Angelique Arnauld, abbess of Port Royal

Front matter

t i i t f 'f ai the Chealagirg, 8 Uk,

Tp, PRINCETON, N. J. f fai is z s

SFT

Chapter I. Two French Children

CHAPTER ILI.

THE CHILD-ABBESS

CHAPTER IIL FASTS AND VIGILS

CHAPTER IV.

ANGELIQUE THE REFORMER

CHAPTER V.

HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER

CHAPTER VI.

WITHIN THE HOUSE.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SISTERS.

CHAPTER VIII: MAUEUISSON (yoo! 6 Oe os

CHAPTER IX, ST. FRANCIS DE SALES .

CHAPTER X.

ST. FRANCIS AND THE ABBESS ,

PAGE

Vili CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XL

Porte ROVAL “AND THE SCOURT. 1°.) Sah eae ti tele fe ee ne CHAPTER XI ANGELIQUE’S FALL : 162- CHAPTER XIV.

ESCAPED AS A BIRD OUT OF THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER. . . 174 CHAPTER XV.

MEET WO RRIENDS: a. (4° 47% Vel GNOR ERROR eee Sone ee oe CHAPTER XVI.

PISTOR ATION ls Ue et oy felt ee Pe er CHAPTER XIX.

MDME; LE, MAITRE AND HER SONS: \) 72° Ni ign eee eee CHAPTER XX TBE PRISONER OF VINCENNES, 2. 4. (4 (0.9 °C eta ne ee CHAPTER XXI.

Bese, Tie STILL “WATERS: |.) 02.) Jen Ried oe Be ae 2 oe CHAPTER XXIL AE OUGH MPROUBLE AND “WAR 1.00, MTR Ratt | cop tie CHAPTER XXIII.

My BMLOLS THORN 2) De ta) ad A RAE) 0 Be

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANGELIQUE ARNAULD,

ABBESS OF PORT ROYAL,

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

In the year 1202 Mathieu de Marli, of the noble house of Montmorency, joined the crusade preached by Foulques de Neuilly, and left France for the Holy Land. He gave in charge to his wife, Mathilde de Garlande, a sum of money to be devoted to some work of piety by. which he hoped to obtain Divine favour, and ensure the success of his undertaking. Mathilde, after consulting her kinsman Eudes de Sully, Bishop of Paris and relative of Phiuip Augustus, King of France, determined to establish a monastery—for the word ‘convent’ was not then used—for nuns.

She purchased in 1204 the fief of Porrois, or, as it was afterwards called, Port Royal, situated in a narrow valley near Chevreuse, about eighteen miles west of Paris. A chapel dedicated to St. Laurence, which attracted a large number of devout worshippers on the Saint’s day, already existed there.

Some of the later historians of Port Royal claim Philip Augustus as founder of the monastery and originator of its name. ‘They say that one day during the chase he wandered away from his companions and was lost in the woods, but was at length discovered in this secluded valley close to the chapel of St. Laurence. He made a vow to build a church there because the place had been a Port-Royal or royal refuge to

S.L. XIIL B

Jin motor him. This story belongs to an age when royal founders were in fashion, and cannot be reconciled with what we know of the actual history of the monastery. The derivation given by the. Abbé Lebceuf is most probably correct. According to him Port Royal has nothing to do with any royal visit, but comes from /orrois, which is derived from the corrupt Latin Porra or Borra, namely, a hollow overgrown with brambles, in which there is stagnant water. The monastery erected by Mathilde de Garlande stood in a hollow, surrounded by hills covered with brushwood; a pool of water on a higher level than the bottom of the valley often overflowed and converted the place into a stagnant marsh. The filling up of this pool was from time to time advocated and discussed, but it was not done. The health of the nuns of Port Royal was always more or less affected by the miasma of the valley, and from time to time fever carried off many of them. The locality chosen indicates the religious order which Mathilde had selected. Oid Latirr verses tell that—

‘Bernard loved the valleys and Benedict the hills, St. Francis the towns and Ignatius the great cities,’

