LA. MERE ANGELIQUE.* THERE are few things more interesting to
the student of history when following up to its source some movement of modern thought, than to trace out the side-streams which have contributed their waters to the growing current, and have, perhaps, materially affected its course. The life of Ang6lique Arnauld stands in some such relation to the "Old Catholic" movement, for although there may seem to be little connection between a great schism in the Catholic Church of to-day and the struggles of a French girl some two hundred years ago with the natural desires of her age and sex, yet round the reformed monastery of Port Royal and its reforming abbeys cluster that remarkable group of men who, under the name of "Recluses of Port Royal," shook the power of the Jesuits in France, and originated the controversy to which the Church of Utrecht (that fount of genuine episcopal ordination for the Old Catholic Churches) owes its sturdy attitude of resistance, and partial independence of Papal authority.
Some fifty years since, Mrs. Schimmelpenninck saw the literary capabilities of the Jansenist controversy, and published her
• dngstique Arnauld, Abbess of Port Royal. By Frances Martin. London: Mac- millan and Co.
Memoirs of Port Royal. This has been followed up by the Rer. Charles Beard in a fuller work, in which one of the most restless and brilliant epochs in the history of a restless and brilliant people is brought out with considerable power, as well as studied with thoughtful care. His sketches of Pascal, Racine, Arnauld, De Sad, La Rochefoucauld, and many others who were, either through friendship or enmity, mixed up with the fortunes of Port Royal, are so interesting, that we are inclined on closing hi volumes to echo his quotation from M. Royer Collard, "who knew not Port Royal knew not humanity." His account of La Mere Ang6lique is scarcely less full than that in the volume before us. Yet Miss Martin has done wisely in bringing a life of such wide-spread influence and a character of such force and beauty before a wider public than might seek it out, either in the writer just mentioned, or in the ample memorials of the time in which La Mere Angelique lived. She has handled her materials with much skill and discretion, giving only so much of contempo- rary history and character as is essential to the right understanding of her story, and evidently feeling that genuine admiration and appreciation without which a good biography is an impossibility. The opening scene of Angelique Arnauld's career presents a curious picture of French family life in the sixteenth century. Two little girls are standing by their grandfather, while he explains to them that they are to be nuns, while their elder sister is to "enter society." " Oh, how unfortunate I am to be the second daughter !" exclaims the elder child, not yet quite seven years old. She is consoled in some de- gree by the promise that she shall be made abbess and mistress of all the rest, and eagerly declares that she will see that her nuns do' their duty and behave properly. The five-year old Agnes thinks that she shall have enough to do to save her own soul, and does not wish to be an abbess. Nothing could be more characteristic of the two sisters (both Abbesses of Port Royal, and devoted sharers in the same work of reformation,) than this little scene. The passionate, energetic reformer, and the steadfast, saintly, consistent nun, who, incapable by herself of more than self-renunciation, became under her sister's influence an active as well as passive witness to the highest truth she knew, are both foreshadowed itr their childish words. Jacqueline Marie took the veil at Mau- buisson aud with it the name of Angelique, in compliment to the then Abbess, a sister of Gabrielle d'Estrees, and her rival in pro- fligacy. That M. Arnauld should have suffered his daughter to remain for more than two years under the care of a woman so notorious, shows how small a part religious motives had in the dedi- cation of his children to a religious life ; but when at ten years old Angelique was installed Abbess of Port Royal, Madame Arnauld watched carefully over the morals of the establishment, and Angelique remarked in later life that it was, for those days, a wonderful thing that only one nun had to be removed by her mother for gross immorality. For the rest, religious duties were little thought of, and the child Abbess led a pleasant life enough ; long walks, chats with friendly visitors, reading amusing books, filled up the days innocently, if not very profitably, till, as years went on, the growing girl began to realise the chains by which she was bound, and pined with the strength of her strong nature for freedom, for life, for the world. At one time, though never troubled by doctrinal doubts, she even meditated flying to some Huguenot aunts at Rochelle, but duty to her parents prevailed. After- s. severe illness she remarks, "My illness was of great use to me. The tenderness and affection of my parents made me resolve to carry out their wishes,—to remain a nun, and live soberly as a nun ought to live. But my thoughts did not go beyond this, and never once turned towards my duty to God." No wonder that with returning strength "came back the old discontent ;" but help came to her. One evening in the twilight she beard a wandering friar preach on the humility and self-denial of Christ, and a new life dawned in her heart.
