Part 12 (1/2)

”Her friends, enchanted by her lively wit, had long entreated her to write--not for the public, but for them--the anecdotes which she related so well. Finally, she acquiesced, and committed to paper certain incidents, certain portraits. What a treasure are these _Souvenirs_--so fluently written, so unpretentious, with neither dates nor chronological order, but upon which, for more than a century, all historians have drawn! How much is contained in this little book which teaches more in a few lines than interminable works do in many volumes! How feminine it is, and how French! One readily understands Voltaire's liking for these charming _Souvenirs_. Who, than Mme. de Caylus, ever better applied the famous precept: 'Go lightly, mortals; don't bear too hard.'”

She belonged to that cla.s.s of spontaneous writers who produce artistic works without knowing it, just as M. Jourdain wrote prose, and who do not even suspect that they possess that chief attribute of literary style--naturalness. What pure, what ready wit! What good humor, what unconstraint, what delightful ease! What a series of charming portraits, each more lifelike, more animated, still better than all the others! ”These little miniatures--due to the brush of a woman of the world--are better worth studying than is many a picture or fresco.”

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 n.o.ble members of their s.e.x who had consecrated their lives to G.o.d--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 n.o.bility.

These privileges were used to such advantage that the inst.i.tution 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, establis.h.i.+ng an inst.i.tution 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.

Soon ”the nuns at Paris, with their numerous and powerful connections, and the recluses at Port-Royal des Champs, together with their pupils and the n.o.ble or wealthy families to which the latter belonged, were imbued with the new doctrines of which they became apostles.” The primary aim was to live up to a common ideal of Christian perfection, and to react against the general corruption by establis.h.i.+ng thoroughly moral schools and publis.h.i.+ng works denouncing, in strong terms, the glaring errors of the time, the source of which was considered, by both the Abbe of Saint-Cyran and Jansenius, to lie in the Jesuit Colleges and their theology. Thus was evolved a system of education in every way antagonistic to that of the Jesuits.

At this time the convent at Paris became so crowded that Mere Angelique withdrew to the abbey near Versailles, the occupants of which retired to a neighboring farm, Les Granges; there was opened a seminary for females, which soon attracted the daughters of the n.o.bility. An astounding literary and agricultural activity resulted, both at the abode of the recluses and at the seminary: by the recluses were written the famous Greek and Latin grammars, and by the nuns, the famous _Memoirs of the History of Port-Royal_ and the _Image of the Perfect and Imperfect Sister_; a model farm was cultivated, and here the peasants were taught improved methods of tillage. During the time of the civil wars the convent became a resort where charity and hospitality were extended to the poor peasants.

”The mode of life at Port-Royal was distinguished for austerity. The inmates rose at three o'clock in the morning, and, after the common prayer, kissed the ground as a sign of their self-humiliation before G.o.d. Then, kneeling, they read a chapter from the Gospels and one from the Epistles, concluding with another prayer. Two hours in the morning and a like number in the afternoon were devoted to manual labor in the gardens adjoining the convent; they observed, with great strictness, the season of Lent.” Their theories and practices, and especially their sympathy with Jansenius, whose work _Mars Gallicus_ attacked the French government and people, aroused the suspicions of Richelieu.

When in 1640 the Port-Royalists openly and enthusiastically received the famous work, _Augustinus_, of Jansenius, the government became the declared opponent of the convent. Saint-Cyran had been imprisoned in 1638, and not until after the death of Richelieu, in 1642, was he liberated. After the appearance, in 1643, of Arnauld's _De la Frequente Communion_, in which he attacked the Jesuits for admitting the people to the Lord's Supper without due preparation, two parties formed--the Jesuits, supported by the Sorbonne and the government, and the Port-Royalists, supported by Parliament and ill.u.s.trious persons, such as Mme. de Longueville.

In 1644, the nuns were dispersed by order of Louis XIV., against whose despotic caprices two Jansenist bishops had fought in support of the rights of the pope. The Paris convent remained closed until 1669, when it and the one at Chevreuse, near Versailles were made independent of each other, a proceeding which resulted in the two inst.i.tutions becoming opponents. In 1708 the Convent of Port-Royal des Champs was suppressed, and, a year later, the beautiful and once prosperous community was destroyed, the buildings being levelled to the ground.

In 1780 the Paris convent was abolished; five years later the structure was converted into a hospital, and in 1814 it became the lying-in asylum of _La Maternite_.

In those two convents, which were practically one, was fomented and developed the entire religious movement of the seventeenth century, to which period belong the general study and development of theology, metaphysics, and morality. Such great, good, and brilliant women as the Countess of Maure, Mlle. de Vandy, Anne de Rohan, Mme. de Bregy, Mme. de Hautefort, Mme. de Longueville, Mme. de Sevigne, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sable were inmates of Port-Royal, or its friends and constant visitors.

