Writings of Resistance (Volume 41) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [1 ed.] 0866985395, 9780866985390

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Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly

Writings of Resistance E d i t e d a nd tr a n s l at e d by

John J. Conley, S.J.

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 41

WRITINGS OF RESISTANCE

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 41

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEXTS AND STUDIES VOLUME 484

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser ie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser ie S ed i to r , e ng l i S h te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens Volume 1, 2009 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder Volume 2, 2009 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde Volume 3, 2010 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata Volume 4, 2010 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr Volume 5, 2010

Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Karen Simroth James Translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 6, 2010 Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook Volume 7, 2010 Valeria Miani Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Annotated by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky Volume 8, 2010 Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers Edited and translated by Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton Volume 9, 2010 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sophie, Electress of Hanover and Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence Edited and translated by Lloyd Strickland Volume 10, 2011

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser ie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser ie S ed i to r , e ng l i S h te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing Edited by Julie D. Campbell and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 11, 2011 Sister Giustina Niccolini The Chronicle of Le Murate Edited and translated by Saundra Weddle Volume 12, 2011 Liubov Krichevskaya No Good without Reward: Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Brian James Baer Volume 13, 2011 Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell The Writings of an English Sappho Edited by Patricia Phillippy With translations by Jaime Goodrich Volume 14, 2011 Lucrezia Marinella Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please Edited and translated by Laura Benedetti Volume 15, 2012 Margherita Datini Letters to Francesco Datini Translated by Carolyn James and Antonio Pagliaro Volume 16, 2012

Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix English Women Staging Islam, 1696–1707 Edited and introduced by Bernadette Andrea Volume 17, 2012 Cecilia Del Nacimiento Journeys of a Mystic Soul in Poetry and Prose Introduction and prose translations by Kevin Donnelly Poetry translations by Sandra Sider Volume 18, 2012 Lady Margaret Douglas and Others The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry Edited and introduced by Elizabeth Heale Volume 19, 2012 Arcangela Tarabotti Letters Familiar and Formal Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 20, 2012 Pere Torrellas and Juan de Flores Three Spanish Querelle Texts: Grisel and Mirabella, The Slander against Women, and The Defense of Ladies against Slanderers: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Emily C. Francomano Volume 21, 2013

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Ser ie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Ser ie S ed i to r , e ng l i S h te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Barbara Torelli Benedetti Partenia, a Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken Volume 22, 2013

Tullia d’Aragona and Others The Poems and Letters of Tullia d’Aragona and Others: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Julia L. Hairston Volume 28, 2014

François Rousset, Jean Liebault, Jacques Guillemeau, Jacques Duval and Louis De Serres Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern France: Treatises by Caring Physicians and Surgeons (1581–1625) Edited and translated by Valerie WorthStylianou Volume 23, 2013

Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza The Life and Writings of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza Edited and translated by Anne J. Cruz Volume 29, 2014

Mary Astell The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England Edited by Jacqueline Broad Volume 24, 2013 Sophia of Hanover Memoirs (1630–1680) Edited and translated by Sean Ward Volume 25, 2013 Katherine Austen Book M: A London Widow’s Life Writings Edited by Pamela S. Hammons Volume 26, 2013 Anne Killigrew “My Rare Wit Killing Sin”: Poems of a Restoration Courtier Edited by Margaret J. M. Ezell Volume 27, 2013

Russian Women Poets of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Amanda Ewington Volume 30, 2014 Jacques du Bosc L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women Edited and translated by Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang Volume 31, 2014 Lady Hester Pulter Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda Edited by Alice Eardley Volume 32, 2014

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se r ie S edi to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se r ie S edi to r , e ng l i S h te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Jeanne Flore Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus’s Punishment of Those Who Scorn True Love and Denounce Cupid’s Sovereignity: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Kelly Digby Peebles Poems translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 33, 2014

Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa Selected Drama and Verse Edited by Patrick John Corness and Barbara Judkowiak Translated by Patrick John Corness Translation Editor Aldona Zwierzyńska-Coldicott Introduction by Barbara Judkowiak Volume 37, 2015

Veronica Gambara Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Critical introduction by Molly M. Martin Edited and translated by Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini Volume 34, 2014

Diodata Malvasia Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna Edited and translated by Danielle Callegari and Shannon McHugh Volume 38, 2015

Catherine de Médicis and Others Portraits of the Queen Mother: Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters Translation and study by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong Volume 35, 2014

Margaret Van Noort Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635–1643) Edited by Cordula van Wyhe Translated by Susan M. Smith Volume 39, 2015

Françoise Pascal, MarieCatherine Desjardins, Antoinette Deshoulières, and Catherine Durand Challenges to Traditional Authority: Plays by French Women Authors, 1650–1700 Edited and translated by Perry Gethner Volume 36, 2015

Giovan Francesco Straparola The Pleasant Nights Edited and translated by Suzanne Magnanini Volume 40, 2015

ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY

Writings of Resistance •

Edited and translated by JOHN J. CONLEY, S.J.

Iter Academic Press Toronto, Ontario Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe, Arizona 2015

Iter Academic Press Tel: 416/978–7074

Email: [email protected]

Fax: 416/978–1668

Web: www.itergateway.org

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tel: 480/965–5900 Email: [email protected] Fax: 480/965–1681 Web: acmrs.org © 2015 Iter, Inc. and the Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de Saint Jean, 1624–1684, author. | Conley, John J. Title: Writings of resistance / Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly ; edited and translated by John J. Conley, S.J. Other titles: Other voice in early modern Europe ; 41. | Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Series) ; v. 484. Description: Tempe, Arizona : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies ; Toronto, Ontario : Iter Academic Press, 2015. | Series: The other voice in early modern Europe ; 41 | Series: Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies ; volume 484 Identifiers: LCCN 2015027684 | ISBN 9780866985390 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de Saint Jean, 1624–1684. | Jansenists. | Port-Royal des Champs (Abbey) Classification: LCC BX4735.A82 A25 2015 | DDC 273/.3--dc23 Cover illustration: Mother Angélique Arnauld d’Andilly (1624–1684), Abbess of Port-Royal. French School. Musée des Granges de Port Royal, Magny-les-Hameaux, France. Art Resource ART483246. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Cover design: Maureen Morin, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Typesetting and production: Iter Academic Press.

For Yasushi Zenno

Contents Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction

1

Report on Captivity

21

On the Conformity between the State to Which Port-Royal Has Been Reduced and the State of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist

169

On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt Once We Know Our Duty

175

Bibliography

181

Index

183

xi

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the many persons and institutions whose support has made the research for and publication of this translation of the works of Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly possible. Three Parisian research libraries have been pivotal in providing access to the relevant manuscripts and print material. They are the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bibliothèque mazarine, and the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal. I am especially indebted to Valérie Guittienne-Mürger and Fabien Vandermarcq, the indefatigable librarians at the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal, for their assistance in identifying relevant manuscripts. I thank Loyola University Maryland for providing me with the Henry J. Knott Chair of Philosophy and Theology, with its attendant support for research and travel, and for the publication subvention provided by the university’s Center for the Humanities. I am also indebted to the Society for the Study of Women Philosophers and the American Catholic Historical Association, venues where I have recently presented research papers concerning Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly.

xiii

Introduction The Other Voice Whenever I return to Paris, I visit the Hôpital Cochin on the Rue Saint-Jacques. I walk to the hospital’s interior garden, where I engage in meditation on one of the green benches. Centuries ago, the garden was part of the cloister for the convent of Port-Royal de Paris, the urban branch of the religious community noted for its Jansenism. Built in 1626, the stone colonnade and the mansard roofs of the old convent still stand. Next to the cloister garden is the baroque convent chapel, still used for religious services for the hospital’s patients, staff, and visitors. The chapel was the scene of one of the most violent episodes in the history of the tormented convent. On August 21, 1664, Archbishop Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe of Paris arrived at the convent chapel in person and berated the nuns for their refusal to sign a document condemning the alleged theological opinions of Cornelius Jansen. He decreed that the nuns were placed under interdict and thus incapable of receiving the sacraments. Under armed guard, carriages in the courtyard took a dozen of the most recalcitrant nuns to house arrest in foreign convents. The expulsion of 1664 inaugurated a decades-long campaign of excommunication, house arrest, isolation, and military occupation, all of which failed to break the will of the nuns, who were convinced that church and state had erred in their condemnation of Jansen. No figure is more prominent in this history of resistance than Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly (1624–1684). In each successive crisis of the signature, she emerges as the principal strategist of the convent’s campaign of refusal. More importantly, she has left behind a large corpus of writings in which she expounds her theology of resistance to perceived abuses of authority. Her scholarly defense of the rights of conscience against demands of servile obedience is a gendered one. The right of women, specifically of nuns, to maintain a theological judgment against efforts at political and ecclesiastical coercion is her central preoccupation. I have chosen to introduce the Anglophone reader to her copious writings by translating several of her works where the narrative and theory of resistance to oppression are prominent.

The Life of Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly The oldest daughter of Robert Arnauld d’Andilly and Catherine Le Fèvre de la Broderie Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique Arnauld d’Andilly was born on November 28, 1624, at the family chateau of Pomponne. Her noblesse de robe family figured prominently in French politics. Her father was the overseer of the household of 1

2 Introduction Gaston d’Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII, and her mother’s family provided several members of the French ambassador corps. Influential at court, the family was also deeply involved in the fortunes of the convent of Port-Royal. Her aunt Angélique de Sainte-Magdalene Arnauld began the reform of the Cistercian convent as its abbess in 1609. Five other aunts also became nuns at Port-Royal: Agnès de Saint-Paul Arnauld, Madeleine de Sainte-Christine Arnauld, Marie de Sainte-Claire Arnauld, Anne-Eugénie de l’Incarnation Arnauld, and Catherine de Saint-Jean Arnauld Le Mâitre. Four of her sisters ultimately became nuns at the convent: Anne-Marie, Catherine de Sainte-Agnès, Marie-Charlotte de Sainte-Claire, and Marie-Angélique de SainteThérèse. Even her widowed grandmother Catherine de Sainte-Félicité Marion Arnauld entered Port-Royal. Many of the male members of Angélique’s family also allied themselves with the beleaguered convent. Her uncle Antoine Arnauld was a prominent theologian who defended the nuns when the convent underwent persecution; a militant apologist for the convent among the French bishops was her uncle Henry Arnauld, bishop of Angers. A priest, her brother Charles-Henry Arnauld de Luzancy provided pastoral ministry to the Port-Royal nuns. A minister in the cabinet of Louis XIV, her brother Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne, oscillated between defending the persecuted nuns at court and admonishing his sister Angélique for political and ecclesiastical critiques he found temerarious. Her cousins Louis-Isaac Le Maître de Saci, Antoine Le Maître, and Simon Le Maître de Séricourt distinguished themselves by their scholarship and their teaching when they joined the solitaires, a group of pious laymen who pursued a life of penance, prayer, and study in the environs of the convent. Intermittently, the solitaires conducted a series of schools, their most famous alumnus being the playwright Jean Racine. By the 1620s Port-Royal had become a model of austere conventual reform, imitated by other Catholic reform movements. In the 1630s the convent became a bastion of Jansenism under the influence of Port-Royal’s chaplain, Abbé SaintCyran. A personal friend and disciple of the Belgian theologian Cornelius Jansen, Saint-Cyran promoted the controversial tenets of Jansen’s Augustinian theology: radical human depravity, predestination, the small number of the elect, and moral rigorism. The convent’s endorsement of these Jansenist positions would lead to its censure by the church and the French court. By the 1640s the burgeoning convent had established two locations: its original Parisian countryside location in the valley of the Chevreuse, Port-Royal des Champs, and its new urban location in Paris’s Faubourg Saint-Jacques, Port-Royal de Paris. From the moment she entered the Port-Royal convent school in 1630, Angélique impressed observers by her intelligence. She excelled in classical languages, quickly mastering both Latin and Greek. A sympathizer of Port-Royal, Madame de Sévigné summed up the astonishment many visitors experienced when they

Introduction 3 heard her speak: “All the languages and all the sciences have been infused into her. In short, she is a prodigy.”1 Her erudition in discussions of the Bible and of the church fathers caused widespread admiration. Even the Jesuit Father Rapin, usually hostile to the Jansenists, expressed amazement at the young pupil’s mastery of the complexity of Saint Augustine’s theories.2 If her erudition garnered universal praise, Angélique’s moral character was a matter of dispute. Her aunts Mère Angélique and Mère Agnès criticized her tendency toward intellectual arrogance. Her uncle Antoine reprimanded her for her tendency toward sarcastic intransigence.3 Long attracted to a vocation as a Port-Royal nun, Angélique easily shifted from the status of boarding pupil to that of a postulant for the convent. She became a novice on June 27, 1641, and a professed nun on February 25, 1644. Her name in religion was Angélique de Saint-Jean. The intelligent and industrious nun quickly assumed major positions of trust within the convent: headmistress of the convent school, novice mistress devoted to the formation of young nuns, and subprioress. Observers noted her courage during the civil wars of the Fronde (1648–1653), when she helped to shelter terrified refugees within the convent and organized charitable assistance for convent neighbors ravaged by the famine and epidemic caused by the civil unrest. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s early years as a nun paralleled the emergence of the controversy over Jansenism. In 1640 Jansen’s Augustinus was posthumously published. The massive theological tome defended what it considered to be the authentic interpretation of Saint Augustine’s teaching on grace. It emphasized the incapacity of fallen humanity to save itself and the utter necessity of God’s grace, freely given to whomever he elected, for salvation. Themes of divine sovereignty and the depravity of the world were emphasized. Led by the Jesuits, critics argued that the theories of the book were dangerously Calvinistic and destructive of human freedom. Champions of the book, led by Saint-Cyran and his disciples, insisted that the book had restored the church’s authentic doctrine of grace and constituted a useful antidote to the exaggerated claims of human freedom and moral virtue made by the Jesuits. The Vatican published increasingly severe censures of the book. Urban VIII’s In eminenti (1642) removed the book from circulation and forbade its reading, but the bull seemed to object primarily to the book’s reigniting the old quarrel over grace and thus dividing the church. For good measure, the pope also 1. Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan, November 29, 1679, in Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, Lettres, vol. 2, ed. Émile Gérard-Gailly (Paris: Gallimard, 1953–1963), 517. 2. See René Rapin, Mémoires du P. René Rapin de la Compagnie de Jésus sur l’église et la société, la cour, la ville, et le jansénisme, vol. 1 (Paris: Gaume et Duprey, 1865), 443. 3. For a discussion of the criticism of her personality by members and allies of the convent, see Brigitte Sibertin-Blanc, “Biographie et personnalité de la séconde Angélique,” Chroniques de Port-Royal 35 (1985): 74–82.

4 Introduction condemned works that were attempting to refute the book of Jansen. Innocent X’s Cum occasione (1653) condemned five theological propositions concerning grace and freedom as heretical; it also cited the Augustinus. But the link between the censured propositions and the book was less than clear. Alexander VI’s Ad sanctam Beati Petri sedem (1656) clarified the issue by insisting the church was condemning the five propositions precisely in the sense in which Jansen had held them. Faced with increasing demands that clergy, teachers, and members of religious orders swear that they accepted the church’s condemnation, Antoine Arnauld devised the droit/fait distinction. According to Arnauld, the church could bind the conscience of its members on matters of faith and morals (droit), since the church had the right and duty to guide its members to salvation. On issues of fact (fait), however, the church could only demand respectful consideration of its judgments. Error was always possible. The application to the current controversy was clear. Jansenists would gladly assent to the condemnation of the five propositions; they agreed that they were heretical or at least could be interpreted in a heretical way. But they could not assent to what they believed to be an erroneous judgment of fact concerning the text and beliefs of Jansen. The legitimacy of the fait/droit distinction as well as the substantive dispute over Jansen’s theology would become central to the burgeoning Jansenist controversy. As the opposition to Jansenism and Port-Royal intensified, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean became the convent’s leading apologist. Starting in 1651 she and her cousin Antoine Le Maître began to collect documentation concerning Mère Angélique’s reform of the convent. A reluctant Mère Angélique was persuaded to write her autobiography in 1654.4 This project of historical documentation was quickly amplified. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean urged other nuns to write memoirs of the reform and to elaborate their own spiritual autobiographies. Ever the lawyer’s daughter, she collected biographical sketches, eyewitness accounts, legal documents, transcripts of interrogations by canonical visitors, abbatial conferences, and abbatial letters to refute what she considered a libelous portrait of Port-Royal concocted by the enemies of Jansenism in the pamphlet wars of the period. A tool of polemic, this vast documentation often assumes a hagiographic tone. The documents present the nuns as the heroic victims of a process of misunderstanding, censure, persecution, and final abandonment to God’s inscrutable providence. As Thomas Carr argues,5 the immense documentation amassed by the nuns of Port-Royal is unique among the literary remains of the century’s convents. In large part its existence is due to the authorial and editorial work of Soeur 4. For a critical edition of this autobiographical sketch of Mère Angélique Arnauld, see Jean Lesaulnier, “Relation écrite par la Mère Angélique Arnauld sur ce qui est arrivé de plus considérable dans PortRoyal,” Chroniques de Port-Royal 41 (1992): 7–93. 5. See Thomas M. Carr, Voix des abbesses du Grand Siècle: La prédication au feminine à Port-Royal (Tübingen: Narr, 2006), 1–25.

Introduction 5 Angélique de Saint-Jean as she constructed a lawyerly defense of the orthodoxy and sanctity of Port-Royal against its critics. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean emerged as the leader of the intransigent faction of Port-Royal nuns as the conflict over Jansenism reached its climax. In the spring of 1661, Louis XIV’s agents expelled the postulants, novices, lay students, and confessors from the convent. External superiors were imposed on the community. In the summer of 1661, the community faced its first crisis of the signature. On June 8 the archdiocesan vicars of Paris presented the convent with a formulary that each nun was ordered to sign. The formulary condemned five propositions dealing with freedom and grace as heretical; it further affirmed that Jansen had defended these propositions in the Augustinus. In their accompanying instruction concerning the formulary, however, the irenic vicars explicitly endorsed the droit/fait distinction as a legitimate tool for interpreting the meaning of one’s signature. Given this concession, Antoine Arnauld urged the nuns to sign without reservation. Allied with Soeur Jacqueline de Sainte-Euphémie Pascal, the sister of Blaise Pascal, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean demurred, insisting that the signature still indicated assent to a proposition concerning Jansen that she did not believe. Under pressure from their clerical counselors, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean and the other nuns signed the formulary but against the counsel of Antoine Arnauld, they added a postscript to their signatures, indicating that they were assenting only to matters of faith (droit) and not to matters of fact (fait) in the document. Infuriated both by the vicars’ compromising pastoral instruction and the nuns’ qualification of their signature, the Vatican annulled the first formulary and insisted that the nuns sign a new formulary, unencumbered by any softening postscripts. On November 28, 1661, the nuns signed the new formulary. Instead of postscripts next to their names, the nuns added a paragraph-length preface to the document, explaining how the signatures were to be interpreted. Further inflaming the controversy, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean added her own postscript to the preface, in which she explained that her signature in no way represents any departure from Saint Augustine’s theory of grace, which the church had endorsed on so many occasions in the past. The predictable rejection of this new signed formulary by church and throne led to a graver impasse. In 1664 the new archbishop of Paris, Paul Philippe Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe, attempted to find a resolution to the conflict. He informed the Port-Royal nuns that they must sign without reservation a new version of the formulary. They were forbidden to use the droit/fait distinction in relationship to their signature. However, they could distinguish between divine faith (assent to a truth divinely revealed by God) and human faith (assent to a claim because the person making the claim is trustworthy) in distinguishing their degrees of assent to the formulary’s provisions. The Jansenists rejected this

6 Introduction distinction as inapplicable to their situation since they could not in conscience assent in any way to what they considered an erroneous judgment of fact. Prodded by Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean, the majority of nuns once again added the droit/fait distinction to their signatures as they signed the new formulary on July 14, 1664. Enraged by this act of disobedience, the archbishop personally appeared at Port-Royal de Paris to condemn the nuns for their intransigence and to announce new disciplinary measures of punishment. The resisting nuns were placed under interdict, a canonical ban on receiving the sacraments. Twelve of the leaders of the nonsigneuse majority were exiled to house arrest in foreign convents. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean was exiled to the Annonciade convent in the Marais neighborhood of Paris. Soeur Catherine de Sainte-Flavie Passart, the leader of the signeuse minority (those Port-Royal nuns who had given an unreserved signature to the formulary), was named as the assistant superior to a Visitation nun imposed by the archbishop to govern Port-Royal. In her Report on Captivity Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean recounts the ordeal of solitude and deprivation she suffered during her ten-month sojourn in the Annonciade convent. When the campaign of exile failed to make the recalcitrant nuns submit to the signature, the archbishop changed tactics. In June 1655 the archbishop regrouped Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean and the other nonsigneuses at Port-Royal des Champs under a virtual regime of martial law. Soldiers surrounded the convent. All visits from externs and all communication with externs were forbidden. The penalty of interdict turned into outright excommunication. Ever intrepid, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean quickly outmaneuvered the penal regime. Clandestine letters were exchanged. She even managed to seek spiritual direction from her cousin Isaac Le Maître de Saci, now a distinguished biblical scholar. The rigors of exile and excommunication only hardened her intransigence. The vitriolic rhetoric of her Report on Captivity alarmed Antoine Arnauld. It denounced the Annonciade nuns as jailers and condemned the Annonciade convent as a jail. She mocked the good faith of the signeuses: “They never truly entered into the spirit of the convent, although the second one of these [Soeur Flavie de Passart] certainly talked about it enough. But that was the very thing she did not understand: the kingdom of God does not consist of words. Still, that was all the poor girl had.”6 When sympathetic laity attempted to find a compromise between the Vatican and the nuns, she denounced them. Her letter to Madame de Sablé, a pro-Jansenist aristocrat who hosted a committee charged by the church to find a solution to the crisis, indicates her adamant position: “As far as I am concerned, I still find consolation in my [alleged coldness], because I am persuaded by my 6. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly to Antoine Arnauld, December 28, 1668, Lettres de la Mère Angélique, Ms. Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal: P.R. Let 358, 176. Hereafter cited as LMASJ.

Introduction 7 recent experience that firmness is worth more than tenderness. I would go even further and dare to say that I prefer my roughness and my dryness to the caresses and softness exhibited by certain people you saw after you saw us.”7 In 1669 the persecution of Port-Royal abruptly ended with the Peace of the Church, engineered by Pope Clement IX. With the acquiescence of the throne, Pope Clement modified the formulary that the nuns were summoned to sign. Instead of affirming that she condemned the censured theological positions found in the Augustinus of Jansen, the signatory nun simply had to affirm that she condemned these propositions “wherever they might be found, even in the works of Jansenius.” Louis XIV’s willingness to reduce this act of submission to a cosmetic gesture stemmed from his own political difficulties. Preoccupied by an impending war with Holland, the king considered the festering Port-Royal controversy an unwelcome distraction. His efforts to suppress Jansenism had backfired. Prominent pro-Jansenist aristocrats, starting with his cousin Madame de Longueville, condemned the harsh treatment of the nuns as scandalous. The French episcopate was divided. A theologically distinguished quartet of bishops (Arnauld of Angers, Pavillon of Alet, Buzeval of Beauvais, Caulet of Pamiers) defended the droit/fait distinction as a legitimate tool in the crisis of the signature. An irenic diplomat, Pope Clement wanted to resolve an embarrassing conflict that had wounded the unity of the church as it faced the Protestant challenge. Soeur Angélique de SaintJean joined the other nuns in signing the tempered formulary, although she privately expressed concern over any compromise that might weaken the convent’s determination to maintain the neo-Augustinian position on grace. During the Peace of the Church, the convent once again flourished. The community received new postulants and novices. The reopened convent school taught the daughters of prominent aristocratic and bourgeois families. The solitaires produced a flood of influential translations, spiritual treatises, and pedagogical works. Serving first as prioress of Port-Royal des Champs and then as the convent’s abbess (1678–1684), Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean guided the community in a path of militant resistance toward compromises with its opponents. In her extensive correspondence and abbatial conferences, she exhibited her moral rigorism. When Gilberte Pascal Périer, the married sister of Blaise Pascal, congratulated her on the nomination of her brother Arnauld de Pomponne to Louis XIV’s cabinet, the nun reprimanded her: “I am not happy about your claim that you experienced perfect joy over a piece of news that really should have given you a very great fear about the spiritual peril to which one of your true friends will be exposed.”8 The Christian life could be no more easily combined with the world of 7. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly to Madame la marquise de la Sablé, September 2, 1669, LMASJ, P.R. Let 358, 180. 8. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly to Gilberte Pascal Périer, October 18, 1671, LMASJ, P.R. Let 359, 250.

8 Introduction politics and finance than it could with the world of the theater or the gambling house. Her description of the opposition between the world and the gospel often assumes an apocalyptic tone: “The world is a house that is going to perish. All the lusts that reign in it are a fire that consumes it and all who are attached to it. This fire never goes out because this is the same fire that will burn in hell for souls who have been consumed by it in this life.”9 Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean’s governance of the convent defended the spiritual rights of women. Following the principles of Mère Angélique Arnauld’s earlier reform, the abbess was to be elected by her sisters, not appointed by the throne or the episcopate. Chapter meetings were to discuss disputed points of government. The abbess was to serve as the convent’s principal spiritual director. Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean exemplified this pedagogical office through the elaborate cycle of conferences she delivered on biblical texts, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and earlier texts by Port-Royal abbesses. She quarreled with the archbishop of Paris when she insisted that it was the privilege of the abbess to choose the convent’s chaplains and confessors. In her vast correspondence with nuns and laywomen, she functioned as a spiritual director who encouraged other nuns to exercise rights of self-government and who cautioned against blind obedience to political and ecclesiastical authorities in the theological controversies of the day. The Peace of the Church abruptly ended on May 17, 1679, when François de Harlay de Champvallon, archbishop of Paris, unexpectedly arrived at PortRoyal des Champs. He promulgated a decree expelling the postulants, pupils, and confessors from the convent. When questioned as to the motive for this sudden recourse to sanctions, the archbishop gave only vague responses. In fact, the principal reason was the changed political fortunes of Louis XIV. At the apex of his power with the treaties of Nijmegen (1678–1679) sealing his recent military victories, the king now turned to the destruction of his internal opponents. The Jansenists and their citadel of Port-Royal would no longer be tolerated. There was no reversion to the sanction of excommunication. The nuns could continue their life of prayer and manual labor. But the new sanctions still constituted a death sentence for the community. Without younger members, the convent would slowly die from attrition. Without the school, the isolation from external society would become more pronounced. In her campaign to protest the arbitrary sanctions, Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean did not hesitate to address personally the pope and the king. In her remonstrances the abbess’s rhetoric is abrasive. She informs Pope Innocent XI that his negative judgment of the community was based on his being deceived by the enemies of Port-Royal as to the actual beliefs of the nuns and their clerical counselors: “If Your Holiness could for once be properly informed about all we 9. Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly to Mademoiselle de Bagnols, July 11, 1674, LMASJ, P.R. Let 359, 265.

Introduction 9 have suffered, which was caused by nothing other than the jealousy and malice of certain people against some very wise and pious theologians, including some who participated in the direction of this convent, we have no doubt, Holy Father, that the account of our sufferings, which have few parallels in centuries past, would soften the heart of Your Holiness.”10 Other letters to Innocent XI make clear that the Jesuits are the principal culprits in this systematic campaign of denigration and deception. Her protest to Louis XIV is no less bold. Rather than asking for mercy in the execution of the new sanctions, the abbess demands an explanation for this arbitrary treatment: “We have always considered it an obligation to obey His Majesty and to conform to his desires, since he is the one who holds the first rank in our duties after what we owe to God. Sire, it is the cause of the greatest sorrow for people raised in such sentiments to see that, on the one hand, we are seen as evil in your mind and that, on the other hand, we cannot see any way to leave this painful state since we are not permitted to know what has placed us here and what keeps us here.”11 Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean’s campaign of protest found few allies. The persecution following the end of the Peace of the Church had forced the prominent clerical allies of the convent into exile. Smuggling the precious manuscripts and archives of the abbess over the border, Antoine Arnauld sought asylum with other Jansenists in the Low Countries. Many of the aristocratic defenders of Port-Royal, notably Madame de Longueville, had died. Pope Innocent XI privately admitted that the nuns had done nothing to violate the terms of the Peace of the Church, but already embroiled with Louis XIV over the question of the régale,12 he was not about to start another quarrel with the French throne. The apparent indifference of external society to the nuns’ plight only stiffened the abbess’s militancy. Her letters and abbatial conferences stressed the radical Augustinian anthropology inherited from Jansen and Saint-Cyran. Human depravity, the depth of concupiscence, predestination, and the small number of the elect were emphasized. She warned the oppressed nuns that any concession to their oppressors was an act of cowardice and a betrayal of the truth regarding the grace of Christ. Steely courage, not prudence, was the virtue required in the crisis. “There are circumstances so 10. Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly to Pope Innocent XI, May 29, 1679, LMASJ, P.R. Let 359, 474. 11. Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean to King Louis XIV, king of France, February 5, 1680, LMASJ, P.R. Let 360, 551. 12. The régale was an ancient privilege of the French throne in regard to church revenues. When a diocese fell vacant in the throne’s ancient fief of the Île-de-France, the king could collect the revenues of the diocese until a new bishop was inaugurated. In 1673 Louis XIV declared that he had the right to exercise the régale in all the dioceses covered by current French territory. Pope Innocent XI declared that the king’s action constituted a violation of earlier concordats between France and the Vatican. In the bitter dispute, prominent Jansenists sided with the papacy, thus further inflaming Louis XIV’s hostility to the Jansenist party.

10 Introduction unusual that charity should take no account of prudence… . Political good sense is so contrary to the gospel that we should not even pretend to possess it… . This is the idol of our time. I wholeheartedly detest it.”13 In her final years the abbess’s apocalyptic vision of a fallen world standing under imminent divine judgment became even more dramatic. “When will we be in the holy city in which God himself is the light and where consequently there are no longer any shadows? The life here below is just the opposite. Everything casts a shadow. When day fades, the shadows become longer. That is where we are now. It is certainly truer of our time than it was of the time of which Saint John said, ‘It is the last hour.’ ”14 The militant resistance had ended in abandonment to an obscure divine providence. Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly died on January 29, 1684.

The Works of Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly Angélique de Saint-Jean’s extant writings constitute a veritable literary monument from the reformed Port-Royal at its moment of maturity. More impressive than the sheer bulk of the writings is the variety of genres that the abbess mastered. An indefatigable writer, she composed letters, biographies, autobiographies, biblical commentaries, legal commentaries, eulogies, devotional treatises, exhortations, and chronicles. Her editorial work prompted dozens of nuns to compose autobiographies and biographies attesting to the doctrinal integrity and good order of the convent. The abbatial conferences delivered during her rule of Port-Royal constitute her most sustained literary effort. Discourses on the Rule of Saint Benedict represents a Jansenist reworking of Saint Benedict’s theory of monastic virtues. It repeatedly stresses the necessity of grace for the performance of any virtuous action. Conferences on the Constitutions of the Monastery of Port-Royal maintains a gendered emphasis on the rights of nuns to theological formation and the rights of abbesses to exercise substantial authority in the governance, spiritual direction, and religious education of their subjects. The accompanying biblical commentaries on 1 Kings and the Book of Esther celebrate the role of militant women in defending the faithful from oppression by both religious and political authorities. Reflections to Prepare the Nuns for Persecution presents itself as a simple commentary on Mère Agnès’s earlier Counsels in the Event of Change in the Government of the Convent, but Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean reverses Mère Agnès’s earlier irenic argument. Whereas the earlier abbess had justified a limited cooperation 13. Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean to Mademoiselle de Bagnols, May 29, 1683, LMASJ, P.R. Let 359, 814. 14. Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean to Madame de Fonspertuis, November 17, 1681, LMASJ, P.R. Let 360, 614. See 1 Jn 2:17–19.

Introduction 11 with ecclesiastical authorities during times of persecution, her niece exhorts her subjects to militant resistance in a world sharply divided between the saintly elect and the satanic. Several works emphasize the necessity for resistance to the demands for blind obedience made by the throne and the altar during the crisis of the signature. I have chosen in this volume to focus on three of them. Report of Captivity is an autobiographical work in which Angélique de Saint-Jean recounts her spiritual resistance to the demands for her signature to the formulary condemning the Augustinus during her time of exile at the Annonciade convent between 1664 and 1665. A companion piece written during the same period of duress, On the Conformity between the State to Which Port-Royal Has Been Reduced and the State of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist turns her personal experience of persecution and spiritual deprivation into an object of theological meditation. The suffering of the Port-Royal nuns now receives its meaning from the parallel humiliations of Jesus during his crucifixion. Written later at Port-Royal des Champs, On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt Once We Know Our Duty censures any effort to compromise with the opponents of the convent. Given the power imbalance between the nuns and their opponents and the patent desire of the opponents to force the nuns to abandon their Jansenist convictions, any indication of the willingness to doubt the truth of the Augustinian position on grace can only lead to the spiritual destruction of the community. Vigilance, not dialogue, must be the stance of the upright nun. Each of these narratives and justifications of resistance is gendered. Report of Captivity rejects the argument that nuns, given their lack of theological culture, must bend to the judgment of ecclesiastical and political authorities in religious disputes. The archbishop and priests who demand such submission are skewered. On the Conformity celebrates the unexpected spiritual intimacy the nuns experience when they are deprived of the sacraments of the Eucharist and confession. Freed from the sacerdotal meditation of the sacraments, the nuns can now experience more directly the immediate presence of Jesus the eternal priest. On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt argues that the biblical, patristic, and monastic precedents for disobeying an erroneous religious authority apply to women as well as to men. Other opuscules, notably Three Conferences on the Necessity to Defend the Church, distinguish between enlightened and servile obedience during a nun’s crisis of conscience. As the persecution against Port-Royal intensified in the 1660s, the male clerics allied to the convent could easily go into hiding or exile. Spanish-ruled Belgium would become the ultimate destination of Antoine Arnauld. But the cloistered nuns faced no such possibility. They would either endure persecution or surrender to the demands of throne and church. A marked gendered distance opened up in the Jansenist circle over the limits of resistance. Her uncle Antoine

12 Introduction Arnauld and her brother Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne, begged Angélique de Saint-Jean to moderate her opposition and soften her rhetoric. The male defenders of the Port-Royal nuns repeatedly appealed to their naïveté and lack of instruction in theological matters. But the position of Angélique de Saint-Jean was different. Just as the abbesses of the reformed convent had the right and duty to offer public commentaries on the Scriptures, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the constitutions of the convent, the nuns have the right and duty to enter the theological disputes of the day when issues of justice were involved. The convent’s refusal to bow to the demands of the state on the question of the signature is part of a larger commitment to offer public and ultimately published opinions on the broader theological issues in the church and on the moral issues specific to the convent. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s bold and prolific voice as a théologienne refuted the stereotype of the ignorant, passive nun diffused by Port-Royal’s clerical allies just as it challenged the anti-Jansenist stereotype of the arrogant shrew. The historical works of Angélique de Saint-Jean constitute another important pole of her canon. Her Report or Documented History of Mère Marie-Angélique constitutes the most important of the many biographical sketches she composed concerning the Arnauld family and other prominent members of Port-Royal. Serving an apologetic purpose, these memorials glorify the virtues of the PortRoyal nuns and vilify their critics. Miracles and suspicious coincidences abound as divine providence testifies as to who is its elect. Her Miséricordes are an exercise in a distinctive Port-Royal genre. They are eulogies of deceased benefactors of Port-Royal. Faithful to the convent’s operative Augustinian theology, the eulogies stress the sovereign role of grace rather than the natural endowments or personal freedom of the deceased in the performance of virtuous works during his or her lifetime. Many of the abbess’s works were spirited away in manuscript form to Jansenist archives in the Low Countries during the persecution of the convent following the collapse of the Peace of the Church. With the relaxation of French censorship and a new curiosity in the vanished Port-Royal in the eighteenth century, many of the manuscripts became published books. The exiled Jansenist community in Utrecht was especially active in producing print versions of her works. In 1711, Pasquier Quesnel published his edition of the autobiographical Report of Captivity. First print editions of other works by Angélique de Saint-Jean appeared in 1733, 1735, 1736, 1742, 1740, 1760, and 1787. Indicating the growing French sympathy for Jansenism, the 1736 Parisian edition of her commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict appeared with the imprimatur of the king and the official approval of the faculty of the Sorbonne. The editors of this volume indicate the praise that the abbess’s works had already garnered: “The works of Reverend Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean are very well known and do not need further praise. Several opuscules of this pious abbess have already been published at various times.

Introduction 13 They have sufficiently won the approval and favor of the public to let us hope that the work we are now presenting to the public will find the same approval.”15 Despite this extensive print canon, many of the writings of the abbess remain in manuscript form. The most important is the collection of the nine hundred letters edited by Rachel Gillet and archived in the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal. Manuscript opuscules of special interest are On Direction, which defends the role of the abbess as the principal spiritual director of her nuns, and Faithful Narrative of the Miracles and Visions of Soeur Flavie, a scathing character sketch of the leader of the signeuse minority, whom the abbess denounces as an ambitious traitor.

Influences on Her and Her Influence Spending virtually her entire life within the confines of Port-Royal, Angélique de Saint-Jean acquired a narrow but profound theological culture. It is a monastic culture tinged by the radical Augustinianism of the Jansenist circle. An erudite woman who can read Latin and Greek, she cites the scriptural, patristic, and monastic sources long venerated in Benedictine and Cistercian convents. She also quotes the works of Saint Augustine and the controversial interpreters of Augustine (Jansen, Saint-Cyran, Antoine Arnauld) who constructed Jansenist theology. But the nun’s intellectual culture is broader than her reading. The deepest influence on her thought arises from persons she actually knew. Saint-Cyran was her spiritual director, her uncle Antoine Arnauld her correspondent and counselor. The words and deeds of her aunts Angélique Arnauld and Agnès Arnauld constitute living sources for her theological reflection. Many of the texts she cites are translations made by relatives among the solitaires. Her theological culture is very much an argument with living persons who encourage and oppose her. The thrust and parry of her thought spring from the controversy of the moment. The Bible is the centerpiece of Angélique de Saint-Jean’s theological culture. She exhibits a predilection for the Gospel of Saint John and the epistles of Saint Paul. Ever the Latinist, she peppers her writings with citations from the Vulgate version of the Bible. Her biblical commentaries show concern for issues of gender. The lengthy commentary on the Book of Esther celebrates the mission of a woman to confront political authorities in the midst of religious persecution. It is not far from a flattering self-portrait. Among church fathers Saint Augustine holds a privileged place. The nun frequently cites his City of God and uses its sharp demarcation between the City of God and the City of Man to warn her correspondents and subjects against the temptation of worldly compromise. She also cites the later writings of Augustine, 15. Cited by Germaine Grébil, “L’image de Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean au XVIIIe siècle,” Chroniques de Port-Royal 35 (1985): 113.

14 Introduction where he denounces the Pelagian tendency to exaggerate the role of human freedom and to minimize the role of grace in the act of salvation. Among monastic sources, the Rule of Saint Benedict holds pride of place. Like many abbesses before her, she delivers a cycle of commentaries on Benedict’s rule in order to remind the nuns of their monastic duties. In expounding on the meaning of the virtues prized by Benedict, she transposes them into a Jansenist key. Little discussed in the actual text of Benedict, it is the divine grace permitting us to perform virtuous actions that is at the center of the abbess’s attention. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the cofounder of the Cistercians, is also frequently cited. Angélique de Saint-Jean mentions the celebrated Bernardine passages on the virtue of humility, but she shows particular interest in the texts where Saint Bernard legitimates the criticism of ecclesiastical superiors when they are in error or involved in injustice. The major works of the Jansenist circle are prominent in her theological culture. She cites Jansen’s The Reformation of the Interior Man, a work read at table in the convent and used in the convent school. She often refers to Saint-Cyran’s Simple Catechism, the central catechetical text used in the convent school. Despite its title, the text is actually a substantial theological presentation of the major themes of Jansenist theology: the depth of human concupiscence, the priority of grace over freedom, the reality of divine election and of the massa damnata, the danger of sacrilege in too frequent a reception of the sacraments. Saint-Cyran’s Letters, another devotional staple of the convent, also figures prominently. Antoine Arnauld’s Of Frequent Communion provides the arguments for the nun’s counsels against frequent communion and against a practice of confession where the motive is imperfect contrition (fear of temporal and spiritual punishment) rather than perfect contrition (sorrow for having offended God). She clearly has some knowledge of Blaise Pascal’s Provincial Letters, with their scathing critique of Jesuit casuistry and alleged moral laxism. One of the controversies surrounding the adventures of Port-Royal concerns the degree to which the nuns actually understood the conflict over freedom and grace at the root of the church’s condemnation of the Augustinus. On several occasions, Angélique de Saint-Jean herself argues that like the other nuns, she had never read the book in question and did not understand the technical terms employed in this theological quarrel. But this position is at best a half-truth. There is no evidence that the nun had read the Augustinus, but she had certainly read other works by Jansen and through her extensive reading of other Jansenist authors had arrived at a well-informed position on the underlying questions of grace and freedom. For the abbess, the most important sources for the theological instruction of the convent were the works by two earlier abbesses, Angélique Arnauld and Agnès Arnauld. The earlier artisans and interpreters of the convent’s rule of life

Introduction 15 had become the central authorities in that rule. Two massive cycles of conferences are devoted respectively to Mère Agnès’s Constitutions of Port-Royal and Counsels in the Event of Change. Her biography of Mère Angélique and the many memorials of Mère Angélique she commissioned provide a literary ideal of the properly reformed nun and convent. The abbess’s relationship to her Jansenist sources is never slavish. Mère Agnès’s exhortations to prudence and compromise are replaced with a summons to courage and militancy in the face of opposition. Antoine Arnauld’s repeated calls to moderation in the successive crises of the signature are summarily rejected. Rarely broached in the literature of male clerics, the question of the right and duty of women to resist illegitimate demands of obedience becomes central in the reflection of Angélique de Saint-Jean. A gendered theology of resistance transforms the monastic and neo-Augustinian sources she routinely cites. The influence of Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean has been sporadic. Undoubtedly, her teaching and memory stiffened the aging Port-Royal in its final decades. Yet another crisis of the signature arose in the early eighteenth century. In 1705 Pope Clement XI’s Vineam Dominui Sabaoth condemned the Sorbonne’s earlier judgment that a priest could give sacramental absolution to a Christian who did not accept the church’s judgment of fait in the quarrel over the Augustinus. A new formulary was drawn up to ensure fidelity to the Vatican’s censure. In 1706 the Port-Royal nuns signed the formulary, but once again the signature was not unreserved. The nuns added a codicil stating that they accepted the bull’s judgment only on condition that it did not violate any of the privileges conceded by Pope Clement IX during the Peace of the Church. Infuriated by this new expression of insubordination, Louis XIV ordered armed guards in 1709 to remove the PortRoyal nuns from their convent and to assign them to house arrest in separate, distant convents. The next year he ordered the destruction of the remaining buildings at Port-Royal des Champs to prevent the convent from becoming a site of pilgrimage for Jansenist sympathizers. The eighteenth century introduced the writings of Angélique de Saint-Jean to a cultivated European public. Louis XIV’s destruction of the convent had only made the Port-Royal nuns heroic martyrs to conscience. A new curiosity about the persecuted convent and a broad sympathy for Jansenism among many educated Catholics fueled interest in the abbess’s works. Based primarily in Utrecht, astute Jansenist publicists promoted successive print editions of her writings. In 1760 an editor for the Nouvelles écclésiastiques, the leading Jansenist newspaper, discussed the abbess’s bourgeoning literary fame: “We are astonished at the genius of this incomparable woman. We have difficulty in understanding how, given her responsibility for governing a large community in difficult times and passing part of her days and nights in prayer, she was able to give so many conferences, without speaking of the letters she was continually asked to write.”