Accordingly, in 1208, we find that a few nuns of the Cis. tercian order, which had recentiy been reformed by St. Bernard, entered the newly completed building. Their numbers increased rapidly ; that which was at first a priory became an abbey, and as early as 1233 was able to receive and support sixty nuns. By that time also the church built by Robert de Luzarches, architect of the cathedral at Amiens, was completed, and included in its precincts the sacred chapel of St. Laurence already alluded to. We know very little of those early days, but since this was a Cistercian monastery, in a wild and secluded spot, established about fifty years after the death of St. Bernard, and when the reform inaugurated by him had reached its fullest development, we are justified in assuming that the attractions which it offered were poverty, and the humiliation and un- . broken penance which those who measured sanctification by suffering were anxiously seeking. The necrology of Port Royal gives the names of fifteen ladies of noble birth who joined the community in those early days. There were numerous monasteries at that time in which they might have found wealth, ease, and comfort; but they were doubtless among the more ardent spirits who could be satisfied with nothing short of absolute and total self-sacrifice. In the poverty and solitude of Port Royal they hoped to attain Christian perfection, and to procure by their prayers for those they loved what their influence and example had been powerless to effect.

Port Royal was under the jurisdiction of three abbots: the Abbot of Citeaux, who was the head of the Cistercian order; the Abbot of Vaux de Sernai, who was what is called the zmmediate father, namely, that Abbot of the Cistercian order who lived nearest to Port Royal; and the Abbot of Savigny, because Vaux de Sernai was an offshoot of Savigny. The confessors of Port Royal were chosen from among the monks of Vaux de Sernai, an abbey which was between four and five miles distant. Saint Thibault, the illustrious Abbot of Vaux, and grandson of Mathilde de Garlande, was for twelve | years ecclesiastical superior of the nuns, and visited’ them constantly. In later times a small isolated building was shown in the outer court, which was known as St. Thibault’s Lodge. It was the oldest building there except the church, and it was the poorest.

St. Louis and his Queen, Marguerite of Provence, were amony the benefactors of Port Royal, and before the King started for the Holy Land, in 1218, he confirmed, at Aigues- Mortes, grants which had been made to the nuns; and bestowed on them an annual stipend, which was paid as late as the seventeenth century.

Popes also increased the fame of the abbey by granting it considerable privileges. Honorius III. by a Bull dated January 3d, 1223, permitted the nuns of Port Royal to celebrate Divine worship, even although the whole of France was lying under an interdict. He forbade the Bishopsgto interfere with the election of an Abbess or to depose one duly elected, and he declared all excommunications against the nuns or their dependants to be null and void, and excommunicated all those who should trouble the monastery and seize its goods or retain them. A more important privilege, as we shall hereafter see, was the permission granted to the nuns to offer a retreat to persons who were disgusted with the world and wished to do penance for their sins in a monastery without binding themselves by vows. Moreover, when a nun took the veil, the Bishop who celebrated mass and administered the Holy Sacrament con- | B 2 secrated a large wafer, which he divided into eight portions. She received one, and the other seven he placed in her right hand and covere. with a dominical, or small linen cloth, sc that she might pastake of one daily for the first week after her benediction. In a similar manner, priests administered the Holy Sacrament to themselves during the first four days of their ordination.

In those early times the community of Port Royal excited extraordinary interest, and its rapid growth and development indicate that it supplied a need which was strongly felt Mortification of the flesh and harsh penance were not only endured but sought after, and the abbey gradually acquired a reputation which attracted to it noble ladies who endowed it with their wealth. But as soon as the fatal element of wealth is allowed to find its way into a monastic community, a gradual deterioration sets in, and poverty and self-denial give way to ease and self-indulgence.

We have no means of tracing the history of the abbey from that first impulse which led so many to flock thither and pray for the safety of those whom they could help in no other way than by prayer, to the point of degradation which it had reached at the close of the sixteenth century. During the wars with England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the so-called religious wars of the sixteenth, the discipline of abbeys which were too far from the great towns to receive protection, was completely destroyed. Dom Clemencet says that in the sixteenth century Port Royal was merely a secular institution ; the Cistercian rule, which the nuns ought to have followed, was unknown, and order and regularity were banished from within its walls.