Port-Royal may have been the cause of the civil war waged by the Frondists against the government. It did bring on the struggle between the Jesuits, who were all-powerful in the Church, and the Jansenists.

The latter denied the doctrine of free will, and taught the absolutism of religion, the ”terrible G.o.d,” the powerlessness of kings and princes before G.o.d--a doctrine which brought down upon them the wrath of Louis XIV., for whom their notion of virtue was too severe, their use of the Gospel too excessive, and their Christianity impossible.

In its purest form, Port-Royalism was a return to the sanct.i.ty of the primitive church--an attempt at the use, in French, of the whole body of Scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers; it aimed to maintain a vigorous religious reaction in the shape of a reform, and that reform was vigorously opposed by the Catholic Church.

One family that is a.s.sociated with Port-Royal gave to its cause no less than six sisters; the latter all belonged to the Convent of Port-Royal and were attached to the Jansenist party; of them, the Archbishop of Paris said that they were ”as pure as angels, but as proud as devils.” They were related to the one great Arnauld family, of which Antoine and his three sons--Robert, Henri, and the younger Antoine, called ”the great Antoine”--were ill.u.s.trious champions of Port-Royal.

Marie Jacqueline Angelique, the oldest among the three abbesses, was born in 1591, and, at the early age of fourteen, was made abbess of Port-Royal des Champs; it was she who, after having inst.i.tuted successful reforms at Port-Royal, was sent to reform the system of the Abbey of Maubuisson, thus initiating the important movement which later involved almost all France. She became convinced that she had not been lawfully elected abbess and resigned, securing, however, a provision which made the election of abbesses a triennial event. To her belongs the honor of having made Port-Royal anew. She was a woman capable of every sacrifice,--a wonderful type in which were blended candor, pride, and submission,--and she exhibited indomitable strength of will and earnest zeal for her cause.

Her sister, Agnes, but three years younger than Marie, also entered the convent, and, at the age of fifteen, was made mistress of the novices; during the absence of her sister, at Maubuisson, she was at the head of the convent; from that time, she governed Port-Royal alternately with her sister, for twenty-seven years. Her work, _The Secret Chapter of the Sacrament_, was suppressed at Rome, but without bringing formal censure upon her.

The last of those great abbesses was Mere Angelique, who lived through the most troublous and critical times of Port-Royal (1624 to 1684). At the age of twenty she became a nun, having been reared in the convent by her aunt, Marie, who was the most perfect disciple of Saint-Cyran.

Mere Angelique was especially conspicuous for her obstinacy, and when the nuns were forced to accept the formulary of Pope Alexander VI., she, alone, was excepted, because of that well known characteristic.

Upon the reopening of Port-Royal (in 1689), her powerful protectress, Mme. de Longueville, died and the persecutions were renewed; Mere Angelique endeavored to avert the storm, but all in vain; amidst her efforts, she collapsed. She was also a writer, her _Memoirs of the History of Port Royal_ being the most valuable history of that inst.i.tution.

Thus, about those three women is formed the religious movement which involved both the development of religious liberty, free will, and morality, and of the philosophical literature of the century--a century which boasts such writers and theologians as Nicole, Pascal, Racine, etc.

The mission of Port-Royal seems to have been preparation of souls for the struggles of life, teaching how to resist oppression or to bear it with courage, and how, for a righteous cause, to brave everything, not only the persecutions of power--violence, prison, exile,--but the ruses of hypocrisy and the calumny of opposing opinion. The Port-Royalist nun combated and taught how to combat; she lacked humility, but possessed an abundance of courage which often bordered upon pa.s.sion.

One of the most pathetic and striking ill.u.s.trations of the fervent devotion which was a characteristic product of Port-Royal, is supplied by Jacqueline Pascal, sister of the great Blaise Pascal. Young, _spirituelle_, very much sought after and the idol of brilliant companions, at the age of twenty-six she abandoned the world to devote herself to G.o.d. At thirty-six years of age she died of sorrow and remorse for having signed an equivocal formulary of Pope Alexander VI., ”through pure deference to the authority of her superiors.” The papal decision concerning Jansenius's book, already mentioned, was drawn up in a formula ”turned with some skill, and in such a way that subscription did not bind the conscience; however, the nuns of Port-Royal refused to sign.” Jacqueline Pascal wrote:

”That which hinders us, what hinders all the ecclesiastics who recognize the truth from replying when the formulary is presented to them to subscribe is: I know the respect I owe the bishops, but my conscience does not permit me to subscribe that a thing is in a book in which I have not seen it--and after that, wait for what will happen. What have we to fear? Banishment and dispersion for the nuns, seizure of temporalities, imprisonment, and death if you will; but is not that our glory and should it not be our joy? Let us either renounce the Gospel or faithfully follow the maxims of that Gospel and deem ourselves happy to suffer somewhat for righteousness' sake.