other  men  thought  and 
did.  The  substance,  in  such  cases,  is  only  apparently 
another's ;  the  perfectness  of  the  form  wholly  his  own. 

But  Pascal's  originality  is  twofold ;  it  is  an  individuality 
of  character  as  well  as  of  mind.  And  this  is  the  thought 
which  once  more  brings  us  back  to  Jacqueline,  of  whom 
we  might  almost  seem  to  have  lost  sight  The  foundation 
of  the  brother's  and  sister's  life  was  laid  in  that  eagerness 
and  sensitiveness  of  spirit,  which  are  at  once  the  condition 
and  the  trial  of  a  certain  kind  of  genius.  For  both,  the 
common  roimd  of  social  duty  appeared  too  level  and  con- 
fined ;  and  both  sought  a  higher  ideal  in  the  watchfulness, 
the  mortification,  the  rapture  of  the  monastic  life.  Yet 
either  was  unable  to  subdue  a  restless  conscience,  an  ener- 
getic will,  an  eager  spirit  to  the  monotonous  uniformity  of 
a  community  or  a  party ;  Port  Boyal  stood  almost  alone 
against  the  Church  ;  yet  Jacqueline  died  of  a  broken  heart, 
because  she  had  set  even  Port  Royal  above  her  own  con- 
science, and  Blaise  fainted  in  despair,  when,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  Amauld  preferred  peace  to  truth.  And  the  strongly 
throbbing  heart,  which  so  lives  and  moves  in  the  fragments 
of  Pascal's  "  Thoughts,"  is  equally  to  be  noted  in  Jacque- 
line's letters.  The  phrases  are  full  of  tears  even  yet. 
When  she  implores  her  brother,  on  her  first  flight  to  Port 
Eoyal,  not  to  take  away  from  her  that  which  he  cannot 
give ;  when  she  declares  to  Amauld  that  if  it  is  not  a 
woman's  part  to  defend  the  truth,  she  can  at  least  die  for 
it —  she  touches  the  perennial  fountains  of  emotion,  and 
the  reader's  heart,  after  two  centuries  of  change  and  for- 
getfulness,  leaps  forth  to  answer  hers.  There  is  even  a 
certain  unity  about  her  life  which  is  wanting  to  her 
brother's.  At  Port  Soyal,  brothers  and  sisters  ran  a  noble 
race,  in  which  the  victory  was  not  always  to  the  stronger 
sex;  Angelique  and  Agnds  Arnauld  are  greater  than  the 


124  POBT  ROYAL. 

Bishop  of  Angers  and  the  Doctor  Antoine :  and  Angelique 
de  St  Jean  Arnauld  is  the  ablest  of  D'Andilly's  children.  So 
in  Jacqueline  Pascal  we  note  none  of  the  hesitation  which 
made  her  brother  vibrate  between  the  worldly  and  the 
religious  life^  and  perhaps  finally  avenged  itself  in  the 
fanatical  austerities  of  his  last  years.  She  makes  her 
choice  at  first;  delay  only  confirms  her  intention;  and 
her  life  flows  on  in  quiet,  happy  current  to  the  end. 

The  thread  of  gold  which  runs  through  the  whole  of 
Pascal's  character,  and  forms  the  clue  to  the  comprehension 
of  its  unity,  is  his  passionate  love  of  truth.  There  is  a 
point  of  view  firom  which  every  phase  of  what  we  call 
genius  may  be  reduced  to  this  single  idea.  The  man  of 
genius  is  he  who  is  able  to  penetrate  beneath  the  outward 
shows  of  things  to  their  real  nature ;  and  to  express  what 
he  sees,  whether  by  help  of  pen,  or  brush,  or  chisel,  in 
language  intelligible  to  those  who  have  not  his  own  faculty 
of  insight.  His  words  are  not  only  more  beautiful  than 
theirs,  but  in  their  very  beauty  are  felt  to  be  more  true. 
He  soars  so  high  above  the  external  diflTerences  of  things, 
as  to  be  able  to  group  them  according  to  their  real  affi- 
nities, and  to  reconcile  apparent  conti-adictions,  in  the 
unity  of  an  essential  likeness.  However  circumstance  and 
the  natural  limitations  of  his  faculties  may  combine  to  give 
a  certain  direction  to  his  insight,  no  truth  ever  comes  amiss 
to  him,  for  he  recognises  it  as  one  aspect  of  the  infinite 
reality  upon  which  he  is  wont  to  gaze  from  another  side. 
This  universal  appetite  for  knowledge,  this  eager  welcome  of 
all  truth,  in  the  full  belief  that  it  is  part  of  one  harmonious 
whole,  however  imperfect  the  present  apprehension  of  the 
harmony,  is  indeed  the  prerogative  of  the  noblest  minds, 
and  when  joined  vnith  a  faculty  of  investigation  as  various 
as  itself,  makes  up  a  character  which  the  world  has  rarely 
seen.  Pascal  was  not  such,  perhaps  could  not  have  become 
such,  under  any  conceivable  discipline  of  circumstance; 


VERSATILITY  AND  UNITY  OF  CHARACTER.  125 

and  yet  shows  a  many-sidedness  of  genius,  which  it  is  hard 
to  parallel  elsewhere.  In  pure  mathematics,  as  well  as  in 
physical  science,  he  moves  with  the  firm  and  graceful  step 
of  a  master;  and  the  magnitude  of  his  achievements 
continually  rouses,  and  almost  justifies  the  regret  that  he 
should  have  abandoned  these  for  less  fertile  fields  of  labour. 
His  single  effort  in  mechanics  is  a  remarkable  example  of 
creative  power.  Even  in  the  act  of  undermining  all 
philosophy,  he  gives  signal  proof  of  philosophical  insight 
and  acuteness.  His  theological  speculations  have  upon 
them  the  indelible  mark  of  his  originality ;  though  his 
acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  the  subject  is  of  the 
scantiest,  he  does  not  fall  into  the  track  of  other  apologists, 
but  pursues  a  path  of  his  own.  It  is  not  often  that  the 
same  mind  has  such  a  power  of  appreciating  two  kinds  of 
truth  so  different  as  the  mathematical  and  the  religious ; 
a  still  rarer  phenomenon  that  it  should  possess  so  keen  a 
sense  of  beauty  as  to  form  a  tie  of  aflSnity  with  the  nature 
of  the  poet  or  the  artist.  Yet  Pascal  was  an  artist  in 
words ;  his  style  is  as  perfect  and  rounded  a  creation  as 
those  of  Corneille  and  Sacine  ;  and  perhaps  in  the  very 
characteristics  which  make  it  prose,  truer  than  theirs  to  the 
spirit  of  the  French  language.  But  then  the  quality  of 
Pascal's  genius  of  which  I  am  speaking  is  not  a  mere  in- 
tellectual versatility ;  the  passion  for  truth  filled  his  heart 
and  life  as  well  as  his  mind.  There  are  men  who  join  to 
great  powers  of  discovering  truth,  a  singular  carelessness 
as  to  their  own  moral  relations  to  it ;  will  hide  it,  or  retract 
it,  or  explain  it  away,  or  hold  back  from  following  it  to  its 
necessary  consequences,  at  the  prospect  of  any  danger  to 
life  and  reputation.  Pascal,  on  the  other  hand,  was  almost 
a  Protestant  in  his  attitude  to  theological  truth ;  and  did 
not  so  much  accept  the  creed  of  his  Church,  as  select 
for  himself  a  form  of  Catholic  belief  to  which  he  clung 
with  a  constancy,  which  in  an  earlier  age  would  have 


126  PORT  ROYAL. 

won  for  him  a  crown  of  martyrdom.  And  then  it  is  not 
always  the  philosopher,  the  man  of  letters,  the  &eologian 
who  possesses  that  insight  into  moral  truth,  that  fierce 
energy  of  will,  which  enabled  Pascal  to  translate  the  lessons  of 
Port  Boyal  into  the  austerities  of  his  last  years.  For  here 
the  love  of  truth  assumes  a  fresh  shape ;  he  sees  before  him« 
as  he  thinks,  the  ideal  of  a  Christian  life ;  he  hates  pre- 
tence and  unreality  in  himself,  not  less,  but  more  than 
elsewhere;  and  he  spends  his  remaining  strength  in  the 
attempt  to  make  himself  a  true  man. 

There  is  a  certain  incompleteness  in  Pascal's  life,  a  feel- 
ing of  promise  unfulfilled,  of  powers  too  soon  condemned  to 
inaction,  which  surround  it  with  a  tender  and  melancholy 
interest.  The  fight  was  fought  out  at  an  age  when  some  men 
have  hardly  armed  themselves  for  the  struggle ;  and  more 
than  half  the  manly  years  of  that  too  brief  life  were  spent  in 
enforced  idleness.  '  How  trite,  and  yet  how  true  a  homily  of 
human  weakness  is  read  by  the  marriage  of  that  strong  and 
fiery  soul  to  so  frail  a  frame  of  flesh  and  blood  !  Even  in 
the  contemplation  of  his  achievements,  it  is  hard  to  forget 
the  still  greater  possibilities  which  passed  away  with  him  to 
the  grave  fruitless.  Not  often  are  we  so  powerfully  re- 
minded that  there  is  something  in  human  nature  which 
surpasses  its  best  performance;  that  while  the  meanest 
man  is  better  than  his  actions,  the  noblest  cannot  rise 
in  execution  to  the  level  of  his  thought. 


THE  SCHOOI^  OF  POET  ROYAL.         127 


II. 

THE  SCHOOLS  OF  PORT  ROYAL. 

Thb  credit  of  having  first  perceived  the  power  of  education 
as  a  social  force,  and  of  having  systematically  attempted  to 
apply  it  to  the  attainment  of  certain  fixed  ends,  belongs  to 
the  Jesuits.  The  influence  which  they  aspired  to  exercise 
could  not  be  based  upon  any  popular  enthusiasm,  which, 
however  overmastering,  was  necessarily  fluctuating  and 
transitory.  Other  religious  orders  had  succeeded  in  swaying 
the  mind  of  Christendom  by  an  appeal  to  the  religious 
passions ;  but  each  in  turn,  had  been  compelled  to  make 
way  for  a  younger,  and  therefore  more  powerful  rival. 
And  the  Society  of  Jesus,  with  that  keen  practical  instinct 
which  so  strangely  tempered  the  fanatic  zeal  of  its  founders, 
felt  that  if  its  empire  over  men's  hearts  and  lives  was  to 
be  more  lasting  and  complete  than  that  of  the  Franciscans 
or  the  Dominicans,  it  must  attack  society  in  the  school- 
room, and  mould  the  age  by  educating  it  As  soon,  there- 
fore, as  it  was  established  on  a  firm  foundation,  it  began 
that  career  of  aggression  upon  the  ancient  seats  of  educa- 
tion, which  it  has  continued,  with  a  persistence  which 
marks  its  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  struggle,  up  to  the 
present  day.  No  school  was  too  humble,  no  college  too 
splendid  to  escape  its  insidious  encroachments,  or  its  open 
rivalry.  Many  of  the  old  universities  were  in  possession  of 
other  religious  orders,  who  hotly  resented  the  interference 
of  the  intrusive  teachers ;  so  that  in  some  places,  as  in 
Paris,  we  find  the  University  arrayed  in  avowed  and  unre- 


128  PORT  BOYAL. 

lenting  opposition  to  the  Jesuits.  But  the  Society,  where- 
ever  it  seriously  set  itself  to  acquire  supremacy,  was  soon 
supreme  in  the  education  of  the  rich  and  powerful  laity. 
It  would  spare  no  pains  to  form  the  mind  and  character  of 
a  young  nobleman.  Its  discipline  knew  how  to  vary 
according  to  the  requirements  of  the  pupil  or  his  parents ; 
in  some  seminaries  the  course  of  training  was  austere 
enough;  in  others,  there  was  no  neglect  of  worldly  and 
courtly  accomplishment.  The  ablest  of  the  brotherhood 
thought  the  education  of  those  who  in  a  few  years  were  to 
fill  high  places  in  Church  and  State,  an  office  worthy  of  all 
forethought  and  labour.  It  would  be  wrong  to  deny  that 
many  of  these  workers  in  a  calling  which  does  not  even 
yet  receive  its  due  share  of  honour,  were  moved  by  a  true 
and  noble  zeal  in  the  cause  of  literature  and  education ; 
and  yet  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  a  single  spirit  subtly  per* 
vaded  every  Jesuit  college,  and  that  the  great  aim  was  to 
make  all  the  pupils  faithful  sons  of  the  Church,  and  ardent 
friends  of  the  Society.  To  this  many  greater  ends  were 
sacrificed ;  and  in  the  comparative  ill  success  of  the  Jesuit 
seminaries,  considered  simply  as  places  of  education,  the 
freer  spirit  of  the  old  universities  has  been  avenged.  The 
human  mind  is  a  plant,  which,  if  it  is  to  blossom  and  bear 
fruit,  must  be  fed  and  fanned  by  the  free  dews  and  airs 
of  heaven.  Since  the  revival  of  letters,  not  a  single  work 
of  genius,  not  a  marked  step  in  scientific  discovery,  can 
claim  a  Jesuit  origin.  Port  Boyal,  in  the  brief  period 
during  which  it  was  permitted  to  flourish,  boasts  more 
famous  names  than  the  Society  after  three  centuries  of 
existence. 

The  schools  of  Port  Soyal  began  with  St*  Cyran.  His 
single  point  of  resemblance  to  the  Jesuits,  was  his  recog- 
nition of  the  importance  of  education  and  confession,  as  the 
means  by  which  the  influence  of  the  Church  should  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  world.     He  too,  like  the  Society, 


ST.   CTRAN  AND  EDUCAHOy.  129 

may  have  had  his  ecclesiastical  schemes  which  he  desired 
to  promote  by  these  instruments ;  though,  if  so,  they  re- 
garded rather  the  reformation  than  the  maintenance  of  the 
Church  in  her  present  condition.  However  this  may  be, 
he  at  least  used  them  in  a  different  and  more  scrupulous 
spirit.  The  Jesuits  would  accept  any  penitent,  and  saw 
that  an  influence  might  be  exerted  through  and  upon  all ; 
St  Cyran  scrutinised  his  penitents  as  closely  as  a  sincere 
penitent  might  scrutinise  his  director,  and  turned  away 
more  than  he  received.  The  Jesuit  seminaries  were  public 
places  of  education  which  sought  to  bring  the  spiiit  of  the 
Society  into  contact  with  the  whole  nation ;  the  schools  of 
Port  Eoyal,  as  established  by  St.  Cyran,  were  private  classes 
where  a  few  chosen  boys  of  known  parentage  and  promising 
disposition  were  trained  by  half-a-dozen  teachers.  Perhaps 
the  two  systems  of  education  had  hardly  a  fair  trial ;  for 
the  long  rivalry  between  Jesuit  and  Jansenist  which  I  have 
already  recorded,  stamped  a  party  impress  upon  the  pupils 
of  Port  Boyal,  which  under  more  favourable  circumstances 
would  not  have  been  an  effect  of  their  training ;  while  the 
Jesuit  colleges,  taking  their  scholars  from  a  wider  and  more 
varied  field,  as  well  as  being  less  solicitous  to  produce  a 
specific  moral  and  religious  result,  appeared  to  encourage 
a  freer  and  more  natural  development  of  character.  But 
it  was  the  fault  of  the  Society  that  Port  Soyal  became  a 
party;  and  hardly  its  merit,  if,  amongst  so  many  pupils, 
some  outgrew  the  swaddling  clothes  of  its  system  of 
education,  and  instead  of  Jesuits,  proved  to  be  men. 

There  was  nothing  more  remarkable  in  St.  Cyran's 
character  than  his  love  of  children.  And  yet  it  hardly 
seems  to  have  been  a  spontaneous  outflow  of  affection  so 
much  as  a  half  tender,  half  reverent  emotion  with  which 
he  regarded  those  in  whom  the  original  corruption  of 
human  nature  had  been  newly  washed  away  in  baptism, 
and  who,  by  watchfulness  and  prayer,  might  still  be  kept 

VOL.  n.  K 


130  POET  ROYAL. 

in  a  state  of  grace.  **  Thus  M.  de  St.  Cyran,"  says  Lan- 
celot*, "always  manifested  to  children  a  kindness  which 
amounted  to  a  species  of  respect,  that  in  them  he  might 
honour  innocence,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  which  dwells  with  it. 
He  was  wont  to  bless  them,  and  to  make  the  sign  of  the 
cross  upon  their  foreheads ;  and  when  they  were  old  enough, 
he  always  said  to  them  some  good  word  which  was,  as  it 
were,  a  seed  of  truth  which  he  scattered  in  passing,  and 
in  Grod's  sight,  in  order  that  in  His  good  time,  it  might 
germinate."  His  maxims  of  education  were  characterised 
by  the  same  deep  insight  into  human  nature  as  his  use  of 
confession.  "He  usually  reduced  all  that  ought  to  be 
done  with  children  to  these  three  things :  to  speak  little, 
to  bear  much,  to  pray  still  more."  The  teacher  was  to 
work  more  by  the  silent  forces  of  love  and  example,  than 
by  precept.  To  gain  the  aflTection  of  children  it  was  worth 
while  even  to  share  in  their  amusements :  the  grave  and 
austere  St  Cyran  had  been  known  to  play  at  ball  with  little 
ones  of  seven  years  old.  Punishment,  especially  corporal 
punishment,  was  to  be  used  only  in  the  last  resort,  when 
patience  and  expostulation  and  all  gentler  means  had 
failed ;  and  even  then  not  without  fervent  prayer,  "  To 
punish  without  previous  prayer,"  he  said,  "was  to  act  like 
the  Jews,  and  to  forget  that  everything  depended  upon  the 
blessing  of  God,  and  upon  His  grace  which  we  must  try 
to  draw  down  upon  them  by  our  patience."  But  while 
prayer  was  the  teacher's  strength,  he  was  to  avoid  the  error 
of  instilling  into  the  children's  minds  religious  ideas  and 
emotions  beyond  their  years.  St.  Cyran  "was  careful  to  give 
the  caution,  that  in  order  to  manage  children  well,  it  was 
rather  necessary  to  pray  than  to  cry,  and  to  speak  more  of 
them  to  God,  than  of  Gt)d  to  them ;  for  he  did  not  approve 
of  holding  long  religious  discourses  with  them,  or  of  weary- 

*  Vol  ii.  p.  332. 


n 


ST.   CTRAN  A5D  EBUCATION.  131 

ing  them  with  instructions."  He  thought  it  needful  to 
regulate  in  the  minutest  particulars  the  place  of  education, 
that  the  children  might  have  none  but  honourable  and 
pious  examples  before  their  eyes.  For  this  purpose,  the 
teacher  ought  to  have  entire  control  over  his  pupils,  even 
to  the  setting  aside,  for  a  time,  of  parental  authority. 
St.  Cyran  himself  had  refused,  on  this  ground,  to  imdertake 
the  education  of  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Lorraine.  And 
he  anticipated  the  method  of  more  modem  times  in 
desiring  to  adopt  his  system  of  training  to  the  different 
aptitudes  of  his  scholars:  only  a  very  few,  he  thought, 
were  worthy  of  a  learned  education ;  and  the  practice  of 
conducting  all  through  the  same  course  of  instruction 
ended  in  incumbering  Church  and  Stat«  with  a  crowd  of 
incompetent  servants.* 

The  good  Lancelot,  in  relating  how  St.  Cyran  thought 
the  education  of  the  young  an  "  employment  worthy  of 
angels,"  "in  which  he  would  have  delighted  to  pass  his 
whole  life,"  seems,  though  a  teacher  himself,  to  think  that 
some  apology  is  needed  to  save  his  master's  dignity,  and 
cites  a  list  of  Fathers  of  the  Church  who  did  not  dis- 
dain this  labour.  St»  Cyran  had  no  such  thoughts  for  him- 
self: during  all  the  last  years  of  his  life,  the  training  of 
little  children  occupied  a  large  part  of  his  time  and  care : 
one  after  another,  Singlin,  Lancelot,  Le  Maitre,  De  Barcos 
were  engaged  by  him  in  this  employment.  He  had  a 
scheme  for  building  a  school,  in  which  six  chosen  children 
shoxild  be  educated  under  the  care  of  a  good  priest,  and  a 
single  master  to  teach  Latin.  This  was  necessarily  aban- 
doned when  he  was  imprisoned  at  Vincennes,  and  two 
thousand  livres  which  he  had  set  aside  for  the  purpose, 
were  given  to  the  poor.  But  his  interest  in  teaching  was 
not  on  that  account  intermitted.     He  managed  during  this 

•  Vide  Lancelot,  Tol. ii»  p.  830,  et  seq.  ''De  la  charite  de  M.  de  St.  Cyran 
poor  les  enfants.** 

K  2 


132  PORT  EOTAL. 

period  to  Bend  several  children  to  his  abbey  of  St.  Cyran 
to  be  honestly  and  piously  brought  up,  and  to  persuade 
some  of  those  disciples  to  whom  his  will  was  law,  to  take 
charge  of  others.  He  fancied  that  he  should  like  to 
undertake  the  bringing  up  of  children  from  their  earliest 
infancy;  to  send  to  the  frontier  for  some  little  ones, 
orphaned  by  the  fortune  of  war,  whom  he  might  establish 
honourably  in  life,  and  whose  prayers,  as  one  who  had 
stood  in  a  father's  place,  he  might  enjoy.  While  he  was  at 
Vincennes,  he  adopted  the  son  of  a  poor  widow ;  kept  the 
child  in  his  room  until  the  ill-temper  of  the  governor's 
wife  compelled  him  to  send  him  away,  and  then  provided  a 
home  for  him  at  St.  Cyran.  The  boy  turned  out  badly ; 
defied  the  efforts  of  all  his  teachers,  and  at  last  became 
a  hardened  thief.  But  as  long  as  St.  Cyran  lived,  he  never 
gave  him  up.  During  the  few  months  between  his  release 
and  his  death,  he  saw  him  every  day.  No  occupation,  not 
even  his  great  work  against  the  Calvinists,  was  suffered  to 
interfere  with  this;  **he  would  leave  everything,"  says 
Lancelot,  **to  say  some  good  word  to  him,  or  to  try  to 
bring  him  back  to  God."* 

We  have  already  seen  that  as  early  as  1637  f,  Singlin  had 
been  persuaded  by  St.  Cyran  to  take  charge  of  t^o  or  three 
children ;  and  had  retired  with  them  for  a  time  to  the  thea 
deserted  valley  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs.  When  he  was 
recalled  to  make  one  of  the  little  community  which 
gathered  about  Le  Maitre  in  the  courtyard  of  Port  Boyal  de 
Paris,  the  work  of  education  was  not  intermitted.  We  find 
recorded  the  names  of  several  children,  who  at  this  time 
engaged  the  attention  of  Lancelot  and  Le  Mfidtre,  and  who, 
at  St.  Cyran's  imprisonment,  followed  their  masters  to 
Port  Royal  des  Champs.     When  after  the  visit  of  Laubar-- 

•  Lancelot,  vol.  i.  p.  133 ;  voL  il  p,  333.   Fontaine,  toL  L  p.  162,  et  Mg.; 
vol.  ii.  p.  81,  et  seq, 
t  VoLi.  p.  152. 


m^sasemsBB^ 


OBIGIK  OF  THE  SCHOOI^.  133 

demont^  they  were  driven  from  this  resting  place,  it  was  with 
the  parents  of  one  of  their  pupils  at  Fert^  Milon  that  the 
little  company  fomid  an  asylum.  After  their  return  to 
Port  Eoyal  at  the  end  of  1639,  Le  Maitre  occupied  him- 
self in  teaching  two  children,  one  a  younger  son  of 
M.  d'  Andilly,  the  other  of  Madame  de  St.  Ange ;  a  task  which 
he  had  imdertaken  in  complismce  with  St.  Cyran's  wish. 
Little  by  little,  some  of  the  other  solitaries  who  appear  to 
have  possessed  an  aptitude  for  the  work  joined  in  it ;  and 
pupils  were  not  wanting.  In  1643,  M.  Thomas  du  Fosse, 
a  gentleman  of  Bouen,  brought  three  of  his  sons  to  Port 
Boyal,  and  placed  them  in  the  hands  of  a  M .  Selles,  who 
cared  for  their  intellectual  training,  and  of  M .  de  Bacle, 
who  watched  over  their  religious  and  moral  education. 
But  still  no  regular  system  of  teaching  had  been  devised  ; 
and  there  was  no  organisation  of  school  or  college.*  The 
youngest  of  the  three  Du  Fosses,  who  maintained  throughout 
his  life  a  close  connection  with  Port  Boyal,  has  left  us  an 
interesting  account  of  the  instruction  which  he  received. 
**  In  regard,"  he  says,  *^  to  the  instructions  which  they  gave 
us  in  matters  of  faith  and  piety,  they  were  assuredly  very 
different  from  those  which  some  evil-intentioned  and  mis- 
informed persons  have  published  to  the  world.  Our 
catechism  was  that  which  is  entitled  'Theologie  Familiere,' 
printed  with  the  royal  privilege,  and  the  approbation  of 
learned  men.  They  explained  to  us  the  principal  articles 
of  faith  in  a  way  that  was  simple  and  adapted  to  our 
capacity.  They  inspired  into  us  above  all  things,  the  fear 
of  God,  the  avoidance  of  sin,  and  a  very  great  horror  of 
falsehood.  Thus  I  can  say  that  I  have  never  known  per- 
sons who  were  more  sincere,  and  with  whom  it  was 
necessary  to  live  with  a  more  open  heart.  For  they  were 
enemies  to  every  kind  of  concealment,  and  had  deeply 

♦  Lancelot,  voL  i.  pp.35,  108,  111,  118—126,  287,  et  seq.    Fontidne, 
vol.  ii.  p.  81.    Dtt  V08b6,  p.  33.     Conf.  vol.  L  p.  151,  et  seq. 

k3 


134  POET  EOYAL. 

graven  upon  their  hearts  that  declaration  of  Scripture, 
which  joins  in  the  burning  lake  of  fire  and  sulphur  all  liars 
with  wretches  and  murderers. 

"  As  to  the  statement  which  has  been  set  abroad,  that 
they  taught  us  in  the  *  little  schools  of  Port  Royal,'  that 
Jesus  Christ  did  not  die  for  all  mankind ;  that  Grod  was 
not  willing  that  all  men  should  be  saved ;  that  the  com- 
mandments were  impossible  of  fulfilment,  and  other  things 
of  that  nature,  I  should  be  to  blame  if  I  did  not  bear  wit- 
ness to  their  entire  falsehood.  I  do  not  think  that  I  ever 
even  heard  this  kind  of  proposition  spoken  of  during  the 
whole  time  of  my  studies ;  except  once,  when  a  foolish  and 
insolent  almanac  appeared  in  Paris,  in  which  they  were 
alluded  to ;  or  when  the  Constitution  of  Innocent  X.  which 
condemned  the  Five  Propositions,  was  published  in  the 
Church.  Those  who  imagine  that  these  gentlemen  had  a 
plan  for  establishing  a  new  doctrine,  and  that  they  kept 
schools  with  the  view  of  instilling  their  opinions  into  those 
who  were  there  taught,  are  very  ignorant  of  their  true 
character.  Never  were  children  brought  up  in  greater 
simplicity  than  we,  and  those  who  came  after  us.  Nowhere 
were  these  theological  matters  less  spoken  of  than  in  our 
schools ;  and  I  dare  assert,  without  fear  of  being  contra- 
dicted by  any  of  my  schoolfellows  who  axe  still  living,  and 
engaged  in  the  business  of  the  world,  that  we  knew  much 
less  about  them  than  most  of  those  who  came  from  the 
public  colleges  of  Paris."* 

The  schools  early  felt  the  shock  of  the  troubles  of  Port 
Boyal ;  for  in  1644,  while  the  Jesuits  were  expending  their 
first  rage  on  the  "  Book  of  Frequent  Communion,"  it  was 
thought  well  to  send  the  children  to  Le  Chenai,  a  house 
near  Versailles,  which  then  belonged  to  M.  le  Pelletier 
des  Touches,  one  of  St.  Cyran's  penitents,  and  through- 

*  Da  FoMe,  p.  49. 


RUE  ST.  DOMINIQUE.  135 

out  the  whole  of  a  life,  which  stretched  even  into  the 
eighteenth  century,  a  faithful  friend  of  Port  Royal.*  The 
storm  passed  away  and  the  scholars  returned  to  Port 
Royal  only  to  be  transferred  in  1646  to  Paris.  The  work 
increased  upon  the  teachers'  hands  as  well  as  their  own 
capacity  for  performing  it :  many  of  their  friends  in  the 
world  eagerly  desired  the  benefit  of  such  teaching  for  their 
children,  and  the  experience  of  the  last  few  years  had 
gradually  grown  into  a  system  of  education.  A  M.  Lam- 
bert offered  them  a  house  in  the  cul-de-sac  of  the  Rue  St 
Dominique  d'Enfer,  not  far  from  Port  Royal  de  Paris; 
where,  for  the  first  time,  a  regidarly  organised  school  was 
opened.  There  were  four  masters,  MM.  Lancelot,  Nicole, 
Guyot,  and  Coustel,  each  of  whom  presided  .over  a  room 
which  contained  six  scholars.  M.  Walon  de  Beaupuis, 
an  excellent  ecclesiastic  of  whom  we  shall  have  to  speak 
more  at  length,  superintended  the  whole.  Every  Sunday 
the  boys  attended  vespers  in  the  convent  chapel,  and  heard 
Singlin's  sermon.  Those  whose  parents  were  able  to  afford 
it,  paid  an  annual  sum  of  400  livres ;  which  was  augmented 
by  a  fourth,  on  account  of  the  deamess  of  provisions, 
during  the  war  of  the  Fronde.  Some,  however,  received  a 
gratuitous  education.! 

The  establishment  was  sufficiently  obscure  and  humble 
to  escape  any  but  very  watchful  eyes  of  suspicion.  Even 
the  name  by  which  it  was  known,  "  Les  petites  Ecoles  de 

*  M.  doB  Touches  died  in  1 703,  in  his  eighty-first  year.  I  find  in  a  note  to 
Lancelot^  voL  i.  p.  337,  an  anecdote  in  connection  with  his  name  which 
shows  the  character  of  Louis  XIV.  in  a  better  light  than  the  Jansenist  con- 
troTcrsy  usually  throws  upon  it.  M.  des  Tonches  had  sent  to  the  Bishop  of 
Pamiers  (Canlet,  one  of  the  Four),  whose  reyennes  had  been  sequestrated 
for  his  opposition  to  the  king  in  the  affair  of  the  Regale,  a  present  of  2000 
crowns.  The  fact  became  known,  and  the  king  was  pressed  by  many  to 
imprison  M.  des  Touches.  "  It  shall  nerer  be  said,"  was  the  reply,  "  that  I 
sent  any  one  to  the  Bastille  for  doing  an  alms.'* 

t  ^0  Foss^,  p.  58 — 60,  90 — 94.    Vie  de  Nicole,  ch.  iiL 

X  4 


136  ?OBT  BOTAL. 

Port  Eoyal,"  seemed  to  disclaim  any  rivalry  with  existing 
colleges ;  although  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  training 
given  was  suflSciently  complete  to  render  a  recourse  to  the 
latter  imnecessary.  But  Port  Boyal  had  already  for  some 
years  been  an  object  of  suspicion  to  the  Jesuits^  who  were 
not  likely  to  see  with  equanimity  this  invasion  of  what 
they  regarded  as  their  peculiar  province.  In  February 
1648,  La  M^re  Angelique  writes  to  the  Queen  of  Poland* 
that  it  was  currently  reported  that  the  children  in  the 
Bue  St  Dominique  formed  a  religious  order;  that  they 
observed  a  monastic  seclusion;  wore  a  uniform  dress;  had  a 
chapel  of  their  own ;  and  were  called  the  "  Little  Brethren 
of  Grace."  And  indeed  a  commissary  of  police  made  a 
sudden  inspection  of  the  schools  at  this  time,  with  no 
immediate  result  that  we  hear  of.  A  change,  perhaps  in 
consequence  of  this  visit,  was  again  made  about  the  year 
1650.  Du  Foss^,  with  one  or  two  companions,  was  sent 
under  the  care  of  a  M.  le  F^vre,  to  Magny;  and  thence, 
after  about  six  months,  to  Port  Eoyal,  "  not  however  to  the 
Abbey  as  before,  but  to  a  farm  which  is  upon  the  hill, 
called  Les  Granges."  Others  were  sent  to  the  Chateau 
des  Troux,  near  Chevreuse,  the  house  of  M.  de  Bagnols ; 
and  others  to  Le  ChSnai,  now  the  seat  of  M.  de  Bemi^res. 
It  is  not  easy  to  speak  with  confident  accuracy  of  all  these 
changes;  but  the  year  1653  may  be  fixed  as  that  of  the 
final  and  total  removal  of  the  schools  from  Paris.f 

This  division  of  the  schools  into  three  parts,  each  of 
which  might  reasonably  be  expected  to  attract  less  notice 
than  the  whole,  was  doubtless  a  measm-e  of  precaution. 
The  establishments  at  Le  Chfenai  and  Les  Troux  assumed 
almost  a  private  character ;  at  the  first  the  children  of  M. 
de  Bemi^res,  at  the  second  those  of  M.  de  Bagnols,  were 

•  Lett  vol.  i.  p.  360. 

t  Du  Fosse,  p.  99.  Besoignc,  vol.  iv.  p.  410.  Fontaine,  vol.  i.  p.  170, 
etseq. 


PIEST  ATTACK  UPON  THE  SCHOOLS.  137 

being  educated  in  their  father's  house;  and  to  associate 
with  them  one  or  two  companions  of  their  own  age  could 
hardly  be  accounted  a  crime  against  Church  or  State.  But 
the  respite  thus  obtained  was  brief.  At  the  beginning  of 
I6565  the  condemnation  of  Antoine  Amauld  by  the  Sor-* 
bonne  had  crowned  the  triumph  of  the  Jesuits ;  and  the 
Pope  had  requested  the  king  to  disperse  the  hermit  com- 
munity of  Port  Eoyal.  A  letter  from  the  treasurer  of  the 
Queen-mother's  household  to  D'Andilly  warned  him  of  the 
approaching  danger;  and  after  a  vain  remonstrance^  the 
schools  at  Les  Granges  were  broken  up,  and  the  children, 
fifteen  in  number,  restored  to  their  friends.  When,  there- 
fore, the  Lieutenant  Civil,  M.  d'Aubrai,  appeared  at  Port 
Boyal  des  Champs  on  the  30th  of  March,  he  found  the 
buildings  deserted  except  by  two  disguised  priests,  who 
successfully  played  the  part  of  hard-working  fi&rm  labourers. 
From  Les  Granges  he  went  the  same  night  to  Les  Troux. 
Here  he  found  the  three  children  of  M.  de  Bagnols  with 
only  three  or  four  companions,  boys  of  good  family,  but 
unable  to  pay  for  the  education  which  they  owed  to  the 
charity  of  their  host.  Next  day  at  Le  Chenai,  he  met  with 
a  larger  household;  above  twenty  children  inhabited  a 
wing  of  the  mansion,  where  their  studies  were  superin- 
tended by  M.  de  Beaupuis.  And  although  all  was  smooth 
and  fair-seeming;  though  the  Lieutenant  Civil  and  his 
companions  were  full  of  compliments,  the  schools  received 
a  shock  from  tUs  visit  which  they  never  recovered.  Parents 
began  to  ask  themselves  whether  it  was  worth  while, 
even  for  the  sake  of  a  good  and  cheap  education,  to  con- 
fide their  children  to  men,  upon  whom  the  shadow  of 
royal  displeasure  so  manifestly  rested.  The  school  at  Les 
Granges  does  not  soem  to  have  reassembled.  Those  at 
Le  Chenai  and  Les  Troux  maintained  a  feeble  existence  till 
March  10th,  1660,  when  M.  d'Aubrai  returned,  and  on  the 
part  of  the  king  commanded  their  instant  dispersion.    M. 


138  PORT  ROYAL. 

de  BemiSres  was  first  forbidden  to  lend  bis  house  for  such 
a  purpose,  and  then  exiled  to  Issoudun  in  Berri,  where  he 
died  in  1662.  M.  de  Bagnols  was  already  dead ;  and  the 
care  of  his  orphan  children  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  to 
which  he  had  committed  it>  and  entrusted  to  a  relative 
who  was  supposed  to  be  free  from  the  taint  of  Jansenism. 
No  attempt  was  made  to  reconstruct  the  schools  after  the 
Peace  of  the  Church.* 

In  this  chequered  existence  of  some  twenty  years'  dura- 
tion, the  schools  of  Port  Royal  developed  a  system  of  educa- 
tion singularly  in  advance  of  the  age,  and  produced  manuals 
of  instruction,  some  of  which  are  not  obsolete  even  yet.  It 
is  difficult  to  make  even  an  approximate  estimate  of  the 
number  of  pupils  who  were  being  trained  at  any  given 
time.  The  schools  were  never,  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word,  public ;  the  parents  of  the  scholars  were  all  friends 
of  Port  Koyal,  and  any  boy  of  doubtful  or  unpromising 
disposition  was  at  once  removed.  M.  St*  Beuvef  from 
many  minute  indications,  has  come  to  the  conclusion,  that 
between  the  establishment  in  the  Hue  St.  Dominique  in 
1646,  and  the  final  suppression  in  1660,  the  number  never 
exceeded  fifby,  and  often  fell  short  of  it. 

In  the  brief  sketch  which  I  have  given  of  St.  Cyran's 
maxims  of  education,  I  have  anticipated  much  that  needed 
to  be  said  of  the  spirit  which  pervaded  these  celebrated 
schools.  Their  theory  of  training,  like  all  the  practical 
expressions  of  Jansenism,  had  its  root  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Fall  of  Man.  Every  unbaptized  child  is  an  example 
of  the  corruption  of  human  nature;  and  although  the 
grace  given  in  baptism  restores  it  to  a  condition  of  accept- 
ance with  Grod,  the  old  weakness  remains,  which,  except  it 
be  counteracted  by  such  strength  as  the  Church  by  Grod's 

♦  Rec  d'Utrecht,  p.  234.     Du  Foase,  p.  129, 169.     Besoigne,  voL  iv.  p. 
41 1-^13.    Conf.  Tol.  i.  pp.  302,  304,  826. 
t  Port  Bojol,  vol.  iiL  p.  393. 


THEOST  OF  SDUCATIOX.  1S9 

lielp  can  supply,  will  lead  deeper  and  deeper  into  sin. 
Ordinary  education  not  only  does  not  check  the  evil  ten- 
dencies of  the  heart,  but  even  seems  to  strengthen  them. 
Children  are  suflFered  to  hear  every  kind  of  conversation, 
to  read  what  books,  to  amuse  themselves  with  what  diver- 
dons  they  will ;  their  natural  inclinations  tx)  wrong  fall  in  with 
the  customs  and  judgments  of  the  world ;  their  teachers  are 
too  busy  or  too  careless  to  contend  with  the  sleepless  vigi- 
lance of  the  enemy  of  souls ;  and  the  little  ones  not  only 
become  corrupt  themselves  but  the  cause  of  corruption  in 
others.  The  only  remedy  for  these  things  is  a  constant 
and  prayerful  watchfulness  on  the  part  of  able  and  pious 
teachers.  The  work  is  in  some  respects  painful ;  and  can 
be  adequately  performed  only  by  those  who  engage  in  it 
firom  motives  of  charity.  It  is  difficult ;  and  the  number 
of  teachers  must  therefore  bear  a  larger  than  the  common 
proportion  to  that  of  scholars. 

As  the  great  object  of  Christian  education  is  to  preserve 
in  the  child  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ  communicated  in 
the  sacrament  of  baptism,  all  occasions  of  worldliness  and 
sin  are  to  be  avoided ;  and  neither  in  the  character  of  their 
teachers,  in  the  conduct  of  their  domestics,  or  in  the  general 
arrangements  of  the  school,  are  the  children  to  see  any- 
thing inconsistent  with  virtue  and  innocence.  The  two 
great  instruments  of  government  are  love  and  prayer ;  the 
masters  are  to  be  gentle,  hopeful,  forbearing ;  to  grow  in- 
sensibly into  the  afifections  of  their  pupils ;  and  not  even 
to  use  authority  untempered  by  love.  Prayer  rather  than 
speech,  thought  De  Sapi,  must  be  relied  upon  for  the  reform 
of  any  little  irregularities ;  for  only  through  prayer  could 
the  proper  moment  for  speech  become  known.  The  soul 
was  the  first  thing  in  this  system  of  education  ;  the  mind 
only  the  second ;  to  make  brilliant  scholars  was  a  less 
desirable  thing  than  to  train  up  good  Christians.  As 
Singlin  far  more  truly  represents  Port  Eoyal  than  Le  Miutre 


140  POET  EOTAL, 

or  Arnauld;  so  the  characteristic  result  of  the  schools 
should  be  looked  for  rather  in  the  character  than  in  the 
literary  achievements  of  their  scholars.  Yet  the  school 
which  in  so  short  a  period  produced  Tillemont  and  Bacine 
is  above  the  reach  of  critidsm  on  this  side  also.* 

The  manner  of  life  in  the  schools  is  easily  described. 
Five  or  six  boys  slept  in  the  room  of  each  master,  who 
assimied  the  whole  supervision  of  them.  They  had  sepa- 
rate beds,  desks,  books ;  and  sat  in  such  a  position  as  to 
be  well  under  the  teacher's  eye,  and  yet  not  able  to  com- 
municate with  one  another.  Half-past  five  was  the  hour 
for  rising,  in  which  the  master  set  the  example.  After 
prayers,  work  was  begun  and  continued  till  seven,  when 
the  lessons  thus  prepared  were  repeated.  Then  followed 
breakfast ;  and  work  again  till  eleven,  which  was  the  dinner 
hour.  During  the  meal  some  edifying  book  was  read  aloud, 
as  in  a  convent  refectory.  Each  class,  headed  by  its  own 
master,  dined  at  a  separate  table.  After  dinner,  the 
children,  still  under  the  supervision  of  their  teachers,  who 
never  lost  sight  of  them,  played  in  the  garden  till  one 
o'clock,  when  they  were  brought  together  into  the  hall  for 
an  hour's  common  instruction.  From  two  to  four  the 
classes,  now  dispersed  into  their  several  chambers,  were 
occupied  in  study ;  at  four  some  refection,  answering  to 
our  tea,  was  served  out ;  then  work  again  till  supper,  at 
six.  Supper,  like  dinner,  was  followed  by  recreation  in  the 
garden  till  eight.  From  eight  to  half-past,  the  lessons  for 
the  next  day  were  looked  at ;  and  then  after  prayer,  in 
which  the  whole  household,  children,  teachers,  and  servants, 
joined,  all  retired  to  rest  together.  The  Sunday  was,  of 
course,  otherwise  apportioned.  The  children  went  to 
morning  mass  and  to  vespers  in  the  parish  church.  The 
first  service  was  preceded  by  catechetical  instruction  from 

*  St«  Marthe,  qaoted  by  Besoigne,  toL  it.  p.  398,  et  seq.    Be  8091,  apud 
Fontaine,  vol  IL  p.  391,  ef  »eq. 


FRIENDS  OP  THE  SCHOOLS.  '  141 

the  superior;  and  after  a  longer  play  hour  than  usual, 
the  afternoon  was  occupied  in  reading.  An  occasional 
half-holiday  was  spent  either  in  the  garden  or  in  a  walk. 

The  children  were  dressed  alike^  that  there  might  be 
no  difference  between  rich  and  poor.  The  healthy  deve- 
lopment of  the  body  was  cared  for  as  well  as  that  of  the 
mind;  out-door  games  of  skill  and  strength  were  encouraged ; 
and  billiards,  chess,  and  draughts  were  the  resources  of  a 
wet  day.  Corporal  punishments,  frequent  and  severe  in 
other  schools,  were  here  very  rare:  a  look  or  a  word 
sufficed  to  reprove  slight  faults,  and  those  who  showed 
grave  defects  of  character  which  might  prove  hurtful  to 
others,  were  at  once  removed  from  the  school-* 

To  one  who  patiently  studies  the  Jansenist  memoirs  of 
the  time,  many  of  the  friends  of  Port  Koyal  seem  to  group 
themselves  naturally  round  the  **Petites  Ecoles."  We 
speak  of  Singlin  in  connexion  with  the  internal  life  of  the 
monastery :  the  biography  of  Amauld  is  almost  the  history 
of  the  Jansenist  controversy ;  Le  Maitre  stands  out  from 
the  rest  of  the  Solitaries  as  a  representative  figure.  So  a 
certain  number  of  grave  and  quiet  men,  who,  for  the  rest, 
did  not  mingle  in  the  more  stirring  transactions  of  our 
story,  and  were  content  with  the  lowest  functions  and 
obscurest  places  in  the  Church,  were  in  the  earlier  portion 
of  their  lives  connected  with  the  schools,  either  as  teachers 
or  scholars,  and  spent  their  later  years  in  literary  labour, 
which,  however  honourable  and  useful,  often  brought  little 
reward  of  fame  to  the  labourer.  Such  was  Walon  de 
Beaupuis,  the  superior  of  the  school  in  the  Hue  St. 
Dominique,  and  afterwards  at  Le  ChSnai ;  Lancelot,  who 
was  the  chief  author  of  the  grammars,  known  as  the  work 
of  MM.  de  Port  Boyal ;  Nicole,  the  partner  of  Amauld's 
life-long  labours ;  and  greater  than  any  of  these,  Le  Nain 

*  Fontaine,  rol.  L  p.  262,  et  seq,  *  M^moire  snr  les  Ecoles  de  Fort 
Koyal.' 


142  FORT  BOTAL. 

de  Tillemont^  the  accurate  and  impartial  historian  of  the 
first  six  centuries  of  the  Church. 

Among  these,  Charles  Walon  de  Beaupuis  is,  though 
the  least  conspicuous,  not  the  least  characteristic  figure. 
He  was  bom  in  1621,  the  son  of  Nicholas  Walon,  Sieur  de 
Beaupuis,  Coimsellor  of  the  King  at  Beauvais,  and  of 
Dame  Marguerite  de  la  Croix,  Bis  wife.*  The  family,  if  the 
character  of  its  intimate  friends  may  be  taken  as  an  indi- 
cation, was  a  religious  one;  and  the  young  Beaupuis 
early  showed  signs  of  a  grave  and  orderly  disposition. 
The  diocese  of  Beauvais  was  one  in  which  the  Jansenist 
doctrine  was  soon  and  firmly  rooted :  Godefroy  Hermant,  a 
famous  doctor  of  the  Augustinian  theology,  was-a  canon  of 
the  Cathedral  and  a  professor  in  the  collie  which 
flourished  at  its  side.  Another  canon  was  that  M. 
Manguelen,  who  afterwards  retired  to  Port  Boyal  des 
Champs,  and  for  a  few  months  before  his  death  in  1646, 
performed  the  functions  of  director  of  the  Solitaries.t 
Into  the  hands  of  the  latter  M.  de  Beaupuis  fell,  and 
received  a  bias  which  determined  the  whole  future 
direction  of  his  Ufa  He  had  passed  three  years  in  the 
study  of  rhetoric  at  Beauvais,  when  in  1637,  he  occupied 
a  fourth  in  listening  to  the  instructions  of  P6re  Nouet  in 
Paris.  Then  after  a  brief  devotion  to  philosophy  in 
another  school,  he  went  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Amaidd,  who, 
not  yet  admitted  to  the  Sorbonne,  was  teaching  in  the 
College  of  Mans.  This  course  was  ended  in  1641,  and  the 
yoimg  student  transferred  himself  for  the  study  of  theo- 
logy, to  the  College  of  Cluny,  which  was  recommended  to 
jhim  by  the  half-monastic  life  led  by  its  inmates.  Here  he 
was  applying  himself  to  the  works  of  St.  Augustine  when, 

*  The  life  of  M.  de  Beaapuis  occupies  nearly  the  whole  of  a  volume, 
entitled  **  Vies  interessantes  et  edifiantes  des  Amis  de  Fort  Royal.  Utrecht, 
1751,"  to  whidi  I  make  this  general  reference. 

t  Vol  i.p.215. 


WALOK  DB  BEAUPUIS.  143 

in  1643,  the  "Book  of  Frequent  Communion"  was  pub- 
lished. In  this,  as  in  so  many  more  instances,  a  smoulder- 
ing fire  was  fanned  into  a  flame ;  Manguelen  fled  to  Port 
Boyal  des  Champs,  and  in  May  1644,  De  Beaupuis  fol- 
lowed him. 

About  the  same  time  arrived  a  more  distinguished 
penitent,  M.  Litolphi  Maroni,  Bishop  of  Bazas,  who  was 
anxious  to  lay  down  his  episcopal  dignity  and  to  work  out 
his  salvation  in  this  holy  desert  But  the  directors,  who 
had  no  scruple  in  detaching  less  illustrious  persons  from 
the  common  round  of  duty,  were  probably  unwilling  either 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  a  bishop's  resignation,  or  to 
deprive  themselves  of  a  bishop's  influence  in  the  Church : 
and  so,  after  a  time,  sent  M.  de  Bazas  back  to  his  diocese 
to  introduce  reforms  accordant  with  his  new  theory  of  the 
Christian  life.  He  asked  Singlin  for  a  companion  who 
should  aid  and  advise  him  in  this  work ;  and  Manguelen 
was  chosen.  The  latter  at  once  gave  up  his  canonry  at 
Beauvais,  and  taking  M.  de  Beaupuis  with  him,  set  out  for 
Bazas.  The  reforms  were  hardly  begun  when  the  bishop 
died,  and  Manguelen  and  his  friend  were  compelled  to 
return.  Perhaps  the  incident  would  be  scarcely  worth  a 
record,  had  it  not  already  been  the  second  occasion  in 
M.  de  Beaupuis'  history  in  which  the  claims  of  a  rigidly 
Catholic  theory  of  life  had  come  into  collision  with  Pro- 
testant notions  of  filial  duty.  While  a  student  at  Paris  he 
had  made  a  "  retreat,"  which,  as  is  not  obscurely  hinted  in 
the  narration  of  his  life,  had  hastened,  if  it  had  not  caused, 
his  mother's  death.  So  now  we  are  allowed  to  collect 
that  the  direction  given  by  Manguelen  to  his  career,  was 
repugnant  to  his  father's  wishes ;  as  it  is  certain,  even  from 
the  apologetic  account  of  his  biographer,  that  the  journey 
to  Bazas  was  purposely  and  most  disingenuously  concealed 
from  him.  The  student  of  the  New  Testament  will  re- 
member that  the  attempt  to  make  religious  duty  clash 


144  PORT  BOTAL. 

with,  and  override  filial  obligation^  is  of  older  than  Catholic 
invention.* 

On  his  return  from  Bazas,  M.  de  Beaupnis,  now  in  his 
twenty-fourth  year,  finally  resolved  to  adopt  the  theological 
profession:  and  not  only  prepared  to  take  a  Bachelor's 
degree,  but  received  the  four  minor  orders  of  the  priesthood. 
The  death  of  M.  Manguelen,  in  1646,  which  under  some 
circumstances  might  have  seemed  likely  to  detach  him 
from  Port  Boyal,  only  bound  him  the  more  firmly  to  it; 
and  in  the  following  year  he  assumed  the  direction  of  the 
Petites  Ecoles,  now  established  in  the  Bue  St.  Dominique. 
It  is  characteristic  of  his  modesty — a  quality  which 
eminently  distinguished  the  whole  class  of  Port  Boyalists 
to  which  he  belongs — that  even  now  he  takes  no  higher 
rank  in  the  hierarchy  than  that  of  Deacon,  and  postpones 
to  a  much  later  period  his  assumption  of  the  dignities  and 
responsibilities  of  the  priesthood.  In  1653,  he  followed  a 
part  of  the  schools  to  Le  ChSnai,  where  M.  de  Bemi^res 
gave  up  a  wing  of  his  house  for  the  accommodation  of  his 
children  and  their  schoolfellows.  And  when,  in  1660,  the 
schools  were  finally  dispersed,  M.  de  Beaupuis  first  for  a 
time  continued  his  work  as  a  teacher  in  the  family  of 
Florin  P^rier,  Pascal's  brother-in-law;  and  then  in  1664, 
settled  himself  in  his  native  town,  where  the  Bishop,  M.  de 
Buzanval,  openly  favoured  the  now  harassed  Mends  of 
Port  Koyal. 

Here  in  1666  he  was  ordained  Priest.  There  is  some* 
thing  touching  in  the  evident  reluctance  with  which  this 
man  of  forty-five  years,  whose  whole  life  had  been  a  struggle 
of  unobtrusive  duty,  assumes  the  sacred  office :  he  consents 
to  take  this  step  only  after  much  reflection,  and  many 
solicitations  of  his  friends,  and  even  then,  delays  long 
before  he  enters  upon  his  new  duties.     Henceforward,  his 

•  MarkTii.lO. 


WALON  DE  BEAUPUIS.  145 

life,  for  more  than  forty  years,  is  a  rare  example  of  quiet 
holiness,  of  sober  self-denial.  It  was  not  one  of  entire 
retreat ;  for  he  preached,  heard  confessions,  was  for  some 
years  superior  of  a  convent  of  Ursuline  nuns,  and  assisted  in 
the  management  of  the  diocesan  seminary.  In  1679,  his 
protector,  M.  de  Buzanval,  died,  and  was  succeeded  in  the 
see  by  M.  Forbin  de  Janson,  afterwards  cardinal,  and 
known  rather  for  his  diplomatic  than  his  ecclesiastical 
achievements.  To  the  new  bishop,  Jesuit  and  Jansenist 
were  aUke  indifferent,  except  as  they  stood  on  the  sunny 
or  the  shady  side  of  court  favour ;  but  he  knew  how  to  pay 
homage  to  Louis  XTV.,  and  De  Beaupuis  was  at  once  in- 
terdicted from  the  performance  of  all  sacerdotal  functions. 
He  retired  to  the  house  of  his  sister,  a  widow  lady  of  Beau- 
vais :  "  he  had  laboured,"  he  said,  "  for  the  salvation  of 
souls  only  in  obedience  to  the  repeated  commands  of  the 
late  bishop,  and  could  not  but  rejoice  when  his  Grandeur, 
dismissing  him  from  all  employment,  placed  him  in  s,  con- 
dition to  enjoy  the  repose  which  he  had  always  sought 
for."  Nor  was  this  an  idle  boast ;  his  life  was  thencefor- 
ward his  own,  and  he  regulated  it  upon  a  model  which 
excited  the  admiration,  almost  the  pious  envy  of  friends 
who  would  willingly  have  been  condemned  to  the  same 
happy  inaction.  He  rose  from  his  rude  bed  every  morn- 
ing at  four;  and  the  day  was  one  long  round  of  public  and 
private  prayer,  till  his  bed  received  him  once  more  at  nine. 
His  meals  were  always  frugal,  his  fasts  frequent ;  he  rarely 
quitted  his  room  except  to  go  to  church,  and  then  went 
straight  to  his  mark,  looking  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor 
to  the  left.  Even  his  deviations  from  the  uniform  course 
of  habit  were  themselves  uniform ;  at  certain  intervals  he 
visited  a  paralytic  friend ;  and  once  a  year,  on  a  fixed  day, 
set  out  on  a  journey  to  Port  Soyal  des  Champs.  He  waa 
sparing  of  his  words,  except  to  his  intimate  associates^ 
and  with  them  his  conversation,  though  cheerful  and  6vei\ 

VOL.  II.  L 


146  FOBT  BOTAL. 

gay,  was  chiefly  on  ethical  or  theological  topics.  Much  of 
his  time  was  spent  in  reading  the  Scriptures  and  the 
Fathers,  though  he  would  examine  and  animadvert  upon 
such  theology  of  the  day  as  was  sent  to  him  for  his 
opinion.  He  .studied  standing  at  a  desk,  with  head 
uncovered  and  the  window  wide  open.  No  fire  was  ever 
allowed  in  his  room ;  he  thought  it  enough  for  himself  to 
put  on  a  cap,  and  the  '^  closing  of  the  window,'^  said 
M.  Hermant,  **  was  the  only  faggot  which  his  friends  need 
expect  to  see."  His  public  charities  were  as  regular  as  his 
feasts  or  fasts;  but  a  pressing  need  or  a  shamefiaced 
poverty  could  provoke  him  to  a  liberality,  which  in  pro- 
portion  to  his  means,  might  be  called  mimificent.  So 
flowed  on  the  quiet  current  of  his  life,  till,  in  1709,  it  met 
the  silent  ocean  of  eternity.  He  had  attained  the  patri- 
archal age  of  eighty-seven  years. 

He  was  not  without  his  trials  at  the  last ;  for  he  paid  the 
price  exacted  of  all  who  live  to  an  extreme  old  age,  in  the 
pang  of  surviving  many  of  those  whom  he  loved  best* 
Hermant,  his  teacher,  Tillemont,  his  most  cherished  and 
distinguished  scholar,  as  well  as  all  the  first  generation  of 
Port  Boyal,  by  whose  side  he  had  worked  and  knelt,  died 
before  him.  No  fewer  than  eight  of  his  nieces  embraced 
the  religious  life,  two  in  Port  Royal  des  Champs ;  and  two 
nephews  were  monks  in  La  Trappe,  then  under  the  direc- 
tion of  its  celebrated  founder.  But  in  many  cases  the 
uncle,  who  had  joyfully  assisted  at  the  beginning  of  the 
profession,  sadly  marked  its  close.  Nor  could  even  so 
inoffensive  a  life  as  his  escape  the  cloud  of  royal  displea- 
sure which  darkened  upon  everything  connected  with  the 
hated  community.  It  is  a  proof  that  Louis  XIV.  could 
be  mean  in  his  cruelty,  that  when  De  Beaupuis  made  a 
painful  pilgrimage  to  La  Trappe  on  foot,  in  order  that 
before  he  died  he  might  once  more  embrace  his  beloved 
pupilj  Dom  Le  Nain^  the  sub-prior  of  the  house,  the 


LANCELOT.  147 

abbot  sent  him  back  with  his  errand  unaccomplished, 
alleging  in  excuse  For  his  discourtesy,  the  express  command 
of  the  king.  Perhaps  one  who  could  live  and  die  like 
J)e  Beaupuis  might  afford  to  despise  even  royal  mean- 
ness. Not  long  before  he  died,  his  friends  reminded  him 
that  his  great  age  warranted  and  demanded  some  modifi- 
cation of  his  method  of  life.  *'  My  age,"  he  answered,  "  is 
on  the  contrary  a  warning  that  I  must  double  the  guard." 
And  in  the  midst  of  a  season  of  distress  and  agitation  which 
overtook  him  a  few  days  before  the  last,  he  was  overheard 
to  say,  "  It  seems  to  me,  nevertheless,  that  God  has  given 
me  grace  to  seek  always,  and  above  all  things,  that  Sovereign 
Good  which  is  none  other  than  Himself." 

As  De  Beaupuis,  the  director,  represents  the  sober  piety 
and  severe  morals  of  the  schools,  so  Claude  Lancelot,  one 
of  the  first  masters,  forms  the  proper  point  of  departure 
for  the  discussion  of  the  books  and  methods  of  instruction, 
of  which  he  was  in  great  part  the  author.  But  although 
his  literary  activity  was  unwearied,  he,  even  more  than 
De  Beaupuis,  shuns  the  public  gaze,  and  has  left  few 
materials  for  his  own  biography.  His  admirable  memoirs 
of  St.  Cyran  are  silent  in  regard  to  himself  as  soon 
as  he  has  explained  the  circumstances  which  attached  him 
to  his  friend  and  patron ;  and  the  educational  works  by 
which  he  so  greatly  increased  the  reputation  and  the  use- 
fulness of  the  community,  bear  upon  the  title  page  the 
name  of  **MM.  de  Port  Royal."  I  have  before  briefly 
narrated  how,  bom  in  Paris  in  the  year  1615*,  he  was 
educated  for  the  ecclesiastical  profession  in  the  seminary 
of  St.  Nicholas  du  Chardonnet,  and  how,  falling  in  with 
St.  Cyran,  he  attached  himself  to  the  great  confessor  with 
an  affectionate  fidelity  which  gave  colour  and  form  to  all 
his  future  life.    With  Singlin,  Le  Maitre,  and  De  Sericourt, 

•  Vol.  i.  pp.  152,  160. 
X.2 


148  PORT  BOTAL, 

he  was  one  of  the  little  company  of  hermits  who  lived  in 
the  outer  court  of  Port  Royal  de  Paris ;  and  it  was  in  the 
house  of  one  of  his  earliest  pupils,  Yitart,  that  Le  Maitre 
found  with  him  a  refuge  at  Ferte  M ilon.  After  performing 
the  last  offices  of  friendship  for  St.  Cyran  in  1643,  he 
became  one  of  the  community  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs, 
where  he  seems  to  have  occupied  himself  in  teaching  till, 
on  the  establishment  of  the  schools  in  1646,  he  assumed  the 
charge  of  one  of  the  four  classes.  The  special  subjects  of 
his  instruction  were,  we  are  told,  Greek  and  Mathematics ; 
while  Belles  Lettres  and  Philosophy  were  entrusted  to 
Nicole.  When  the  schools  were  removed  into  the  country, 
he  shared  with  Nicole  the  direction  of  the  establishment  at 
Les  Granges,  until  it  was  broken  up  by  the  visit  of  the 
Lieutenant  Civil  in  1656.  This  event,  however,  did  not 
altogether  bar  him  out  from  the  exercise  of  his  powers  as 
a  teacher,  for  he  undertook  at  Vaumurier  the  instruction 
of  the  Due  de  Chevreuse,  the  son  of  that  Due  and  Duchesse 
de  Luynes  who  had  retired  to  Port  Royal  before  the  war  of 
the  Fronda  The  pupil,  who  is  a  prominent  figure  in 
St.  Simon's  memoirs,  long  showed  the  effects  of  such  an 
education,  not  only  in  a  deep-seated  aversion  to  the  Jesuits, 
but  in  a  genuine  interest  in  matters  of  religion,  which, 
though  it  did  not  take  a  specifically  Jansenist  direction, 
led  him  into  the  arms  of  Madame  Guyon  and  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cambrai.  Then  after  a  pilgrimage  to  Alet, 
the  diocese  of  the  good  Pavilion,  Lancelot  was  chosen 
in  1669,  by  De  Sa9i,  to  educate  the  two  sons  of  the 
Princesse  de  ContL  This  admirable  woman,  of  whom  I 
must  speak  more  at  length  in  another  place,  was  the  niece 
of  Mazarin,  the  sister-in-law  of  Madame  de  Longueville 
and  the  great  Conde,  the  widow  of  the  Royal  Prince  who 
had  been  a  leader  in  the  second  war  of  the  Fronde.  She  had 
been  brought  with  her  husband,  who  died  in  1666,  imder 
the  influence  of  the  Bishop  of  Alet ;  and  the  result  had  been 


LANCELOr.  149 

^n  entire  remodelling  of  tbeir  lives  according  to  the  fashion 
of  Port  Eoyal.  Now  she  was  resolved  to  bring  up  her 
two  young  sons  in  the  same  way,  and  Lancelot  was  selected 
to  be  their  tutor.  A  curious  letter  in  which  he  recounts  to 
De  Sa9i  the  way  in  which  he  adapted  the  methods  of  the 
Petites  Ecoles  to  Royal  Highnesses  is  still  extant,  and  may 
excite  our  admiration  as  well  of  the  docility  of  the  pupils, 
as  of  the  independence  of  the  teacher.  All  went  well  till 
the  death  of  the  princess  in  1672.  Then  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  remove  from  corrupting  religious  influences 
boys  who  stood  so  near  the  throne ;  and  a  cause  of  quarrel 
with  the  tutor  was  soon  found.  He  was  requested  to  take 
his  pupils  to  the  theatre,  and  on  his  refusal,  alleging  his 
own  scruples  and  their  mother's  known  wishes,  was  sum- 
marily removed  by  royal  order.  The  elder  of  the  two  died 
without  issue  at  an  early  age ;  the  younger  lived  to  be  not 
bnly  Prince  de  Conti,  but  for  a  little  while,  king  of 
Poland,  and  charmed  by  the  grace  of  his  manners  and  the 
liveliness  of  his  wit  even  those  who  were  unable  to  respect 
and  admire  his  character.  "  Poor  Lancelot,"  says  M.  St* 
Beuve*,  "  he  would  have  made  a  saint  even  of  a  prince, 
and  lo  I  the  result  is  an  Alcibiades ! " 

With  this,  Lancelot's  active  life  came  to  an  end.  He 
resolved  to  retire  to  the  Benedictine  Abbey  of  St.  Cyran, 
over  which  M.  de  Barcos,  the  nephew  of  his  bene- 
factor, still  presided.  Here  he  remained  till  1 678,  occupied 
in  religious  exercises,  except  during  a  brief  and  singular 
controversy  in  which  he  engaged  with  the  learned  Mabil- 
lon.  St  Benedict  had  fixed  the  daily  portion  of  wine  for 
his  monks  at  one  "  hemine ; "  at  how  much  was  this  obso- 
lete measure  to  be  estimated  ?  Doubtless  a  debate,  which 
in  some  monasteries  at  least,  threw  all  the  difficulties  of 
sufficient  and  efficacious  grace  into  the  shade  I     Lancelot, 

•  Vol.  Hi.  p.  474. 
L  3 


ISO  POBT  KOTAL,. 

with  tarue  Jansenist  austerity,  reduced  the  "hemine"  to 
half  the  quantity  allowed  by  Mabillon's  more  liberal  inter- 
pretation; and  the  Btrife  of  tongues  was  waxing  great 
when  the  original  combatant,  to  avoid  contention,  quietly 
abandoned  the  field.  In  1678,  the  reproach  of  heresy 
sought  out  even  this  imofifending  recluse,  and  he  was 
ordered  to  withdraw  from  St.  Cyran  to  Quimperle  in  Lower 
Brittany.  He  obeyed,  and  spent  seventeen  years  of  in- 
voluntary exile  in  the  practice  of  the  austere  holiness 
which  he  had  learned  long  before  in  the  valley  of  Port 
BoyaL  He  died  in  1695,  having  reached  his  seventy-ninth 
year.  The  repeated  requests  of  his  friends  had  not  pre- 
vailed with  him  to  accept  any  higher  rank  in  the  Church 
than  that  of  sub-deacon.* 

It  would  be  difiScult  to  estimate  the  exact  amount  of 
improvement  introduced  by  Port  Soyal  into  methods  of 
education,  without  a  more  precise  knowledge  of  other 
schools  and  colleges  at  the  same  period,  than  we  possess. 
We  are  to  some  extent  driven  to  conjecture  from  the  state- 
ments of  the  Port  Koyalist  teachers  themselves,  the  points  in 
which  they  differed  from  contemporary  educators.  There 
can,  however,  be  no  doubt  that  the  latent  Protestantism,  if 
I  may  so  call  it.  Of  the  community,  the  power  to  deviate  from 
established  forms  of  thought  and  modes  of  action,  displayed 
itself  to  the  greatest  extent  in  the  management  of  the 
schools.  They  began  from  the  principle  then  heretical,  and 
not  always  orthodox  now,  '^  that  children  ought  to  be  so 
helped  in  every  possible  way,  as  to  make,  if  it  may  be, 
study  more  pleasant  than  play  and  amusement."  So  the 
old  plan  of  giving  to  consonants  names  which  did  not 
express  their  syllabic  value  was  abandoned,  and  a  method 
adopted  in  its  stead  which  is  said  to  have  been  the  inven- 

*  Besoigne,  toI.  t.  p.  41,  et  aeq.  Life  of  Lancelot  prefixed  to  the  M6m. 
de  St.  Cyran.  Fontaine,  vol.  iv.  p.  274.  St.  Simon,  vol.  xii.  pp.  216,  226; 
vol  six.  p.  150. 


GBAMMABS  OF  FOBT  BOTAL.  151 

tion  of  Pascal.  The  children  were  allowed  to  pronounce 
the  vowels  and  diphthongs  by  themselves^  the  consonants 
only  in  connection  with  these ;  and  thus  the  difficulty  and 
absurdity  of  compounding  the  sound  bon  of  the  three  dis- 
similar sounds  bi,  o,  enne,  were  avoided.  Then — 0^  incon- 
ceivable perversity  I — it  had  been  customary  to  teach  little 
children  to  read  in  Latin ;  to  add  to  the  difficulties  which 
encimiber  the  first  attempt  to  translate  signs  into  sounds,  all 
those  which  would  spring  from  the  use  of  an  unknown  lan- 
guage. Port  Boyal  made  the  bold  innovation  of  teaching 
French  children  to  read  in  the  French  tongue ;  and  not  only 
so,  but  went  to  the  ridiculous  excess  of  indulging  youthful 
minds  with  reading  books,  apt  to  engage  the  attention  and 
to  spur  the  will  to  the  task.  Latin  grammars  were  then 
(nor  is  the  practice  yet  obsolete)  written  in  Latin ;  and  the 
pupils  were  compeUed  to  learn  the  rules  of  the  unknown 
language  which  they  were  about  to  study,  in  the  language 
itself.  The  "  Nouvelle  Methode  pour  apprendre  fedlement 
et  en  pen  de  tems  la  Langue  Latine,"  by  Lancelot,  better 
known  as  the  **  Port  Boyal  Latin  Grammar,"  was  written 
in  French ;  and  was  the  first  instance  in  which  the  attempt 
was  made  to  teach  a  dead  through  the  medium  of  a  living 
language.  In  other  schools,  even  young  beginners  were 
exercised  in  written  translation  only,  and  were  set  to  com- 
pose themes  in  a  language  which  they  very  imperfectly 
understood ;  at  Port  Koyal  translation  was  vi/vd  voce ;  the 
teacher's  voice,  manner,  comments  helped  to  give  life  and 
motion  to  the  old  classic  phrase,  and  to  infuse  a  warmth  of 
thought  and  feeling  into  the  cold,  dead  words.  French,  were 
to  a  great  extent  substituted  for  Latin  exercises  in  composi- 
tion ;  and  the  result,  we  are  told,  was  visible  in  that  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  modem  from  the  restraints  of  the 
ancient  tongue,  which  characterises  the  period  known  as  the 
age  of  Louis  XTV.  The  composition  of  Latin  verse  was  im- 
posed only  upon  those  scholars  who  manifested  some  poetical 

L4 


152  PORT  EOTAL. 

faculty ;  to  others,  the  task  could  only  be  painful  and  pro- 
ductive of  no  result  But  sometimes  it  was  thought  well 
to  exercise  a  whole  class  in  this  way;  the  subject  was 
chosen  by  the  teacher,  and  each  of  the  scholars  was  at 
liberty  to  suggest  a  word,  a  phrase,  a  turn  of  expression, 
as  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  might  prompt.  Idiomatic 
translations  of  several  classic  authors  were  made  for  the 
use  of  the  schools,  which,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  were 
carefully  expurgated.* 

The  study  of  the  Greek  language  was  much  neglected 
in  France  during  the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  labours 
of  Port  Royal  did  not  succeed  in  effecting  more  than  a 
temporary  revival.  The  Greek  Grammar,  which  was,  like 
the  Latin,  the  production  of  Lancelot,  is,  as  all  grammars 
must  be,  to  some  extent  a  compilation  from  preceding 
works,  but  differs  from  most  in  the  full  and  modest 
acknowledgment  of  its  obligations.  But  the  credit  is 
due  to  Lancelot  of  having  perceived  that  the  Greek  is 
much  more  similar  in  construction  and  spirit  to  any 
modem  language  than  the  Latin ;  and  that  the  difficulties 
which  beset  the  learner  lie  rather  in  the  copiousness  of  its 
vocabulary  than  in  the  intricacies  of  its  syntax.  He  dis- 
carded, therefore,  the  hitherto  universally  accepted  plan 
of  approaching  the  Greek  through  the  Latin :  his  grammar 
is  written,  his  translations  are  made,  not  in  Latin  but  in 
French.  A  less  successful  book  was  a  ^'  Jardin  des  Bacines 
Grecques,"  which  was  thrown  by  De  Sapi  into  the  form  of 
mnemonic  verses,  which  are  often  as  barbarous  as  the 
etymologies  which  they  contain  are  defective.  Yet  even 
this  was  not  without  its  merits,  as  no  French  and  Greek 
dictionary  existed  at  that  time;  and  the  meaning  of  a 
Greek  word  could  penetrate  into  the  student's  mind  only 
through  the  medium  of  an  inadequate  Latin  equivalent. 

*  Fontaine,  toL  il  p.  896. 


GBAMMABS  OF  FOBT  SOTAL.  155 

!Perhaps  after  all,  the  result  of  the  Greek  learning  of  Port 
Boyal  is  most  visible  in  the  tragedies  of  Badne ;  though 
none  would  more  sincerely  have  lamented  than  Lancelot 
and  Nicole,  that  the  same  learning  which  enabled  me^  to 
read  the  New  Testament  in  the  original,  should  help  them 
to  produce  such  profane  masterpieces  as  Andromaque  and 
Iphigenie. 

The  grammars  which  I  have  already  mentioned,  were 
accompanied  by  others  from  the  same  fertile  pen.  The 
Latin  Grammar  was  first  published  in  1644,  dedicated  to, 
and  if  the  traditions  of  Port  Royal  may  be  trusted,  used 
by,  the  young  king.  The  Grreek  Grammar  did  not  appear 
till  1655.  Both  of  these  were  also  published  in  an 
abridged  form.  An  Italian  and  a  Spanish  Grammar  on 
the  same  plan,  followed  in  1660,  and  four  Treatises  on 
Latin,  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  Poetry,  respectively, 
in  1663.  Besides  the  "Garden  of  Greek  Roots"  which 
appeared  in  1657,  and  many  volumes  of  translations  from 
PhaBdrus,  Plautus,  Terence,  Virgil,  and  Cicero,  which  it  is 
not  necessary  to  specify  more  particularly,  a  selection  of 
Epigrams  {Epigrararriaturri  Delectua)  with  a  Latin  preface 
by  Nicole,  was  printed  in  1659.  A  volume  of  **  Elements  of 
Geometry,"  by  Amauld,  which  had  been  long  used  in 
manuscript,  was  first  given  to  the  world  in  1667,  of  which 
it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  Pascal,  when  he  saw  it,  burned  a 
little  treatise  on  the  same  subject  which  he  had  himself 
compiled. 

A  comparison  of  dates  will  show  that  many  of  these 
works  were  not  published  till  after  the  schools  of  Port 
Royal  had  been  finally  closed.  They  were  the  records 
and  monuments  of  the  teaching  which  had  been  there 
given;  the  instruments  by  which  Lancelot  and  Nicole 
exercised  their  functions  to  a  continually  increasing  extent, 
after  they  were  driven  from  Le  Ch^nai  and  Les  Granges. 
It  is  not  the  first  instance  in  which  persecution  has  only 


}54  POET  EOYAL. 

spread  over  a  wider  surface  the  influence  which  it  wa$ 
designed  to  extirpate. 

The  '^  Grammaire  g^n^rale  et  raLsonn^,  contenant  les 
Fondemens  de  I'Art  de  Parler,  expliqufe  d'une  Mani&re 
claire  et  naturelle,  les  fiaisons  de  ce  qui  est  commun  & 
toutes  les  Langues  et  des  principales  Dififi^rences  qui  s'y 
rencontrent,  et  plusieurs  Remarques  nouvelles  sur  la 
Langue  Franpoise,  1660,"  stands  on  a  different  footing  from 
the  works  already  enumerated,  as  one  of  the  first  contribu- 
tions to  the  science  of  general  or  comparative  grammar 
which  has  since  engaged  so  much  of  the  attention  of 
students.  Amauld  and  Lancelot  are  the  joint  authors. 
The  latter,  meeting  with  many  difficulties  in  the  composi- 
tion of  his  several  grammars,  brought  them  to  Amauld  to 
be  resolved.  He  was  so  much  struck  with  the  philoso- 
phical penetration  displayed  by  his  master,  that  he  obtained 
permission  to  throw  his  ideas,  into  the  connected  form  in 
which  the  "  Grammaire  G^n6rale"  now  appears.  To  at- 
tempt to  criticise  this  once  celebrated  book  would  be  out  of 
place.  The  advantage  of  literary  over  scientific  works  is, 
that  while  the  former  are  possessions  for  ever,  the  latter  are 
continually  left  behind  by  the  advancing  wave  of  human 
knowledge ;  only  the  student  of  mathematical  history  can 
afford  time  to  read  the  " Prindpia,"  while  the  "Paradise 
Lost"  flourishes  in  perennial  youth.  So,  however  just 
might  be  the  theory,  however  cogent  the  reasonings  of  the 
"  Grammaire  G^n^rale,"  the  facts  upon  which  its  inductions 
are  based  were  necessarily  few,  and  imperfectly  known. 
Large  families  of  languages,  which  are  now  objects  of  the 
grammarian's  closest  and  most  fruitful  study,  were  then 
unknown;  and  the  real  affinities  of  those  which  were  the 
subjects  of  comparison  hardly  suspected.  When  all  these 
drawbacks  are  fully  estimated ;  when  it  is  allowed  that  the 
grammars  of  Port  Boyal  have  been  long  superseded  by  sim- 
l^ler  and  more  scientific  methods,  that  its  etymology  was  not 


THE  PORT  BOTAL  LOGIC.  ISS 

in  advance  of  the  age^  that  its  translations  from  the  classics 
were  periphrastic  and  nnclassical,  and  that  the  schools 
cannot  be  said  to  have  produced  a  Latinist  or  a  Hellenist 
of  more  than  average  merit,  the  credit  due  to  the  modest 
teachers  of  the  Bue  St.  Dominique  remains  unimpaired. 
Their  improvements  in  the  art  of  education  have  not  been 
cast  away  as  delusive,  but  have  been  carried  to  a  higher  pitch 
of  perfection  by  the  experience  of  succeeding  generations. 
In  no  particular  were  they  behind,  in  many  &r  before 
their  time.  Their  work,  which  began  in  the  love  of  child- 
hood, and  in  a  deep  religious  respect  for  its  comparative 
innocence,  was  conducted  to  the  end  under  a  sense  of  moral 
responsibility  which  introduced  a  new  element  into  the 
relation  between  the  teacher  and  the  scholar.  Nor  do  I 
know  where  else  in  that  age  to  look  for  a  modest  yet 
dignified  assertion  of  the  worth  of  the  teacher's  office,  a 
worth  which  society  even  now  but  partially  recognises.  And 
to  the  allegation  that  the  schools  of  Port  fioyal  produced 
no  great  scholars,  the  sufficient  reply  is,  that  their  single 
object  was  the  education  of  Christian  men.* 

The  mention  of  the  "  G-rammaire  G^nerale  '*  naturally 
leads  us  to  its  more  celebrated  companion,  **  The  Port  Royal 
Logic,"  a  work,  which,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  fact  that 
a  recent  English  translation  of  it  has  reached  a  fourth 
edition,  seems  to  defy  the  attacks  of  time.  Its  full  title  is 
**La  Logique,  ou  TArt  de  Penser,  contenant,  outre  les 
B^les  communes,  plusieurs  Observations  nouvelles,  propres 
k  former  le  Jugement^  1662."  The  following  account  of 
its  origin  is  given  in  the  preface.  A  nameless  **  person  of 
quality,"  talking  one  day  to  the  young  Due  de  Chevreuse, 
'' happened  to  mention  to  him  that  he  had,  when  himself 
young,  met  with  a  person  who  in  fifteen  days  made  him 
acquainted   with  the  greater  part  of  logic."      Another 

*  For  the  above  account  of  the  school  books  of  Fort  Koyal,  I  am  greatly 
indebted  to  M.  St*  Benve,  Fort  Bo/al,  toL  lit  p.  413,  et  seq. 


Ui  1»0ET  EOYAL4 

person,  perhaps  AmatQd,  replied  that  if  M.  de  Chevreuse 
would  take  the  trouble,  he  would  impart  to  him  all  of  logic 
that  was  worth  knowing  in  four  or  five  days.  The  challenge 
was  accepted,  and  an  abstract  of  logical  science  drawn  up, 
which  the  young  duke,  whose  aptitude  for  acquiring  know- 
ledge is  described  as  remarkable,  easily  committed  to 
memory  within  the  specified  time.  But  the  work  grew 
upon  the  author's  hands ;  MS.  copies  were  circulated ;  then 
in  1662  it  was  printed.  A  second  edition  followed  in  1664, 
a  third  in  1668,  a  fourth  in  1674,  a  fifth  in  1683,  each  of 
which  successively  was  improved  and  enlarged.  It  was 
soon  translated  into  Latin,  in  which  language  it  was  re- 
peatedly reprinted ;  into  Spanish,  and  into  Italian.  The 
first  English  translation  appeared  probably  as  early  as 
1685 ;  another  in  1716  ;  and  both  went  through  more  than 
one  edition.  A  new  translation,  accompanied  by  an  excel- 
lent introduction  and  notes,  has  of  late  years  been  made 
by  Mr.  T.  Spencer  Baynes.* 

The  "  Logic  "  in  its  present  shape,  is  preceded  by  two  dis- 
courses "in  which  the  design  of  this  new  Logic  is  set 
forth,''  and  "  containing  a  reply  to  the  principal  objections 
which  have  been  made  to  this  Logic."  Both  of  these  are 
from  the  pen  of  Nicole,  The  work  itself  is  divided  into 
four  parts,  of  which  the  three  first,  according  to  Racine  f, 
**  were  composed  in  common,"  while  the  fourth  is  altogether 
Amauld's.  Most  of  the  additions  made  after  the  publica-^ 
tion  of  the  first  edition  are  due  to  Nicole.  At  the  same 
time,  the  book,  both  in  its  conception  and  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  its  execution,  must  be  considered  as  having 
proceeded  from  the  mind  of  Amauld. 

Its  fourfold  division  is  based  on  what  are  called  the  four 
principal  operations  of  the  mind,  conceiving  (con^oir), 

*  Fourth  edition,  1857 :  I  am  happy  to  acknowledge  my  obligation  to 
Hr.  Baynes'  learned  and  perspicuous  Introduction, 
t  CEnvres,  p.  415. 


THE  PORT  EOTAL  LOGIC.  15T 

judging  (juger)y  reasoning  {raiaon/ner)^  and  disposing 
(ordonner).  In  other  words,  the  first  part  treats  of  ideas, 
the  second  of  propositions,  the  third  of  syUogisms,  and  the 
fourth  of  method.  But  this  general  statement  gives  only 
a  partial  idea  of  the  object  of  the  work.  There  is  nothing 
here,  which,  under  certain  conditions  of  treatment,  might 
not  be  brought  within  the  strict  scope  of  a  logical  handbook. 
Our  .authors,  however,  take  a  wider  than  the  ordinary  range. 
Their  second  title,  "  The  Art  of  Thinking,"  better  expresses 
their  intention  than  the  first.  "Logic,"  they  say,  "is  the 
art  of  directing  reason  aright,  in  obtaining  the  knowledge 
of  things,  for  the  instruction  both  of  ourselves  and  others." 
Its  chief  end,  therefore,  is  rather  practical  than  theoretical ; 
not  so  much  the  analysis  of  the  syllogistic  or  any  method 
of  reasoning,  as,  in  general,  the  production  of  the  "  mens 
sana,^  The  first  preliminary  discourse  begins,  **  There  is 
nothing  more  desirable  than  good  sense  and  accuracy  of 
thought,  in  discriminating  between  truth  and  falsehood. 
All  other  qualities  of  mind  are  of  limited  use,  but  exact- 
ness of  judgment  is  of  general  utility  in  every  part  and 
in  all  the  employments  of  life."  They  think  that  the 
efficacy  of  logic  in  producing  this  quality  of  mind  has 
been  much  overrated.  But  the  absurd  pretensions  in 
behalf  of  the  science  which  have  been  put  forward  by 
scholastic  philosophers,  do  not  form  a  reason  for  rejecting 
the  solid  advantages  to  be  derived  from  it ;  and  therefore 
they  have  incorporated  with  their  book  a  selection  from 
the  common  rules.  "  Now,"  they  proceed,  "  although  we 
cannot  say  these  rules  are  useless,  since  they  often  help  to 
discover  the  vice  of  certain  intricate  arguments,  and  to 
arrange  our  thoughts  in  a  more  convenient  manner,  still 
this  utility  must  not  be  supposed  to  extend  very  far.  The 
greater  part  of  the  errors  of  men  arises,  not  from  their 
allowing  themselves  to  be  deceived  by  wrong  conclusions, 
but  in  their  proceeding  from  fiEdse  judgments,  whence  wrong 


158  PORT  EOTAL. 

conclusions  are  deduced.  Those  who  have  previously 
written  on  logic  have  sought  but  little  to  rectify  this,  which 
is  the  main  design  of  the  new  reflections  which  are  to  be 
found  scattered  through  this  book.'*  Accordingly,  while 
all  the  technical  part  of  the  old  manuals  is  not  only  to  be 
found  here,  but  is  stated  with  a  clearness,  and  illustrated 
by  a  variety  of  examples  which  are  themselves  character- 
istic of  the  book,  its  most  valuable  portions  are  undoubtedly 
those  sections  which  approach  the  art  of  thinking  from  the 
moral  or  practical  side,  and  treat  of  the  '^  sophisms  of  self- 
love,  of  interest,  and  of  passion,"  and  **  of  the  false  reason- 
ings which  arise  from  objects  themselves ; "  as  well  as  the 
whole  of  the  last  part,  which  draws  its  inspiration  from 
Des  Cartes'  celebrated  "  Discoiu^e  on  Method." 

To  point  out  the  particulars  in  which  the  "Art  of 
Thinking,"  considered  purely  as  a  logical  treatise,  differs 
from  previous  treatises  of  the  same  kind,  is  a  work  which 
belongs  to  the  historian  of  Mental  Science.  But  we  may 
be  allowed  to  notice  here  its  intensely  practical  treatment 
of  what  had  hitherto,  for  the  most  part,  been  a  merely 
formal  and  scholastic  subject  of  study.  It  took  up  the  series 
of  pedantically  expressed  rules  which  were  supposed  to 
supply  the  only  method  by  which  the  human  mind  could 
investigate  truth ;  and  on  the  one  hand>  found  a  base  for 
them  in  the  living  metaphysical  thought  of  the  day,  on  the 
other,  connected  them  with  the  whole  procedure  of  science, 
and  the  conduct  of  daily  life.  The  very  illustrations  in- 
troduced into  the  most  formal  portion  of  the  whole,  have 
shaken  off  the  frost  of  ages  of  scholasticism.  Generation 
after  generation  of  pupils  had  repeated  the  old  examples, 
some  of  which  had  descended  from  the  time  even  of 
Porphyry  and  Aristotle ;  now  for  the  first  time  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  regions  of  modem  thought — ^in  the  sacramental 
controversies  between  Catholic  and  Huguenot — in  the  debate 
of  "  matidre  subtile,"  and  the  vacuum.    The  living  French 


THE  POBT  EOTAL  LOGIC.  159 

is  sabstituted  for  the  dead  Latin  as  the  medium  of  instruc- 
tion. The  scholar  whom  the  teachers  of  philosophy  sought 
to  train,  was  one  who  could  argue  accurately  from  given 
premises,  in  the  syllogistic  form,  and  was  quick,  by  help 
of  the  same  instrument,  to  detect  the  faUacies  of  other 
reasoners.  The  logician  of  Port  Eoyal  was  the  man  of 
a  sound  and  practised  judgment;  not  ignorant  of  the  subtle- 
ties of  the  schools,  but  accustomed  to  examine  the  sound- 
ness of  his  assumptions  as  well  as  of  his  arguments ;  and 
even  if  not  a  philosopher  or  a  man  of  science,  yet  possessed 
of  a  philosophic  and  scientific  mind. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  as  far  as  Port  Eoyal  can 
be  said  to  have  a  philosophy,  it  is  to  be  found  not  in 
Pascal's  «  Thoughts,"  but  in  the  "  Logic."  Amauld,  after 
some  preliminary  skirmishing  with  Des  Cartes,  had  en- 
rolled himself  among  his  followers,  and  the  **  Logic,"  as 
well  as  the  "General  Grammar,"  is  the  legitimate  oflFspring 
of  the  "Discourse  on  Method."  On  the  other  hand,  the 
first  Preliminary  Discourse  contains  a  fierce  onslaught 
upon  the  Pyrrhonists,  whom  it  summarily  qualifies  as  a 
**  sect  of  liars,"  and  the  chapter  on  "the  Sophisms  of  Self- 
love  "  *  halts  in  its  argument  to  gibbet  the  vices  and  follies 
of  Montaigne.  The  whole  passage  is  so  far  removed  from 
the  calm  and  equal  tone  of  the  rest  of  the  book,  as  to 
suggest  the  idea  of  a  personal  polemic  against  one,  whose 
influence  Port  fioyal  had  been  unable  to  eradicate  from 
the  mind  of  Pascal.  But  in  truth.  Port  Royal  is  not  philo- 
sophical. Amauld  has  a  name  among  metaphysicians, 
Nicole  among  moralists,  Pascal  among  religious  philoso- 
phers; but  the  speculations  of  the  three  could  not  be 
united  into  one  accordant  whole ;  and  no  one  of  them  was 
Port  Royalist  on  his  philosophical  side.  St-  Cyran,  Singlin, 
De  Sa^i,  are,  after  all,  our*inost  characteristic  figures ;  and 

*  Part  iii.  chap.  20.  §  6. 


160  POBT  ROYAL. 

the  Bible  and  St.  Augustine,  not  Aristotle  and  the  8chool-» 
men,  are  the  fountains  of  their  wisdom. 

We  pass  naturally  from  the  "  Logic  "  of  Port  Royal  to 
one  who  had  a  large  though  an  inconspicuous  share  in  its 
authorship,  Pierre  Nicole.  The  figures  of  our  story  seem 
to  arrange  themselves  in  pairs :  two  friends  connected  by 
a  strong  tie  of  love  and  admiration,  and  yet  to  some  extent, 
a  greater  and  a  less,  a  patron  and  a  client.  Such  were  St. 
Cyran  and  Lancelot;  De  Sa^i  and  Fontaine;  Tillemont 
and  Du  Foss^;  Pascal  and  De  fioannez;  and  especially 
Amauld  and  Nicole.  The  activity  of  Arnauld  is  so  inter- 
woven with  the  main  web  of  our  narrative  as  to  have 
made  it  hitherto  impossible  to  detach  it  and  look  at  it  by 
itself;  but  that  of  Nicole  is  so  much  less  original  and 
independent,  and  in  its  last  years  so  separates  itself  from 
the  fortunes  of  Port  Eoyal,  as  to  invite  and  allow  an 
estimate  in  this  place.  Once  more,  however,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  anticipate  in  some  degree  the  chronological 
order  of  events. 

Pierre  Nicole  was  bom  at  Chartres,  on  the  13th  of 
October,  1625,  of  a  respectable  legal  or  parliamentary 
family.  His  father,  Jean  Nicole,  a  man  of  considerable 
classical  learning,  himself  laid  the  foundations  of  his  son's 
education,  which  was  continued  in  Paris,  where,  in  1644, 
he  took  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  From  his  earliest 
boyhood  he  was  a  great,  almost  an  indiscriminate  reader ; 
and  his  memory  was  so  retentive  as  never  to  lose  the  im- 
pressions once  made  upon  it.  M.  St*  Beuve*  quotes  from 
Brienne  the  following  amusing  description  of  Nicole's 
omnivorous  appetite  for  books :  — 

"  I  should  say  of  him,  that  no  one  whom  I  know  has 
read  so  many  books  and  narratives  of  travel  as  he ;  without 
counting  all  the  classic  authors,  both  Greek  and  Latin, 

•  Port  Royal,  vol.  ir.  p.  804. 


NICOLE.  161 

poetfi>  oratorSy  and  historians;  all  the  fathers  from  St. 
Ignatius  and  St  Clement  up  to  St  Bernard;  all  the 
romances  from  Amadis  de  Gaul  to  Clelie  and  the  Princess 
of  Cleves ;  all  the  works  of  ancient  and  modem  heretics 
from  the  ancient  philosophers  to  Luther  and  Calvin, 
Melancthon  and  Chamier,  from  whom  he  has  made  ex- 
tracts; all  the  polemics  from  Erasmus  to  Cardinal  du 
Perron,  and  the  innumerable  works  of  the  Bishop  of 
Belley;  in  a  word,  (for  what  has  he  not  read?)  all  the 
writings  of  the  period  of  the  Fronde,  all  ^pieces  de  contra- 
bande,'  all  treatises  on  politics  from  Goldast  to  L'Isola," 
He  soon  exhausted  his  father's  library,  and  then  betook 
himself  to  the  stores  of  his  friends.  In  after  life,  indeed, 
scandal  said,  that  like  another  great  reader,  Coleridge,  he 
sometimes  forgot  to  return  the  books  which  he  borrowed. 
The  effects  of  this  miscellaneous  reading  were,  to  some 
extent,  corrected  by  the  religious  tone  of  his  father's  house- 
hold. La  M^re  Marie  des  Anges,  one  of  Angelique's 
earliest  novices  at  Port  Eoyal  des  Champs,  and  her  succes- 
sor at  Maubuisson,  was  his  aunt  * ;  and  one  of  his  sisters,  of 
whom  he  was  wont  to  say  that  her  natural  powers  surpassed 
his  own,  was  educated  in  the  same  house.  And  the  charac- 
ter of  the  future  moralist  of  Port  Royal  is  illustrated  by  an 
anecdote  of  this  period  of  his  life.  His  father's  cousin, 
Claude  Nicole,  also  a  distinguished  lawyer,  had  published 
a  volume  of  poems,  of  which  a  licentious  freedom  of  speech 
was  not  the  least  marked  characteristic  The  young  theo- 
logian in  vain  endeavoured  to  work  upon  the  author's 
sense  of  decency ;  the  poems  ran  through  several  editions ; 
literary  complacency  was  too  strong  for  morality,  and  the 
blot  remained  upon  the  religious  escutcheon  of  the  family. 
But  after  the  poet's  death  Nicole,  with  consent  of  his 
daughter  and   representative,   prevented  the  issue  of  a 

•  VoL  i.  p.  48. 
YOL.  II.  H 


162  PORT  ROYAL. 

fresh  edition,  and  bought  every  copy  upon  which  he  could 
lay  his  hands. 

His  origins^  intention  had  been  to  pass  through  the 
theological  courses  of  the  Sorbonne,  to  take  its  degrees, 
and  finally,  to  devote  himself  to  the  Church.  Meanwhile 
he  found  employment  in  the  schools  of  the  Rue  St.  Domi- 
nique, and  did  not  become  Bachelor  of  Theology  till  June 
1649.  A  few  days  afterwards,  Nicholas  Cornet,  brotight 
forward  the  Seven,  which  were  the  precursors  of  the 
more  famous  Five  Propositions;  *  and  as  the  debate 
waxed  hotter  and  hotter,  Nicole  began  to  doubt  whether  it 
would  be  wise  for  him  to  assume  a  Doctor's  dignity  and 
responsibility  in  so  divided  a  faculty.  He  was  already 
connected  with  the  obnoxious  party  by  ties  of  friendship 
as  well  as  of  a  common  conviction ;  but  then,  to  pause 
at  this  point  would  be  to  give  lip  the  possibility  of  taking 
orders,  and  therefore,  all  hope  of  preferment  in  the  Church. 
The  choice  was  soon  made ;  he  retired  to  Port  Royal  with 
the  schools,  and  in  conjunction  with  Lancelot,  directed  the 
establishment  at  Les  Granges.  Here,  in  1654,  Amauld 
found  him,  and  concluded  with  him  that  literary  and 
personal  alliance  which  lasted  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

The  moment  was  critical;  the  controversy  had  been 
decided  against  the  Jansenists,  for  Innocent  X.  had  issued 
his  bull,  and  the  French  Bishops  had  all,  after  a  pro- 
tracted struggle,  accepted  it.  The  combat  was  about  to 
become  personal ;  in  1655,  occurred  the  affair  of  the  Due 
de  Liancourt,  which  ended  in  the  expulsion  of  Amauld, 
and  all  the  Jansenist  Doctors  from  the  Sorbonne.t  Pam- 
phlet after  pamphlet — some  anonymous,  some  bearing  the 
name  of  Amauld ;  theological,  controversial,  personal, — 
appeared  in  rapid  succession ;  and  in  all,  Nicole,  now  once 
more  in  Paris,  bore  a  large,  though  an  unacknowledged  part. 

•  Vide  vol.  i.  p.  245.  f  Vide  ToL  i.  p.  253,  cC  eeq. 


NICOLE.  163 

Then  in  1656  and  succeeding  years,  he  furnished  sugges- 
tions, quotations,  corrections  for  the  "  Provincial  Letters;" 
took  a  share  in  the  Casuistical  controversy  to  which  they 
gave  rise;  and  under  the  name  of  Wilhelm  Wendrock, 
translated  them  into  Latin.*  From  this  period  to  the 
Peace  of  the  Church  in  1668,  his  literary  activity  con- 
tinued unabated.  The  mere  enumeration  of  the  titles  of 
his  works  would  occupy  more  pages  than  one.  Some  have 
been  already  mentioned. .  The  "  Apology  for  the  Nuns  of 
Port  Royal,"  which  he  wrote  in  conjunction  with  St*  Marthe; 
the  "Lettres  Imaginaires,"  the  "Lettres  Visionnaires," 
the  "  Treatise  on  Human  Faith,"  against  M.  de  Perefixe. 
Whenever  it  is  possible  to  catch  a  clear  glimpse  of  his 
personality,  apart  from  the  tasks  which  he  performed  in 
conjunction  with  others,  he  is  always  on  the  side  of  con- 
cession and  arrangement.  One  account  attributes  to  him 
the  famous  but  useless  distinction  between  "fait"  and 
**  droit."  He  is  against  Pascal  in  that  conflict  of  opinion 
to  which  I  have  made  more  than  one  allusion ;  he  takes 
part  even  against  Amauld,  in  the  treaty  set  on  foot  by  the 
Bishop  of  Comminges-t  To  none,  in  all  likelihood,  was 
the  Peace  more  truly  welcome  than  to  this  practised  con- 
troversialist. 

From  1656  to  1668,  Nicole  was  for  the  most  part 
Amauld's  companion  in  his  many  hiding  places.  In 
1658-9,  indeed,  while  busy  with  the  translation  of  the 
**  Provincial  Letters,"  he  was  absent  in  Flanders  and  Ger- 
many ;  but  then  returned,  to  share  a  concealment,  which 
it  is  impossible  not  to  believe,  was  more  irksome  than 
perilous.  For  a  considerable  period,  they  found  an  asylum 
in  the  house  of  Madame  de  Longueville,  where,  however, 
under  an  arrangement  which  was  honourable  both  to  hostess 
and  guests,  they  insisted  upon  defraying  their  own  expenses. 

*  Vide  YoL  i.  pp.  285,  286.  f  Vide  vol.  i.  pp.  353^419. 

M  2 


164  POBT  ROYAL. 

Other  places  of  refuge,  carefully  recorded  in  the  Jansenist 
memoirs,  it  is  not  necessary  to  enumerate  here.  As  soon  as 
the  announcement  of  the  Peace  enabled  the  Jansenist  leaders 
to  appear  in  public,  Nicole  hastened  to  Troyes,  where  he 
was  anxious,  at  his  own  expense,  to  establish  a  school  for 
girls,  and  thence  to  the  Abbey  of  Haute  Fontaine,  the 
head  of  which,  M.  Le  Eoi,  had  long  been  a  friend  of 
Arnauld  and  his  party.  Here  he  devoted  himself  for  a 
time  to  the  completion  of  his  great  work  "  La  Perpetuity 
de  la  Foi." 

The  Jansenists,  from  St.  Cyran  downwards,  had  always 
been  anxious  to  prove  their  orthodoxy,  by  the  eagerness  of 
their  controversial  zeal  against  the  Calvinists.  Even  in  the 
midst  of  their  own  troubles,  they  seem  to  have  been  always 
able  to  deal  a  blow  at  La  Eochelle  or  Charenton;  and 
strike  at  Jesuit  or  Huguenot  with  perfect  impartiality  and 
equal  ardour.  The  history  of  the  most  famous  of  these 
polemical  works  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  side  of  Jan- 
senist activity  which  gave  birth  to  them  all.  Le  Mfdtre, 
during  the  period  of  his  retreat,  had  collected,  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  '^  Office  of  the  Holy  Sacrament,"  a  number  of 
passages  from  the  Fathers,  which  the  Due  de  Luynes  trans- 
lated into  French,  and  to  which  Nicole  prefixed  a  short 
paper,  proving  that  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  regard  to 
the  Eucharist  had  never  undergone  any  change.  A  MS. 
copy  of  this  paper  fell  into  the  hands  of  Claude,  the 
celebrated  Huguenot  minister,  who  replied  to  it.  In 
1664,  Nicole  printed  his  little  dissertation  in  an  expanded 
form,  adding  remarks  upon  the  animadversions  of  his 
opponent.  This  12mo  volume  is  known  by  the  name  of 
"  La  petite  Perp^tuite  "  to  distinguish  it  from  the  larger 
work  into  which  it  afterwards  grew. 

Claude  was  not  slow  in  publishing  a  reply,  which  appeared 
in  1665,  and  in  three  years  reached  a  seventh  edition.     In 


NICOLE.  165 

the  meantime  Nicole,  under  many  diflSculties  and  interrup- 
tions arising  from  the  debates  in  the  Church,  had  been  work- 
ing upon  an  elaborate  and  exhaustive  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject, the  first  volume  of  which  he  was  able  to  complete  at 
Haute  Fontaine  in  1669.  It  was  entitled  "  La  Perpetuite  de 
la  Foi  de  I'Eglise  Catholique  touchant  I'Eucharistie,"  and 
was  dedicated  in  a  Latin  epistle  from  the  pen  of  Arnauld, 
to  Pope  Clement  IX.  Twenty-seven  Archbishops  and 
Bishops,  as  well  as  twenty  Doctors,  among  whom  was 
Bossuet,  supported  the  work  by  their  written  approval. 
A  second  volume  appeared  in  1672 ;  a  third,  which  com- 
pleted the  work,  in  1676.  Clement  X.  received  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  second.  Innocent  XL  that  of  the  third  volume, 
with  many  gracious  words.  Many  of  the  first  Protestant 
nobility  of  France,  and  among  them  Marshal  Turenne, 
declared  themselves  converted  by  Nicole's  arguments,  and 
embraced  the  ancient  faith.  Jesuit  and  Jansenist  were 
reconciled  over  the  body  of  the  Calvinist  victim ;  there 
was  even  a  rumour  of  a  Cardinal's  hat  offered  to  Arnauld. 
And  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  the  book,  with  the  exception  of 
the  dedication,  was  not  the  production  of  Arnauld,  but  of 
Nicole.  The  whole  affair  is  an  illustration  of  the  little 
esteem  in  which  Port  Royal  held  the  rights  of  authors. 
No  Christian  man,  it  was  believed,  would  consider  himself 
or  his  reputation  in  the  matter,  except  to  rejoice,  if  by  any 
means  he  could  be  preserved  from  temptations  of  self-love. 
So  Nicole  insisted  that  the  name  of  Arnauld,  a  priest  and 
doctor  of  the  Church,  should  appear  upon  the  titlepage  of 
"  La  grande  Perpetuite ; "  it  was  not  fit  that  so  great  an 
undertaking  should  be  supported  by  the  authority  of  a 
layman  like  himself.  And  he  considered  it  a  fortunate 
thing,  that  both  he  and  his  friend  were  placed  in  a  posi- 
tion which  rendered  the  vanity  of  authorcraft  impossible. 
For  praise  and  compliment  passed  by  the  true  author  of 


166  POST  BOTAL. 

the  work,  to  offer  themselves  to  one  who  could  not  accept 
them  for  himself. 

For  some  reason,  now  not  easy  to  discover,  Nicole  seems 
to  have  been  incapable  of  remaining  long  in  one  place,  and 
soon  left  Haute  Fontaine  for  Madame  de  Longueville's 
Hotel  in  Paris.  Again,  after  a  few  months,  he  removed  to 
the  Abbey  of  St.  Denys,  where  Cardinal  de  Retz,  the  titular 
head  of  the  foundation,  permitted  him  to  reside  in  the 
abbot's  lodging.  From  St.  Denys  he  went  to  Port  Boyal 
des  Champs,  whence  we  trace  him,  as  he  makes  pilgrimages 
to  the  shrines  of  living  and  departed  saints,  to  Angers,  to 
Alet,  to  Annecy.  These  years,  however,  were  far  from 
being  idle.  The  second  and  third  volumes  of  the  "  Perp^ 
tuite "  were  written ;  the  controversy  with  the  Huguenot 
ministers  carried  on  with  imabated  vigour ;  and  the  first 
four  volumes  of  the  "  Essais  de  Morale  "  written  and  pub- 
lished. "  Pierre  Nicole,"  says  Voltaire  *,  "  was  one  of  the 
best  of  the. Port  Royalist  writers.  What  he  wrote  against 
the  Jesuits  is  little  read  now-a-days ;  but  his  *  Moral  Essays,' 
which  are  useful  to  the  human  race,  will  never  perish. 
Above  all,  the  chapter  on  the  means  of  preserving  peace  in 
society,  is  a  masterpiece,  imequalled  in  its  kind,  in  ancient 
literature."  So  the  reader  of  Madame  de  Sevign^  will 
recollect  many  passages  of  the  "  Letters,"  in  which  she 
speaks  almost  with  rapture  of  this  once  famous  book.  Let 
the  following  be  a  sample f:  "I  read  M.  Nicole  with  a 
pleasure  that  carries  me  away ;  above  all,  I  am  charmed 
with  the  third  treatise  on  the  means  of  preserving  peace 
among  men ;  read  it,  I  pray  you,  with  attention,  and  see  how 
clearly  he  displays  the  human  heart,  and  how  every  one 
recognises  himself  in  it, — philosophers,  and  Jansenists,  and 
Molinists, — in  short,  everybody.    This  is  what  I  call  search- 


»  Sidcle  de  Louis  XIV.,  voL  i.  p.  146. 
t  To  Mad.  de  Grignaa,  Sept.  30th,  1671. 


NICOLE.  167 

ing  the  heart  to  the  bottom  with  a  lantern ;  that  is  just  what 
he  does ;  he  reveals  to  us  what  we  feel  every  day,  and  which 
we  have  not  the  wit  to  distinguish  nor  the  sincerity  to  con- 
fess ;  in  one  word,  I  never  saw  such  writing  as  that  of  these 
Messieurs."  And  more  than  one  English  critic,  finding 
in  Nicole's  moral  speculations  a  neutral  ground  between 
the  two  churches,  has  praised  them  with  a  hearty  appreci- 
ation, not  too  often  manifested  between  Protestant  and 
Catholic  theologians. 

The  "  Moral  Essays,"  as  they  now  stand,  occupy  no  fewer 
than  fourteen  volumes  of  Nicole's  collected  works.  But 
three  of  the  volumes,  included  under  the  general  title,  con- 
sist of  his  life  and  letters ;  while  five  others  are  made  up  of 
reflections  upon  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  prescribed  by  the 
Church  for  the  Sundays  and  holidays  of  the  year.  Of  the 
six  remaining  volumes,  only  four  were  published,  at 
various  intervals,  during  his  life;  two  others  are  a  col- 
lection of  moral  treatises  on  different  subjects  and  occasions. 
This  statement  suflSciently  indicates  the  somewhat  hetero- 
geneous character  of  the  volumes  which  form  the  nucleus 
of  the  work.  They  are  so  far  from  containing  a  system  of 
ethics,  as  to  be  absolutely  without  a  plan.  Circumstance, 
or  the  conversation  of  some  friend, — often,  we  are  told, 
the  good  physician  Hamon,  —  excited  in  Nicole's  mind  a 
train  of  moral  reflection,  the  result  of  which  was  an  essay. 
The  subjects  are  the  moralist's  common-places :  self-know- 
ledge; human  weakness;  rash  judgments;  the  fear  of 
God ;  true  greatness ;  and  one  among  others,  which  sounds 
a  little  more  piquant^  on  the  means  of  profiting  by  bad 
sermons.  They  are  treated  from  the  theological  and  prac- 
tical, rather  than  from  the  philosophical  side ;  with  more 
solidity,  good  sense,  discrimination,  than  point  or  eloquence. 
An  able  and  sincere  man  cannot  write  on  such  topics  with- 
out saying  much  that  is  worthy  of  remembrance  and  re- 
flection ;  and  Nicole's  style,  like  his  thought,  flows  on  in  a 

X  4 


168  POET  ROYAL. 

clear,  strong,  unruffled  stream.  But  it  is  hard  to  understand 
Madame  de  Sevigne's  raptures.  To  a  modem  reader, 
much  of  the  "Moral  Essajrs  "  appears,  it  must  be  confessed, 
somewhat  dull.  The  critic  would  pronounce  them  sound 
and  good,  rather  than  attractive.  They  are  among  those 
books  which  are  always  more  praised  than  read.  And 
the  Augustinian  theology,  which  of  course  forms  the  frame- 
work of  Nicole's  speculations,  never  appears  in  a  less  lovely 
form  than  here.  In  Pascal,  its  horror  is  at  least  made 
grand  by  the  fire  and  passion  of  his  soul;  the  human 
nature  which  he  displays  to  us  is  the  nature  of  a  fallen 
angel,  and  its  misery  has  something  of  an  epic  dignity. 
But  Nicole  heaps  image  upon  image,  and  exhausts  all  the 
resources  of  a  cold  fancy  and,  one  almost  suspects,  of 
a  not  too  warm  heart,  to  express  the  mean  wretchedness  of 
man,  and  the  eternal  blackness  of  his  fate.  He  makes  us 
feel  that  Jansenism  is  endurable  only  when  it  is  the  religion 
of  eager  wills  and  tender  hearts;  that  the  single  excuse 
for  believing  in  the  utter  weakness  and  degradation  of 
men,  is  the  consciousness  of  a  divine  ardour  to  raise  them 
above  their  woe. 

In  1677,  Nicole,  weary  as  he  was  of  controversy,  had 
the  ill  fortune  unwittingly  to  renew  the  Jansenist  debate. 
Two  bishops,  MM.  d' Arras  and  de  Saint  Pons,  complained 
to  the  new  Pope,  Innocent  XI.,  of  some  recent  decisions  of 
the  Casuists,  which  seemed  to  them  injurious  to  the  cause 
of  morality ;  and  through  the  intervention  of  Madame  de 
Longueville,  borrowed  Nicole's  pure  and  forcible  Latinity. 
The  result  was  a  royal  intimation,  transmitted  through  M. 
de  Pomponne,  to  his  uncle  and  Nicole,  to  the  effect,  that 
hitherto  the  King  had  been  satisfied  with  their  conduct ; 
but  that  now  complaints  against  them  were  frequent,  and 
they  were  suspected  of  a  desire  to  break  the  Peace  of 
the  Church.  Nicole  hastened  to  withdraw  himself  from 
Paris,  and  fixed  himself  at  Beauvais,  where  the  Bishop, 


KICOLE,  169 

M.  de  Buzanval,  had  some  years  before  presented  him  to 
a  small  benefice.  But  fate  had  more  than  one  blow  in 
store  for  him.  He  had  three  homes  which  he  might  fairly 
call  his  own ;  one  at  Paris  in  the  Hotel  de  Longueville, 
one  at  St.  Denys,  and  one  at  Beauvais.  But  in  1679 
Madame  de  Longueville,  M.  de  Eetz,  and  M.  de  Beauvais, 
died  one  after  another ;  the  persecution  of  Port  Eoyal  re- 
commenced; and  Nicole  thought  fit  to  fly  to  Brussels, 
where  he  was  soon  after  joined  by  Arhauld.  Persecution 
seemed  to  have  reknit  the  bond  which  had  been  loosened 
by  prosperity,  when  Arnauld  was  invited  by  Van  Neer- 
cassel,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Jansenist  Church  which 
still  maintains  so  anomalous  an  existence  in  Holland,  to 
take  up  his  abode  in  that  country.  All  at  once  Nicole 
hesitated.  He  was  getting  old,  and  no  longer  able  to  bear 
the  laborious  and  clandestine  life  which  he  must  lead  with 
Arnauld ;  he  suflFered  from  a  chronic  asthma,  which  the 
marshy  air  of  Holland  was  likely  to  aggravate;  he  was 
ready  to  abandon  controversy  for  ever,  if  for  the  rest  of 
his  days  he  might  be  allowed  to  live  in  peace.  So  he  wrote 
a  letter  to  Harlay,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  in  which  he  ex- 
plained his  conduct  in  the  aflFair  of  the  two  bishops,  and 
alleging  the  quiet  course  of  his  life  during  the  past  ten 
years,  declared  that  his  only  desire  was  to  think  of  his 
eternal  welfare,  and  to  spend  his  time  in  study  and  prayer. 
Wherever  he  was,  he  would  take  the  utmost  care  to  avoid 
everything  that  could  make  a  noise,  or  give  the  Archbishop 
any  trouble.  This  letter  was  written  in  July  1679  ;  but  it 
was  not  till  May,  1683,  that  aft«r  much  anxiety  and  change 
of  residence,  which  to  one  of  his  studious  life  and  peculiar 
temperament  involved  considerable  hardship,  Nicole  was 
Buffered  to  come  to  Paris. 

He  soon  found  that  in  making  peace  with  his  enemies, 
he  had  run  the  risk  of  quarrelling  with  his  friends.  All 
the  party  of  Port  Koyal  had  been  so  wont  to  see  him  act 


170  POET  EOTAL. 

as  the  companion  and  secretary  of  Amauld^  that  the  inde- 
pendent line  of  conduct  which  he  now  pursued  appeared 
like  treachery  and  ingratitude.  Letter  after  letter  poured 
in  upon  him,  reproaching  him  because  he  was  not  as  ready 
as  ever  to  make  himself  a  prisoner  and  an  exile ;  because 
he  was  weary  of  controversy,  and  longed  for  some  quiet 
cell  where  he  might  immm*e  himself  with  his  books  and 
be  at  peace.  The  trial  was  very  hard  to  bear ;  for  he  was 
sensitive  to  every  breath  of  praise  or  blame  that  came  to 
him  from  those  whom  he  loved.  He  writes  to  his  friend, 
Madame  de  St  Loup  *:  —  "  Since  all  the  world  stones  me, 
and  you  do  not  differ  from  others  in  this  respect,  it  would 
perhaps  be  well,  Madame,  to  know  how  large  are  the  stones 
which  you  throw  at  me ;  that  I  may  judge  whether  it  will  be 
safe  to  approach  you  by  a  letter,  and  whether  it  may  not 
draw  down  upon  me  some  stone  able  to  crush  me  at  once ; 
for  you  know  that  I  do  not  willingly  expose  myself  to  blows, 
and  have  never  professed  to  be  brave."  And  then  he  goes  on 
to  compare  the  stones  which  lie  all  about  him,  to  insults 
which  he  cannot  throw  back  again  at  those  who  have  cast 
them,  since  arguments  are  the  only  weapons  which  he  is  able 
to  wield.  The  remedy  which  he  used  to  procure  some  relief 
at  least  from  excitement,  is  characteristic  of  the  veteran 
author.!  "  These  letters  having  prevented  me  from  sleep- 
ing for  nearly  a  fortnight^  I  had  recourse  to  various 
remedies:  I  took  emulsions,  gruel,  and  at  last  opium 
more  than  once.  All  this  having  been  without  effect,  I 
resolved  to  deliver  myself  from  these  thoughts  by  refuting 
all  the  arguments,  pitiable  as  they  seemed  to  me,  which 
were  alleged  against  me ;  and  I  composed  a  paper  which 
was  entitled  *  Apology,  &c.'  I  do  not  know  what  eflFect 
this  paper  had  upon  four  or  five  persons  to  whom  I  showed 

•  Quoted  by  St»  Benre,  vol.  it.  p.  369. 
t  Goajet,  Vie  de  Nicole,  p.  298. 


NICOLE.  171 

it;  but  it  certainly  produced  upon  me  the  result  which  I 
intended^  which  was  to  restore  my  sleep  to  me,  for  it  re- 
established me  in  my  ordinary  state."  To  all  his  corre- 
spondents, even  to  one  who,  writing  from  a  comfortable 
abbey  which  he  had  managed  to  keep  through  all  the 
Jansenist  troubles,  vehemently  reproached  him  with  his 
selfish  love  of  peace  and  ease,  he  replied  with  unvarying 
good  temper.  Amauld  alone  did  not  misunderstand  him^ 
but,  at  the  moment  when  he  most  missed  his  friend's  help 
and  company,  acknowledged  his  right  to  independence 
of  action.  He  wrote  to  Nicole,  in  answer  to  a  letter 
which  he  had  received  from  him  upon  this  subject*: — 
"I  am  obliged  to  you  for  having  opened  your  heart  to 
me.  You  could  not  do  it  to  any  one  who  has  more 
sympathy  with  your  troubles,  and  compassionates  you  more. 
And  although  I  cannot  always  be  of  your  opinion,  I  shall 
never  pretend  that  you  are  obliged  to  be  of  mine,  especially 
when  the  question  is  of  entering  upon  engagements  to 
which  you  may  have  too  great  a  repugnance.  I  shall 
always  be  grateful  for  the  help  which  you  have  aflForded  to 
me ;  but  this  does  not  give  me  the  right  to  ask  you  for  fresh 
help ;  and  that  God  does  not  inspire  into  you  the  desire  is 
enough  to  cause  me  to  accept  this  privation  as  an  order  of  His 
Providence."  And  then,  after  a  calm  discussion  of  the  po- 
licy of  Nicole's  letter  to  the  Archbishop,  he  concluded : — 
**We  may  fall  into  disgrace  with  our  Lord  for  having 
failed  to  turn  to  account  a  talent  which  He  has  given  us. 
The  talent  which  you  have  of  writing  in  Latin  is  very  rare, 
and  one  that  may  be  used  to  the  great  advantage  of  the 
Church,  especially  in  a  Pontificate  such  as  this.  You  bury 
it  in  the  ground  when  you  show  so  great  an  inclination  to 
mix  yourself  up  in  nothing.      Excuse  my  heat;  it  is  per- 

*  Lettres  d'Antoine  Arnaaldp  toL  ill  p.  148. 


