BEARD'S PORT ROYAL.*

IN Mr. Beard's Port Royal we recognize a valuable and meritorious publication; though Sainte-Beuve's now completed work, on the same subject, renders it, perhaps, of secondary importance. In its composition, our author acknowledges that he has derived informa- tion from the volumes of this eminent French critic which cannot be found elsewhere. He has not; however, servilely followed his prede- cessor, but has based his own history on the original memoirs, and lias frequently taken a different view of characters and events. For completeness of execution, in one portion of his work, Mr. Beard claims for himself some pre-eminence over Sainte-Beuve, in that por- tion, namely, which ernliodies, in a continuous narrative, the facts re- lating to Pascal discovered by M. Victor Cousin and his assistants, and which were not divulged until after the publication of the cor- responding part of Sainte-Beuve's work. English readers have thus an independent and original treatment of a really great topic secured to them. Mr. Beard appears to us to have accomplished the object which he proposed to himself, in a tolerably satisfactory manner. He writes in a simple, natural dialect, and says what he has to say, for the most part, without metaphor, or poetry, or rhetoric. We think him, indeed, occasionally iliffuse ; and we regret the want of unity in his conception of the subject-. Mr. Beard is not an artist, and his work is rather a series of studies than a connected whole, with a predominant central interest, to which all minor interests are made to converge. We accept, however, his volumes for what they are. Few, we think, who can sympathize with such manifestations of spiritual life as they record, can fail to welcome this contribution to the history of religion and literature in France.

. The matter in these volumes is so multifarious that it is impossible, in the space allotted to us, to do more than indicate its character in certain directions. The second volume, for instance, contains a

• bio phical sketch of the life of Blaise and Jacqueline Pascal; of Madame de Longueville; of Racine and of the four bishops—Buzan- .val of Beauvais, Arnauld of Angers, Caulet of Pander, and Pavilion of Alet ; besides a chapter on the schools of Port Royal, and the con- ' • Port Royal. A contribution to the History of Religion and Literature in France. By Charles Beard, B.A. In two volumes. Published by Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.

elusion of the narrative which relates its decline and destruction. We shall not attempt any separate report of these several divisions of the work, but shall limit ourselves to a statement of the main argument, with an occasional &zee at the subordinate topics. The story, then, of Port Royal, relates, according to our author, "a Protestant quarrel fought out within the limits of the Church." In its " doctrine of the sacraments, its theory of the Christian life, its belief in ecclesiastical miracles, its attitude towards the Virgin and the Saints," Port Royal was Catholic ; but in its protest against perversions of morality, its assertion of its own quasi-Calvinistic doc- trine of grace, its heterodox desire to give the laity a Bible and Service-book in the vulgar tongue, in the innovating spirit exhibited in the books and methods of their school, Port Royal approximated to Protestantism. Thus the Jansenist insurrection of Port Royal was only a half-accomplished rebellion. By a happy chance, says Mr. Beard, all the great French Jansenists were grouped round the Cistertian Monastery. Thus it has been his aim to display all the characteristics of Jansenism in connexion with the fortunes of that community. Wearisome word-combats and wearisome intrigues are thus made to give place to a history of faith and delineation of character. Accordingly, Mr. Beard's book is rather for the student of Christian life, than for the analytic theologian; for Jansenist holiness' is at least as much its subject, as Jansenist doc- trine. Hence the author dwells on " Arnauld's long service of the

truth; the simple-hearted but constant co of his sisters and their nuns ; the practical religious wisdom ofSt. C3n.an and of Singlin ; De Sacy's daily walk with God ; the all-sacrificing bravery of Le Maitre and his companions in solitude ; the self-consuming de- votion of Pascal to all truth of thought and life ; the modest con- scientiousness of Tillemont's studies ; and the apostolic energy of Pavilion's labours."