The annals of the monastery give a list, probably incomplete, of the names of abbesses, and of benefactors. Only two of the former are in any way remarkable, and they are aunt and niece, both named Jehanne de la Fin. The aunt was at the head of the community from 1468 to 1513, and the niece from 1513 to 1558. ‘They did nothing for the moral or spiritual condition of the abbey ; but the aunt recovered alienated lands and acquired new possessions, whilst the niece repaired and rebuilt cloisters, dormitory, church and belfry, and placed richly carved stalls in the choir. A document of the period shows that she did not attempt any religious reform; no doubt sae did not think that it was necessary. But her work seemed 'to her contemporaries to merit the flattering epitaph found upon her tomb, ending in a manner characteristic of that century, with a pun upon her name. ‘The edge of this is however lost in an English translation :-—

‘Finis coronat opus.’ [La Fin (The End) crowns the work. ]

Guilbert in his historical memoirs of Port Royal has preserved certain documents which show the condition of the abbey at the beginning and end of the sixteenth century. They are cartes de visite or reports made by the ecclesiastical superior, the Abbot of Citeaux, after an inspection of the abbey, and in a certain way they do give a portrait of it at that time. Port Royal was inspected in 1504, during the life of the first Jehanne de la Fin. In his carte de visite the Abbot advises the nuns to recite the services slowly and carefully, pausing between the verses, so that one may be distinguished from the other. ‘They are also told to pronounce all the words and syllables distinctly, and not to drawl out unmeaning sounds as they had done when chanting before him. They are requested to provide a clock, so that Divine Service may be performed at stated and regular hours. The condition of the dormitory is spoken of as unsatisfactory, rendering the seclusion of the nuns impossible. The Abbot expressly desires that the confessional shall in future be so arranged that the father confessor does not enter the cloistered part of the monastery. He is to be in the church, and the penitent in the oratory, with a wall of partition between them. The aperture in this wall, through which the nun speaks, is to be filled by a closely fitting trellis, covered with waxed cloth. The Abbess is forbidden to receive or lodge male visitors in the guest chamber adjoining the sleeping chamber of the nuns, and she is advised to erect a building for such visitors outside the monastic precincts. Many precautions are also suggested with regard to doors in tae outer walls, which sufficiently indicate the actual abuses as well as possible dangers which had been brought under the Abbot’s notice. He reprimands the nuns severely because the love of property had taken the place of the spirit of renunciation. They no longer held all things in common, but every nun had her own furniture, her own little stock of money

SS and silver plate. They are informed that this is a great aud execrable vice, and are warned never again to make use of such a wicked and damnable phrase as ‘my robe,’ ‘ my knife,’ but always to say ours. They are also forbidden to write or receive letters or send messages without the knowledge of the Abbess, and are requested to keep away from the kitchen, and not spend so much time in it as they had been in the habit of doing.

It appears from this carte de visite that Abbess and nuns had adopted the wide hanging sleeves which were fashionable in the sixteenth century, and were ridiculed in the sermons ot popular preachers. ‘The Abbess is bidden to reduce these sleeves, and to have them narrowed from the elbow downwards so that they shall not be larger below than above. There is every reason to suppose that this injunction was not obeyed. Guilbert says that the second Jehanne de la Fin was represented in effigy on her tomb as wearing a cowl or very large hood which completely covered her arms, and it is supposed that this had been adopted in order to conceal the prohibited sleeves.

The second carte de visite contains the report of a later Abbot of Citeaux, after an inspection of Port Royal made by him in 1572, when the second Jehanne de la Fin had been - succeeded by Catherine de la Vallée. The irregularities complained of at the beginning of the century had increased instead of diminishing, and the disapproval of the Abbot is very strongly expressed. ‘The nuns are requested to perform Divine Service in a decent and becoming manner. They are to partake of the Holy Sacrament every fortnight after confessing to the father confessor of the abbey, and not to anyone else. The Abbess is commanded to lock the door of the dormitory at night, and she is very strictly forbidden to leave the monastery herself, to allow the nuns to leave it, or to admit any male person within the cloistered precincts on any pretence whatsoever. The attention bestowed on dress and the manner of arranging the hair are strongly censured, and the Abbess is requested to pay more attention to the sick nuns, who seem to have been neglected and insufficiently fed.