172  PORT  ROYAL, 

haps  an  ill-regulated  zeal  which  makes  me  say  all  these 
things.  It  seems  to  me,  nevertheless,  that  I  have  no 
other  interest  than  that  of  God  and  the  truth.  Adieu, 
love  me  always,  and  be  sure  that  I  shall  take  no  part  in 
all  the  tittle-tattle  of  the  world ;  and  on  whatever  side  you 
range  yourself,  the  little  pain  that  it  may  give  me  will 
never  prevent  me  from  looking  upon  you  as  my  friend  for 
death  and  life,  consoling  myself  for  your  absence,  if  in  no 
other  way,  by  the  words  of  St.  Augustine :  *  Quamvis  non 
videamus  nos  oculis  carnis,  animo  tamen  in  fide  Christi,  in 
gratia  Christi,  in  membris  Christi  tenemus,  amplectimur, 
osculamur.' " 

But  to  those  who  reproached  Nicole,  Amauld  would  not 
allow  that  his  friend  was  at  all  in  the  wrong.  He  wrote  to 
M.  de  Pontchateau*: — "  I  learn  by  a  letter  from  M.  Nicole 
that  his  friends  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  terribly  pre- 
judiced against  him  on  paltry  grounds,  and  in  regard  to  a 
matter  in  which  he  is  entirely  right Is  it  not  use- 
ful that  he  should  be  at  peace  in  order  that  he  may  work  for 
the  Church  ?  Is  he  not  always  doing  this  in  one  way  or 
another  ?  Is  it  not  right  that  every  one  should  act  accor- 
ding to  his  gifts  ?  Has  he  not  rendered  sufficiently  great 
service  to  have  earned  our  gratitude,  and  the  right  of  not 
being  treated  as  a  slave,  who  is  not  at  liberty  to  do  as  he 
pleases  ?  He  has  very  noble  views,  and  of  the  last  impor- 
tance ;  and  instead  of  entering  into  them,  and  giving  him 
the  means  of  carrying  them  out,  you  wish  that  he  should 
apply  himself  to  things  for  which  he  has  no  inclination ; 
and  because  he  does  not  do  this,  he  is  all  but  treated  as  a 
deserter.  This  has  always  appeared  to  me  so  unreasonable, 
that  you  must  pardon  me  if  I  have  not  been  able  to 
restrain  myself  from  opening  all  my  heart  to  you  upon 
this  occasion."    WTiat  better  example  of  the  magnanimity 

*  Lettres  d'Antoine  Araauld,  voL  ili.  p.  176. 


NICOLE.  173 

of  love  ?  The  lonely  exile,  still  fighting  thealmost  hopeless 
battle  of  his  truth  and  his  party,  with  the  infirmities  of  age 
quickly  stealing  upon  him,  sees  the  one  companion  upon 
whose  help  and  society  he  had  been  wont  to  rely  in  former 
times  of  trouble,  leave  his  side,  to  purchase  rest  by  conces- 
sions which  his  conscience  will  not  permit  him  to  share. 
Yet  his  voice  almost  alone  repels  the  charge  of  cowardice 
and  treachery  which  is  hurled  against  his  weaker  friend, 
and  at  the  same  time  assures  him  of  unabated  love  and 
honour,  absent  or  present,  in  life  and  in  death. 

The  period  of  rest  which  Nicole  had  so  ardently  desired 
lasted  for  twelve  years.  After  one  or  two  changes  of  resi- 
dence, he  fixed  himself  in  some  rooms  which  belonged  to  the 
convent  known  as  that  of  La  Cr^he,  and  had  a  direct 
communication  with  ita  chapel.  There  was  space  for  his 
books,  and  for  a  picture  or  two,  on  which  he  set  great  store; 
and  the  royal  garden,  in  which  he  took  his  daily  walk,  was 
hard  by.  His  manner  of  living  was  simple,  yet  not  austere ; 
he  had  a  country  house  to  which  he  retired  in  the  summer 
months ;  and  his  friends,  many  of  them  among  the  most 
illustrious  in  the  literary  and  theological  circles  of  Paris, 
often  filled  his  unpretending  lodging.  But  rest  with 
Nicole  meant  only  freedom  from  anxiety,  not  abstinence 
from  work.  He  wrote  in  these  years  two  books  of  contro- 
versy against  the  Protestants,  which  unhappily  did  not 
render  unnecessary  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 
He  assisted  Arnauld  in  a  metaphysical  dispute  with  Male- 
branche ;  and  then  astonished  the  world  by  entering  on  a 
lively  debate  with  his  old  colleague  on  the  much  debated, 
never  exhausted  topic  of  grace.  Nicole  had  long  desired, 
like  most  thoughtful  and  fair  theologians,  to  find  some 
middle  point  of  reconciliation  between  the  conflicting 
theories  of  predestination  and  free  will ;  and  now  in  his  old 
age  put  forward  a  theory,  of  ^  general  grace,'  which,  while 
abandoning  no  Augustinian  position^  might  also  be  accept- 


174  PORT  EOYAL. 

able  to  Catholic,  who  were  not  Jansenist  theologians.  The 
attempt  succeeded  as  ill  as  might  be  expected ;  the  contro- 
versy passed  away  with  as  little  fruit  as  many  more  which 
preceded  and  have  followed  it ;  and  is  noticeable  here,  only 
as  showing  that  controversy,  even  on  so  exciting  a  topic, 
could  be  conducted  with  Christian  candour  and  equa- 
bility of  temper.  Nicole's  relations  with  Port  Boyal  des 
Champs,  though  not  intimate,  were  never  wholly  inter- 
mitted. Perhaps  there  was  something  of  timidity  on  one 
side,  of  distrust  on  the  other.  Yet  he  busied  himself  in 
editing  the  devotional  works  of  Hamon,  the  physician 
of  Port  Royal,  and  prefixed  an  introduction  to  a  memoir 
of  his  aunt.  La  M^re  Marie  des  Anges,  which  had  been 
prepared  by  a  sister  of  the  house.  One  would  think  that 
towards  the  end  he  must  have  felt  somewhat  lonely.  He 
was  among  the  youngest  of  his  generation,  and  as  they  passed 
away  one  by  one  before  him,  may  have  been  conscious  of 
a  secret  separation  of  spirit  which  would  add  a  fresh  sadness 
to  the  sense  of  loss.  In  1692,  he  writes  to  Arnauld,  on 
occasion  of  the  death  of  his  brother,  the  Bishop  of  Angers  *, 
"  It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  been  bom  in  a  chtirch  lighted 
by  various  lamps  and  torches ;  and  that  God  suffers  me  to 
see  them  extinguished  one  after  another,  without  the  appear- 
ance of  any  new  ones  in  their  place.  And  thus  the  air 
seems  to  grow  darker  and  darker,  because  we  do  not 
deserve  that  God  should  fill  up  the  void  which  He  Him- 
self makes  in  His  Church."  Then,  in  1694,  Antoine 
Arnauld  died ;  and  in  the  next  year  Nicole, — last  of  the 
Romans,  as  his  constant  admirer,  Madame  de  Sevign^, 
wrote  of  him, — foUowed  in  his  seventieth  year.  His 
dying  wish  was  that  his  heart  should' be  taken  to  Port 
Royal  des  Champs,  and  there  buried  with  that  of  his  never 
estranged  friend. 

*  Noavelles  Lettresi  part  ii.  p.  927. 


NICOLE.  175 

Nicole  was  not  a  Port  Royalist  of  the  purest  blood.  He 
had  never  known  St  Cyran ;  indeed,  his  first  theological 
performance  had  been  a  polemic  against  St.  Cyran's  nephew 
and  successor,  De  Barcos.  Although  his  aunt  had  been 
Abbess  of  Port  Eoyal,  and  he  had  himself  lived  for 
some  time  at  Les  Granges,  he  nowhere  appears  as  the 
close  friend  of  the  community.  He  had  little  of  the  spirit 
of  party  in  his  composition ;  and,  but  for  the  early  bias 
given  to  his  thoughts  by  Arnauld,  might  have  employed 
his  learning  and  ability  for  the  general  interests  of  Catho- 
licism. He  was  the  uniform  advocate  of  moderation  and 
concession.  Except  in  the  case  of  the  "  Provincial  Letters,*^ 
where  the  cause  of  Christian  morality  was  concerned,  he  was 
adverse  to  any  course  that  may  appear  violent  and  ex- 
treme. So,  alone  among  the  friends  of  Port  Eoyal,  he 
speaks  slightingly  of  Pascal's  "  Thoughts :  ^  of  him  alone 
the  biographers  have  no  stories  of  austerity  to  record. 
Moderation  of  thought,  word,  and  life  was  the  ideal  at 
which  he  aimed.  Many  little  traits  of  character  and 
conduct  remain  to  confirm  this  estimate.  He  was  timid, 
sensitive,  absent ;  would  not  go  out  in  the  wind  lest  the 
tiles  should  fall  upon  his  head ;  dared  not  venture  into  a 
boat  without  a  swimming-belt ;  was  found  standing  at  a 
clear  crossing  in  the  street,  quietly  waiting  for  the  passage 
of  some  carts  which  had  gone  their  way  long  before.  He 
exaggerated  in  fancy  the  perils  of  his  intercourse  with  Ar- 
nauld, and  surroimded  himself  with  a  useless  apparatus  of 
precaution.  When  they  lived  with  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville  and  passed  several  hours  daily  in  her  company,  the 
great  lady  found  Nicole  the  more  gentle  and  pleasant  of 
the  two ;  he  took  more  pains  to  amuse  her  than  his  sterner 
and  more  masculine  friend,  and  had  more  talk  fit  for  the 
eax  of  a  princess.  Yet  he  was  one  of  those  men  whose 
mind  cannot  work  with  full  energy,  except  with  help  of  pen 
and  paper ;  he  was  often  overpowered  in  conversation  by 


176  PORT  EOTAL. 

those  whom  he  felt  to  be  weaker  than  himself  in  argument ; 
and  of  a  certain  nameless  doctor,  was  wont  to  say,  "  He 
beats  me  in  my  chamber,  but  I  have  refuted  him  before 
he  has  got  to  the  bottom  of  the  stairs."  Arnauld  made 
Nicole  controversialist  and  Augustinian ;  left  to  himself, 
he  concluded  a  peace  with  the  court,  and  produced  a 
theory  of  grace,  which  was  certainly  not  Jansenist.  Had 
circumstance  thrown  him  into  a  Benedictine  monastery, 
he  might  have  emulated  the  peaceful  industry  of  Mabillon ; 
and  spent  the  long  years  of  a  life,  which  must  always  have 
been  simple,  sweet,  and  innocent,  in  heaping  up  volumes 
of  ecclesiastical  lore,  ignorant  of  all  disputes  but  those 
which  agitated  the  little  world  of  Ij^s  convent* 

A  list  of  those  who  were  educated  in  the  schools  of  Port 
Eoyal  would  convey  little  information  to  English  readers. 
The  new  methods  of  education  were  applied  on  too  small  a 
scale  and  for  too  short  a  time  to  produce  any  very  startling 
result.  Yet  such  a  list  would  include  the  names  of  nearly 
all  the  younger  Arnaulds ;  of  the  three  brothers  Du  Foss6 ; 
of  the  two  sons  of  Bignon,  Avocat  General,  one  of  whom 
succeeded  to  his  father's  office,  and  the  other  obtained  high 
legal  preferment ;  of  M.  de  Harlay,  the  French  Plenipo- 
tentiary at  the  Peace  of  Eyswick ;  of  the  Due  de  Chevreuse, 
whose  name  has  been  already  mentioned  in  connection 
with  that  of  his  tutor,  Lancelot ;  of  the  nephews  of  Pascal ; 
and  of  many  more  worthy  scions  of  Parliamentary  families, 
who  in  the  latter  years  of  the  century  preserved  the 
memory  of  their  place  of  education  by  the  grave  and 
austere  spirit  of  their  life  and  magistracy.  It  is  cinious  to 
note  among  these  the  name  of  a  younger  son  of  the  noble 
Scotch  house  of  Lennox,  who,  adopting  his  French  patro- 

*  For  the  events  of  Nicole's  Life  I  am  chiefly  indebted  to  the  Abb6  6oa- 
jet,  "Vie  de  Nicole;  **  which  forms  the  fourteenth  Tolnme  of  his  moral  works. 
Bat  I  must  also  refer  to  M.  St*  Beare's  elaborate  sketch,  Port  Rojal,  yoL 
IT.  p.  302,  et  »eq. 


TILLEMONT.  177 

nymic  of  D'Aubigny,  entered  the  Church,  became  Canon 
of  Notre  Dame,  Almoner  of  Charles  II.'s  Portuguese 
Queen,  and  died  in  1 665,  a  few  hours  before  the  arrival  of 
a  courier  from  Eome,  who  was  bringing  him  a  Cardinal's 
hat.  A  still  more  singular  name  is  that  of  Charles  IL's 
unfortunate  son,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  who,  in  the  time 
of  his  father's  exile,  was  sent  with  his  tutor  to  pass  a 
couple  of  years  (1658 — 60)  at  the  house  of  M.  de  Berni^res 
at  Chenai.*  But  the  two  pupils  of  whom  Port  Eoyal  is  justly 
proud  are  Eacine  and  Tillemont  The  former  will  ask  at 
our  hands  a  separate  and  more  elaborate  treatment ;  and 
was  besides.  Port  Eoyalist  only  in  youth  and  old  age,  not 
in  the  hopes  and  strivings  of  manly  life.  His  dramatic 
success  was  an  ofiFence  in  the  eyes  of  his  old  teachers,  and 
at  one  time  brought  him  into  open  conflict  with  them ; 
the  contemporary  memoirs  hardly  mention  his  name ;  and 
not  till  the  second  generation  do  the  Jansenists  seek  to 
attract  to  themselves  a  glory  reflected  from  his.  But 
Tillemont  is,  from  birth  to  death,  the  consummate  example 
of  the  training  of  Port  Eoyal.  He  never  abandons  the 
attitude  of  a  pupil.  When  at  the  age  of  sixty  his  last 
illness  begins  to  steal  upon  him,  he  will  not  go  to  Paris 
for  medical  advice  till  he  has  obtained  the  sanction  of 
his  aged  teacher,  M.  de  Beaupuis.  He  died  a  few  days 
before  his  father,  and  was  conscious  of  a  humble  exultation 
in  the  thought  that  he  had  never  disobeyed  him.  In  his 
will,  he  speaks  of  the  holy  education  which  God  had  pro- 
vided for  him  at  Port  Eoyal, — "for  which  1  bless  Him 
with  my  whole  heart,  and  for  which  I  hope,  through  His 
mercy,  that  I  shall  bless  Him  throughout  all  eternity." 
His  epitaph  takes  up  the  thought  and  declares  of  him  that 
'^sancte  educatus,  sancte  vixit."  But  in  no  respect  is 
Tillemont  more  characteristically  the  true  child  of  Port 

♦  Bcsoigne,  vol.  iv.  p.  415,  et  seq.    Sf  Beuve,  vol.  iii.  pp.  488,  489. 
VOL.  n.  N 


178  PORT  BOTAL. 

Royal  than  in  the  pious  monotony,  the  austere  obscurity 
of  his  life,     A  few  words  will  exhaust  all  we  have  to  tell 
of  one,  whose  name  the  Church  will  not  willingly  let  die.* 
Sebastien  le  Nain  de   Tillemont,  the  son  of  Jean  le 
Nain,  Maitre  des  Eequfttes,  and  of  Dame  Marie  le  Ragois, 
was  bom  at  Paris,  November  30th,  1637.     His  father  was 
an  old  friend  of  Port  Eoyal,  and  when,  in  the  second  war 
of  the  Fronde,  the  nuns  were  compelled   to  leave  the 
Fauxbourg  to  seek  refuge  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  M.  le 
Nain  with  M.  de  Bemi^res  marched  at  their  head.t    The 
future  historian,  when  between  nine  and  ten  years  of  age, 
was  sent  to  the  schools  of  Port  Royal,  which  were  then 
just  established  in  the  Rue  St.  Dominique.     The  child 
was  father  of  the  man.     He  showed  at  this  early  period 
not  only  the  same  character,  but  the  same  tastes  as  in  after 
life.     Livy  was  his  favourite  author ;  and  it  is  recorded  of 
him  that  he  rarely  laid  the  volume  down  till  he  had  read 
an  entire  book.     He  passed  through  the  com^e  of  classical 
instruction  usual  in  the  schools,  and  long  before  the  publi- 
cation of  the  **Art  de  Penser,"  was  instructed  in  logic  by -its 
authors.     The  Annals  of  Baronius  engaged  his  attention 
while  he  was  still  quite  a  boy,  and  gave  occasion  to  innu- 
merable questions,  which  he  carried  to  Nicole.     The  latter, 
who  was  no  mean  proficient  in  ecclesiastical  history,  at  first 
easily  satisfied  the  applicant  with  an  extemporaneous  reply ; 
but  by  and   by,  the   difficulties  proposed  by  the  pupil 
became  less  easy  of  solution,  and  the  master  ingenuously 
confesses  that  he  trembled  at  his  approach.     But  before 
long,  Tillemont  became  dissatisfied  with  any  ecclesiastical 
history  at  second  hand.    At  eighteen  he  began  to  study  the 
Scriptures  and  the  Fathers  for  himself,  and  arranged  all  the 

*  I  have  taken  the  facts  of  Tillemont's  Life,  when  no  other  reference  is 
given,  from  "La  Vic  ct  TEsprit  de  M.  le  Nain  de  Tillemont  **  (1713),  hj 
his  secretary,  M.  TronchaL 

t  Vol.  i.  p.  226. 


TILLEMONT.  179 

facts  which  he  found  there  according  to  the  plan  of  Usher's 
Annals,  a  book  which  he  had  read  with  much  pleasure. 

When,  in  1656,  the  schools  at  Port  Royal  des  Champs 
were  broken  up,  Tillemont,  with  his  friend  Du  Fosse  and 
a  good  priest,  in  whose  charge  they  were  placed,  retired  to 
Paris,  and,  in  a  little  house  in  the  Rue  des  Postes,  spent 
some  four  years  in  hard  study.  About  Lent,  1660,  the 
two  friends  removed  to  Les  Troux,  now  empty  by  the 
death  of  M.  de  Bagnols  and  the  final  dispersion  of  the 
schools,  in  order  tiiat  they  might  especially  apply  them- 
selves to  Church  history,  under  the  supervision  of  the 
learned  curate  of  the  parish,  M.  Burlugai.*  But  before 
long,  Tillemont  found  it  expedient  to  seek  a  refuge  in  the 
universal  asylum  of  the  Jansenists,  the  diocese  of  Beauvais, 
where  the  Bishop  received  him  with  open  arms.  Here  he 
spent  eight  or  nine  years  in  quiet  study,  part  of  the  time 
in  the  seminary,  part  in  the  house  of  M.  Hermant. 
Already  he  was  beginning  to  be  regarded  aa  one  who  pos- 
sessed more  than  a  common  knowledge  of  the  first  ages  of 
the  Church ;  and  his  modesty  was  sorely  woimded  by  the 
deference  paid  to  his  opinion  by  his  superiors  in  age  and 
ecclesiastical  rank.  At  last,  when  M.  de  Beauvais,  aft^r 
having  induced  him  to  receive  the  tonsure,  informed  him 
that  his  greatest  earthly  consolation  would  be  the  hope  of 
having  him  as  the  successor  to  his  see,  the  modest  ptudent 
fairly  fled,  and  with  his  father's  permission  once  ±ore  took 
up  his  abode  with  Du  Fosse  in  Paris.t 

But  life  in  Paris  appeared  too  full  of  distractions  to  a 
student  who  divided  all  his  time  between  his  books  and 
his  devotions,  and  after  two  years  he  retired  to  St.  Lambert^ 
a  village  between  Chevreuse  and  Port  Royal.  The  Peace 
of  the  Church  was  yet  fresh,  and  De  Safi  lived  undisturbed 
with  his  friends  and  the  community  of  which  he  was  the 

•  Du  Fosse,  pp.  131,  170. 

t  Conf.  Da  Fosse,  p.  321. 

M  2 


180  PORT  EOYAL. 

head,  in  the  old  home  in  the  valley.  Hence  he  cast  his 
eyes  upon  Tillemont,  over  whose  conduct  he  had  long  had 
entire  control,  and  whom  he  now  resolved  to  train  as  his  suc- 
cessor in  the  direction  of  the  monastery.  Year  by  year  he  led 
him  up  the  many  steps  which  conduct  to  the  Boman  Catholic 
priesthood,  till  finally,  in  1676,  Tillemont,  now  forty  years 
of  age,  was  ordained.  His  next  act  was  to  build  for  him- 
self a  modest  dwelling  in  the  court-yard  of  Port  Royal  des 
Champs,  where  it  was  his  hope  and  purpose  to  end  his 
days.  But  in  1679,  before  he  had  occupied  his  new  home 
for  two  entire  years,  the  second  persecution  began ;  De  Sa^i 
took  up  his  abode  at  Pomponne,  and  Tillemont  retired  to 
the  estate,  about  a  league  from  Vincennes,  from  which  he 
derived  his  name.  Here  the  rest  of  his  uneventful  life 
was  passed.  Once  he  made  a  journey  into  Holland  to  visit 
Arnauld  and  the  Dutch  Jansenists.  Once  he  was  tempted 
to  enter  the  active  life  of  the  Church,  and  accepted  the 
curacy  of  St.  Lambert,  the  village  near  Port  Eoyal,  where 
he  had  formerly  lived.  But  this  was  the  single  occasion  of 
his  life  in  which  he  acted  without  asking  his  father's  advice ; 
and  on  hearing  that  M.  le  Nain  disapproved  of  the  scheme, 
he  at  once  gave  it  up.  Till  his  death  in  1698,  his  life  is 
one  noiseless  round  of  study  and  of  prayer.  In  the  words 
of  his  epitaph, — **a  puero  ad  finem  vitae,  imus  semper  ac 
sibi  constans,  quotidi^  repetiit  quod  quotidi^  fecit" 

Tillemont  laid  it  down  as  a  fundamental  maxim  for  the 
regulation  of  conduct,  that  the  inconstancy  of  man  could 
only  be  corrected  by  rigid  adherence  to  a  predetermined 
course  and  the  formation  of  fixed  habits.  On  this  he 
modelled  his  own  life.  He  rose  every  morning  at  half- 
past  four ;  in  Lent  at  four.  He  considered  that  his  health 
and  the  work  on  which  he  was  engaged,  exempted  him 
from  the  obligation  to  rise  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  say 
matins.  Throughout  the  day  he  was  exact  in  reciting  all 
the  oflSces  of  the  ritual,  either  in  his  own  house  or  in  the 


triLLEMONT.  181 

parish  church.  He  dined  at  noon,  supped  at  seven,  and 
retired  to  rest  at  half-past  nine.  After  dinner  he  allowed 
himself  two  hours'  relaxation,  which  he  usually  spent  in 
walking ;  all  the  rest  of  the  day,  not  thus  accounted  for, 
was  devoted  to  his  books.  Even  as  he  walked  he  was  wont 
to  pray  and  to  sing  psalms,  and  often  joined  in  the  simple 
processions  of  the  village.  He  took  great  pleasure  in 
church  music,  and  sometimes  attempted  composition.  In 
accordance  with  what  he  believed  to  be  the  practice  of  the 
primitive  Church,  he  made  pilgrimages  to  distant  shrines, 
and  always  performed  these  journeys  on  foot,  staff  in 
hand,  like  a  simple  country  priest.  His  conversation 
was  grave  and  yet  cheerful ;  he  rarely  spoke  unless  first 
addressed,  and  loved  to  turn  the  discourse  to  subjects  of 
edification.  He  made  no  display  of  erudition  in  his  talk ; 
it  was  necessary  to  question  him  to  find  out  that  he  was 
more  learned  than  other  men.  Towards  his  inferiors  in 
age  or  station  he  was  always  gentle  and  considerate ;  him- 
self a  child  in  spirit,  his  love  of  children  was  deep  and 
tender.  He  would  even  have  them  present  at  public 
worship.  "  Their  cries,"  he  said,  "  are  their  prayers,  and 
prayers  to  which  God  is  not  deaf."  "They  were  the 
holiest  part  of  the  Churdh,  and  their  presence  would  ^elp 
to  render  its  intercessions  effectual."  He  liked  to  talk  with 
the  peasants  and  wayfarers  whom  he  met  on  his  journeys, 
and  to  leave  with  them  some  precious  truth  enshrined  in 
an  apt,  but  homely  similitude.  Of  his  servants  he  had  an 
especial  care,  and  occupied  some  minutes  daily  in  their 
religious  instruction.  "  They  are  as  noble  as  we,"  he  was 
wont  to  say,  "  and  man  owes  to  man  no  more  than  friend- 
ship." His  charity  was  great.  As  soon  as  he  had  received 
his  quarter's  income,  he  laid  aside  a  portion  for  the  poor, 
which  he  entrusted  for  distribution  to  the  Cui6  of  the 
parish ;  and  had  besides  many  pensioners  of  his  own  to 
whom  he  made  a  monthly  allowance.      His  biographer 

M  3 


182  POBT  BOTAL. 

records  many  ingenious  methods  which  he  used  to  stir  up 
others  to  a  similar  liberality  of  almsgiving.  His  whole 
life  was  one  effort  of  self-control,  and  his  habits  were  veiy 
simple  and  frugal ;  but  we  do  not  read  of  any  fasts  or 
austerities  which,  measured  by  the  standard  of  his  own 
Church,  could  justly  be  called  excessive.  He  writes  to  his 
brother,  who  was  Sub-prior  of  La  Trappe, — "  Everybody  is 
not  obliged  to  fast  as  you  do  at  La  Trappe,  but  every- 
body  is  obliged  to  resist  the  desires  of  concupiscence, 
which  pride  and  the  remains  of  our  corruption  constantly 
excite  in  us,  and  to  expiate  the  sins  into  which  we  thus 
faU." 

The  finer  shades  of  such  a  character  as  Tillemont's 
could  be  appreciated  only  by  one  who  lived  with  him  and 
watched  its  slow  development  from  day  to  day.  Even  so 
grave  and  monotonous  a  thing  as  Jansenist  holiness  differs 
from  man  to  man ;  and  the  characteristic  variations  which 
are  too  slight  to  be  embodied  in  their  uneventful  lives,  or 
to  be  preserved  upon  the  printed  page,  would  be  plain  to 
the  keen  insight  of  love.  Perhaps  we  shall  not  be  wrong 
in  fixing  upon  a  very  genuine  humility,  a  shrinking 
modesty,  a  prompt  self-distrust,  as  the  qualities  which 
form  the  keynote  of  Tillemont's  character.  His  great 
work  never  began  to  appear  till  within  a  few  years  of  his 
death,  and  was  for  the  most  part  posthumously  published. 
But  long  before  this  he  had  been  labouring  for  others,  and 
had  been  content  to  see  the  fruits  of  his  erudition  enrich 
the  works  of  his  friends.  While  he  was  at  Beauvais, 
M.  Hermant  published  lives  of  four  Greek  fathers,  to 
which  Tillemont  largely  contributed.  He  helped  Du  Fosse 
in  the  lives  of  TertuUian  and  of  Origen,  which  were  a 
prelude  to  his  greater  work  on  the  lives  of  the  Saints. 
When  De  Safi  undertook  to  write  the  "History  of  St 
Louis,"  it  was  Tillemont  who  patiently  accumulated  the 
vast  heap  of  materials  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of 


TILLEMONT.  183 

the  design ;  materials  which  he  willingly  transferred  to  La 
Chaise  when  De  Saji  gave  up  the  task.  Even  in  regard 
to  the  book,  which  had  been  the  labour  of  his  life,  he  was 
equally  self-denying.  Some  of  his  friends  found  fault 
with  his  plan.  He  could  not,  he  said,  conscientiously 
adopt  any  other,  but  he  was  willing  to  abandon  the  design 
altogether,  and  to  place  his  collections  at  the  disposal  of 
any  competent  scholar.  He  hid  himself  from  success,  and 
would  not  read,  even  at  his  father's  request,  the  favourable 
review  of  the  first  volume,  which  appeared  in  the  "  Journal 
des  Savants."  Nothing  was  so  painful  to  him  as  a  compli- 
ment; the  only  praise  which  he  valued  was  the  assurance 
that  his  book  was  not  without  a  power  of  practical  edifica- 
tion. He  was  humble  to  a  fault  in  the  reception  of 
criticisms  and  corrections,  and  met  the  jealousies  and  as- 
perities of  rival  scholars  with  anxious  gentleness  and  self- 
forgetfulness.  All  the  while  he  was  not  sure  whether  the 
edifice  of  learning  which  he  was  erecting  for  the  Church, 
might  not  be  an  occasion  of  temptation  to  the  architect. 
He  was  afraid  that  he  took  too  much  pleasure  in  his  quiet 
and  laborious  life.  He  found  it  hard  to  quit  his  books 
even  to  go  to  prayer.  He  writes  to  De  Ranc^,the  celebrated 
founder  and  Abbot  of  LaTrappe*:  "We  love  our  work, 
and  love  it  the  more  the  greater  it  is,  and  the  more  it  is 
of  Grod.  And  we  willingly  believe  too,  that  everything 
that  can  further  our  work  is  innocent,  holy,  and  of  God's 
ordaining, — vce  prcegTUintibus  et  nutrientibua.  Although 
my  work  compared  with  La  Trappe  is  nothing,  I  yet  feel 
how  much  I  have  to  dread  this  woe,  both  in  its  production 
and  in  all  its  results.  I  find  examples  of  this  even  among 
the  saints.  Forgive  me,  father,  if  I  fear  for  you  also,  since 
the  greatest  saints  are  also  men  so  long  as  they  live  in  this 
place  of  trial."    Among  his  meditations,  too,  we  find  the 

*  Qaoted  bj  Beuchlin,  Fort  Boyal,  toI.  ii  p.  427. 
N  4 


184  PORT  ROYAL. 

following*:  "May  I  then  occupy  myself  in  my  work  with 
humility,  or  rather  with  confusion^  as  in  a  penance  which 
I  have  deserved.  If  I  discover  anything,  may  I  believe 
that  I  have  received  it  from  Thee ;  and  may  I  not  believe 
that  I  have  received  any  great  thing  so  long  as  I  am  not 
possessed  of  Thee,  Thou  Source  of  all  truth  I  In  beholding 
what  Thy  saints  have  done,  have  spoken,  have  suffered, 
may  I  gratefully  and  yet  fearfully  consider  that  this  is  a 
talent  which  Thou  hast  placed  in  my  hands,  that  I  may 
turn  it  to  good  account ;  and  with  this  intent  may  I  strive 
to  obtain  from  Thee  that  which  Thou  didst  give  to  them, 
or  at  least  may  I  be  confounded  at  the  sight  of  my  own 
weakness,  which  is  so  disproportioned  to  the  teaching  of 
Thy  saints.  If  in  this  way  only  I  applied  myself  to  study, 
it  would  not  puff  up  my  spirit,  it  would  not  dry  up  my 
heart ;  I  should  be  always  disposed  to  leave  it  for  reading 
yet  more  holy,  and  to  present  myself  before  Thee  in  prayer ; 
I  should  not,  little  by  little,  and  under  various  pretexts, 
extend  the  period  of  study  to  diminish  the  time  due  to 
other  employments.  If  I  laboured  only  to  fill  the  place 
where  Thou  settest  me,  I  should  not  be  grieved  when  Thou 
changest  that  place  by  the  different  circumstances  which 
Thou  causest  to  arise." 

Tillemont's  "  Ecclesiastical  History  "  at  present  consists 
of  two  great  but  imequal  portions:  the  "Histoire  des 
Empereurs,  et  des  autres  Princes  qui  ont  regng  durant  les 
six  premiers  Sidles  de  I'Eglise,"  in  six,  and  the  "M^moires 
pour  servir  k  I'Histoire  Eccl^siastique  des  six  premiers 
Si^cles,"  in  sixteen  volumes.  This  division  of  what  is  pro- 
perly one  work  into  a  sacred  and  a  secular  history,  was  not 
a  part  of  the  author's  plan.  When  the  book  in  its  original 
shape  was  sufficiently  advanced,  the  first  volume  was  put 
into  the  hands  of  a  regularly  appointed  censor.    He  differed 

*  Reflexions  Chr^tiennes  sor  diren  Snjets  de  Morale,  p.  20. 


TILLEMONT.  18« 

from  the  author  on  several  weighty  points.  Tillemont  had 
ventured  to  assert  that  there  was  no  evidence  to  prove  the 
presence  of  ox  or  ass  at  the  Saviour's  birth ;  that  the  Magi 
did  not  arrive  till  after  the  purification ;  that  Mary  the  wife 
of  Cleophas  might  possibly  be  the  sister  of  the  Virgin ;  and 
the  censor's  zeal  for  historical  truth  would  not  permit  him 
to  sanction  such  misstatements.  Tillemont,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  a  due  sense  of  the  dignity  of  his  calling,  refused 
to  give  way ;  and  the  publication  would  have  been  indefi- 
nitely postponed,  had  not  some  one  hit  upon  the  idea  of 
publishing  the  secular  history,  which  did  not  need  the  super- 
vision of  a  censor,  by  itself.  The  success  of  this  paved  the  way 
for  the  appearance  of  the  "  Ecclesiastical  History,"  properly 
so  called ;  a  new  and  more  accommodating  censor  was  ap- 
pointed, and  the  work  was  published  in  the  shape  which  the 
author  had  given  it.  The  first  volume  of  the  "  History  of 
the  Emperors  "  appeared  in  1690,  and  was  followed,  during 
the  author's  lifetime,  by  three  others ;  the  fifth  was  issued 
in  1701,  the  sixth  not  till  1738.  The  "M^moires  pour 
servir  a  I'Histoire  ecclesiastique,"  were  published  at  inter- 
vals from  1693  to  1712;  but  of  the  sixteen  volumes,  only 
four  appeared  during  the  author's  lifetime.  The  rest  were 
edited  by  his  faithful  secretary  and  biographer,  Tronchai. 

Du  Fosse*  aptly  describes  Tillemont's  design  in  these 
words :  '*  wishing  to  give  to  the  Church  the  original  title- 
deeds  of  its  history,  he  has  taken  care  never  to  confound 
what  he  himself  says  with  what  is  said  by  ancient  authors." 
The  work  corresponds  indeed  to  its  modest  title ;  it  is  a 
vast  collection  of  materials  for  the  history  of  the  Church, 
brought  together  by  unwearied  industry,  and  displayed 
with  unfailing  honesty.  Tillemont's  criticism  is  that  of 
his  age  and  Church;  his  style  ia  the  clear,  concise,  but 
unadorned  and  monotonous  style  of  Port  Koyal ;  he  does 

*  M6moire«>  p.  502. 


188  POET  ROTAL. 

threatens  his  enemies,  will  see  only  God,  will  hear  only 
God,  will  enjoy  only  God,  in  short,  will  love  only  God. 
This  is  the  happiness  which  God  promises  to  us.  This  is 
the  secrecy  and  silence  towards  which  faith  causes  the  soul 
which  it  animates  to  aspire :  and  which  it  enables  it,  as  it 
were,  to  anticipate  by  continual  groanings  of  heart. 

**  Give  us,  0  God,  this  inner  piety  which  will  produce  in 
us  both  prayer  and  all  other  outward  actions  of  virtue,  and 
which  will  end  in  that  eternal  praise  which  our  hearts  .will 
render  to  Thee  in  Heaven,  amid  the  silence  of  all  created 
thmgs." 


189 


III. 
THE  FOUR  BISHOPS. 

We  have  already  had  sufficient  opportunity  of  determining 
the  relation  of  the  Jansenism  of  Port  Royal  to  the  theory 
and  practice  of  the  monastic  life  ;  it  may  not  be  so  easy  to 
define  the  method  in  which  it  would  deal  with  the  diffi- 
culties of  those  who  were  unwilling  to  forsake  the  world, 
and  yet  anxious  to  do  their  duty  in  it.  The  Jansenist  is, 
in  this  respect,  the  most  logical  form  of  the  Catholic 
doctrine.  There  is  no  certain  way  of  conquering  life's 
temptations;  the  Christian's  only  resource  is  to  fly  from 
them.  The  monastic  is  the  ideal  form  of  the  Christian 
life ;  the  human  race  would  expire  in  the  act  of  consum- 
mating its  own  perfectness.  Perhaps  the  severest  fanatic 
of  modern  times  has  never  kept  steadily  before  his  eyes 
all  the  necessary  consequences  of  his  theory ;  and  Roman 
Catholicism,  at  least,  has  always  been  sufficiently  indulgent 
to  the  worldly  propensities  of  its  disciples.  Port  Royal  is 
no  exception  to  the  general  failure  in  consistency,  and  so 
to  the  last  numbered  as  many  friends  without  as  within 
the  cloister.  But  it  never  ceases  to  hold  up  the  superiority 
of  the  solitary  life,  to  bewail  the  hard  fate  of  those  whom 
imperative  duty  detained  amid  the  distractions  of  the 
world,  and  to  inculcate  the  necessity  of  periodical  retreat 
and  self-examination  on  the  part  of  those  who  would  make 
their  peace  with  God.  We  can  nowhere  trace  the  exist- 
ence of  a  theory  of  the  secular  life,  which,  by  help  of 
earthly  work  and  love,  should  keep  an  uninterrupted  inter- 
course with  Heaven.    Port  Royal  is  content  to  leave  in  the 


190  POET  BOTAL. 

world  only  those  whom  it  cannot  win  for  the  cloister ;  and 
these,  on  the  single  condition,  that  the  home  shall  as  much 
as  possible  resemble  the  cell. 

It  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  troubles  and  con- 
troversies of  the  party,  that  the  types  of  character  which 
have  hitherto  presented  themselves  to  our  view  have  a 
certain  monotony  of  colour,  which  only  the  vividness  of 
spiritual  life  preserves  from  being  sectarian.  St  Cyran, 
Arnauld,  Singlin,  Nicole,  De  Sayi,  even  to  some  extent, 
p£U3cal,  are  engaged  in  the  same  debates,  perform  the  same 
work,  struggle  with  ttie  same  difficulties ;  work  and  diffi- 
culties being  other  than  they  might  have  been,  had  Jan- 
senism not  been  treated  as  an  incipient  heresy,  and  Port 
Eoyal  as  a  nursery  of  schism.  This  similarity  of  purpose, 
and  effort,  and  character,  which  partly  grew  up  from  within, 
and  was  partly  forced  upon  the  Jansenists  from  without, 
explains,  if  it  does  not  justify,  the  constant  accusation  of 
their  enemies,  that  they  formed  a  party  in  the  bosom  of  a 
Church  whose  theory  does  not  admit  the  existence  of 
parties.  Nor  can  we  escape,  so  long  as  we  remain  within 
the  circle  of  our  subject,  from  the  prevalence  of  the  Port 
Eoyalist  type.  It  moulds,  with  more  or  less  completeness, 
and  consistency,  the  characters  of  all  who  acknowledged 
the  personal  influence  of  the  long  line  of  confessors  of  the 
community.  But  to  complete  our  knowledge  of  it,  we 
must  watch  it  upon  the  field  (by  us  hitherto  imsurveyed) 
of  ecclesiastical  duty;  and  in  the  lives  of  the  Four 
Bishops  note  how  Port  Eoyal  would  have  governed  the 
Church. 

The  prelates,  who,  at  the  most  critical  moment  of  the 
struggle,  interposed  to  shield  Port  Eoyal  from  the  united 
violence  of  King  and  Pope,  were  Nicolas  Choart  de  Bu- 
zanval.  Bishop  of  Beauvais;  Henri  Arnauld,  Bishop  of 
Angers ;  Etienne  Franf  ois  de  Caiilet,  Bishop  of  Pamiers ; 
and  Nicolas  Pavilion,  Bishop  of  Alet.     That  their  firm 


THE   BISHOP  OF  BEAUVAIS.  191 

resistance  succeeded  at  last  in  procuring  the  Peace  of  the 
Church,  may  be  partly  due  to  the  known  sympathy  of 
many  more  of  their  episcopal  brethren,  partly  to  the  cha- 
racter of  the  new  Pope,  Clement  IX,  but  in  a  still  greater 
degree,  to  their  own  exemplary  virtues.  Public  opinion, 
which  is  slow  to  distinguish  between  minute  differences  of 
docUine,  quickly  notes  contrasts  of  conduct. ;  and  in  days 
when  princes  of  the  Church  emulated  the  princes  of  the 
world  in  dissoluteness,  it  weighed  much  in  favour  of  Port 
Royal  that  every  bishop  who  was  suspected  of  Jansenist 
leanings  was  pious,  self-denying,  poor,  a  haunter  of  his 
diocese,  an  encourager  of  sound  learning,  a  relentless  foe  to 
ecclesiastical  abuse.  The  difficulty  of  my  subject  is,  that 
in  the  memoirs  which  remain,  I  can  hardly  trace  the 
features  of  four  individual  men.  In  the  words  of  an  author 
from  whom  the  facts  of  my  story  are  chiefly  taken*,  "  I 
must  warn  my  readers  of  a  kind  of  monotony  of  very 
similar  things  which  they  will  find  in  the  lives  of  these 
four  great  Bishops ;  it  will  always  be  a  penitent  life,  -zeal 
for  the  salvation  of  souls,  good  government  of  the  diocese, 
charity  towards  the  poor,  love  of  simplicity,  poverty,  fru- 
gality ;  synods,  episcopal  visitations,  missions,  and  so  forth. 
If  some  readers  apprehend  weariness  of  this  uniformity  of 
virtues  and  good  works,  they  may  be  reassured  beforehand 
by  the  thought  that  the  historical  events  which  compose 
the  mass  of  these  lives  form  a  vaiiety  which  leaves  no 
room  for  weariness,  and  that  if  there  is  a  repetition  of 
virtues,  there  will  be  none  of  the  facts  which  prove  them." 

Nicolas  Choart  de  Buzanval,  the  son  of  Theodore 
Choart  and  Madeleine  Potier,  was  bom  at  Paris,  July  25th, 
1611.     His  family  on  both  sides,  had  held  high  offices  in 

*  Vies  des  Quatre  Eresques,  engages  dans  la  cause  de  Fort  Boyal :  pour 
scirir  de  Supplement  k  I'Histoirc  de  P.  IL  en  six  volumes  (par  Bcsoigne). 
2  vols.  1756.    Preface,  p.  3. 


192  POET  ROTAL. 

Church  and  State;  two  of  his  maternal  uncles  preceded 
him  in  his  see.  He  lost  his  father  when  he  was  fifteen 
years  of  age,  and  his  education  was  chiefly  directed  by  his 
uncle,  Augustin  Potier,  Bishop  of  Beauvais.  His  elder 
brother  had  chosen  the  profession  of  arms ;  the  younger 
had  to  make  his  election  between  the  law  and  the  Church, 
and  decided  in  favour  of  the  former.  At  the  age  of  twenty, 
he  became  Counsellor  of  the  Parliament  of  Brittany,  but 
not  being  old  enough  to  practise,  went  to  Italy  in  the  suite 
of  the  Marechal  de  Crequi,  Ambassador  of  France  at  the 
Holy  See.  Here  he  remained  some  time ;  then  on  his 
return  applied  himself  diligently  to  his  profession,  in  which 
he  gave  fair  promise  of  excellence.  After  awhile  a  brilliant 
prospect  of  political  advancement  seemed  to  open  before 
him.  When,  in  1643,  Louis  XIII.  died,  his  uncle,  the 
Bishop  of  Beauvais,  was  Almoner  and  Confessor  of  the 
Queen.  Richelieu  had  preceded  his  master  by  a  few  months, 
and  the  question  of  all-absorbing  interest  about  the  court 
was,  who  was  to  play  the  part  of  Richelieu  during  a  long 
minority  and  with  a  female  regent.  The  Bishop,  who,  if 
we  may  trust  De  Retz*,  had  a  better  heart  than  head, 
entered  upon  the  struggle  for  power;  the  Queen  made 
use  of  his  influence  with  the  Parliament  to  procure  the 
recognition  by  that  body  of  her  sole  regency ;  and  perhaps 
promised  him,  certainly  gave  him  reason  to  hope  for,  the 
succession  to  Richelieu's  ministry  and  Cardinal's  hat.  In 
the  meantime  the  other  ministers,  eager  to  pay  court  to 
the  rising  star,  nominated  Nicolas  Choart  Ambassador  to 
Sweden,  and  everything  was  prepared  for  his  journey  when 
the  bubble  broke.  Mazarin  had  already  established  that 
pei-sonal  supremacy  over  the  Queen's  mind  which  after- 
wards gave  rise  to  so  many  scandalous  stories ;  the  Bishop 
of  Beauvais  was  banished  to  his  diocese,  and  the  ambas- 

♦  Memoircs,  p.  37. 


THE  BISHOP  OP  BEAUVAIS.  193 

sador  expectant  sent  back  to  the  dull  routine  of  legal 
practice. 

Augustin  Potier  retired  to  Beauvais  a  wiser,  if  a  disap- 
pointed man,  for  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  were  spent 
in  the  diligent  discharge  of  his  episcopal  duties.  Yet  a 
taint  of  the  court  lingered  about  him  still.  He  conceived 
the  idea  of  resigning  his  bishopric,  which  was  not  only 
very  wealthy,  but  carried  with  it  the  dignity  of  a  peer,  in 
favour  of  the  nephew  whose  political  advancement  he  had 
failed  to  secure.  Our  biographers  tell  us  that  Nicolas 
Choart  had  already  given  up  the  law ;  but  it  is  permitted 
us  to  infer  that  he  had  not  taken  this  step  without  an  eye 
to  possible  promotion  in  the  Church,  The  family  job  was 
cleverly  and  successfully  effected.  The  President  De 
Novion,  was  also  a  nephew  of  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais ;  and 
as  it  was  now  the  period  of  the  Fronde,  when  it  was  im- 
portant to  the  Queen  to  conciliate  the  Parliament,  agreed 
to  use  his  influence  in  behalf  of  his  cousin  on  condition 
that  a  pension  of  12,000  livres,  in  favoiu:  of  his  own  son, 
should  be  charged  on  the  revenue  of  the  see.  Nicolas 
Choart  was  ordained  priest  at  the  right  moment ;  his  uncle 
resigned  the  mitre;  and  a  royal  decree  made  the  new 
ecclesiastic,  now  forty  years  of  age.  Bishop  of  Beauvais. 
Congratulations  flowed  in  upon  him  from  all  sides,  and  not 
least  from  the  chapter  of  his  cathedral.  But  the  represen- 
tatives of  that  body,  two  grave  and  reverend  dignitaries, 
seeing  that  their  new  bishop  bore  his  episcopal  responsi- 
bility very  lightly,  ventured  to  remind  him  of  what  he  had 
undertaken,  and  to  recommend  his  perusal  not  only  of  the 
Scriptures,  but  of  works  of  St.  Chrysostom  and  St  Gregory 
upon  the  priesthood.  He  had  the  good  sense  and  good 
feeling  to  act  upon  their  advice,  and  soon  grew  uneasy  at 
what  he  had  done.  The  simoniacal  arrangement  made  by 
his  cousin,  which  he  now  learned  for  the  first  time, 
sharpened  the  stings  of  his  conscience,  and  for  a  while  his 

VOL.  II.  0 


194  PORT  ROYAL. 

fixed  resolve  was  to  resign  his  ill-gotten  dignity,  and  to 
devote  himself  to  the  service  of  the  Church  as  a  simple 
priest.  At  length  the  advice  of  those  to  whom  he  referred 
his  diflSculties,  prevailed  with  him  to  give  up  this  intention, 
and  he  was  consecrated  on  the  8th  of  January,  1651. 
But  no  consciousness  of  the  faithful  discharge  of  duty  ever 
obliterated  fi-om  his  mind  the  feeling  of  shame  at  the 
manner  of  his  first  entrance  upon  it;  and,  but  for  the 
Bishop  of  Alet,  he  would  some  years  before  his  death  have 
abandoned  his  diocese  and  retired  to  the  Chartreuse. 

The  life  of  the  Bishop  of  Alet  will  afford  the  best 
opportunity  of  entering  upon  the  details  of  episcopal  ad- 
ministration, which,  under  different  modifications,  charac- 
terised every  diocese  fortunate  enough  to  be  governed  by 
a  Jansenist  prelate.  In  the  case  of  the  other  three  bishops, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  select  only  those  marked  peculiarities 
which  were  produced  either  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  or  the  bent  of  their  own  disposition.  Like  his 
brethren  in  the  resistance  to  the  Formulary,  M.  de  Beau- 
vais  was  ascetic,  prayerful,  charitable,  rarely  left  his 
diocese,  and  exercised  a  vigilant  personal  superintendence 
upon  every  part  of  it.  But  he  was  specially  distinguished 
by  the  pains  which  he  took  in  the  education  of  the  priests, 
whom  he  afterwards  instituted  to  the  parishes  under  his 
care.  He  gradually  introduced  into  the  College  of  Beauvais 
learned  and  pious  teachers,  under  whose  management  it 
became  so  flourishing  as  to  attract  scholars  firom  all  the  • 
surrounding  country,  and  even  from  Paris.  From  it 
the  aspirants  after  ecclesiastical  position  passed  into  the 
Seminary,  an  institution  founded  by  Augustin  Potier,  but 
enlarged  and  first  firmly  established  by  his  nephew,  for 
theological  studies  alone.  The  students,  who  entered  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  passed  three  years  in  preparation  for 
the  priesthood.  Of  these  the  first  was  a  year  of  probation, 
and  the  course  was  indefinitely  lengthened  whenever  it 


SEMINARY  OP  BEAUVAIS.  195 

seemed  desirable.  All  the  scholars,  who  generally  num- 
bered forty,  were  lodged,  fed,  and  taught  at  the  Bishop's 
expense.  As  much  pains  was  taken  to  form  the  habits  and 
the  character  as  to  instruct  the  mind;  the  day  from  a 
quarter  past  four  a.m.  to  bedtime,  wjis  an  almost  unyiter- 
rupted  roimd  of  study  and  of  prayer.  The  subtleties  of 
scholastic  theology  were  neglected  in  favour  of  those  great 
truths  and  principles  which  ought  to  form  the  staple  of  a 
parish  priest's  teaching ;  and  the  students  were  especially 
encouraged  to  read  the  Scriptures  and  the  Fathers.  To  pass 
through  the  seminary  was  the  only  way  to  ordination  in 
the  diocese  of  Beauvais ;  tlie  Bishop  neither  accepted  nor 
refused  candidates  for  the  priesthood,  except  in  concert 
with  the  superiors.  At  the  same  time  he  was  personally 
acquainted  with  the  students,  almost  lived  at  the  semi- 
nary, and  himself  conducted  all  the  examinations.  He 
was  conscientiously  strict  in  his  institution  to  parochial 
charges ;  and  if  he  were  asked  for  a  benefice,  looked  upon 
the  request  as  reason  enough  why  it  should  be  refused. 
His  liberality  and  tenderness  to  the  young  priests  whom 
he  had  educated  were  those  of  a  father,  and  they,  on  their 
part,  cheerfully  submitted  themselves  to  his  will. 

It  was  in  part  owing  to  the  seminary,  that  when  the 
troubles  of  Port  Royal  began,  the  diocese  of  Beauvais  was 
a  refuge  for  the  Jansenists.  I  do  not  find  recorded  the 
way  in  which  the  Bishop  first  became  connected  with  the 
unpopular  party;  but  we  have  already  seen* that  in  1664, 
two  of  his  near  relatives  were  nuns  in  Port  Royal  de  Paris. 
Almost  at  the  commencement  of  his  episcopate,  he  had 
maintained  his  Jansenist  convictions  under  very  difiicult 
circumstances.  His  chapter  had  ventured,  in  1653,  to 
publish  the  bull  of  Innocent  X.,  with  a  mandement  opposed 
to  that  which  he  had  drawn  up  in  somewhat  cautious  terms ; 

♦  Vol.  L  p.  S9L 
O  2 


196  POET  EOYAL. 

and  a  controversy  arose,  between  the  majority  of  the 
canons  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Bishop  with  a  faithful 
minority  on  the  other,  which  dragged  on  its  weary  length 
till  the  Peace  of  the  Church  in  1668.  Throughout  the  whole 
of  tl^  period,  the  Bishop  maintained  his  ground  against 
treason  within,  and  royal  and  papal  menaces  without ;  and 
afforded  an  asylum  beneath  the  walls  of  his  cathedral  to 
more  than  one  persecuted  Jansenist.  The  first  superior  of 
his  seminary  was  Nicolas  TEv^ue,  one  of  the  priests 
who,  upon  his  nomination,  had  so  faithfully  reminded  him 
of  his  episcopal  responsibility ;  the  second  was  M.  Walon 
de  Beaupuis,  who  continued  at  Beauvais  the  work  which 
he  had  begun  in  the  schools  of  Port  Royal.  MM.  Hasl^ 
and  Hermant,  well  known  in  their  day  as  Jansenist  doctors, 
were  teachers  of  theology ;  and  Tillemont  was  at  one  time 
an  inmate  of  the  seminary,  and,  in  the  Bishop's  own  hopes 
at  least,  the  destined  successor  to  his  see. 

But  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais  was  also  Count  of  Beauvais, 
Peer  of  France,  and  a  great  territorial  lord,  with  an  exten- 
sive secular  jurisdiction.  His  manner  of  life  was  neverthe- 
less the  simplest  possible ;  and  the  vast  unfurnished  halls 
of  his  palace  proved  that  the  abundant  income  of  the  see 
was  not  spent  to  procure  ease  and  luxury  for  the  Bishop. 
The  amount  which  he  set  apart  every  year  for  fixed  objects 
of  benevolence  was  almost  incredibly  large;  a  great  hospital 
for  the  aged  and  sick  poor,  as  well  as  for  orphans,  owed 
its  origin  and  chief  support  to  his  liberality ;  and  in  the 
famine  of  1662,  he  would  have  sold  his  plate  to  supply  the 
wants  of  the  distressed,  had  not  the  city  refused  to  permit 
the  sacrifice,  and  offered  to  raise  the  requisite  funds.  In 
the  management  of  the  episcopal  estates,  he  was  gentle  and 
forbearing ;  and  it  is  recorded  as  an  example  of  rare  kind- 
ness, that  he  permitted  his  farmers  to  keep  the  game 
within  due  limits.  Before  his  time,  the  magistracies  of  the 
county  had  been  put  up  to  sale  by  the  Bishop,  as  supreme 


THE  BISHOP  OF  AXGEBS.  197 

lord ;  M.  de  Buzanval  professed  himself  willing  even  to  buy 
upright  judges,  if  they  could  be  had,  and  abolished  an 
abuse  which  was  destined  to  keep  its  hold  on  the  nation  at 
large  for  a  century  more.  He  made  it  a  matter  of  con- 
science to  be  accessible  to  every  man,  and  to  hear  in  person 
the  complaints  of  his  vassals  and  fellow-citizens ;  while  his 
dignified  courtesy  won  from  the  nobility  of  the  province  a 
respect,  which  his  other  virtues  might  have  failed  to  secure. 
He  added  to  the  character  of  the  Faithful  Bishop  that  of 
the  Christian  Gentleman.  '\Mien  in  1679,  he  died,  aged 
sixty-nine,  he  had  almost  completed  the  twenty-eighth  year 
of  his  episcopate. 

The  Bishop  of  Angers  claims  our  especial  interest  as  an 
Arnauld:  Henri,  the  second  son,  and  sixth  child  of  Antoine 
Arnauld  and  Catharine  Marion.  He  was  bom  in  1597, 
and  was  destined  to  succeed  to  his  father's  practice  at  the 
bar;  though  long  afterwards,  when  he  had  distinguished 
himself  in  the  service  of  the  Church,  it  was  remembered 
that  Francis  de  Sales  had  predicted  this  great  change  in 
his  life.*  We  are  not  informed  of  the  circumstances  which 
led  M.  de  Trie  —  as  at  this  period  of  his  life  Henri  Arnauld 
was  called — to  abandon  the  practice  of  the  law,  on  which 
he  seems  to  have  entered,  or  of  the  preparation  which 
he  made  for  entry  into  the  Church.  When  M.  Arnauld 
the  elder  died,  the  great  families  for  whom  he  had  acted 
as  agent  offered  to  continue  their  connection  with  his  son ; 
but  the  offer  was  firmly  declined  by  D'Andilly  on  his 
brother's  behalf.  Still  we  hear  nothing  of  any  such 
ardour  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  piety  as  distinguished  the 
entrance  of  Antoine  Arnauld  into  the  priesthood.  The 
time  of  worldliness  for  the  Amaulds  is  not  yet  quite 
passed ;  and  Henri  Arnauld,  instead  of  seeking  some 
village  cure,  or  drawing  eager  crowds  round  a  metropolitan 

*  Mem*  |K>iir  senrir.  rol.  i.  p.  152* 
03 


198  PORT  ROTAL. 

pulpit;  sets  out  in  1620  in  the  train  of  the  returning 
nuncio.  Cardinal  Bentivoglio,  for  Some.  There  he  lived 
for  five  years  in  the  Cardinal's  house,  exciting  high  ex- 
pectations of  the  part  which  he  was  afterwards  likely  to 
play,  as  an  ecclesiastical  diplomatist  and  minister. 

Although  called  the  Abb^  Amauld,  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  taken  orders  till,  during  his  stay  in  Some,  the  King 
gave  him  the  Abbey  of  St.  Nicholas  at  Angers.  On 
his  return,  a  canonry  in  the  cathedral  of  Toul,  together 
with  the  dignity  of  archdeacon,  was  added  to  this  pre- 
ferment; and  shortly  after  he  was  chosen  Dean  of  the 
same  chapter.  When  in  1637  the  Bishop  of  Toul  died, 
Henri  Amauld  was  unanimously  elected  by  the  chapter  to 
the  vacant  see,  and  at  the  same  time  received  the  King's 
assent  to  his  nomination.  But  a  diflSculty  arose  with  the 
Pope,  who  claimed  the  right  of  naming  the  Bishop  of  Toul ; 
and  the  election  was  never  carried  into  effect.  The  Abb^ 
de  St.  Nicholas  remained  for  some  years  longer  a  political 
churchman;  and  in  1645,  was  sent  to  Some  to  conduct 
some  delicate  negotiations  with  Pope  Innocent  X.  His 
errand  wajs  one  which  hardly  accords  with  the  conception 
of  ecclesiastical  purity,  entertained  at  Port  Soyal.  The 
last  Pope,  Urban  VIIL,  who  was  a  Barberino,  had  enriched 
his  nephews  with  a  shamelessness  of  nepotism,  up  to  that 
time  unknown  even  at  Some.  At  the  accession  of 
Innocent  X.,  the  two  cardinals  Barberini  attempted  to  stand 
their  ground.  Mazarin  had  risen  to  his  height  of  power 
by  their  help,  and  now  endeavoured  to  throw  over  them  the 
protection  of  his  government.  But  the  facts  were  too  patent, 
and  after  a  few  months,  the  cardinals,  with  their  brother 
Taddeo  Barberino,  in  whom  Urban  had  tried  to  found  a  new 
Soman  family,  fled  to  France.  It  was  to  negotiate  their 
return  that  Henri  Arnauld  was  sent  for  the  second  time  to 
Some.  The  story  of  his  success,  and  of  many  other 
negotiations  which  he  carried  on  with  the  minor  princes 


THE  BISHOP  OP  ANGERS.  199 

of  Italy,  may  be  read  in  five  Tolumea  of  his  despatches, 
which  his  great  nephew,  the  son  of  Pomponne,  published 
inl748.» 

The  year  1648,  in  which  the  Abbfi  de  St  Nicholas  returned 
from  Eome,  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  most  flourish- 
ing period  of  Port  Royal.  It  was  that  in  which  Angelique 
Amauld  led  back  a  colony  from  the  house  of  Paris  to  their 
long  deserted  home ;  the  hermit  community  was  nimierous 
and  peaceful ;  the  Five  Propositions  had  not  been  invented, 
and  the  voice  of  calumny  was  yet  low  and  powerless.  And 
while  in  1649,  Henri  Arnauld  was  in  retreat  at  Port 
Eoyal,  the  bishopric  of  Angers  was  ofiered  to  him,  no 
doubt  as  a  political  reward  for  political  service.  He 
accepted  it;  and  in  June  1650,  was  consecrated  in  the  con- 
vent church  of  Port  Royal  de  Paris.  It  is  hard  to  think 
that  his  brothers  and  sisters  did  not  feel  the  incongruity  of 
his  diplomatic  churchmanship  with  their  own  theory  of 
the  ecclesiastical  life ;  I  can  find  no  trace  in  their  corres- 
pondence of  the  exultation  which  such  an  event  might 
otherwise  have  been  expected  to  excite.  Angelique,  at  the 
new  Bishop's  express  desire,  came  from  Port  Royal  des 
Champs  to  witness  his  consecration,  but  she  spent  the  whole 
time  of  the  ceremony  in  solitary  prayer  for  him  on  whom 
so  heavy  a  charge  was  laidf  And  she  writes  to  a  friend, 
— the  only,  mention  I  find  of  the  event  in  the  letters  of  the 
Amaulds, —  "  It  is  not  my  brother  D'Andilly  who  is  Bishop 
of  Angers ;  it  is  M.  de  St.  Nicholas.  You  are  well  pleased, 
and  I  am  deeply  grieved,  fearing  lest  he  should  succumb 
under  so  terrible  a  charge,  in  a  time  when  the  disorders  of 
the  Church  are  so  terrible.  I  beg  you  to  pray  God,  that 
He  may  have  pity  upon  him."  J 

*  Rcuchlin,  Fort  Boyal,  vol  L  p.  183.    M^moircs  de  I'Abbe  Arnauld, 
p.  512,  et  seq. 

t  Mem.  pour  servir.  yoL  i.  p.  250. 
I  Lettres  d'AngcIiqae  Amaald,  vol.  i.  p.  531. 

04 


200  POET  ROYAL. 

D'Andilly  tells  us  *  that  his  brother's  retreat  at  Port 
Royal  was  only  the  prelude  to  his  final  retirement  to  his 
Abbey  at  Angers,  where  he  intended  to  pass  the  remainder 
of  his  life  in  exercises  of  piety.  However  this  may  be, 
the  new  Bishop's  conduct  testified  to  his  possession  of  the 
strong  and  earnest  character  of  his  family;  he  applied 
himself  to  the  business  of  his  diocese,  with  the  same  reso- 
luteness as  Angelique  had  set  herself,  thirty  years  before, 
to  rule  her  unwilling  nuns.  As  soon  as  he  was  consecrated, 
he  set  out  for  Angers,  and  during  an  episcopate  of  forty- 
two  years,  never  quitted  his  diocese  but  once,  and  that,  to 
aid  in  the  conversion  of  a  Protestant  nobleman  of  high 
rank.  His  life  was  ascetic;  his  labours  incessant.  He 
allowed  himself  but  four  hours'  sleep,  and  even  this  brief 
period  of  repose  was  often  broken  by  prayer.  He  exer- 
cised a  personal  superintendence  over  his  clergy ;  and  was 
at  all  times  accessible  to  every  one  who  wished  to  see  him. 
The  coxmtry  house  of  the  bishopric  was  only  two  leagues 
from  Angers,  but  he  had  held  his  see  many  years  before 
he  visited  it ;  "a  bishop ^  he  said,  "  who  wishes  to  do  his 
duty,  makes  no  journeys  except  to  visit  every  part  of  his 
diocese."  And  when  his  friends  pressed  him  to  set  apart 
one  day  in  every  week  for  rest  and  relaxation,  he  replied, 
that  **  he  would  gladly  do  as  they  wished,  if  they  could 
find  him  a  day  on  which  he  was  not  a  bishop."  f 

It  would  answer  no  good  purpose  to  narrate  the  progress 
of  the  greater  and  the  lesser  controversies  in  which  the 
Bishop  was  involved  during  his  long  residence  at  Angers ; 
to  describe  his  visitations,  to  cotmt  up  his  alms,  to  note 
his  austerities.  We  have  seen  already,  that  as  became  one 
of  his  name,  he  firmly  upheld  the  cause  of  Port  Eoyal  in 
the  debate  of  the  Formulary;  though  rather  with  the  mild 
persistence  of  Agnfes,  than  with  the  more  fiery  earnestness 

•  Memoires,  p.  419. 

t  Conf.  Da  Fosse,  p.  S95. 


THE   BISHOP  OF  ANGERS.  201 

of  Angelique  or  Antoine  Amauld.  He  would  have  acqui- 
esced in  the  Subjicimus  * ;  and  joined  with  D'Andilly  in 
recommending  the  compromise  to  their  more  controversial 
brother.  He  may  have  felt  justifiably  unwilling  to  peril 
his  station  and  influence  in  the  Church  for  so  slight  a  dis- 
tinction as  that  which  Antoine  made  the  ground  of  his 
continual  resistance;  he  had  to  answer  to  Grod  for  his 
diocese,  and  would  fain  finish  the  work  which  he  had  begun. 
We  may  conjecture,  then,  that  he  heartily  welcomed  the 
Peace  of  the  Church,  as  giving  him  the  opportunity  of  yet 
a  few  years'  labour  in  the  cause  of  Catholic  truth  and 
discipline.  He  was  already  above  seventy  when  the  Peace 
came ;  and  could  hardly  foresee  that  he  was  destined  to 
survive  the  event  almost  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  to 
witness  the  renewed  gathering  of  the  storm.  We  hear  of 
him  twice  in  these  latter  days  from  Madame  de  Sevigne. 
She  writes  from  Angers,  on  the  21st  of  September,  1684, 
"I. have  dined,  as  you  know,  with  the  holy  prelate;  his 
sanctity,  joined  with  his  pastoral  vigilance,  is  an  incompre- 
hensible thing;  he  is  a  man  of  eighty-seven  years  of  age,  and 
sustained  in  his  constant  fatigues  only  by  the  love  of  God 
and  of  his  neighbour.  I  chatted  an  horn:  with  him  in 
private,  and  found  in  his  conversation  all  the  vivacity  of 
mind  which  characterises  his  brothers;  he  is  a  prodigy 
which  I  am  delighted  to  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes." 
And  again,  on  the  8th  of  July,  1685.  "I  have  been  a 
witness  of  this  prodigy ;  I  have  received  the  benediction  of 
this  holy  man,  and  have  kissed  his  hand  with  extreme 
pleasure.  It  is  admirable  to  note  how  all  his  diocese  fears 
to  lose  him,  and  to  see  in  his  place  some  fellow  who  will 
think  only  of  pleasing  the  Bishop's  enemies ;  instead  of 
which  his  sole  thought  is  of  forgiving  all  the  aflronts 
which  they  delight  to  heap  upon  his  old  age."     Du  Fosse, 

.   •  Vol.  i.  p.  421. 


202  POET  KOYAL. 

who  visited  Angers  in  1691,  gives  us  the  last  glimpse  of 
the  good  Bishop,  now  blind,  and  struggling  with  the  weak- 
nesses of  extreme  old  age.  He  describes,  as  a  touching 
sight,  the  sadness  with  which  he  gave  his  benediction  to 
the  candidates  for  ordination,  who  were  about  to  seek 
the  sacrament,  which  he  was  now  unable  to  impart,  in 
another  diocese.*  His  mind  was  still  clear,  his  charity 
as  ardent  as  ever.  It  was  a  proverb  in  Angers,  that  to  be 
recompensed  by  the  Bishop,  it  was  only  necessary  to  do 
him  some  wrong ;  and  few  could  die  in  peace  without  his 
blessing.  The  end  came  on  the  8th  of  June,  1692,  when 
he  had  attained  the  patriarchal  age  of  ninety-five  years. 
He  left  no  property  behind  him  ;  and  in  giving  directions 
for  his  burial  in  an  obscure  part  of  his  cathedral,  com- 
manded this  simple  epitaph  to  be  placed  on  his  grave : 
"  Here  lies  Henri  Arnauld,  Bishop  of  Angers."  His  long 
life  was  almost  contemporary  with  the  History  of  the 
Eeformed  Port  Boyal.  He  was  two  years  old  when  Henri 
IV.  conferred  the  coadjutorship  upon  the  little  Angelique; 
and  the  monastery  was  rased  to  the  ground  within  twenty 
years  of  his  death. 

The  name  of  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  Etienne  Fran9ois  de 
Caulet,  introduces  us  to  the  second  great  controversy  which, 
in  the  seventeenth  century  divided  the  Gallican  Church. 
Two  of  the  four  bishops,  who  in  the  cause  of  Jansenifem 
withstood  both  Pope  and  King,  now  in  the  affair  of  the 
Eegale,  leagued  themselves  with  the  Holy  See  against  the 
whole  power  of  the  French  Church  and  State.  As  the 
struggle  was  not  without  an  indirect  influence  upon  the 
fortunes  of  Port  Eoyal,  and  is  singularly  illustrative  of  the 
peculiarities  of  Boman  Catholicism  in  France,  it  may 
receive  a  brief  treatment  in  this  place. 

The  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  like  his  brethren  of  Beauvais  and 

*  Dn  Fosse,  pp.  412, 4^0. 


THE   BISHOP  OF  PAMIEBS.  208 

of  Angers,  was  of  parliamentary  family,  not  without  its  pre- 
tensions to  noble  descent  and  station.  He  was  born  in  1 6 1 0, 
at  Toulouse,  where  his  father  was  President  of  the  provincial 
parliament  Etienne  de  Caulet,  after  passing  through  the 
hands  of  a  private  tutor,  was  sent  to  the  Jesuits'  College, 
and  then  imder  the  charge  of  M.  de  la  Fond,  Abbe  de 
Foix,  to  Paris.  Here,  while  he  was  studying  at  the  Sor- 
bonne,  his  preceptor,  with  a  generosity,  the  precise  motive 
of  which  remains  unexplained,  resigned  the  Abbey  of 
Foix  in  his  favour.  No  austere  scruples,  arising  from  a 
Jansenist  or  any  other  source,  prevented  his  acceptance  of 
the  gift ;  and  we  may  gather  from  the  cautious  admissions 
of  his  biographer,  that  the  young  Abbe  de  Foix  was  not 
less  worldly  than  other  ecclesiastics  of  his  rank  and  age. 
The  poison  could  not  however  have  penetrated  very  deeply 
into  his  nature;  for  a  strong  impression  was  soon  after 
made  upon  him  by  an  ascetic  preacher,  who  then  furnished 
lively  religious  sensations  to  the  congregations  of  Paris ;  and 
the  remonstrances  of  his  father  did  the  rest.  He  put  him- 
self under  the  direction  of  the  celebrated  P^re  Condren, 
General  of  the  Oratory,  who  fanned  the  flame  of  religious 
zeal  already  smouldering  in  his  heart,  prepared  him  for 
ordination,  and  directed  his  energies  to  missionary  labour. 
In  this  the  Abbe  de  Foix  was  not  alone.  A  number  of 
young  men,  whose  history  and  circumstances  were  not  dis- 
similar to  his  own,  had  felt  Condren's  influence,  and  were 
now  engaged  in  the  work  of  preaching,  not  without  strik- 
ing evidence  of  success.  But  before  long,  a  division  of 
opinion  arose  among  them ;  some  wished  to  continue  the 
work  in  which  they  were  already  engaged;  others  to 
establish  a  seminary  for  the  training  of  preachers  and 
parish  priests.  The  difiFerence  was  referred  to  P^re  Con- 
dren, who  decided  that  each  party  should  endeavour  to  serve 
God  in  the  way  that  seemed  to  them  best.  The  leader  of 
those  who  inclined  to  the  seminary  was  the  Ahh6  Oilier; 


204  POET  ROYAL. 

with  him  went  Caulet,  and  one  or  two  others.  Their  first 
attempt  was  unsuccessful,  the  second  met  with  a  better  fate. 
The  Cwci  of  Saint  Sulpice,  a  parish  on  the  outskirts  of 
Paris,  was  old  and  no  longer  able  to  do  his  work;  but 
struck  with  the  evident  piety  and  earnestness  of  the  young 
recluses,  oflfered  to  resign  his  cure  to  them.  An  exchange 
was  finally  effected :  the  Abbe  Oilier  gave  up  to  the  old 
man  a  priory  which  he  himself  held,  assured  him,  in 
addition,  an  annuity  from  the  revenues  of  the  parish,  and 
became  Cuii  of  Saint  Sulpice.  Here  he  and  his  friends  once 
more  set  to  work,  and  founded  an  institution  which  still 
flourishes  in  unimpaired  usefulness. 

The  energy  and  ability  of  Etienne  de  Caulet  in  this  new 
situation  attracted  before  long  the  favourable  notice  of 
Vincent  de  Paul,  who  was  often  consulted  by  the  Queen- 
mother  in  the  disposal  of  bishoprics.  About  the  end  of 
1643  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers  died ;  and  the  Queen  wished 
to  bestow  the  see  upon  some  member  of  the  new  congrega- 
tion of  St.  Lazare,  which  Vincent  de  Paul  had  founded. 
The  founder,  more  anxious  for  the  humility  and  simple- 
mindedness  of  his  new  order  than  for  its  ecclesiastical 
honour,  put  away  the  perilous  favour,  and  besought  that 
it  might  be  conferred  upon  his  firiend  the  Abbe  de  Foix. 
The  Queen  readily  assented  ;  but  not  the  Bishop  designate. 
He  was  sincerely  unwilling  to  imdertake  episcopal  respon- 
sibilities ;  and  his  leader,  the  Abbe  Oilier,  fearing  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  new  institution,  eagerly  dissuaded  him. 
At  length,  after  three  months*  delay,  the  importunity  of 
the  courts  and  the  advice  of  more  disinterested  friends, 
prevailed;  and  he  was  consecrated  in  March,  1644.  But 
the  Abb4  Oilier  never  forgave  him. 

Pamiers,  a  suffragan  bishopric  of  Toulouse,  is  a  city  of 
Languedoc,  pleasantly  situated  on*  the  river  Auvi^e, 
which,  taking  its  rise  in  the  Pyrenees,  flows  into  the  Ga- 
ronne.    To  this  remote  region  M.  de  Caulet  retired  ta 


THE  BISHOP  OF   PAMERS.  205 

spend  thirty-six  years  in  the  unintermitted  discharge  of 
episcopal  duty.     The  diocese  was  in  a  woeful  state.     The 
Huguenots  had  more  than  once  got  the  upper  hand  in 
Pamiers,  and  compelled  the  last  Bishop  to  take  refuge 
with  his  clergy  in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Foix.     Even 
the  historian  who  records  the  violence  of  the  Protestants, 
which,  he  alleges,  had  spared  neither  ecclesiastical  life  nor 
property,  admits  that  the  ignorance  and  immorality  of 
the  Catholic  clergy  were  scandalous.     The  cathedral  and 
bishop's  palace,  which  stood  at  a  little  distance  outside 
the  gates,  had  been  wholly  demolished.    The  Bishop  began 
his  work  of  restoration  by  establishing  his  own  household 
according  to  an  approved  model ;  he  dispensed  with  the 
services  of  a  pompous  train  of  domestics :  the  few  servants 
whom  he  kept  were  men  of  tried  character ;  two  or  three 
virtuous  ecclesiastics  aided  him  in  the  transaction  of  busi- 
ness, and  the  management  of  his  family ;  all  was  regularity, 
sobriety,  simplicity,  not  only  in  appearance,  but  in  spirit. 
The  whole  house  was  like  a  monastery ;  and  the  Bishop 
was  foremost  in  the  austere  uniformity  of  life,  which  he 
required  of  all  who  lived  with  him.     From  four  in  the 
morning  to  nine  at  night,  the  day  was  occupied  in  public 
or  private  prayer,  in  the  business  of  the  see,  and  in  the 
study  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  Fathers.     Twice  a  year  he 
made,  in  company  with  the  canons  of  his  cathedral,  a 
religious  retreat ;  and  every  year  exchanged  a  fortnight's 
visit  with  his  friend  and  neighboiu*  the  Bishop  of  Alet. 
Being  joint  Seigneur  with  the  king  of  the  city  and  diocese, 
he  made  provision  for  the  administration  of  justice  by 
choosing  magistrates,  to  whom,  instead  of  selling,  he  gave 
their  offices ;  and  by  establishing  regulations  of  police,  the 
character  of  which  betrayed  their  ecclesiastical  origin,  and 
which  were  not  always  sustained  by  the  parliament   of 
Toulouse.     He  founded  a  seminary  for  the  education  of 
priests,  held  synods,  visited  his  diocese  from  parish  to 


206  PORT  ROYAL. 

parish.  With  help  of  his  sister,  Catherine  de  Caulet, 
widow  of  the  Baron  de  Mirepoix,  who  belonged  to  one  of 
the  most  ancient  families  in  Languedoc,  he  established 
girls'  schools  in  every  town  and  village.  Little  by  little, 
after  encountering  a  long  and  harassing  resistance,  he  re- 
formed the  chapter  of  his  cathedral:  compelling  the 
canons,  who,  in  the  troublous  times  of  the  last  Bishop, 
had  thrown  off  almost  all  ecclesiastical  restraint,  to  live 
together,  simply  and  soberly,  and  to  apply  their  super- 
fluous revenues  to  Church  purposes.  Towards  the  Hugue- 
nots, who  were  numerous  in  Languedoc,  the  Bishop  held 
a  high  hand.  In  open  defiance,  we  must  suppose,  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  be  seized  their  church,  appropriated 
it  to  his  own  purposes,  and  obtained  a  decree  from  the 
civil  power,  which,  by  forbidding  any  Huguenot  to  sleep 
in  Pamiers  on  pain  of  a  fine,  practically  expelled  the 
whole  Protestant  population.  We  hear  much  of  his  humi- 
lity, his  indifference  to  the  world,  his  lavish  almsgiving ; 
but  there  is  an  air  of  cold  and  unloving  austerity  about 
even  his  virtues,  which  prepares  us  for  his  biographer's 
statement,  that  while  he  lived  the  people  honoured  more 
than  they  loved  him,  and  found  out  many  of  his  good 
qualities  only  when  he  was  gone. 

It  is  time  that  we  turned  from  these  details  to  the  two 
great  controversies  in  which  M.  de  Pamiers  took  a  promi- 
nent part.  In  the  earlier  years  of  his  episcopate,  he  was  so 
far  from  having  any  Jansenist  leanings  that  he  would  not 
suffer  the  doctors  of  Port  Royal  to  be  so  much  as  named  in 
his  presence;  and  the  Bishop  of  Alet,  who  was  wont  to  have 
the  "  Book  of  Frequent  Communion  "  read  to  him  as  he  sat 
at  table,  substituted  some  other  work  during  his  friend's 
annual  visit.  The  good  Pavilion  had  impartiality  enough 
not  to  sign  the  letter  asking  for  a  condemnation  of  the 
Propositions  which  the  bishops  addressed  to  Innocent  X. 
in  1650,  and  sufficient  influence  with  his  friend  to  induce 


THE   RfiGALB.  207 

him  also  to  withhold  his  signature.  Little  by  little  the 
eyes  of  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  thus  saved  from  committing 
himself,  were  opened.  He  heartily  joined  in  the  condem- 
nation of  the  "  Apologie  des  Casuistes,"  in  1657.  "WTiile 
he  was  thus  enlightened  as  to  the  theoretical  morality  of 
the  Jesuits,  he  saw  the  practical  operation  of  their  system 
in  the  obstinacy  with  which  they  thwarted  the  plans  of 
M.  d'Alet  for  the  good  of  his  diocese.  Still  his  yras  a  case 
of  gradual  conversion.  When  the  Formulary  was  first 
published,  he  yielded  to  the  solicitations  of  his  early  friends, 
and  oflfered  no  open  opposition  to  it.  It  was  only  after  a 
time,  when  one  or  two  of  the  protesting  prelates  had  given 
way,  and  as  if  to  show  that  the  final  resistance  ofifered  to 
the  king  was  a  matter  not  of  cabal  but  of  individual  con- 
viction, that  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers  took  the  position  by 
the  side  of  his  brethren  of  Beauvais,  Angers,  and  Alet, 
from  which  he  never  afterwards  moved. 

The  Peace  of  the  Church  was  concluded  in  1668 ;  the 
debate  of  the  Eegale  began  in  1673.  An  effect  and  token 
of  the  modified  independence  of  Eome  claimed  by  the 
Grallican  Church,  was  the  right  exercised  by  the  King  of 
France  of  appropriating  the  revenues  of  all  vacant  bishop- 
rics, and  of  nominating,  during  the  vacancy,  to  all  benefices 
within  the  diocese  not  having  cure  of  souls.  But  this  right, 
known  as  the  Eegale,  was  admitted  not  to  extend  to  the 
provinces  of  Languedoc,  Guienne,  Provence,  and  Dauphine, 
until,  in  the  year  above  mentioned,  Louis  XIV.  published 
an  edict  stretching  his  claims  over  every  cathedral  church 
in  the  kingdom,  except  one  or  two  which  had  special 
grounds  of  exemption.  The  bishops  of  dioceses  which  had 
not  been  hitherto  subject  to  the  Eegale  were,  by  the  same 
instrument,  required  to  take  an  oath  of  fealty,  in  default 
of  which  the  King  would  consider  that  he  had  the  same 
right  to  nominate  to  vacant  benefices  as  if  the  see  were  not 
occupied.     The  clergy  for  the  most  part  bowed  to   the 


20a  POET  EOYAL. 

royal  will ;  Caulet  of  Pamiers  and  Pavilion  of  Alet  "  un- 
happily," says  Voltaire*,  "  the  two  most  virtuous  men  of 
the  kingdom,"  resolved  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  Church. 
The  struggle  soon  began:  in  1675  Louis  intruded  a 
nominee  of  his  own  into  the  diocese  of  Alet,  in  1677  into 
that  of  Pamiers.  Then  followed  an  interminable  succes- 
sion of  letters,  protests,  appeals ;  the  King  maintaining  his 
rights,  the  bishops  defending  every  foot  of  ground  with 
equal  inflexibility. 

The  situation  was  a  strange  one.  The  same  parties 
were  engaged  in  this  conflict  as  in  that  of  the  Formulary, 
and  yet  had  changed  their  relative  position  in  a  way  which 
reminds  us  more  of  the  ever-shifting  combinations  of 
worldly  statesmen  than  of  the  steadfast  policy  of  a  Church 
which  lays  claim  to  immutability.  Then,  the  Pope,  the 
King,  the  Jesuits,  and  the  majority  of  the  French  clergy 
had  been  all  on  one  side ;  on  the  other,  only  the  Jansenists 
and  some  undefined  force  of  public  opinion  in  society  and 
the  Church.  Now,  the  two  Jansenist  bishops  stood  alone 
with  the  Pope.  The  King  drew  to  his  party  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  Galilean  clergy,  always  more 
jealous  of  papal  than  of  civil  supremacy,  and  now  deeply 
leavened  with  the  servility  of  the  age.  "  Were  the  King 
to  turn  Huguenot,"  said  the  Prince  de  Conde,  "  the  clergy 
would  be  the  first  to  follow  him."  The  Society  of  Jesus 
forgot  their  old  allegiance  to  the  chair  of  Peter  in  their 
personal  hatred  of  the  Jansenist  bishops.  The  Pope  found 
the  most  strenuous  defenders  of  his  rights  in  the  very  men 
whom  more  than  one  of  his  predecessors  had  treated  as 
heretics.  Before  long  the  quarrel  had  intertwined  itself 
with  the  tangled  thread  of  European  politics.  Louis  and 
the  Jesuits  openly  espoused  the  cause  of  James  11. ; 
Linocent  XI.  at  least  secretly  favoured  the  undertaking  of 

*  Si^cle  de  Lonis  XIY.  vol  ii  p.  300. 


THE  B£GALE,  209 

William  of  Orange.  "Men  said,"  reports  Voltaire*,  "  that 
to  put  an  end  to  the  troubles  of  Europe  and  the  Church  it 
was  necessary  that  ICing  James  should  become  Protestant^ 
and  the  Pope,  Catholic." 

The  Bishop  of  Alet  died  in  1677,  having  by  his  age  and 
virtues  escaped  any  active  persecution.  The  whole  weight 
of  resistance  now  fell  upon  Caulet,  who,  an  "  Athanaaius 
contra  mundum,"  did  not  blench.  All  the  temporalities  of 
his  see  were  seized,  and  his  request  that  this  measure 
might  not  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  usefulness  of 
his  seminary  or  the  rebuilding  of  his  cathedral,  scorufully 
disregarded.  Everything  was  taken,  even  a  few  faggots 
which  were  found  in  the  palace,  and  the  produce  of  a  little 
garden  of  potherbs.  But  the  cures  of  his  diocese  at  once 
collected  and  sent  to  him  600  livres ;  others  bought  him 
a  pair  of  mules  for  his  litter,  that  he  might  still  visit  the 
villages  in  the  mountains ;  and  many  laymen  vied  in  the 
supply  of  his  wants.  He  had  recourse  to  the  Pope ;  and 
Innocent  XI.,  mild  and  gentle  as  he  was,  showed  no  want 
of  firmness  in  upholding  his  cause.  But  the  end  was  not 
far  oflf ;  and  the  King  knew  it  He  could  afford  to  wage 
war  with  something  like  moderation  against  two  Bishops, 
each  of  whom  had  passed  his  seventieth  year.  On  the 
8th  of  August,  1680,  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers  died,  after 
having  ruled  his  church  for  thirty-six  years.  Henceforward 
the  King  could  address  himself  to  the  struggle  with  the 
Pope,  undisturbed  by  the  thought  of  dissension  in  the 
Gallican  Church. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  more  than  the  briefest  account 
of  the  subsequent  progress  of  the  controversy.  The  French 
clergy,  in  their  successive  assemblies,  supported  the  King 
in  strong  and  still  stronger  declarations ;  till  in  that  of 
1682,  they  adopted  the  famous  "Four  Articles,"  the  Bill 

*  Sidde  de  Louis  XIV.  toI.  u.  p.  30S. 

VOL.  n.  p 


210  PORT  BOTAL. 

of  Sights  of  the  Ghtllican  Church.     The  first  declared  that 
^'  kings  and  sovereigns  are  not  subject  to  any  ecclesiastical 
power,  by  GKxi's  order,  in  temporal  things ;  that  they  can- 
not be  deposed  directly  or  indirectly  by  the  authority  of  the 
heads  of  the  Church ;  that  their  subjects  cannot  be  released 
from  the  submission  and  obedience  which  they  owe  to  them, 
or  be  absolved  from  their  oaths  of  fidelity."  The  second 
maintained  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Constance  against 
the  absolute  supremacy  of  the  Pope ;  the  third  affirmed  the 
inviolability  of  the  Gtdlican  usages.    The  fourth  went  still 
further,  asserting  that  the  decisions   of  the  Pope  were 
not  incapable  of  amendment,  until  confirmed  by  the  uni- 
versal assent  of  the  Church.  Innocent  retaliated  by  refusing 
bulls  to  any  ecclesiastic  present  at  the  assembly  of  1682, 
who  had  been  subsequently  raised  by  the  King  to  the  epis- 
copate ;  Louis  once  more  rejoined  by  prohibiting  all  newly 
appointed  Bishops,  whether  parties  to  the  adoption  of  the 
"  Four  Articles"  or  not,  to  apply  to  Home  for  their  bulls. 
So  from  year  to  year  the  quarrel  grew  more  bitter.     In 
1689,  Alexander  Yin.,  in  1691,  Innocent  XIL,  ascended 
the  papal  chair.    New  occasions  of  offence  continually 
embittered  the  original  dispute ;  and  the  whole  weight  of 
the  papacy  was  cast  into  the  scale  of  European  policy, 
adversely  to  the  influence  of  France.    Thirty-five  French 
Bishops  were  at  last,  in  default  of  the  Pope's  sanction  to 
their  appointment,  unable  to  perform  any  episcopal  func- 
tion :  the  King  had  seized  Avignon,  a  part  of  the  papal 
territory,  and  imprisoned  the  nuncio;  the  Pope,  on  his  side, 
had  excommunicated  the  French  ambassador.     Only  one 
step  more  was  necessary  to  complete  the  schism,  and  that, 
it  was  reported,  Louis  was  ready  to  take.    Men  were  begin- 
ning to  look  for  the  erection  of  France  into  a  separate 
Patriarchate^  independent  of  the  see  of  Bome,  and  the 
nomination  of  Harlay,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  as  the  first 
Patriarch,  when  all  at  once  the  King  gave  way.    It  was 


THE  BISHOP  OF  ALET.  211 

all-important  for  him  to  detach  the  Pope  from  the  great 
combination,  which  mider  William  III.,  threatened  the 
European  supremacy  of  France,  The  Bishops  designate, 
who  had  not  been  concerned  in  the  adoption  of  the  "  Four 
Articles,"  were  permitted  to  solicit  and  to  receive  their  bulls 
from  Eome.  Those  who  were  more  guilty  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Pope  made  a  private,  individual,  equivocal  submission, 
and  were  cajionically  installed.  The  King  withdrew  the 
edict,  which  rendered  instruction  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
"  Four  Articles "  compulsory  in  all  schools  and  colleges. 
Still  the  victory,  though  indisputably  on  the  side  of  the 
Pope,  was  not  without  its  drawbacks.  The  "Four  Articles  " 
had  been  publicly  adopted :  they  were  never  publicly  re- 
pudiated. The  obligation  was  not  replaced  by  a  prohibi- 
tion to  teach  them,  and  they  remained  the  doctrine  of  a 
large  part  of  the  Grallican  Church.  Once  more  it  was 
seen  that  a  clear  and  honest,  settlement  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
controversy  is  an  almost  impossible  thing.* 

The  Bishop  of  Alet  is  the  true  Jansenist  Saint.  His 
virtues  were  more  patent  to  the  world  than  St.  Cyran's,  his 
life  contemporaneous  with  the  troubles  and  glories  of  the 
party.  He  was  not  one  of  the  little  knot  of  friends  and 
kinsfolk  who  formed  the  nucleus  of  French  Jansenism,  but 
had  been  reared  in  an  independent  and  half  hostile  school  of 
theology ;  so  that  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Port  Eoyalists 
magnified  him  as  a  convert,  he  did  not  attract,  on  the  other, 
the  bitterest  rancour  of  their  enemies.  He  belongs  more 
to  the  Grallican  Church  at  large,  and  less  to  a  sect  or 
party  in  it,  than  any  of  the  famous  men  whom  we  have  yet 
encountered ;  those  who  were  swayed  by  the  most  opposite 
theological  prejudices  united  in  revering  his  virtues,  and  if 
he  had  not  been  a  Jansenist,  he  might  have  been  a  saint. 

*  Gnettee,  Hutoire  de  l*Egli8e  de  France,  vol.  zi.  book  ix.  chaps,  i.  ii.  iii. 
Baake,  History  of  the  Popes,  toL  ii.  p.  419,  ei  seq, 

F  2 


?12  POET  BOTAU 

There  are  many  saints  in  the  calendar^  who  could  with  ad- 
vantage be  displaced,  to  make  room  for  St.  Nicholas  of  Alet. 

Nicolas  Pavilion  was  born  at  Paris^  in  the  year  1597. 
His  family  was  respectable,  though  not  noble ;  and  ^his 
father  and  mother  kept  a  grave  and  pious  household.  The 
boy,  destined  from  his  earliest  years  to  the  service  of  the 
Church,  was  sent  to  pursue  his  secular  studies  in  the  college 
of  Navarre,  where,  while  yet  in  the  lowest  classes,  he  re- 
ceived the  tonsure.  Once  more  we  come  upon  the  trace  of. 
the  incurable  irregularity  of  *the  Boman  Catholic  Church. 
The  parents  of  Nicolas  Pavilion,  who  are  described  as 
sober,  Grod-fearing  people,  had  not  seen  any  impropriety  in 
providing  for  their  son,  by  procuring  for  him  a  canonry  ia 
the  Cathedral  of  Condom,  which,  by  and  bye,  was  exchanged 
for  an  annuity  chargeable  on  its  revenues.  When,  in 
later  life,  a  severer  theory  of  ecclesiastical  morality  con-« 
vinced  the  annuitant  of  the  wrong  to  the  Church  involved 
in  such  an  arrangement,  he  at  once  gave  up  his  claim. 

While  yet  young.  Pavilion  fell  under  the  influence  of 
St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  who  was  then  founding  his  cele- 
brated congregation  of  the  Mission,  The  ardent  phi- 
lanthropist undertook  the  young  man's  spiritual  direc- 
tion, invested  him  with  some  degree  of  ecclesiastical 
authority  by  giving  him  8ub*deacon's  orders,  and  employed 
him  in  teaching  and  catechising  in  the  prisons  of  the 
capital.  The  sermons  of  St  ("rancis  de  Sales,  when  on  his 
second  visit  to  Paris  in  1618-19  *,  completed  the  impression 
made  by  Vincent  de  Paul :  and  when  the  elder  Pavilion 
wished  to  follow  up  the  canonry  of  Condom,  by  buying  for 
his  son  the  office  of  Boyal  Almoner,  the  young  man 
refused,  alleging  that  he  wished  to  pass  his  life  in  preach- 
ing the  gospel  to  the  poor*  It  was  perhaps  from  the  mis^ 
taken  idea^  that  for  this  work  a  complete  and  scientific 

•  Vol  L  p.  90, 


tHE  BISHOP  OF  ALET.  2l3 

Study  of  theology  is  unnecessary,  that  he  declined,  in  oppo* 
sition  to  his  father's  wishes,  to  enter  the  Sorbonne,  and 
prepared  himself  for  the  priesthood  by  private  reading, 
especially  of  the  works  of  St.  Thomas.  He  became  in  this 
way  one  of  Vincent  de  Paul's  most  efficient  helpers  in  the 
missions  of  Paris;  preaching,  holding  meetings  for 
charitable  purposes,  presiding  at  religious  conferences  in 
connection  with  the  house  of  St.  Lazare,  and  forming  the 
minds  of  those  who  were  aspiring  to  join  in  the  same 
labours. 

He  had  been  engaged  in  the  performance  of  this  obscure 
work  for  many  years,  when  suddenly  a  ray  of  royal  favour 
shone  upon  him.  In  1637  it  chanced  that  D'Andilly,  then 
in  full  activity  as  mediator  between  Church  and  Court, 
heard  one  of  his  sermons.  His  praise  of  it  induced  the 
Duchesse  d'Aiguillon,  niece  of  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  to 
find  out  the  plebeian  preacher  and  his  church.  The  Prin- 
cesse  de  Cond^  went  with  her ;  and  all  at  once  Pavilion 
was  a  fashionable  orator.  Those  who  went  merely  to 
gratify  an  idle  curiosity  remained  to  repent  and  pray ;  and 
the  all-powerful  cardinal,  whom  his  niece  kept  waiting 
for  his  dinner,  sent  for  Pavilion,  and  offered  him  the  vacant 
bishopric  of  Alet.  He  refused  it  stoutly ;  was  even  un- 
willing to  take  the  week's  grace  which  the  Cardinal  pressed 
upon  him.  All  his  friends  urged  him,  at  first  in  vain,  to 
accept  the  offer.  He  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
leave  the  work  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  which  was  plainly 
prospering  in  his  hands.  At  last  he  was  somewhat  shaken 
by  the  solemn  address  of  his  master.  "I  will  rise  up 
against  you  at  the  last  judgment,"  said  Vincent  de  Paul, 
**  with  the  souls  of  the  diocese  of  Alet,  who  will  perish  for 
want  of  the  instruction  which  you  have  refused  to  give 
them.  It  is  to  those  unknown  lands,  to  those  frightful 
mountains,  that  the  true  zeal  of  the  house  of  God  ought 
to  lead  you."    Presently,  in  deference  to  the  judgment  of 

p  3 


214  PORT  BOTAL. 

others^  Pavilloa  gave  way.  He  had  always  wished,  he 
said,  to  be  a  village  curate :  Grod  had  fulfilled  his  desire 
in  making  him  a  village  bishop. 

On  account  of  some  disagreement  between  the  Court  of 
France  and  the  Holy  See,  the  bishop  designate  did  not 
receive  his  bulls  for  two  years.  He  spent  the  time  in 
strict  seclusion  at  St.  Lazare,  preparing  himself  by  study 
and  prayer  for  his  new  office.  Twice  only  he  left  his 
retreat;  once  to  preach  before  the  cardinaly  and  again 
before  the  King.  The  honest  severity  of  his  admonitions 
was  variously  received  at  court ;  some  caught  the  preacher's 
philanthropic  ardour,  others  sought  to  lower  him  in  the 
royal  esteem.  Louis  XIII.  had  manliness  enough  of  his 
own  to  appreciate  the  Christian  n^anliness  of  Pavilion, 
and  silenced  his  detractors  by  offering  him  the  richer  and 
more  attractive  see  of  Auxerre.  But  Pavilion  answered 
*^  that  he  did  not  belong  to  himself,  but  to  the  Church 
of  Alet ;  and  that  from  the  moment  when  his  Majesty  had 
judged  him  necessary  to  the  good  of  that  diocese,  he  was 
no  longer  permitted  to  abandon  it"  At  last  the  bulls 
came :  he  was  consecrated  at  St.  Lazare  on  the  festival  of 
the  Assumption,  1639 ;  and  on  the  8th  of  October  of  the 
same  year  set  out  for  Alet.  The  journey  occupied  three 
weeks.  When  he  reached  his  destination  he  was  heard 
to  repeat  the  words  of  the  132nd  Psalm  —  "This  is  my 
rest  for  ever ;  here  will  I  dwell,  for  I  have  desired  it." 

The  city  could  not  have  presented  a  very  cheerful  ap- 
pearance to  Parisian  eyes.  It  lies  at  the  foot  of  the 
l^yrenees;  and  the  diocese'  extends  to  the  boundary-line 
]t)etween  France  and  Spain.  To  reach  the  town  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  pass  through  a  long  defile  in  the  moimtain,  cut 
by  a  torrent,  by  the  side  of  which  a  narrow  road,  which 
in  the  seventeenth  century  was  hardly  passable  for  a 
wheeled  carriage,  had  been  made.  I  quote  the  following 
description  of  it  from  the  account  of  a  pilgrimage  made 


THE  BISHOP  OF  ALET.  215 

by  Lancelot  and  Brienne  to  Alet  in  1667.  The  narrative 
was  sent  by  Lancelot  to  La  M^e  Ang^lique  de  St 
Jean.* 

"The  frightful  passage  of  the  mountain  defile,  which  is 
about  half  a  league  in  length,  makes  the  appearance  of 
this  little  town  somewhat  more  attractive.  The  first  ob- 
jects that  meet  the  eye  are  a  new  stone  bridge  with  three 
fine  arcades,  and  the  Bishop's  psJace,  which  consists  of  a 
large  building  erected  by  the  old  abbots,  where  there  is  a 
garden,  together  with  a  very  beautiful  terrace,  which  runs 
all  along  the  river :  but  this  is  all  that  there  is  beautiful 
in  Alet. 

"  When  we  arrived,  the  gate  of  the  town,  which  is  not 
finer  or  larger  than  that  of  your  monastery,  was  closed, 
like  that  of  a  private  house ;  and  we  learned  that  this  was 
compidsory  at  all  festivals,  that  no  carriage  might  enter. 
This  was  Sunday.  We  remarked  so  great  a  modesty  in 
all  the  people,  who  were  pretty  numerous  in  the  streets, 
that  I  think  we  could  have  recognised  Alet  by  this  alone, 
if  we  had  happened  to  have  been  there  without  knowing 
it 

"  The  to,wn  is  small,  but  neat  All  the  streets  are  narrow, 
but  all,  even  to  the  least,  paved  and  very  clean.  There  is 
a  great  covered  market  in  the  middle.  There  are  no  faux- 
bourgs,  and  the  circuit  of  the  walls  appeared  to  me  to  be 
not  much  greater  than  that  of  your  monastery.     .... 

"  The  mountains  which  bound  it  on  the  north  and  west 
are  very  precipitous.  To  ascend  them  is  an  hour's  walk 
for  a  robust  person ;  and  the  road  is  very  steep  and  straight 
They  are  fully  eight  or  ten  times  higher  than  yours;  being 
separated  from  the  palace  only  by  the  river,  that  is,  by  a 
short  stone's-throw.  Those  on  the  east  are  a  little  less 
steep ;  and  those  on  the  south  make  an  opening,  which 

*  Belation  d*an  Voyage  fait  k  Alet,  &c.    M^m.  de  Lancelot,  vol  ii. 

"  4 


216  VOnr  BOYAL* 

gives  sufficient  light  to  the  town,  because  they  ascend 
gradually,  but  nevertheless  in  such  a  way,  that  you  find 
nothing  but  mountains,  one  piled  upon  another,  as  far  as 
the  boundaries  of  Spain."  • 

The  diocese  of  Alet  is  one  of  three — Alet,  St.  Papoul,  and 

Mirepoix — which  were  endowed  by  Pope  John  XXII.  from 

the  revenues  of  an  ancient  and  celebrated  Benedictine  abbey 

at  the  first-named  place*     When  Pavilion  arrived  there^ 

there  was  work  enough  before  him  to  satisfy  the  most 

eager  appetite.     The  town  was  half  in  ruins ;  the  cathedral 

had  been  burnt  by  the  Huguenots,  so  that  mass  was  cele«< 

brated  in  the  refectory  of  the  Benedictine  monastery ;  and 

the  roof  of  the  Bishop's  house  let  in  the  rain,  which  had 

made  its  walls  green  and  its  floors  rotten.     The  episcopal 

city  contained  only  six  hundred  communicants ;  and  the 

revenues  of  the  see  would  not  furnish  forth  a  moderate 

English  rectory.     For  more  than  a  hundred  years  the 

bishopric  of  Alet  had  been  held  in  commeTtdcmi  by  other 

prelates,  three  of  whom  had  been  members  of  one  family* 

In  1622  a  M.  Polverel  had  been  appointed,  who,  however, 

died  before  receiving  his  bulls.     His  brother,  a  captain  of 

cavalry,  applied  for  and  received  the  benefice,  which  he  kept 

till  his  death  in  1637.     Strange  stories  were  told  of  him. 

He  did  not  know  Latin  from  Spanish.     He  had  bought 

more  than  one  ecclesiastical  office  about  the  Court,  and 

passed  most  of  his  time  in  Paris.     When  he  visited  his 

diocese,  he  did  not  reside  at  Alet,  but  at  a  country  house, 

where  he  had  a  mistress  and  a  family,  for  whom  he  provided 

out  of  his  church  patronage.     Such  was  the  man  whom 

Nicolas  Pavilion  succeeded.    It  is  said  that  the  clergy  of 

Alet,  as  ignorant,  dissolute,  and  worldly  as  their  head,  had 

some  presentiment  that  these  pleasant  times  of  license 

could  not  last,  and  found  all  their  fears  realised  in  the 

*  Lancelot,  yoL  ii.  p.  385, 


STATE  OF  THE  DIOCESE.  217 

appointment  of  a  Bishop  from  St.  Lazare.  Vows  and 
prayers,  they  thought,  could  nevertheless  save  them  from 
the  necessity  of  decent  and  sober  living ;  so  they  made  all 
manner  of  promises  to  the  Virgin  if  she  would  only  defend 
them  against  the  new  Bishop ;  and  caused  a  picture  to  be 
painted,  in  which  they  were  represented,  as,  clad  in  their 
surplices,  they  preferred  this  unique  request  at  the  feet  of 
their  protectress.  It  would  be  difficult  to  illustrate  more 
completely  the  moral  blindness  of  superstition. 

The  new  Bishop  began  by  forsaking  the  coimtry  house, 
in  which  his  predecessors  had  lived,  and  establishing  him*' 
self  with  one  or  two  trustworthy  ecclesiastics  in  the  dila-* 
pidated  palace  at  Alet.  His  next  step  was  to  visit  every 
parish  of  his  diocese,  in  order  to  inform  himself  of  its 
spiritual  state.  The  survey  must  have  brought  to  light 
some  strange  facts,  for  his  first  effort  of  practical  reform 
had  for  its  object  the  instruction  of  the  clergy  in  the 
simplest  truths  of  religion.  He  divided  the  diocese  into 
six  districts,  in  each  of  which  fortnightly  meetings  of  the 
parish  priests  were  held,  presided  over  by  ecclesiastics  of 
approved  learning  and  orthodoxy.  The  principal  mysteries 
of  Christianity,  and  the  fundamental  moral  and  ceremonial 
duties,  were  the  subjects  of  discussion  at  these  conferences ; 
while  elementary  works  on  Catholic  doctrine  were  at  the 
same  time  distributed  among  the  clergy.  Every  month  the 
Bishop  drew  up  a  ])aper  of  theological  questions,  which  was 
given  to  the  ])arish  priests,  and  answered  before  the  next 
conference.  These  answers  having  been  examined  and 
approved,  formed  in  due  order  the  subjects  of  pulpit  and 
catecheticcd  instruction  on  the  Sundays  and  festivals ;  and 
the  whole  matter  was  condilcted  with  such  regularity,  that 
one  truth  or  dut^was  simultaneously  explained  or  enforced 
in  every  church  in  the  diocese.  By  these  means  the  zeal 
and  learning  of  the  Bishop  were  made  to  compensate  for 
the  defects  of  his  subordinates;  the  teachers  themselves 


218  POBT  BOYAIi. 

were  gradually  taught^  and  a  guarantee  was  obtained  for 
the  maintenance  of  sound  doctrine. 

M.  d' Alet's  first  asaistantB  in  this  work  were  three  priests 
of  the  Mission,  whom  Vincent  de  Paul  had  sent  with  him 
into  Languedoc.  But  before  long  he  discovered  that  eccle- 
siastics accustomed  to  a  monastic  life  were  ill  fitted  to 
instruct  those  who  had  a  parochial  cure  of  souls,  and  so 
found  means  to  replace  them  by  instruments  better  suited 
to  his  purpose.  A  connection  which  he  afterwards  formed 
with  the  Jesuits  lasted,  in  like  manner,  but  a  few  years : 
the  society  has  always  been  noted  for  its  impatience  of 
episcopal  control,  and  did  not  belie  its  reputation  at  Alet. 
But  at  the  very  first  the  Bishop  had  established  a  school 
and  a  seminary,  which,  in  due  time,  began  to  bear  fruit ; 
while  the  report  of  the  apostolic  simplicity  and  self-denial 
of  his  life,  as  well  as  of  the  great  things  which  he  was 
doing  in  Alet,  soon  attracted  brave  and  capable  soldiers  to 
his  standard.  The  list  of  those,  who  gave  up  the  prospect 
of  advancement  in  other  dioceses  to  labour  imder  the  good 
Bishop  among  the  Pyrenean  rocks,  is  not  ahort  Many 
laymen,  even,  retired  to  Alet^  content  to  occupy  the 
humblest  stations  in  the  Church's  service;  M.  de  la  Roque, 
a  gentleman  of  birth  and  fortime,  tilled  the  garden  of  the 
seminary;  and  another,  of  like  station,  kept  a  village 
school.  Some,  at  least,  of  the  Bishop's  clergy  imbibed  his 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  One,  who  outlived  him,  was  known  to 
have  exchanged  his  benefice  for  one  of  much  inferior  value, 
that  he  might  work  in  the  place  which  most  seemed  to 
need  his  peculiar  powers.  M.  Taffoureau,  the  next  Bishop, 
was  asked  one  day  if  hehad  not  found  some  remains  of 
Jansenism  in  his  diocese.  He  told,  in  answer,  the  story  of 
this  good  cur^,  and  said,  ''These  are  the  remains  of 
M.  Pavilion's  Jansenism,  which  I  jealously  preserve,  and 
which  are  the  consolation  of  my  ministry." 

Regular  episcopal  inspections  constituted   a   part  of 


VISITATIOira,  SYNODS,  MISSIONS.  21ir 

M.  Pavilion's  machinery  for  the  oversight  of  his  diocese. 
Every  parish  in  turn  was  solemnly  visited.  The  ceremony 
began  with  mass ;  after  which  the  Bishop  preached  on  the 
gospel  of  the  day,  or  on  that  of  the  preceding  Sunday, 
adapting  his  remarks  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  place.  The  sermon  was  interpreted  by  the  cure  into 
the  dialect  of  the  province ;  after  which  the  state  of  the 
parish  was  minutely  reviewed;  wants  supplied,  scandals 
abated,  penances  prescribed.  This  lasted  for  several  days, 
till  the  visit  ended,  as  it  had  begun,  in  an  episcopal  exhoi^ 
tation.  Besides  this,  all  the  cures  were  summoned,  once 
a  year,  to  Alet,  to  meet  the  Bishop  in  synod.  As  many  as 
possible  were  lodged  in  the  palace :  the  rest  were  received 
as  guests  by  citizens  of  Alet,  as  it  was  a  rule  that  no  priest 
should  be  seen  in  a  house  of  public  entertainment.  After 
high  mass  had  been  said,  the  first  day  of  the  synod  was 
occupied  by  an  address  from  the  Bishop  on  the  various 
duties  of  parish  priests.  On  the  second,  complaints  were 
received,  difficulties  resolved ;  the  irregular  were  reproved, 
the  feeble  encouraged.  On  the  third  day  a  mass  was  said 
for  the  repose  of  those  who  had  died  since  the  synod 
of  the  preceding  year;  questions  relative  to  the  tem- 
poralities of  the  clergy  were  discussed,  and  syndics  and 
deputies,  who  were  to  have  charge  of  these  matters  for  a 
year,  were  appointed.  Then  the  cur&  were  dismissed,  with 
a  final  exhortation  firom  the  Bishop. 

At  the  time  x)f  Jubilee,  and  on  some  other  great  occa- 
sions, an  extraordinary  effort  was  made  to  glean  the  ears 
which  had  escaped  the  regular  reapers.  This  was  called  a 
mission.  The  way  was  prepared  by  public  prayers  for  the 
success  of  the  enterprise,  throughout  the  diocese ;  and 
every  cur6  was  instructed  to  dispose  the  minds  of  his 
parishioners  to  receive  the  missionaries.  These  were  about 
forty  in  number ;  many  of  them  ecclesiastics  whom  the 
Bishop  had  procured  from  Toulouse  or  even  from  Paris ; 


220  PORT  ROYAL. 

others  connected  with  his  own  household  or  with  the  semi- 
nary- Before  proceeding  into  their  several  districts,  they 
all  took  a  solemn  leave  of  one  another  and  the  Bishop, 
who,  on  his  part,  stationed  himself  at  some  central  spot^ 
where  he  was  within  easy  reach  of  all.  The  mission  usually 
lasted  from  a  fortnight  to  three  weeks.  Kegular  religious 
instruction  was  given  to  the  people  during  a  large  part  of 
each  day ;  and  every  house  and  family  was  visited,  that 
private  opportimities  of  exhortation  might  not  pass  unused. 
Quarrels  were  made  up  without  the  assistance  of  the  law ; 
cases  of  conscience  were  resolved;  evil  habits  corrected, 
pressing  wants  relieved.  If  we  may  trust  the  historian, 
from  whom  we  have  so  often  quoted,  the  moral  reform  at 
which  the  missionaries  aimed  wad  deep  and  thorough. 
"They  disabused  them  of  the  popular  error,  that  they 
would  be  deprived  of  the  benefit  of  the  Jubilee,  if  they 
did  not  receive  absolution,  and  communicate  during  the 
fortnight  or  three  weeks  that  it  lasted.  They  incessantly 
repeated  to  them,  that  the  conversion  of  the  heart  is  the 
essential  thing,  and  that,  as  great  maladies  are  not  cured  in 
a  day,  much  time  and  labour  are  necessary  to  effect  a  solid 
and  durable  conversion."  •  And  he  adds,  that  after  a  time 
a  considerable  moral  amendment,  and  an  edifying  discipline, 
were  visible  in  the  diocese. 

One  of  the  Bishop's  most  useful  labours  was  the  establish^ 
ment  of  an  organised  system  of  female  education.  Like 
most  other  successful  organisations  it  began  from  a  small 
seed,  and  only  gradually  grew  to  embrace  the  whole  diocese. 
Madame  de  Bonnecaire,  a  pious  ¥ddow  of  Alet,  who  was 
eager  to  engage  in  works  of  charity,  was  induced  by  the 
Bishop  to  become  the  mistress  of  a  girls'  school  in  that 
city.  He  took  a  great  interest  in  its  success ;  drew  up  a 
code  of  regulations;  and  made  it  an  opportunity  of  addres- 

*  Yiea  des  Qaatre  ET^qaes,  vol  i.  p.  SO. 


GIRLS'  SCHOOLS.  221 

sing  the  married  and  single  women  of  Alet^  on  the  duties 
pecnliax  to  their  sex.  For  some  yeaxs  this  was  the  only 
girls'  school  in  the  diocese.  Then^  when  the  Demoiselle 
de  Montazels,  a  young  lady  of  good  birth,  took  a  fancy  to 
become  a  nun,  and  applied  to  M.  d'Alet  to  recommend  a 
convent  to  her,  he  told  her  that  she  would  better  fulfil  her 
Christian  duty  by  teaching  the  poor  girls  in  the  village,  of 
which  her  father  was  seigneur.  The  advice  was  taken; 
and  Madlle.  de  Montazels,  in  spite  of  much  ridicule 
and  opposition,  persevered  in  her  work.  By  and  bye  she 
was  imitated  by  others  of  her  age  and  station;  till  the 
Bishop  thought  it  advisable  to  train  his  volunteers,  and 
established  a  kind  of  female  seminary  at  Alet,  under  the 
presidency  of  Madame  de  Bonnecaire,  to  which  they  might 
resort  for  instruction  and  advice. 

The  schoolmistresses  were  divided  into  two  classes. 
Those  of  the  first  class  were  stationed  in  the  country  parishes 
during  nine  months  of  the  year,  and  returned  to  Alet  only 
in  the  harvest  time,  when  their  scholars  were  busy  in  the 
fields.  The  second  class  were  a  kind  of  reserve,  who  were 
at  home  in  the  establishment  at  Alet,  and  remained  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Bishop  for  any  special  emergency.  All  wore 
a  secular  habit ;  were  bound  by  no  vows ;  and  did  not,  even 
at  Alet,  observe  any  monastic  seclusion.  But  their  habits 
of  life  were  the  simplest  possible ;  they  received  no  visits, 
except  from  their  near  relations ;  and  were  immediately 
and  personally  dependent  upon  the  bishop.  Those  in  the 
coimtry  were  not  permitted,  to  visit  the  cur&,  or  to  under- 
take any  offices  about  the  Church,  which  might  brin^  them 
into  communication  with  them ;  if  it  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  speak  to  the  parish  priest^  it  might  be  only  in  the 
church,  and  in  the  presence  of  some  decent  matron.  In 
addition  to  the  instruction  of  the  children,  the  mistresses 
catechised  the  women  and  elder  girls  on  Sundays  and 
festivals ;  taking  care,  however,  to  adhere  strictly  to  the 


223  FOBT  BOTAL. 

written  instractions  of  the  Bishop.  They  yisited  &e  mck 
and  relieved  the  wants  of  the  poor^  for  which  purpose  tlie 
mistress  of  the  seminary  supplied  them  with  suitable  cloth* 
ing  from  a  central  stordiouse. 

M.  d'Alet  was  often  tempted  by  the  success  of  his 
scheme,  and  the  solicitations  of  his  friends,  to  erect  his 
little  body  of  schoolmistresses  into  a  recognised  community. 
The  organisaticm  had  spread  into  the  dioceses  of  Toulouse 
and  of  Pamiers;  and  had  he  been  disposed  to  imitate 
most  founders  of  orders,  might  easily  have  extended  much 
further.  But  he  said  that  '^  communities  always  de- 
generate :  that  one  must  do  the  good  which  lies  near  at 
hand,  and  leave  the  future  to  Providence ;  and  that,  be- 
sides, he  did  not  think  it  reasonable  to  charge  his  successor 
with  young  women^  who  perhaps  might  not  conduce  to 
the  true  well-being  of  the  diocese,  or  to  oblige  virtuous 
young  women  to  serve  an  ill-intentioned  Bishop.*  Such 
self-abnegation  is  not  common  in  any  church,  and  is  es- 
pecially not  of  the  kind  which  Boman  Catholicism  en- 
forces.* 

M.  Pavillcm  was  one  of  those  who  thought  that  the 
elevated  station  and  special  duties  of  a  Bishop  did  not 
absolve  him  from  the  minutest  peitsonal  attention  to  all 
his  flock.  **  A  Bishop,**  he  was  wont  to  say,  "is  the  sun 
of  his  diocese,  and  ought  to  give  light  and  warmth  to 
every  part  of  it"  Only  a  few  days  after  his  arrival  at 
Alet,  he  struck  the  key-note  to  which  aU  his  subsequent 
conduct  was  attuned.  Walking  through  the  town,  he  saw 
apoor  man  in  the  agonies  of  death  lying  on  a  wretched 

^L""^  ^"^^  ""^  ""^^^  ^''^  ^^  ^  attendants  to  fetch 
a  bed.  The  reply  was,  that  they  had  not  had  time  to 
procure  the  necessary  furniture,  and  ihnt  the  Bishop's 
own  household  had  hardly  beds  to  lie  on.     «Theufetc£" 


s 


Coot  Ltticdot,  ToL 


iLp.408,efMg. 