16 Introduction In recent centuries it is the personality rather than the writings of Angélique de Saint-Jean that has tended to dominate discussions of her. Sainte-Beuve’s lecture cycle Port-Royal and Henry de Montherlant’s drama of the same name focus on her, but they both provide predominantly negative portraits of the combative nun.16 Her intransigence on doctrinal matters appears to be a species of willfulness unbecoming in a woman. Jean Orcibal’s scholarly study devotes greater attention to her actual thought, but the monograph still tends to provide a critical portrait of Angélique de Saint-Jean, the overly tenacious rebel, contrasted with Flavie Passart, the overly docile accommodationist.17 An exception to this is Louis Cognet’s scholarly edition of her Report of Captivity in 1954.18 The edition underscores the interest of the document as a masterpiece in the literature of resistance to perceived oppression. It also underlines the complex psychology of the abbess, who experiences moments of doubt and anxiety as surely as she experiences moments of certitude and self-mastery. Starting in the 1970s the second wave of feminism, with its interest in reviving neglected women authors from the past, has inspired a new attention to the writings of Angélique de Saint-Jean. New commentaries devoted to her have appeared. An entire issue of Chroniques de Port-Royal, the flagship journal of scholarship on Jansenism, was devoted to her.19 Under the direction of Julie Finnerty, a scholarly venture to produce a critical print version of the letters of the abbess is currently underway. Despite this activity, the abbess remains less studied than her aunts Angélique and Agnès, let alone her uncle Antoine. Part of the obstacle lies in the monastic genres in which she presents nearly all of her theological arguments. Few contemporary readers can negotiate the rule and constitutions of a monastic order. Fewer still can comprehend a theological commentary on such austere documents. Even for devout Christians, the labyrinthine quarrel over grace can seem a distant arcane affair. Few contemporaries possess the legal knowledge to grasp the canonical issues behind the successive crises of the signature. It is in her writings of resistance, especially her fiery Report on Captivity, that Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly draws closest to contemporary concerns. These texts tell the simple story of the spiritual and psychological price paid by those who resist oppressive authorities. They justify the right and duty of women to refuse the summons to blind obedience. 16. See Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, vol. 2, ed. Maxime Leroy (Paris: Gallimard, 1953–1955), 703–37, and Henry de Montherlant, Port-Royal (Paris: Gallimard, 1954). 17. See Jean Orcibal, Port-Royal entre le miracle et l’obéissance: Flavie Passart et Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1957). 18. See Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Relation de captivité, ed. Louis Cognet (Paris: Gallimard, 1954). 19. See François Gazier et al., “Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly,” Chroniques de PortRoyal 35 (1985): 9–85.

Introduction 17

Note on the Translation The translation of Report of Captivity had to face several textual problems with the French original. The original autograph of the memorial has long since disappeared. Two ancient manuscript copies of the original have survived in the archives of the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal.20 I have relied primarily on these two sources. The original print edition of the memorial, published by Pasquier Quesnell in 1711, is seriously flawed.21 Not only has the prose been embellished to suit the taste of the early eighteenth century but the text has also been bowdlerized. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s bitter references to the Annonciade nuns as jailers and to the Annonciade convent as a jail have been removed. The sarcastic references to Archbishop Hardouin de Péréfixe have been softened. In working on the translation, I have also consulted Louis Cognet’s excellent 1954 critical edition of the memorial.22 In modernizing the work, Cognet subdivided the long paragraphs. I have followed his lead in my own translation. Additionally, I have subdivided many of the periodic sentences into smaller units. One of the characteristics of French seventeenth-century prose is the use of long periodic sentences with multiple subordinate clauses. It is not unusual to find single sentences containing over twenty clauses, many of them subordinate, in the text of Report on Captivity. While such elaborate constructions illustrate the logical complexity of Angélique de Saint-Jean’s argument, a literal translation of such convoluted sentences would prove intolerable to a contemporary Anglophone reader. To further facilitate access to the text, Cognet subdivided the long narrative into discreet chapters, each with its own chapter heading supplied by him. I also subdivided the text into numbered chapters but I have not provided chapter headings. These are not present in the original and to a certain extent betray the flow of the nun’s narrative. Angélique de Saint-Jean composed the memorial in bursts of spontaneous recall. The chronology is far from smooth. She frequently jumps forward, goes back to a forgotten episode, adds a moral judgment, or stops the narrative to depict her emotional state at a given moment of her exile. The effort to provide a literary structure that would be easily intelligible to contemporary readers should not overwhelm the vivacity and abrupt emotional shifts of a text composed with ardor and speed. In the translation of the Report and the two other texts in this volume, I have generally used inclusive language to translate terms that indicate generic 20. See Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Relation de la captivité de la M. Angélique de SaintJean, Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal, Manuscripts: PR 87 ms and PR 129 ms. 21. See Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Relation de la captivité de la M. Angélique S. Jean, religieuse de Port-Royal des Champs, ed. Pasquier Quesnell (s.l.: s.n., 1711). 22. See Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Relation de captivité, ed. Louis Cognet (Paris: Gallimard, 1954).

18 Introduction humanity. L’homme, for example, is usually translated as humanity or human being. But I have generally used gender-specific language to translate terms related to theological entities. The abbess’s divinity is very much Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The theological il is rendered as he. Her religious community is none other than Holy Mother Church. Consequently, l’église is referred to as she. Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly’s theological universe is constructed on such gendered differences.

Suggestions for Further Reading The current volume represents the first translation of the writings of Angélique de Saint-Jean into English. Further study of her work requires the use of the original French texts. The nun’s biographical and autobiographical sketches are her most accessible works. Louis Cognet’s critical edition of Relation de captivité (1954) presents her narrative of the house arrest she endured at the Annonciade convent between 1664 and 1665. The copious notes illuminate the historical context and the theological disputes surrounding the exile. Her apologetic skill is evident in the biography of her aunt, the controversial reform abbess Mère Angélique Arnauld: Relation ou l’histoire suivie de la Mère Marie-Angélique Arnauld. Her abbatial conferences constitute her most sustained exercises in theological reflection. Most are available only in rare eighteenth-century print editions, of which the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal contains the most extensive collection. Several of these works can be accessed in the Gallica electronic library of ancient French books available on the webpage of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Conférences sur les Constitutions du monastère de Port-Royal du Saint-Sacrament is a commentary on the convent’s constitutions, principally authored by Mère Agnès. The commentary defends the rights of the nun to self-government and the rights of the abbess as the leading spiritual director and teacher of the convent. Discours sur la Règle de Saint Benoît provides an Augustinian commentary on the monastic virtues outlined in the Rule of Saint Benedict. The cultivation of such virtues by sinful humanity depends far more on the inscrutable grace of God than it does on the exercise of human freedom. The virtue of humility is not to be confused with blind submission to authority. Réflexions pour préparer ses soeurs à la persecution counsels militant resistance to political and ecclesiastical demands of submission swirling around the question of the signature. Her Miséricordes uses a literary genre unique to Port-Royal. In these eulogies of recently deceased lay associates of the convent, the secondary causes in the deceased’s life are passed over in favor of the primary cause, the divine activity, which drew the deceased to the convent and which guided the deceased in the path of salvation and virtue.

Introduction 19 Other writings expound the theology and the strategies of resistance women must employ in opposing illegitimate claims to obedience. Compromise is as dangerous as outright surrender. Sur le danger qu’il y a d’hésiter et de douter dissects the temptation to negotiate over religious convictions that no one has the right to alter. Unevenly matched against powerful opponents who seek to break their will, the persecuted Port-Royal nuns must accept the demands of unremitting spiritual combat. Sur la conformité develops a theological analogy between the persecuted state of the Port-Royal nuns and the state of Jesus in the Eucharist and on the cross. Abandonment by the powerful of the world, even religious authorities, is to be embraced rather than feared. Several secondary sources study the psychology of the abbess. SibertinBlanc (1985) provides a balanced portrait of a personality often denigrated by earlier authors. Orcibal (1957) studies her personality through the lens of her conflict with the signeuse leader, Flavie Passart. Various literary dimensions of the writing of this prolific author are examined by Carr (1998), Cousson (2012), Lesaulnier (2002), and Weaver (1985). Icard (2010) probes her link to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and Cistercian spirituality. Conley (2009) analyzes her as a neo-Augustinian philosopher. Several recent studies emphasize how the works of Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly represent an empowerment of women. Carr (2006) studies the gendered authority represented by the abbess in her frequent conferences to her subjects. Bretz (2005) underlines how the defense of the rights of conscience is central to the abbess’s extensive controversial literature.

Report on Captivity Introduction An autobiographical narrative, Report on Captivity describes the exile and house arrest of Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly at the Annonciade convent of Paris from August 26, 1664, to July 2, 1665. Deprived of the sacraments, the nun was subject to a regime of strict surveillance. Solitude alternated with prolonged periods of interrogation in which the convent’s superiors and delegates of the archbishop of Paris attempted to persuade her to give an unreserved signature to the church’s condemnation of Jansen’s alleged theories. The text recounts with relish d’Andilly’s verbal duels with Madame de Rantzau, an Annonciade nun who was an expert in converting Protestants from heresy and who was assigned the task of obtaining the submission of the recalcitrant nun. Daughter of the noblesse de robe, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean marshals her extensive biblical, patristic, and canonical culture to refute her opponents and to justify her own resistance to the signature. The narrative recounts the internal spiritual and emotional struggles of the nun as the regime of isolation intensifies. She constructs her own daily office of prayer and physical exercise to maintain her integrity. She comments on the biblical passages and graces in meditation, which bolstered her resistance as her imprisonment lengthened. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s characteristic imperiousness is on display. She dismisses her Annonciade hosts as jailers, provides a condescending portrait of her interrogator, Madame de Rantzau—whom she clearly does not consider her intellectual equal—and mocks the inept arguments and strategies of the Archbishop of Paris and his emissaries. But a more anguished and bewildered voice also emerges in the text. When she hears that some of her relatives at Port-Royal have submitted to the signature, she confesses that her resistance was shaken. She experiences anguish before a hidden God as “her lamp goes out.” When she is finally released, she is triumphant in her successful resistance as she joins her fellow resistant sisters at Port-Royal des Champs. But the Report remains very much a chronicle of the searing emotional and spiritual price she paid for this victory in a regime of isolation and accusation. The authorial voice of Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean is not always reliable. In the opening of her account, she presents herself as a reluctant author: “I hadn’t done anything and hadn’t said much during this period.” But there is little reluctance on display in her lively, 85,000-word account of the verbal duels, which she clearly always wins, and spiritual battles she endured during her stay with the Annonciades. The cause of God’s grace is clearly at stake. Similarly, she often presents herself as reluctant to engage in debate and as committed to a purely silent 21

22 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY resistance: “I practically didn’t speak, only giving a half-reply of yes or no, that is to say, the least that I could do to what they told me” (II). But the stormy interviews with Archbishop Péréfixe and Madame de Rantzau are anything but brief. The captive clearly delights in every twist of theological controversy concerning church authority and considers most of these debates a personal triumph for her cause. The tone of the Report alarmed even sympathetic Jansenist readers. From the beginning, the narrative presents the practices and theories of the Annonciade nuns and their allies with irony. Angélique de Saint-Jean expresses astonishment that the self-proclaimed defenders of orthodoxy worship at an altar dedicated to Mary under a title unapproved by church authority: “First, they took me to the altar of the Immaculate Conception. This mystery was new to me, since we do not have an altar consecrated to a contested theological opinion” (I). In her later jousts with Madame de Rantzau, she often skewers the ignorance of the pretentious nun. During a debate over the droit/fait distinction in the presence of Archbishop Péréfixe, she disingenuously attempts to help the confused Rantzau: “Believing that her astonishment might have arisen from ignorance, I was obliged to reply that for this distinction, the very archbishop who was present with us had himself taught us this when declared in his ordinance that he demanded divine faith for the point of law and a human and ecclesiastical faith for matters of fact in the formulary” (III). When Angélique de Saint-Jean describes the Annonciade convent as a jail and the Annonciade nuns as jailers, the narrative’s irony becomes acidic. Report on Captivity is written in a distinctive Port-Royal genre: the récit de captivité. Other nuns, notably Mère Agnès Arnauld, wrote autobiographical accounts of their experiences during the periods of house arrest mandated by the archbishop of Paris. Like the earlier autobiographical writings by Port-Royal nuns commissioned by Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean, these récits de captivité served an apologetic purpose: the demonstration of the moral probity and the doctrinal orthodoxy of the community against the claims of its critics. They also attest to God’s approbation of their cause. Divine providence guiding the isolated nun during persecution often takes a semi-miraculous form. Biblical passages heard during the liturgy (II) or in private meditation (V) are interpreted as personal divine interventions to guide the nun in her resistance. Sudden divine inspirations repeatedly illuminate the nun during periods of anguish and confusion (VIII, XXIII). Even small incidents, such as finding a stack of lost personal papers (XXIII), are attributed to divine protection. In this concert of récits de captivité, Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean maintains her own particular voice. Her ironic tone, the starkness of her depiction of the battle between Port-Royal and its persecutors, and her displays of erudition—she repeatedly cites the Vulgate Bible, the liturgy, and the church fathers in the Latin original—set her narrative apart from the more cautious, modest autobiographical accounts produced by her fellow sisters.

Report on Captivity 23 This translation is based on two early manuscript copies of Relation de la captivité de la M. Angélique de St. Jean, which are archived at the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal: PR 87 ms and PR 129 ms. Also consulted was the modernized critical edition of Relation de captivité, edited by Louis Cognet (Paris: Flammarion, 1954). • When they ordered me to write a detailed report on what happened during my captivity, it seemed to me they were asking me to do something rather superfluous. If obedience had not made this obligatory, I would have thought there was no further need for words to explain what had happened for those who have had no personal experience of a ten-month retreat in circumstances such as mine. After all, I hadn’t done anything and hadn’t said much during this period. If we only look at externals, it is easy to sum it up in two words, since everything consisted in complete solitude and in a total privation of all consolation and spiritual assistance. This would be the greatest of all punishments if we did not have the confidence and the experience that we can always say to God, Adjutor in tribulationibus quae invenerunt nos nimis.1 However, if they wanted to know what happened in the heart when one is in this state, I would ask, in order to make myself understood, those who had undergone this on some similar occasion to form an idea about it based on their memory rather than on my own words. Then they might understand what I cannot tell them. Nonetheless, since they have ordered me to do so, I will mark down those things I can remember, even though there is nothing very important about them. I On August 26, 1664, after the archbishop2 had spoken to us in the chapter room and had read the list of those he wanted to remove from the convent, our mother abbess3 and all the rest of us protested that this ordinance was null and void. The transcript of this meeting4 notes this but forgets to note that the archbishop became angry and said, “Oh! I understand very well! Yes, yes, you do not want to obey!” Then he looked at his ecclesiastical assistants and said to them, “Gentlemen, you know what you have to do.” That let us understand that they were going to have the archers come in, because some of them left their places as if they were going 1. “The Lord is our help in the tribulations that have overwhelmed us” (Ps 45:2). 2. Paul Phillipe Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe (1606–1671) was archbishop of Paris from 1662 to 1671. He stoutly opposed the Jansenists. 3. Madeleine de Ligny was the abbess of Port-Royal from 1661 to 1669. 4. The transcript of the confrontation was published in Divers actes des religieuses de Port-Royal (s.l.: s.n., 1664): 18.

24 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to get them. This made mother abbess and several of us tell him that we didn’t want to make any gesture of resistance and that we were ready to leave, but that we wanted to do so without any prejudice to our protest and our appeal. I confirm that such an open display of violence momentarily erased from my mind every thought of other methods we had thought of using and we had considered appropriate as next steps in this business. Seeing that we were surrounded by police officers and archers, who had just grabbed us cum gladiis et fustibus et armis,5 I could only think of uniting myself to Jesus Christ in order to suffer like him and with him in silence all that would please God. The first words that entered my mouth when I entered the choir, where the archbishop had assembled those who were to be taken away in order to be separated from the community who remained in the chapter room, were those of a great martyr, gaudeo plane quia hostia Christi effici merui.6 Thus, I abandoned myself absolutely to him. At this stage I felt I had to go to my death and never see again the convent or the people I was leaving. In effect, I think I was in the condition of people ready to die; usually, they are so preoccupied with the vision of the eternity to which they will pass in a moment that they scarcely have any natural affection for those they loved more in life. At that time I didn’t feel in a human manner so many cruel separations, certainly more cruel than death, because I considered them as part of my holocaust, which had to be divided before it was consumed. I thought only of offering to God all of these people I was leaving behind, just as I was offering myself up. I had a little free time, because we waited for some time in the choir until the dozen victims had been assembled. The word “victim” makes me remember the farewell that I made to Monsieur Chamillard.7 I met him nearby in the chapter room and on this occasion I saw written in his face everything I had long suspected about him in his conduct: that he was one of the major artisans of this tragedy. In commending myself to his prayers, I told him we were obliged to him because he had prepared us during his last sermon on the Feast of Saint Bernard to not be surprised by what was happening when he told us that we should apply to ourselves the words of the psalm, “On account of you, we are completely ready to be led to death. They no longer consider us as anything other than sheep destined for the slaughter.”8 I don’t know what he answered or even whether he answered at all, because he seemed to be under a strange sort of ban, which said more than any of his words could have. When the twelve had been assembled, the archbishop of Paris conducted us to the door of the sacraments, where the community had presented itself. I saw 5. “With swords and clubs and arms” (Mt 26:47). 6. Acts of Saint Ignatius, martyr. 7. Michel Chamillard (1682–1695) held a doctorate in theology from the Sorbonne. Archbishop Péréfixe had imposed him as the official confessor of Port-Royal in June 1664. 8. Ps 42:22.

Report on Captivity 25 that the archbishop went away all alone into the antechoir near the cloister as if his mind was preoccupied by something. I didn’t pay attention to the fact that he had walked by the door where we were to leave. This gave me the occasion to follow him and to go ask him what our mandate was. Concerning this, he willingly gave me the response noted in the transcript. He returned to the door and began to make the separation of his flock, calling each of us by her name, in order to have them leave according to the order he had inscribed in his memory. As I was in the last carriage, I had the time to reflect on this image I saw before my eyes. It represented the judgment that the sovereign pastor will make on this terrible day called the Day of God, when he will assemble all his sheep from all the places they have been dispersed and separate them from the goats, without any ranks or offices preventing anyone from being placed according to the merit of his or her work to the right or to the left. There will be no appeal from this last judgment; the just fear of it drives away the vain fear of unjust human judgments, which will be judged in turn by the last judgment. As the others left, I also had the occasion to give some advice to our sisters remaining in the community. Most importantly, I told them to be on guard against the one who was betraying us.9 I had clearly recognized who she was for some time, but I hadn’t dared to share my thoughts with the community and was waiting until she revealed herself. However, it was no longer the time to delay. I saw so clearly she had made the list of those she wanted to chase away from the convent. I could no longer doubt that she fully planned to destroy the convent and that I had to make her plan known, since the majority of the nuns had not perceived the change in her and might have placed their confidence in her. After having received the blessing of the archbishop, I left and at the door found my father,10 who was waiting for me. I sprang to kneel before him to ask him for his blessing, since it was proper that he would bless the host he was going to offer to God for the third time. The police lieutenant,11 who was standing

9. Allusion to Soeur Catherine de Sainte Flavie Passart (1609–1670). Originally a nun at the Abbey of Gif, she entered Port-Royal in 1645 and was appointed headmistress of the Port-Royal convent school in 1661. During the crisis of the signature, she became the leader of the signeuses, the minority of Port-Royal nuns who gave an unreserved signature to the formulary. The nonsigneuses considered her actions a sign of treason toward the community. Her appointment as the superior of the signeuses nuns grouped at Port-Royal de Paris was considered a reward for her loyalty and a prize sought by her ambition. 10. Robert Arnauld d’Andilly (1589–1674) retired to the grounds of Port-Royal des Champs, where he became one of the solitaires, a group of Jansenist laymen devoted to prayer, education, scholarship, and writing. He became celebrated for his translations of the church fathers, especially Saint Augustine, into French. 11. François Dreux d’Aubray, Seigneur d’Offrémont, was poisoned to death by his daughter, Marquise de Brinvilliers, in 1666.

26 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY at the door of the chapel of Monsieur de Sévigné,12 asked me my name. I was surprised to hear his voice because I recognized him and because I didn’t know he was involved in this operation. I said my name in religion. He also asked for my family name. Some people who were close to him said in a low voice, “Monsieur d’Andilly is guiding her; she is one of his daughters.” He made a head gesture to indicate that he knew that very well but that he wanted to have the pleasure of making me say so. He repeated to me, “Your name?” I said it out loud without blushing because in such a situation confessing our name is almost like confessing the name of God, when they want to dishonor it because of God. From there my father led me up the steps of the balustrade of the altar, where I have no doubt he sacrificed me to God in his heart as Isaac did, although I was not his unique child even if I appeared so at this moment, because he had already immolated my two sisters who had left before me. I also made my own offering and I thought I was able to say, Holocausta medullata offeram tibi.13 Nothing could be lacking in a sacrifice where I had excluded nothing, since in this moment I had abandoned myself to God in order to lose everything and only retain the hope of his mercy, from which I awaited and begged for this help for me and for all the people I was leaving. Their suffering was more moving than my own. I recited out loud the verse Bone pastor, panis vere,14 as we had agreed to do when we left, in order that the prince of pastors would take under his protection and guidance the poor sheep for the slaughter quas qui possederant occidebant et non dolebat.15 My father had the courage to go right up to the end of this and guided me up to the carriage through the crowd and the archers who filled up the church and the courtyard. I mounted into the carriage with Soeur Candide,16 Soeur Hélène,17 and Soeur Gertrude,18 an ecclesiastic I did not recognize, and a lady I didn’t know. I had the consolation of finding myself with those sisters I considered the strongest. It seemed to me that God’s uniting of us in this trip was a good sign for me that they would help me to remain steadfast in the love of truth and justice by their 12. Cousin of the epistoler Madame de Sévigné, René-Bernard-Renaud de Sévigné (1610–1676) was a major benefactor of Port-Royal and a correspondent of Mère Angélique Arnauld. He had subsidized the decoration of one of the side chapels in the conventual church. 13. “I will offer you great holocausts” (Ps 45:15). 14. “Good Shepherd, true bread, Jesus, have mercy on us” (Lauda Sion, hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi). 15. “Those who possessed them killed them and did not protect them” (Zec 2:5). 16. Madeleine de Sainte Candide Le Cerf (1607–1683) had originally been a nun at the Abbey of Maubuisson. 17. Hélène de Sainte Agnès de Savonières had originally been a nun at the Cistercian Abbey of L’Eau. She entered Port-Royal in 1650. 18. Marguerite de Sainte Gertrude du Pré was originally a nun of the Congregation of Notre-Dame. She entered Port-Royal in 1661. Having retracted her two signatures of the formulary, she died deprived of the church’s sacraments on July 5, 1666.

Report on Captivity 27 prayer and by their example. Nonetheless, we did not say a word in the carriage; each of us prayed to God privately. As for myself, I do not know how I acted because I scarcely understood what was happening; at least, I practically felt nothing. I was so filled with admiration for God’s conduct, for having made us worthy to suffer such opprobrium and such an extraordinary trial for the truth, that during the whole journey I could do nothing else except sing to him in my heart canticles and hymns, including among others that of the Feast of the Dedication, Urbs Jerusalem beata. I imagined that we were the living stones they were moving to place in the spiritual edifice of this holy city, where I hoped to find myself reunited with all the people I had just left. I was the first one to step down from the carriage after having embraced my dear companions, who remained to wait in the street for the ecclesiastic who came to introduce me to the convent of the Annonciades,19 where my mandate has assigned me. He made me enter alone with him into the external visitors’ parlor, while they had gone to alert the superior to come speak with him. He told me that he hoped I would be well in this convent and that these were good nuns. I replied that I find myself quite well everywhere where God would be with me and that I only sought him. About this, he opened up more and avowed to me that he had an extreme displeasure in finding himself involved in and employed in such a business. He assured me that when no one would see me, he would himself come to ask after me. This required me to ask him his name. He said it and it happened that he wasn’t unknown to me, since it was Monsieur Fourcault,20 Secretary of the Chapter. I indicated to him that I was delighted with this meeting, about which he complained with regret. I told him that it was a consolation for those afflicted like us to find people who were convinced of our innocence. Next, I said something about the extraordinary behavior of the archbishop, who, after having absolved from heresy those who didn’t believe in the distinction he had made about human faith in his ordinance,21 didn’t stop considering them worthy of, and didn’t stop imposing in effect, the same penalties heretics would have deserved. I was still speaking when I heard the superior at the grille. This has always disturbed me since I began to suspect that perhaps she was listening to us and that she might have done a bad turn to Monsieur Fourcault. I haven’t heard anything about him 19. The Annonciade religious order was founded in 1602 at Genoa by Marie-Victoire Fornari. Due to the color of their religious habit, the nuns were commonly known as “the blue nuns.” From the time of its foundation, the order was closely allied with the Jesuits and shared the latter’s antipathy toward the Jansenists. The Parisian Annonciade convent was located on the Rue Couture-Sainte-Catherine in the Marais. 20. The identity of this personage remains unknown. 21. In a pastoral letter of June 8, 166I, Archbishop Péréfixe had presented his own variation of the droit/fait distinction. According to Péréfixe, questions of droit required a response of divine faith, while questions of fait required a response of only human faith. The distinction was widely rejected by the Jansenists, notably by Pierre Nicole in De la foi humaine, published on August 20, 1664.

28 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY since. Following this, he didn’t dissimulate much in front of her and the remark he made in front of me was, “Mother, I bring you a saint, because there are only saints in their Port-Royal. But I know that all of you are also saints and so she will be fine with you.” He gave her my mandate and on behalf of the archbishop strongly commended me to her care. On my end, I gave him a small nod and immediately afterward I was at the door, where I knelt before the superior, assuring her of my intention to give her every type of submission and obedience and that I entered full of positive esteem for her convent and that I hoped to come to be instructed by their good example, since I always had great respect for their virtue and especially for their solitude and seclusion from the world, of which I had heard they made a particular profession. Her response to me was kindly enough. Madame de Rantzau, called Mère Marie-Elisabeth,22 was present along with several others, whom they made me greet. First, they took me to the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception.23 This mystery was new to me, since we do not have an altar in our chapel that is dedicated to a contested theological opinion. But in this place I practiced a certain devotion, which consisted in throwing myself between the arms of the Mother of Good Devotion and of Good Hope. These are two beautiful titles through which I invoked her as long as I was in the convent so that through her intercession she might obtain for me devotion as strong as death and a hope so firm that it might give me joy in the midst of bitterness. From there they took me to the garden, where they interviewed me about our affairs and about what had happened that day in our convent. Until that moment I had held firm without crying and without having any desire to do so, because my mind had been preoccupied with other things. But as they insisted that I reply and reflect on the people I had just lost, I could not prevent myself from crying several tears. I was careful to talk very little and only to follow them, which I always observed every time I was with them. I told them nothing about our convent or our affairs except exactly what they asked about or what I was necessarily bound to tell them. In this first interview, all of them, especially Madame de Rantzau, seemed completely indifferent to and completely ignorant about our affairs. They told me they believed that everything had calmed down and that no one talked about it anymore, because in their solitude no one had brought them any news about it. From this I simply inferred that 22. Marguerite-Elisabeth de Rantzau was the widow of Josias, comte de Rantzau, a Dane who became a distinguished French military officer. Originally Lutheran, both husband and wife converted to Catholicism in 1635. After the death of her husband in 1650, Madame de Rantzau entered the Annonciades. She was given a special mission to combat Protestant heresy and to encourage Protestants converting to Catholicism. In 1666, she returned to her native Denmark, where she founded an Annonciade convent. 23. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was defined as an article of faith by the Catholic Church only in 1854. Until this solemn definition, the issue was considered an open question and the proper object of theological controversy.

Report on Captivity 29 without doubt these women could not have been influenced by people prejudiced against us because such people are so zealous in their opinions that they could not refuse to pressure others to share them. This good opinion of the nuns, which gave my mind a little relief, lasted two days. I couldn’t maintain it for any length of time concerning Madame de Rantzau. During this time many words that escaped from her put me on my guard. She was not as indifferent on this issue as they were appearing to be. When the room they were preparing for me was ready, the mother superior took me to it. I asked her to note down in order what I would have to do. She told me that would be everything I wanted to do. I could go to the offices if I like or not go if I preferred that. She also showed me a lay sister who she told me would take care of me; she had chosen her because she thought that perhaps I would have a greater degree of freedom with her than with a choir nun.24 The lay sister could sleep in the same room if I needed her. I told her no and humbly thanked her. This encounter went well. As soon as I was alone, I prostrated myself in front of he who is present everywhere and who had led me to this solitude in order to live no longer for anything other than for him and with him. I thanked him for the grace he had given me and commended to him the outcome of my combat. There was enough to do for what remained of the day, but when night came and when I had finished all my prayers and thought I would lie down for some rest, I felt as if my soul had been suspended up until then and that suddenly it had a strong fall and that my heart had been completely crushed by this fall. All in one moment, I felt oppressed, ripped apart on every side by all the separation I had just endured and all the sufferings of all the people I had just left, people as afflicted as I was. I didn’t want to see all that and I did what I could to get my mind away from it, but no matter how hard I tried to close my eyes to this rumination, I couldn’t make myself immune to this pain. To find some relief, I had to give in to my tears. To tell the truth, I shed many tears that night, where I was continually in combat with nature and grace, without having any other arms than the shield of truth, which pushed away all these natural sensitivities by the conviction it gave me of the happiness that God attached to these sufferings and of the advantage there was of losing everything to purchase the kingdom of God and enter into a share of the cross and glory of Jesus Christ. II The next day they came to get me to go to Mass, which is said at nine o’clock. In approaching their choir, the first words I heard were Euntes ibant et flebant, 24. The convents of the period often contained two classes of members: the choir nuns, who professed solemn vows, performed the liturgical offices in the chapel, and could serve as superiors, and the lay sisters, who professed simple vows, performed manual labor, and dealt more freely with the world external to the cloister.

30 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY mittentes semina sua.25 It was the office of None of the Blessed Virgin they were reciting, because they always say the little office [of the Blessed Virgin Mary] before the great Roman office. This encounter didn’t seem accidental to me. Having no longer anyone else to listen to except God, I took the lessons of everything God permitted to occur and this fully provided both instruction and consolation. I had an even greater consolation the next day, which was the feast of Saint Augustine, when I learned that I was in a family that had him as their father, because these women followed the Rule of Saint Augustine. That is why they celebrate that feast; moreover, they have the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a chapel where they permitted me to pass part of the afternoon. I trembled in entering the chapel because it is true that this devotion has been cut back among us to something that doesn’t appear reverent enough. A nun is frightened to see herself in the place of a priest at the foot of an altar where she could easily touch the Blessed Sacrament with her hand. Nonetheless, the state I was in soon gave me confidence to approach Jesus Christ, as Scripture remarks that in other times Judah approached David, carried away by a movement of pain that removed all fear from him.26 I was as afflicted as he was; I had to face a Lord whom I didn’t believe had to be so demanding toward me. So I named before him all my afflictions and in his presence opened my heart with my tears, but when I exposed my wounds to him, I looked at them too carefully and I felt sorry for myself. Afterward, I had a scruple of guilt about this, because I vividly felt that, in order not to weaken in great afflictions, we should not lower our eyes, which we have raised on high to the mountains.27 There is the source of the continual assistance we so need to avoid being beaten down. If it is taken away from us at any time when we are distracted by something else, we are at risk of falling and the least stumbles can only be dangerous when we are walking on a path completely surrounded by precipices, where no one can give us assistance. That taught me to be careful about reflecting voluntarily on any of my problems, because I clearly felt that it was all I could do to endure them in considering God’s order and the consolations of faith; if, on the other hand, I began to ruminate on the affliction in itself, surrounded by all its circumstances, that would be a weight that would torment me. It seemed to me that I always carried my soul in my hand, like a governess carries between her arms a child one is weaning; she walks it and entertains it as much as she can to prevent the infant from remembering her wet nurse, from whom she turns away whenever she sees her, out of fear that the sight of the wet nurse will make the infant’s tears flow again. Suffering Port-Royal was like my wet nurse. I was weaned from everything I loved under this name with the greatest affection. My soul could only endure this separation with the greatest pain and my faith was 25. “They sowed in tears” (Ps 125:6). 26. See Gn 44. 27. See Ps 120.

Report on Captivity 31 completely preoccupied with constantly turning the soul away from reflecting on this place. I couldn’t prevent the fact that it presented itself before my eyes all the time, but as soon as this happened, I raised my eyes to God, to see only in him what I loved only for him. In this struggle I maintained my peace. There were even moments when I was capable of joy. I spent the first three days of my solitude in this way. I didn’t yet know that it had to change into a prison. The lay sister of whom I spoke came to take me to church and led me back—there was nothing extraordinary about this since I did not know the way. Since I always took the same path from my room to the choir, I learned the way soon enough. It happened on Friday after Mass was said that, not wanting to stand on ceremony, I left the church after the community did and returned alone to my room. I think that the good mother superiors waited for this moment to secure their prisoner, because she began to know the pathways. Starting that afternoon, I heard them turn the key in the door and I was suspicious that they were locking me in. I went to check awhile later and I found that was the case. This gave me a perceptible joy and it seemed to me that I acquired that day a very great dignity; I entered into a share of the imprisonment of Saint John, whose Feast of Decapitation we celebrated that day.28 The same day in the evening, one of the mother superiors came to take me for a walk in their cloister. She began to speak about their order and their convent; as much as I could, I tried to prolong her discourse so that she would not engage me on other topics. Following this, having spoken to me of their spiritual exercises and the extraordinary confessors they were seeing at that time, I asked her who were the ordinary confessors they usually used. She told me that they were Jesuit priests: among others, she named Father Nouet.29 I cannot say what impression that suddenly made on me. I was trembling from head to toe, out of surprise as well as fear. I had let myself be persuaded—I don’t know by what naïveté—by everything they had led me to understand: that they had no part in all these controversies, that they had no news about them, that they had parish priests for confessors and chaplain. From that, I had inferred that they had given me a better place than any of my sisters had been given and that I was outside the domination of the Jesuits. I think this is what caused my consternation when I suddenly perceived that I was like a lamb among wolves. In the idea I made of their sayings, I saw myself a lonely stranger abandoned in the midst of unknown people. This conduct made me imagine what their spiritual directors might be like. I don’t know how to describe what an image this conjured up in mind. The only thing I could do was to prevent my anguish from showing on the outside and 28. August 29, 1664, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. 29. A Jesuit priest, Jacques Nouet (1605–1680) was a celebrated writer, preacher, and spiritual director. An opponent of the Jansenists, he was particularly vigorous in opposing the views of Saint-Cyran and Antoine Arnauld on the frequency of reception of Holy Communion.

32 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY try to calm myself on the inside, by a complete abandonment to God and to the direction of his grace. I started to feel I needed this more than ever, because I saw more clearly my peril and my powerlessness. Since that time I’ve blessed God for what I learned earlier because that made me be careful about myself and start to act with the circumspection I should have. Without this, I could have made a thousand mistakes in this interview, if I had imagined when I saw these good women that they were not prejudiced against us and that I could talk with them with the confidence one easily has with people who show us friendship. So I began to feel more deeply my exile and my prison and I found my consolation in the sacrifice of my tears I offered to God. These good mother superiors would have found the mark of these tears at the foot of a great image of a crucifix that was in my room; there I wrote with a pencil—since I didn’t have any ink—Posuisti lacrimas meas in conspectus tuo acceptabile sacrificium tuum.30 To me, days seemed like years concerning the people from whom one felt separation and from whom I had no news. Their suffering, the memory of which was always present to me, increased my own. It seemed to me that there had never been any affliction comparable to ours because there might never have been a union comparable to the one God had made among so many people nor a division more cruel than what had been done. The archbishop not only separated us from each other; even worse, he imprisoned us alive in tombs where we were in the same night as the dead, where we could neither see nor learn about anything happening in the world. But we were not emotionless like the dead, who are not affected by the suffering of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, and friends, who were all at the same time afflicted with us and whose different sufferings caused a particular sadness in my heart, according to the different emotions that were born out of all the degrees of friendship. That is why I cited children, because in the great number of people with whom God united me in his charity, I had provided guidance for several of them. I had for them the same affection and the same fears, seeing that they were exposed to such a great temptation and deprived of all assistance. I would try in vain to describe what this suffering is; one cannot understand it if one has not experienced it. And when I say “if one hasn’t experienced it,” I mean if God hasn’t allowed one to feel it. One could undergo the same separations externally, when one is not touched in the same way, as I myself experienced in different moments. Still, it is not the greatest suffering I have had, because when I experienced some of this pain, I maintained an authentic joy at the bottom of my heart. It didn’t mix with this bitterness to soften it, but I felt it was dominant in the midst of my affliction, to prevent it from troubling my confidence and my faith and from removing my respect for my good fortune, which I still remained convinced of. As a result, I wouldn’t have wanted for anything in

30. “Place my tears in your presence” (Ps 56:9) “as an acceptable offering to you” (Canon of the Mass).

Report on Captivity 33 the world to not have had this opportunity to suffer for the truth or to have even formed the least desire to be delivered from it, except through it. Nothing extraordinary happened in these first days; my situation was enough for me to bear. I saw practically no one and when they came to see me, I practically didn’t speak, only giving a half-reply of yes or no, that is to say, the least that I could to what they told me. With very few exceptions, I continued this for four months. Undoubtedly, this helped remove their desire to come see me, because, when they did come to see me, they were so embarrassed about what they were to say, since I didn’t contribute anything to the interview. I clearly noticed that they didn’t try to come alone. They often brought along a little girl who was six or seven years old in order to make her talk during the duration of the time with me. My one desire was that they didn’t take the trouble to see me. I told them constantly that I wanted them to forget that I was in the convent. It was enough that the good sister who took care of me remembered to come open the door and take me to church and to bring me food. In effect, they could only inconvenience themselves by coming to waste time with me, because they had their own work and occupations. I am speaking about the prioress and the subprioress and Madame de Rantzau, who ordinarily were the only ones to whom I spoke, and another good former mother superior, who came to see me on rare occasions and who died during my stay there. They also permitted another mother superior who so wished to come two or three times. It was one of my d’Ormesson cousins; although she was one of the older sisters and had been a superior, they did not trust her enough to let her speak alone with me, so they always accompanied her during her visits. Thus, in the first months I was in such a deep silence that I lost the power of speech. I had practically no voice left. I might have lost it completely if I hadn’t begun to read out loud on occasion and sing some prayer or part of my office once I noticed that my chest was drying up. I often went nine or ten days without seeing a living soul. The lay sister brought me what I needed and went away immediately afterward. I was often in this solitude once I had ceased going to the divine office for the reason I will talk about. I only left to go to Mass. Outside of that, I didn’t leave my dungeon and I was more secluded than the saints who lived in the deserts of the Thebiade. Although these saints could sometimes see their brothers, I could see only unknown people and I had no intention of speaking to anyone except my sisters or close relations. This room where they had assigned me was a hovel separated from everything. On one side there was only a large storeroom; on the other, a landing without passage; beneath was the room of the President des Hameaux’s wife,31 who is one of their benefactors. She is often there but never, or very rarely, sleeps there. As a result, if something happened during the night, when I was locked 31. Suzanne Ardier, comtesse des Hameaux, was a close friend of the queen-mother Anne of Austria and an ally of the Jesuits.

34 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY in behind three doors, it would have been impossible for me to receive any help. With the door of my room, the door of the landing, and the door of the storeroom being closed and locked on me, no one would be able to hear me. After several weeks, this situation made me afraid and I said something about it to the mother superior. I told her about an accident I had had years ago when I became ill during the night. Having wanted to leave my cell to go find some light, I thought I was going to kill myself when I fell the full height of my body and passed out, without feeling anything and without knowing where I was at all. This worried this good superior. She made the offer that, if I wanted, they would have someone sleep in my room, but she never offered not locking me in during the night. Clearly seeing that she could not bring herself to grant my request—because she didn’t trust me, it seemed to me—I opposed having someone stay with me because it would have been disturbing to have in my room a woman with whom I wouldn’t feel free when I rose during the night and did my small devotions. I placed my trust in God and my guardian angel. I told the mother superior that as an alternative I could die in their company if I died all alone. The question remained there, although from time to time they had some guilt about it. But they had a more invincible scruple, which prevented them from giving me any liberty; consequently, I had to spend six months in this jail, whose door only opened three times a day; my jailer, the lay sister, was so careful never to have me out of her sight that when she had led me into the choir, she knelt down next to the door to keep an eye on me until the choir nuns were nearly all assembled and she judged I could be left in security. Moreover, this was a very good and kind woman, who took great pains that I would lack nothing and who was especially diligent about this, she told me, because I asked for nothing and never complained about anything. The mother superiors, who are certainly most charitable, made only the same complaint about me. In all situations, it is good to act in the same manner. In seeking only the kingdom of God, everything else we need above and beyond this is given to us. There is another great advantage to this state: one feels the true condition and the true disposition of the poor, who are obliged for the least services and the least things one gives them, because they do not expect anyone to owe them anything, not even the most necessary things of life. I would dare to say that the short meetings and small commodities they gave me seemed to be great presents and made me greatly obliged to the care of these superiors and this good sister, because I imagined that they had the right to leave me lacking everything. Since the archbishop had put me into prison in their convent only to make me suffer, I expected to experience all sorts of rigorous treatment, especially from people who were prejudiced by the belief that they were rendering a great service to the church and to our souls by treating us as he did. But I should give witness that their zeal was guided only by blind obedience, which is their order’s ideal and the general error that is currently dominant among these good nuns. As they told me many times, they would have done everything to relieve my suffering and to

Report on Captivity 35 satisfy me, except that their conduct didn’t depend on them. They were bound by the order of the archbishop, who had forbidden them to let me speak to anyone within the convent or outside it. In truth, I long believed that they wanted to have this order given to them, especially the one to lock me in as I had been during six months. Still, the last day I was with them and I dared to speak with greater freedom, I admitted to the mother superior that I had had this opinion. She strongly assured me that, on the contrary, it was the archbishop alone who was responsible for this treatment. III I’ve made a long digression; I must take up the rest of my story. When I had passed eight days without hearing anything and without receiving any order from the archbishop concerning what I was supposed to do, especially concerning participation in the sacraments, I was in doubt as to how I should conduct myself. So I had to remain in this state and say nothing. The prioress asked me often enough if I didn’t want to speak to someone. I told her that I didn’t have anything to say but much to suffer. Nonetheless, having learned that the Dean of Notre-Dame was their superior and that he often came to see them, I told her that I would be obliged to her to have me speak to him.32 Afterward, I reflected that perhaps it wouldn’t be too forward if it became apparent that I preferred him to others, since, without harm to anyone else, I could know through a letter what the desires of the archbishop were. Thus, I wrote him the following letter. “Monseigneur, having no one to whom I can request counsel to assure me that the liberty I am taking to petition you will not be offensive, I have only taken into account the dignity that I will always honor in your person: you are always the pastor, regardless of the way you judge proper to deal with your sheep. Monseigneur, I have no intention to ask you any favor except that of knowing your will. Eight days ago, when we learned from your mouth the decree of our banishment, which you personally executed by making us leave the convent at that very moment, without knowing where we were going and without prescribing what we had to do, we had no other thought than that of obeying you. Being given no information, we hoped that we would learn later in what way each one of us should conduct herself in the place you have chosen for us. But since I have heard nothing more about this since I arrived here, as if I were living in another world, I thought I didn’t have anything else to do except live in silence, preoccupied with God alone, as long as someone didn’t tell me something else, and bear with as much submission as sorrow a state that, however difficult it might be, is less than my sins merit. Nonetheless, Monseigneur, having learned today from the reverend mother superior of this convent that she herself has not received 32. Jean-Baptiste de Contes (1601–1679) was the dean of the chapter of canons of Notre-Dame, chancellor of the University of Paris, and a vicar general of Cardinal de Retz.