"The monastery of Port Royal was founded in the year 1204." Matthieu, first Lord of Marli, shortly before his departure on the crusade proclaimed by Innocent III., had left "at the disposal of his wife; Mathilde de Garlande, mid of her kinsman Endes de Sully, Bishop of Paris, a rent charge of fifteen livres, to be devoted to such pious purposes as they might think fit." This sum was applied by them to the foundation of a monastery of the Cistertian order, situated "en Porrois," in a valley near Chevreuse, a few leagues to the west- ward of Paris. The name Port Royal is, Mr. Beard decides, a form of the original Porrois, modified in all probability by transmission through a Latin medium. "In 1223 the work of founding. the new monastery was, as it were, completed by a special bull issued by Honorius III., who granted to it the right of celebrating the holy office, even though the whole country should lie under interdict."

A minute history of the fortunes of the community would be an unprofitable, perhaps an impossible achievement. Mr. Beard judi- ciously avoids the attempt, and giving us the names, and specifying the characteristic deeds, of some of the Superiors, opens his history of the monastery and of its influence on the religion and literature of France, with the accession to the abbacy of Jacqueline Marie Arnauld, "better known in the theological annals of the age as La Mere An- gelique," in 1602.

The new abbess, a girl of eighteen years of age, was scarcely in- vested with this high dignity, when she commenced the arduous en- terprise of reforming the religious institutions over which she was called to preside. Her zeal for the restoration of primitive purity was tempered with considerateness and discretion. She asked no, sacrifices and imposed no toil which she was not herself willing to endure. Her sleeping apartment was a cell; her bed a straw mattress "thrown on the floor and scantily covered with a robe such as the nuns usually wore during the day.. She rose from it only to share in the meanest labours of the house. She swept the church and the dor- mitory, carried wood to the kitchen, washed the dishes, even dug in the garden,—encouraging the sisters to these unusual toils by cheer- ful speech and example.' After a time she obtained the abbot's per- mission to'introduce novices into the convent. "It is characteristic of the disinterestedness which was Angelique's rule in this matter that only three [out of thirty-two who were accepted] brought any dowry with them ; of her power of winning love, that when she left Maubisson all preferred to encounter the poverty of Port Royal rather than be separated from her." Trials and persecution awaited the young reformer, but we must refer the reader who would learn more of her career, to our author's own account of her life and suffer- ings.

In 1612 Ang,gique Arnauld found a friend and confessor in the celebrated Francis de Sales, whose name is thus associated with these early days of Port Royal. Mr. Beard is disposed to consider St. Francis as the type of modern Roman Catholic holiness. Admiring his active and self-denying beneficence, he regards the symmetry of his character as the result, not of growth but compression, as "the regularity of some metal tree." And if he does not accuse does not acquit "his celibacy of asceticism, his humility of untruthfulness, his piety of mysticism, his obedience to the church of servility." An almost legendary glory encompasses the figure of this saint. He is said to have converted no fewer than seventy-two thousand heretics ; and to have wrought miracles "surpassing in number and variety those of the New Testament." The list to which La Mere de Chausy, Superior of the Visitation, deposed on oath, "commences with the portentous article of thirty-seven persons raised from the dead," and concludes with more than six thousand persons cured of pestilential fevers, &c.

The next eminent name, associated with Port Royal, which we shall mention, is that of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, better known by the title derived from his abbey of St. Cyran. He was the friend of Jansen and the first to preach Jansenism in France. Jansen him self was born in 1525, at Accoy, a village near Leerdam, in Holland. His principal work was a posthumous publication, so that, to use our author's expression, he was for the most part an unconscious heresiarch.