By this time the scandals of Port Royal must have been notorious, for the Abbot took a very unusual step and returned in sixteen months. He found that his previous admonitions eo and injunctions had been unheeded, and thereupon issued a supplementary carte de visite, in which special reference is made to the presence of a man named Blouin, whom the Abbess on various pretexts insisted upon keeping in the abbey. She is now threatened with excommunication if she does not obey the commands of her ecclesiastical superior, which are sharp and strict. She does not appear to have submitted, but shortly afterwards she left Port Royal and retired to another monastery.

In 1575 she was succeeded by Jeanne de Boulehart, who did not attempt reform, but neither did she give occasion for scandal. Her epitaph states that she never left the monastery, that she took good care of her nuns, and fed them well. We shall find sufficient reasons for supposing that, even on these points, she deserves a moderate amount of praise, whilst the very nature of it shows that the spiritual functions of an abbess were at that time forgotten or ignored, and that she fulfilled her whole duty if she maintained an orderly and well-regulated household.

Jeanne de Boulehart died in 1602, and was succeeded by Angélique Arnauld, a child of eleven years old. The decadence of religious houses was at that time an established fact, and one that had even ceased to excite surprise. The Roman Catholic Church had never before occupied so low a position in France. Calvin and the Reformers seem not so much to have purified as to have exhausted it, drawing off all that was earnest and devout, and leaving a residuum of immorality and irreligion. Faith and good works were hardly to be found in the Church, and there seemed little possibility of leading a holy life in the monasteries. The scandal of the monks’ lives had become almost too great te be endured, and that of the nuns, if more carefully concealed, was none the less a terrible reality. ‘They arranged the hours for religious services so as not to interfere with the night’s rest or the day’s pleasure ; they modified and adjusted their dress se as to make it becoming and as far as possible fashionable; they paid visits to their friends, received their lovers at home, and educated their illegitimate children in the convent schools.

But the profligacy of priests, monks, and nuns was only a faint reflex of a far deeper and more wide-spread na‘ional profligacy ; whilst the national character had been degraded by civil wars in which religion was a party cry and a watchword.

It is true that in the sixteenth century St. Theresa in © Spain and St. Charles Borromeo in Italy had done good © work, but it was partial and limited, and perhaps its most striking result had been to show the necessity for the general .

reform of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ignatius Loyola, in the same century, desired to lead the whole world into the Church, but his followers, the Jesuits, had failed in the attempt, and were now trying to ‘take the Church - into the world. Their efforts in that direction were more successful, and they made religion easy and popular by drag-. ging it down to the lowest level of enw, dishonesty, - and vice.

At this time, to which we cannot look back without a feeling akin to despair, the degeneracy of monks and nuns was suddenly arrested. There was a movement in favour of reform which attracted to itself so much that was good, true, and noble, that at one time it seemed possible to hope for the regeneration of the Catholic Church as well as of the monasteries. And this attempted reform, which was only crushed out and trodden under foot after a century of heroic struggle, was inaugurated by Angélique Arnauld, shows its brightest lustre in her life, and is associated with the name of the Monastery of Port Royal.

sae ol

CHAPTER I.

TWO FRENCH CHILDREN.

NEARLY three hundred years ago, two little French children stood by their grandfather’s side and listened to his plans and wishes for their future life. They were only five and seven _ years old, and yet he was gravely telling them that they would have to enter a convent, whilst their eldest sister would marry and go into society. Angélique Arnauld, the older of the two,

was a high-spirited child, ardent.and eager, and her grandfather saw that the prospect of being a nun did not please her, so he explained, ‘I shall make you an abbess, the mzstress of all the others.’ She was somewhat consoled by this promise and said:

‘Grandpapa, if you wish me to be a nun I will be a nun; but not unless you make me an abbess.’