*i 


THE  BISHOP  S  CHARITY.  223 

rejoined  M.  d'Alet,  "  the  mattrass  of  my  own  bed,  for  I 
cannot  leave  this  poor  wretch  in  the  state  in  which  I  see 
him."  So  when  his  share  of  his  fether's  property  came  to 
him,  and  his  near  relations  not  only  entertained,  but  ex- 
pressed the  hope,  that,  using  the  income  as  he  pleased,  he 
would  reserve  the  principal  for  the  benefit  of  his  family, 
he  answered  only  by  sending  orders  to  Paris  to  dispose  of 
the  whole,  and  applying  the  proceeds,  no  less  than  40,000 
crowns,  to  the  relief  of  his  people  in  a  year  of  famine.  t 

Nor  was  his  charity  bounded  by  his  own  diocese.  When 
the  plague  was  raging  in  Toulouse,  he  sent  to  the  sufferers  • 

not  only  a  considerable  pecuniary  gift,  but  a  large  diamond, 
which  he  had  inherited  from  his  mother,  and  which  had  ^ 

hitherto  been  used  to  adorn  the  Host     His  own  clothes  n 

were  in  tatters  from  very  age ;  and  he  denied  himself  even  | 

necessary  books.     His  Bible  was  worn  out  with  use ;  and  i 

when  some  friends  remonstrated  with  him  on  the  state  of 
his  breviary,  which  woidd  hardly  hold  together,  "  It  is 
true,"  he  replied ;  **  but  a  new  breviary  would  be  worth 
at  least  fourteen  or  fifteen  livres,  and  in  the  meantime 
some  poor  man  might  perhaps  want  a  blanket.  I  had 
rather  that  the  poor  man  had  the  preference,  and  I  still 
use  my  old  breviary."  • 

In  1651  the  plague  broke  out  in  Languedoc  At  the 
first  news,  the  bishop  set  out  for  the  village  where  the 
sickness  had  begun ;  devoted  all  his  time  and  strength  to 
raise  the  coun^e,  and  supply  the  wants,  .of  the  sick ;  and 
never  left  the  district  till  the  malady  had  spent  its  force. 
The  inhabitaats  of  Alet  selfishly  complained  of  his  con- 
duct, and  expressed  their  fears  that  he  would  bring  the 
infection  to  them:  he  silenced  them  by  threatening  to 
take  up  his  permanent  abode  in  the  afflicted  part  of  his 
diocese.     Need  it  be  said  that  his  example  was  as  con- 

♦  Lancelot,  toI.  ii.  pp.  400 — 404. 


aa4  POBT  BOYAL. 

ta|,-iotis  as  the  plague,  and  that  many  of  the  cures  <Ued 
»nmifultv  at  their  post  ?     So,  on  another  occasion,  sicto     , 
*lie  r^wlt  of  fimine,  broke  out  in  Capsir,  a  li«Je  distioc 
^^l^h  up  in  the  Pyrenees,  on  the  very  frontier  of  k. pa    - 
ta^lie  iguomiit  people  imagined  that  it  had  been  caused    y 
»«ri^rv;  a  w'lm  man  of  Carcaasone   was   sent  for,    who, 
*»**.ving   be^n   promised  a  reward  of  a   hundred   crowns, 
^^^lect^l  from  the  inhabitants  of  five  parishes  thirty-two 
"•^^^r^-i^i^yen  whom  he  accused   of  witchcraft.        The  P^P^ 
^^^^^SKLmcti  teiuent  ii^is  great ;  the  magistrate  of  the  district  shared, 
^^  ^    ^t  I^^t  did  not  attempt  to  stem  it ;  the  unhappy  women 
^^^s^i-^^.^r^   tlmivtn  into  prison,  and  the  only  question  was  as  to 
*^   *         -     sf^n^rity  .  f  their  punishment.     The  cur&,  in  despair, 
-^^   _      ^*Iii.xl  to  Hit?  rural  dean;  and  he,  in  hot  haste,  sent  for 
^-*^^^      Hishop.     It  was  winter,  and  the   anow  fell  thickly; 
i^^*^  ^^^     XL  a  Ah  t.  when  he  arriTed  at  the  foot  of  the  mouB- 
^— ^^  ^  *^»^.    wn$  w^ut^  by  those  who  were  accustomed  to  the 
te-  th^  it  ^^  impossible  to  proceed.       But  life  was  at 
t^,    md   ht  w«nt  on.     After  m   time  even  the  guide 
r^  K«.«^l  Uok ;  hut  the  rural  de^n  knew  the  country,  and, 
'-».L^«tt|>aidt\i   by  him,   and    by    two    stout    serronts,    the 
^Mm^^fi^  sxdi  pmsed  fvionnunL     During  the  two  first  days, 
^L'^M.n  chry  \!ix^iv  <>n  horseback^  they  only  aooomplished  four 
*^r^^**?*si  ^m  tli«  third  they  wei«   obliored  to  proceed  on 
^-—        ^MAfcii  «kvu|%itHi  nearly   the  whole   day  in   stroggKi^g 
.--^^^^^r^    fl*nv  niil^      The  Hishop^s  reward  was,  that  he 
mM^^    U\>  bt«.     The  unirersal   re^^i^nce  in  which  he 
A%^p^l%l   liisfx^xl  the  inhabitants  to   hear  him;  a  few 
*.^rvW  i\t'  OkHumtMk  siNfcse  brv^vurht  the  impostor  to  his 
^\%i  x^^t  a  full  cvHifeiastoQ^  be  was  banded  ofer  to 
^t  Miuth^wiim  Rir  puiusiuuent* 
w       JUibofh^  bottsehixld  m^  iY^:uUted    in  accordance 
m^  IffMM^  pruictpl««s  of  ncti^      His  ol^ect  was  to 
i%     *!^*  *^  |^>«ible  like    n    monasterr,  where 
Q|r^  wMtttiT,  obedience  to  fixed  xules^  moold  the 


THB  BISHOP'S  HOUSEHOL1> 

225 

^e  from  day  to  day  into  a  pious  monotony .       His   serv 
^ere  carefully   chosen   from   candidates    for     ordinltion^ 
>^hen  not  otherwise  engaged,  their  time  was  spent  in  stndy  • 
^d  they  were  uniformly  clad  in  a  talf-ecclesi^stic^  garb 
-fte  looked  upon  them  all  as  his  children,  and   took  the' 
liveliest  interest  in  the  formation  of  their    religious   cha- 
'■a^^r;  80  that  it  was  not  uncommon  for  good    families  of 
tfa^  province  to  ask  admission  for  their  children  into  the 
Bf  chop's  household.     All  rose  at  five  o'clock,  and  the  day 
wc»-^  hegun  and  ended  with  prayer.     As  in  a  monastery, 
coirr:3iinunication  with  the  world  outside   was   strictly  for- 
\A^den,  and  a  hook  of  devotion  was  read    aloud   during 
^^Ty  meal.     Grames  of  chance  were  not  permitted,  but  on 
oundays  and  festivals,  until  vespers,  the    servants  were 
allowed  to  divert  themselves  with  ball  and  skittles.      The 
^isbop^s  own  habits  were  of  the  simplest.     His  clothing, 
^  ^^U-niture  of  his  house,  the  ornaments  of  his  church, 
"^"^^  Poor  even  to  meanness  ;  all  that  he  could  spare  after 
the  8U]f3pjy  of  the  barest  necessities  was  the  inheritance  of 
^^  poor.      He  ate  but  Uttle  ;  and  his  table  was  so  frugally 
^"^PpHeci,    th&t  a  country  cook,  whose  talents  at  the  best 
^erenoi;    very  remarkable,  left  his  service  in  fear  of  for^ 
S^ttiQgi^:i8  business. 

It  was    ^^^  be  expected  that,  remote  and  ^^'"'^^^^^^^ 
^^^  K^j^t,  many  persons  should  resort  to  the  go  ^^^ 

'^^^^'^^gj^uija  advice  and  consolation.     In  his  ^^^^^j^^^,,^^ 

^J  of  theza.     ia   naanifest  a  practical  good  b^^^.^^^^^^.    "^^ 
consistent  -v^tb    tbe    monastic  theory  of  his   ^     \veT  n^^^sc^^ 
^^^e8eeii/a.«:3W  be  sent  JbladUe.  de  Montazel^  *^oxL»:^«e^  X 
^^^h  and    ^Biept  1^1.  de  la.  Roque  out  of  the  gextXNKa^ 

till  the  aem.  ^^naxy   garden.       So  when   a  nol>*  /sV^^"^  ^^ 

^^-  Montfeasr^»>x^  ^®  ^  i^ejan,  who  had  come    *^^^e?     A«^ 
"^^^^^^QL^^SiSfc.^^  dehop's    direction,  wished,  after     .^^iW^^^ 
^^"^^,1o  tak^  orders,  He  gently  swd,  **  Yoti     ^^j^^^lX^^ 
hetter  to  remain  as  you  axe,  and  live  like  a  C*^ 
JOU  JL  ^ 


226  POBT  EOYAL. 

encouraged  him  to  devote  himself  wholly  to  the  educa4iion 
of  his  son.  So  also  the  Comte  de  Fenelon  and  his  wife 
made  a  retreat  at  Alet;  and  the  former  becoming,  like  M. 
de  la  Pejan^  a  widower^  wished  to  enter  the  ecclesiastical 
state.  The  Bishop  replied, ''  that  he  had  five  little  children ; 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  bring  ihem  up  and  provide  for 
them  according  to  their  condition ;  that  to  dispense  with 
this  duty  very  extraordinary  tokens  of  God's  will,  which 
he  did  not  see  in  him,  were  needful ;  and  that  therefore 
he  could  not  in  conscience  abandon  a  certain  duty  to 
follow  a  movement  of  zeal  and  piety  which  did  not  accord 
with  it"  We  shall  see,  when  we  come  to  speak  in  another 
place  of  the  Bishop's  most  illustrious  penitents^  the  Prince 
and  Princesse  de  Conti,  that  he  would  not  permit  the 
former  to  resign  the  government  of  Languedoc,  and 
directed  his  thoughts  away  from  the  monastic  life  to  the 
duty  of  making  reparation  for  the  misery  caused  by  the 
Princes'  War.  He  dealt  diflferently  with  those  who  had 
already  taken  ecclesiastical  obligations  upon  themselves. 
It  was  to  him  that  the  celebrated  Abbe  de  Banc^,  the 
reformer  of  La  Trappe,  turned  for  advice  when  he  first 
resolved  to  abandon  his  gay  and  luxurious  life  in  Paris, 
and  did  not  yet  know  how  he  should  best  serve  Grod.  He 
held  five  rich  benefices ;  how  should  he  compensate  to  the 
poor  for  the  wrong  which  he  had  done  them  in  applying  the 
revenues  of  the  Church  to  his  own  pomp  and  pleasure  ? 
M.  d'Alet  thought  well  to  deal  at  first  gently  with  such  a 
penitent,  and  advised  him  to  sell  his  patrimony,  and  to 
expend  the  proceeds  in  charity.  From  Alet,  De  Ranc^ 
went  to  Pamiers.  He  told  Caulet  that  his  neighbour  was 
a  pitiless  man,  and  had  deprived  him  of  all  he  had,  except 
his  Church  preferment  "  Alas,  yes,"  said  M.  de  Pamiers, 
"  M.  d'Alet  18  a  strange  man.  But,  M.  I'Abbe,  how  many 
benefices  have  you?"  "Five,"  was  the  reply;  ** three 
abbeys  and  two  priories."      "As  for  me,"  rejoined  the 


VEXATIONS.  227 

Bishop,  "  I  say  that  M.  d'Alet  has  treated  you  too  indul- 
gently ;  if  you  had  come  to  me  I  should  have  reduced  you 
to  a  single  benefice."  The  one  benefice  which  De  Ranee 
kept  was  La  Trappe.* 

At  the  same  time  the  Bishop  was  not  without  his  vexa- 
tions.     The   secular   clergy  bore  with   a  bad  grace   his 
vigorous  measures  of  reform ;  the  regulars  and  the  mendi- 
cants rebelled  against  his  strong  assertion   of  episcopal 
authority ;  the  gentry  of  the  province  resented  his  plain 
denunciation  of  their  vices,  and  the  watchfulness  of  his 
ecclesiastical  police.     He  had  a  firm  faith  in  the  powers  of 
the  Church;   excommunication  was  a  weapon  which  he 
freely  used  against  his  enemies;  and  his  conceptions  of 
what  was  fitting  for  a  Christian  country  seemed  to  have 
been  derived  rather  from  Geneva  than  from  Home.     He 
put  down  not  only  duelling  but  dancing;  and  we  read  in 
Lancelot's  approving  paget,of  a  sound  flogging  administered 
to  a  young  gentleman,  just  leaving  the  school  of  Alet,  who 
was  convicted  of  having  kissed  a  pretty  girl,  as  well  as 
danced  with  her.     There  is,  however,  no  doubt  that  in  the 
main  the  Bishop  waged   a  righteous  war  against  many 
abiises  and  iniquities  of  long  standing ;  and  the  result  was 
the  formation  of  a  league  by  the  gentry  and  clergy, — each 
of  whom  bore  a  proportion  of  the  expense, — to  throw  legal 
obstacles  in  his  way,  and  to  weary  out  his  perseverance  by 
pursuing  him  from  court  to  court.     At  last,  after  a  long 
litigation,  the  dispute  came  before  the  King,  who  appointed 
a  mixed  commission  of  clergy  and  laity  to  examine  and 
decide  upon  it.    The  Bishop,  whose  affidavits  were  drawn 
up  by  Antoine  Arnauld,  fell  back  upon  the  Council  of 
TVent ;  absolution  had  not  been  postponed,  or  refused  in 
the  diocese  of  Alet,  except  in  cases  mentioned  in  the  canons 
of  that  council ;  and  ecclesiastical  censures  had  never  been 

♦  Conf.  Lancelot,  vol.  ii.  p.  390,  et  seq. 
t  Vol.  ii.  p.  432. 


228  PORT  EOYAL. 

employed,  except  when  absolutely  necessary.  After  thirty- 
two  sittings  the  commission  pronounced  judgment  in  his 
favour. 

M.  Pavilion  had  at  first  no  Jansenist  prejudices.  He 
had  come  from  the  school  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  who  was 
hardly  more  than  a  half  friend  of  St.  Cyran,  and  distin- 
guished himself  by  his  animosity  against  his  disciples.  He 
had  entirely  devoted  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the 
internal  affairs  of  his  diocese,  and  was  not  prepared,  by  any 
preeminence  of  theological  learning,  to  pass  judgment  on 
nice  questions  of  grace  and  predestination.  But  when,  as 
early  as  1643  or  1644,  Vincent  de  Paul  endeavoured  to 
excite  his  old  disciple  to  hostility  against  the  Book  of 
Frequent  Communion,  he  had  the  honesty  to  reply  that 
the  work  related  to  a  practical  matter,  of  which  he  thought 
himself  qualified  to  judge ;  that  it  had  appeared  to  Hm 
orthodox  and  edifying ;  and  that,  "  as  he  could  not  but 
respect  the  doctrine,  he  left  the  judgment  of  the  method 
to  Grod,  who  alone  can  judge  of  the  intentions  of  men." 
So  in  1650  he  refused  to  sign,  and  prevented  his  neighbour 
the  Bishop  of  Pamiers  from  signing,  the  letter  of  the 
French  Bishops  to  the  Pope,  complaining  of  the  doctrine 
contained  in  the  Augustinus.  Little  by  little,  we  hardly 
know  by  what  process  of  conversion,  he  came  to  range 
himself  entirely  on  the  side  of  the  Jansenists,  who  derived 
an  unexpected  strength  from  his  already  established  repu- 
tation as  "  the  father  and  model  of  the  Grallican  bishops." 
I  have  before  related  how  he  was  the  first  of  the  Four 
Bishops  to  oppose  the  Formulary ;  the  last  to  yield  to  any 
suggestion  of  compromise.  As  long  as  he  was  inflexible 
the  cause  of  Port  Royal  was  safe ;  no  peace  could  be  made 
without  him.  His  distance  from  the  capital,  the  poverty 
of  his  see,  the  apostolic  simplicity  of  his  life,  all  added 
weight  to  his  authority.  He  had  never  visited  Paris  since 
he  first  left  it  for  Alet;   and  is  recorded  once  to  have 


THE   RITUAL  OF  ALET.  229 

replied  to  a  peremptory  mandate  of  the  King  that  he  should 
appear  at  court,  to  answer  certain  charges  which  had  been 
preferred  against  him,  that  "  he  was  busy  with  the  affairs  of 
his  diocese,  and  could  not  come."  Now,  this  seclusion  cor- 
responded with  the  wishes  of  the  Jansenist  leaders,  in 
keeping  him  from  the  temptations  of  enemies  and  the  bad 
advice  of  foolish  friends.  So  he  became  more  and  more 
closely  united  with  Port  Eoyal.  The  nuns,  sent  him  their 
handiwork  in  token  of  their  veneration,  and  received 
prayers  and  relics  in  return.  He  professed  the  utmost 
admiration  of  their  great  doctors.  *^  We  knew  nothing," 
he  said,  "  before  we  knew  MM.  de  Port  Eoyal ;  and  we 
cannot  sufficiently  praise  God  for  having  caused  us  to  know 
them."* 

I  have  already,  in  speaking  of  the  Bishop  of  Pamiere, 
described  the  position  which  M.  d'Alet  took  up  in  regard 
to  the  Segale.  ^Tien  the  dispute  broke  out  he  was  already 
seventy-six  years  of  age;  and  he  died  before  it  had  attained 
its  full  virulence.  He  escaped,  therefore,  the  more  active 
measures  of  persecution  which  were  taken  against  his 
neighbour  and  ally ;  though  the  consciousness  that  in  his 
old  age  he  was  distrusted,  and  thwarted  in  all  his  plans 
for  the  good  of  his  diocese  by  the  civil  power,  and  the 
belief  that  the  bishops  of  the  southern  provinces  were 
weakly  giving  up  rights  of  the  Church,  which  only  he  and 
Caulet  had  the  courage  to  defend,  must  have  been  suffi- 
ciently bitter.  He  seemed  fated  to  pass  his  latter  years  in 
controversy,  though  his  opponents  often  changed  sides,  and 
it  was  now  with  the  Pope,  now  with  the  King,  that  he  con- 
tended- At  the  very  crisis  of  the  debate  on  the  Formu- 
lary, in  1667,  he  published  a  Ritual,  in  which  he  had 
digested  into  a  whole  the  body  of  theological  instructions 
which   he  had,  during  so  many  years,  provided  for  his 

f*  Lancelot,  vol.  ii  p.  425. 


230  POET  BOTAL. 

diocese.  In  this,  which  was  the  undoubted  right  of  every 
bishop,  he  was  assisted  by  the  Jansenist  leaders ;  Amaold 
and.De  Barcos  are  each  mentioned  as  sharing  the  respon- 
sibility, if  not  the  absolute  authorship,  of  the  book.  All  at 
once  Clement  IX.,  who  had  abready  ascended  the  papal  chair, 
published  a  bull,  Tnotii  propriOy  in  which  he  condemned 
the  Eitual  of  Alet  in  the  severest  terms,  excommunicated 
all  its  readers,  and  ordered  every  Bishop  to  seize  and  bum 
it,  wherever  foimd.  A  few  months  earlier  the  bull  might 
have  accorded  with  the  public  opinion  of  at  least  a  part  of 
the  French  Church ;  but  at  the  moment  of  its  publication 
every  one  was  longing  for  peace.  It  was  received  therefore 
in  silence,  and  not  officially  published,  either  by  the  nuncio 
or  the  court ;  while  the  Bishop,  by  the  advice  of  his  friends, 
prepared  a  second  edition,  in  which  some  slight  alterations 
were  made,  and  which  was  preceded  by  the  approbation  of 
twenty-eight  prelates.  The  Pope  again  protested,  and  the 
King  forbade  the  edition.  But  the  prohibition  must  have 
been  well  understood  to  be  only  a  matter  of  form ;  the 
impression  was  distributed;  and  M.  d'Alet  controverted 
the  allegations  of  the  Pope  in  a  long  pastoral.  The  dis- 
cussion was  ended  by  the  death  of  Clement  IX.  in  1670.* 

The  dispute  of  the  Regale  was  growing  every  day  more 
bitter,  when  in  1 677,  the  Bishop,  now  in  his  eightieth  year, 
was  warned  of  his  approaching  death  by  an  attack  of  paxa- 
lysis.  He  partook  of  the  sacraments  secretly,  in  order  to 
avoid  an  excitement  which  might  hinder  him  in  the  per-< 
formance  of  his  final  duties,  and  then,  gathering  up  all 
his  strength,  wrote  for  the  last  time  to  the  Pope  and  the 
King.  To  the  former,  he  recommended  his  unhappy  dio- 
cese, in  which  he  already  saw  his  life's  work  undone ;  and 
implored  Innocent  XI.  to  repair  the  wrong  which  Clement 
IX.  had  inflicted  upon  him  in  the  condemnation  of  his 

*  Conf.  Gacttee,  vol.  x.  p.  409;  toI.  si.  p.  44. 


.    DEATH.  231 

Bitual.  To  the  latter^  he  firmly  and  respectfully  defended 
his  resistance  to  the  royal  orders,  and  demanded  the  resto- 
ration of  three  ecclesiastics  who  had  been  sent  into  exile 
for  "obeying  the  commands  of  their  Bishop.  Then  he  lay 
down  to  die.  A  second  attack  of  paralysis  finished  the 
work  of  the  first ;  and  though  leaving  his  mind  untouched, 
took  away  the  power  of  speech  and  motion.  He  tried  in 
vain  to  say  a  word  of  farewell  to  the  people  of  Alet, 
who  pressed  in  to  see  him  once  more.  His  friends  the 
Bishops  of  Pamiers  and  St.  Pons  attended  him  during  the 
few  days  through  which  he  lingered,  watching  with  mourn- 
ful love  the  perfect  submission  with  which  he  waited  for 
the  moment  of  dissolution.  It  came  on  the  8th  of  Decem- 
ber. He  had  paased  his  eightieth  year,  and  had  filled  for 
thirty-nine  years  the  see  of  Alet.  In  compliance  with  his 
own  wishes,  the  place  of  his  burial  was  marked  by  no 
epitaph. 


Q4 


232  POBT  KOYAL. 


IV. 

MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE. 

In  speaking  of  Singlin's  Buccess  as  a  confessor,  and  of  the 
negotiations  which  ended  in  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  I 
have  already  mentioned  the  name  of  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville.  The  time  has  now  arrived  when  it  is  necessary  to 
narrate  the  story  of  her  adventurous  life,  and  to  attempt 
to  portray  her  character.  But  her  royal  birth,  her  dazzling 
beauty,  the  all-powerful  fascination  of  her  manners,  the 
vicissitudes  of  her  private,  no  less  than  of  her  political 
life,  her  loves,  her  sins,  her  repentance,  her  misfortunes, 
as  well  as  the  various  forms  of  French  society,  from  the 
Hotel  de  Eambouillet  to  Port  Royal,  with  which  her  name 
is  inseparably  connected, — all  furnish  brighter  colours  and 
a  more  living  grace  to  the  picture  than  my  art  can  repro- 
duce. The  magic  of  her  charms  has  not  lost  all  its  might 
even  yet ;  for  M.  Victor  Cousin,  who  seeks  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  social  life  of  this  period  a  relaxation  from 
severer  labours,  traces  her  career,  and  defends  her  memory 
with  so  anxious  a  zeal,  as  to  provoke  the  smiles  of  more 
dispassionate  critics.  And  the  student  of  Port  Royal  needs 
to  guard  his  impartiality  against  the  disturbing  influences 
of  gratitude  to  one  who  succoured  the  community  in  the 
hour  of  its  deepest  distress,  and  procured  for  it  that  brief 
Indian  summer  of  peace  which  preceded  the  final  winter 
of  its  destruction.* 

*  I  mast  acknowledge  a  special  debt  ofgratitade  for  the  materials  of  the 
following  chapter  to  M.  V.  Cousin's  two  Tolamcs  on  Madame  de  LongncTille, 


THE   HOUSE  OF  CONDfi.  238 

Anne  Genevieve  de  Bourbon  Cond^  daughter  of  Henri, 
Prince  de  Cond6,  was  born  on  the  29th  of  August,  1619. 
The  royal  house  of  Bourbon,  which  has  won  and  lost  so 
many  European  thrones,  parted  from  the  main  line  of  the 
Capetian  dynasty  in  the  person  of  Robert  de  Clermont, 
sixth  son  of  Louis  IX.  The  first  Bourbon  Kng  of  France, 
Henri  IV.,  who  ascended  the  throne  after  the  extinction 
of  the  house  of  Valois  by  tlje  murder  of  Henri  III.  in 
1589,  was  the  son  of  Antoine  de  Bourbon,  Due  de  Ven- 
dome,  and  of  Jeanne  d'Albret,  daughter  and  heiress  of  the 
King  of  Navarre.  From  his  son,  Louis  XIIL,  descend,  as 
is  well  known,  the  elder  and  the  younger  lines  of  Bourbon 
royalty :  the  elder,  now  directly  represented  only  by  the 
Comte  de  Chambord,  the  titular  Henri  V. ;  the  younger, 
or  line  of  Orleans,  which  survives  in  the  numerous  children 
of  Kng  Louis  Philippe.  But  besides  these  there  has 
existed,  till  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation, 
a  third  Bourbon  family,  that  of  Cond6.  Antoine  de 
Bourbon,  the  father  of  Henri  FV.,  had  a  younger  brother 
Louis,  who  became  the  ancestor  of  a  race  which  flourished 
in  uninterrupted  splendour  at  the  head  of  the  French 
nobility,  till  it  was  extinguished  by  the  judicial  murder  of 
the  Due  d'Enghien  in  1804,  and  the  mysterious  death  of 
his  aged  father,  the  Prince  de  Conde,  in  1830.  The  head 
of  this  family  was  honoured  with  the  title  of  First  Prince 
of  the  Blood,  and  was  known  in  French  society  as,  par 
excellence^  M.  le  Prince. 

The  younger  as  well  as  the  elder  branch  of  the  Bourbons 
was  originally  Protestant.     Louis,  first  Prince  de  Conde, 

to  those  entitled  *'La  Society  FraD^aise  aa  xTii*  Si^Ie,"  &c,  and  to  that 
on  Madame  de  Sabl^.  For  the  most  part,  I  have  followed  his  track  in  the 
contemporary  memoirs;  but  some  of  his  MS.  materials,  as  well  as  the 
bright  light  with  which  the  yigour  and  beauty  of  his  style  surronnd 
the  whole  subject,  are  peculiar  to  himself.  I  have  to  regret  that  his 
labours  on  Madame  de  Longueville  are  yet  incomplete,  and  that  in  an 
important  part  of  her  career  I  have  been  deprived  of  his  guidance. 


234  PORT  EOYAL. 

uncle  of  Henri  IV.,  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Jarnac,  in 
1568 ;  his  son  Henri  died  suddenly,  not  without  suspidon 
of  poison,  in  1588,  before  the  conversion  to  Catholicism 
of  the  head  of  his  house.  Henri,  second  of  that  name^ 
a  posthumous  child,  was  educated  by  his  royal  cousin 
and  guardian  in  the  old  faith.  His  youth  and  dependent 
position  precluded  him  from  taking  any  conspicuous  part 
in  the  politics  of  Henri  IVJfi  reign ;  and  his  life,  till  his 
marriage  in  1609,  was  wholly  uneventfuL  In  that  year 
appeared  at  court  a  young  lady  of  extraordinary  beauty, 
Charlotte  de  Montmoren^i,  daughter  of  the  Constable  of 
France.  Though  only  in  her  fifteenth  year,  her  charms, 
which  contemporary  portraits  still  preserve  for  the  admira^ 
tion  of  posterity,  excited  a  violent  passion  in  the  breast 
of  the  King,  who  engaged  in  her  pursuit  with  an  ardour 
which  left  decency  and  good  sense  far  behind.  He  broke 
off  a  marriage,  in  which  he  surmised  that  the  lady's  heart 
might  be  engaged,  and  proposed  to  her  parents  an  alliance 
with  the  Prince  de  Conde.  They,  nothing  loth,  accepted 
the  offer  of  so  splendid  a  match ;  and  the  King  imagined 
that  he  had  made  the  first  step  towards  the  attainment 
of  his  wishes,  in  marrying  Charlotte  de  Montmorenpi  to  a 
man  whom  she  did  not  love.  But  Cond6  was  no  com-*> 
plaisant  husband.  He  accepted  the  King's  gifts  as  due  to 
his  own  position  near  the  throne,  and  kept  jealous  watch 
over  his  wife.  It  is  no  part  of  our  subject  to  detail  the 
amorous  follies  of  the  King:  after  a  time  CondS  grew 
weary  of  the  contest,  and  secretly  carried  off  his  wife  to 
Brussels,  where  he  was  received,  by  the  representatives  of 
the  Pope  and  of  the  King  of  Spain,  with  royal  honours. 
Henri's  rage  at  the  lady's  escape  was  boundless ;  he  would 
listen  to  no  counsel  but  that  of  his  own  passions ;  first  a 
private  and  then  a  public  embassy  was  sent  to  demand  the 
surrender  of  the  fugitives ;  and  it  is  even  said  that  a  plan 
was  entertained  of  kidnapping  the  princess,  and,  with  or 


BIRTH.  235 

without  her  husband,  bringing  her  back  to  Paris.  In  the 
meantime,  Conde  and  his  wife  were  compelled  to  change 
their  place  of  refuge  again  and  again,  till  they  finally  took 
shelter  in  Milan,  the  governor  of  which  city  was  supposed 
to  be  more  resolutely  hostile  to  France  than  any  other  of 
the  King  of  Spain's  servants.  Hither,  too,  they  were  pur- 
sued by  the  extravagant  resentment  of  Henri,  who  was  just 
about  to  renew  the  war  with  Spain,  not  least  upon  this 
most  frivolous  of  pretexts,  when  the  knife  of  Bavaillac  cut 
short  his  career  in  1610.  His  death  was  the  signal  for 
Conde's  prompt  and  almost  triumphant  return.  When  he 
rode  into  Paris,  he  was  escorted  by  fifteen  hundred  gentle- 
men, among  whom  were  some  of  the  first  noblemen  of  the 
kingdom. 

The  King  was  only  nine  years  old,  and  a  possibility  of 

great  power  seemed  to  open  itself  to  the  first  prince  of  the 

blood.    Before  long  we  find  that  he  incurred  the  jealousy 

of  the  Queen-Segent,  Marie  de  Medipis,  by  the  influence 

which  naturally  waited  on  his  birth  and  age,  and  her  anger, 

by  his  opposition  to  the  policy  of  her  favourite  the  Mar^chal 

d'Ancre.     She  watched  her  opportimity  with  true  Italian 

craft,  and  in  1616  suddenly  arrested   Conde  and   threw 

him  into  the  Bastille,  whence,  not  long  afterwards,  he  was 

transferred  to  Vincennes.      Here,  mindful  of  his  wife's 

beauty,  and  of  the  perils  which  his  honour  had  already 

ruQ^  he  summoned  her  to  be  the  companion  of  his  captivity ; 

and  she,  with  a  sense  of  conjugal  duty,  in  which  love  is 

said  to  have  had  but  little  share,  obtained  permission  to 

obey  the  call,  upon  the  hard  condition  of  remaining  an 

inmate  of  the  prison  for  the  whole  uncertain  period  of  her 

husband's  confinement.  During  the  three  years  of  her  dreaiy 

sojourn  at  Vinceimes  she  gave  birth  to  several  children,  of 

whom  only  one,  the  heroine  of  our  tale,  was  born  alive,  on 

the  29th  of  August,  1619.     Two  months  after  her  birth, 

Conde  was  liberated.    His  eldest  son,  Louis,  known  during 


236  POET  EOYAL. 

his  father's  lifetime  as  Due  d'Enghien,  and  to  all  future 
generations  as  the  Great  Conde,  was  bom  in  September, 
1621;  his  only  other  child^  Armando  Prince  de  Conti,  in 
1629.* 

Of  Madlle.  de  Bourbon's  childhood  no  particulars  are 
recorded.  That  she  was  carefully  educated  is  more  than 
probable,  for  we  know  that  the  training  to  which  her 
elder  brother  was  subjected  was  both  judicious  and  severe. 
The  vicissitudes  of  her  father's  fate  ceased  with  her  birth  ; 
he  left  behind  him  at  Vincennes  all  his  plans  of  political 
ambition,  and,  naturally  grasping,  henceforth  turned  every 
energy  in  the  direction  of  private  advantage.  When 
Richelieu  appeared  upon  the  scene,  Conde  was  sufficiently 
.  keen-witted  to  see  that  no  royal  favourite  was  so  safe  an 
ally  as  the  Cardinal,  who  governed  the  weak  King  by  every 
other  agency  than  that  of  personal  affection.  Accordingly, 
through  all  the  troubles  of  the  reign,  the  Prince  de  Conde 
becomes  richer,  and,  in  a  subordinate  degree,  more  power- 
ful ;  till  at  last  he  marries  his  eldest  son  to  a  niece  of  the 
minister,  and  buys  with  the  match  an  army  with  which 
the  Due  d'Enghien  wins  the  battle  of  Rocroi.  There  was, 
indeed,  trouble  enough  in  the  family  of  his  wife,  as  noble 
and  once  almost  as  powerful  as  his  own.  In  1627  a  near 
kinsman,  Montmoren9i-Bouteville,  was  beheaded  in  the 
common  place  of  execution,  the  Place  de  Gr^ve,  for  havin^r 
fought  a  duel  in  open  defiiance  of  a  royal  edict.  In  1632 
Due  Henri  de  Montmorenpi,  the  brother  of  the  princess, 
mounted  the  scaffold  at  Toulouse.  He  had  conspired  with 
the  king's  brother,  Gtiston,  Duke  of  Orleans,  against  the 
authority  of  Richelieu;  and  throughout  France  all  who 
writhed  uneasily  under  that  iron  yoke  pitied  and  bewailed 
the  fate  of  so  gallant  a  cavalier,  the  head  of  a  princely 

♦  Villcfore,  Vie  de  Had.  de  LongoeTiUe,  pp.  1—4,  21—28.  V.  Cousin, 
La  Jeunepse  de  Mad.  de  Longneville,  pp.  65—67.  Tallemant  de  Beaux, 
Historiettes,  vol.  i.  p.  175,  et  teq. 


THE  CAEMELITES.  237 

bouse,  and  still  in  the  bloom  of  manly  strength  and 
beauty.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  rage^  the  grief,  the 
mortification  which  such  an  event  must  have  aroused  at 
the  Hotel  de  Cond6 ;  especially  if,  as  is  not  unlikely,  the 
princess  resented  that  selfish  policy  of  her  husband  which 
made  him  the  tool  of  the  power  which  had  remorselessly 
crushed  her  brother.  Madlle.  de  Bourbon,  then  thirteen 
years  of  age,  heard  the  sad  story  of  her  uncle's  death  with 
all  the  agitated  sensibility  of  a  romantic  girl  just  treading 
on  the  verge  of  womanhood ;  and  taking  a  truly  Soman 
Catholic  view  of  the  matter,  resolved  to  quit  for  ever  a 
world  where  such  tragedies  were  enacted. 

In  the  Fauxbourg  St.  Jacques,  at  Paris,  stood  a  convent 
of  Carmelite  nuns,  which  at  this  period  emulated  Port 
Royal  in  the  severity  of  its  discipline  and  the  virtues ,  of 
its  superiors.  The  ancient  order  of  Carmel  had  been  re- 
formed in  Spain,  by  St.  Theresa,  about  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century;  and  in  1602,  Madame  Acarie,  a  lady 
whose  saintly  fame,  as  great  as  that  of  Angelique  Arnauld, 
is  darkened  by  no  suspicion  of  heresy,  introduced  the  re- 
generated institution  into  France.  The  Princesses  of  the 
house  of  Longueville  were  the  first  founders  of  the  con- 
vent in  the  Rue  St.  Jacques ;  but  the  Princesse  de  Conde 
had  also  been  among  its  earliest  benefactors,  and  had  a 
room  in  the  house  appropriated  to  her  use,  whither  from 
time  to  time  she  was  wont  to  retire  for  purposes  of  religious 
meditation.  An  intimate  friendship  had  thus  sprung  up 
between  the  Carmelites  and  the  ladies  of  the  Hotel  de 
Conde ;  a  friendship  honourable  on  both  sides,  for  the 
convent  had  not  yet  declined  from  the  simplicity  of  St. 
Theresa's  rule,  and  many  of  the  sisters  were  not  only 
pious,  but  educated  and  refined  women.  Such  were  the 
friends  to  whom  Madlle.  de  Bourbon  communicated 
her  project  of  retiring  from  the  world,  and  with  whom  she 
designed  to  take  refuge.     In  all  likelihood  they  fed  the 


240  POET  EOTAL. 

which  they  had  of  her  discernment,  made  her  admired  by 
all  gallants,  who  were  convinced  that  her  esteem  was 
alone  sufficient  to  give  them  a  reputation.  If  she  ruled 
their  minds  in  this  way,  the  influence  of  her  beauty  was 
not  less  powerful :  for  although  she  had  had  the  small- 
pox since  the  Regency,  and  had  lost  some  little  of  the 
perfectness  of  her  complexion,  the  splendour  of  her  chanxLS 
attracted  all  who  saw  her;  and  above  all,  she  possessed  in 
a  sovereign  degree  what  the  Spanish  language  expresses 
by  the  words  ^donayrCy  brio^  y  hizaria^  (bon  air,  air 
^ant):  she  had  an  admirable  figure;  and  the  grace  of 
her  person  possessed  an  attraction,  the  power  of  which 
extended  even  to  our  sex.  It  was  impossible  to  see  her 
without  loving  her,  and  desiring  to  please  her.  Her 
beauty,  nevertheless,  consisted  more  in  the  hues  of  her 
countenance  than  in  the  perfection  of  its  features.  Her 
eyes  were  not  large,  but  beautiful,  sweet,  and  brilliant; 
and  their  blue  was  admirable  —  it  was  like  the  colour  of 
a  turquoise.  Poets  could  not  compare  the  white  and  red 
of  her  £Eice  even  to  lilies  and  roses;  and  her  fair  and 
silvery  hair,  accompanying  so  much  else  that  was  wonder- 
ful, made  her  much  more  like  an  angel — such  as  the  weak- 
ness of  our  nature  permits  us  to  imagine  them — than  a 
woman."  She  was  naturally  indolent  both  in  body  and 
in  mind :  but  the  first  sat  upon  her  only  like  a  graceful 
languor,  and  the  second  heightened  the  effect  of  those 
flashes  of  wit  and  sound  judgment  to  which  she  sometimes 
roused  herself.  She  appecured  to  be  indifferent  to  pleasing, 
and  yet  pleased  everybody.  Few  could  withstand  her 
entreaties  and  caresses ;  while  those  to  whom  she  turned 
the  nobler  side  of  her  nature,  repaid  her  with  a  life-long 
love.  She,  on  the  other  hand,  would  make  any  sacrifice 
to  affection ;  all,  even  the  world,  were  well  lost  for  love ; 
and  love,  changing  with  the  desires  and  passions  of  the 
beloved  object^  assumed  in  her  a  thousand  shapes,     "  For 


THE  HdTEL  DE  RAMBOUILLET.  241 

La  Rochefoucauld,"  says  Madame  de  Motteville,  "she 
became  ambitious ;  for  him  she  ceased  to  love  repose ;  and 
to  be  sensible  to  his  ckffection,  became  insensible  to  her 
own  glory."  • 

But  these  days  of  misfortune  are  not  yet  come;  it 
is  pleasanter  to  dwell,  while  we  can,  on  Madlle.  de 
Bourbon's  innocent  and  joyous  youth.  The  Court  was 
dissolute  enough,  even  if  we  believe  only  a  tithe  of  the 
scandalous  storiea  which  Tallemant  has  preserved ;  but  the 
Princess,  who  passed  through  life  without  a  stain  upon  her 
name,  seems  to  have  watched  carefully  over  her  daughter. 
So  she  became,  at  an  early  age,  one  of  that  famous  coterie, 
which  assembled  at  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  and  thence 
gave  laws  to  society  and  literature.  It  was  a  spacious 
house  in  the  Rue  St.  Thomas  du  Louvre,  built  according 
to  a  new  plan  devised  by  its  feir  proprietress,  which, 
placing  the  stairs  at  one  corner  of  the  building  instead  of 
the  centre,  as  was  commonly  the  case,  afforded  space  for  a 
suite  of  rooms  of  unwonted  size  and  magnificence.  Be- 
hind, windows,  extending  from  the  ceiling  to  the  floor, 
looked  out  upon  spacious  gardens,  which  stretched  as  far 
as  the  Carousel  and  the  Tuileries.  Here,  in  a  well-known 
room,  hung  with  blue  velvet  lighted  up  by  ornaments  of 
silver  and  gold,  Madame  de  Rambouillet  and  her  daughter 
were  wont  to  receive  the  learning,. the  wit,  the  genius,  the 
beauty  of  Paris.  The  history  of  their  coterie  has  fur- 
nished matter  for  more  than  one  volume :  a  page  or  two 
is  all  that  we  can  give  to  it  here. 

.  Catherine  de  Vivonne  was  the  only  child  of  the  Marquis 
de  Pisani,  once  ambassador  at  the  Papal  See,  by  a  noble 
Roman  lady,  Julia  SavellL  When  only  twelve  years  old 
she  was  married  to  Charles  d'Angennes,  Marquis  de  Ram- 
bouillet, a  nobleman  who  held  a  high  and  honoiurable 

*  Mcmoiresy  p.  120. 
VOL.  n.  B 


242  PORT  BOTAL. 

place  both  in  the  warfare  and  the  diplomacy  of  his  time. 
The  union  was  a  happy  one  ;  scandal  itself,  in  the  shape  of 
Tallemant  des  Beaux,  interrupts  its  uniformity  of  detrac- 
tion to  sing  the  praises  of  Madame  de  fiambouillet ;  and 
her  husband  was  a  man  of  noble  character,  who  took  an 
affectionate  pride  in  her  accomplishments  and  social  con- 
sideration.     Their  family  consisted  of  two  sons  and  five 
daughters.     Of  the  former  one  died  at  an  early  age ;  the 
other,  who   inherited  through   his  mother   the   title    of 
Marquis  de  Pisani,  followed,  though  deformed,  the  profes- 
sion of  arms,  was  the  friend  and  companion  of  Condg,  and 
was  killed  by  his  side  at  the  battle  of  Nordlingen  in  1645. 
Three  of  the  daughters  were  condemned  to  the  monastic 
life;  one,  Julie  d'Angennes,  was  long  the  centre  of  the 
distinguished   society  which   assembled   in   her  mother's 
house ;  another,  Angelique,  became  the  first  wife  of  that 
M.   de   Grignan,   who  afterwards    married    Madame    de 
Sevigne's  daughter,   and  has   obtained   a  vicarious    im- 
'  mortality  in  his  mother-in-law's  letters. 

About  the  year  1618,  when  Madame  de  Rambouillet 
was  thirty  years  of  age,  her  house  first  acquired  its  reputa- 
tion. She  had  the  good  taste  to  grow  weary  of  the  noisy 
crowds  which  thronged  the  assemblies  of  the  Louvre,  and 
the  boldness  to  confess  her  weariness.  Suddenly  she  an- 
nounced, and  ever  after  kept  her  resolution,  to  go  no  more 
to  court,  but  to  assemble  round  her,  in  her  own  salons,  a 
more  select  and  pleasant  society.  The  splendour  of  her 
house,  the  good  taste  of  its  furniture,  the  ease  with  which 
wits  and  nobles  met  on  equal  terms  under  the  presidency 
of  a  clever  and  kind-hearted  hostess,  the  delightful  man- 
ners of  the  whole  family  and  especially  of  "the  divine 
Julie,"  soon  attracted  to  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet  a  circle 
of  congenial  guests.  The  tone  of  the  house  was  that  of  a 
gallant  but  somewhat  formal  courtesy,  which  sat  more 
naturally  upon  a  generation  which  had  not  yet  forgotten  the 


THE   H6TEL  DE  BAMBOUILLET.  243 

traditions  of  chivalry  than  is  now  easy  for  us  to  understand. 
Every  member  of  the  circle  was  known  by  a  romantic 
name :  Arthenice,  an  anagram  of  Catherine,  was  the  pseu- 
donym of  Madame  de  Eambouillet,  a  name  which  Flechier 
did  not  think  it  inappropriate  to  apply  to  her  when 
preaching  her  funeral  sermon.  There  was  much  love- 
making,  but  not  a  single  intrigue ;  the  authority  of  the  house 
was  promptly  used  against  any  unbecoming  freedom  of  word 
or  action.  Voiture  once  ventured  to  kiss  the  hand  of  Julie 
d'Angennes,  but  met  with  such  a  rebuff  as  effectually 
prevented  the  repetition  of  the  offence ;  while  Tallemant 
relates  with  wonder  that  Madame  de  Bambouillet  did  not 
suffer  to  be  spoken  in  her  presence  words  which  then 
might  be  in  common  use,  but  which  now  no  decent  woman 
would  choose  to  hear.  Politics  were  as  jealously  excluded 
from  the  house  as  love;  Eichelieu,  with  whom  M.  de 
Eambouillet  stood  well,  once  sought  to  turn  the  coterie 
into  an  engine  of  his  policy;  but  the  lady  asked  his 
emissary  whether  he  took  her  to  be  fit  material  for  a  spy, 
and  routed  him  with  disgrace.  Madame  de  Eambouillet's 
ostensible  was  also  her  real  object ;  she  wished  to  collect 
about  her  the  wittiest  and  most  refined  men  and  women 
of  her  time.  The  subjects  and  the  manner  of  their  con- 
versation were  naturally  determined  by  their  literary  pre- 
dilections; they  passed  judgment  on  the  productions  of 
the  day,  and  in  so  doing  unconsciously  established  canons 
of  taste.  By  and  bye  a  time  came  when  the  only  way  to 
fame  was  through  the  approval  of  the  Hotel  de  fiam- 
bouillet;  and  then  again  a  time  when  the  taste  of  the 
coterie  became  more  and  more  false  and  artificial,  and  the 
public,  despising  its  verdicts,  fell  back  upon  its  own 
judgment. 

The  Hotel  de  Bambouillet  was  at  the  height  of  its  fame 
during  the  thirty  years  between  1620  and  1650.  Many 
circumstances  conspired  to  hasten  its  decline  before  the 

K  2 


244  POBT  BOTAL. 

end  of  that  period.  The  death  of  the  Marquis  de  Pisani 
in  1645,  the  disruption  of  Parisian  society  occasioned  by 
the  wars  of  the  Fronde,  in  1648  and  the  following  years, 
might  hardly  have  had  this  effect,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
marriage  of  Julie  d'Angennes.  Though  the  constant 
theme  of  poetic  adoration,  she  was  unquestionably  not 
beautiful;  and  the  complying  sweetness  of  her  manners 
was,  to  a  great  extent,  the  cause  of  her  widenspread  popu- 
larity. For  her  M.  de  Montausier,  a  gentleman  of  good 
birth  and  large  hopes,  sighed  with  romantic  perseverance 
for  thirteen  years.  She  accepted  his  devotion  after  tiie 
manner  of  the  coterie,  and  suffered  her  name  to  be  united 
with  his  in  the  poetic  compliments  which  made  a  large 
part  of  its  literature ;  but  never  thought  of  love,  and  never 
spoke  of  marriage.  Her  lover  persisted :  to  win  the  good 
word  of  Anne  of  Austria,  suffered  himself  to  be  converted 
from  Protestantism  to  Mother  Church;  enlisted  on  his 
side,  by  various  means,  father,  mother,  brother,  sisters, 
friends,  and  at  last  won  his  bride  when  she  had  reached 
the  mature  age  of  thirty-eight  The  courtship  is  chiefly 
memorable  on  account  of  a  costly  and  elegant  piece  of 
gallantry,  which  yet  exists  to  tell  its  tale  of  old-world  love, 
and  coldness,  and  perseverance.  This  is  ^*  La  Guirlande 
de  Julie,"  a  folio  volume,  splendidly  bound,  which  M,  de 
Montausier  laid  at  her  feet  as  the  rarest  gift  his  affection 
could  devise.  The  frontispiece  consisted  of  a  garland  of 
twenty-nine  different  flowers,  painted  on  vellum  by  Robert^ 
the  first  flower-painter  of  the  day.  Each  of  the  twenty- 
nine  leaves  that  followed  exhibited  a  single  flower  by  the 
same  hand,  with  an  appropriate  madrigal  in  praise  of 
Madlle.  d'Angennes,  inscribed  by  Jarry,  a  well-known 
caligrapher.  Some  of  the  madrigals  were  by  Montausier 
himself;  the  rest  were  the  work  of  the  poets  who-  fre- 
quented the  Hotel  de  Bambouillet.  Even  this  elaborate 
and  beautiful  offering  failed  to  soften  the  lady's  obduracy. 


THE  HOTEL  DB  RAMBOUILLET.  245 

for  her  marriage  did  not  take  place  till  three  or  four  years 
after  the  date  of  the  gift.  Then,  in  all  probability,  she 
was  tempted  to  end  her  lover's  suspense  by  the  prospect 
of  a  high  place  at  court,  which  he  would  be  able  to  obtain 
for  his  wife.  Madame  de  Montausier  became  first  lady  of 
honour  to  Louis  XIV.'s  queen,  Maria  Theresa;  lived  to 
see  her  husband  Duke  and  Peer  of  France;  and  sullied 
the  fair  fame  of  Julie  d'Angennes,  and  of  the  society  which 
had  once  worshipped  her,  by  her  base  connivance  at  the 
passion  of  the  King  for  Madlle.  de  la  Valli^re. 

The  services  which  the  Hotel  de  Bambouillet  rendered 
to  the  French  language  and  literature  were  neither  few 
nor  slight.  Its  greatest  influence  coincides  with  the  period 
at  which  the  language  was  making  its  singularly  rapid 
transition  from  an  archaic  inelegance  to  perfect  strength 
and  beauty.  All  the  resources  of  the  French  tongue  are 
displayed  in  the  **  Provincial  Letters  " ;  and  yet  only  sixty 
years  intervene  between  them  and  the  Essays  of  Montaigne, 
not  the  least  part  of  whose  charm  it  is  that  they  are  redo- 
lent, in  phrase  and  tone,  of  the  sixteenth  century.  One 
might  have  been  written  yesterday;  the  other  is  of 
Spenser's  and  Shakspeare's  age.  Perhaps  one  reason  why 
this  change  was  so  rapidly  accomplished  lies  in  the  social 
union  between  the  wits  and  the  great  nobles  of  the  king- 
dom, of  which  the  Hotel  de  Eambouillet  was  partly  the 
result  and  partly  the  cause.  With  the  exception  of  Des- 
cartes, I  can  call  to  mind  no  great  author  of  the  seventeenth 
century  who  was  not  in  close  connection  with  the  court, 
or  the  society  which  depended  on  it.  And  Madame  de 
Eambouillet's  refining  and  purifying  influence  was  exerted 
chiefly  at  the  very  period  of  transition.  Malherbe,  who  is 
oft«n  called  the  Father  .of  French  poetry,  belongs  to  the 
first  twenty  years  of  the  century ;  Balzac,  in  like  manner, 
known  as  the  earliest  writer  of  French  prose,  was  himself 
a  frequent  guest  at  her  house.     After  a  time,  her  society 

b3 


246  PORT  BOYAL. 

suffered  the  usual  fate  of  coteries ;  refinement  degenerated 
into  affectation,  chivalrous  feeling  into  empty  sentiment, 
purity  of  expression  into  an  arbitrary  choice  of  words,  the 
judgment  of  natural  good  sense  into  the  application  of 
artificial  canons  of  taste.  ^  Perhaps  these  phrases  are  too 
severe  to  describe  the  decadence  of  the  Hotel  de  Bam- 
bouillet ;  but  they  are  certainly  applicable  to  the  coteries 
which  arose  upon  its  decay,  and  affected  to  perpetuate  its 
traditions.      The   lash  which  Moli^re  wielded   in  *'Les 
Precieuses  Ridicules,"  and  "  Les  Femmes  Savantes,**  was 
well  deserved,  but  not  by  the  friends  of  Madame  de  Bam- 
bouillet.     Whatever  the  errors  and  absiutiities  to  which 
she  lent  her  sanction,  she  must  be  allowed  the  glory  of 
having  brought  together  princes  and  authors  upon  equal 
terms ;  of  having  helped,  before  the  establishment  of  the 
Academy,  to  make  the  French  language  an  exact  and  re- 
fined vehicle  of  thought ;  of  having  defended  the  genius  of 
Corneille  against  the  envy  and  dislike  of  Richelieu  ;  and, 
not  least,  of  having,  to  some  extent,  impressed  upon  the 
literature  of  her  time  her  own  womanly  purity  and  dignity. 
To  this  celebrated  society  Madlle.  de  Bourbon  was  very 
early  introduced.     At  the  time  when  Henri  IV.,   then 
childless,  had  designed  the  Prince  de  Conde  to  inherit  his 
crown,  he  had  charged  the  Marquis  de  Pisani,  Madame  de 
Bambouillet's  father,  with  his  education ;  a  circumstance 
which  no  doubt  created  a  bond  between  the  two  families. 
Madlle.   de  Bourbon  soon  became   a   leading   spirit   in 
the  circle,  and  by  her  birth  and  beauty  divided  the  empire 
with  the  mental  charms  of  Julie  d'Angennes.      After  a 
lapse  of  some  years  we  find  her  sole  arbitress  of  poetic 
taste,  daring  to  reverse  the  judgment  of  all  Paris,  and  able 
triumphantly  to  maintain  her  own.    When  Voiture  and 
Benserade  wrote,  in  rivalry,  two  sonnets,  which  appear  to 
posterity  equally  worthless,  a  mighty  controversy  arose  as 
to  their  respective  merits;  the  Academy  was  divided  into 


THE  H6TBL  DK  RAMBOUILLET.  247 

hostile  camps,  and  court  and  town  waged  internecine  war. 
The  general  voice  was  in  favour  of  Benserade,  but  Madame 
de  Longueville,  faithful  to  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  took 
up  the  cause  of  Voiture,  and  by  her  single  eflfoiis  turned 
the  fortune  of  the  fight.  Now,  a  girl,  who  hardly  dare  raise 
her  voice  in  the  presence  of  such  wits,  she  notes  how  the 
same  Voiture,  forgetting  that  he  is  a  vintner's  son,  in  his 
renown  as  poet  and  bel  esprit,  demonstrates  his  equality 
with  dukes  and  princes  by  familiarities  which  sometimes 
border  on  the  ungraceful.  Corneille  is  there,  secure  in 
the  applause  of  his  friends  against  the  enmity  of  Richelieu 
and  the  carping  criticisms  of  the  Academy.  Richelieu 
himself  sometimes  condescends  to  spare  an  hour  &om 
afiairs  of  state,  and  to  play  the  man  of  letters ;  and  Conde 
hastens  hence  to  win  his  maiden  battle  of  Rocroi,  and 
hither  again  to  sun  his  laurels  in  his  sister's,  and  other 
still  more  beloved  eyes.  Balzac,  respectable  author  of 
much  dull  morality  and  innumerable  letters,  but  in  his 
own  day  first  of  serious  authors ;  Chapelain,  who  thinks  he 
is  a  poet,  and  hereafter  indites  a  huge  "  Pucelle  "  which 
no  man  can  read ;  Conrart,  first  secretary  of  the  Academy, 
a  man  who  has  the  talent  of  keeping  loose  papers,  and 
whose  portfolios  have  but  now  yielded  up  unexpected 
treasures ;  Madlle.  de  Scudery  and  her  brother,  authors 
of  those  ponderous  romances  *'The  Grand  Cyrus,"  and 
**  Clelie,"  which  were  once  the  delight  of  all  gentle 
maidens, — are  constant  visitors.  Other  names  bring  us 
nearer  to  Port  Royal :  Amauld  de  Corbeville,  soldier,  wit, 
and  poet,  cousin  of  Angelique  and  Antoine ;  Madame  de 
Sable,  whose  singular  connection  with  the  community  will 
need  a  special  word  of  description ;  Godeau,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Vence,  and  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  Formu- 
lary, now,  in  his  gay  days,  known,  on  account  of  his  small 
stature,  as  the  Princess  Julia's  dwarf, — were  all  of  the  inner 
circle ;  and  the  "  bon  homme  D'Andilly  "  sometimes  found 

B  4 


248  FORT  BOTAL. 

his  way  hither,  as  wha^erer  there  were  bright  ejes  and  lively 
conyeraation.  I  might  almost  indefinitely  lengthen  the 
lint,  but  to  what  purpose?  To  all  who  have  not  some 
special  interest  in  the  literature  and  the  period,  it  is  only 
to  enumerate  ^fortemque  Gyan,  fortemque  Cloantiium.'' 
Comeille  was  the  only  poet  who  did  not  contribute  to  **  La 
Guirlande  de  Julie,"  and  Comeille  is  the  only  one  whose 
name  will  never  pass  away.* 

3L  Victor  Cousin,  who  delights  to  dwell  upon  these 
bright  and  innocent  years  of  his  heroine's  life,  follows  her, 
in  the  pleasant  summer  time,  to  the  stately  chateaux  of 
the  Cond^  and  the  Montmoren^is,  and  reproduces  in  vivid 
colours  the  gayer  and  more  youthful  society  of  which  she 
was  the  undisputed  queen.  Voiture  and  Sanazin,  and  a 
host  of  smaller  poetasters,  who  in  Paris  were  bound  by 
every  motive  of  loyalty  to  sing  the  praises  of  Julie 
d'Angennes,  willingly  celebrated  at  Chantilly  the  grace 
and  beauty  of  MadUe.  de  Bourbon.  Brother  and  sister 
were  alike  attended  by  a  choir  of  youths  and  maidens ; 
he,  by  a  band  of  brave  and  joyous  companions,  heirs,  like 
himself,  to  wide  domains  and  noble  names,  and  eager  to 
risk  their  lives  on  every  field  of  battle  to  which  Conde 
and  the  love  of  adventure  might  lead  them ;  she,  by  a 
bevy  of  high-bom  damsels,  beautiful  and  debonnair^ 
willing  to  receive  all  knightly  homage,  and  to  reward  by 
their  smiles  deeds  of  high  emprize.  We  do  not  hear 
that  Madlle.  de  Bourbon  lost  her  heart  in  this  perilous 

*  Villefore,  p.  £9.  TallemAnt,  toL  iiL  pp.  204 — S58.  Constn,  Jennease 
de  Mad.  de  LongueriUe,  chap,  ii  For  the  Hotel  de  Bambouillet,  I  moBt 
refer  generally  to  M.  Coasin's  Yolumes,  **La  Society  Fran^aise  an  xyii* 
8i^cle,  d'apr^s  le  Grand  Cjnu  de  Ifademoiselle  de  Scadeiy."  This  well- 
known  romanee  is  beliered  to  poortraj  the  Society  of  the  Hotel  de  Bam- 
bouillet, and  to  describe  its  principal  members  under  fictitious  name& 
Thus  Cyrus  himself  is  Conde,  and  Mandane,  Madame  de  Longueville.  In 
the  discovery  and  illustration  of  these  analogies,  M.  Cousin  has  accumulated 
▼esnlts  of  much  research,  of  which  I  have  gladly  ajailed  myself. 


C0ND£'S  love.  249 

commerce;  the  romance  of  her  little  court  all  centres 
in  the  passionate  love  of  Gond6  for  Madlle.  du  Vigean. 
The  story  would  be  worth  telling  had  we  time  to  digress 
into  every  flowery  way  which  leads  aside  from  the  main 
path  of  our  narrative.  Cond^^  still  almost  a  boy,  and 
undistinguished  except  as  heir  to  his  father's  honours, 
saw  and  loved  one  of  his  sister's  nearest  friends,  a  lady  of 
noble  birth,  heiress  to  great  wealth,  and  one  whom,  if  not 
his  equal,  he  might  well  have  married  without  deroga- 
tion to  his  ranL  He  did  not  love  in  vain;  Madlle.  du 
Vigean  returned  his  passion.  Bui  his  father's  sordid 
and  servile  policy  would  not  suflfer  such  a  marriage,  and 
Conde  was  perforce  betrothed  to  Madlle.  de  Br^z^,  a  niece 
of  Eichelieu,  who  brought  not  only  a  dowry  of  present 
favour,  but  the  promise  of  a  share  in  the  GardinsJ's  vast 
inheritance.  In  vain  Cond^  protested,  remonstrated,  de- 
layed ;  the  marriage  took  place  almost  in  the  bridegroom's 
despite.  Still,  through  four  years,  he  pursued  Madlle. 
du  Vigeau  with  imremitting  ardour;  hoping,  though 
none  can  tell  on  what  canonical  grounds,  to  procure  a 
divorce  from  the  poor,  patient  wife,  who  had  no  fault 
but  that  her  husband  loved  another.  In  1642  the  death 
of  the  Cardinal,  in  1643,  that  of  the  King,  raised  his 
hopes  to  their  highest  pitch ;  what  could  the  Queen-Regent 
refuse  to  the  conqueror  of  Eocroi  ?  But  she,  too,  was  not 
without  her  reasons  for  sympathy  with  a  neglected  wife, 
and  steadfastly  repulsed  all  Conde's  solicitations.  At  last, 
after  along  illness,  which  succeeded  the  campaign  of  1645, 
the  lover  ceased  to  strive  if  not  to  love.  Madlle.  du 
Vigean,  still  faithful,  had  refrised  many  advantageous 
offers  of  marriage;  she  would  not  be  Conde's  mistress, 
she  could  not  be  his  wife.  So  she  turned  to  the  refuge 
which  always  waits  for  Catholic  despair,  and  fled,  an 
innocent  La  ValliAre,  to  the  Carmelite  convent  of  the  ^ 
Rue  St.  Jacques.    There,  Sceur  Marthe  de  J&us  might  at 


250  POET  BOYAL. 

least  see  the  Madame  de  Longueville,  who,  in  the  world 
had  been  the  friend  of  Madlle.  du  Vigean,  and  watch 
if  the  name  of  Conde  fell  perchance  from  her  lips.  She 
lived  till  1665 ;  long  enough  to  see  her  youthful  companion 
seek  the  same  refuge  from  sin  as  she  herself  had  found 
from  sorrow. 

Love  was  allowed  to  influence  the  choice  of  a  husband 
for  Madlle.  de  Bourbon  as  little  aa  that  of  a  wife  for 
her  brother.  WTien  she  was  about  nineteen,  a  project 
was  formed  of  marrying  her  to  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  a 
scion  of  the  house  of  Gtdse.  But  the  plan  of  thus  uniting^ 
in  a  family  compact  the  houses  of  Cond^,  of  Montmoren^i^ 
and  of  Lorraine,  fell  to  the  ground  on  the  death  of  the 
young  bridegroom;  and  for  some  years  more  Madlle. 
de  Bourbon  remained  unmarried.  Then  her  father,  des- 
pairing of  finding  a  nobleman;  near  her  own  age,  of  suf- 
ficient rank  and  power  to  deserve  her  hand,  resolved  to 
marry  her  to  the  Due  de  Longueville,  who  was  indisput- 
ably, next  to  himself,  the  greatest  Seigneur  of  the  kingdom. 
He  too  was,  after  a  fashion,  of  royal  blood ;  being  descended 
from  Dunois,  the  bastard  of  Orleans,  who  played  so  dis- 
tinguished a  part  in  the  expulsion  of  the  English  from 
France.  Besides  his  territorial  possessions  within  the 
realm,  he  was  lord  of  Neufchatel ;  and  his  first  wife  had 
been  a  lady  of  royal  birth.  But  he  was  already  forty- 
seven,  while  his  intended  bride  was  only  twenty-three; 
he  had  a  daughter  who  had  arrived  at  womanhood :  even 
had  he  been  younger  he  would  hardly  have  touched  the 
heart  of  Madlle.  de  Bourbon;  while  his  indiflference 
to  her,  and  his  devotion  to  the  Duchesse  de  Montbazon, 
were  alike  notorious.  But  what  mattered  all  this  to  those 
who  concluded  the  matrimonial  bargain  ?  He  needed  an 
heir  to  his  honours,  and  the  Prince  de  Conde  a  husband 
for  his  daughter,  noble  and  splendid  enough  to  mate  with 
a  Bourbon.    So  the  bargain  was  made ;  and  on  the  2nd  of 


HABRIAGE.  251 

June,  1642,  Anne  Genevidve  de  Bourbon  became  Madame 
de  Longueville.  She  met  her  fate  with  all  the  courage 
of  her  race;  and  those  who  shared  in  the  magnificent 
festivals  with  which  her  marriage  was  celebrated,  remarked 
only  her  gay  demeanour  and  triumphant  beauty.  But 
there  were  some  who  knew  that  her  apparent  gaiety  covered 
a  heavy  heart.* 

Such  a  marriage  could  hardly  end  in  any  result  biit 
one.  I  have  already  said  that  the  key  to  the  whole  of 
Madame  de  Longueville's  character  lies  in  her  heart ;  to  a 
husband  whom  she  loved,  she  would  have  been  as  clay  in 
the  hands  of  the  potter ;  with  one  to  whom  she  was  in- 
diCFerent,  and  who  showed  as  little  care  to  gain  her  esteem 
as  her  aflfection,  she  but  waited  till  the  Fairy  Prince  came 
by,  whose  destiny  it  was  to  wake  her  sleeping  passion  into 
life.  In  the  scandal  of  an  age  which  interprets  every 
exchange  of  courtesy  into  an  acknowledgment  of  favoured 
love,  and  delights  to  translate  even  undeniable  profligacy 
into  iniquity  of  a  deeper  dye,  Madame  de  Longueville  has 
not  escaped  the  imputation  of  more  sins  than  one.  That 
she  was  unfaithful  to  her  marriage  vow  it  must  be  owned ; 
by  and  bye  the  story  of  her  provocation,  her  sin,  and  her 
repentance  shall  be  told ;  but  I  can  find  no  evidence  to 
warrant  the  belief  that  she  was  a  profligate  woman,  as 
Madame  de  Montbazon,  her  rival  in  her  husband's  affec- 
tions, was  profligate.  She  gave  her  heart  once,  and  gave 
herself  with  it.  But  the  delirium  of  self-will  was  very 
brief,  and  the  self-reproach  lasted  for  a  life-time. 

An  attack  of  small-pox,  soon  after  her  marriage,  was 
just  sufficiently  alarming  to  awaken  the  fears  of  Madame 
de  Longueville's  friends,  and  to  call  forth  a  chorus  of 
congratulation  when  her  beauty  emerged,  hardly  impaired, 
from  the  peril.     Her  husband  had  already  left  her  to  take 

♦  Villefore,  p.  57.  Cousin,  Jeunesse  do  Mad.  de  Longueville,  p.  148,  et 
seq,  pp.  196,  197. 


252  POBT  EOYAL. 

the  command  of  a  French  army  in  Italy,  and  her  life 
flowed  on  in  much  the  same  current  as  before.  The  pride 
of  the  Princesse  de  Conde  had  extorted  from  the  Queen- 
Begent  a  decree,  which  provided,  that  Madlle.  de  Bour* 
bon  should  not  lose  by  her  marriage  rank  and  prece- 
dence as  a  princess  of  the  blood :  the  young  bride  had  all 
her  old  friends  about  her,  was  still  the  chief  ornament  of 
the  Hotel  de  Bambouillet,  and  reassembled  in  her  own* 
house  the  delightful  society  of  Chantilly.  Her  husband, 
who  had  his  own  occupations,  interests,  loves,  hardly  con- 
sulted her  feelings  or  her  wishes,  except  in  leaving  her  a 
complete  and  perilous  liberty  of  action.  And  before  she 
had  been  many  months  a  wife,  her  name  was  tossed  about 
by  unfriendly  voices  of  rumour,  and  an  i:^ly  stain  of  blood 
darkened  across  her  path. 

The  Duchesse  de  Montbazon,  a  black-browed,  Amazonian 
beauty,  of  whom  the  chronicles  of  the  time  speak  with  an 
ominous  uniformity  of  scandal,  had  been  the  avowed  mis- 
tress of  the  Due  de  Longueville,  and  had  a  thousand 
reasons  for  jealousy  of  his  young  and  brilliant  wife.  One 
was  in  the  first  blossom  of  her  beauty,  the  other^s  charms 
were  waning ;  the  name  of  one  was  unsullied,  that  of  the 
other  could  hardly  receive  a  new  or  deeper  stain;  more 
than  one  admirer  had  left  Madame  de  Montbazon  to  try 
their  fortime  with  her  rival ;  and,  worse  than  all,  it  was 
said  that  the  Princesse  de  Conde  had  exacted  from  her  son- 
in-law  a  promise  that  he  would  break  off  all  connection 
with  a  lady  who  did  not  scruple  openly  to  brave  and  defy 
his  wife.  Soon  arrived  a  tempting  opportunity  for  revenge. 
A  female  attendant  upon  Madame  de  Montbazon  picked 
up  in  a  crowded  salon  two  anonymous  letters,  written  in 
a  woman's  hand,  and  evidently  addressed  to  a  happy  lover. 
It  was  afterwards  discovered  that  they  had  been  written 
by  Madame  de  FeuqueroUes  to  the  Marquis  de  Maulevrier, 
who  had  been  clumsy  enough  to  lose  them  in  a  public 


MADAME  DE  MONTBAZON.  253 

place.  But  it  did  not  suit  Madame  de  Montbazon^s  par- 
pose  to  inquire  into  the  real  authorship.  Among  the 
lovers  who,  in  the  gallant  fashion  of  the  Hotel  de  Bam- 
bouillet,  waited  upon  Madame  de  Longueville's  smiles,  was 
Maurice,  Comte  de  Coligni.  He  was  a  yoimg  nobleman  of 
great  name  and  hopes ;  the  intimate  friend  and  companion- 
in-arms  of  Conde,  who,  it  is  said,  encouraged  his  romantic 
devotion  to  his  sister.  So  the  rumour  was  industriously 
spread  that  the  letters  which  Madame  de  Montbazon  pos- 
sessed, and  which  she  showed  to  a  few  chosen  friends, 
were  written  by  Madame  de  Longueville  to  Maurice  de 
Coligni ;  and  men  began  to  draw  the  inference  which  she 
wished,  that  M.  de  Longueville's  wife  was  little  more 
prudent  in  her  conduct  than  his  mistress.  The  scandal 
soon  made  its  way  to  those  whom  it  was  chiefly  designed 
to  wound  ;  but  Madame  de  Longueville  was  too  indifferent 
to  her  husband  to  be  very  angry  with  her  rival,  too  con- 
fident of  her  own  innocence  to  take  any  extraordinary 
pains  to  prove  it,  and  at  all  times  unable  to  vanquish  her 
natural  indolence,  unless  the  effort  was  demanded  by 
affection.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Princesse  de  Conde 
was  furious.  She  had  passed  through  life  without  the  im- 
putation of  unfaithfulness  to  a  husband  who  did  not  engage 
her  affections,  and  was  indignant  that  it  should  be  fixed  upon 
her  daughter.  She  felt  far  more  than  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville the  injury  and  slight  of  her  son-in-law's  half-con- 
temptuous coldness  to  his  young  and  beautiful  wife.  But 
besides  this,  reasons  of  state  mingled  in  the  quarrel. 
Mazarin,  helped  by  all  the  influence  of  the  Condes,  was 
making  his  gradual  but  sure  way  to  Richelieu's  still  un- 
occupied seat.  His  rival,  the  Due  de  Beaufort,  was  one 
of  Madame  de  Montbazon's  numerous  lovers,  and  derived 
his  chief  strength  from  the  personal  friendship  between 
Madame  de  Chevreuse,  Madame  de  Montbazon's  step- 
daughter, and  the  Queen.     If  the  mistress  had  found  the 


254  POET  EOYAL. 

opportunity  for  a  blow  tempting,  the  mother-in-law  found 
it  doubly  tempting  for  reprisal.  So  she  represented  to 
the  Queen  the  insult  which  the  royal  house  had  received 
in  the  person  of  her  daughter ;  the  Due  d'Enghien  hastened 
from  the  campaign  of  Bocroi  to  espouse  his  sister's  cause : 
and  a  new  and  personal  bitterness  distinguished  the  parties 
into  which  the  court  was  divided. 

The  Queen  decided  at  last  that  Madame  de  Montbazon 
should  make  a  public  apology  to  the  Princesse  de  Conde 
and  her  daughter.  Says  Madame  de  Motteville*,  **  What 
she  was  to  say  to  this  effect,  and  the  words  in  which  she 
was  to  be  answered,  were  written  in  the  little  cabinet  of 
the  Louvre,  upon  the  Cardinal's  tablets,  who  apparently 
laboured  to  settle  all  these  quarrels  to  the  contentment  of 
both  parties.  I  was  there  the  evening  that  all  these  im- 
portant matters  were  gone  into,  and  I  remember  how  I 
wondered  within  myself  at  the  follies  and  idle  occupations 
of  this  world.  The  Queen  was  in  her  great  cabinet^  and 
with  her  Madame  la  Princesse,  who,  all  agitated  and  ter- 
rible, made  this  affair  a  matter  of  high  treason.  Madame 
de  Chevreuse,  engaged  by  a  thousand  reasons  in  her 
mother-in-law's  quarrel,  was  with  Cardinal  Mazarin, 
composing  the  harangue  which  she  was  to  make.  About 
every  word  there  was  an  hour's  conference.  The  Cardinal, 
playing  the  busybody,  went  from  one  side  to  the  other 
to  accommodate  their  difference,  as  if  this  peace  had  been 
necessary  to  the  happiness  of  France,  and  to  his  own  in 
particular;  I  never  saw,  in  my  opinion,  so  complete  a 
farce."  Presently  the  whole  important  negotiation  came 
to  an  end.  The  letters  had  been  already  given  up,  and 
after  having  been  attested  by  witnesses  of  the  highest 
character  as  not  in  Madame  de  Longueville's  hand,  had 
been  burned  in  the  Queen's  presence.     Now  it  was  agreed 

•  Memoires,  p.  58. 


MADAME   DE  MONTBAZON.  255 

that  Madame  de  Montbazon  ehould  go  to  the  Hotel  de 
Conde^  and  there  pronounce  the  apology  which  had  been 
written  for  her.  So  on  the  appointed  day  she  read  it  from 
a  paper  attached  to  her  fan ;  the  Princess  replied  in  the 
stipulated  terms;  both  ladies  threw  into  the  words  of 
reconciliation  as  much  scorn  and  defiance  as  they  could, 
and  it  was  soon  understood  that  the  quarrel  was  as  bitter 
as  before. 

Not  long  afterwards,  a  dispute  on  a  point  of  etiquette,  in 
which  Madame  de  Chevreuse  was  so  unlucky  as  to  ofifend 
the  Queen's  Spanish  pride,  ended  in  a  royal  letter  com- 
manding Madame  de  Montbazon  to  retire  to  her  country 
housa  So  bold  a  measure  irritated  beyond  bounds  the 
Due  de  Beaufort  and  his  party,  who  allowed  themselves  to 
be  hurried  into  plots  against  Mazarin,  which  were  too 
hastily  and  angrily  to  be  successfully  laid.  The  Cardinal, 
on  the  other  side,  saw  that  the  time  was  come  to  strike  a 
decisive  blow  for  power ;  Beaufort  was  arrested  and  sent 
to  Vincennes,  and  his  accomplices,  male  and  female,  re- 
moved from  Paris.  Unfortunately  the  matter  did  not  end 
here.  The  Due  d'Enghien  made  no  secret  of  his  resent- 
ment, and  permitted,  if  he  did  not  encourage,  his  friend 
Coligni  to  mingle  in  the  fray.  Public  rumour  was  prompt 
to  say  that  Coligni's  interference  itself  proved  that  he  was 
a  favoured  lover;  a  more  reasonable  as  well  as  more 
charitable  supposition  is,  that  he  thus  sought  to  win  the 
regards  of  her  whose  cause  he  undertook.  The  Due  de 
Beaufort,  who  had  chiefly  signalised  himself  as  Madame 
de  Montbazon's  partisan,  was  in  prison ;  so  Coligni  boldly 
challenged,  in  face  of  royal  edicts  against  duelling,  which 
had  been  enforced  with  impartial  severity,  another  great 
nobleman,  the  Due  de  Guise.  The  challenge  was  given 
and  accepted  on  the  12th  of  December.  At  three  o'clock 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  the  combatants  met 
in  the  Place  Eoyale,  which,  though  surroimded  by  the 


256  FORT  BOTAL. 

hotels  of  many  of  the  chief  nobility,  was  a  &voarite  place 
for  duels.  Each  was  attended  by  a  second,  who,  according 
to  the  barbarous  fashion  of  the  day,  fought  in  the  quarrel 
of  their  principals.  More  than  one  circumstance  seems  to 
throw  a  tragic  gloom  over  the  struggle ;  Coligni  was  weak 
from  the  effects  of  a  long  illness,  and  Guise  arrogant  with 
more  than  even  the  ordinary  pride  of  his  house.  They 
could  not  but  remember  the  Wars  of  the  League,  in  which 
the  names  of  their  ancestors  had  been  the  rallying  cry  on 
opposite  sides.  **We  are  going  to  decide,"  said  Guise, 
*Hhe  ancient  quarrels  of  our  houses,  and  it  will  be  seen 
what  a  difference  there  ought  to  be  made  between  the 
blood  of  Guise  and  the  blood  of  ColignL"  At  the  very 
beginning  of  the  fight  Coligni  fell,  and  his  adversary, 
striding  across  him,  contemptuously  exclaimed,  **  I  do  not 
wish  to  kill  you,  but  to  treat  you  as  you  deserve  for  having 
challenged  a  prince  of  my  birth  who  had  given  you  no 
offence ; "  and  so  struck  him  with  the  flat  of  his  sword. 
Stung  with  the  indignity,  Coligni  regained  his  weapon 
with  a  great  effort,  and  recommenced  the  combat*  But 
either  from  weakness  or  inferiority  of  skill  he  was  unable 
to  prolong  it,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  compelled,  by  a 
severe  wound  in  the  arm,  to  acknowledge  himself  worsted. 
Guise  was  slightly  hurt  in  the  shoulder,  and  both  of  the 
seconds  were  sorely  wounded; 

A  duel  between  such  combatants,  and  in  such  a  quarrel, 
could  not  fail  to  occupy  all  men's  minds,  even  at  a  time  of 
political  crisis.  Public  opinion  declared  itself  against 
Coligni,  who  was  deemed  to  have  called  out  his  opponent 
without  sufficient  provocation.  The  Queen  was  greatly 
incensed  at  the  violation  of  the  edict;  even  the  Prince 
and  Princesse  de  Cond6,  who  had  upheld  their  daughters 
cause  so  hotly,  found  it  expedient  to  disavow  her  unlucky 
champion.  One  friend,  the  Due  d'Enghien,  did  not  forsake 
him ;  but  took  him  into  his  house,  attended  to  his  wounds, 


THE   FATAL  DUEL.  257 

and  announced  his  intention  of  supporting  him  with  all 
his  influence  against  any  criminal  proceedings  which  the 
house  of  Lorraine  might  institute.  His  friendship  was 
not  put  to  this  last  test,  for  in  May  1644,  Coligni  died  of 
his  wound.  Meanwhile,  scandal  had  heen  busy  with  the 
fair  fame  of  Madame  de  Longueville.  She  had  herself,  it 
was  said,  urged  Coligni  to  avenge  her  on  the  Due  de 
Guise.  She  had  watched  the  duel  from  a  window  of  a 
house  in  the  Place  Eoyale,  belonging  to  the  Duchesse  de 
Eohan.  Her  name  was  united  with  Coligni's  in  the  street 
songs  of  Paris.*  But  all  the  trustworthy  evidence  goes  to 
prove  that  Madame  de  Longueville  was  innocent  of  more 
than  the  indiscretion  of  having  lent  a  willing  ear  to 
Coligni's  gallantry.  He  was  an  old  friend  and  playmate, 
her  brother's  companion-in-arms,  one  of  the  happy  little 
society  which  had  met  at  Chantilly,  and  her  own  devoted 
cavalier  after  the  fashion  of  the  Hotel  de  Eambouillet. 
Pity  that  the  rude-tongued  populace  failed  to  distinguish 
between  gallants  of  the  ordinary  type  and  those  who 
fluttered  and  sighed  in  vain  round  fair  and  frigid  pri- 
cieuses  !  f 

But  what  part  has  M.  de  Longueville  played  in  this 
imbroglio  ?  None,  except  to  strive  in  a  feeble  and  inef- 
fectual way  to  prevail  with  the  Princesse  de  Conde  that 

*  One  of  them,  which  Madame  de  Motteyille  has  preserred*  runs  thus  : 
"  Essuyez  vos  beaux  yeux, 
Madame  de  Longueville, 
Essuyez  vos  beaux  yeux, 
Coligni  se  porte  mieux. 
8'il  a  demande  la  vie, 
Ne  Ten  bl&mez  nnllement ; 
Car  c*e8t  pour  etre  votre  amant 
Qu'il  veut  vivre  ^ternellement" 

f  Yillefore,  p.  45,  tt  seq.    Cousin,  Jeunesse  de  Mad.  de  Longueville,  p. 
S25,  et  seq.    Mad.  de  Motteville,  Memoires,  p.  56,  et  aeq.,  p.  64.    Memoires 
de  Mademoiselle,  p.  20.    Michelet,  Richelieu  ct  La  Fronde,  chap,  xviii. 
VOL.  II.  S 


258  POST  BOTAL. 

the  quarrel  might  be  hushed  up.  Public  decency  would 
not  allow  him  to  take  the  aide  of  Madame  de  Montbazon, 
and  some  old  love,  or  present  fear  of  that  audacious  lady, 
prevented  him  from  espousing  the  cause  of  his  wife.  So, 
when  in  1645  he  was  appointed  to  preside  over  the  nego- 
tiations at  Munster,  which  had  hitherto  &iled  to  put  an 
end  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  Madame  de  Longueville 
remained  in  Paris  with  no  sign  of  discontent  Already, 
in  1644,  she  had  given  birth  to  a  daughter,  who  lived  but 
a  few  months,  and  was  now  pregnant  of  the  son  in  whom 
the  house  of  Longueville  came  to  an  inglorious  end.  Why 
should  she  leave  Paris,  where  she  reigned  queen  of  all  the 
hearts  over  which  she  cared  to  assert  her  royalty,  to  follow 
a  husband,  whom  she  did  not  love,  to  a  barbarous  country, 
where  uncouth  plenipotentiaries  wrangled  in  Latin  for  the 
r^^hts  and  dignities  of  their  petty  northern  princes?  She 
left  the  settlement  of  their  broils  to  M.  de  Longueville, 
while  she  fought  and  won  a  battle  for  precedence  with 
Mademoiselle,  the  maiden  niece  of  Henri  IV.  The  combat 
took  place  at  Notre  Dame,  at  a  funeral  service  for  the 
Queen  of  Spain,  and  Mademoiselle  confessed  her  defeat  by 
public  tears :  what  battle  could  be  so  well  worth  the  win- 
ning ?  *  Day  by  day  the  Condes  became  more  powerful ; 
nothing  could  be  refused  to  the  young  general  who  every 
year  won  a  battle  which  cheated  France  into  applause  of 
Mazarin's  policy;  the  sister's  beauty  and  the  brother's 
glory  each  added  a  fresh  brilliance  to  the  other.  But  the 
little  cloud  which  was  to  obscure  all  this  simshine  was 
already  creeping  up  the  sky :  Madame  de  Longueville  had 
seen  the  Prince  de  Marsillac,  and  her  brother,  with  or 
without  reason,  feared  for  the  honour  of  his  house.  He 
remonstrated  in  vain :  perhaps  his  remonstrance  was  too 
harsh  to  come  with  right  from  any  but  a  husband's  lips, 

*  Memoircs  de  MacL  de  MoUeville,  p.  84. 


MTJNSTER.  25D 

perhaps  his  sister's  heart  had  abready  begun  to  play  the 
traitor  to  her  happiness.  At  last  they  quarrelled;  and 
DTEnghien  wrote  to  his  brother-in-law  to  advise  him  to 
withdraw  his  wife  from  Paris.  The  answer  was  a  summons 
to  Madame  de  Longaeville  to  join  the  Congress  at  Munster, 
which  she  unwillingly  obeyed.  In  June  1646,  therefore, 
she  set  out  from  Paris,  accompanied  by  her  stepdaughter, 
Madlle.  de  Longueyille,  and  a  numerous  escort. 

The  Duke  had  gone  to  Munster  less  as  an  able  diplo- 
matist than  as  a  great  nobleman,  whose  presence  might 
compose  the  differences  between  the  two  clever  negotiators 
who  already  represented  the  policy  of  Mazarin.  So  he 
issued  orders,  that  everywhere  along  the  route  his  wife 
should  be  received  with  the  honours  due  to  a  princess  of 
the  blood,  whose  husband  stood  for  the  nonce  in  the  place 
of  royalty  itself.  As  her  boat  glided  up  the  sluggish 
ciurrent  of  the  Mouse,  an  escort,  sometimes  of  cavalry, 
sometimes  of  infantry,  kept  the  bank  of  the  river,  and 
accompanied  her  course  with  salvos  of  musketry,  and  all 
military  tokens  of  joyftd  honour.  The  governors  of  the 
towns  in  her  route  met  her  before  the  gates,  and  offered 
the  keys  of  their  strongholds,  as  to  a  sovereign  princess ; 
the  chapter  of  Li^e  sent  a  deputation  to  welcome  her ; 
and  the  Spanish  governor  of  Namur  accompanied  her  to 
her  lodging  in  the  city  with  a  guard  of  four  thousand  men. 
Maestricht,  Ruremonde,  Wenlo,  Gueldres,  vied  with  one 
another  in  the  magnificence  of  their  preparations  for  her 
reception ;  and  Turenne  reviewed  an  army  in  her  honour 
on  the  banks  of  the  Shine.  At  last,  with  M.  de  Longue- 
ville,  who  had  come  as  far  as  the  frontiers  of  the  Spanish 
states  to  meet  her,  she  made  a  triumphant  entry  into 
Munster;  and  soon,  as  at  Paris,  reigned  absolutely  over 
the  little  court  which  her  beauty  and  amiability  did  not 
£ail  to  draw  round  her. 

But  Munster  was  very  dull  even  when  it  donned  its 

•  2 


2G0  PORT  EOTAL, 

holiday  dress;  and  while  the  daily  work  of  negotiation 
was  going  on^  must  have  had,  to  Madame  de  Longueville, 
somewhat  of  the  air  of  a  prison.     At  no  period  of  their 
married  life  does  there  seem  to  have  been  any  affection 
between  her  and  her  husband ;  while  her  relations  with  her 
stepdaughter  were  as  little  pleasant  as  such  relations  pro- 
verbially are.     She  was,  indeed,  queen  of  the  Congress — 
but  how  narrow  and  rude  the  kingdom  I     How  wide  an 
interval  between  the  too  artful,  too  delightful  flatteries  of 
Marsillac,  and  the  uncouth  Grerman  gallantry  of  the  am- 
bassador from  Brandenburg  or  Brunswick  1     In  her  weari- 
ness, she  made  a  journey  into  Holland,  where  she  visited 
the  \mhappy  Queen  of  Bohemia,  who,  widowed  and  an 
exile,  saw  in  the  troubles  of  England  the  knell  of  all  her 
own  hopes  in  Germany.     Then,  on  her  return  to  Munster, 
she  lingered  out  the  winter  of  1646-7  ;  till  at  last  her 
pregnancy  furnished  a  pretext  for  the  much-desired  return 
to  Paris.     However  her  husband  might  wish  to  retain  her 
near  himself,  he  could  hardly  resist  such  a  plea ;  and  in 
May  1647,  she  gladly  hastened  to  Ghantilly.     The  future 
never  showed  so  bright  to  her,  as  she  fled  from  her  enforced 
stay  at  Munster  to  the  freedom  and  gaiety  of  Paris ;  and 
never,  as  she  learned  too  soon,  truly  lowered  so  dark. 

Her  father  had  died  in  December  1646,  and  not  only 
his  vast  wealth,  but  the  great  offices  of  state  which  he  had 
held,  were  divided  between  his  two  sons,  the  Due  d'Enghien, 
now  Prince  de  Conde,  and  Armand,  Prince  de  Conti.  The 
latter,  fresh  from  college,  where  he  had  studied  with  more 
diligence  and  success  than  are  commonly  the  lot  of  princes, 
had  met  Madame  de  Longueville  on  her  homeward  journey, 
and,  like  Cond^  before  him„  had  at  once  owned  her  sway. 
He  was  ten  years  her  junior,  and  being  mean  and  some- 
what deformed  in  stature,  was  designed  to  enter  the  church. 
Already  loaded  with  ecclesiastical  wealth,  he  threw  himself, 
while  waiting  for  the  cardinal's  hat,  which  the  influence  of 


NEW  SOCIAL  TRIUMPH.  261 

France  was  to  procure  from  Rome,  into  the  life  of  the 
society  which  moved  about  his  sister.  Conde  added  every 
year  to  his  own  glory,  and  to  the  stability  of  Mazarin's 
power;  in  1643  he  won  the  battle  of  Eocroi,  in  1644 
that  of  Friburg,  in  1645  that  of  Nordlingen;  in  1648 
he  will  bring  the  negotiations  at  Munster  to  a  sudden 
conclusion  by  the  victory  of  Lens.  In  that  very  Con- 
gress of  Munster,  the  most  important  which  Europe  had 
seen  for  many  years,  the  principal  part,  in  dignity  at 
least,  is  allotted  to  the  brother-in-law  of  the  Condfe. 
Of  our  heroine  let  Madame  de  Motteville  speak  * : 
**This  princess,  who  reigned  in  her  family  even  when 
absent,  and  whose  approbation  every  one  longed  for  as  a 
sovereign  good,  when  she  returned  to  Paris,  in  May  1647, 
did  not  fail  to  appear  with  more  iclat  than  when  she  left 
it.  As  the  friendship,  which  M.  le  Prince  her  brother  had 
for  her,  gave  countenance  to  her  actions  and  her  manners, 
the  greatness  of  her  beauty,  as  well  as  that  of  her  genius, 
so  increased  the  power  of  the  family  cabal,  that  she  had 
not  been  long  at  the  court  before  she  had  almost  wholly 
taken  possession  of  it.  She  became  the  object  of  every 
desire;  her  rudle  was  the  centre  of  all  intrigues;  and 
those  whom  she  liked  became  at  once  the  minions  of 
fortune.  Her  courtiers  were  feared  by  the  minister ;  and 
in  a  little  while  we  shall  see  her  the  cause  of  all  our  revo- 
lutions, and  the  disturbances  which  seemed  likely  to  prove 
the  ruin  of  France."  f 

But  notwithstanding  the  quick  and  subtle  intellect  which 
all  her  contemporaries  agree  in  ascribing  to  Madame  de 
Longueville,  she  needed  an  impulse  from  without  to  make 
her  the  restless  intriguer  which  Madame  de  Motteville 
describes.  For  herself,  she  was  satisfied  with  social 
triumphs ;  princes  and  poets  vied  with  one  another  for  her 

♦  Memoireg,  p.  119.  f  Villefore,  p.  60.  etteq, 

•  9 


262  PORT  EOTAL. 

smiles ;  her  rank  by  birth  and  marriage  left  her  nothing  to 
desire,  and  she  stood,  with  all  the  Cond^,  in  the  full 
sunshine  of  royal  favour.  It  is  easy  to  see  how,  under 
some  circumstances,  family  affection  might  have  made  her 
a  political  adventurer ;  for  a  wayward,  changeful,  and  yet 
passionate  attaxshment  united  her  with  both  her  brothers. 
But  the  impulse  came  from  a  less  lawful  love;  a  selfish 
schemer,  who  hid  his  selfishness  under  the  mask  of  a 
chivalrous  gallantry,  had  seen  how,  if  her  heart  could  but 
be  won,  she  might  become  the  all-efficient  instrument  of 
his  own  purposes,  and  so  set  himself  to  win  her  heart 
Nor  is  this  the  theory  of  a  biographer,  anxious  to  secure 
for  a  frail  heroine  at  least  the  reader's  sympathy,  by 
representing  her  to  have  thrown  away  her  affection  on 
one  who  was  too  poor  in  nobleness  to  make  any  return. 
La  Rochefoucauld  coolly  tells  the  story  of  his  own  base- 
ness*:-^- 

'^  So  much  labour  in  vain,  and  so  many  vexations  at  last 
inspired  into  me  other  thoughts,  and  made  me  seek  a 
perilous  way  of  showing  my  resentment  against  the  Queen 
and  Cardinal  Mazarin.  The  beauty  of  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville,  her  mind,  and  all  the  charms  of  her  person,  attached 
to  her  everybody  who  could  hope  to  be  acceptable  to  her. 
Many  men  and  women  of  qusAity  tried  to  please  her ;  and 
besides  the  agreeableness  of  this  court,  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville  was  then  so  united  with  all  her  family,  and  so  tenderly 
beloved  by  the  Due  d'Enghien,  her  brother,  that  whoever 
had  won  the  approbation  of  his  sister,  might  be  assured  of 
the  esteem  and  friendship  of  this  prince.  Many  people  had 
tried  this  way  in  vain,  and  had  mingled  other  sentiments 
with  those  of  ambition.  Miossens,  who  afterwards  became 
marshal  of  France,  persevered  the  longest,  and  had  as  little 
success.    I  was  among  his  most  intimate  friends,  and  he 

*  Memoires,  p.  399. 


LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD.  263 

spoke  to  me  of  his  plans.  They  soon  fell  to  the  ground  of 
themselves ;  he  knew  it>  and  repeatedly  told  me  that  he 
had  resolved  to  give  them  up ;  but  vanity,  which  was  his 
strongest  passion,  often  prevented  him  from  telling  me  the 
truth,  and  he  Signed  hopes  which  he  had  not,  and  which  I 
well  knew  that  he  could  not  have.  Some  time  passed  in  this 
way,  when  at  Icust  I  had  reason  to  believe  that  I  could  make 
more  use  than  he  of  the  friendship  and  confidence  of  Madame 
de  Longueville.  I  made  him  agree  to  this  himself.  He 
knew  the  state  of  my  affairs  at  court;  I  told  him  my 
views,  but  that  consideration  for  him  had  hitherto  held 
me  back,  and  that  I  should  not  try  to  form  a  connection 
with  Madame  de  Longuevill^  if  he  did  not  leave  me  free 
to  do  so.  I  confess  even,  that  to  obtedn  this  freedom,  I 
deliberately  set  him  against  her,  without,  however,  saying 
anything  to  him  that  was  not  true.  He  gave  her  wholly  up 
to  me ;  but  he  repented  of  having  yielded,  when  he  saw  the 
results  of  that  connection." 

Francois,  Prince  de  Marsillac,  who  so  cynically  displays 
his  baseness  in  the  foregoing  confession,  was  the  eldest  son 
of  the  Due  de  la  Bochefoucauld, — a  name  under  which  he 
has  won  literary  reputation  as  the  author  of  the  famous 
book  of  **  Maxims.'*  Born  in  1613,  he  was  six  years  older 
than  Madame  de  Longueville ;  and,  like  her,  had  been  in- 
troduced to  public  life  at  a  very  early  age.  He  began  his 
career  by  serving  with  some  distinction;  then,  going  to 
court,  threw  himself  with  an  ardour,  which  contrasts 
strangely  with  the  unblushing  selfishness  of  his  later  policy, 
into  the  cause  of  the  Queen,  who  suffered  both  from  the 
indifference  of  her  husband  and  the  enmity  of  Richelieu. 
Some  of  his  biographers  trace  the  cynicism  of  his  middle 
life  to  the  disappointment  which  ensued  upon  the  romantic 
dreams  of  his  youth ;  but  it  is  surely  not  unfair  to  inter- 
pret the  life  of  La  Rochefoucauld  by  help  of  his  own 
theory  of  human  nature,  and  to  attribute  both  phases  of 

•  4 


264  POBT  BOTAL. 

his  character  to  the  influence  of  Protean  self-love.  His 
father  owed  to  Marie  de  Medi9is  his  title  of  duke ;  for  her 
he  had  learned  to  hate  and  oppose  Bichelieu,  and  now 
trained  up  his  son  in  the  same  sentiments.  In  1637  we 
find  the  young  Marsillac  forming  a  rom^tic  plan  of 
carrying  oflf  to  Brussels  both  the  Queen  and  her  friend, 
Madlle.  de  Hautefort.  What  better  means  of  making 
Eurppe  ring  with  his  name  than  the  daring  feat  of  de- 
priving Louis  XIII.  of  wife  and  mistress  at  a  single  blow  ? 
The  conception  of  the  plan  rests  upon  his  sole  authority ; 
when  we  turn  to  the  soberer  statements  of  others,  we  find 
him  content  with  lending  a  not  very  chivalrous  help  to 
Madame  de  Chevreuse  when  she  fled  into  Spain.  She  had 
recourse  to  him  in  circumstances  which,  had  he  had  the  true 
mettle  of  chivalry  in  him,  would  have  necessitated  his 
personal  help ;  he  sent  her  on  her  way  with  horses  and  a 
guide.  Even  for  this  he  paid  with  a  week  in  the  Bastille, 
out  of  which  he  come  resolved  to  measure  swords  with 
Richelieu  no  more.  If  he  still  adhered  to  the  Queen's 
cause,  it  was  at  no  personal  risk ;  the  brief  fever  of  self- 
devotion,  if  ever  it  burned  in  that  cold  hearty  was  extin- 
guished. Still,  when  the  Queen,  by  the  almost  simultaneous 
deaths  of  her  husband  and  Bichelieu,  was  placed  at  the 
head  of  affairs.  La  Rochefoucauld  was  among  those  who 
looked  for  the  reward  of  fidelity.  The  government  of  the 
strong  town  of  Havre,  which  remained  in  the  hands  of 
Richelieu's  family,  was  the  gift  which  he  chiefly  coveted  ; 
but  his  applications  were  met  with  excuses  and  delays 
which  almost  amounted  to  a  refusal.  He  was  really  play- 
ing a  double  game ;  coquetting  with  the  party  of  the  Due 
de  Beaufort,  while  professing  personal  devotion  to  Mazarin ; 
and,  subtle  as  he  was,  found  himself  no  match  for  an 
Italian  master  of  intrigue.  The  quarrel  between  Madame 
de  Montbazon  and  Madame  de  Longueville  led,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  the  arrest  of  Beaufort,  and  the  establishment 


LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD.  265 

of  Mazarin  in  undisputed  power.  Strong  now  in  the 
personal  favour  of  the  Queen,  the  Cardinal  despised  the 
doubtful  friendship  of  La  Rochefoucauld,  and  left  him  to 
seek  revenge  as  he  could.  That  revenge  he  proposed  to 
gain  by  detaching,  through  the  influence  of  Madame  de 
Longueville,  the  vast  strength  of  the  Condes  from  the 
party  of  Mazarin  and  the  Queen. 

It  is  hard  to  characterise  La  Eochefoucauld's  motives,  as 
he  himself  describes  them,  without  using  language  which 
would  appear  violent  and  overstrained.  To  compass  per- 
sonal purposes,  in  themselves  of  the  meanest  and  most 
selfish  kind,  he  deliberately  set  himself  to  seduce  a  woman, 
whom  he  declares  to  have  borne  up  to  that  time  an  irre- 
proachable character.  While  there  was  evei-ything  in  her 
person  and  circumstances  which  could  lend  to  unlawful 
passion  such  a  measure  of  dignity,  such  an  excuse  of  senti- 
ment, as  it  ig  capable  of  receiving,  he  coldly  calculates  the 
possible  extent  of  her  influence  upon  her  brother,  and  her 
consequent  value  as  a  political  tool.  He  notes  beforehand 
her  womanly  pliability  to  the  purposes  of  those  whom  she 
loves,  and  cheats  her  into  a  belief  of  his  afiection,  that 
he  may  make  use  of  a  gracious  and  tender  weakness,  which 
a  noble  heart  would  have  jealously  guarded  against  its 
own  or  others'  selfishness.  And  to  do  all  this,  he  conde- 
scended to  put  on  before  her  the  mask  of  a  chivalrous  and 
unselfish  gallantry ;  to  wear  a  disguise  which  he  well  knew 
would  kindle  her  imagination,  and  through  it,  touch  her 
heart ;  while  he  reserved  for  the  moment,  when  the  chains 
were  fast  bound  upon  the  victim,  the  revelation  of  his 
real  purposes  and  true  character.  There  was  indeed  that 
about  him  which  might  easily  rouse  the  admiration  of  a 
young  and  beautiful  woman,  who,  with  a  large  capacity  of 
affection,  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  love,  and  whose 
ambitious  spirit  longed  for  new  worlds  to  conquer.  While  yet 
almost  a  boy  he  had  played  an  important  part  in  the  exciting 


266  POBT  ROYAL. 

I)olitic8  of  his  day^  and  had  gained  a  reputation  for  care- 
less and  romantic  gallantry  which  he  little  deserved.  He 
had  all  the  air  of  a  grand  seigneur ;  was  tall  and  well  made, 
if  not  handsome ;  and  had  a  fat^d  faculty  of  pleasing.  We 
have  convincing  proofsin  hi8**Memoirs"  and'^Maxims  "that 
in  some  respects  he  deserved  to  he  called  a  man  of  genius, 
while  his  talents  were  such  as  would  especially  show  them- 
selves in  brilliant  and  pleasing  conversation.  He  was 
brave,  without  having  the  qualities  of  a  general;  inex- 
haustible in  intrigue,  without  the  breadth  of  view  and 
persistence  of  aim  which  are  necessary  to  make  a  states- 
man. And  he  knew  how  to  wield,  as  well  as  to  win,  his 
influence  over  Madame  de  Longueville:  while  he  palled 
the  strings,  he  persuaded  the  puppet  of  its  liberty  of 
action ;  and  when  she  was  but  serving  the  purposes  of  the 
most  selfish  of  lovers,  flattered  her  vanity  with  the  tJiought 
that  she  was  swaying  the  destinies  of  France.* 

The  opportunity  for  the  development  of  these  selfish 
intrigues  was  afforded  by  a  genuine  outbreak  of  national 
feeling.  The  government  of  the  Queen-Regent,  with 
Mazarin  at  its  head,  had  maintained  its  ascendency  over 
public  opinion  by  help  of  Condi's  brilliant  campaigns; 
and  by  its  alliance  with  the  princes  of  the  blood,  had 
fortified  itself  against  the  ambition  and  discontent  of  the 
great  nobility.  But  the  year  1648  brought  with  it  danger 
from  a  new  and  unexpected  quarter*  Mazarin  had  con- 
fided the  finances  of  the  kingdom  to  a  countryman  of  Ins 
own,  Particelli  Emeri,  whose  administration  was  at  once 
irregular  and  oppressive;  the  common  people  saw  with 
indignation  the  riches  which  the  two  Italians  amassed  at 
the  expense  of  France,  and  an  injudicious  attack  upon  the 
privileges  of  the  magistracy  drew  the  parliaments  of  the 

•  La  Rochefoucauld.  M^m.  pnmi^re  partie.  Couain,  Jeoneaae  de  Mad. 
de  LongueyUle,  p.  277,  et  Mtq.  De  Beta,  Mem.  p.  96.  Conf.  ^ad.  de 
MottcviUe,  pp.  228—236.  .«*.«« 


THE  DAT  OF  BABRICADES.  267 

kingdom  to  the  same  side.  On  every  hand  arose  a  cry  for 
Mazarin's  downfall ;  a  cry  which  the  Que^n-Begent  heard 
with  haughty  contempt  Then^  in  August,  after  much  preli- 
minary debate  with  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  came  her  cele- 
brated attempt  to  seize  the  person  of  Broussel,  a  magistrate 
of  unsullied  character  and  wide  popular  influence,  whose 
crime  had  been  bxi  honest  and  independent  opposition  to 
the  royal  wilL  More  fortunate  for  the  moment  than  her 
brother-in-law  of  England,  she  pounced  upon  her  prey ; 
Broussel,  with  one  accomplice  in  his  patriotic  offence, 
was  carried  away  from  Paris,  a  prisoner.  But  the  people 
of  Paris  rose  in  a  mad  frenzy  of  indignation ;  barricaded 
the  streets  against  the  entrance  of  the  royal  troops ;  and 
with  one  voice  demanded  Broussel's  liberation.  And  now 
a  new  character  appeared  upon  the  scene,  De  Oondi,  titular 
ArchbiBhop  of  Corinth,  in  partilms ;  really  coadjutor  with 
his  uncle  in  the  metropolitan  see  of  Paris;  no  other  than 
that  Cardinal  de  Retz,  whose  name  best  represents  to 
the  student  the  whole  perplexed  story  of  the  Fronde. 
Ambitious,  dissolute,  versatile,  faithless,  he  had  yet  con- 
trived to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  citizens,  and  now  put 
himself  forward  as  their  mediator  with  the  Queen.  Almost 
in  the  same  breath  she  protested  that  she  would  never 
yield,  and  yielded.  The  barricades  were  thrown  down  and 
Broussel  entered  Paris  in  triumph. 

But  the  old  cause  of  quarrel  between  the  Court  and  the 
Parliament  still  remained,  and  many  intriguers  were  ready 
to  blow  the  smouldering  embers  of  contention  into  a  flame. 
The  party  known  by  the  name  of  the  Importants,  which, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Due  de  Beaufort,  had  disputed  the 
ministry  with  Mazarin,  caught  at  the  opportunity  of  a  fresh 
struggle.  De  Ketz  had  tasted,  only  for  a  few  hours,  the 
sweets  of  power,  and  was  unwilling  to  abandon  his  schemes 
of  ambition.  La  Rochefoucauld,  in  a  well-known  couplet, 
which   he   inscribed  under  the  portrait  of    Madame  de 


268  POBT  ROYAL. 

Longueville,  expressed  his  ostensible  reason  for  throwing 
himself  into  ihp  Fronde :  — 

«  Poor  mcritcr  son  OBar,  pour  plaire  k  sea  beaux  yeax, 
J'ai  fait  U  gacrre  aox  rois ;  je  I'aarais  iaite  aux  Dieax." 

But  his  **  Memoirs"  confess  that  he  had  asked  for  himself  the 
right  to  assume  at  once  the  title  of  Duke,  which  would 
certainly  be  his  at  his  father's  death,  and  for  his  wife  the 
privilege  of  sitting  in  the  Queen's  presence,  and  of  enter- 
ing the  Louvre  in  her  carriage.  Mazarin  had  put  hina  off 
with  promises ;  the  *  tabouret '  had  been  granted  to  some 
other  ladies ;  the  title  of  Duke  conferred  upon  one  or  two 
old  servants  of  the  crown ;  and  La  Rochefoucauld  hastened 
from  his  government  of  Poitou  to  drag  the  Duchesse  de 
Longueville  into  civil  war.  What  members  of  her  fSanuly 
could  she  persuade  to  take  the  same  side,  and  thus  to  break 
the  alliance,  which  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  reign 
had  united  them  with  the  Regent  ?  Her  brother  Conti 
obeyed  her  slightest  word ;  her  husband  had  wrongs  of  his 
own,  as  grave  as  those  of  La  Rochefoucauld^  and  of  the 
same  nature ;  but  into  which  scale  would  Conde  throw  his 
sword — CondiS,  who  held  the  army  in  his  hand,  and  had 
just  returned  from  a  brilliant  victory  at  Lens  ?  Madame 
de  Longueville  employed  in  vain  all  her  arts  of  persuasion; 
she  had  quarrelled  with  her  brother  at  the  time  of  her  first 
attachment  to  La  Rochefoucauld,  and  now  could  not 
detach  him  from  the  Queen  and  Mazarin.  On  the  6th  of 
January,  1649,  the  King,  his  brother,  Mazarin,  Orleans, 
Conde,  all  fled  to  St.  Germains,  leaving  Paris  in  possession 
of  the  Fronde.  A  prince  of  the  blood  was  necessary  to 
act  as  leader  of  the  rebellion;  and  Conti,  still  half  a 
churchman,  who  had  never  seen  a  battle,  was  pitted  against 
his  brother,  who  in  war  at  leaat  was  the  spoiled  child  of 
fortune. 

So  began  that  first  portion  of  the  Fronde  which  is  dis- 


THE  WAR  OP  PARIS.  269 

tinguished  as  the  War  of  Paris.  Cond^,  with  a  few  troops, 
sat  down  before  a  city  which  he  could  not  invest,  and 
Conti  sheltered  himself  behind  walls  which,  against  any 
other  enemy,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  defend.  No 
one,  except  the  Parliament,  which,  amid  the  throng  of 
private  interests,  drops  more  and  more  out  of  sight,  is 
much  in  earnest ;  no  one,  except  the  insignificant  peasants 
who  have  to  feed  the  armies,  runs  the  risk  of  much 
suffering ;  and  jests,  and  pasquinades,  and  lampoons,  are 
the  weapons  most  in  request  A  tangled  web  of  lesser 
intrigues  is  woven  over  the  main  action  of  the  war :  now 
a  prince  of  the  house  of  Lorraine,  true  to  its  tradition  of 
rebellion,  disputes  the  command  with  Conti ;  now  the  Due 
de  Beaufort,  young,  handsome,  grandson  of  Henri  IV.  and 
La  Belle  Gabrielle,  wins  the  heart  of  the  Parisian  mob, 
and  is  crowned  *^  Boi  des  Halles."  A  negotiation  is  set  on 
foot,  but  thwarted  by  Mazarin's  timely  bribes,  to  bring 
Turenne  and  his  army  to  fight  Conde ;  and  an  envoy  from 
Spain  is  received,  in  spite  of  patriotic  remonstrances  from 
magistrates,  who  still  see  in  the  Fronde  a  justifiable  resist- 
ance to  oppression.  At  the  very  centre  of  all  stands  Madame 
de  Longueville,  triumphant  in  beauty,  in  popularity,  in 
the  first  sweet  consciousness  of  political  power.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  war  the  populace,  inclined  to  dis- 
believe that  Conti  could  intend  to  maintain  the  cause 
of  the  Parliament  against  his  brother,  had  demanded 
hostages  for  his  fidelity.  Madame  de  Longueville  and  the 
Duchesse  de  Bouillon  answered  the  call,  and  with  their 
children  betook  themselves  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  "  I 
escorted  them,"  says  De  Eetz*,  "  with  a  kind  of  triumph, 
to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The  small-pox  had  left  to  Madame 
de  Longueville,  as  I  have  already  said  in  another  place, 
all  the  splendour  of  her  beauty,     ....     and  that,  oi 

•  Memoirefl,  p.  93. 


270  POBT  ROYAL. 

Madame  de  Bouillon,  although  a  little  fiided,  was  still 
Tery  brilliant.  Imagine,  I  beg,  these  two  upon  the  steps 
of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  more  beautiful  from  an  apparent, 
which  was  not  however  a  real  negligence  of  dress.  Each, 
held  in  her  arms  one  of  h^r  children,  as  beautiful  as  their 
mothers  The  Gr^e  was  full  of  people  to  the  tops  of  the 
roofs ;  all  the  men  uttered  cries  of  joy ;  all  the  women 
wept  for  tenderness."  There,  a  few  days  after,  Madame 
de  Longueyille  was  delivered  of  a  son,  the  true  child  of 
the  Fronde.  The  morning  after  his  birth  he  was  baptized 
by  the  Coadjutor;  Madame  de  Bouillon,  with  the  Provost 
of  the  Merchants,  held  him  at  the  font,  and  gave  him  the 
name  of  Charles  Paris.  And  the  people  lashed  themselves 
into  an  ecstasy  of  enthusiasm,  as  if  waa*  and  &mine  had 
not  been  at  their  gates. 

The  siege  of  Paris,  which  lasted  through  the  three  first, 
months  of  1649,  was  then  terminated  by  a  treaty  of  peace 
between  the  Queen  and  the  malcontents.  It  is  sadly 
characteristic  of  the  spirit  of  the  struggle  that  the  Parlia- 
ment, which  truly,  even  if  in  a  mistaken  way,  contended 
for  great  principles  and  public  interests,  was  compelled  to 
yield  everything  to  the  royaJ  authority ;  while  the  great 
nobles  sold  their  submission  at  the  price  of  innumerable 
private  advantages.  Every  one  of  the  leaders  made  sepa^ 
rate  terms ;  nor  did  La  Rochefoucauld  forget  the  'tabouret,' 
— the  stool  in  the  royal  presence, — for  the  wife,  who  appears 
in  his  biography  only  as  the  mother  of  his  childr^i,  and 
the  pretext  for  this  sorry  ambition.  One  by  one  they 
came  in,  and  went  through  the  forms  of  a  personal  recon- 
ciliation with  the  Queen.  Madame  de  Motteville  tells  us, 
not  without  a  concealed  sense  of  satisfaction,  how,  among 
the  rest,  our  heroine  was  obliged  to  abandon  her  popular 
throne  in  Paris  to  do  homage  to  the  Begent.  Anne  of 
Aiistria  received  her  in  bed;  Madame  de  Longueville 
blushed,  stammered,  murmured  a  few  words,  of  which 


PKESH  TBOUBLES.  271 

'*  Madame  "  was  alone  audible^  either  to  the  Queen  or  her 
attentive  waiting-maid,  and  appeared  grateful  when  the 
latter  turned  the  conversation  to  some  indifferent  subject.* 
A  family  reconciliation  had  abready  taken  place,  and  it 
soon  b^an  to  be  seen  that  all  the  influence  of  the  Condes 
would  henceforward  be  exercised  in  the  same  direction. 

It  was  from  the  very  magnitude  of  this  power  that  the 
next  danger  arose.  Conti  and  Longueville  had  been  con- 
firmed in  all  their  governments  and  other  dignities; 
while  Cond^,  who  before  the  War  of  Paris  had  been 
loaded  with  honours,  now  assumed  the  position  of  one  to 
whom  the  royal  authority  owed  its  preservation.  Two 
parties  still  subsisted  in  the  state,  the  party  of  Mazarin, 
and  that  of  the  Fronde;  one  headed  by  the  Queen, 
resolved  to  support  the  minister;  the  other,  a  many- 
headed  monster,  sworn  to  compass  his  downfall ; — ^to  which 
would  the  Condes  incline  ?  At  first  there  was  no  apparent 
rupture  between  Mazarin  and  the  Prince,  although  the  de- 
mands of  the  latter  grew  every  day  more  exorbitant,  and  his 
arrogance  more  offensive  to  the  dignity  and  independence 
of  the  crown.  M.  de  Longueville  was  Governor  of  Nor- 
mandy, a  province  in  which,  during  the  late  war,  he  had 
levied  an  army  in  support  of  the  Fronde;  Conde  now 
asked  for  him  the  government  of  Pont  de  I'Arche — a 
fortified  town,  which  might  become  a  stronghold  in  case  of 
rebellion.  After  much  hesitation,  the  grant  was  yielded 
to  repeated  solicitations,  which  almost  took  the  form  of 
menace.  Then  came  the  demand  for  La  Rochefoucauld's 
dukedom,  and  'tabouret,'  and  right  of  entrance  to  the 
Louvre.  This  too  had  been  complied  with,  when  the  whole 
nobility  of  France,  except  the  personal  adherents  of  the 
Condes,  rose  in  hot  indignation,  and  compelled  the  Queen  to 
revoke  the  grant  of  privileges  for  which  no  adequate  prece- 

*  Mad.  de  MottcTiIlc,  M^in.  p.  274. 