36 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY any particular order concerning the disposition you would like that I adopt here regarding the sacraments and whether you want me to remain always separated from them, I thought I couldn’t do less, Monseigneur, than to go again and throw myself at your feet. I wanted to see if you would have pity on a soul for which you will be responsible before God and concerning which he will demand its blood if it happens that it perishes by lack of spiritual nourishment, which it can receive from your hands, that is to say, by your authority. Monseigneur, I know that you have deprived us of this nourishment to punish us for a fault of weakness, which you have judged worthy of such a sanction. But, since you have since added other punishments, imprisonment and separation from the others, which is the most difficult of them all, can’t we expect you to want to imitate the conduct of God, who doesn’t punish the same crime twice? Can’t we expect that you would relax the first severity, the privation of the sacraments, to those who still bear without this penalty enough marks of the absolute authority you have over them to punish them when you judge they merit it? Monseigneur, although perhaps you do not want to tolerate weak sheep in your flock, for reasons that seem important to you, you would clearly not want to keep them estranged for a long time from the divine sacrament, which must strengthen them in their weaknesses and console them in their suffering. Still, as for what concerns me, I only speak with trembling, because I know very well that it would always be just for God to deprive me of a grace I have not used well enough when he has let me enjoy it. Monseigneur, that is why I am asking you nothing except what it would please you for me to do, so that I might receive as an order from God what it will please you to give me and that I might give myself to it with as much submission as I am able, with profound respect, Monseigneur, etc.” Three days after I wrote this letter, he came in person to reply to it. The mother superior came to get me and led me to the parlor. As I entered it, I found Madame de Rantzau, who was speaking with him, and the mother superior who had brought me. I also stayed there, a little to the side after I had knelt to ask for his blessing. I don’t know if he actually gave it. He had me sit down. Madame de Rantzau remained on one side of the grille and I remained on the other. I can recount very little about this interview, about which I’ve made a few remarks, because I’ve forgotten the rest. That’s why I can’t say where he started. I only know that after saying a few words, he launched into a long speech, repeating from beginning to end everything that he usually said about this business and that he had told us so many times. He added nothing new except that he insisted that I had to separate this particular quarrel from that of my uncle with the Jesuits. He assured me that he personally had great respect for the book Of Frequent Communion, that he often read it and always profited from it, and that he found great merit in Monsieur Arnauld, whom he knew and respected when he had been a

Report on Captivity 37 student with him at the Sorbonne.33 He considered him a very scholarly man and he considered himself his servant and the servant of all of his family. I have since clearly understood that this speech was not very pleasing to the good mother superiors who listened to it, because they have the same opinion of Of Frequent Communion as they do of the book of the bishop of Ypres.34 I only had to listen to all of that. Next he wanted to influence me by his usual arguments. Among others, there was nothing odder than our stubborn desire to defend the teaching of an author who personally suspected that it was not in conformity with the doctrine of the church. The author clearly saw that he tried to treat an obscure and difficult matter where it was easy to be misled. Although he claimed to follow Saint Augustine, he protested that he submitted to the judgment of the Roman church, as he says at the beginning of his book and in his will and testament.35 I replied that I had in fact seen this protestation not in the book of the bishop of Ypres, which I’ve never read, but in the ordinance where the bishop had inserted it. He replied laughingly, “I think that at least they won’t accuse me of wrongly quoting it!” I pursued the issue of the position held by the bishop of Ypres, that he recognized himself subject to error like all human beings and that he wanted to submit his book to the judgment of the church. This was such a common sentiment among Catholic authors that even those who do not express it surely have it in their heart. But I didn’t believe that there was any more reason to suspect that the bishop of Ypres personally believed that his teaching was not in conformity with that of the church just because he protested that he submitted to its judgment than to attribute the same thought to the bishop of Vence,36 who made the same protestation in his History of the Church, or to other Catholic scholars, who rarely write a major work without saying the same thing. The archbishop replied that he would show me several books by the bishop of Vence where he does not make such a protestation. I told him that I did not doubt it. Such frequent repetition was not necessary because everyone knows that every Catholic always has this disposition in his or her heart; in claiming this, the bishop of Ypres did nothing unusual from which one could deduce such a negatively prejudiced view of his doctrine. There were no grounds for claiming that he personally was the first judge to suspect the presence of error in his work and that he consented in advance to the condemnation of his book as something filled with impieties and blasphemies. 33. Numerous testimonies by members of the Port-Royal community indicate that Archbishop Péréfixe had praised Antoine Arnauld’s Of Frequent Communion on different occasions. The book discouraged frequent communion and was the object of criticism by the Jesuits. 34. The Augustinus by Cornelius Jansen, published posthumously in 1640. 35. Archbishop Péréfixe possessed the original letter written in Latin by Jansen in which he submitted the Augustinus to the judgment of the pope. 36. Antoine Godeau, bishop of Grasse and Vence (1605–1672), was the author of The History of the Church from the Beginning of the World until the End of the Ninth Century (Paris: 1663).

38 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY The archbishop replied that this didn’t damage the author’s reputation, which we seemed to guard more jealously than he had himself. He had protected himself by his submission to all the condemnations that might fall on his teaching; we only had to imitate him in this example. I replied that if it was laudable to witness a disposition to humble oneself before the judgment of the church, if it made one see that one had wandered away from the truth in some area, it didn’t follow from this that we had some obligation to be ready to condemn him as the author of a heresy without being capable of understanding it, based on some supposed fact that we knew to be strongly contested. He told me that they weren’t asking me to condemn him as a heretic, because the church only gives this name to those who support against its judgments the heresies it condemns. He said, “But for you, who are a scholar, you clearly understand these terms. He is a material heretic but he is not a formal heretic, because his teaching is in fact heretical, but his disposition is Catholic since he submits himself to the church.” I don’t recall if I gave any further reply except that I argued that I would avoid discussing anything concerning doctrine since I didn’t understand anything about it. I thought he should have been satisfied with the honest declaration we had made that we submitted completely to every church judgment concerning faith, which could be the only important issue in this affair for people like us, who are incapable of taking part in other types of controversy. He replied that the only thing asked of us was to submit to the judgment of the popes. I replied that we have given our complete submission concerning the propositions that have been condemned but that we could not promise another submission of assent to what concerned a fact that we are not obliged to believe, because we know that it is strongly contested. He then turned toward Madame de Rantzau. “Very well, Madame de Rantzau, what do you say about that?” I don’t remember distinctly her reply, except that she showed the greatest astonishment that anyone would dare to make the distinction between fact and law in the judgments of the popes, as if they must have been so inseparable that everything that left their mouths must be treated as an article of faith. Believing that her astonishment might have arisen from ignorance, I was obliged to reply that for this distinction, the very archbishop who was present with us had himself taught us this when he declared in his ordinance that he demanded divine faith for the point of law and a human and ecclesiastical faith for matters of fact in the formulary. She raised her voice jokingly and said, “Now, there’s an escape clause!” I replied that I was only citing the very words of the archbishop, who seemed very embarrassed about this human faith, which he could not justify in the spirit of Madame de Rantzau. He wanted to start again with the usual speech he had given us so many times concerning the danger there is in making such distinctions. If we wanted to make everything concerning facts doubtful, we would endanger the greatest truths of faith. Madame de Rantzau went further. She wanted all of these distinctions to

Report on Captivity 39 be impossible; we owed equal reverence to everything decided by the popes since the Holy Spirit guided them in everything. She tried to make an application of all this to the current affair in such an unreasonable manner that I imagined she had only heard someone speaking about this in air and that she didn’t understand at all what it was about. This made me tell her that I would have wished her to be a little better informed on this affair; it is so difficult to make a good judgment about it if one doesn’t know what’s at the bottom of it. She haughtily replied with the air of the wife of a field marshal, “I know everything you might say. I know that it’s about Moulina37 and all the rest.” By that point, she made me into quite the scholar, because I clearly judged that since she was so well-informed that she didn’t even know the right name of such a famous author, I didn’t have much to dispute about with her. I only had to leave her in her good opinion of herself: that she knew everything. I don’t know if the archbishop noticed the same thing. The discussion didn’t go in a direction that would have enlightened me about this, because he immediately interrupted it to talk about all that was said at the moment of our departure. They had written that he had twenty archers accompany the coaches that led us away. He said that I knew all about it. I replied that I was not paying attention as to whether archers were following the carriage but that I had seen the companies of guards assembled in the courtyard. “You better believe it! When we have something to do, we want to be certain about it. Twenty thousand people might have assembled there out of curiosity or some other motive; in fact, there were just as many. That is why the police lieutenant was there and the Chevalier du Guet38 and his archers. We feared there could be a disturbance.” I replied that this was unnecessary; there was no great resistance there. He replied, “That makes no difference! When you undertake something, you shouldn’t leave its successful conclusion to chance. Some circulated writings—written by I don’t know who—claimed that I said some astonishing things then. They claimed I called your mother abbess a name I don’t even know and that decent people don’t understand, that I called her a pretentious woman (mijaurée).” I said under my breath that I really didn’t understand this term. He added that they said he had called her crazy and impertinent in the middle of the assembly for chapter. I didn’t say anything. Madame de Rantzau seemed mystified, as if she were listening to a fairy tale. She expressed astonishment that anyone would have the impertinence to disagree with the archbishop.

37. Reference to Luis de Molina, the Jesuit author of a treatise on predestination. Augustinian critics, including Jansenists, argued that Molina had exaggerated the role of human freedom and undermined the role of divine grace in the act of salvation. Madame de Rantzau gives the name a deformed pronunciation. 38. The Chevalier du Guet, the Knight of the Watch, was an honorary military office dating from the time of Charlemagne.

40 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY He said they wrote that, when we told him that all of us would appear one day before another judge, he had replied, “So what, then, so what!” The truth is that he meant that when one of us—he didn’t know which one—had told him that she hoped to find justice when she appeared before another judge, who must judge everyone, he had replied, “When we are there, you and I will see which one of us is right.” Speaking about our banishment, he added that it was with the greatest sadness that he had been forced to come to that point and that he had indicated this to my father, whom he saw in the courtyard. My father told him that it had been a difficult day for a man who was seventy-five years old. “It is no less difficult for myself. Sir, you are a father and so am I.” You can judge what impression this comparison made. I indicated to him that we were not surprised that he decided on such a solution. Next, I reminded him of the assurances he had first given us that he would do nothing damaging to us and that if things arrived at some violence, it wouldn’t come from his part. He wanted to deny this, but I assured him that besides the fact that he had said this to several people, he had said it specifically to me. He had told me he could not prevent the king from acting but that, for his part, he would not be involved in it. He had told me this during the interrogation during the convent visitation. He replied that this operation could not have been executed without him. The king would not have made the nuns leave the convent, but this had become necessary. He now knew as well as I did that this entire business only concerned a poor small cabal. Some nuns had sworn to him that they had noticed in this entire affair a spirit that didn’t please them and that indicated it was the product of this cabal. He said that some very fine nuns had talked to him in this way and since then they had done what pleased him and thanked him for his action. I had no difficulty in finding in this argument the spirit of Soeur Flavie, who had told me the same thing. From that moment I figured out she had signed the formulary. It seemed to me that the archbishop wanted to make me understand that since we no longer existed to maintain this cabal, the community members had given their signature. I was careful not to give the least sign that would reveal whether I believed this or not. At the end of the interview, I told him that I had given myself the liberty to write to him in order to know what it would please him to order me to do. He didn’t let me finish and told me that I knew well enough what he demanded of me. I explained that I asked for his orders so that I might approach the blessed sacraments. As for this other point that he expected from me, I wasn’t able to go against my conscience. I assured him and I would assure him again that this was my sole consideration, and not any other human consideration, that prevented me from satisfying him on this score. He replied that as long as I remained in this state, I could not participate in the sacraments and that, if I permitted, he would lay this situation on his own conscience. But as for our sisters at Port-Royal, given that they were in a better disposition than I was and given their desire to listen and receive instruction, he had reestablished their

Report on Captivity 41 good standing and had permitted them to receive Holy Communion in the chapel of Notre Dame. As for me, all he could say was that he would pray to God for me and that he did not say a Mass where he didn’t remember me. I received all this in a deep silence. By God’s grace, I withdrew more strengthened than I had been when I had entered the parlor. As I departed, Madame de Rantzau wanted to take the trouble to conduct me back to my room. They had taken away the key to it, so we had to wait for some time at the door. During this time, since she was already pushing me on these topics and had done as much as she could about them in front of the archbishop, she continued to discuss them with even greater ardor. She told me that I was mistaken, that this concerned my salvation, that I was in error, and other similar things. To this I broadly responded that I could not be in error when I believed all that the church believed concerning doctrine and that I only had a problem affirming that there are heresies in a book where not everyone believes that they are. She told me that those who deny that the propositions were there had explained them and defended them in front of Pope Innocent X.39 I replied that they had shown to the pope a still-extant text in which they clearly indicated that these propositions were ambiguous and capable of being given two meanings, one Catholic and another heretical, and that they had only defended before him the meaning of efficacious grace by itself.40 The pope is said to not have condemned this. She said they had defended the meaning of Jansenius as long as they wanted in front of the pope and that after having heard them several times and then having made a careful examination of this position using all the proper procedures, the pope condemned this meaning. I said that they had only one audience with the pope on the subject of the propositions, where they didn’t speak about Jansenius. According to the testimony of Father Annat,41 the bull had already been drawn up. Madame de Rantzau raised her voice against me, as if I had said the most temerarious and false thing in the world when I denied that they had been heard as long as they had wanted to be. She said she would give me the Journal of SaintAmour, which I should find credible, where she would show me that they had been heard several times before anyone thought about making any pronouncement. I replied that I would be extremely obliged if she would let me see this book and that it would help me to prove that I had said nothing except what was truthful. It would strengthen my argument that these gentlemen were only able to obtain a single audience, which was a formality, where no one even mentioned the name of 39. Pope Innocent X (1574–1655) condemned the five heretical propositions allegedly found in Jansen’s Augustinus in the bull Cum occasione (1653). 40. This is a reference to the Ecrits à trois colonnes, reprinted in the Journal de Saint-Amour, 469–78. 41. François Annat (1590–1670) was a Jesuit author and confessor to Louis XIV. An opponent of the Jansenists, he was criticized by Blaise Pascal in the Provincial Letters.

42 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY Jansenius. Eighteen times the Dominicans had requested an audience on the same subject without being able to obtain one. She always supposed that someone made me believe all these things and that by that means we separated ourselves from the belief of the church, which has always considered those who refused to condemn heresies and their authors as heretics themselves. As an example, she cited the Origenists, whom authorities had obliged to condemn Origen as anathema.42 I responded by citing Saint Jerome’s challenge to John of Jerusalem; he gave him the choice of either condemning Origen, if he condemned his errors, or of denying that these errors were held by Origen, if he did not want to condemn Origen.43 She wanted to strengthen her point by alluding to the Fourth Council of Chalcedon, which had required Theodoret to condemn Nestorius as anathema.44 That forced me to allude to the Fifth and Sixth Councils of Constantinople concerning the three chapters of Honorius.45 As soon as she heard me talk about Honorius, she took his defense, saying that he had not been condemned but that it was the acts of the Sixth Council of Chalcedon that had been falsified. I had the most beautiful opening for a response but since I didn’t see any purpose or pleasure in engaging in this dispute with someone who did not seek the truth but who was so certain in her knowledge that all disagreement was a heresy, I just wanted to stop this dispute by saying that I had heard this alleged falsification was a fantasy mocked by all the scholars. Moreover, this didn’t prove anything concerning the errors of fact, which we believe that even councils and popes are capable of making. But I left all of these controversies to scholars and only wanted to be involved in this by praying to God. She promptly replied, as if she were trying to provoke me further because she saw that I wanted to withdraw from the dispute. “I know all of ecclesiastical history! I know. I can give an answer to any objection.” I replied to this with a little passion. “As for me, Mother, I know nothing! That is why it is the best thing in the world not to have a dispute, because there is no equality between us. I beg you: Let me pray to God and spare a suffering person.” She became even more vehement and said that she would not leave me alone because this concerned my salvation. I also became impatient. Without replying, I made a deep bow and turned toward a window, where I knelt to pray to 42. Origen (184–253) was an influential church father and prolific author working in Alexandria. His controversial theories concerning the pre-existence of the soul and universal salvation were subsequently condemned by church councils. 43. Saint Jerome’s “Letter to Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem” (398) condemned John of Jerusalem’s leanings toward Origenism. 44. The Fourth Council of Chalcedon (451) defended the existence of two natures, divine and human, in Jesus Christ. It condemned Monophysitism, the theory that Christ possessed only a divine nature. Nestorius was the leading theologian of the Monophysite heresy. 45. The Sixth Council of Constantinople condemned Pope Honorius I, who was pope from 626 to 638, for having indirectly committed heresy because of his tolerance of the heretical opinions of Sergius, the Monophysite Patriarch of Constantinople.

Report on Captivity 43 God, as we waited for someone to bring the key one had gone to look for. All this happened on the landing next to the door of my room. Nonetheless, a moment later, when I thought that perhaps she had just received an order from the archbishop to instruct me and work on my conversion, as she has done for Lutherans, I stood up and told her that although I had just told her that I didn’t want to enter into any argument, I would always be ready to listen to her with all the respect and patience I could if she had been ordered to speak to me in this way. She told me she was doing this only for my own good and out of compassion for my state. As they came to open the door, our conversation ended there. Immediately afterward, I was troubled by the emotion I had felt and that might have appeared during our meeting. That is why starting that evening I wrote her a letter and asked her pardon, stressing especially that I was more obligated than anyone else to do reparation for my faults by every possible penitential practice, because they had taken away from me other methods of purifying myself. As she is very good, I do not know if that touched her or if she changed her conduct toward me out of other considerations. In any case, the next day she came before Mass into the choir to make her own sort of apology for anything that might have troubled me during this interview. She assured me that she only wanted to serve me with sincere affection. Since that time, she has acted with much greater moderation and outside of four or five occasions when she spoke about this business in the first months, she hasn’t talked about it all, except occasionally by a passing comment, and then most pleasantly, without anger and without argument. It even seemed to me that she was avoiding it; she always returned to the fact that she hoped my time would come, that I only needed prayer, and that some good moment would arrive when God would give me the congruent grace that would change my heart. As I thought she did not accept efficacious grace and as she thought I did not have enough respect for sufficient grace, she had found this other congruent grace to accommodate us. But she didn’t find any contradiction on this point, because I never said a word on these matters, concerning which they have such prejudices that they would have taken everything I said for heresy. IV Two days before the visit of the archbishop, God had placed me in another sort of affliction completely different from the first one and so great that it absorbed all of my other problems. I will give an account of it to let it be seen that undoubtedly God had given the devil permission to tempt us in the same way and with the same arms and that, if there was some difference in the outcome of the struggle, it is only because he hasn’t said about all of us Verumtamen animam illius serva46 because he wanted to show in some of us the power of his victorious grace, which prevented them from being overcome, and some others of us the efficacy of 46. “But spare his soul” (Jb 2:6).

44 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY his medicinal grace, which healed the mortal wounds they had received in the struggle in order to make them stronger when they engaged in this struggle again. I spent the first eight or ten days in the palpable affliction of the separation, but this affliction only touched the senses and, in the bottom of my soul, I saw all the advantages of this trial and as I’ve said, I felt there were two people inside of me. One of them had enough strength to carry the other in her weakness. My soul rejoiced over what was causing me pain in my senses. I now clearly see that if I had been pushed further forward on this path, I would have run the risk of not being able to sustain myself for a long time in this state, because as the tempest had to be great and long, it was necessary to have a strong foundation in humility to withstand the storm. My soul in this disposition was not humble enough, because I was only concerned about the glory there was to suffer for the sake of the truth and I didn’t see that it was the truth itself that punished in me what it had condemned by its light and I didn’t see this because I was in the shadows. Having gone to bed, I didn’t think that as soon as I fell asleep God would wake me up by a ray of his light, which hit my heart. It led me to discover that certain things that had previously seemed nothing to me now seemed to me so large and so important that they completely changed my mood and placed me very low before God. Instead of thinking as I formerly did that he had raised us up too much to give us a part in the persecution of truth and justice, I found myself in such a deep lowered state and so full of fear that I almost dared not to raise my eyes toward him. I considered all of my sufferings as far below those he had the right to inflict on me, if he had wanted to treat me with justice. I thought that I was undergoing what the psalm says, “They rise up to heaven and go down to the abyss,” and what it says next, Anima eorum in malis tabescebat.47 Truly I was worn out in the anxiety of so many difficulties. Those I suffered due to my external state were in no way diminished; those of my internal state surpassed them and increased them. There is nothing to equal finding oneself in this affliction of spirit, without any hope for the least help or the least consolation, when that could endure until death, because I didn’t know if I would see any other end to it. You cannot imagine what this anguish and this abandonment are if you have not passed through it yourself. It seemed to me that if I could have had just one person I could trust, whom I only asked to pray for me, it would have been such a relief to know that this person had compassion for my misery and was helping me to obtain the mercy of God. But to see that insensitive people only sought the opportunity to increase our difficulties, if they could know the cause of it—which is why we are continually careful not to let this cause appear—was an anxiety that is indescribable to those who have not experienced this state. The only thing that consoled me a little was the fact that the causes of my exterior affliction were so 47. “Their soul dries out under its sorrows” (Ps 106:26).

Report on Captivity 45 visible. I didn’t have to restrain myself from shedding tears because I clearly knew that they wouldn’t dare ask me Quid ploras?48 although in fact no one could get to the bottom of the subject. My suffering was so great this first night that I had a strong fever from it. I was so tired and weakened the next morning that it was as if I had a serious illness. The good mother superiors clearly saw it but they did not see into my heart; for me it was important to just hide this secret. I remained six weeks in this affliction of the soul. It consisted entirely in the fact that it seemed to me that God was punishing me in his anger. This did not take away my confidence that he also remembered his mercy, whose marks I thought I saw in the parallel that seemed to me to exist between my sufferings and my sins. But I felt that I was in such a great confusion that I didn’t even dare even to stop and consider those things I had hoped for from him in his goodness. As soon as I thought to open my eyes to think about that, I lowered them out of shame and only sought to hide myself in front of him. Nothing can be reduced to such an impoverished state as that was. In thinking they have deprived us of everything, people do not touch our treasure when God lets the sentiment of his grace remain in our heart. But as for him, he only has to turn his face away from us and we find that in our hands we hold nothing from all the riches we were convinced no one could take away from us. For years I had envisioned hundreds of times the state of exile and separation in which I now found myself. I promised myself that in whatever state they might place me, I would be able to find in prayer and in the word of God the consolations and the patience that would sustain my hope. But now I looked unsuccessfully for the strength and light that I had found so many times in the words of Scripture, which seemed to me capable of softening the sufferings of the hardest captivity. I reread the passages of the prophets and of sacred history that I had placed as in reserve for my soul in order to nourish it during such times. But God had taken away the strength of the bread. It seemed to me that I only found more reasons to increase my interior confusion, because God made me see that his chastisements are punishments for our sins. I clearly noticed that this state could be good for me, because it humbled me and did not disturb me because I did not have any anxiety about it, although it condemned me. Nonetheless, it seemed to me that this could easily open the path to a dangerous temptation if because of this I fell into an excessive fear that might carry me away into a state of discouragement. As a result, I had practically reduced my prayer to that of Esther, which I wrote down in my prayer book during the last stage of my sadness and which I repeated without ceasing, Deus fortis super omnes, exaudi vocem eorum

48. “Why are you crying?” (Jn 22:13; words of Jesus to Mary Magdalene on the morning of the resurrection).

46 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY qui nullam aliam spem habent et erue me a timore meo.49 I found some consolation in these words, because they completely expressed my interior and exterior state. I added to it the prayer of Sarah. Nothing gave me so much confidence as these words: In tempore tribulationis, peccata dimittis his qui invocant.50 This hope that God accepted what I was suffering for the remission of my sins was my sweetest thought. That is why I could not develop any desire for my deliverance or for any change in my punishments, because it seemed to me that the only thing good that remained for me to do was to acquit myself of my debts through this persecution on the part of other people. I applied to myself what the psalms say: Verba iniquorum prevaluerunt super nos, et iniquitatibus nostris tu propitiaberis.51 I imagined that God considered our oppression under the hand of our enemies as a subject worthy of attracting his mercy. One day, my anguish became twice as bad. I feared that I had lacked charity on some distant occasion that returned to my mind. At the same time I wondered how I could support these pangs of remorse if they returned often since I didn’t know whether in the rest of my life I would have the occasion to go to confession or to speak to someone I could trust. I clearly noticed that this viewpoint could lead me far astray and weaken me. For a long time I remained prostrate before God, my only refuge. Having given me the favor of reawakening my faith, which was beginning to cast its eyes about for human supports, God granted me the movement to abandon myself to the conduct of his grace, without my wanting to put myself under any further duress and with my offering him everything I had suffered as a result of this persecution, so that it would please him to use it so that I might be acquitted of everything I owe people whom I have not served or tolerated with as much charity as I should have or whom I might have offended in something. I reserved nothing for myself except the hope of his mercy, which I considered the only thing capable of providing the satisfaction for the infinite debts that I owed to his justice and his goodness. After doing this, I found myself emptier than before but more peaceful. This anxiety concerning confession has not come to me since that time. This is what happened to me about this subject, as well as such frightening ideas about the state to which we had been reduced, without seeing any resources to deal with it. I learned what despair was because I saw clearly enough where we were going, although, thanks to God’s grace, these thoughts seemed very distant from my heart; they were a foreign temptation, which remained outside of me without making me tremble inside. But it made me imagine that they were those shadowy doors of which God spoke to Job and which he had the grace to make me see, so that I would hold them in horror rather 49. “God, you who are greater than anything, hear the voice of those who have no other hope than you. Deliver me from my anguish” (Est 14:29). 50. “In times of tribulation, you remit the sins of those who call upon you” (Tb 3:13). 51. “The words of the evil have won out against us and you apply them to our iniquities” (Ps 44:4).

Report on Captivity 47 than enter them without discerning their value due to lack of light, as we do when we let ourselves be so conquered by our problems and discouragements that we seek relief because we can no longer suffer. In this state, I found that prayer and confession of my misery before God, whose justice I adored, were my only arms. Since that time, however, I’ve recognized that if this period had lasted longer, I would have risked letting my lamp go out, because I did not have enough confidence to sustain the fire of my charity and the light of my faith. On October 3, the Feast of the Holy Angels, God revealed this temptation to me. As I meditated on these words, Ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum,52 I thought that Jesus Christ himself was this stone as well as the path on which we walk. There are those who are scandalized by the severity of his law and who grow weary of suffering for the truth in those moments when he engages them; those are the ones who fall and break against the stone. But there are others who are ready to suffer but who still find in their suffering an occasion for fearing that this rough conduct of God upon them is a sign of his anger, which they have rightly merited from him. As a result of this apparently humble disposition, they have less confidence in approaching Jesus Christ, as if they felt pushed away from him because of their unworthiness. These are the ones who wound their feet on the stone; their love and their charity become weaker to the extent that they are inflamed by the consideration of the disposition God has toward them. This temptation goes on to attack faith as well as charity and hope, because it sets up a principle contrary to the maxims of the gospel when it takes temporal sufferings and evils as a sign of God’s anger rather than taking them, as all of Scripture does, as the most certain tokens of his love. This thought given to me by God was the beginning of a new day for me. From that moment on, it dissipated little by little my confusion and my suffering. Since I had dwelt so long in sterility and God had given me no sensible signs, I wrote this down at greater length than I’ve taken here so that I could turn back to it when I needed it.53 It seemed to me that this would fade again. In fact, it has been helpful to reread it since then on several occasions, when my anguish returned. I hid this paper behind the cover of our breviary; the king’s guards took it when they visited my rag pile. I’ve made this long digression because it seemed to me useful to show what arms the demon uses to knock us down subtly under good pretexts. I noticed through reports on most of our sisters who signed the formulary that it was the glimpse of their faults that began their problems. This thrust them into the belief that they were mistaken in not wanting to obey or to open themselves to suffer for a subject that didn’t merit the effort. These things seemed beyond their strength 52. “Out of fear that your foot might stumble against the stone” (Ps 90:12). 53. The reference is to a short text composed during this period: Réflexions sur la conformité de l’état où étaient les religieuses de Port-Royal avec celui de Jésus-Christ dans l’Eucharistie.

48 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY and exposed them to extreme consequences that were too great. I knew by experience that the demon surrounded my mind with such similar views, but I could not properly call them thoughts because it didn’t seem to me that they actually took hold in my mind; I only entertained them despite myself. I considered the anguish suffered by all my sisters who were in the same state as I was, especially those who were not the strongest. It seemed to me that it was the greatest of miracles that they could hold firm during this. I continually thanked God for this grace he gave to all of us, although I did so with fear. At least I had this hope, because no one told me the contrary. I naturally imagined that they wouldn’t fail to tell me if there was someone who had weakened on this, as often happens. But before I talk about this, I will take up my story again. With the passing of night, dawn grew little by little. I began to discern the beauty of his justice in the sufferings with which God punished my infidelities and the wisdom of his conduct in the methods he uses to make us enter as by necessity into the duties of our vocation. We never understood them well, no matter how careful our instruction had been, because the science of the cross is only learned at the foot of the cross. That is the pulpit where Jesus Christ teaches those who truly want to follow him and be attached to him. I was so preoccupied the anniversary day of our clothing with the habit that I could not stop myself from making some small remarks about it. They wanted me to put them down here so that we will not forget this new rule of our order, which is written down in the book of life. In these first forty days, when God had placed me in an internal disposition of penance, I held myself, as I said earlier, in as great a silence as I could. I had wanted to do whatever was possible to prevent being known at all by these good nuns; nonetheless, I realized that others had already spoken to them about me. On the other hand, Madame de Rantzau tried to make me talk in order to have the opportunity to enter more deeply into my mind, because she clearly realized that her opening effort to engage me with such haughtiness had not succeeded. All the other mother superiors whom I saw praised this lady, her knowledge, her piety, and her enlightenment. God had led her to the Catholic religion after she had spent a long time in combating it. She successfully worked every day for the conversion of German Lutherans. She had permission to undertake this work by a special privilege and dispensation from their constitutions, which forbid them to speak to anyone external except their relatives. All this was helpful to me, because I clearly understood their purpose in telling me this and I was more on guard about it. Accordingly, I cut short my replies to everything they asked me and I entered into the details of nothing. Since they couldn’t find any opportunity to probe me, I bored them and they didn’t tell me anything. Nonetheless, on the few occasions when they began to talk in a vague way about our affair, I usually told them that

Report on Captivity 49 it was difficult to understand it well if one didn’t know how this storm began and how many falsehoods and calumnies have made it grow during the past six years. Another time, it seems to me, I told Madame de Rantzau that it was impossible for people influenced by Father Nouet and his peers to have enough knowledge of this affair to be capable of making an equitable judgment about it. She asked me why I singled out Father Nouet. I told her that it was because he had distinguished himself by preaching against the book Of Frequent Communion and against his conscience. We have good information to the effect that when the Archbishop of Tours54 was asked to give his approval to the book, he asked Father Nouet to examine the book and give him his opinion concerning it. Having carefully examined it, Father Nouet assured him that the book was most worthy of his approval; however, since this book had appeared shortly after the Society of Jesus had declared itself against it, the provincial superior ordered the priest to preach against it. Immediately afterward, he did so with such passion and vehemence that he seemed to be motivated by the greatest zeal, as if his conscience had not convinced him that he was fighting the truths he had previously recognized and approved. She listened to all of this without agreeing or disagreeing. I imagined she was reserving her remarks to me for a later time when she would have received her own information on this issue. But if she has done so since, she must have received some honest information that did not contradict what I had said, because she has engaged in no further discussion on this subject since that time. Nonetheless, I proved to her by my argument that people who want to rip apart books and authors in the pulpit against their conscientious judgment are not the judges to which one should seek counsel about one’s problems of conscience, if one fears wounding the truth and reputation of one’s neighbor by affirming what one doesn’t believe. Now, when some remark like that escaped from me, I immediately shut up and didn’t say anything unless they pressed me for a reply. Still, during the beginning of my stay, I had the desire, often conveyed through certain imaginings in mind, to see these nuns realize that these priests were mistaken, if we could make them see what this was really about. After all, these women were good nuns. But I was mistaken myself in believing that such a change would be easy. I soon realized that speaking to them would only damage me and in no way help them. On one occasion I admired the coolness with which they listened to their impertinences. One of them wanted to tell me the story of an accident that occurred to Father Grisel55 and that killed him. She asked me if I knew this priest and if I knew he 54. Victor Le Bouthillier (1590–1670) was the archbishop of Tours and considered sympathetic toward the Jansenists. Claude Lancelot recounts this version of events in his Mémoires (Cologne: 1738), vol. 1, 241. 55. Jean Grisel (1601–1657) was a Jesuit priest, a renowned preacher, and the rector of the Collège d’Orléans.

50 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY was a great preacher. I coldly replied that I did; I had heard people talking about him. He was the one who said that he could have heard the devil’s confession in a half hour if the devil came to see him. She only smiled at that and softly told me, “That shows how skilled he was!” What I had said gave me a pang of guilt; I accuse myself of wrong in even reporting this. Since it didn’t serve any purpose, I should have suppressed it; nonetheless, I don’t think it’s useless at this point to show how souls can become accustomed to such obvious excesses. They are not even surprised at them, let alone indignant about them. I remember that during this initial period, Madame de Rantzau, who was only trying to make me talk, took the occasion when I was saying something—I don’t recall what it was—to say to me pleasantly, “But, Sister, please tell me your entire history.” I think she said this because sometimes I said that you had to go back to the beginning in order to judge what is happening now. To get out of this, I replied in the same way. “Mother, please wait for this to be over, because when we arrive at that happy moment and see the end, the time will be right to make the history of it.” She had a good laugh about this and didn’t press me any further. Still, she and the mother superior resumed these conversations in the early months. I don’t remember distinctly on what occasions they did this, except that one took place at the beginning of the month of October. As they always used the same reasons in their arguments, it suffices just to note them. Beforehand, I will tell you something that I had forgotten. The prioress had indicated once that she wanted to procure for me any consolation she was capable of providing. She judged that the suffering of being separated from those close to me and not having news about them must have been great. I told her truthfully that nothing could be more difficult to bear than this anxiety—if only I could know what the condition of Mère Agnès was, but I didn’t even dare write to her. She replied that I could do so and that no one would refuse this liberty to me. This astonished me. Still, I took her at her word and told her that since they were permitting me, I would do so. I wanted to start this after dinner. Not daring to write anything confidential to Mère Agnès, I thought it was better to write first to Soeur Marie-Angélique,56 who lived with her. She would read the letter to her, because Mère Agnès usually didn’t personally read letters because she needed to conserve what remained of her eyesight. So, I wrote this letter, in which I tried not to say anything that might increase the suffering of those who would have to see it. I tried not to be too sensitive about anything that concerned me. I carefully studied how to convince them that I was well taken care of, that my health was good, and that all that remained for us was to wait for our strength and our consolation from the one who does not abandon the smallest crow who invokes 56. Marie-Angélique de Sainte Thérèse Arnauld d’Andilly (1630–1700) entered Port-Royal in 1654. She accompanied Mère Agnès Arnauld during her exile to the Visitation convent in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. Under Bossuet’s influence, she ultimately signed the formulary without reservation.

Report on Captivity 51 him. This letter was three small pages long, but in its contents it only had things like this. It didn’t seem to me that there was anything suspicious about them. I had carefully weighed every word and every syllable in it. When it was done, I gave it in and was very curious to see what its adventure would be. It seemed to me it would be a great help and consolation to have a reply, no matter how short it might have been, from these parties. The simple sight of the writing of these people would make them present in a certain manner when we are in this region of the dead, where we no longer expect to see again those we have left behind. I waited more than a week without saying anything about this since the more I was impatient about something, the more I tried to not let it show. I did this as much out of a desire to witness to God that I would prefer to consent to his order depriving me of everything than to follow the inclinations of my own soul as to not reveal my weaknesses to the people whom I didn’t trust and who were spying on me to detect some weakness, so that they could attack me through that point. I don’t remember if it was the mother superior herself who told me what had happened to this letter. In any case, she told me that since she had an order not to send on any letter that had not passed through the hands of the archbishop, she had sent this letter to him and he had not found it proper to send it on. I replied to her that I would be very obliged to her if she didn’t tell me I had the liberty to write without adding what conditions were attached to this liberty. If she had done so, she would have made me judge that I had greater respect for the work of the archbishop than to entertain him by having him read my communication with one of my sisters. I concluded from this that more and more they were offering me these traps only to make me talk and to see if they couldn’t discover what I thought. This only served to make me even more reserved. V I never asked them for news of what was happening at Port-Royal or any other news. At the end of my tenth-month absence, before I left, I only knew what I could divine by conjecture on what I had learned about the measures they were taking there. Without doing so, I would have known only a long time afterward whether the nuns of Sainte-Marie were still stationed there. They told me absolutely nothing about it; neither did I tell them anything. At most, every two months, I asked if they didn’t have any news about Mère Agnès and my father. They replied that they were doing well or not so well; that was all they would say. At first, they told me that my father and my brother de Luzancy were at Pomponne, but I didn’t know—although I divined it—that they were there by order of the king. The first time they gave me some real news—and it was very disturbing— was near the Feast of Saint Denis. I saw the mother superior, carrying a letter, enter my room with Madame de Rantzau. Immediately, I was afraid, as I usually was on such occasions. Whenever I heard someone on the landing, which climbed up

52 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to where I was, I made the sign of the cross to arm myself with patience, humility, and wisdom, either to listen to them or to reply to them. After sitting down, the mother superior told me with a happy expression on her face that she was bringing me good news she had just learned through a letter written to me; moreover, she had confirmed its contents. I trembled with all my heart at these words and didn’t say a word, because we were in enemy territory. You can be certain that what they call good news in their language is going to be very bad for us, who have different principles of joy and of sadness. In fact, she immediately gave me to read a letter from one of my cousins, Mère Marie-Angélique Gelée, an Ursuline from the Faubourg Saint-Jacques.57 This good nun insisted on her affection for me and her zealous concern for my salvation. To give me examples of the grace I and my sisters could hope to receive from God, she informed me that there were already nine of them who had signed the formulary; among them was one of those whom the archbishop had made leave the convent like myself. Someone had told her that they believed that it was our prioress. But at the same time the good sisters in my room corrected this information and told me that it was Soeur Hélène, who was at the Calvary convent, and not the prioress. You can imagine how hard this news hit me. Still, I wasn’t completely surprised, except for the case of Soeur Hélène; even there I had second thoughts, principally because of how she had acted so early in this affair. I could not attribute her signature to anything else but the fact that she had seemed crushed by suffering although we hadn’t really suffered anything yet. She told us several times before our expulsion that she already wanted everything to be resolved and that she couldn’t tolerate anymore this waiting and this state of incertitude concerning what we would become. Now, I found that one of the sufferings endured in our state was incertitude; rather, it is a suffering we are never delivered from in this life, since we always have it regarding our salvation. In light of this, I thought that her weakening came from having wanted to find support and security concerning both spiritual and temporal matters. As for the other sisters who remained in the convent, the archbishop had already informed me that several of them had given him satisfaction. I didn’t doubt that Soeur Flavie was among them. I didn’t think it would be difficult for her to have won over six or seven weak nuns; there could well be more than that in such a large community. To avoid lying, I must say I was even surprised that there were so few of them. That tempered the pain caused by this news. In the experience that I had of the depth of our suffering, I considered as miraculous the strength God gave us to endure it, given how weak we all are. I also thought that it was less strange to have someone who surrendered than to have such a great number who remained firm. I didn’t let any of these feelings appear externally. It seemed to me that I remained very cold and said nothing except, “So, Mother, this is what you call good news!” 57. Marie-Angélique de Gelée.

Report on Captivity 53 Both of them took up this theme to prove to me that was indeed good news and that it would be even better news when I increased the number of those who were giving me such a good example. I no longer remember the details of this conversation; my heart was so tight that my mind was scarcely present. The only thing I did not forget was that Madame de Rantzau began to preach at me out of concern for my salvation. She strongly argued that we couldn’t find salvation outside the church; I agreed. She said that we separated ourselves from the church if we refused to accept her judgments; I said that this required some clarification because if she were speaking about the church’s judgments in matters of faith, I agreed with her opinion and they couldn’t complain about us since we had declared by our signatures that we submitted to the constitutions in what concerned matters of faith. But if she meant judgments given concerning particular facts not revealed by God, there could sometimes be legitimate occasions where one could remain in a state of doubt despite a judgment by the Holy See. Nothing shocked her as much as did this distinction. She told me that it was against the authority of the church and of the pope, who is its head. Having been established by God to represent him on earth, he had the Holy Spirit as his guide so that he could instruct the peoples of the earth through the same Sprit and always guide them in truth. I replied that when she wanted to attribute this infallibility to the pope—about which not everyone is in agreement—she should at least not extend it to things concerning facts, which depend on examination by our senses. An example would be knowing if certain propositions are in a book, something that only the “new” theologians attribute to it. She told me that Catholics do not make such a distinction because Jesus Christ didn’t make it when he gave his power to Saint Peter and told him, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it… . I will give you my Holy Spirit, who will teach you everything.”58 She said, “Jesus Christ made no exceptions when he promised Saint Peter that the Holy Spirit would teach him on matters of fact as well as matters of right. He said, ‘everything.’ ” I didn’t even dare to say more; still, a phrase escaped from me, “Really, Mother! You believe that the pope knows everything that happens in the world? Now, there is universal knowledge!” She continued in a serious tone. “After all, Jesus Christ said that it concerned everything useful for the government of the church.” I asked her to tell me where the passage is she just cited; I hadn’t yet seen it in the gospel. She replied that she would show it to me when I would like. Immediately, I turned around to take our Bible, which was on the table, and put it into her hands so that she could look it up for me. I was waiting but I saw that I was embarrassing her. She said that all that was somewhere in Saint John, where it said that the Holy Spirit would teach everything. I didn’t press her further and told her that if it was only a question of 58. The quotation mixes together several biblical passages: Mt 16:18 on the authority of Saint Peter and Jn 14:26 on the promise to guide the church with the spirit of truth.

