side. They did not quarrel with the Church ; they de- sired to remain Catholic in .-pin of the pope, believing in the priesthood and the sacraments. They arrived at a metaphysical and moral reform, and pointed to St. Paul and St. Augustine a- their in-pirers. The Jesuits adopted directly antagonistic views on grace and pre- destination, and proclaimed the opinions of the Spaniard Molina, who had undertaken, in his /,•, Concordia Gra- //'" et Liberi Arbitrii, to reconcile free-will and predes- tination. The solitaires of Port-Royal now became the Jansenists of France, insisted upon predestination, and taught that good works were without merit: that grace alone, arbitrarily given or refused, made saints— a < hri — tianity as terrific a- tin Fate of the ancients. They pursued human nature, corrupted by the fall, with an implacable hatred, and the logical conclusion of such a doctrine was the salvation of the few— Le. the Church of Jansenism became an aristocracy of grace. See Jah- mmsm. However much we may find in Jansenism to take exception to, the men who espoused its doctrines were actuated by the noblest of motives, and deserved success in their undertaking, which aimed principally at the freedom of France from the trammels of the papal devotees— the Jesuits and the spread of practical piety among the French people.
The Jesuits, who were prominent at this time in the Church of France, and effectually controlled the court, obtained under the ministry of Richelieu, and especially of Mazarin, repeated condemnatory acts against the teachings of the Jansenists in general, and the Port-Royalists especially. Persecution, however, only stimulated the growth of the new opinions. Duvergier, a Port-Royalist, was thrown into prison, and kept there until the death of Richelieu, in 1642. Hut the very time of his liberation was marked by a most noteworthy production. Antoine Arnauld, bet- ter known as "Le grand Arnauld/' then wrote his Frequent Communion, the first work of that scientific school of religious philosophy of which Port-Royal was the focus and Pascal the principal exponent. Indeed, the best claim which the community of Port-Royal has upon our notice is this literary war which it waged against the scholastic theology, and against the Jesuits in particular. The Society of Jesus had. ever be it said to its credit, devoted itself to the education of youth: but whatever danger there was in their general teaching was thus intensified in the eyes of those who distrusted them. Port-Royal determined to meet them on this ground, by establishing schools and by issuing text-! ks of their own. The grammar, logic, and rhet- oric of Port-Royal — the fir-t by Arnauld. the second by Nicole — were the fruits of t his resolve. They set them- selves also, and not unsuccessfully, to countermine the power of the Jesuits in tin- confessional; for the integ- rity and piety which characterized the Port-Royalists caused them to be much sought after a- confessors. They discovered and maintained the famous distinction of fait and droit in respect to papal infallibility. As to doctrine, the pope could not err: a- to lad- he might See Gallk vnism; Im visibility. When required, they were willing to condemn, as doctrine.-, the five propositions which were said to comprise the Jansenistic heresy : bul tiny denied that these conclusions were to be found in or inferred from Jansen's AvffUStifl \ i
papal bulls or persecution could make them n cede from this position. In their maintenance of Jansen's real doctrines, in their refusal to acknowledge papal infal- libility as to facts, in their continual warfare against the Jesuits, they were exposed to constant per-' cut ion.
For the Jesuits were not inert in the face of this oppo- sition and defiance. They plotted incessantly at Rome, in order to bring the thunders of the Holy See to bear
upon the over-bold .biu-eni-l -.
The persecution brought about a result the Jesuits hardly anticipated. Blaise Pascal w.-i- induced to step
into the arena in defence of the I'ort-I.'oyalists. One of the most independent minds of hi- age, Pascal had
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never yet up to this point submitted himself to the act- ual guidance of Jansen, any more than he had frankly accepted the logical consequences of the discoveries of Descartes. He had felt the force of both these power- ful influences; but a third feeling had exerted authority over his unwilling mind: he had been swayed by the sceptical influence of Montaigne. As a sort of refuge from the yawning abyss which had thus threatened to drown him, this stanch and devotional spirit threw him. as by a sudden and irresistible impulse, into the arms of the Jansenists, and he became a recluse at Port-Royal, and its champion against the world. See Pascal.
In the meantime the number of nuns and novices of Port-Royal de Paris having greatly increased, the ab- bess Ange'lique Arnauld determined in Kits to transfer part of them to Port-Royal des Champs. The school of Port-Royal was therefore removed from the latter place to Paris, Rue St. Dominique, Faubourg St. Jacques, but after three years the teachers were restored to Port- Royal des Champs, where they no longer occupied the monastic building, but a farm-house, called Les Granges, on the neighboring hill. In 1G53, pope Innocent I having condemned five propositions in the book of Jansenius, Arnauld wrote to prove that these propo- sitions did not exist in the book of Jansenius, at least not in the sense attributed to them. Upon this Arnauld was accused of Jansenism. The nuns of Port- Royal, with their abbess Ange'lique, having refused to sign the formulary acknowledging that the five alleged heretical propositions were contained in the work of Jansenius, preparations were begun by the Jesuits for scattering the community of Port-Royal, and placing them in close captivity, so as to bring them to sub- mission. It seemed a strange spectacle that a body of women, and a few others who agreed with them in sen- timent, should withstand the power of the decrees of Rome and all the pertinacity of the Jesuits in carrying out those decrees. On March 30, 1656, two months af- ter the condemnation of Dr. Arnauld, the civil authori- ties proceeded to carry out an order in council that every scholar, postulant, and novice should be removed from Port-Royal. But, for some unknown reasons, the exe- cution was suddenly interrupted and delayed several years. It is said that Mazarin's unpleasant relations with the papacy were the principal cause of this sudden suspense of procedure against the recluses. In 1660 the king himself ordered the school to be broken up. The nuns still continuing refractory, Pe're'fixe, archbishop of Paris, sent a party of police-officers in 1664, who arrest- ed the abbess, her niece Ange'lique Arnauld the Young- er, or Ange'lique de St. Jean, the mistress of the novices, and other nuns, and distributed them among several monasteries, where they were kept in a state of confine- ment. See Arnauld, Angelique.