272  PORT  EOYAL. 

dent  could  be  found.  The  town  of  Havre  de  Ghrace, — which, 
like  Pont  de  TArche,  was  an  important  strategical  position  in 
regard  to  the  province  of  Normandy, — had  for  its  governor 
the  young  Due  de  Richelieu,  great  nephew  of  the  Cardinal, 
and  still  a  minor.  Madame  de  Longueville  persuaded  him 
into  marriage  with  a  personal  friend  of  her  own,  a  lady 
much  older  than  himself;  and  Conde,  in  open  defiance  of 
law  and  custom,  assisted  and  defended  the  match.  But 
when,  on  the  contrary,  Mazarin,  not  unnaturally  distrusting 
such  a  friend,  attempted  to  strengthen  his  position  by 
marrying  his  niece  to  the  Due  de  Mercoeur,  an  illegitimate 
grandson  of  Henri  IV.,  Conde  resisted  the  marriage  with 
all  the  weight  of  his  influence  But  he  did  not  stop  here ; 
he  publicly  insulted  the  Cardinal,  and  encouraged  the 
ridiculous  pretensions  made  by  one  of  his  own  friends  and 
followers  to  the  good  graces  of  the  Queen.  The  instinct 
of  self-preservation  conspired  vdth  the  desire  of  revenge 
to  induce  the  Queen  and  her  minister  to  disembarrass 
themselves  of  an  ally,  whose  enmity  could  hardly  be  more 
fatal  than  his  friendship.  But  for  this  purpose  it  was 
necessary  to  make  a  compact  with  the  party  of  the 
Fronde.  De  Retz  was  allured  to  the  side  of  Mazarin,  by  the 
vague  promise  of  a  cardinal's  hat,  and  on  the  18th  of 
January,  1650,  the  great  blow  was  struck.  On  that  day 
the  Prince  de  Cond^,  his  brother,  and  his  brother-in-law 
were  arrested  at  the  Palais  Boyal,  whither  they  had  been 
summoned  to  a  council  of  state.  While  the  treachery  was 
being  accomplished,  Anne  of  Austria  was  on  her  knees  in  her 
oratory,  praying  for  its  success;  and  Mazarin,  it  is  said,  so 
confident  in  his  craft,  as  to  have  sent  Conde  to  prison  on  a 
warrant  which  he  had  himself  been  induced  to  sign.  But 
the  Cardinal  was  too  well  acquainted  with  the  secret  springs 
of  Conde's  policy,  to  imagine  that  so  long  as  Madame 
Longueville  and  La  Rochefoucauld  were  at  liberty,  the 
^y  was  reduced  to  inaction.    His  plans,  however,  for 


FLIGHT.  273 

their  arrest  were  not  well  laid,  and  they  escaped.  The 
prisoners  were  at  once  sent  to  Yincennes^  and  the  heroine 
of  the  Hotel  de  Yille,  in  whose  ears  the  applause  of  the 
people  of  Paris  had  hardly  yet  ceased  to  ring,  had  the 
mortification,  as  she  turned  her  hack  upon  the  fickle  city, 
to  hear  the  feux-de-joie  which  celebrated  the  arrest  of  her 
brothers  and  her  husband. 

The  imprisonment  of  the  Princes  was  the  signal  for  a 
general  flight  of  their  adherents.  Among  others  Madame 
de  Longueville,  accompanied  by  her  step-daughter  and  La 
Kochefoucauld,  betook  herself  to  Normandy,  a  province  of 
which  M.  de  Longueville  had  been  governor,  and  which 
had  risen  to  support  his  pretensions  during  the  war  of 
Paris.  She  deceived  herself  with  the  hope  that  the 
nobility,  the  parliament,  the  people  of  Normandy  would 
enthusiastically  combine  to  demand  her  husband's  and  her 
brothers'  liberation ;  that  a  similar  feeling  would  be  mani- 
fested throughout  the  provinces  which  Cond6  and  Conti 
had  governed ;  and  that  before  long,  she  herself,  at  the 
head  of  a  great  counter-revolution,  would  be  able  to  dic- 
tate terms  to  the  haughty  Austrian  and  the  Italian  favour- 
ite, who  had  thus  trampled  upon  the  pride  of  Bourbon. 
But  she  was  miserably  disappointed.  When  she  arrived  at 
Souen,  wearied  with  her  hurried  flight  from  Paris,  she 
found  that  the  governor,  the  parliament,  and  even  the 
municipality  of  that  important  city,  had  already  sent  an 
envoy  to  the  Queen,  with  assurances  of  their  unshaken 
fidelity.  She  tiurned  to  Havre,  which  she  hoped  she  had 
made  secure  by  that  very  marriage  of  the  Due  de  Richelieu, 
which  had  been  the  spark  to  cause  the  explosion.  Re- 
pulsed here  too,  she  fled,  with  a  gradually  lessening  train 
of  attendants,  to  Dieppe,  where  the  governor  consented  to 
receive  her.  But  neither  entreaties  nor  promises  couUl 
induce  him  to  do  more  than  offer  her  a  temporary  asyhmu 

At  Dieppe,  La  Rochefoucauld  left  her,  to  try  the  fortxmo 

TOI-  II.  T 


fi74  POET  BOYAL. 

of  wax  in  his  own  province  of  Poitou ;  and  Madlle.  de  Lon- 
gueville  to  escape  from  the  control  of  a  step-mother  whom 
she  hated^  and  to  conclade  a  sullen  truce  with  the  Court* 
Meanwhile  the  Queen  had  brought  the  young  King  into 
Normandy ;  and  the  royal  party  passed  from  city  to  city, 
amid  an  acclaim  of  welcome,  which  was  galling  enough  to 
the  disappointed  wanderer  at  Dieppe.  Anne  of  Austria 
could  afford,  in  the  midst  of  her  success,  to  be  generous ; 
and  sent  a  message  to  Madame  de  Longneville,  requiring 
her  to  repair  to  Golommiers,  whither  her  step-daughter  had 
already  gone.  A  fair  inference  might  be,  that  future  quiet- 
ness would  earn  oblivion  of  the  past ;  but  Madame  de 
Longueville's  pride  was  yet  £Eir  from  being  tamed  into 
submission.  She  made  some  excuse  for  not  immediately 
obeying  the  Queen's  command,  and  meanwhile  prepared 
for  flight. 

Turenne  had  taken  refuge  in  Stenai ;  a  strong  place  on 
the  frontiers  of  Champagne,  which  had  formerly  been 
held  by  Cond^ ;  and  the  plan  of  our  adventuress  was  to 
escape  to  Holland  by  sea,  to  join  Turenne,  and  to  use,  if 
she  could,  Spanish  money  and  Spanish  troops  for  the  re- 
lease of  the  prisoners.  On  some  night  early  in  February, 
therefore,  she  escaped  from  the  castle  of  Dieppe  by  an 
unguarded  postern,  and  with  her  waiting-women  and  one 
or  two  gentlemen  who  had  not  yet  abandoned  her,  walked 
six  miles  along  the  shore  to  a  little  bay,  where  she  proposed 
to  embark  in  a  vessel  which  was  cruising  off  the  coast  for 
the  purpose  of  receiving  her.  The  night  was  stormy ; 
to  reach  the  ship  it  was  necessary  to  go  on  board  a  fishing 
boat,  which  lay  near  the  beach.  Here  her  triumphs  and 
troubles  nearly  came  to  an  untimely  end ;  for  the  sailor 
who  was  carrying  her  on  board  the  boat,  dropped  her  into 
the  water,  from  which,  in  the  hurry  and  confusion  of  the 
moment,  she  was  with  difficulty  rescued.  By  the  time  she 
was  sufficiently  recovered  to  make  a  second  attempt,  the 


STBNAI.  275 

wind  had  risen  so  high  as  to  prevent  all  hope  of  an  em« 
barkation ;  but  the  resolute  lady  procured  horses^  mounted 
with  her  women  behind  the  gentlemen  of  the  party^  and 
before  daylight  was  safe  in  the  house  of  a  friend.  She 
learned  that  the  captain  of  the  vessel  which  she  had  in 
vain  tried  to  reach,  was  in  the  Cardinal's  pay ;  and  for  a 
fortnight,  during  which  she  wandered  from  one  uncertain, 
asylum  to  another,  could  not  procure  a  second  ship.  At 
last^  in  male  attire,  and  assuming  the  character  of  a  gentle- 
man who,  having  fought  a  duel,  was  fleeing  from  the  law^^ 
she  obtained  a  passage  in  an  English  vessel  from  Havre  to 
Botterdam.  In  Holland  the  fugitive  was  once  more  a 
Princess.  She  met  with  a  reception  which  recalled  the 
brilliant  days  of  her  progress  to  Munster.  The  Prince  of 
Orange  begged  her  to  take  up  her  abode  at  the  Hague^ 
The  lieutenants  of  the  King  of  Spain  in  the  Netherlands 
welcomed  her  with  almost  regal  honours.  But  her  heart 
was  with  some  at  least  of  the  prisoners  at  Yincennes ;  and 
she  hastened  to  Stenai,  where  Turenne  had  drawn  around 
him  a  body  of  troops  still  faithful  to  Conde.  Hence  with 
the  help  of  Spain,  she  hoped  to  make  herself  formidable 
to  the  Queen. 

Meanwhile  Conde's  long-neglected  wife  was  exerting 
herself  on  his  behalf  with  as  much  courage  as  his  sister, 
and  at  first  with  better  hope  of  success.  With  her  son,  a 
boy  of  seven  years  old,  she  threw  herself  into  Montrond,  a 
fortified  place  which  was  still  faithful  to  her  cause ;  and 
thence,  surrounded  by  the  chief  members  of  the  party, 
proceeded  to  Bordeaux.  The  parliament  of  that  city  had  a 
quarrel  of  their  own  with  Mazarin ;  and  when  the  yoimg 
princess,  clad  in  deep  mourning  and  holding  her  boy  in 
her  hand,  appealed"  to  them  to  succour  the  conqueror  of 
Bocroi  against  the  minister's  Italian  craft,  espoused  her 
cause  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  the  South,  and  promised 
to  live  and  die  at  her  command.     But  presently  the  Kingr, 

T  2 


276  POET  EOYAL. 

accompanied  by  his  mother  and  the  CSardinal,  came  south- 
wards: Normandy,  as  we  have  seen,  had  given  him  a 
loyal  reception ;  Burgundy,  Conde's  own  province,  followed 
the  example;  and  now  (ruienne  recoiled  before  the 
presence  of  that  civil  war,  which  when  distant  it  had 
professed  itself  ready  to  encounter.  Some  ambiguous 
promises  of  setting  Cond^  at  liberty — ^promises  which  were 
never  meant  to  be  kept, — were  all  that  the  poor  Princess 
could  gain  in  exchange  for  the  city  of  Bordeaux.  And 
Mazarin,  thinking  that  his  prisoners  were  hardly  safe  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Paris,  removed  them  to  Havre. 

The  year  wore  away  wearily  to  Madame  de  Longueville 
at  Stenai.  She  was  anxious  to  risk  everything  for  the 
cause  in  which  she  was  engaged,  and  could  accomplish 
nothing.  Turenne  owned  her  fascination,  and  entered 
willingly  into  all  her  plans;  but  the  Spaniards,  whose 
policy  it  was  to  amuse  the  leaders  of  the  Fronde  with 
promises  of  support,  and  yet  to  leave  them  to  weaken 
themselves  and  their  country  by  civil  war,  made  more 
promises  than  they  performed.  In  October,  1650,  her 
mother  died.  **  Gro  tell  that  poor  wretch  at  Stenai,"  she 
said  to  the  friend  who  watched  by  her  death-bed,  **  the 
state  in  which  you  see  me,  that  she  may  learn  how  to 
die,"  Charlotte  de  Montmorenpi  had  never  wavered  in 
her  loyalty  to  the  Queen,  and  to  her  own  good  name; 
and  now  at  the  last  looked  down  with  unfeigned  pity  on 
the  daughter  who,  in  the  full  consciousness  of  beauty  and 
ambition,  was  false  to  both.  Then,  at  the  very  end  of 
the  year,  the  only  military  operation  which  Turenne 
imdertook  was  unsuccessful ;  he  lost  the  battle  of  Sethel 
to  the  royal  troops ;  and  Mazarin,  who  had  insisted  that 
the  action  should  take  place,  appeared  before  the  world 
as  victorious  over  the  army  of  Conde,  commanded  by  one 
who,  next  to  Cond^,  was  the  greatest  captain  of  France. 

But  the  characteristic  of  this  wretched  period  is,  that  fate 


EELEASB  OP  THE  PEINCES.  277 

dogs  the  very  heels  of  success ;  and  that  Prince  or  Minister 
is  never  so  near  his  downfall  as  when  he  has  apparently 
triumphed  over  every  enemy.  The  principle  of  the  Fronde 
—  if  it  can  be  said  to  have  had  a  principle  —  was  hostility 
to  Mazarin;  and  now  what  had  De  Betz  and  his  party 
gained  by  their  opposition  to  the  Condes,  but  the  estab- 
lishment of  Mazarin  in  imdisputed  omnipotence  ?  Such 
was  far  from  being  the  restless  Coadjutor's  aim.  He  en- 
deavoured to  play  Mazarin  against  Conde,  and  Conde 
against  Mazarin,  only  that  he  might  secure,  when  the 
opportunity  came,  the  triumph  of  a  third  party,  of  which 
the  feeble  and  irresolute  Duke  of  Orleans  was  to  be  the 
apparent,  and  himself.  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
the  real  head.  So  now,  when  Mazarin,  intoxicated  with 
uninterrupted  success,  lost,  like  Conde  before  him,  all 
feeling  of  moderation,  the  Fronde  reconciled  itself  with 
the  party  of  the  Princes.  A  negotiation,  in  which  the 
Princess  Palatine  and  La  Bochefoucauld  represented  the 
high  contracting  parties,  was  sealed  by  the  proposal  of  a 
marriage  between  the  Prince  de  Conti  and  the  daughter 
of  Madame  de  Chevreuse.  Paris  W€W  soon  roused  by 
agents  who  were  skilled  in  the  manufacture  of  popular 
tumults ;  and  Mazarin,  in  a  sudden  transport  of  terror, 
fled,  leaving  behind  him  the  Queen  and  her  son.  The 
gates  of  the  city,  which  had  been  open  for  him,  were 
closed  against  their  exit:  nobility,  parliament,  people, 
demanded  with  one  voice  the  liberation  of  the  Princes. 
The  Queen,  who  was  in  reality  a  prisoner,  granted  every- 
thing. But  Mazarin  had  been  too  quick  for  her.  He 
anticipated  the  arrival  of  the  royal  messenger  at  Havre, 
and  himself  opened  the  prison  doors  which  he  had  shut 
thirteen  months  before.  It  is  now  February,  1651 :  Ma- 
zarin betakes  himself  to  Germany,  whence  he  still 
secretly  directs  his  mistress'  councils;  and  the  Princes 
return  once  more  in  triumph  to  Paris. 

T  a 


278  FOBT  BOTAL. 

The  story  of  the  Fronde  becomes  more  and  more  difficult 
to  telly  as  it  draws  near  its  end ;  if  the  actors  of  the  tragi- 
comedy do  not  change  their  characters,  they  contmuallj 
assume  fresh  disguises,  till  the  puzzled  spectator  almost 
gives  up  the  attempt  to  trace  the  motiTes,  and  discerD 
the  object  of  their  action.  Cond^,  from  his  ceU  at  Havre, 
had  been  strong  enough  to  drive  Mazarin  fit>m  France ;  he 
and  all  his  party  were  reinstated  in  their  old,  and  rewarded 
with  new  dignities;  and  the  parliament  of  Paris  fulmi- 
nated angry  decrees  against  the  absent  CardinaL  And 
yet  in  but  a  few  months  more  Conde  is  again  a  fugitive, 
and  this  time  in  arms  against  the  King. 

The  mist  of  intrigue  which  hides  the  history  of  the 
period  is  hard  to  pierce ;  but  one  fact  stands  out  clear  from 
the  confusion,  that  the  Prince  quarrelled  with  the  party  of 
the  Fronde,  only  a  few  weeks  after  he  had  regained  his 
liberty  by  its  help.  The  key-stone  of  the  alliance  had 
been  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  de  Conti  with  Madlle.  de 
Chevreuse,  a  bargain  which  the  bridegroom,  supported  by 
his  family,  now  refused  to  confirm.  Historians  exhaust 
themselves  in  conjectures  as  to  the  secret  motive  of  the 
refusal,  and  a  favourite  theory  is  to  lay  the  blame  of  the 
fresh  rupture  on  Madame  de  Longueville.  She  ex- 
ercised over  the  feeble  and  wayward  Prince  the  influence 
rather  of  a  mistress  than  a  sister,  and  was  jealous  lest  her 
place  should  be  taken  by  a  wife,  whose  beauty  was  a 
dozen  years  younger  than  her  own,  and  almost  as  brilliant. 
The  true  reason  lies  nearer  the  surface ;  MadUe.  de  Chev- 
reuse was  notoriously  the  mistress  of  the  Coadjutor ;  and  a 
prince  of  the  royal  house,  however  low  the  morals  of  the 
time,  might  well  decline  to  purchase  the  triumph  of  his 
party  at  the  price  of  a  tainted  wife.  The  bargain  had 
been  made  for  him,  and  it  was  not  till  after  his  liberation 
that  he  learnt  the  true  state  of  the  case.  That  Madame 
de  Longueville,  who  cannot  have  been  ignorant  of  the 


EKNEWAL  OF  ClYIL  WAR.  279 

relation  between  De  Betz  and  Madlle.  de  Chevreuse, 
should  have  made  such  a  compact,  is  reason  enough  for 
blame,  without  adding  the  reproach  of  wanton  and  useless 
perfidy  in  breaking  it 

Madame  de  Chevreuse  and  the  Coadjutor  were  furious ; 
and  the  Queen,  deprived  of  her  beloved  JIazarin,  with 
whom  she  was  united,  if  report  speaks  truly,  by  tenderer 
ties  than  those  which  usually  connect  Regent  and  Minister, 
plotted  with  them  the  downfall  and  assassination  of 
Cond4  The  latter,  warned  in  time,  and  perhaps  not  sorry 
to  have  a  pretext  for  decisive  action,  suddenly  withdrew 
from  Paris  to  St.  Maur,  where,  surrounded  by  his  friends 
and  adherents,  he  held  a  court  which  rivalled  and  threat- 
ened that  of  the  Queen.  When,  in  September,  1651, 
Louis  XIY.  attained  his  thirteenth  year,  and  with  it  his 
legal  majority,  Cond6  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the 
rejoicings,  on  the  ground  that  his  life  was  not  safe  within 
reach  of  the  Queen  and  her  servants.  In  truth,  he  was 
already  preparing  to  try  the  issue  of  dvil  war.  But  the 
task  of  creating  a  party  able  to  counterbalance  the  power 
of  the  crown  was  not  so  easy  as  it  had  been ;  men  were 
growing  weary  of  a  struggle  which  was  manifestly  con- 
tinued only  for  selfish  purposes.  La  fiochefoucauld,  whose 
ambition  was  but  changeful  and  indecisive  compared 
with  De  Betz's  steady  aim  at  self-aggrandisement,  coun- 
selled intrigue  and  negotiation.  The  Due  de  Longueville 
openly  abandoned  his  party,  retired  to  his  government  of 
Normandy,  and  there,  almost  king  of  the  province,  main- 
tained a  neutrality  which  wanted  little  to  convert  it  into 
loyalty.  To  Madame  de  Longueville  belongs  a  chief  share 
in  the  shame  of  renewed  war.  Her  husband  had  at  last 
awakened  to  a  knowledge  of  the  real  nature  of  her  con- 
nection with  La  Bochefoucauld,  and  peremptorily  de- 
manded that,  abandoning  the  party  of  Cond^,  she  should 
return  to  him  in  Normandy.    The  indication  of  duty  was. 

T4 


280  POET  BOTAL. 

plain  enough ;  but  love  and  pride  drew  all  the  other  way. 
Her  affection  for  La  Rochefoucauld  was  already  growing 
cold,  and  was  soon  to  be  abruptly  and  harshly  extinguished ; 
but  her  brothers  were  £ar  dearer  to  her  than  her  husband; 
she  was  a  Bourbon  but  never  a  Longueville;  and  the 
honour  of  her  house  was  involved  in  Condi's  triumph. 
She  had  even  yet  hardly  passed  her  thirtieth  year,  and 
was  wont  to  see  the  great  nobles  and  captains  of  the 
time  vie  for  her  smile,  and  submit  themselves  to  the 
guidance  of  her  intellect.  How  should  she,  who  had 
braved  the  Regent  and  concluded  treaties  of  alliance  with 
Spain,  return  to  Rouen  to  live,  a  suspected  and  guilty 
woman,  with  a  husband  to  whom  she  was  indifferent,  and 
who  was  wholly  governed  by  a  daughter  whom  she  hated  ? 
So  again  she  was  deaf  to  all  promptings  of  her  better  nature, 
and  urged  her  brothers  once  more  to  tempt  the  fortune  of 
war. 

I  cannot  tell  in  detail  the  story  of  the  last  years  of  the 
Fronde;  it  is  the  less  necessary  as  Madame  de  Lon-- 
gueville's  share  in  it  may  be  described  in  few  words. 
Guienne  was  the  province  in  which  Conde  was  strongest^ 
and  Bordeaux  the  real  centre  of  the  war.  Here  Madame 
de  Longueville  ruled  supreme.  Conti,  in  the  absence 
of  his  brother,  nominally  directed  the  councils  of  the 
party,  and  one  of  Gonde's  ablest  lieutenants  was  re- 
sponsible for  the  military  operation&  But  Madame  de 
Longueville,  sincerely  anxious  for  her  brothers'  success, 
and  animated  by  the  private  motives  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  threw  her  whole  energy  into  the  war,  and  gave 
up  the  cause  only  when  it  was  manifestly  hopeless.  Except 
the  spectacle  of  a  resolute  woman  struggling  to  the 
end  against  overmastering  difficulties,  there  is  nothing 
noble  or  heroic  in  the  story.  The  motives  of  the  contest 
were  unblushingly  selfish ;  and  the  combatants  were  un* 
scrupulous  in  their  choice  of  weapons.    Now  an  alliance  is 


END  OP  THE  PE035n)E.  281 

sought  with  Cromwell,  and  now  with  Spain;  no  matter 
what  sacrifioe  is  made  of  the  honour  and  territory  of 
France,  so  that  Cond^  can  set  his  foot  on  the  neck  of 
Mazarin.  The  precedent  of  an  alliance  with  the  mob, 
destined  to  be  fatally  followed  in  France,  is  established ; 
and  the  Reign  of  Terror  is  not  without  a  lesser  prototype 
in  the  history  of  the  Fronde  of  Bordeaux.  It  is  the  last 
foul  dregs  of  a  hateful  time ;  when  selfishness  which  had 
before  been  only  careless,  is  urged  by  fear  into  deliberate 
cruelty,  and  despair  makes  wantonness  insane. 

But  Bordeaux,  though  the  centre,  is  not  the  scene 
of  the  main  action  of  the  war.  Many  armies  are  in  the 
field.  Cond^  and  his  adherents  have  their  stronghold 
in  Ouienne;  the  Queen  and  her  son  place  their  chief 
reliance  upon  Turenne,  who,  like  Cond4,  has  changed 
sides.  Mazarin  has  heard  of  his  mistress'  distress;  and 
from  his  own  private  resources  has  levied  an  army  of 
ten  thousand  men,  with  which  he  marches  firom  the 
Rhine  to  her  help.  But  the  Fronde,  still  a  living  party 
in  Paris,  is  true  to  its  old  tradition  of  enmity  to  Mazarin ; 
and  the  Duke  of  Orleans  raises  troops,  which,  profess- 
ing loyalty  to  the  King,  are  intended  to  protect  him 
against  his  only  protector.  Conde  marched  on  Paris, 
and  at  the  very  gates  fought  a  bloody  battle  with  Turenne. 
The  issue  was  doubtful:  for  whom  should  the  city  de- 
clare? Orleans  hesitated;  while  his  daughter — the 
women  perform  every  action  of  the  Fronde  which  ap- 
proaches to  heroism — commanded  the  gates  to  be  opened 
to  admit  Condi's  shattered  battalions,  and  directed  the 
cannon  of  the  Bastille  upon  the  royal  army.  Then  fol- 
lowed confusion,  anarchy,  massacre  in  Paris;  till  Cond^, 
having  seen  his  troops  melt  away  from  his  standard  in 
a  flood  of  foul  license,  evacuated  the  city,  and  throwing 
himself  into  the  arms  of  his  Spanish  allies,  departed  to 
make  a  traitorous  use  of  bis  military  genius,  in  fighting 


282  POET  BOTAL. 

the  battles  of  the  foreign^  against  Prance.    Mazarin,  too, 
once  more  bending  his  head  to  the  storm,  retired  beyond 
the  frontier.    And  now,  at  last,  on  the  2l8t  of  October, 
1652,  Louis  XIV.  and  his  mother  entered  the  capital  in 
triumph.    The  Duke  of  Orleans  was  exiled  to  Blois,  to 
spend  in  idle  regrets  the  brief  remnant  of  his  life.     De 
Betz,  with  his  Cardinal's  hat  as  the  sole  trophy  of  the 
Fronde,  was  imprisoned  in  Vincennes.    The  rest  followed 
naturally:  Mazarin's  retreat  had  been  no  more  than  a 
trick  to  ensm-e  the  royal  triumph  over  the  remnant  of 
the  Fronde;  and  in  February,  1653,  he  returned  master 
of  the  kingdom.    The  proudest  of  French  nobles  con- 
tended for  the  honour  of  his  alliance;  and  one  of  the 
seven  nieces,  whose  marriages  connect  so  many   great 
houses  with  the  once  obscure  Abbate  of  the  Abruazi, 
became  the  wife  of  the  Prince  de  ContL     Perhaps  the 
moral  of  the  Fronde  may  all  be  summed  up  in  an  answer 
made  by  La  Rochefoucauld  to  the  Cardinal  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  struggle.     The  cynical  duke,  who  afterwards 
accepted  a  pension  from  the  minister,  and  intrigued  to 
introduce  his  son  to  the  intimacy  of  the  Bang,  found 
himself,  one  day  during  the  progress  of  some  negotiations, 
in  the  Cardinal's  carriage  with   two    other  Frondeurs. 
"Who,  only  a  week  ago,  would  have  thought  to  see  us 
four,"  said  Mazarin,  "  all  riding  in  one  coach  ?^     **  What 
would  you  have?"  answered  La  Rochefoucauld;    "tout 
arrive  en  France,  —  everything  happens  in  France." 

The  contemporary  memoirs  of  the  Fronde,  which  are  all 
written  with  some  purpose  of  excuse  or  accusation,  may 
be  justly  charged  with  hypocrisy  whenever  they  attempt  to 
rise  to  the  height  of  moral  judgment.  But  even  the  later 
historians  of  the  period  seem  to  catch  the  infection^  and 
treat  the  whole  series  of  events  as  if  they  formed  a  political 
game  of  chess,  in  which  the  sudden  turns  of  fortune,  and 
contending  subtlety  of  skill,  might  &irly  excite  the  liveliest 


HISSBIES  OF  THE  FBOKDE.  283 

intellectual,  without  unsealing  the  fountains  of  moral 
interest  The  great  part  played  in  the  Fronde  by  the 
wives  and  mistresses  and  sisters  of  the  combatants,  throws 
a  factitious  air  of  romance  over  the  fray;  and  memoirs 
aud  manuscript  collections  are  full  of  bon-mots,  ballads, 
epigrams,  brilliant  enough  to  draw  away  the  eye  from 
the  sombre  wickedness  of  the  passions,  of  which  they  were 
the  lighter  and  transitory  expression.  Voltaire*  even 
ventures  to  contrast  the  gaiety  of  heart  in  which  the  wars 
of  the  Fronde  were  waged,  with  the  determined  fury  of  the 
contemporary  civil  contest  in  England,  and  seems  to  think 
that  the  advantage  is  all  on  the  side  of  his  own  nation. 
A  more  instructive  contrast  might  be  drawn  between  the 
social  condition  of  the  two  countries,  equally  afflicted  by 
intestine  discord.  Puritan  and  Cavalier  fought  for  a  re- 
ligious and  a  political  principle ;  loyalty  was  matched  against 
liberty;  personal  ambition  was  accidental,  not  essential, 
to  the  struggle.  The  fight  was  fought  out  to  the  end  with 
hearty  good-will  by  both  parties;  fathers  and  sons  took 
opposite  sides ;  and  brother  found  himself  in  hostile  array 
against  brother.  But  we  hear  little  or  nothing  in  con- 
temporary history  of  the  misery  of  the  people :  towns  were 
not  sacked,  nor  homesteads  harried;  neither  famine  nor 
pestilence  followed  in  the  track  of  war.  Civil  wars  were 
never  waged  with  so  little  private  suflFering  as  those  of 
England  in  the  'seventeenth  century ;  and  never  brought 
after  them  more  misery  than  those  which,  at  the  same 
time,  desolated  France.  We  have  already  seen  something 
of  this  in  the  letters  of  La  Mdre  Ang^liquef ;  innumerable 
witnesses  might  be  brought  to  confirm  her  testimony,  and 
to  give  it  a  wider  application.  It  is  impossible  here  to 
display  the  evidence  in  detail ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
the  sufferings  of  the  common  people  were  in  direct  ratio 

•  Si^cle  de  Louis  XIV.,  roi  i  p.  268.  t  ^©^  ^'  P-  ***' 


284  POET  BOYAL. 

to  the  absence  of  political  principle  in  the  leaders  of  the 
war.  The  very  tone  of  the  memoirs,  while  it  confirms 
the  fsict^  authenticates  this  explanation  of  it  The  aris- 
tocratic  annalists  narrate  only  the  shifting  combination 
of  parties,  the  ramifying  thread  of  intrigue,  the  steady 
foresight  of  private  interest^ — and  have  not  a  word  to 
waste  on  the  wretched  citizens,  the  starving  husbandmen, 
at  whose  expense  the  great  game  was  played.  But  now 
and  then  some  less  interested  spectator  half-unconscioiisly 
raises  the  veil,  and  we  see  the  vast  mass  of  misery,  help- 
lessly silent,  behind. 

The  years  of  the  Fronde  are  the  period  of  Madame  de 
Longueville's  life  which  her  biographer  would,  if  he  dared, 
willingly  pass  by.  She  must  bear,  in  common  with  all  the 
chief  actors  of  the  scene,  the  reproach  of  a  guilty  indif- 
ference to  the  real  interests  of  France,  a  wanton  careless^ 
ness  of  human  tears  and  blood.  Perhaps  those  who,  from 
proximity  to  a  throne  or  the  possession  of  political  power, 
are  accustomed  to  look  upon  men  in  the  mass,  as  an  instru- 
ment to  be  wielded  for  great  public  or  private  ends,  rarely 
feel  the  keen  sense  of  personal  responsibility  in  these 
things ;  and  in  the  case  of  Madame  de  Longueville,  half  a 
lifetime  of  repentance  and  reparation  is  to  be  weighed 
against  the  thoughtlessness  of  a  few  years.  But  we  may 
fairly  urge  for  her  the  additional  excuse  that  throughout 
the  Fronde,  she  sought  and  obtained  nothing  for  herself. 
The  desire  to  please,  not  unnatural  in  a  beautiful  and 
accomplished  woman,  and  which  in  ber  at  least  was  as 
near  akin  to  love  as  to  vanity,  was  at  once  excited  and 
gratified  by  the  opportunity  of  playing  a  great  part  in 
politics  which  the  Fronde  oflFered  to  her.  It  is  true  that 
she  wanted  resolution  to  put  away  the  intoxicating  cup 
from  her  lips  before  she  had  drained  it  to  the  dregs,  and 
lU'ged  Cond^  to  civil  war,  that  she  might  escape  the 
control  of  a  husband  whom  she  did  not  love  and  had 


THE  BEGINNINa  OF  BEPENTANCE.  285 

irreparably  injured.  But  from  first  to  last  she  struggles, 
not  for  herself,  but  for  others.  Now  she  is  the  instrument 
of  La  Rochefoucauld's  petty  ambition,  and  now  contends 
for  what  she  thinks  her  brothers'  just  pre-eminence  in  the 
state.  In  the  various  treaties  with  the  Queen,  every 
article  of  which  is  a  fresh  illustration  of  the  small  selfish* 
ness  of  the  Frondeurs,  she  makes  no  stipulations  for 
herself.  All  she  wins  firom  the  Fronde  is  a  wofiil  con- 
sciousness of  her  own  weakness,  and  the  desire  hencefor- 
ward to  abandon  the  life  in  which  she  could  so  little  trust 
her  own  guidance,  for  one  in  which  wiser  hands  than  hers 
should  lead  her  safely  back  to  God.* 

Before  the  Fronde  of  Bordeaux  had  finally  come  to  its 
inglorious  end,  Madame  de  Longueville  hid  herself  in  a 
convent  of  Benedictine  nuns  of  that  city,  and  with  a  mind, 
in  which  weariness  and  despair  were  just  beginning  to 
assume  the  form  of  repentance,  looked  out  upon  the 
future.  She  was  almost  alone  in  the  world.  Her  mother 
was  dead ;  one  brother  an  exile ;  the  other,  alienated  from 
her  by  some  of  the  wretched  intrigues  which  had  made 
such  remorseless  sport  with  character  and  happiness.  She 
felt  no  desire  to  rejoin  her  husband,  over  whom  Madlle.  de 
Longueville  exercised  undisputed  sway,  and  besides,  could 
not  foretell  the  manner  of  her  reception.  And  La  Roche- 
foucauld's love  had  long  been  changed  into  mean  and  bitter 
hatred.  Perhaps  the  first  ardour  of  their  attachment  had 
been  cooled  by  her  long  absence  at  Stenai ;  but  after  the 

•  I  hare  fonnd  it  imposeible,  in  thfe  necessarily  brief  account  of  the 
Fronde,  to  indicate  the  source  from  which  every  fact  has  been  taken. 
Besides  Yillefore's  life  of  Mad.  de  Longueville,  and  M.  V.  Cousin's  elabo- 
rate volnmes,  I  have  to  acknowledge  obligations  to  Michelet's  brilliant,  but 
somewhat  imaginative  sketch,  **  Richelieu  et  La  Fronde."  At  the  same 
time  my  chief  debt  is  to  the  memoirs  of  the  time,  particularly  to  those  of 
Cardinal  de  Retz,  Mad.  de  Motteville,  and  La  Bochefoucauld.  I  have  also 
consulted  those  of  «  Mademoiselle,**  and  of  the  Duchesse  de  Nemours,  Mad. 
de  Longueville's  cold-hearted,  and  prejudiced  step- daughter. 


286  FORT  BOTAL. 

liberation  of  the  Princes  she  had  still  obeyed  his  goidance, 
and  it  was  by  their  joint  advice  that  Gond6  had  plunged  into 
civil  war.  But  on  a  journey  into  Bern,  which  preceded  the 
breaking  out  of  the  troubles,  Madame  de  Longueville  bad 
shown  herself  pleased  by  the  homage  of  the  Due  de  Nemours, 
a  brave  and  handsome  cavalier,  who  at  that  time  embraced 
the  Princes'  party.  He  was  the  avowed  lover  of  Madame 
de  Chatillon,  a  lady  who  rivalled  Madame  de  Longueville 
both  in  beauty  and  in  influence  over  the  mind  of  Conde. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  the  temptation  which  the  atten- 
tions of  the  Due  de  Nemours  oflFered  to  one  who  delighted 
to  exercise  her  all-conquering  powers  of  fascination ;  she 
could  at  once  strike  a  blow  at  a  rival  whom  she  disliked 
and  feared,  and  confirm  in  his  attachment  to  her  brothers' 
cause  an  important  ally.  The  journey  lasted  but  a  few 
days,  and  it  is  needless  as  well  as  unfair  to  put  a  worse 
interpretation  upon  Madame  de  Longueville's  conduct  than 
is  justified  by  the  supposition  of  such  motives  as  we  have 
ascribed  to  her.  But  La  Sochefoucauld  seized  upon  the 
opportunity  greedily,  as  one  who  had  long  waited  for  it ; 
and  soon  published  to  the  world  that  his  love  was  dead. 
Worse  than  this,  he  inranuated  into  Condi's  mind  sus- 
picions of  his  sister's  entire  fidelity  to  the  cause ;  persuaded 
M.  de  Nemours,  who  had  again  entered  into  bondage  to 
Madame  de  Chatillon,  publicly  to  mark  his  indifference  to 
the  object  of  his  brief  devotion ;  and  finally  succeeded  in 
shutting  out  Madame  de  Longueville  from  her  brother's 
councils.  He  tells  the  tale  himself  as  coolly  as  he  recounts 
the  motives  which  once  induced  him  to  win  her  heart, 
that  he  might  coin  it  into  political  capital  Of  course, 
with  him  it  is  only  one  instance  the  more  of  woman's 
fickleness,  and  the  ill-requited  constancy  of  man.  When 
in  the  battle  of  the  Porte  ^  St  Antoine  he  was  almost 
blinded  by  a  gun-shot,  he  parodied  the  lines  in  which  he 
had  once  falsely  paraded  an  all-sacrificing  self-devotion : — 


THE  GRAND  CTBUS.  287 

'^Ponr  oe  conr  incoDstant,  qa'enfin  je  connaif  mienz, 
J*ai  £ut  la  gnerre  anx  Boi8»  j*eii  ai  perda  les  yeuz." 

Each  version  is  as  untrue  as  the  other.* 

In  pleasing  contrast  with  La  Rochefoucauld's  faithless- 
ness, stands  the  unshaken  fidelity  to  our  heroine  of  two 
humble  friends  who  belonged  to  the  circle  of  the  Hotel  de 
Bambouillet,  George  and  Madeleine  de  Scudery.  The 
former  was  the  nominal,  the  latter  the  real  author  of  that 
voluminous  romance,  the  Grand  Cyrus,  once  the  delight 
of  more  than  one  generation  of  novel  readers,  in  which 
Madame  de  Longueville  herself,*  under  the  name  of 
Mandane,  played  a  conspicuous  part.  The  successive  pub- 
lication of  its  ten  volumes  was  contemporary  with  the 
wars  of  the  Fronde;  the  first  saw  the  light  in  1649,  the 
last  in  1653.  When  the  first  two  appeared,  they  were 
dedicated  to  Madame  de  Longueville,  then  the  idol  of  the 
Parisian  populace ;  her  portrait  adorned  the  frontispiece, 
her  beauty  and  her  wit  were  the  subjects  of  rapturous 
adulation.  The  third  volume  was  issued  about  the  end 
of  the  same  year;  the  fourth  in  1650,  when  Madame 
de  Longueville  was  escaping  at  the  peril  of  her  life  into 
Holland;  the  fifth,  a  little  later,  when  she  was  lingering 
in  weary  inaction  at  Stenai.  The  Scuderys  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  Fronde;  and  the  brother,  whose  name 
appeared  on  the  title-page  of  the  romance,  was  afterwards 
deprived  by  Mazarin,  of  the  government  of  Notre  Dame  de 
la  Garde,  for  this  very  fidelity  to  the  friendship  of  the 
proscribed  Princess.  But  every  volume  as  it  was  pub- 
lished, bore  her  arms,  and  echoed  with  her  praises,  whether 
it  appeared  at  the  moment  of  her  prosperous  or  adverse 
fortune.    The  tenth  and  last  issued  from  the  press  in  Sep- 

*  Mem.  de  Madame  de  Nemours,  p.  655.  Mem.  de  la  Rochefoacanld, 
p.  478.  V.  CJoiuin,  Mad.  de  LongneTille  pendant  La  Fronde,  p.  86,  tt  nq,, 
p.  139,  et  teq. 


288  POBT  BOTAL. 

tember,  1653,  at  the  time  when  Madame  de  Longueville, 
almost  friendless,  was  waiting  for  the  final  decision  of  the 
court  as  to  her  place  of  residence.  She  had  never  given 
more  than  thanks  and  love  to  her  constant  friends,  and 
now  had  no  more  to  give ;  her  affection  was  dangerous ; 
and  there  was  no  longer  any  hope  of  a  sudden  change  of 
fortune,  which  might  lift  high  in  air  those  who  were 
grovelling  in  the  dust.  Yet  the  tenth  volume  of  the 
Grand  Cyrus  bore  her  portrait  like  the  first.;  and  the 
dedication  repeated  all  the  courteous  devotion  which  had 
waited  upon  her  youthful  steps,  at  the  Hotel  de  Bam- 
bouillet.* 

Throughout  the  days  of  her  troubled  prosperity,  Madame 
de  Longueville  had  never  quite  lost  sight  of  her  old 
friends,  the  Carmelite  sisters  of  the  Fauxbourg  St  Jacques. 
She  had  kept  up  an  often  interrupted  intercourse  with 
Madlle.  du  Vigean ;  and,  on  occasion  of  her  mother's  death, 
had  received  and  answered  a  letter  of  condolence  from  the 
Superior.  She  turned  once  more  to  them  in  her  present 
abandonment  and  distress.  To  the  Prioress  she  writes  f : 
'<  Just  now  I  desire  nothing  so  ardently  as  to  see  the  end 
of  this  war,  that  I  may  come  and  cast  in  my  lot  with  you 
for  the  rest  of  my  days.  I  cannot  do  this  till  after  the 
peace,  by  reason  of  the  misfortune  of  my  life,  which  was 
given  to  me  only  that  I  might  experience  whatever  the 
world  has  of  bitterest  and  hardest.  What  has  made  me 
take  the  resolution,  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  is,  that 
if  I  have  had  any  attachments  to  the  world,  of  whatever 
kind  you  may  imagine,  they  are  broken,  and  even  crushed. 
This  news  will  not  be  unpleasant  to  you.  ...  I  de- 
sire that  to  give  me  a  feeling  for  God,  which  as  yet  I  have 
not,  and  yet  without  which  I  should  nevertheless  act  as 
I  have  said,  if  the  peace  were  made,  you  would  do  me 

*  Cousin,  La  Society  Fran^aue,  &c  toL  i.  p.  28,  etseg. 
t  Villcfore,  part  il  p.  65. 


BELIGIOUS  CBISIS.  289 

the  favour  to  write  to  me  often,  and  to  confirm  me  in  my 
horror  of  the  world.  Send  me  word  what  books  you 
would  advise  me  to  read."  There  is  little  religious  feeling 
in  this  letter:  it  is  the  voice  of  disappointment  seeking 
relief  in  a  quarter  to  which  Madame  de  Longueville's 
theory  of  religion,  and  the  recollection  of  a  more  dis- 
interested and  genuine  aspiration,  alike  pointed.  Pre- 
sently came  an  order  from  the  court  that  she  should  repair 
to  Montreuil,  an  estate  in  Anjou  belonging  to  her  hus- 
band ;  then,  after  a  time,  she  was  permitted  to  take  up 
her  abode  at  Moulins.  Here  was  the  tomb  of  her  imcle 
Montmoren9i,  whose  fate  had  so  excited  her  childish  com- 
miseration; and  here  his  widow  wore  away  her  days  as 
Superior  of  a  convent  of  "  Filles  de  Sainte  Marie."  The 
chord  of  the  former  association  was  once  more  struck; 
and  the  Abbess,  who  lived  to  lament  an  old  attempt  at 
revolution,  took  to  her  heart  the  niece  who  was  the  victim 
of  a  new  one.  Little  by  little  the  spectacle  of  the  cloister 
peace,  and  of  a  virtue  which  seemed  to  have  emerged 
from  the  region  of  conflict  into  one  of  harmony  with  itself 
and  with  God ;  as  well  as  pious  reading  and  kind  advice, 
seem  to  have  wakened  to  growth  the  germ  of  religious 
feeling  which  had  long  slept  in  Madame  de  Longueville's 
heart.  At  last,  on  the  2nd  of  August^ — she  has  herself 
preserved  the  date, — ^the  crisis  came.  As  she  was  reading, 
she  says :  "  It  was  as  if  a  curtain  were  drawn  from  before 
the  eyes  of  my  spirit;  all  the  charms  of  the  truth,  as- 
sembled in  a  single  object^  presented  themselves  before 
me;  faith,  which  had  remained  as  if  dead,  and  buried 
beneath  my  passions,  was  renewed;  I  found  myself  like 
one  who,  after  a  deep  sleep,  in  which  she  had  dreamed 
that  she  was  great,  happy,  honoiured,  esteemed  by  all  the 
world,  wakes  all  at  once,  and  finds  herself  loaded  with 
chains,  pierced  with  wounds,  beaten  down  by  weariness, 

VOL.  II.  V 


290  POET  BOYAU 

and  confined  in  a  gloomy  prison."  •  The  sincerity  of  lihis 
conversion  may  be  best  vouched  for  by  the  fact  that^  after 
a  stay  of  a  few  months  at  Moulins,  she  made  no  attempt 
to  hide  herself  from  shame  and  duty  in  the  cloister,  but 
went  quietly  back  to  Normandy,  and  did  her  best  for  her 
husband  and  children. 

M.  de  Longueville  survived  till  1663.  The  story  of  his 
conduct  to  his  wife  during  these  nine  years  is  soon  told. 
He  took  her  back  without  reproach,  and  behaved  to  her 
with  a  gentlemanly  courtesy,  which  in  time  suffered  the 
growth  of  confidence  and  esteem.  She  did  not  make  her 
peace  with  the  Queen  as  easily  as  with  her  husband; 
Cond^  was  now  commanding  the  armies  of  Spain,  and 
every  fresh  success  which  he  gained  over  the  generals  of 
his  country  was  cause  of  fresh  suspicion  against  his  sister. 
She  was  but  thirty-five,  her  beauty  had  hardly  lost  its 
first  brilliance,  her  powers  of  pleasing  were  unimpaired, 
and  she  might  yet,  thought  Mazarin  and  his  mistress, 
break  away  from  a  seclusion  and  a  restraint  so  foreign 
to  all  her  wishes,  and  become  the  centre  of  a  new  Fronde.f 
But  we  do  not  find  any  evidence  that  such  a  temptation 
assailed  her.  Though  her  heart,  as  ever,  went  with 
Cond^,  and  beat  quicker  than  its  wont  at  the  news  of  his 
victories  or  reverses,  she  really  desired,  and  patiently 
waited  for,  a  reconciliation  with  the  court.     At  first  she 

♦  Villefore,  part  ii  p.  73. 

t  It  was  long  before  Masarin  ceased  to  fear  the  heroines  of  the  Fronde. 
When  at  the  peace  of  the  Pyrenees  in  1660,  the  Spanish  ambassador  made 
It  a  stipulation  that  Cond#  should  be  restored  to  his  rank  and  dignities  in 
France,  a  question  arose  as  to  Madame  de  Longueville.  Don  Loia  de 
Haro  remarked  with  some  shade  of  contempt,  that  one  woman  could  not 
surely  disturb  the  tranquillity  of  the  state.  **  That  is  all  Tcry  weU  for  yon 
Spaniards,'*  answered  Maxarin,  •*your  women  trouble  themsdyes  sOwiit 
nothing  but  loTemaking ;  but  in  France  it  is  not  so,  and  we  have  three*  the 
Duchesse  de  Longueville,  the  Princess  Palatine,  and  the  Dnchesse  d© 
Chevrcuse,  who  are  capable  of  ruling  or  upsetting  three  great  klDgdoms.**— 
VUUfore,  part  il  p.  109. 


THE  PEINCB  DE   CONTI.  291 

did  not  quit  Normandy,  which  was  her  habitual  residence 
throughout  these  years ;  then  we  find  her  taking  her  place 
as  a  princess  of  the  blood  at  the  great  festivals  of  royalty ; 
at  last  she  is  chosen  by  her  husband  to  convey  his  com- 
plaints and  wishes  to  the  ear  of  the  King.  M.  de  Longue- 
ville  did  not  interfere  with  her  religious  observances, 
except  to  protest  when  they  seemed  likely  to  degenerate 
into  excesses  of  austerity ;  and  Port  Royal,  when  the 
Duchess  adopted  its  guidance,  had  the  good  sense  to 
teach  her,  that  no  duty  could  be  so  imperative  as  that  of 
watching  over  her  husband's  declining  years.  Before  he 
died  he  grew  to  value  her  kindness,  as  well  as  to  claim  it 
as  a  right ;  and  she  had  the  satisfaction  of  attempting  to 
expiate  the  unfaithful  thoughtlessness  of  her  youth,  by 
years  of  watchful  and  tender  care.* 

Madame  de  Longueville's  repentance  was  almost  imme- 
diately followed  by  a  still  more  startling  conversion,  that 
of  her  brother  Conti.     He  had  been  originally  destined  for 
the  Church,  and  throughout  the  wars  of  the  Fronde  had 
continued  to  hold  the  numerous  and  wealthy  benefices 
which  had  been  heaped  upon  the  royal  aspirant  to  eccle- 
siastical honours.     But  he  had  never  taken  orders ;  and  as 
soon  as  he  had  made  his  peace  with  the  King,  cast  about 
for  some  means  of  irrevocably  cutting  himself  off  from  the 
possibility  of  entering  the  Church.    Cond^,  long  before,  had 
married  a  niece  of  Bichelieu,  and  so  obtained  the  com- 
mand of  armies ;  Mazarin  had  seven  nieces  for  whom  he 
wished  to  find  husbands ;  why  not  repeat  so  successful  a 
stroke   of  policy?     The   Cardinal   could   desire  nothing 
better  than  this  opportimity  of  allying  himself  with  the 
blood  royal,  and  Anne  Marie  Martinozzi,  a  girl  of  seven- 
teen, was  ordered  to  bestow  herself  on  the  humpbacked 
bridegroom,  the  flagrant  vices   of  whose  life  were   not 

*  Yillefore,  part  ii.  p.  77,  et  ieg,    CousiD,  Mad.  de  Sabl^,  p.  183.  • 

T7  2 


292  PORT  BOYAL. 

atoned  for  by  manliness  or  independence  of  character. 
He  was  not  even  recommended  by  any  sincerity  of  passion; 
Mazarin  had  two  nieces  still  unmarried,  and  he  cared  not 
which  fell  to  his  share ;  his  object,  as  he  openly  said^  ^* was 
to  marry  the  Cardinal,'*  Yet,  after  the  marriage,  another 
phase  of  family  history  seemed  likely  to  be  repeated,  for 
Louis  XrV.  fell  in  love  with  Anne  Martinozzi,  as  Henri 
rV.  had  once  done  with  her  husband's  mother,  Charlotte 
de  Montmorenfi,  Conti,  who  was  commanding  on  the 
frontiers  of  Spain  the  army  which  he  had  bought  by  his 
marriage,  at  once  sent  for  his  wife,  who  joined  him  in 
Languedoc  at  the  end  of  1654.  It  was  hardly  necessary; 
the  Princesse  de  Conti  was  made  of  other  clay  than  the 
facile  ladies  whom  Louis  XIY.  was  accustomed  to  solidt, 
and  publicly  repulsed  him  in  a  way  which,  if  he  ever 
recollected  it  among  the  easy  victories  of  his  manhood, 
must  have  seemed  strange  to  the  all-conquering  King. 

The  young  Italian  lady,  whom  fate  had  thus  so  strangely 
united  with  a  weak,  wayward,  debauched  Prince,  was,  even 
in  her  girlhood,  of  a  grave,  resolute,  almost  severe  charac- 
ter ;  unable  to  accustom  herself  to  the  ways  of  courts ;  true 
in  word  as  in  life.  It  is  not  therefore  strange,  when  we 
remember  what  Catholic  engines  of  conversion  are,  that 
her  husband  should  first  have  felt  their  eflScacy.  He  had 
been  in  leading-strings  all  his  life,  obeying  the  guidance 
now  of  his  sister,  now  of  a  mistress,  now,  even  of  a  servant ; 
in  1655  the  confessor's  turn  came.  He  had  gone  to 
Pezenas,  to  represent  the  King  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Estates  of  Languedoc,  and  there  received  the  homage  of 
Pavilion,  Bishop  of  Alet  Conti,  worn  out  with  debauch, 
was  lying  wearily  in  bed,  wondering,  perhaps,  at  the 
bitterness  of  "  the  husks  that  the  swine  did  eat,"  when  the 
good  Bishop  came  to  pay  the  formal  visit  demanded  by 
etiquette.  Something,  said  the  Prince,  seemed  to  whisper 
to  him  that  here  was  the  man  to  whom  he  must  entrust 


THE  PKINCE  DE   CONTI.  293 

himself  if  he  would  be  delivered  from  his  sin  and  his  fear, 
and  the  visit  of  compliment  was  converted  into  a  serious 
interchange  of  confession  and  advice.  Pavilion  knew 
only  too  well  the  character  of  the  penitent  with  whom  he 
had  to  deal ;  for  the  south-west  provinces  of  France  had 
been  the  head-quarters  of  the  Fronde  in  its  latter  years. 
So  he  prescribed  a  rigid  and  long  course  of  penitence ; 
recommended  the  Prince  to  the  care  of  M.  Ciron,  a  pious 
ecclesiastic  of  Toulouse  who  happened  to  be  then  in  Paris, 
and  consented  that  he  should  receive  absolution  only  after 
nine  months'  perseverance  in  self-mortification  had  proved 
the  reality  of  his  repentance. 

It  was  not  till  two  years  afterwards  that  Madame  de 
Conti,  then  only  in  her  nineteenth  year,  agreed  to  place 
herself  by  her  husband's  side,  under  the  care  of  the  Bishop 
and  M.  Ciron.  The  change  must  have  been  wrought  in 
her  mind  little  by  little;  partly,  perhaps,  by  Pavilion's 
almost  savage  sincerity,  partly  by  watching  the  transforma- 
tion of  her  husband's  life,  partly  by  the  secret  promptings 
of  bodily  weakness,  which  began  to  warn  her  that,  young 
as  she  was,  her  death  might  not  be  distant.  WTio  can 
wonder  that  at  first  the  passionate  language  of  self-abase* 
ment,  which  Pavilion  and  his  own  conscience  might  rightly 
place  upon  her  husband's  lips,  would  seem  untrue  upon 
her  own  ?  Whatever  changes  of  feeliug  preceded  her  con- 
version she  was  faithful  to  her  thought  after  as  before  it ; 
and  wife,  widow,  mother,  is  henceforward  a  Christian,  ac- 
cording to  the  model  of  Alet,  till  she  dies.  In  1660  the 
Prince  was  appointed  Governor  of  Languedoc,  which  gave 
him  the  desu-ed  opportunity  of  receiving  and  acting  upon 
Pavilion's  advice.  With  his  wife  he  made  a  "  retreat "  at 
Alet  in  1661,  and  again  in  1662;  laying  aside  for  the 
time  all  state  as  the  representative  of  royalty,  and  listening 
to  the  good  Bishop's  exhortations  like  any  other  layman  of 
the  province.    A  third  time,  in  1665,  he  came  to  Alet  to 

17  8 


294  POBT  BOYAIi. 

take  counsel  with  Pavilion  both  as  to  his  own  religious 
condition  and  the  afifairs  of  his  goyemment.  In  the  spring 
of  1666  he  died. 

It  is  noticeable  how  the  Bishop  of  Alet,  in  common 
with  the  school  of  Jansenist  theologians,  to  which  he  at 
this  time  unconsciously  belonged,  upheld,  in  dealing  with 
such  a  penitent  as  the  Prince  de  Conti,  the  claims  of 
common,  every- day  morality.    He  would  not  suffer  him 
to  fly  to  a  cloister  and  attempt  to  atone  for  profligacy  by 
austerity.    He  withstood  his  desire  to  resign  the  govern- 
ment of  Languedoc,  and  taught  his  penitent  that  a  wise  and 
righteous  administration  of  public   affidrs,   not  a  faith- 
less abstinence  from  them,  was  the  best  sacrifice  which  a 
Prince  could  bring  to  Grod.    He  exacted  from  him  hard 
and  humiliating  proofs  of  sincerity ;  to  one  gentleman  of 
Bordeaux  the  Prince  restored  a  great  sum  of  money ;  of 
another  he  humbly  asked  pardon  for  having  seduced  his 
wife.     When  the  Princess  received  her  share  of  Mazarin's 
vast  inheritance,  she  and  her  husband  wished  to  employ 
the  ill-gotten  wealth  in  one  splendid  act  of  ecclesiastical 
mimificence.    There  was  a  plan  for  building  and  endowing 
a  costly  church  on  the  domains  of  Conti,  another  for 
founding  a  convent  of  Carmelite  nuns,  where  the  Princess 
might  retire  from  time  to  time  for  religious  meditation. 
But  Pavilion  also  had  his  scheme.     He  held  the  Prince 
directly  responsible  for  the  wretchedness  caused  by  the 
civil  war,  and  asked  of  him  an  account  of  all  the  Church 
revenues  which  he  had  received  and  squandered.     Now 
there  was  an  opportunity  of  restitution.    But  he  did  not 
think  promiscuous  almsgiving  enough,  however  lavish  it 
might  be ;  he  proposed  to  the  Prince  to  inquire  through 
the  province  of  Berri  for  the  families  which  had  suffered 
most  in  the  war,  and  to  cause  restitution  to  be  made 
from   house  to  house.      The  Princess  at  first  rebelled 
against  a  plan  which  was  not  only  unattractive  to  the 


THE   PEINCB  DB  CONTI.  295 

imagination^  but  involved  something  of  ihumiliation  with  its 
munificence.  Presently  she  gave  way ;  as  one  who  yields 
rather  to  inner  conviction  than  to  the  will  of  a  director. 
Fontaine  tells  an  anecdote  of  her  widowhood,  which  illus- 
trates her  renunciation  now.  De  Sa^i  had  inculcated  upon 
her  the  necessity  of  almsgiving,  with  reference  to  some 
occasion  of  great  public  misery,  and  she  **  having  a  pearl 
necklace  of  admirable  beauty  and  very  great  value,  as  soon 
as  she  was  informed  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  poor,  deem- 
ing this  string  of  pearls  a  superfluity,  sacrificed  it  to  help 
them.  It  is  true  that  as  she  gave  it,  and  looked  at  it  for 
the  last  time,  she  heaved  a  little  sigh,  but  her  faith  soon 
smothered  it  and  remained  victorious  over  nature."*  Her 
weak  and  pliable  husband,  on  the  contrary,  was  incapable 
of  choice  when  under  the  control  of  a  stronger  will  than 
his  own.  He  would  go  any  lengths  in  virtue,  as  in  vice ; 
and  for  the  same  reason.  An  amusing  story  has  been 
preserved  to  the  efifect  that  his  boys,  in  reading  the  Old 
Testament  with  him,  always  passed  over  the  story  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac.  "  Our  father  is  so  good,"  they  said,  on 
being  asked  the  reason,  ^^  that  if  God  demanded  it  of  him, 
he  would  do  with  us  as  Abraham  did  with  Isaac  So  we 
keep  that  from  him." 

I  have  already,  in  speaking  of  Lancelot's  ineffectual 
attempts  to  educate  these  boys  after  the  fashion  of  Port 
Boyal,  alluded  to  Madame  de  Conti's  widowhood.  From 
the  very  first  a  common  religious  interest  had  reconciled 
all  differences  between  her  husband  and  his  sister ;  while 
after  a  time,  when  Madame  de  Longueville  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  Singlin,  and  the  Bishop  of  Alet  had 
discovered  his  unconscious  affinity  with  the  Jansenist 
party,  they  were  all  united  upon  the  common  ground 
of  Port  Eoyal.     The  two  Princesses  worked  together  for 

*  Fontaine,  vol  ir.  p.  267. 

U  4 


296  PORT  ROYAL. 

the  Peace:  Madame  de  S6vign6  pleasantly  called  them 
"  the  mothers  of  the  Church."  *  But  Madame  de  Conti 
did  not  long  survive  the  success  of  her  eflForts,  and  died, 
in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  her  age,  and  the  sixth  of  her 
widowhood,  in  1672.t 

Madame  de  Longueville  had  at  first  no  point  of  contact 
with  Port  Eoyal;  there  was  nothing  Jansenist  in  the 
manner  or  the  instruments  of  her  conversion,  and  her 
history  is  one  of  religious  aspiration,  not  of  theological 
conviction.  When  once  she  was  embarked  in  the  cause 
of  Port  Royal,  men  said,  not  altogether  unjustly,  that 
she  had  found  her  right  place  in  the  Church,  and  from 
heroine  of  a  political  had  become  leader  of  an  ecclesiastical 
Fronde.  And,  beyoijd  doubt,  it  must  have  been  a  pleasant 
thing  to  that  restless  mind  and  eager  will,  to  find  once 
ipore  a  field  of  public  action  upon  which  they  might 
lawfully  exert  themselves:  she,  who  had  formerly  made 
treaties  of  peace*  and  war  with  Spain,  not  unwillingly 
pleaded  the  cause  of  Port  Eoyal  with  Pope  and  King. 
But  it  was  not  the  desire  of  action,  or  any  leaning  to  a 
rebellious  theology,  that  brought  her  to  Port  Eoyal.  She 
wanted  a  director,  and  could  find  none  elsewhere.  She 
came  to  Singlin,  as  Angelique  Amauld  had  formerly  gone 
to  St.  Cyran,  because  she  wished  to  submit  herself  to  a 
stronger  and  wiser  will  than  her  own.  The  cur&i  and 
monks  who  imdertook  her  '  case '  could  not  see  into  her 
heart,  even  when  she  opened  it  to  them,  and  prescribed 
spiritual  medicines,  which  left  her  ailing  as  before.  At 
last,  in  1661,  many  indications  of  circumstance  pointed 
to  Singlin  as  the  confessor  in  whom  she  would  find  all 
she  needed.  But  before  we  bring  our  heroine  into  the 
quiet  port,  where  she  is  all  our  own,  we  must  again  enlarge 

•  Lett.  XXIX.  March  13,  1671. 

t  Vies  des  Quatre  ^v^qaea,  vol.  I  p.  lOS,  et  aeq.  Bewigne,  ▼ol.  iii.  p.  36, 
etseq.    Fontaine,  Tol.  iii.  p.  378.    Sf  Beure,  toL  iy.  p.  422,  et  ««g. 


MADEMOISELLE  DE  VERTUS.  297 

our  gallery  by  adding  to  it  the  portraits  of  two  friends, 
who  formed  the  final  link  between  her  and  the  community 
henceforward  to  be  inseparably  connected  with  her  name. 

The  first  of  these,  Madlle.  de  Vertus,  seems  to  have 
attached  herself  to  Madame  de  Longueville  before  1654, 
for  we  hear  of  her  as  helping  her  friend's  reconciliation 
with  her  husband.  From  that  time  they  lived  together  on 
t^rms  of  sisterly  equality,  till  in  1671  Madlle.  de  Vertus 
made  a  final  and  complete  retreat  to  Port  Boyal  des 
Champs.  She,  too,  was  of  an  illustrious  house,  descending 
on  the  father's  side  from  that  royal  family  of  Brittany 
which  was  united,  in  the  marriage  of  Anne  of  Brittany 
with  Louis  XII.,  to  the  reigning  dynasty  of  France.  Her 
mother,  a  beautiful  and  profligate  woman,  was  the  daughter 
of  La  Varenne,  who,  once  a  cook,  gained  rank  and  in- 
famous notoriety  by  ministering  to  the  pleasures  of  Henri 
rV.  Madlle.  de  Vertus  was  the  younger  sister  of  Madame 
de  Longueville's  old  enemy,  the  Duchesse  de  Montbazon, 
but  possessed  neither  her  beauty  nor  her  audacious  wan- 
tonness. The  family  was  poor;  her  other  unmarried 
sisters  had  taken  refuge  in  the  convent;  and  she  lived 
first  with  one  great  lady,  and  then  with  another,  till  she 
found  in  Madame  de  Longueville  the  friend  of  a  life-time. 
Some  unexplained  mystery  connects  Madlle.  de  Vertus' 
name  with  that  of  La  Eochefoucauld  —  could  it  be  that 
the  two  friends  had  the  same  wrongs  to  deplore?  What- 
ever may  have  been  her  sins,  her  repentance  preceded  that 
of  Madame  de  Longueville ;  and  she  was,  as  Racine  said 
in  her  epitaph,  "  the  visible  angel  of  whom  God  made  use 
to  aid  this  Princess  to  find  the  narrow  way  of  salvation." 
Of  the  two,  she  had  the  more  equable  temper  and  the 
sounder  judgment;  and  by  the  gentle  constancy  of  her 
character  often  attracted  those  whom  her  friend  repelled 
by  some  trace  of  the  old  pride  and  caprice.  Throughout 
the  whole  of  Madame  de  Longueville's  attempt  to  aUay 


298  PORT  SOTAL. 

the  troubles  of  Port  Boyal^  M adlle.  de  Vertus  sfcands  by 
her  side,  and  leaves  her  at  last  only  to  wear  away  a  linger- 
ing old  age  in  the  arms  of  the  beloved  community.* 

The  other  &iend  is  one  who  asks  from  us  a  more  minute 
and  careful  attempt  at  portraiture ;  for  her  connection  with 
Port  Boyal  was,  in  many  ways,  unlike  that  which  bound 
others  of  her  rank  and  sex  to  the  community.  Madeleine  de 
Souvr6  was  the  daughter  of  Grilles  de  Souvr^,  Marquis  de 
Courtenvaux,  a  soldier  to  whom  Henri  IV.  gave  a  marshal's 
baton,  and  the  charge  of  his  son  Louis  XIIL  She  was 
bom  in  1599 ;  and  at  the  age  of  fifteeen  married  Philippe 
de  Laval-Montmoren^i,  Marquis  de  Sabl^,  to  whom  she 
bore  four  children,  none  of  whom  have  any  connection 
with  our  story.  Her  husband  died  in  1640 ;  about  which 
time  we  first  hear  of  her  at  Port  Eoyal  in  company  with 
Madame  de  Gruem^n^,  and  the  future  Queen  of  Poland.t 
The  intercourse  thus  begun  was  never  wholly  intermitted ; 
and  about  the  year  1653,  Madame  de  Sabl^,  a  widow, 
whose  only  daughter  had  embraced  the  religious  life,  built 
for  herself  a  house  in  the  court-yard  of  Port  Boyal  de 
Paris,  having  a  communication  of  its  own  with  the  outside 
world,  and  a  private  door  into  the  convent  Till  her 
death,  in  1678,  this  was  her  abode. 

She  had  been  beautiful  in  her  youth,  and  had  not 
wanted  admirers,  the  most  illustrious  of  whom  was  the  un- 
fortunate Henri  de  Montmorenpi,  brother  of  the  Princesse 
de  Cond^.  But  Madame  de  Sabl6  held  a  chief  place  in 
the  society  of  the  Hotel  de  Eambouillet;  was  indeed, 
according  to  her  last  biographer,  "  the  type  of  the  perfect 
prideuse;^  and  thought  it  no  wrong  that  a  wife  and 
mother  should  receive  such  chaste  and  refined  homage 
as  M.  de  Montausier  so  long  vainly  oflFered  to  the  *'  divine 

•  ConBin,  Mad.  de  Sablg,  pp.  228, 840,  et  §eq.    Sf  BenYe,  toL  it.  p.  493* 
Besoigne,  vol.  iii.  p.  131. 
t  VoL  L  p.  193. 


MADAMTg   DE   SABL£.  290 

JiUie."  Madame  de  Motteville,  who  knew  her  well,  con- 
firms this  view  of  her  relation  to  the  Due  de  Montmorenfi, 
and  adds,  that  she  indignantly  rejected  his  attentions  when 
he  began  to  raise  his  eyes  to  the  Queen,  ^  not  being  able 
to  receive  with  pleasure  such  respect  as  she  was  compelled 
to  share  with  the  greatest  Princess  of  the  world."  *  She 
was,  in  truth,  formed  rather  for  friendship  than  for  love ; 
her  heart  was  too  cold,  her  affections  too  self-centred,  to 
suffer  the  mastery  of  the  warmer  and  less  conscious 
passion.  Her  natural  powers,  which  were  good,  had  been 
cultivated  by  intercourse  with  the  best  society  of  the  day ; 
she  loved  to  converse  with  men  of  letters,  and  they  in 
turn  asked  and  valued  her  opinion  of  their  works.  Voiture 
addressed  many  letters  to  her;  La  Bochefoucauld  po- 
lished his  "Maxims**  with  her  help.  But  the  greatest 
tribute  to  the  solidity  of  her  mind  is,  that  Amauld  sub- 
mitted to  her  approval  the  preliminary  discourses  of  "  The 
Port  Eoyal  Logic." 

Madame  de  Sable's  relation  to  Port  fioyal  is  not  easy 
to  describe.  If  any  religious  fervour  first  brought  her 
there,  it  was  neither  deep  nor  lasting ;  she  is  severed  by 
a  whole  hemisphere  firom  the  spirit  of  the  monastery  while 
actually  dwelling  in  its  court-yard.  A  single  letter  ad- 
dressed to  her  by  Angelique  Amauld  is  still  extant :  it  is 
dated  March  11th,  1653,  at  the  very  beginning  of  her 
residence  at  Port  Boyal,  and  strikes,  as  it  were,  the  key 
note  of  all  her  long  subsequent  correspondence  with  Agnfes 
and  Angelique  de  St  Jean  Amauld.f  Angelique  gently 
reproves  her  for  her  absurd  fear  of  disease  and  death,  and 
warns  her  that  her  windows,  which  look  upon  the  convent 
garden,  must  not  be  open  to  strangers,  whose  approach 
might  infringe  upon  strict  conventual  seclusion.  From 
that  time  there  is  a  constant  interchange  of  notes  between 

•  M^m.  de  Mad.  de  Motteville,  p.  18. 

f  Lettres  d*ADg61iqae  Arnanld,  toI.  il.  p.  292. 


SOO  POBT  ROYAL. 

the  house  in  the  court-yard  and  the  Abbess*  parlour,  fall 
of  complaint,  and  remonstrance,  and  patience,  and  recon* 
ciliation.  Madame  de  Sabl^  bargains  that  she  shall  be 
kept  accurately  informed  of  all  the  sickness  of  the  house ; 
while  at  the  same  time  she  and  her  servants  are  always  de- 
tecting some  unreported  illness,  or  magnifying  a  trifling 
ailment  into  a  case  of  infectious  disease.  Thence  fresh 
charges,  and  fresh  explanations*  The  smell  arising  from 
the  manufacture  of  tapers  for  the  church  ofifends  her  nostrils; 
and  she  will  go,  if  some  place  sufficiently  remote  &om  her 
lodging  cannot  be  found  for  the  process.  After  she  has 
been  ten  years  at  Port  Eoyal,  she  finds  out  that  her  rooms 
have  no  morning  sun  upon  them ;  and  La  M^re  Agn^ 
tries  to  console  her  with  the  idea  that  her  face  in  the 
church  is  turned  to  the  east,  and  so  towards  the  Sun  of 
righteousness.  Then — for  she  is  no  longer  young  when 
she  takes  up  her  abode  at  Port  Boyal — she  all  at  once 
loses  her  troublesome  sense  of  smell ;  and  many  a  querulous 
letter  is  written  in  the  consciousness  of  this  affliction  to 
Agn^  Amauld,  whose  sober  exhortations  shine  with  a 
gleam  of  suppressed  humour  as  she  informs  her  corres- 
pondent that  she  herself  has  had  no  use  of  her  nose  for 
nearly  fifty  years,  and  does  not  find  herself  seriously  worse 
for  the  privation.  By  and  bye,  the  sense  of  taste  begins  to 
grow  dull;  and  again  there  is  a  long  lamentation,  and 
much  kindly  attempt  at  comfort,  not  unmingled  with 
rebuke.  I  doubt  whether  in  the  palmy  days  of  Port 
Soyal,  Ang^lique  Arnauld  would  have  suffered  so  singular 
a  connection  to  be  prolonged;  for  she  had  borne  im- 
patiently the  worldliness  of  greater  ladies  than  Madame 
de  Sabl6.  But  in  the  time  of  trouble,  the  Marquise  was 
in  a  thousand  ways  usefal  to  the  community;  who,  on 
their  part,  persuaded  themselves  that  they  were  useful  to 
her.  If  it  was  hard  in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  of  con- 
science, which  seemed  to  involve  their  very  existence,  to 


MADAME  D£  SABL£.  £01 

have  to  answer  quietly  her  petty  complaints  and  soothe 
her  small  jealousies,  they  at  least  knew  that  she  was  using 
for  them  all  the  resources  of  a  masculine  intellect^  and  a 
great  social  influence.  So  they  bore  with  her  to  the  last ; 
and  made  her  the  confidante  of  their  secretest  councils. 
She  remained  at  her  house  all  through  the  reign  of  La 
M6re  Eugenie,  a  friend  in  the  enemy's  camp.  But  when 
the  true  Port  Boyal  was  established  once  more  in  the  house 
in  the  valley,  she  could  not  resolve  to  follow  her  friends. 
She  was  already  seventy  years  of  age;  how  should  she 
leave  Paris,  and  her  pleasant  literary  coterie,  and  the 
physician  in  whom  she  put  her  trusty  to  bury  herself  in 
the  coimtry,  and,  above  all,  at  a  spot  which  was  noto- 
riously unhealthy?  M.  de  Sevign^,  a  gentleman  who 
stood  in  a  similar  relation  to  the  convent,  did  not  hesitate 
to  transplant  himself  to  Port  Boyal  des  Champs,  and  even 
had  the  rudeness  to  tell  her  that  God  had  put  a  term  to 
her  life,  which  all  her  fears  and  precautions  would  not 
lengthen  by  a  single  day.  But  then  he  had  been  a  rough 
soldier,  with  no  great  tincture  of  letters,  and  was  not  in 
any  respect  an  example  for  a  woman  of  mind  and  fashion 
like  herself.  So  till  her  death  in  1678,  she  remained  at 
Port  Boyal  de  Paris,  an  apparent,  though  not  a  real  link 
of  union  between  the  hostile  houses.  She  lived  with  the 
new  friends,  much  as  she  had  lived  with  the  old  ones ;  and 
maintained  with  Port  Boyal  des  Champs  the  ancient  com- 
merce of  jealous,  querulous,  and  yet  friendly  letters. 

The  good  sisters  who  have  compiled  the  annals  of  Port 
Boyal  well  knew  that  Madame  de  Sabl6  did  not  belong  to 
them  in  the  same  way  as  Madame  de  St.  Ange,  or  Madame 
de  Longueville ;  and  have  consulted  at  once  honesty  and 
gratitude  in  abstaining  from  either  praise  or  blame  in 
their  brief  notices  of  her  connection  with  the  house. 
Other  contemporaries  were  not  so  abstinent^  and  Madame 
de  Sable's  peculiarities  are  preserved  in  a  swarm  of  anec- 


802  POET  BOTAL, 

dotes.  Her  fear  of  infection  was  a  subject  of  constant 
ridicule  to  her  friends.  Voiture'^  who  had  attended  the 
deathbed  of  a  grandson  of  Madame  de  Bambouillet>  ad- 
dresses her  thus : — "  Know  then  that  I  who  write  to  you 
do  not  write  to  you^  for  I  have  sent  this  letter  tw^ity 
leagues  from  this  place  to  be  copied  by  a  man  whom  I 
have  never  seen."  Julie  de  Bambouillety  who  had  nursed 
Madame  de  Longueville  through  the  small-pox,  begins  a 
letter  to  Madame  de  Sable: — ^^Madlle.  de  Chalais  will,  if 
she  pleases,  read  this  letter  to  Madame  la  Marquise,  stand- 
ing to  leeward  of  her ; "  and  goes  on  to  enumerate  a  host 
of  half-absurd  precautions  which  she  promises  to  take  if 
Madame  de  Sable  will  consent  to  receive  a  visit  from  her.f 
On  such  a  theme  Tallemant  lets  his  scandalous  pen  run 
wild ;  and  if  some  of  his  stori^  are  hard  to  be  believed, 
the  very  fact  of  their  currency  shows  what  was  Madame 
de  Sable's  repute  in  the  salons  of  Paris.  "  One  day,  when 
she  went  to  call  on  the  Marechale  de  Gruebriant^  in  the 
Fauxbourg  St.  G-ermain,  she  said : — *  Ah,  what  a  difficulty 
I  am  in  I  Which  way  shall  I  return  ?  I  saw  upon  the 
Pont  Neuf  a  little  boy  who  has  lately  had  the  small-pox ! 
He  is  begging,  and  in  driving  him  away  my  people  might 
catch  it ;  and  there  is  something  on  the  Pont  fiouge  that 
creaks.'  At  last,  although  she  lived  in  the  Fauxbourg  St. 
Honor6,  she  went  over  the  Pont  Notre  Dame."  Again,  she 
could  not  bear  to  speak  either  of  her  own  or  another's 
death.  When  her  intimate  friend,  the  Gomtesse  de  Maure, 
was  dying,  she  sent  her  companion,  Madlle.  de  Chalais,  to 
inquire  how  she  was.  "  *  But^'  added  she,  *  take  care  not 
to  tell  me  that  she  is  dead.'  Chalais  got  there  as  she 
expired.  When  she  returned, — 'Well,  Chalais,  is  she  as 
bad  as  she  can  be?  does  she  not  eat?'  *No,'  answered 
Chalais.  *Nor speak?'  'Still less.'  'Nor  hear?'  'NotatalL' 

♦  Qaoted  by  St*  Beave,  toL  it.  p.  449. 
t  Cousin,  Mad.  de  Sable,  p.  17. 


MADAME  DE  SABL£.  SOS 

'She  is  dead  then?'  ^Madame/  answered  Ghalais,  'at 
least  it  is  you  who  have  said  it,  not  L' "  But  besides  all 
this  she  was  a  distinguished  epicure ;  prided  herself  apon 
the  delicacy  of  her  taste,  and  criticised  cookery  books  with 
authority.  Pisani,  Madame  de  Bambouillet's  son,  said  to 
her  one  day,  in  jest,  "  that  she  might  try  in  vain  to  expel 
the  devil  from  her  house,  for  he  had  entrenched  himself  in 
her  kitchen."  Bapin  comes  to  her  for  the  receipt  of  a 
salad,  and  La  Bochefoucauld  exchanges  maxims  of  morality 
for  instructions  in  the  art  of  maldng  carrot  soup.  She 
teases  the  sisters  of  Port  Eoyal  with  sending  them  presents 
of  good  things  which  their  rule  will  not  permit  them  to 
enjoy.  When  Agn^  Amauld  is  first  imprisoned,  the  cha- 
racteristic form  assumed  by  Madame  de  Sable's  sympathy 
is  a  gift  of  new  bread.  The  longer  we  dwell  on  this  side 
of  her  character  the  harder  it  is  to  understand,  why  of  all 
places  in  Paris  where  she  might  have  built  a  house,  she 
chose  the  court-yard  of  Port  Boyal.* 

Madame  de  Sable's  acquaintance  with  Madame  de 
Longueville  dates  at  least  from  the  days  of  the  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet ;  for  in  two  letters  which  she  wrote  to  Julie 
de  Eambouillet  in  answer  to  that  which  I  have  quoted,  she 
shows  herself  jealous  of  her  friend's  superior  courage  in  tak- 
ing her  place  by  the  bedside  of  one  whom  they  both  loved. 
The  Fronde  was  a  great  divider  of  friendships ;  and  Madame 
de  Sable  held  fast  to  the  party  of  Mazarin  and  the  Queen. 
But  about  1659  or  1660  the  old  intercourse  was  resumed, 
first  by  letter,  and  then,  when  Madame  de  Longueville  came 
to  live  in  Paris,  by  personal  communication.  Each  was 
in  possession  of  all  the  other's  thoughts  on  the  subject 
which  soon  began  to  occupy  their  whole  attention;  and 

*  Lettres  d'Agn^s  Arnanld,  nos.  398,  443,  445,  446,  447,  450,  454,  455, 
494,  585,  593.  CouBin,  Mad.  de  SabU,  passim.  St*  Beuve,  toI.  ii.  p.  253 ; 
▼ol.  ir.  p.  447,  et  seq.  Tallemant,  toL  ir.  p.  74,  et  seq.  La  Bochefoucauld, 
Lettres,  pp.  230^  231. 


304  POBT  BOTAL. 

notes  were  constantly  exchanged  between  Port  Soyal  de 
Paris  and  the  Hotel  de  Longueville.  The  Mends  agreed 
that  all  letters  and  papers  should  be  burned  as  soon  as 
read ;  Madame  de  Longueville  religiously  kept,  Madame 
de  Sabl6  deliberately  broke  the  contract.  Two  hundred 
letters  written  by  the  former  are  part  of  the  large  collec- 
tion of  Madame  de  Sable's  correspondence,  made  and  pre- 
served by  her  physician,  Yalant.  We  read  in  some  of 
them: — ''Bum  this  note  at  once,  I  b^,  as  well  as  all 
that  I  write  to  you,  and  send  me  word  that  it  is  biumed." 
*'  Do  not  be  afraid  to  write  clearly,  for  I  bum  your  letters 
the  moment  I  have  read  them."  "  Bum  this,  in  God's 
name : "  and  so  forth.  Crratitude  for  the  help  given  us  by 
these  letters,  in  tracing  a  critical  part  of  Madame  de 
Longueville's  career,  almost  forbids  us  to  characterise  as  it 
deserves,  the  faithlessness  which  not  only  omitted  to  fulfil 
such  an  engagement^  but  actuaUy  handed  over  the  Tinre- 
served  outpourings  of  friendship  to  be  filed,  and  copied^ 
and  collated  by  an  indififerent  person.* 

We  do  not  hear  of  Madame  de  Longueville  in  connec- 
tion with  Port  Boyal  till  the  spring  of  1661.  In  a  letter 
to  Madame  de  Sabl^,  dated  December  31st,  1660,  she 
says,  ''All  the  Jansenism  in  the  world  would  not  have 
hindered  me  from  coming  to  see  you  had  I  been  longer  or 
more  at  liberty  in  Paris;"  implying  in  this  phrase,  that 
Madame  de  SabW  had  feared  lest  her  residence  at  Port 
Boyal  might  prove  a  barrier  to  intercourse  with  her  friend. 
But  not  long  after  this,  we  find  her  visiting  the  death-bed 
of  Angelique  Amauld,  and  asking  for  an  interview  with 
Singlin,  who,  at  that  time,  in  fear  of  a  lettre-de-cachety  had 
concealed  himself  in  a  house  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris,  of 
which  Madame  Vitart  was  the  reputed  tenant  MadUe. 
de  Vertus  was  the  instrument  of  commimication   with 

•  Cousin,  Mad.  de  Sable,  p.  174. 


SINGLIN.  90S 

Madame  de  Sabl^  and  Port  EoyaL  **  I  beg  of  you,"  she 
writes,  "to  aend  your  fnend  here  to-morrow.  He  must 
come  in  a  chair  and  send  back  his  porters ;  I  will  give  him 
mine  to  take  him  wherever  he  pleases.  He  will  be  put  in 
a  room  where  no  one  will  see  him.  A  maid-servant  will 
wait  upon  him  at  the  door  of  the  apartment.  He  will  not 
be  asked  who  he  is.  Thus,  my  good  Madame,  he  need 
not  fear  any  difficulty.  I  only  wish  to  know  the  precise 
time  in  order  to  get  rid  of  any  strangers  who  may  happen 
to  be  with  me.  If  he  comes  in  a  chair,  let  it  go  straight 
into  the  court-yard.  I  greatly  desire  the  accomplishment 
of  this,  for  the  poor  woman  has  no  rest  If  I  could  see 
her  in  good  hands,  I  assure  you  it  would  give  me  great 
joy."  But  Singlin,  as  usual,  hesitated.  He  had  looked 
upon  his  enforced  concealment  as  a  token  that  Q-od  wished 
him  to  abandon  the  direction  of  consciences,  and  to  live 
the  life  of  a  simple  penitent,  At  last^  reading  one  day 
the  account  of  our  Lord's  conversation  with  the  Samaritan 
woman,  at  a  time  when  the  jealousy  of  the  Pharisees  had 
compelled  him  to  quit  Judea,  he  saw  the  analogy  with  his 
own  case  and  the  duty  now  asked  of  him,  and  yielded. 
Nevertheless  many  precautions  were  necessary.  He  visited 
the  Hotel  de  Longueville,  under  the  name  of  M.  de  Mar- 
tigny.  He  changed  his  cassock  for  a  physician's  cloak  and 
wig :  and  was  cautiously  introduced,  as  we  have  seen,  into 
the  presence  of  his  penitent  He  could  not  refrain  from  a 
smile,  says  Fontaine,  to  see  himself  thus  disguised. 
"  Manna  quidem,  mantis  aunt  Eaaii.  The  hands  are  the 
hands  of  Esau  :  but  I  must  try,  that  beneath  these  clothes 
which  hide  my  real  self,  the  voice  shall  be  always  the  voice 
of  Jacob."* 

Soon  Madame  de  Longueville  had  found  in  Singlin  the 

*  Fontaine,  yoL  iii.  p.  317,  et  uq.    Cousin,  Mad.  de  S&bI4,  pp.  181,  232. 
Lett,  de  la  M^re  Ang^liqne,  vol.  ill.  p.  529. 
VOL.  II.  X 


806  FORT  ROYAL. 

director  for  whom  she  had  so  long  waited.    It  is  not  un- 
reasonable to  suppose  that  the  great  Frondeuse  felt  an 
attraction  towards  a  form  of  doctrine  which  was  loudly 
accused  of  heresy,  and  a  community  which  seemed  to 
hang  upon  the  verge  of  schism.    But,  at  the  same  time, 
she  was  earnestly  seeking  for  peace  on  the  path  of  self- 
mortification^  and  as  yet  had  not  found  it.     Her  directors 
had  wearied  her  with  impositions  of  penance,  but  had 
never  touched  the  malady  which  was  the  true  cause  of 
her  unrest.     In  a  general  confession  which,  at  Singlin^s 
desire,  she  wrote  in  November  1661,  she  reveals  a  char 
racter  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  reconcile  with  much  that 
the  memoir  writers,  and  especially  De  Betz  and  Madame 
de  Nemours,  have  recorded  of  her.     Pride,  self-love,  a 
desire  to  excel,  a  wish  to  hold  the  foremost  place  in  men^s 
thoughts  and  words,  are  the  varying  names  of  a  principle 
of  action  which  had  governed  her  life  with  fatal  power. 
It  assumed  a  comparatively  harmless  form  in  the  motives 
which  bade  her  shine  at  the  Hotel  de  Bambouillet;   it 
smoothed  the  way  to  her  liaison  with  La  Bochefoucauld, 
and  plunged  her  into  the  troubles  of  the  Fronde ;  it  ex- 
aggerated to  her  the  bitterness  of  a  return  to  her  husband's 
hearth,  and  urged  her  to  involve  Cond^  in  civil  war ;  even 
now  she  is  not  sure  that  it  is  not  the  secret  cause  of  the 
docility  with  which  she  submits  herself  to  Singlin's  direc- 
tion, and,  transformed  into  an  angel  of  light,  guides  her 
pen  in  the  very  record  of  her  sins.    In  the  management 
of  so  difficult  a  penitent,  Singlin  displayed  all  the  tact  and 
good  sense  which  seem  to  have  rarely  failed  the  confessors 
of  Port  Royal  in  their  dealing  with  wounded  consciences. 
He  relieved  her  at  once  from  all  extraordinary  obligations, 
of  austerity,  except  such  as  she  chose  voluntarily  to  as- 
"sume.     He  insisted  upon  her  full  and  ungrudging  perfor- 
mance of  the  duties  of  a  wife  and  mother,  as  the  best 
penance.    He  would  not  suflFer  her  to  contemplate  the  idea 


COXNEXION  WITH  PORT  ROYAL.  307 

of  retirement  to  a  monastery.  Seeing  that  the  only  safety 
for  a  mind  so  fertile  in  subtleties,  a  spirit  so  mobile  to  every 
wind  of  caprice,  lay  in  the  practical  duties  of  religion,  he 
placed  before  her  the  necessity  of  repairing  the  wretched- 
ness caused  by  the  wars  of  the  Fronde,  and  engaged  her 
sympathies  in  the  cause  of  Port  Boyal.  He  associated  with 
her  in  all  pious  exercises  and  labours  Madlle.  de  Vertus, 
as  a  friend,  whose  calmer  and  more  equable  nature  would 
help  to  soothe  her  restlessness.  When,  in  1664,  Singlin 
died,  his  place  was  assumed  by  De  Safi,  who  continued  the 
work  till  his  arrest  in  1666.  Long  before  this  time, 
Madame  de  Longueville  had  become  entirely  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  Port  Soyal ;  and  the  friends  and  confessors  of  the 
commimity  were  hers  also.* 

The  seven  years,  from  1661  to  1668,  which  intervened 
between  Madame  de  Longueville's  first  visit  to  Port  Royal 
and  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  were  those  of  the  hardest 
struggle  against  the  Formulary.  I  have  already  narrated 
the  fortunes  and  the  issue  of  the  fight ;  a  few  words  will 
complete  all  that  it  is  necessary  to  add  as  to  Madame  de 
Longueville's  part  in  it.  At  first  we  are  told,  and  can 
easily  believe,  that  Madame  de  Sabl6  advocated  a  prompt 
and  xmconditional  signature ;  and  that  her  friend,  not  yet 
fully  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  commimity,  used  her 
influence  in  the  same  direction.  But  as  the  contest  grew 
hotter,  and  on  the  side  of  Port  Royal  apparently  more 
hopeless,  all  her  sympathies  went  with  the  sisterhood  in 
their  stubborn  resistance  to  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  M.  de 
Longueville  died  in  1663;  and  his  widow  thenceforward 
took  up  her  permanent  residence  in  Paris,  where  her  house 
became  the  rallying  point  of  Jansenism.  For  five  years  she 
aflforded  an  asylum  in  the  Hotel  de  Longueville,  which  no 

♦  Fontaine,  vol.  iii.  p.  322,  et  $eg.    Si*  Beave,  vol.  iy.  p.  616,  et  seq.    Si* 
Benve,  Portraits  de  Femmei,  p.  800,  et  seq. 

X  2 


308  POST  BOYAL. 

police  ventured  to  search^  to  Amauld  and  Nicole.  There, 
too,  were  held  the  conferences  which  finally  settled  the  form 
of  that  version  of  the  New  Testament,  which  usually  goes 
under  the  name  of  De  Sapi.  Thither  gathered  themselves 
all  who  dared  to  sympathise  with  the  imprisoned  sisterhood, 
and  there  were  made  the  first  efibrts  to  procure  an  armistice. 
It  woidd  be  untrue  to  say  that  the  Peace  of  the  Church  was 
wholly  due  to  Madame  de  Longueville ;  a  concurrence  of 
circumstances,  with  which  she  had  nothing  to  do,  had  pre- 
pared the  way,  and  made  it  possible,  at  the  moment 
when  Clement  IX.  was  elevated  to  the  Papal  chair.  But  to 
her  belongs  the  merit  of  having  seen  and  seized  upon 
the  favourable  instant:  of  judiciously  and  unsparingly 
employing  in  the  work  of  reconciliation  all  the  means  at 
her  disposal.  She  induced  Gondrin,  Archbishop  of  Sens, 
to  take  up  the  cause  of  the  Four  Bishops.  She  set  Conde 
to  work  upon  the  King.  She  herself  wrote  to  the  Pope 
and  his  cardinal-secretary.  She  put  in  motion  every  engine 
of  private  or  public  influence  which  Port  Royal  could  com- 
mand. She  smoothed  down  the  suspicious  Obnscientious- 
ness  of  her  friends,  as  well  as  the  angiy  prejudices  of  their 
opponents.  And  at  last  in  1668  she  had  the  satisfaction  of 
'  seeing  Amauld  welcomed  by  the  Nuncio,  and  graciously 
received  by  the  Eling;  in  1669,  the  still  greater  pleasure  of 
knowing  that  La  M^e  Agn^  and  her  nuns  were  released 
from  their  long  confinement.  To  have  employed  in  nego- 
tiating the  peace  of  the  Gallican  Church  the  same  powers 
which  she  had  once  misused  to  let  loose  upon  her  country 
the  miseries  of  war,  must  have  been  a  grateful  salve  to  her 
wounded  and  unquiet  conscience.  She  was  spared  the 
pain  of  seeing  her  work  undone ;  the  peace  lasted  no  longer 
than  her  life.* 


*  St*  Beave,  vol.  ir.  p.  S59,  et  $eq.    Connn,  Mad.  de  SabI6,  p.  S35,  tt  seq. 
Bcsoigne,  rol  il  p.  395,  et  »eq. 


LA  EOCHEPOUCAULD.  309 

While  following  the  fortunes  of  Madame  de  Longueville, 
we  have  altogether  lost  sight  of  La  Rochefoucauld.  They 
parted^  as  we  have  seen,  before  the  end  of  the  Princes'  war, 
and  do  not  appear  ever  to  have  met  again.  But  during 
the  years  which  immediately  followed  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville's  connection  with  Port  Royal,  Madame  de  Sabl6  was 
the  intimate  friend  of  both,  and  is  thus  the  means  of  once 
more  bringing  La  Rochefoucauld  within  reach  of  our  story. 
For  his  famous  "Maxims"  received  their  epigrammatic 
polish  at  her  house  in  the  court  yard  of  Port  Royal,  and 
obtained,  as  a  sort  of  worldly  version  of  the  Augustinian 
doctrine  of  human  nature,  the  applause  of  more  than  one 
Jansenist  theologian. 

At  the  battle  of  the  Porte  St.  Antoine,  La  Rochefoucauld 
received  a  wound,  which  for  a  while  deprived  him  of  sight. 
He  had  seen  for  some  time  that  the  Fronde  was  a  losing 
game,  and  now  blind,  gouty,  disappointed,  cynical,  threw 
up  the  cards,  and  buried  himself  and  his  ailments  in  the 
country.  Time  and  rest  restored  his  eyesight ;  others,  as 
deeply  implicated  in  the  Fronde  as  himself,  gradually 
regained  the  royal  favour ;  and  little  by  little  the  old  in- 
tri;yuer  ventured  to  show  himself  once  more,  and  to  plot 
for  his  son's  advancement  at  court,  as  eagerly  as  he  had 
once  plotted  for  his  own.  But  he  never  again  took  a  pro- 
minent part  in  public  affairs.  Even  if  the  king's  rooted 
distrust  of  all  those  who  had  troubled  his  minority  could 
have  been  eradicated,  his  reign  offered  no  scope  for  La  Roche- 
foucauld's peculiar  powers.  Louis  wanted  brilliant  generals 
and  able  administrators,  and  the  veteran  Frondeur  was 
neither  of  these.  He  was  made  to  swim  in  troubled  waters ; 
to  grasp  his  own  or  his  party's  advantage  in  the  lawless 
shock  of  public  and  private  interests ;  to  weave  an  endless 
web  of  petty  intrigue ;  to  provide  for  the  necessities  of  the 
moment  by  new  and  ever-changing  combinations ;  —  not  to 
govern  a  peaceful  kingdom  in  obedience  to  a  regal  will,  or 


310  PORT  KOYAL, 

to  concentrate  all  its  resources  in  one  strong  blow  against 
a  foreign  enemy.  So  he  became  the  polished  man  of  sodety, 
whose  talk  was  a  model  of  brilliant  conversation,  and  whose 
literary  reputation  was  at  least  as  great  as  became  a  gentle- 
man of  distinguished  birth  and  station.  He  had  no  talent 
for  public  speaking ;  he  stammered  and  turned  pale  if  he 
had  to  address  five  or  six  persons  at  once ;  and  refused  to 
be  of  the  French  Academy  for  fear  of  the  harangue  which 
he  must  have  made  at  his  entrance.  But  in  a  drawing- 
room  he  was  without  a  rival ;  and  strange  as  it  may  seem  to 
those  who  have  read  our  story,  the  drawing  room  which 
he  most  affected,  was  that  in  the  court  yard  of  Port  BoyaL 
He  had  occupied  himself,  during  his  period  of  retirement, 
in  the  composition  of  memoirs  of  his  own  time ;  which  still 
remain  to  guide,  and  at  the  same  time  perplex,  the  his- 
torian in  his  attempt  to  narrate  the  true  tale  of  the  Fronde. 
As  regards  the  author  himself,  they  are  artfully  apologetic ; 
while  bearing  with  a  heavy  hand  upon  the  sins  and  weak- 
nesses of  friend  and  foe.  Perhaps  the  most  truthful  narra- 
tive would  have  been  displeasing  to  the  actors  in  that  wild 
tragicomedy.  Who  could  write  the  history  of  the  struggle 
without  staining  the  fair  fame  of  the  combatants  ?  How- 
ever this  may  be.  La  Rochefoucauld  was  greeted  with  a 
storm  of  indignation,  when,  in  1662,  his  "Memoirs "  were 
published  at  Cologne.  St  Simon  tells  us  how  his  father 
was  so  indignant  with  the  misrepresentation  of  his  conduct 
at  a  particular  emergency,  that  he  went  to  the  publisher's 
shop  in  Paris,  and  wrote  in  every  copy  of  the  edition, 
opposite  to  the  passage  of  which  he  complained,  "The 
author  has  lied."  Cond^  had  many  reasons  of  anger,  and 
was  loud  in  the  expression  of  it :  Madame  de  Longueville^ 
who  had  not  fewer,  conquered  her  indignation  and  was 
silent  La  Rochefoucauld  had  recourse  to  the  usual  method 
of  defence  in  such  cases.  He  had  never  intended  to  publish 
his  memoirs ;  the  copy  of  the  manuscript  which  had  got  into 


LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD'S  MEMOIRS.  811 

the  printer's  hands,  had  been  stolen  from  him.  Two-thirds 
of  the  book  was  a  shameless  forgery ;  the  other  third  was 
«o  garbled  and  falsified  as  utterly  to  misrepresent  his 
meaning.  He  stated  these  facts  publicly,  adding  a  special 
apology  to  Conde  and  his  sister.  Meanwhile  the  mischief 
was  beyond  redemption,  for  the  book  rapidly  passed  through 
many  editions,  while  the  disavowal  remained  comparatively 
unknown.  It  is  now  impossible  to  arrive  with  absolute 
certainty  at  the  facts  of  the  case;  for  no  copy  of  the 
memoirs  in  La  Rochefoucauld's  autograph  is  known  to 
exist  But  of  the  many  extant  manuscripts  no  one  bears 
out  his  statement.  There  is  little  doubt,  that  the  book  as 
originally  published,  was  substantially  from  his  pen ;  that 
if  he  was  not  accessory  to  its  issue,  he  had  given  the 
manuscript  a  wide  circulation ;  and  that  he  attempted  to 
shield  himself  from  the  consequences  by  a  deliberate 
falsehood. 

The  afiront  which  Madame  de  Longueville  bore  in  silence 
was  very  gross.  It  is  true  that  the  passage  *  describing  the 
cool  calculation  of  interest,  which  had  first  led  La  Boche- 
foucauld  to  seek  her  love,  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  earliest 
edition  of  the  **  Memoirs."  But  at  the  very  first  mention  of 
her  name,  he  had  said  of  herf,  ^^  that  her  fine  qualities 
were  less  brilliant,  on  account  of  a  failing,  which  had  never 
before  been  seen  in  a  princess  of  such  merit;  which  is, 
that  so  far  from  giving  the  law  to  those  who  paid  her  a 
special  adoration,  she  so  completely  transformed  herself 
into  their  sentiments,  as  no  longer  to  have  any  opinions  of 
her  o^Ti."  And  besides  this  ungenerous  exposure  of  a 
gracious  womanly  weakness,  which  alone  had  enabled  him 
to  play  a  great  part  in  the  politics  of  the  Fronde,  and  had 
borne  no  harvest  to  her,  but  a  bitter  shame  and  sorrow,  he 
narrated  with  cool  triumph  the  intrigue  by  which  he  had 
detached  her  from  Cond£,  and  at  once  avenged  himself  and 

Ante,  p.  862.  f  Memoirs,  p.  418. 

X4 


312  POET  KOYAL. 

Madame  de  Chatillon  for  the  smiles  which  she  had  bestowed 
upon  the  Due  de  Nemouia  Bat  this  is  not  quite  alL 
There  is  a  theory^  which,  taking  its  rise  from  La  fioche- 
foucauld  himself,  makes  him  and  Madame  de  Longaeville 
exchange  parts  in  this  drama  of  passion  and  treachery. 
She  lured  his  loving,  trusting  natiire  into  politics;  he 
fought  aad  plotted  only  to  secure  her  affection ;  and  retired 
from  the  scene  with  heart  half-broken  by  her  un£uthful- 
ness.  But  Madame  de  Sable's  portfolios  have  supplied  a 
complete  refutation  of  this  plausible  hypothesis.  Madame 
de  Longueville,  silent  of  her  wrongs  to  the  world,  had, 
it  appears,  poured  forth  her  indignation  to  her  Mend, 
who,  in  turn,  communicated  it  to  La  Rochefoucauld.  His 
answer  contains  not  a  word  of  apology,  or  of  regret  He 
takes  Madame  de  Longueville's  indignation  as  a  sign  that 
she  has  ceased  to  hate  him.  Is  it  piety,  or  weariness,  or  a 
conviction  that  he  was  not  so  much  in  the  wrong  as  she 
had  thought,  which  has  produced  this  change  ?  He  begs 
Madame  de  Sable,  who  is  so  well  acquainted  with  all  the 
windings  of  the  heart,  to  furnish  him  with  the  means  of 
deciding  this  psychological  problem.  If  any  warmth  of 
disinterested  love,  of  manly  tenderness,  had  ever  lingered 
about  that  cold  heart,  he  would  have  suffered  the  unwritten 
secret  of  Madame  de  Longueville's  weakness  to  die  with 
him.  Give  him  the  benefit  of  every  doubt^  and  su{^)08e 
that  he  had  not  wilfully  published  it  to  the  world,  he 
should  at  least  have  heard  in  respectful  silence,  expostula- 
tions and  complaints,  which  it  was  too  late  for  words  to 
soothe.  To  lift  him  to  a  higher  pinnacle  of  infamy,  it 
needed  only  that  he  should  seek  to  anatomise  the  heart 
which  he  had  so  cruelly  wounded,  and  attempt  to  make  a 
surgical  study  of  its  wild,  despairing  palpitations.* 


*  Coiuin,  Had.  de  Sabll,  p.  203,  et  uq,    M6m.  de  St*  Simon,  toL  L  p. 
121. 


THJB  MAXIMS.  313 

The  coterie  which  met  at  Madame  de  Sable^s,  and  of 
which  La  Rochefoucauld  was  the  most  distinguished  mem- 
ber,  was  characterised  by  a  fondness  for  maxims,  sentences, 
aphorisms.  Many  books  of  maxims  were  the  production 
of  its  members :  Madame  de  SahU  herself  published  one ; 
a  series  of  "Thoughts"  have  been  discovered  among 
Domat's  papers ;  and  Pascal,  who,  like  all  the  heads  of  his 
party,  sometimes  visited  the  witty  Marquise,  may  have 
owed  to  the  discussions  of  her  drawing-room  the  aphoristic 
form  of  many  of  his  fragments.  But  La  Rochefoucauld^s 
<<  Maxims,"  first  published  in  1665,  is  the  representative 
book  of  its  class,  not  only  in  French,  but  in  European 
literature.  We  are  able,  in  the  papers  which  M.  Cousin 
has  brought  to  light,  to  trace  the  growth  of  this  celebrated 
volume  with  curious  and  interesting  minuteness.  Every 
aphorism,  as  it  was  produced,  was  sent  to  Madame  de 
Sable  for  correction  and  approval.  La  Sochefoucauld's 
letters  to  the  lady  are  full  of  the  maxims  and  of  the 
culinary  receipts  which  he  asks  in  return.  "  You  know," 
he  says  in  one  place*,  "  with  what  good  faith  I  deal  with 
you,  and  that  maxims  are  maxims  only  after  you  have 
approved  them."  They  formed  the  subject  of  conversation 
among  the  wits  and  ladies  who  assembled  in  her  salon ; 
if  he  was  not  himself  present,  remark  and  criticism 
were  fiedthfiilly  reported  to  him.  As  the  series  drew  near 
its  completion  Madame  de  Sabl^  undertook  to  collect  more 
formal  and  deliberate  opinions.  She  sent  the  manuscript, 
always  without  the  name  of  any  author,  to  many  of  her 
friends,  whose  criticisms,  either  from  their  literary  repute  or 
their  acquaintance  with  the  world,  might  be  worth  having. 
The  answers,  some  with,  some  without  signatures,  have  now 
emerged  into  daylight;  and  are  singularly  interesting  and 
significant  to  those  who  are  sufficiently  well  acquainted 

*  (EaTref,  p.  218. 


314  POBT  BOTAL. 

with  the  social  history  of  the  period  to  form  distinct  con- 
ceptions of  the  writers.  One  hct^  at  leasts  is  worth  re- 
cording for  the  general  reader^  that  almost  all  the  admirers 
of  the  "  Maxims  "  are  of  the  male  sex. 

It  is  characteristic  of  La  Rochefoucauld  that,  though 
the  first  edition  of  the  *^  Maxims  "  was  prepared  for  pub- 
lication with  great  care,  though  he  never  disavowed  the 
work,  and  though  he  superintended  during  his  lifetime  the 
issue  of  four  other  corrected  and  augmented  editions,  the 
book,  like  the  *^  Memoirs,"  was  first  published  in  Holland 
under  circumstances  of  similar  suspicion.  The  genuine 
edition  was  at  once  brought  out  in  Paris,  with  an  elaborate 
preface  by  Segrais,  who  ventured  to  say,  ^'  It  is  easy  to 
perceive  that  this  work  was  not  destined  to  see  the  light  It 
is  the  production  of  a  person  of  quality,  who  has  written  it 
only  for  himself,  and  who  does  not  aspire  to  the  gloiy  of 
being  an  author."  Meanwhile,  the  "person  of  quality  **  set 
himself,  in  the  most  approved  fashion  of  modern  days,  to 
procure  a  &vourable  review  of  the  book  which  "he  had 
written  only  for  himself.**  The  "Journal  des  Savants,** 
the  most  ancient  of  European  reviews,  came  into  existence 
in  1665,  the  very  year  in  which  the  "Maxims"  were 
published.  At  La  Rochefoucauld's  request,  Madame  de 
Sabl^,  who  was  in  one  sense  half  the  author  of  the  book, 
wrote  an  article  for  insertion  in  the  Journal.  It  was,  as 
we  may  suppose,  sufficiently  favourable,  yet  not  favourable 
enough  for  the  modern  apostle  of  self-love.  Before  it  was 
printed  he  passed  his  pen  through  every  word  that  could 
be  supposed  "to  hint  a  fault  or  hesitate  dislike."  A 
malicious  fate  has  preserved  the  original  draught  of  the 
article,  which,  side  by  side  with  the  amended  form  ex- 
tracted from  the  "Journal  des  Savants,*'  may  be  read  in 
M.  Cousin's  pages.  It  is  amusing  to  find  the  devices, 
which  are  supposed  to  characterise  a  degenerate  age  of 


THE  MAXUIS.  315 

critical  literature,  practised  in  the  first  Tolume  of  the  first 
review. 

It  hardly  comes  within  the  scope  of  my  purpose  to 
attempt  to  criticise  this  celebrated  work  in  detail.  Its 
general  aim  is  well  known.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  moral 
aphorisms,  nearly  all  of  which  are  directed  to  prove  that 
the  so-called  virtuous  impulses  of  the  heart  are  only  as 
many  various  forms  of  self-love.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  deny  that,  in  executing  this  scheme,  La  Rochefoucauld 
displays  a  wonderful  ingenuity  of  speculation,  and  a 
minute  if  narrow  acquaintance  with  human  character. 
There  is  often  no  escape  from  the  meshes  of  the  artful 
statement,  if  the  reader  trusts  to  reason  to  unloose  the 
knots;  if  he  would  be  extricated,  he  must  invoke  the 
sharp  sword  of  his  own  moral  impulse  to  cut  them.  WTien 
he  is  neither  perplexed  nor  convinced,  he  is  forced  to 
admire  the  studied  symmetry  of  the  thought,  the  simple 
perfection  of  the  phrase.  And  yet  the  chief  impression 
made  on  any  who  are  at  all  accustomed  to  moral  spe- 
culations, is  of  the  author's  inadequate  knowledge  of  the 
human  natiure  which  he  professes  to  anatomise  and  to 
describe.  Whom  has  he  known,  we  ask,  with  whom  has 
he  lived,  that  he  should  paint  mankind  in  such  sombre 
colours?  The  mystery  is  only  half  solved  when  we  re- 
collect the  wild  and  careless  selfishness  of  the  Fronde. 
Madame  de  Guemen6,  one  of  the  lady  critics  to  whom  the 
manuscript  was  sent,  hit  the  blot,  when,  not  knowing  of 
whom  she  spoke,  she  wrote  to  Madame  de  Sabl6,  '*  What 
I  have  seen  of  the  book  appears  to  me  to  be  based  rather 
upon  the  author's  humour,  than  upon  truth ;  for  the  reason 
why  he  does  not  believe  in  disinterested  liberality  or  pity 
is,  that  he  judges  of  all  the  world  by  himself."  We  have 
only  to  set  the  ** Memoirs"  and  the  "Maxims"  side  by 
side,  to  see  that  each  is  the  mirror  of  the  other. 


316  PORT  BOYAL. 

La  Bochefoncauld's  connection  with  Madame  de  Sable 
bad  notbing  to  do  witb  ber  Jansenism^  and  be  never  betrays 
any  interest  in  tbe  great  debate  wbicb  divided  tbe  Cborch. 
Yet  such  of  tbe  doctors  of  Port  Boyal,  as  had  time  and 
thought  in  1665  to  spare  from  their  own  troubles,  welcomed  . 
and  approved  bis  book,  for  its  doctrine,  so  far  as  it  went^ 
was  entirely  accordant  with  their  own.  It  was  indeed  more 
valuable  than  a  theological,  because  it  was  an  independent 
testimony  to  the  Augustinian  theory  of  human  nature :  a 
nobleman,  who  had  borne  his  part  in  all  the  state  affairs 
of  his  day ;  had  seen  much  of  the  world,  and  of  mankind ; 
and  moreover,  who  cared  nothing  for  any  theological  con- 
sequences of  his  doctrine,  had  come  to  pr^isely  the  same 
conclusions  as  the  great  Latin  Father.  But  I^a  Rochefou- 
cauld's maxims  are  Jansenism  made  hideous.  He  does  not 
say  worse  things  of  human  nature  than  Pascal ;  but  while 
with  the  latter's  mind,  the  thought  of  the  state  of  innocence 
and  the  state  of  redemption  is  always  present,  La  Bocbe- 
foucauld  owns  the  existence  of  neither.  His  attention  is  all 
upon  the  morbid  anatomy  of  the  corpse  upon  the  dissecting 
table ;  he  neither  remembers  the  days  of  life  and  vigour, 
nor  looks  forward  to  the  moment  of  resurrection.  The 
difference  between  him  and  Pascal  leaves  its  traces  even 
upon  their  style.  Each  is  clear,  simple,  epigrammatic ;  each 
has  attained  the  secret  of  that  highest  art  which  conceals 
itself.  But  there  is  a  peculiarity  about  Pascal's  speech  which 
is  altogether  wanting  to  La  Bochefoucauld ;  he  utters  him- 
self like  a  man  with  a  heart  and  a  conscience  ;  he  takes 
the  reader  into  bis  confidence  and  reveals  to  him  the 
objects  of  his  love,  and  hate,  and  belief.  La  Bochefoucauld 
is  cold,  calm,  impersonal  in  a  rare  degree ;  the  first  sentaice 
opens  the  way  into  his  mind,  as  far  as  he  designs  that  the 
reader  should  penetrate;  all  the  rest  only  repeat  and 
strengthen  its  impression ;  and  even  when  we  are  compelled 
to  agree  with  the  moralist,  we  learu  to  fear  and  dislike  the 


FAMILY  TROUBLES.  317 

man.    His  epigrams  hare  all  the  glitter  of  polished  steel, 
and  are  as  hard,  and  sharp,  and  cold.* 

The  troubles  of  Port  Royal  were  not  Madame  de  Lon- 
gueville's  only  cause  of  anxiety  in  the  latter  years  of  her  life : 
her  letters  to  Madame  de  Sabl^  tell  the  story  of  a  long 
series  of  domestic  distresses  and  struggles.  Of  her  four 
children,  two  daughters  died  in  childhood.  Her  eldest  son, 
Charles  d'Orleans,  Comte  de  Dunois,  was  seventeen  when 
his  father  died ;  the  second,  Charles  Paris,  Comte  de  St. 
Paul,  who  had  been  bom  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  the  first 
excitement  of  the  Fronde,  three  years  younger.  M.  de  Lon- 
guoTille,  in  opposition  to  his  wife's  wishes,  had  entrusted 
the  general  superintendence  of  his  sons'  education  to  the 
well  known  Jesuit  P^re  Bouhours ;  she,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  given  the  place  of  preceptor  to  the  Comte  de  St.  Paul 
to  the  Abb^  d'Ailly,  a  Jansenist  friend  of  Madame  de  Sabl^, 
who  ill  deserved  the  trust  reposed  in  him,  and  endeavoured 
to  win  the  pupil's  affections  at  the  cost  of  unfaithfulness 
to  the  parent's  wishes.  The  contrast  between  the  two  boys 
was  startling  and  painful.  The  eldest,  the  heir  to  the 
Dukedom  of  Longueville,  was  deformed  iii  person,  and 
almost  imbecile  in  mind ;  the  younger  bright,  beautiful, 
accomplished,  the  idol  of  all  hearts.  M.  de  Longueville  - 
had  given  up  in  despair  the  idea  of  making  the  Comte 
de  Dunois  a  statesman  and  a  soldier,  and,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  transferring  the  title  and  estates  to  his  brother,  had 
compelled  him  to  enter  the  Society  of  Jesus  as  a  novice. 
But  he  was  not  yet  irrevocably  bound  to  the  service  of  the 
Church,  when  in  1663  his  father  died.  He  had  not  suffi- 
cient intellect  to  feel  any  vocation  for  the  Church ;  even 
the  Jesuits  manifested  some  reluctance  to  receive  him ;  and 
he  broke  loose  from  the  restraints  which  had  been  imposed 
upon  him  to  take  refuge  with  his  mother. 

•  CoostD,  Mad.  de  Sable,  chap.  ii.  p.  64,  ei  9eq. 


318  PORT  ROYAL, 

Her  situation  was  painfully  embarrassing.  Conde,  with 
all  the  friends  on  whose  judgment  she  was  accustomed  to 
rely,  took  the  part  of  the  Comte  de  St  Paul.  They  drew 
back  in  disgust  from  the  thought  that  the  great  house  of 
Longueville  should  be  represented  to  the  world  by  the 
imbecile  brother,  while  so  worthy  an  heir  of  its  honours 
stood  ''near  the  throne."  They  entreated  Madame  de 
Longueville,  who  had  assuihed  the  entire  administration 
of  the  family  affidrs,  to  cany  her  husband's  intention  into 
effect^  and  to  send  back  her  eldest  son  to  the  seminary. 
But  she  had  more  than  one  reason  for  hesitation,  which 
they  could  only  imperfectly  understand.  Her  new  con- 
ceptions of  ecclesiastical  morality  forbade  her  to  force  into 
the  Church  one  who  was  scandalously  unfit  for  it;  her 
Jansenism  rebelled  against  suffering  either  of  her  children 
to  become  a  Jesuit.  For  the  sake  of  both  her  sons,  she 
was  determined  that  full  justice  should  be  done  to  the 
elder.  No  sophistry  could  rob  him  of  the  rights  of  primo- 
geniture; if,  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age,  he 
were  disposed  to  make  a  voluntary  resignation  of  his 
claims  to  the  Comte  de  St.  Paul,  well  and  good ;  otherwise 
she  would  never  consent  to  his  degradation.  She  may 
have  had  a  secret  consciousness  that  the  Comte  de  Dunois 
was  the  rightful  heir  to  his  father's  honours,  in  a  way 
which  his  brother  never  could  be.  The  latter  had  been 
bom  in  the  first  warmth  of  her  affection  for  La  Boche- 
foucauld,  and  in  character  resembled  rather  the  brilliant 
and  versatile  Marsillac  of  those  days,  than  the  somewhat 
cold,  and  slow,  and  stately  Longueville.  Nor  was  this  a 
,  case  of  no  infrequent  occurrence,  in  which  a  mother's  love 
is  most  powerfully  drawn  out  towards  the  child  who  needs 
it  most.  Justice  bade  her  contend  for  her  elder,  but  love 
pleaded  for  her  younger  son.  She  wrote  to  Coud^,  who 
eagerly  pressed  upon  her  the  claims  of  the  Comte  de  St. 
Paul :   '*  Bemember,  in  giving  me  your  advice,  not  to 


FAMILY  TROUBLES.  319 

look  so  exclusively  on  one  side,  as  to  pay  no  regard  at  all 
to  the  other.  If  we  owe  more  friendship  to  one,  we  owe 
justice  to  the  other ;  we  owe  it  to  ourselves  in  Grod*s  sight, 
and  even  to  our  own  reputation  in  the  conduct  of  our 
family.  So  remember  that  my  eldest  son  is  my  son,  how- 
ever he  is  formed ;  and  that  I  have,  therefore,  my  duties 
towards  him,  which  I  am  bound  in  conscience  and  honour 
to  fulfil ;  and  remember,  besides,  that  even  should  I  not 
fulfil  them,  I  should  not  attain  my  ends,  for,  being 
eighteen  years  and  a  half  old,  he  would  do  everything  in 
spite  of  me,  and  cause  me  a  thousand  griefs  by  his  hatred, 
and  by  the  connections  which  he  would,  sooner  or  later, 
form,  without  any  possibility  of  preventing  him,  if  he  did 
not  find  in  me  a  mother^s  heart,  that  is  to  say,  compassion, 
forbearance  with  his  faults,  and  above  all,  at  least,  justice. 
You  may  answer  to  all  this  that,  even  if  I  should  behave 
to  him  thus,  you  believe  him  to  be  so  deformed  in  mind, 
as  almost  certainly  to  act  in  the  same  way.  It  may  be  so ; 
but  besides  that  it  may  also  not  be  so,  and  that  he  is  not 
the  first  who  has  been  changed,  whether  by  the  grace  of 
God  or  by  age,  I  make  it  a  maxim  to  do  my  duty  to 
others  absolutely  without  hope  of  recompence,  in  the  first 
place  for  love  of  my  duty,  and  then  because,  when  I  have 
done  all  that  I  am  convinced  I  ought  to  do  for  prudence 
sake,  I  can  much  more  easily  find  consolation  for  ill-suc- 
cess.'^  So  she  kept  the  unfortunate  young  man  with  her, 
doing  her  best  to  form  his  mind  and  character ;  making 
no  plans,  but  leaving  the  future  to  determine  itself.  Her 
efforts  were  all  in  vain.  Impatient  of  restraint,  he  secretly 
left  her  house  and  fled  to  Bome,  where,  in  1669,  he  took 
orders  under  the  name  of  the  Abb^  d'Orleans. 