54 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY this passage, it could actually be found in two places, both in his gospel and in his epistle, but that in neither passage does Jesus Christ address Saint Peter in particular. Jesus Christ said this at the Last Supper to all of his apostles. In his epistle Saint John explained that he was addressing all the faithful in telling Christians that the unction they had received would instruct them concerning everything. If the infallibility of the popes concerning facts was founded only on this authority, it is possible that many others could dispute this authority with him on the same foundation, having the same claim to this privilege. I don’t remember clearly what she replied, except that, no matter what, she would not restrict this infallibility. Since Jesus Christ had promised the assistance of the Holy Spirit to his church, it was necessary that those who govern the church always be governed by this Spirit. Consequently, everyone is obliged to believe and to do everything the popes so order. I had already talked to her on several occasions about Liberius,59 who had not given an infallible judgment when he condemned Saint Athanasius. She had some memory of this, because she wanted me to say that we shouldn’t draw any conclusions from what had happened to Anastase. When she noticed my disdain, she corrected herself. “Saint Athanasius.” As far as I was concerned, I was delighted by this forgetting of such well-known names because it indicated that she had not studied very well the disputed matters she so wanted to push me on. She wanted to say that this example was without consequence because God raised up another pope once Liberius had fallen; God does not abandon the church. I assured her that I believed that even when the popes made mistakes—since they are capable of doing so, as Liberius did—God never abandons his church, just as he didn’t abandon her at that moment. But this fact doesn’t prevent this example from being a good one to prove that the popes could be mistaken; it also proves that there could be occasions when we would not be obliged to submit to their judgment if we had good reason to doubt that it was just. She replied by saying what they all say: when in doubt, one should obey one’s superiors. I replied, “When we are in doubt, we cannot believe, because doubt is nothing other than the lack of belief. When we don’t believe in a certain statement of fact, we cannot assent to it by a signature because that would be lying to the church.” She replied that we could not lie if we followed the pope and the bishops in what we said; they had properly judged the issue of fact about which they affirmed its truth. I replied that according to Saint Bernard, it would be lying not only to affirm something we know to be false but even to affirm something about which we are doubtful. After all, it would in effect be a lie because we would be wounding the truth by claiming certitude for something about which we are not certain. She didn’t bother to respond to this church father except by saying—in an absolute manner that I found offensive—that the opinion of a church father did not make 59. Liberius was pope from 352 to 367. Based on faulty information, he had condemned Saint Athanasius for heresy in 358.

Report on Captivity 55 the rule of the church; rather, it was the general consensus of the entire church that gave authority to their judgments. She said that saints could make mistakes and that Saint Augustine had done so in several passages; he had retracted them himself. I could no longer prevent myself from telling her that I thought I divined her intention and that the retraction was not in one of his works on the question of grace, where he had only proposed a doctrine approved by so many popes and by the entire church assembled in councils. She replied that we were only bound to adhere to the decisions of the church and that the church had spoken her judgment concerning the book of Jansenius; furthermore, three popes making such a judgment were worth a church council. I don’t remember what I replied. I only remember the impatience that I felt. I only hid it by a coldness and a silence that manifested my disposition without explaining it. Truly, all of that gave me such a distance from the desire to hear such irrational things that I was more careful than ever to avoid speaking about all of this. It was easy enough to see that I had nothing to gain from such people who are satisfied with such arguments and condemn the most solid things. Neither could I find any profit in such disputes, which only caused impatience. This conversation was very long and mixed in several other things. Among other things, she brought me a copy of two bulls and a brief addressed to the grand-vicars of Cardinal de Retz60 against their first pastoral letter. They told me that since I could only have a legitimate pretext to not want to sign by doubting what was the intention of the pope or whether he had properly judged this question of fact, it was necessary for me to be instructed on this from his own mouth and to read what he had said. They gave me all these papers to read aloud; at least, they had me begin by reading the brief. I told them that I was not there to look at them and that not so long ago I had reread them, but that I would not raise any objections to this. In fact, I began the reading but as I had difficulty in reading out loud, the mother superior wanted to give me some relief. Thus, I heard all of these injurious phrases from their mouths. I admired how they knew how to combine the respect they professed toward their superior—the dean is part of their convent—with the approval they showed in seeing how the pope treated him in this brief. This seemed to me worse than ever. They found this so capable of convincing me—if one supposes, as they do, that they are the oracles of his mouth—that they wanted to leave me in order to make my meditation on it more at my leisure. I freely accepted this offer because I always find it profitable to 60. Jean-Baptiste de Contes, the dean of Notre-Dame, and Alexandre de Hodencq, the pastor of SaintSéverin, served as grand vicars for the archdiocese of Paris during the exile of Cardinal de Retz, the archbishop of Paris, in Rome. On June 8, 1661, they published a pastoral letter endorsing the legitimacy of the droit/fait distinction concerning the formulary. On August 1, 1661, a papal brief annulled the pastoral letter and condemned the use of the droit/fait distinction in giving a reserved assent to the formulary.

56 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY consider this conduct up closer and with greater application. In fact, I reread all of this with satisfaction and profit. The rest of this interview was on the subject of the people who had guided us and who had so shaped our minds with their opinions that one should feel sorry for us and patiently wait until we disabuse ourselves of these opinions little by little. They took up these things from the time Monsieur de Saint-Cyran guided us.61 Having spoken about him according to the opinion they have of him, the superior turned toward me and said, “After all, wasn’t all this about him acknowledged before his death?” I looked at her in a way that said more than if I had dared to reply. She clearly understood this but she turned this around by laughing about it. Although she says things with a very hard meaning, her manner is not bitter. She is a good and sympathetic person, although she zealously does what they have convinced her that she must do. At the end of this interview, they told me that Mère Agnès was ill. That news made the meeting complete. When the mother superiors had left me, I threw myself before God, tormented by suffering and fear. I wept for those who had fallen, I feared for the others and for myself, and I was in the anxiety you can imagine over Mère Agnès. Since I only had God as my refuge and his word for consolation, I opened the Bible and I cast my eyes on the first thing that appeared. It was the words of the second chapter of Ecclesiastes: Vae dissolutis corde qui non credunt Deo et ideo non protegentur ab eo. Vae his qui perdiderunt sustinentiam et qui dereliqurunt vias rectas et diverterunt in vias pravas, et quid facient cum inspicere coeperit Deus?62 The words struck me with astonishment and terror for those to whom one could easily make an application. At the same time, they strengthened me because they taught me the remedy to preserve me from such a great misfortune. This consists in confiding oneself to God and in not tiring of suffering. I read again everything preceding this passage. It seemed to me that the Holy Spirit truly speaks for us in this passage and that God’s providence had written this chapter just for me, since it responded better to all of my sufferings than could have anyone in the world in whom I would have had the greatest confidence and to whom I would have revealed myself. So, this episode didn’t beat me down. Since God had already begun at this moment to dissipate my shadows, the light began to replace it little by little. When it is present, it is capable of softening the greatest bitterness and making the heaviest burdens endurable. 61. Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran (1581–1643), was a close friend of Jansen and diffused his doctrine in France. Appointed chaplain to Port-Royal in 1633, he quickly brought the convent into the Jansenist circle. An outspoken critic of France’s foreign and domestic policies, he was imprisoned by Richelieu in 1638. His written works became a staple for reading in the convent and in the convent school. 62. “Cursed be those who lack courage. For this reason, God does not protect them. Cursed be those who have lost patience, have left the straight paths and have wandered off into distant paths. What will they do when the Lord begins to scrutinize all things?” (Eccl 2:15–17).

Report on Captivity 57 VI Next, I replied to the Ursuline nun who had written to me. Several days afterward, her sister, who was also a nun in the same convent, also took the time to write to me, although I don’t think she had done so before; at least, I don’t remember having received from her anything but some counsels she sent to me through the letters of her sister. They gave me this letter in choir without saying anything to me. She was half-worthy of having her place here, since she so accurately expressed the opinions of those people to whom I attribute the letter. Whether a Jesuit inspired her or dictated the letter to her, we can only attribute the letter to their spirit. Here is her letter. “Reverend Mother and dear cousin, Soeur Marie-Angélique sent me the letter you had the goodness to write to her. She thanks you for it. I found it so civil, so cordial, and so spiritual that I doubled my inclination, already great, to pray fervently that Our Lord would not permit such a rich work to lack any quality essential for its perfection. My dear cousin, it would be a great pity if such a precious vase voluntarily sent itself into ignominy and if such a fine spirit and loving heart stumbled forever in error. I have great compassion for you because I clearly understand that the education you have received is creating a great deal of embarrassment for you at present. You were always raised and directed by people who taught you maxims we can rightly call bad because they end up in making you lose the spirit of submission to legitimate pastors. Obedience has always been the touchstone for recognizing authentic virtue. It is certain that everything we take away from the reverence and the submission we owe to the head of the church, who holds the place of Jesus Christ on earth, cannot come from the Holy Spirit. All the contrary subtle arguments are only the deceptions of heresy, which true children of the church always hold in horror. “Dear cousin, as the liberty I use to tell you my thoughts frankly only proceeds from sincere affection, I also hope that your goodness will not take offense at but will receive with benevolence the opinions of a heart that loves you. You know that without faith, which is true belief, it is impossible to please God; when the foundation is shaken, the entire building falls to the earth. If by too great a stubbornness you are lacking on this point, all the concerns about salvation, which you say are so dear to you and about which you rightly say that we should be willing to lose everything and suffer everything, are placed at risk and lost forever. Dear cousin, this question concerns you more than anyone else. When the light of eternity begins to dawn, you will deplore the voluntary blindfold that has blocked your eyes. Is it possible that you could find greater security in following the advice of a few people who enjoy no church approval than in submitting yourself to the judgment of legitimate prelates, who follow the opinion of the universal church? You know what is said about it: ‘Whosoever hears you hears me;

58 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY whosoever disdains you disdains me.’63 Couldn’t the bishop of Ypres and all his sectarian followers damage you one day because of the very considerable losses you have made on their behalf? I am truly sorry that in all of this they have deluded your family, which is so dear to us. After all, I find that you are very obliged to the archbishop, who is working so zealously to reduce your resistance. Having used all the gentler methods, with admirable goodness, patience, and prudence, he has finally been constrained to act like a devoted father who, having being unable to accept the death of his child and having been unable to heal him in other ways, finally exposes the child to stronger remedies. Moreover, you know that the common good is to be preferred to the particular good. It is high time to stamp out these erroneous opinions from the public. O dear cousin, if this short and light vexation brings about in you the knowledge necessary for your salvation, think how much one day you will bless the actions of this good father and how much this affliction will flower into joy in this world and in the next. Then you will be able to say, ‘We would be lost if we hadn’t been lost.’ “In your apparent misfortune, consider yourself fortunate to have made contact with such a holy and good convent, where you can receive great assistance. Madame de Rantzau, who has a particular concern for you, is a person whom I esteem highly; her conversation could be of great help to you. There is also good Mère Leprêtre, whom we esteem highly. Dear cousin, I have great hopes on condition that you want to make a contribution from your side. Grace needs some correspondence. I ask it continually for you, remaining with all of my heart your very humble servant, etc. Soeur Angélique says hello. She is very happy with your letter. She hopes that since you demand without ceasing that Our Lord will let you know his will—if it is from the bottom of your heart that you are asking for it and in disengagement from your own feelings—that it will produce a good effect. Many souls are praying to God for you.” I was not without emotion before this letter. This insult mixed with flattery shocked me more than the injuries had. But I accepted it as part of my chalice, which must be composed of all of these things. Some days later, the mother superior came to see me. She asked me my opinion about this letter. She said that she had found it very good and that she completely shared its opinion about the conduct of the archbishop. I replied that I thought it was an insult to those who are already miserable. Tears as well as this word escaped from me. I could not hold it in. As a result, this nun did not go any further, since she truly did have natural compassion. Still, she asked me if I was going to write a reply. I answered that I would never write to this good nun and that I had no intention of tying myself to new commitments when I didn’t have the freedom to write to my own father, and to my mothers and sisters in religion. Since she insisted that I should not be disobliging toward this good nun, I answered her that if this nun believed what she 63. Lk 10:16.

Report on Captivity 59 said in her letter, namely, that I had so much intelligence, she had judged herself in writing this phrase that she would receive no other response than that of my silence. In the state that I was I could not make any other prudent choice. With that, I asked her if this nun who wrote to me had a great deal of intelligence, because the nun I was talking to had spent some time with the Ursulines and I thought she knew her. She told me that she didn’t know her but that she seemed to show some intelligence through her letter. I replied that I would not form a judgment on that basis because her letter undoubtedly came from her spiritual director and not from her. The style of the Jesuits was too recognizable to attribute it to others. She smiled without saying anything to me. Perhaps she had the same idea I did. I have since reread the account I wrote of the conversation I had with Madame de Rantzau. According to my current memory of things, I confused some things she didn’t tell me on this occasion with what she said on another occasion, when the mother superior wasn’t present. It was her response to the passage of Saint Bernard and what she added about Saint Augustine’s retraction. She told me precisely that but on another occasion, and I thought I clearly saw that they were making the teaching of their founding father suspect and that they knew very well that the current dispute concerns this teaching. This same point hit me another time when I asked the mother superior to lend me the sermons of Saint Bernard. She gladly granted my request and told me that the teaching of this father was not suspect. I replied to this by saying that he was a great disciple of Saint Augustine, especially on the matter of grace. Perhaps understanding my meaning, she didn’t dare go any further on this. It would have been easy for me to tempt them in order to uncover their attitude because they incessantly gave me the opportunity to do so. But, having always believed that my strength was in hope and silence, I didn’t abandon my silence as much as I could have and never for what concerned doctrine. I let myself be provoked without appearing to notice it, because these good nuns didn’t do anything else except tell me in season and out of season, concerning the smallest issues: “It’s not up to God whether we are in the state of grace; it is only up to us whether we are as great a saint as Saint Paul was. It’s true that he had quite an extraordinary grace to have the conversion he had in the space of a moment, but God gives his grace to everyone. It depends on us to make just as good a use of it as he did.” I let them say this without saying anything in return. I don’t know whether it was right for me to do so. Still, I think I preferred the scandal of not defending the truth to wanting to say something they would have considered heretical. I am certain they would not even excuse such a witness to truth in Saint Augustine, which they seem to me to treat as the archbishop of Paris treats the bishop of Ypres. He says we don’t need to condemn the bishop because he supposes that the bishop would condemn himself, if he were still alive, after the pope had pronounced the condemnation of his book. Similarly, it seems to

60 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY me that Madame de Rantzau respects Saint Augustine because he did not consider himself incapable of mistakes and because he wanted to retract the faults he had made in his works. I wanted to imagine that it was to give me this idea that she purposely did something that I have never been able to figure out and that I only pretended to understand. Here it is. Sometime after talking to me about this subject, as I reported it, she had me do some needlework. In sending me the material necessary for this work, she placed it in a great sheet of wrapping paper, on which was written, in her own hand if I’m not mistaken, the translation of a letter of Saint Augustine to one of his friends, who was pressing him to publish his books on the Trinity, so that before his death he would have enough time to defend them, if someone wanted to attack them as was done to his other works. Augustine replied with an admirable humility on this question. He said that his friends were wrong to claim that all of his works were so exempt from faults that he should want to defend anything in them one might want to contest. He didn’t hold such a high opinion of himself. He could not promise that all of his care to give the proper finish to his works would guarantee they were free from faults. By delaying giving them to the public, he was trying to review them so carefully that even if he could not make them free of all errors, he could at least remove any that he personally detected. The thought I had that they had intentionally used such humble sentiments of this holy doctor to diminish in my mind the authority of his doctrine provoked an indignation in me that was truly painful. I could not pardon this injustice, which I thought they wanted to do to him, any more than I could pardon the injustice they were in effect doing to the bishop of Ypres. They take their humility as an argument for their error. Rather, they should have inferred that this humility was the best disposition for receiving light from God. The more they were on guard about the illusions of which the human mind is capable, the more they were enlightened in order to know the truth. Nonetheless, I stifled all this interiorly without letting anything appear externally, for the reasons I have given. I drew a real benefit from this. When these good women saw that I didn’t get mixed up with questions of doctrine, that I continually showed them that I didn’t understand all of these academic disputes, that my opinion on matters of religion and piety were quite Catholic, they were disabused of the opinion that we were heretics. I wasn’t sure about Madame de Rantzau, but the two other nuns gave me their positive opinion several times. The superior admitted to me more than once that she was convinced there was nothing to reproach about our faith and that we were guilty only of disobedience concerning something that no one really had the power to make demands on us, since it was not something absolutely necessary. Still, she thought we shouldn’t refuse this demand because we must always obey when it is legitimate superiors who command us. Now, if I had wanted to get involved in disputes over doctrine—although I might have said something suspect in doing so—I would have

Report on Captivity 61 at least tried to use the terms they constantly use: “We can do everything” and “It is up to us and not up to God.” I don’t think they want to know anything beyond these terms; beyond these words, everything seems dangerous to them. During the first months they were very put out by the large number of people who came to seek news about me. Still, they didn’t indicate anything about this to me except in their general comments. They said that since my arrival, they had never heard so much about this affair and that now it had become the subject of every discussion. Once, the mother superior added to this that what had happened to us had helped reveal the secret disposition of many hearts. This made me understand that there were more Jansenists than one had previously thought. She told me another time that she always believed that what they had done to us was inevitable but that unfortunately they had waited too long and the delay might have made the remedy useless. She said that she had been very troubled about this for years and that as soon as she had heard about these new doctrines, she said that one should have dealt with them right then and there. They hadn’t been able to suppress completely the previous heresies because they had tolerated them too long at their beginning. I listened to this very patiently because she knew quite well the opinions I might have about such a statement without telling her. Another time, with Madame de Rantzau present, the superior told me that this doctrine of Jansenius had had twenty years to freely diffuse itself but in vain. I replied that his book wasn’t even present in the world twenty years ago. She answered that if it wasn’t his book, it had been the book Of Frequent Communion, which people were already talking about. I told her that if she put this book on the same level as that of Jansenius, she would be condemning the books approved and admired by the archbishop of Paris as well as those he felt obliged to condemn. As I took both nuns as witnesses to the praises this prelate had given this book in their presence, Madame de Rantzau, trying not to abandon the superior’s theory that the heresy of Jansenius was already twenty years old, said with disdain, “But well before all this, didn’t Abbé de Saint-Cyran have his plan for reforming the church?” This resembled the fable of the wolf and the lamb, where it is said, “If it wasn’t you, it was your father who spoke ill of me.” I do not remember what I said. I think it was in the same conversation—because it was one of the dogmatic visits of Madame de Rantzau—that she taught me something very important in order to prove where the doctrine tended to lead. But before she told me her story, she excused herself because she thought I might be offended by this; she said that she wasn’t doing this for that purpose. She was only doing this to help me recognize that they hadn’t told me the truth about everything and that I didn’t know well enough the intentions of the people I was defending. After I showed her that I was ready to listen to anything, she told me she was only speaking of what she had herself learned from a worthy and credible person. When she lived in Dunkerque, where her husband commanded the army, she encountered a person of quality

62 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY who assured her that he had known the bishop of Ypres very well. Since Ypres wasn’t very far from there, he had visited the bishop often. He routinely went to see him in his office. When he found the bishop at work on his great work, the Augustinus, he always had a work by Calvin open on his desk in front of him. The bishop told him in confidence that that was where he found all of his theories. She clearly noticed that my color had changed, since I could not tolerate this horrible calumny. She wanted to repeat again her assurance that she didn’t want to cause me any pain, but, after all, the thing was certain. I replied that I had no reason to become angry when I heard such impostures, because they only served to prove that they couldn’t defend such an evil cause in any other way. They only deepened the esteem I had for people whose reputations could only be destroyed by such evident falsehoods or such frivolous accusations. If they thought they could turn the bishop of Ypres reading Calvin into a crime, no one would laugh at it. But to add to this charge what they alleged him to have said is to concoct a black lie that they couldn’t begin to have people like us believe. Everyone agreed that the late Abbé de Saint-Cyran was the intimate friend of the bishop of Ypres. Now, if the bishop of Ypres was going to reveal the secret and important source of his belief and teaching, he wouldn’t have hidden it from his best friend in the world. But he would have lost this best friend at the very moment he revealed his bad opinions, because everyone knows the distance of Monsieur de Saint-Cyran from a heresy he had attempted to destroy by the great work he was writing to follow up on the book of Cardinal du Perron.64 For those of us who didn’t know the bishop of Ypres, it is enough for us to have known his friend in order to be certain of the opposition both of them had to a heresy they fought against. It is also easy to be certain of the malice of those who invent such fables. I will not give a further report on the arguments she used to convince me on all the occasions she tried to do so. They always seemed to me to run on the same principles of infallibility and obedience. It was nothing but repetition. As a result, I decided to give practically no reply because when you are in this situation, you can only make an escape from reason and common sense in order to endure this teaching. These are not the type of speeches that convince, and neither can this type of instructor nor this sort of person prejudiced by such bias. In this situation, I had no more to gain by replying to her than she had to gain by preaching to me. In the month of November—I don’t remember which day—Madame de Rantzau came with the mother superior to see me. Madame de Rantzau had me look at a paper without saying where it came from; she only asked me if I would sign it after reading it. It was the declaration of the archbishop in order to remove our scruples about the signature. I strongly doubt that this document came personally from him; this would mean that he came to see me but didn’t want to say anything about it to me. I didn’t show any of this externally. I supposed that 64. Jacques Davy Cardinal du Perron (1556–1618) was the bishop of Évreux.

Report on Captivity 63 if the thing was only some airy proposition from some other person, I would have greater freedom to state my opinion about it. As I read it, I prayed to God in my heart that he would guide me. I was always afraid that I would do or say something wrong in this holy affair. Next, I replied to Madame de Rantzau that whoever drew this up certainly did not understand our scruples if they were convinced that we had imagined that they could take our signature for a judgment made with knowledge of cause. On the contrary, such an imagination would require us to be extravagant rather than scrupulous. I know very well that my signature could not pass as a witness to my judgment on the book or the doctrine of the bishop of Ypres; it could only pass as a witness to my belief or judgment concerning those who condemn him. As I did not have this interior belief, all my difficulty and my concern were that I did not want to fool the church and tell a lie that no one could unburden me of, if I signed against my sentiment. She didn’t push me further and only asked me to retain the paper and reread it at my leisure. She also gave me the copy of the signature of Abbé de Bourzeis,65 undoubtedly to serve as an example of submission, since she is very humble. I must have been stupid not to have retained a copy. It only concerned me, but I thought that I was no longer of this world. She asked me if I thought a man who spoke this way could retain something in his heart and not have changed his opinion, as I had told her that many others had signed the statement of fact without believing anything in it. I excused myself from making this judgment on any particular person, except those who frankly affirmed it about themselves, as I had known in several cases. Still, with all this, I saw a subtlety in this signature, which she didn’t notice, and which made it susceptible to these favorable interpretations that accommodating people were then happy with. After several days, I gave her back these two papers, saying that they hadn’t given me any new light; the first didn’t satisfy my difficulties, because I didn’t have the ridiculous imagination they supposed, and the second didn’t concern me, since, having neither written nor taught on these matters, there was no point in my retracting and apologizing, as Abbé de Bourzeis had done. So I held to my silence; this was the better part. They never talked to me about the legal transcripts and other papers that they had printed for our sisters; there was so much noise about this at that time. But the same day they brought me the declaration of the archbishop of Paris, the mother superior, and Madame de Rantzau—who, I imagined, had gone to see the archbishop—asked me in confidence to tell them the truth about many things that were being said in the world: how the archbishop of Paris treated us during our removal from the convent, because people were saying that he had called the mother abbess crazy and impertinent right in the chapter room, and other similar things. I told them the long and the short of everything that happened. I 65. Amable de Bourzeis (1606–1672) was the abbot of Saint-Martin de Cores. At first favorable to the theories of Jansen, he signed the formulary under pressure from Father Annat.

64 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY remarked to them that when the archbishop told me in their presence that people were spreading the belief that the archbishop of Paris had called her a pretentious woman, I replied that we hadn’t clearly understood this term. The truth is he didn’t call her pretentious; he called her conceited, which wasn’t any better. He did that twice, with several other terms that weren’t less offensive. I explained them in detail. They told me that people said that he had said that they saw all this written on his face, because this situation appeared to them as a strong aggression. I assured them that he had said this explicitly. I added to this account what he had said when he led us to the door. When one of our sisters who was scheduled to leave was a little late, he asked if she wanted them to grab her by her feet and her head. I recounted yet other things that certainly astonished them to be confirmed as true. I clearly saw that they had found these things extravagant and had taken them as fantastic tales when others had talked to them about it. But I replied to them with such moderation that there were no grounds to believe that I had altered the truth. I even made great excuses for having spoken about this, fearing that this might have been contrary to the respect of the person it concerns. This made it appear that I doubted whether I had done well. But they removed my scruples and told me that they themselves were obliged to me. There is nothing wrong in telling the truth when someone asks you. Since the visit of the archbishop and his refusal to permit me to receive Holy Communion, I waited until the Feast of All Saints without saying anything. Three days later, I wrote him this letter: “Monseigneur, without leaving the position where you have placed me, I think that I must again present myself to you and prostrate myself at your feet before the approaching great feast, like penitents did in ancient times when the just severity of the church had banished them from the altars. I clearly see the differences between their disposition and my own, but I also see a similarity that makes them equally agreeable to God and worthy of the mercy of his ministers, because from both is born the hatred of sin. That produces in the heart either regret for having committed it when one feels guilty or the apprehension about committing it when one feels oneself so pressed to do it against the movement of one’s conscience. Monseigneur, you know and I affirm to you before God that only the fear of offending him is the one motive that prevents me being able to do what you want from me. Frankly speaking, I am not able to accuse myself of anything else, because during whatever leisure I’ve had here to examine my heart and whatever application I used to discern by what movement I was acting in this affair, I could not discover any other motive. Monseigneur, after this it’s up to you to make whatever judgment it pleases you to make and it will be up to me to adore the judgments of God, if he permits you not to lack mercy and not to abandon any longer a very weak person who is in a state where the strongest easily fall. Only the goodness of God, who draws closer to those who are in affliction, can support their body and soul in surviving in this privation of help and consolation in the

Report on Captivity 65 midst of all sorts of trials. It is easy not to be able to imagine what this state is when you have not endured it, but the experience that I’ve had of it only serves to make me apprehend more deeply the severity of God, if I were misfortunate enough to disobey him. I know very well that this severity surpasses the punishment of crime by all the powers of the world as much as his mercy surpasses the tenderness and affection of the best fathers, to whom he compares himself in order to assure us that he will take pity on us and accommodate himself to our weaknesses. He knows what we are: only misery and infirmity. Monseigneur, no matter how eminent the rank you hold over us might be, it seems to me that you would not lower yourself by imitating this conduct. But perhaps you find that it is temerarious for me to rise up and talk to you as to a father, after you have exchanged that quality for that of a judge. Monseigneur, if that is so, I will content myself from now on with the liberty that remains to me to ask God for the bread that I need every day. His goodness doesn’t consider this request importunate. Monseigneur, I will wait until you judge it proper to be reestablished in participation in the sacraments of the church, since I am not separated from the communion of saints, in which I live in the common faith and charity that unites all the faithful. I recognize and submit to the authority of my pastors. At most, they could condemn my disposition as a weakness or as a lack of light, which they could easily place in the rank of this multitude of sins covered by charity and which it effaces when it covers them. It is easy to see this in our particular situation that we would cease to be guilty as soon as they stopped demanding something that is itself superfluous for people like us. If they don’t ask us for it, that wouldn’t change anything to the profession of faith we have made; it can’t be defective because we haven’t placed any limits to it. Monseigneur, I am not rehearsing these arguments that you already know in order to create an irritating repetition I should avoid. Rather, I hope I am not extending too much the liberty I have dared to take in throwing myself yet again at your feet in the confidence that you would not find it disagreeable, since it is only to learn whether it has pleased Jesus Christ to give you some movement of compassion and goodness for a soul whom he has personally loved and redeemed. If this is not the case, if I no longer have anything of this sort to hope for, then I must be content with a future of waiting for God’s salvation in the silence, as I remain with the respect and submission which I owe, yours, etc.” I received a response from the mother superior about this letter. She told me that the archbishop had come to the convent. He didn’t want to see me, but he told them that he couldn’t in conscience permit me to take Holy Communion unless I changed my position. VII Toward the end of October, the mother superior said something that gave me a great deal of anxiety. She asked me what I would say if Soeur Angélique de

66 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY Sainte Thérèse66 signed the formulary. I don’t know what I replied at that time, because I spoke so little that they could add something to an interrogation like this and take away from me the necessity of speaking. So, I just stayed in my silence and contented myself with listening to them. On the eve of the Feast of Saint Martin, the superior retained me for quite a long time in the room of Madame des Hameaux; she had made me go down there because there was a worker in our room. She spoke to me about all sorts of indifferent things. I even opened myself up more than usual, since at that time I had a freer spirit and I was starting to breathe in the light of the mercies of God, which I saw as being very great over us. I remember that I told her about the edification of her community. I don’t know how the subject came up, but I told her that I would be more worried than ever to have to counsel women if some of them asked for advice as to whether they should enter a religious order. It’s no longer enough just to see a well-ordered convent such as theirs was; the choice was more difficult if one had to consider two signatures, both of which I feared: the one concerning the formulary and the other concerning the individual contract of the woman with the convent.67 That surprised her but she laughed at it, because I had said this in a light tone and in a way that could not offend her. She made me speak about the contract signatures, and I told her something that she seemed to listen to carefully enough. Still, at the end of the conversation she concluded, as if she were placing herself outside any scruple on the subject, that their constitutions forbade them to receive women without dowries and that these constitutions had been approved by the Holy See. This placed them in protection from the canons whose authority I had just cited. I’ve added these last words on my own but her resting her case on the approval of the pope carried this meaning. It should be noted in passing that it is a Jesuit who had written their constitutions. They are practically their founders. Good Mère Marie-Victoire, their foundress, had them as spiritual directors for her enterprise of establishing this new order, which began at Genoa at the opening of this new century. The superior seemed to me very lighthearted. I couldn’t figure out the reason, but she let me know it too early when she told me she had news of Mère Agnès and of my sisters. They were doing well and the one who was with Mère Agnès had recently signed the formulary and the other, who was at Saint-Thomas, had done so before that. 66. Marie-Angélique de Sainte Thérèse Arnauld d’Andilly gave an unreserved signature on November 2, 1664, but subsequently expressed regret for her action. On May 19, 1665, she refused to sign the new pastoral letter and formulary drawn up by the archbishop of Paris. In August 1665, once she had returned to Port-Royal, she retracted her earlier signature. 67. The contract concerns the dowry. The canon law of the church forbade the requirement that a choir nun must arrive at the convent with a dowry provided by her family. Nonetheless, the provision of such a dowry was a long-established practice and many convents still required it. One of the reforms of Port-Royal effected by Mère Angélique Arnauld was the abolition of the dowry, but the Annonciades, receiving an exemption from church law, still required it.

Report on Captivity 67 She didn’t hasten to tell me that, although she knew it, because she knew that this news would not make me happy. She had no difficulty in seeing on my face the wound she was making in my heart. Since she is a good person—I repeat it again—she had the compassion to show some pain when she noticed what I was feeling and I only attribute to her zeal for blind obedience and for Molinian grace everything she told me for my conversion. This seemed to be very tough but in doing so I think she was doing violence to her natural self. Thus, on this occasion, she didn’t insult me. She simply recounted in the way others had told her what happened between Soeur Angélique de Sainte Thérèse and Mère Agnès. The nun had consulted Mère Agnès when she had the idea that she had to surrender and offer her signature. She asked the superior what she should do, but Mère Agnès excused herself and told her she left her to her own conscience. I thought she would praise Mère Agnès for this response. Undoubtedly, she did respect it; nonetheless, she didn’t hesitate to ask if I wasn’t astonished that she would have left this nun in this liberty—if one supposed that this signature was the great evil we claimed to believe. I replied that in the current conjuncture of our affairs, the superior might have believed she was obliged to act in this way, especially because when someone asked for advice as a formality, their decision is already made. The counsels someone would give them would not help to fortify them, but they would help to offend the archbishop. She told me again that they were astonished that my sisters had signed, especially the one who was with Mère Agnès. It seemed that the consideration of her aunt alone would have prevented her from doing so. Apparently she complained to Mère Agnès, who surely suffered from having with her a person so opposed in conviction. I replied that this experience at least proved that it is not human considerations and family interests that make us resist the signature, as others have said. It is only conscience that has led us to take our distance and only the grace of God that supports us. As regards Mère Agnès, I do not doubt that she suffered much from this change in my sister; still, she didn’t live any less well with her, since I was certain that my sister had not lost through her signature the affection and respect she has for her and that she would not serve her with less affection. I do not know if the superior was trying to enter into my sentiments and console me by telling me this or if she wanted to make me speak, but she asked me again if I wasn’t really astonished by this change. I replied and told her that I was strangely moved but only mildly surprised. Given the great extremity to which we’ve been reduced, it is not surprising that some have weakened. It did not take as much to make Saint Peter renounce Jesus Christ. The methods they are using to force us to obey against our conscience would be just as good to make us renounce our faith as to convince us to sign the formulary. She had no reply to that. Unless I am mistaken, that made quite an impression on her.

68 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY I was impatient for this visit to be finished so that I could go and pour out my sorrow at the foot of the cross. I was constrained to stifle this urge as long as I could before this good mother superior. After all this I wept at my pleasure, but my sorrow did not pass away with my tears. It only left me the moment I welcomed Soeur Angélique-Thérèse arriving at midnight at the door of SainteMarie. A new light rose for me at that moment when I saw her throw herself to her knees and tell me she was the prodigal child who accused herself of her sin. She wanted to cry her entire life and Soeur Marie-Claire, who spoke to me the same way, not only finished wiping my tears but actually filled me with joy. We are not there yet and many bad hours had to pass before we arrived there. Still, God gave me a thought or rather a movement on their subject. It impressed me deeply. It was as if it was a promise of the mercy he wanted me to hope for them. Sometime afterward, as I was earnestly praying for them but with little hope—I imagined that it was practically impossible at that time for a nun of Port-Royal to rise up from such a fall—this verse of Psalm 101 came to my spirit: quoniam placuerunt serbis tuis lapides ejus en terrae ejus miserebuntur. According to my translation in the Book of Hours, it reads: “Your servants have so much zeal for its stones and its ruins that they love it right down to the dust.”68 And I thought that those who truly love the church should not content themselves with loving those of us who suffer persecution and the destruction of their convent with a firmness that is a gift of God and not their merit; they should extend their love and their compassion toward those whom such a great fall has reduced to dust, because God could also very well make stones out of this dust and out of the stones make children of Abraham. That left me with a feeling of confidence and tenderness that made me pray to God for them and for our other sisters with much more affection and much more assurance that his grace could raise them up one day. They soon told me that Soeur Candide69 had signed and that she was pushing strongly to return to Port-Royal, where she had promised she could win all of them over. I was very apprehensive that she could in fact succeed in her enterprise and that in linking up with Soeur Flavie she would succeed in bringing down the whole convent. The prayer I most commonly used in her regard during this period was: Exurge, Domine, et preveni eam et supplanta eam.70 I thought that this was praying against her and for the convent, but it was both for her and the convent, since God by his mercy so fortunately warned her and knocked her down that she confessed her fault to him and took up the defense of the community against those who oppressed it with such severity. Their excesses became 68. The Book of Hours is the popular title for L’Office de l’Eglise en latin et en français (1650), a translation of psalms and liturgical hymns by Sacy. 69. Madeleine de Sainte Candide Le Cerf gave an unreserved signature on November 15, 1664, during her exile at the Visitation convent at Saint-Denis. She retracted her signature in April 1665. 70. “Rise up, O Lord, and go before her and trip her up.”

Report on Captivity 69 her instructions and made her flee a party in which she had so clearly recognized iniquity and tyranny. How many seeds of consolation and holy joy God prepared for us while we sowed tears in a dry, desert land without a path! Who could ever believe that we would reap them within a year? Certainly, I never expected this. As far as I could see, I could only see a great unknown country, from which it seemed to me impossible for me to leave by any path for as long as I would live. Still, I began to chant heartily the justifications of God in this place of pilgrimage. His conduct seemed to me so just, so holy, and so full of mercy that I often found myself in sentiments of joy completely different from those one experiences in things where the senses play a role. They were so pure that they could be mixed with the greatest bitterness without being able to change the sweetness. I speak about them this way because one strongly feels that it is God who is giving them, and that is not a peace such as the world can give. It is independent of everything. Without anything changing outside or even inside, God makes us feel it when it pleases him. It endures in the midst of all the subjects of affliction we have outside or inside. Neither the view of my sins, nor the sadness of those of my sisters, nor the peril to which our community and friends were exposed, nor the afflictions of the church, nor my particular suffering in being abandoned alone and without exterior consolations, could take this sentiment away from me. All this sustained my peace, and my joy also endured. As for the joy, it was only fleeting; it was only the peace that maintained my heart and my spirit in a state of rest when night came after day and when the movements of a sensible consolation, which charm the problems, had passed away and had left me with the feeling of my sufferings. In the month of November, the mother superior came one morning at fivethirty to find me to tell me that she was asking me to accept not going to the choir, as I did habitually, for several days. They would take me to hear Mass in an infirmary oratory that looked out on the altar. I replied that I would do everything that pleased her and that I would be obliged to her if she always used a complete liberty in dealing with me. I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. This was the first incident that was the cause of my no longer going to the divine office. At the time I wasn’t able to learn why they had so tightly locked me in. But I’ve since learned that it was due to one of the benefactresses, called Mademoiselle Houdin, who is a relative of Soeur Geneviève de l’Incarnation.71 She had a strong desire to see me. She had entered the convent and stayed there several days; they had hidden this situation from me the entire time of her visit. I heard the Mass every day in this chapel; there is nowhere in the world where I had such devotion. It is behind the altar and one hears distinctly all the words of the priest; on the other hand, in the choir, sometimes it was only at the gospel of the Mass that I knew that it had begun, when they have priests who speak low. Moreover, this oratory is poor, with no other ornament than a great funereal tablet, poorly made on a 71. Geneviève de l’Incarnation Pineau entered Port-Royal in 1630 and died there in 1682.

70 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY poorly decorated altar. It was not more sumptuous than what we have at PortRoyal. But there was enough to excite devotion, which does not need things that are too attractive to the senses to transport one’s heart into the wounds of Jesus Christ, which I adored every day. In them I had placed in several different areas all the people I wanted to see and love in him and with him. I considered myself buried with him in the same tomb and did not find any greater consolation than seeing myself truly by my state in the rank of those whom Saint Paul describes as dead and having their life hidden in Jesus Christ with God. I saw some wonderful things in this condition and I will remember my entire life the consolation that I tasted there. I also found myself in greater freedom there than I had in the choir, because usually only the lay sister who guarded me was present. I was able to follow my devotion and perform all the ceremonies that are common at our convent; I wasn’t able to do so in the choir, where the nuns don’t perform them at Mass, except standing at the first gospel and not only at the last gospel. I couldn’t prevent myself from telling the mother superior that she had provided me with a great consolation by permitting me to go to this chapel. This took the place of a High Mass because I heard all the words distinctly. She was very happy about this and this discussion earned me the permission to go there always since that time, although I return for the second Mass in the choir on Sundays and feast days. I always heard this first Mass in the chapel, but my devotion fell lower there when they replaced a priest of Saint-Paul, who said the Mass very properly, with a chaplain they had rehired. He said the Mass with a horrifying speed, accompanied by an altar boy making the responses who took it upon himself to say only the two last words of the phrases he was supposed to say. This made me distracted with impatience, more against the priest who tolerated this than with this poor boy who thought—I’m certain—that he was very clever to have this inventive way of going more quickly. I noticed he taught this method to other altar boys, who found it difficult to imitate this mumbling; they could scarcely keep up with it, no matter how diligently they tried. One day I talked about this with the superiors, who couldn’t notice it so clearly in the choir, but they laughed about it and told me that this priest came from the army, where he had been the chaplain of some courtier. That had accustomed him to expedite his Mass; they called it a hunter’s Mass. Illic sedimus et flevimus, dum recordaremur Sion.72 There were many occasions that provided a memory of the same thing. I forgot to say that it was in the month of October, it seems to me, that my father wrote a letter to the mother superior. He asked her to show me his letter and permit me to write him three lines in my own handwriting to assure him personally about how I was doing, because he couldn’t be satisfied only by hearing from others that I was doing well when they were hiding me from everyone. The mother superior entered with this letter in her hand, showed me the front page, 72. “We sat down and wept at the memory of Zion” (Ps 136:1).

Report on Captivity 71 and asked me if I recognized this handwriting. Even my blood was moved when I saw it, because it was the first time I had seen from my prison tangible signs that my father thought about me and that he was still in the world. No painful thought occurred to me in this state, but a hundred times I had imagined that certain people had perhaps died and that they wouldn’t even tell me, out of pity, to spare me any sorrow about it. In truth, I had no assurance about the contrary. Nonetheless, I replied without showing any emotion that I knew very well the handwriting of my father. She gave me the letter to read. It consoled me both to see the signs of his goodness for me and to see his firmness, because this letter expressed alarm about how they were treating me, although it was also very civil. She told me to write the letter my father desired to give him some news about myself but nothing more. I did so and I only added two or three lines of recommendations for Bishop Henry73 and for my brother, de Luzancy.74 I gave it so that they would carry it to mother superior, but a day or two later she personally brought it back and told me she would like me to rewrite it and to omit the recommendations, because the archbishop did not wish that I should say anything about Bishop Henry or my brother. I did as she ordered me to, without saying anything to her about such an unreasonable thing. But I was not unhappy to learn by this incident some news that I strongly desired to know: I figured out immediately that this interdiction only made sense if the archbishop were quarreling with Bishop Henry, undoubtedly because someone had published his letter.75 I considered this an established fact and I thanked God for the grace that made him dare to declare himself the protector of innocence during a time when I thought everyone would be tempted to remain in silence, just like the friends of Job did. They would be appalled by the enormity of our suffering and of the state to which it had reduced us, which seemed to have no remedy. I can still see a similar letter that my father wrote to the superior two months later. She showed it to me on Christmas Day and permitted me to reply to it. This was all the consolation I had for ten months, with the exception of a short letter signed Jean Le Normand.76 I easily recognized the handwriting, although it was a little disguised; it gave me the greatest joy in the world. I wrote two words at the bottom of the page as the mother superior looked at me between her two 73. Henry Arnauld (1597–1692), the uncle of Angélique de Saint-Jean, was the bishop of Angers and a prominent defender of the Jansenists in the episcopate. 74. Charles-Henry Arnauld de Luzancy (1623–1684) had once served as a page to Richelieu but had abandoned the court to pursue life as a solitaire at Port-Royal. During this period he had been exiled to the family estate at Pomponne. 75. This refers to a public letter written by Henry Arnauld, probably with the assistance of his brother Antoine Arnauld, that defended the Port-Royal nuns against their critics. Dated April 12, 1664, the letter was widely printed and disseminated. 76. This is the pseudonym of Jean Hamon, a medical doctor and ally of Port-Royal.