It was at Vincennes, whither St. Cyran had been sent as a prisoner, ostensibly as the author of a book which he did not write, that he first read the Angus/inns of Jansen with affectionate exultation. The controversy on "Grace" was now inaugurated ; but it was five years before it assumed the formidable character which subsequently distinguished it. In 1649, Nicholas Cornet, Syndic of the Faculty of Theology, called the attention of that body to certain theological propositions, seven in number, referring to the doctrine of grace. These propositions were afterwards reduced to five, of which the first, says Mr. Beard, is expressed in the very words of Jansen, while the others may easily be inferred or misconstrued, from passages which the critics are now ready to point out. We do not intend to examine or even enunciate these five propositions. Suffice it to say that "the Jansenist controversy, is a part of that great and endless debate, in which, according to Milton, even the rebel angels engaged, and which still separates Christian churches." Roughly, Augustinianism teaches that only by the operation of prevenient grace can man even desire to be saved; Pelagianism holds that the human will can turn naturally to God; Semi-Pelagianism maintains the free and valid co-operation of the human will with the divine spirit. "Allow any power to the will, and you are gradually-led to Semi-Pelagianism; ascribe all power to grace, and an apparently inexorable logic lands you in Calvinism; w ee," on the narrow ridge between Semi-Pelagianism and Calvinism," Jesuit and Jansenist were soon trying to fix the boundary of Catholic faith."

In the controversy which now arose, Antoine Arnauld took part. A week before Arnauld's final condemnation appeared, the first of the Provincial Letters, a work of which the earlier part is, in the opinion of Voltaire, not less witty than the best comedies of Moliere, and the concluding portion not less sublime than the snblimest com- positions of Bossuet. This admired work, as is universally known, was the production of Blaise Pascal. The first letter appeared when he was not quite thirty-three years of age. Mr. Beard commends the sparkling. lucidity of the style, and the exquisite irony which is to be found in almost every sentence. "Le pouvoir prochain," or proximate power, was the subject of this first letter ; "la trace suffisante" was the topic treated m the second. The Jesuits, it tells us, hold the doctrine of a grace which is sufficient, but which it rests with the free will of man to make efficacious. The Jansenists, on the other hand, hold that any sufficient grace, without the help of free will, must be efficacious. The Neo-Thomists again believe that a sufficient grace is imparted to all men, but that it is of no practical use unless accompanied by a supplementary efficacious grace, which is not given to all. Pascal continues, addressing his interlocutor— "'So that following this doctrine,' said I to him, this grace is sufficient, without being sufficient.' 'Precisely,' said he, for if it suffices, no snore is needed for action; and if it does not suffice, it is not sufficient.' " . . . Where are we, then,' cried I, and what side ought Ito take? If I deny the doctrine of sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist; if I affirm it, in the sense of the Jesuits, so that efficacious grace is not necessary, you say that I am a heretic; and if I affirm it in ycur sense, so that I make efficacious grace neces- sary, I offend against commonsense, and the Jesuits say that I am a fool. fWhat am I to do in this inevitable necessity of being either a fool, or a heretic, or a Jansenis 2."

Mr. Beard's account of the Provincial letters is very interesting and we regret that we cannot give more details respecting their sub: jects, their reception, or their influence. We note only that while the first letter was written with great ease and rapidity, the composi- e tion of some of the later letters occupied twenty days. The eighteenth letter is said to have been written thirteen times, while Pascal apolo- gises for the length of the sixteenth on the ground that he had not time to make it shorter.

The next incident in the annals of Port Royal, to which we desire to draw attention, is the so-called miracle of the Holy Thorn. On Friday, March 24, A.D. 1656, this precious relic from the Saviour's crown was exposed on a low altar, set in the middle of the choir, in the church or chapel where the sisters were assembled for worship. They knelt and kissed it, one by one. Among the boarders at Port Royal was a young girl, named Marguerite -Perier, a niece of the great Pascal's. For three years and a half she had been suffering from a lachrymal fistula in the left eye. Various remedies had been tried for eighteen months, but all alike proved ineffectuaL On this eventful occasion, Marguerite, was present among the boarders, who were summoned, after the nuns had kissed the sacred relic, to per- form a similar act of homage. The Sceur Flavie Passart observed her approach, and with her own hands applied the relic to the swollen part. Towards evening, Marguerite was heard saying to one of her little companions, "My eye is cured ; it does not hurt me now." The fact was so. Mr. Beard considers the cure as the result of natural causes; and in a Protestant country and, a sceptical age., the majority of inquirers into the prodigy, will agree with him in his interpretation of it. Such, however, was not the explanation given of this unex- pected recovery by professional and learned investigators in the seven- teenth century. On the 14th of April, 1656, five physicians and two surgeons, who had more or less knowledge of the ease, signed and published a certificate, stating their belief that such a cure was beyond the ordinary power of nature, and could not have taken place without a miracle. Jacqueline Pascal sang the praises of the Holy Thorn in an ode; and Pascal himself was so thoroughly satisfied of the reality of the miracle, that he not only found in it the occasion of his famous "Thoughts," but in place of his old armorial bearings, henceforth adopted the device of an Eye, surrounded by a crown of thorns, with the motto, "Solo cui credidi." The miracle, however, was not denied by the Jesuits; it was authenticated, after due investigation, by the