The  way  was  then  clear  for  the  Comte  de  St.  Paul,  who 
legally  became  Due  de  Longueville  and  Prince  of  Neuf- 
chatel.  But  the  mother's  troubles  were  only  transferred 
from  one  son  to  the  other.    Formed,  in  body  and  mind. 


320  PORT  BOTAL. 

to  succeed  in  society, — at  once  spoiled  by  injudicious 
teachers,  and  repelled  by  the  austerities  of  his  mother's 
life, — placed,  from  the  first,  in  an  unnatural  position  to- 
wards a  brother  whom  he  could  neither  respect  nor  love, — 
he  plunged  eagerly  into  the  gay  and  dissipated  life  which 
seemed  so  naturally  to  open  before  him.  The  men  ad- 
mired, the  women  loved  him ;  Cond^  saw  renewed  in  him 
the  brilliant  promise  of  his  own  youth;  a  murmur  of 
mixed  praise  and  expectation  seemed  to  follow  him  where- 
ever  he  went;  only  his  mother  secretly  lamented  a  life 
which  she  could  not  approve,  and  which  made  him  every 
day  less  courteous  and  less  affectionate  to  herself.  At  last, 
upon  his  brother's  final  entry  into  the  church,  she  gave 
up  the  inmiense  ecclesiastical  revenues,  which  had  for- 
merly been  settled  upon  the  Comte  de  St.  Paul,  and 
attempted  to  negotiate  his  marriage.  It  is  said  that  she 
proposed  him  as  a  bridegroom  to  Mademoiselle,  a  pro- 
ceeding which  has  an  air  of  policy  ill-accordant  with 
Madame  de  Longueville^s  single-minded  desire  for  her 
son^s  welfare;  for  the  bride,  though  the  richest  heiress  in 
Europe,  was  at  least  forty  years  of  age,  and  had  covered 
hetsdf  with  ridicule  by  her  unlucky  amour  with  Lauzun. 
Upon  the  failure  of  this  negotiation,  she  turned  her  at- 
tention to  the  vacant  throne  of  Poland.  The  Polish  Diet 
had  desired  to  make  Cond^  their  King ;  but  he  had  loyally 
yielded  to  the  wish  of  Louis  JQV.  that  he  should  not  de- 
prive his  country,  in  her  hour  of  need,  of  the  advantage 
of  his  military  genius.  Not  unnaturally  the  Poles  turned 
to  M.  de  Longueville,  Condi's  &vourite  nephew,  who  in 
more  than  one  campaign  had  given  proofs  of  an  ad- 
venturous bravery.  The  King  consented,  the  Diet  pro- 
ceeded to  election;  when,  in  1672,  the  French  army, 
under  Cond^,  prepared  to  pass  the  Bhine  and  to  invade 
Holland.  The  passage,  which  historians  and  poets  alike 
vaunted  as  a  miracle  of  military  skill,  was  accomplished 


HER  SON'S  DEATH.  3^1 

with  little  loss.  But  Cond4  was  wounded,  and  the  Due 
de  Longueville  killed  upon  the  field.  Immediately  after 
the  battle,  was  announced  the  arrival  of  the  Polish  envoys, 
who  came  to  salute  their  king,  and  to  carry  him  back 
in  triumph  to  Dantzic.  In  a  miserable  hut  by  the  river 
they  found  Oond4,  careless  of  his  hurt  in  the  consciousness 
of  his  own  and  the  thought  of  his  sister's  grief;  and  by 
his  side,  lying  beneath  a  soldier's  cloak,  all  that  was  left 
of  the  last  Due  de  Longueville. 

To  describe  the  effect  of  such  a  blow  as  this  upon  the 
poor  mother's  already  distracted  heart,  we  will  have  re- 
course to  Madame  de  S^vign^'s  classic  words.  She  writes 
to  her  daughter*,  **Madlle.  de  Vertus  had  returned  two 
days  before  to  Port  Royal,  where  she  almost  always  is : 
they  went  to  fetch  her,  with  M.  Amauld,  to  tell  this  terri- 
ble news.  Madlle.  de  Vertus  had  only  to  show  herself; 
this  hasty  return  was  itself  ominous  of  ill.  In  fact,  as  soon 
as  she  appeared;  'Ah  !  Mademoiselle,  how  is  my  brother  ?' 
Her  thought  did  not  venture  further.  'Madame,  he  is 
better  of  his  wound :  there  has  been  a  battle.'  *  And  my 
son  ?'  They  answered  nothing.  *  Ah !  Mademoiselle,  my 
son,  my  dear  child,  answer  me,  is  he  dead  ? '  '  Madame, 
I  have  no  words  wherewith  to  answer  you.'  *  Ah  1  my  dear 
son !  is  he  dead  upon  the  field  ?  has  he  not  had  a  single 
moment?  Ahl  my  God,  what  a  sacrifice!'  —  and  with 
that  she  falls  upon  her  bed,  and  all  that  the  most  lively 
grief  can  do  both  by  convulsions,  and  faintings,  and  a  mortal 
silence,  and  strangled  cries,  and  bitter  tears,  and  appeals 
to  heaven,  and  tender  and  pitiful  complaints — she  has  ex- 
perienced all.  She  sees  some  persons,  she  takes  nourish- 
ment, because  it  is  CKxl's  will ;  she  has  no  sleep ;  her  health, 
already  very  bad,  is  visibly  altered  for  the  worse ;  and  for 
myself  I  hope  that  she  may  die,  for  I  do  not  understand 

*  June  SOth,  1672. 
VOL.  II.  T 


322  POBT  EOYAL. 

how  she  can  survive  such  a  loss."  Presently  she  began  to 
find  some  comfort  in  the  sorrow  and  sympathy,  which  were 
manifested  on  every  side.  But  as  her  deepest  grief  had 
been  in  the  thought  that  her  son's  sudden  death  had  not 
left  a  moment  for  repentance,  her  best  consolation  was  the 
discovery,  that  before  he  had  set  out  on  the  campaign,  he 
had  seriously  applied  himself  to  religious  exercises,  and 
after  due  penance,  had  received  absolution.  It  is  not 
needful  to  inquire  closely  into  the  depth  and  probable  per- 
manence of  the  young  duke's  new  impressions;  it  is 
enough  that  they  were  effectual  to  soothe  a  sacred  grief  into 
resignation.  A  few  weeks  after  his  death,  Madame  de 
Longueville  was  able  to  write  to  M.  de  Barcos  * :  ^'  I  suppose 
that  you  know,  that  he  was  about  to  become  King  of 
Poland.  If  Grod,  in  depriving  him  of  life,  and  the  hope  of 
a  crown,  has  had  mercy  upon  him,  He  has  given  far  more 
than  He  has  taken  away.  And  so  I  have  only  to  adore 
His  dealing  both  with  my  son,  and  with  myself;  it  is  just, 
like,  all  that  proceeds  from  the  ordinance  of  His  providence. 
I  beg  you  to  ask  of  Him  for  me  an  entire  adherence  to  all 
His  will,  and  an  inner  separation  from  the  world,  corre- 
sponding to  that  which  he  is  bringing  to  pass  in  my  external 
circumstances,  by  the  ruin  of  my  &mily.  Your  charity 
wijl  not  refuse  me  this  favoiur." 

La  Bochefoucauld  also  had  suffered  by  that  fatal  passage 
of  the  Rhine.  The  Prince  de  Marsillac  had  been  severely 
wounded,  a  younger  son  killed.  Madame  de  S^vigne 
writing  to  her  daughter  of  his  grief  t,  interrupts  herself, 
<^  Alas !  I  am  not  telling  the  truth ;  between  ourselves,  my 
daughter,  he  has  not  felt  the  loss  of  the  Chevalier,  and  he 
is  inconsolable  for  him,  whom  all  the  world  regrets."  And 
again  in  the  letter  which  I  have  already  quoted :  '*  There 
is  one  man  in  the  world  who  is  little  less  grieved ;  I  have 

*  y.  Coosio.  Mad.  de  Sable,  p.  298.  f  June  24ib,  1678. 


PINAL  RETIREMENT.  823 

it  in  my  head  that  if  they  had  met  one  another  quite  alone 
in  those  first  moments,  all  other  feelings  would  have  ^ven 
place  to  cries  and  tears^  which  they  would  have  redoubled 
with  all  their  hearts ;  it  is  a  vision."  It  could  hardly  have 
been  as  Madame  de  Sevign^  fancies,  for  the  very  qualities 
which  made  La  Bochefoucauld  delight  in  the  Comte  de 
St.  Paul,  were  those  which  gave  rise  to  his  mother's  most 
anxious  solicitude.  A  great  gulf  stretched  between  them, 
which  not  even  the  sense  of  a  common  loss  like,  this  could 
fill  up.  For  the  last  time  they  felt  the  touch  of  the  same 
grief;  perhaps  for  the  last  time  lived  again  in  memory 
through  the  old  days;  and  went  on  their  way  to  meet,  even 
in  feeling,  no  more.  The  name  associated  with  La  Roche- 
foucauld's declining  years  is  that  of  Madame  de  la  Fayette; 
the  love  which  once  pretended  to  such  passion  and  con- 
stancy, had  passed  away  like  a  morning  mist  before  the 
sun,  and  left  as  little  trace  behind. 

After  the  death  of  her  son,  Madame  de  Longueville  pre- 
pared for  a  final  retirement  from  the  world.  She  quitted 
her  house  in  Paris ;  and  resided  alternately  at  the  Carme- 
lite Convent  which  had  appeared  so  desirable  to  her 
girlish  wishes,  and  at  a  house  which  she  had  built  near 
the  gate  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs.  It  was  still  not 
possible  that  she  should  altogether  loosen  her  hold  upon 
secular  affairs.  She  was  compelled  to  make  occasional  brief 
visits  to  Normandy,  and  became  involved  in  a  long  lawsuit 
with  her  step-daughter  about  the  sovereignty  of  Neufchatel. 
The  interests  of  Port  Royal,  too,  required  that  she  should 
maintain  some  intercourse  with  the  court;  in  these  years 
the  Jansenists  were  familiarly  known  as  "the  friends  of 
Madame  de  Longueville."  Louis  XIV.  had  learned  to 
respect  her  evident  sincerity ;  and  Cond^,  once  more  the 
devoted  brother  of  their  youthful  days,  served,  without  shar- 
ing her  predilections.  Little  by  little,  a  harsher  austerity 
fastened  itself  upon  her  life :  the  Carmelite  nuns  pointed 

T  2 


824  PORT  ROYAL. 

with  pride  to  the  bare  boards  upon  which  their  princess 
slept ;  and  an  accident  once  revealed  the  fact  that  she  wore 
an  iron  girdle.  Like  Conti  she  made  enormous  pecuniaiy 
sacrifices  to  repair  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  the  war  of  the 
Fronde ;  in  one  year  4000  persons  who  lived  upon  her  alms, 
and  the  release  of  900  prisoners  for  debt^  testified  to  her 
prodigal  munificence.  But  beyond  this,  there  is  nothing 
to  tell  of  the  last  seven  years  of  her  life.  Their  seclusion 
was  almost  as  complete  as  if  she  had  indeed  taken  the  veil 
in  one  of  her  beloved  retreats.  But  though  necessarily 
pensive,  and  almost  monotonous,  her  retirement  cannot 
have  been  altogether  sad,  as  she  reflected  that  the  return- 
ing peace  and  prosperity  of  Port  Boyal  were  in  great  part 
the  effect  of  her  labours ;  and  that  she  had  been  suffered 
to  continue  a  Christian  work,  which  holier  hands  and 
purer  hearts  than  hers  had  begun. 

She  died  on  the  15th  of  April,  1679,  in  her  sixtieth  year. 
She  had  long  before  directed  in  her  will,  that  her  body 
should  be  buried  in  which  ever  of  her  monastic  homes  she 
might  chance  to  die ;  but  that  her  heart  should  be  deposited 
in  the  other.  So  she  lay  with  her  mother  in  the  Garme* 
lite  Convent ;  and  her  heart  was  affectionately  received  and 
solemnly  interred  at  Port  Boyal  des  Champs ;  where  a  brief 
epitaph,  gently  alluding  to  the  time  of  her  worldliness, 
records  in  appropriate  phrase  of  commendation  her  charity, 
her  selfdenial,  her  forgivingness,  her  repentance,  and  her 
hearty  love  for  Grod  and  the  Church.  In  1692,  Madlle. 
de  Vertus,  seventy-five  years  of  age,  and  worn  out  with 
eleven  years'  confinement  to  her  bed,  went  to  her  rest,  and 
was  buried  in  the  cemetery  of  the  convent,  among  the  nuns 
whom  she  had  striven  to  resemble  in  spirit,  and  as  far  as 
possible  in  mode  of  life. 

I  will  not  attempt  the  task  of  forming  a  general  estimate 
of  Madame  de  Longueville's  character.  So  large  a  power  of 
fascination  still  lingers  about  it,  that  the  biographer  is 


CONCLUSION.  S25 

tempted  to  apologise,  when  he  should  weigh,  and  judge, 
and  perhaps  condemn.  All  comprehensive  judgments  of 
character  are  difficult ;  but  to  hold  the  balance  between  sin 
and  repentance  is  not  given  to  any  human  hand.  There  is 
only  One  who  knows  whether  the  stain  upon  a  life  has  been 
wholly  washed  away  by  tears.  Madame  de  Longueville 
herself,  when  once  publicly  and  grossly  insulted  by  an 
officer,  who  approached  her  with  some  request,  which  she 
was  imable  to  grant,  protected  her  cowardly  assailant 
from  the  summary  vengeance  which  her  servants  were  about 
to  take.  "Stop,"  she  cried,  "do  not  touch  him,  let  him 
say  what  he  will,  I  have  deserved  much  worse  things."  We 
will  leave  the  matter  there.* 

*  Villefore,  vol.  ii.  book  vi.  p.  121,  et  $eq,    Coasin,  Mad.  de  Sable,  chap. 
V.  p.  259,  et  seq.    Necrologe,  p.  156. 


T  3 


S26  PORT  ROYAL. 


V. 

RACINE. 

By  the  side  of  Pascal,  the  greatest  writer  of  French  prose, 
I  have  now  to  erect  the  eflBgy  of  Bacine,  the  first  of  French 
poets.  Each  was  Port  Boyalist  at  heart ;  each  was  with- 
drawn by  Port  Eoyal  from  labours  to  which  the  applause 
of  men  promised  an  immortality  of  fame ;  each  died  in 
peace  with  the  community.  But  while  Pascal  adopted 
the  Jansenist  theory  of  religion  in  years  of  maturity,  and 
never  after  swerving  in  his  allegiance,  devoted  to  its  de- 
velopment and  defence  his  best  powers,  Bacine,  a  pupil 
at  Les  Granges,  rebelled  against  all  the  influence  of  early 
training,  won  his  reputation  by  works  which  Port  Boyal 
absolutely  denounced  as  sinful,  shook  a  fierce  lance  of 
controversy  in  the  face  of  his  old  teachers,  and,  only  after 
many  years  wandering,  repented  and  returned,  to  defend 
the  community  by  pen  and  voice,  to  chronicle  its  glories 
and  misfortunes,  and  to  order  his  bones  to  be  laid  at  last 
in  the  cloister  which  his  studious  feet  had  oft^en  paced  in 
youth.  Were  the  whole  interest  of  Bacine's  life  centred 
in  his  works  and  the  questions  of  literary  history  which 
arise  out  of  them,  it  would  need  but  a  brief  narrative  in 
this  place;  though  even  then  we  might  trace  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  Port  Boyal  in  the  production  of  the  masterpiece 
of  French  tragedy,  the  "Athalie."  But  we  fortunately 
possess  materials  for  his  biography,  which  prove  that  the 
man  demands  our  love,  almost  as  much  as  the  poet  our 


HACINE.  327 

admiration.  It  is  seldom  that  we  are  able  to  penetrate 
behind  the  mask  of  genius,  and  see  —  as  in  the  case  of 
fiacine  —  an  honest,  kindly  human  countenance,  smiling 
or  sighing  beneath.  When,  newly  emancipated  from  the 
restraints  of  Fort  Royal,  he  pours  out  his  heart  to  his 
young  friends  and  rivals  in  the  field  of  literature,  or  in 
middle  age  exchanges  thought  and  feeling  with  his  life- 
long friend  Boileau,  or,  towards  the  last,  sends  homely 
news  of  Babet  and  Nannette  to  his  son  in  Holland ;  his 
letters  are  alike  firank,  simple,  innocent.  I  should  willingly 
rest  the  lovableness  of  his  character  on  his  friendship  with 
Boileau,  one  who,  like  St.  Simon  afterwards,  stands  out 
from  the  courtiers  of  Le  Crrand  Monarque,  as  an  honest 
man — a  satirist,  whose  satires  were  the  natural  voice  of  his 
conscience.  It  lasted  for  thirty-five  years  without  a  cloud, 
and  was  interrupted  only  at  the  death-bed  of  fiacine. 
Boileau  has  many  claims  of  his  own  to  a  place  in  the 
annals  of  Port  Koyal ;  but  even  were  it  not  so,  I  should, 
like  Louis  fiacine,  the  son  and  biographer  of  the  poet,  find 
it  hard  to  separate  those  who  were  so  associated  in  fame 
and  friendship.  The  works  of  these  two  great  poets  I 
must  leave,  with  brief  remark,  to  the  literary  critic ;  while 
I  make  a  rough  and  ineffectual  attempt  to  portray  the 
men.* 

The  fiacines  were  a  respectable  family  long  settled  at 
Fert^  Milon,  a  little  town  of  Valois,  about  fifty  miles 
from  Paris.  Here  Jean  fiacine,  who  died  in  1593,  was 
receiver  of  the  domain  and  duchy  of  Valois.  His  son, 
also  Jean  fiacine,  the  poet's  grandfather,  was  comptroller  of 
the  salt  depot  in  the  same  place,  and  married  Marie 
Desmoulins,  who  had  two  sisters,  nuns  in  Port  fioyal  des 
Champs.     He  was  the  father  of  two  children,  Agnes,  who 

*  The  following  facto,  when  oot  speciallj  acknowledged,  are  taken  from 
the  *  Vie  de  Jean  Racine,'  bj  his  son,  Lonis  Racine.  I  refer  to  Racine's 
letters,  as  thej*  are  found  in  Didot's  edition  of  his  works,  I  rol.  Sro.  18S4. 

T  4 


»328  PORT  EOTAL. 

afterwards  became  Abbess  of  Port  Boyal,  and  again,  a 
Jean,  who,  with  his  father's  name,  inherited  his  office. 
Two  children  had  been  bom  to  him,  the  poet  and  a  sister, 
when,  in  1643,  he  died.  His  wife  was  already  dead,  and 
the  little  ones  were  transferred  to  the  care  of  their  mater- 
nal grand&ther,  Pierre  Sconin. 

Jean  Bacine  was  bom  on  the  21st  of  December,  1639, 
and  consequently  had  not  reached  his  fourth  year  when 
thus  orphaned.     How  or  where  his  childish  years  were 
passed  we  are  not  informed.     His  father's  mother,  now  a 
widow,  lived  with  his  grandfather  Sconin,  but  his  single 
recollection  of  these  days  seems  to  hint  at  something  like 
neglect.     His  first  place  of  education,  the  Collie  of 
Beauvais,  was  doubtless  indicated  by  the  dose  alliance  of 
his  kindred  with  Port  Royal.     Two  sisters  of  his  grand- 
mother were  nuns  in  that  house ;  and  perhaps  in  conse- 
quence of  this,  the  son  of  his  uncle  and  aunt  Vitart  had 
been  one  of  Lancelot's  and  Le  Midtre's  earliest  pupils. 
At  the  end  of  1638,  a  year  before  Eacine's  birth,  the 
teachers,  driven  from  their  abode  by  the  imprisonment  of 
St  Cyran,  had  sought  a  temporary  refuge  at  the  scholar's 
home,  at  Fert^  Milon.    The  result  was  the  still  closer 
imion  of  the  whole  family  with  the  suspected  community. 
When,  at  the  end  of  1639,  the  solitaries  ventured  to  return 
to  the  deserted  valley,  M.  Vitart  ao^mpanied  them,  and 
undertook  the  management  of  the  conventual  revenues. 
In  1650,  Madame  Desmoulins  followed  him,  and  with  her 
sisters,  ended  her  days  in  the  monastery.    M.  Vitart  died  in 
1641  or  1642,  and  his  widow  settled  in  Paris,  where  she 
pursued  the  occupation  of  a  midwife,  and  when  the  per- 
secution of  Port  Royal  waxed  hot,  sheltered  De  Sa(i  and 
Singlin  in  her  house  in  the  Fauxbourg  St  Marceau.* 
In  October,  1655,  the  young  Racine,  then  sixteen  years 

*  Conf.  ToL  L  pp*  161,  324. 


THE  SCHOOLS  OP  PORT  ROYAL.  329  ] 

of  age,  was  transferred  from  Beauvais  to  the  schools  of  | 

Port  Boyal,  which,  not   long  before  had  been  removed  \ 

from  Paris.     He  appears  to  have  belonged  to  that  branch  [ 

of  the  schools  which,  under  the  care  of  Lancelot  and  | 

Nicole,  was  established  in  the  farm  buildings  of  Les 
Granges.  Here,  an  orphan,  many  of  whose  near  relations 
were  connected  with  the  monastery,  he  was  a  true  child  of 
Port  Eoyal,  in  whose  welfare  others,  as  well  as  his  ap- 
pointed teachers,  took  a  friendly  interest  He  preserved 
throughout  his  life  a  grateful  remembrance  of  Hamon's 
kindness.  A  letter  from  Le  Maitre  addressed,  "  Pour  le 
petit  Bacine  a  Port  Royal,"  is  worth  transcribing,  as  a 
proof  of  the  domestic  relation  in  which  the  boy  poet  stood 
to  the  solitaries.  It  is  written  on  March  21st,  1656,  from 
Bourgfontaine,  whither,  after  the  expulsion  of  Amauld 
from  the  Sorbonne,  Le  Maitre  had  been  compelled  to 
retire.* 

"  My  Son,  I  beg  you  to  send  me  as  soon  as  possible  my 
'  Apologie  des  Saints  P^res; '  it  is  the  first  edition,  and  is 
bound  in  marbled  calf,  in  quarto.  I  have  received  the  five 
volumes  of  my  *  Councils,'  which  you  had  packed  very 
well ;  I  am  much  obliged  to  you.  Send  me  word  if  all  my 
books  are  at  the  chateau,  well  arranged  upon  the  shelves ; 
and  if  all  my  eleven  volumes  of  St  Chrysostom  are  there ; 
and  look  at  them  from  time  to  time  to  clean  them.  You 
must  put  water  into  the  earthenware  saucers,  where  they 
are,  that  the  mice  may  not  gnaw  them.  Give  my  compli- 
ments to  Madame  Racine,  and  to  your  good  aimt,  and 
follow  their  advice  in  everything.  Young  people  ought 
always  to  let  themselves  be  led,  and  not  try  to  free  them- 
selves from  restraint  Perhaps  G-od  will  bring  us  back  to 
where  you  are.  Nevertheless  we  must  try  to  profit  by  this 
persecution,  and  to  make  it  useful  in  detaching  us  from 

*  (Eavrefl  de  Racine^  p.  6S0. 


330  POBT  ROYAL. 

the  worlds  which  appears  to  us  so  hostile  to  piety.  Good 
bye,  my  dear  son ;  always  love  your  papa^  as  he  loves  you. 
Write  to  me  now  and  then.  Send  me  also  my  folio 
•Tacitus.'" 

The  three  years  which  Bacine  spent  at  Port  Royal  were 
a  time  of  quiet  work,  not  seldom  interrupted  by  a  restless 
longing  for  a  wider  and  a  brighter  world  than  the  valley 
which  lay  below  Les  Granges.  He  acquired  a  creditable 
knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek,  as  well  as  some  acquaint- 
ance with  Italian  and  Spanish.  •'His  means/  says  his 
son,  "  which  were  very  moderate,  not  permitting  him  to 
buy  the  beautiful  editions  of  the  Greek  authors,  he  read 
them  in  the  editions  published  at  Basle,  which  are  without 
Latin  translations.  I  have  inherited  his  •  Plato '  and  his 
•  Plutarch,'  the  margins  of  which,  loaded  with  his  annota- 
tions, prove  the  attention  with  which  he  read  them.  And 
the  same  books  show  the  extreme  attention  paid  at  Port 
Royal  to  purity  of  morals ;  for  in  these  editions,  though 
all  in  Greek,  the  somewhat  free,  or  rather  niuve  passages 
which  are  found  in  the  narratives  of  Plutarch,  an  historian 
otherwise  so  grave,  are  very  carefully  effiiced.  They  did 
not  trust  a  young  man  even  with  a  Greek  book,  without 
precaution."  His  greatest  pleasure  was  to  bury  himself  in 
the  abbey  woods  with  his  Sophocles  or  his  Euripides,  both 
of  which  he  knew  almost  by  heart.  Perhaps  his  good 
teachers  would  rather  have  seen  him  absorbed  in  some 
volume  of  St.  Augustine  or  St  Jerome ;  but  their  time 
was  not  yet  come.  We  are  told  that  he  found  one  day  — 
how  came  such  a  book  at  Port  Royal  ? —  the  old  Greek  tale 
"  Theagenes  and  Chariclea."  Lancelot  came  upon  him  as 
he  was  reading  it,  and  at  once  threw  the  pernicious  volume 
into  the  fire.  A  second  copy,  which  he  found  means  to 
procure,  shared  the  same  fate.  By  some  stratagem  he 
became  possessed  of  a  third,  which  after  a  time  he  volun- 


BOYISH  VEBSES.  331 

tarily  brought  to  Lancelot,  saying  "  You  may  bum  this 
like  the  rest ;  I  know  it  by  heart." 

While  his  grandmother  and  his  aunt  and  the  solitaries 
were  pleasing  themselves  with  the  thought  that  they  were 
educating  their  boy  into  a  churchman,  after  the  pattern 
of  Port  Boyal,  he  was  all  the  while  training  himself  into  a 
poet  The  poems  of  this  period  still  find  a  place  in  his 
works.  There  are  six  odes,  in  which  he  describes  in 
pompous,  boyish  phrase,  yet  not  without  some  touches  of 
fancy  and  natural  feeling,  the  woods,  the  lakes,  the  mea- 
dows, the  buildings  of  Port  Royal.  He  translated  into 
French  verses,  long  afterwards  retouched  and  published, 
the  festival  hymns  of  the  Boman  breviary.  We  have  a 
Latin  poem,  in  elegiac  verse,  "  Ad  Christum ; "  and  the 
conclusion  of  another  elegy,  on  the  watch-dog  of  the 
monastery,  to  whom,  with  true  youthful  confidence,  he 
promises  the  immortality  which  the  poet  can  bestow :  — 

/*  Semper  honor,  Rabatine,  taus,  laudesqnc  mancbunt ; 
Carminibus  vires  tcmpus  in  omne  meis." 

But  no  one  saw  anything  more  in  his  poetry  than  a  foolish 
rebellion  against  the  discipline  of  the  place.  He  showed 
his  hymns  to  De  Sa9i,  who  in  his  youth  had  also  felt 
poetical  aspirations;  and  in  his  "Heures  de  Port  Boyal"  had 
translated  some  of  the  canticles  of  the  Church.  It  has 
been  said  that  jealousy  prompted  De  Sa^i  to  advise  Bacine 
to  abandon  verse-making  as  an  occupation  for  which  nature 
had  not  fitted  him  ;  we,  who  know  the  good  director  better, 
will  impute  to  him  nothing  worse  than  want  of  taste.  The 
admonition  at  the  end  of  Le  Maitre's  letter ;  the  story  of 
the  forbidden  Greek  novel,  above  all,  the  way  in  which 
Bacine  wrote  of  Port  Boyal  when  he  left  it,  show  that 
the  restraints  of  the  place  chafed  his  spirit,  and  allow  us 
to  conjecture  that  he  welcomed  the  change  to  the  College 
d'Harcourt,  at  Paris,  whither  he  was  sent  in  1658.    And 


332  PORT  ROYAL. 

yet  he  loved  the  valley  where  he  had  spent  three  quiet 
years  with  Plato,  and  Sophocles,  and  Euripides ;  as  well  as 
the  teachers  who  had  introduced  him  into  such  noble 
companionship.  These  early  impressions  were  the  deepest 
ever  made  upon  a  very  tender  heart,  and  outlasted  all 
others.  Le  Mcutre  and  Hamon  forgot  that  the  world, 
which  had  become  dull  and  distasteful  to  them,  still  lay 
beyond  the  horizon  of  the  pupil's  vision,  gay  with  unima- 
gined  beauty  and  delight ;  that  the  dreams  of  fame,  which 
they  had  renounced  as  unsubstantial,  lured  him  on,  the 
most  solid  prize  of  life.  Who  ever  learns  his  practical 
wisdom  by  help  of  another's  experience?  Their  theory 
of  human  life  was  narrow  enough  to  shut  out  many  possible 
cases  of  innocent  and  healthy  development;  and  assuredly 
did  not  include  Bacine's.  A  Protestant  judgment  might 
be,  that  his  youthful  instincts  were  wiser  and  truer  than 
his  mature  reflections ;  and  that  when  he  set  out  to  conquer 
the  French  stage  by  masterpieces,  no  line  of  which,  the 
most  sensitive  conscience,  need  "  dying,  wish  to  blot^"  he 
had  a  more  correct  conception  of  the  right  object  of  human 
striving,  than  when,  in  the  full  blossom  of  his  powers  he 
condemned  himself  to  silence.  I  fancy  that  I  see,  in  the 
odes  of  which  I  have  spoken,  the  germ  of  the  repentance 
to  come ;  the  key-note  of  his  inner  life  is  struck  not  in 
the  strains  to  which  the  world  has  listened  with  delight^ 
but  in  the  uncertain  melody  of  these  early  and  half-for- 
gotten preludes. 

Bacine  had  passed  through  a  course  of  philosophy  at 
the  College  d'Harcourt,  when  the  marriage  of  the  IQng  in 
1660  was  the  occasion  of  reams  of  complimentary  verse. 
The  young  poet  seized  the  opportunity,  and  addressed  to  the 
new  Queen  an  ode,  entitled  "  La  Nymphe  de  la  Seine," 
which  he  induced  his  cousin  Vitart,  intendant  of  the  Due 
de  Chevreuse,  to  take  to  Chapelain,  now  a  forgotten  poet, 
but  then  supposed  to  be  an  almost  unapproachable  genius. 


BEGIXXmO  OP   KEBELUON.  333 

The  great  man  condescended  to  keep  the  ode  three  days, 
and  to  return  it  with  many  written  annotations,  **  It  was 
very  beautiful — ^very  poetical :  many  of  the  stanzas  could 
not  be  better.  If  the  author  revised  the  few  passages 
which  had  been  marked,  he  would  make  a  fine  piece  of 
it."  One  whole  verse  had  to  be  changed;  fiacine  had  put 
Tritons  in  the  Seine,  and  Tritons  only  live  in  salt  water. 
So  he  obediently  made  the  required  alterations ;  wishing 
meanwhile,  he  says,  that  all  the  Tritons  were  drowned  for 
the  trouble  they  gave  him ;  and  once  more  took  the  ode 
to  Chapelain.  By  him  it  was  shown  to  the  minister  Col-, 
bert,  and  Colbert,  we  are  to  suppose,  brought  it  under  the 
eyes  of  the  King.  The  result  was  an  immediate  gift  of 
100  louis.  It  is  impossible  to  wonder  that  when  this  act 
of  youthful  generosity  had  been  followed  by  a  constant 
stream  of  favours,  the  effect  of  which  was  heightened  by 
the  most  gracious  and  flattering  familiarity,  Louis  XIV. 
rivalled  even  Fort  Boyal  in  Bacine's  mature  affections.* 

The  old  love  was  indeed  beginning  to  grow  cold.  Be- 
fore his  ode,  Bacine  had  written  a  sonnet  on  the  birth  of 
a  child  of  Madame  Vitart,  or,  according  to  another  ac- 
count, to  Cardinal  Mazarin  on  the  conclusion  of  the  peace 
of  the  Pyrenees,  which  had  given  deep  offence  at  Port 
Eoyal.  In  the  same  letter  to  the  Abb^  le  Vasseur,  in 
which  he  relates  the  fortunes  of  his  ode,  he  says,  ^^  I  was 
ready  to  consult,  like  Malherbe,  an  old  servant,  if  I  had 
not  found  out  that  she  is  as  Jansenist  as  her  master, 
and  might  betray  me,  which  would  be  my  total  ruin, 
for  I  receive  every  day  letters  upon  letters,  or  rather  ex- 
communications upon  ezcommimications,  on  account  of  my 
unlucky  sonnet"  f  He  seems  to  have  been  living,  while  in 
Paris,  at  the  hotel  of  the  Due  de  Luynes,  and  after  a  time 
was  sent  down  to  Chevreuse,  his  country  house,  to  super- 

*  Lettres,  Rentes  dans  sa  jeonesse,  not.  3,  4. 
t  (Envres,  p.  469. 


^ 


334  PORT  ROYAL. 

intend  the  erection  of  some  new  buildings.  Excommuni- 
cations from  home  are  not  exactly  calculated  to  reclaim  a 
young  poet,  who  has  just  tasted  for  the  first  time  the 
sweets  of  fame  and  of  royal  favour ;  and  Bacine,  impatient 
of  his  exile  from  Paris,  never  designates  Chevreuse  — 
Chevreuse  in  the  close  neighbourhood  of  those  holy  re- 
treats which  but  the  other  day  he  praised  with  so  fluent 
a  pen  —  by  any  more  reverent  name  than  that  of 
'  Babylon.*  It  is  a  very  old  story :  youth  is  confident  in 
its  powers,  age  in  its  experience:  and  warnings  which^ 
under  some  circumstances  would  soothe  and  instruct,  are 
at  others  like  oil  poured  upon  fire.  So  when  in  1661  the 
full  tide  of  trouble  poured  in  upon  Port  Boyal,  Racine 
writes  thus  coldly,  almost  mockingly :  — 

"  I  went  this  afternoon  to  congratulate  (upon  receiving 
good  news  of  a  son)  Madame,  our  holy  aunt*,  who  believed 
herself  incapable  of  any  joy  since  the  loss  of  her  holy 
father,  or  as  M.  Gromberville  said,  her  future  husbanAf 
In  fact,  he  is  no  longer  upon  the  throne  of  St.  Augustine ; 
and  has  avoided,  by  a  prudent  retreat,  the  unpleasant- 
ness of  receiving  a  lettre-^de^cachet,  by  which  he  was  sent 
to  Quimper.  The  seat  has  not  been  vacant  very  long. 
The  court,  without  having  consulted  the  Holy  Spirit,  ac- 
cording to  what  people  say,  has  raised  M.  Bail  to  it  •  . 
You  doubtless  know  him;  perhaps  he  is  among  your 
friends.  All  the  consistory  have  made  a  schism  at  the 
creation  of  this  new  pope,  and  have  retired  in  one  direc- 
tion and  another,  suffering  themselves  to  be  governed  by 
the  monitories  of  M.  Singlin,  who  is  now  considered  only 
an  anti-pope.  Percutiam  pastoremy  et  diepergerUur  ovea 
gregis.  This  prophecy  was  never  more  completely  ac- 
complished, and  of  all  that  great  number  of  solitaries  there 
remain  hardly  M.  Guays,  and  Maitre  Maurice."  j: 

*  Mad.  Yitart  tho  elder.  f  M.  Singlio.  I  CEarres,  p.  473. 


JOURNEY  TO   LANGUEDOC.  335 

Bacine^s  situation^  to  the  pious  fears  of  his  friends  at 
Port  Royal,  seemed  to  become  less  hopeful  every  day.  He 
had  made  the  acquaintance  of  La  Fontaine.  He  had 
borrowed  money  of  his  cousin  Vitart^  who  rather  abetted 
than  checked  his  rebellion.  He  had  offered  a  piece,  ^*  The 
Loves  of  Ovid,"  to  the  company  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne, 
and  was  writing  gallant  notes  to  an  actress  about  her  part.* 
He  had  chosen  no  profession,  and  did  not  seem  inclined  to 
choose  any  but  this  profitless  and  pernicious  pursuit  of 
vain  literature.  It  was  evidently  time  that  something 
should  be  done,  and  a  possibility  of  advancement  in  the 
Church  seemed  to  offer  itself  at  the  right  moment.  Pere 
Sconin,  Canon  of  St*  G-enevidve,  official  and  grand  vicar 
of  the  diocese  of  Uz^,  a  busy  churchman,  whose  benefices  I 
have  not  space  to  enumerate,  was  Racine's  maternal  uncle, 
and  now  sent  for  him  into  Languedoc,  promising  that  by 
and  bye  he  would  resign  his  preferment  to  him,  and  in  the 
meantime  would  provide  for  him  by  some  priory  in  the 
gift  of  his  chapter.  Perhaps  Racine's  friends,  when  they 
advised  him  to  accept  the  offer,  both  exaggerated  the 
perils  of  his  Parisian  dissipation  and  flattered  themselves 
that,  once  in  the  Church,  the  influence  of  his  education 
would  return  and  make  him  all  they  wished  him  to  be. 
So,  as  1661  drew  to  a  close,  he  set  out  for  Uz^  where  his 
uncle  received  him  with  open  arms. 

He  seemis  to  have  accepted  his  exile  with  a  tolerable 
grace.  His  uncle  was  kind,  and  Racine's  facile  disposition 
was  easily  won  by  kindness ;  he  may  have  felt  a  misgiving 
of  his  pecuniary  success  as  a  poet,  and  thought,  that  some 
sinecure  piece  of  preferment  would  hardly  stand  in  the 
way  even  of  his  literary  designs.  So  he  accommodated  him- 
self in  everything  to  P^e  Sconin's  wishes ;  assumed  the 
garb  and  the  habits  of  a  student  of  theology ;  and  as  the 

*  Si«  BcuTc,  vol  r.  r-  4fio. 


336  POBT  EOTAL. 

citizens  of  Vzis  spoke  a  barbarous  patois^  abstained  with- 
out much  reluctance  from  their  society.  **  My  uncle,"  he 
writes  *,  '^  has  given  me  a  room  near  him,  and  says  that  I 
shall  help  him  a  little  in  the  multiplicity  of  his  affairs.  I 
assure  you  that  he  has  plenty.  Not  only  does  he  transact 
all  the  business  of  the  diocese,  but  he  has  also  the  sole  ad- 
ministration of  the  capitular  income,  until  he  has  paid 
80,000  livres  of  debts,  which  the  chapter  has  contracted. 
•  .  .  .  In  addition  to  all  this  trouble,  he  has  also  that 
of  building,  for  he  is  finishing  a  very  pretty  house,  which 
he  began  a  year  or  two  ago  on  a  benefice  about  half  a 
league  from  Uz^,  which  belongs  to  him."  Then,  after 
complaining  of  the  absence  of  some  necessary  document 
which  he  ought  to  have  brought  with  him  from  Paris,  he 
goes  on,  "  For  the  rest  we  shall  not  fail  to  go  to  Avignon, 
one  of  these  days ;  for  my  uncle  wants  to  buy  some  books, 
and  wishes  me  to  study.  I  ask  no  better,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  have  not  yet  had  the  curiosity  to  see  the  town  of 
Uzte,  or  any  one  in  it.  He  much  wishes  that  I  should 
learn  a  little  theology  in  St.  Thomas,  and  I  very  willingly 
fall  in  with  it  In  fine  I  agree  as  easily  as  may  be  in  all 
his  wishes ;  he  is  of  a  very  kind  disposition,  and  shows  me 
all  possible  tenderness." 

In  another  letter,  addressed  to  his  cousin  Vitartfy  he  says, 
''  I  pass  all  my  time  with  my  uncle,  with  St.  Thomas,  and 
with  Virgil ;  I  make  many  theological  and  some  poetical  ex- 
tracts ;  this  is  the  way  in  which  I  pass  my  time,  and  I  am  not 
weary,  especially  when  I  receive  a  letter  from  you ;  it  serves 
me  for  company  during  two  days.  My  uncle  has  all  manner 
of  good  plans  for  me ;  but  nothing  is  yet  sure,  because  the 
affairs  of  the  Chapter  are  still  uncertain.  I  am  waiting  for 
a  ^  demissory.'  Nevertheless  he  has  made  me  dress  from 
Jiead  to  foot  in  black.     The  fashion  of  this  country  is  to 

•  (Eurrcs,  p.  474.  f  ^'^^'  P-  *73- 


LETTERS  FROM  LAXOUEDOC.  337 

wear  Spanish  cloth,  which  is  very  beautiful,  and  costs 
twenty-three  livres«  He  has  got  me  a  coat  made  of  it ;  and 
I  now  look  like  one  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  town.  He  is 
always  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  giving  me  some  pre- 
ferment ;  and  then  I  shall  try  to  pay  a  part  of  my  debts, 
if  I  can ;  for  before  that  time  I  can  do  nothing.  I  recall 
before  my  eyes,  all  the  importunities  which  you  have 
received  from  me,  and  I  blush  as  I  write  to  you  :  erubuit 
pv£r,  Bolva  res  est  But  my  a&irs  are  no  better,  and  this 
sentence  is  very  false,  except  you  are  willing  to  take  the 
blush  as  an  acknowledgment  of  all  that  I  owe  you,  which 
I  shall  never  forget  as  long  as  I  live." 

fiacine's  letters  from  Uzte  are  certainly  not  those  of  one 
who  was  looking  forward  with  pious  ardour  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical life ;  but  they  are  the  letters  of  a  clever,  ingenuous, 
somewhat  facile  youth,  who  was  trying  to  adapt  himself  to 
an  inevitable  necessity  as  honestly  as  he  could,  and  made 
no  pretence  to  an  enthusiasm  which  he  did  not  feel.  On 
the  16th  of  May,  1662,  he  writes  to  M.  Vitart*,  "I  will 
try  to  write  this  afternoon  to  my  aunt  Vitart,  and  to  my 
aunt  the  nun,  since  you  complain  of  me  in  that  respect. 
You  ought,  nevertheless,  to  excuse  me  if  I  have  not  done 
so,  and  they  too ;  for  what  can  I  tell  them  ?  It  is  enough 
to  play  the  hypocrite  here,  without  doing  so  at  Paris  by 
letter;  for  I  call  it  hypocrisy  to  write  letters,  in  which  one 
must  speak  only  of  piety,  and  do  nothing  else  than  beg  for 
prayers.  It  is  not  that  I  have  not  good  need  of  them,  but 
I  wish  that  they  would  pray  for  me,  without  my  being 
obliged  to  ask  it  of  them  so  much.  If  Ood  wills  that  I 
should  be  a  prior,  I  will  do  for  others  as  much  as  they 
have  done  for  me."  At  the  same  time  his  letters  betray 
the  fact  that  his  heart  is  much  more  with  the  poets  than 
the  fisithers.     He  begins  a  tragedy  on  the  story  of  Theagenes 

*  (EaTTss,  p  485. 
VOL*  U.  Z 


33r  POBT  EOYAL. 

and  Chiurideai  He  finds  the  tale  intractable,  and  oom« 
mences  another  on  the  classical  subject  of  the  hatred  of 
Eteocles  and  Polynices.  I  fancy  that»  docile  nephew  as 
he  is,  he  watches  with  no  great  dissatisfaction  F^re  Sconin's 
fruitless  attempts  to  provide  for  him  in  the  Church*  In 
the  solitude  of  Uzds,  Paris  would  appear  inexpressibly 
attractive ;  and  lying  on  his  oars  for  a  year  might  tempt 
the  young  adventurer  to  a  brighter  estimate  of  his  success 
in  the  pursuit  of  literature.  So  in  1663  he  returns,  not 
unwillingly,  to  Paris. 

He  came  back  with  his  first  tragedy,  ''The  Thebaid," 
half-finished ;  and  a  fixed  determination  to  devote  himself 
henceforward  to  poetry.  Thougbout  Badne's  life  two 
opposing  forces  contended  for  supremacy  over  him ;  on  the 
one  side,  literature,  the  court,  the  King;  on  the  other^ 
religion,  the  influence  of  early  training,  Fort  BoyaL  The 
opposition  was  undoubted,  even  if  to  an  impartial  judg* 
ment,  it  might  not  have  appeared  necessary;  the  King 
would  hold  no  parley  with  Port  Boyal,  and  Port  Boyal 
would  make  no  terms  with  the  theatre.  Now  it  is  b^n* 
ning  to  be  the  turn  of  literature  and  the  world ;  and  the 
King,  by  a  well-timed  and  gracious  liberality,  ensures  the 
victory  to  his  side.  Bacine  had  brought  with  him  from 
Uz^,  or  had  composed  soon  after  his  return,  an  ode, 
entitled,  "  La  Renomm^  aux  Muses.''  He  took  the  verses 
to  court,  and  received  in  payment  a  pension  of  600  livres, 
granted,  as  the  patent  expressed  it,  **  that  he  might  have 
the  means  of  continued  application  to  polite  literature.'' 
But  the  pension,  although  subsequentiy  increased  to  1500^ 
and  again  to  2000  livres,  was  not  the  most  important  con- 
sequence of  the  ode.  It  procured  him  the  friendship  of 
Boileau.  The  Abb^  le  Yasseur  showed  it  to  the  future 
satirist,  who  returned  it  with  many  sensible  but  compli* 
mentary  criticisms.  Personal  intercourse  followed;  and 
an  a£fection  and  esteem,  unbroken  while  life  lasted.     A 


BOILEAU.  339 

few  hours  before  his  death,  Eadne  murmured  fx>  his  friend, 
**I  count  it  a  piece  of  good  fortune,  that  I  die  before 
you.'' 

Nicolas  Boileau  was  born  at  Paris,  or  according  to 
another  accoimt  at  Crone,  a  village  not  far  from  the 
capital,  in  1636;  though  sometimes  he  post-dated  his  birth 
by  a  year,  to  justify  a  courtly  speech  which  he  one  day 
made  to  Louis  XIV.;  "I  was  born  a  year  before  your 
Majesty,  to  annoimce  the  wonders  of  your  reign."  He  was 
the  eleventh  child  of  Gilles  Boileau,  who  held  the  oflBce  of 
"  Greffier  du  Conseil  de  la  Grand'  Chambre ; "  and  to  distin- 
guish himself  from  his  brothers,  took  the  surname  of  Des- 
pr&ux,  from  a  little  meadow  in  the  village  of  Crone.  Of 
these  Gilles  was  a  poet,  who  obtained  the  honour  of  admis- 
sion to  the  French  Academy  twenty-five  years  before  his 
more  celebrated  brother,  but  is  now  remembered  only  as 
bearing  unworthily  the  name  of  Boileau.  We  meet  another, 
Jacques,  in  the  memoirs  of  the  time,  as  the  Abbe  Boileau, 
a  gay  and  witty  churchman.  Nicolas,  the  great  satirist, 
had  no  very  agreeable  recollections  of  his  youth ;  he  would 
not  have  his  life  again,  he  said,  on  the  condition  of  passing 
through  the  same  boyhood.  He  lost  his  mother  when  not 
a  year  old;  and  before  he  had  finished  his  education, 
underwent,  not  without  much  preliminary  torture,  the 
operation  of  cutting  for  the  stone.  Like  Racine,  he  studied 
at  the  College  d'Harcourt,  and  afterwards  at  that  of  Beau- 
vais ;  where,  whatever  his  proficiency  in  graver  literature, 
he  spent  days  and  nights  in  reading  poetry  and  novels,  and 
exercised  his  immature  talent  of  versification.  But  the 
law  was  to  be  his  profession,  and  in  1656  he  was  called  to 
the  bar. 

A  very  short  trial  convinced  him  that  he  was  not 
destined  to  become  Avocat-G^n^ral,  and  he  went  through 
a  course  of  study  at  the  Sorbonne.    This,  however,  was  a 

C2 


840  POBT  ROYAL. 

second  disappointment;  he  soon  found  that  scholastic 
theology  was  "  only  legal  chicanery  in  another  dress."  In 
all  likelihood,  however,  he  had  not  betaken  himself  to 
theology  without  a  definite  prospect  of  preferment,  for  he 
immediately  became  Prior  of  Sainte-Pateme,  a  benefice 
worth  800  livres  a  year.  This  he  held  for  eight  or  nine 
years ;  when,  fully  persuaded  that  he  had  no  aptitude  for 
the  ecclesiastical  life,  he  not  only  resigned  it,  but  expended 
in  charity  a  sum  equal  to  his  whole  receipt  from  the 
revenues  of  the  Church.  Henceforvrard  he  devoted  him- 
self wholly  to  poetry,  and  deliberately  assumed  the  function 
of  the  satirist.  His  firiends  warned  him,  that  he  was  thus 
preparing  for  himself  legions  of  enemies.  **  Well,"  was  his 
reply,  ^*I  shall  be  an  honest  man,  and  will  not  fear  thenu" 
If  in  after  life  he  conciliated  more  than  an  ordinary 
amount  of  affection  and  esteem,  and  excited  no  more 
enmities  than  seem  inevitably  to  cling  to  the  literary  pro-* 
fession,  the  explanation  lies  in  the  fact,  that  his  satire 
attacked  abuses  and  mistakes  rather  than  men,  and  always 
fought  on  the  side  of  good  morals  and  good  taste.  Perhaps 
after  all,  his  father  was  not  so  far  wrong,  when  he  said  of  the 
boy  satirist,  *^  Colin  is  a  good  lad,  who  will  never  speak 
evil  of  any  one." 

In  1660,  the  year  in  which  Bacine  made  his  literary  debut 
in  his  ode  on  the  marriage  of  the  King,  Boileau  first 
attracted  attention  by  the  satires  which  are  now  called,  in 
the  catalogue  of  his  works,  the  first  and  the  sixth.  His 
reputation  however  was  confined  to  the  literary  circles  of 
Paris ;  and  extended,  if  at  all,  only  by  help  of  rumour,  to  the 
public  outside.  He  never  willingly  printed  any  of  his  works» 
and  to  the  last  refused  to  receive  any  remuneration  fironx 
the  booksellers.  His  wants  were  probably  moderate ;  he 
never  married,  and  the  bounty  of  the  King  did  much,  in 
the  latter  part  of  his  life,  to  make  his  circumstances  easy. 
At  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  his  priory,  and  a  smaJl 


BOILEAU.  341 

property  which  he  inherited  from  his  &ther  *,  may  have 
placed  him  in  a  position  of  independence.  He  read  well, 
and  beyond  doubt  was  especially  skilled  in  sharpening  the 
sting  of  his  own  verses;  his  talent  for  mimicry  was 
remarkable;  satire  is  always  eagerly  sought  for  by  a 
society  of  which  every  individual  expects  to  find  his  own 
name  embalmed ;  and  impublished  satire  has  a  piquancy 
of  its  own.  So  Boileau  soon  acquired  the  right  of 
entrance  into  all  the  drawing-rooms  of  Paris  which 
professed  a  literary  taste.  Madame  de  S^vign^,  Madame 
de  la  Fayette,  the  Due  de  la  Kochefoucauld  admitted  him 
to  their  intimacy ;  and  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet  conde- 
scended to  hear  and  pass  judgment  on  him.  But  the 
poets  who  directed  the  taste  of  that  celebrated  coterie, 
now  verging  upon  its  decline,  were  infected  with  the 
vicious  taste  against  which  Boileau's  vigorous  good  sense 
was  to  wage  a  life-long  war,  and  hostilities  began  at 
once.  Madame  de  Rambouillet  pronounced  an  unfavourable 
judgment  on  the  pretensions  of  the  young  poet,  who  left 
her  house  not  less  satirically  disposed  than  he  entered  it. 

In  1665,  the  year  when  Sacine  first  became  acquainted 
with  Boileau,  the  latter,  three  years  older  than  his  new 
friend,  was  at  least  three  years  before  him  in  the  race  for 
fame.  He  had  now  written,  besides  an  address  to  the 
King,  and  several  minor  pieces,  his  seven  first  satires.  An 
imperfect  and  garbled  edition  of  some  of  them  had  appeared 
at  Rouen,  in  the  same  year;  and  in  1666  he  is  about, 
though  sorely  against  his  will,  to  publish  the  whole  in  a 
correct  form.  Henceforward  the  lives  of  the  two  poets, 
till  the  death  of  the  younger,  will  run  in  almost  the  same 
course;  the  period  of  Racine's  literary  activity  was  also 

*  **  Hon  p^re,  Boixante  ans  an  trarail  applique, 
£n  mourant  me  laissa,  pour  rouler  et  pour  vivre, 
Un  revenu  leger,  et  son  exemple  ^  suivre." 

Ep.  V.  T.  108. 

z3 


«42  POKT  ROYAL. 

that  in  which  Boileau^s  muse  was  most  fertile ;  and  both 
spent  the  last  years  of  the  century  in  making  vain  prepara- 
tions to  record  the  warlike  exploits  of  Louis  XIV. 

Shortly  after  his  return  from  Languedoc,  and  before  the 
commencement  of  his  friendship  with  Boileau,  Bacine  had 
made  acquaintance  with  Moli^re.  It  is  easy  to  imagine 
how  Port  Royal  must  have  groaned  over  this  unhappy 
association,  for  Moli^re  was  actor  and  manager  as  well  as 
author ;  not  only  a  writer  of  pernicious  plays,  but  one  of 
an  excommunicated  race,  to  whom  the  Church  refused 
Christian  burial.  All  that  we  know  of  Molidre  proves  him 
to  have  been  in  every  way  worthy  of  his  place  in  that 
famous  fellowship  of  wits  and  poets,  who  were  bound  toge- 
ther by  reciprocal  esteem,  as  well  as  by  a  community  of 
fame.  But  had  he  been  other  than  he  was,  the  successful 
manager  would  have  been  eagerly  sought  by  the  young 
poet,  who  was  burning  to  see  his  first  tragedy  upon  the 
stage.  One  account*  states  that  the  subject  of  the  ''The* 
baid  "  had  been  suggested  to  Bacine  by  Moli^re  himself; 
though  this  is  hardly  consistent  with  the  fact  that  the 
tragedy  had  been  begun  at  Uz^,  while  the  friendship  with 
Moli^re  seems  to  date  only  from  the  return  to  Paris.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  the  ''  Thebaid  ^  was  performed  in  1664, 
at  what  was  called  the  Theatre  of  Monsieur,  at  the  Palais 
Boyal,  Moli^e  himself  taking  the  part  of  Eteocles.t  We 
do  not  know  how  it  was  received ;  to  critics,  who  compare 
it  with  his  subsequent  works,  the  subject,  in  its  sanguinary 
details  and  exhibition  of  only  the  violent  passions,  appears 
ill  chosen,  and  the  treatment  weak  and  nerveless.  If  the 
story  was  at  all  capable  of  adaptation  to  the  modem 
theatre,  it  was  a  theme  for  Comeille;  and  the  peculiar 

*  itxidea  de  lUcine,  ed.  Marquis  de  la  Bochefoacaald-Lianconrt,  toI  i. 
p.  1J6. 

f  La  Bochefoucanldi  vol.  I  p.  245. 


ENGLISH  AND  FEBNCH  TEAGEDT.  343 

excellences  which  Bacine  was  about  to  display  were  not 
those  of  his  illustrious  rival. 

One  of  the  later  annalists  of  Port  Boyal,  who  had  pro- 
bably never  heard  of  any  other  Thebaid  than  that  of  the 
Egyptian  hermits^  innocently  records  that  the  sacred  sub- 
ject of  Sacine's  first  tragedy  was  due  to  his  education  in 
the  schools.   Its  second  title,  ^'Les  Frdres  Ennemisy'^  might 
'        have  directed  him  from  the  Egyptian  to  the  Boeotian  Thebes 
as  the  scene,  and  to  the  Phoenissss  of  Euripides  as  the 
origin  of  the  story.    We  are  already  upon  the  classical 
\       ground  to  which  Bacine,  in  conformity  with  the  tradition 
of  the  French  stage,  so  prevailingly  confined  himself.     To 
trace  the  causes  which  impressed  upon  French  and  EDglish 
tragedy  forms  so  widely  diverse,*  and  breathed  into  them  so 
'-   "       dissimilar  a  spirit,  would  be  an  interesting  subject  of  specu- 
'-  '■^'       lation,  though  hardly  fit  for  this  place.     Both  were  born  of 
the  mysteries  and  miracle  plays ;  both  grew  to  a  glorious 
r '         maturity  after  but  a  brief  and  obscure  youth.     Yet  though 
-    '       only  a  narrow  strip  of  sea  separates  the  two  countries,  whole 
--"       continents  of  feeling  lie  between  Shakspere  and  Bacine. 
'■'■        The  full,  many-sided,  changeful  life  which  fills  the  stage  of 
ir^'"'       the  former,  contrasts  with  the  paucity  of  figures,  the  simpli- 
P*^       city  of  motive,  the  statuesque  unity  of  character  which 
rJ*'      mark  the  dramas  of  the  latter;  the  long  development  of 
>'"       the  story,  the  frequent  shifting  of  the  scene,  with  the 
x^^'       scrupulous^  if  not  pedantic  regard  to  the  unities  of  time 
\rbc-       and  place;  the  quick  interchange  of  dialogue,  with  the 
ti  ^      elaborate  and  pompous  tirade ;  the  frequent  transition  from 
ios>'       blank  verse  to  prose,  or  rhyme,  as  occasion  prompts,  with 
]e^        the  unvaried  rise  and  fall  of  the  heroic  couplet.     I  cannot 
the '       pause  to  dilate  upon  these  difiPerences,  or  to  discuss  which 
the  ^      form  of  the  tragic  drama  approaches  nearest  to  the  ideal 
standard  of  perfection.     Their  result  is,  that  most  English- 
^,<       men  are  compelled  to  estimate  the  worth  of  French  tragedies 
by  artificial  tests.    In  all  cases  of  indigenous  literary  pro- 

z  4 


344  POST  ROYAL. 

ductioDfl,  international  comparisons  are  difficult ;  here  they 
are  absolutely  impossible.  We  do  not  consciously  compare 
Badne  and  Gorneille  with  Shakspere  and  Ben  Jonson. 
When  we  want  to  find  out  what  the  former  really  are,  we 
try  to  penetrate  within  the  magic  circle  marked  out  by 
French  canons  of  tragic  excellence,  and  to  gaze  with  French 
eyes. 

The  first  theatre  at  Paris  had  been  established  about  the 
year  1400,  by  the  Fraternity  of  the  Passion  of  our  Saviour, 
for  the  representation  of  scriptural  mysteries.  These  con- 
tinued to  afford  amusement  to  the  population  of  the  capital 
for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half;  till  in  1547  or  1548,  they 
were  suddenly  prohibited  by  the  parliament  as  indecent 
and  profane.  In  the  following  year  the  actors  bought  the 
Hotel  de  Bourgogne,  which  they  converted  into  a  theatre ; 
and  here,  in  1552,  was  represented  the  first  French  tragedy, 
the  "  Cleopatra"  of  Jodelle.  Already,  it  is  to  be  observed,  the 
subject  was  classical ;  the  dialogue  was  conducted  in  long 
speeches,  and  every  act  was  concluded  by  a  chorus.  The 
"Dido"  of  the  same  author;  the  "Agamemnon"  of  Toutain, 
the  "  Julius  Caesar  "  of  Grrevin,  soon  followed;  the  eight  tra- 
gedies of  Gramier,  printed  in  1580,  were  nearly  all  taken  from 
Euripides  or  Seneca;  Hardy  and  Botrou  walked  in  the 
steps  of  their  predecessors; — so  that  when  Corneille  pro- 
duced his  first  play  in  1629,  the  form  which  French  tragedy 
was  to  take  had  been  already  determined.  In  the  choice 
of  subjects,  indeed,  he  showed  more  originality  than  Badne; 
for  his  finest  plays,  **  The  Cid,"  "Les  Horaces,"  "  Cinna," 
"Polyeucte,"  have  no  classical  prototypes.  But  an  enumer- 
ation of  the  titlesof  his  numerous  plays — most  of  which  fall 
far  below  the  standard  afforded  by  his  best  works  —  would 
show  that  many  of  them  are  founded  upon  incidents  of 
classical  antiquity,  while  the  peculiarities  of  form,  charac^ 
teristic  of  French  tragedy,  the  rhymed  metre,  the  long 
speeches,  the  unbending  dignity,  the  careful  observance  of 


ALEXANDRE.  345 

the  unities,  are  as  noticeable  in  his  plays  as  in  those  of 
Bacine.* 

When,  in  1664,  "Les  Fr^res  Ennemis"  was  played  by 
Moli^re's  company,  there  was  room  for  the  young  poet. 
The  •*  Death  of  Pompey,"  the  last  of  Comeille's  plays 
which  has  a  just  claim  to  a  place  in  the  first  rank,  had 
been  produced  twenty  years  before;  and  though  the  fertile 
poet  continued  to  write  tragedies  and  comedies  till  almost 
the  close  of  Bacine's  brief  career,  it  was  only  to  show  the 
depth  to  which  so  aspiring  a  genius  could  descend.  Eotrou 
had  acknowledged  with  frank  generosity,  the  superiority  of 
Comeille ;  and  no  other  tragic  poet  of  the  day  is  now 
more  than  the  shadow  of  a  name.  Molidre's  first  comedy^ 
^  L'Etourdi,"  had  appeared  in  1 653,  and  now  he  was  every 
year  moving  Paris  to  fresh  laughter  by  some  new  offspring 
of  his  wit ;  but  after  a  single  trial,  in  which  he  was  not 
wholly  dishonoured,  Racine  refrained  from  provoking  so 
dangerous  a  comparison,  and  devoted  himself  solely  to  the 
graver  Muse.  Comeille  was  perhaps  more  afraid  of  him 
than  he  of  Comeille.  When,  in  1665,  Kacine  finished  his 
second  tragedy,  "  Alexandre,"  he  took  it,  no  doubt  with  a 
beating  heart,  to  the  house  of  his  great  rival.  The  latter 
listened  attentively,  and  then  bade  his  young  friend  give 
up  all  hopes  of  distinction  as  a  tragic  poet.  His  poetic 
talents  were  great ;  of  dramatic  power  he  had  none.  Was 
it  an  honest  criticism,  or  had  the  author  of  the  "  Cid  " 
some  dim  foreboding  of  the  contest  for  contemporary 
fame,  in  which  he  was  to  be  so  hopelessly  worsted  ? 

.  **  Alexandre  '*  aroused  both  friendly  and  hostile  criticism; 
though  perhaps  on  the  whole  the  former  predominated. 
St.  Evremond  said  ''that  the  old  age  of  Comeille  alarmed 
him  no  longer ;  there  was  now  no  reason  to  believe  that 
tragedy  would  die  with  him."     Still,  the  piece  showed 

*  Hallam,  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  L  p.  444;  toI.  ii.  p.  262;  vol.  iii. 
p.  391,  et  seq. 


846  POBT  ROYAL. 

more  promise  than  performance ;  the  versification  was  too 
facile ;  the  interest  feeble,  and  the  characters,  especially 
that  of  Alexander,  lifeless  and  indistinct.    But  while  it 
raised  the  young  poet's  reputation,  and  encouraged  the 
world  to  expect  greater  things  from  him,  it  put  an  end  to 
his  intimate  friendship  with  Moli^e.    The  predse  history 
of  the  rupture  is  not  easily  disentangled  from  the  Tarying, 
and  to  some  extent,  contradictory  statements  of  the  com- 
mentators.   Louis  Bacine  says  that  his  father,  discontented 
with  the  representation  of  his  play  by  Moli^e's  company, 
not  only  transferred  it  to  the  troupe  at  the  Hotel  de  Bour- 
gogne,  but  with  it  induced  one  of  the  best  actresses  to 
change  her  allegiance.     Another  authority*  asserts  that 
Moli^re,  in  the  first  place,  refused  the  parts  either  of  Alex- 
ander or  of  Porus ;  that  his  theatre,  being  that  of  the 
court,  was  closed  soon  after  the  first  representation  of 
*' Alexandre,"  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  Anne  of 
Austria ;  that  Bacine,  unwilling  to  wait  three  months  for 
a  second  performance,  produced  the  tragedy  at  the  Hotel 
de  Bourgogne ;  and  that  the  actress,  alleged  to  have  been 
enticed  away,  took,  as  is  proved  by  the  still  extant  playbill, 
no  part  in  the  representation.     Wherever  the  truth  may 
lie  among  these  stories,  Bacine  and  Moli^e  were  no  longer 
friends.     It  is  to  the  credit  of  both,  that  they  did  not 
become  enemies;  but  spoke,  as  honest  men  should,  of  each 
others'  character  and  genius.   When  Bacine's  single  comedy, 
'*  Les  Plaideurs,"  was  at  first  unsuccessful,  Moli^re  loudly 
expressed  his  opinion  of  its  merits.     Bacine,  on  the  other 
hand,  when  an  officious  acquaintance  hastened  to  assure 
him  that  *^  Le  Misanthrope  "  had  failed,  replied,  ^*  You  have 
seen  it,  and  I  have  not;  nevertheless  I  don't  believe  a 
word  you  say,  for  it  is  not  possible  that  Moli^  should 
have  written  a  bad  play.    Qt)  back  again,  and  examine  it 
more  closely." 

*  La  Bochefoacaald,  toL  L  p.  U4. 


EXCOMMUNICATION.  847 

About  this  time  —  the  exact  date  is  uncertain  —  came 
the  final  excommunication.  Bacine  had  never  willingly 
sundered  himself  from  Port  Eoyal ;  but  now  Port  Royal 
will  have  none  of  him.  His  aunt,  La  M^re  Agn^  de 
St.  Thfekle,  writes  to  him :  — 

"  Having  learned  that  you  intended  to  make  a  journey 
hither,  I  had  asked  permission  of  our  mother  to  see  you, 
because  some  persons  had  assured  us  that  you  designed  to 
think  seriously  of  your  present  condition ;  and  I  should 
have  been  very  glad  to  hear  this  from  yourself,  that  I 
might  testify  to  you  the  joy  I  should  feel  if  God  were 
pleased  to  touch  your  heart  But  I  heard,  a  few  days  ago, 
a  piece  of  news  which  has  greatly  troubled  me.  I  write 
to  you  in  the  bitterness  of  my  heart,  and  shedding  tears 
which  I  wish  I  could  pour  forth  before  God  in  such 
abundance  as  to  obtain  from  Him  your  salvation,  which 
is  what  I  desire  more  ardently  than  anything  in  the  world. 
I  have  then  learned  with  grief  that  you  associate  more 
than  ever  with  persons  whose  very  name  is  abominable  to 
all  who  have  any  piety, — and  rightly,  since  they  are  for- 
bidden to  enter  the  church,  and  the  communion  of  the 
faithful,  even  in  the  hour  of  death,  unless  they  repent. 
Judge  then  for  yourself,  my  dear  nephew,  in  what  a  con- 
dition I  cannot  but  be,  since  you  are  not  ignorant  of  the 
love  I  have  always  borne  to  you,  and  that  I  have  never 
desired  anything  so  much  as  that  you  should  be  wholly 
devoted  to  God  in  some  honourable  occupation.  I  adjure 
you,  then,  my  dear  nephew,  to  have  pity  on  your  soul, 
and  to  look  into  your  own  heart  with  a  view  of  seriously 
considering  what  an  abyss  it  is  into  which  you  have  thrown 
yourself.  I  wish  that  what  has  been  said  ^to  me  may  not 
be  true ;  but  if  you  have  been  so  imhappy  as  not  to  have 
broken  off  an  intercourse  which  is  dishonourable  to  you  in 
the  sight  of  God  and  men,  you  ought  not  to  think  of 
visiting  us ;  for  you  are  well  aware  that  I  could  not  speak 


*248  POBT  BOYAL. 

to  you,  knowing  you  to  be  in  so  deplorable  and  anti- 
christian  a  condition.  Nevertheless,  I  will  not  cease  to 
ask  God  to  have  mercy  on  you,  and  on  me  in  being 
merciful  to  you,  since  your  salvation  is  so  near  to  my 
heart"* 

This  letter,  whatever  its  precise  date,  must  have  been 
written  in  the  very  agony  of  Port  Boyal,  when  the  disso- 
lution of  the  community  was  imminent,  and  its  chief 
defenders  already  scattered  to  their  various  hiding-places. 
Had  Bacine  felt  any  lively  sympathy  in  his  friends'  quarrel, 
their  almost  hopeless  misfortune  would  have  been  to  a 
good  heart,  like  his,  a  reason  for  sacrificing  much,  in  order 
to  range  himself  on  their  side.  But  the  bonds  which  now 
held  him  to  Port  Royal  were  wholly  personal ;  he  cared 
nothing  for  the  ''fait,**  and  not  much  for  the  "droit**; 
however  sorry  he  might  be  to  see  his  old  teachers  com- 
pelled to  quit  their  beloved  solitude,  he  had  chosen  his 
own  path  in  life,  which  was  not  theirs,  and  which  it  was 
now  too  late  to  change.  But  the  receipt  of  this  letter 
caused  even  a  personal  alienation.  It  was  probably  only  the 
last  of  a  long  series  like  itself,  wearying  him  with  remon- 
strances which  awoke  no  echo  in  his  conscience,  and  urging 
on  him  a  way  of  life  against  which  his  whole  soul  re- 
belled. Why,  he  may  have  asked  himself,  should  he  give 
up  a  career,  in  which  he  saw  nothing  sinful  or  dishonour- 
able, at  the  moment  when  certain  success  waited  to  crown 
his  striving,  because  his  aunt  and  her  confessor,  and  others 
like  them,  believed  in  the  necessary  wickedness  of  stage- 
plays  ?  The  King  smiled  upon  him ;  the  public  went  to 
see  his  tragedies ;  the  best  wits  of  Paris  were  his  friends ; 
and  he  had  only  to  work  in  the  way  that  was  easiest  and 
most  agreeable  to  him  to  ensure  his  fortune.  So  he  met 
the  excommunication  of  Port  Royal  with  an  open  defiance, 
and  henceforward  there  is  war  between  them. 
•  CEavres  de  Racine,  p.  650. 


COXTROVBBSY  WITH  NICOLE.  349 

Before  long,  open  hostilities  broke  out,  and  that  on  an 
occasion  so  trifling  as  to  show  how  intense  was  the  hidden 
fire  which  had  long  lain  smouldering.  We  have  before 
noticed  the  "Lettres  Visionnaires "  which  Nicole  wrote 
against  Desmar&ts  de  Saint  Sorlin,  who  had  published  a 
scurrilous  attack  upon  the  "  Apology  of  the  Nuns  of  Port 
Soyal.'*  *  In  the  first  of  these  f^  he  calls  attention  to  the 
fact,  that  DesmarSts,  who  in  his  later  years  had  set  up  for 
a  prophet,  had  once  been  a  writer  of  plays  and  novels,  and 
then  delivers  himself  of  a  bitter  invective  against  all  such. 
*^  A  writer  of  romances  and  a  dramatic  poet  is  a  public 
poisoner,  not  of  the  bodies  but  of  the  souls  of  the  faithful, 
who  ought  to  look  upon  himself  as  guilty  of  an  infinite 
number  of  spiritual  homicides,  which  he  either  has  caused, 
or  might  have  caused,  by  his  pernicious  writings.  The 
greater  care  he  takes  to  cover  with  a  veil  of  decency  the 
criminal  passions  which  he  describes,  the  more  he  makes 
them  dangerous  and  able  to  surprise  and  corrupt  simple 
and  innocent  souls.''  Against  the  anonymous  author  of 
the  "  Visionnaires,"  Eacine,  like  Congreve  against  Collier, 
took  up  arms.  His  cause  was  better  than  Congreve's,  for 
both  the  plays  and  romances  of  the  time,  if  we  may 
judge  from  such  as  still  retain  some  reputation,  were  dis- 
tinguished by  a  decency  of  treatment  which  contrasts 
favourably  with  the  Elizabethan  drama,  and  still  more 
with  that  of  the  Sestoration,  But  his  defence  of  himself 
and  his  brother  poets  is  as  wrong-headed  as  Nicole's  at- 
tack. His  letter,  addressed  to  the  author  of  the  '^  Lettres 
Visionnaires,"  published  in  January  1666,  is  a  lampoon, 
not  an  argument  It  is  but  short,  yet  long  enough  to 
probe  all  the  weaknesses  of  the  Jansenists,  to  repeat  with 
an  added  sting  all  the  calumnies  of  the  Jesuits;  Le 
Maitre  is  not  spared,  nor  even  La  M^re  Ang^lique,  There 
is  no  attempt  to  discuss  the  grounds  upon  which  prose  or 

*  Vol  i.  p.  42e.  t  Lettres  yUioimaires,  p.  51. 


350  PORT  BOYAL. 

poetic  fiction  may  be  justified :  tiie  letter  is  no  more  than 
a  series  of  quick  sharp  thrusts  at  every  unguarded  point  of 
the  adversary's  armour.  Though  on  the  wrong  side,  it 
much  more  closely  resembles  a  *'  provincial  letter  "  than  the 
imitations  of  them  by  Nicole,  to  which  it  was  an  answer : 
the  style  has  the  same  clearness,  motion,  point,  as  Pascal's, 
but  the  sarcasm  is  deficient  in  humour,  and  the  wit  is 
employed  rather  to  crush  an  enemy  than  to  establish  a 
principle.  In  a  word,  the  letter  was  Badne's  revenge  for 
the  excommunication  of  Port  Boyal. 

The  public  read,  and  laughed:  Nicole,  though  the 
arrow  from  his  own  quiver  must  have  inflicted  a  wound^ 
held  his  peace.  Two  champions,  however,  started  up,  M. 
du  Bois  and  M.  Barbier  d'Aucourt,  each  of  whom  pub* 
lished  a  long,  dull,  anonymous  reply  to  Bacine's  loiter. 
The  latter,  who  was  probably  by  this  time  half-ashamed 
of  his  heat,  would  have  let  the  controversy  drop,  had  not 
Nicole,  in  the  collected  edition  of  his  letters  published  at 
Li^e  in  1667,  printed  the  two  replies,  with  a  prefatory 
commendation,  and  added  a  short  treatise  upon  comedy, 
which  he  had  written  at  some  previous  period.  Badne 
looked  upon  this  as  a  renewal  of  the  debate,  and  forthwith 
prepared  a  second  letter  in  defence  of  the  first  But 
before  sending  this  to  the  printers,  he  took  it  to  Boileau, 
who  advised  him  to  abstain  from  warfare  with  men  to 
whom  he  was  under  great  personal  obligations,  and  wiio, 
at  that  moment,  had  work  and  trouble  enough  upon  their 
hands.  Bacine's  good  heart  was  instantly  touched  by  the 
remonstrance :  he  withheld  the  second  letter  from  publica- 
tion,  and  bought  up,  as  far  as  he  was  able,  the  edition  of 
the  first  The  second  letter,  however,  with  its  prefietcey 
appears  in  the  modem  editions  of  his  works.  It  was 
found  among  the  papers  of  his  cousin,  the  Ahh6  Dupin, 
and  published  in  the  year  1722.* 

♦  Conf.  Vic  de  Nicob,  p.  148,  ei  seq. 


ANDROMAQUE.  351 

**Andromaque,"  which  was  produced  in  1667,  and 
printed  in  the  following  year,  at  once  elevated  Bacine 
to  the  side  of  Comeille.  It  was  dedicated  to  the  Duchess 
of  Orleans,  the  daughter  of  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta 
Maria,  whose  mysterious  and  untimely  death  is  one  of 
the  dark  places '  in  the  family  history  of  the  Bourbons. 
The  poet  was  indebted  to  the  Andromache  of  Euripides 
for  little  more  than  the  character  of  Hermione:  the 
real  origin  of  the  story  is  that  passage  of  Virgil  *  where 
iEneas  describes  his  meeting  with  Andromache  on  the 
coast  of  Epirus,  and  hears  from  her  lips  the  tale  of 
her  fortunes.  But  he  has  used  the  privilege  often 
assumed  by  the  Greek  poets,  to  make  such  alterations 
in  the  mythus  as  appeared  calculated  to  heighten  the 
dramatic  interest  of  the  plot  One  change  in  particu- 
lar is  very  happy.  The  play  turns  on  the  love  of  Andro- 
mache for  her  son,  who  in  Euripides  is  Molossus,  her 
child  by  Pyrrhus.  But  Bacine,  going  back  to  Homer's 
conception  of  Andromache  as  the  faithful  wife  of  Hector, 
has  substituted  Astyanax  for  Molossus,  and  brought  her 
fidelity  to  the  memory  of  Hector  into  conflict  with  her 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  Astyanax,  whom  Pyrrhus 
engages  to  protect  against  the  anger  of  the  Greeks  if 
she  will  but  listen  to  his  suit.  This  is  not,  however,  the 
opportunity  for  critical  remarks,  which  belong  rather  to 
the  history  of  French  literature  than  to  that  of  Port 
Boyal.  The  **  Andromaque "  was  a  great  improvement 
upon  either  of  its  author's  former  plays :  the  plot  is  in- 
teresting, the  denouement  unexpected,  the  characters  of 
Andromache  and  Hermione  well  contrasted.  From  this 
point  the  influence  of  Boileau  is  to  be  clearly  traced  in  all 
Bacine's  works.  At  one  of  their  first  interviews,  the 
younger  poet  had  made  a  half  boast  of  the  ease  with 

*  ^neid,  book  iii.  line  298,  etaeq. 


352  PORT  ROYAL, 

which  the  verses  flowed  from  his  pen.  *'I  must  teach 
you/'  said  Boileau,  <'  to  make  verses  with  difficulty,  and 
you  are  clever  enough  to  learn  the  lesson  soon.'*  We  see 
the  result  in  the  increased  nervousness  and  more  con- 
centrated force  of  the  couplets  of  the  "  Andromaque.'* 

In  the  permission  to  print  the  ''  Andromaque/'  dated 
December  28th,  1667,  Bacine  is  dignified  with  the  title  of 
Prieur  de  TEpinay.  For  a  few  months  the  poet  was  a 
churchman,  if  indeed  the  possession  of  one  of  those  bene- 
fices which  were  at  this  time  firequently  held  by  laymen, 
were  sufficient  to  make  him  one.  How,  or  from  whom  he 
obtained  his  preferment  we  are  not  told ;  he  had  not  en- 
joyed it  long,  before  a  suit  of  ejectment  was  brought 
against  him  on  the  ground  that  the  Priory  could  legaJly 
be  held  only  by  a  regular.  The  process  was  long  and 
intricate;  if  Bacine  may  be  trusted,  intelligible  neither 
to  himself,  nor  to  the  judges;  and  was  concluded  at 
last  by  his  voluntary  resignation  of  the  prize  in  dispute. 
He  avenged  himself  on  the  law  by  his  comedy  of  *'  Les 
Plaideurs ; "  which,  in  the  broad  humour  of  some  of  its 
incidents,  borrowed  from  the  ^'  Wasps  "  of  Aristophanes, 
approaches  more  nearly  to  Molidre's  wildest  sallies  than 
to  the  grave  and  polished  adaptation  of  Terence,  which 
we  should  naturally  expect  from  Bacine.  The  character 
of  the  Coimtess,  who,  at  the  request  of  her  fiEtmily,  had 
been  prohibited  from  going  to  law ;  and  of  the  Advocate, 
who  begins  his  speech  in  defence  of  a  dog  which  had 
stolen  a  chicken,  with  a  quotation  from  Cicero,  were  taken 
from  real  lif6.  Other  hints  were  supplied  by  Boileau  and 
a  troop  of  joyous  friends,  who  at  this  time  frequently 
supped  with  Bacine  at  a  well-known  tavern.  An  elaborate 
code  of  laws  governed  the  little  society;  and  to  read  a  cer- 
tain quantity  of  Chapelain's  poem  **  La  Pucelle,*'  which 
always  lay  upon  a  side-table,  was  the  penalty  of  transgres- 
sion.   Twenty  lines  was  the  punishment  of  a  grave  offence; 


BKITAXNICUS.  358 

and  the  culprit  who  was  compelled  to  read  a  whole  page 
was  supposed  to  have  been  condemned  to  death.  The 
comedy,  which  was  the  offspring  of  so  many  wits,  was 
nevertheless  unsuccessful,  till,  about  a  month  after  its  pro« 
duction  at  Paris,  it  was  played  before  the  King  at  Ver- 
sailles. It  took  the  royal  fancy,  and  the  overjoyed  come- 
dians, on  their  late  return  to  the  city,  knocked  up  the  poet 
to  announce  the  unexpected  success.  His  neighbours  did 
not  doubt  that  the  outraged  nu^esty  of  the  law  had  avenged 
itself  on  the  satirist ;  but  on  the  morrow  flocked  to  view 
with  different  eyes  a  piece  which  the  royal  taste  had  ap- 
proved. 

"  Britannicus,"  Bacine's  next  effort,  appeared  in  1669, 
and  was  dedicated  to  the  Due  de  Chevreuse,  Lancelot's 
old  pupil,  for  whom  the  "  Port  Boyal  Logic  "  was  origin- 
ally composed.  Its  success  was  for  some  time  doubtful.* 
"  Of  all  the  works  which  I  have  given  to  the  public,"  says 
the  author  in  the  preface,  ^'  none  has  called  forth  more 
applause,  or  more  censure  than  this."  And  then,  he  goes 
on  to  complain  that  many  of  the  criticisms  directed  against 
the  piece  had  been  dictated  by  personal  or  party  animosity. 
The  truth  is,  that  by  this  time  Bacine  was  fully  recognised 
by  the  public  as  the  rival  of  Corneille ;  while  the  yearly 
triumphs  of  the  younger  excited  the  friends  of  the  elder 
poet  to  an  imgenerous  bitterness  of  animadversion.  The 
one  was  in  possession  of  the  stage,  and  showed  by  every 

*  A  curious  anecdote  is  told  of  this  plaj.  Up  to  the  time  of  its  per- 
formance, Louis  XIY.,  who  was  a  graceful  dancer,  bad  been  accustomed  to 
exhibit  his  powers  in  the  ballets  of  the  court.  But  he  danced  no  more  after 
hearing  the  lines  in  which  Narcissus  describes  to  Nero  the  opinion  of  the 
Romans  on  his  unkinglj  accomprishroents : 

**  Pour  toute  ambition,  pour  vertn  singuli^re, 
II  excelle  k  conduire  un  char  dans  la  carridre, 
A.  disputer  des  prix  indtgnes  de  ses  mains, 
A.  se  donner  lui-m4me  en  spectacle  aux  Bomains, 
k.  yenir  prodigner  sa  voix  sur  un  the&tre.    .    .    . 

Britatmieus,  act  iy.  sc.  4. 

VOL.  11.  A  A 


354  PORT  BOTAL. 

fresh  piece  that  he  had  hardly  reached  the  maturitj  of  his 
powers;  the  other  could  only  appeal  to  past  victories, 
which  men  were  beginning  to  forget  in  the  ineffectual 
efforts  of  to-day.  Bacine  in  his  preface,  answers  some  of 
the  criticisms  on  ^' Britannicus,"  made  by  Comeille's 
friends,  by  parallel  criticisms  on  the  tragedies  of  Gomeille ; 
and  then  not  indistinctly  hints  that  his  rival  had  been 
guilty  of  intrigues  to  mar  the  success  of  his  play.  Perhaps 
Gomeille  was  arrogant  and  incautious  in  his  talk,  as  Racine 
was  certainly  ill  able  to  bear  the  shafts  of  bon-mot,  epi- 
gram, parody,  which  were  freely  launched  against  him. 
If  he  were  wronged,  he  had  a  noble  revenge,  when  on  the 
death  of  Corneille,  it  fell  to  his  lot  as  temporary  President 
of  the  Academy,  to  pronounce  a  just  and  warm  panegyric 
upon  the  author  of  "  Polyeucte  "  and  the  "  did." 

The  rivalry  became  ev^n  more  declared,  when  the 
Duchess  of  Orleans,  Henrietta  Stuart,  proposed  to  the  two 
poets  the  subject  of  Berenice.  Both  obeyed  her  behests ; 
though  Boileau,  whose  perception  of  the  dramatic  short- 
comings of  the  story  was  strongs  than  his  courtliness, 
declared,  that  had  he  been  Bacine,  he  would  have  made 
no  such  rash  promise.  Comeille's  friends  —  still  perhaps 
the  majority  of  the  play-going  public — prophesied  Bacine^s 
failure,  and  quoted  Virgil  in  scornful  pity :  — 

"  Infelix  pner,  atque  impar  coBgressiu  Achilli." 

But  the  subject,  such  as  it  was,  gave  more  scope  to  Badness 
power  of  ^delineating  the  affections  than  to  Comeille's 
nervous  declamation;  and  the  victory  indisputably  be- 
longed to  the  younger  combatant.  Once  more,  however, 
Bacine*s  pleasure  in  success  was  marred  by  captious  criti- 
cism and  irreverent  parody.  A  travestie  of  Berenice  ap- 
peared at  the  Th^re  Italien.  Bacine  went  to  see  it,  and 
joined  in  the  laugh,  though,  as  he  confessed  afterwards, 
only  from  the  teeth  outwards.    A  bon-mot  of  Chapelle's 


BAJAZBT.  355 

vexed  him  even  more  than  the  burlesque.  *'  Tell  me,  as  a 
friend,"  said  Bacine,  "  what  you  really  think  of  'Berenice.' " 
"What  I  think?"  replied  the  wit;  "Marion  pleure, 
Marion  crie,  Marion  veut  qu'on  la  marie.''  Those  who 
have  sympathised  with  the  love  and  mutual  self-renun- 
ciation of  Titus  and  Berenice,  and  yet  found  the  play 
unexciting  and  barren  of  tragic  incident,  will  admit  that 
the  epigram  is  not  without  a  sting  of  truth. 

"Berenice"  was  produced  in  1670 ;  "Bajazet"  followed  in 
1672.  For  once,  Bacine  strayed  into  modern  times  in 
search  of  a  subject,  though  with  much  doubt  as  to  the 
success  of  the  experiment.  "  Distance  of  place,"  he  says 
in  his  preface,  "repairs,  to  some  extent,  the  too  great 
proximity  of  time ;  for  the  public  makes  little  difference 
between  that  which  is — ^if  I  may  say  so — a  thousand  years, 
and  that  which  is  a  thousand  leagues  distant"  And  then 
he  goes  on  to  allege  the  example  of  ^schylus,  who,  him- 
self a  combatant  at  the  battle  of  Salamis,  did  not  hesitate 
to  write  the  "  PersaB."  Comeille  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  the  personages  of  "Bajazet"  wore  Turkish  dresses,  but 
uttered  French  sentiments.  Perhaps  the  criticism  is  not 
wholly  unfair,  though  the  application  of  it  is  undoubtedly 
too  narrow.  There  is  a  Gtdlicism,  sufficiently  visible  to  a 
foreign  eye,  in  all  Comeille's  fiomans,  in  all  Sacine's 
Greeks  ;  even  when  the  external  likeness  is  faithfully 
rendered,  there  is  a  want  of  the  antique  spirit.  Were  an 
impartial  criticism  possible,  it  would  be  instructive  to 
compare  Shakspere's  Bomans  with  those  of  the  French 
stage;  and  to  mark  how,  in  the  one  case,  the  spirit  is 
faithfully  rendered,  in  spite  of  much  negligence  of  the 
form, — how,  in  the  other,  the  most  careful  attention  to 
classical  propriety  and  precedent  hardly  hides  an  inability 
to  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  national  and  modem  feeling. 

The  way  in  which  Comeille's  admirers  struggled  against 
the  success  of  Bacine,  and  the  manifestly  failing  powers  of 

A  AS 


35C  PORT  ROYAL. 

their  own  poet,  is  amusingly  exemplified  in  Madame  de 
Sevign^'s  criticism  on  ''  Bajazet."  Before  she  had  seen  it, 
she  writes  to  her  daughter  *,  "  Bacine  has  written  a  play 
called  *  Bajazet,'  which  bears  away  the  bell ;  truly  it  does 
not  go  en  empirando  like  the  rest.  M.  de  Tallard  says 
that  it  surpasses  the  pieces  of  Gomeille  as  much  as  they 
surpass  those  of  Boyer;  —  that  is  what  I  call  praise.'* 
When,  two  days  afterwards,  she  has  seen  it,  she  is  compelled 
to  praise,  though  she  still  chooses  to  ascribe^  the  impression 
made  upon  her  to  the  acting  of  Madame  de  Ghampm^le, 
and  reserves  Gomeille's  claim  to  her  highest  admiration. 
''^Bajazet'  is  fine;  I  find  it  somewhat  confused  towards  the 
end ;  and  there  is  a  great  deal  of  passion,  and  of  passion 
less  foolish  than  that  of  *  Berenice';  nevertheless,  in  my 
opinion  it  does  not  surpass  <  Andromaque.'  As  to  the  fine 
comedies  of  Comeille,  they  are  as  much  above  it  as  your 
conception  was  above  —  Set  to  work  and  recall  that  folly ; 
and  believe  that  nothing  will  ever  approach,  I  do  not 
say  surpass  I  say  that  nothing  will  ever  approach  certain 
divine  passages  of  Corneille."  f  By  and  bye,  when  Madame 
de  Grignan  has  read  the  play,  her  mother  writes :  "  You 
have  estimated  ^Bajazet'  very  rightly  and  very  well;  and 
you  will  have  seen  that  I  am  of  your  opinion.  I  wish  I 
could  send  you  La  Champm616  to  warm  up  the  piece 
for  you.  The  character  of  Bajazet  is  icy ;  the  manners  of 
the  Turks  are  ill-observed  —  they  do  not  take  so  much 
trouble  about  a  marriage;  the  denouement  is  not  well 
brought  about ;  one  doesn't  see  the  reasons  of  that  great 
massacre;  there  are,  nevertheless,  some  very  agreeable 
things,  but  nothing  perfectly  beautiful,  nothing  that  carries 
one  away — none  of  those  declcanations  of  Corneille  which 
make  one  shudder.  My  child,  let  us  take  heed  how  we 
compare  him  with  Bacine;  let  us  always  feel  the  dif* 

*  Jannaiy  13th,  1672.  f  JftQoary  15th,  1672. 


LA  CHAMPM£Lfi.  357 

ference;  the  pieces  of  the  latter  have  cold  and  feeble 
passages,  and  he  will  never  surpass  ^Alexandre'  and '  Andro- 
maque ' ;  *  Bajazet '  is  below  them,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
persons,  and,  if  I  may  venture  to  quote  myself,  in  mine. 
Bacine  makes  comedies  for  La  Champm^l^,  and  not  for 
ages  to  come ;  if  ever  he  is  older,  or  ceases  to  be  in  love, 
you  will  see  if  I  am  mistaken.  Long  live,  then,  our  old 
friend  Corneille;  let  us  forgive  him  some  bad  verses,  in 
consideration  of  the  divine  sallies  with  which  we  have 
been  transported, — ^they  are  inimitable  proofs  of  a  master's 
hand.  Des  Preaux  says  still  more  on  this  matter  than  I ; 
in  a  word,  it  is  good  taste;  keep  to  it."*  A  story  of 
somewhat  doubtful  authority  represents  Madame  de  S^- 
vigne  as  predicting  that  the  taste  for  Racine  and  the 
taste  for  coflFee  would  pass  away  together.  The  prophecy 
was  unlucky  in  both  its  parts,  unless  we  put  upon  it  a 
sense  precisely  contrary  to  that  which  the  prophet  in- 
tended. It  is,  however,  but  justice  to  the  lively  lady  to 
admit  that  the  phrase  is  not  to  be  found  in  her  published 
letters. 

The  passage  just  quoted,  in  which  Eacine's  name  is  con- 
nected with  that  of  Madame  de  ChampmSle,  gave  great 
umbrage  to  Louis  Bacine,  who,  himself  a  Jansenist,  and 
born  after  his  father's  reconciliation  with  Port  Royal,  en- 
deavours to  wipe  away  the  stain  from  his  memory.  His 
explanation  of  the  undeniable  intimacy  which  existed 
between  Racine  and  the  heroine  of  so  many  of  his  plays,  is, 
that  La  GhampmSle  was  not  a  bom  actress ;  that  she  needed 
careful  instruction  to  be  able  to  use  her  advantages  of  voice 
and  person ;  and  that  the  poet  drilled  her  into  the  satis- 
factory representative  of  his  conceptions.  It  is  impossible 
now  to  say  whether  this  statement  contains  the  whole  truth, 
or  is  the  ingenious  apology  of  a  son,  who  has  hardly  more 

*  March  16th,  1672.  It  thoold  be  obaenred  that  Had.  de  Serigne  uses 
the  word  comedy  in  a  sense  equivalent  to  the  English,  **  play.'* 

i  A  3 


358  FOBT  SOTAL. 

than  a  half  sympathy  with  his  father's  dramatic  career. 
But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  Port  Boyal,  as  represented  by 
Louis  Bacine,  might  close  its  eyes  to  evil,  where  evil 
undoubtedly  existed;  it  is,  on  the  other,  dangerous  to 
suppose  that  the  scandalous  reports  of  a  licentious  age  have 
always  a  foundation  of  truth.  If  it  be  a  reproach  to  purity 
that  it  is  blind  to  all  but  its  own  reflection ;  the  scoff  may 
as  truly,  and  with  a  deeper  moral  significance,  be  uttered 
against  impurity.  I  venture,  in  the  absence  of  more  con- 
clusive evidence,  to  think  with  Louis  Badne,  that  the  in- 
fluence of  Port  Boyal  was  always  too  deeply  impressed 
upon  his  father's  honest  and  kindly  heart,  to  permit  him  to 
engage  in  an  intrigue  such  as  this.  One  form  of  the  story 
is  suceptible  of  disproof.  Mr.  Hallam  says  that  *'  the  fine 
acting  of  Madlle.  de  Ghampm61^  in '  Andromaque '  secured 
the  success  of  the  play.  Bacine,  after  the  first  representa- 
tion, threw  himself  at  her  feet  in  a  transport  of  gratitude, 
which  was  soon  changed  to  love."  *  If,  however,  we  may 
trust  the  list  of  actors  in  Bacine's  plays,  published  by  the 
Marquis  de  la  Bochefoucanld,  Madame  de  Champm^le  took 
no  part  either  in  "  Andromaque"  or  "Britannicus,"  and  first 
appears  in  1671,  as  the  representative  of  Berenice,  t 

We  must  suppose  that  Bacine  was  not  satisfied  with  his 
success  in  treating  a  modem  story,  for  his  dramas,  from 
this  period  to  his  abandonment  of  tragic  axt,  are  all  clas- 
sical, and  all  justify  by  their  preeminent  excellence,  the 
author's  return  to  the  familiar  ground.  The  first  of  the 
three,  "  Mithridate,"  which  appeared  in  1673,  contains  one 
of  his  loveliest  female  creations,  the  character  of  Monimia; 
and  in  its  display  of  the  vindictive  mind  and  fierce  passions 
of  its  hero,  seems  to  challenge,  and  to  sustain  a  comparison 
vdih  Comeille.  Voltaire  tells  us — and  the  assertion  is  not 
diflScult  to  believe — that  "Mithridate"  was,  of  all  trage- 

*  HallBin,  lit  Hlit.  part  iv.  cbiip.  tI.  §  5. 
t  La  Bochefoncanld,  toL  i.  p.  246. 


IPHIG^AlE.  3^ 

dies,  Charles  XIL's  favourite;  that  he  loved  to  have  it 
read  to  him,  aad  would  pause  at  the  passages  which  pleased 
him  most  In  the  same  year  Bacine  became  a  member 
of  the  French  Academy;  at  the  end  of  the  next,  again 
produced  a  masterpiece,  the  **  Iphig^nie." 

There  could  hardly  be  a  more  striking  proof  of  the  way 
in  which  the  reputation  of  a  living  writer  may  be  made  or 
marred  by  popular  caprice,  than  the  fiact  that  Bacine's  three 
last  tragedies  had  to  encounter  a  most  determined  opposi- 
tion, and  finally  achieved  only  a  doubtful  success.  They 
are  their  author^s  best  works ;  and  comparing  them,  there- 
fore, with  any  entire  plays  of  Gomeille,  are  the  master- 
pieces of  the  French  tragic  stage.  Their  excellences,  too, 
are  precisely  such  as  are  fitted  for  popular  appreciation : 
a  simple  and  striking  story ;  an  harmonious  versification ; 
a  conception  of  character,  capable  of  being  perfectly  em- 
bodied by  the  actor  and  fully  understood  by  the  audience. 
The  filial  piety  and  patriotic  courage  of  Iphigenia,  the 
jealous  passion  of  Phsedra,  if  far  less  subtle  and  complex, 
and  on  that  account  less  natural  than  some  of  Shakspere's 
conceptions,  are  all  the  more  fit  for  stage  representation ; 
they  stand  out  from  the  scene  in  a  statuesque  beauty,  of 
which  the  exquisitely  simple  and  harmonious  proportions 
are  seen  at  a  glance.*  The  '^Iphig^nie^  was  produced  in 
the  same  year  as  Corneille's  last  feeble  drama,  "  Surena , '' 
and  Bacine's  other  competitors  for  public  favour,  Le  Clerc, 
Boyer,  Pradon,  have  sunk  into  deserved  forgetfulness. 
Yet  as  Bononcini  once  divided  the  applause  of  London 
with  Handel,  and  Piccini,  in  Paris,  waged  war  on  equal 
terms  with  Gluck,  these  poetasters  had  their  hot  supporters 
in  aristocratic  saloni^  who  predicted  for  them  an  immortality 
of  iiEune,  when  Bacine  should  be  forgotten,  and  meanwhile 
assailed  the  living  poet  in  every  way  that  malice  could 

*  Conf.  Hallam,  Lit  Hist,  part  ir.  chap.  yL  §§  11, 16. 

A  A  4 


360  PORT  ROYAL. 

suggest.  Le  Clerc,  one  of  the  Academic  forty,  aided  by  a 
less  known  ally,  Coras,  followed  Bacine's  '^  Iphig^nie  "  by 
one  of  his  own.  The  first  was  declared  by  Boileau,  in  his 
third  epistle,  to  have  cost  more  tears  than  were  ever  shed 
for  the  real  sacrifice  at  Aulis ;  the  second  is  now  known 
only  by  the  epigram  in  which  Bacine  added  a  sting  to 
the  defeat  of  his  rivals.  Before  and  after  its  production, 
he  says,  the  two  great  poets  quarrelled  for  the  credit  of  the 
piece ;  before,  each  said  that  it  was  wholly  his  own ;  after, 
each  protested  that  it  was  wholly  the  other's. 

In  "  Iphigenie,"  as  in  "  Andromaque,"  Bacine  had  in 
view  a  tragedy  of  Euripides ;  but  the  story  belongs  to  all 
antiquity.  If  Euripides  alone  has  treated  the  subject  in 
the  dramatic  form,  the  necessary  personages  of  Racine's 
play,  Agamemnon,  Achilles,  Glytemnestra,Ulys8es,hadbeen 
already  drawn  either  by  Homer,  or  -Sschylus,  or  Sophocles ; 
the  fine  narrative  of  Lucretius  is  familiar  to  every  scholar; 
and  Ovid  has  found  a  theme,  in  the  change  of  Iphigenia 
into  the  hind.  It  must  be  reckoned  a  great  triumph  of 
the  French  poet^  that  with  such  rivals,  he  has  produced  a 
tragedy  which  holds  the  heart  in  breathless  suspense  to 
the  last.  If  there  is  something  not  Homeric  in  the  court* 
liness  of  Achilles,  the  fault  must  be  laid  to  the  original 
choice  of  a  subject.  It  may  be  necessary  to  introduce  love 
into  every  modem  tragedy,  but  it  is  hard  to  turn  an  old 
Crreek  hero  into  a  lover  without  some  sacrifice  of  nature 
and  probability.  But  the  contest  between  a  sense  of  public 
duty,  the  impulse  of  ambition,  and  the  yearning  of  parental 
love  in  the  mind  of  Agamemnon  is  finely  drawn ;  Clytem- 
nestra's  maternal  affection  is  as  fierce  as  we  should  expect 
from  the  tigress  painted  by  ^schylus;  and  Iphigenia, 
when  once  the  first  horror  of  death  is  past^  is  a  noble 
example  of  meek,  womanly  fortitude.  To  evade  the  neces- 
sity of  her  sacrifice,  which  would  hardly  be  tolerated  on  the 
modern  stage,  Bacine,  with  his  accustomed  judgment,  has 


fhI:dbe.  361 

introduced  the  character  of  Eriphile.  The  declaration  of 
the  oracle,  which  enjoins  the  sacrifice  of  a  kinswoman  of 
Helen,  is  purposely  left  ambiguous;  and  Eriphile,  who, 
unknown  to  herself  is  a  daughter  of  Helen  by  Theseus, 
first  loses  the  sympathy  of  the  spectator  by  her  ungenerous 
and  selfish  abandonment  of  Iphigenia,  and  takes  her  place, 
in  the  very  crisis  of  the  action,  as  the  required  victim. 

In  "PhMre,"  which  appeared  in  1677,  Eacine  once 
more  went  to  Euripides  for  a  model,  and  once  more  sur- 
passed him.  He  exercised  his  usual  good  taste  in  the 
alterations  which  he  made  in  the  story:  Phaedra  dies 
at  the  catastrophe  of  the  play,  instead  of  in  the  middle ; 
Hippolytus  is  not  accused  of  an  actual  attempt  against 
her  honour,  but  only  of  the  intention ;  and  the  interest 
excited  by  his  character  is  increased,  at  least  to  a  modem 
audience,  by  representing  him  as  in  love  with  Aricie. 
The  passion  of  Phaedra,  which  would  otherwise  be  only 
revolting,  is  traced  to  the  irresistible  wrath  of  the  gods ; 
she  struggles  in  vain  to  conquer  it;  she  is  possessed, 
from  time  to  time,  by  better  impulses :  and  the  shame  of 
suggesting  the  crime  of  the  plot  is  suffered  to  rest  with 
her  confidante  CEnone.  Racine,  in  his  preface,  claims  the 
credit  of  a  distinct  moral  purpose:  "For  the  rest,"  he 
says,  "  I  dare  not  yet  aver  that  this  is  indeed  the  best  of 
my  tragedies.  I  leave  it  both  to  my  readers  and  to  time 
to  decide  upon  its  true  value.  What  I  can  aver  is,  that  I 
have  written  none  in  which  virtue  is  more  conspicuously 
displayed  than  in  this ;  the  least  faults  are  there  severely 
punished ;  the  very  thought  of  crime  is  looked  upon  with 
as  much  horror  as  crime  itself;  the  weaknesses  of  love 
pass  for  real  weaknesses ;  the  passions  are  set  forth  only 
to  show  all  the  disorder  which  they  cause,  and  vice  is 
everywhere  depicted  in  colours  which  cause  its  deformity 
to  be  recognised  and  hated."  Then,  after  asserting  that 
these  were  the  ends  which  the  ancient  tragic  poets  had  in 


362  PORT  BOYAL. 

vieWy  he  proceeds  with  a  tacit  reference  to  Port  Boyal, 
which  shows  the  direction  in  which  the  current  of  bis 
thoughts  already  set :  **  This  would  perhaps  be  a  means  of 
effecting  a  reconciliation  between  tragedy  and  many  per- 
sons celebrated  for  piety  and  learning,  who  in  these  latter 
days  have  condemned  it ;  but  who  would,  without  doubts 
judge  it  more  favourably  if  authors  thought  aa  much  of 
instructing  as  of  amusing  their  audience,  and  followed  in 
this  the  true  intention  of  tragedy." 

The  '*  Phddre  "  stands,  by  common  consent,  side  by  side 
with  the  *^  Athalie  "  at  the  head  of  Racine's  tragedies :  the 
author  himself  preferred  the  first,  the  majority  of  critics 
perhaps  the  second.  Yet  both  failed  at  first,  and  con- 
quered their  high  place  in  public  esteem  only  after  a  long 
interval.  The  "Ph^dre"  of  Pradon  appeared  simultar 
neously  with  the  "  PhMre  '*  of  Bacine,  and  had  a  trium- 
phant run  of  sixteen  nights,  while  the  real  masterpiece 
was  played  to  empty  benches.  A  compact  aristocratic 
phalanx,  headed  by  the  Due  de  Nevers,  who  himself  wrote 
indifferent  verses,  protected  Pradon;  and,  thougb  no 
actress  of  reputation  would  undertake  the  part  of  Ph^re, 
in  opposition  to  Madame  de  Champm^l^,  ensured  a 
temporary  triumph  by  the  weight  of  their  purses.  For 
the  first  six  nights  of  either  play,  they  engaged  all  the 
best  seats  in  the  theatre,  at  a  cost  equivalent  to  28,000 
francs  of  the  present  currency.  The  seats  were  empty 
when  Bacine  was  on  the  stage,  full  of  applauding  friends 
for  Pradon :  what  better  manoeuvre,  even  in  th^e  days 
of  professional  claqv^ura  f  A  poetess  of  distinction  puffed 
Pradon  in  a  sonnet.  The  sonnet  was  attributed  to  the 
Due  de  Nevers,  and  a  parody  on  it,  as  falsely  ascribed  to 
Bacine  and  Boileau,  raised  against  them  the  personal  en- 
mity of  the  irascible  nobleman.  It  seemed  as  if  the  war 
of  wit  were  to  end  in  a  war  of  cudgels;  the  Prince  de 
Cond^  offered  the  supposed  offenders  the  protection  of  his 


FINAL  TEIUMPH   OF  I'HfeDEE.  303 

house  ;  "  If  you  are  umocent,  come ;  and  if  you  are  guilty, 
come  too ;  ^  but  the  sonnet  was  acknowledged  by  its  real 
authors;  the  public  began  to  distinguish  the  diamond 
from  the  paste,  and  '^PhMre**  was  victorious  over  the 
cabal.  The  psean  was  sung  by  Boileau,  in  the  epistle 
which  he  addressed  to  Bacine  ^^  on  the  benefit  to  be  de- 
rived from  critics : " 

**  Imite  mon  exetnple :  et  lorsqu^nne  cabale, 
Un  flot  de  Tains  autcnrs  follement  te  ravale, 
Frofite  de  lenr  haine,  et  de  lear  mauTais  sens, 
Bis  da  brnit  passager  de  leors  oris  impnissants. 
Qae  peat  contre  tes  rers  one  ignorance  Taine  ? 
Le  Farnasse  Fran9oi8,  ennobli  par  ta  yeine,  [ 
Contre  tons  ces  complots  saara  te  maintenir 
Et  loaleTvr  poor  toi  Teqaitable  aTenir. 
£h!  qni,  Toyant  an  joar  la  donlear  Tcrtoense 
De  Fb^dre  malgre  soi  perfide,  incestaease, 
D'nn  si  noble  travail  jastement  etonn6, 
Ne  b^nira  d*abord  le  si^cle  fortune, 
Qai,  rcnda  plos  fameox  par  tes  iliostres  Teilles, 
Vit  naitre  sons  ta  main  ces  pompeases  menrciUes/*  * 

The  years  between  1665  and  1677,  during  which  Bacine 
was  producing  his  masterpieces  from  "  Andromaque  "  to 
"  PhWre,''  were  also  the  years  in  which  Boileau  made  his 
happiest  eflForts.  The  first  nine  Epistles,  the  Art  of 
Poetry,  and  four  cantos  of  Le  Lutrin,  the  poems  iu  short 
upon  which  his  reputation  chiefly  rests,  date  from  this 
period.  In  1669  he  had  been  presented  to  Louis  XIV.  by 
the  Due  de  Vivonne,  and  had  recited  to  the  King  a  part 
of  that  fine  epistle,  in  which  he  exhorts  him  to  exchange 
the  barren  glory  of  conquest  for  the  more  useful  triumphs 
of  peace.  Louis,  with  the  magnanimity  which  he  sometimes 
showed,  took  the  remonstrance  in  good  part,  presented  the 
poet  with  a  pension  of  2000  livres,  and  encouraged  from 
that  time   his  attendance  upon   the   court.      The   royal 

•  Epitre  yii.  w.  71— S4. 


364  PORT  ROYAL. 

favour  did  not,  however,  prevent  Boileau  from  cultivating 
the  friendship  of  one  who  stood  very  low  in  the  esteem  of 
courtiers,  A  year  or  two  after  his  presentation  to  the 
King,  he  met  Antoine  Arnauld  at  the  hoiwe  of  a  common 
friend,  M.  de  Lamoignon,  President  of  the  Parliament  of 
Paris.  The  poet,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  no 
Jansenist,  and  yet  no  Molinist ;  but  an  honest  man  him- 
self, loved  honesty,  and  so  waa  irresistibly  attracted  to 
Arnauld.  The  moral  uprightness,  the  vigorous  common 
sense,  the  freedom  from  scholastic  prejudice,  which  dis- 
tinguished the  theologian,  delighted  the  satirist,  whose 
poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  was  as  acceptable  in  style  and 
matter  as  poetry  could  be  to  Amauld's  essentially  prosaic 
mind.  A  friendship  grew  up  between  the  two  men  who  had 
thus  so  much  in  common  :  Arnauld,  even  when  a  proscribed 
exile,  is  never  mentioned  in  Boileau's  writings  except  in 
terms  of  the  highest  respect,  and  when  in  1694  he  died  in 
Flanders,  his  friend  composed,  as  his  epitaph,  some  of  the 
noblest  and  most  vigorous  verses  of  which  French  litera- 
ture can  boast* 

Shortly  after  the  commencement  of  his  acquaintance 
with  Arnauld,  Boileau,  according  to  one  account,  with  the 
assistance  of  Bacine,  wrote  the  famous  "  Arret  Burlesque  " 
against  the  introduction  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy  into 
the  University  of  Paris.  The  supremacy  of  Aristotle  was 
menaced,  and  the  University,  following  the  precedent  of  a 
decree  which  had  condemned  Ramus  in  1543,  and  another 
fulminated  in  1624  against  some  less  celebrated  innovators, 
gravely  asked  M.  de  Lamoignon  to  interpose  the  authority 
of  the  Parliament  of  Paris  to  check  the  progress  of  the 
new  doctrine.  The  President,  in  perplexity,  applied  for 
help  both  to  Arnauld  and  to  Boileau :  the  former  indited 
a  serious  remonstrance  against  the  proposed  decree ;  the 

♦  Conf.  St«  BeuTe,  Port  Royal,  vol.  v.  p.  327. 


BOILEAU  AND  ABNAULD.  365 

latter  turned  the  whole  affair  into  ridicule  by  an  elaborate 
parody  of  a  legal  document,  which,  by  banishing  reason 
from  the  schools,  ensures  the  perpetual  supremacy  of 
Aristotle.  The  "Arrfet  Burlesque"  was  even  more  suc- 
cessful, as  an  engine  of  controversy,  than  the  "  Provincial 
Letters  "  had  been,  for  the  Aristotelians  were  laughed  out 
of  court,  and  the  pernicious  Cartesianism  pursued  its 
course  unchecked.  Among  many  passages  of  exquisite 
irony,  those  in  which  the  mischief  is  attributed  to  the  fact 
"  that  an  unknown  person,  by  name  Beason,  had  under- 
taken to  enter  by  force  the  schools  of  the  said  University ;" 
in  which  the  blood  is  forbidden  to  circulate  through  the 
body,  "  on  pain  of  being  entirely  given  up  and  abandoned 
to  the  Faculty  of  Medicine ; "  in  which  patients,  cured  of 
fevers  by  new  methods,  are  ordered  to  be  restored  to  a 
state  of'  sickness,  ^^  to  be  afterwards  treated  according  to 
the  rules,  and  if  they  do  not  recover  a  second  time,  to  be 
at  least  conducted  to  the  other  world  sufl&ciently  purged 
and  evacuated  "  —  will  live  in  the  memory  of  the  reader, 
side  by  side  with  the  raillery  with  which  Voltaire  pursued 
the  unlucky  Maupertuis.* 

In  1673,  Boileau  proved  his  friendship  for  Amauld  by 
addressing  to  him  his  third  epistle,  ^^  Upon  False  Shame." 
Two  volumes  of  the  great  work  "La  Perpetuity  de  la 
Foi,"  which  bore  Arnauld's  name  upon  the  titlepage,  had 
already  appeared,  and  a  third  was  still  wanting  to  complete 
it.  Boileau  enters  upon  his  subject  by  addressing  Arnauld 
on  the  successful  exposure  of  Claude's  sophisms,  and  then 
assures  him  that,  however  convinced  of  the  claims  of  the 
ancient  church,  a  feeling  of  fiEdse  shame  will  prevent  the 
Protestant  minister  from  acknowledging  them.  The 
epistle  is,  in  other  respects,  not  worthy  of  special  remark : 
its  philosophy  is  shallow,  its  versification  level ;  but  it  is 

•  St^  Bcuv?,  vol.  V.  f .  329.    TuYTcs  de  Boileau,  vol.  iii.  p.  99,  et  ttq. 


366  PORT  BOTAL. 

another  instance  of  Boileau's  honest  independence,  and 
helps  to  explain  how,  when  Hacine  wished  to  be  reconciled 
with  Port  Royal,  he  was  able  to  negotiate  the  terms  of 
peace  with  Amauld. 