72 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY eyes. That was that. But it was a great deal to discover that a friend was at liberty, because he came to seek me out. Often, I didn’t know whether they had been banished or were in prison. Moreover, to see that the friends of God thought about a poor abandoned woman who only seemed to count as one of the dead gave life back to me. VIII I return to the rest of my story. When Advent was approaching, I knew that it would be a black robe77 who would be preaching during it. I figured out and made them admit that it would be Père Nouet, about whom I had some opinions. From the beginning of my time in the convent, I asked the superior to dispense me from having to go to the sermons preached by these good Fathers. She gladly accorded the dispensation without asking me my reasons, which were not difficult to figure out, and she assured me that she didn’t want to constrain me on anything. Nonetheless, I hadn’t yet used this dispensation because up until that moment there hadn’t been any black robe who had preached there, except in some private lectures, which they hadn’t asked me to attend. So, I then asked the superior to agree that I would not go to these Advent sermons because they had this preacher. I would content myself with listening to Saint Bernard, whose sermons she had lent to me and which had been my entire spiritual dialogue. The mother superior was a little disturbed over this and she was astonished that I made this trouble about it. This priest was a very good preacher and he didn’t talk to them about disputed questions. I told her that if he wasn’t accustomed to doing so, he might think about doing so, given my situation. Even without this reason, I had another, which obliged me to not expose myself, in listening to these priests, to bring up again in my mind the memory of many things that I had tried to efface and that certain objects present to me might sometimes recall. I found that the more my soul was abandoned by its pastors, the more I was obliged to take care of my soul myself. Having nothing to fear in an affliction like ours other than an alteration in the charity I must conserve in my heart for those who are the secondary causes of the affliction, I thought myself obligated not to commit my weakness at events like this. They might give me thoughts with which I really didn’t want to trouble the repose of my solitude. I added that if she wanted to keep this problem from the community—she indicated that it would find this all very strange—I wouldn’t go at all to the choir. After all, I wasn’t going there anymore for the reason I’ve spoken about. Therefore, they couldn’t judge this as anything other than her being ordered to control me even more; that wouldn’t scandalize them. She found that the proposal was a good one and I followed it all through Advent. Locked in night and day, I didn’t leave my prison except to go hear Mass in this chapel before dawn. As a result, I ordinarily didn’t see any other human creature except 77. This is a pejorative name for the Jesuits, based on the color of their cassock.

Report on Captivity 73 my guardian, whom they changed at that time. She was still respectful toward my solitude because she never dared to open her mouth, and we only made deep bows toward each other. I must explain that I believed myself completely obligated to act in the way I did concerning the sermons of these black robes. The reason I gave was a true one—not that I was actually tempted by resentment and bitterness against them, because thanks to God’s grace, I was not at all troubled by these emotions, although I did have many others. But I was suspicious of myself and feared to expose myself to all this, because I thought it would be more dangerous for me than for someone else if I started to give way to these feelings. I almost have no memory of them in our current affair. There was nothing more to consider than the archbishop, the idea of whom filled my imagination. I no longer had business with anyone else except him and I had not yet sensed the hostility of his conduct. I focused rather on considering him as a minister of God, who by his actions did things for the benefit of our convent that a holier bishop would not have been able to do. I saw that in God’s plan this was completely useful for most of us and quite necessary for me. As a result, I couldn’t wish him any evil, because I believed that God had been involved in this affair. I would have sincerely wished that his reward—not from the evil he has done to us but from the good he has provided us—would be graces greater than those he perhaps is planning himself as the fruit of all the labors he is undertaking to destroy in Port-Royal what God has built up. During this time, when I no longer left to assist at services on Sundays or feast days, I made a church out of my prison. I chanted nearly the entire divine office alone those days at our usual times. I chanted the same thing that the choir chanted at High Masses, when I knew the music well; at least, I sang the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. I followed in spirit everything the priest said during the sacrifice, because they had lent me a missal. The time I gave to hearing the High Mass in this way went at least an hour and a half and so there was not time for me to be bored. My entire morning was as full as if I were following the community rule back in our convent. Similarly, I made processions alone around our room as I held a cross in my hand and chanted what was supposed to be said. I even used holy water on Sundays. I sprinkled it all around the room as I sang Asperges me. My intention in this sprinkling was to chase away the malicious spirits whose tempting power I apprehended everywhere. Moreover, I had no one else to help me to defend myself. I threw some holy water on my bed to chase away the spirit of laziness, on the table where I eat against delicacy, in the aisle that served as my oratory to remove distraction, at my workstation to preserve me from daydreaming and from attachment to my needlework, but I especially used it at the door of my room. I was afraid that the spirit of seduction would enter by it along with those who tried to bring it in or at least to make my impatience

74 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY and indiscretion commit some faults when they came to interrupt my solitude by some visit. On the great feasts, where we must chant matins, I rose, when I could wake myself up, sometimes at midnight or at one or two. I chanted as much of matins as I could, because I did not have enough voice to chant all the psalms. Usually I contented myself with chanting the Venite, the hymn, the antiphons, and the responses that I knew. On the feasts when it was required, I chanted Lauds, the Te Deum, the antiphons, the hymn, and the Benedictus, if I was able to. Concerning this, I would like you to know how beautiful and devotional it is to find oneself alone in the middle of the night to bless God in prison, singing his praises without being heard by anyone except him and without hearing anything except a deep silence in the middle of this great city. One only stops hearing noise here around this late hour because the carriages run until after eleven o’clock. This time has something more beautiful and more ravishing than one can say. But after all this, I must confess my laziness because there were days when sleep so weakened me that when I said my office at night I no longer had any devotion, even though the subject of prayer was beautiful and even though I made every exertion to overcome the desire to sleep. This truly mortified me. This caused me to rise only at three-thirty in the morning to try to have more freedom of mind and of attention. I am obligated to these good nuns for having given me the means to be able to make my devotions at night because they had given me a tinder-lighter and had taught me how to use it. But this also happened to be for me a good exercise in patience because I was not very agile in using it. There were times when I tried for half an hour to make it light and felt I couldn’t try anymore. This happened when the wick was too worn down. I was too ashamed to bother them too often to ask for help. There’s nothing easier for practicing the vow of poverty we have taken than being made a poor stranger and a complete prisoner, removed from all communication, who can neither seek nor possess things you sometimes find in the trash and that could be very helpful. I saved the smallest strips of rag to make a wick out of them; when they gave me some matches I was indebted to them as if they had given me a great present. It wasn’t that they refused me; on the contrary, they urged me to ask anything from them. But beyond my lack of inclination to do so, I thought it was useful for me to enrich myself as much as possible from the treasures of poverty, whose key I held since my arrival there. The charity of Port-Royal had gone too much beyond basic needs and my solitude provided the opportunity to be able to pass up many things that you realize are superfluous only when you’ve had the experience they are not necessary, because you easily do without them when you don’t have them and you don’t dare ask for them. In the midst of all these evils, I clearly detected all these goods and all these benefits and, when God sometimes pushed me to consider the happiness of my state, I couldn’t be content with the acts of thanksgiving I found myself obligated

Report on Captivity 75 to render him. Leaving apart nature, which understands nothing concerning the things of God, faith made me see all sorts of goods, separated from all sorts of evils, in the condition to which he had reduced me. My report would become too vulgar if I wanted to explain everything I saw about this situation and all the circumstances that had made me admire the providence of God. It had taken me away from all the occasions of weakness to make me do penance for my past faults and the bad habits that remained in me. It had placed me in solitude, where everything was favorable to me, because everything contributed to humiliate me, to separate me from creatures, to attach me to God, to deprive me of all sensible consolation, and to train me in poverty and penance. All this happened without exposing me to practically any temptation, except those that are inseparable from our infirmity. The one I had to fear the most, which would have been the seduction that the devil had as his aim in this entire affair, was for me the easiest to conquer, because God had not permitted our enemies to use strong weapons. The arguments used by these good nuns to change my convictions were actually quite strong in strengthening me in the love of the truth, which seems all the more solid when it is opposed by what is weaker. The conduct of the archbishop left me in such a terrible abandonment that he never was concerned, during those ten months, to learn whether I still had faith or hope. He had left my soul as abandoned as it would have been in the midst of Turkey. This treatment helped to dispel the illusion the soul sometimes has when it is so blinded by an all-holy authority that it is led to believe that those who are clothed with this authority will only use it with justice and charity and that, when they are angry, they do not sin, because they are only seeking the good and the beneficial for their children, against whom they show irritation only to correct them. Madame de Rantzau occasionally justified the conduct of the archbishop when she talked with me, but I told her once, a little before I left the convent, that it would be difficult to compare this conduct with that of a father or of a doctor. The former shows affection and the second discretion; if the doctor removes some bread from a sick person, it is in order to give the patient a type of food better proportioned to the patient’s illness and weakness until the patient feels stronger. But to abandon souls as the archbishop has done—to leave them without sacraments, without direction, without consolation—is to no longer act as a pastor or doctor. But I didn’t go further; she understood well enough. However, I often placed this severity of conduct in the rank of graces God gave me, for the reason I just said, and also because it freed me from all the irritating and useless visits they would have obliged me to undergo if they had taken another course of action: appearing to be zealous for my welfare and conversion. So, it seemed to me that I had absolutely nothing to do except to consent to all that God was doing for me. There is nothing I savored more deeply than this disposition, which says concerning everything, Etiam, Domine, like the Canaanite woman and the angel of Saint John

76 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY in the Apocalypse.78 I wrote those two words in large letters and attached them to my crucifix, so that when I said them or only looked at them with a heartfelt assent, it seemed to me that I was adoring God in everything that is, in everything he wants, and in everything he does and will do in time and eternity. The result was that I found myself so happy that I no longer had any desire except that God would not abandon me. Sometimes I could not prevent myself from showing the benefits of my state. I remember that on the Feast of All Saints one of the nuns came to see me. She was weeping about the state I was in and about being separated from the community on this great feast. She clearly saw that I was very moved by this. But I could not stop myself from telling her that although she saw my tears, I did not want her to think that they were contrary to the faith I had in the gospel. At the morning Mass when I heard the gospel read, I appreciated the fact that everyone thought that I was probably very unhappy, although I don’t consider anyone happier than myself, if I truly profit from my state. It gives me a share of this happiness that this gospel speaks about: in poverty, in gentleness, in tears, in love of justice, in mercy toward those who make us suffer, in zeal to procure God’s peace for those who disturb our own peace, in purity of heart acquired by penance, and in suffering persecution for the sake of justice. She was kind enough not to attempt to contradict me, but she smiled at the fact that I could be capable of having such consolation. IX I am writing without order and without continuity. I haven’t finished describing my usual activities. I’ve been told to write them down in particular. I’ve said that in the morning there was no remaining time for me on Sundays and feasts once I had done my reading and my prayers. After dinner—which was longer there because they take dinner beginning at ten o’clock—I read some sermons of Saint Bernard. I made some small extracts from them. When all the nuns were in choir during vespers and the sermon—because I’m speaking of the Advent season—I wrote down something given to me by God, or some truth that moved me, or some passage of Scripture on which I had some thoughts. I thought it would be helpful to reread them. But I was so apprehensive about being taken by surprise or not being able to hide these papers and having them fall into their hands by accident that I rarely continued doing this. Outside of the work they assigned me in making reliquaries, writing, and some other things, I had enough activities to fill the time remaining to me on Sundays, feasts, and other days. Being always closed in, I did no exercise. I feared that in the long term that would harm me, so I forced myself every evening to walk around my room, which was rather large. I did it as a kind of litany procession, using the names of all sisters at the Champs and in Paris, of the novices and postulants outside, of all 78. “Yes, it is so, Lord” (Mt 15:27; Rev 16:7).

Report on Captivity 77 our friends, and generally of all those for whom I thought had a special obligation to pray. I offered them all to God, one after the other, as I said to each one Miserere ejus.79 I added other prayers, like the psalms, which I chose according to my devotion. This occupied all the time of my walk, which lasted at least three quarters of an hour. All winter I never lighted my lamp at that time, because I walked well enough without light; moreover, I managed to use this time to make some small cords, which I need for the church cinctures they made me make. The nun who had charge of me and who came often enough at this time didn’t understand why she found me with my knitting needle at my side and actually working inside a space where you could see neither heaven nor earth. She thought it was wrong that someone had not brought me a candle, but I told her that I could have received a good light from the wick I had but that it wasn’t necessary to have it either for this small needlework or for taking a walk or for praying to God. So I did these three things all at one time in great time. These works didn’t demand more mental attention than they did eyesight. That is why they didn’t distract me from prayer. I prescribed for myself other small exercises of piety, to use everything to help. I especially used the intercession of saints in a moment when I was deprived of all human assistance. Every month I take as my special protector one of the holy martyrs commemorated on the twenty-sixth day of that month, because I marked the twenty-sixth of August as the beginning of my captivity. In every month this day was special for me; on it I always chanted the Te Deum in thanksgiving for all the goods God wanted to give us by such a blessed persecution. Every Tuesday, I also made a small commemoration because it was the day of our abduction. I said the antiphon Benedictio et claritas,80 even in my greatest affliction. Since the time when God consoled me, I didn’t have any moment when I didn’t recognize that this affliction was a great mercy of God. All of my anxieties only came from my fear of not being able to use it well and not persevering until the end. Every day, that gave me a particular devotion to adore the last breath of Jesus Christ on the cross, just as we adore all of his movements and all of his actions, because it seemed to me that it was by this last moment of his life that he had especially merited for us the grace of perseverance until the final breath. I knew and I even felt that our weakness is so extreme that there is no moment until death when we might not fail to fulfill our best resolutions and let the Holy Spirit be extinguished. This is especially true in an age when faith and charity are exposed to such strong attacks and such subtle temptations. Before each hour of the divine office, I made an invocation to the Holy Trinity, composed as I understood it because I didn’t know more of the Latin text. It was sufficient that it was an orthodox prayer, being extracted from Saint Paul, 79. “Have mercy on her.” 80. “Blessing, splendor, praise, honor, and power to our God, forever and ever” (Rv 7:12).

78 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY and proper for my needs. Mère Agnès told me to put down everything here, so I am doing this by obedience. Here it is: Pater misericordiarum et Deus totius consolationis, qui dilexisti nos et deisti nobis consolationem aeternam et spem bonuam in gratia, miserere nobis; Jesu, bone pastor, apostole et pontifex confessionis nostrae, adjuva nos et libera nos propter nomen tuum; Spiritus veritatis, Paraclite, unction docens nos de omnibus, ora in nobis, adjuva infirmitatem nostrum; Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, ad quem suspirat anima mea die ac nocte, aspice in nos et miserere nostri.81 Next, I invoked the Holy Virgin, the holy angels, and one of the orders of saints, whom I had distributed among the hours of the divine office. There were Saints Peter and Paul, the first to obtain a spirit of salutary compunction for our sisters who had fallen and the second because he was the saint of the year to whom I had commended our vessel, so that he would obtain from God the salvation of all the souls aboard, even when the boat had to perish. Then I added the saint I had chosen for that month and in general the saints for each day I saw in the martyrology—the mother superiors had very much wanted to lend me one of them for my consolation—so much so that we must attribute to their prayers and to the prayers of all the friends of God who offered me to him the grace he gave me not to abandon myself to my own fragility. I felt myself so capable of doing so, that is to say, of falling into the darkness like others who had weakened. One of my concerns was that our friends would not have enough fear for me and that, under the pretext of believing me better educated than others, they wouldn’t think that I was just as weak as anyone else. Perhaps because of just that, God might want to humble them through me; moreover, he had enough just reasons to punish me by abandoning me. On the other hand, I hoped he would not permit this, because my fall might cause too much scandal among our sisters. Since our affair was his cause, he would want to glorify himself through us and glorify his grace by preventing us from being conquered in a struggle we entered only by the hope we have in grace and by the necessity of the commands of his providence. These are more or less my small extraordinary devotions. I strongly felt that the time had come when we will adore God in every place in spirit and in truth. He has not limited his grace to the temple walls, because I find myself usually more recollected in chanting in the walking space around my bed, which served as my oratory, than I was sometimes in their choir. Even more, I shouldn’t forget to say that my tiny church was dedicated and consecrated by the relics of the martyrs that rested there for several weeks. This occurred when Madame de Rantzau realized that I would clearly know how to decorate a case she was having made to enclose a very beautiful relic, namely an entire bone of the thigh of Saint Victoria, a martyr. Cardinal Albizzi,82 who is one of her friends, had given this to her as 81. Composite prayer of passages drawn from Saint Paul’s epistles. 82. Francesco Cadinal Albizzi (1591–1684) worked in the Holy Office at the Vatican and was involved in the various condemnations concerning the Augustinus.

Report on Captivity 79 a present a short while ago and the Legate had brought it to her. She explained her project to me and I felt myself very honored that she would want to give me such holy employment. In order to gratify me, I believe, she brought this relic to me and another one, which is taken from the side of one of the holy martyrs of Montmartre. She left them with me for five or six weeks, because the case for them was not yet made. I personally admired how she could align this conduct with the opinions they had demonstrated they held about us. When it was a question of talking about my alleged disobedience, they clearly told me that they believed me to be in a state of mortal sin. Still, they clearly wanted to throw sacred things to the dogs and to make me the guardian of their relics, in order to honor me alone rather than their entire community. But I didn’t say what I thought about this. Speaking about it in a different way, I once said to Madame de Rantzau that I thought she gave me this grace because she knew that the prisons are the temples of the martyrs, because they are the first ones who consecrated the temples. That is why undoubtedly she didn’t judge that their relics had been unworthily placed in this room. She received that calmly enough, but she didn’t say anything about it. Clearly, as this entire affair is irregular, even those who act in it with the greatest zeal do not know with what measure they should act and they often contradict themselves in what they say and what they do. X At the beginning of Advent, I was perplexed as to whether I should write to the archbishop concerning Holy Communion at Christmas. In my last letter, I was almost committed not to petition him anymore and to be satisfied that he knew what I desired. This caused me to develop the plan of writing a letter to the convent superior—I didn’t doubt she would send it to him—to state the reasons that made me dare to petition the archbishop further. The principal reason was the little credence he gave to everything I could say to reassure him that I was prevented from obeying him only by true motives of conscience and not by any other consideration. I haven’t retained a copy of this letter and I no longer recall what I said, but the mother superior responded to me by this letter, which has remained with me: “Dear Sister, I am waiting for the archbishop’s arrival one day or another. If some scruple prevents you from obeying—it might spring from a conscience that is more erroneous rather than correct or even reasonable—should you be astonished that the archbishop does not want to give you the freedom to commit a sacrilege, by permitting you to approach the holy sacraments in the state of formal resistance to the one who has the power to command you on behalf of God? Who should have the power to remove our perplexity other than those who hold the keys of knowledge and who are placed in the position where they make known the will of God to us? I am going to receive Holy Communion on your behalf and

80 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY make new petitions to Our Lord so that he will enlighten you with the pure lights of his Holy Spirit, embracing you with the ardent flames of his charity.” I had no more news about this until Christmas Day after the last Mass. The mother superior told me that the archbishop had come the preceding evening, after leaving Notre Dame, but it was so late that he only stayed a moment. He didn’t say anything about me except that, since I hadn’t changed my position, he couldn’t change either. She added that she hadn’t hurried to tell me this response, which would hurt me. I told her that I had understood it well enough by her silence, that I adored God in all this action, and that I thought I had communed with her on this great feast, since Jesus Christ was not attached to only one method for communicating his grace. Those who participated more in his annihilation and in his humiliation could console themselves that they had a greater part in the mystery of this feast. She accepted all this with goodness and compassion, because my tears didn’t stop making it apparent that I was not insensitive to such a deprivation. I didn’t say anything more nor did I hear anything more said about it until the Thursday of the second week of Lent. In saying my office of matins, I thought that I should take the subject of the gospel of poor Lazarus in order to ask for some scraps from a rich man who would not refuse to give them to the dogs and hold them back from the children of God. So I immediately wrote a letter. In giving it to the mother superior, I told her that I was careful to contact the archbishop early since he would have so many things to think about during the last weeks of Lent that he wouldn’t think about me. Here is the letter. “Monseigneur, being in doubt whether I should continue the silence I’ve held in the past months or I should use the privilege of the poor who have the freedom to ask something without someone being offended by their boldness, I just decided by a reading of the gospel today to take a middle road between the two. I am prostrating myself before you like Lazarus did at the door of the rich man. He didn’t speak; his misery spoke for him. Monseigneur, my state of necessity does enough begging for your compassion without it being necessary to tell you what are the needs of a person to whom you have denied for six months the scraps that fall under your table—scraps you wouldn’t even refuse a dog. Undoubtedly, there will be a great number of those who haven’t committed just one crime but who fall again every day into the same crimes, but who will not be chased away from the holy table on the approaching feast. Monseigneur, will it be said that we deny bread to children—the fear of offending God does not make anyone lose this quality—and that they merit this rigorous treatment only because they are weak on a point of belief that does not belong to the faith on which our salvation depends? You know well enough, Monseigneur, that this is what prevents me from giving the testimony of assent they demand of me. We want this testimony to be sincere and to flow from a true consent of the heart.

Report on Captivity 81 Otherwise, you would find it quite evil, as you have had the honor of telling us it would be if we gave a signature by the hand that was contrary to the disposition of the mind. Consequently, Monseigneur, this wouldn’t be obeying you. On the contrary, it would be doing what you forbid and what you condemn if we acted in this way. This is why I do not understand just where the crime is for which I’ve been separated from the sacraments for such a long time. They define it as formal disobedience, but truly, Monseigneur, no matter what research I do, I cannot figure out where this disobedience could be, since it seems to me that you are commanding nothing that I could disobey. On the one hand, you forbid us to sign with any disguise and without having in our heart belief in the fact we are signing on to. On the other hand, I don’t see in your pastoral letter that you are commanding belief in a matter of fact, because this sort of belief cannot be commanded, since it would not be a movement of free will. We can submit when we want to authority, but it must be an assent of the mind, which can only agree to the truth of something when it appears to the mind in the things one proposes to it for belief. Monseigneur, the church has too much a sense of justice to command impossible things. It seems to me that I am not disobeying in admitting my impuissance and begging very humbly that it serve as an excuse for why I cannot do what others who do not have the same obstacle do without difficulty. If they still want it to be a sin to have doubts in the mind one cannot vanquish on a subject that does not belong to the faith, then at least it will be a sin of weakness and ignorance. In addition, Monseigneur, where can you find among human beings someone who is without sin of this sort and is willing to throw the first stone against us? Monseigneur, I thought I owed it in conscience to give this small clarification, because I see by the opinions of the people who are with me that they do not do justice in the judgment they’ve made about us. In failing to conceive clearly the nature of our affair, they take for a formal resistance to your authority what is only an insurmountable impuissance, since there is not enough light to persuade our mind and we don’t have such a little fear of God to betray our conscience by giving a public signature, which is supposed to be the external sign of a sincere assent, which is not in our heart. Moreover, Monseigneur, I am still in the place where I first put myself: the poor man of the gospel who wished for scraps and did not ask for them. God hears the desire of the poor. Monseigneur, I assure you that mine is not unknown to you. Before your eyes you have the one to whom you can extend mercy in order to obtain the mercy of God. As for me, I am convinced that whatever happens, it is less of a misfortune to be reduced even to suffering that one refuses us the scraps that fall from the table of Jesus Christ than to be exposed by offending him to not being able for all eternity to have a drop of water to soften the fire of our torment. By God’s grace I have a very firm faith in this truth. It consoles me and supports me in my affliction, since I have no other assistance. This very abandonment where I find myself, one that makes me truly

82 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY poor, is what gives me a greater hope that God will take care of me in whatever way that might be. Monseigneur, I do not despair that you will have for us the sentiments that are natural to the tenderness of a father and the solicitude of a pastor who wants to preserve, not lose, for Jesus Christ the souls he has undertaken to direct. Monseigneur, you would not know how to forget that I have the honor of being among this number and that I maintain with respect, in all my disgraces, the quality which makes me, Monseigneur, yours, etc.” Five or six days after this letter, Madame de Rantzau, who was ill, sent me a letter by one of the nuns. She didn’t tell me anything except that she asked me to read it. It was a collection of some passages of Scripture and of the church fathers that they alleged proved the obedience we owe to the judgments of the church and of our superiors in all things. At the end, they made an application of all this to our affair and a parallel between the conduct of the disciples of Cornelius and that of the Donatists,83 with a particular judgment concerning the nuns of Port-Royal. I have always saved this writing, hoping to carry it away if I ever left, but as my departure was a sudden one, I didn’t have the time to take anything and they removed it from my writing desk when they sent me away. I thought that this writing was again from the archbishop, who had it given to me in an underhanded way to prepare me for the refusal of communion at Easter and for the excommunication I imagined he would declare in due form, based on this text. As I thought I wouldn’t be able to see Madame de Rantzau, I thought that I wouldn’t do anything wrong if I wrote to her and that perhaps she would better understand my reasoning concerning this subject. So, I wrote her the letter that I am going to place here, because it reveals what the text was to which she replied. “Beloved Mother, I have read with attention and after having invoked the Holy Spirit the small writing someone gave me this morning on your behalf. It had on my mind the effect of a sad prediction, which taught me only too well what I must prepare myself for. For consolation God permitted that I recited this morning some passages from the Epistle to the Romans, where Saint Paul assures us that nothing created is capable of separating us from the charity of Christ, not even angels or principalities or powers or virtues.84 Therefore, it is only sin that can make us fall into this misfortune and since we could commit this by ignorance as well as by malice, I have no doubt that I am strictly obliged to listen respectfully to what someone tells me in order to instruct me. Since it concerns the duty of conscience in this case, what has the authority of law is more important than examples, which are only properly used to support a truth already established and which are rarely similar enough in all circumstances to be able to use them 83. The Donatists were a heretical movement in North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries. Moral rigorists, the Donatists rejected reconciliation of Christians who had apostatized during the Roman persecutions. They insisted on strict conditions for the reception of the sacraments. 84. See Rom 8:35.

Report on Captivity 83 to make a completely fair comparison. That is why I dwelt more on four passages of Deuteronomy, Saint Paul, and the Gospel, which are truly the law of God on which he has commanded us to meditate night and day. This has the particular merit of not being disproportionate to the intelligence of unlearned people, as so many other sciences are. On the contrary, it gives light and wisdom to infants. “Dearest Mother, I should tell you first that everything that only goes to prove that we owe obedience and submission to the ministers of Jesus Christ and of the church is superfluous for me, because it’s enough to be a Christian, as I am thanks to God’s grace, to be ready to give one’s blood for this truth as for all the other points of belief of the church. So, it’s not a question here of knowing whether we should obey the commands of superiors; rather, it’s whether we are absolutely obligated to believe and to approve them on every subject, for example, by subscribing to all the judgments they deliver on matters of fact of which we have no knowledge, that are still being contested, and that touch the reputation of one’s neighbor on a very important point. I say that it is not a question of this situation, because it has been constantly said that unless we have in our heart this disposition of submission and assent concerning the fact contained in the formulary, the archbishop is not commanding us to sign. On the contrary, he condemns such a signing, because he does not want to demand a lie. He wants a sincere, heartfelt acquiescence from those whom he has ordered the signature. “Of the four passages of Scripture cited in this text, there is only Deuteronomy that seems to establish this obligation and that is why I have pondered it for a long time.85 Without getting involved in explaining it, which is not my role, I am convinced by a decisive experience that it needs an explanation from the Holy Spirit who speaks in the heart and who instructs souls. Without this, the letter of the text kills. The letter of this order killed the Son of God. All the people of the Jews, who had demanded and pursued his death with such furor, would only have been committing an act of justice and obedience if it had been under the obligation of the death penalty to acquiesce to the judgment of the sovereign pontiff who had solemnly condemned him in the assembly of all the priests, scribes, Pharisees, and the elders of the people, based on his own confession, and having heard all the witnesses—who didn’t agree with each other, which made it appear that the accusation was doubtful. This is just the type of case dealt with in the order of Deuteronomy. Moreover, it is certain that this people was not prejudiced by any ill will toward Jesus Christ; it was only the authority of these officials that stirred up their spirit, as the Gospel expressly indicates. This is enough to prove 85. “You will do everything you will be told to do by those who are governing in the place the Lord has chosen and follow everything they will teach you according to his law. You will follow their counsel without deviation. Whoever are so proud as to refuse to obey the command of the pontiff, who during this time will be the minister of the Lord your God, or the verdict of the judge, will be put to death. Thus, you will remove evil from the midst of Israel” (Dt 17:10–12).

84 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to me that this law must have exceptions and that it does not give the high priest, even a prophet like Caiaphas, any infallibility in his judgments that would oblige someone to approve them without discernment. “The passage of the last chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews86 only proves an obligation concerning which, as I’ve already said, I don’t need any persuasion, since I possess it fully: the obedience and submission we owe to prelates who have the charge to supervise us and to preserve the flock of which they must render an account. It is only right to hope that in the gentleness of their conduct they would imitate the discretion of the holy patriarch, who didn’t want to push too hard his infants and his flock to walk, because he feared to make them die all in one day. But he says nothing that concerns the particular question we are dealing with. “As for the passage from the Epistle to the Romans,87 I wouldn’t have thought that they would have applied it to this subject, because resisting legitimate power is something very different from excusing oneself from believing or from doing something it orders. Without a doubt, I believe that I would merit this condemnation that Saint Paul threatens not only if I resisted this power but also if I doubted the power of the head of the church and that of all the bishops, who are clothed in the authority of Jesus Christ. You cannot contemn their power without contemning his. But thanks to God, I feel infinitely removed from such a criminal disposition, in which schism truly consists. I revere with a very deep submission this divine authority, which is passed by a continual succession from the apostles to whom Jesus Christ had conferred it to the bishops who succeeded them and who are the depositaries of grace and truth, according to the terms of the passage from Saint Irenaeus, cited in the text. But I would have so little understood by the words of the Epistle to the Romans that resisting power consisted even in resisting one of its commands for reasons of justice or necessity. It is very clear that in this passage Saint Paul is talking principally about the secular power. He says it doesn’t bear the sword without cause and that the prince is the minister of God to execute the vengeance of his anger on those who do evil and that it is in this quality that we pay him tribute. Now, we know what happened when pagan princes and emperors and persecutors of the church promulgated every day ordinances and edicts against the Christian religion. The Christians considered it a glory to denounce them publicly and to resist them until death. Did they in this way resist legitimate power and consequently the order of God against the precept given here by Saint Paul? Obviously not; on the contrary, they submitted to the power that was taking away their lives but not to the injustice that wanted to steal their faith. As a natural consequence of this example, it is easy to clarify that someone 86. “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They are the ones who keep vigil for the good of your souls and must render an account of them” (Heb 13:17). 87. “Whosoever opposes the authorities resists the order of God. Those who resist draw down condemnation on themselves” (Rom 13:2).

Report on Captivity 85 might be at the same time very submissive to the power of the church and yet might not believe or obey something the church had determined on a human matter, where she doesn’t claim a divine infallibility incapable of error. “Taken from the eighteenth chapter of Saint Matthew,88 the fourth authority would be the strongest of all—because it came from the mouth of truth itself—if it came to some conclusion about our subject. It might have done so if it had said in general and without application to a particular case that whoever does not listen to the church must be considered a pagan and an infidel. But this is what it didn’t do. Rather, it seems to me that the principal lesson it wanted to give in this passage was a rule of patience and kindness that must accompany the justice of the church, which only removes from its body those members who are already deprived of the spirit that animates it, which is the spirit of charity. It only even arrives at this extreme point after having tried all the softer methods. In this passage it’s a question of a man who has offended his brother and who stubbornly persists in a voluntary hatred, where he adds contempt of the church’s judgments to his impertinence. Who can doubt that such a man in this state and who has violated all the law—because it is all contained in the precept of charity—is not separated from God and from the communion of saints? It seems that all we can infer from the conduct that Jesus Christ prescribed that we should have toward such a person is that he doesn’t want us to use an impatient severity, even if it is just, in punishing those who sin as soon as they fall; on the contrary, we must give a place to penance through the suspension of punishments by using the softer means that might lead them back to their duty. This seems even better, given its link with the parable that precedes this passage: that of the lost sheep, which Jesus Christ ends by saying that it is the will of his Father that none of these small ones should be lost. The passage under discussion follows immediately afterward. It doesn’t seem to be a teaching about the need of the church to add something of itself to the plan of God, who does not want the small and the weak to perish. “To make the authority of this passage have some weight against us, it would be necessary that the Gospel supposed someone in the state we are in: someone who bears no hatred in his or her heart, someone who has injured no one but who fears injuring the reputation of the neighbor, someone who on account of this fear asks to be excused from taking part in a judgment of the church on a matter of which he or she has no knowledge and which has caused a great deal of disagreement. After this consideration, would it be possible to conclude that such a different disposition merits a similar treatment? Could one conclude that it was the will of the celestial Father that the church abandon a child full of life, whose only fault is its weakness and smallness, that the church prevent it from being able to follow the church wherever she goes and take part in what she does? 88. “Whoever does not listen to the church should be treated by you as you would treat a pagan or a publican” (Mt 18:17).

86 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY “Dearest Mother, you can see clearly that these authorities are not enough to reassure my conscience, because they do not provide enough clarification to convince me of two things that would be conclusive: first, that the church can never err in these sorts of judgment concerning facts and that, consequently, since these judgments are always indubitable, we are always obliged to assent to them; second, that when a superior obliges an inferior to take part in some injustice, against the light of the inferior’s own conscience but only by way of submission, this inferior has nothing to fear from God’s judgment because the superior alone will answer for the inferior. If there is some very clear authority in the Old and New Testament and in sacred tradition that proves these two points, I need to be instructed where it is. In a matter where we risk losing God forever, it would be oddly temerarious to believe something in air without knowing on what this belief is founded. “As for the rest of the text, it’s not up to me to reply to the examples that it describes. People must be educated in ecclesiastical history to examine their particular circumstances and to judge the similarities and differences they have with our current affair, in order to be able to gain some benefit from them. Our part is not science; rather, it is piety, which obliges us to fear God and to keep his commandments. The only thing I knew in general about this example of Saint Augustine’s attitude toward the Donatists is that he judged it was pointless to teach people about the matter of fact in question. He condemned the Donatists who did so as committing a capital sin. Concerning this, Saint Augustine asked them for what reason they did this. Did they imagine that the faithful could not be innocent? Did they believe the bishops who had condemned Cecilian were guilty, given the fact that to be innocent, it’s sufficient for someone not to consent to the evil one knows and not to give a temerarious judgment about someone who doesn’t know it. This is what I can take from this example that would apply to us. The personal conduct of Saint Augustine in this affair cannot give us a good lesson, because there are too many differences between the first rank he enjoys in the church and the last rank we hold. We couldn’t conclude from this that we are obliged as he was to take part in a judgment the church rendered on a matter whose knowledge is not necessary for us and of which our ignorance cannot do us harm. Moreover, I doubt this example could indicate many things objectionable about us because its relationship to us is not similar enough to permit a full comparison. A fact whose evidence was nearly erased more than a hundred years ago does not have enough resemblance to a fact in our own day, whose proof must be found in a book that subsists and that is found in the hands of everyone. A movement committed for more than an entire century to heresy and schism merits a different treatment than that given to a Catholic bishop who dies in the communion of the church and in the odor of sanctity. From the beginning, that is why I’ve said that these kinds of examples are helpful only after one has established

Report on Captivity 87 what the law is in this case. Without that, they don’t give sufficiently firm support to provide one with real assurance of one’s salvation. It’s the same problem with the passage from Saint Bernard at the conclusion of the text. It only resembles our situation by the names of the bishop of Paris and of the God of paradise, with whom we must deal.89 It is actually a witness that we are attempting in no way to attack the rights of our archbishop, as the then king of France did, and that we have submitted perfectly to his authority. We revere in his person the power of Jesus Christ. For this reason, following the thought of Saint Bernard himself, we are less afraid of our pastor’s staff than we are of the cruel tooth of the wolf, since we judge that there is less danger of being beaten by his hand than there is of throwing ourselves into the danger of losing our salvation by extinguishing the Holy Spirit and by acting against our own conscience. Beloved Mother, I am not really certain if I have done well or poorly to give you once and for all this explanation of my opinions on the subject of the text that you wanted me to read. Perhaps it would have been better for me always to put my strength in silence and hope. Still, what I had in mind was to prove to you that it’s not because of some blind and opinionated stubbornness—which wouldn’t want to listen to anything—that I still remain in my fears; rather, this state arises from a true qualm of conscience, because in all the arguments they have given me so far, I still don’t see—like the dove on the arch—where I can place my foot in security. Without this assurance, I don’t think I’m obligated to risk my soul even if I were to gain the entire world. All wise people use this piece of advice in conducting their business; when they see they are incapable of avoiding one of two evils, they always choose the lesser. Surely, there is less peril in our committing a fault by ignorance—if it is a fault—in not yielding to something we don’t think we are obliged to accept than in knowingly committing a sin against our conscience and our light. If you think that we have nothing to fear in relying on the direction of a pastor who must answer to God for all his sheep, we should also be permitted to confide ourselves to the great mercy of the prince of pastors, who has given up his life for us. We are confident that he sympathizes with our ignorance and our infirmities. Up until now we are less confident that our superiors have been so clearly answering to God through the obedience we owe them that we would have nothing to answer for in the evil we might commit through an act of submission. Dearest Mother, please excuse me for once for the length and importunity of my response. Please show only compassion for the pain I am suffering in this unfortunate state of necessity, to which the continuation of this long affair has reduced us. I hope that God will deliver us from this situation through whatever means he chooses, because he never abandons those who place their confidence in him. I have no problem in 89. During a dispute between King Louis le Gros and Etienne, bishop of Paris, in 1127, Saint Bernard defended the bishop. He insisted that the bishop must be respected as God’s spokesman for the faithful of Paris.

88 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY signing this letter, but I don’t believe that it’s necessary to do so. Without that, you know, dearest Mother, I remain your humble servant.” I wrote this letter in the morning. I waited for the opportunity for someone to come to whom I could give the letter to carry it to Madame de Rantzau, but she came herself to see me after dinner. I told her that I had written her a long letter, when I believed that I wouldn’t have the honor so soon of speaking with her, but that since I was now able to do so, I wouldn’t give it to her. Still, she strongly urged me to do so. She did this with a certain pleasant insistence that made me judge she wanted it too much and that she wanted to profit from it. As for myself, who avoided nothing so much as being talked about and giving the opportunity to dispute with me and make me give a response, I thought I might attract replies and visits if I left behind something in writing. That is why I didn’t give it to her and contented myself with telling her orally what I thought about her text. She told me that it came from her and that the archbishop had nothing to do with it. In fact, the mother prioress of Paris90 told me this: that someone had told her at Montorgueil that Madame de Rantzau had intently consulted Monsieur Péan91 about me so that she could be informed about the controversy about Jansenism, where she is not as well-informed as she was about Lutheranism, and that she had him make the text in order to persuade me. I don’t know if the text I had came from him. It’s practically only a collection, as I’ve said, and the little bit of argument at the end was very weak. Still, it caused me a great deal of concern because of the fear I had that it might be used to seduce one of our sisters who lacking instruction might be blinded by the sorts of examples and authorities with which they would provide her. This was also the reason I feared to leave anything written. I feared that someone might give it to people who also would like to write something. In fact, I wasn’t thinking about the subject of another text to which I subsequently give a response in a meeting. I had copied for mother superior a passage from the seventh letter of Saint Bernard.92 It says that there is no more frivolous excuse than alleged obedience to our superior when we are convinced we have committed a transgression against the law of God. Unless there’s been a loss of reason, no one can say that it could be better to dare to prefer the commandment of a human being to the ordinance of God, no matter what eminence the person making the command might have. To this I added a short reflection of four or 90. Marie-Dorothée de l’Incarnation Le Conte entered Port-Royal in 1625 and was named prioress of Port-Royal de Paris in 1661. During the crisis of the signature, she was exiled to the Visitation convent on the Rue Montorgueil. 91. François Péan de la Crouillardière (1603–1688) was a canon at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and a prolific critic of the Jansenists. 92. Addressed to a monk, Adam, the letter concerns the monk’s departure from his monastery out of obedience to the command of his superior.

