Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

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 Brégy, Mme. de Hautefort, Mme. de Longueville, Mme. de Sévigné, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sablé 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 God," the powerlessness of kings and princes before God—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 sanctity 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 associated 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 illustrious champions of Port-Royal.

Marie Jacqueline Angélique, 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 instituted 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 Mère Angélique, 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. Mère Angélique 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; Mère Angélique 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 institution.

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.