For  the  time  had  come  when  Bacine  could  no  longer 
continue  his  connection  with  the  stage,  and  be  at  peace 
with  his  own  conscience.  The  victory  of  Port  Royal  had 
been  long  delayed,  but  its  hour  had  struck  at  last  In 
obedience  to  the  poetic  impulse,  he  had  rebelled  against 
religion,  in  the  only  form  which  had  ever  taken  any  hold 
of  his  nature :  his  success  can  hardly  have  fallen  short  of 
his  wildest  hopes;  and  yet  Pradon  and  Le  Clerc  had 
taught  him  what  Le  Maitre  had  learned,  and  would  have 
taught  him  long  ago,  that  the  draught  of  fame  is  not  of 
unmixed  sweetness.  The  uncertainties,  the  intrigues,  the 
quarrels  of  the  stage  were  insupportable  to  his  sensitive 
disposition ;  and  Boileau's  prophetic  praise  could  not  com- 
pensate him  for  an  empty  theatre,  or  a  stinging  lam- 
poon. For  disappointment  to  wake  a  sleeping  conscience 
is  no  new  thing;  and  we  may  easily  admit  that  the 
stormy  receptions  of  **Iphigenie"  and  ''Phddre"  w&ce 
predisposing  causes  of  Racine's  abandonment  of  the  stage, 
without  allowing  that  literary  failure  drove  him  into  the 
arms  of  religion.  And  if  the  Protestant  reader,  remem- 
bering the  perfect  purity  of  Racine's  tragedies,  is  disposed 
to  attribute  the  silence  of  the  poet  to  an  inhuman  austerity 
of  Port  Royal,  and  to  ask  why  religion  need  have  intCT- 
dicted  him  from  adding  an  Alcestis,  an  CEdipus,  an 
Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  to  his  other  masterpieces,  the  answer 
is,  that  at  this  period  the  Church  and  the  theatre  were 
irremediably  hostile  to  one  another ;  that  a  Christian  burial 
was  with  difficulty  obtained  for  Molidre;  and  that  any 
ordinary  actor,  who  would  not  confess  on  his  death-bed 
that  his  course  of  life  had  been  one  continued  sin,  was 
contemptuously  hidden  under  ground  like  a  dog.     Boileau 


HABBIAGE.  8G7 

would  have  run  the  risk ;  would  have  spoken  his  soul  in 
the  dramatic  form,  if  that  had  been  natural  to  ^him,  with 
a  quiet  conscience,  and,  dying,  would  have  lefk  the  Church 
to  avenge  itself  as  it  could.  But  Bacine  was  made  of 
tenderer  stuff;  and  saw  no  halting-place  between  the 
Hotel  de  Bourgogne  and  Port  BoyaL 

His  first  intention  was  to  bury  himself  in  the  Chartreuse, 
and  expiate  his  theatrical  sins  by  the  rigour  of  that  disci- 
pline. But  his  confessor,  thinking  perhaps,  that  in  a 
character  like  Badne's,  such  a  reaction  was  too  violent 
to  last,  persuaded  him  that  by  contracting  a  respectable 
marriage,  and  thus  undertaking  the  duties  of  citizenship, 
he  would  best  overcome  his  unhappy  passion  for  making 
verses.  The  step  was  no  sooner  recommended  than  taken. 
The  repentant  poet  had  his  pension  of  2000  livres,  a  valu- 
able library,  and  enough  ready  money  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  his  wedding;  and  so,  on  the  1st  of  June,  1677,  married 
Catherine  de  Bomanet,  the  daughter  of  a  provincial  trea- 
surer of  France.  "  When  he  was  resolved  to  marry,"  says 
bis  son,  "  neither  love  nor  interest  had  anything  to  do  with 
his  choice ;  and  in  so  serious  an  affair,  he  consulted  reason 
only."  It  is  satisfactory  to  think  that  a  marriage  arranged 
on  these  principles,  made  one  of  the  most  sensitive  and 
affectionate  of  men,  comfortable  and  happy.  Before  the 
year  had  expired,  the  King  named  him,  in  conjunction  with 
Boileau,  royal  historiographer ;  assigning  to  the  former  a 
salary  of  4000,  to  the  latter  of  2000  livres.  Besides  this, 
he  received  firom  the  royal  bounty,  no  less  a  sum  than 
3900  louis  in  extraordinary  gifts,  during  the  ten  years 
which  followed  his  marriage.  There  was  therefore  no 
want  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  His  wife  did  not  know 
verse  from  prose,  and  never  was  acquainted  with  more 
than  the  titles  of  the  tragedies  which  had  made  her  husband 
famous;  but  she  was  all  absorbed  in  home  and  chUdren,  and 
ruled  her  household  with  admirable  good  sense.     Seven 


SC8  PORT  ROYAL. 

little  ones  —  five  daughters  and  two  sons  —  soon  filled  the 
house ;  and  their  father,  all  courtier  as  he  was,  acknow- 
ledged himself  happier  with  them,  than  at  Versailles  or 
Marli.  Only  when  sickness  came,  and  he  had  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  anxiety  for  love,  he  would  say,  **  Why  did  I 
expose  myself  to  this  ?  why  did  they  keep  me  firom  the 
Chartreuse  ?  " 

Bacine's  first  care,  after  his  marriage,  was  to  seek 
a  reconciliation  with  his  Mends  of  Port  BoyaL  With 
Nicole,  whom,  as  the  author  of  the  *^  Lettres  Visionnaires,'' 
he  might  be  supposed  to  have  particularly  offended,  there 
was  no  difficulty;  he  went  to  him,  accompanied  by  his 
cousin  the  Abb^  Dupin,  and  was  received  with  opeo 
arms.  But  Amauld  had  been  deeply  and  not  unjustly 
hurt  at  the  attack,  which  in  his  letter  to  Nicole,  Bacine 
had  made  on  La  M^re  Ang^lique ;  and  for  a  time  did  Dot 
respond  to  Boileau's  advances  on  behalf  of  his  friend.  At 
last  Boileau  bethought  himself  of  taking  to  Amauld  a 
copy  of  the  "  PhMre."  He  found  him  surrounded  by » 
company  of  young  theologians,  who  began  to  smile  when 
he  undertook  to  prove  that,  apart  firom  the  influences  of 
the  theatre,  a  tragedy  might  be  usefiil  to  good  morals. 
Their  smiles  were  turned  into  wonder,  when  Amauld  re- 
plied, "  If  things  are  as  he  says,  he  is  right,  and  the  tra- 
gedy is  innocent."  Boileau  confessed  afterwards  that  never 
in  his  life,  was  he  so  pleased  as  by  this  concession.  He 
begged  permission  to  leave  the  play  with  Amauld,  and 
returned  in  a  few  days  to  hear  his  judgment.  It  was  en- 
tirely satisfactory ;  he  admitted  the  soundness  of  the  moral, 
only  complaining,  in  common  with  many  French  critics, 
and  I  imagine  but  few  English  ones,  that  Bacine  had 
needlessly  made  Hippolytus  a  lover.  From  a  favour- 
able opinion  of  the  play,  to  the  pardon  of  the  author,  was 
an  easy  step ;  and  the  next  day  Boileau  brought  Bacine 
with  him.  Although  the  room  was  full  of  starangers, 
Bacine  threw  himself  at  Arnauld's  feet ;  Arnauld,  startled 


RECONCILIATION  WITH  PORT  ROYAL.  369 

from  his  wonted  gravity,  imitated  the  action ;  and  a  warm 
embrace  sealed  the  reconciliation.  From  this  moment  to 
his  death,  the  poet  is  once  more  the  pupil,  the  servant,  the 
friend  of  Port  Eoyal. 

It  may  have  been  the  zeal  with  which  he  applied  him- 
self to  the  duties  of  his  office  as  historiographer,  which 
enabled  him  for  many  years  to  cultivate  both  his  old  and 
his  new  friendships,  and  to  be  equally  well  received  at  Port 
Eoyal  and  at  Versailles.  The  place  was  not  a  new  one; 
and  was  held,  when  Bacine  and  Boileau  were  appointed, 
by  an  historian  of  some  reputation,  Mezerai.  But  the  two 
poets  had  been  long  employed,  with  some  coadjutors,  who 
at  a  later  period  were  incorporated  into  the  lesser  Academy, 
or  Academy  of  Inscriptions  and  Belles  Lettres,  in  find- 
ing devices  for  the  medals,  by  which  Louis  XIV.  celebrated 
his  victories,  and  in  writing  short  narratives  of  the  events 
which  the  medals  commemorated.  Madame  de  Montespan, 
by  way  of  flattering  her  royal  lover,  proposed  that  for  this 
plan,  that  of  a  connected  history  of  his  reign  should  be  sub- 
stituted ;  and  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who,  though  as  yet 
only  the  governess  of  the  mistress's  children,  was  slowly 
acquiring  her  empire  over  the  King's  mind,  suggested 
Sacine  and  Boileau  as  the  historians.  It  does  not  seem  to 
have  occurred  to  any  one,  that  the  historian's  talent  is  not 
precisely  that  of  the  satirist  or  the  tragic  poet ;  that  one 
who,  describing  in  a  pompous  epistle,  the  royal  passage  of 
the  Rhine,  calls  to  his  aid  the  Biver  Grod,  and  a  whole 
crowd  of  Naiads,  is  not  on  that  account  qualified  to  write  a 
clear  and  vivid  description  of  a  military  operation.  So  the 
poets  set  to  work,  and  played  at  writing  history  for  twenty  of 
the  best  years  of  their  lives.  The  only  result  is  Racine's 
"  History  of  Port  Royal,"  which  was  assuredly  not  written 
by  royal  command. 

Historiographers,  who  are  courtiers  too,  are  not  bound 
to  do  more  than  follow  the  footsteps  of  their  hero ;  and 

VOL.   II.  B  B 


870  POET  ROYAL. 

Louifi  XrV.  was  a  general,  whose  campaigns  were  easy  to 
accompany  and  to  describe.  He  affected  to  believe  that 
the  capture  of  a  fortress,  not  the  gain  of  pitched  battles, 
was  the  true  test  of  military  skill ;  and  with  the  help  of 
Vauban,  the  best  engineer  in  Europe,  contrived  to  prove 
himself  a  great  general.  When,  late  in  the  spring,  his 
marshals  had  made  every  disposition  for  investing  some 
fortified  place  in  Alsace,  or  in  Flanders ;  when  all  the 
roads  were  open,  and  every  opposing  army  was  covered 
by  a  preponderating  force,  the  great  monarch  would  set 
out  from  Versailles  with  a  brilliant  retinue  of  courtiers, 
mistresses,  valets,  cooks,  and  sometimes  poets,  would 
assume  the  direction  of  a  siege,  the  success  of  which,  so 
far  as  human  precautions  could  assure  it,  was  already 
certain,  and  in  a  few  weeks  return  to  Paris  in  triumph  as 
the  invincible  conqueror  of  Mons  or  Namur.  On  more 
than  one  expedition  like  this  he  wcua  accompanied  bj 
Bacine  or  Boileau,  with  no  further  result  than  some 
lively  letters  from  the  scene  of  war.  The  former  espe- 
cially was  ill-fitted  for  any  actual  participation  in  the 
bloody  drama  which  alone  went  by  the  name  of  history* 
When,  in  1692,  the  King  reviewed,  at  the  camp  of  Crevres, 
near  Mons,  no  fewer  than  120,000  men,  the  joint  armies 
commanded  by  himself  and  the  Marechal  de  Luxembourg, 
Bacine  writes  to  Boileau:  '^I  was  so  weary,  so  dazzled 
with  the  brilliance  of  sword  and  musket,  so  deafened  vdth 
the  noise  of  drums,  trumpets,  and  cymbals,  that  in  truth 
I  let  my  horse  carry  me  whither  it  would,  without  paying 
attention  to  anything;  and  I  wished  with  all  my  heart 
that  all  the  men  that  I  saw  had  been  each  in  his  hut  or 
his  house,  with  their  wives  and  children,  and  I  in  my  Eue 
des  Mafons,  with  my  family."  • 

The  relations  of  Bacine  and  Boileau  to  the  King  are 

*  GRuTTcs  de  Bacine,  p.  517. 


BELATION  TO  THB  KING.  371 

not  easily  understood  by  those  who  have  never  penetrated 
within  the  magic  circle  of  a  court  The  first  impulse 
is  to  set  down  much  that  they  said  to  and  of  him  to  the 
account  of  interested  adulation,  and  to  mark  with  regret- 
ful wonder  that  such  a  contagion  should  have  had  power  to 
affect  such  men.  Three  of  Boileau's  epistles  —  as  well  as 
another  poem  which  differs  from  them  only  in  title,  the 
*'  Discours  au  Roi  " — are  addressed  to  the  King,  and  are 
certainly  not  sparing  in  his  praise.  So  the  ode  on  the 
taking  of  Namur,  so  happily  parodied  by  Prior  when  the 
town  was  retaken,  is  full  of  compliments,  the  more  frigid 
and  unnatural  as  the  poet  was  essaying  a  species  of  com- 
position for  which  he  was  wholly  unfitted.  But  Boileau, 
in  his  published  works,  never  praised  with  as  little  dis- 
crimination as  Sacine.  When  Thomas  Comeille  was  re- 
ceived, on  the  death  of  his  illustrious  brother,  as  a  member 
of  the  French  Academy,  the  duty  of  pronouncing  the 
panegyric  of  the  latter  devolved,  by  a  happy  chance,  upon 
Racine.  His  praise  was  as  high  and  as  hearty  as  it  ought 
to  be ;  but  at  the  end  of  the  discourse  he  turned  away 
from  his  subject  to  celebrate  the  virtues  and  genius  of  the 
King.  Addressing  a  certain  M.  Bergeret,  who  shared  the 
honours  of  the  day  with  Thomas  Comeille,  he  concludes : 
*' Happy  those,  who  like  you.  Sir,  have  the  honour  of 
dra¥ring  near  to  this  great  prince ;  and  who,  after  having 
contemplated  him,  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  on  those 
important  occasions  when  he  influences  the  destiny  of  the 
whole  earth,  can  contemplate  him  again  in  private,  and 
study  him  in  the  least  actions  of  his  life ;  not  less  great, 
not  less  heroic,  not  less  admirable,  than  full  of  equity,  full 
of  humanity;  always  tranquil,  always  master  of  himself; 
without  inequality,  without  weakness ;  —  in  short,  the 
wisest  and  most  perfect  of  men."  •     This  was  too  much 

*  (Eavres  de  Racine,  p.  464. 
B  B  2 


872  POET  BOTAL, 

even  for  Louis  to  receive  without  a  word  of  deprecation. 
"  I  should  have  praised  you  more  if  you  had  praised  me 
less,*'  he  said  to  Bacine,  when  the  latter  read  the  address 
to  him  in  private.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  King  was 
not  alone  in  the  opinion  implied  by  this  rebuke.  Antoine 
Arnauld  writes  from  Brussels  to  Badne  * :  *'  I  have  to 
thank  you.  Sir,  for  the  '  Discourse '  which  has  been  sent 
to  me  on  your  behalf.  Surely  nothing  is  more  eloquent  ; 
and  the  hero  whom  you  praise  is  all  the  more  worthy  of 
your  praises,  if,  as  they  say,  he  has  found  them  some- 
what excessive." 

Some  of  the  extravagance  in  these  terms  is  probably 
due  to  the  complimentary  tone  which  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  assume  on  such  an  occasion,  a  tone  to  which  the 
French  language  readily  lends  itself.  But  the  private 
correspondence  of  Bacine  and  Boileau  shows  that  thev 
really  entertained  towards  the  King  a  sentiment  of  respect, 
almost  amounting  to  veneration.  I  will  give  but  one 
instance  out  of  many.  In  August  1687,  Boileau  was  at 
the  baths  of  Bourbon,  hoping  by  their  aid  to  conquer  an 
obstinate  affection  of  the  throat.  Bacine  writes  to  him : 
*^  The  King  asked  me  last  night  if  you  were  come  back ;  I 
told  him  no,  and  that  the  waters  had  not,  as  yet,  given 
you  much  relict  He  said  to  me  these  very  words :  *  He 
will  do  better  to  return  to  his  ordinary  course  of  life ;  his 
voice  will  come  back  when  he  least  expects  it'  Every- 
body is  charmed  with  the  kindness  which  his  Majesty  has 
shown  to  you  in  speaking  thus;  and  everybody  is  of 
opinion  that  for  your  health  you  would  do  well  to  return.'"! 
To  which  Boileau  replies:  **I  confess  that  if  anything 
could  restore  my  health  and  spirits,  it  would  be  his 
Majesty's  kindness  in  inquiring  about  me  every  time  that 
you  present  yourself  before  him.      I  hardly  know  what 

*  April  7tb,  16S8.  f  CEavrcs  de  Bacine  p.  507. 


RELATION  TO   THE   KIXG.  373 

more  glorious  thing  coiild  happen,  I  do  not  say  to  a  wretch 
like  myself,  but  to  the  most  considerable  people  at  the 
court ;  and  I  dare  bet  that  there  are  more  than  twenty  of 
them  who  are  at  this  moment  envjring  my  good  luck,  and 
would  willingly  at  the  same  price  lose  not  only  their  voice 
but  the  faculty  of  speech."  And  then,  after  saying  that 
the  King's  advice  did  not  agree  with  that  of  the  phy- 
sicians at  Bourbon,  he  continues;  "I  accept  the  omen 
which  he  has  given  in  saying  that  my  voice  will  return 
when  I  least  expect  it.  A  prince  who  has  accomplished 
so  many  miraculous  things  is,  in  all  likelihood,  inspired  by 
heaven ;  and  all  his  words  are  oracles."  *  Yet  to  produce 
all  this  private  and  confidential  adulation  —  if  adulation  it 
can  be  called  which  is  not  designed  to  reach  the  ears  of 
its  object  —the  King  bad  done  no  more  than  ask  after  the 
health  of  an  old  friend  and  servant ! 

I  believe,  then,  that  the  awe  with  which  our  poets  looked 
upon  Louis  XIV.  was  not  feigned  ;  while  any  one  who  is 
familiar  with  the  memoirs  of  that  splendid  court,  will 
admit  that  there  was  nothing  extraordinary  in  it.  The 
social  change  which  took  place  in  the  forty  years  subsequent 
to  the  wars  of  the  Fronde,  finds  its  only  parallel  in  that 
produced  by  the  forty  years  which  followed  the  battle  of 
Actium.  In  both  cases  a  proud,  fierce,  ambitious  nobility, 
every  member  of  which  was  greedy  for  independent  power 
and  personal  distinction,  learned  to  hang  upon  the  look  of 
a  single  man,  to  obey  his  commands,  to  execute  his  pro- 
jectf?,  to  rejoice  in  his  smiles,  to  make  themselves  wretched 
at  his  frown.  The  description  of  Louis  XIV.'s  daily  life, 
preserved  by  St.  Simon,  who  as  a  Duke  and  Peer  of  France 
had  the  entree  to  the  sacred  presence-chamber  and  corri- 
dors, is  wonderfully  instructive  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  free 
country.     How  from  the  moment  of  Majesty's  rising  in 

*  CEavres  de  Racine,  pp.  508,  509. 
BB  3 


374  PORT  ROYAL. 

the  morning  to  its  going  to  bed  at  nighty  every  action  was 
regulated  by  inexorable  etiquette;  how  its  masses,  its 
meals,  its  medicine,  its  consultation  with  ministers,  its 
visits  to  mistresses,  succeeded  one  another  in  invariable 
order  and  decorum  ;  how  one  great  nobleman  had  charge 
of  the  royal  shirt,  and  another  was  honoured  with  permis- 
sion to  hold  the  stockings ;  how  princes  of  the  blood  were 
suffered  to  sit  at  the  King's  table,  at  which  lesser  but  still 
brilliant  dignitaries  reverently  waited,  while  others  were 
allowed  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Majesty  only  in  a  passage^ 
or  upon  a  terrace;  how  duchesses  intrigued  and  quarrelled 
for  a  stool  in  the  presence,  and  everybody  for  the  ine£GBkbIe 
bliss  of  an  invitation  £0  Marli,  whither,  with  a  select  train, 
the  King  fled  when  he  was  weary  of  the  pomp  of  Ver- 
sailles ;  all  this  and  much  more  is  told  by  one  who  saw  it 
with  a  half-unconscious  scorn,  and  yet  mingled  and  thrust 
in  the  crowd  which  he  affected  to  despise.  Is  it  possible 
to  form  a  true  judgment  of  a  Kling,  "  hedged  about "  by  so 
much  artificial  divinity  ?  And  if  hard  for  us,  to  whom 
Louis  XIV.  can  give  neither  pensions,  nor  places,  nor 
armies,  and  in  whose  eyes  the  memory  of  his  victories, 
already  tarnished  by  Blenheim  and  Malplaquet,  is  dull 
beside  the  fresher  exploits  of  a  greater  King  of  France 
than  he,  how  hard  for  those  who  had  received  much,  and 
hoped  for  more  from  his  favour,  and  who  looked  upon  him 
as  the  impersonation  of  heroic  success  ?  His  bounty  had 
enriched,  his  personal  friendship  had  distinguished  Boileau 
and  Racine;  whatever  honours  and  rewards  could  be 
bestowed  upon  literature,  he  had  showered  upon  them ; 
in  an  age  of  patrons,  he  was  the  noblest,  the  most  generous^ 
the  most  powerful  of  alL  Nor  was  he  then  that  Louis, 
who  old,  broken,  childless,  with  his  dynasty  reduced  to  a 
single  infant,  and  the  prestige  of  his  arm&  alieady  shaken 
by  William  of  Orange,  maintained,  with  the  exhausted 
resources  of  his  kingdom,   an  almost  hopeless  struggle 


RELATION  TO  THE  KING.  375 

against  Marlborough  and  Eugene.  His  reign  had  been 
inaugurated  by  the  victory  of  Bocroi,  and  forty  years  had 
but  confirmed  the  omen.  A  crowd  of  great  generals  had 
arisen  to  command  his  armies;  it  needed  only  to  serve 
LfOuis  to  earn  a  glorious  reputation.  Able  administrators 
had  filled  the  council  chamber,  over  which  no  all-powerful 
minister  presided,  but  the  King  himself,  ever  labouring  for 
the  glory  of  France.  The  old  proverb  had  been  reversed, 
and  arts  and  letters  had  flourished  in  the  midst  of  arms. 
And  the  monarch  who  was  the  pivot  upon  which  all  the 
vast  machine  rested,  or  seemed  to  rest,  played  to  admiration 
the  monarch's  part,  and  if  destitute  of  a  kingly  heart,  had 
at  least  kingly  manners.  If  careless  of  human  life  and 
happiness,  his  courtesy  was  unfailing,  his  dignity  duly 
tempered  by  grace;  if  he  often  did  a  mean  action,  he  often 
compensated  for  it  by  a  magnanimous  speech.  Perhaps 
his  valet-de-chambre  knew  that  he  was  not  a  hero ;  I  am 
not  surprised  that  those  who  stood  a  little  further  ofi*  did 
not  find  it  out. 

Racine  was  a  courtier  at  heart :  his  was  one  of  those 
flexible  natures  which  always  seek  a  support  round  which 
to  twine,  and  he  sincerely  loved  and  was  grateful  to  Louis. 
But  I  fancy  that  he  never  quite  caught  the  true  court 
tone,  and  was  too  timid,  too  anxious  to  avoid  all  occasions 
of  offence,  to  hit  the  medium  between  independence  and 
servility,  which  pleases  best,  because  affecting  not  to 
try  to  please  at  all.  Something  like  this  the  King  may 
have  meant,  when  one  day  seeing  Bacine  walking  with  his 
friend  M.  de  Cavoie,  he  said,  "  Those  two  are  often  to- 
gether ;  I  can  guess  the  reason.  Cavoie,  when  he  is  with 
Bacine,  thinks  himself  a  wit ;  and  Bacine,  with  Cavoie, 
imagines  that  he  is  a  courtier."  Boileau  was  far  rougher ; 
and  if  his  ready  wit  enabled  him  to  make  sometimes  the 
happier  compliment,  it  as  often  suffered  to  escape  some  im- 
welcome  truth.     There  is  an  amusing  story  told  of  Bacine's 

BB  4 


876  PORT  BOTAL. 

constemationy  when,  in  spite  of  repeated  warnings,  Boileaa 
persisted  in  alluding  in  the  King's  presence  to  Scarron, 
Madame  de  Maintenon's  first  husband,  whose  name,  it  was 
well  known,  neither  she  nor  her  royal  spouse  could  endure 
to  hear.  Nor  would  he  give  up  the  independence  of  his 
literary  taste.  The  King  had  written  some  verses,  which 
he  showed  to  Boileau*  *'  Sire,"  he  answered,  *'  nothing 
is  impossible  to  your  Majesty ;  you  have  wished  to  write 
bad  verses,  and  you  have  succeeded."  And  again,  when 
the  Prince  de  Conde  disputed  with  him  as  to  the  merits  of 
a  sonnet,  and  alleged  in  its  feivour  the  opinion  of  the 
King  and  the  Dauphiness,  he  said,  **  The  King  is  expert 
in  taking  cities,  and  Madame  la  Dauphine  is  an  aocom- 
plished  princess,  but  I  think  I  understand  verses  a  little 
better  than  either."  The  Prince  reported  the  retort  to  the 
King,  who  had  the  good  sense  to  declare  that  the  poet  was 
right 

But  not  even  Louis  XTV.,  king,  friend,  patron  as  he  was, 
could  make  the  two  poets  ashamed  of  Port  Soyal,  or  silent 
in  the  praise  of  its  great  doctors.  Year  after  year  Bacine 
was  accustomed  to  take  his  wife  and  family  to  the  quiet 
valley,  where  he  had  spent  the  most  studious  years  of  his 
youth,  that  they  might  pray  with  him  at  the  old  familiar 
altars.  The  King  knew  where  he  went,  but  after  one  of 
these  absences  from  court,  received  him  as  graciously  as 
before :  there  was  a  tacit  compact  between  them  in  regard 
to  this  forbidden  subject.  Still  Hacine's  supposed  in- 
fluence with  the  great  ones  of  the  court  was  often  invoked 
by  the  nuns  during  the  long  weariness  of  the  second  per- 
secution, and  never  invoked  in  vain.  Boileau  was  not 
afraid  to  speak  out.  "  The  King,"  he  said,  "  cannot  in- 
flict greater  hardships  upon  the  nims  of  Port  Boyal,  than 
they  every  day  inflict  upon  themselves."  A  speech  which 
he  is  reported  to  have  made  to  Louis  himself,  is  an  ex- 


BOILEAU  AND  PORT  BOYAL.  377 

quisite  mixture  of  compliment  and  rebuke.  '*  I  am  hav- 
ing every  possible  search  made  for  M.  Arnauld/'  said  the 
King.  "  Your  Majesty  is  always  fortunate,"  was  the  re- 
ply* "  yo^  will  not  find  him."  So  when  Racine  was  read- 
ing to  the  King  his  friend's  tenth  epistle,  addressed  ^'  To 
my  Verses,"  he  read  the  following  passage  with  a  manly 
emphasis  ;  and  the  King  made  no  remark :  — 

**  Mais  des  heurenz  regards  de  mon  astre  6tonnant 
Marqnez  bien  cet  effet  encore  plas  surprenant. 
Qui  dans  mon  souvenir  aura  toujours  sa  place ; 
Que,  de  tant  d'ecrivains  de  Pecole  d*Ignace, 
j^tant  comme  je  suis,  ami  si  declare, 
Ce  docteur  tontefois  si  craint,  si  revere, 
Qui  contre  euz  de  sa  plume  epnisa  Tenergie, 
Amauld,  le  grand  Amanld,  fit  mon  apologie. 
Sur  mon  tombeau  futur,  mes  vers,  pour  Tenoncer, 
Coures  en  lettres  d'or  de  ce  pas  vons  placer."  * 

The  lines  which  I  have' just  quoted  exactly  describe 
Boileau's  position  in  regard  to  the  great  religious  dispute 
of  his  day.  He  was  one  of  the  few  men  who  had  intimate 
friends  among  both  Jansenists  and  Jesuits.  He  calls  him- 
self in  one  of  his  letters  f  a  Molino-JanaenisL  We  have 
seen  already  how  he  provoked  a  Jesuit  into  a  passion,  by 
declaring  that  the  "  Provincial  Letters  "  were  the  master- 
piece of  ancient  and  modern  literature.^  But  Bourdaloue, 
Bouhours,  Hapin,  were  his  friends  as  well  as  Arnauld  and 
Nicole ;  hardly  less  honoured  and  beloved.  It  is  of  them 
that  he  speaks  in  the  following  letter  to  Amauld :  § 

"  There  are  Jesuits  who  do  me  the  honour  to  esteem  me, 
and  whom  I  also  greatly  esteem  and  honour.  They  come 
to  see  me  in  my  solitude  of  Auteuil,  and  sometimes  even 
stay  there.     I  give  them  the  best  reception  I  can,  but  the 

♦  Epistle  X.  V.  115—124.  f  OEuvres,  vol.  iv.  p.  336. 

X  Vol.  i  p.  291.  §  June.  1694.    CEuvrcs,  vol.  iv.  p.  28. 


878  FOBT  BOTAL. 

first  compact  I  make  with  them  is,  that  I  am  to  be  allowed 
in  our  conversatioiiy  to  praise  you  as  much  as  I  wilL  I 
often  abuse  this  permission,  and  my  garden  walls  have 
more  than  once  re-echoed  our  disputes  about  you.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that  they  readily  admit  the  greatness  of 
your  genius,  and  the  breadth  of  your  knowledge  ;  .while  I 
maintam,  in  opposition  to  them^  that  these  are  your  least 
qualities,  and  that  what  is  most  estimable  in  you  is  the 
uprightness  of  your  spirit,  the  candour  of  your  soul,  and 
the  purity  of  your  intentions.  It  is  then  that  they  b^ 
to  cry  out  mightily ;  but  I  bate  not  a  jot  upon  this  head, 
any  more  than  upon  the  **  Provincial  Letters,"  which, 
without  examining  which  party  is  at  the  bottom  right  or 
wrong,  I  always  vaunt  before  them  as  the  most  perfect 
prose  work  in  our  language.  Sometimes  we  come  to  words 
that  are  quite  sharp  enough.  At  last,  nevertheless,  the 
whole  thing  ends  in  a  joke ;  ridendo  dicere  verum  qull 
vetat  f  Or  when  I  perceive  them  to  be  too  much  annoyed, 
I  expatiate  upon  the  praises  of  P^  la  Chaise,  whom  I 
sincerely  revere." 

So,  in  his  tenth  satire,  *'  Les  Femmes,"  he  praises  by  im- 
plication the  training  of  Port  Koyal  * ;  and  then  again  has 
a  similar  word  of  compliment  for  Madame  de  Malntenon  s 
little  convent  at  St.  Cyr.f  If  he  wrote  an  epitaph  for 
Arnauld,  he  placed  under  the  portrait  of  Bourdaloue  this 
couplet :  — 

*<  Enfin,  apr^s  Arnaald,  ce  fat  rillastre  en  France 
Qae  j'admirai  le  ploB,  et  qni  m'aima  le  mienx.**  X 

In  some  men,  this  might  have  been  the  eflTect  of  timiditr 
or  time-serving :  in  Boileau  it  was  the  natural  expressioo 
of  his  perfect  honesty  and  independence  of  mind.  There 
is  nothing  to  show  that  he  was  either  a  Jansenist  or  a 

♦  V.  125.  t  V.  364.  X  (EvLTtet,  roL  ii.  p.  337. 


BOILEAU  AND  PORT  ROYAL.  879 

Molinist  A  foolish  book  has  been  published  so  late  as 
1857,  to  prove  that  the  satire  of  Boileau's  mock-heroic 
poem,  "  IjO  Lutrin,"  was  all  the  utterance  of  concealed 
Jansenism  —  as  if  none  but  a  Jansenist  had  a  right  to 
laugh  at  overfed  priests  and  lazy  canons !  *  It  is  true  that 
Arnauld  defended  the  misogynic  theories  of  his  satire  on 
"  Women :  "  that  the  epistle,  **  On  the  Love  of  God, "  — 
almost  the  last  effort  of  his  pen,  —  was  warmly  welcomed 
at  Port  RoyaL  He  was  an  infirm  old  bachelor  when  he 
wrote  the  sarcasms  which  accorded  well  with  Arnauld's 
theory  of  celibacy :  and  the  doctrine  of  his  epistle,  that  the 
love  of  God  is  a  necessary  test  of  the  conversion  of  a 
sinner,  was  too  truly  religious  not  to  offend  the  upholders 
of  the  sufficiency  of  attrition,  and  so  to  win  the  applause  of 
their  opponents.  I  figure  him  to  myself  as  a  man  of 
strong  sense  and  sound  moral  instincts,  who  did  not  care 
to  take  any  side  in  a  debate  which  seemed  to  him  to  be 
one  only  of  words,  but  who  loved  goodness  and  hated  in- 
justice wherever  he  saw  them.  That  Arnauld  and  Port 
Royal  were  persecuted  was  enough  to  draw  out  his  heart 
to  them ;  but  when  he  saw  that  the  supposed  heterodoxy 
of  their  faith  was  accompanied  by  the  undoubted  ortho- 
doxy of  their  morals,  it  made  him  their  friend  for  life. 
And  at  the  same  time,  his  love  for  them  did  not  prevent 
him  from  admiring  the  eloquence  of  Bourdaloue,  or  hold- 
ing friendly  debates  of  learning  with  Sapin,  or  maintaining 
amicable  relations  with  P^re  la  Chaise. 

All  the  glimpses  of  Racine's  private  life  in  these  latter 
years,  which  we  obtain  from  his  letters,  or  the  memoirs  of 
his  son,  reveal  the  same  simple,  kindly,  sensitive  character 
which  we  have  already  seen.  In  1690  he  obtained  the 
office  of  gentleman-in-ordinary  to  the  King,  on  condition 
of  paying  10,000  livres  to  the  widow  of  his  predecessor; 

*  Conf.  St«  Benve,  Port  Rojral,  toI.  t.  p.  838,  note. 


J 


380  PORT  ROYAL. 

and  afterwards  procured  the  reversion  of  it  for  his  eldest 
son  Jean  Baptiste  Kacine.  His  tragedies  were  hardly  a 
source  of  income;  he  made  it  a  point  of  conscience  not  to 
revise  them^  and  Boileau  corrected  the  proofs  of  ail  the 
later  editions.  He  was  a  child  among  his  children  ;  and 
however  powerful  the  magnetism  which  drew  him  lo 
Versailles^  was  never  so  happy  as  at  home.  ''In  the 
presence  even  of  strangers,"  says  Louis  Eacine,  '^  he  dared 
to  be  a  father :  he  joined  in  all  our  amusements ;  and  I 
recollect  processions  in  which  my  sisters  were  the  clergy, 
myself  the  cure^  and  the  author  of '  Athalie,'  singing  with 
US3  carried  the  cross."  In  1691,  his  eldest  son  went  to 
Holland  as  the  bearer  of  despatches  to  the  FVench  am- 
bassador, Bonrepaux :  and  the  numerous  letters  addressed 
to  him  by  his  father,  as  well  as  one  or  two  sensible, 
motherly  epistles  from  Madame  Bacine,  are  full  of  the 
little  family  details,  which  prove  the  existence  of  a  good 
heart  in  those  who  record,  and  take  it  for  granted  in  tho^ 
who  are  to  read  them.  The  girls  of  the  household 
Nannette,  Babet,  Fanchon,  Madelon,  figure  in  them  bv 
turns,  and  are  at  least  as  interesting  personages  as  the 
obscure  courtiers  who  fill  a  similar  place  in  some  of  his 
letters  to  Boileau.  Three  of  these  entered  different  con- 
vents ;  only  one,  the  youngest^  was  married.  At  a  time 
when  Port  Royal  was  again  prohibited  from  receiving 
boarders,  Bacine  had  influence  enough  to  obtain  permis- 
sioD  for  two  of  his  daughters  to  enter  the  convent ;  but  it 
was  soon  revoked,  and  the  eldest,  who  passionately  wished 
to  adopt  the  mouastic  life,  under  the  care  of  her  aunt.,  noif 
Abbess,  was  sent  home  almost  by  force.  An  anecdote,  in- 
teresting in  its  very  simplicity,  recorded  by  Louis  Racine, 
paints,  in  a  few  words,  the  relations  between  his  father  and 
the  family.  He  had  just  gone  home  from  Versailles,  when 
an  equerry  of  the  Prince  de  Conde  came  to  invite  him  to 
dinner.     "  I  cannot  have  the  honour  of  dining  with  him/' 


RACINE   IN  HIS  FAMILY.  881 

he  said ;  ^^  it  is  more  than  a  week  since  I  saw  my  wife  and 
children,  and  to-day  they  are  making  a  festival  of  dining 
with  me  on  a  heautiful  carp ;  I  must  not  disappoint  them." 
The  equerry  insisted :  the  prince  had  invited  a  numerous 
company  to  meet  M.  Eacine,  and  would  be  much  mortified 
if  he  did  not  come.  The  simple  poet  answered  his  entreaties 
by  showing  the  carp  to  the  astonished  oflScer,  and  appeal- 
ing to  him  whether  so  fine  a  fish  was  not  reason  enough 
why  he  should  dine  with  the  children,  and  not  with  his 
Serene  Highness.  We  are  left  to  infer  that  Cond^  ac- 
cepted the  excuse. 

If  in  these  years  Sckcine  felt  any  regret  for  his  former 
occupations  and  triumphs,  his  son  is  Jansenist  enough  not 
to  record  it.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Boileau,  dated  August 
1687  *,  I  fancy  that  I  trace  some  leaven  of  the  old  man. 
A  troop  of  comedians  had  been  turned  out  of  their  theatie 
by  the  Sorbonne,  which  had  bought  some  adjoining  pro- 
perty; and  five  or  six  attempts  which  they  made  to 
establish  themselves  elsewhere  had  been  rendered  unsuc- 
cessful by  the  cures  of  the  different  paiishes.  Port  Eoyal 
would  hardly  have  been  pleased,  I  think,  with  Bacine's 
evident  sympathy  with  the  "poor  players,"  or  his  satis- 
faction at  their  prospect  of  a  final  settlement.  In  his 
conduct,  however,  he  firmly  adhered  to  the  resolutions 
with  which  he  had  begun  his  new  course  of  life.  He 
neither  went  to  the  theatre  himself,  nor  permitted  his 
children  to  do  so.  When  Madame  Bacine  writes  to  her 
son  in  Holland,  it  is  evidently  with  a  secret  dread  that  he 
should  remember  that  he  was  the  child  of  the  author  of 
"  PhMre,"  and  take  the  opportunity  of  breaking  loose  from 
restraint.  Bacine's  greatest  fear  was  that  either  of  his 
sons  should  become  a  poet ;  the  eldest  he  studiously  ex- 
horted himself,  the  second,  who  was  but  a  child  when  his 

•  OBuTTCS  de  Racine,  p.  505. 


383  FORT  BOTAL. 

father  died  be  left  to  the  admonition  of  Boileau.  The 
satirist  faithfully  discharged  the  commission;  pointing  out 
to  the  boy  that  a  second.  Racine  had  as  little  chance  of 
independent  fame  as  Thomas  ComeUle,  who  was  remem- 
bered only  as  the  brother  of  a  greater  poet  than  himself. 
The  lecture  was  fruitless;  Louis  Bacine  wrote  some  in- 
different poems,  which  are  long  since  forgotten;  and 
founds  his  true  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  posterity  on  tbe 
affectionate  and  lively  biography,  of  his  father,  which  he 
compiled  for  the  use  of  his  own  son. 

It  was  in  1688,  eleven  years  after  the  production  of 
'^  Phddre,"  that  a  happy  chance  gave  Bacine  the  oppor- 
tunity of  returning. to  dramatic  poetry,  without  offence  to 
his  religious  convictions.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who, 
since  1685  or  1686,  had  been  the  King's  wife,  and  vet 
exercised  all  the  influence  of  a  mistress,  established  at 
St.  Cyr,  near  Versailles,  an  institution  for  the  education  of 
poor  damsels  of  noble  birth.  She  herself,  though  of  good 
family,  had  in  early  youth  suffered  the  greatest  privations, 
and  now  desired  to  make  use  of  her  imlimited  command 
of  the  royal  purse  to  succour  a  like  distress.  It  is  not 
necessary  here  to  describe  her  foundation ;  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  the  wars  and  the  splendour  of  Louis's  reign  had 
so  impoverished  the  French  noblesse,  as  to  keep  the  roll 
at  St.  Cyr  always  full,  though  it  extended  to  250  names. 
The  young  ladies  were  taught,  among  other  accomplish- 
ments, that  of  a  clear  and  graceful  elocution,  and  for  this 
purpose  were  practised  in  recitation.  From  recitation  to 
dramatic  performance  is  an  easy  step,  and  Madame  de 
Brinon,  the  first  Superior  of  St.  Cyr,  composed  a  play  for 
her  pupils,  the  only  merit  of  which  was  that  it  was  written, 
committed  to  memory,  and  performed  in  a  fortnight 
Then  some  of  the  masterpieces  of  the  French  stage  were 
tried,  and  at  last "  Andromaque "  was  played  with  such 
success,  that  Madame  de  Maintenon  wrote  to  Bacine,  ''Our 


ESTHER.  383 

little  girls  have  just  acted  your '  Andromaque/  and  so  well^ 
that  they  shall  never,  as  long  as  they  live,  play  either  that 
or  any  other  of  your  pieces."  In  the  same  letter,  she 
begged  him  to  write  a  dramatic  poem,  on  some  moral  or 
historical  subject,  in  which  there  should  be  no  mention  of 
love.  He  need  not  fear  for  his  reputation,  for  the  play 
would  be  entirely  confined  to  St,  Cyr.  It  was  not  even 
necessary  to  observe  the  rules  of  the  drama;  the  only 
object  was  to  instruct,  and  at  the  same  time  amuse,  a  few 
young  ladies.  The  request  threw  Bacine  into  the  greatest 
perplexity.  He  was  too  much  of  a  courtier  to  refuse 
it ;  yet  remembered  how  the  author  of  the  **  Cid  ^  had 
written  **  Agesilas,"  and  '*  Attila,"  and  feared  lest  the  public 
should  compare  his  latter  days  with  those  of  Corneille. 
Boileau  urgently  dissuaded  him  from  it,  until  Racine  con- 
ceived the  lucky  thought  of  moulding  the  story  of  Esther 
into  a  sacred  tragedy.  Then  he  exhorted  him  to  persevere 
with  the  same  eagerness  as  he  had  formerly  dissuaded 
him. 

It  is  amusing  to  see  the  zeal  with  which  Bacine,  con- 
science free,  threw  himself  into  his  old  avocation.  He 
drilled  his  little  troop,  as  he  had  formerly  drilled  La 
Champm£l£,  and  with  the  same  good  effect.  For  Madame 
de  Caylus,  the  niece  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  though 
not  yet  sixteen,  had  two  years  before  been  married  from 
St  Cyr,  he  wrote  the  prologue,  which  she  spoke  in  the 
character  of  Piety.  The  other  personages,  both  of  the 
play  and  of  the  chorus,  were  represented  by  the  pupils  of 
St  Cyr.  One  only  is  known  to  us,  Madlle.  de  Marsilli, 
who  first  became  Marquise  de  Villette,  and  then,  by  a 
second  marriage,  wife  of  St  John,  Lord  Bolingbroke.* 
The  first  representation  took  place  at  St.  Cyr,  on  the 
20th  of  January,  1689,  before  Louis  and  a  brilliant  court. 

*  (Eavres  de  Boilefta,  roL  iv.  p.  42. 


dS4  POET  EOYAL, 

The  success  of  the  piece  was  prodigious ;  a  second  perform- 
ance followed  before  a  larger  audience ;  then  a  third,  which 
was  attended  by  bishops,  Jesuits,  and  pious  people  gene- 
rally, who  flocked  to  see  a  sacred  tragedy,  as  many  now 
rejoice  in  the  religious  novel.  By  and  bye,  the  exiled  King 
and  Queen  of  England  wished  to  see  "  Esther ; "  and  the 
piece  was  repeated  in  their  honour.  To  praise  **  Esther" 
was  to  compliment  the  all-powerful  patroness  of  St  Cyr; 
who  can  suppose  that  it  wanted  praise  ?  Courtiers  in- 
trigued for  a  seat  in  the  little  theatre,  as  for  an  invitation 
to  Marli ;  and  it  is  even  said,  that  the  King,  list  in  hand, 
himself  kept  the  door  with  uplifted  cane,  and  admitted 
only  the  happy  comers,  whose  names  were  duly  recorded. 
The  excitement  photographed  itself  in  one  or  two  lively 
passages  in  Madame  de  Sevigne's  letters  *,  and  meanwhile 
the  critics  of  Paris  wondered  what  this  dramatic  marvel, 
which  was  so  carefully  hidden  from  vulgar  eyes,  might  be.  I 
do  not  find  that  it  was  performed  upon  any  public  stage  till 
1721,  long  after  Hacine's  death.  The  publication  of  the 
play  had  already  abated  some  of  the  vague  admiration 
which  radiated  from  the  theatre  of  St.  Cyr ;  and  **  Esther  "* 
never  met  with  much  success-f 

And  yet  the  enthusiasm  with  which,  at  its  first  appear- 
ance, "  Esther "  was  greeted  is  easily  understood,  if  we 
take  into  account  the  courtliness  of  the  audience,  the  age 
and  circumstances  of  the  actors,  the  interest  attaching  to 
the  new  eflfort  of  a  poet  who,  long  silent^  was  yet  a  royal 
favourite.  Baclne  had  artfully  availed  himself  of  the 
assistance  of  a  chorus,  which  not  only  helped  to  fill  his 
stage  with  youth  and  beauty,  but  invoked,  in  aid  of  the 
piece,  the  resources  of  music.  The  critic,  who  reads  the 
play  without  any  of  these  helps  to  the  imagination,  is 

*  Jan.  28th ;  Feb.  7th ;  Feb.  2l8t,  1689. 

t  Conf.  La  Bochefoucaald,  £tadcB  sur  Bacine,  toI.  L  p.  146,  eiseq.i  p* 
248. 


ESTHER.  385 

forced  to  confess  that  the  story  is  undramatic,  and  the 
interest  feebly  sustained ;  that  the  beauty  of  the  choruses 
hardly  compensates  for  the  want  of  passion  and  character 
in  the  rest*  At  the  time  when  it  was  first  performed, 
many  interpretations  might  be  put  upon  the  story.  The 
supplanting  of  the  haughty  Vashti  by  the  gentler  Esther 
would  recall  to  every  courtier  the  succession  of  Madame 
de  Maintenon  to  more  than  the  honours  of  Madame  de 
Montespan ;  while  the  Jewish  origin  of  the  heroine  cor- 
responded to  the  favourite's  descent  from  the  Huguenot 
house  of  D'Aubign^.  Spectators  asked  themselves  whether 
Haman  was  meant  for  Louvois,  or  if,  in  the  character  of 
Mordecai,  no  secret  reference  was  made  to  Antoine 
Amauld.     And  the  verse  * 

" £t  le  roi,  trop  cr^dnle,  «  eigne  cet  edit: " 

as  well  as  these  f, 

**  On  pent  des  plus  grands  rois  sorprendre  la  justice, 
Incapables  de  tromper, 
lis  ont  peine  it  s'echapper 
Bes  plages  de  Tartifice ; " 

have  the  true  Jansenist  ring. 

Perhaps  most  critics  will  agree  with  Mr.  Hallam,  when 
he  says,  ^^  The  greatest  praise  of  ^  Esther '  is  that  it  en- 
couraged its  author  to  write  ^  Athalie.' ''  X  Madame  de 
Maintenon  demanded  another  sacred  tragedy  for  St.  Cyr, 
and  the  courteous  poet  applied  himself  with  such  good- 
will to  gratify  her,  that  by  the  end  of  1689,  "  Athalie '* 
was  ready.  The  success  of  "  Esther "  had  been  so  great, 
that  friends  and  critics  contemplated  the  second  attempt 
with  apprehension.  Speaking  of  ^^  Esther,"  Madame  de 
Sevign^  says  §,  **  Bacine  will  find  it  difficult  ever  to  write 

*  Act  i.  8C  8.  t  Act  iii.  sc  9. 

%  Hallam,  lit.  Hist  park  It.  chap  ji.  §  14.  §  March  2l8t,  1689. 

VOL.  n.  0  0 


386  FOBT  BOTAL. 

anything  so  agreeable  again,  for  there  is  no  other  story 
like  that :  ...  for  Judith,  Boaz,  and  Buth,  and  the 
others  which  I  don^t  recollect,  cannot  produce  anything  so 
fine.  Nevertheless,  Racine  has  plenty  of  talent ;  and  we 
must  hope."  But  ^^  Athalie  "  was  doomed  to  misfortune. 
The  bigots  had  made  a  great  effort ;  had  represented  the 
shame,  as  they  called  it,  of  training  the  daughters  of 
French  nobles  into  comedians ;  and  Madame  de  Maintenon 
began  to  fear  for  the  prosperity  of  her  beloved  St  Cyr. 
All  was  ready  for  the  representation  of  ^^  Athalie,"  when 
it  was  indefinitely  postponed.  Not  till  the  winter  of 
1690-91  was  it  performed,  and  then  only  in  Madame  de 
Maintenon's  own  room,  without  scenery  and  without 
dresses.  Bacine  never  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the 
play,  which  his  countrymen  have  almost  unanimously  pro- 
nounced his  masterpiece,  upon  any  stage.  The  second 
performance  did  not  take  place  till  three  years  after  his 
death.  Then,  in  1702,  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  the 
amiable  princess  whose  gaiety  and  goodness  threw  almost 
the  only  gleam  of  sunshine  across  the  sombre  twilight  of 
Louis's  declining  years,  arranged  a  private  representation 
in  the  theatre  of  Versailles,  in  which  she  herself  took  the 
part  of  Josabeth,  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  the  future 
regent,  that  of  the  virtuous  Abner.  All  the  other  cha- 
racters, except  that  of  Joad,  the  High  Priest,  were  filled 
by  amateurs  of  high  rank.  But  it  was  not  till,  in  1716, 
"  Athalie  "  was  publicly  performed  in  Paris,  that  its  sur- 
passing merits  were  fully  recognised.* 

Boileau  was  true  to  "Athalie"  from  the  first.  "  It  is  your 
masterpiece,"  he  said  to  Bacine,  "  and  the  public  will  come 
round  to  my  opinion."  Arnauld  in  a  letter  in  which  he 
thanks  Boileau  for  having  sent  him  the  play  f,  avows  his 
preference  of  "  Esther."    But  his  praise  of  "  Athalie  "  is 

*  La  Bochefoncftold,  toI.  i.  p.  174.  f  CEavres  de  Kacine,  p.  652. 


ATHAUE.  387 

unreserved ;  and  he  admits  that  it  is  in  theological,  and 
not  in  poetical  merits,  that  he  thinks  "  the  elder  before  the 
younger  sister."  Voltaire  is  said  to  have  vnritten  of  this 
tragedy,  that  it  was  **  nearer  to  perfection  than  any  work 
which  had  ever  issued  from  the  hands  of  men ; "  an  enthu- 
siastic estimate  which  is  accepted,  with  more  or  less  qualifi- 
cation, by  many  French  critics.  Bacine  himself  preferred, 
on  what  grounds  we  are  not  told,  the  "  Phedre."  That 
many  celebrated  actresses  have  c^eed  with  the  author  in 
this  preference,  is  not  wonderful;  the  character  of  "PhMre" 
stands  out,  in  dramatic  eflfect,  beyond  any  other  on  the 
French  stage ;  fend  so  fills  the  mind,  as  to  render  it  neces- 
sary to  recall  the  life,  the  variety,  the  absorbing  interest  of 
"  Athalie,"  before  we  can  acquiesce  in  the  general  statement 
of  the  latter's  superiority.  The  English  reader  who  misses 
the  true  Hellenic  spirit  in  Racine's  Greek  plays,  will  pro- 
bably complain  that  in  "  Athalie  "  he  has  not  risen  to  the 
height  of  the  biblical  poetry,  and  lament  that  he  has  thus 
invited  a  comparison,  which  it  was  impossible  that  he 
should  sustain  with  honour.  But  the  play  is  undoubtedly, 
with  whatever  errors  and  shortcomings,  one  of  the  noblest 
products  of  the  dramatic  art. 

Bacine  survived  his  reconciliation  with  Port  Boyal 
twenty-two  years,  but  "  Esther  "  and  "  Athalie  "  are  almost 
the  only  proofs  of  his  poetical  industry  during  that  period. 
He  did,  indeed,  celebrate  the  peace  of  1685,  by  an  "  Idyl ; " 
and  composed  for  the  use  of  St.  Cyr,  the  text  of  four  sacred 
cantatas,  which  called  forth  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of 
Fenelon.  He  also  drew  from  the  recesses  of  his  portfolio, 
his  youthful  translations  of  the  hymns  of  the  Breviary ; 
and  after  due  polishing  and  correction,  published  them  in 
a  book  of  devotion,  called  "  The  Christian  Year,"  by  Le 
Toumeux,  a  celebrated  Jansenist  preacher.  The  volume 
was  condemned  by  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  on  the  ground 
that  it  contained  the  service  of  the  mass  in  the  vulgar 

c  c  2 


388  FORT  BOTAL. 

tongue^  and  Sacine  once  more  drew  back  into  silence. 
When  Louis  XIV.  one  day  asked  him  to  write  religious 
poetry, —  "I  have  tried  once,*'  was  his  answer,  "and  my 
verses  were  condemned."  And  yet  it  is  hard  to  understand 
how  a  man,  whose  poetical  genius  was  so  natural  and  quick 
in  its  movements,  and  whose  great  works  were  produced  in 
so  rapid  a  succession,  could  have  compelled  himself  to 
almost  unbroken  silence  for  so  long.  If  Port  Boyal  con- 
demned the  drama,  the  condemnation  did  not  extend  to 
every  kind  of  poetry.  Amauld  defended  Boileau's  tenth 
satire ;  and  La  M^e  Sacine  thanked  him  warmly  for  the 
epistle  on  '^  The  Love  of  God."  Perhaps  Racine  was  afraid 
lest  the  composition  of  verses  in  any  shape,  might  lead  him 
back  by  degrees  to  that  life  of  the  stage,  from  which  he 
had  emancipated  himself  so  hardly,  and  to  which,  we  can- 
not but  believe,  he  still  half  r^etfuUy  looked  back. 
Perhaps  he  was  too  much  engrossed  in  that  household 
drama,  of  which  his  children's  ailments  and  happiness 
and  dispositions  formed  the  action,  to  have  any  sympathy 
left  for  fictitious  heroes  and  heroines.  Had  the  canons  of 
taste,  by  which  poetry  was  regulated,  been  not  altogether 
arbitrary  and  unnatural,  Racine  might  have  left  us  domestic 
poems  of  his  later  life,  not  inferior  in  their  kind  to  the 
tragic  masterpieces  of  his  youth. 

It  is  to  the  latter  half  of  Racine's  life,  that  we  must  refer 
his  "  Abr^g^  de  I'Histoire  de  Port  Royal,"  although  his 
biographer  gives  no  indication  of  the  exact  time  at  which 
it  was  written,  except  the  statement  that  it  was  composed 
with  a  view  of  removing  prejudices  against  the  community 
from  the  mind  of  Noailles,  Archbishop  of  Paris.  The 
first,  and  in  some  respects,  the  most  valuable  of  that  smes 
of  historical  works  of  which  the  present  is  the  last,  it  has 
almost  the  worth  of  a  contemporary  memoir,  w  ile  pre- 
serving the  breadth  of  view  and  unity  of  conception,  which 
seldom  characterise  the  notes  of  an  eye*witness.     It  is  un- 


LOSS  OP  ROYAL  FAVOUR.  389 

fortunately  a  fragment;  the  last  event  of  the  narrative 
being  the  captivity  of  the  nuns  in  1664.  Nearly  all  the 
dramatic  interest  of  the  story  of  Port  Royal  is  contained  in 
the  period  treated  by  Sacine ;  but  his  hiistory  would  have 
been  more  valuable  to  his  successors,  if  less  perfect  as  a 
work  of  art,  had  it  chiefly  referred  to  those  years  of  his 
own  life,  during  which  he  was  in  constant  communication 
with  the  monastery.  The  style  of  this  little  book  is  one 
more  instance  of  the  fact  that  a  true  poet's  prose  rises 
almost  as  high  above  the  common  level  as  his  poetry. 
Boileau,  we  are  told,  regarded  it  as  the  masterpiece  of 
historical  composition  which,  up  to  his  day,  had  been 
produced  in  France.  To  the  lover  of  Port  Boyal  it  has  a 
peculiar  interest,  as  the  true  answer  to  Racine's  own  letter 
to  the  author  of  ^  Les  Visionnaires."  The  respectful  and 
tender  admiration  of  his  maturer  years,  may  well  be  al- 
lowed to  weigh  against  the  petulant  vexation  of  his  youth. 

Two  equally  strong,  yet  apparently  inconsistent  emo- 
tions divided  Racine  through  all  his  later  years :  the  love 
of  the  King,  and  the  love  of  Port  Royal.  I  have  already 
given  my  reasons  for  the  belief  that  the  former  was  a 
genuine  affection,  excited  first  by  generosity,  and  increased 
by  long-continued  kindness  and  condescension.  The  story 
of  Racine's  death  seems  to  me  to  aflFord  confirmation  of 
this  theory.  He  is  usually  represented  as  a  courtier  who 
died  of  a  royal  frown.  I  believe  that  he  pined  away  beneath 
the  coldness  and  unworthiness  of  a  friend.  That  the 
friend  was  also  a  king  neither  justifies  the  unmanly  sensi- 
bility, nor,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  it  mean. 

About  the  end  of  the  year  1697 — the  time  is  somewhat 
uncertain — Madame  de  Maintenon  engaged  Racine  in  con- 
versation upon  the  miseries  under  which  the  kingdom 
groaned.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  attribute  them  to  the 
long  wars ;  and  grew  eloquent  in  describing  the  measures 
of  relief  which  might  be  taken  by  those  in  high  places. 

COS 


390  POET  ROTAL. 

The  great  lady  was,  or  appeared  to  be,  charmed,  and '  begged 
him  to  commit  his  thoughts  to  vnriting.  The  result  was  a 
memoir,  in  which  he  recapitulated  at  greater  length, 
and  in  more  logical  order,  the  topics  of  his  conversation. 
Madame  de  Maintenon  was  reading  it,  when  the  King 
unexpectedly  entered  the  room,  took  it  up,  read  a  few 
lines,  and  then  angrily  demanded  the  author's  name. 
We  may  well  believe  that  whatever  the  paper  said  of  the 
King's  wars,  was  said  in  the  most  courtier-like  fashion; 
but  the  subject  was  a  sore  one,  the  peace  of  Syswick  had 
just  been  signed,  and  Louis  had  acknowledged  as  King  of 
England  the  rival  with  whom  he  had  so  long  contended 
for  European  supremacy.  Madame  de  Maintenon  con- 
fessed with  some  reluctance  that  Bacine  was  the  offender : 
perhaps  had  not  the  honesty  to  avow  her  own  share  in  the 
oflFence.  "What?"  cried  the  King,  "because  he  knows 
how  to  make  verses  to  perfection,  does  he  think  that  he 
knows  everything  ?  Because  he  is  a  great  poet,  does  he 
wish  to  be  a  minister? "  Madame  de  Maintenon  reported 
the  royal  anger  to  Racine,  and  bade  him  come  to  Versailles 
no  more  till  he  was  sent  for.  The  unhappy  poet  brooded 
over  his  disgrace,  and  after  a  time  fell  into  a  fever. 
From  this  he  recovered ;  but  an  abscess  in  the  region  of 
the  liver  remained,  which,  though  disregarded  by  the 
physicians,  proved  at  last  too  much  for  his  failing  strength. 
The  exact  sequence  of  these  events  is  not  easily  distin- 
guished, if  we  take  the  pains  to  compare  Louis  Racine's 
narrative  with  his  father's  letters  to  the  brother  in  Holland. 
But  the  chief  points  of  the  situation,  and  the  attitude  of 
the  principal  actor,  are  quite  clear.  His  health,  never 
robust,  was  failing ;  he  exaggerated  the  consequences  to 
himself  and  his  family  of  the  King's  disfavour,  and  refused 
to  believe  that  there  was  any  chance  of  its  passing  awav. 
One  day  he  met  Madame  de  Maintenon  in  the  garden  of 
Versailles,     She  turned  aside  with  him  into  a  quiet  alley 


LOSS  OP  ROYAL  FAVOUR.  891 

and  said  (I  quote  from  Louis  Eacine),  "  *  What  are  you 
afraid  of?  It  is  I  who  am  the  cause  of  your  misfortune; 
it  is  both  for  my  interest  and  my  honour  to  repair  the 
evil  I  have  done.  Your  fortune  becomes  mine.  Let  this 
cloud  pass;  I  will  bring  back  fine  weather.'  *No,  no, 
madame/  he  answered ;  *  you  will  never  bring  it  back  to 
me.'  *And  what,'  she  replied,  *  makes  you  think  so? 
Do  you  doubt  my  good-will  or  my  power  ? '    -  He  answered, 

*  I  know,  madame,  what  your  power  is,  and  I  know  your 
kindness  for  me ;  but  I  have  an  aunt  who  loves  me  after 
a  very  different  fashion.  Every  day  that  holy  woman 
asks  of  God  disgrace,  humiliation,  occasions  of  penitence 
for  me;  and  she  will  be  stronger  than  you.'  At  the 
moment  he  was  speaking,  the  noise  of  a  carriage  was 
heard.      *It  is  the  King,'  cried  Madame  de  Maintenon; 

*  hide  yourself.'     He  took  refuge  in  a  thicket." 

But  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1698,  completely  reveals  his 
heart.  His  grief,  his  fear,  his  desire  of  reconciliation 
with  the  King,  are  almost  unmanly,  or  at  least  appear  so 
to  those  who  do  not  own  the  aspirations,  and  speak  the 
language  of  a  court.  But,  even  while  defending  himself 
from  the  charge  of  factious  Jansenism,  he  will  not  give  up 
Port  Royal.  "  I  learn,"  he  says,  "  that  I  am  represented 
to  the  King  as  a  Jansenist.  I  confess  to  you  that,  when 
in  ^Esther'  I  made  the  chorus  sing  ^Kois,  chassez  la 
calomnie,'  I  little  expected  that  I  should  myself  one  day 
be  attacked  by  calumny.  I  know  that  in  the  King's  mind 
a  Jansenist  is  simply  an  intriguer  and  a  rebel  to  the 
Church. 

*^Have  the  kindness  to  recollect,  Madame,  how  often 
you  have  said  that  the  best  part  of  me  was  my  child-like 
submission  to  all  that  the  Church  believes  and  ordains, 
even  in  the  smallest  matters.  I  have  written  at  yoiur 
command  more  than  three  thousand  verses  on  religious 

c  c  4 


392  PORT  BOTAL. 

subjects;  I  have  assuredly  spoken  in  them  of  the  abund- 
ance of  my  heart,  and  have  expressed  all  the  sentiments 
which  filled  me  the  most  Do  you  recollect  that  any  one 
passage  has  been  found  in  them  which  even  approaches 
error,  and  all  that  is  called  Jansenism?  As  for  intrigue, 
who  is  there  that  may  not  be  accused  of  it,  if  they  accuse  ' 
a  man  so  devoted  to  the  King  as  I  am, — ^a  man  who  passes 
his  life  in  thinking  of  the  King,  in  informing  himadf 
of  the  great  deeds  of  the  King,  in  inspiring  into  others 
the  sentiments  of  love  and  admiration  which  he  entertains 
for  the  King  ?  I  venture  to  say  that  great  noblemen  have 
sought  my  society  much  more  than  I  have  ever  sought 
theirs  but,  in  whatever  company  I  have  found  myself, 
Grod  has  given  me  grace  never  to  be  ashamed  of  either 
the  King  or  the  gospel.  There  are  witnesses  still  living 
who  can  tell  you  with  what  zeal  they  have  often  seen  me 
contend  against  little  vexations  which  sometimes  arise  in 
the  minds  of  those  whom  the  King  has  most  loaded  with 
his  favours.  How !  Madame,  with  what  conscience  could  I 
testify  to  posterity  that  this  great  prince  did  not  listen  to 
false  reports  against  persons  who  were  absolutely  imkno¥m 
to  him,  if  I  must  needs  have  so  melancholy  an  experience 
to  the  contrary  ? 

"  But  I  know  what  it  is  that  may  have  given  rise  to  so 
unjust  an  accusation.  I  have  an  aunt,  who  is  Abbess  of 
Port  Royal,  to  whom  I  consider  myself  to  be  under  in- 
finite obligations.  It  is  she  who  taught  me  to  know  God 
from  childhood  upwards :  she,  who  was  the  instrument  of 
which  Grod  made  use  to  take  me  out  of  the  lost  and  wretched 
condition  in  which  I  spent  fifteen  years.  I  learned, 
nearly  two  years  ago,  that  she  had  been  accused  of  disobe- 
dience, in  having  received  nuns  contrary  to  the  prohibition 
issued  against  the  community.  I  learned  also  that  it  was 
proposed  to  take  their  little  property  from  these  poor 
women,  to  maintain  the  foolish  extravagance  of  the  Abbess 


LAST  ILLNESS.  393 

of  Port  Boyal  de  Paris.  Gould  I^  without  being  the 
meanest  of  men,  refuse  them  in  this  necessity  the  little 
help  that  I  could  give  ?  "  And  then,  after  stating  his  ap- 
plications to  P^re  la  Chaise,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
with  their  results,  he  continues :  ^^  this  is  the  whole  of  my 
^Jansenism.  I  have  spoken  like  these  doctors  of  the 
Sorbonne,  like  these  monks,  and,  last  of  all,  like  my 
archbishop.  For  the  rest,  I  protest  to  you  before  God, 
that  I  neither  know  nor  frequent  the  company  of  any  one 
who  is  suspected  of  the  least  novelty  of  opinion.  I  live 
the  most  retired  life  I  can  in  my  family ;  and  am,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  world  only  when  I  am  at  Marli."  * 

The  time  had  come,  however,  when  Bacine  had  cause  to 
be  ashamed  of  the  King,  if  not  of  the  gospel.  Neither  this 
nor  any  other  remonstrance  produced  any  effect,  and  he 
lay  down  to  die.  When  it  was  too  late,  Louis  showed 
some  signs  of  repenting  his  unjust  harshness,  and  sent 
more  than  once  to  inquire  after  the  health  of  the  sick 
poet.  Hitherto  his  timid  nature  had  shrunk  from  the 
thought  of  death :  now,  the  courage  with  which  he  con- 
templated the  end,  showed  that  the  end  was  near.  One 
friendship  at  least  he  carried  with  him  to  the  grave  un- 
broken. I  have  already  told  how  he  assured  Boileau  that 
he  deemed  it  a  piece  of  good  fortune  to  die  first.  Not 
many  days  before  his  death,  he  begged  his  son  to  write  to 
M.  de  Cavoie,  to  ask,  for  his  family's  sake,  prompt  pay- 
ment of  the  arrears  of  his  pension.  When  he  had  read 
the  letter,  he  said,  ^'  Why  do  you  not  also  ask  for  payment 
of  the  arrears  due  to  Boileau  ?  we  must  not  be  separated. 
Begin  your  letter  again,  and  let  Boileau  see  that  I  have 
been  his  friend  imto  death."  When  these  pecuniary  ar- 
rangements were  made,  he  prepared  to  submit  to  an  opera- 
tion which  his  surgeons  advised,  although  he  was  perfectly 

*  CEiiTTes  de  Badne,  p.  578. 


894  POET  EOYAL. 

convinced  of  its  inutility.  His  presentiment  was  trua* 
than  their  scientific  foresight.  Three  days  afterwards,  on 
the  21st  of  Aprils  1699,  he  died,  having  completed  his 
fifty-ninth  year.  His  will  was  in  more  than  one  way 
characteristic.  He  secured  the  continuance  of  a  pension, 
which  he  had  long  paid  to  his  old  nurse  at  Ferte-Milon. 
He  left  500  livres  to  his  indigent  relatives  at  the  same 
place,  and  800  livres  to  the  poor  of  two  specified 
parishes.  With  the  will  was  found  the  following  docu- 
ment :  — 

"In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  I  desire  that  after  my  death,  my  body  may  be 
carried  to  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  and  there  buried  in 
the  cemetery  at  the  foot  of  M.  Hamon's  grave.  I  very 
humbly  beg  the  Mother  Abbess,  and  the  sisters,  to  grant 
me  this  honour,  although  I  acknowledge  myself  very 
unworthy  of  it,  both  by  the  scandals  of  my  past  life,  and  by 
the  little  use  that  I  have  made  of  the  excellent  education 
which  I  formerly  received  in  that  house,  and  of  the  great 
examples  of  piety  and  penitence  which  I  have  there  seen, 
and  of  which  I  have  been  but  a  barren  admirer.  But  the 
more  I  have  oflFended  Grod,  the  more  I  need  the  prayers  of 
so  holy  a  community,  to  draw  down  His  mercy  upon  me. 
I  also  pray  the  Mother  Abbess  and  nuns  to  accept  the  sum 
of  800  livres.  Done  at  Paris,  in  my  cabinet,  the  10th  of 
October,  1698." 

Bacine's  prayer  was  granted,  and  he  lay,  as  he  wished, 
near  his  old  friend  and  teacher.  An  epitaph,  composed  in 
Latin  and  in  French  by  Boileau,  was  placed  upon  his  tomb. 
When,  in  1711,  Port  Royal  des  Champs  was  rased  to  the 
ground,  the  remains  of  Hacine  were,  by  special  permission, 
saved  from  the  general  desecration,  and  transported  to  the 
Church  of  St.  £tienne-du-Mont,  where  they  were  deposited 
near  the  grave  of  Pascal.  The  poet's  widow  survived  him 
for  thirty-three  years,  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  pension  of 


BOILEAU'S  OLD  AGE.  395 

2000  livresy  which  Louis  settled  upon  her  and  her  children. 
She  and  her  sons  are  recorded  to  have  tried  to  get  rich  in 
the  time  of  Law,  and  to  have  lost  the  greater  part  of  their 
property  at  the  fall  of  that  adventurous  financier.* 

A  few  words  more  will  complete  all  that  it  is  necessary  to 
say  of  Boileau.  Not  many  days  after  Hacine's  death,  he  took 
the  news  to  the  Bang.  Louis  was  very  gracious,  and  begged 
the  poet  to  remember  that  he  had  always  an  hour  a  week 
to  give  him,  if  he  felt  disposed  to  come  to  Versailles.  But 
the  heartless  way  in  which  the  King  received  his  tidings 
was  too  much  for  him;  he  never  went  to  court  again.  His 
friends  in  vain  urged  him  to  accept  from  time  to  time  the 
royal  invitation ;  "  What  should  I  do  there  ?  "  he  would  say, 
**  I  can  praise  no  longer."  He  grew  old,  and  deaf,  and 
solitary;  shut  himself  up  at  Auteuil,  where  only  a  few 
friends  of  long  standing  came  to  visit  him;  and  rarely 
attended  the  meetings  of  the  Academy.  Of  the  latter 
indeed,  he  might  have  spoken  as  he  did  of'  the  court,  for 
he  had  seen  the  great  men  of  his  time  depart  one  by  one, 
and  he  had  forgotten  how  to  praise.  Between  the  age  of 
fiacine  and  Moli^re,  and  that  of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclo- 
pedic, lies  a  blank  space,  which  corresponds  with  Boileau's 
last  years.  When  Bacine  had  abandoned  the  stage,  he 
had  written  in  sorrow : 

**  Et  U  sc^ne  Fran9oise  est  en  proie  ik  Pradon  ; "  f 

but  on  his  death-bed  he  declared  that  the  Pradons,  whom 
he  had  laughed  at  in  his  youth,  were  "  suns  "  compared 
with  the  poetasters  of  his  old  age.  In  an  evil  moment  he 
was  persuaded  to  sell  his  house  at  Auteuil,  and  retired 

*  The  stone  placed  over  Racine's  graye  at  Port  Rojal,  upon  which 
Boileau*s  epitaph  was  engraved,  had  been  long  lost,  till  in  1818  it  was  dis- 
covered in  the  church  of  Magnj,  a  village  not  far  from  the  site  of  the 
monasterj.  It  was  taken  to  Paris,  and  placed  in  the  church  of  St.  Etienne, 
on  the  right  side  of  the  choir,  opposite  to  the  grave  of  PascaL 

■f  Ep.  Tiii.  V.  60. 


896  PORT  BOTAL. 

to  the  lodging  of  his  confessor  in  the  cloister  of  Notre 
Dame.  Here  he  died,  on  the  13th  of  March,  1711,  making 
the  poor  his  heirs.* 

A  literary  estimate  of  the  poets  Bacine  and  Boileau 
hardly  comes  within  the  limits  of  my  plan,  for  Port  Soyal 
was  chiefly  concerned  with  the  men.     Bacine^s  claim  to 
our  remembrance  is  founded  upon  poetical  labours,  which 
Port  Boyal  disapproved  and  forced  him  to  abandon ;  while 
Boileau,  as  we  have  seen,  maintained  a  position  of  neu- 
trality in  regard  to  the  peculiar  doctrines  and  controversies 
of  the  community.     It  was  not  so  with  Pascal :  except  on 
the  mathematical  side,  he  belonged  wholly  to  Port  Royal ; 
and  only  in  connection  with  its  history  can  his  character 
and  writings  be  fully  understood.     He  was  a  part  of  our 
story,  which  would  have  been  incomplete  without   him : 
the   "Provincial  Letters"  gave  a  new  direction  to  the 
debate  between  Jansenistand  Jesuit;  and  his  "  Thoughts" 
took  their  origin,  and  unfortunately,  their  final  form,  at 
Port    Boyal.      And,   therefore,   the   literary   disquisition 
which  was  necessary  in  his  case  would  be  inappropriate  in 
that  of  Bacine  and  Boileau.     We  must  leave  the  French 
Virgil  and  the  French  Pope  to  the  harsh  or  kindly  judg- 
ment of  the  critics.     If  they  be  found  unworthy  of  a  place 
beside  the  great  poets  whose  names  I  have  borrowed  for 
them,  let  something  be  allowed  for  the  age  in  which  they 
lived,  and  much  more  for  the  intractable  language  which 
they  had  to  mould  to  the  uses  of  poetry.     It  may  seem 
strange  to  look  for  the  type  of  a  dramatic  in   an   epic 
poet :  and  yet  the  comparison  rises  almost  spontaneously 
in  the  mind.     In  Bacine  (I  quote  the  opinion  of  native 
judges,  better  qualified  than  myself  to  form  one)  theie 
are  the  same  elaborate  and  finished  structure  of  phrase,  the 

*  For  the  erents  of  Boileaa's  life,  I  am  indebted  not  onlj  to  the  life  of 
Bacine,  hj  his  son.  but  to  the  Memoir  of  Boileau,  prefixed  to  Daimoa's 
edition  of  his  worki. 


THE  TWO  FRIENDS.  897 

same  sweetness  of  versification,  the  same  spirit  of  half 
melancholy  tenderness,  aa  in  the  Eoman  poet.  And  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  Pope  surpasses  Boileau  in  many  of  the 
qualities  of  a  satirist,  if  his  couplets  are  more  nervous  and 
epigrammatic,  his  insight  into  human  nature  deeper  and 
more  various,  his  power  of  touching  the  heart  far  greater, 
and  all  the  movements  of  his  genius  more  rapid  and  more 
graceful,  some  weight  of  counterbalance  must  be  allowed 
to  Boileau's  sterner,  manlier,  more  consistent  character, 
which  persuades  the  reader  that  he  has  to  do,  not  with  a 
mere  professional  moralist,  but  with  a  honest.  God-fearing 
man. 

True  friendship,  like  true  love,  depends  upon  a  certain 
degree  of  accordant  difference,  of  reciprocal  complementary 
endowment,  in  those  whom  it  unitea  In  marriage  this  is 
to  some  extent  supplied  by  the  natural  dissimilarity  of  the 
sex^s,  where  strength  and  tenderness,  self-reliance  and 
trust,  virtues  of  action  and  virtues  of  endurance,  are 
welded  into  one  symmetrical  whole.  So  the  friendship 
between  Bacine  and  Boileau  was  a  marriage  of  souls,  in 
which  the  dramatist  supplied  the  feminine,  the  satirist  the 
masculine  nature.  The  weakness,  and  perhaps  in  a  dra- 
matic point  of  view,  the  strength  of  the  one  lay  in  an 
almost  womanly  craving  for  sympathy.  He  perpetually 
submits  himself  to  the  guidance  of  others.  He  has  not 
even  sufiBcient  strength  of  will  to  follow  the  bias  of  his 
own  genius :  he  would  have  accepted  any  priory  in  Lan- 
guedoc  which  P6re  Sconin  could  have  found  for  him; 
and  poet  though  he  is  at  heart,  can  never  shake  off  the 
old  influence  of  Port  RoyaL  Throughout  his  dramatic 
career  Boileau  leads  him.  He  is  unable  to  bear  up 
against  the  cabal  who  support  Pradon.  In  writing 
"Esther ''and  "Athalie,"  he  is  executing  the  commands 
of  another ;  and  when  the  King  turns  his  back  upon  him, 
goes  home  to  die.     His  perfect  h{q)pines8  with  a  wife  who» 


398  POST  BOTAL. 

as  her  son  tells  ns,  did  not  know  the  difference  between  a 
masculine  and  a  feminine  rhyme,  his  absorption  in  all 
the  petty  vicissitudes  of  his  household,  and  the  readiness 
of  his  tears  at  his  own  or  others'  misfortunes,  are  features 
of  the  same  character.  Even  a  tendency  to  sarcasm,  of 
which  Boileau  often  complained,  and  which  may  be  traced 
in  his  epigrams,  and  in  his  letters  to  Nicole,  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  it  His  hits  are  rather  the  thrusts  of  a  clever, 
angry  woman,  than  the  hearty  blows  of  a  laughter-loving 
man ;  if  I  dare  say  so,  have  an  element  of  spitefulness  in 
them  which  interferes  with  the  flavour  of  the  vrit.  A 
more  engaging  side  of  the  same  type  of  mind  is  unveiled 
in  his  unfailing  delicacy  of  thought  and  speech.  Racine's 
works  need  no  purification  to  be  fit  for  family  use.  There 
is  not  a  line,  a  phrase,  a  situation,  which  is  not  sweet  and 
good.  Surely  the  man  who,  in  such  an  age  as  Racine's, 
and  amid  such  a  court  as  Louis  XTV.'s,  could  write  such 
innocent  and  wholesome  poetry  as  this,  and  none  other, 
must  have  been  guided  in  life  and  writing  by  a  wonderful 
instinct  of  purity  1 

Perhaps,  if  we  had  lived  with  them,  we  should  have 
loved  Racine  better  than  Boileau,  and  respected  Boileaii 
more  than  Racine.  For  the  satirist — the  masculine  one  of 
these  wedded  friends — was  a  man  who  did  right,  less  from 
any  impulse  of  love,  than  from  a  sense  of  duty,  not  quite 
free  from  sternness  and  asceticism.  He  was  witty,  and 
made  almost  a  profession  of  saying  sharp  things ;  but  his 
epigrams  had  always  a  kernel  of  honest  truth  in  them,  and 
sometimes  concealed  an  unexpected  and  graceful  compli- 
ment. But  if  he  said  sharp  things,  he  knew  also  how  to 
do  noble  and  kind  ones.  Madame  de  S^vign^  said  of  him 
that  he  was  cruel  only  in  verse ;  and  he  described  himself 
as  having  neither  claws  nor  nails.  When  Patru,  the  cele- 
brated advocate,  was  obliged  by  poverty  to  sell  his  library, 
Boileau  not  only  bought  it  at  a  third  more  than  the  price 


CONCLUSION.  399 

asked,  but  made  it  a  condition  of  the  purchase  that  Patru 
should  enjoy  the  possession  of  his  books  as  long  as  he 
lived.  When  at  the  death  of  Colbert,  Corneille's  pension 
was  taken  away,  Boileau  hastened  to  the  King,  represented 
to  him  that  the  great  poet  was  old,  poor,  sick,  perhaps 
dying,  and  oflfered,  if  the  royal  necessities  obliged  such  a 
course,  to  resign  his  own  pension  in  Corneille's  favour. 
Nor  are  these  the  only  stories  of  the  kind.  We  have  seen 
that  he  could  be  honest  and  outspoken  even  at  court,  and 
that  at  the  last  he  showed  a  manly  resentment  of  the  King's 
conduct  to  Bacine,  by  refusing  the  monarch's  most  gracious 
invitations.  Even  if,  in  his  strongest  and  most  sensible 
verse,  he  never  rises  to  any  over-mastering  height  of  moral 
vehemence,  his  voice  is  always  uplifted  on  the  side  of  jus- 
tice, and  goodness,  and  purity;  and  the  broad  gulf  between 
the  satirist,  and  the  vices  which  he  upbraids,  is  ever  clearly 
seen.  But  why  should  I  attempt  a  portrait,  which  he  has 
himself  drawn  with  a  few,  simple,  modest  strokes  ?  He  is 
addressing,  in  the  tenth  epistle,  his  verses :  — 

**  Deposez  hardiment,  qu'au  fond  cet  homme  horrible, 
Ce  censeor  qu'ils  ODt  peint  si  noir  et  si  terrible, 
Fut  un  esprit  doux,  simple,  ami  de  Teqnite, 
Qai,  cherchant  duos  ses  vers  la  seule  verite, 
Fit,  sans  etre  malin,  ses  plus  grandcs  malices. 
£t  qa*enfin  sa  caudear  seule  a  fait  tons  ses  vices. 
Dites  que,  harcele  par  les  plus  vils  rimeurs. 
Jamais,  blcssant  leurs  vers,  il  n'effleura  leurs  mceurs  ; 
Libre  dans  ses  disconrs,  mais  poartant  toujours  sage, 
Assez  foible  de  corps,  assez  doux  de  visage, 
Ni  petit,  ni  trop  grand,  tr^s  pea  volnptueux. 
Ami  de  la  vertu  plutot  que  vertueux." 

Pascal,  Bacine,  Boileau,  these  are  the  friends  of  Antoine 
Amauld  and  of  Port  Royal — two  of  them  spiritual  children 
of  the  community.  The  Jesuits,  too,  may  claim  the  im- 
partial friendship  of  the  last :  can  the  whole  order,  in  the 
three  hundred  years  of  its  existence,  match  the  two  first? 

♦  Epistle  X.  vv.  81,  92. 


BOOK  IV. 

FKOM  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  THE 
FINAL  DESTRUCTION  OF  PORT  ROYAL. 


VOI~   11.  D  D 


403 


The  Peace  of  the  Church,  though  concluded  before  the  end 
of  1668,  did  not  comprise  the  sisterhood  of  Port  Royal  des 
Champs  till  their  signature  of  the  prescribed  declaration 
in  February  1669.  I  have  already  *  narrated  the  immediate 
consequences  of  that  event;  the  separation  of  the  two  houses, 
and  the  division  between  them  of  the  conventual  property ; 
the  permission  given  to  the  community  to  receive  novices 
and  boarders ;  the  enlargement  of  the  buildings ;  the  elec- 
tion of  Abbess  du  Fai-gis ;  the  death  of  La  M^re  Agnes. 
The  period  of  returning  prosperity,  which  the  friends  of 
Port  Royal  mistook  for  the  inauguration  of  a  new  and 
brighter  era  in  the  history  of  their  house,  lasted  but  ten 
years.  The  Duchesse  de  Longueville  died  on  the  15th  of 
April  1679  ;  on  the  17th  of  May  the  Archbishop  came  to 
Port  Royal,  ordered  the  confessors  to  withdraw,  and  once 
more  forbade  the  reception  of  novices.  From  that  period 
to  the  final  dispersion  of  the  community  in  1709,  the 
Jesuits,  acting  through  the  King  and  the  successive  arch- 
bishops of  Paris,  sought  to  accomplish  by  a  long  and 
harassing  blockade  the  destruction  of  Port  Royal  which 
they  had  formerly  failed  to  effect  by  sudden  and  sharp 
assault.  Of  the  two  chapters  into  which  the  present  book 
is  divided,  the  second  will  narrate  this  final  and  successful 
persecution  ;  while  in  the  first,  we  will  make  a  brief  delay 
among  the  scenes  and  characters  about  which  the  last 
gleams  of  peace  and  happiness  at  Port  Royal  are  seen  to 
play. 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  445. 

DD  2 


404  PORT  ROYAL. 

But  my  tale,  like  a  human  life  which  has  been  prolonged 
beyond  the  ordinary  limit,  grows  sad  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  loss,  as  it  nears  its  close.  Many  of  the  conventual 
annals  are  accompanied  by  a  N^crologe ;  which,  after  the 
events  of  each  year  have  been  narrated,  recounts  the 
friends,  the  benefactors,  the  inmates  of  the  house,  who 
have  been  taken  away  by  death,  during  its  course.  At  first 
the  list  is  short,  and  contains  none  but  obscure  names ; 
about  the  middle  of  the  century  the  reader  is  made  to  feel 
that  the  elder  generation  is  passing  away ;  till,  as  the  years 
draw  on,  all  of  those  about  whom  the  chief  interest  of  our 
story  gathered,  drop  away  one  by  one,  and  the  expiring 
community  is  compelled  to  entrust  its  defence  to  unknown 
hands.  And  thus  it  is  the  necessity  of  the  story  which 
gives  this  last  book  the  form  of  a  catalogue  of  deaths. 
Nature  did  her  work  slowly  and  gently ;  for  Port  Royal, 
in  spite  of  its  austerities,  has  added  a  singular  chapter  to 
the  annals  of  human  longevity.  It  was  perhaps  well  for 
the  reputation  of  the  house,  that  the  Jesuits,  fearing  lest 
the  King^s  death  might  snatch  their  prey  from  them,  put  a 
sudden  and  violent  end  to  the  lingering  pangs  of  its  dis- 
solution. For  thus  they  unwittingly  saved  it  from  parti- 
cipation in  the  obsciure  and  undignified  struggles,  which 
characterised  the  last  phase  of  the  Jansenist  controver^. 

The  Peace  of  the  Church  almost  exactly  coincides  with 
the  period  during  which  an  Amauld  held  the  portfolio  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  and  a  high  place  in  the  King's  esteem. 
This  was  Simon,  Marquis  de  Pomponne,  the  second  and 
favourite  son  of  D*Andilly.  The  old  man  who  had  spared 
no  pains  to  advance  his  son  in  the  career  in  which  he  had 
failed  to  satisfy  his  own  ambition,  was  rewarded  by  seeing 
him,  in  1665,  at  the  very  time  when  the  persecution  of 
Port  Royal  was  the  hottest,  ambassador  at  Stockholm. 
Hence  he  was  recalled,  izi  1671,  by  an  autog^ph  letter 
from  the  King,  informing  him,  in  the  most  gracious  terms, 


POMPONXE.  405 

that  he  was  appointed  Foreign  Secretary,  in  the  room  of 
the  Marquis  de  Lionne,  and  that  his  future  fortunes  would 
he  his  royal  master's  special  care.  For  eight  years  he 
filled  his  high  office  with  entire  success,  winning  the 
King's  good  opinion  by  his  ability  and  diligence,  and  con- 
ciliating that  of  the  public  by  the  modesty  with  which  he 
bore  his  honours.  At  last  an  intrigue  to  effect  his  ruin, 
allayed  for  a  time  the  mutual  jealousies  of  his  colleagues, 
Colbert  and  Louvois,  who  used  every  opportunity  of 
poisoning  the  King's  mind  against  him.  Had  it  not  been 
for  his  near  connection  with  the  Jansenist  chiefs,  they 
would  hardly  have  accomplished  their  purpose,  so  con- 
vinced was  Louis  of  the  value  of  Pomponne's  services.  An 
almost  accidental  negligence  on  the  part  of  the  minister, 
was  made  the  occasion  of  the  royal  displeasure:  in  No- 
vember, 1679,  Pomponne  was  dismissed,  and  his  place  was 
given  to  Colbert  de  Croissy,  the  brother  of  his  rival.  Still 
the  dismissal  was  not  disgraceful ;  before  long  the  King 
sent  for  him  from  time  to  time,  and  even  spoke  to  him  on 
matters  of  business.  At  last,  when  in  1691,  Louvois  died, 
Pomponne  was  recalled,  and  once  more  invited  to  take  a 
seat  at  the  council  board.  The  King  added  to  the  compli- 
ments which  accompanied  the  invitation,  the  expression  of 
a  fear  that  Pomponne  would  find  it  irksome  to  see  the 
duties  of  his  old  office  performed  by  the  rival  who  had 
supplanted  him.  He  replied,  as  became  a  Christian  and 
an  Arnauld,  "  that  his  only  thought  was  how  best  to  serve 
his  Majesty ;  and  that,  therefore,  to  make  a  good  begin- 
ning, and  remove,  as  far  as  in  him  lay,  all  occasions  of 
jealousy,  he  would  at  once  go  to  Croissy,  inform  him  of  the 
King's  kindness,  and  ask  his  friendship."  The  overture 
was  received  as  it  deserved  to  be ;  and  Pomponne,  who, 
though  minister,  accepted  no  special  employment,  lived  on 
the  most  amicable  terms  with  M.  de  Croissy.  After  a  time 
the  marriage  of  Pomponne's  daughter  with  the  Marquis 

o  D  3 


406  PORT  ROYAL. 

de  Torcy,  Croissy's  son  and  successor  in  office,  sealed  the 
alliance.  And  when  in  1699,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one, 
Pomponne  died,  he  still,  though  an  Arnauld,  faithful  in 
belief  and  life  to  the  name  he  bore,  enjoyed  the  full  con- 
fidence and  favour  of  the  King.  His  eldest  son,  Nicolas? 
Simon,  Marquis  de  Pomponne,  who  held  high  diplomatic 
and  military  offices,  died  without  male  issue  in  1735.  In 
the  second,  Henri  Charles,  Abbe  de  Pomponne,  who  died 
in  1756,  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven,  the  family  of  Antoine 
Arnauld,  the  advocate,  became  extinct.* 

The  character  of  Pomponne  takes  us  back  to  the  earlier 
days  of  the  Amaulds,  before  Angelique  had  impressed  upon 
them  the  mark  of  her  own  stem  and  unworldly  religious- 
ness. He  holds  himself  conspicuously  above  the  moral 
license  of  the  time :  no  accusation  of  treachery  or  reck- 
less self-seeking  attaches  itself  to  his  name.  Madame  de 
S^vigne  and  St  Simon  are  alike  eloquent  as  to  the  merits 
of  his  character  and  the  charms  of  his  society.  But  he  is 
no  Port  Royalist.  He  does  nothing,  indeed,  to  conceal  or 
sunder  the  connexion  between  himself  and  the  community : 
his  daughters  are  the  first  boarders  who  arrive  at  the  con- 
vent after  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace.     But  if  he  is  guilty 

♦  St  Simon,  toI.  iv.  p.  161,  et  seq.  Mad.  de  Sevign6,  Lettres,  toI.  I 
p.  331 ;  vol.  iv.  p.  438;  vol.  v.  p.  67.  Vie  d' Antoine  Arnauld,  toL  i.  Append, 
pp.  386,  389.  The  foregoing  accoant  of  Fomponne's  career  as  a  sUtesxnin 
la  given  on  the  aathoritjr  of  St  Simon.  It  is,  however,  fair  to  add  tbst 
Louis  himself  has  left  on  record  a  much  lower  opinion  of  the  Talae  of  Fom- 
ponne's services,  and  justifies  his  dismissal  on  the  ground  of  incapacity.  Bat 
the  statement  not  onljr  reads  like  an  ex  pwt  facto  defence  of  his  con- 
duct, but  is  inconsistent  with  the  subsequent  facts  of  the  case.  Pompcmne 
fell  at  the  moment  of  Louis's  renewed  hostility  to  Port  BoyaL  Had  be 
united  the  disqualification  of  incapacity  to  that  of  Jansenism,  it  is  not  tikelj 
that  the  King,  whose  religions  prejudices  grew  stronger  under  the  tnfinence 
of  Madame  de  Matntenon,  and  his  own  advancing  age,  would  hare  recalled 
him  to  his  councils,  and  overlooked  the  fact  of  his  being  an  Amaald,  at 
the  time  when  the  pursuit  of  Antoine  Arnauld  was  the  hottest,  and  a  perK- 
cution  of  Impartial  severity  was  directed  against  all  his  friends. 


POMPONNE.  407 

of  no  treason  to  Port  Soyal5  he  is  equally  destitute  of  any 
zeal  in  its  defence.  He  cannot  beUe  his  name  and  take 
part  with  the  Jesuits;  but  Port  Boyal,  even  in  its  ex- 
tremest  need^  never  ventures  to  approach  the  King 
through  him.  His  sister,  Ang^lique  de  St  Jean  Amauld^ 
may  have  feared  something  like  this ;  for  when  he  enters 
upon  his  office,  her  thoughts^  like  those  of  her  aunt  at  the 
consecration  of  the  Bishop  of  Angers,  are  all  upon  the 
temptations,  and  none  upon  the  dignity  of  the  office.  Her 
sorrow  is  heated  into  indignation  when  Pomponne  tries,  by 
the  oflFer  of  employment,  to  tempt  his  brother  De  Luzan^i 
from  Port  Eoyal  to  court.  She  parries  the  congratula^ 
tions  of  her  friends,  and,  in  one  case,  that  of  Madame 
Perier,  answers  with  a  home  thrust.  **  I  cannot  under- 
stand,** she  writes,  **how  your  affection  permits  you  to 
act  so  differently  at  different  times.  I  have  seen  you  in 
the  greatest  possible  disquietude  for  your  son,  when  the 
question  was  of  his  entering  upon  a  hereditary  office ;  and 
now  you  want  to  persuade  me  that  it  is  your  friendship 
which  causes  you  so  much  joy,  on  account  of  the  charge 
which  the  King  has  just  given  to  M.  de  Pomponne, 
although  there  are  few  more  important  offices,  or  in  which 
it  is  more  difficult  to  render  to  God  and  to  Caesar  that 
which  is  due  to  each,  and  not  to  suffer  any  human  interest 
to  share  one's  heart.  Is  it  that  you  desire  an  eternal 
kingdom  for  your  children,  and  are  satisfied  with  a  tem- 
poral good  fortune  for  your  friends?"*  She  was  equally 
true  to  her  theory  of  the  religious  life  when  Pomponne 
fell.  Madame  de  S^vignS  writes  to  her  daughter  f: 
"Madame  de  Lesdiguidres  has  written  to  La  M6re 
Angflique  de  Port  Eoyal,  the  minister's  sister :  she 
showed  me  the  answer  which  she  has  received ;  I  thought 
it  so  beautiful  that  I  have  copied  it,  and  here  it  is.     It  is 

*  Gailbort,  Tol.  i.  p.  52S.  f  November  29th,  1679. 

OD  4 


408  PORT  EOTAL. 

the  first  time  that  I  ever  knew  a  nun  think  and  speak  like 
a  nun.  I  have  seen  many  who  are  excited  about  the 
marriages  of  their  relatives,  who  are  in  despair  that  their 
nieces  are  not  yet  married,  who  are  vindictive,  evil-speak- 
ing, selfish,  prejudiced,— all  that  is  easy.to  find  ;  but  I  had 
never  before  seen  one  who  was  truly  and  sincerely  dead  to 
the  worid.  Enjoy  with  me,  my  child,  the  pleasure  which 
this  rarity  has  given  me." 

D'Andilly  was  more  sensible  than  his  daughter  to  the 
honour  conferred  upon  Pomponne,  and,  on  a  word  of  en- 
couragement from  the  King,  went  to  court  to  thank  him 
for  his  son's  promotion.  The  interview  was  highly  char 
racteristic  on  both  sides.  Louis,  who  had  already  admitted 
Antoine  Amauld  to  an  audience,  seems  to  have  made  up 
his  mind  to  forget  past  prejudices  and  oflFences,  and  put 
on  all  the  condescending  grace  which  became  him  so  welL 
But,  while  the  great  doctor  had  been  content  with  such  a 
respectful  compliment,  as  was  fitting  from  a  subject  to  a 
king,  D'Andilly  trod  the  presence  chamber  with  the  step 
of  an  old  courtier,  and  seemed  to  forget  Port  Royal  and 
the  Formulary  in  the  exuberance  of  his  gratitude  and 
loyalty.  He,  too,  cast  many  a  lingering,  backward  look  to 
the  world,  which  his  daughter,  who  is  the  true  heiress  of 
her  aunt's  uncompromising  spirit,  finds  it  hard  to  under- 
stand. The  reader  will  remember  that,  when  he  first 
resolved  to  retire  to  Port  Eoyal,  his  leave-taking  of  society 
yras  long  and  elaborate.  When,  in  1661,  he  was  comi)elled 
to  abandon  his  solitude,  he  chose  to  look  upon  Pomponne 
as  a  place  of  imwelcome  exile.  Still,  after  the  Peace  of 
the  Church,  the  exile  does  not  hasten  home.  Neither  his 
daughter's  half-concealed  remonstrances^  nor  his  sister^s 
death,  avail  to  draw  him  to  Port  Royal.  Madame  de 
S^vigne,  in  a  letter  dated  April  29th,  167 1^  shows  him  as 
still  engaged  in  his  old  vocation  of  saving  souls  that  were 
inhabitants  of  beautiful  bodies.     "  I  set  off  tolerably  early 


D'ANDILLY.  409 

yesterday  morning  from  Paris,  and  went  to  dine  at  Pom- 
ponne,  where  I  found  our  good  man  waiting  for  me ;  I 
would  not  willingly  have  failed  to  say  good-bye  to  him. 
I  found  an  increase  of  holiness  in  him  which  astonished 
me ;  the  nearer  he  approaches  death,  the  purer  he  grows. 
He  scolded  me  very  seriously ;  and,  transported  with  zeal 
and  friendship  for  me,  told  me  that  I  was  foolish  not  to 
think  of  my  conversion ;  that  I  was  a  pretty  pagan ;  that 
I  made  you  an  idol  in  my  heart ;  that  this  sort  of  idolatry 
was  as  dangerous  as  any  other,  although  to  myself  it  ap- 
peared less  criminal ;  that,  in  short,  I  ought  to  think  of 
my  own  soul.  He  said  all  this  so  forcibly,  that  I  had  not 
a  word  to  reply.  In  short,  after  six  hours  of  very  agree- 
able though  very  serious  conversation,  I  left  him  and  came 
hither."  At  last,  in  May  1673,  D'Andilly  tore  himself 
away  from  the  polished  and  amiable  society  which  he 
loved  so  well,  and,  with  his  son  De  Luzan9i,  once  more 
established  himself  at  Port  fioyal.  Perhaps  he  felt  a 
fresh  weariness  stealing  over  his  spirit,  an  increased 
feebleness  conquering  his  limbs,  and  so  bethought  him 
that,  if  he  would  not  die  in  the  world,  he  must  hasten  to 
the  desert  He  survived  the  change  little  more  than  a 
year,  dying  on  the  27th  of  September,  1674.  Though  he 
had  attained  the  age  of  eighty -five,  his  mind  was  as  bright, 
his  heart  as  warm,  as  ever.  I  have  tried,  when  speaking 
of  his  first  retirement  to  Port  Royal,  to  estimate  his  cha- 
racter • ;  it  is  enough  to  remember  now  that  he  was  St. 
Cyran's  chosen  friend.f 

Madame  de  Sevigne  herself  hardly  comes  within  reach 
of  our  story ;  she  is  no  more  than  the  friend  of  our  friends, 
and  not  even  that  in  any  theological  or  partisan  way.  The 
preceding  pages  have  already  enumerated  her  points  of 

*  Vol.  L  p.  213. 

t  Mad.  de  Sevign^,  Lettres,  Sep.  23rd,  1671.    St«  Benre,  yol  ir.  p.  406, 
Besoigne,  toL  il  p.  490.    Gnilbert,  vol.  L  p.  575. 


410  POET  EOYAL, 

contact  with  Port  Royal ;  she  is  intimate  with  D'Andil] j 
and  Pomponne;  she  has  the  entree  to  the  Hotel  de  Longae- 
ville ;  she  admires  the  Port  Soyalist  authors,  and  especiallv 
Nicole ;  she  shows  an  active  sympathy  with  La  M^re  Agnes 
in  her  imprisonment.*  At  the  same  time  she  has  Jesuit  a$ 
well  as  Jansenist  friends,  to  say  nothing  of  the  great 
majority  of  her  associates  who  are  neither;  and  in  the 
convents  of  the  Visitation  is  revered  as  a  "living  relic*' 
of  her  grandmother,  Madame  de  Chantal.  M.  St*  Beuve 
aptly  compares  her  to  Boileau,  and  places  her  side  by  side 
with  the  great  satirist  as  a  friend  of  the  commnnity.  Yet 
however  tempting  the  occasion  to  speak  at  length  of  one 
who  fills  so  peculiar  a  niche  in  the  temple  of  French  litera- 
ture, it  is  needful  to  pass  her  by  in  favour  of  others  who 
are  more  closely  connected  with  our  tale.  A  visit  wfaicL 
she  paid  to  Port  Royal  des  Champs  in  January  1674,  at 
once  records  her  impression  of  the  place,  and  introduces  us 
to  a  S^vign^  who  is  truly  and  wholly  our  own.  She  writes  t, 
"  I  was  six  hours  with  M.  D'Andilly ;  I  had  all  the  plea- 
sure which  the  conversation  of  an  admirable  man  can  give: 
I  saw  also  my  uncle  De  S^vign^,  but  only  for  a  moment 
This  Port  Boyal  is  a  Thebaid ;  it  is  a  paradise ;  it  is  & 
desert  where  all  the  devotion  of  Christianity  has  fixed 
itself;  there  is  a  holiness  spread  over  all  the  country  for  & 
league  round  about.  There  are  five  or  six  solitaries  whom 
nobody  knows,  who  live  like  the  penitents  of  St.  John-J 
The  nuns  are  angels  upon  earth.  Madlle.  de  Vertus  is  end- 
ing her  life  here  with  inconceivable  pain,  and  the  greatest 
resignation ;  all  their  equipage,  —  even  to  the  carters,  the 
shepherds,  the  labourers,  —  all  is  modest.  I  confess  to 
you  that  I  have  been  ravished  with  the  sight  of  this  divine 
solitude  which  I  have  so  often  heard  spoken  of ;  it  is  a 

*  Lett,  de  la  M^re  A^es,  toL  ii.  p.  185. 

t  Jan.  26th,  1674^ 

X  One  of  the  hermits  of  the  Thebaid. 


RENAUD   DE  SfiVIGNfi.  411 

frightful  valley,  admirably  adapted  to  inspire  the  desire  of 
working  out  one's  salvation." 

Renaud  de  S^vign^,  an  old  soldier,  who  had  seen  much 
service,  betook  himself,  widowed  and  childless,  to  Port 
Royal  about  the  year  1660,  and,  in  implicit  obedience  to 
Singlin,  sought  to  learn  the  secret  of  self-mastery.  Long 
before,  he  had  rescued  from  the  sack  of  some  town  a  little 
girl  of  three  or  four  years  old,  who  had  been  abandoned  by 
her  parents ;  had  brought  her  up,  and,  when  she  was  of 
fitting  age,  had  placed  her  in  a  monastery.  In  requital 
of  this  charitable  action,  says  the  Necrologe,  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Good  Shepherd,  restored  M.  de  Sevign^,  himself  a 
wandering  sheep,  to  the  fold,  and  giving  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  repentance  for  his  past  sins,  placed  him  beyond 
the  reach  of  new  temptation.  Some  such  thought  had 
evidently  crossed  the  penitent's  own  mind ;  for  the  Good 
Shepherd  was  engraven  on  his  seal,  and  a  painting  of  the 
same  subject,  which  he  afterwards  bequeathed  to  the 
sisterhood,  was  among  his  most  cherished  possessions.  In 
1661,  he  built  a  house  contiguous  to  Port  Royal  de  Paris, 
where  he  lived  in  the  simplest  way,  devoting  all  his  means 
to  good  works,  and  the  service  of  his  friends.  His  is  a 
singular  and  characteristic  figure;  a  kind  heart  hidden 
under  a  stem  military  bearing;  a  life  moulded  by  the 
rough  liberty  of  camps,  striving  to  accommodate  itself  to 
the  uneventful  religiousness,  the  lettered  retirement  of 
Port  Royal.  At  the  age  of  fifty-seven  he  learned  Latin, 
that  he  might  perfectly  understand  the  oflBces  of  the 
Church.  At  one  time  De  Safi  and  Fontaine  occupied 
apartmenta  in  his  house,  and  employed  their  host  in 
transcribing  their  works.  The  one  remnant  of  luxury 
which  he  was  unwilling  to  give  up,  was  his  carriage,  which 
he  retained,  not  for  his  own  convenience,  but  for  the  use 
of  De  Sa9i  and  his  other  friends  of  Port  Royal.  He  was 
wont  to  walk  in  the  garden  of  the  Capuchins,  hard  by 


412  PORT  ROYAL. 

Port  Royal,  with  a  great  parasol  over  his  head ;  and  Fon- 
taine relates,  as  a  proof  of  his  submission  to  his  director, 
how  he  consulted  De  Safi  as  to  the  propriety  of  allowing 
his  servant  to  chastise  the  children  who  jeered  at  so 
strange  a  figure.  His  whole  heart  was  in  his  new  home 
and  friendships.  Once,  when  he  had  returned  thither 
after  a  severe  illness,  and  inquiries  were  made  as  to  his 
health,  'he  answered,  that  ^^  his  strength  had  begun  to 
come  back  as  he  passed  by  the  Institute,  but  that  he  felt 
himself  perfectly  well  as  soon  as  he  set  eyes  on  the  clock- 
tower  of  Port  Royal." 

Yet,  unlike  Madame  de  Sable,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  leave 
an  abode  so  dear  to  him,  when  the  Peace  of  the  Church  re- 
united the  faithful  community  at  Port  Royal  des  Champs. 
He  looked  upon  himself  as  the  true  knight  of  the  sister- 
hood, bound  to  do  them  service  in  every  possible  way.  At 
Paris  he  had  been  profuse  of  small  kindnesses ;  here  he 
found  time  to  do  a  great  one,  in  the  enlargement  of  the  con- 
ventual buildings  of  which  I  have  before  spoken.  He  died 
in  the  arms  of  De  Sa9i,  on  the  16th  of  March  1676,  in  the 
66th  year  of  his  age,  and  was  buried,  in  accordance  with 
his  own  request,  within  the  cloister.  The  monument 
which  the  sisterhood  raised  to  his  memory,  gratefiilly 
commemorated  his  liberality  to  their  house. 

Another  friend  of  Port  Royal,  whose  name  appears  in 
the  "  Necrologe  "  about  this  time,  is  Roger  du  Plessis,  Due 
de  Liancourt ;  the  nobleman  who  was  refused  absolution 
by  the  Cure  of  St  Sulpice  in  1655,  and  who  thus  became 
the  occasion  of  Antoine  Arnauld's  expulsion  from  the 
Sorbonne.  Of  him  it  is  impossible  to  speak  without 
speaking  of  his  duchess,  for  his  life  is  a  tale  of  conjugal 
patience,  and  love,  and  fidelity.  She  was  Jeanne  de  Schom- 
berg ;  a  daughter  of  that  German  house  which  gave  more 

*  Fontaine,  rol.  it.  p.  226,  et  seq.  Necrologe,  p.  115.  St«  Beave,  toI. 
iy.  p.  488. 


M.   AND   MADAME   DB   LIANCOUET.  413 

than  one  famous  general  to  the  armies  of  Europe.  When 
very  young,  she  was  married  against  her  will  to  the  eldest 
son  of  the  Due  de  Goss^;  but  the  marriage  was  never 
more  than  a  form,  and  before  long  she  prociu-ed  a  decree 
declaring  it  null  and  void.  In  1620  she  was  united  to  M. 
de  Liancourt  He  was  twenty-two,  she  twenty  years  of 
age;  the  husband  brave,  dissolute,  good-humoured,  but 
not  of  brilliant  ability ;  the  wife  clever,  piquant,  and  scru- 
pulously modest  in  thought  and  act.  But  Madame  de 
Liancourt  was  not  a  woman  either  to  harden  her  husband's 
heart  by  reproaches,  or  to  requite  his  unfaithfulness  with 
indifference;  she  bore  all  offence  silently,  and  thought  only 
of  the  way  to  win  him  back.  Once  she  is  recorded  to 
have  quietly  paid  for  a  present  to  one  of  his  mistresses, 
the  account  of  which  had  been  brought  to  her  by  mistake. 
To  detach  him  from  his  Parisian  life,  she  employed  all  her 
inventive  resource  in  adorning  his  country  house  of  Lian- 
court. Its  fountains  and  waterworks,  which,  till  the  King 
adopted  a  similar  taste,  were  the  wonder  of  France,  are 
celebrated  by  Bapin  in  that  poem  on  "  Gardens,"  which  the 
admirers  of  modem  Latin  verse  sometimes  place  side  by 
side  with  the  **  Georgics: " 

**  Et  qaam  mille  modis  Schombergia  duxerit  andam 
Nympha,  loci  costos.** 

The  strife  of  love  lasted  eighteen  years  before  it  was 
crowned  by  complete  victory.  Madame  de  Liancourt  had 
nursed  her  husband  through  more  than  one  severe  and 
infectious  illness;  but  gained  the  day,  at  last,  when  a 
similar  sickness  seemed  likely  to  prove  fatal  to  herself. 
He  was  about  forty  when  he  finally  gave  up  the  court,  and 
devoted  himself  to  a  domestic  and  religious  life.  We 
cannot  clearly  trace  the  steps  by  which  he  became  con- 
nected with  Port  Royal ;  but  we  learn  that  he  visited  St. 
Cyran  at  Vincennes,  and  built  a  cottage  at  Port  Soyal  des 


414  PORT  BOTAU 

Champs,  whither  he  occasionaUy  retired.  And  the  groiud 
on  which  he  was  refused  absolution  in  1655  was  that  bis 
granddaughter,  the  sole  heiress  of  his  wealth  and  honoois, 
was  a  boarder  in  Port  Royal ;  and  that  the  Abbe  de  Bom- 
Zeis,  a  notorious  Jansenist,  lived  in  his  house. 

Madame  de  Liancourt  reaped  the  reward  of  her  patient 
love  in  thirty-six  years  of  happy  married  life.     She  geotlv 
ruled  her  husband ;  and  deserved  to  nde  him,  for  she  vas 
greatly  his  superior  in  intellectual  ability  and  force  of 
character.     A  work  on  education,  which  records  the  tralB- 
ing  of  her  granddaughter,  Madlle.  de  La  fioche-Gnyon,  is 
said  to  contain  abundant  proofs  of  her  piety  and  good 
sense.     The  kindness  of  her  heart  shone  through  ererj 
action  of  her  life.     She  became  involved  in  a  long  lavsoit 
with    her    sister-in-law,  the  Mar^cbale   de    Schomberg. 
Nothing  could  be  more  distasteful  to  her  peaoeable  and 
self-sacrificing  disposition,  and  yet  there  was  no  help  for 
it.     So  she  took  the  utmost  pains  to  keep  on  terms  of 
private  friendliness  with  her  adversary ;  tried  her  best  to 
procure  an  arbitration;  and  read  through  all  the  volu- 
minous pleadings  that  she  might  strike  out  every  woid 
which  her  sensitive  conscience  deemed  harsh  and  offensire. 
When  Mazarin  offered  one  of  his  nephews  as  a  husband 
for  her  granddaughter,  and  proposed,  in  addition,  to  make 
her  lady  of  honour  to  the  Queen,  she  kept  her  husband, 
for  whom  the  prospect  was  not  without  attractions,  firm 
to  his  purpose  of  retirement,  and  declined  all  connection 
with  the  court     He,  on  the  other  hand,  heartily  admired 
and  loved  her ;  thought  her  theological  friends  the  wisest 
and  holiest  of  men  ;  and  accommodated  himself,  with  som^ 
difficulty,  to  their  notions  of  religious  observance,    fl^ 
could  make  any  great  effort  for  Q-od  or  man,  but  found  it 
hard  to  tread  the  long  roimd  of  prayer,  religious  reading* 
and  meditation,  which  was  prescribed  for  him.     Like  a 
man  of  business,  he  objected  on  one  occasion  to  repeating 


M.   AND  MADAME  D£   LIANCOUBT.  415 

*' Hallelujah "  nine  tunes  in  succession,  and  asked  his 
teacher  whether  he  could  not  come  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter  at  once ;  though,  when  his  wife  was  ill,  he  vowed 
to  sell  a  valuable  collection  of  pictures,  in  order  to  give 
the  proceeds  to  the  poor,  and  on  her  recovery  cheerfully 
performed  the  sacrifice.     Hq  walked  about  Port  Royal  des 
Champs  in  a  state  of  pious  wonder;  believed  that  pro- 
digies of  learning,  holiness,  and  penitence  were   hidden 
under  the  rough  garb  of  the  convent-servants ;  and  made 
a  deep  obeisance  to  every  silent  figure  which  he  met. 
When  Amauld  came  to  Liancourt,  he  entertained  him  on 
one  of  the  monstrous  carp  which  inhabited  his  stewponds, 
and  were  sacrificed  in  honour  of  only  the  most  distin- 
guished guests.      After  fifty-four  years  of  married  life, 
Madame  de  Liancourt  died  on  the  14th  of  Jime,  1674. 
She  had  been  long  ill,  but  had  striven,  with  the  affec- 
tionate self-command  which  was  a  part  of  her  character, 
to  hide  her  ailment  from  her  husband,  who  was  also 
struggling  with  the  last  infirmities  of  old  age.    A  fortnight 
before  her  death,  she  went  from  La  Koche-Guyon  to  Lian- 
court, where  she  was  to  be  buried,  saying,  "  that  there 
would  be  less  trouble  and  ceremony  in  carrying  her  thither 
living  than  dead."      Six  weeks  afterwards  her  husband 
followed  her.      For  the  first  month  he  could  speak   of 
nothing  but  his  loss ;  "  then,"  says  St®  Beuve,  "  he  alto- 
gether ceased  to  talk,  but  continued  to  die  of  it."     Part  of 
the  interval  he  had  spent  at  Port  Eoyal  des  Champs. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  the  author  of  the  "Maxims,"  was 
M.  de  Liancourt's  nephew,  and  is  recorded  to  have  said 
of  him  ^*  that  he  spent  all  his  money  in  physicians  and  was 
never  well ;  in  legal  consultations,  and  lost  all  his  suits ;  in 
good  works,  and  was  refused  absolution  in  his  paiish."  His 
granddaughter  and  sole  heiress,  was  married  to  her  cousin, 
the  Prince  de  Marsillac,  afterwards  third  Due  de  la  Roche- 
foucauld ;  but  when  she  had  borne  him  two  sons,  died  only 


416  PORT  ROYAL. 

a  fortnight  after  her  grandfather.  It  is  interesting  to  he&r 
St.  Simon's  testimony  to  the  permanent  influence  of  M.  and 
Madame  de  Liancourt's  virtues.  The  Due  de  La  Rochefou- 
cauld was  distinguished  even  in  Louis  XIV.'s  servile  oonrt 
by  his  compliance  with  his  master's  wishes,  but  he  never 
lost "  the  leaven  of  Liancourt."  He  spoke  of  them  with  un- 
failing reverence  and  affection;  he  never  suffered  aoy 
change  to  be  made  in  their  house  and  gardens ;  and  thougb 
he  had  no  sympathy  with  Jansenism,  many  of  the  persecuted 
friends  of  Port  Royal  foimd,  as  long  as  he  lived,  an  asylum 
beneath  the  roof  which  had  sheltered  them  in  the  days  of 
the  Due  and  Duchesse  de  Liancourt* 

A  second  race  of  solitaries  gather  round  Port  Royal  after 
1668,  most  of  them  friends,  whose  first  connection  with 
the  community  is  of  earlier  date,  yet  who  now  seem,  as  the 
original  figures  of  our  story  drop  away,  to  rise  into  new 
importance.  One  of  these  was  Sebastien  Joseph  du  Cam- 
bout,  Abb^  de  Pontch&teau,  who  was  noted  in  these  latter 
years  both  for  the  rigour  of  his  austerity  and  the  enei]p 
and  skill  of  his  diplomacy  on  behalf  of  the  party.  He  va? 
bom  in  1634;  the  third  son  of  Charles  du  Cambout 
Marquis  de  Coislin,  the  head  of  a  noble  Breton  bouse,  b 
after  years  his  own  proud  and  somewhat  morose  humility 
delighted  to  pour  contempt  on  his  aristocratic  descent  and 
alliances;  but  the  annalists  of  Port  Royal  own  no  fioA 
feeling,  and  magnify  his  ancestry  with  hardly  concealed 
exultation.  His  grandmother  was  a  Richelieu,  so  that  he 
was  a  nephew  a  la  mode  de  Bretagne  of  the  two  Cardinal 
of  that  great  house,  the  Minister,  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Lyons.  One  of  his  sisters  married  the  Due  d'Epemon,  the 
other,  the  Comte  d'Harcourt,  Grand  Ecuyer  of  France.  Of 
his  nephews  one  was  Due  de  Coislin,  another  the  Cardinal 

*  Fontaine,  vol.  iy.  p.  231,  et  8eq.  Besoigne,  toL  iii  p.  49.  Necrolcf^ 
pp.  238,  292.  Tallemant,  vol.  vi.  p.  24,  et  ieq,  St.  Simon,  toL  xx.  p.  1^ 
St«  Beave,  rol.  iv.  p.  437,  et  seq. 


POXTCHATEAU.  41 7 

Bishop  of  Orleans.  The  list  might  be  almost  indefinitely 
extended:  but  enough  has  been  said  to  show^  that  any 
scion  of  such  a  genealogical  tree  would  not  be  planted  in 
a  barren  corner  of  the  Church's  vineyard.  Long  before  he 
was  of  age,  M.  de  Pontchateau  obtained,  through  the 
influence  of  Eichelieu,  three  wealthy  abbeys,  and  coming 
to  Paris  to  pursue  his  studies,  prepared  to  live  the  gay  and 
luxurious  life  of  a  rich  and  worldly  churchman. 

He  was  only  seventeen,  when  he  fell  iii  with  one  of  the 
confessors  of  Port  Eoyal,  M.  de  Eebours,  who  was  the 
means  of  bringing  him  into  contact  with  Singlin.  Young 
as  he  was,  his  ardent  desires  were  all  for  solitude  and 
penitence ;  so  that,  after  a  correspondence  with  the  director, 
he  went  about  the  end  of  1651  to  Port  Eoyal  des  Champs, 
when  M.  de  St.  Gilles,  his  neighbour  in  Brittany,  gave 
him  a  warm  welcome.  But  Singlin,  with  his  accustomed 
insight  into  character,  doubted  the  permanence  of  Pont- 
chateau's  resolutions,  and  put  oflF  from  time  to  time  the 
period  for  their  execution.  The  event  proved  that  he  was 
right,  for  in  1652  the  would-be  solitary  suddenly  set  off 
for  Eome  with  one  or  two  companions  of  his  own  age  and 
profession,  and  his  desires  of  retreat  were  scattered  to  the 
winds.  Next  year  he  returned  to  renew  his  wayward  inter- 
course with  the  patient  confessors.  For  three  or  four  years 
he  was,  and  was  not,  one  of  the  solitaries  of  Port  Eoyal. 
He  retired  thither  more  than  once,  and  quitted  it  with  the 
rest  in  1656.  He  made  presents  of  relics  to  the  sister- 
hood, and,  like  M.  de  Sevigne,  held  his  carriage  and  horses 
at  their  disposal.  He  undertook  to  draw  up  an  accurate 
account  of  the  miracles  of  the  Holy  Thorn.  But  he  never 
went  so  far  as  to  resign  his  benefices,  and  in  1658,  as- 
tonished and  grieved  his  friends  by  a  second  sudden  jour- 
ney to  Eome. 