Report on Captivity 89 five lines to the effect that Saint Bernard had taken the same vow of obedience as did his daughters, that he knew its obligation by interior light and by practice, and that, nonetheless, it was this sort of obedience he taught to a monk who had professed the same rule. Without saying anything to me, Madame de Rantzau gave me in church a text expressly written on this subject in order to reply to the arguments that the nuns of Port-Royal draw from this letter of Saint Bernard. One is absolutely ridiculous: according to Saint Bernard, a monk does not have to abandon his monastery with his abbot, even if had the permission of the pope to do so; thus, a nun of Port-Royal cannot refuse to obey the pope when he commands her to sign the formulary. He takes great pains to refute this argument and to show that it is often a laudable thing not to use one’s permissions, which are only indulgences, but that it is always inexcusable to disobey a formal command. I don’t want to amuse myself by saying what I remember about this text, which is the most impertinent I’ve seen and which is only strong in its insults, as I frankly told Madame de Rantzau. She wasn’t angered by that. On the contrary, she told me she wanted to try to have me speak with someone who would satisfy the objections I made to her. This had to be some honest person who didn’t make insults, because she clearly saw that they couldn’t win me over that way. The objections about which she spoke lay in the fact that I always asked her to show me on what she built the certitude she had that we were always obliged to do everything superiors commanded us to do, without being worried about any discernment concerning this. I also questioned this other belief that when they commanded us to do something wrong, we would not be responsible before God for what we had done in the name of obedience. To be convinced of this, it would be necessary to stand on some infallible authority of the word of God, which would have permitted it. I asked what these authorities are, because I didn’t find any of them and found it difficult to believe that others had found them, because they haven’t pointed them out. What they wanted to cite up until now didn’t prove anything. From this I drew a conclusion: They haven’t found anything stronger or more explicit, because they would have undoubtedly told us if they had. As a result, I couldn’t risk my conscience on some opinions up in the air that aren’t convincing enough for me. That day I pressed her to know on what she based herself to swear to and sign the new formulary. She didn’t reply although she could have very well done so. Believing as certainly as she does in the infallibility of the pope concerning both right and fact, she could not have had a better foundation to cite for this particular occasion. But for obedience in general to all superiors, she could not have extended the same principle because it does not give infallibility to them. That is why she didn’t want to become involved in replying to me and told me that I should speak to brighter people who could satisfy me on these issues. This happened during the last months of my stay and I was very worried that she would

90 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY impose these visits, which I did not wish to have. I was certain that she was only saying these things out of kindness. Surely, the intention of the archbishop was that they should leave me in peace as someone from whom they could hope for nothing. I’ve made this digression on the subject of the text that they gave me after they received my letter. I had no other response concerning it except on Holy Thursday. The mother superior and Madame de Rantzau came together in the morning to see me. At first, they spoke about unimportant things. Afterward, they added that the archbishop still held the same opinion. They exhorted me to try a little to give him satisfaction. To this suggestion I made no reply except to say that it would be up to him to be responsible before God for this situation and that a person like myself, who was held back by the fear of offending God, must have even greater distance from this situation in such a sacred time, when we commemorate the death of Jesus Christ and the feast of Easter. Truly, I expected that she was going to hold me as an ipso facto excommunicate when I did not receive Holy Communion at this feast. Every day I assisted at Mass as if it were my last until the octave of Easter when, seeing that they didn’t say anything and that they no longer cast frowns toward me, I understood that they were waiting for a papal bull that someone had told me something about. I no longer talked about anything and I was resolved to speak only to God, since I saw clearly that there was nothing to expect from the archbishop. XI I’ve covered a lot of ground here, but now I am going to return on my tracks to recount the retreat where I passed the season of Advent. I thought I was obligated to leave it at Christmas in order to return to the choir and not to excommunicate myself. During all of Advent, they recounted how beautiful the sermons of Father Nouet were. They always did this to make small reproaches that I didn’t want to hear them. Madame des Hameaux, who often visited the convent and gave me the honor of wanting to see me several times, was practically angry with me— with courtesy, nonetheless, because she always treated me politely—and took the liberty everyone had acquired during this time to exhort me for the sake of my salvation to prepare myself to receive Holy Communion and, to achieve this, to obey the church. By the grace of God, I found myself in such a calm spirit during this time that in truth I didn’t have anything to fear because the sermons of this priest wouldn’t make any impression on me, as I had first feared. So, after seeking counsel from God, to whom I alone I could have recourse in all my doubts— which still is not a small problem because we don’t know if we are worthy to hear properly his response—I concluded that it would be a scandal not to remain for the preaching on the day of Christmas and to leave the church where I would have assisted at vespers. For this reason, it was better for me to resolve to listen to it. I

Report on Captivity 91 told this to these good mothers and this was the reason that obliged me to attend. They agreed that it would have been wrong to do otherwise and that everyone found it very strange that I had a problem about this, which none of our other sisters in other convents had had. So I concluded that I would go. Still, God once again wanted to spare me this difficulty. The goodness of the mother superior dispensed me from this for that day. I had enough mortification in being separated from the altar of Jesus Christ without adding that one. I don’t know where this good movement came from in her. Before vespers, she came personally to ask if I would prefer during the sermon to go pray before the Blessed Sacrament, which was exposed on their side of the chapel, although there was already a deaf sister who was assigned there. I witnessed to her that I was infinitely obliged to her for the grace she was offering me and that she was giving me too many pleasures at the same time, but she would have been happier if I hadn’t felt this favor so deeply. In passing, I noticed what I experienced in several incidents during our affliction: that it is nearly always true that we suffer more by the anticipated apprehension we have of things before they arrive than of the things themselves when they are present. There is no counsel more important and more useful to practice on these occasions than that of the Gospel: Do not think about tomorrow. I remember that, long before Christmas and before Easter, I didn’t dare to think that I could go through these feasts separated from Holy Communion without feeling some strong emotion and self-pity that would make me fear that time. Not only would I have the pain of being deprived of such a great grace—although on this subject faith convinced me well enough that God could fill this emptiness and give me just as much strength through the communication of the sufferings of Jesus Christ as did participation in the divine sacrament that is their memorial—but mixed in with this was a human fear of humiliation: that I would appear at such feasts like a poor dog someone chases away from the table all the others approach. In the choir I would be exposed to the judgment and the glances of all the nuns, the little novices, and the servants, who would consider me a miserable thing rejected by God and abandoned by the church. Nonetheless, I accepted this with a good heart and commended myself to God for this occasion, without stopping to consider that it was the least I could do. Still, he helped me so much in these moments that I didn’t know if I’ve ever passed these feasts with more spiritual consolation. As a result, I didn’t even feel this external humiliation as much as I thought I would. Through reasoning and reflection I discerned that in fact I wasn’t affected by it because I was much more moved by the benefits of our persecution and of the part it gave me in the annihilations of the Son of God. I didn’t assist either at the sermon on New Year’s Day. I asked to be dispensed from going until the Feast of Epiphany, when the preacher took a vacation. So I heard him for the first and last time. I don’t need to say how he preached; his

92 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY style is well-known. But what I found best is that he didn’t say a word concerning the disputes of the moment. His sermon was all on the love of God and quite full of feeling. Still, the great ardor with which he speaks warms his listeners less when they know that the members of his religious order, the Society of Jesus, hold they are not certain if we are obliged to love God, except perhaps once at the moment of death or at most on Sundays and feast days. Since I am on this subject, I must talk about the other occasions when I’ve heard these priests talk. Someone started the rumor that one of them had talked to me at the choir grille against my will, but this story is false. I only heard them in the pulpit on three occasions. The first was Father Nouet. The second time was a priest who returned from Canada. They didn’t tell me his name. He preached on one of the fast days and delivered a sermon that in fact I found very useful for me. It was only about the necessity and the benefits of suffering: that it is the mark of the elect, that persecution was the reward of justice, that whoever wants to make the horoscope of Christians only has to consult the star and the sign that presided at their birth. You will find that they were baptized in the death of Jesus Christ, that the cross with which they were marked was the major sign of their second birth, and consequently, that during their entire lives they can expect only the influences of these signs, which will conduct them necessarily to all kinds of crosses, humiliations, and sufferings, until the moment of death. On the eve of this sermon, I heard another one from a member of Picpus93 or another order— I’m not sure which one. He preached against the disorder of these days to encourage us to pray for so many people who had forgotten their salvation. I think that these good nuns liked this sermon very much because this good priest was quite animated and spoke with a great deal of zeal. Madame de Rantzau, who was ill at this time and whom they took me to see, asked me which of the sermons I had preferred. I divined her intentions and I replied that the matter of the last one was more useful and more relevant for me than that of the other sermons. In saying that, I only provided the truth. The third time I heard another priest speak was a day in Lent. He gave a special conference to the nuns on the renewal of their vows, which they were obliged to make on the feast day of the Annunciation. They often had these conferences and have had several since this time, but they never asked me to go to them. So, I don’t know by what inspiration they decided to come ask me on that day to go the conference that was going to be held before the hour of Terce. I didn’t see any problem with this because I didn’t see any new reason to refuse. This was as much due to the fact that they didn’t tell me that the preacher would be a black robe as to the fact that I had already said yes and that they hadn’t spoken in any way about anything of which I could complain. Thus, I heard a good man who still spoke his old Gaulois but who at bottom gave them a lecture 93. A Franciscan community founded by Vincent Mussart in 1600 and named after the neighborhood in which their Parisian house was located.

Report on Captivity 93 that was completely solid and that supposed the right positions on grace. This was due either to the fact that he was one of the oldest members of the Society of Jesus and that perhaps he wasn’t involved in the heat of the latest disputes or to the fact that the strength of the truth had forced him to yield to the authority of the Gospel he had taken for his subject and that he was not afraid that it might be to the prejudice of the opinions of his Society, since he believed he would only be speaking in front of women who wouldn’t suspect any fault in what he said. I had such a distinct satisfaction in seeing grace victorious in the mouth of its enemies. After all, even if this man is not personally opposed to it, he wears the habit of those who are. His themes were the words of the gospel of the day: “You will search for me and you will not find me and you will die in your sins.”94 He wanted to prove to them that in the Christian life there is often a need for renovation; to establish the principle, he made a comparison between the soul and the body. He told them that, just as the body necessarily declines in old age after a long number of years, the soul is also subject in the life of grace to grow old; the same causes that produce aging in the body also produce aging in the soul. He showed that what causes the weaknesses of old age is when the head and the heart cease to exercise enough deliberate influence over the vital and animal spirits, which must provide vigor for all the members. In the same way, the source of the cooling and weakening of souls is when Jesus Christ, who is our leader, ceases to spread his lights in his spirit and when the Holy Spirit, who is the heart of the body of the church, ceases to animate our will by the movements of his charity. Just as the body becomes heavy, sight becomes obscured, and hearing and the other senses weaken in old people, so in the subtraction of interior graces, we see the most fervent virtues fall into lassitude and languor, because God has removed himself. This was pushed so far that I could not express enough astonishment that it was a black robe who talked in this way. But I didn’t try to conserve his sermon; neither will I try here to write it down. I am only adding a comparison he used to express the powerlessness to which we are reduced by the removal of interior lights, when God takes them away from us. He attributed the words of the prophet to a soul in this state: Posuerunt me in obscuris, sicut mortuous saeculi.95 He said it was similar to these worldly dead people who are buried with great funeral pomp. Someone places the deceased into a special funeral chapel. It is entirely covered in cloth and surrounded by lights. All those who are far away are illuminated by them but this poor soul, who is so close and for whom all this has been made, is all alone in the shadows and cannot see the least amount of light despite flames that surround her. He added that this is the true image of this poor soul. She has lost the light of her eyes because Jesus Christ, who was accustomed to spread within her the knowledge of truth, no longer provides any interior enlightenment. It is 94. Jn 8:24. 95. “They have placed me in the shadows, like they place the dead” (Ps 142:3).

94 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY vain to preach to her, to exhort her, to threaten her by the words of God. In vain she herself tries to read the writings, meditations, and books that had touched her before. She no longer has the taste for all that, she no longer understands anything in it, she is no longer moved by it, quaeretis me et non invenietis.96 She seeks and she doesn’t know what to find. He was utterly committed to this theme because of the conclusion of the Gospel: Et in peccatis vestris moriemini.97 At the end I thought he realized that he was going to leave the limits of the all-powerful free will of his order and that he was going to pass over to the side of the freedom of the children of God, which consists in recognizing our dependence on the voluntary grace of the Savior. Suddenly, he abandoned his proofs and his principles to make a reflection that it was not God’s fault that we didn’t have the assistance and the lights we needed; rather, it was our negligence that was the cause and we could always leave this state. And since it required quite a long speech to explain all this and to combine it with what he just said, he didn’t attempt to do so. He just finished rather brusquely and only said his closing lines in air. He mixed some ridiculous terms and tales into what he said that was good. These women laughed at this, almost out loud, during these conferences. But this behavior didn’t disturb me as much as it would have with someone else, because it seemed to come from simplicity; the rest was solid and serious. They said the office and Mass afterward. After the Mass, the superior took me with her to make a tour of the garden. She didn’t omit asking me what my opinion was on this exhortation. I replied to her quite simply and said that I had found it very good. Next, I asked her who this priest was. She told me it was Father du Breuil, who had been the superior at La Flêche for a long time.98 They had pulled him from this position after the death of Father Saint-Jure99 to put him in the deceased priest’s place because he was a very spiritual man and provided spiritual direction for many notable people and was a confessor of the black robes along with Father Nouet. This last piece of information encouraged my compassion for him; if he took on his own conscience the sins of all the members of his community, just what would he rely on if he is more innocent than they are? She next told me how she had known him by accident. Lacking a preacher for a great feast and having a promise from the black robes that they would provide one of their priests, the Jesuits sent him because a bishop told them to do so. Madame des Hameaux, who takes an interest in everything concerning these nuns, started to raise such a complaint to the black robes that they were forced—to remain on 96. “You will search for me and you will not find me.” 97. “You will die in your sins.” 98. An Oratorian sympathetic to the Jansenists, Father du Breuil was imprisoned in 1682 due to his harboring of the manuscripts of Antoine Arnauld. 99. Jean-Baptiste de Saint-Jure (1588–1657) was a Jesuit priest, novice master, and renowned spiritual writer.

Report on Captivity 95 her good side—to send the nuns Father du Breuil at that very moment. He came by obedience but would not agree to go into the pulpit and talk in front of everyone. He made great excuses to the mother superior by saying that he wasn’t right for such preaching and that, moreover, he had difficulty speaking, which was due to a paralysis of the tongue he had suffered. This made him even less apt for the task. He offered only to give a special exhortation behind closed doors. The nuns enjoyed it so much that since then they have several times requested him to return. According to them, he is humbler than the others. That is why he maintains a little more light than the others have and does not completely misunderstand the sovereignty of God and the lowliness of humanity. That is all I have to say about them, because I didn’t see any of them in private. XII I remained inside my room on the Feast of the Epiphany, when the sermon of Father Nouet had involved me in speaking about the other members of his order. I don’t remember anything remarkable happening in the month of January. I always continued to be shut up night and day behind my three doors, but during this time the sister who acted as my jailor—it was a choir nun and no longer the lay sister I had at the beginning—started little by little to be less strict in closing all three doors. She began often enough to leave the door to the room open. I had the freedom to use the little passageway that was in front of it. This was of great use to me, because of the smoke in the room. I could open this first door when I needed to. I don’t know if this nun relaxed my terms of imprisonment on her own authority, but she began to show me some kindness. She didn’t speak in any way about our affair; I even think that she didn’t understand anything about it because she seemed a very simple nun. Still, I feared that she might have shown a certain affection for me that would have made her suspect, because they took the occasion of some slight indisposition she had to remove her from me. I’ve noticed that since that time she doesn’t dare to look at me, although I’ve passed by her several times in the convent. This made me imagine that they had made her very defensive around me. I had more of those thoughts when I saw the embarrassment they had concerning who to give me in her place. They finally chose a poor lay sister who was already overworked. They had thrown on her all the work of the convent, because they have many ill or aged lay sisters who no longer work. I saw clearly that this was a serious inconvenience for them. It was even necessary for the mother superior often to take the trouble to come guide me and to bring me everything necessary, in order to relieve this poor woman, who didn’t have the time to do so. That is why, when I spoke with the mother superior about the trouble I must be causing by being such a heavy burden on them—for her part, she admitted that she was anxious that perhaps I often suffered and found it difficult when they occasionally forgot me—I took the liberty to tell her that she had already had some

96 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY time to get to know me and that if she wanted to place as much confidence in me as people do in prisoners of war when they let prisoners go around on their word, I would make my own oral commitment that I would speak to no one and listen to nothing and that I would not leave our room when I was enclosed there. In truth I wouldn’t be freer in this arrangement but they would be less encumbered. This was my principal consideration. She received my proposal positively enough but without making any precise response, except that they soon started to no longer close the doors. Several days later, she told me that I could leave the room but only under all the conditions that I had promised. I kept these promises so carefully that sometimes I regretted having entered into this commitment, which bound me everywhere and always. If I were the one who determined the terms of my captivity, I would have had no problem with speaking or listening if the occasion presented itself, but in actual fact, I don’t think such occasions would have arisen, because these nuns are so submissive and so regular in their observance that not one of them would have attempted such an act of disobedience. It was in early February that they gave me this enlargement of my freedom. It was, however, an unexpected consolation because I believed on the contrary that they would try to restrict me more and more with the passage of each day. I imagined that the situation would always worsen. I had lost hope, since the time scheduled for our convent election had passed without result and during the same time the four-month commission meeting on the daughters of Sainte-Marie had failed. Before leaving our convent, the authorities had told us that their commission would meet only for this length of time, which made us believe that they would arrive at a conclusion of our affair at the end of this period. When I saw that they had nothing to say, I lost all sense of measure and didn’t see any end to our sufferings—except death itself, which I didn’t imagine to be very far away for me. XIII I don’t remember what day it was, but it was in the month of February that they told me about the news of the signature of Soeur Gertrude.100 They talked to me about her more than about the others because she was in one of their convents. But the only thing they told me was news of her health. I didn’t ask for any other news, because I had convinced myself that she wouldn’t change on the rest of the issues. When they told me—without much warning—that she had signed the formulary a little time before, I didn’t believe it at first. I made it appear that this news was too astonishing for me not to think they were just trying to make me believe it. But when they started to describe particular times, manners, and circumstances, I told them that I accepted it. Still, I couldn’t hide my astonishment from them. They thought this was a good omen for me, but I assured them that this news was without consequence for me. Although I was more surprised than 100. Marguerite de Sainte Gertrude du Pré. See note 18.

Report on Captivity 97 I could say about this change, it didn’t change anything for me personally. I could only disagree with it; I couldn’t imitate it. To disturb me to the full, they asked me if I would say the same thing when Mère Agnès would sign. They expected her to do so soon and she had asked to speak with someone about this. I don’t know if I answered or not, because at that moment I was like someone who had just been knocked out. I only remember that they then took their leave, having clearly judged that I was no longer capable of saying or hearing anything. I am no more capable of really explaining what happened in my mind after I heard this news. Never in my life have I felt something similar; I thought I was going to die from it. I could no longer breathe and my pulse suffered a terrible agitation during several hours. It was not only my conviction about the truth of this that tormented me; it was the disturbing thoughts about the terrible conduct of God, if he had permitted this. This tempest had so disturbed me that I feared for the shipwreck of my faith. It seemed to me that I saw inexplicable things in this event. The more I pondered the piety, the spiritual lights, and the humility of Mère Agnès and the fact that she had suffered in her old age such an unjust persecution, it seemed to me the opposite of all God’s promises that he would have wanted to abandon her to such a terrible fall, which would cause such a great scandal. This threw me into such a great terror that I thought I would never again see where I could place my confidence for hope even in God, if he abandoned someone who had honored with such humble piety and with such a deliberate manner the sovereignty of God on souls. She had suffered the first persecution on account of this, as she was exposed to the last persecution because of her fidelity to the true grace of Jesus Christ. She had recognized the efficaciousness of this grace with so much light and personal experience. I lost myself in these horrible considerations that came to me on this subject. If God, whom I tried to hold on to, had not himself held me by his hand, I was going to drown like Saint Peter because of the hesitation of my faith. For a long time I remained prostrate before God. I resisted as much as I could all these disturbing reflections in order to try only to adore God. But the storm was too powerful and I could not succeed in placing my hope on a firm anchor as long as it seemed to me there was nothing solid to hold on to, if God rejected those who sought him and placed their hope in him alone. Finally, after much time, many tears, and many shouts rather than prayers, God all of a sudden gave peace to my spirit. This movement was so strong that he let me lean on the truth of his promises by a blind faith that doesn’t look for proofs and experiences, because it must have a less mobile foundation: the word of God itself. Without bothering to discern by my own lights whether the events in this episode were conformed to this word, I had to be assured by faith that they certainly were. If at first I didn’t see this, the fault came only from my own ignorance, which can neither penetrate the intentions of God nor predict the conduct of his providence,

98 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY which permits things we cannot comprehend and which nonetheless succeeds in executing all that he has promised us. Moreover, a very strong thought came to me: All my fears contradicted the opinion I had of Mère Agnès, since it seemed to me that I must believe that God loved her and that, if he loved her, he would neither abandon her nor lack the strength to defend her in times of temptation or to raise her up if she had begun to weaken. I ceased this useless worry since I had so many reasons to believe that the evil I feared hadn’t happened and that the good I had uniquely to desire would always occur. God’s will cannot fail to be done in heaven and on earth, whatever human beings might try to do. I do not know how it was possible for this great agitation to stop all at once. I slept with my spirit tranquil but still afflicted. The tears I’ve shed since and that the good sisters attribute to the pain I experienced over the signature of Soeur Gertrude were no longer anything other than the movements of tenderness accompanying the heartfelt prayers I made to God that he would deflect from my beloved Mère Agnès the effect of the unfounded prediction they were making about her. I forgot to say that as soon as I left this great disturbance, which at first had taken away the freedom to make my own reflection on the circumstances surrounding this strange news they had told me, I judged that they had only based it on some ridiculous conjecture, namely, that Mère Agnès had asked to speak with someone. In no way did this indicate that she was disposed to accept the poor arguments they might have presented to her. On the contrary, we have many times experienced that we have been strengthened in our convictions after having heard the weakness of the arguments and proofs they cite for us in order to press us to sign. Still, I always had some incertitude about what happened in all of this. The only thing I learned that could pull me out of this difficult situation was my inference from their silence. I took it as a sign that Mère Agnès had done nothing because they didn’t gloat about it. Sometimes, however, thoughts came to me suggesting that if her signing were true, they might out of pity spare me the suffering of telling me so. This was because the least subjects in this area made me upset. For example, they once told me that my sister-in-law101 had come to have news of me, that she had also gone to see my sisters at Sainte-Marie, but that she had not seen Mère Agnès because she was confined to her bed that day. I immediately reasoned that if Mère Agnès hadn’t signed, they wouldn’t permit her to go to the visitors’ parlor, since my sisters had paid a very high price to purchase this privilege. However, they gave me another explanation. It seemed they wanted me to conclude that the situation had nothing to do with my original conjecture. But I rejected this anguish and did not ask for any clarifications on this subject. I have always believed that I should not ask anything from people who I have no confidence would want to tell me the truth. 101. Catherine Ladvocat (1637–1711) married Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, the older brother of Angélique de Saint-Jean, in 1660.

Report on Captivity 99 I didn’t hear any talk concerning any of our sisters who had remained at Port-Royal, except for Soeur Flavie. One day they told me she was the subprioress. I replied that I had guessed that. The superior asked me how I could have figured that out, and I told her that when you have lived so long together with someone, you begin to know them a little. She didn’t dare to ask me to speak any more about this. They also told me—I don’t remember the exact time—about the signature of Soeur Melthide.102 I don’t even know if this happened after the retraction, because they spoke to me about her quite often and as an important person. As I couldn’t understand why they distinguished her from so many others—about whom they said nothing—I thought that she was the one who had put herself forward and that they had made of her someone important. I was still in a state of anxiety concerning Soeur Françoise-Claire.103 I couldn’t imagine that she would have been able to stay in the convent after having been marked for departure if she hadn’t obtained this favor by some wrong path. In fact, during this time of January or February, they told me that she had left the convent; two others had done the same: “la Brégy and la Briquet.”104 It was Madame de Rantzau who so described them. This news gave me the greatest joy in the world, although it also revealed to me that the violence continued. Still, it was also a certain sign of the firm commitment of our sisters. Up until that point I had been unable to discover any news because no one spoke to me about any events, either good or bad. I did absolutely nothing to reveal my opinions, but after they had told me into what convents they had separated them, I coldly replied that there were not enough convents in Paris to lodge us. As the archbishop was leaving us, he had told us that he was ready to remove a good thirty of us but as of yet there were only seventeen who had been assigned somewhere. She coldly replied that if there were not enough convents in Paris, there were plenty of them in the countryside. Next, I blessed God with an extreme thanksgiving for the singular grace he had given to our young sisters: to take part so young in a grace that God rarely accords those who are confirmed in his service for many years. These opportunities 102. Madeleine de Sainte Melthide Thomas du Fossé, the sister of Thomas du Fossé, the historian of Port-Royal, gave an unreserved signature to the formulary on October 15, 1664. In November 1664, however, she retracted her signature. After the retraction she was exiled to the Visitation convent in Saint-Denis. During the exile, she retracted her retraction and once again signed the formulary. 103. Originally a nun in the Congregation of Notre-Dame, Françoise de Sainte Claire Soulain had served as a superior before she joined the Port-Royal convent. For her refusal to give an unreserved signature, she was exiled to the Ursuline convent in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. Her expulsion from Port-Royal had been delayed, possibly due to her office as the convent’s guardian of material provisions. On her deathbed, she signed the formulary on April 15, 1665. The validity of her signature in these conditions became a matter of dispute between the Jansenists and their opponents. 104. Anne-Marie de Sainte Eustoquie de Flexelles de Brégy (1633–1684) was exiled to the Ursuline convent of Saint-Denis on November 29, 1664. Madeleine de Sainte Christine Briquet (1642–1689) was exiled to the Visitation convent on the Rue Saint-Antoine on December 19, 1664.

100 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to suffer for truth and for justice were so extraordinary, as Saint Bernard witnesses in his own time. And I can say that these were the sole consolations I received during this period, since I didn’t have reliable news about anyone else. I had only my prejudices and my guesses to figure out who had remained firm in their position, because they didn’t tell me the name of those who had signed within the convent. This joy was followed by the sadness of learning after Easter about the illness and signature of Soeur Françoise-Claire. They embellished this news with all the fine circumstances that made her obedience appear as the most heroic possible from the viewpoint of these sisters and as the most deplorable from mine. This news clearly affected me—as much as they could judge my state. The next day, they informed me of her death, which was a terrible blow for me. They would have been delighted if they could have used this event to stir up great fear in me. After having used this subject to make an ardent exhortation that I should profit from such a fine example, they told me that they wished, God willing, that this good sister would come to me personally to exhort me to imitate her and to give me news about the other world. I replied that such an apparition could only be taken by me as an illusion, since, if even an angel would come to me to exhort me to violate the law of God, Saint Paul obliges us to call him anathema. The replies they made to me about these things were only commonplaces. There is no point in beginning this dispute again, because it is always a matter of proving that we have only imagined that it’s violating the law of God and that, on the contrary, God is commanding us to obey. They would have preferred not to leave me at this point if I hadn’t run to my usual refuge: prayer and the word of God. Moreover, I didn’t know what opinion I should have about this poor girl. Her misfortune seemed so great and without remedy. I opened my Bible and I found this phrase in front of my eyes in the twenty-fifth chapter of Proverbs: Jaculus et gladius et sagitta, homo qui loquitur contre proximum suum falsum testimonium. “The one who bears false witness against one’s neighbor is similar to a dart, to a sword, to a sharpened arrow.”105 When this dart pierces my own heart, I would not become more frightened. All I could do was to adore God in a state of extreme trembling. I believe that his providence permitted this event, not perhaps to give me this sentiment of the person I regretted losing, but to intensify the horror of the action they engaged in to make her do this out of weakness. What astonished me the most was to learn later from Soeur Eustoquie that exactly the same thing happened to her at Saint-Denis and that she pulled out the same biblical verse on this subject. She showed me where it was marked in her book as a souvenir from that time. I didn’t dare to chant this passage as I chanted all the rest. All the prayers and psalms I said frightened me when I said them, because I saw everywhere in them the condemnation of the fault whose pardon I would have wanted to ask for the poor nun. Nothing made 105. Prv 25:18.

Report on Captivity 101 such a strong impression on me as the things I saw on this subject at that time. I am speaking about spiritual views and not about visions. Without any deception, I do not know what hope could remain at the moment of death after such a fault when someone has not had the time to make reparation for it by serious penance. XIV Before Lent, I felt very ill for several days. One evening in particular, a thought came to me that if some accident befell me or some violent illness took away my presence of mind, they would consider me as a person who died in a spirit of schism and revolt against the church. I thought I should write down my opinions; after my death, they would at least find them on me and that could remedy any scandal. I began doing this right away and I finished it the next day. I had another purpose for this writing. Perhaps I could give it to these nuns to instruct them on my dispositions and through them make them known to the archbishop, so that he could use it to judge whether or not he would permit me to receive Holy Communion at Easter. But I soon changed my intention. As soon as I looked a little more closely at the disposition of my good sisters and the tendency of their opinions on these matters, I no longer wanted to take them as judges or as mediators in this affair. That is why this paper has never budged from my pocket. Instead of that, I contented myself with writing to the archbishop to ask him for Easter Communion, as I said. Here is that writing. “Sincere examination from the bottom of my heart on the subject of the refusal of the signature. “Six months of exile, silence, and universal separation, not only from all sort of consolation and counsel, but even from the sacraments of the church, are a considerable enough time to have given me the leisure of reflecting on what might make me worthy of such treatment. Undoubtedly, this sin must be a mortal one to merit being removed from participation in the sacraments that give life. Consequently, nothing can be more important for me than to know what is this sin that makes me a criminal without my knowing it and even when I believe that in my heart I have a firm will to die rather than to commit knowingly any such sin. I can only examine the crime that they attribute to me, and that is unknown to me, on the idea that others have about it. I think they make it consist uniquely in a formal and stubborn disobedience to the command of my prelate and my superior. By God’s mercy, they no longer make accusations against our faith, which they had tried so long to make suspect. Therefore, it is this disobedience that I must seek in my heart in order to punish it if I can recognize it there. “In the search I was able to make for this, however, I didn’t come upon it. If those who condemn me about this wanted to take the trouble to examine this issue more carefully, I think they would remain agreed that in the circumstances of this affair it’s not possible for me to disobey, because no one is commanding

102 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY me to do anything. Although there is a general order that obliges everyone to sign the formulary, there is a particular order that forbids doing so for those who find themselves in the disposition where I am. The reason for this is that the pastoral letter of the archbishop does not simply order everyone to sign the formulary; it places a condition on this: that one should sign it with an internal and sincere disposition of submission concerning the point of fact it contains. He points out that this is not an object of divine faith; rather, it is one of human and ecclesiastical faith. Thus, he obliges only those who have this human faith and who find themselves in this internal submission to give a sincere sign of it by their signature. However, for those who do not have this conviction, the archbishop is so far from commanding them to betray the truth by witnessing through a misleading signature a different disposition than the one they have in their heart that he formally states that he condemns the conduct of persons who would use the signature in this way. He believes that they would act very badly if they signed without being persuaded of the truth they were underwriting. Thus, he forbids these people to do so because he condemns what they are doing. Consequently, the general command by which he obliges others to sign does not concern them, because the condition he adds to it exempts all those who cannot satisfy this condition. Clearly, not signing would not be an act of disobedience by these people, because they have been forbidden to do so. God’s very law forbids lying. So, if their refusal is still judged to be criminal, the crime must be elsewhere than in this alleged disobedience—unless someone says that this disobedience does not consist in not signing but in not believing in this fact we refuse to affirm by signature. Then, it is not the signature alone but faith in this fact that is being ordered. “If someone holds this opinion, I hope it will not be someone to whom I will have to render an account. It could only come from people who are poorly instructed and who act by an obedience so blind that they cannot even discern properly what happens in their mind. If they applied themselves to this task, they would clearly see that having this human faith doesn’t depend on an order or on their will. It must come from conviction rather than a command. Only real or apparent truth, not authority or threats, is able to elicit this mental consent. This is a completely free movement; violence and constraint are only its opposites. To say that the church commands this human faith under such penalties as separation from the sacraments is to say that the church makes impossible commandments—at the very moment that the church condemns as heretical the theory that attributes impossibility to some of the commandments of God. “Not being able to suppose that anyone can command human faith and it being obvious that someone can only command the signature from those who have this faith, I no longer see where this criminal disobedience they say I am guilty of could be. My fault only consists in the doubt I have concerning this fact. It’s founded, on the one hand, by my ignorance, which makes me incapable of

Report on Captivity 103 learning about it myself through reading the book in question and having some knowledge of the matter, and, on the other hand, by my knowledge of several things that happened in this affair, which could give birth in the mind to legitimate suspicions that motives other than love of truth and purity of faith had some part in what has happened. It could easily be the case that someone had misled or prejudiced those who were the judges in this case. This has happened sometimes to the saints themselves. No one attributed infallibility to their natural judgments concerning just a non-revealed human fact. If it is true that this doubt is a crime, then I confess myself a criminal, because I do not want dissimulate my disposition. Before God I confess that I cannot in any way remove from my memory and my mind all that I know that counts against belief in this fact. On the contrary, all that has happened the past six months has deepened my opposition. It has made me conclude that it is no more impossible that in Rome they gave a condemnation without sufficient examination of the book and doctrine of an author who is no longer living and cannot explain his meaning than to see that in Paris they have condemned and chased out of their convent—and nearly out of the church—nuns who not only do not know exactly what they are accused of but who have God as their witness that they are ready to suffer all of these punishments only out of the fear of offending him. Similarly, since they don’t believe themselves guilty before God, although they’ve been condemned as such by a judgment of ecclesiastical authority, they believe that the persons who have authority over them do not have sufficient knowledge of their situation and cannot without injustice support their condemnation. They also believe that natural law, which forbids us to do unto others what we would not want to suffer from them, obliges them to prefer to expose themselves to enduring all sorts of bad treatment than to take part in a judgment of the church on a matter that doesn’t concern them, that their ignorance makes them incapable of comprehending, and that the doubt in their conscience makes them incapable of signing. “I still must explain this doubt of conscience. Those to whom I’ve sometimes spoken about it take it in a different sense from what I understand by it. They suppose that it’s a hesitation or a scruple that makes us fear there is some sin to give the signature they demand from us. From this they conclude that there is no more certain way to make up one’s mind in accord with God than in following the order of the superiors that he has established to guide us and who must serve as our guides when we do not know the right way. I would be very convinced by their judgment if my doubt were a scruple of this nature but it is entirely different in kind. The doubt that I say stops me from doing this is a lack of this human faith—which I don’t have—concerning the fact we must affirm by a public declaration. I have no doubt at all that since I don’t have this belief in my heart, I must not mislead the church. The obligation not to lie is such a common and well-known and indispensable duty that we would have to doubt that God is

104 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY himself the truth to be in a state of doubt whether it is permitted to betray it in circumstances that give only horror to envisage. This public lie would be a violation of what we owe to God, to the church, and to our neighbor, since by committing it we would contemn in ourselves the light of our conscience, which is the witness of the Holy Spirit, and we would mock the church, to whom we only give true words when she requires a sincere assent. We would contribute as much as possible to the destruction of the reputation of our neighbor by taking part in a judgment that we know is heavily contested. All of this means that we have more doubt than conviction in ourselves. Thus, it is better for us to be silent than to assent. “Not being able to have any other idea concerning the signature in the disposition I found myself, I was not able to consider the repugnance of my conscience as a scruple I must try to stifle; rather, I considered it as a spark of the fire of charity and light that God by his grace had placed in my heart and that I must be very careful not to extinguish. So, I don’t believe that anyone wanted to counsel me after having clearly seen the particular reasons that constituted my problem. But most of them only considered the affair in general and limited themselves to saying: ‘Why be so scrupulous about something which everyone is doing and which our superior commands us to do?’ But I replied that not everyone was signing against her belief and that the archbishop has ordered no one to lie. Even if the signature were, without contradiction, a very useful remedy for healing the evils of the church, it could still happen that it would not be good for everyone. No doctor, under the pretext that he has a good remedy that has healed many sick people, would offer the opinion that this should be used for someone to whom the medicine would do harm or for someone it would clearly end up killing. It is a biblical truth that the lying mouth kills the soul. Consequently, my signature is a lie for me. It is impossible for someone to advise me to do this or to qualify as an act of disobedience my inability to satisfy the command of a superior, which should only be founded on the necessity of obeying God. “To finish this examination of where the crime might be that has separated me for six months from the fountains of the Savior—without my being permitted either to drink or to be purified from them and with the door of the confessional being as closed to me as was that of the altar—I pondered whether it was the doubt I’ve spoken of that could be so offensive to the ministers of the church, who propose this judgment of fact to the faithful as certain and worthy of belief. They’ve had the occasion to treat their hesitation as they treat disbelief in some essential point of the Catholic faith. I’m not able to convince myself that someone would hold this opinion, because it is a human infirmity, even for saints and prophets, to be involved sometimes in judgments concerning facts of this nature. It’s also another weakness, very human and very excusable, that doubts might be born in minds during similar situations, when no infallible authority can resolve this question of belief and when a hundred things that happened in the course

Report on Captivity 105 of a long affair so strongly obscure the question that it is difficult to see clearly enough where one should walk when one is forced to take part in it. Without this constraint, I would wholeheartedly condemn the temerity of people like ourselves who would interfere by giving their opinion in such disputes, which only require from them their prayers to obtain the peace of the church and the union of hearts from God. But in the necessity to which they’ve reduced them, where they must publicly declare their opinions by a signature that would be the sign of their agreement and their belief, what can they do to place themselves in the duty of obedience except to examine the disposition of their mind and of their heart to see if it can be aligned with the testimony of their hand? And, if they find a manifest contradiction, how can they avoid admitting it if they cannot be excused from signing as they are commanded without saying the reasons for refusing to do so? Wouldn’t there be more people to condemn them for stubbornness and willfulness if they just limited themselves to saying that they cannot do this? “I no longer know where to look for the fault that makes me a criminal. I don’t notice it in all of this. Perhaps someone will say that I am guilty in not believing this matter of fact, because if my doubt arises from ignorance, I should have had myself instructed on this point and then surrendered to the light the instruction would have given me. I respond to this that this is just what I have not refused to do on all the occasions that presented this possibility to me. But these efforts have always failed with me. Instead of being overcome, my difficulties have been increased by the contradictions that appeared among the opinions of different people whom I’ve heard speak on this matter. I saw them believe and be certain about things that I knew for certain to be false. This only helped to convince me even more that it is very possible that they were not fully informed on the fundamental issues concerning the affair on which they demanded our assent. It was also obvious they had given their assent to things that were not accurately reported to them and that they accepted, nonetheless, as certain. They used as proofs what are only doubts concerning this question of fact. It’s only by distancing myself from these controversies that I didn’t find myself asking for further clarifications. I clearly see that they do not produce in my mind the effects promised by the people who had the kindness to offer them. Since this work was pointless for their satisfaction, it is useless to take the trouble and to lose time with people to whom I owe some respect. For me it is only a pointless distraction. I have a greater need to ask God without ceasing for the grace and strength to suffer well on this occasion, where his providence has committed me to fill my mind with the memory of everything that has happened for the past twenty-five years, when we saw starting to form the storm that has finally broken over our convent. “Here I finish my examination since I can’t carry my introspection any further to discover what makes me guilty before the ministers of the church. I don’t say the same thing regarding God. With all of my heart, I will always confess that

106 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY he is just and that all of his judgments are founded on a sovereign equity. I see only too many weaknesses in me that merit his chastisements. I am all too convinced that his light will discover many more that my shadows prevent me from recognizing. Given this, I’ve avoided saying that I suffer unjustly—although I think I am able to hope that I suffer on behalf of justice, since I consider this affair as only the indispensable commitment I have not to damage justice for any consideration whatsoever. Whatever painful and hurtful events might happen to me, nothing could be as bad as the reproach of a bad conscience. I haven’t believed for one minute that I could resolve this problem by this assurance that I will not have to be responsible before God for what I would have done and that my superior alone will be responsible for this and that my superior must know the reasons for what he is commanding. Up until this moment, I have not been able to see in everything said by those who hold this opinion that it leaned on any sufficient authority to found the certitude of my salvation and to avoid the risk of loss in doing what they order me to do against my own light.” XV I don’t remember exactly when—except that it seems to me that it was in Lent—that Madame des Hameaux told me in front of two of the nuns, because I didn’t speak to her alone, that she had learned that the prioress,106 who was at Montorgueil, had decided to sign and had asked to do so, but that the archbishop had wanted her to take more time to think about it. She added, “He doesn’t want her to do what the daughter of Monsieur Thomas did.107 She signed and then retracted her signature and then re-signed, as our pastor did.” She was speaking of the former pastor of Saint-Paul and of his resignation.108 She clearly saw that she was telling me something I didn’t know, not so much from my expression as from the gestures of Madame de Rantzau and of the mother superior, who were on pins and needles because someone was telling me news they had carefully tried to hide from me. Since they repeated nothing more often than their claims about the peace and tranquility of mind possessed by all of our sisters who had signed, they feared nothing so much as my learning the opposite, as this retraction would have proved. To hide this, they didn’t want to tell me that Soeur Melthide had been taken out of Port-Royal, because that would have been a consequence of the retraction. That would have prevented them from convincing me, as the mother superior once tried to do, that I should have at least made a trial signature to see how I would find myself as a result of it. They assured me that if I made this effort, 106. The prioress in question is Marie-Dorothée de l’Incarnation Le Conte. See note 90. 107. Madeleine de Sainte Melthide Thomas du Fossé. See note 102. 108. Nicolas Mazure resigned his pastorate of the parish of Saint-Paul at André Hameau on July 19, 1664, in order to accept the abbacy of Saint-Jean in Vallée. Due to difficulties with his successor at Saint-Paul, he retracted his resignation and attempted to return to the parish.

Report on Captivity 107 I would bless God afterward. I would have no more problems than others in the same situation, such as Soeur Hélène, had had. She said she had never tasted such peace as the peace she tasted after she made her submission. It’s true that this good mother made this challenge with a little laughter. I didn’t say anything in response, except that it was dangerous to plunge a sword into your breast to see if that would make you die, and that I left those experiments to others. Let us return to Madame des Hameaux. On the subject of the prioress, she added this: “I waited until she had signed before I went to make fun of her. She had tried so hard to be the strong resister and then she came around like the others!” Her speech was too frank. Madame de Rantzau didn’t like someone to give me human motives for not changing my position out of fear that they would make fun of me. She graciously offered her opinion to Madame des Hameaux and told her she should say instead that she went in order to congratulate the nun for having fulfilled her duty, from which a human courage should not turn her away. But worldly people do not experience serious complications concerning this famous signature. They give a greater leeway to feelings, as long as they can be used to exit from this affair. This is what this lady exhorted me to do when she asked me not to see our convent destroyed over this dispute. In my response I was able to marshal much more convincing arguments than to say that the Holy Spirit teaches the popes everything and that they cannot be mistaken in anything. Next, they spoke about the retractions of Soeur Melthide and about the letters she had written. The nuns said they would make me see them. I did not object to this. They also promised me the letter of Soeur Gertrude to the prioress. They said this was the cause of Soeur Melthide’s submission. Having desired to know the reasons that had convinced this nun to sign despite the refusal she had always had to doing so, she had been completely persuaded by her response, which they said was strong and sound. I don’t know if I didn’t manifest enough passion to see it, but they haven’t talked to me about it since. They limited themselves to giving me the letters of Soeur Melthide, which made me pity her, but I didn’t lack a certain joy in learning what no one had told me when she described in her letters the unshakable firmness of all our sisters in Paris. This moved me more than all the rest. They asked me what I had to say about this, because they made a great case of the second letter, which was addressed to the community. I answered that, concerning this, Soeur Melthide had only signed her own name, but that was already one too many. The only lesson I took from the publication of these letters was that once you have decided to sign, you must also decide to make your confession public. The mother superior tried hard to have me change this judgment. She assured me that it was the woman who had asked the archbishop to have these letters printed; it was not the archbishop who had obliged her. I concluded that whatever the case was, she was a very humble soul. Moreover, her arguments were quite ordinary and quite weak. If she was satisfied with them, I

108 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY didn’t think she could convince anyone other than herself. Concerning her, the mother superior told me another time that they were baffled by so many changes on her part: she signed and then retracted and then retracted her retraction. I responded that if it were possible to speak with her in liberty, I did not rule out the possibility that she might still retract what had been a bad retraction after a good retraction, because she was a woman who decided things too quickly even though she had a good conscience. To this she replied that it was true they said she was overly scrupulous. It’s a good guess that she still wasn’t too certain in her third signature.109 Since that time, I’ve remained in a state of anxiety concerning the prioress, without hearing any news about her. But I didn’t ask for any news. I think this is the way to prevent them from making up false bits of information to inflame my worry. I didn’t show any interest in having any news. I didn’t let any joy or sadness—in fact, any emotion—become apparent when they talked to us about this. As a result, these people couldn’t judge what effect they were producing in my mind and whether this helped or hurt what they intended to do. I kept this rule as much as I could, but sometimes it is impossible to hide the movements of the heart that are revealed on one’s face; even on these occasions, nonetheless, I managed to maintain my silence. This also proved successful. Ordinarily, they were no less ignorant concerning my actual disposition; sometimes, they attributed my tears to causes that were quite different from their true source. For example, they thought I was weeping for Soeur Gertrude when I was thinking about Mère Agnès. On other occasions, they thought I was crying out of discouragement and sadness and trying to hide this by appearing happy in front of them. In fact, my tears flowed out of consolation and thanksgiving. They were only the effusions of my heart, which couldn’t hold all of its sentiments inside when I placed myself in front of God to admire his mercies. I considered Jesus Christ as my pastor, as devoted to me as he was when he was presented in the parable of Nathan as the man who made the single sheep repose on his breast, be nourished by his bread, and be cherished by him as if she taken the place of his daughter. The particular application of this parable took me so far that I lost myself in the admiration of his graces. I remember that this made me shed many tears one morning in this chapel where I was hearing Mass. These tears had so many different causes: regret for my infidelities toward God, thanksgiving for his kindnesses, the desire to possess him, and the love of suffering that is the path to his possession. Feeling myself filled with consolation and with a holy pleasure in this weeping, I concluded that this must be some sort of perfume that God had concocted to burn in his temple. It was composed of different aromatic spices and it was forbidden to use such 109. During the Peace of the Church in 1669, Soeur Melthide once again retracted her previous signatures on the formulary and asked to be placed at Port-Royal des Champs, where the nonsigneuses had been grouped.