‘And I,’ said Agnes, the child of five, ‘I will be a nun,

— too, Grandpapa, but I don’t want to be an abbess.’ _ And then they left their grandfather, and Angélique ran off alone into a long gallery, crying with anger and vexation, and saying to herself: ‘Oh, how unlucky I am to be the second daughter, for if I had been the eldest I should have been the one to be married !’

A few days later the children again visited their grandfather in his study. Agnes spoke first :

‘Grandpapa, I have quite made up my mind not to be an abbess, for they say that an abbess has to answer to God for the souls of her nuns, and i am sure that I shall have quite enough to do to save my own.’

‘But,’ said Angélique, eagerly, ‘I want to be an abbess,

TO TWO FRENCH CHILDREN. [CHAP.

and I shall take good care that my nuns do their duty and behave well.’

This conversation has been preserved in the voluminous memoirs of the Arnauld family, and the discussion was not sO premature as it now appears to us, for Angélique entered -upon her noviciate a few months later, and became Abbess of Port Royal at eleven years old; whilst httle Agnes, in spite of her protest, was Abbess of St. Cyr at six.

These little girls were the daughters of M. Arnauld, Procurcur-Général to Catherine de Medicis, and of Catherine Arnauld, his wife, who was the only daughter of M. Marion, the French Avocat-Général. Angélique was born in 1591, and Agnes in 1593; and at the time of which we speak they had a sister and a brother older than themselves, and two brothers and two sisters younger.

Even at the close of the sixteenth century the Church ot -

Rome would not have openly sanctioned such a breach of ecclesiastical discipline as the appointment of a child to the important post of abbess. But Mdme. Arnauld’s father did not find the difficulties in his way insuperable. He was in high favour with the King of France, and had great influence at court. He wished to provide, during his own lifetime, for some of his daughter’s numerous children; and when he had obtained the presentations, he procured the requisite bulls from Rome for the appointment of the little abbesses by means of false certificates of age. We shall see that this matter gave him some trouble, and that the bulls had to be renewed from time to time; but there is no reason to suppose that it was looked upon in any other light than as a pious fraud, at which the King of France and the court of France were very much amused, and the court of Rome not greatly shocked.

Mdme. Arnauld, the mother of the two lI:ttle girls, was born in 1572, and at twelve years old she was betrothed to M. Arnauld, a young advocate whose ability and eloquence had made such an impression upon her father, M. Marion, that one day, after hearing him speak, he took himt home to dinner, and, before long, promised him his only daughter in marriage.

M. Arnauld belonged to the old zob/esse of Provence, and the family from which he was descended receives honourable mention in the annals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

tr. TWO FRENCH CHILDREN, Iy

His branch of it had settled in Auvergne, and, in 1340, one ot his ancestors, Gracieux Arnauld, fought bravely in the army ot Philip of Valois. . Another, Michael Arnauld, lived to the age of one hundred and four; and had a soldier son, Henri, whose courage was only equalled by his loyal devotion to the Connétable de Bourbon.

Antoine Arnauld, Seigneur -de la Mote: or, as he was called, M. de la Mothe, was the paternal grandfather ot Angélique and Agnes. He was a soldier as well as a lawyer. In time of peace he was Procureur-Général to Catherine de Medicis, and-in time of war he commanded’ a company ot light horse. In the former capacity he opposed, on behalf ot the Queen-mother, the claims of one of the French nobles to lands said to have been granted by the king. He gained his suit, and the king’s gift was not confirmed. As he was about to leave the court of justice the claimant asked him if he was M. de la Mothe, and said that he was surprised he had ventured to oppose him, and would take good care to make him repent the course he had adopted.

‘I think you mistake the person whom you are addressing,’ answered Arnauld. -

‘How so? Did you not tell me that you were M. de la Mothe P’

‘Yes; but I wear a soldier's coat as well as a lawyer’s robe, and you dare not speak to me outside the court as you have done here.’