The  story  of  M.  de  Pontchateau's  changes  of  purpose  is 
hard  to  disentangle  from  the  somewhat  confused  statementa 
VOL.  n.  E  B 


418  PORT  BOTAL. 

of  the  memoirs ;  and  probably  connot  be  narrated  with 
perfect  accuracy.  He  returned  from  Rome  after  a  few 
months,  and  for  the  next  four  years  wavered  between  \m 
worldly  life  and  Port  Royal.  Singlin  bore  patiently  with 
the  inconstancy  of  his  penitent;  now  hopefully  noting  a 
more  serious  and  self-reproachful  tone  of  mind,  now  gently 
reproving  a  relapse  into  the  old  carelessness  and  self-in- 
dulgence. At  last  even  he  began  to  grow  weary;  and  told 
Pontch&teau  that  the  life  of  the  solitaries  of  Port  Boyal 
was  not  fit  for  him,  and  that  if  he  were  sincere  in  bis  por- 
poses  of  retirement,  he  ought  to  betake  himself  to  & 
monastery,  where  the  severity  of  a  fixed  rule  might  remedv 
his  inability  of  self-control.  But  the  decisive  moment  was 
nearer  than  perhaps  either  the  confessor  or  the  penitent 
dreamed.  On  Grood  Friday,  1663,  twelve  years  after  Pont- 
chateau's  first  attraction  to  Port  Royal,  Singlin  said  to  him. 
"  You  will  not  then  quit  the  life  which  you  lead  ?  "  Pont- 
ch&teau  replied  that  *•  he  was  willing  enough,  but  not  Vf* 
able.**  Singlin  answered,  "  Do  not  say  that  you  cannctt, 
but  say  that  you  will  not'*  The  penitent  at  once  went 
away  with  these  words  ringing  in  his  ears;  meditated 
upon  them  all  night,  and  then,  rising  from  a  sleepless  beil 
at  four  o'clock,  put  his  resolution  beyond  the  power  oi 
recall.  He  resigned  his  benefices,  wrote  one  or  two  letter?, 
and  disappeared  out  of  sight  and  reach  of  his  family,  int*^ 
some  obscure  hiding-place.  With  the  exception  of  hi- 
sister,  the  Duchesse  d'Epernon,  who  also  retired  to  a  col- 
vent,  he  never  saw  any  of  his  kinsfolk  again. 

The  sternness  of  his  austerity  was  in  proportion  to  bi> 
long  hesitation  between  the  world  and  Singlin.  His  co^tfy 
furniture,  his  pictures,  his  other  works  of  art,  quickly  &' 
appeared :  his  splendid  and  valuable  library  was  gradually 
transferred  to  the  shelves  of  Amauld,  as  the  man  best  aH^' 
to  use  it.  He  abandoned  even  his  name,  as  if  it  rerainde'l 
him  too  powerfully  of  days  that  he  would  willingly  foig*^*: 


PONTCnlTEAU.  419 

and  in  his  negotiations  and  journeys,  was  known  by  many 
varying  appellations.     Port  Royal  des  Champs  was  now 
closed  to  him,  as  to  all  the  solitaries :  but  the  directors  of 
the  party,  conscious,   perhaps,  that   his  new  bom  zeal 
would  be  best  sustained  by  action,  provided  him  with  em- 
ployment.    In  1664  he  went  as  a  sort  of  commercial  or 
legal  agent  to  Nordstrandt,  an  island  upon  the  coast  of 
Holstein.     Many  of  the  Port  Eoyalist  leaders  had  made 
over  their  property  to  the  community,  on  condition  of  re- 
ceiving from  it  annuities  after  a  certain  rate.    "^ATien  the 
affair  of  the  Formulary  placed  the  whole  of  the  conventual 
possessions  in  jeopardy,  the  nuns  honourably  and  thought- 
fully cancelled  all  these  agreements ;  and  some  of  their 
friends,   especially  Arnauld   and   Nicole,   misled  by  the 
Dutch  Jansenists,  invested  their  money  in  a  draining  and 
embanking  scheme  in  the  above  island.     The  speculation, 
if  such  it  can  be  called,  was  unsuccessful,  and  would  not  be 
worth  mentioning  in  this  place,  had  it  not  given  rise  to  a 
report  that  the  Jansenists  were  preparing  for  themselves 
an  asylum  in  the  far  north,  where  they  intended  to  estab- 
lish a  republican  constitution  and  an  Augustinian  church. 
M.  de  Pontch&teau's  first  mission  was  to  rescue  what  he 
could  from  the  hungry  waves  which  washed  over  Nord- 
strandt ;  his  second,  to  take  De  Sari's  New  Testament  to 
the  Elzevirs'  printing  oflSce  at  Amsterdam.     But  as  soon 
as  the  peace  of  the  Church  gave  opportunity,  he  hastened 
to  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  as  the  home  to  which  all  his 
desires  had  long  turned. 

Here,  under  the  name  of  M.  Mercier,  he  lived  at  Les 
Granges,  and  tilled  the  convent  garden.  Nor  was  his  an 
amateur  horticulture,  as  we  cannot  but  suspect  D'Andilly's 
to  have  been.  He  laboured  with  his  own  hands  from 
morning  to  night,  clad  in  the  coarsest  raiment,  which  he 
did  not  take  oflf  when  he  exchanged  his  work  for  his  bed 
of  straw.     He  wore  a  hair  shirt,  and  sometimes,  in  ad- 

SE  2 


420  PORT  ROYAL. 

dition,  an  iron  girdle  next  his  skin.  He  did  not  choose 
to  be  looked  upon  as  a  nobleman  in  disguise,  but  behaved, 
and  desired  to  be  treated,  in  every  respect  like  a  common 
day  labourer.  Sundays  and  feast  days  he  spent  in  the 
convent  church,  going  through  the  whole  round  of  prayer 
prescribed  by  the  ritual,  or  allowing  himself  from  time  to 
time  some  relaxation  of  reading  or  writing.  He  shrunk 
from  no  work,  however  laborious  or  disagreeable ;  and, 
when  any  death  took  place,  himself  dug  the  grave,  and 
committed  the  body  to  the  earth.  He  moved  among  hU 
companions  with  pious  indifference,  silent  and  self-ab- 
sorbed; showing  neither  preferences  nor  dislikes.  Fon- 
taine commemorates  the  neatness  of  his  work :  not  a  weed 
was  to  be  seen  in  his  beds,  not  a  herb  was  out  of  its  place ; 
but  it  was  "a  penitent's  garden,''  where  all  the  plants 
were  chosen  not  for  beauty,  but  for  use.  To  have  been 
able  to  gather  a  nosegay  there  would  have  been  an  un- 
worthy condescension  to  the  senses.  So  too  we  learn, 
from  a  letter  to  his  sister,  that  he  would  have  been 
annoyed  had  the  worship  of  Port  Royal  been  notable  for 
musical  excellence:  ** music,"  he  says,  "would  ill-become 
the  daughters  of  St.  Bernard."  It  is  this  moroseness, 
rather  than  the  rigour  of  M.  de  Pontchateau's  austerity, 
which  distinguishes  him  among  the  solitaries  of  Port 
Royal. 

He  was,  however,  called  to  doff  his  gardener's  jacket 
before  the  death  of  Madame  de  Longueville  gave  the 
signal  for  renewed  persecution.  In  1677,  he  went  a  third 
time  to  Rome  as  an  envoy  from  the  Bishop  of  Alet,  now 
involved  in  the  affair  of  the  Regale,  to  Innocent  XI, ;  a 
fourth  time  in  1679,  to  represent  the  interests  of  Port 
Royal  at  the  Holy  See.  For  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life 
he  was  a  wanderer.  Sometimes  he  is  with  Arnaiild  in 
Brussels,  then  suddenly  in  Paris,  then  pays  a  brief  and 
secret  visit  to  Port  Royal.     After  1685,  his  home  was  the 


PONTCHATEAU.  421 

Abbey  of  Orval,  in  Luxembourg,  where  he  lived  as  a 
boarder;  but  tilled  the  garden,  shared  all  the  austerities 
of  the  house^  and  carried  himself  as  the  meanest  and  least 
worthy  of  the  community.  His  name  and  history  were 
known  only  to  the  Abbot;  to  the  rest  of  the  monks  he" 
was  M.  Fleury,  a  stranger  who  seemed  to  delight  in  feats 
of  self-mortification,  and  excesses  of  humility.  But  his 
activity  in  the  cause  of  Port  Eoyal  was  in  no  degree 
abated ;  and  the  years  of  his  so-called  residence  at  Orval 
are  a  period  of  constant  joumeyings  to  and  fro. 

In  the  spring  of  1690  he  came  to  Paris,  where  on  the 
20th  of  June  he  was  taken  ill,  and  died  after  a  week's 
sickness.  He  maintained  to  the  last  the  attitude  of  aver- 
sion to  his  family,  which  he  had  adopted  on  his  final 
retirement  to  Port  Royal.  He  had  been  accustomed  to 
repeat  the  words  of  Job ;  "  I  have  said  to  corruption.  Thou 
art  my  father ;  to  the  worm,  Thou  art  my  mother,  and  my 
sister."  About  a  fortnight  before  his  last  illness,  as  he 
knelt  in  the  Cathedral  of  Notre-Dame,  before  a  shrine  of 
the  Virgin,  he  saw  by  his  side  a  yoimg  ecclesiastic,  in 
whom  he  traced  some  likeness  to  his  own  family,  and  who 
was  indeed,  his  great  nephew  the  Ahh6  de  Coislin,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Metz.  His  surmise  was  confirmed  by  the 
sight  of  an  attendant  in  the  well-known  livery ;  he  instantly 
rose  without  speaking,  and  finished  his  devotions  else- 
•  where.  So  when  he  was  dying,  he  sternly  refused  to  see 
his  nephew,  the  Due  de  Coislin,  who  had  sought  him  out, 
and  earnestly  entreated  to  be  allowed  to  watch  by  his 
bedside.  At  last,  when  he  could  no  longer  protest,  Madame 
de  Coislin  and  one  or  two  other  ladies  were  admitted  to 
the  mean  room  in  which  he  lay ;  and  kneeling  at  the  foot 
of  the  bed,  watched,  through  an  opening  in  the  cm-tain, 
the  last  unconscious  struggle.  I  know  not  what  sight 
should  more  justly  call  forth  the  indignant  exclamation  of 
the  old  Boman  poet  philosopher,  — 

EE  3 


422  POET  BOTAL. 

*'  Tantnm  religio  potnit  suadere  maloram,** 

than  this  sad  yearning  of  womanly  love  to  fulfil  all  offices 
of  tenderness^  sternly  r^>elled  in  the  name  of  Christian 
fiskith,  and  forced  to  content  itself  with  those  long  hours  of 
secret,  tearful,  helpless  watching.  There  is  little  in  tiie 
picture  of  M.  de  Pontchateau  left  by  his  biographers  which 
helps  us  to  love  him ;  but  this  eager  proffer  of  affection 
at  the  last  by  those  whom  he  had  so  utterly  cast  off,  seems 
to  prove  that  there  had  once  been  something  amiable  in 
his  character.  One  nephew,  the  Due  de  Coislin,  attended 
him  to  his  grave  at  Port  Royal;  another,  nine  years  after- 
wards, was  laid  by  his  side. 

Nicole,  who  witnessed  Pontch&teau's  death,  writes  of 
him  : — "The  malady  of  which  he  died  seized  him  at  my 
lodging,  after  a  conversation  which  lasted  two  hours.     I 
had  the  happiness  to  see  him  during  his  illness,  and  even 
to  be  present  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  death,  which  I  confess 
was  such  as  I  should  desiie  for  myself,  without  6clat>  with- 
out turmoil,  in  perfect  peace,  entire  self-possession,  and 
unintermitted  reliance  upon  Gtod ;  like  the  sequel  of  a  life, 
which,  tending  all  towards  death,  did  not  need  to  be  marked 
by  peculiar  circumstances,  but  only  to  continue   in  the 
same  state.     For  the  rest,  I  confess  to  you,  that  I  lay  no 
great  stress  upon  the  concourse  of  people  at  his  grave,  nor 
upon  the  miracles  which  are  attributed  to  him.     I  do  not 
even  know  whether  they  are  real."  •     I  have  quoted  this 
passage  as  the  calm  protest  of  the  earlier  generation  of 
Jansenists,  against  the  superstitious  follies  of  the  younger. 
When  the  people  of  the  quarter  heard  that    a   dukes 
brother  had    died  in  his  humble  lodging,   worn  out  by 
austerity,  and  so  weaned  from  the  world,  as  not  even  to 
see  his  kinsfolk,  their  inflammable  imagination  took  fire, 

*  Nicole.  Lcttres,  Eesais  de  Morale,  toI.  Tiii.  p,  194. 


HAM05.  423 

and  they  exclaimed  that  he  was  a  saint.  A  scrofulous  girl 
was  cured  by  the  touch  of  the  corpse ;  what  further  proof 
was  necessary  ?  There  was  a  wild  rush  for  relics  of  the 
newly  discovered  saint ;  a  great  concourse  as  his  funeral 
procession  passed  to  Port  Boyal.  The  annalists  turn 
round  in  angry  scorn  upon  Nicole  for  his  doubt ;  but  the 
impartial  student  marks  with  pain  that  Jansenism  is  one 
step  nearer  to  the  disgusting  miracles  of  the  Convulsion- 
naires.* 

We  cannot  altogether  leave  behind  us  the  period  of  the 
community's  deepest  distress,  and  the  few  years  of  pro- 
sperity which  followed  it,  without  dwelling  upon  the  life 
and  character  of  Jean  Hamon,  the  good  physician,  who, 
when  all  spiritual  help  was  denied,  endeavoured  to  minister 
to  the  ills  of  both  body  and  soul.  He  realised  in  him- 
self the  phrase  which  he  loved  to  apply  to  the  Evangelist, 
**  Lucas  bis  medicus,^  He  unites  many  claims  to  our 
notice.  His  life  was  passed  in  less  broken  intercourse 
with  Port  fioyal  than  those  of  some  of  its  more  con- 
spicuous champions;  for  the  physician  was  more  than 
once  permitted  to  remain  when  the  confessors  were  sent 
away.  But  he  was  the  mystic,  as  well  as  the  physician  of 
Port  Royal.  The  conjunction  at  first  sight  seems  strange: 
for  the  reproach  usually  uttered  against  medical  science, 
that  it  dulls  the  spiritual  perceptions,  and  disturbs  the 
boundary  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  former,  is  not  always  undeserved.  Nor  is 
the  Augustinian  theology  favourable  to  the  production  of 
mystics ;  the  essential  condition  of  mysticism  is  the  pos- 
sibility of  free  communion  between  the  finite  and  the  in- 
finite spirit :  it  cannot  breathe  except  in  a  region  of  per- 

♦  Rccneil  dlTtrccbt,  Relation  poor  scnrir  &  la  Vie  de  M.  de  Pontchateau, 
p.  410,  «<  leg.  N^crologe,  p.  i54.  Du  Foase,  pp.  132. 393.  Fontome,vol. 
IT.  p.  371,  rt  »eq.  Bcsoigne,  vol.  it.  p.  601,  €t  aeq.  Sf  Bcuye,  Tol  r.  p.  90, 
•€i  seq. 

BE  4 


424  PORT  ROYAL. 

feet  liberty  of  choice  and  affection  on  the  side  of  both  God 
and  man  ;  while  the  system  of  the  great  Latin  father,  and 
still  more  that  of  his  Crenevese  disciple,  freezes  the  possi- 
bilities  of  Providence  into  a  **  divine  economy,"  and  binds 
down  all  impulse  by  the  chains  of  inexorable  necessity. 
So  we  notice  that  the  mysticism  of  France  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  passed  by  Port  Boyal,  to  develop  itself  in 
the  quietism  of  Madame  Ghiyon  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Gambrai :  as  in  England,  it  attached  itself,  not  to  the  more 
or  less  consistent  Calvinism  of  the  Puritan  leaders,  but  to 
the  Arminian  theology  of  Fox  and  Barclay.  Whence 
then  the  source  of  Hamon's  mjrsticism  ? 

The  truth  is  that  mysticism  always  has  its  root  in  personal 
character.  It  begins  on  .the  religious,  not  on  the  theo- 
logical side :  it  is  an  aspiration  reduced  to  theory,  not  a 
theory  which  gives  birth  to  aspiration.  There  are  some 
forms  of  theology  with  which  it  allies  itself  more  natnraUr 
than  with  others ;  probably  none  in  connection  with  which 
it  does  not  sometimes  manifest  itself.  It  is  a  phase  oi 
personal  religion,  to  which  it  stands  in  the  same  relation 
as  the  lightest  aerial  vapour  to  the  water  from  which  it 
arose,  and  into  which  it  is  capable  of  being  condensed. 
There  have  always  been  men  and  women,  who,  seizing 
upon  the  idea  of  communion  with  God  as  the  centre 
point  of  theology,  have  dwelt  upon  it  to  the  exclusion  of 
almost  every  other.  The  laws  which  regulate  the  inter- 
course of  similar  spiritual  natures,  are  obscure,  and  little 
susceptible  of  definition :  what  wonder  then,  if  those  who 
strive  towards  the  consummation  of  union  with  the  In- 
finite Spirit,  should  be  ill  able  to  express  all  they  seem  to 
themselves  to  feel,  much  less  to  reduce  the  rapturous  ex- 
perience to  the  definite  proportions  of  a  system  ?  A  dark- 
ness, athwart  which  but  few  rays  of  light  are  seen  to 
glance,  —  a  perplexity,  the  clue  through  which  rarely  ap- 
pears, and  is  lost  almost  as  soon  as  seen,  —  are  the  necea- 


HAMON.  425 

sary  characteristics  of  mysticism.  If  the  mystic  is  led 
astray  by  no  phantoms  of  the  imagination,  and  speaks  in 
truth  and  soberness  only  that  "  which  he  doth  know,"  he 
stands  face  to  face  with  a  reality  which  human  powers  can 
only  imperfectly  apprehend,  and  his  speech,  to  be  true, 
must  be  broken  and  obscure.  So  men  are  born  mystics, 
and  fulfil  the  promise  of  their  birth,  in  spite  of  any 
obstacle  which  systems  of  theology  may  interpose.  They 
have  a  faculty  of  seeing  God,  as  other  men  have  a  keen 
eye  for  niceties  of  form  and  subtleties  of  colour.  They 
make  their  very  hindrances  into  stepping  stones :  some, 
whose  work  lies  among  the  tangible  realities  of  nature, 
see  in  every  one  the  expression  of  some  supersensual  truth 
or  relation ;  others,  like  all  Soman  Catholic  mystics,  con- 
vert the  symbols  and  sacraments,  which  seem  to  inter- 
pose between  the  soul  and  God,  into  types  of  the  ineffable 
union  which  exists  between  them.  They  speak  a  language 
of  their  own,  which  is  not  only  unintelligible,  but  absurd 
to  those  who  are  not  familiar  with  its  tones,  yet  which 
binds  them  all,  of  whatever  church  or  age,  into  a  secret 
brotherhood.  Men  idly  convert  their  common  name  into 
a  term  of  reproach,  forgetting  that  those  who  habitually 
contemplate  and  strive  to  express  the  mysterious  realities, 
which  transcend  all  human  thought  and  speech,  must  needs 
be  mystics.  Meanwhile,  none  are  so  careless  of  earthly 
reproach,  for  they  stand  in  the  presence  of  God. 

Jean  Hamon  was  a  native  of  Cherbourg,  where  he  was 
bom  about  1617.  We  know  little  of  his  earlier  life,  for 
the  unfinished  autobiography,  which  he  wrote  on  the  model 
of  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  is  a  record  rather  of 
feelings  than  of  facts.*  He  was  carefully  educated  in  the 
schools  of  his  native  province,  and,  coming  to  the  capital 
to  complete  his  studies,  became  tutor  of  M.  de  Harlay, 

*  Relation  de  plnsienrs  circonstances  de  la  Vie  de  M.  Hamon,  faite  par 
lui-mdme  sir  le  modele  dcs  Confessions  de  S.  Aagastin,  1734. 


42G  FOBT  BOTAL. 

afterwards  President  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris.  He  took 
his  degree  in  the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  and  was  begin- 
ning practice  with  a  fair  prospect  of  success,  when  hi> 
thoughts,  we  know  not  how,  were  tamed  in  the  direction 
of  the  religious  life.  Two  years  of  indecision  followed, 
during  which  his  director  was  the  cur6  of  his  parish,  & 
worthy  priest,  who,  at  the  end  of  that  period,  transferred 
his  intractable  penitent  to  the  more  skilful  hands  ci 
Singlin.  The  first  tliought  was  to  send  him  to  the  Chart- 
reuse :  then  came  M.  de  Harlay  with  the  offer  of  a  hesie- 
fice,  which  Hamon  might  use  for  purposes  of  religious 
retirement,  or  otherwise  as  he  chose.  But  the  pemtent*> 
secret  wish  was  to  jmn  the  hermit  community  at  Pen 
Boyal  des  Champs ;  and  thither,  at  the  end  of  1649,  or  the 
beginning  of  1650,  he  was  sent. 

Before  Ids  final  retirement  he  sold  his  patrimony,  and 
employed  the  proceeds  in  almsgiving.  On  his  first  arrirai 
at  Port  Boyal  he  applied  himself  to  agricultural  labour; 
then,  after  a  time,  was  selected  to  assist  Antoine  Amauld 
But  on  the  death  of  M.  Palhi  in  1651,  he  succeeded  to 
the  office  of  physician  to  the  solitaries,  as  well  as  to  the 
nuns,  who  under  La  M^re  Angelique  had  now  returned  U 
the  monastery.  At  first  he  was  far  from  popular.  He 
entertained  a  high  conception  of  the  dignity  of  his  art ;  and 
added  to  the  professional  gravity  of  an  able  phyacian,  the 
severe  silence  of  a  true  penitent.  Some  of  the  solitaries 
had  found  their  trifling  ailments  an  agreeable  occasion  of 
talk  with  the  gayest  and  most  cheerful  of  hermits^  IL 
Pallu*;  but  this  was  all  over  now.  "As  soon  as  thev 
opened  their  mouths,''  says  Fontaine  f*  **  according  to  the 
liberty  which  had  been  always  enjoyed  in  the  time  of  the 
defunct,  to  make  some  good  humoured  statement^  and  to 
try  to  bargain  about  some  new  blee£ng  or  purging,  —  of 

*  Conf.  Tol.  i.  p.  206.  f  MemoiiM,  vol  iii  p.  60» 


HAMOy.  427 

which  he  was  very  liberal,  sparing  blood  as  little  as  senna,  — 
they  beheld  a  deaf  and  inflexible  man,  who,  assuming  a 
serious  air  and  a  grave  tone,  brought  to  bear  upon  them 
his  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  and  the  4000   livres 
which  it  had  cost.     To  this  there  was  no  reply ;  but  while 
he  was  obeyed,  it  was  not  the  less  regarded  as  a  petty  yoke 
which  it  would  be  very  pleasant  to  throw  oflF.^     To  make 
the  matter  worse,  there  were  rivals  in  the  field.     D'Andilly 
sent  to  Paris  for  a  M.  Duclos,  the  possessor  of  some  mira- 
culous pills ;  the  Due  de  Luynes  patronised  M.  Jacques, 
who  cured  all  diseases  with  an  infallible  powder.     The  strife 
waxed  great ;  pills  and  powders  were  extolled  in  rivalry  at 
every  bedside ;  and  Hamon,  nothing  loth,  was  left  to  the 
solitude  of  his  own  chamber,  and  the  care  of  the  sick  pea- 
sants, through  a  circuit  of  six  or  seven  leagues  round  Port 
Royal.     He  alludes  thus   quietly  to  his  unpopularity*: 
"  The  course  which  I  took  during  all  these  little  disturb- 
ances, was  to  resolve  upon  silence,  which  is  an  innocent 
remedy,  and  spoils  nothing.     ...     I  should  have  been 
glad  to  be  deaf;  but  at  least  I  tried  to  be  dumb,  and 
thought  only  of  healing  those  sicknesses  which  can  be  healed 
by  prayer.     I  saw  that  Orod  asked  me  to  account  for  the  use 
of  no  other  remedy  than  this,  which  ought  to  be  employed 
by  all  His  members  for  the  perfect  cure  of  the  whole  body. 
So  far  we  ought  all  to  be  physicians ;  beyond  this,  I  myself 
am  none.'*'    It  is  difficult  to  quarrel  with  a  man  who  will 
neither  take,  nor  requite  offence ;  the  solitaries  learned  in 
a  little  time  to  appreciate  both  his  medical  skill,  and  his 
true  and  noble  character.     De  Sapi  exercised  throughout 
his  function  of  wise,  kind,  gentle  mediation,  and  before 
long  Hamon  was  universally  recognised,  like  the  evangelist 
with  whom  he  delighted  to  compare  himself,  as  "  the  beloved 
physician.'' 

*  ADtobiogr«pli7,  p.  13. 


428  PORT  ROYAL. 

Meanwhile  he  was  not  backward  in  practising  the  aus- 
terity which  was  the  rule  of  life  at  Port  Royal.  He 
lodged  in  a  garret^  where^  winter  and  summer,  he  allowed 
himself  no  fire.  He  lay  upon  a  board,  which,  to  elude 
observation,  he  had  concealed  in  his  bed.  Every  day  he 
rose  at  one,  that  he  might  be  ready  to  join  in  the  matins 
which  the  nuns  celebrated  at  two  o'clock ;  and  then,  to 
drive  away  sleep,  spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  in  writing. 
In  dress  he  was  not  distinguishable  from  the  neighbouring 
peasants;  while  his  principal  food  was  a  coarse  bread  made 
of  bran,  such  as  was  usually  given  to  the  dogs.  He  was 
assiduous  in  study,  learning  Italian  and  Spanish  for  the 
same  purpose  as  St.  Jerome  learned  Hebrew,  to  rid  himself 
of  haunting  temptation.  He  liked  to  have  something  U* 
occupy  his  hands  while  he  was  reading,  and  so  was  wont  t^- 
knit.  Throughout  his  life,  he  held  himself  at  the  servicv 
of  the  poor,  and  was  well  known  in  every  village  withir 
many  miles  of  Port  Eoyal.  At  first  he  made  all  his  jour- 
neys on  foot,  taking  his  Bible  with  him  ;  afterwards^  wbei 
so  long  a  round  was  too  much  for  his  failing  strength,  be 
went  on  his  errand  of  mercy,  mounted  on  an  ass,  and  stil! 
reading  his  Bible,  which  rested  on  a  littie  desk  fitting  intf 
a  hole  in  the  saddle.  We  have  already  seen  how  high  ai 
importance  he  attached  to  prayer,  as  a  necessary  accompa- 
niment to  the  exercise  of  his  art.  "Thus,"  he  says  *,  **I 
always  bad  recourse  to  Grod,  quietly  saying  to  Him  in  the 
midst  of  my  roimds,  among  the  rain,  the  wind,  and  the 
storms ;  Nisi  Dominus  sanaverit  cegros,  fruatra  lahorant 
et  qui  curantf  et  qui  curantur.  *  If  the  Lord  have  not 
healed  the  sick,  both  they  who  eure,  and  they  who  arr 
cured,  labour  in  vain.'  To  which  I  added  this  passage  o 
Scripture,  which  is  of  infinite  value: — Confiteor  tihi  quiv 
neque  herba,  neque  malcigma  aanavit  eos  qui  cUiquand*' 
sanati  sunt;  sed  tuusj  Domine,  sermo  qui  sanat  omnia^ 

•  Antobiographv,  p.  16.  f  Wisdom  of  Solomon  xvL  12, 


HAMON.  429 

*  For  it  is  neither  herb  nor  mollifying  ointment  that  restored 
them  to  health,  but  Thy  word,  0  Lord,  which  healeth  all 
things.'  And  then  I  ended  with  these  words :  Tu  solus 
es  Medicusy  quo  curante  nemo  moritur,  quo  non  curantey 
nemo  vivit  '  Thou  alone  art  the  Physician,  with  whose 
care  no  man  dies,  without  whose  care  no  man  lives.' "  * 

Though  Hamon,  as  I  have  said,  hardly  ever  left  Port 
Koyal  from  the  time  of  his  first  retirement  to  his  death, 
he  was  often  assailed  by  scruples  of  conscience  as  to  his 
right  to  remain  there.  He  was  too  happy  in  the  rude 
life  which  we  have  described ;  he  sighed  for  a  more  com- 
plete retreat,  a  more  severe  self-mortification.  Two  years 
after  he  came  to  Port  Koyal,  he  was  with  some  difficulty 
dissuaded  from  burying  himself  in  the  Chartreuse;  and 
the  same  desire  returned  at  different  intervals,  to  be  re- 
pressed by  the  use  of  the  same  arguments  and  authority. 
But,  before  long,  the  troubles  of  the  monastery  for  ever 
bound  Hamon  to  its  fortunes ;  and  he  lived  to  rejoice  that 
he  had  not  listened  to  what  he  learned  to  consider  as  a 
temptation.  In  his  quality  of  physician  to  the  community 
he  evaded  the  royal  mandates  for  the  dispersion  of  the 
solitaries  in  1656  and  1661,  and  retired  only  in  1664, 
when  a  lettre-de^achety  directed  against  him  by  name, 
was  issued.  His  absence,  however,  lasted  no  more  than 
nine  months.  Sickness  multiplied  so  rapidly  among  the 
nuns,  who  were  worn  out  by  persecution,  and  deprived  of 
fresh  air  and  exercise,  that  the  services  of  a  skilful  phy- 
sician became  necessary,  while  only  one,  who  was  bound 
by  some  ties  of  love  and  gratitude  to  the  imprisoned  com- 
munity, would  undertake  so  thankless  a  task.f  So  Hamon 
came  back,  and  shared  the  four  years'  imprisonment. 
With  the  nuns,  he  endured  the  petty  persecutions  of  the 
confessors ;  and  had  his  own  trial  in  the  coarse  familiarity 

*  Conf.  Da  Fosse,  p.  110.     Bcsoignc,  toL  iv.  pp.  249—251. 
t  Vol.  I.  p.  409. 


430  PORT  ROYAL. 

of  the  guards  and  the  spectacle  of  misery,  which  he  could 
only  ineffectually  relieve.  Five  sisters  died  during  this 
period,  debarred  from  the  last  sacraments  of  the  Chnrcfa. 
and  buried  without  its  blessing.  The  good  physician  was 
a  layman,  and  therefore  could  not  stand  by  the  bedside  in 
the* place  of  an  ordained  priest;  but  all  that  love  and 
prayer  could  do  for  those  who  voluntarily  braved  this  last 
and  most  deadly  peril  for  truth's  sake,  he  did.  **  When 
it  is  necessary,"  he  said,  in  sublime  disregard  of  his  eccle- 
siastical theory,  "  to  perform  the  last  duties  to  a  dying 
person,  all  the  faithful  become  ministers  of  Grod.'* 

While  Hamon  was  thus  compelled  to  occupy,  as  far  a^ 
possible,  the  place  of  the  exiled  confessors,  he  wrote  for 
the  use  of  the  nuns  a  number  of  short  treatises,  bearing 
upon  the  peculiarities  of  their  position.  These  little  workp, 
though  not  the  production  of  one  who  had  made  author- 
ship a  profession,  are  full  of  a  tender  fancy  which  is  no' 
common  at  Port  Boyal,  and  which  helps  to  give  Hamon  s 
position  of  his  own  among  its  writers.  Endeavouring  tr* 
console  the  nuns  for  their  enforced  isolation,  he  esLySy  '*'  We 
love  our  brethren  in  every  place  where  it  is  possible  t*^ 
receive  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  we  are  united  to  them, 
wherever  we  love  them.  The  little  space  which  exist- 
between  the  strings  of  a  lute  does  not  prevent  them  frox 
sounding  at  the  same  moment,  or  from  eoncurring  in  th: 
production  of  the  same  harmony,  and  in  the  gratification  oi 
our  ears.  When  these  strings  are  no  longer  stretched. 
and  touch  one  another,  or  when,  apart  from  the  lute,  the? 
are  twisted  together,  we  may  say  that^  in  this  intimate 
union,  they  are  not  so  united  as  to  produce  music,  whicl 
is  the  only  kind  of  union  asked  of  them.  We  must^  then, 
separate  in  order  to  unite  them ;  and  it  is  this  distance^ 
and  the  just  proportion  given  to  them  by  art,  whicl 
renders  them  capable  of  producing  that  fine  harmonv 
which  we  hear  when  they  cure  touched.     Let  lis,  then. 


HAMOy.  431 

Rufier  ourselves  to  be  led  to  God.  .  .  .  Let  us  not 
trouble  ourselves  too  much  whether  He  separates  or  brings 
us  nearer  together ;  let  us  occupy  ourselves  wholly  with 
His  praise.  It  is  a  delusion  to  believe  that  we  should 
praise  Him  better  were  we  in  another's  place ;  let  us  praise 
Him  where  we  are ;  and  let  each  praise  Him  in  his  own 
place,  that  He  may  be  praised  on  all  sides,  by  all  manner 
of  men,  under  every  variety  of  circumstance,  that  thus  the 
harmony  of  the  saints  on  earth,  if  that  be  possible,  may  be 
as  uninterrupted  as  the  harmony  of  the  saints  in  heaven." 
And  again:  "All  those  who  make  the  cause  of  Jesus 
Christ  their  own,  think  of  us  and  pray  for  us.  There  are 
who,  in  the  most  distant  places,  lift  up  their  hands  to 
heaven  for  us,  when  perhaps  we  suffer  ours  to  drop.  .  .  . 
Before,  we  could  see  only  those  who  were  of  our  acquaint- 
ance ;  now,  those  even  whom  we  do  not  know,  and  whom 
we  have  never  seen,  see  us  before  the  face  of  Grod,  and 
console  us  by  their  prayers.  .  .  .  But  how  contracted 
is  our  view  that  we  behold  only  the  saints  on  earth  who 
busy  themselves  for  us  1  If  we  had  the  faith  which  gives 
the  invisible  eyes  of  which  St.  Augustine  speaks  so  often, 
invisibiles  oculoSy  we  should  see  ourselves  environed  by 
all  the  hosts  of  heaven,  and  the  hills,  which  are  round 
about  this  besieged  city,  would  appear  to  us  all  covered 
with  chariots  of  fire  for  our  defence." 

Perhaps  the  most'  remarkable  passages  of  these  little 
treatises  are  those  in  which  the  author  speaks  of  the  sacra- 
ments of  the  Church.  The  nuns  were  deprived  of  them ; 
but  the  mystic  has  a  way  to  the  presence  of  Grod,  all 
unknown  to  the  priest,  and  is  willing  to  lead  them  with  him. 
His  central  principle  is  that  "  whoso  hath  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  cannot  be  cut  off  from  Christ."  This  he  proceeds 
to  apply  in  >detail.  Of  confession  he  says,  '*  We  have  so 
often  spoken  to  the  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ,  without  being 
advanced  in  the  path ;  let  us  speak  now  to  Jesus  Christ 


432  PORT  ROYAL. 

himself;  his  word  has  more  power  than  that  of  a  man. 
•  .  .  Let  us  have  more  faith  and  fewer  scruples.  .  .  . 
We  have  only  to  address  ourselves  to  this  confessor  of  the 
heart,  and  he  will  receive  our  confession."  Of  the 
Eucharist:  **  Jesus  Christ  makes  a  greater  trial  of  our  faith 
when  he  enters  our  heart  by  closed  doors,  than  when  hv 
comes  in  the  ordinary  way.  .  .  .  Who  shall  separatr 
us  from  that  holy  Eucharist,  which  we  receive  iromediatek 
from  the  hand  of  Jesus  Christ?  .  .  .  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  that  invisible  altar  of  which  we  are 
ourselves  the  priests  ?  .  .  .  Have  we  not  received  tbe 
Eucharist  many  times,  and  ought  not  that  to  be  sufficient 
to  awake  our  faith  when  it  sleeps?  Let  us  rouse  in  oar- 
selves  the  grace  of  our  past  communions."  Upon  the 
Viaticum:  "When  the  bridegroom  arrives,  the  bride  is  n- 
longer  troubled  that  she  has  received  no  letters  during  hi^ 
absence,  and  she  is  not  astonished  at  the  noise  which  she 
hears,  when  she  learns  that  it  is  he  who  knocks  at  the  door. 
.  .  .  Have  a  little  patience,  the  curtain  is  about  to  l^ 
drawn ;  you  shall  see  Jesus  Christ,  as  he  sees  you,  and  i- 
seeing  him,  you  will  see  all."  And  finally,  upon  the  As- 
privation  of  Christian  burial :  "  You  threaten  me  with  iht 
deprivation  of  burial,  if  I  do  not  consent  to  the  oppression 
of  the  innocent,  if  I  do  not  give  a  testimony  which  I  believir 
to  be  false.  •  •  .  You  menace  me,  as  with  a  great  eril 
with  that  which  I  regard  as  a  great  good.  ...  I  shali 
be  poor  to  the  last,  if  you  do  not  cause  me  to  find  a  trea- 
sure in  my  grave.  Those  who  despise  their  life,  are  no: 
troubled  about  their  burial.  The  sound  of  the  trumpet 
will  be  heard  as  well  in  one  place  as  in  another.'*  * 

It  is  needless  to  enumerate  the  titles  of  Hamon's  pioiis 
treatises,  some  of  which  were  edited  by  Nicole  after  the 
author^s  death,  and  others  continued  to  appear  at  intervals 

*  For  all  these  citations  I  am  indebted  to  St*  Beure,  vol.  It.  p.  SCO,  tt  seq. 


HAMON.  433 

till  far  into  the  eighteenth  century.  The  passages  which  I 
have  quoted  will  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  more  practical  of 
them.  But  Hamon's  mysticism,  as  we  might  expect  from 
his  professional  pursuits,  had  also  an  allegorical  side,  on 
which  it  was  developed  in  utter  contempt  of  logic  and 
common  sense.  A  commentary  on  the  last  six  chapters  of 
the  Song  of  Solomon,  in  continuation  of  St.  Bernard's 
unfinished  work  upon  the  same  subject,  is  the  chief  expres- 
sion of  this  phase  of  his  religious  life.  In  his  ^'  Auto- 
biography" we  have  a  singular  account  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  this  commentary  was  begun.  He  felt 
a  wish  to  write  something;  his  confessors  directed  his 
attention  to  the  Scriptures ;  and  some  natural  affinity  drew 
him  to  the  Song  of  Solomon.  On  the  afternoon  of  a  day 
which  he  had  been  compelled  to  pass  in  Paris,  and  during 
which  he  had  found  it  impossible  to  keep  his  mind  intent 
on  meditation  and  prayer,  he  went  into  an  empty  church 
to  collect  his  wandering  thoughts.  The  words  "  Thy  neck 
is  like  the  tower  of  David,  builded  for  an  armoury,"* 
occurred  to  him,  and,  it  is  impossible  to  say  why, 
appeared  applicable  to  his  state  of  mind.  He  found 
himself  so  comforted  and  edified,  that  when  he  returned 
home  he  committed  his  thoughts  to  paper.  Some  time 
after,  the  words  "Awake,  0  north  wind,"  f  a^d  again  these, 
*^  I  will  get  me  to  the  mountain  of  myrrh,"  J  excited  in  him 
the  desire  of  comment,  and  De  Sapi,  to  whom  he  showed 
his  lucubrations,  directed  him  to  make  them  systematic,  by 
beginning  where  St.  fiemard  had  left  off.  All  that  it  is 
necessary  to  say  of  the  book  is,  that  it  fully  corresponds  to 
so  hopeful  a  conmiencement.  The  Song  of  Solomon  is 
dangerous  ground  for  a  mystic ;  and  Hamon  parted  com- 
pany with  common  sense  when  he  passed  its  frontier. 
Nicole  published  the  commentary  in  all  simplicity  and  good 

•  Chap.  iT.  4.  t  Cbap.  iv.  16.  %  Chap.  iy.  6. 

VOL.  II.  y  !• 


434  POBT  ROYAL. 

faith  ;  ArnaiUd  more  cautiously  hinted^  that  a  selection  of 
its  author's  less  fanciful  allegories  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient.* 

Hamon  survived  the  Peace  of  the  Church  by  Bearh 
twenty  years,  occupying  to  the  last  the  place  of  faithful 
physician  and  friend.     But  the  story  of  the  latter  half  of 
his  life  is  almost  wholly  barren  of  incident     Once  he  was 
sent  to  Alet  to  prescribe  for  the  Bishop ;  once  he  made  a 
voluntary  pilgrimage  to  St.  Cyran  and  La  Trappe.    The 
list  of  his  posthumously  published  works  is  so  long  as  to 
justify  the  belief  that  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in  study. 
He  assumed,  or  was  desired  to  undertake,  the  task  of 
commemorating  in    Latin   epitaphs  the  virtues  of  the 
many  friends  or  inmates  of  Port  Boyal  who  died  during 
the  thirty-seven  years  of  his  connection  with  the  house, 
and  discharged  it  with  an  affectionate  and  tender  zeal. 
which  renders  his  elegant  but  somewhat  diffuse  Latiuity 
a  matter  of  secondary  importance.     In  the  utmost  rude- 
ness of  his  austerity  he  had  never  lost  his  scholarly  h&bitN 
but  loved  to  enshrine  his  daily  thoughts  and  meditations 
in  the  compact  and  nervous  phrase  of  the  sacred  tongue. 
The  following  prayer  to  Jesus  Christ  may  serve  as  an 
example: — Vivam  tecum,  quia  omnia  alia   conversdio 
periculosa  eat     Vivam  de  te,  quia  omne  aliud  alivun- 
turn  venenum  eat.     Vivam  propter  te,  quia  qui  sibi  virlt 
et  non  tibi,  non  vivit  aed  mjortuua  eat,     "  I  will  live  with 
thee,  because  all  other  conversation  is  perilous.     I  will 
live  on  thee,  because  all  other  food  is  poisonous.     I  will 
live  for  tiiee,  because  whosoever  liveth  to  himself,  and  not 
to  thee,  is  not  living  but  dead."     He  never  wholly  gscv^ 
up  his  connection  with  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  in  Pari?: 
though  his  medical  brethren,  looking  at  his  peasaafs  gai\>. 
were  wont  to  say  that  "  there  was  nothing  of  a  physician 

♦  Autobiography,  p.  34.    St«  Bcave,  Tol.  iv.  p.  Ifft. 


SAINTB  MARTHE.  435 

about  him,  except  the  science  and  the  charity."  The  titles 
of  two  theses,  at  the  discussion  of  which  he  presided, 
"Sana  sanis,"  and  "An  actio  sine  spiritu?"  curiously 
illustrate,  in  their  theological  double  meaning,  his  ten- 
dency to  mystic  allegory.  He  died  in  February  1687,  in 
his  sixty-ninth  year,  having  left  Port  Royal  a  week  or  two 
before,  to  preside  over  a  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of  Medi- 
cine, His  portrait,  at  the  foot  of  which  Boileau  inscribed 
some  complimentary  verses,  still  hangs  in  their  council 
chamber  among  those  of  the  great  French  physicians. 
And  fiacine,  returning  in  old  age  to  the  loves  and  memories 
of  his  youth,  desired  to  be  buried  at  his  feet* 
.  A  characteristic  anecdote  of  the  period  when  Hamon 
was  physician,  both  of  body  and  soul,  to  the  imprisoned 
nuns,  is  connected  with  the  name  of  Claude  de  St*  Marthe, 
one  of  the  confessors  of  the  community,  to  the  memoiy  of 
whose  genuine  and  modest  holiness  I  would  willingly  con- 
secrate a  few  lines.  A  lofty  tree  grew  outside  of  the 
garden  wall  at  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  and  so  overtopped 
it,  as  to  permit  any  one  who  had  reached  its  upper 
branches  to  command  part  of  the  garden  with  eye  and 
voice.  Hither,  it  is  said,  came  M.  de  St*  Marthe  more 
than  once  or  twice  during  the  long  imprisonment,  and  ad- 
dressed to  the  nuns,  huddled  together  below  in  the  dark 
winter  nights,  words  of  consolation  and  encouragement. 
The  confessor,  whose  charity  was  thus  bold,  is  one  of  the 
many  obscure  figures  who  at  Port  Royal  elude  or  perplex 
our  scrutiny;  he  takes  a  share  in  all  the  action  of  our 
story,  and  yet  his  life  has  assumed  so  great  a  monotony  of 
piety,  that  we  cannot  tell  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 
He  came  of  a  respectable  parliamentary  family ;  was  edu- 
cated for  the  Church,  but  refused  preferment;  soon  cast 

*  Conf.  Fontaine,  yoL  It.  p.  393.    Beioigne,  yol.  It.  p.  245,  et  teq»   N^cro- 
loge,  p.  95.    Hamon*0  Antobiograpbj,  poMnm,    St*  Beaye,  toL  ir.  p.  175, 
et  seq, 

71  2 


436  POBT  BOTAL. 

in  his  lot  witii  Port  Boyal ;  and,  after  Singlin  died,  aided 
De  Sa^i  to  supply  the  place  of  the  great  ctxifeaBor.  Nicole, 
Bacine  tells  ns,  declared  that  he  was  ^  the  holiest  man 
whom  he  had  seen  at  Port  Boyal ; "  and  it  was  to  him 
that  Pascal  opened  his  heart  on  his  death-bedL  He  bore 
his  part  with  others  in  the  Jansenist  controyeisj,  yet 
always  with  a  firm  gentleness,  which  was  his  eharacteiistic 
quality.  From  1669  to  1679  he  shared  with  De  Sa^i  the 
duties  of  confessor  at  Port  Boyal  des  Champs;  then,  oa 
the  renewal  of  the  persecution,  retired  to  the  house  of  a 
relation  not  far  off.  In  1690  he  died,  having  reached  lus 
seventy-first  year.  A  mCTiorial  distich  well  expresses  hb 
character  and  life : 

'^Impatiens  falsi,  Teriqne  teoador,  inde 
Ingemiiit,  tacuit,  fngk,  et  occabait" 

'^  Impatient  of  falsehood,  more  tenacious  of  truth ;  for 
this  he  groaned,  was  silent,  fled,  and  died.*'  The  nuns  cm 
their  side,  commemorated  what  he  had  been  to  them  io 
the  following  words  from  the  seventy-eighth  psalm,  whicli 
they  placed  upon  his  grave  at  Port  Boyal :  —  *^  Pavit  w' 
i/n  vnnocerUid  cordis  sui,^  "  He  fed  them  in  the  integrity 
of  his  heart  "• 

*  Da  Fo88^,  p.  352.    Besoigne^  yoL  It.  p.  21 1,  et  nf.    K^crologe,  p.  399. 
Si*  Beave,  toI.  ir.  p.  233. 


437 


11. 

An  element  of  instability  was  introduced  into  the  Peace 
of  the  Church,  by  the  fact  that,  of  the  belligerent  parties, 
the  King,  the  Pope,  the  Four  Bishops,  and  the  Jesuits, 
only  the  three  fiurst  took  part  in  the  negotiations,  and 
arranged  the  terms  of  the  treaty.  We  have  seen  already 
that  tlie  royal  confessor,  P^e  Annat,  did  not  hear  of  the 
Peace  till  it  was  irrevocably  concluded,  and  then  expressed 
his  disappointment  in  no  measiured  terms  both  to  the 
Nuncio  and  the  King.*  The  Jesuits  had  the  mortification 
of  perceiving  that  the  treaty,  to  which  their  enemies  had 
given  what  form  they  pleased,  was  imposed  without  their 
consent  upon  themselves;  and  would  have  been  singularly 
untrue  to  the  ruling  principles  of  their  society,  had  they 
not  striven  to  break  a  compact,  which  was  a  constant 
memorial  of  discomfiture.  A  large  part  of  their  strength 
lay  in  their  control  over  the  royal  conscience.  Annat  diid 
in  1670,  but  was  succeeded  by  Ferrier,  another  Jesuit, 
and  he  again  by  the  well-known  P^re  la  Chaise  in  1674. 
Their  work  was  made  easier  by  the  fact,  that  the  persecu- 
tion of  Port  Koyal,  not  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  repre- 
sented the  King's  habitual  convictions  and  policy.  He 
hated  innovation  in  the  Church,,  only  less  than  opposition 
in  the  state ;  and  was  persuaded  that  a  short  and  direct 
road  led  from  heresy  to  rebellion.  It  is  indeed  not  easy  to 
trace  the  motives,  which  induced  him  to  enter  upon  the 
just  and  conciliatory  course,  which  he  pursued  in  his  eccle- 

•  Vol.  I  pp.  435,  436. 
Ff  3 


438  PORT  EOYAL. 

Biastical  administration  between  1668  and  1675.  The 
influence  of  Madame  de  Longueville  went  for  something ; 
the  fear  of  placing  too  large  a  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
Pope,  for  something  more.  Perhaps  we  may  ascribe  some 
influence  to  a  genuine  conviction  that  the  Jesuits  had 
overstated  the  demerits  of  Port  Soyal  and  the  Amaulds ; 
the  Bang,  who  was  not  without  impulses  of  magnanimity, 
took  a  pride  in  investigating  matters  for  himself,  and  in 
forming  his  own  judgment  However  this  may  be,  the 
ancient  prejudices  gradually  returned ;  the  Society,  in  the 
person  of  the  confessor,  was  always  at  hand  to  strengtheu 
old,  and  to  sow  the  seeds  of  new  distrust ;  while  the  re- 
turning prosperity  of  Port  Eoyal  was  sufficiently  great,  and 
imprudent  enough  in  its  display,  to  revive  jealousy  and 
misapprehension.  Thus  the  death  of  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville, in  April  1679,  gave  the  signal  for  the  immediate 
renewal  of  persecution. 

M.  de  Perefixe,  who  died  on  the  1st  of  January  1671, 
escaped  the  perplexity  of  having  to  administer  his  diocese 
on  principles  directly  contrary  to  those  for  which  he  had 
contended  with  more  violence  than  wisdom.  His  successor. 
Harlay  de  Chanvalon,  Archbishop  of  fiouen,  was  a  man  K*i 
very  diflFerent  mould.  He  had  every  advantage  of  figur«r 
and  address ;  was  bland,  adroit,  insinuating  in  his  man- 
ners ;  the  perfect  type  of  the  prelate-courtier.  His  grea: 
administrative  powers,  under  the  direction  of  a  boundless 
ambition,  elevated  him  to  the  post  of  minister  for  ecclesi- 
astical aSairs,  and  might,  under  more  favourable  circum- 
stances, have  seated  him  in  the  chair  of  Richelieu  and 
Mazarin.  Though  far  inferior  in  ability  to  Bossuet,  and 
in  character  only  to  be  named  in  contrast  to  Fenelon, 
he  stood  at  the  head  of  the  Grallican  clergy  in  their  lonsj 
struggle  with  the  Pope ;  and,  had  the  Four  Articles  pn>- 
duced  a  schism,  might  have  been  the  first  patriarch  ot 
France.    Like  many  other  men  of  similar  character  he 


HABLAT.  439 

was  not  wilfully  cruel  or  unjust ;  though  when  cruelty  or 
injustice  was  necessary  to  the  success  of  his  policy,  he  did 
not  turn  aside  for  want  of  either.  His  morals  were  a 
public  scandal ;  no  temporal  prince  could  live  a  softer,  a 
more  splendid,  a  more  dissolute  life  than  this  prince  of  the 
Church.  Port  Royal,  which  had  passed  over  in  indulgent 
silence  the  more  flagitious  profligacy  of  his  predecessor 
De  fietz,  noted  his  sins  with  holy  horror ;  and  tried  to 
trace  to  some  origin  of  fact  his  supposed  personal  ani- 
mosity to  the  community.  The  attempt  failed,  for  the 
animosity  did  not  exist.  Harlay  had  borne  his  part  in 
negotiating  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  and  now  helped  to 
break  it  for  the  same  reason;  —  to  recommend  himself  to 
the  King,  and  so  to  climb  to  the  highest  places  in  the 
Gallican  Church.  He  neither  loved  the  Jesuits  nor  hated 
the  Jansenists ;  but  to  the  end  of  his  life  pursued  a  middle 
path,  on  which  he  was  independent  of  either.  When,  in 
obedience  to  the  royal  command,  he  assumed  the  part  of 
a  persecutor,  he  performed  it  with  the  suavity  of  a  gentle- 
man; he  dealt  his  blows  with  a  courteous  smile,  and 
announced  the  hardest  decisions  in  a  gentle  and  sympa- 
thetic voice.  But  before  long  the  nuns  learned  to  fear 
him  as  much  as  they  had  feaied  M.  de  Perefixe,  and  to 
distrust  him  far  more.* 

But  the  storm  did  not  break  without  giving  more  than 
one  token  of  its  approach.  In  1675  a  dispute  as  to  the 
signature  of  the  Formulary  arose  in  the  diocese  of  Angers, 
where  the  Bishop,  Henri  Arnauld,  had  long  contended  with 
a  party  of  his  clergy,  who  opposed  themselves  alike  to  his 
theology  and  his  administration.  It  is  now  impossible  to 
disentangle  from  their  contradictory  statements  the  true 
facts  of  the  case.  The  Bishop  alleged  that  the  University 
of  Angers  exacted,  in  defiance  of  his  will,  the  pure  and 

•  St.  Simon,  vol.  il  p.  112.     D'Agaesseau,  quoted  by  St«  Bouve,  toL  v. 
p.  8. 

FF  4 


440  PORT  BOYAL. 

simple  signature  of  the  Formulary;  the  University  retorted 
that  the  Bishop  would  receive  only  such  modified  signature 
as  he  and  his  friends  were  prepared  to  give.  Each  party 
was  thus  accused  by  the  other  of  an  infraction  of  the 
Peace ;  but  each  denied  the  truth  of  the  other's  allegation. 
After  much  preliminary  conflict  the  matter  was  referred  to 
the  Kingy  who,  in  an  edict  dated  May  SOth,  1676,  made  a 
declaration  which  seemed  to  unsettle  the  very  foundations 
of  the  Peace.  For  he  expressly  said  that ''  his  condescen- 
sion ...  in  admitting  some  signatures  of  the  For- 
mulary with  a  more  detailed  explanation,  in  favour  of 
certain  private  individuals  only,  and  with  a  view  of  reliev- 
ing them  from  their  scruples,"  was  not  to  be  interpreted 
as  a  "  revocation  of  the  bull  which  prescribes  the  signature 
of  the  Formulary  on  oath."  By  this  statement  the  Peace 
was  at  once  transformed  from  a  compact  between  the  throne 
and  a  great  party  in  the  Church,  into  an  act  of  royal  grace 
to  one  or  two  over-sensitive  consciences,  which  was  not  to 
be  drawn  into  a  precedent.* 

Occasions  of  oflFence  come  quickly  when  men  are  upon 
the  watch  for  them.  In  1677,  the  King's  suspicions  were 
once  more  directed  against  Amauld  and  Nicole.  The 
Bishops  of  Arras  and  of  St.  Pons,  who  had  conceived  the 
idea  of  addressing  to  the  new  Pope,  Innocent  XI.,  a  letter, 
complaining  of  the  perversions  of  morality  contained  in 
the  books  of  the  casuists,  prevailed  upon  Nicole,  through 
the  intervention  of  Madame  de  Longueville,  to  undertake 
its  composition.  Nicole  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  origi- 
nation, or  even  with  the  substance  of  the  document ;  hLi 
sole  business  was  to  turn  it  into  correct  and,  if  it  migbt 
be,  elegant  Latin.  When  the  task  was  done,  the  letter 
was  submitted  for  signature  to  several  bishops,  one  of 
whom  soon  took  it  to  Harlay  and  the  King.     Lonis,  hotly 

*  Gnilbert,  toI.  il  p.  60,  et  m^. 


* 


RENEWAL  OF  TROUBLE.  441 

forbidding  all  the  prelates  of  the  kingdom  to  prosecute 
the  matter  farther,  turned  the  full  force  of  his  anger  upon 
Amauld  and  Nicole.  He  directed  Pomponne  to  write  to 
his  imcle  with  the  statement  "  that  the  King,  who  had 
hitherto  been  satisfied,  with  his  conduct,  was  no  longer  so 
in  the  affair  of  tiiis  letter  to  the  Pope,  which  he  looked 
upon  as  the  beginning  of  fresh  disputes.^'  A  long  corre- 
spondence followed ;  Amauld  defended  himself  and  his 
friend ;  the  Bishop  of  Arras  weakly  and  falsely  disavowed 
his  share  in  the  letter ;  and  Pomponne  acted  ¥dth  more 
regard  for  his  place  than  honesty  to  Arnauld,  or  loyalty  to 
the  truth.  Fresh  misunderstandings  arose  to  complicate 
and  to  embitter  the  first ;  and  little  more  was  needed  to 
urge  the  King  to  decisive  action.* 

But  the  dispute  of  the  Begale,  destined  to  have  so  great 
and  so  lasting  an  influence  upon  the  Gallican  Church, 
had  been  begun  in  1673,  and  in  1675  broke  out  into  open 
warfare.  It  unfortunately  happened  that  the  King's  only 
episcopal  opponents  were  Pavilion  of  Alet,  and  Caulet  of 
Pamiers,  two  of  the  Four  who  had  defended  the  cause  of 
Port  Royal,  and  whose  virtues  were  still  a  main  support  of 
the  Jansenist  party.  Pomponne,  politic  as  usual,  was  in 
despair  at  this  new  complication.  But  it  luckily  happened 
that  Arnauld  had  not  as  yet  mingled  in  the  fray ;  could 
he  not  be  brought  to  make  a  public  declaration  of  neu- 
trality? The  minister,  who  did  not  himself  venture  to 
lay  this  proposal  before  his  impracticable  uncle,  persuaded 
his  sister,  La  M^e  Angelique  de  St.  Jean,  to  undertake 
the  communication.  She  wrote  hesitatingly  and  with  a. 
half-protest,  as  if  she  expected  some  such  answer  as  she 
received.  Amauld  begins  his  reply  by  wondering  that 
the  air  of  the  court  should  so  corrupt  the  conscience  as  to 

♦  Gailbert,  toI.  ii.  p.  129.  et  acq.  Vie  d'Antoine  Arnaald,  toI.  ii.  p.  72. 
ei  seq.  Vie  de  Nicole,  p.  264,  et  seq.  Lettres  d'A.  Arnauld,  toI.  iii.  Nos. 
171,  177,  178;  toL  riii.  Nos.  52,  53. 


442  POET  KOYAL, 

induce  Pomponne  to  send  him  such  advioe  as  his  niece 
has  now  transmitted.  It  is  difficidt  enough  to  believe  that 
silence  in  such  a  quarrel  is  right  before  God.  **  But  that 
beyond  this,"  he  breaks  out,  *'  I  should  of  my  own  accord 
make  a  cowardly  declaration  that  I  have  taken  no  part  in 
what  two  holy  Bishops  have  done  in  the  best  of  causes, — 
a  cause  in  which  they  could  have  had  in  view  only  the 
glory  of  Grod,  and  the  preservation  of  their  Churches' 
rights, — and  in  what  holy  ecclesiastics  continue  to  div 
whose  firm  devotion  to  their  duty  under  the  harshe^i 
treatment  is  an  occasion  for  praise  to  G-od,  for  that  He 
deigns  to  give  us  in  this  unhappy  time,  wherein  one  sees 
only  baseness  and  subservience,  examples  of  generositj 
worthy  of  the  best  ages ;  that  I  should  make,  I  say,  a 
declaration  which  would  lead  men  to  suppose  that  I  was 
at  least  neutral  in  this  matter,  is  truly  so  shamefial  a  thing, 
as  to  render  it  incomprehensible  to  me  that  any  one  ^ould 
have  dared  to  propose  it.  But  I  wonder  no  less  how  anj 
one  should  imagine  that  this  could  place  us  in  a  more 
favourable  light  before  the  King's  mind ;  instead  of  which, 
it  appears  to  me  clearer  than  the  day,  that  the  only  result 
would  be  the  loss  of  our  reputation  in  the  world  for  sin- 
cerity and  generosity.  For  those  who  believed  this  decla- 
ration sincere,  would  take  us  for  cowards,  and  those  who 
did  not,  for  rogues.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  thi^ 
which  deters  me.  For  if  I  were  assured  that  it  would 
have  the  best  possible  result,  and  that  for  want  of  it  all 
that  is  dearest  to  me  in  the  world  would  be  irretrievably 
f  uined,  I  should  not  be  less  averse  to  doing  what  has  been 
proposed  to  me ;  because  we  are  no  true  Christians  if  we 
are  not  resolved  to  follow  in  the  conduct  of  our  lives  these 
two  maxims:  the  one  of  St.  Paul,  ^Non  sunt  faciend4j 
mala^  ut  eveniant  bona,^ — *We  are  not  to  do  evil  that 
good  may  come ; '  the  other  of  St  Augustine,  *  Quad  no^ 


RENEWAL  OF  TROUBLE.  443 

potest  ju8te^  rum  potest  Justus^ — *  That  which  cannot  be 
done  justly,  the  just  man  cannot  do.' 

**  I  know  well  that  those  who  give  this  advice  would  not 
give  it  if  they  saw  in  it  anything  contrary  to  conscience. 
But  this  it  is  which  astonishes  me,  and  which  I  can  only 
impute  to  an  excess  of  affection  for  a  holy  house  whose 
ruin  they  fear, — a  fear  which  makes  them  believe  that, 
provided  only  they  do  not  lie,  there  is  no  statement  which 
they  may  not  make  to  appease  an  unjustly  irritated  King. 
Is  it  not  true,  they  say,  that  you  have  done  nothing  in 
this  affair  ?  It  is.  You  can  say  so,  then  ?  Yes,  if  I  am 
asked,  and  if  I  cannot  evade  the  necessity  of  reply.  And 
even  in  that  case,  I  should  be  obliged  to  add,  that  my 
inaction  has  not  been  for  want  of  good-will,  but  only  of 
opportunity.  But  it  is  qidte  another  thing  to  say  this 
without  being  asked.  For  that  would  be  nothing  less 
than  to  give  the  King  the  impression  that  the  matter  ap- 
peared to  me  doubtful,  and  that  I  was  neither  on  one  side 
nor  the  other ;  that  is  to  say,  that  I  was  neutral  between 
Jesus  Christ  and  the  devil."  * 

The  writer  of  such  a  letter  as  this  was  a  candidate  for 
any  crown  of  martyrdom  which  it  was  the  custom  of  his  age 
to  bestow.  In  Spain  his  doom  might  have  been  the  Auto- 
da-Fe ;  in  France  it  was  no  more  severe  than  exile.  Three 
weeks  after  Madame  de  Longueville's  death,  Pomponne 
announced  to  Arnauld,  by  royal  command,  that  he  would 
not  be  suffered  to  make  himself  the  centre  of  the  Jansenist 
cabal  which  had  met  at  the  Hotel  de  Longueville.  In  a 
few  days  more,  Harlay  followed  up  Pomponne's  visit,  by 
requiring  Arnauld  to  quit  his  house  in  the  Fauxbourg  St. 
Jacques,  and  to  take  up  his  abode  in  a  less  suspected 
quarter.  He  obeyed  by  retiring  to  Fontenai-aux-Rosea, 
two  leagues  from  Paris.     But  before   he  had  been  long 

♦  Inures  d'A.  Arnauld,  toI.  vui.  p.  82. 


444  PORT  ROYAL. 

there^  the  Due  de  Montausier,  who  as  Groyemor  of  the 
Dauphin  held  a  high  position  at  courts  sent  him  word,  that 
if  he  consulted  his  own  safety,  he  would  leave  France  as  soon 
as  possible.  Even  in  this  last  strait,  his  loyalty  gaided  him  in 
the  choice  of  an  asylum :  he  would  not  go  to  Romey  where 
he  was  sure  of  an  honourable  reception  from  Innoc^it  XL, 
lest  he  should  seem  to  take  refuge  with  the  King's 
enemies ;  and  therefore  decided  to  repair  to  the  Austrian 
Netherlands.  He  set  out  from  Paris  about  the  middle  of 
June  1679,  and  four  days  afterwards  arrived  at  Mon& 
Here  for  a  while  we  will  leave  him,  while  we  watdi  the 
bursting  of  the  storm  upon  Port  Royal.  He  is  sixty-eight 
years  of  age;  he  is  already  beginning  to  suffer  an  old 
man's  infirmities ;  his  means  are  inadequate  to  the  require- 
ments of  residence  in  a  foreign  country ;  and  fifteen  long 
years  of  banishment  still  stretch  before  him.  But  his  only 
regret  is  that  he  is  compelled  to  quit  his  friends.  Even 
this  is  not  without  its  consolation;  for,  *' to  those  who 
sacrifice  all  for  God,  Grod  stands  in  place  of  alL"  To  the 
last  he  will  be  faithful  to  the  oath  which  he  took  when  the 
Sorbonne  declared  him  doctor:  that  he  would  defend  the 
truth  at  all  risks,  "  even  to  the  shedding  of  blood."  • 

When  Madame  de  Longueville  died,  on  the  15th  of 
April  1679,  Angelique  de  St.  Jean  Amauld  was  Abbess  of 
Port  Royal.  She  had  succeeded  in  that  office  La  M^re  du 
Fargis,  who  had  been  chosen  immediately  after  the  Peace 
in  1669,  and  had  held  the  chair,  in  virtue  of  three  succes- 
sive elections,  till  1678.  Many  of  the  memoirs,  in  which 
the  earlier  history  of  the  reformed  Port  Royal  is  preserved, 
were  the  productions  of  her  pen,  and  it  is  to  her  minute 
narrative  f  that  we  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  drcumstances 
under  which  the  second  persecution  was  commenced.  On 
the  9ih  of  May,  four  days  after  Pomponne's  visit  of  wam- 

*  Vie  d*A.  Arnaald,  toI.  ii.  p.  103,  et  eeq. 
t  Gnilbert,  toI.  ii.  p.  184,  et  s^. 


HARLAY  AT   PORT  ROYAL.  445 

ing  to  Arnauld,  two  ecclesiastics,  who  announced  themselves 
as  messengers  from  the  Archbishop,  arrived  at  Port  Royal, 
and  asked  to  see  the  Abbess.  Their  errand,  which  they 
courteously  performed,  was  to  inquire  into  the  numbers  of 
the  community.  The  Abbess  answered  that  the  house 
contained  seventy-three  professed,  and  twenty  lay  sisters ; 
besides  two  novices,  several  postulants,  and  forty-two 
boarders.  The  visitors  expressed  surprise  when  they  heard 
the  report,  and  still  more  when  they  learned  that  the 
number  had  not  been  increased  since  the  Peace.  In  general 
they  seemed  to  find  the  establishment  in  the  valley  much 
smaller  and  less  complete  than  they  looked  for,  and  went 
away  with  many  compliments.  Their  visit  was,  however, 
only  a  prelude  to  that  of  the  Archbishop,  who  unexpectedly 
amved  on  the  17  th  of  May.  He  came  as  High  Mass  was 
beginning  to  be  said,  and  so  found  no  one  ready  to  receive 
him.  His  first  interview  was  with  De  Sa9i,  whom  he  re- 
quested to  preparethe  Abbess's  mind  for  the  commimica- 
tion  of  the  royal  commands.  The  key  note  of  his  visit  was 
struck  in  his  first  words ;  nothing  could  be  more  bland  than 
the  compliments  with  which  on  behalf  of  himself  and  the 
King,  he  overwhelmed  the  confessor.  His  conduct,  his 
works,  his  love  of  peace  all  came  in  for  abundant  com- 
mendation ;  pity  that  other  of  his  friends  were  not  more 
like  him.  So  when  the  Abbess  met  the  Archbishop  in  the 
parlour,  his  hat  was  in  his  hand  at  every  word  she  spoke ; 
his  voice  and  phrases  were  expressive  of  the  tenderest 
sympathy ;  and  he  was  as  explicit  in  asserting  the  blameless- 
ness  of  the  house  as  in  declaring  the  King's  unalterable 
intentions  in  regard  to  it  He  seemed  to  regret  that  he 
had  no  choice  but  to  interdict  the  reception  of  fresh  novices 
till  the  number  of  professed  nims  was  reduced  to  fifty. 
Three  postulants  who  were  about  to  take  the  veil  as  novices 
might  be  suffered  to  remain ;  all  the  rest  must  be  at  once  sent 
away.     The  boarders  were  in  like  manner  expelled  from  the 


446  FORT  ROYAL. 

house,  and  the  commumty  forbidden  to  receive  others  until 
further  notice. 

The  only  reason  which  the  Archbishop  gave  for  thi> 
sudden  and  violent  proceeding  —  a  reason  which  he  seemed 
to  think  amply  sufl&cient — was  "that  the  canons  of  tiie 
Church  provide  that  no  greater  number  of  nuns  shall  k 
received  in  a  monastery  than  its  funds  are  able  to  support, 
and  that  the  property  of  this  house  having  been  diminisbd 
by  the  decree  of  division,  the  community  was  dispropor- 
tionately numerous.'^  Ang^lique  in  vain  reminded  him,  that 
the  King  and  M.  de  Perefixe  had  themselves  fixed  tb? 
number  of  the  community,  after  the  separation  from  Fort 
Koyal  de  Paris,  at  seventy-two  professed  sisters;  and 
pointed  out  that  the  prohibition  to  receive  boarders  t»i' 
the  greatest  blow  that  could  possibly  be  struck  against  tic 
resources  of  the  house.  The  Archbishop  feS  back  upon  the 
royal  will,  of  which  he  was  less  the  interpreter  than  tbt 
unwilling  instrument,  and  tried  to  make  sympathy  i!^^ 
solicitude  do  the  work  of  explanation  and  argument.  Bi' 
only  attempt  at  excuse  was  to  say,  that  the  King  was  wesn 
of  always  hearing  of  Port  Royal,  of  Messieurs  de  Port  Boj^ 
that  Amauld  was  the  centre  of  a  clique ;  that  he  was  s 
rallying  point  of  discontent  in  church  and  state;  and  ^ 
forth,  through  much  indefinite  accusation.  But  whetbc! 
from  a  genuine  reluctance  to  wound,  or  in  accordance  vir: 
the  whole  subtle  policy  of  his  visit,  he  reserved  the  sharped 
arrow  in  his  quiver  for  the  last  He  had  taken  leave  oUU 
Abbess  and  was  being  conducted  to  his  carriage  by  De  Sa(i 
when  he  suddenly  turned  round,  and  addressing  the  latter 
"in  a  pleasant  tone  of  voice,**  informed  him,  that  theKH 
did  not  intend  to  permit  either  him  or  any  of  the  otbf: 
confessors  to  remain  at  Port  Royal,  and  that  therefore,  tk} 
had  better  quietly  withdraw  within  a  fortnight  Tlicii 
after  having  inflicted  as  much  mischief  in  one  court^^^' 
visit  of  a  few  hours  as  M.  de  Perefixe  in  the  stomj 


BLOCKADE.  447 

struggle  of  as  many  months,  he  drove  away,  leaving  dismay 
and  despair  behind  him. 

A  very  short  trial  convinced  the  sisterhood  and  their 
friends  that  all  attempt  at  remonstrance  would  be  vain. 
The  King  would  receive  no  appeal ;  the  Archbishop  shel- 
tered himself  behind  the  immovable  resolution  of  the 
King.  The  royal  orders  were  soon  executed,  with  even 
more  severity  than  Harlay  had  at  first  threatened.  The 
postulants,  including  the  three  who  had  been  promised 
admission  among  the  novices,  were  dismissed ;  the  boarders 
sent  home.  Tillemont,  who  had  just  been  ordained  priest, 
with  the  intention  of  succeeding  to  De  Sari's  oflSce  as  con- 
fessor, retired  to  the  paternal  estate  from  which  he  took 
his  name :  De  Sa9i,  now  verging  upon  his  seventieth  year, 
withdrew  to  Pomponne  to  spend  the  brief  remnant  of  his 
days  in  the  biblical  studies  which  he  loved.  It  was  easy 
to  penetrate  the  secret  of  the  royal  policy.  The  citadel, 
which  had  withstood  the  sharp  aasault  of  M.  de  Perefixe, 
was  now  to  be  reduced  by  patient  blockade.  The  reduc- 
tion of  the  nuns  to  the  number  of  fifty  —  a  number  itself 
arbitrarily  fixed  —  was  a  pretence  without  power  of  decep- 
tion ;  only  the  most  sanguine  could  hope  that  permission 
to  receive  novices  would  ever  again  be  granted.  The 
sisterhood  was  destined  to  die  a  slow,  but  yet  a  natural 
death;  one  by  one  the  seats  in  the  church  would  be 
emptied,  one  by  one  the  graves  beneath  its  shadow  would 
be  filled,  till  at  last  the  church  and  the  graves  would  be 
the  sole,  silent  relics  of  Port  Koyal.  Meanwhile,  no  ray 
of  royal  indulgence  should  be  suffered  to  reach  the  ever- 
lessening  community  which  thus  maintained  a  lingering 
existence;  they  should  be  cut  off  firom  the  friends  on 
whom  they  were  wont  to  rely,  and  debarred  from  all  op- 
portunity of  forming  new  ones ;  whatever  portion  of  their 
income  could  be  intercepted,  without  actual  spoliation, 
should  be  taken  away;  and  the  King  would  look  with 


448  PORT  ROYAL. 

angry  frown  on  all  who  tendered  sympathy  or  aid.  Such 
was  the  policy  which  was  pursued  without  interruption  or 
remission  to  the  last.  Once,  indeed,  there  was  a  scheme, 
which  was  not  carried  into  execution,  for  again  uniting 
Port  Royal  des  Champs  with  Port  Royal  de  Paris  under  a 
new  Abbess,  and  destroying  by  this  means  the  distinctiTe 
character  of  the  former.  With  this  exception,  if  excep- 
tion it  can  be  called,  the  monastery  was  suffered  to  perish 
of  slow  decay  through  the  last  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Then  the  Jesuits,  perhaps  fearing  that  the 
wretched  remnant  of  the  once  numerous  community  might 
survive  the  King,  and  under  a  milder  rule  again  flourish 
as  of  old,  struck  a  sudden  and  fatal  blow ;  as  if  impelled 
by  some  secret  prompting  of  Divine  Justice  to  recall  tt^ 
men's  memories  that  Port  Royal  had  not  perished  by 
natural  extinction,  but  had  been  foully  done  to  death.* 

It  was,  however,  necessary  that  the  nuns  should  have  some 
ecclesiastical  aid ;  the  services  in  the  convent  church  were 
to  be  kept  up,  and  the  community  had  committed  no  fresh 
offence  which  would  justify  the  Archbishop  in  depriving 
them  of  the  sacraments.  So  he  desired  them  to  name  a 
number  of  priests,  from  whom  he  would  select  two,  who 
might  supply  such  scanty  measure  of  religious  help  and 
comfort,  as  he  judged  sufficient.  He  did  not  want  men  of 
learning  and  ability,  for  the  sisterhood,  he  thought,  already 
knew  too  much :  any  who  were  suspected  of  Jansenist  ta- 
dencies  he  would  not  appoint ;  and  yet  a  violent  Molinist 
might  precipitate  matters  in  a  way  inconsistent  with  bi> 
gentle  and  subtle  policy.  A  new  diflSculty  arose  in  a 
quarter  whence  it  was  not  looked  for.  Men  of  good  cha- 
racter and  unblemished  reputation,  who  had  no  special 
sympathy  with  Port  Royal,  and  yet  were  willing  to 
encounter  the  risks  of  a  residence  there,  were  hard  to  be 

*  Guilbert,  toI.  ii.  pp.  216,  224,  244»  30a 


LE   TOURNEUX.  449 

found.  They  shrank  equally  from  identif3ring  themselves 
with  the  community^  and  from  making  themselves  the 
tools  of  its  opponents.  Out  of  twenty-seven  ecclesiastics 
whose  names  were  mentioned,  three  were  objected  to  by 
the  Archbishop,  and  no  fewer  than  twenty-two  refused  to 
serve.*  The  two  obscure  priests,  on  whom  the  choice 
rested,  found  it  before  long  impossible  to  maintain  their 
place.  Then  the  Archbishop,  in  spite  of  **  the  good  nose 
for  Jansenism  "  which  he  boasted  of  possessing,  sometimes 
made  mistakes,  and  sufifered  a  friend  in  disguise  to  gain 
admittance  to  the  beleaguered  citadel.  In  November,  1680, 
a  M.  Lemoine  came  to  Port  Royal  as  confessor,  and  had 
won  all  hearts,  when  it  was  suddenly  discovered  that  he 
had  been  not  only  a  director  of  Pavilion's  seminary  at 
Alet,  but  the  instrument  of  conveying  to  the  Bishop  of 
Pamiers,  when  deprived  of  his  episcopal  income  for  his 
resistance  in  the  affair  of  the  fiegale,  the  alms  of  the 
faithful.  The  alarm  was  at  once  sounded,  and  M.  Le- 
moine was  expelled,  only  to  make  way  for  a  more  danger- 
ous successor.  The  Due  de  Roannez,  still  a  faithful  friend 
of  the  community,  ventured  to  recommend  to  the  Arch- 
bishop M.  le  Tourneux.  But  liad  he  not  once  made  a 
retreat  at  Port  Royal  in  its  palmy  days  ?  asked  the  wary 
Harlay.  The  Duke  answered  the  question  truthfully,  but 
concealed  much  that  would  have  marred  the  effect  of  his 
answer.  M.  le  Tourneux  had  once  been  taken  ill  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs,  had  been 
hospitably  received,  and  tenderly  nursed  ihere ;  this  was 
the  sole  foundation  for  the  story  of  retreat,  M.  de  Roannez 
did  not  tell  the  Archbishop  that  the  new  candidate  for  the 
office  of  confessor  owed  his  education  to  the  family  of  Dii 
Fosse,  who  were  attached  heart  and  soul  to  the  cause  of  the 

♦  Guilbert,  vol  ii.  p.  242. 

VOL.  n.  o  a 


450  POET  ROYAL. 

sisterhood;  that  many  of  his  most  intimate  friends  had 
been  solitaries  at  Port  Boyal^  and  that  his  opinions  were  as 
thoroughly  Jansenist  as  those  of  Arnaiild  himself.     The 
appointment  was  made,  but  soon  cancelled.     Le  Toomeui 
was  a  bom  orator,  one  who  might  have  rivalled  the  &me 
of  Massillon   or  Bourdaloue,   had    greater   opportunities 
opened  before  him,  or  had  his  theological  convictions  been 
on  the  side  of  the  court     He  preached  in  Paris  during 
Lent,  1682,  with  extraordinary  success.     The  King  is  re- 
corded •  to  have  said  one  day  to  Boileau,  **  Who  is  thi- 
preacher  whom  they  call  Le  Tourneux  ?     They  say  that  all 
the  world  runs  after  him, — is  he  then  so  clever  ?  "  «« Sire," 
answered  Boileau,  "  your  Majesty  knows  that  people  always 
run  after  something  new ;  this  is  a  preacher  who  preacher 
the  Gospel."     And  on  being  pressed  by  the  King  to  give 
his  own  opinion,  he  said,  '^  When  he  enters  the  pulpit  ht 
frightens  you  so  by  his  ugliness  that  you  wish  to  see  him 
leave  it ;  but  when  he  has  begun  to  speak,  your  only  fear 
is  lest  he  should  leave  it."     His  style  of  preaching  was 
simple,  familiar,  practical :  he  is  recorded  to  have  made 
but  little  preparation  for  the  pulpit,  and  to  have  trusted  t*} 
the  impulse  of  the  moment  for  power  to  enforce  the  grea: 
truths  which  filled  his  mind.     His  published  works  were 
of  the  same  character :  one  of  them,  "  The  Christian  Year," 
which  included  Sacine's  translation  of  the  hymns  of  the 
Breviary,  attained  a  wide  popularity,  not  diminished  by 
the  fact  that  it  was  condemned  by  the  Holy  See,  on  the 
ground  that  it  contained  a  translation  of  the  office  of  the 
Mass  into  the  vulgar  tongue.     M.  le  Tourneux^  who  was 
withdrawn  from  Port  Boyal  after  the  too  great  success 
of  his  Lent  sermons  in  1682,  died  suddenly  in    1686. 
Though  never  connected  with  the  monastery  by  any  closer 
ties  than  those  which  I  have  mentioned,  he  bequeathed  to 

*  Vie  do  lUcine,  p.  98. 


DECUNE  OP  JANSENISM.  451 

it  the  sum  of  4000  livres,  the  profits  of  his  theological 
works;  and  his  heart  was  deposited  in  its  Church.* 

It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  at  length  of  the  other  con- 
fessors, who  were  entrusted  with  the  charge  of  the  slowly 
dying  community  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  its  exist- 
ence. One  of  them,  M.  £ustace,  who  after  a  short  interval 
succeeded  Le  Tourneux  in  1686,  remained  at  Port  Koyal 
till  1705.  His  youth,  when  he  first  accepted  the  ofiice, 
threw  a  shade  of  doubt  upon  his  qualifications ;  but  the 
influence  of  Port  Eoyal,  even  in  those  days  of  decrepitude, 
was  sufficiently  strong  to  mould  him  into  its  own  likeness, 
and  he  became,  at  least  in  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the 
house,  a  not  unworthy  successor  of  Singlin  and  De  Sa^i-f 
But  the  great  men,  whose  names  are  associated  wi|:h  the 
most  flourishing  period  of  French  Jansenism,  are  rapidly 
passing  away,  and  their  places  are  occupied  by  others  of 
inferior  mark.  Quesnel  is  but  a  weaker  Amauld,  Du  Guet, 
a  lesser  Singlin ;  while  even  these  belong  not  so  much  to 
our  tale  as  to  the  melancholy  story  of  the  Jansenism  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  For  a  few  years,  the  historian  of  Port 
Royal  must  be  content  to  chronicle  the  slow  progress  of 
decay,  the  successive  conquests  of  death.  Even  were  he 
to  pass  beyond  the  proper  limits  of  his  subject,  he  could 
borrow  for  the  conclusion  of  his  narrative,  but  a  sickly  and 
transitory  life  from  the  succeeding  generation.  The  golden 
age  of  Jansenism  perished  with  Port  Boyal. 

The  beginning  of  1684  brought  with  it  a  new  occasion 
of  grief  in  the  death  of  De  Sa9i,  the  last  of  the  three  great 
confessors,  who  had  impressed  upon  Port  Soyal  its  peculiar 
character  of  sober  piety,  of  reserved  austerity.  When  the 
Peace  of  the  Church  released  him  from  the  Bastille,  he 

*  For  the  aboTe,  and  more  precise  information  as  to  M.  le  Tonmenz, 
see  Da  FossI,  pp.  330,  et  seq.  391.  Guilbert,  toI.  ii.  p.  466;  vol.  iii.  p.  26. 
Besoigne,  toI.  ▼.  p.  101,  et  seg,    St*  Beavc,  vol.  v.  p.  57,  et  seq, 

t  Besoigne,  toI.  v.  p.  123. 

O  G  2 


452  PORT  ROYAL. 

did  not  at  once  return  to  Port  Royal  dee  Champs;  but 
rejecting  all  offers  of  preferment,  retired  to  Pomponne. 
where  he  spent  three  or  four  quiet  studious  years.  To 
Pomponne  he  again  betook  himself,  when  M.  de  Harlay's 
visit  to  Port  Koyal  in  1679  once  more  expelled  him  froiQ 
his  chosen  solitude.  The  last  five  years  of  his  life  were 
occupied  in  the  bibUcal  labours,  of  which  I  shall  presendj 
give  an  account;  once  only,  during  that  period,  he  returned 
to  Port  Royal,  by  special  permission  of  tiie  King,  to  rec&ve 
the  confession  of  Madlle.  de  Vertus,  now  old  and  bedriddeiL 
During  the  summer  of  1683,  De  Sa^i,  then  more  than 
seventy  years  of  age,  was  attacked  with  intermittent  fever: 
but  a  visit  to  Paris,  and  the  medical  treatment  which  he 
there  underwent,  seemed  to  restore  him  to  perfect  health, 
and  his  friends  welcomed  him  on  his  return  to  Pomponne. 
as  one  given  back  to  them  from  the  dead.  Their  joy  wa» 
of  short  duration;  the  remedies  had  only  driven  the  diseae^ 
inward  upon  some  vital  part.  On  the  3rd  of  Januarv. 
St.  Gene\i^ve's  day,  he  said  mass  in  his  private  chapel: 
then,  sitting  dovm  at  noon  to  his  firugal  dinner  with  one 
or  two  friends,  discoursed  for  almost  two  hours  on  the  life 
of  the  Saint,  with  singular  enthusiasm  and  force.  Tho^ 
who  had  been  present  at  the  morning's  mass  noticed  that 
he  had  spoken  of  ineffable  mysteries,  as  if  he  had  seen 
them  with  the  eyes  of  the  body,  no  veil  or  cloud  between ; 
now  a  friend  remarked,  on  leaving  the  table,  **  He  is  not 
long  for  this  world;  we  shall  soon  lose  him.**  In  a  moment 
more,  he  cried  for  help  in  a  strangely  altered  voice;  adding, 
with  the  last  thoughtfulness  of  love,  "  Do  not  fiighten  my 
cousin  Luzanpi."  He  was  at  once  carried  to  bed,  but  did 
not  survive  many  hours.  The  next  day,  the  4th  of  Janu- 
ary 1684,  was  his  last. 

His  will  provided  that  he  should  be  buried  at  Port 
Eoyal  des  Champs;  where  the  nuns  awaited  with  sad 
eagerness  the  return  of  the  dead  confessor^  to  abide  with 


DE   SA9l'S  BURIAL.  45» 

those  who  had  so  loved  and  obeyed  him  in  life.  As  yet 
Louis  and  his  Jesuit  directors  did  not  make  war  upon  the 
dead,  and  no  opposition  was  offered  to  the  transference  of 
the  body  from  Pomponne  to  Port  Boyal.  The  journey  was 
through  Paris,  where  the  coffin  was  to  remain  for  a  night 
in  the  church  of  St.  Jacques  du  Haut-Pas,  the  last  resting- 
place  of  St.  Cyran.  Some  of  the  great  Jansenist  ladies  of 
Paris,  and  especially  the  Duchesse  de  Lesdigui^res,  had 
prepared  a  solemn  torchlight  procession,  to  meet  the 
funeral  at  the  Porte  St.  Antoine,  and  thence  escort  it  to  the 
church ;  but  it  was  deemed  prudent  not  only  to  avoid  so 
perilous  an  honour,  but  at  once  to  continue  the  route  to 
Port  Royal.  There,  in  the  first  grey  dawn  of  a  winter's 
morning,  the  little  party,  which  had  struggled  all  night 
with  snow  and  ice,  such  as  few  living  men  remembered  to 
have  seen,  were  met  in  mournful  array  by  the  sisterhood, 
who  welcomed  their  friend  and  father  to  his  rest,  "  with 
love  that  burned  more  brightly  in  their  hearts  than  the 
tapers  in  their  hands."  They  ventured,  although  he  had 
been  so  long  dead,  to  open  the  coffin,  and  to  clothe  the 
corpse,  according  to  usage,  in  priestly  vestments;  the 
countenance  was  unchanged,  and  almost  seemed  to  feel 
and  to  retiirn  the  kiss  of  peace  and  farewell.  Then  it  was 
solemnly  committed  to  the  earth. 

The  Abbess,  Ang^lique  de  St  Jean  Amauld,  De  Sayi'a 
cousin  and  close  friend,  led  the  long  procession  of  her 
nuns  with  an  apparent  calmness  which  boded  no  good. 
When  Fontaine  had  begged  her  to  postpone  the  interment 
for  a  few  hours,  that  he  might  delay  the  moment  of  sepa- 
ration from  his  beloved  friend  and  master,  she  had  answered, 
almost  hardly  as  it  seemed,  **  that  it  was  needful  to  hide 
in  the  earth  that  which  was  only  earth,  and  to  give  back 
to  nothingness  what  in  itself  was  no  more  than  nothing- 
ness." She  had  told  the  sisterhood,  that  tears  and  lamen- 
tations were  unworthy  of  him  who  was  gone,  and  of  the 

Q  Q  3 


454  PORT  ROYAL. 

God  in  whom  they  pat  their  trust ;  and,  herself  setting  the 
example,  repressed  their  passionate  lamentations.  But 
inward  tears,  like  inward  bleedings,  are  more  dangerous 
than  those  which  find  their  way  to  the  light ;  only  tliree 
weeks  had  passed,  when  another  funeral  procession  paced 
the  aisles, —  this  time  bearing  the  Abbess  to  her  grave. 
Her  heart  had  broken  for  very  love;  since  her  cousin's 
burial  she  had  spent  some  part  of  every  day  at  his  tomb, 
begging  Grod  to  take  her  too ;  and  now  the  prayer  was 
answered.  She  died  on  the  29th  of  January ;  on  the  13* 
of  February,  her  brother  De  Luzan9i,  who  forty-two  yearj 
before  had  fled  in  the  heyday  of  youth  to  the  sacred  desert, 
was  brought  back,  and  laid  by  De  Sapi's  side.  He  too 
had  pined  away  for  want  of  the  friend  of  a  lifetime,  an*i 
fell,  as  the  vine  falls  with  the  elm  to  which  it  clinp^ 
Poor  Fontaine,  who  amid  all  changes  of  fortune,  in  the 
Bastille  as  at  Port  Royal,  had  been  De  Safi's  companion 
and  second  self,  reproached  himself  that  the  stroke  vas 
not  mortal  to  him  too.  "  I  confess,"  he  says  *,  "  that  see- 
ing this  brother  and  sister  thus  slain  by  M.  de  Sayi's  death, 
I  blushed, — I  who  thought  that  I  had  always  loved  him,- 
that  I  did  not  follow  him  like  them ;  and  I  returned  hal^ 
in  despair  with  myself,  for  loving  so  little  in  comparison 
with  those  whose  love  had  been  strong  as  death.  I  ^ 
transported  above  measure  with  this  triumph  of  affection, 
which  overcomes  all  obstacles,  and  breaks  those  bonds  of 
the  body,  which  hold  it  back,  and  hinder  it  from  foUowiug 
its  object  I  waa  humiliated  to  have  so  small  a  part  in  it.  7 
De  Sa9i's  character  is  one  which  it  is  not  easy  to  as- 
cribe: he  moves  among  his  brethren  of  Port  Royal  lik^* 
monk  among  men ;  a  cloaked  and  cowled  figure,  impati^^ 
of  address,  and  chary  of  words.     In  him  the  grey  «^' 

♦  M^m.  Tol.  It.  p.  866. 

t  Fontaine,  toL  iy.  pp.  806—370.     Du  Fcwse,  p.  870,  et  *eq.    GbH^ 
YoL  ii.  p.  560,  et  ieq. 


DE  SACI.  455 

formity  of  tint,  characteristic  of  Jansenist  holiness,  seems 
almost  to  cover  and  blot  out  the  colours  of  individual 
manhood.  He  is  distinguished  from  his  two  great  prede- 
cessors, St.  Cyran  and  Singlin,  by  the  fact  that,  while  they 
to  a  large  extent  made  Port  Royal  what  it  was,  he  was 
wholly  moulded  by  it.  They  brought  to  it  an  experience 
gathered  in  the  world  outside :  St.  Cyran  mingled  in  all 
the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  his  day,  and  at  no  time  led  a 
solitary  life ;  Singlin  was  trained  in  the  school  of  Vincent 
de  Paul.  But  De  Sa^i  never  retired  from  the  world,  for 
he  never  lived  in  it.  Though  designed  for  the  Church,  he 
woidd  not  enter  the  Sorbonne,  and  prevailed  upon  St. 
Cyran  to  sanction  a  private  course  of  study.  At  the  time 
when  other  young  men  are  eager  to  engage  in  the  con- 
flict of  life,  his  anxious  wish  was  to  become  one  of  the 
little  community  of  which  his  brothers  Le  Maitre  and  De 
Sericourt  were  the  centre.  Till  he  was  thirty-five,  he 
shunned  the  responsibilities  of  the  priesthood ;  passing 
his  whole  time  in  study,  now  with  De  Barcos,  in  the  house 
of  the  imprisoned  St.  Cyran,  now  with  Amauld,  in  the 
hiding-place  to  which  he  had  retired  after  the  publication 
of  the  "Book  of  Frequent  Communion."  Then,  in 
January  1649,  Singlin,  overburthened  with  the  direction 
of  the  two  houses,  and  so  great  a  number  of  penitents, 
established  De  Sapi  as  confessor  at  Port  Royal  des  Champs ; 
presenting  him  to  the  reluctant  community  with  the  words 
of  half-proud,  half-modest  friendship,  "  He  must  increase, 
but  I  must  decrease."  Here  he  remained  till  the  disper-« 
sion  in  1661,  when  he  betook  himself  to  Madame  Vitart's 
house  in  the  Fauxbourg  St.  Marceau.  His  arrest  in  1666, 
his  two  years'  imprisonment  in  the  Bastille,  the  period  of 
final  activity  at  Port  Royal,  and  the  last  retirement  to 
Pomponne,  complete  the  story  of  a  life  which,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end,  shuns  the  world's  eye.  Yet  De 
Sayi  was  perfectly  content  with  it ;  and  confessed  that,  if 

a  o  4 


456  PORT  EOYAL. 

the  opportunity  of  choic5e  had  been  given  him,  he  wofild 
have  chosen  no  other.  If  the  theory  of  life  adopted  bj 
Port  Eoyal  were  true,  none  could  be  so  fortunate  as  he. 
He  had  never  known  those  temptations  of  the  -worldy 
whose  fatal  persuasiveness  all  who  had  fled  from  them 
deplored ;  and  the  sacred  solitude  in  which  so  many  took 
refuge,  as  a  land-locked  haven  of  security  and  peace,  had 
been  his  life-long  home. 

Thus  there  is  an  air  of  innocence  about  De  Sa^i  whidi 
fitted  him  in  a  peculiar  way,  thought  Du  Fosse  ♦,  to  be 
the  confessor  of  virgins.  But  he  had  his  own  cono^tion 
of  a  more  complete  isolation  of  thought  and  desire,  than 
was  usual  even  at  Port  Royal,  —  a  conception  whidi  he 
persistently  sought  to  realise.  He  avoided  the  few  visitors 
who  found  their  way  to  the  valley.  All  his  conversation 
and,  as  far  as  possible,  all  his  thoughts  were  of  rehgioii. 
He  adopted  as  his  motto  the  words,  "  Ut  non  loguahif 
o8  Tneum  opera  kominum^ — "  That  my  mouth  may  nt*t 
utter  the  works  of  men."  He  was  wont  to  say  that  "  all 
the  mischief  in  the  world  arose  from  men's  inability  to 
remain  qiuetly  in  their  own  rooms ; "  and  thought  that 
the  only  result  of  travel  was  a  wider  acquaintance  with 
the  devices  of  the  devil,  who  was  crudelis  uhi<pjie — every- 
where alike  cruel.  Theologian  as  he  was,  he  confined 
his  studies  to  the  practical  questions  of  religion ;  an  ac- 
quaintance with  its  speculative  difficulties  was  hardly  ne- 
cessary to  one  whose  sole  business  was  the  charge  of  his 
own  and  others'  souls.  Of  all  our  solitaries,  except  per- 
hai^  Smglin,  he  is  the  least  controversial.  His  influence 
18  always  on  the  side  of  peace.  Over  his  companions  in 
tne  valley  he  exercises  the  sway  of  a  self^ontroUed  cha- 

hTl' ^  !l'  "-^  ^^''^  *^^y  "^°^  ^  ^«^k  loose  from 

tis  guidance,  the  power  of  a  holiness  so  quiet,  so  con- 

•  Mem.  p.  108, 


"^''^ 


DE   SACI.  457 

sistent,  bo  self-possessed^  soon  reasserts  itself,  and  he  is 
once  more  the  acknowledged  leader.  And  beneath  the 
still  surface  of  his  life  must  have  burned  a  strange  and 
constant  fire  of  love,  that  so  many  hearts  should  grow 
cold  for  the  loss  of  its  kindly  glow. 

The  secret  of  his  life  was  not  unknown  to  his  com- 
panions in  solitude,  for  he  strove  to  impart  it  to  them. 
He  made  it  his  study  **  to  conceive  a  great  idea  of  God," 
and  to  have  the  thought  of  Him  always  present  to  his 
mind.  He  was  wont  to  repeat  the  words  of  Job  * : 
"  Semper  enim,  quasi  tumentes  super  me  fiuctus  timui 
Deuniy  et  pondua  ejus  ferre  non  potuiy^ — "For  always 
have  I  feared  God  as  a  flood  swelling  over  me,  and  His 
weight  I  have  not  been  able  to  bear."  **  I  do  not  believe," 
says  Fontaine  t,  **  that  there  is  a  single  one  of  those  who 
knew  him  who  has  not  heard  this  text  from  his  lips. 
Nor  did  he  merely  say  it ;  he  felt  it  too,  and  felt  it  like 
holy  Job,  not  with  a  transitory  feeling,  but  with  a  heart- 
felt emotion  that  was  always  the  same."  He  is  the  Enoch 
of  our  story,  for  "  he  walked  with  God."  I  know  no  word 
of  his  which  better  displays  this  than  a  simple  phrase  in 
which  he  was  wont  to  exhort  the  sick  to  patience :  "  As 
for  me,  when  I  am  sick,  I  do  not  ask  God  for  patience  to 
carry  me  through  the  whole  day;  in  the  morning  I  am 
content  to  ask  it  for  the  forenoon,  at  noon  for  the  after- 
noon, at  evening  for  the  night."  Surely  these  are  the 
accents  of  a  child  who,  never  forsaking  bis  Father's  side, 
can  at  any  moment  ask  Him  to  supply  the  moment's  need.^ 

De  Sa^i,  like  all  the  Port  Koyalists,  was  a  great  reader 
of  St.  Augustine ;  but  a  still  greater  of  the  Bible.     The 

*  xxxi.  23.  The  words  in  the  text  are  according  to  the  Vulgate,  which 
in  this  place  differs  widely  from  the  English  yersion. 

t  Memoires,  voL  ii.  p.  811. 

X  Conf.  Vol.  I.  pp.  153, 215, 428.  For  De  Sa9i's  character,  see  Fontaine, 
pastinu 


438  PORT  ROYAL. 

two  were  almost  all  his  library ;  he  desired  no  knowledge 
except  such  as  they  could  furnish.  To  the  solitaries  under 
his  charge  he  recommended  the  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
with  an  earnestness  that  sounded  strangely  in  their  ears. 
"  A  drop  of  water,**  he  would  say,  "  which  is  not  enough 
for  a  man,  is  enough  for  a  bird.  The  sacred  waters  have 
this  peculiarity,  that  they  proportion  and  accommodate 
themselves  to  every  case.  A  lamb  walks  in  them ;  and 
they  are  at  the  same  time  deep  enough  for  an  elephant  to 
swim."  •  And  again,  "  A  holy  bishop  of  these  latter  days 
has  said  that  he  would  go  to  the  world's  end  with  his  St. 
Augustine — ^and  so  would  I  with  my  Bible."  f  But  while 
thus  desiring  with  almost  a  Protestant  zeal,  to  see  the 
Scriptures  in  the  hands  of  the  laity,  he  still  held  the  doc- 
trine of  his  church,  that  the  text  ought  to  be  accompanied 
by  orthodox  exposition  and  comment  And  the  transla- 
tion and  elucidation  of  the  Bible  were  the  literary  work  of 
his  life. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  Bible 
had  been  more  than  once  translated  into  French.  But  the 
Huguenot  versions  were  rejected  by  the  Chiurch  as  unfaith- 
ful and  unsound ;  while  all  which  were  able  to  boast  a 
Catholic  origin,  had  become  antiquated  in  phrase,  as  the 
language  made  its  rapid  progress  to  piuity  and  grace.  In 
common  with  many  moderate  Catholics,  Port  Boyal  main- 
tained the  right  of  the  laity  to  read  the  Bible  in  the  vidgar 
tongue ;  and,  ever  mindful  of  the  work  of  edification,  took 
steps  to  supply  the  manifest  want  As  early  as  1657,  Le 
Maitre,  according  to  one  account,  in  consequence  of  a  desire 
expressed  by  the  Assembly  of  the  Clergy  in  1655  that  a 
new  version  of  the  Scriptures  should  be  made,  undertook 
to  translate  the  New  Testament  from  the  Vulgate.  At  his 
death  in  1658,  he  bequeathed  the  unfinished  work  to  De 

*  Fontaine,  toI  ii.  p.  383.  f  Ibid.  p.  386. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  OP  MONS.  459 

Sayi,  who  willingly  charged  himself  with  its  completion 
and  revision.  But  the  version  was  now  (or  perhaps  even 
before  Le  Maitre's  death)  the  work  of  a  committee ;  who 
met  first  at  Vaumurier,  the  house  of  the  Due  de  Luynes, 
and  then  after  the  dispersion,  at  the  Hotel  de  Longueville. 
Arnauld,  Nicole,  M.  de  Luynes,  Pontchateau,  Treville, 
Pascal,  and  several  others,  are  recorded  to  have  taken  a 
greater  or  less  share  in  these  conferences.  The  translation 
was  now  based  upon  the  Greek  text ;  the  Fathers  and  the 
ancient  versions  were  consulted  in  the  determination  of  the 
sense.  In  particular,  Nicole's  work  is  said  to  have  been 
the  comparison  of  the  proposed  renderings  with  St.  Chry- 
sostom  and  with  Beza ;  the  translation  of  the  latter  being 
a  rock,  which  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  avoid.  But  a 
letter  from  Angelique  de  St.  Jean  Arnauld  to  her  uncle 
Antoine,  dated  about  1667  *,  is  conclusive  as  to  the  real 
authorship.  She  speaks  of  "  the  three  principal  transla- 
tors of  this  new  version  of  the  New  Testament ;  he  who 
dug  the  foundations,  having  by  his  example  renewed  in 
the  Church  the  penitence  to  which  the  gospel  exhorts  us 
(Le  Maitre) ;  the  second,  who  has  raised  the  whole  edifice, 
cements  it,  and  makes  it  firm  by  his  bonds  (De  Sa9i)  ;  and 
you,  who  have  set  the  pinnacle  on  it,  by  God's  grace, 
defend  even  to  death  those  eternal  truths,  which  do  not 
accommodate  themselves  to  any  period,  but  at  every  period 
deliver  those  who  love  only  the  good  things  of  eternity, 
and  do  not  fear  the  evils  of  this  world." 

Angelique  de  St.  Jean  alludes  in  the  same  letter  to  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  translation,  which  was  begin- 
ning to  show  itself  in  the  inner  circles  of  Port  Royal.  Some 
of  De  Sayi's  friends  thought  it  hard  that,  while  he  lay  in 
honourable  bonds  for  the  truth,  his  work  should  be 
revised  by  one  like  Treville,  who  hardly  belonged  to  the 

•  Diren  Actcs  Rcl.  ri.  p.  29. 


460  PORT  KOTAL. 

sacred  few^  and  was  looked  upon  by  the  nuns  as,  in  com- 
parison with  their  beloved  confessor,  a  mere  man  of  the 
world.  Amauld,  who,  regarding  the  matter  from  the 
scholar's  point  of  view,  did  not  see  why,  to  make  the 
version  as  nearly  perfect  as  possible,  they  should  not  avail 
themselves  of  Treville's  knowledge  of  Greek  and  admitted 
taste  in  the  use  of  his  own  language,  interposed  his 
authority,  and  in  an  admirable  letter  to  Hamon,  who 
appears  to  have  shared  the  discontent,  defended  the  version 
from  the  dangers  to  which  a  narrow  spirit  of  party  might 
have  exposed  it  When  in  1666  De  Safi  was  arrested,  the 
work  was  so  nearly  complete,  that  he  had  the  preface  in 
his  pocket  But  the  Chancellor  Seguier  refused  to  per- 
mit it  to  be  printed  in  France ;  and  the  editors  turned  to 
Holland,  a  country  in  whose  free  presses  all  the  proscribed 
literature  of  Europe  found  a  refuge.  Pontchateau  under- 
took to  manage  the  matter;  the  book,  printed  by  the 
Elzevirs,  was  published  in  1667  at  Mons,  with  permission 
of  the  King  of  Spain,  and  the  approbation  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cambrai.  On  this  account  it  is  universally 
known  in  the  controversies  of  the  day  as  "  The  New  Testa- 
ment of  Mons.** 

Its  appearance  produced  a  great  sensation,  which  was  not 
diminished  by  the  fact  that  the  Jesuits  bitterly  inveighed 
against  it  from  the  pulpit^  while  the  Archbishop  forbade  the 
faithful  of  his  diocese  to  read  it  For  the  first  time  the 
New  Testament  was  given  to  the  public,  in  a  form  which 
could  be  read  with  pleasure ;  edition  after  edition  was  sold, 
and  the  Gospel  became  the  fashion.  Then  the  Archbishop 
of  Embrun,  an  ignorant,  hot-headed  priest,  presented  to 
the  King  a  petition  against  the  version :  to  which  Amauld 
replied  in  a  memorial,  esteemed  by  all  the  Jansenista  as  a 
masterpiece  of  Christian  controversy.  The  time  was  inaus- 
picious for  the  Archbishop's  attack ;  the  negotiations  for 
the  Peace  had  almost  reached  maturity,  and  Louis,  for 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   OP   MONS.  461 

once,  was  disposed  to  see  in  a  favourable  light,  everything 
that  came  from  the  Arnaulds.  The  court,  ever  watchful  of 
the  King's  prejudices,  became  suddenly  Jansenist ;  and  M. 
d^Embrun  was  mercilessly  laughed  at.  Cond^,  in  parti- 
cular, who  always  had  a  good  word  for  *the  friends  of 
Madame  de  Longueville,'  did  not  spare  him.  ^  This  day," 
says  a  lively  writer*,  "  was  extremely  fatal  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Embrun,  for  in  the  afternoon,  as  they  were  at  Vespers, 
M.  le  Prince,  perceiving  that  M.  le  Due  was  reading  Ar- 
nauld's  memorial,  M.  de  Montausier  the  New  Testament  of 
Mons,  and  Madame  la  Marechale  de  la  Mothe,  governess  of 
M.  le  Dauphin,  the  Hours  of  Port  Boyal,  turned  towards 
M.  d'Embrun,  and,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  said  in  a  tone 
which  every  one  heard,  and  which  plainly  showed  that  he 
was  laughing  at  him,  *  What  disorder,  M.  d'Embrun !  This 
is  not  a  church,  but  a  witch's  Sabbath.  My  son  is  read- 
ing the  memorial,  M.  de  Montausier  the  New  Testament 
of  Mons,  and  Madame  de  la  Mothe  the  Hours  of  Port 
Boyal.  All  is  lost,  M.  d'Embrun ;  these  people  are  ex- 
communicated ;  they  will  draw  down  God's  curse  upon  us ; 
the  roof  of  the  church  will  fall,  let  us  begone  ! "  The  time 
during  which  it  was  possible  to  say  such  things  at  Versailles 
was  very  short ;  M.  d'Embrun's  turn  soon  came,  and  lasted 
longer. 

One  of  the  first  results  of  the  peace  was  a  fresh  com- 
mittee to  revise  the  New  Testa-ment  of  Mons,  of  which 
Bossuet,  who  never  signalised  himself  among  the  enemies 
of  Port  Royal,  and  now,  in  the  first  fervour  of  reconcilia- 
tion, assumed  the  attitude  of  a  friend,  is  said  to  have  been 
a  member.  But  the  revision  was  interrupted  by  the  death 
of  M.  de  Perefixe,  who  had  authorised  it :  and  the  Port 
Boyalists  were  left  to  pursue  their  biblical  studies  in  their 
own  way.     While  imprisoned  in  the  Bastille,  De  Sa^i  had 

•  Quoted  by  St*  Bcave,  vol.  iv.  p.  278. 


462  PORT  ROYAL. 

translated,  either  from  the  Septuagint  or  the  Vulgate,  tiie 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  he  now  received  per- 
mission to  print,  on  condition  that  he  accompanied  the  text 
by  a  sufficient  comment.  To  this  labour  he  applied  him- 
self, and  published,  in  1672,  the  first  volume  containing 
the  Proverbs.  From  this  time  till  his  death  in  1684,  the 
successive  volumes  were  issued  at  intervals.  De  Sa^i  lived 
to  write  the  exposition  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  the 
two  books  of  Samuel,  the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  the 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Isaiah,  and  the  Minor  Prophets.  Then 
Du  Foss6  continued  the  work,  which  was  finally  completed 
about  the  end  of  the  century  by  other  less  known  hands. 
The  thirty-two  octavo  volumes,  of  which  it  consisted^  bore 
the  title :  "  The  Bible  translated  into  French ;  with  an 
explanation  of  the  literal  and  the  spiritual  sense,  taken 
from  the  Holy  Fathers  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Authors." 
Massive  as  the  work  was,  it  passed  through  several  edi- 
tions, and  formed  the  basis  of  more  than  one  subsequent 
version. 

De  Sari's  Bible  —  for  the  work  is  inseparably  connected 
with  his  name  —  is  to  be  estimated  rather  from  the 
practical  than  the  critical  point  of  view,  There  is  no  evi- 
dence to  show  that  it  was  based  upon  the  Hebrew  text: 
while  we  know  that  Le  Maitre's  version  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, on  which  the  subsequent  labours  of  De  Sapi  and  his 
friends  were  founded,  was  made  from  the  Vulgate.  Sach 
critical  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  as  then  existed^  was 
chiefly  to  be  found  in  Protestant  churches :  nor  was  Port 
Boyal  distinguished  from  other  schools  of  Catholic  theology 
by  any  special  width  or  exactness  of  philological  attainments 
The  value  of  De  Sa9i's  Bible  was  chiefly  felt  by  the  laity, 
and  most  of  all  by  women ;  to  whom,  unable  to  read  even 
the  Vulgate,  the  Scriptures  had  been  hitherto  a  sealed 
book.  An  access  to  the  sources  of  religious  truth  was  now 
open  to  them,  in  the  pages  of  a  version,  which,  if  not 


ANGfiUQUE   DE   ST.    JEAN.  463 

exact  according  to  the  standard  of  modem  scholarship,  or 
elegant  as  the  simpler  taste  of  our  own  day  coimts  ele- 
gance, was  expressed  in  the  language  of  current  literature, 
and  informed  with  the  reverential  and  conscientious  spirit 
of  the  translator.  It  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the 
French,  as  the  authorised  version  to  the  English,  as 
Luther's  translation  to  the  German  lano^uage ;  though,  from 
the  fact,  that  it  was  made  at  a  later  period  of  literary  de- 
velopment, it  is  inferior  in  simplicity  and  force  to  either. 
But  it  remains,  a  noble  testimony  to  De  Sa9i's  pious  in- 
dustry, as  well  as  to  the  boldness  with  which,  at  a  critical 
period  of  its  own  history.  Port  fioyal  vindicated  the  right 
of  the  unlearned  to  the  Scriptures,  against  the  half  ex- 
pressed and  disingenuous  hostility  of  the  Catholic  Church.* 
We  cannot  leave  the  grave  of  the  last  Abbess  of  Port 
Boyal  who  bore  the  name  of  Arnauld  without  a  word  of 
commemoration.  Angelique,  the  second  daughter  and 
fifth  child  of  M.  d'Andilly,  was  bom  in  1624,  and  had 
thus  reached  her  sixtieth  year  when  she  died.  At  the  age 
of  six,  she  was  sent  for  education  to  the  convent,  which 
she  never  afterwards  left.  Her  great  abilities  marked  her 
out  as  one  who  would  be  conspicuous  in  good  or  ill,  and 
the  balance  long  hung  in  suspense  ere  it  finally  inclined 
to  the  side  of  conventual  virtue.t  But  when  at  last  she 
owned  the  influence  of  La  M^re  Angelique,  to  whom  she 
bore  a  greater  resemblance  than  to  the  gentler  Agn^,  she 
was  soon  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  house,  and  qualified 
herself  to  assume  a  share  in  its  government  She  took 
the  veil  in  1644,  and  before  long  was  entrusted  with  the 
charge  of  the  children ;  then  she  was  appointed  Mistress 
of  the  Novices,  an  office  which  she  held  for  many  years. 

♦  Reachlin,  rol.  ii.  p.  268,  also  Appendix  L.  St*  Bcnve,  vol.  ii.  p.  347, 
et  atq. ;  vol.  iv.  p.  27 1.  Vie  de  Nicole,  chap.  x.  Lettres  d*Antoine  Aniaald, 
vol.  ii.  p.  292.    Kec.  dUtrecht,  p.  276.    CBavres  de  Racine,  p.  413. 

t  Lettres  de  la  Mdre  Angelique,  vol  i.  pp  113—116. 


464  PORT  ROYAL. 

M.  de  Perefixe  acknowledged  bar  influence  as  one  of  the 
real  heads  of  the  house,  by  selecting  ber  as  a  victim  of  Lis 
raid  in  August  1666;  and  we  have  already  noted*  her 
quiet  resolution  in  captivity.  From  the  time  of  the 
reunion  of  the  sisterhood  in  Port  Royal  des  Champs^  she 
was,  in  whatever  official  position,  the  acknowledged  chief. 
After  the  Peace,  she  held  for  nine  years  the  office  of 
prioress,  \mder  La  M^re  du  Fargis,  while  from  1678  to 
her  death  in  1684,  she  presided  over  the  colnmunity  as 
Abbess.  Like  De  Sa$i,  she  knew  no  life,  but  life  at  Port 
Royal. 

La  M^re  Angelique  de  St.  Jean  belongs  to  that  part  of 
her  family  which,  in  the  elder  generation,  is  represented 
by  Angelique  and  Antoine  Amauld ;  for  in  her,  their  clear 
intellect,  their  eager  and  firm  will,  their  promptitude  of 
action,  were  more  conspicuous  than  the  gentler  excellencies 
of  Agn^,  and  the  Bishop  of  Angers.  It  is  bard  to  compare 
her  with  her  great  namesake ;  for  while  the  latter  was  the 
foundress  of  the  reformed  Port  Boyal,  the  former  but  per- 
petuated a  rule,  which  was  already  firmly  established,  and 
had  moulded  her  own  character.  If  we  might  implicitly 
trust  the  eulogies  of  her  contemporaries,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  overrate  her  talents.  "Look  at  me,"  said  D'Andilly, 
**  and  at  my  other  children,  and  at  all  my  brothers ;  we 
are  every  one  of  us  fools,  in  comparison  with  Angelique." 
She  has  more  authorcrafb  than  her  aunt;  and  her  letters 
are  perhaps  more  interesting,  except  in  those  rare  instances 
when  the  elder  Angelique,  almost  forgetting  that  she  is 
writing  at  all,  opens  to  the  reader  an  insight  into  her  wide 
and  deep  heart  So  in  her  recorded  conversation^  the 
niece  exhibits  herself  as  more  the  woman  of  the  worlds 
formed  to  shine  in  society;  she  is  ready  in  repartee,  prompt 
in  telling  argument ;  but  her  sayings  assume  the  form  of 

♦  Vol.  i.  p.  396. 


ANGfiLIQUE  DE  ST.  JEAN.  465 

bon-mots,  which  ill  replace  the  sacred  aphorisms,  in  which 
her  aunt  distilled  a  great  spiritual  truth  into  a  phrase.  To 
a  contemporary,  she  might  have  seemed  the  cleverer  of  the 
two ;  for  her  talent  shone  rather  on  the  literary  than  the 
practical  side,  while  La  M^re  Ang^lique  was  more  prompt 
to  do  than  to  speak.  And  yet  Aug^lique  de  St.  Jean  also 
could  act,  when  need  was.  The  Due  de  Luynes,  who 
married  a  second  wife  in  his  later  years,  abandoned  .his 
house  at  Vaumurier  to  the  nuns  of  Port  Boyal.  Not  long 
before  Ang^lique's  death,  its  situation  so  near,  and  yet 
far  enough  from  Versailles,  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Dauphin,  who  expressed  an  intention  of  asking  the  King 
to  give  it  him,  that  he  might  fit  it  up  for  the  recep- 
tion of  a  mistress.  But  when  the  Abbess  heard  of  it,  she 
resolved  that  no  such  profanation  should  approach  the 
sacred  solitude ;  and  although  the  community  was  already 
under  the  royal  ban,  and  permitted  only  to  drag  on  a  lin- 
gering existence  from  day  to  day,  did  not  hesitate  to  run  the 
risk  of  entire  extinction.  Before  the  King  could  ask  their 
property  of  them  for  such  a  purpose,  or  give  it  away  with- 
out their  consent,  the  chateau  of  Vaumurier  was  levelled, 
by  her  order,  to  the  ground.  If  all  Louis's  Jesuit  con- 
fessors had  been  as  honest,  the  realm  might  have  been 
spared  many  scandals  and  many  miseries. 