Report on Captivity 109 compositions for other purposes. I understood that although all the passions had their tears and that we could cry out of love, of desire, of sadness, and of joy, there was still no created object that could bring together so many different emotions into one. In the same moment we could feel privation, pleasure, fear, assurance, regret, and joy. All of these movements are produced by charity in the heart at the same time. We would not be able to bear it if these sentiments were always being experienced by us. It would have been madness for me to say this about myself if I had some part in creating this state. I think I am only doing what others did when, by God’s command, they were led to discover the promised land he wanted to give to his people. I am making a report on the wine grapes found in this land of captivity. I am defending the land against the calumny that it devours its inhabitants, so that those whom God might call to go to it may know that its bottom land is very fertile, although it is not irrigated by the earthly rivers of Egypt. The rain that God voluntarily makes to fall on it when it pleases him produces sweeter fruits than those that are harvested elsewhere. When God had me taste them and this beginning of abundance had nearly made me forget my past sterility, I was in serious doubt concerning how I should conduct myself outside and whether I should abandon the mourning clothes because God had clothed me on the inside with clothing of joy. I saw arguments on both sides. As our cause was that of God and of the truth, I didn’t know if it was proper to glorify him more by making public the joy we had to suffer for it or to hide any sign of it by an exterior comportment so beaten down and so humiliated because we felt so strongly an affliction that should earn such a recompense in heaven, as the Son of God has assured us. I asked him for much guidance on this question, because I had a scruple about having made my affliction too visible and to have done so voluntarily. Perhaps this was caused by a movement of pusillanimity, because in the state of anguish where I was and the feeling of my own weakness, I learned to do or to say the least thing that was capable of attracting new types of suffering by my inconsiderateness. As a result, I thought that if I showed that I didn’t feel any of these types of suffering, they would have looked for the means to increase them. I was too miserable to dare promise myself that I would have the courage to suffer more than what God had sent my way without my having in a way contributed to this. Having prayed to God several days about this, these words from a homily of Saint Leo came to mind: non in sua majestate, sed in nostra congreditur humilitate.110 I reflected on this and it seemed that I immediately saw that Jesus Christ clearly wanted to fight in us through the same arms he had already used to conquer. Joy in suffering, to which the entire gospel and the apostles exhort us, is an interior ornament that the daughter of the King 110. “The omnipotent Lord enters into combat against this cruel enemy not in his majesty but in our humility” (Saint Leo, First Sermon on the Nativity).

110 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY must wear within, but silence, modesty, humility, and tears are the crown and the jewels with which David must arm himself on the exterior to dare to enter into combat with the prince of the world who dominates the children of pride. I clearly recognized that I would be exposing myself to a dangerous temptation if I had wanted to march with the arms of Saul, because they have nothing in common with people like us, whose part in life is silence and humility. So I followed this path, which did not prevent me on several occasions toward the end of my stay from speaking with greater freedom and firmness than I had done at the beginning. This was due as much as to what escaped from the abundance of my heart as to the fact that I was less a stranger to these nuns, whom I knew better and who talked to me more informally. From time to time, I could not prevent myself from making some small tentative moves—since I saw they were so good—to see if they didn’t understand our reasoning a little. I would not have despaired of this effort except for Madame de Rantzau, whom I imagined closely watched over us. Moreover, the nuns didn’t fail to reassure their consciences by consulting their good priests if any doubts on this arose. I would be quite mistaken if the mother superior didn’t need this reaffirmation at times, because she is a totally good and sincere person, whose virtue is solid. I told her at the beginning that our problems of conscience were not as illusory as she thought and that intelligent scholars—among others, the bishop of Amiens111—claimed it was true that given our situation, where we did not believe the matter of fact they were obliging us to undersign and thus considered the signature as a lie and a false testimony, it is certain that we would be committing a mortal sin to sign it in doubt. She was stunned and didn’t know how to respond to this news. When she asked why anyone would doubt something that the pope asserts, I told her some of the reasons that gave rise to this doubt. They were founded on many particular circumstances on this case, which proved that it hadn’t been treated with all the care and all the perspectives they claimed it had been. One of these facts that she defended in front of me, namely, that theologians who were in Rome were heard by the pope as many times as they wanted to be heard, was so clearly false that we have Father Annat as a witness contradicting this claim.112 He had written in a surviving work that when they had the one audience permitted them, the constitution in question had already been decided on. She remained for a brief moment like a person ready to concede the truth. I notice that afterward she gave a summary of the argument to Madame de Rantzau. On this issue, I admired how far we could push her opinion even when we had no reason to believe we could count on any real change. The same issue came up when I spoke with Madame de 111. François Faure (1610–1669) was named the bishop of Glandèves in 1651 and the bishop of Amiens in 1653. 112. See François Annat, La conduite de l’Eglise et du roi justifiée dans la condemnation de l’hérésie des jansénistes (Paris: 1664) for the Jesuit’s account of the negotiations over the Augustinus.

Report on Captivity 111 Rantzau. She absolutely denied to me that Father Annat had written that. I told her that these things do not merit being debated because they consist of proven facts and that this writing, which she made me name, still exists. Her only response was to tell me coldly, “That’s what they make you believe!” Giving me such unsubstantial replies did me a good turn second to none. Nothing else could have strengthened my convictions on this issue more than such a visible weakness in those who opposed us. In fact, these good nuns were not very knowledgeable about this affair. It was easy to tell them many things that they could only contradict by a general conviction that our cause was worthless and that whatever we said to defend it was wrong. But they had already realized that this conviction could only be persuasive by dint of arguments based on blind submission and obedience. Moreover, they only had this sort of argument to oppose to my own. I think this is why they left me more freedom to tell them my opinions—without pretending they were shocked by them—and they didn’t discuss them with me any further except in the manner of a chat and with laughter. After this, they repeated what I had told them to receive instruction on how they should reply to it. There was one time when I noticed this and even before the incident, I had clearly guessed what was happening. Here is how it occurred: The mother superior was talking with me about indifferent things—among other things, predictions that were circulating about the year 1666, where we supposed to see the beginning of the misfortunes that would precede the end of the world. She spoke to me about what Father Bail113 had written about these last times. Afterward, I asked her what he said about the antichrist and I asked her to inform me as to who would be the antichrist. Would he be a Jew, an infidel, a king, or a sovereign? She replied that she thought that if he were not a king by birth, he would be one by usurpation. On this point she pressed me to tell her what I thought about this. I replied that I hadn’t given this much thought but that I very much liked the position of Saint Gregory, who says that all evil people are members of the antichrist and that they make up only one body, whose head is the devil. It was out of fear of removing myself from the body of Jesus Christ and becoming a member of the antichrist that I did not want to commit a lie and give false witness against the innocence of one’s neighbor, because the holy pope calls this crime an apostasy and says that we are as obliged to die to avoid offending the truth as for refusing to renounce the faith. She made me explain what Saint Gregory said about this and I told her the entire passage in essence. I offered to have her look at it in its written form because I had it somewhere. She asked me to copy this for her and to give it to her. I promised to do so and spoke further on the authority of such a great pope and said that, if she thought they were infallible, she must be even more convinced that altogether 113. Louis Bail (1610–1669) was a professor of theology and official of Notre-Dame. After the expulsion of Singlin in 1661, he was appointed the superior of Port-Royal.

112 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY they are the successors of the holiness of Saint Peter and of the dignity of his see, as Saint Gregory had been. I pushed this argument a little and it seemed she listened carefully enough and that she entered a bit into its spirit. I don’t know if she noticed this at first because she told me suddenly but politely, “My good Sister, I really think you would like to win me over to your position!” Laughingly, I replied like this, “Oh, Mother! This time and on this point alone, I would really dare to tell you, like Saint Paul did, that I wish with all my heart you would become similar to me, except in my defects.” I assure you that this made her afraid and that she wanted to return to a serious tone to tell me that she was shocked that I would have such an intention. I told her it was not my intention, because I had lost any hope of doing so, but that I certainly had that desire and I couldn’t hide it from her, because I would violate the greatest of the commandments if I didn’t love my neighbor as I loved myself. Considering that my position was quite good on this point, I could not refuse to wish it for a person whom I loved and honored as I did her. This put her back in a good mood, given the fact that I repeated several times that however much I hoped to see her convinced of the rightness of our position, I no longer hoped I could change her mind at all. When I copied this passage she had asked from me I added the passage of Saint Bernard of which I’ve spoken. This gave birth to a new text they made to refute the alleged consequences we wanted to draw from the earlier texts to justify our position. Several days after this discussion, the mother superior asked me where this passage had been taken from. I told her it was taken from the twenty-ninth book of the Moralia, sixth chapter.114 I thought I had cited it as such in the extract I had copied for her. She told me that when she had showed it to someone else, this person said that one couldn’t judge a passage if one didn’t see the place from which it had been extracted, because often one could only properly understand its meaning if one saw what preceded it and what followed it. I didn’t let this remark fall to earth. I replied immediately that if people were still reasonable enough to admit that, they only need to extend this rule of common sense to everyone and not force others to condemn propositions extracted from the book of an author without wanting to show from what place they had taken it or to permit an examination of what had preceded or what had followed it in the book of the bishop of Ypres. Such is the case with the first of the five propositions, which is the only one whose actual words are found in the book.115 They fear that we will see that its sense is determined by a meaning so Catholic that it would be impossible to explain it as something wrong. But when it is presented alone, it is ambiguous and capable of being interpreted as being erroneous. It is in this erroneous sense that it has been justly condemned. I don’t think what I told her 114. In fact, this passage is taken from Saint Gregory the Great, Moral Reflections on Job, 29:4. 115. The first of the five condemned propositions is: “It is a semi-Pelagian opinion to say that Jesus Christ died and shed his blood for all human beings without exception.”

Report on Captivity 113 had any great effect, although she didn’t contradict me. Shortly afterward, she consulted the priests and was fortified against any type of argument. She rejected them all by silence and indifference. When I saw her flee, I did not pursue her. That made me remember another interview when I thought I could very much embarrass her but I stopped short. I had too much fear to go too far. It was sometime after Christmas. As I assisted that holy night at the entire service they perform with great devotion—but with no chant and with a simple psalmody, because they never chant—I heard a preparatory prayer they said every day in French to offer God these praises and these prayers for different, specific intentions. There is one, general prayer that comes after they had named several sorts of people for whom they prayed. They added: “And, generally, for all those for whom Jesus Christ wanted to pray.” I kept my reaction private long enough, but finally one day when I was talking with the mother superior, I asked her to tell me where this prayer came from. She said she didn’t know who had made it but that she thought it had existed from the beginning of their congregation because they had it from Genoa and that it was possible that those who had written their constitutions and rules had composed it. She was curious to know why I asked her this. I replied that it was because, if we had said this prayer at Port-Royal, they wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to find a heresy in it and to charge us with a crime. They would have claimed that it would be a sign that we didn’t believe that Jesus Christ had died for everyone if we indicated that he had not prayed for everyone and that we only wanted to pray for those for whom he had prayed. She seemed so stunned and embarrassed by this remark that to pull her a little out of her discomfiture, I went further and told her that it wasn’t that I didn’t believe her prayer was completely Catholic, since it is in entire conformity with the prayer of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper where he says that he prays for them and not for the world, that he prays for those God has given them out of the world. Her face opened up at this explanation and she told me that in effect it’s all the same thing. But I continued to make her see that one could not be prevented from drawing a consequence from these words: that there is no indication that Jesus Christ wanted to die for those for whom he did not even want to pray. Once again, I put her in a state of anxiety concerning which path to take to respond to me. She was afraid to make some faux pas in defending her prayer. As a result, I promptly finished my argument by telling her that I had only wanted to show her the injustice we fall into when we let ourselves become prejudiced toward innocent people. We and she do not have any other opinion than that of the church on these questions where we believe all that she believes and should not occupy ourselves with other difficulties we do not understand. Still, the same words in their mouth were quite Catholic and in our mouths passed for blasphemies. Based on this, they claim we believe the doctrine of the fifth condemned proposition. That was all I wanted to draw from this case: to show clearly that there are great injustices in the world. If

114 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY I’m not mistaken, she was quite happy that I left her after this conclusion, without pushing the matter further. I myself would not have wanted to go further. XVI The further my stay went forward, the less I saw any end to my captivity. Nearly the only thought that came to my mind was that I would never be permitted to change my situation, because I could not imagine that they would ever want to send me back to Port-Royal. I clearly felt the aversion that I would receive from those of our sisters who had changed sides in the dispute. I imagined they would all be like Soeur Flavie, because I didn’t know who the others were. Besides that, the only thing that kept returning to my mind was a dream I had had shortly before our abduction, because I saw that part of it had already been fulfilled and that it only lacked the fulfillment of the last part, which was to return to PortRoyal des Champs. I dreamed that I saw myself all alone in a carriage on a road I didn’t know. I couldn’t see whoever was directing it. I only saw the carriage’s horses and not even the driver. But Father Singlin116 was in another carriage in front of us with some people whom I couldn’t clearly see. From time to time our carriages caught up with each other and Father Singlin pointed out to me in a book I was holding certain passages I should read. They were all lessons and consolations for the time of persecution. It seemed to me that this book contained the works of Saint John Chrysostom and that among other sections he had pointed out epistle thirty-three. Next, without saying anything to me, his carriage moved away and I found myself so alone that I saw nothing except the heavens. With that, I was so happy that no trip had ever seemed so pleasant to me. Finally, after that happened to me several times, I completely lost sight of Father Singlin and a short while afterward I found myself walking. I didn’t know how I had left the carriage. I was just alone without knowing where I was. I spotted the convent of Port-Royal des Champs. It was already night and I tried to reach it, but I didn’t know where were the roads to it. Finally I was next to a low window and spoke through it to a woman whom I saw within. I asked her to let me enter. She told me that the door wasn’t on this side but I told her that since I had found a window, I wasn’t going any further from her room because I didn’t know where to go to find the door. So I entered through the window and found myself in the Saint Bernard room,117 where I saw several of our sisters. Among others, I noted in particular Soeur Geneviève de l’Incarnation,118 Soeur Marie de 116. A disciple of Saint-Cyran, Antoine Singlin (1607–1664) served as the confessor and superior of the convent of Port-Royal until his dismissal by royal command. He died shortly afterward on April 17, 1664. 117. As in many convents of the period, Port-Royal designated its rooms under the rubric of an assigned patron saint. 118. Geneviève de l’Incarnation Pineau.

Report on Captivity 115 Saint Agnès,119 and Soeur Sainte Synclétique.120 The latter seemed very sad to me and obviously showed the beaten-down state we were in, but I reproached her and asked her if this was how we glorified ourselves in the cross of Jesus Christ. At the same time, as I turned toward a window, I saw the air on fire and a very black but flaming cloud, like is seen sometimes in the summer when there is a great deal of thunder. This same nun, seeing the same cloud as I did, let out a great sigh and said: “Oh! What a night we will yet have!” I didn’t know what she wanted to say, but she made me afraid. I left there because I wanted to go adore the Blessed Sacrament, but it was so dark that I couldn’t see the way. I woke up without knowing what my dream meant. I remember that I recounted the dream to Mademoiselle de Vertus121 several days before our departure. She told me with sadness—she was already discouraged about our future misfortunes—that it was a bad dream. For myself, I found that it had to be interpreted as a captivity where I would be all alone. Still, I couldn’t accept that it would be like that, because we hoped to be at least assigned in pairs and no longer be prisoners in the convents where they would place us. When I was living in my desert, I always remembered my carriage. Still, during the first few months, I didn’t feel this consolation that I had found in my sleep, where the journey and the solitude seemed so agreeable. I wanted to see if this might arrive. But when God gave me the joy of his salvation, I still recognized that this was like the end of my dream. As we were offering the year-long prayers of mourning for the deceased Father Singlin, it seemed to me that my prayers for him indicated that my journey would last more than that one year. Port-Royal des Champs returned every day in my mind, but I never saw its door at all. There didn’t seem to be the least possibility I would leave where I was. Finally, when I finished the suffrages for Father Singlin on April 17 and there was an additional month afterward, I forgot my dream and I no longer wondered when I would find myself in the streets of Paris and on the road to Port-Royal. They led me to understand that it was in order to accompany Mère Agnès that they directed me to go there. There I found all of our sisters whom I have seen. We still had a bad night to endure and it has yet to subside, but it will disappear as all the things of the world do. The truth of God will remain eternally and will deliver all those who want to be saved only by it. The detail about entering by the window still turned out to be true. They did not make us all come back here by a straightforward entry. Rather, it was a second abduction to chase us out of our convent in Paris by a type of treasonous deceit. They promised that they were doing this to give us greater freedom and not to hold us as prisoners in our own convent. Those are the 119. Marie de Sainte Agnès de Rubentel. 120. Anne-Julie de Sainte Synclétique de Rémicourt, the last subprioress of Port-Royal, died in 1718. 121. Catherine-Françoise de Bretagne de Vertus (1617–1692) was a lady-in-waiting to the duchess of Longueville, a prominent defender of Port-Royal at court.

116 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY exact words of Archbishop Péréfixe, but as soon as we arrived, the royal guards sealed off the doors and the architects of Châtelet made measurements in order to change our convent into a dungeon. Still, if God provides interior edification for the spiritual house among us, the work of those who reinforce our walls will be in vain. They will not weaken our confidence; in fact, by his grace, it has already resisted much greater temptations. In order to devote only one section of this report to my dreams, I saw with the greatest joy I could have in the world that when I found myself again in our community with such unity and such determination, it was the fulfillment of another dream I had had about three years ago. I saw the Paris convent partially demolished because the whole interior of partitions and floors had collapsed. Moreover, I saw that all of its walls lay open to the elements, from top to bottom, because all the stone facing had pulled away from the wall. More than four inches of daylight surrounded it on the ground because the stones had clear separated from it. There was a frightening wind. I stood in great admiration at the scene. How was it possible that this convent still stood and that its walls still resisted when they were only supported now by the foundation and when its stone facade had completely pulled away? I remained in this state of wonder and I still remain in it, because this is the miracle God has done among us. By an invincible power he supports us against a conspiracy of all of hell to destroy a poor destitute community without assistance and separated from its proper superiors. It enjoys neither support nor direction. I now must resume my story and finish it. I’ve already described what happened during Lent and how I wrote to the archbishop concerning Holy Communion at Easter. My good sisters started again to exhort me not to let this feast pass like the others. One day the mother superior came to tell me on behalf of Madame des Hameaux that the latter sent me her compliments and added that she was very much praying for me and that it was time that I thought about taking Holy Communion at Easter. The superior pressed me to make a reply. I told her that I was astonished that they would offer me such an honor and that they still had some respect for me, given the position they all shared. Since the time I had told them my opinion on this signature, which I considered a mortal sin, they could have easily judged that I would have a greater repugnance to commit this sin on the Feast of Easter than at any other time. I didn’t want to shed the blood of Jesus Christ with his executioners so that I could eat his body with the faithful. I think that I didn’t say this last phrase on this occasion and that I limited myself to mortal sin alone. I must have used this last phrase at another meeting. After this the mother superior didn’t say anything to me for a while; she only sighed over the hardening of my position. But several days afterward, she brought up my words when I was in the presence of Madame de Rantzau. The superior exaggerated the blow to her heart she experienced when she saw me guilty of placing the legitimate obedience I owe to my superiors on

Report on Captivity 117 the same level as mortal sins. I replied that if she had wanted to take the trouble to consider the reasons I had given her several times to make her understand that in my current disposition I could not sign without committing a public lie on a very important subject and without wounding the reputation of the neighbor, she would not have found it difficult to conclude that I considered the signature a criminal act. She would not have been subject to any shock when I used the expression “this mortal sin,” because I had always talked to her about this in the same sense if not in the same words. Still, since this term had caused her pain, I promised her that I would no longer express my position in such strong language. It was enough for me that she had been apprised of this once and that she understand by that one term how little it was possible that the sight of great feasts or the desire for Holy Communion could lead me to do something that would make me unworthy for my entire life. As they saw me so firm in my position, they began to make me afraid of completely new evils that awaited us. At first, they didn’t explain what they were. Finally, they spoke to me about a bull that was coming out. I indicated that I was clearly waiting for it and that this was not much of a surprise to me. At that time they didn’t indicate to me what the bull contained. But another time when the mother superior was alone with me, she opened the discussion and showed a strange apprehension about things to which I was exposing myself without telling me what they were. I asked her what they could be. She sighed and tears filled her eyes when she told me she only dared to think about it. I pressed her many times but she was not able to say what it was. I thought she didn’t dare pronounce the word “excommunication.” Finally, it was up to me to ask her if this might be that they would excommunicate us. She told me: “Unfortunately, yes! The terrible thing! They say that this bull is coming for you and that it excommunicates all of you if you do not sign. After that, dear Sister, if you let yourself be excommunicated, I can already tell you that it will be impossible to keep you with us. We will ask the archbishop to remove you. Never did I see such a possible outcome!” I replied to her that I was God’s, that he will do with me what he pleases, and that I feared more to separate myself from him by offending him than by being excommunicated for having been faithful to him. As for the rest, however disturbing this news might be, it was less surprising to the persons who knew that it was only the fulfillment of the wishes that the Jesuits have stated publicly for a long time. They have worked without ceasing to make these hopes succeed. If God wants to permit them to arrive at the end of their project, things will move even further forward, because for many years before there was any mention of the formulary, they wrote that the royal sword must join the sword of the church to bring down those who displease them. To see the direction things have taken and where violence has already broken out, it is not unthinkable that at long term we might well die from it. At that point, she cried out, “What a thought!” I told

118 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY her that this thought was truly horrifying but that it had already occurred to the Jesuits. I told her that they themselves had printed it in their writings. This was not a tale. As for excommunication, they didn’t wait for the bull to declare that those who refused the signature were excommunicated and to pressure the king to banish them from the kingdom. I had read this in a writing of Father Ferrier122 shortly before leaving Port-Royal. So, there is no doubt who is soliciting the new bulls and where the inspirations are coming to the pope, who cannot know what is happening so far from him except from the reports they make for him. She obviously saw by my facial expression that I was speaking with conviction. I didn’t believe it was wrong to express this more strongly than usual, since it was a question of excommunication and it was important that she saw that I considered this excommunication as a strange injustice, which I do not attribute to the church but to enemies determined and cruel enough to overcome her ministers and make them instruments of their vengeance. The good mother superior wanted to soften things a little but she had no facts to lean on, except that she could not believe that these good priests were capable of such a strange obsession. It is true that the news of the bull did not surprise me because I thought events were getting even worse. I imagined that they would destroy everything, especially after the month of January, when I tempted fortune by asking the mother superior if she would kindly permit me to ask for the Homelies of Saint John Chrysostom on Saint Matthew from Petit.123 I told her that he would bill it to me because he would have it paid for by my father. I didn’t see how she could refuse me such a civil request, but either for inflicting a defeat or because she thought it was true, she told me that the king had forbidden all the books and translations made by these Messieurs.124 When I told her that the book I was asking for was not among this number, she replied that if the bookstore I had named was its publisher, I couldn’t have it because they had seized everything in that bookstore and, moreover, several booksellers had been imprisoned. I believed this in all simplicity and was convinced that the war had begun, that there was some bloody declaration, and that people were screaming: Exinanite, exinanite.125 I was concerned about this, but I wasn’t anguished because God, by his grace, had strengthened my peace. Since they had talked with me about this new bull, I asked from time and time for news about it. Once, they told me that it had arrived but that it had not 122. See Father Ferrier, Idée veritable du jansénism. 123. The Parisian printer Pierre Le Petit had become the principal publisher of works by Jansenist authors. The work in question is Homélies de Saint Jean Chrysostome sur l’évangile de Saint Matthieu, 3 vols., trans. Paul-Antoine de Marsilly (Paris: Le Petit, 1665). 124. The “Messieurs” were the solitaires of Port-Royal, the male community of scholars on the grounds of Port-Royal des Champs. 125. “Destroy it! Destroy it!” (Ps 146:7).

Report on Captivity 119 been received in Parlement. Next, they told me that the king had carried the bull to Parlement and that it had been received but that it hadn’t been published.126 I told them that it wouldn’t take long for it to be published and that the archbishop wouldn’t lose any time about it. From day to day I awaited this news, which made me envision a necessary change in our situation, especially mine, since these good sisters told me without ceasing that if I made myself an excommunicate, they would not keep me. I knew that for some of them it was not only the horror of excommunication but also the shame they would have to see me abandoned and to not dare to look at me, because they imagined that such would be the outcome. Among others, the subprioress told me on the evening I was leaving that in speaking about this, she had declared that as far as she was concerned, she would never have the courage to treat me in this way and she couldn’t prevent herself from coming to see me, but that Madame de Rantzau had sharply replied that we couldn’t do so and that no one would be able to approach an excommunicate except the one who has permission to deal with excommunicates, such as she does every day with Lutherans. Finally, on the Sunday within the octave of the Ascension, when I heard the gospel at Mass, absque synagogis facient vos,127 and all the rest, I said to myself, “Surely they are going to publish the bull today,” and I was impatient to have someone tell me this was true, but as I am going to say, I didn’t learn anything until the following Tuesday. When I saw in the accompanying pastoral letter that it had in fact been published that Sunday, I had a veritable consolation in thinking that Jesus Christ had foreseen this and that he had thought about us on this occasion when he said these words: ut, cum venerit hora eorum, reminiscamini quia ego dixi vobis.128 XVII Two days after the publication of the bull Monsieur de Chamillard came to bring me the pastoral letter. I hadn’t seen anyone from the world since my removal, except for the archbishop on the one occasion I’ve talked about. I knew nothing at all about his conduct in the convent since our departure. I didn’t even figure out by conjecture that he had stayed there. Still, I certainly believed it because I had clearly seen what measures he was taking before we were expelled. First, Monsieur de Chamillard told me that he hadn’t had so much hope as he had at present that I would dispose myself to satisfy the archbishop, since he had to make me see that through the new bull of the pope, His Holiness personally ordered signatures on the new formulary, which was in conformity with the one of the Assembly of 126. Pope Alexander VII’s bull, Regiminis apostolici, was promulgated on February 15, 1665. It was ratified by the Parlement of Paris during a lit de justice, presided over by Louis XIV, on April 29, 1665. 127. “They will put you out of the synagogue” (Jn 16:2). 128. “When their hour comes, you will remember what I have told you” (Jn 16:4).

120 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY Bishops. Since there wasn’t any greater authority in the church, he promised that the papal bull would remove all the problems that had blocked me from obeying. I replied that I was astonished that he had this opinion concerning us. We didn’t need any greater authority; we were already too troubled by the authority of the archbishop. The fact that the Assembly that had developed this formulary had no legitimate authority to impose it as a law for the bishops had been a strong reason for some bishops not to accept the formulary. But as far as we are concerned, we recognize in the person of our archbishop a complete authority to command us to obey everything in conformity with God’s law and our duties. Our only difficulty was our inability to obey something where we would be obliged to lie in signing something contradicting what we believed. Since it was only a question of not wanting to disobey the law of God that forbids lying, I was as little able to do this in virtue of the pope’s command as I was able to do it at the first word of our archbishop. We would have done this if we had been capable of doing so. He began his usual speech on obedience to the pope and that there had to be a sovereign judge in the church to resolve disputes as a last resort. He said everything he usually said on this topic, which can only be defended if one believes in infallibility, although he no longer dared to say so as clearly as he first did. He had made great threats to me about excommunication. I told him that as long as I remained in Catholic faith and charity, I would always be in the church, regardless of whatever efforts they made to chase us out of it. He replied that the church was not only the assembly of the faithful who live in the same faith and the same charity, as Monsieur de Saint-Cyran defined it in his catechism,129 but that one must always add “under the same leader, who is the pope,” to speak in a Catholic way. I told him that Catholics were all instructed to believe that we cannot say we abide in the charity of the church if we are not united with its head or its members. As a result, there would no longer be any charity if we were divided from the head and no longer recognized the pope as the visible head of the church. Nonetheless, no matter how great his authority might be, it was subordinate to the authority of God. I could not, under the pretext of obeying the pope, disobey the law of God. He wanted to frighten me by explaining what it meant to die in the state of excommunication. I replied to him that, on the contrary, when I wanted to find consolation in my suffering, I dreamed about the peace we would have at the moment of death for not having been unfaithful to our conscience and for having to appear before a judge who knows the bottom of the heart and cannot be surprised by anyone. I hoped that the fidelity I tried to give him on this occasion would serve to cover all of my sins in front of him. He asked if I wanted to hear the bull and the accompanying decree. I replied that he could do anything that pleased him. He made a reading of them, to which 129. “The church is the company of those who serve God in the light and in the profession of the true faith and in the union of charity” (Saint-Cyran, Théologie familière, 8th ed. [Paris: 1648]).

Report on Captivity 121 I listened. He read them with great coldness, without dropping a word. He read the bull first and then he told me I would listen to the decree, because that is what might ease my problem and that the archbishop had tried especially to do so here. When this was done, I said that the archbishop always asked for candor and that the pope, beyond the condemnation of the book by the bishop of Ypres, also condemned those people he treated as new heretics. He wanted to deny that. I proved to him that he couldn’t understand anything else by the reference to a living heresy, which tried to escape after they had crushed its head. They couldn’t be saying that about the book of a dead author, who was incapable of wanting to escape or to defend himself. I strongly supported this position, since it was easy for me to do so, and spoke to him in the same way about the oath on the gospels that they had added to this formulary. He responded very poorly to everything, since he had no other principle to support his reasons than the advantage of assurance that submission always brings to the soul. I forgot that the sister who was present made me a sign that she would leave if I so desired. I indicated to her that I had no concerns about this because in effect I claimed I had nothing to say. Still, I let her know later that it would be good if I had greater freedom to speak with him. I think it was a way of acting as the superior, but I didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t say anything more once she had left. He wanted to make me very afraid that I would lose the opportunity for Holy Communion at Easter. I told him that nothing was a more sensitive issue to me than this privation but that the outcome of this issue was clearly delegated to the conscience of the archbishop. He was the one who had refused it for us and it would be up to him to render an account of his decision. He spoke to me about Soeur Françoise-Claire, who had signed on her deathbed with such regret about her disobedience that, although it wasn’t necessary, she had wanted that a pardon be asked for her from the archbishop. It seemed to me that he told me that. Nonetheless, since they assured me that she had neither seen nor wanted to see him, I couldn’t even imagine how he could have drawn up such an implausible lie. I would rather believe that my memory is mistaken and that he had said this about someone else and not about himself. But that is how I understood it and I don’t think it was just a manner of speaking. He added that she was a very good nun, devoted to the rule, but that was why God had taken pity on her. He described for me how he had made Soeur Marie-Claire sign and that he hadn’t had much difficulty with her. He spoke to me next about Soeur Marie-Aimée,130 who had been the last to sign; she was the eighteenth. I took the occasion to ask him who the other members of the convent were who had signed. He appeared not to hear me and changed the subject. I clearly saw that he was quite content that I didn’t know this. He was right about that, because that would not have strengthened his case. 130. Marie-Aimée de Sainte Pélagie Choart de Buzenval (1636–1697).

122 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY Finally, he told me that I should think about this development since the archbishop was giving us the time to do so. As for himself, if I desired to see him, he would always be ready to do so when I let him know I was ready, but he thought I didn’t have much confidence in him. I politely replied to him that I had as much confidence as was possible—I meant from those who would give me such confidence, since I wouldn’t have believed someone who counseled me to sign—but that when I saw I couldn’t satisfy someone, I preferred to deprive myself of my own satisfaction rather than to make any difficulty for them. He recommended that I make special prayers and penances during the time he still gave us. I promised him I would. He asked me if I wanted him to leave the pastoral letter and I indicated that I would be very happy if he did. As they hadn’t opened the cloister grill there, he didn’t know where to go and told me to recall the attending nun so that she might tell him how he would leave. I felt myself at home in this situation and replied to him that since I had been a prisoner for ten months, I didn’t know anything in the convent except the room where they had locked me in. I didn’t know the ways and didn’t know anyone other than the nuns. He didn’t dare respond to that and seemed embarrassed, as much as I could judge without seeing his expression. It is difficult to have a tranquil conscience when someone feels guilty for having worked at the oppression of innocence. After this visit from Monsieur de Chamillard, I announced to these good sisters that I wanted to use more time than what they currently gave us to live only in praying to God. To do this I asked them to release me from doing manual work. At the very least, they could give me something that didn’t require careful application or close attention. I said this because they had practically forced me to make waxen figures for them. From external persons they had learned that I knew how to do such work, a fact that I had hidden from them as long as I could. As soon as they knew about this, I refused to engage in such work. Starting in the month of October they pressed me to do so. They thought their offer of this work would provide a diversion for me. At least, that was their pretext. But I replied that this argument was the opposite of their intention. This kind of work could only be an additional punishment for me and not a diversion, since I would have to apply myself carefully to a work that would permit no distraction. To the contrary, I needed rest and free time so that I would not be prevented from contemplating God without ceasing. This is what was needed in my state, where I could find strength and consolation only in him. They then stopped pressuring me for the moment. Madame de Rantzau said that we should wait until spring. This statement, which let me see that she was planning a long duration for my captivity, gave me a shock. She often told me similar things. I don’t know if this was deliberate, if she wanted to raise this fear in me so that I would feel how bad my position was. Perhaps she thought that this fear would make me think about finding the means of deliverance. She wasn’t mistaken about the first point. I have already

Report on Captivity 123 said it and I say it again that the fear of future evils and of the severity of their punishments is more difficult to accept than the evil itself and that whoever is able to prevent herself from thinking about tomorrow is practically exempt from suffering. Still, such fear often provides the occasion to offer to God voluntarily sacrifices, which he might approve as much as the sacrifices that have a clearer external effect and more multiple effects. They promised me they would no longer press me about this issue until Easter. But from then on it was impossible for me to fend them off. They gave me many occasions to work only to show them that I believed I owed them this indulgence out of a spirit of charity and thanksgiving for their hospitality. I clearly saw the reasons why I should not be involved with these types of work, but I was not able to make a decisive judgment on this issue as long I was there. On the one hand, I was more distant than ever from these amusements that, according to Saint Augustine, only add new charms to the temptation of concupiscence of the eyes. On the other hand, I had a strong disposition to please these good sisters and I found a distinct benefit in working on those small things they didn’t know how to make. This became the subject of my usual conversation with Madame de Rantzau. Most of her visits were devoted to discussing similar things she likes because she is familiar with them and she is skilled in talking about them. This focus was a shield to defend me from all the other kinds of conversations that were avoided because of it. But as for the wax works, I held firm to my position that I would only be involved in this after Easter. It was good that I held to this because if I had started this earlier, I wouldn’t have done anything else and they wouldn’t have stopped asking me for something new. I was actually working on them when Monsieur de Chamillard arrived. But as I left the parlor, I stopped working on several pieces I had begun to model into a mold. I told the nuns that I was not going to start work on anything else and that I would only finish the piece that was already in an advanced stage, because I wanted to have all this time to pray to God. They told me I had only too much free time. They thought it would be better for me not to think so much about this business, which required greater simplicity and less reflection. This was one of the reproaches Madame de Rantzau made to me—sometimes pleasantly—when I gave her some good reason for my position or when I consoled myself with something from Scripture that applied to my position. She told me, “Your mind is made like your fingers. As you find all sorts of inventions to arrive at finishing the objects you make, your mind also provides reasons to strengthen your position about everything.” Sometimes, she heartily laughed about this. But whatever her manner might be, these things were clearly said and at the end of the day she had no reply for them. Once when she was talking about the threats of excommunication, she emphasized that it would be a terrible thing to be excommunicated from the pope.

124 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY I replied that there was only one consolation in this: it has sometimes happened that the successors of Saint Peter have imitated him a little in his quickness to draw the sword and to strike a blow too soon, as he did, without waiting for permission from Jesus Christ. But Jesus immediately heals the situation, as he did concerning the ear that was cut off. He gives an interior increase of faith and charity to those who have been separated on the pretext of their disobedience. I hoped this is what would happen to us if they excommunicated us unjustly. This comparison surprised her and made her laugh. She was not angry about it. Another time when they were talking about the end of the world, I asked them if they hadn’t noticed in the gospels that after the predictions Jesus Christ made about the end times, he said, “Now, the kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins.”131 I made this remark because I thought we were near the end times and that Jesus Christ had said that each of the virgins had to keep her lamp lit in order to enlighten her in the night. That seemed to be the opposite of the obligation they wanted to convince us we had: to let ourselves be directed blindly by our superiors without regard to where they were leading us. If Our Lord had wanted to teach us that this blind submission was necessary, he would have said that these ten virgins didn’t have lamps but that they followed a torch someone held in front of them. Instead, Jesus Christ expressly indicates that each of them must have a light for herself. He calls those who wait for others to lend them their oil foolish. She didn’t say anything else in response except that this was just one of my inventions and that I sought support for my case everywhere. I admitted to them that I found lessons everywhere concerning this point. The principle on which we are acting, namely, not wanting to prefer human obedience to obedience to God’s law, which everywhere forbids deceit and injustice, is established everywhere in Scripture. In the Beata immaculata alone,132 I could learn from every verse that the only true obedience is the one we render to God’s commandment and that we only must obey superiors to the extent that they are God’s ministers and that they command us to do what is in conformity with his law. The more I pursued this business, the clearer I saw it. Consequently, I didn’t need to consult anything because my mind had no doubt about it. I disturbed them on the last point when I spoke to them so frankly, but I was forced to do so from time to time. When I went a long time without saying anything to them, they immediately imagined that I was beginning to listen to them and that I was not completely determined on my position. They strongly wanted to promote this atmosphere since the new bull had come out, but this is what caused me to speak to them with greater resolve. As soon as I saw the bull, I indicated to the mother superior that I had such a horror of the oath attached to 131. See Mt 25:1–13. 132. Ps 118, a long meditation on the observance of the Law, was a particular favorite among Jansenists, including Blaise Pascal and Jean Hamon.

Report on Captivity 125 the new formulary that nothing could confirm me more in my refusal to sign. She asked me why I found this point such an obstacle since I had told them earlier that I considered the signature itself to be an oath. I told them that personally I held the opinion that a public signature was like that. Nonetheless, the people who mocked our scruples disagreed with us on this issue. They claimed that the signature was neither an oath nor a testament but simply a sign of submission. In the present situation, however, no one could any longer deny that the signature was clearly an oath. Consequently, those who would be willing to swear to something they don’t believe to be true or about which they weren’t certain or about which they simply didn’t know anything would be committing high perjury. In these different cases it is not permitted to swear an oath. She asked me if they would then be swearing falsely if they signed. I replied to her that I was not judging others; still, the rule was constant that we should affirm by an oath only what we know with certitude. It is not enough to believe something in order to swear to it because we could vaguely believe something that is not certain. I added that I still experienced a certain joy in dealing with this new formulary. I hoped that it would help some of our sisters who I am convinced only signed by letting themselves be blinded by what they were told: that the signature was nothing important in itself and that it only signified submission. They thought they were only doing something indifferent by obedience when they signed. But when they see that it’s a question of swearing on the holy gospels, they might open their eyes and return to their hearts to see if they have sufficient reasons to swear about a question of fact of which they are ignorant. I don’t believe that after this reflection they will engage in a new signature. The superior was surprised by my view. She asked me if I really believed that. I told her yes. I could not imagine that Soeur Gertrude, among others, would decide to make this oath on the gospels. She told me in this same conversation that despite all this, everyone was going to sign. Even the bishops who hadn’t done so until now, and in particular the bishop of Alet,133 were determined to do so. They had declared that as soon as the pope had spoken, all the problems had been removed. Sometime afterward, she assured me that this prelate had signed. Speaking to me about him, she told me that he was certainly a holy bishop. She had known him before and he had preached to them. Everyone was astonished that such a holy man, one who had been so distant from all of this, went and became involved in Jansenism. But also, because of his virtue, God gave him the grace to pull himself out of this. I replied that I was astonished that someone didn’t offer a very different interpretation, namely, that it appears that the cause of those they calumniate under the name of Jansenists is not so bad because holy prelates, when they have carefully examined 133. Nicolas Pavillon (1597–1677), bishop of Alet, was the leading theologian among the quartet of French bishops who defended the validity of the fait/droit distinction in calibrating the degree of assent to the formulary. He did not in fact retract his position.

126 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY the cause, approve it and defend it. But she reversed my argument by assuring me that he had changed his opinion. This provoked not a little grief in me and it was the subject of my prayers during the rest of my time there. This misfortune made me fearful about others and made me extremely worried about the bishop of Angers. But for my consolation God permitted them to tell me that Madame Angran,134 who had come to see me and whom they had refused entrance despite her impassioned entreaties, had asked them to tell me that she was returning from Angers, where she had gone to take a superior of Sainte-Marie. She had seen the bishop of Angers,135 who looked perfectly well and who thought affectionately about me. This gave me peace of mind, because I judged that since no one added anything to this news, nothing bad had happened. They would have taken great care to inform me if he had changed his position along the lines of the bishop of Alet—presuming that what they said about this holy prelate was true. I only semibelieved them. I couldn’t see how a holy bishop who has no personal interest in this could abandon the cause of truth after he had known its justice. XVIII In another meeting when Madame de Rantzau spoke to me about the new bull, I told her that we would always be obliged to Father Annat because he was the most sincere of all those we had to deal with. He was the one who wanted us to speak frankly. He didn’t permit any equivocation to give the liberty to sign without changing one’s belief. He so clearly enfolded the admission of fact with that of faith in the new bull and in the new formulary, by making them both equally the object of the oath, that it would no longer be possible to ignore what we are doing by signing and by fooling ourselves that we are not thereby committing ourselves to a belief concerning fact. She asked me what part I thought that Father Annat, who was in Paris, had played in the bull that came from Rome. I replied that it wasn’t the first that had made the road from Rome twice. Its style was too recognizable not to see who had worked on it. I assure you that when she heard me reply with such determination, she didn’t say a word and didn’t dare contradict a truth that in her conscience she held as much as I did. I was speaking out of my personal conjecture. I had no way of knowing that this bull had been sent back to Rome, as I have learned since that time. She often referred to this terrible excommunication in order to make me afraid. I told her one day that this excommunication—unjust as it may be—did not add much to the state in which the archbishop had left us during nearly a year. It was without any form of justice, without a juridical sentence, and made in such an irregular way that it was unjust. It seemed that God wanted to console 134. Catherine Angran de Belisi (1621–1671) was an ally of Port-Royal and a close friend of the Pascal family. 135. Henry Arnauld, bishop of Angers. See note 73.

