Chapter VII

Woman in Religion

The entire religious agitation of the seventeenth century was due to women.  Port-Royal was the centre from which issued all contention—­the centre where all subjects were discussed, where the most important books were written or inspired, where the genius of that great century centred; and it was to Port-Royal that the greatest women of France went, either to find repose for their souls or to visit the noble members of their sex who had consecrated their lives to God—­Mere Angelique, Jacqueline Pascal.  Never in the history of the world had a religious sect or party gathered within its fold such an array of great minds, such a number of fearless and determined heroines and esprits d’elite.  A short account of this famous convent must precede any story of its members.

The original convent, Port-Royal des Champs, near Versailles, was founded as early as 1204, by Mathieu of Montmorency and his wife, for the Cistercian nuns who had the privileges of electing their abbess and of receiving into their community ladies who, tired of the social world, wished to retire to a religious asylum, without, however, being bound by any religious vows.  Later on, the sisters were permitted to receive, also, young ladies of the nobility.

These privileges were used to such advantage that the institution acquired great wealth; and through its boarders, some of whom belonged to the most important families of France, it became influential to an almost incalculable degree.  For four centuries this convent had been developing liberal tendencies and gradually falling away from its primitive austerity, when, in 1605, Sister Angelique Arnauld became abbess and undertook a thorough reform.  So great was her success in this direction that, after having effected similar changes at the Convent of Maubuisson and then returned to Port-Royal des Champs, the latter became so crowded that new and more commodious quarters had to be obtained.

The immense and beautiful Hotel de Cluny, at Paris, was procured, and a portion of the community moved thither, establishing an institution which became the best known and most popular of those French convents which were patronized by women of distinction.  The old abbey buildings near Versailles were later occupied by a community of learned and pious men who were, for the most part, pupils of the celebrated Abbe of Saint-Cyran, who, with Jansenius, was living at Paris at the time that Mere Angelique was perfecting her reforms; she, attracted by the ascetic life led by the abbe, fell under his influence, and the whole Arnauld family, numbering about thirty, followed her example.