"Those words that came to her out of a gloom like the dark- ness of her own soul had shown her in the life of Christ all that her own life was and might become." To reform herself first, and then her nuns ; to bring back the ancient purity of discipline and fervour of faith ; to be henceforth "pure, holy, and occupied with good works ;" to live an active life in the cloister, since she could not leave its narrow bounds, a life made happy by that love of God which she now for the first time comprehended,—such were the aims that prompted fasts, vigils, and mortifications which alarmed and enraged her parents, whose opposition to her ardent efforts at reform lasted even after her self-devotion and loving patience had won over her unwilling nuns. In after life "she refused either to sanction or tolerate" extreme exercises of morti- fication, and on being reminded of what she had formerly done
herself, she answered smiling, " Ah! yes, anything seemed good in those early days." Community of goods (which included a strict observance of their vow of poverty, since their Abbess took care that the common stock should be remarkably small), silence, hard fare, and a full discharge of their religious duties, were now cheerfully submitted to by the nuns. But seclusion from the world ? The time was at hand when M. Arnauld was accustomed to bring his family on a visit to Port Royal ; how would he stand the parlour outside the walls, and the grated window? In truth, the scene was terrible ; and it was not till he saw his daughter lie like one dead under the anguish of his reproaches, that he gave way, forgave her, and acquiesced in a reform which had plainly got beyond his control.
Nothing shows so much the mingled tenderness and strength of Angelique's nature, the strong good sense that guided the ardent zeal of her conversion, than her guidance of her nuns in those "early days." Wishing to make them keep the strictest rules of their Order, she practised each austerity first herself, showing them how easy compliance was, how great the gain in spiritual life. From her point of view she was undoubtedly right. Nothing could be more fatal to the soul's health than for men and women to live in constant disregard of their solemn vows,—in open con- tempt of duties they yet recognised as most sacred. The state of monastic institutions at that time was a public scandal, even in an age of extreme licence ; and the comparative virtue of Port Royal was clearly seen by Angelique to be but an early stage of the same evils. To say that she carried the work of reformation to an extreme is only to confess that she was human ; her own plea is the beat that can be offered, viz., that any austerity which helped on the great work "seemed right in those early days."
Self-mortification and prayer were not, however, the ends, but the means to holy living in the good mother's eyes ; and she kept her nuns' most active in good works. Her schools were filled, her infirmary tenderly cared for, the poor helped in all ways. Seeing her sister Agnes too wrapt up in devotion, she feared spiritual pride, and used to call her off to active duties. She looked not for ecstasies, but for practical piety, in her nuns. Even in the early days of her conversion, when faatings and watchings were her delight, she used to pray to be kept from delusions, and said, later in life, that her prayers were answered, in that she had never fancied herself the medium of any mira- culous interposition. Consistency was one of her chief aims. One day, at the Conference, there was a nun from Poissy who said that, at their convent, they had cut off part of the chants as a mortification. "You would have done much better," said Angelique, "if you had cut off the tails of your gowns."
It would be far beyond our space to attempt to follow La Mere Angelique through her career as reformer of her own and other monasteries, and through the brief period of Court favour, when Port Royal (removed to Paris) forsook the simplicity of its early days, aimed at saint-making, miracles, and as a consequence, deposed the woman to whom it owed its spiritual existence, and treated her with shameful indignity. Angelique's charac- ter shines in these trials with a new light. Humility and patience were not natural to her, but she learned them now, when, bareheaded and barefooted, she had to do penance on the damp pavement of the chapter house, when she was dressed in a paper mask, on which one might read, "Pray for this hypocrite ;" and worst of all, saw the work of her life falling -to pieces under the evil influences of an ambitious prelate and of the patronage of the fine ladies of the Court. In the end her patience and the innate power of her character won back her in- fatuated companions. She was re-elected to her old dignity, where she had the satisfaction of superintending a well-ordered, harmonious community, which numbered among its members her widowed mother, and sister (the same whose lot the child of seven bad envied, but who had now taken refuge from a world that had brought her little but sorrow), four other sisters, and six nieces ; while outside the walls, but sharing the same religious rites, were, among the "Recluses," her brothers Arnauld and D'Andilly, her nephews Le Maistre and De Saci. Everything promised a peaceful ending to a life of strife and endeavour, but St. Cyran was now the prized friend and spiritual father of both Abbess and community, and with him came the political storms that disturbed the last years of Angelique, and ultimately proved fatal to the existence of Port Royal. We mist refer our readers to Miss Martin's book for a clear and extremely interesting statement of the rise and progress of the Jansenist controversy ; they will see there how it came to pass that a body of ignorant nuns became mixed up in a subtly learned controversy, and refused in spite of cruel and unmanly persecutions from Court and Church
to put their signatures to the "five propositions" condemnatory of a book written in a language they could not read. No Catholics could be more submissive on all other points, no Protestants more staunch on this than the nuns of Port Royal ; and the only ascetic desire of La Mere Angelique's old age was to be banished to some monastery under the control of the Jesuits, since "nothing would be such a trial as to have them coming to convert me." She died, however, at Port Royal de Paris, saying with characteristic sense, "Bury me in the churchyard, and don't let there be so much nonsense after my death ; "for the chief fear of this brave woman was, not of outside persecutions, but of inside backslidings and follies, and she dreaded lest her nuns should be carried away by their love for her. She said mournfully one day, "They are too fond of me, and after I am dead, if they are not kept in check, they will invent a hundred fables about me. I know them ; it is a point on which they are not to be trusted."
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