By this time a gentleman in attendance had recognized Arnauld de la Mothe, and reminded the angry nobleman that he was the same whom they had so often remarked at the head of his company during the civil wars. Whereupon followed apologies, explanation, and reconciliation. The story is characteristic of the Arnaulds and also of the French nobles of the sixteenth century. It shows the steadfast courage of the one, and the contempt of the other, not only for those who were not soldiers or nobles, but for right and justice also.

Arnauld de la Mothe was a Huguenot, though how or when he became one we do not know. His descendants acknowledge the fact, but do not enlarge upon it. ‘He was led awuny into the error of Calvinism,’ say the family annals, ‘but after a time God opened his eyes, though this cannot be said with regard to several members of his family.’

12 TWO FRENCH CHILDREN. [CHAP.

As a matter of fact his eyes were opened by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, when, whatever he may have thought of the truth of his religion, he certainly found that it was unsafe. However, his courage and ability made him so valuable to the Queen-mother, that she saved his life on that terrible night. His house was surrounded and attacked, and at the head of his servants he attempted to defend himself and his children. Defeat and death were before him, when a safe-conduct arrived from the Queen, and the whole family was spared. Immediately after the massacre, Arnauld de la Mothe and several —but not all—of his children ‘abjured the errors of Calvinism,’ so say the annals, and returned to the Church of Rome. The fact is stated without comment or explanation, and at the present time it is in vain to seek them.

His youngest son, Pierre, was a soldier. He was present at the siege of Rochelle, and had to defend an unfinished fortress. He completed it almost entirely at his own expense and in such an admirable manner that he was afterwards known as Arnauld du Fort. His soldiers did not approve of being employed as bricklayers, carpenters, and masons, and took no pains to conceal their discontent. Pierre Arnauld was well aware of it, but he was silent and bided his time. One day a good-natured civilian, the body servant of an officer in the garrison, joined the working party, and had a hod on his shoulder when M. Arnauld passed by. He stopped and asked who this strange man might be, and on hearing that he was a servant struck him with his cane, saying: ‘Do you mean to tell me that you are nothing but a valet, and yet you presume to undertake the work not only of a soldier, but of a prince, for no prince would be ashamed of a soldier’s work !’

This story was repeated throughout the fortress, and so kindled the-enthusiasm of the garrison that there was no more grumbling at hard tasks, and the building went on apace. All the Amaulds had this fervent zeal, and whether their. mission was to build a fortress or reform a monastery they devoted themselves entirely to the work, thought it the noblest in the world, and had the power of calling out the same enthusiasm of devotion in others.

Pierre Arnauld du fort was Agnes and Angélique’s uncle. Their father, Antoine Arnauld, was born in 1560, and was twelve years old at the date of the massacre in 1572. He t.] TIVO FRENCH CHILDREN. 13 was one of those who ‘abjured his errors,’ and so apparently did his younger brothers. But there were ‘ Protestant aunts’ of whom we shall hear afterwards, and who must have been very young, if not unborn, at this time. The Arnaulds were always suspected, and often accused of a leaning towards Protestantism, and doubtless there was some influence in M. de la Mothe’s family favourable to it. We must bear this in mind, since it modified the conduct of his children and grandchildren ; but it seems impossible now to trace it to its source.

Antoine was remarkable as a boy for his ability and industry, and his progress was so rapid that at seventeen he began the study of law. He was sent to Bourges, where he was a pupil of the learned Cujas, whose esteem and affection for him led to the formation of a lasting friendship. At Bourges he studied fifteen or sixteen hours a day, and for fear of not waking early, hired a man to call him every morning at three o'clock. -

On his return to Paris when he was nineteen, it was arranged that he should travel in Italy with friends carefully chosen by his father. He had two hundred crowns for a six months’ tour, and was as diligent about his pleasure as he had been ‘in his work. He never wasted an. hour, saw all that was remarkable, and kept notes of all that he sw, so that he was said to know Italy better than most Italians. He managed his money so well that, although he was liberal on the journey, and brought ‘home a number of curiosities, he had cash to spare at the end of his tour, which, as his biographer justly remarks, was a very extraordinary thing for a man of his age.