officials of the diocese ; and, "finally, in 1728, when Port Royal had been destroyed, and the dry bones of its saints cast out of their graves, Pope Benedict XIII. quoted, in his printed works, the case of Marguerite Perier as a proof that in the True Church the age of miracles had not gone by." To us, this miracle of the Holy Thorn is extremely significant. Scarcely less instructive are the historical or mythical conversion and vision of Pascal, which are not without their parallels in primitive Hagiography.

"One fete day, probably in October or November, 1654, he was driving a car- riage, drawn by four or six horses, on the Punt de Neuilly; the leaders suddenly took fright, ran away, and swerving from their course at a point where no balus- trade protected the road, fell into the river. The traces broke at the critical moment, and the carriage with its occupant, remained safe upon the verge. Upon a sensitive mind, especially if already oscillating between the religious and the worldly life, such an adventure could not have been without its effect."

The compiler of the memoir in the .Recueil d' Utrecht, distinctly affirms that God, to take away from Pascal that vain love of science to which he had returned, caused him to have a vision, of which he never spoke to any one except his confessor. The statement may not be authentic ; but Mr. Beard is surely precipitate in concluding that the word "vision" in this passage is the result of inference. On the contrary, we hold that the descriptive clause, "of which he never spoke to any one except his confessor," may imply positive and in- tentional assertion. Mr. Beard resumes:— " All we know is, that after Pascal's death, a servant discovered a little parcel carefully stitched up in his waistcoat, which he had evidently worn from day to. day, and sewn and unsewn when he changed his clothes. The packet contained two copies of a document in his own handwriting, one on parchment, the other on paper."

Mr. Beard pronounces this document "plainly a record of some event or train of meditation which he wished to keep ever in remem- brance." Thus, the reader is left to decide whether the story of the vision originated in the document, or whether the document is to be regarded as a corroboration of the tradition. There are reasons for adopting the latter alternative. In the document, the date is spe- cified— the year of grace, 1654, Monday, 23rd November, St. Clement's-day, ; the hour, about half-past ten at night to about half-past twelve. Then follows the mysterious word 21're, followed in its turn by a seeming proclamation of belief in the God of Abra- ham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, sot of philosophers and savans."

In whatever way this record be explained, the account of Pascal's conversion and vision is deeply suggestive and instructive. -We forbear to trace in detail the life of Btlaise Pascal, the genius who, "tracked the secret of the Cycloid in a single sleepless night," the ascetic who pronounced the married state no better than paganism in the eyes of God; or that of his sister Jacqueline, the "quick,. bright-eyed girl," the devoted woman that slowly died in the cloisters of Port Royal, of remorse for having unwittingly aided in the be- trayal of the truth. Other figures there are, which pass over the mirror of that monastic life, noble, and beautiful, and worthy of. nearer nearer inspection, which we must leave unapproached. On the ethics, the logic, the literature of the monastery, we could find much to say, as on the contrasting merits and demerits of Catholicism and. Protestantism, in relation to the Contemplative and Angelic life. But we must leave our author to say it for us; assured that if M. Reyer-Collard was justified in asserting that "who knew not Port Royal, knew not humanity," the student will find in Mi. Beard's- work inconsiderable aid in his endeavour to master the difficult science of mankind, by introducing him to its miniature resemblance, in the sacred and classical retreat near the valley of Chevreuse.