Perhaps  we  do  wrong  to  make  Angelique  de  St.  Jean 
the  subject  of  acomparison,  from  which,  however  honourable 
to  herself,  she  would  have  been  the  first  to  shrink.  When- 
ever a  great  intellectual  or  religious  movement  extends  over 
more  than  one  generation,  there  is  an  air  of  grandeur  in 
the  originality  of  the  first  to  which  the  second  is  rarely  able 
to  attain.  It  is  chiefly  to  the*  younger  Angelique  that  we 
owe  our  intimate  knowledge  of  the  older  Port  Royal ;  the 
**M^moires  pour  Servir,"  from  which  I  have  so  often  quoted, 
were  in  great  part  written  or  collected  by  her  hand.  Her 
highest  praise  is,   that  the  name  of  Amauld  was  not 

VOL.  n.  H  H 


466  PORT  BOTAL. 

brought  down  by  her  from  the  height  of  love  and  £Bune  to 
which  Angelique  and  Agn^  Amauld  had  borne  it.  If  I 
have  read  her  character  aright,  she  would  have  desired  no 
other.* 

The  community  were  again  permitted  to  proceed  to  the 
election  of  an  Abbess.     They  chose  La  M^e  du   Faigis, 
who  had  already  held  that  office  from  1669  to  1678 ;  and 
who  now  presided  over  the  sisterhood  till  1690^  when  she 
was  replaced  by  Agn^  de  St.  Thekle  Bacine,  the  aunt  of 
the  poet     The  ten  years  which  followed  the  death  of  De 
Sa(i  were  a  period  of  quiet  decay.     The  King,  who  already 
had  upon  his  hands  the  affairs   of  the   B^gale,   vdiich, 
widening  into  the  debate  of  the  Four  Articles,  threatened  a 
schism  of  the  Oallican  Church,  revoked  in  1685  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.     Struggling  on  the  one  side  with  the  Pope,  on 
the  other  with  the  Huguenots,  he  and  his  favourite  coun- 
sellor Harlay  had  no  thought  to  bestow  on   the  peth- 
troubles  of  Port  Royal.     His  passion  for  persecution  struck 
at  a  nobler  quarry  than  this  handful  of  aged  women ;  and 
sated  itself  for  a  while  on  Protestant  tears  and  blood.     So 
the  story  of  these  years  may  be  told  in  few  words.     The 
Archbishop  established  first  his  sister,  and  then  his  niec^, 
as  Abbess  of  Port  Boyal  de  Paris,  and  the  rumour  went 
forth,  that  the   two    houses  were  to   be   reunited,    and 
the  faithful  few  scattered  into  various  hostile  monasteries. 
Then,  one  by  one,  messenger^  arrived,  bringing  with  them 
the  bodies  or  the  hearts  of  those,  who,  living,  had  been 
the  friends  of  the  sisterhood,  and  would  not  be  severed 
from  it  when  death  enabled  them  to  laugh  at  Louis.      In 
1687  died  Hamon ;  in  1690  Pontchslteau  and  St*  Maxthe: 
in  1692  the  Bishop  of  Angers,  and  the  last  friend  of  the 
community  who  was  permitted  to  end  her  days  at  Port 

*  Memoires  poar  Senrir,  toL  iii.  p.  498,  et  »eq,    "  Recneil  des  Hwlntiofwi 
on  Memoires  sar  la  Vie  et  les  Yertus  de  la  M^re  Angeliqne  de  Si.  Jess,* 


ABNAULD'S  EXILE.  467 

Royal,  Madlle.  de  Virtus.  In  the  latter  year,  finding  that 
their  number  was  reduced  below  the  limit  fixed  by  the 
Archbishop  in  1679,  the  sisterhood,  through  their  Abbess, 
La  M^re  Racine,  ventured  with  but  little  hope  of  success  to 
remind  him  of  his  promise,  that  they  should  again  be  per- 
mitted to  receive  novices.  He  was  as  polite  as  he  had  been 
fourteen  years  before,  but  also  as  stem.  There  had  been 
some  mistake,  he  said ;  the  number  fifty  was  to  include, 
not  only  the  professed,  but  the  lay  sisters ;  he  was  grieved 
to  put  them  oflf  again,  but  it  was  the  King's  will,  not  his. 
So  the  nuns  sadly  betook  themselves  once  more  to  patience 
and  prayer,  till  a  still  greater  grief  fell  upon  them.  For, 
on  the  14th  of  August  1694,  they  learned  that  at  Brussels, 
six  days  before,  their  oldest  and  most  faithful  friend,  An- 
toine  Amauld,  had  ended  his  long  exile.* 

When  Amauld  quitted  Paris  in  June  1679,  his  first 
place  of  refuge  was  Mons,  where  he  was  hospitably  re- 
ceived in  the  house  of  M.  Robert,  President  of  the 
Sovereign  Council  of  Hainault.  Nicole,  who  had  antici- 
pated his  friend's  flighty  was  already  at  Brussels,  bewailing 
the  hardships  of  exile,  and  casting  about  for  some  scheme 
of  honourable  accommodation  with  the  Archbishop,  which 
should  restore  him  to  his  country.  It  is  due  to  him  to 
say  that  he  would  gladly  have  included  Amauld  in  the 
amnesty  which  he  procured  for  himself.  We  have  before 
seen*  what  a  friendly  and  generous  interpretation  the 
latter  put  upon  Nicole's  unwillingness  to  share  the  perils 
and  labours  of  his  exile,  and  how,  while  keenly  feeling  his 
desertion,  he  manfully  defended  him  against  the  harsh 
judgments  of  the  party.  He  would  not  try  to  conciliate 
the  Archbishop,  of  whose  wily  comiesy  he  had  the  deepest 
distrust;  he  knew  that  he  could  purchase  the  right  of 
ending  his  days  in  France  only  at  the  price  of  a  shameful 

*  Gailbert,  toL  ill  pp.  1—194.  f  Ant^  p,  171. 

HH  t 


468  PORT  ROYAL. 

silence.     He  wrote  to  Nicole  in  August  1679*:  **  I  noticed 
not  long  ago  two  verses  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Eocle- 
siasticus,  which  give  us,  it  seems  to  me,  two  great  roles ; 
the  first  a  general  rule,  the  second  an  exception  to  it. 
The  general  rule  is:   Noli  resistere  c(miTa  faciem  poten- 
tie,  nee  coneris  contra  idum  flurrdnia*    *  Besist  not  the 
mighty  to  his  face,  nor  strive  against  the  current  of  a 
river.'     This  is  the  obligation  which  human  and  Christian 
prudence  ordinarily  lays  upon  us.     .     .     .      .     But  note 
the  exception :  Pro  juatitia  agonizare  pro  anima  tuoy  et 
usque  ad  mortem  certa  pro  juatitia,  et  Deus  expugnabit 
pro  te  inimicoa  twoa.     *  For  justice  struggle  for  thy  life, 
and  contend  to  death  for  justice,  and  Crod  shall  vanquish 
thine  enemies  for  thee.'  f    As  if  the  wise  man  said^  when 
only  your  own  interests  are  concerned,  yield  to  him  who 
is  stronger  than  you,  and  do  not,  by  resisting  him,  draw 
down  his  anger  upon  yourself;  but  when  the  question  is 
of  defending  the  truth,  fight  for  it  even  to  the  death,  and 
believe  that  in  so  doing  you  fight  for  your  own  soul ;  and 
do  not  fear  the  hatred  of  those  who  would  oppress  the 
truth,  for  God  will  be  your  safeguard  and  will  deliver  you 
from  your  enemies."     And  again  J :  **  It  is,  you   say,  a 
great  enterprise  for  a  man  of  my  age  voluntarily  to  go 
into  concealment  for  the  rest  of  his  days.     On  the  con- 
trary, fortem  fadt  vicina  libertaa  aenem^ — '  the  approach 
of  liberty  makes  the  old  man  strong.'    I  have  much  more, 
it  seems  to  me,  to  hope  from  Crod's  mercy  in  sacrificing 
to  Him  what  remains  of  my  life,  and  in  exposing  myself 
in  the  service  of  the  Church  to  the  deprivation  of  rest  and 
comfort,  than  if  I  had  bought  this  repose  by  visits  to  the 
Church's  oppressor." 

•  Lett.  d'A.  Amauld,  toI.  iii.  p.  150. 

t  With  Arnaald  I  qnote  the  Vnlgate,  which  differs  in  this  passage  fxooi 
the  English  yersion. 
X  X<etter  quoted  in  Tie  d'A.  Arnaald,  rol  il  p.  lao. 


ARNAULD'S  EXILE.  469 

In  the  concluding  passage  of  a  *' Defence  of  the  New 
Testament  of  Mons,"  which  he  had  been  forbidden  to 
publish  in  France,  but  which  formed  the  first  work  of  his 
exile,  he  finely  records  his  immovable  resolution  in  an 
address  to  Grod*:  "Nevertheless,  Thy  servants  will  be 
proscribed,  banished,  imprisoned.  Can,  then,  a  Christian, 
to  whom  the  whole  earth  is  a  prison  and  a  place  of  exile, 
be  greatly  troubled  by  the  change  of  his  dungeon  ?  Thou, 
my  Crod,  art  to  be  found  everywhere.  Those  that  possess 
Thee  are,  even  in  bonds,  freer  than  kings  themselves. 
No  prison  is  to  be  feared,  except  that  of  a  soul  which  its 
own  vices  and  passions  hold  in  chains,  and  hinder  from 
enjoying  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  And  this  it  is 
which  has  caused  one  of  Thy  saints  to  say  that  the  con- 
science of  a  wicked  man  is  full  of  a  more  woful  and  terrible 
darkness,  not  only  than  all  prisons,  but  even  than  hell 
itself —  horrendis  et  feralibua  tenebris  omnes  non  solum 
carceresy  aed  etiam  inferos  vincit  scderati  hominis  con- 
scieTitia, 

"  But  it  may  well  be  that  we  shall  die  of  the  fatigues 
and  labours  which  accompany  a  wandering  life.  Will, 
then,  the  easiest  life  avoid  death  ?  A  little  sooner,  a  little 
later — what  is  it  in  comparison  with  eternity  ?  Thou  hast 
numbered  our  days.  We  came  into  this  world  when  it 
pleased  Thee,  and  only  when  it  pleases  Thee  shall  we 
leave  it.  The  evils  of  the  world  are  terrible  afar  oflF;  we 
accustom  ourselves  to  them  when  we  see  them  face  to 
face ;  and  Thy  grace  renders  all  things  endurable,  besides 
that  they  are  always  less  than  our  sins  deserve.  Thou 
hast  taught  us  by  Thy  apostle,  that  all  those  who  serve 
Thee  ought  to  be  willing  to  say  with  him,  *  I  know  both 
how  to  be  abased,  and  I  know  how  to  abound ;  everywhere, 
and  in  all  things,  I  am  instructed  both  to  be  full  and  to 

*  Quoted  by  Du  Tou^,  p.  352. 
BB  3 


470  POET  ROYAL. 

be  hungry,  both  to  abound  and  to  suffer  need.     I  can  do 
all  things  through  Christ,  which  strengtheneth  me.' " 

To  note  all  Amauld's  changes  of  residence  during  his 
fifteen  years'  exile,  to  narrate  the  various  fears  which  drove 
him  from  one  place  of  refuge  to  another,  would  be  to  enter 
into  much  unnecessary  and  uninteresting  detail.  From 
Mons,  he  soon  removed  to  Brussels,  where  imder  Yarians 
circumstances,  and  at  different  intervals,  he  lived  more 
than  in  any  other  city.  Here  he  enjoyed  for  some  tiine 
the  effectual,  though  unavowed  protection  of  the  Spanish 
governor  of  the  Low  Countries.  It  is  a  striking  proof  of 
that  loyalty  to  Louis  XIV.,  which  in  1679  had  prevented 
Amauld  from  accepting  the  invitation  of  the  hostile  court 
of  Borne,  that  in  1683  he  begged  ^  be  excused  from 
publicly  paying  his  respects  to  his  protector,  the  Marquis 
de  Crrana,  on  the  ground  that  he  represented  a  king,  who 
at  the  time  waged  war  upon  France.  Many  cities — Ghent, 
Toumai,  Lilge,  Courtrai,  Antwerp — ^received  the  fugitive 
when  the  hot  pursuit  compelled  him  to  seek  a  fresh  hiding- 
place.  He  made  three  visits  to  Protestant  Holland,  one 
of  which  (1680-82)  was  of  two  years'  duration.  Hiilier 
he  was  attracted  by  Van  Neercassel,  who  as  Bishop  of 
Castoria  in  partibus^  governed  with  the  authority  of  an 
Archbishop  of  Utrecht^  a  Catholic  Church,  which,  becoming 
imbued  with  Jansenist  doctrine,  was  finally  cast  off  by  the 
Holy  See,  but  still  maintains  a  precarious  existence,  and 
an  ambiguous  position  between  the  two  great  diviaiouB  of 
western  Christendom.*  There  is  no  doubt  that  however 
carefiilly  Amauld  might  avoid  the  appearance  of  sympathy 
with  the  enemies  of  his  coimtry,  the  wars  of  Europe  were 
his  best  protection.     If  we  are  to  credit  a  statement  made 

*  For  farther  iDformation  as  to  the  siagaltfr  histoiy  of  the  Janseuui 
Cfaarch  of  Holland,  the  reader  may  refer  to  an  interestiog  Tolnme,  latelj 
pablUhed  by  the  Rer.  J.  M.  Neale,  M.A.  <<  History  of  the  so-called  Jmo- 
senist  Church  of  HoUand."  &c.  1858. 


ABNAULD  S  EXILE.  471 

by  Eacine  *,  in  which  he  is  supported  by  the  author  of 
Amauld's  Life  fy  the  moment  of  our  exile's  utmost  per- 
plexity and  peril  was  in  1689.  He  had  thrown  himself 
into  the  cause  of  James  II.  with  his  usual  impetuosity, 
and  had  written  a  furious  pamphlet^  which  on  its  very  title 
page  compared  William  of  Orange  to  Absalom,  to  Crom- 
well, and  to  Herod.  The  Prince,  we  are  told,  retorted  by 
requiring  all  his  allies,  and  especially  the  King  of  Spain, 
to  expel  Amauld  from  their  dominions.  **  It  was  then," 
says  Bacine,  '^  that  he  found  himself  in  the  greatest  ex- 
tremity of  his  life,  France  being  closed  to  him  by  the 
Jesuits,  and  every  other  country  by  the  enemies  of  France." 
But  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  William,  with  the  perils 
of  the  English  Bevolution  only  half  overcome,  should  have 
leisure  to  think  of  Arnauld's  attack,  or  that  the  Stadt- 
holder,  who  had  borne  so  long  with  the  free  presses  of 
Amsterdam,  should  show  his  resentment,  if  he  felt  it,  in 
so  intemperate  and  unwise  a  fashion.  The  story  is  dis- 
proved, as  far  as  it  is  capable  of  disproof,  by  the  fact  that 
Amauld  was  not  expelled  from  Brussels  in  1689,  and  that 
when,  a  year  later,  the  machinations  of  the  Jesuits  com- 
pelled him  to  seek  a  fresh  hiding-place,  he  found  it  in  the 
United  Provinces,  where  the  influence  of  William  was 
greater  than  in  England  itself. 

Throughout  these  years  the  King  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris  pursued  him  with  unrelenting  hostility.  They  chose 
to  take  his  residence  in  a  foreign  country  as  sufficient 
evidence  of  treasonable  designs:  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
having  bought  free  speech  at  the  heavy  price  of  exile,  was 
not  slow  to  exercise  his  privilege,  and  spoke  out  boldly 
upon  the  controversies  which  agitated  the  Church  of 
France.  It  is  now  difficult  to  estimate  the  real  peril  in 
which  Arnauld  stood :  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 

*  Abr%6  de  rHistoire  de  Port  Boyal,  p.  Z9U  f  p.  282. 

BH  4 


472  POET  EOYAL. 

was  compelled  to  put  many  painful  restrictions  upon  his 
mode  of  livings  and  to  assume  the  appearance  of  a  fugitive 
from  justice,  as  the  condition  of  the  partial  protection  ex- 
tended to  him  by  the  court  of  Spain.  He  was  too  well 
inured  to  such  a  life,  too  wont  to  laugh  at  vain  alanns,  to 
suffer  his  tranquillity  of  mind  to  be  affected  by  them.  In 
1682  he  writes  ta  Ang^lique^de  St  Jean :  "  I  should  have 
been  dead  long  ago,  if  I  had  been  accustomed  to  alarm 
myself  in  re^urd  to  many  things  at  which  people  are 
greatly  alarmed,  as  if  I  were  about  to  be  discovered  and 
arrested  forthwith.  I  see  no  symptoms  of  that,  and  so  am 
freed  from  many  a  fear.  And  even  if  that  were  to  happen, 
I  do  not  look  upon  it  as  so  great  an  evil ;  and  thus  my 
imagination  is  never  very  strongly  affected.  But  above  all, 
I  abandon  myself  to  the  providence  of  God.  That  is  my 
secret  for  being  always  gay:  and,  if  I  have  my  little 
troubles  sometimes,  I  assure  you  that  they  do  not  come 
from  that  side."  But  about  this  time  a  trouble  fell  upon 
him,  which  concerned  him  more  nearly  than  any  personal 
hardship.  Some  bales  of  his  works,  addressed  to  a  priest 
named  Du  Bois,  were  seized  at  St.  Denys.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  books  which  could,  by  any  latitude  of  in- 
terpretation, be  construed  into  sedition ;  but  they  bore  the 
name  of  Arnauld  upon  the  title  page,  and  that  was  enough. 
The  unfortunate  Du  Bois,  in  defiance  of  law  and  justice, 
was  sent  to  the  galleys.  A  second  seizure  was  made  at 
Bouen,  which  resulted  in  many  arrests.  The  principal 
criminal,  P^re  du  Breuil,  an  aged  priest,  who,  but  for  the 
adverse  influence  of  Harlay,  would  have  been  elected 
General  of  the  Oratory,  was  thrown  into  the  Bastille.  He 
already  approached  his  seventieth  year:  his- reputation  for 
ability  and  virtue  was  unblemished ;  but  neither  his  own 
character,  nor  the  solicitations  of  his  friends,  could  avail  to 

*  Lettres  d'A.  Amaald,  vol  ii  p^  SfiS. 


ABNAULDS  EXILBw  473  i 

procure  his  release.     He  was  transferred  from  prison  to  i 

prison,  till  he  had  inhabited  seven  different  dungeons  in 
as  many  provinces  of  France.     He  owed  his  release  at  last  ! 

to  no  human  clemency,  but  to  the  Divine  Justice, — dying  ! 

in   1696,  two  years  after  Amauld,  in  his  eighty-fourth  i 

year.     It  was  said  that  about  this  time,  no  fewer  than  1 

eleven  persons  expiated  in  prison  the  crime   of  having  | 

communicated  with  Arnauld.  This  was  to  attack  him  on 
the  tenderest  side.      He   found  in  his  constant  soul,  a  I 

perennial  spring  of  resolution,  which  enabled  him  to  bear  j 

his  own  misfortunes ;  it  was  far  harder  to  see  others  suffer-  j 

ing,  for  no  greater  offence  than  that  of  being  his  friends, 
and  to  feel  that  they  were  beyond  reach  of  his  help,  and  j 

almost  of  his  sympathy.     He  did  all  that  he  could  do ;  | 

he  stood  by  the  prisoners  in  feeling  and  in  action ;  he  re- 
fused to  listen  to  any  project  of  accommodation  which  con- 
cerned him  alone.  In  a  noble  letter,  addressed,  in  1683 
or  1684,  to  an  unknown  correspondent,  who  is'  supposed 
to  be  the  Due  de  Boannez  *,  he  says :  *'  Although  the  loss 
of  the  books  seized,  printed  at  my  expense  .  .  .  .  is  for 
me,  in  the  state  in  which  I  am,  a  species  of  ruin,  it  is 
nothing  in  comparison  with  what  I  suffer  in  the  persons  of 
my  friends,  who,  for  their  share  in  this  matter,  are  im- 
prisoned or  exiled.  However  hard  this  trial  may  be  to 
a  heart  like  that  which  God  has  given  me  for  my  friends, 
I  receive  it  at  His  hands,  as  a  favour  for  them,  and  an  act 
of  merciful  justice  for  me ;  and  this,  joined  to  the  submis- 
sion which  I  owe  to  the  commands  of  Providence,  without 
which  no  hair  of  our  heads  falls,  prevents  me  from  mur- 
muring against  those  who  inflict  suffering  upon  these 
persons  for  me,  and  upon  me  in  them  ....  But  even 
if  the  Archbishop  should  have  given  all  necessary  guaran- 
tees, and  I  could  venture  to  appear  in  France,  it  seems  to 

*  Lcttres  d*A.  Amauld,  roL  ir.  p.  34. 


474  POBT  KOTAL. 

me  that  no  man  of  honour  could  advise  me  to  leave  my 
retreat^  as  long  as  those  who  suffer  for  me  are  kept  in 
prison,  or  compelled  to  concealment.  Permit  me,  ar,  to 
tell  you  all  my  thoughts*  It  would  be  veiy  sweet  to  me 
to  see  my  other  friends  once  more :  but  with  what  front 
could  I  be  at  ease  and  at  liberty^  so  long  as  these  per- 
sons suffered,  either  in  exile  or  in  prison  ?  And  how,  to  pro- 
cure some  measure  of  repose  and  security  in  the  little  time 
which  I  have  yet  to  live,  could  I  resolve  to  show  mysdf, 
dragging  on,  at  seventy-three  years,  a  useless  and  shameful 
old  age,  in  the  midst  of  my  suffering  and  forsaken  friends, 
and  of  my  triumphant  enemies  ?  " 

Amauld's  literary  activity  during  the  fifteen  years  of  his 
exile,  was  incessant.  For  one  to  whom  free  speech  was 
the  very  breath  of  the  nostrils,  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  this  secret,  changeful,  half-perilous  life  was  tenfold 
better  than  the  lettered  ease  which  Nicole  had  earned  br 
submission  and  silence.  Banished,  proscribed,  hunted 
from  city  to  city,  his  name  a  by-word,  his  friendship  & 
crime,  "the  old  man  eloquent"  was  yet  a  power  in  the 
Church,  whose  words  possessed  the  faculty  of  rousing  the 
impotent  wrath  of  King  and  Jesuit.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible to  enumerate  in  this  place  even  the  titles  of  his 
numerous  works.  In  the  cause  of  what  he  conceived  to 
be  truth,  his  hand  was  against  every  man.  ^^  I  have  no 
friend,"  he  said,  "against  whom  I  am  not  ready  to  write, 
if  changing  his  opinions,  he  declared  himself  against  any 
important  truths  of  religion ;  I  have  no  personal  enemy 
whose  defence  I  am  not  ready  to  imdertake,  if  I  see  that 
it  is  the  part  of  justice."*  So  when  Nicole  propounded 
his  theory  of  general  grace;  when  Malebranche  tleduced 
from  the  Cartesian  philosophy  conclusions  which  seemed 
irreconcilable  with  Catholic  doctrine,  each  encountered  in 

♦  Quoted  by  Sf  BeaTe,  Port  Rojal,  vol.  t.  p.  I9i. 


ARNAULD  S  EXILE.  475 

Arnauld  a  friendly,  but  firm  opponent  He  wrote  a  de- 
fence of  the  New  Testament  of  Mens  against  the  attack 
of  a  M.  Mallet ;  and  when  the  latter  in  a  further  work 
denied  the  right  of  the  laity  to  read  the  Scriptures  in  the 
vulgar  tongue,  maintained  in  a  second  reply,  the  opposite 
doctrine  with  an  overwhelming  force  of  argument  and 
authority.  He  took  occasion  from  the  Popish  Plot  to 
write  an  "Apology  for  the  Catholics,"  in  which,  while 
proving  the  innocence  of  Oates's  victims,  he  made  reprisals 
upon  the  Protestants,  which  involved  him  in  a  sharp  debate 
with  his  Huguenot  fellow-countrymen.  He  pursued,  as 
opportunity  offered,  the  old  controversy  of  grace,  and 
endeavoured  once  more  to  show  that  Jansenism  was  but  a 
phantom  called  up  by  the  excited  imagination  of  the 
Molinists.  He  added  to  two  volumes  on  "  The  Practical 
Morality  of  the  Jesuits  "  which  had  been  compiled  by  M. 
de  Pontchateau,  six  others,  in  which  he  examined  the  con- 
duct of  the  Society,  especially  in  the  management  of  the 
foreign  missions,  which  have  won  for  it  so  wide  a  reputa- 
tion. But  besides  these,  a  long  list  of  pamphlets,  memoirs, 
appeals,  remonstrances,  as  well  as  a  voluminous  corre- 
spondence, remain  to  testify  of  his  marvellous  industry. 
Whatever  truth  of  morals,  or  philosophy,  or  religion  was 
assailed,  he  was  ready  to  break  a  lance  of  controversy  with 
the  assailant.  Wherever  a  wrong  was  inflicted,  his  pen 
was  the  sword  of  the  injured. 

It  would  however  be  dishonest  not  to  confess  that,  like 
Fi'an^is  de  Sales,  neither  Amauld's  sympathies  nor  his 
sense  of  justice  could  pass  the  line  which  divides  the 
Catholic  from  the  Protestant  Church.  Both  in  his  **  Apo- 
logy for  the  Catholics,"  and  in  one  or  two  works  on  the 
Calvinistic  system  which  date  from  this  period,  he  attacked, 
in  language  which  admits  of  no  defence,  those  who  were 
divided  from  himself  by  a  very  narrow  region  of  faith. 
Nor  had  the  persecution  which  he  suffered  taught  him 


476  PORT  EOYAL. 

the  lessons  of  liberty ;  he  approved  from  his  banishment 
the  Bevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  saw  nothing 
unjust  or  oppressive  in  the  King's  treatment  of  his  Pro- 
testant subjects.  We  cannot  explain  this  by  the  suppod- 
tion  of  subserviency  to  the  royal  will  and  policy;  for 
Amauld  stoutly  maintained  the  Papal  side  in  the  quarrel 
of  the  B^gale.  Something  may  be  ascribed  to  the  desire 
which  he  felt  in  common  with  the  other  Jansenist  leaders, 
to  be  able  to  rebut  the  charge  of  Calvinism,  by  pointing 
to  his  controversial  exertions  against  the  Calvinists ;  but 
far  more  to  the  fatal  influence  of  his  Church,  and  its  theoiy 
of  exclusive  salvation.  He  was  true  in  adversity,  to  the 
beUef  of  his  prosperous  days.  Even  persecution  could 
not  teach  him  his  own  folly  and  wickedness.  In  saying  that 
he  was  a  Catholic  whose  consistency  withstood  the  severest 
tests,  we  have  admitted  all.  But  to  watch  Amauld  from 
the  midst  of  his  proscription  for  truth's  sake,  hailing  with 
satisfaction  the  banishment  of  thousands  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  for  a  faithfulness  like  his  ovm,  is  to  detect  an 
ugly  smear  upon  the  face  of  a  noble  picture.  The  sym- 
pathies of  any  Protestant  biographer  must  change  sides, 
and  applaud  Jurieu,  as  he  reminds  his  opponent  that  he  owes 
to  the  forbearance  of  Protestant  Holland,  that  very  liberty 
of  person  and  speech,  which  he  uses  to  insult  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  Protestants  of  France. 

In  September,*  1690,  Amauld  returned  for  the  last  time 
to  Brussels;  no  other  city  seemed  to  offer  so  safe  an 
asylum.  He  had  never  been  without  companions  in  his 
wanderings;  M.  Buth  d'Ans,  a  good  priest  who  had 
formerly  been  attached  to  Port  Boyal  des  Champs ;  Qaes- 
nel,  Amauld's  successor  in  the  leadership  of  the  parfy ; 
M.  Duguet,  a  confessor,  who  preserved  for  the  second 
generation  of  Jansenists,  the  traditions  of  the  first: 
M.  Guelphe,  who  for  many  years  rendered  Amauld  faith- 
ful service  as  his  secret«ury;  —  were  with  him,  thou^ 


OLD  AGE  AND  DEATH.  477 

probably  never  all  at  one  time.  "  The  household,"  says 
Quesnel*,  "  was  like  a  little  monastery,  where  prayers,  the 
divine  office,  the  mass,  work,  meals,  conversation,  and 
other  exercises,  followed  regularly  at  the  appointed  hours." 
Amauld,  who  notwithstanding  his  great  age,  rose  at  five, 
or  sometimes  half  an  hour  later,  was  scrupulously  exact  in 
daily  reciting  the  whole  of  the  breviary  at  the  times  pre- 
scribed by  the  Church.  Every  morning  he  said  mass  in 
his  private  chapel.  He  had  so  arranged  the  lessons,  ajs  to 
read  the  whole  of  the  Bible  in  each  year.  The  portion  of 
the  day  not  occupied  by  prayer,  or  set  apart  for  meals, 
was  divided  between  study  and  conversation.  Exercise 
was  hardly  possible;  for  the  last  four  years  of  his  life, 
Arnauld  never  passed  his  threshold,  except  to  take  an 
occasional  walk  in  a  little  courtyard,  over  which  an  awning 
was  stretched,  to  protect  him  from  prying  eyes.  Such  a 
privation  naturally  told  upon  his  health,  and  increased 
the  infirmities  of  old  age ;  but  neither  the  little  ailments 
which  harassed  him  almost  without  intermission,  nor  the 
more  serious  evil  of  the  gradual  loss  of  sight,  disturbed  his 
equanimity,  or  prevailed  with  him  to  lower  the  weapons, 
and  cease  the  warfare  of  his  life.  I  have  before  told  how, 
when  Nicole  urged  him  to  rest,  he  replied,  "  Eest  ?  have  I 
not  all  eternity  to  rest  in  ?  "  —  so  now,  when  failing  eye- 
sight warned  him  of  approaching  death,  he  went  steadily 
on  with  his  work,  only  taking  the  precaution  of  commit- 
ting to  memory  such  of  the  Psalms,  as  he  did  not  already 
know  by  heart  His  pen  was  busy  to  the  last;  a  few  days 
before  he  died,  he  finished  a  work  on  pulpit  eloquence.  On 
Sunday,  August  1st,  1694,  he  was  attacked  by  a  bad  cold, 
which  did  not  however  prevent  him  from  rising  at  the 
usual  hour,  and  saying  mass,  on  the  two  subsequent  days. 
Then  he  took  to  his  bed ;  in  the  night  of  Saturday  tiie 

*  Histoire  AMg#,  &c.  p.  271. 


478  POBT  BOYAL. 

Tth,  he  received  the  sacraments;  and  about  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  after  midnight^  "  a  sigh  told  us  that  he  slept  in 
the  Lord ;  more  like  a  little  one  who  goes  to  sleep  in  its 
mother's  bosom,  than  a  sinner,  who  pays  the  penalty  of 
sin."    He  had  passed  his  eighty-second  year. 

That  Amauld  was  dead,  soon  became  known  in  Pans; 
but  where  he  died,  and  the  place  of  his  burial,  was  long  a 
secret.  Presently  it  was  put  on  record,  that  on  the  second 
night  after  his  death,  Wilhelm  Van  den  Nesle,  Priest  of 
the  parish  church  of  St  Catherine  at  Brussels,  received 
his  body  from  his  friends,  and  laid  it  in  the  vault  of 
the  Van  Stenhoul  fisimily,  which  is  under  the  steps  of 
the  greater  altar,  in  the  above  named  church.  It  hap- 
pened, that  the  pavement  of  the  chancel  had  been  taken 
up  for  some  purpose  of  repair,  so  that  in  the  morning  no 
trace  remained  to  betray  the  secret  of  the  midnight  buriaL 
There  the  great  Augustinian  doctor  still  lies,  without 
monument  or  epitaph.  And  yet  not  for  want  of  affec- 
tionate poetical  memorial;  Bacine  wrote  two  epitaphs, 
another  was  the  work  of  Boileau.  The  honours  of  the 
friendly  competition  remained  with  the  satirist^  who  forgot, 
in  his  sorrow  and  indignation,  that  he  was  only  a  Molino- 
Jansenist 


**  An  pied  de  cet  aatel,  de  structure  grossi^re, 
Git  saDB  pompe,  enferme  dans  nne  Tile  bi^re, 
Le  pins  sarant  mortel  qui  jamais  ait  toit :  < 
Amaald,  qui  sar  U  grace  instruit  par  J^sns  Christ, 
Combattant  pour  I'Eglise,  a,  dans  rfiglise  meme, 
Soaffert  plus  d*un  outrage,  et  plus  d*ttn  anathdme. 
Flein  dn  feu  qu*en  son  oosur  souffla  I'Esprit  diTin^ 
n  terrassa  Pelage,  il  foadroja  Calrin, 
De  tons  les  faux  doctenrs  confondit  la  morale. 
Mais,  pour  fruit  de  son  z^le,  on  Ta  tu  rebut^ 
£n  cent  lieux  opprim^  par  leur  noire  cabale, 
Errant,  panvre,  baimi,  proscrit,  persecute. 


EPITAPHS.  479 

£t  m^me  par  sa  mort,  lear  Airear  mal  eteinte, 
N*anrait  jamais  laisse  ses  cendres  en  repos. 
Si  Diea  loi-meme  ici  de  son  ouaiUe  sainte 
A  ces  loups  devorants  n'avait  cach^  lea  os."* 

In  November,  Amauld's  heart  was  brought  to  Port 
Royal,  where  it  was  reverently  received,  and  laid  in  the 
cemetery,  now  growing  sadly  rich  in  holy  earth.  The 
verses,  placed  upon  the  stone  which  covered  it  are  worth 
quotation,  both  for  their  own  sake,  and  on  account  of  the 
quarrel  to  which  they  gave  rise.  Their  author,  Santeul, 
a  canon  of  St.  Victor,  at  Paris,  who  in  these  latter  years 
had  ventured  to  contract  a  friendship  with  Port  Royal, 
was  harassed  by  the  Jesuits  into  a  half-retractation  of  some 
expressions  in  the  epitaph ;  and  hardly  knew  whether  he 
liked  least  the  discontent  of  his  Jesuit  or  the  laughter  of 
his  Jansenist  friends.  The  verses,  which  were  evidently 
written  under  the  impidse  of  real  feeling,  are  far  more 
interesting  than  the  many  half-jocose,  half-serious  poems 
of  which  they  were  the  occasion : 

**  Ad  sanctas  rediit  sedes,  ejectus  et  exul, 
Hoste  triamphato,  tot  tempestatibvs  actus, 
Hoc  porta  in  placido,  hac  sacriL  tellare  qniesdt 
Am&ldns,  Teri  defensor,  et  arbiter  seqaL 
niias  ossa  memor  sibi  vindicet  extera  tellos : 
Hac  coslestis  amor  rapidis  cor  transtalit  alls. 
Cor  nunquam  arulsam,  nee  amatis  sedibas  abaens.^'f 

It  has  been  in  many  ways  unfortunate  for  Amauld's 
fame  that  he  represents  the  controversial  side  of  French 

*  (Earres  de  Boilean,  toI.  iL  p.  336. 

t  Vie  d'A.  Amaald,  vol.  ii.  p.  871.  I  most  exeept  from  this  critteism 
three  lines  in  a  piece  entitled  Saneiolima  Pcauteng^  which  was  anonymooslj 
pnblsshed  bj  Rollin.  Thej  seem  to  me  to  characterise  Amaald  in  the 
happiest  waj : — 

"  Sancte  senex,  pleno  qai  none  de  flamine  vemm 
Ipsnm  illad,  qaod  sic  terris  peregrinns  am&sti. 
Ore  arido  bibis,  atqae  odiorom  oblivia  potas.** 


480  POST  BOTAL. 

Jansenism.  His  works,  which  fill  no  fewer  than  fortjr-two 
volumes,  and  the  bare  enumeration  of  whose  titles  oc- 
cupies twenty-three  octavo  pages,  are  little  more  than 
contributions  to  every  religious  and  philosophical  debate 
which  agitated  his  age  and  country.  Even  the  '^  Book  of 
Frequent  Communion,"  which  produced  pnctical  effed? 
so  singular  and  so  wide-spread,  was  the  occasion  of  a 
storm.  The  **Art  of  Thinking,"  and  the  ^G^ieral 
Grammar,'*  are  almost  the  only  productions  of  Amaold^s 
pen  which  were  not  polemical,  either  in  their  intention 
or  result  Hardly  any  writer,  at  once  so  industrious  and 
so  able,  has  bequeathed  to  posterity  so  little  of  permanent 
interest  and  value.  Even  in  some  of  the  great  contro* 
versies,  which  occupied  all  his  life,  the  garland  of  &me 
was  won  by  others :  **  La  Perpetuite  de  la  Foi,**  the  chief 
monument  of  the  Protestant  debate  on  the  Eucharist,  was 
the  work  of  Nicole ;  and  the  "  Provincial  Letters  "  repre- 
sent for  all  time  the  moral  polemic  which  Port  Royal 
carried  on  against  the  Jesuits.  And  it  is  precisely  <»  the 
controversial  side  that  Jansenism  halts  between  Catholic 
and  Protestant  sympathies,  and  fails  to  secure  the  un- 
hesitating approval  of  either.  Catholic  and  Protestant 
alike  may  find  a  ground  of  moral  agreement  in  Port 
Boyal;  but  while  the  former  necessarily  condemns  the 
long  resistance  to  authority,  the  latter  withholds  his  full 
approbation  from  what  was  after  all  only  a  half  rebellion. 
Why  should  not  Port  Boyal,  asks  the  Catholic  critic,  have 
humbly  submitted  to  the  decision  of  the  Pope,  and  thus, 
freed  from  the  reproach  of  incipient  Protestantism,  have 
successfully  continued  its  work  of  moral  reform?  •'Why," 
asks  Melchior  Leydecker,  the  Protestant  biographer  of 
Jansen,  '^bave  not  these  excellent  men,  condemned  by 
the  Pope,  afllicted  by  the  Jesuits,  and  weighed  upon  by 
an  intolerable  yoke  which  prevents  all  liberty  of  con- 
sqience^  long  ago  come  out  with  us?"     The  fame   of 


ARNAULD.  481 

Amauld  has  suffered  because,  of  all  the  Port  Boyalists, 
he  is  most  obnoxious  to  this  double  reproach.  The 
.  Catholic,  singling  out  for  praise  his  devotion  to  the  doc- 
trine and  discipline  of  the  Church,  bewails  a  pertinacious 
and  contentious  love  of  truth,  which  placed  him  in  a  per- 
petual attitude  of  protest  against  its  decrees.  The  Pro- 
testant, owning  kindred  aspirations  after  liberty  of  thought 
and  conscience,  complains  that  they  were  carried  to  none 
but  a  'Mame  and  impotent  conclusion.*'  Only  a  Jan- 
senist — or,  if  such  could  be  foimd,  a  Christian  historian 
who  could  rise  to  an  impartial  height  of  judgment  above 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism  alike  —  can  render  full 
justice  to  Arnauld. 

His  mind  was  active,  versatile,  acute,  rather  than  crea- 
tive; his  unbounded  talent  raised  him  to  a  high  place  among 
authors  of  the  second  class ;  the  absence  of  original  genius 
barred  his  access  to  the  first.  Unlike  Pascal,  whose  thought 
was  all  self-developed,  Amauld  seemed  to  require  material 
on  which  to  work.  So  he  was  a  disciple  of  Des  Cartes  in 
philosophy,  of  St.  Cyran  in  religion.  When  once  the  subject- 
matter  however  small  was  provided,  when  once  the  impidse 
however  slight  was  given,  his  busy  intellect  could  adapt, 
modify,  add,  develope.  But  as  no  man  pursued  truth 
with  a  more  entire  devotion,  none  professed  a  more  care- 
less allegiance  to  the  decisions  of  a  mast-er.  Thus,  in  a 
secondary  sense,  his  works  are  original ;  though  capable 
of  being  classified  with  others  as  the  productions  of  a 
school,  in  conception,  method,  execution,  they  are  all  his 
own.  Arnauld's  style  corresponds  with  this  estimate  of 
his  intellectual  powers.  It  expresses  his  meaning  clearly 
and  strongly ;  and  that  is  all.  He  has  no  time  to  delay 
upon  his  words,  and  make  them,  in  addition  to  this,  an 
elegant  vehicle  of  his  thought;  he  lacks  the  artistic 
faculty  which,  by  a  happy  intuition,  always  seizes  upon 
the  riglit  words  at  first.  Whenever  any  single  passage  ia 
VOL.  n.  II 


489  POBT  BOYAL. 

conspicuous  for  a  more  nervous  conciseness^  a  more  for- 
tunate choice  of  phrase,  it  is  always  one  which  has  been 
jpiised  into  its  comparatively  perfect  form  by  the  beat  of 
moral  conviction.  When  an  "unpopular  truth  is  to  be 
defended,  a  perversion  of  right  to  be  assailed,  and  Amaold 
stands,  one  against  a  thousand,  on  the  side  of  God  aod 
duty,  his  sentences  assume  a  certain  severe  and  majestie 
beauty,  which  raises  them  to  the  nobleness  of  their  work. 
But  the  great  doctor  of  Port  Boyal  is  not  to  be  judged 
by  any  mere  rules  of  literary  criticism.  His  words  were 
weapons,  aodtbe  question  is,  not  whether  they  are  pleasant 
to  be  read  after  the  li^se  of  a  century  and  a  half  has  stilled 
the  warfare  which  gave  them  birth,  but  whether,  when 
first  uttered,  they  did  the  work  which  they  were  designed 
to  do,  thoroughly  and  well.  We  estimate  his  controversial 
volumes  as  we  judge  state  papers ;  we  ask  whether  thej 
repelled  attack,  or  conciliated  opposition,  or  produced  con- 
viction. And  therefore  it  is,  in  this  case,  more  difficult 
than  usual.to  distinguish  between  the  author  and  the  man  ; 
without  his  literary  activity,  Arnauld  becomes  the  shadow  of 
a  great  name ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  all  Arnauld  is  in 
his  books.  His  sincere  and  manly  piety,  his  irrepressible 
aspiration  after  truth,  his  impatience  of  moral  laxity  or 
perversity,  his  transparent  candour,  his  warm  and  generous 
affections,  his  immovable  adherence  to  a  good  cause,  his  utter 
contempt  of  selfish  considerations  in  comparison  with  the 
fullest  performance  of  duty,  guide  his  pen  and  his  life  alike. 
Who  will  attempt  to  fix  the  point  at  which  the  love  of  truth 
may  become  disputatious,or  the  vehemence  of  moral  indigna- 
tion overstep  the  bounds  of  charity  ?  I  confess,  that  I  think 
Arnauld  was  right  on  every  occasion  on  which  he  differed 
from  the  other  friends  of  Port  Royal,  except  one,  and  that 
was  when  Pascal  wished  to  go  still  farther  than  he.  And 
80,  of  all  Port  Boyalists,  he  comes  nearest  to  the  Protestant 
ideal  of  logical,  consistent  truthfulness.    Let  it  be  taken  as 


ABNAULD.  483 

sufficient  proof  of  the  goodness  of  his  hearty  that  sixty  years 
of  controversy  did  not  make  him  arrogant,  and  that  to  the 
last  he  could  give  and  receive  the  wounds  of  wordy  war- 
fare, with  unfailing  good  temper. 

Amauld's  life  was  brightest  at  the  last;  his  exile  was  a 
crown  of  glory  to  his  old  age.  Every  noble  quality  which 
he  possessed  seemed  to  be  burnished  by  this  trial  to  an  un- 
wonted lustre.  The  calm  resolution  with  which,  in  his 
sixty-eighth  year,  he  prepared  to  encounter  an  exile  which 
involved  both  poverty  and  peril,  rather  than  be  silent  in 
face  of  wrong ;  his  reliance  upon  the  strength  which  the 
old  man  draws  from  the  approach  of  liberty;  his  Christian 
interpretation  of  the  heathen  maxim  that  every  country 
is  the  brave  man's  home ;  his  punctilious  loyalty  to  the 
King,  who,  could  he  have  set  his  foot  upon  him,  would 
have  crushed  him  like  a  noxious  reptile ;  the  careless  in- 
dependence with  which,  in  defiance  of  Louis  and  Innocent 
alike,  he  took  what  appeared  to  him  the  right  side  in  the 
Galilean  debates ;  his  magnanimous  defence  of  Nicole ;  his 
resolve  to  accept  no  terms  of  accommodation  which  did 
not  include  all  his  fellowsufferers ;  his  unceasing  activity 
under  every  circumstance  which  might  contribute  to  reduce 
him  to  inaction;  his  chivalrous  advocacy  of  all  n^lected  or 
impugned  truth ;  the  cheerful  patience  with  which  for  fifteen 
years  he  bore  the  hardships  of  his  wandering  life,  bating 
"  not  a  jot  of  heart  or  hope,**  but  still  confident  in  the  final 
victory  of  his  jEftith ;  —  make  up  a  portrait^  the  lineaments 
of  which  assume  an  heroic  grandeur  and  symmetry.  If 
no  citizen  of  Brussels  knows  that  in  that  obscure  lodging, 
Antoine  Arnauld,  homeless,  poor,  proscribed,  expatriate, 
has  passed  to  Grod,  thousands  through  Catholic  Europe 
confess  by  their  tears  that  they  have  lost  a  teacher  and  a 
friend,  honoured,  revered,  beloved  as  few  men  are.  He 
has  far  overpassed  the  ordinary  limits  of  man's  life ;  he  has 
kept  to  the  last  his  strength  of  mind  and  body  and  will : 

II  2 


484  POET  EOTAL. 

be  has  made  no  selfish  compromise  with  wrong ;  he  has 
concluded  no  cowardly  peace  with  error.  What  more  is 
needed  to  make  a  fortmiate  death  ?  Let  us  solemnly  lower 
our  flag  for  a  moment  over  the  nameless  grave  of  the  great 
captain  of  Port  Boyal,  and  then  pass  sadly  on  to  watch  the 
destruction  of  the  citadel,  in  whose  defence  he  died.* 

In  August  1695,  exactly  a  year  after  Amauld,  died  Har- 
lay^  suddenly  and  without  the  sacraments.  He  too  was 
an  old  man,  who  had  not  altogether  attained  the  object  of 
his  ambition,  for  he  died  without  the  Cardinal's  hat,  whidi 
was  to  have  been  the  reward  of  his  Grallican  zeal.  He  had 
offended  Madame  de  Maintenott  by  opposing  himsdf  to  the 
publication  of  her  marriage  with  the  King,  azid  found, 
when  the  stream  of  ecclesiastical  preferment  flowed  through 
another  channel,  that  the  crowd  in  his  ante-chamber  grew 
less  numerous  and  less  respectful.  His  successor  in  the 
Archbishopric  was  M.  de  Noailles,  Bishop  of  Chalons-sar- 
Mame,  who  in  1705,  was  elevated  to  the  dignity  of  Car- 
dinal. He  was  of  distinguished  birth,  being  the  brother 
of  the  Due  de  Noailles ;  exemplary  in  the  purity  of  his 
private  life  and  the  attention  which  he  paid  to  the  affiurs  of 
his  diocese.     It  is  said  that  he  desired  his  new  honours  so 

*  Histoire  de  la  Vie  et  des  Ourrages  de  M.  Anianld,p.  146,  et  sag.  Vie 
d'A^  Arnauld,  voL  ii.  p.  1 12,  «f  Meg,  St*  BeuTe,  Port  Bojal,  vol.  r.  p.  134,  et 
seq.  When  Charles  Perraiilt  published  in  1 696,  bis  **  Eloges  "  of  one  handled 
of  the  most  distingnished  men  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV^  accompanied  br 
their  portraits,  he  was  forbidden — after  the  book  had  been  printed,  and 
the  portraits  engrared — to  indade  in  the  namber  Amanld  and  Pncal. 
The  portion  of  the  book  which  referred  to  them  was  suppressed :  dioiigh  it 
was  restored  in  the  second  edition,  published  in  Holland  in  1697,  and  the 
third,  printed  at  Paris  in  1701.  Men  recalled  the  words  in  which  Tacitas  spoke 
(Ann.  lib.  iii.  c  76,)  of  the  foneral  of  Jnnia  the  wife  of  C.  Casstns,  the  sister 
of  K.  Brutus,  at  which  the  images  of  Cassins  and  Brutus  were  not  sufieired 
to  be  dispUjed  :  **  Sed  prafvJg^bant  Casmut  atque  Bruiug,  to  ipwOf  qmod  efi- 
gies  eorum  non  visebantwr,**  **  Cassins  and  Brutus  were  the  more  oon- 
spicuous  from  the  Terj  fact  that  their  effigies  were  not  seen."    It  would  be 

difficult  to  find  a  more  apt  and  biting  application  of  classic  phrase. T7< 

d*A.  Arnauld,  p  491. 


D£  NOAILLES.  485 

little,  as  to  have  attempted  to  rouse  the  opposition  of  the 
Jesuits  to  his  nomination  by  signifying  a  public  approval 
of  that  famous  book,  Quesnel's  "  Moral  Reflections,"  which, 
in  the  second  period  of  the  Jansenist  debate,  holds  the  same 
place  as  the  "  Augustinus"  in  the  first  St.  Simon  explains 
the  appointment,  by  the  statement  that  for  once  P^re  la 
Chaise  was  not  consulted,  and  that  Noailles  owed  his  promo- 
tion to  Madame  de  Maintenon's  sole  influence.  It  was  a 
bitter  day  for  him  when  he  left  the  happy  obscurity  of  his 
provincial  bishopric,  to  assume  the  perilous  administration 
of  the  metropolitan  diocese.  He  was  an  honest  man,  who 
wished  to  hold  the  balance  between  contending  parties 
fairly ;  but  who  had  neither  the  strength  of  will  needful  for 
the  maintenance  of  such  a  position,  nor  the  smooth  subtlety 
which  Harlay  substituted  in  its  place.  He  excited  Jan- 
senist hopes,  which  he  was  unable  to  fulfil,  and  yet  failed, 
even  by  his  severity,  to  conciliate  the  confidence  of  the 
Jesuits.  Cruelty  firom  him  was  felt  at  Port  Boyal  to  be 
doubly  cruel ;  while  La  Chaise  and  Le  Tellier  looked  upon 
him  as  little  better  than  a  Port  Boyalist  in  disguise.  His 
was  the  hardest  of  all  fates ;  to  be  the  instrument  of  a 
fanaticism  with  which  he  had  no  sympathy ;  to  inflict  the 
wrongs,  and  to  suffer  the  remorse  of  a  persecutor,  thougk 
never  animated  by  the  fiery  zeal  of  persecution.* 

The  events  of  the  five  or  six  years  which  followed  the 
accession  of  the  new  Archbishop,  are  but  few.  La  Mere 
Eacine  presided  over  the  community  from  1690  to  1699, 
when  she  was  replaced  by  La  M^re  Boulard  de  Ninvilliers, 
the  last  Abbess  of  Port  Royal.  Death  followed  death  in 
melancholy  succession :  as  Amauld  had  saidf,  **  The  house 
of  Grod  seems  to  be  destroyed,  but  it  is  re-edified  elsewhere. 
The  stones  are  cut  here,  but  it  is  that  they  may  be  placed 
in   the  heavenly  temple."     In   1695   died   Lancelot  and 

•  St,  Simon,  vol  ii.  pp.  112—117. 
f  Quoted  by  St*  Beuve,  vol.  v.  p.  125. 
ZZ3 


486  PORT  BOYAL. 

Nicole ;  in  1696,  Pascal's  friends,  Domat  and  De  Boannez ; 
in  1698  Tillemont  and  Du  Foss^;  in  1699  Badne.  The 
community  grew  smaller  every  year ;  one  by  one  the  aged 
women,  whose  profession  dated  from  the  days  of  La  M^ 
Ang^lique,  dropped  away,  till  the  thin  ranks  could  no 
longer  fulfil  the  laborious  round  of  service,  and  were 
compelled  to  ask  the  help  of  certain  *'  sisters  of  the  white 
veil,"  who  took  the  places  of  the  dead,  yet  were  not  united 
in  community  of  ride  with  the  living.  In  1700  La  H^ 
Bacine.  followed  the  nephew,  whose  alienation  6*0111  the 
house  had  cost  her  so  much  grief;  whose  faithful  and 
affectionate  service  during  these  weaiy  years  must  have 
been  her  joy  and  pride.  The  same  year  witnessed  the  de- 
parture of  the  last  Amauld,  Marie  Ang^lique,  daughter  of 
D*Andilly,  who  had  been  the  companion  of  La  M^re  Agnes 
in  her  captivity,  and,  yielding  to  the  fatal  eloquence  of 
Bossuet,  had  signed  the  Formulary.  One  hundred  aod  one 
years  have  passed  since  Henri  IV.  made  AngSIique  Ar- 
nauld  Abbess  of  Port  Boyal  des  Champs. 

The  virtues  of  the  new  Archbishop  excited  at  Port 
Boyal  a  fresh  and  illusive  hope.  He  received  the  con- 
gratulations which  the  nuns  offered  through  Bacine,  with 
m  courtesy  which  at  least  seemed  sincere,  and  bade  the 
poet  draw  up  for  his  instruction  a  narrative  of  the  reform 
and  misfortunes  of  the  house.  A  visit  which  he  made  to 
Port  Boyal  in  1697,  added  one  more  to  the  long  list  of 
eulogies  which  the  monastic  vfrtue  of  the  oommunitr 
compelled  even  from  its  oppressors ;  and  is  said  to  have 
induced  him  to  suggest  to  Louis  the  withdrawal  of  the 
prohibition  to  receive  novices.  But  the  request^  if  ever 
preferred,  was  preferred  in  vain.  When  Madame  de 
Harlay,  Abbess  of  Port  Boyal  de  Paris,  emboldened  by  the 
weakness  of  the  rival  house,  impudently  sued  in  the 
courts  of  law,  for  a  revision  of  the  decree  which  had 
divided  the  conventual  property ;  M.  de  Noailles  stead- 


LA  BELLE  HAMILTON.  487 

fastly  upheld  the  caiise  of  Port  Boyal  des  Champs,  and  re- 
joioed  when  justice  was  done.  Madame  de  Harlay,  not 
long  before,  had  given  a  ball  in  the  parlour  of  her  con- 
vent :  ^^  It  was  not  fair/  said  the  Archbishop,  ^^  that  Port 
Royal  de  Paris  should  dance,  and  Port  Royal  des  Champs 
pay  for  the  music''  And  others,  remembering  the  shame- 
less extravagance  of  one  house,  the  modest  frugality  of  the 
other,  recalled  the  story  of  the  foolish  virgins,  who,  when 
they  had  no  oil  in  their  lamps,  would  willingly  have  drawn 
upon  the  resources  of  the  wise,* 

But  the  fate  of  Port  Boyal  rested  with  the  King,  not 
with  the  Archbishop :  and  Louis's  fanatical  hatred  of  Jan- 
senism strengthened  as  he  grew  old.  It  had  once  been 
more  than  half  political;  now  it  was  almost  wholly  re- 
ligious. Under  the  influence  of  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
religion  had  become  the  fsishion  at  Versailles ;  and  the 
form  of  the  King's  convictions  was  necessarily  determined 
by  his  Jesuit  advisers.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for 
any  proof  of  Madame  de  Maintenon's  special  ^nmity  to 
Port  Boyal,  nor  do  I  believe  that  it  exists.  She  directed 
through  her  own  channels,  as  fisu:  as  she  could,  the  eccle- 
siastical promotions  of  the  kingdom;  she  spent  upon  St. 
Cyr  all  the  resources  of  her  private  influence  and  energy ; 
and  so  left  her  husband  and  P^re  la  Chaise  to  exercise 
against  Port  Boyal  a  severity,  which  she  made  no  effort 
to  avert  or  to  mollify.  We  gain  more  than  one  glimpse 
of  the  King's  personal  feelings  during  the  period  of  the 
last  persecution  by  help  of  St.  Simon's  caustic  pen.  In 
1699,  Madame  de  Grrammont,  who  to  English  readers  is 
best  known  as  La  Belle  Hamilton,  spent  a  few  days  at 
Port  BoyaL  She  was  a  favourite  at  court;  almost  the 
only  one  of  Louis's  female  friends  who  was  not  a  friend  of 
his  wife's,  and  to  whom  he  testified  friendship  even  in  her 

*  GuUbert,  voL  ill  rp*  S25— 305.    Da  Fosse,  p.  477,  et  teq. 
JZ  4 


488  POET  ROYAL. 

despite.  Up  to  this  time,  she  had  always  been  ooe  of  that 
mysteriously  select  and  delightful  company,  who  followed 
the  King  to  Marli  when  he  was  weary  of  the  royal  pomp 
of  Versailles.  Now  she  was  left  out :  "  Those  who  go  to 
Port  Eoyal,"  said  Loiiis,  "  do  not  come  to  Marli.*'  But 
Madame  de  Grammont,  who  was  bold  enough  to  speak  her 
mind  even  to  the  King,  regained  her  place  in  the  inner 
cfarcle  without  any  treason  to  Port  Boyal.  She  told  him 
of  her  obligations  to  the  house ;  how,  when  her  parents 
had  fled  from  England  during  the  troubles  of  the  civil  war. 
La  M^re  Angelique  had  not  only  given  them  substantial 
help,  but  had  taken  herself  into  the  convent,  and  fed,  and 
clothed,  and  taught  her,  out  of  pure  charity.  But  the 
King  would  not  hear  her  when  she  began  to  speak  of  the 
piety,  the  virtue,  the  loyalty  of  the  community.  •*  I  have 
my  reasons  for  acting  as  I  do,"  was  all  the  explanation 
which  he  vouchsafed.  Still,  when  Madame  de  Grammont 
next  went  tor  Marli  the  victory  remained  with  her:  she 
had  told  a  king  the  truth,  and  had  eluded  the  jealousy  of 
a  king's  wife,  who  had  more  than  the  power  of  a  mistress.* 
If  we  may  trust  another  anecdote  which  St.  Simon 
records,  even  Louis  was  not  without  his  intervals  of  hesi- 
tation and  repentance.  About  the  end  of  1703  or  the 
beginning  of  1704,  Mar^chal,  who  had  held  for  about  a 
year  the  office  of  first  surgeon  to  the  King,  was  aiked  to 
visit  at  Port  Boyal,  a  nun  who  suffered  under  some  disease 
of  the  leg,  which  seemed  to  render  amputation  neceesaij. 
He  had  already  consented,  when  a  friend,  more  worldly 
wise  than  himself,  advised  him  to  ask  the  King's  permis- 
sion, before  having  anything  to  do  with  the  suspected 
community.  Mar^chal,  who  could  not  see  what  it  mattered 
to  the  King  whether  he  went  to  decide  upon  the  amputa^ 
tion  of  a  nun's  leg  or  not,  was  prevailed  upon  to  take  the 

*  GaUberi^  roL  iii.  p.  266.     St.  Simon,  toI.  iy.  p.  117 ;  toI  tiu  p.  41  i 
ToL  zi  p.  143. 


LOUIS  AND   PORT  ROYAL.  489 

prudent  course,  only  by  the  importunities  of  his  adviser. 
"At  the  name  of  Port  Eoyal,"  says  St  Simon,  **the  King 
drew  himself  up,  as  he  was  wont  to  do  when  he  heard 
what  displeased  him,  and  remained  for  the  space  of  two  or 
three  paternosters  without  reply,  seriously  reflecting ;  then 
said  to  Marshal,  ^I  am  willing  that  you  should  go,  but  on 
condition  that  you  go  at  once,  so  as  to  have  time  to  spare ; 
that  under  pretext  of  curiosity  you  see  all  the  house,  and 
the  nims  in  the  choir,  and  everywhere  else  that  you  can ; 
that  you  make  them  talk,  and  examine  everything  closely, 
and  that  to-night  you  give  me  an  account.'  Marshal, 
still  more  astonished,  went  his  way,  saw  everything,  and 
did  all  that  was  demanded  of  him.  His  return  was  awaited 
with  impatience;  the  King  frequently  inquired  for  him, 
and  kept  him,  when  he  came,  more  than  an  hour,  asking 
questions,  and  hearing  his  tale.  Mar^chal  did  nothing  but 
praise  Port  Royal ;  he  said  to  the  King  that  the  first  word 
addressed  to  him  was,  to  ask  for  news  of  the  King's  health, 
and  that  the  question  was  often  repeated ;  that  nowhere  did 
they  so  earnestly  pray  for  him  —  a  fact  of  which  he  had 
himself  been  a  witness  in  tbe  services  of  the  choir.  He 
admired  the  charity,  the  patience,  the  penitence  which  he 
had  noticed;  he  added  that  he  had  never  been  in  any 
house,  the  piety  and  holiness  of  which  had  made  so  great 
an  impression  upon  him.  The  end  of  the  story  was  a  sigh 
from  the  King,  who  said  that  they  were  holy  women,  who 
had  been  too  hardly  pressed,  whose  obstinacy  and  ignor- 
ance of  facts  had  not  been  treated  gently  enough,  and  in 
whose  case,  matters  had  been  pushed  too  far."*  But  the 
royal  sigh  was  the  expression  of  a  feeling  almost  as  tran- 
sitory as  itself,  A  year  or  two  afterwards,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  who  was  about  to  take  the  command  of  an  army 
in  Spain,  proposed  to  the  King,  that  M.  de  Fontpertuis 

*  St  Simon,  toL  tu.  p.  a9« 


490  POST  SOTAL. 

should  accompany  him  as  a  member  of  his  8ta£  *' '  How, 
my  nephew,'  answered  the  King  with  emotion ;  '  the  son 
of  that  mad  woman,  who  ran  after  Amanld  everywhere  ? 
A  Jansenist  I  I  won't  have  any  such  person  with  yoo.' 
^  Ma  foi.  Sire,'  answered  M.  d'Orleans, '  I  don't  know  what 
the  mother  did :  but  for  the  son  to  be  called  a  Jansenist! 
he  does  not  even  believe  that  there  is  a  God  I'  <Is  it 
possible  ? '  replied  the  Eling ;  <  and  do  you  assure  me  of 
that?  In  that  case  there  is  no  harm,  you  may  take  him."" 
St.  Simon  might  well  add,  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans  told 
the  tale  everywhere,  and  never  without  laughing  till  he 
cried.  The  force  of  sectarian  hatred  has  rarely  gone  so 
fieu*,  and  could  not  go  further.  This  single  story  explains 
the  fete  of  Port  Koyal.* 

In  1702,  at  the  re-election  of  La  M^re  Bonlaid,  it 
appeared  that  the  number  of  nuns  had  dwindled  to  thizty* 
one,  of  whom  five,  either  &om  sickness  or  old  age^  were 
inmates  of  the  infirmary.  And  now  a  new  debate  arose 
on  the  old  subject  of  signature.  What  was  called  tite 
famous  ^' Case  of  Conscience" — femous  at  least  in  this, 
that  its  history  was  written  in  eight  volumes — was  pub- 
lished in  1702,  and  excited  a  controversy  as  bitt^-  as  that 
which  had  raged  forty  years  before.  A  doubt  had  arisen 
in  the  minds  of  some  scrupulous  theologians,  relying  on 
certain  briefs  which  Innocent  XII.  had  addressed  to  the 
Bishops  of  the  Low  Countries,  as  to  whether  it  nught  not 
be  possible  for  one,  who,  condemning  the  incriminated 
doctrine  of  Jansen,  maintained  only  a  respectful  silence 
in  regard  to  the  **  fait,"  to  sign  the  Formulary  with  a  good 
conscience.  Jansenist  opinions  upon  this  nice  point  dif- 
fered ;  the  question  was  referred  to  many  theologians^  and, 
among  others,  to  M.  Eustace,  confessor  of  Port  Boyal. 
who,  throwing  it  into  the  form  of  a  *'  Case  of  Conacienoe,^ 

*  St  Simon,  toL  z.  p.  12 ;  conf.  roL  zi.  p.  63. 


THE   CASS  OF  OONSCIENCE.  491 

procured  the. opinions  of  forty  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne. 
Then,  after  a  few  months,  the  "  Case  of  Conscience,"  with 
a  prefatory  letter  conceived  in  a  most  artful  or  injudicious 
spirit  of  aggression,  was  published.  It  is  not  now  known 
whether  the  publication  was  the  act  of  an  enemy  or  of  a 
foolish  friend.  To  moot  the  question  involved  in  the 
'^Case  of  Conscience  "  was,  from  the  Jansenist  side,  so  mani- 
festly unwise,  that  for  a  time  the  whole  affair  was  believed 
to  be  a  Jesuit  plot,  which  had  for  its  object  the  renewal 
of  hostilities.  The  unfortunate  confessor,  who  was  the 
unwitting  author  of  the  controversy,  found  it  expedient 
to  leave  Port  Boyal  to  avoid  the  Bastille  or  a  lettre^e^ 
cachet;  and  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  the  Abbey  of 
Orval,  where,  under  a  feigned  name,  and  practising  the 
severest  self-mortification,  he  bewailed  the  imprudence 
which  had  caused  the  destruction  of  the  community  which 
he  would  have  sacrificed  everything  to  preserye. 

The  excitement  to  which  the  *^Case  of  Conscience" 
gave  rise  ran  through  the  whole  Church  of  France,  and 
produced  the  due  result  of  papal  briefs,  episcopal  decla- 
rations, and  royal  decrees.  Pope,  Archbishop,  and  King 
were  heartily  allied  against  the  Jansenists;  thirty-nine 
out  of  the  forty  doctors  were  induced,  by  harsh  or  gentle 
measures,  to  retract  their  signatures;  the  foilieth,  M. 
Petitpied,  was  expelled  from  the  Sorbonne,  like  Amauld 
before  him,  and  exiled  to  Beaune.  But  although  the 
King  reissued  his  decree  of  1668  *,  forbidding  the  con- 
tinuance of  party  warfare,  and  the  use  of  party  names,  the 
quarrel  was  not  appeased*  At  last,  the  only  resource 
seemed  to  be  a  papal  bull,  to  procure  which  Madame  de 
Maintenon  is  said  to  have  used  her  influence  with  the 
King  of  Spain.  It  was  published  in  July  1705,  and  is 
known  by  its  initial  words  as  the  Bull  Vintam  Domini 

•  VoL  i.  p.  436. 


4d2  PORT  EOYAL. 

Sahaoth.  Like  many  more  documents  of  its  kind,  it  'was 
ambiguous  in  its  terms ;  and,  though  decidedly  anti-Jan- 
senist,  was  interpreted  to  mean  more  and  less  by  the 
contending  parties.  With  its  influence  upon  the  later 
phases  of  the  Jansenist  controversy,  we  have  in  thiB  place 
nothing  to  do;  our  sole  concern  with  it  is  as  a  pretext  for 
demanding  of  the  nuns  of  Port  fioyal  a  fresh  and  uncon- 
ditional signature.* 

While  the  **  Case  of  Conscience  "  was  still  agitating  the 
public  mind,  an  event  of  some  importance  in  the  general 
history  of  Jansenism  roused  all  the  King's  prejudices  and 
suspicions  to  renewed  activity.  Quesnel,  the  indefatigable 
leader  of  the  Jansenist  party,  was  arrested  at  Brussels  in 
May  1703,  by  order  of  the  King  of  Spain,  and  thrown 
into  the  prison  of  the  Archbishop  of  Mechlin.  He  soon 
escaped ;  but  left  behind  him  all  his  papers.  The  secret 
correspondence  of  many  years  was  unveiled  to  hostUe 
eyes;  the  ciphers,  the  noma  de  guerre^  the  unaccom- 
plished schemes  of  the  party,  all  discovered.  Louis  and 
his  Jesuit  counsellors  had  forced  Jansenism  into  habits  of 
concealment  and  intrigue;  now  they  exclaimed  that  a 
great  plot  against  church  and  state  had  been  brougbt  to 
light.  One  paper,  containing  the  terms  upon  which  ^^  the 
disciples  of  St  Augustine  "  were  disposed  to  conclude  a 
peace  with  D'Avaux,  the  King's  plenipotentiary  in  Hol- 
land, about  the  year  1684, — a  document  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  regard  in  any  other  light  than  as  a  verj  clumsy 
piece  of  pleasantry, — especially  excited  the  King's  anger. 
What  plainer  proof  that  the  Jansenists  were  a  firmly  com- 
pacted party,  than  that  they  actually  contemplated  inde- 
pendent negotiations  at  a  congress  which  was  to  determine 
the  peace  of  Europe?  The  truth  lay  midway  between 
Louis's  angry  suspicions,  and  Arnauld's  persistent  assertion 

*  Gailbert,  toL  iii.  p.  357,  ef  Btq,     Gnettee,  vol.  xu  p.  803,  e<  «of.      Si* 
BenTe,  yoL  y.  pp.  521— 526i 


THE   BULL  YINEAM.  49S 

• 

that  Jansenism  was  only  a  "  phantom."  Every  year  it 
grew  more  difficult  to  prove  the  orthodoxy  and  obedience 
of  a  party  which  successive  Popes  persisted  in  stigmatising 
as  heretical  and  rebellious.  Every  year  persecution,  sup- 
ported by  an  overwhelming  force  of  authority,  arrayed 
against  itself  a  more  secret  organisation,  a  more  tortuous 
system  of  intrigue.  But  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
Louis  XIV.  had  any  right  to  blame  Quesnel  for  using 
disguises,  which  his  own  policy  had  rendered  necessary, 
or  to  wonder  that  modes  of  thought,  which  he  had 
made  penal,  should  shun  the  day,  in  order  to  evade  the 
penalty.* 

The  bull  Vineam  Dornird  was  received  by  the  Assembly 
of  the  French  clergy,  which  was  sitting  in  1705,  and  a 
^mandement'  for  its  publication  at  once  issued  by  the 
Archbishop.  It  was  the  business  of  the  rural  deans  to 
make  the  ^mandement'  known  throughout  the  diocese; 
but  either  through  accident  or  design,  the  Dean  of  Cha- 
teaufort^  in  whose  district  was  Port  Koyal  des  Champs,  did 
not  receive  a  copy.  Here  the  matter  rested  till  March, 
1706,  when  the  Archbishop  began  to  inquire  how  the  nuns 
had  received  the  bull,  and  the  accompanying  ^mande- 
ment.'  On  being  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  he 
at  once  sent  both  documents  to  Port  Royal  by  the  hands  of 
the  confessor  M.  Marignier,  and  demanded  a  certificate 
signed  by  the  abbess  and  the  confessor,  that  they  had  been 
duly  read  and  accepted.  The  nuns,  knowing  that  such 
certificates  had  not  been  asked  from  other  religious  houses 
in  the  diocese  except  the  monastery  of  Gif,  a  foundation 
near  their  own,  which  was  also  supposed  to  be  tainted 
with  Jansenism,  stood  upon  their  guard.  On  the  21st  of 
March,  the  bull  was  read  at  Port  Boyal ;  and  the  follow- 
ing certificate,  identical,  except  in  the  last  clause,  with 

•  St«  BCUYC,  YOl.  Y.  p.  528. 


494  FORT  BOTAL. 

that  required  by  the  Archbishop^  was  signed  by  M.  Marig- 
nier^  and,  with  the  necessary  alterations,  by  the  abbe^ :  — 

''  The  ball  and  ordinance  above  have  been  read  and  pub- 
lished by  me,  the  nndersigned  priest^  lawfully  appointed 
to  the  oversight  of  the  nuns,  who  have  declared  that  they 
receive  them  with  the  respect  due  to  His  Holiness  and  His 
Eminence;  without /prejudice  to  what  woe  done  in  regard 
to  them  at  the  Peace  of  the  Church  under  Pope  Clement 
IX.    This  2l8t  day  of  March,  1706." 

At  this  point  the  community  took  their  stand.  Thdr 
friends  besought,  the  Archbishop  alternately  entreated  and 
threatened  them,  in  vain.  They  thought  that  the  certificate 
without  the  conditional  clause,  would  be  interpreted  as  a 
condemnation  of  the  holy  abbesses,  the  learned  and  pious 
doctors,  whose  lives  were  the  glory  of  their  house*  Sooner 
than  seem  to  abandon  the  ground  which  had  been  won  for 
them  by  the  Peace  of  the  Church,  they  would  risk  extinc- 
tion.* 

It  is  hard  to  decide  at  what  point,  if  at  all,  in  the 
history  of  Port  Royal,  a  justifiable  resistance  to  oppressive 
authority  passes  into  a  self-willed  contentiousness.  Per- 
haps from  the  very  beginning,  the  attempt  to  reconcile  a 
certain  liberty  of  judgment  with  an  alleged  respect  for 
papal  and  episcopal  decisions,  was  so  far  illogical  as  to 
take  it  beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  rules  of  criticism. 
We  must  leave  it  to  Catholic  casuists  to  determine  the 
extent  to  which  a  Catholic  conscience,  relying  upon  itself, 
may  rightly  resist  the  authoritative  declarations  of  the 
Pope.  In  this  instance  the  more  moderate  friends  of  Port 
Royal  might  point  to  the  ambiguous  language  of  the  bull ; 
to  the  cautious  terms  of  the  mandement ;  to  the  fact  that 
no  individual  signature  was  required  of  the  nuns ;  to  the 
hopelessness— almost  the  absurdity  of  the  resistance  offered 

•  Histoire  Abregee  do  la  Derni^  Persecution  de  P.  B.,  voL  i  p.  7S. 
GaUbert,  toI.  iii.  pp.  377,  398,  et  seq. 


PINAL  RESISTANCE.  495 

by  a  few  aged  women,  unversed  in  the  subtleties  of  theology, 
and  ignorant  of  the  ways  of  the  world,  to  Pope,  and  King, 
and  the  Grallican  clergy,  represented  in  their  Assembly. 
And  yet  the  nuns  might  reply  that  these  very  things  con- 
stituted the  artfulness  of  the  trap,  into  which  they  were 
asked  to  fall.  The  signature  of  the  imconditional  certifi- 
cate was  made  as  easy  as  might  be;  but  could  anyone 
doubt  that  it  would  be  hailed  as  a  triumph  over  Port 
Eoyal,  and  the  Peace  of  the  Church  ?  Would  they  not, 
in  giving  up  the  little  that  was  asked  of  them,  in  fact  give 
up  everything?  And  to  what  purpose?  The  certificate 
rightly  signed,  would  not  remove  the  King's  prejudices,  or 
salve  the  ancient  rancour  of  the  Jesuits,  or  even  buy  back 
the  right  <Jf  recruiting  their  wasted  ranks  by  the  reception 
of  fresh  novices.  Was  it  then  not  better  to  die,  if  death 
were  inevitable,  with  a  conscience  clear  of  any  concession 
which  La  M^re  Ang^lique  would  have  pronounced  shame- 
ful ?  Why  sully  the  fair  fame  of  a  century's  devotion  to 
truth,  by  a  few  months'  safety,  earned  by  acquiescence  in 
possible  error  ?  So  the  sorely  diminished  band  was  faith- 
ful to  the  last,  and  nobly  prepared  to  die  with  arms  in 
their  hands. 

To  some  death  was  very  near ;  first,  on  the  14th  of 
April,  SoBur  de  Bemiires,  Subprioress,  the  daughter  of  an 
old  and  faithful  friend,  was  taken ;  then  on  the  20th  the 
Abbess  followed  her.  But  when  the  Abbess  died,  the 
Prioress  was  in  the  agonies  of  death ;  while  six  days  after- 
wards Soeur  le  Feron,  one  of  the  oldest  and  ablest  of  the 
community,  also  passed  away.  These  repeated  blows 
would  have  left  the  sisterhood  without  a  head,  had  not 
La  Mere  Boulard,  in  her  last  moments,  nominated  to  the 
office  of  prioress,  so  soon  to  be  vacant,  Soeur  Louise  Du- 
mesnil.  She  is  henceforward  the  only  successor  of  Ange- 
lique  and  Agnds  Amauld ;  for  the  Archbishop  refused  his 
sanction  to  the  election  of  a  new  abbess. 


JU  »Tr  'Uaa    lor  "TFSff*** 

i  nu  Iff  ?rf:A-  TATT  Ji 

\^  Hiar-  n-ucit  Mis-:  m*!^  -a*«c3r 
ill  viMOHTUinm  -^nm  ^*r  ssMtr^w^ 

%/  ^^  i#i,  -a*^  ^fffttmnny-  "liznH^ 

.-n-  -9-ioa  ' »  jwo«?r  Mil  :««rr:  iQHa-  'i^ 
•  r.,  .li^iiKft.     Tje  T>iQ  if  aunnrj 
,r,r;  -Ml  "iiwi:  >3L  if  F-ifinac7-  * 

':u^\»tt'.  «ul  5ir*uuiiiKr  "^le  yui  mi  iir*  it  i""  ■■ 

v^^,  'Jt:L^^»r94»ir^     Tift  anna  it  a*  eSunr  ^ro^  an-'        ^ 

v^*ti   p#»fw>ofi,  wfwae  iutip  wa»  aimoBt    iwii  \rmfj  *  — 

K'A  P^,rt  Itoyal  dft  Pans,  nit  atiafied  wiA  A»  F^ 
▼ictr^ry,  pr«9iettted  ^  sttond  peddon  to  dbe  Bagr  P*.^ 
f..r  fPxii:  tr^tad  s«zppRSHt>a  of  Ae  lioetkal  c«»«^^ 
I>>aM  referred  the  matter,  m  one  XhaX  vboDj  cooceo^*^ 
the  aotKoTitiea  of  the  G^mch,  to  the  AxAii^i^  *^ 
prepared  to  take  action  upon  it,  by  appfxntiiig  »  ^^f"?^ 
mm  of  inqairj.  Port  Soyal  des  Champs,  even  iB  »^'^ 
days,  was  somewbat  prolix  in  protest,  petition,  •»*  *PP^' 

Gi^m.Ttiiii.>4a2,t<«,.;  ^ir.pp,  107.143,161.185.  ^^'^ 
KOkiw«^  tO.  i.  jf^  iM^  cf  Mf.  158,  U»- 


BEMONSTRAKCE  AND  APPEAt.  497 

now,  the  nuns  defended  every  inch  of  ground  with  remon- 
strances and  memoirs  which  fill  volumes  of  the  conventual 
annals,  and  almost  hide  the  facts  of  the  case  in  a  cloud  of 
eager,  despairing,  but  quite  fruitless  words.  For  a  time^ 
however,  they  succeeded  in  staying  the  Archbishop's  pro- 
ceedings, by  an  appeal  to  the  superior  court  at  Lyons,  and 
so  compelled  him  to  have  recourse  to  other  methods  of 
attack.  In  September,  their  last  faithful  confessor,  M.  Ha- 
vant,  was  sent  away ;  and  two  priests  of  St.  Nicholas  du 
Chardonnet  were  entrusted  with  the  task  of  arguing  or 
persuading  them  into  the  unconditional  acceptance  of  the 
bull.  Their  mission  was  imsuccessful,  and  the  community 
was  once  more  deprived  of  the  sacraments ;  first  verbally 
on  the  3rd  of  October,  then  by  a  regular  decree,  on  the 
18th  of  November.  Fresh  memorial  and  a  renewed 
appeal  to  Lyons,  were  their  answer.  Then  two  days  afler- 
W8^s,  their  devoted  steward,  M.  Le  Noir  de  St.  Claude, 
who  for  fourteen  years  had  lived  in  the  courtyard  of  Port 
Soyal  des  Champs,  and  had  zealously  watched  over  the 
interests  of  the  community,  was  arrested  and  thrown  into 
the  Bastille.  He  had  committed  no  real  or  alleged  offence 
against  the  law,  except  it  were  such  to  manage  the  property 
of  a  few  helpless  women,  who,  by  their  age  and  sex,  no  less 
than  by  their  profession,  were  incapacitated  from  manag- 
ing it  themselves.  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  he  at  least 
survived  his  persecutor.  After  eight  years'  detention  in 
the  Bastille,  he  was  released  at  the  death  of  Louis,  and 
lived  till  1742,  the  last  of  the  company  known  as  Messieurs 
de  Port  Royal* 

These  proceedings  were  too  slow  for  the  King's  impa- 
tience. He  rebuked  the  Cardinal  almost  angrily.  "If  the 
Bishop  of  Chartres  had  had  the  afiair  of  Port  Boyal  in 

*  Demidre  Pera^cntion,  vol  i.  p.  161,  ef  wg.    Qailbert,  toL  It.  jxttftm. 
VOL.  U.  K  K 


4M  POST  BOTAL. 

Ids  haadfl,  he  would  have  finished  it  in  a  fortnights"  M. 
de  Noailles  thought  it  very  hard  to  be  thus  reproached ; 
for  he  had  been  expressly  warned  not  to  eonunit  himself 
like  M.  de  Perefixe  by  the  use  .of  harsh  means,  and  yet 
was  expected  to  accomplish  what  M.  de  Perefixe  had  &iied 
to  effect  No  coiurse  was  open  except  a  resort  to  Borne. 
A  bull  would  at  once  set  aside  the  troublesome  appeal  to 
Lyons,  and  arm  the  Archbishop  with  plenary  power.  The 
necessary  negotiations  were  therefore  set  on  foot^  and 
dement  XL  iasued  on  the  27th  of  March,  1708^  a  bull 
eommanding  the  union  of  thetwo  monasteries,  butproviding 
that  the  sisters  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs  should  remain 
in  peaceable  possession  of  their  house,  and  that  each  diould 
receive  from  the  conventual  funds  a  pension  of  200 
livres.  But  this  was  not  what  Louis  wanted;  *'  If  he  were  ' 
to  wait^"  he  said,  '^till  the  last  lay  sister  died,  he  might  not 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  in  his  lifetime  the  final  extinc- 
tion of  Port  Boyal."  So  a  new  bull,  expressly  issued  in 
def^^nce  to  the  wishes  of  ^Hhe  Most  Christian  King,  who 
had  cleansed  his  kingdom  of  all  heresies,  old  and  new," 
was  received  in  October,  enforced  by  royal  letters  patent 
on  the  9th  of  Decemb^,  and  registered  by  the  Parliament 
of  Paris  on  the  19th  of  the  same  month.  This  time 
there  could  be  no  mistake  as  to  the  terms.  Port  Royal 
is  a  ^^  nest  of  error; "  Jansenism  is  roundly  qualified  as 
"  heresy."  The  monastery  was  to  be  for  ever  suppressed ; 
its  church  secularised;  its  property  and  archives  trans- 
ferred to  the  house  in  Paris ;  its  nuns  dispersed  into  dif- 
ferent convents.  The  bull  was  antedated  on  the  same  day 
as  its  milder  predecessor.* 

The  cause  of  Port  Eoyal  had  long  been  hopeless;  had 
it  not  been  so,  the  last  gleam  of  hope  would  have  &ded 

•  Qnaben,  ToL t.  pp.  85-318.     Derail  Pentofcion,  toL  a  pfk  It 
■  ■  81. 


LE  TELLIES.  499 

away  at  the  death  of  P^e  La  Chaise^  which  took  place  on 
the  20th  of  January,  1709.     He  had  attained  the  age  of 
eighty-five,  and  had  held  the  office  of  royal  confessor  for 
more  than  thirty-three  years.     It  Ib  not  to  the  annals  of 
Port  Boyal  that  we  must  look  for  his  real  character ;  he 
was  a  Jesuit,  and  there  needed  no  other  reason  why  he 
should  regard  the  focus  of  Jansenist  doctrine  with  suspi- 
cion and  dislike.     Under  the  reign  of  his  successor,  men 
began  to  find  out  that  La  Chaise  was  honourable,  cour- 
teous, kind,  moderate ;  that  he  used  the  opportunities  of 
his  high  office  for  the  discouragement  of  backbiting ;  and 
that  he  distributed,  wisely  and  fairly,  the  patronage  of  the 
Church.     SL  Simon,  as  well  as  the  other  memoir  writers, 
draws  a  fearful  picture  of  Le  Tellier,  who,  after  the  in- 
terval of  a  month,  was  appointed  to  the  vacant  office.     He 
was  a  Jesuit  of  the  narrowest,  hardest,  most  fanatical  type; 
whose  whole  soul  was  bound  up  in  the  triumph  of  the 
society.     He  never  turned  aside  for  a  single  hour  from 
the  pursuit  of  his  objects.     He  despised  intrigue  when  he 
could  use  force ;  and  went  straight  to  his  mark,  heedless 
of  what  he  trampled  upon  by  the  way.     And  yet,  when 
need  was,  he  could  be  profoundly  false ;  and  laughed  at 
his  promises  when  it  was  no  longer  his  interest  to  keep 
them.     He  rejoiced  in  "  iron  health,  and  an  iron  heart ; " 
had  neither  relations  nor  friends ;  and  was  feared,  if  not 
hated  by  his  comrades  of  the  society.     It  illustrates  all  his 
character,   that   he  began  his  intercoiuiie  with  Louis  by 
boasting,  with   proud  humility,  of  the  meanness  of  his 
origin, — the  Norman  peasant  setting  his  foot  upon  the 
pride  of  the  long  descended  King.     For  us,  he  has  no 
interest,  except  in  so  far  as  he  may  have  inspired  the 
cruelties  which  ended  the  last  persecution  of  Port  Boyal ; 
but  throughout  the  six  years  during  which  Louis  still  lived, 
the  Church  of  France  had  terrible  reason  to  regret  that 

KK  8 


SOO  PORT  BOTAL. 

his    conscience  was    guided    by  a   fierce  and    ignorant 
fanatic* 

But  before  the  Bull  could  be  carried  into  execution,  there 
were  still  legal  forms  to  be  gone  through,  which  afforded 
the  nuns  a  brief  respite,  and  the  opportunity  of  fresh 
naemorials  and  appeals.    The  Archbishop  issued  a  comnus- 
sion  "  de  corwmodo  et  incanrniodo ; "  a  formal  inquiry,  that 
iSj  as  to  the  propriety  of  uniting  the  two  houses.    The  com- 
missioner visited  Port  Royal  des  Champs  on  the  13th  of 
April,  and  summoned  the  neighbouring  cur^s  and  farm^s 
to  give  evidence.     Their  testimony  was  a  chorus  of  praise 
of  Port  Eoyal,  and  of  sympathy  with  its  sufferings.     One 
honest  farmer  said  '  that  he  did  not  understand  what  they 
meant  by  commodo  and  incommodo;  all  he  knew  was, 
that  the  kindness  of  the  nuns  was  beyond  all  expression; 
that  he  had  often  experienced  it  in  his  needs.    They  were 
the  same  to  everybody,  and  no  where  waa  there  anything 
but  a  good  word  for  them.'     So  even  Cardinal  de  Noailles 
himself  was  more  than  once  compelled  to  confess,  that  the 
monastery  which  he  was  about  to  destroy,  was  guilty  of  no 
worse  crime  than  obstinate  disobedience.    Public  opinion  in 
Paris  cried  shame ;  alms  were  secretly  conveyed  to  tiie  now 
poverty  stricken  community ;  disguised  priests,  it  is  said, 
administered  the  sacraments  in  spite  of  the  Archbishop. 
Madlle.  de  Joncoux,  a  Jansenist  lady,  who  is  active  in 
these  latter  days,  and  seems  to  have  had  a  rare  faculty  of 
access  to  great  people,  and  of  saying  to  them  what  she 
pleased,  has  left  a  singular  record  of  more  than  one  inter- 
view with  De  Noailles.     The  following  passage,  which  is 
characteristic  of  both  interlocutors,  expresses  the  general 
Jansenist  feeling.f     She  is  writing  to  the  Prioress ;  **  I  told 
him  afterwards,  that  persons  who  did  not  at  all  understand 
the  doctrinal  question,  were  indignant  to  see  you  reduced  to 

*  St  SimoD,  Tol.  xiL  chap.  ocxTii.  f  Onilbert,  toL  t.  p.  417. 


MADLLE.  DE  JONCOUX.  50l 

live  on  almd,  while  your  property  is  abandoned  ix)  nuns  who 
have  squandered  their  own ;  that  this  was  a  crying  shame. 
*  I  know  well,'  he  answered,  *  that  they  want  for  nothing, 
and  if  they  did,  I  would  give  it  them  myself,  for  I  do  not 
wish  that  they  should  be  in  need,  and  I  will  provide  for 
their  wants,  when  it  is  necessary.'  *  But  why,'  I  answered, 
Mo  they  want  for  nothing?  Because  such  as  I  would 
rather  sell  our  petticoats,  than  let  them  want  for  an3rthing ; 
for  I  am  sure  that  I  would  rather  sell  mine  than  see  them 
in  want.'  *  Truly,'  he  said  laughingly,  *  I  know  that  you 
would  rather  sell  your  petticoat;  but,  mon  Dieu,  you  will 
get  yourself  into  trouble.'  *  It  is  a  long  time,'  I  answered, 
'  since  I  was  afraid  of  that ;  if  one  only  has  a  coif,  one  need 
not  be  veiy  anxious,  and  I  would  not  change  it  for  a  car- 
dinal's hat'  With  that  I  made  him  a  profound  curtsey,  and 
went  away.  I  received  yesterday  fifty  livres  for  you  from 
Madame  Geoffroi,  widow  of  the  apothecary ;  she  desires  to 
have  a  share  in  the  prayers  of  the  house." 

The  Archbishop's  decree  for  the  total  suppression  of 
Port  Eoyal  des  Champs  was  issued  on  the  11th  of  July, 
and  was  confirmed  by  the  Parliament  of  Paris  on  the 
3rd  of  August.  On  the  1st  of  October,  Madame  de  Chateau 
Renaud,  Abbess  of  Port  Royal  de  Paris,  accompanied  by 
legal  witnesses,  went  to  take  possession  of  her  new  king- 
dom. The  Prioress,  who  received  her  courteously,  did 
not  summon  the  community  to  meet  her,  and  altogether 
refused  to  acknowledge  her  jurisdiction.  The  only  act  of 
overt  resistance  was  that  of  a  servant,  who,  imwilling  to 
hear  the  bell  announce  with  joyous  peal  the  advent  of  the 
new  Abbess,  cut  the  rope.  Madame  de  Chateau  Renaud 
drew  oflF  her  forces,  made  a  proc^  verbal  of  her  inefiectual 
visit,  and  went  the  same  night  to  St  Cyr  to  report  progress 
to  Madame  de  Maintenon.  The  next  step  was  an  order 
in  council,  requiring  the  nuns  to  acknowledge  the  Abbess 
of  Port  Royal  de  Paris  as  their  lawful  head.    Then  pre-* 

KK  3 


*®  POET  nOYAL. 


P«^tionB  were  made  to  execute  the  bull  and  the  Arch- 
buhop'fl  decree  by  force.* 

b^^t  of  poKce,  assembled,  on  the  28th  of'^L.  a 
companyof  gensd'armes  and  archen, in  number abont 3^, 
and  with  twelve  carriages,  a  Htter,  and  several  women  t^ 
attend  upon  the  nuns,  set  out  for  Port  Royal.  The  little 
army  passed  the  night  in  the  surrounding  villages;  some, 
rt  18  «ud,  hvouacked  in  the  woods,  where  they  lighted 
g^t  fires.  The  twenty-twosiste™.  the  gamson  whom  this 
host  had  come  to  summon,  passed  the  night  in  ignorance  of 

*W  ^?"^     ?**°^'  *^°"?^  afterwards  they  recollected 
^  the  dormitory  kmpe  had  suddenly  gone  out^  »  feet 
without  precedent,  and  ominous  of  coming  iD.   About  half- 
past  seven,  on  the  morning  of  the  29th,  as  the  nuns  were 
coming  out  of  the  choir,  where  they  had  heard  mass,  M. 
dArgensons  arrival  was  announced.    He  atonce,  firmly, 
but  without  any  show  of  violence,  took  possearion  of  the 
house,  asked  for  all  the  keys,  and  secured  the  deeds  and 
other  papers  which  lay  in  the  archives.     Then,  as  the 
bell  somided  for  tierce,  he  permitted  the  sisterhood  once 
more  to  jom  together  for  worship  in  the  church.    The 
psalm  of  the  day  was  the  twenfy-fifth,  "Unto  Thee,  O 
^rd,  do  I  lift  up  my  soul."  which,  with  the  "Veni 
creator,    formed  the  principal  part  of  the  brief  service. 
The  public  worship  of  Port  Royal  could  not  mon.  fitly 
«id  than  with  so  sublime  an  expression  of  confidence  ix. 
troj  so  earnest  a  prayer  for  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 

ITie  whole  community,  including  the  hiy  sisters,  were 

tt^  f"°?moned  to  meet  in  chapter.      One,  EupLaaie 

Robert  eighty-stt  years  of  age,  and  long  unable  t»  walk, 

fflxof  hersisters-sbging  meanwhile  the  burial  psalm. 

When  Israel  went  out  of  Egypf-bore,  on  a  m,^ 


BXFULSIOK.  WS 

into  the  chapter  house.  Then  M.  d'Argenson  announced 
to  them  that  he  was  charged  with  a  lettre^de'Cachet  for 
each;  that  each  was  to  be  forthwith  conveyed  to  some 
distant  monastery ;  that  in  three  hours  they  must  depart ; 
and  that  now  it  only  remained  for  the  Prioress  to  choose 
funong  the  specified  convents  her  own  place  of  exile. 
The  news  was  courteously  told,  and  quietly  heard;  the 
Prioress  answered  for  all,  that  half  an  hoiu*,  to  say  good- 
bye, and  to  take  a  Bible,  a  breviary,  and  the  rule  of  the 
house,  was  all  they  needed.  The  little  bundles  of  clothes 
were  soon  ready,  the  carriages  were  ordered  into  the 
court-yard,  and,  early  in  the  e^temoon,  the  nuns  prepared 
to  leave  for  ever  a  home  which  to  all  of  them  was  inex- 
pressibly venerable  and  dear.  Of  the  twenty-two,  none 
were  less  than  fifty,  three  were  above  eighty  years  of  age ; 
yet  no  two  were  to  be  suffered  to  remain  together,  lest 
each  should  encourage  the  other  in  obstinate  heresy. 
Their  destinations  were  various  and  wide  apart :  Bouen, 
Autun,  Chartres,  Amiens,  Gompiegne,  Meaux,  Nantes, 
Nevers ;  while  five  lay  sisters,  for  whom  a  reception  in 
distant  convents  had  not  yet  been  prepared,  were  to  be 
sent  temporarily  to  St  Denys.  Then,  two  and  two,  they 
sadly  and  slowly  moved  away.  The  youngest  lay  sister — 
she  who  was  supposed  to  hold  the  place  of  Charlotte  de 
Scanner — had  been  a  professed  inmate  of  the  house  for 
nearly  twenty-five  years ;  the  oldest  had  passed  no  fewer 
than  sixty-three  within  its  walls ;  and  all  had  hoped  to 
die,  as  they  had  lived,  in  peace  together.  Now,  aft«r  brief 
good-bye,  a  firm  word  of  benediction  from  the  Prioress, 
and  a  moment's  prayer  before  the  accustomed  altar,  they 
parted  to  meet  no  more.  Their  trouble  was  not  increased 
by  any  insult  or  harshness  on  the  part  of  M.  d'Argenson 
and  his  officers ;  while  it  may  have  been  soothed  by  the 
tears  and  lamentations  of  the  poor,  who,  since  the  days 
of  La  Mdre  Ang^Jique,  had  blessed  the  name  of  Port 

XK  4 


SOi  POBT  BOTAL. 

Boyalj  and  now  were  not  slow  to  testify  their  love  and 
sorrow.  Before  night  they  were  all  on  their  way,  exc^ 
the  poor  paralytic,  who,  helpless  and  forgotten,  still  lay 
on  the  floor  of  the  chapter  house.  Some  of  the  serrants, 
who  for  the  night  were  permitted  to  remain,  cared  for 
her  wants  as  they  best  could;  and  on  the  morrow  she 
was  sent  in  a  litter  to  the  place  of  her  almost  imoonsdons 
imprisonment.  So  fell  Port  Boyal  on  the  29th  of  October, 
1709,  one  hundred  years  and  a  few  days  after  the  Jonmfe 
du  Gruichet,  the  epoch  which  decisively  marked  its  re- 
form. ' 

M.  d'Argenson,  whose  work  was  not  yet  quite  don^  re^ 
mained  at  the  monastery  till  the  31st.  The  servants  were 
to  be  dismissed ;  the  books  and  papers  packed ;  seals  to 
be  placed  upon  the  doors ;  and  a  pro(^  verbal  of  the 
whole  affair  to  be  drawn  up.  Almost  as  soon  as  the  nuns 
were  gone,  came  a  priest  named  Madot,  supposed  to  be 
sent  by  Le  Tellier,  who  ransacked  the  house,  both  now  and 
on  a  subsequent  visit,  in  the  hope  of  discovering  important 
papers.  He  was  disappointed;  all  the  archives,  whieh 
were  of  any  value,  were  already  in  D'Argenson's  hands^ 
who  was  not  disposed  to  give  them  up  to  any  eoclesiastiGal 
authorities.  Then,  leaving  the  deserted  house  in  charge 
of  an  officer,  the  lieutenant  of  police  hastened  to  Ver- 
sailles to  give  an  account  of  his  work  to  the  King.  It  was 
heard  without  compunction:  ''I  am  satisfied  with  their 
obedience ;  I  am  sorry  that  they  are  not  satisfied  with  my 
religion."  Meanwhile  all  Paris,  except  the  Jesuits  and 
their  friends,  was  in  a  flame  of  honest  indignation.  The 
number  of  those  who  cared  for  "  fidt "  and  "  droit  **  wa» 
not  great ;  only  a  few  even  of  these  approved  the  obsti- 
nate resistance  of  the  nuns :  but  that  the  lieutenant  of 
police  should  go  out  with  300  archers  against  twenty-two 
helpless  women,  was  a  thing  to  make  a  man's  cheek  tingle^ 
and  to  put  bitterness  upon  his  tongue.     The  Archbishop 


iMl^aiSONMEN^.  50i 

vas  ignorant,  or  pretended  to  be  ignorant,  of  what  had 
been  done ;  his  friends  gave  it  out  that  he  had  not  con- 
sented to  more  than  the  carrying  off  of  three  or  four  nuns : 
and  the  Jansenists  scornfully  answered  in  the  words  of 
Cleophas  * :  ''  Art  thou  only  a  stranger  in  Jerusalem,  and 
hast  not  known  the  things  which  are  come  to  pass  there 
in  these  days  ?  "  Nevertheless,  it  may  well  have  been  so ; 
if  Le  Tellier  felt  himself  sure  of  the  King,  he  was  not  a 
man  to  take  the  Archbishop  into  his  coimcils.  Not  many 
years  afterwards,  the  thought  of  Port  Boyal  must  have 
been  very  bitter  to  the  Archbishop,  himself  accused  of 
Jansenism,  and  harassed  by  King  and  Jesuits,  as  he  had 
harassed  the  decaying  sisterhood.  "What  woidd  you 
have  ?  "  once  said  to  him,  in  those  days,  outspoken  Madlle. 
de  Joncoux ;  "  Grod  is  just,  my  Lord,  and  these  are  the 
stones  of  Port  Boyal  fi&lling  back  upon  your  head.''  f 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow,  with  the  zealously  minute 
annalists  of  Port  Boyal,  each  of  the  sisters  to  the  place  of 
her  imprisonment,  and  to  tell  the  tale  of  weakness  and 
faithfulness.  One,  who  touched  upon  her  eighty-first 
year  at  the  time  of  the  dispersion,  died  ten  days  after- 
wards :  having  in  that  brief  space,  said  her  gaolers,  be- 
come convinced  of  the  sinfulness  of  her  previous  resistance, 
and  signed  the  Formulary.  But,  in  truth,  the  example 
was  sooner  or  later  followed  by  almost  all  the  scattered 
sisterhood.  Extreme  old  age  rendered  one  or  two  quite 
incapable  of  judgment;  and  others,  who  were  able,  imder 
vigorous  chieftainship,  to  maintain  the  combined  attitude 
of  resistance,  could  not  stand  alone.     The  story  of  the  pre- 

*  Lake  xztr.  18. 

t  The  acooant  in  the  text  ii  drawn  up  from  Gnilbert's  account  of  the 
dispersion,  yoL  yL  p.  66—140,  and  from  some  MS.  Memoirs,  quoted  hj  St« 
Benye,  yol.  y.  p.  572.  The  reader  wiU  find  another  account  in  the  Histoii« 
de  la  Derni^re  Persecution,  yoL  ii.  p.  250,  et  $eq.  Conf.  St  Simon,  rol.  xiy. 
chap.  odL 


^06  POBT  SOtAL. 

vioas  imprisonment  waa  repeated  on  a  laiger  scale;  idgna* 
tures  for  the  sake  of  the  sacraments  followed  by  swift 
repentance  and  retractation;  frequent  changes  in  the 
place  of  exile ;  kind  or  harsh  treatment  in  various  degree ; 
hopes  of  reunion  raised  only  to  be  dashed  to  the  ground, — 
make  up  a  tale  which  stretches  far  into  the  eighteenth 
century.  Two  nuns  alone  suffered  no  shade  of  weakness 
to  darken  over  their  names:  Louise  de  St*  Anastasie  du 
Mesnil,  the  Prioress,  and  Soeur  Marie  Magdeleine  de  Stf 
Gertrude  du  Valois.  The  former  survived  till  1716;  the 
latter  till  1723.  Both  showed  to  the  last  a  courage  worthy 
of  the  best  days  of  Port  Boyal ;  but  while  the  Prioress 
bravely  died  without  the  sacraments,  the  Sceur  du  Valois 
had  the  happiness  of  being  restored,  by  participation  in 
them,  to  a  visible  communion  with  the  Church.  The  last 
nun  of  Port  Boyal  des  Champs  was  the  lay  sister  Agnds 
Forget,  who  died  in  the  hospi^  at  Amiens,  in  1738,  hav- 
ing reached  her  eighty-fourth  year.  The  death  of  Louis 
XIV.,  and  the  milder  or  more  careless  rule  of  the  Regent^ 
which  stilled  for  a  time  so  many  theological  animosities, 
brought  no  relief  to  the  imprisoned  sisters  of  Port  Boyal, 
who,  forgotten  of  men,  had  no  resource  but  *'to  wait 
patiently  for  Ood."* 

Madame  de  Chateau  Benaud  followed  hard  upon  the 
steps  of  M.  d'Argenson  to  take  possession  of  the  spoils* 
She  found  store  of  linen,  wood,  wax,  provisions,  which^ 
with  the  relics  which  had  belonged  to  the  suppressed 
community,  were  carefully  conveyed  to  Port  Boyal  de 
Paris.  But  she  remained  in  the  valley  only  three  weeks, 
long  enough  to  discover  that  the  great  empty  rooms  and 
corridors  were  dull  and  lonely,  and  the  country  round 
about,  savage  and  unhealthy.  Perhaps,  too,  when  she 
had  at  last  obtained  possession  of  her  Naboth's  vineyard, 

^  Guflberty  Toli.  vi.  tu.  pa8§im.  Derni^re  Pen^ation,  toI,  iu.  books 
Tiil.  Ix. 


DESTBUCnON'.  507 

a  restless  feeling  of  remorse  might  now  and  then  cross 
her  mind,  and  inspire  into  her  the  wish  to  enjoy  her  new 
wealth  where  she  might  be  less  constantly  reminded  of 
its  former  owners.  Presently  the  buildings  of  Port  Boyal 
des  Champs  became  the  subject  of  strangely  conflicting 
intrigue.  The  Archbishop  wished  to  send  Madame  de 
Chateau  Benaud  and  her  nuns  thither,  that,  by  the  sale 
of  Port  Boyal  de  Paris,  he  might  discharge  some  of  their 
many  debts.  The  Jesuits,  who  were  the  principal  cre- 
ditors, waited  eagerly  for  the  moment  of  sale,  with  the 
intention  of  converting  the  buildings  into  a  seminary. 
But  Madame  de  Chateau  Benaud  did  not  wish  to  go  to 
Port  Boyal  des  Champs,  nor  the  Archbishop  to  sell  Port 
Boyal  de  Paris  to  the  Jesuits.  Then  Madlle.  de  Joncoux, 
or  some  other  busy  and  subtle  Jansenist,  bethought  her- 
self of  rousing  the  jealousy  of  the  Seminary  of  St.  Sulpice, 
which  had  unbounded  influence  with  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon,  against  the  scheme  of  the  Society,  in  the  hope  of 
preserving  Port  Boyal  from  any  desecrating  occupation, 
and  free  for  the  reunion  there,  if  that  might  ever  be,  of  the 
old  sisterhood.  The  scheme  succeeded  only  too  well ;  the 
plan  of  translating  Port  Boyal  de  Paris  was  abandoned, 
and  the  Jesuits  were  compelled  to  give  up  the  idea  of  a 
Parisian  Seminary.  But  the  King  saw,  as  well  as  Madlle. 
de  Joncouz,  what  hopes  centred  in  the  buildings  of  Port 
Boyal,  and,  by  a  decree  of  the  22nd  of  January,  1710, 
ordered  their  demolition.  The  pretext  was  the  indebted- 
ness of  the  house  to  which  they  now  belonged,  and  the 
expense  of  keeping  them  in  repair.  But,  in  truth,  the 
enmity  of  Le  Tellier  and  the  King  was  not  sated,  so  long 
as  one  stone  lay  upon  another. 

The  work  of  destruction  was  begun  in  June  of  the  same 
year.  The  edict  expressly  reserved  the  church,  and  a 
lodging  for  the  chaplain  who  should  be  appointed  to  serve 
it.    But  in  August  a  rumour  gained  credence  that  the 


510  POST  BOTAL. 

frantic  mob,  maddened  by  ages  of  iyraony,  which  broke 
into  the  proud  mausoleum  of  St.  Denys,  and  scattered  to 
the  winds  the  ashes  of  generations  of  kings. 

The  destruction  of  the  church,  which  followed  the  eventi 
which  I  have  described,  was  finally  accomplished  in  1713. 
But  the  foundations  of  Port  Royal  still  remain,  and  are 
visited,  not  only  by  pious  pilgrims,  who  bdieve  that  it  was 
the  abode  of  those  who  have  a  closer  access  to  the  ear  of 
Crod  than  struggling,  sinful  men,  but  by  many  who  are 
drawn  thither  only  by  a  hearty  admiration  of  noble  taleQjfcs 
nobly  used,  and  a  sincere  respect  for  undeserved  nus* 
fortune.* 


The  story  of  a  hundred  years  is  told:  we  have  traced 
(if  the  reader  have  been  faithful  thus  &r)  the  fortunes  of 
Port  Royal,  from  their  first  grey  dawn  in  the  Abbacy  of 
Ang^lique  Amauld,  to  their  sad  and  ominous  setting.  If 
we  compare  the  tale  with  the  voluminous  materiab  from. 
which  it  has  been  compiled,  it  is  brief  enough ;  and  yet  the 
question  may  rise  to  some  lips, — ^Was  ever  the  history  of 
any  convent  of  Cistercian  nuns,  since  first  Robert  built 
Citeaux,  worth  the  telling  ?  Why,  in  these  days  of  swift 
scientific  progress,  and  social  problems  which  make  im- 
perious demand  upon  good  men's  energies,  and  hopes  for 
civilisation  which  look  forward  to  some  brightly  indefinite 
future,  spend  the  strength  and  opportunity  of  years  in  the 
attempt  to  reproduce  a  phase  of  Christian  life  and  thought, 
which  seems  to  belong  to  the  irrevocable  past,  and  shows 
but  few  points  of  likeness  to  English  life  and  thought 
to-day  ?  I  might  be  content  with  answering,  that  any 
portion  of  human  history,  so  that  the  materials  exist  for 

•  Gailbert,  vol  vi.  p.  299  j  rol.  viL  pp.  84—135. 


CONCLUSION.  611 

telling  it,  and  it  be  honestly  and  accurately  told,  must  be 
worth  the  historian's  and  the  reader's  labour.  For  the  race 
is  one  through  all  its  generations :  and  men,  though  the 
circumstances  which  surround  and  mould  them  be  in- 
finitely various,  always  resemble  more  than  they  differ 
from  one  another.  But  this  is  especially  true  of  Christian 
history.  The  same  spiritual  phenomena  appear  in  every 
church,  and  often  in  the  same  sequence.  The  religious 
emotions,  like  the  baser  passions,  are  alike  in  all ;  and 
though  their  depth  and  strength  vary  from  man  to  man, 
the  variations  are  little  accordant  with  those  of  intellectual 
belief,  and  follow  another  law.  The  saints  are  of  no 
church,  but  of  all.  And^  therefore,  the  history  of  any 
sincere  manifestation  of  religious  life,  has  its  interest  and 
value  for  all  religious  men  who  are  able  to  rise  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  one  Catholic  Church,  the  visible  limits 
whereof  are  known  only  to  Crod. 

I  have  already  said  that,  taken  on  its  intellectual  side 
alone.  Port  Soyal  halts  midway  between  Protestant  and 
Catholic  sympathies.  Its  doctrine  of  the  sacraments,  its 
theory  of  the  Christian  life,  its  belief  in  ecclesiastical  mira- 
cles, its  attitude  towards  the  Virgin  and  the  Saints,  are  all 
Catholic  When  we  watch  the  inner  life  of  the  convent, 
or  trace  the  subtle  power  of  its  confessors,  or  note  the  self- 
imposed  mortifications  of  its  solitaries,  there  is  no  doubt 
as  to  the  region  of  Christendom  in  which  we  find  our- 
selves. The  very  eagerness  with  which  Jansenist  controver- 
sialists, themselves  sorely  bested,  turn  round  to  deal  a  blow 
against  Huguenot  foes,  betrays  a  secret  consciousness  that 
their  position  is  ambiguous.  Declaim  as  they  will  against 
Calvin,  their  doctrine  of  grace  is  separated  only  by  an  im- 
perceptible boundary  from  Calvinism.  Their  voice  is  nobly 
raised  against  perversions  of  morality,  which  had  received 
at  least  a  silent  sanction  from  the  Church.  They  own  a 
heterodox  desire  to  place  within  reach  of  the  laity,  the 


612  POBT  ROYAL. 

Bible  and  the  Service-book  in  the  vulgar  tongue*  They 
manifest  a  perilous  spirit  of  innovation  in  the  books  and 
methods  of  their  schools.  They  unconsciously  commit  the 
unpardonable  sin  of  Protestantism^  in  choosing  for  thon- 
selves  a  form  of  Christian  doctrine,  which  they  defend  even 
against  the  Church  and  its  head.  But  as  their  rebellion  was 
only  half  accomplished^  their  protest  ineffectually  made, 
the  Catholic  critic  accuses  them  of  disobedience*  conceit, 
contentiousness ;  the  Protestant  is  tempted  to  charge  tbem 
with  inconsequence,  if  not  unfaithfulness.  The  one  asks. 
Why  stray  so  far  from  the  path  of  orthodox  doctrine,  and 
ecclesiastical  discipline  ?  the  other,  Why  not  have  manfully 
pressed  on  into  a  country  of  perfect  freedom  ? 

Thus,  many  peculiarities  in  the  story  of  Port  Boyal  are 
explained  by  the  fact,  that  it  narrates  a  Protestant  quarrel 
fought  out  within  the  limits  of  the  Church.  .  It  need 
hardly  be  repeated  that  the  Protestantism  of  Port  Boyal 
was  to  the  last  imconscious;  its  culminating  point  was 
Pascal's  dying  rejection  of  the  distinction  between  "  fait  ^ 
and  "droit,"  which  involved  a  degree  of  self-reliance  in 
matters  of  belief  from  which  even  Amauld  drew  back. 
The  Jansenist  doctors  did  not  dream  that  they  were  taking 
up  a  position  hostile  to  Catholic  doctrine,  or  to  the  theory 
of  ecclesiastical  subordination  symbolised  in  the  papal  office; 
they  believed  that  they  upheld  the  true  belief  of  the 
Church  against  a  temporary  prevalence  of  Molinist  heresy, 
and  appealed  from  a  Pontiff,  whose  ear  was  occupied  by 
false  and  maUcious  advisers,  to  one  fully  acquainted  with 
the  truth.  And  so,  to  a  Protestant  judgment,  the  battle  of 
controversy  seems  chiefly  to  rage  about  positions  of  second* 
ary  importance,  and  to  be  crowned  by  the  decisive  victory 
of  neither  host.  The  papal  decisions  have  always  in  them 
an  element  of  uncertainty,  which  gives  the  Jaosenist^  while 
professing  unconditional  submission,  a  pretext  for  virtual 
disobedience.  The  Peaoe  qf  the  Church  is  ambiguous ;  erea 


CONCLUSION.  6n 

the  bull  Vineam  is  susceptible  of  a  double  interpretation. 
The  subtleties,  which  on  the  vanquished  side  are  the  ex- 
cuses for  continuing  the  struggle,  do  not  sound  like  the 
clear  declarations  of  honest  conviction.  We  grow  weary 
of  "fait^'^and  "droit;"  of  a  peace  which  is  based  upon 
no  definite  understanding,  and  a  war  which  is  but  the 
rekindling  of  old  ashes  of  contention.  Even  if  we  learn 
the  price  which,  in  the  loss  of  theological  honesty  and 
clearness  of  speech,  an  infallible  Church  pays  for  appa- 
rent uniformity  of  doctrine  and  discipline,  the  lesson  may 
be  somewhat  tedious  and  dull.  But  the  virtues  of  Port 
Boyal  transcend  the  region,  where  a  broad  line  of  demar- 
cation severs  Protestaot  and  Catholic,  and  transport  the 
student  into  one,  where  it  is  allowed  him  to  remember  that, 
whatever  his  creed,  he  is  no  more  and  no  less  thaii  a  Chris- 
tian. Amauld's  long  service  of  the  truth ;  the  simple- 
hearted  but  constant  courage  of  his  sisters  and  their  nuns; 
the  practical  religious  wisdom  of  St.  C3nran  and  of  Singlin  ; 
De  Safi's  daily  walk  with  Grod ;  the  all-sacrificing  bravery 
of  Le  Mjdtre  and  his  companions  in  solitude ;  the  kindly 
mysticism  of  Hamon ;  the  self-consuming  devotion  of 
Pascal  to  all  truth  of  thought  and  life ;  the  modest  con- 
scientiousness of  Tillemont's  studies ;  the  apostolic  energy 
of  Pavilion's  labours,  do  not  now  remain  to  be  character- 
ise^. My  work  is  ill  done  if  the  reader  have  not  learned 
to  know  and  honour  them.  To  watch  how  the  richest 
"  fruits  of  the  Spirit "  ripen  in  every  corner  of  the  fold 
cannot  but  lessen  the  gulfs  of  mistrust  and  dislike  which 
yawn  between  Christian  Churches;  while  the  admira^ 
tion  of  God's  all-efficient  energy  should  be  the  greatest  in 
those  who  believe  that  such  noble  growths  as  these  have 
sprung  from  an  uncongenial  soil,  and  been  matiu'ed  beneath 
a  clouded  sun. 

It  is  now  so  well  understood  by  thoughtful  and  candid 
men  that  the  history  of  the  Church  is  to  be  written  with 

VOL.  II.  L  L 


514  POBT  BOYAL. 

the  same  impartiality  which  we  look  for  in  all  other 
history,  that  I  make  no  apology  for  not  having  placed  by 
the  side  of  my  Catholic  tale  a  margin  of  Protestant  com- 
ment. The  ecclesiastical  historian  is  not  indeed  exempt 
from  the  duty  of  moral  judgment ;  nor  have  I  refrained 
from  pointing  out  the  dangers  of  auricular  confession 
when  it  was  necessary  to  speak  of  casuistry,  or  from  cha- 
racterising the  essential  error  of  monasticism  when  I  had 
told  the  mournful  story  of  PascaPs  last  years.  But  if  a 
work  like  this  is  to  be  something  better  and  more  enduring 
than  a  party  pamphlet,  the  historian  must  be  able  to  see 
the  facta  which  he  narrates  as  they  appear  both  from 
within  and  without  the  Church  in  which  they  manifest 
themselves.  Few  men  may  be  qualified  to  write  of  a 
religious  movement  with  which  they  have  little  intellectual 
sympathy;  far  fewer  can  speak  honestly  of  one  which 
engages  their  whole  mind  cmd  heart.  And  the  condition 
under  which  an  impartial  Church  history  is  most  likely 
to  be  produced  is,  that  the  writer  should  be  able  to  put 
himself,  by  the  force  of  moral  fellow-feeling,  in  the  place 
of  those  from  whose  intellectual  conclusions  he  widely 
differs,  yet  whose  character  and  action  he  endeavours  to 
describe.  It  is  not  for  me  to  judge  how  far  I  have.8uc- 
ceeded  in  realising  my  own  ideal  It  is  the  inevitable 
penalty  of  my  position  that  my  Protestant  readers  will 
think  me  too  Catholic,  my  Catholic  ones  not  Catholic 
enough.  I  shall  be  content  if  both  acquit  me  of  indif- 
ference to  truth  and  right,  wherever  they  may  reveal 
themselves  amid  the  shifting  scenes  of  my  story. 

M.  Boyer-Collard  was  accustomed  to  say,  *^that  who 
knew  not  Port  Eoyal,  knew  not  humanity."  I  dare  not 
adopt  a  phrase  which,  upon  the  title-page  of  my  book^ 
would  become  too  proud  a  boast ;  yet  I  venture  to  hope 
that  the  portraits  which  I  have  drawn  have  a  common 
character  of  feature  and  expression  which  may  recommend 


CONGLUSIOX.  615 

them  to  the  student  of  the  Christian  life.  For  Jansenist 
holiness^  like  Jansenist  doctrine^  holds  a  middle  place^ 
and  has  its  fine  shades  of  difference^  which  distinguish  it 
from  purely  Protestant  or  Catholic  saintliness.  And  yet 
when  I  turn  once  more  in  thought  to  the  minute  and 
affectionate  records,  where  for  five  years  I  have  sought 
the  spirit  and  the  materials  of  my  tale,  even  this  expecta- 
tion seems  too  bold.  The  outlines  of  my  picture  appear 
feeble  and  indistinct ;  its  colours  blurred  and  dull.  It  is 
enough  to  hope  that,  in  this  story  of  unswerving  faithfulness 
to  conviction,  of  unwearied  aspiration  after  holiness,  some- 
thing may  have  been  added  to  the  annals  of  Christian 
achievement.  For  if  it  be  true  that  human  systems  of 
theology  are  but  "broken  lights"  of  the  Divine  Mind, 
which  is  "more  than  they,"  we  may  also  be  permitted 
to  dream  that,  while  all  individual  holiness  is  necessarily 
maimed  and  incomplete,  it  is  possible  to  construct  from 
the  saintliness  of  all  the  saints,  the  likeness  of  that  perfect 
human  life  which  is  renewed  in  the  image  of  God. 


THE  EXD. 


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pjtiarxro   bt    spottxbwoodi   axd   co. 

irSTT-STBEEX  SQrA&B 


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.-    4