Report on Captivity 127 us in all the evils that burdened us by letting us see that against us they only used improvised means without any form. If the new bull had been received last year, as the date indicates—February 15, 1664—it is astonishing that the archbishop, who had the excommunication it carries in his hand, didn’t use it at that time to justify his conduct and to separate us from the sacraments.136 On the other hand, if the new bull had not been published by this time, it is astonishing that he didn’t delay our separation until he would have been able to use this new authority to excommunicate us in due form. But God always permitted such things to happen in our affairs. They begin by condemning us without having judged us. Then they try to show we are guilty to justify our condemnation. I gave her several examples drawn from the violence they started to perpetrate when they chased away the confessors, the pupils, and the novices without any justification. At that time it still wasn’t a question of any signature, even though there were only three months to wait before the grand-vicars of Cardinal de Retz ordered this signature to be given as soon as all this was executed among us. This incident taught us, without needing any other study than that of our experience, to judge that it is dangerous to take part by act of public assent and oath in an enterprise whose justice is not obvious in the procedures it is using. She only gave me a broad reply focused on the good intentions of the archbishop. I don’t remember it precisely, but I haven’t forgotten another one that she gave me on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, which they celebrate in their convent because it is the patronal feast of the parish in which they are located. During a conversation on the subject of this apostle I said that the church would be fortunate to still have pastors who had his zeal and his charity for the souls entrusted to their care. She immediately intervened and replied that Saint Paul himself had used excommunication as a remedy that was sometimes necessary. I replied that I begged her to be careful about the application she was going to make of this example. If she was planning to compare us with the Corinthian Saint Paul excommunicated for public incest, there had to be some similarity between the crime of this scandalous man and what they accuse us of.137 Beyond that, there still remains an extreme difference, since in all of his just severity Saint Paul had maintained the tenderness of a father toward this child he chastised. He recommended that they should intensify their charity toward him to console him because Saint Paul was afraid that he might fall into an overwhelming sadness. But as for us—after having taken away from us all the things sacred, they left us in a state of abandonment as great as if they didn’t care about throwing us into a state 136. In fact, the bull Regiminis apostolici was promulgated on February 15, 1655. The confusion about the date stems from the archaic letter-dating system used by the Vatican and the Curia. In this system, March 25, the feast of the Annunciation (and thus of the Incarnation), is honored as the beginning of a new ecclesiastical year. 137. See 1 Cor 5:1–5.

128 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY of bitterness and despair. Without holding on to God and finding their strength in him, souls could perish, without anyone feeling the slightest qualm about it. I never spoke as strongly as I did on this occasion, but I had been really provoked. I think she realized that she had given me too much the advantage in this dispute by such an odious comparison. She had enough goodness or prudence not to push me further. She replied to me with enough moderation so that I didn’t pursue this any further. We changed the subject of conversation. I was scarcely less frank when I spoke to mother superior during another meeting. Here was the occasion. This good nun was making her ten-day retreat during the octave of the Blessed Sacrament. During that time I didn’t see her. Nonetheless, she came one morning to find me to ask me with great politeness if I would be willing to transcribe into some small notebooks certain devotional writings, which were, I believe, points of reflection they used in their spiritual exercises. She wanted to bind them with her New Testament. As I was always inclined to render them some small services when I could, I accepted to do this chore without thinking about it. The mother superior left me with several notebooks that were only the beginning of the work and promised to bring me the rest. Before leaving me, she told me that although she was on retreat, since she had taken this occasion to talk to me, she couldn’t stop herself from asking me what state I was in. She asked if the great love of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament didn’t touch my heart. I replied, “More than that, Mother, it has completely ravished me. It is no longer my own love. Because of this I cannot dispose myself to do any harm to the fidelity I owe it.” She heard only too well what I wanted to say to her and replied that I had deeply upset her. As a consequence, she saw that nothing had changed in me, which I admitted to her, and she left sighing. I easily guessed that her departure would reignite her zeal. Her director— who undoubtedly was a Jesuit, because those are the ones the nuns use—couldn’t miss the opportunity to get her to renew her commitment on this point, which passes for one of the principal ones. After this good nun went away, I cast my eyes on the meditations she had brought me. I only read one page but I saw that this was long enough. Immediately, I regretted having made this commitment so easily. So I resolved that I shouldn’t be ashamed of correcting myself but that I should try to do so honestly. To accomplish this I wrote a letter to the mother superior that very afternoon. In it I admitted that I was truly mortified for having committed myself without any reflection that morning. The discomfort she knew I had in my hand gave me a great deal of pain in writing afterward, without mentioning other reasons that were more important for me—although not invincible—but that she would excuse me from explaining to her. I added a compliment to her to assure her that in everything I was capable of doing I would always be delighted to be able to serve her, and not only her, but the least member of her community in recognition of the goodness they had to tolerate my presence in their convent

Report on Captivity 129 notwithstanding the opinion they had of me. The discomfort I took as a pretext was real and she knew that quite well, because since the end of winter I had had some type of gout or rheumatism in an arm and in all the joints of the hand. This gave me enough suffering, especially at night when the pain was greater. Someone carried this letter to the mother superior and she immediately replied by another letter, which I have kept: “Dear Sister, I am very obliged to you for warning me of the discomfort which you experience when you write and I would be embarrassed to cause you even the slightest pain. If there is some remedy for the problem in your hand, I would be happy if you would ask for it so that it might heal you. Please keep our writing until I come to collect it. As for the esteem that our community—which very affectionately serves you—has for you, I leave you to judge that for yourself. What good opinion can we have about someone who strongly resists the church? After all, Our Lord says in the gospel that whoever does not listen to the church must be treated by us like a pagan and that what the church binds on earth shall be bound in heaven. It is true that up to the present I have been deeply moved by your state but honestly if you want to bring about your own downfall, you are free to do so. Think about this!” I began to love completely these good sisters and I prayed to God that he might enlighten them as much as they prayed to him for my conversion. I think this was what made me sensitive about this strange concern. I carried this letter before God, not to ask him for vengeance for the harm that they inflicted on me but to offer him this embarrassment I suffered for the sake of his truth. I prayed that it would make me worthy of obtaining my request for the person for whom I received the grace of better understanding the obligations of Christian charity. Especially when I was at Mass the next day and I saw this good sister go tranquilly to receive Holy Communion, as she did every day during her retreat, I felt something move in my heart. I can’t say that it was a movement of zeal according to the law but at least it was tied to the law that forbids approaching the altar when we know we have offended someone. This increased my horror of an action like the signature, which seemed to enclose within itself as a necessary consequence the violation of all the rules of charity. Those who did it thought they were next obliged to condemn and to harm with impunity all those who have a greater sense of conscience in this affair. I didn’t think we had a lesser obligation to defend ourselves against the accusation of schism and idolatry than we had against the charge of heresy. Consequently, I thought that after having carried this humiliation before God, I would, God willing, say a word about this to the mother superior when he gave me the occasion to talk to her. It seems to me that ten or twelve days passed away without my seeing her again. Finally, she stopped me one day as I left Mass and led me to the garden. First, she excused herself for not having seen me during such a long time. I told her that I thought perhaps she had made this absence the

130 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY object of a resolution during her retreat. She replied that such a resolution would not have been a very good one. As this reply was quite reasonable, I didn’t want to say anything at the moment or make it appear that I was expecting to use this meeting to begin making complaints to her. So we talked for a long time about unimportant things, as was our custom. She even told me certain things about the running of the convent. Among other things, they were having difficulty in asking the archbishop to give them a canonical visitor. He said he would accept their choice and had offered himself for the position. But it doesn’t appear that they really wanted that because they feared that his great preoccupations would not permit him the time necessary to satisfy the nuns. On this question I replied that I really thought that all the other convents enjoyed no advantage over Port-Royal. We were a special case because the archbishop left all the affairs of his diocese, although he had pressing business, to make his most important job and principal occupation everything it had pleased him to do with us the past year. Before changing the subject of conversation, she strongly urged me to commend this business to God. I replied to her as the Samaritan woman did. Being considered a pagan by her, I expressed astonishment that she had asked me to pray for her. Still, I said this in a semi-friendly tone, although with real emotion. She similarly replied to me without bitterness, but still without correcting herself, that clearly I should see that the gospel expressly treated the point in question. I replied to her that as concerns this application of the gospel, we must see if this case was similar to it and if we had violated Christian charity by a criminal intimacy, aggravated by disdain for the church. But I found another terrible word in the gospel against the man who said an injurious word against his brother by calling him a fool. I made her the judge of whether it is more offensive to call someone a fool or to be called a pagan. It seemed to me that I saw on her face some sign that this remark had made an impression. She agreed that one was worse than the other. However, it wasn’t her fault; it was the pope and the church who treated those who refused to obey what the church commands in this way. I told her that we clearly saw that the zeal of those who procure all of these bulls is not grounded on the judgment of the church, because this zeal is so impatient that it doesn’t know how to wait. She showed by her own opinions and by the way in which she wrote to me that although the pope and the archbishop had prescribed a sentence that had only begun and that they had still not pronounced any verdict, she anticipated their judgment by already forming her own and that of her community. This provoked her a little. She sought her excuse in the harm caused by our conduct and rehearsed the usual arguments about the scandal caused by our disobedience. I was moved when I saw that she had so little ability to adopt more just opinions. As it was the moment for a spiritual exercise and she was taking the path to leave the cloister where we were, I let her walk a little in front of me and only followed a few steps behind. She clearly noticed that I was crying and when

Report on Captivity 131 she stopped awhile, I joined her. Instead of showing some kindness to an afflicted person, as she had done before her retreat, the new strength she had received during the retreat drove her to tell me with enough severity, “There is no danger you are not courting at least a little. That’s all to the good!” I replied to her that it was possible she was misunderstanding my tears. Thanks be to God, they didn’t arise from resentment of the injuries done to me personally. Rather, I was moved by pity to see the strange effects produced in the church by this invention of the signature. It seemed it didn’t have any other purpose than to divide the members of Jesus Christ by unjustly chasing away some of them from the church and separating the others from the charity they owe the former. It commits them not only to condemn the doctrine of a dead bishop but also to condemn their living brothers and sisters, united in the same faith and full of Christian and Catholic charity. It was even more painful to see this in her person and in her community than in others I do not know, because the respect I had for their virtue and my inclination to honor them and love them made me find it harder to see that discord was being sown among people who would have been so united if it hadn’t been for this miserable invention. She replied that the fault came not from the introduction of the signature but from our resistance to it. I replied to her that we were constrained to resist when they commanded us to do things we could not do in conscience. She found this response opposed to the submission and respect we owe to the command of superiors because it was a judgment on their conduct. I replied that the conduct they maintained concerning us was all too obvious. We couldn’t pretend to ourselves that the archbishop of Paris treated us like a pastor should treat his sheep. It would be very difficult for us to have much confidence in the conduct of the person who has reduced us to the state where we are. We couldn’t rely on his word that he was only seeking what was advantageous to our souls. After removing from us every kind of assistance and consolation, he was the one who left us for nearly a year without sacraments and without direction. We were abandoned as if we didn’t have a soul and as if he were not responsible for it. This knocked her down a little. Moreover, I added that all of these punishments only had as their cause the refusal to obey the most pointless command in the world. We won’t be any more or any less Catholic when we have sworn that these propositions are in a book we have never seen. They are not afraid that we read it because we are not capable of doing so. She insisted that they didn’t need this to be assured about our faith, in which they found nothing to criticize, but that the church had the right to command us to do whatever pleased her in order to be certain of our obedience. As for this, I asked her to drop the illusion that the church claimed to have this right, as if she could act by planting traps and scandals for her children. On the contrary, the new law was different about this than the old law inasmuch as it is full of charity. The old law, on the other hand, was a rigorous law that only provoked transgressions due to its rigor. Neither the

132 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY apostles nor their successors have received the power to dominate the flock of Jesus Christ. They do not have the power to give commands than have no other purpose than vaunting their authority at the expense of weak souls who cannot tolerate it. Rather, they are obliged to be compassionate with these souls as Saint Paul was with those still attached to legalistic ceremonies. They threaten to excommunicate people who on account of conscience cannot accept a command that they themselves admit is not necessary on the pretext that their disobedience causes scandal; they prefer to reduce these people to this extreme situation rather than soften the rigor of this ordinance. In my opinion, this is acting like a surgeon who would needlessly bind my arm up in a tight ligature and then, when he saw that the arm was turning black and swelling up because of this, would tell me that he had to cut the arm off because gangrene was breaking out. Wouldn’t I say to him, “Doctor, please cut the ligature and don’t cut the arm?” One is a little more reasonable than the other. I let her make the application and figure out the consequences of this example. She was very confused and didn’t know how to answer it. Happily, it wasn’t necessary, because we arrived at the door at the same time. We had to leave each other. I left all of this for her to ponder at her leisure. XIX A short while after this clarification I had with the mother superior, I took further advantage of an opportunity when I was speaking with the subprioress about something regarding her community. At the moment I don’t remember what it was, except that I know very well that I had occasion to tell her that I avoided as much as possible creating problems for the community and meeting people in the convent. I knew how much I must be a burden to them since they considered me a pagan. This good sister exclaimed that nothing was more foreign to their opinion and that the entire community honored me—that was her phrase—and that, if she didn’t show it, it was because they were prevented from doing so by the order the archbishop had given them. I replied to her that I wouldn’t have been able to arrive at this judgment by myself because they didn’t indicate that to me by their conduct. On the contrary, I was obligated to believe the mother superior, who had assured me that the entire community could not have any other opinion of me. As the subprioress still found it difficult to believe that I had properly understood the meaning of the mother superior, I assured her that I had it in writing in a letter written by her. This information made the poor sister to whom I was speaking completely frozen. She dared neither to disavow her superior nor to affirm something that had seemed so harsh to her when she thought I was personally proposing it. I forgot that it was during this other conversation I had on this subject with the mother superior that she indicated she was surprised to find me so blocked

Report on Captivity 133 in my opinions and that I never asked anyone to give me some instruction about my problems. I replied to her that I had told her many times that I had no problems requiring consultation; therefore, I had no personal desire whatever for such communications. Still, if they obliged me to do so, I would be ready to see whoever they would like, just as I had already done at Port-Royal when the archbishop commanded us to do so. I could only honestly tell her that these visits always had an effect on me contrary to the intention of those who set them up. When you hear the different arguments given by people who speak about this business, the contradictions only serve to refute the arguments given by one or another person. After these conversations I usually find myself firmer in my position. Concerning this, she told me that it still seemed to her that I was not the same when Madame de Rantzau spoke with me and that her arguments made some impression upon me. I was surprised that she had such an opinion, which could only be founded on my silence or on the soft and even lighthearted manner in which I talked to her for some time on these issues. I avoided open dispute. I replied to her that I could assure her that up until now the arguments that this nun had given me always strengthened my own. If she had noticed some change in my conduct the past few months, the cause of it was the respect I felt obliged to manifest toward Madame de Rantzau. After I thought that I had grasped what she was building the obligation to sign on—although I remained unconvinced by it—I thought I should no longer enter into any kind of dispute or controversy over it. Given the respect I owe her, I thought I should speak in a manner foreign to any type of contestation that would cause her pain. This incident goes to show that there is nothing they will not take advantage of in the hope that people will weaken. It’s the principal reason why in the last days at the convent I had to speak to them a little more frankly. I was fearful to be an occasion of scandal if, under worthless pretexts and false hopes, they were going to start the rumor that I was beginning to change my opinion. This was especially urgent since the mother superior came to tell me on one occasion that at the Visitation convent on the Rue Saint-Antoine Soeur Madeleine-Christine would soon be won over. The only proof they offered to confirm this was that after a lecture they had given her in the parlor, the superior told her she had dared to make her go to it out of fear that she wouldn’t believe that the things said there had been said expressly for her. The nun lightheartedly replied, “Why were you afraid of that, Mother? I would have gone without difficulty. Moreover, I would have voluntarily given you my opinion about it.” They added to this story a thousand other good things about her. I was not all alarmed by this news. I replied that if they only had this hope she would change, that was very little. I knew she was capable of making this reply without having any disposition to change her mind. Still, these vain hopes didn’t stop these good sisters from rejoicing. The superior showed me the ardent desire she had for her community to obtain from God the great happiness that I might

134 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY show the church an edification that would be so great. Even more did they esteem the grace God would have given them if they could contribute to this change. She said the example of Mère Angélique—that is her phrase—would have the greatest weight in this change and that she had received assurances that if I gave in to this, everyone would give in. I told her that those who spoke this way might well be mistaken but that, if I were capable of believing that my bad example might cause so much scandal, it was a strong reason for me to hold my position even more firmly, out of fear that the faith of others might be shaken. They offered many prayers and penances for me. Some of them made novenas of Holy Communions. Madame de Rantzau had novenas of Masses said on my behalf. They had a great deal of zeal so that their convent would not have less happiness than the other convents where some of our sisters had signed. That’s the way they talked about it, humbly adding that their prayers must be less acceptable to God because they did not obtain what God had accorded others. I consoled them on the basis of a truth affirmed by Saint Paul: that often when we pray, we do not know what we are asking, but that God, who clearly sees the desire of the heart and who penetrates perfectly into theirs and sees that they only want to ask for me what is useful for my salvation, has effectively heard them, although he did not grant them their request. He did so by giving me, through the merit of their charity, the grace and the strength to remain faithful to him and to hope always in him. They are so good that often they received with a good temper similar things I told them. Sometimes I would have wondered if they weren’t persuaded by my arguments, except that from time to time they returned to doubting my salvation. This good mother superior made complaints about me a thousand times. She thought people who lived so austerely, who prayed so well to God, and who were so exemplary in everything else must be damned after all this for one thing: the lack of obedience. Of her own accord she added after this that the same thing can be observed in many heretics. Many of these German Lutherans who came to see Madame de Rantzau are the most sincere people in the world. With good faith they remain in the religion in which they were born without any scruple; nonetheless, they cannot be saved outside the church. I stoutly defended myself when they explicitly made these types of comparison. First, I declared to them that in conscience I could not tolerate them treating me as a heretic. In fact, they were the ones mistaken about the truth for a long time. When they still compared me to Lutherans, they only did it on this single point: that I became lost when I thought I was doing well by not following my appointed guides. Sometimes I engaged them in this debate and tried to raise some scruples in them about sins of ignorance, making them see that under the pretext of having to obey blindly and of being satisfied with the unquestioning faith of a collier by believing everything that the church believes and all that her ministers tell

Report on Captivity 135 us—which they told me without ceasing—it is easy to fall into dangerous consequences. A voluntary ignorance intentionally cultivated might not protect us in the sight of God. That is how I replied to what they told me incessantly. They never took care to examine what was demanded of them. They thought they weren’t obligated to know all of that, as long as they obeyed. In fact, they would be very disturbed to know anything more. I had a strong interview with one of them on this subject. I don’t know if I was too forward when I indicated to her that I was very far from believing that sins of ignorance always merited God’s mercy more than other sins. On the contrary, it seemed to me they merited more the effects of his justice, because they reduce souls to a state that is much more difficult to leave. Those who don’t see and feel their illness are less disposed to have recourse to a doctor. In effect, they live and die in these sins without knowing about them and without asking pardon from God and confessing them, as they do all the others. Nevertheless, even if we say that God tends to pardon sins of ignorance, I think that this should be understood in terms of this life rather than the next. The mark of his pardon was to pull out of this ignorance those entangled in it by making them know what they don’t see. Its mark is in not tolerating that they remain in their error. This truth appears in Scripture, where God pardoned these kinds of sin. Jesus Christ, who pardoned his executioners because they did not know what they were doing, would not have obtained the pardon for their crime if they hadn’t first merited the grace to know him and to confess him, as they did after Pentecost. Saint Paul, who said that he had obtained mercy because he had persecuted the church by ignorance, needed to be enlightened by a light from heaven and learn from the mouth of Jesus Christ what the crime was he had committed by the persecution he led against Christ’s body before meriting this great mercy. Abimelech, who was astonished that God threatened him for something he had done with simplicity and by ignorance, received this reply from God: that because of his simplicity, God had prevented him from committing an evil God would have punished despite his ignorance, if he had gone ahead to commit it.138 From all of these examples I inferred that when God pardons ignorance, it is in one of these two ways: either like Abimelech, in preventing a simple person from falling into the occasion where this person would sin by simplicity, or like Saint Paul, where God would reveal to him his error and make him enter into the truth and justice he had combated. Still, on the question of God forgiving in the other world these sins of ignorance to people who have effectively committed them without knowing it, I don’t see God promising this anywhere. That is why I have a great fear of such sins and cannot have any confidence in this sort of ignorance. On the contrary, I try to instruct myself more and more deeply on all of my duties and to meditate always on the law of God, as he himself ordains. This also teaches 138. See Gn 20:2, where Abimelech abducted Sarah, the wife of Abraham, when he mistook her for another woman.

136 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY us that if we don’t apply ourselves carefully and make our studies, we will be guilty of having ignored what the law demands of us and will be justly punished for our negligence. The good sister to whom I spoke wasn’t hurt by this, but I also doubt if she understood it and if she made the same application as I did. I really don’t know if this was too much and if everything I said at that time was true. But that was my opinion and I only spoke in this way. At other times I wanted to make them understand what they committed themselves to by their blind obedience. I told them that after having sacrificed the reputation of a holy prelate by their signature, it will next be necessary for them to consider themselves obliged to condemn all those condemned by the pope, the archbishop, and their superior. So, if they excommunicate all of us, they would have to consent to it and, if someone insisted on it, believe it was right. As a result, without having the right to judge anyone, they would be ready to condemn everyone and to separate themselves from all of their brothers and sisters as people removed from the church, that is to say, as people who merited the ultimate punishment, since the church doesn’t have a greater one. The nun to whom I spoke in this way admitted that she agreed with everything I said and that she would always be ready to hold as properly condemned and to condemn personally all those whom the church would condemn when her superiors commanded her to do so. Concerning this, I began to examine the unfortunate situation to which they were reducing people of our vowed profession by this signature. They obliged them to leave their security and their recollection to expose themselves to a peril greater than that faced by the judges themselves, who dispose of the reputation and lives of human beings. Although these judges must fear not having enough light to make just judgments in every case, those who are obliged to assent to their judgments without any discernment have even more to fear. They cannot avoid consenting to an injustice if these judges have been mistaken. I added that they put us in an odd rank in the church when they insisted that we condemn without any examination all those condemned by the judges of the church. This made us similar to executioners of justice, which is an odious condition, even if one supposes that executioners only kill the guilty and that those judged worthy of death merit it more than do the executioners. But what gave glory to the power of kings and magistrates was the fact that although they had the power of life and death, they were also capable of granting pardons. They could find someone innocent as well as give a severe punishment for a crime. They wanted to take us away from our state in life and associate us in some way with the power of the ministers of the church by making us take part in their judgment against certain bishops and theologians. They offered us a complete share in this great authority but as far as I am concerned, I cannot tolerate, and have a horror of, being only the executioner. If the church so much wanted to honor us by raising us to the rank of bishops and priests, who assent to these decisions, I would hope to share with them the power

Report on Captivity 137 they have to distribute God’s graces, through his word, his sacraments, and the remission of sins. But as for having the power to condemn without having the power to absolve, I would rather do neither and have nothing to do with it. This comparison, which I used again on another occasion, irritated the nun a little. She told me, “How you treat us!” Later I replied to her and told her that I said this only as a general remark on the state to which they’ve reduced all the nuns by introducing this business of signatures. I wasn’t applying it to any particular person. She seemed satisfied with this answer. I never had these sorts of conversation with Madame de Rantzau because that would have led to disputes. But I have no doubt that they faithfully reported these conversations to her, although she gave no sign of having heard about them. In these final days it seemed to me that her zeal had slowed down in her effort to inspire me with a fervent devotion to the homage that must be paid to the infallibility of the pope. She assured me that she, along with archbishop, would be happy if I just signed by obedience without being concerned as to whether I had changed my opinions or not. At least, this is what she appeared to indicate when she told me about the conversations she had had with my brother Pomponne139 about this topic when he came to have some news about me. To convince me that personally he strongly wished that I would be freed from so many punishments by a signature, she assured me that he shared the opinion of all reasonable people that this business was nothing but a trifle and that everything that made us so scrupulous about it had been cleared up. Everyone knew so well that they were only asking us to give a sign of reverence and that at present it was madness to let ourselves be tormented over this. To prove that many other people spoke in the same way, she added that someone had told her a short time ago that if they had only a hundred francs to lose, he would not want to risk losing them due to lack of the signature. She clearly added that she did not approve of this last point and that we shouldn’t act by such low self-interest. But considering the airs she used in speaking about the opinion of my brother, I think she judged it very convincing. In supposing that she considered this business a simple trifle, she added that she had indicated to him that she had no doubt that it must be very painful for him to the see the ruin of a house that his relatives had established—where he still had sisters—on account of a subject that had so little worth. She added that they were in perfect agreement and that she really wanted me also to share their point of view. I made no reference to the cooling I perceived in her zeal. Looking at the issue in another way, I replied to her that she might very well be in agreement with my brother on the point that I must sign but that she must be very opposed to his judgment, wherein he treats as a trifle something as serious and as important 139. Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne (1618–1699), was the elder brother of Angélique de SaintJean. Influential at court, he served in Louis XIV’s cabinet as Secretary of State from 1671 to 1679 and from 1691 to 1699.

138 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY in the life of the church as the signature of a formulary of faith. He spoke about it as a man of the world and as a politician. This affair doesn’t concern them and they judge it only by the feelings of the majority of those who surrendered to this signature without considering anything other than their self-interests. Often these interests are felt more deeply than those of religion and then it is all too easy to imagine that the two can go together. But I knew very well that she would not counsel me to think in this way. Moreover, if she agreed with my brother that I must sign, she must also agree with me that I should do it both with my heart and with my hand—or not do it at all. That made her reflect and she later told me that I was right. She clearly saw that I was speaking very seriously when I frankly told her that I couldn’t turn religion into a game and that, if they were going to treat this business as a trifle, it would only double the horror I had of the signature. She told me another time—sometime after this—that she had seen my brother again and that she had told him my answer and assured him that she shared my opinion that he is too political and that this is a serious business that requires sober action. But he had rallied her and reproached her for having let herself be won over by me; instead of persuading me, she had let herself be persuaded. I laughed about this with her although I had little taste for it because to entertain myself over this, it would have had to be true. In fact, I saw nothing that was less true. In my opinion Madame de Rantzau was the last person who would let herself receive a lesson from anyone because she was too certain that she knew everything. In leaving behind heresy and schism, she had established her Catholicism on the firm belief in the infallibility of the pope. Just like Father du Saugey,140 she said that if someone shook this foundation, our faith would lose its support. But this priest himself had fled Geneva; it seems that these people nurtured among heretics have a tendency to pass from one extremity to the other and leave behind the truth, which is found in the middle. This wouldn’t have happened to them if they had had the good fortune to meet some good guides. Because of this lack, they are more to be feared. Not having received good direction themselves, they now want to direct others. I am very mistaken if, without Madame de Rantzau, some of these women—who are certainly good nuns—wouldn’t have been capable of scrupulous concern and reflection concerning this signature. On one occasion, she made me understand this truth quite well. I forget what we were discussing, but I told her that I had no doubt that she was the most zealous of all and that she would not have pardoned a single member of her convent who would have had the same problems concerning the signature as I did. She promptly responded, “Oh, I’ll reply to that! When anyone even thinks about showing some difficulty on this score I lead them back to the position they should have.” She was so successful at this that after having made them sign for the first 140. Monsieur de Chamillard appointed Father du Saugey as a confessor and chaplain at Port-Royal in July 1665. Critics dismissed him as a man of little culture or piety.

Report on Captivity 139 time the second mandate of the grand-vicars at chapter during her three-year term of office, she had these good women sign again after the mandate of the archbishop was released. When I was there, they signed the formulary of the pope with such devotion that they did not want to deprive not only the novices and the lay sisters but also two servants, who had only been in the convent for six weeks or two months, of the privilege of signing. The nun made me the compliment of telling me that, if I so desired, she would bring the mandate with their signatures so that I could add my own, because I was the only one in their community who had not affixed her name to the document. I replied that up until this point she had not paid me the honor of considering me a member of the community and that I happily renounced this grace if there were no other door than that one to enter into their community. She told me that a day or two after they had sent the signatures to the archbishop, the secretary had asked if the signature of Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean was there with the others. She said such things playfully because she no longer hoped for anything more from me. I spoke to her too clearly during this time for her to have any doubt that I had a total horror of this false oath to which I’ve referred since the publication of the new bull. I tried to raise some scruples in them about this oath but I had to do this gently because if I had spoken about this too seriously I would have hurt their feelings. I remember that one day they were talking about the excommunication that I risked incurring. It would entail not even being able to go to Mass. Since they had a little consolation when they saw me with them in the choir, I told them that I was very obliged to them for their kindness. However, if I had given my signature, I wouldn’t be in a better situation on this issue because I would not have the boldness to hear the Mass if I couldn’t say with the priest, Lavabo inter innocente manus meas.141 They were surprised to see how seriously I took all of this. As for them, although they sincerely respect this act of obedience, they show little concern about it and make little preparation for its execution. I believe they only think about it at the very moment they have to hold the pen in their hand in order to sign. I had an occasion to express to Madame de Rantzau my thoughts concerning my entreaties during my last weeks at the convent to be allowed to abandon all of this manual work because I wanted to pray to God and not think about anything other than my own situation the rest of the time. This was so important that I could be occupied with no other business. She replied that when I was working I would have enough time to pray to God and to reflect on my situation. All of them had already signed and they hadn’t abandoned their work. According to her, I was making too much of a fuss about this. Concerning the signature, I couldn’t prevent myself from telling her that there was something very strange about this affair. Those who sign this affirmation of fact because they are obliged 141. “I will wash my hands with the innocent” (Ps 25:6).

140 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to sign it are those who don’t have the time to apply themselves to read and evaluate the book of the bishop of Ypres; nonetheless, they insist they are certain that the contested propositions are in this book and they want others to believe them. Similarly, the people who make practically no reflection on the signature of the formulary surrender to doing it without difficulty and practically without thought. On the other hand, those who give themselves the time to reflect on all this seriously before God and to see what they are committing themselves to cannot bring themselves to do this. In effect I told her that the more I weighed the importance of all this by examining it in light of the law of God, which condemns lying and forbids damaging the reputation of one’s neighbor, the more I was opposed to this action. It was enough for me to make this remark to them. I didn’t have to draw out its consequences. But at other meetings I helped them to see that one could use the principles they had established to justify the obligation to obey the ministers of the church on everything. Since they argued that it was not any business of inferiors to examine what they were commanded to sign—they only need the faith of the collier—they are protected from everything as long they believe everything the church believes and do everything they are command to do. One day I told the mother superior that if this rule was applied evenly, those who teach Christian doctrine would have to do nothing else from now on than to burn all the catechisms and make a summary of the faith that only contains three articles: “Must we believe everything the church believes? Must we do everything the church commands? How many commandments are there? Answer: Obey the pope and your superior.” If people knew anything more than that, it would only serve to trouble the conscience. It’s shorter just to learn this commandment, since all the others are dependent on it, rather than learning there are ten commandments different from this one. Learning the more complex way can give rise to contradictions, because it causes problems of scruples when it’s difficult to align the superior’s command with the command of God on a given occasion. The good mother excused herself for having wanted to reduce religion to this new commandment, but she never tired of wanting to promulgate it by appealing to the practice and example of all the people who believe like she does: that we only have to obey and that it is only superiors who bear the responsibility for their orders. She was quite happy to produce for me an example of this compliance, which she knew would disturb me. She told me she had learned—against my prediction—that our sisters had no difficulty in signing the new formulary. This contradicted what I had indicated to her about the indubitable opposition they would show because of the attached oath. She assured me that others had told her that Soeur Hélène and Soeur Gertrude had done so at the very moment the document was presented to them. They showed no repugnance toward it. As could be expected, this astonished me the first time I heard about it. I simply could not understand such a change in opinion and judgment. Being present at this discussion,

Report on Captivity 141 Madame de Rantzau assured me that this news was true. I could only reply that I didn’t know what to say about this, except that the signature by a Port-Royal nun was such a great fall that it would not be possible for her to recover from it. At this Madame de Rantzau said in mockery, “Yes! Without a doubt! They fall on the pavement and they are too wounded to stand up again!” XX I spent six weeks after the publication of the bull without thinking about anything else except continuing to pray to God until the end of a three-month period. I asked him to give me the grace of fortification so that I might be worthy of following him everywhere it would please him to guide me. I imagined that he would lead me deeper into the desert after this period of prayer, either by preparing a new, more constraining prison in the place where I already was or by transporting me to some other unknown convent where the inhabitants would not show the compassion that still remained in my good sisters at the current convent. Notwithstanding their zeal, this compassion was the motive that prevented them from wanting to keep me if the rigorous punishment by the archbishop came to the extreme of excommunication. I have since remembered that during two or three conversations these nuns had said a few words about how I would do this or that when I returned to Port-Royal. This baffled me and made little impression on me as if they were speaking about the most impossible thing in the world. Currently, I find it difficult to understand how I was able to believe—as if it were an impossibility—that I would never see again the convent and the people I had left behind. From a logical point of view, there was nothing impossible about it; everything in the world is subject to change. But I was completely convinced that I would die in my exile. I only envisioned this in order to avoid being disturbed by anything. You can judge my astonishment when I saw Madame de Rantzau enter my room on the Feast of the Visitation, July 2, at nine o’clock in the morning. First, she told me she had come to pay her regards on her feast and mine, since the Visitation is the feast of Saint Elizabeth and Saint John, and that she was bringing me good news. She clearly saw that she had surprised me. I told her that I wasn’t confident that what she called good news would be so good from my point of view, but she immediately assured me that she was speaking in my sense. She had no doubt that she would be cheering me up by saying that she had met with Abbé de Lamothe,142 who had come on behalf of the archbishop of Paris, and that he wanted to know if I would be happy to go reunite with Mère Agnès at the convent of Sainte-Marie. From there they might take us back to Port-Royal des Champs. I was as surprised as anyone could be by this news but even more by this new type of compliment, which asked my opinion on a subject where it was so easy 142. Charles Coquart de Lamothe enjoyed the confidence of the archbishop of Paris for sensitive missions. In 1665, he had been given the office of subcantor at Notre-Dame.

142 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to make a correct judgment. This conduct, so different from the conduct used by the archbishop in my regard up until this moment, seemed something incomprehensible to me. I didn’t know anything about all that was being negotiated on this issue during the preceding days. So, I couldn’t penetrate this mystery, except that I was convinced that in general it could only be part of some malevolent plan and that they were preparing new types of suffering for us on this pretext. I showed very little emotion. I limited myself to letting marks of satisfaction appear on my face. They were caused by the sole thought of seeing Mère Agnès again. But Madame de Rantzau, who understood my feelings well enough, still wanted to oblige me to explain them. She asked me what reply exactly I wanted to give to Abbé de Lamothe, because he had asked for one. Again, I was bewildered by this formality, but I wasn’t able to divine what the point of this was. God gave me the grace to reply by chance as I should have done to avoid spoiling anything if I had known that they were holding out a trap for us by this offer. I made no other reply except to say that they could assure Abbé de Lamothe that I was disposed to obey what would please the archbishop to command me to do on this subject. Having done this in more painful circumstances, I could not find it more difficult to offer him this obedience in a far more pleasant situation. I’m not certain that I added these words but at least the way in which I spoke—paper can’t record it—was close enough. But my joy appeared quite restrained and I had no difficulty dissimulating it because it was so strongly tempered by the belief that beneath the appearance of a softened regime they were preparing new punishments for us. My soul was equally torn between joy and suspicion. Moreover, I so clearly saw the advantages of my then current state of humiliation and penance that I feared going beyond the will of God in my desire to leave this situation behind. I tried to discipline this desire so that it would only follow God’s will step-by-step to the degree that God made it known. That afternoon the three nuns came up to my room and told me they had come to have some recreation with me, although they believed that the hope they had given me that morning had been a great enough recreation. I replied that, since my soul was not so flattered by great hopes, my senses weren’t any more affected by this change. I had no doubt that there was something hidden in all of this that I did not yet understand but for which I was prepared with all my heart. Speaking to one of them on the same subject, I told her that she knew that I had always told them that I considered myself as if I were in purgatory. On these occasions I remembered certain visions recorded in some stories I had read. One visionary had seen the souls of purgatory being moved from one place to another according to their degree of purification; in different places they suffered different types of punishment. I thought they wanted to make us do the same thing. The only difference I imagined in this was that the punishments for these souls progressively diminished the closer they come to the time of their deliverance but

Report on Captivity 143 that our punishments might increase until the very end. They didn’t contradict my reflection on this subject and claimed to be completely ignorant of what purpose was behind what was being done to us in all of this. Still, I hold as certain that Madame de Rantzau knew this purpose because she had spoken several phrases to me that obscurely referred to it. This happened during several conversations where I originally took no account of it because at that time I wasn’t thinking about anything related to this issue. But since that time, I have remembered it. She came to see me again that day and wanted to confide to me what she had been able to detect about the intentions of the archbishop. Although no one had clearly explained them to her, she wanted to let me understand them as best she could. So she told me that she thought they might send us to Port-Royal des Champs and that it was due to the request of Mère Agnès herself that they had agreed to this. She had asked to see me so that we could discuss together the decision we would make at the end of three months. She added that according to hearsay, Mère Agnès was very well disposed. Madame de Rantzau hoped that she could convince me to have the same disposition. At first, my blood turned cold when I heard her talk this way. It must be remembered that I hadn’t heard anything about Mère Agnès since Madame de Rantzau had given me this other alarming news about her. Still, as soon as I reflected a little about this, I thought that I should stop any anxiety concerning it, because there was nothing else to do but to await complete clarification on this point. Despite this, all of my joy collapsed at this point. The only thing I could do was to close my eyes to all kinds of thoughts and my heart to all kinds of desires and anxieties in order to abandon myself to the direction of God without knowing where it was going to lead me. As I said, it was on Visitation Day. There was a sermon in the afternoon. The subject taken by the preacher was what must be the end and usefulness of Christian visits and conversations we are obliged to have. He treated the subject as well as he could. He wasn’t a great preacher; nonetheless, this sermon, combined with the change I was going to have in my situation, made a strong impression on me. It showed the advantages of the retreat I was going to leave and the inevitable temptations that accompany exterior conversation with creatures, especially if you are weak and have little practice in this. That is my situation. I felt myself completely indifferent about my desire for change. I absolutely depended on the choice it would please God to make for me. I was so focused on this before God while the preaching was going on that I no longer listened to the rest of the sermon. In this disposition I don’t know whether I would have answered yes or no if they had next asked me what I wanted to do: stay or leave. It’s possible that the disposition I was in was not very reasonable, because there were many reasons that should have made me consider the advantages in my returning to Port-Royal. But I admit that I didn’t consider them at that time. My solitude had accustomed me to consider myself alone in the world—alone with God. At first, I didn’t think

144 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY about the other alternative. In this state, I found that there was much in the balance on either side of these two conditions. Each of them brought us close to God through different means. Each had different and dangerous temptations. But one type of temptation seemed to me to be somehow more fearful because it flattered and fooled the senses, while the other type conducted open warfare. The latter made it necessary to have recourse to the arms of God, which are penance and prayer. I gave myself to him in complete indifference, it seemed to me, and I even prayed to him in the words of Saint Andrew: “May God never allow me to be detached from his cross, because I have known its virtue and its value; in whatever state it pleases God to place me, I desire to remain attached to the cross with him and die on it with him.” May it please God that my subsequent actions were in conformity with these sentiments. That demands a great deal but I never stop being grateful to him for giving me these desires and conserving them in me by his grace. I consider them as vows of my heart I am obligated to offer to God, although I never pronounced them with my lips. In writing them down I want to have witnesses that I am committed to suffer everything that would please God et in carcerem et in mortem ire143 with Jesus Christ. From the time that our good sisters were assured that they would soon be free of me, they showed me much more freely all the affection they hadn’t dared to let appear during the period when obedience required them to act as my jailers. In speaking about my departure, the superior had tears in her eyes two or three times and told me in apparent sincerity that if I had signed, she didn’t know how she could have accepted that I would leave them. She indicated that she was truly sorry that my departure had to be so soon. She told me she had done everything possible so that they would delay this for several days. However, although Abbé de Lamothe obviously did not want to tell them when they would come for me, he still assured them that it would be soon, perhaps the next day. All they could get him to concede was that this would not happen in the morning. They clearly saw that there was something mysterious in his not wanting to say exactly when this might happen. Neither they nor I could figure out this mystery, as we were able to do later on. It’s true that this small delay requested by these nuns had a motive other than the desire to enjoy my company a little longer. They wanted me to show them how to make those objects out of wax. They were always happy to just let me work at this without taking the time to come learn how to do it. They didn’t imagine that the authorities would remove me so brusquely, without even giving them a warning about this several days before. I matched the marks of friendship they gave me by showing that I was in no rush for the moment of my deliverance. In doing so I was only following the inclination God had given me to be indifferent to both the thing and to its circumstances. I didn’t want in any way to jump ahead of God’s order through my own desires. 143. “Go to prison and to death” (Lk 22:3).

Report on Captivity 145 They spent nearly the entire afternoon with me. Madame de Rantzau did me the honor of giving me many signs of affection during the time I passed with her. Outside of the question of the signature, where her zeal made her tough and rigorous, she richly obliged me in all other occasions. She edified me by her humility, by her concern, and—I even blush as I say it—by her services to me. It took everything I could do to defend myself against these kindnesses. If the mother superior hadn’t been aware of the embarrassment it caused me, she would have taken it upon herself to bring me my supper every evening, as she did on one occasion. But I was able to receive support for my position that they shouldn’t let her do something that uncontestably would have been a greater burden for me than for her. That day Madame de Rantzau spoke to me in the same way the mother superior had spoken to me, with even greater clarity. She assured me that if they had been able to obtain from God what they had so ardently asked from him, namely, my obedience on the question of the signature, they would have been delighted if I would have remained with them. I laughingly reproached her and said that just a few days ago, when I was telling her that I had nearly completed my probationary year in their convent, she had said that they probably wouldn’t have permitted me to make my profession of vows with them, even if I had signed. But now she explained that she had only meant by this to indicate that this test was not sufficient to associate me with the convent. Their constitutions insist that when they receive nuns from other convents, the nuns must make a new novitiate year with all the exercises proper to it. Still, if I had decided to show the obedience I owe the church, they would have had the greatest joy in the world if I had wanted to remain in their convent. They would have received me with the greatest consolation. I thanked her as much as I could for such a great sign of affection. Nonetheless, I assured her that she was risking nothing in making me such an advantageous offer because she placed a condition on it that meant I would never take her up on her word. But I still recognized that she was being too kind in showing me such goodness. For her part, the subprioress was no less friendly, although she was the nun whom I had burdened the most. In the last period of my stay she personally wanted to bring me everything I needed and to guide me around the convent. She was a hard worker and took upon herself all the tasks others had in order to provide some relief to the nuns who had too much work. The convent had many sick members who were unable to do anything, and their community was not very large. In no way did she let it appear that she felt relieved by my departure, although I must have been an additional burden to her. On the contrary, she assured me that she had no worry regarding me except that she had been constrained to treat me as the others had been ordered to do. In everything that depended on them, the nuns had done what they could to my satisfaction, but as for the rest, the orders of the archbishop had bound them so tightly that there was

146 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY nothing they could do to soften my treatment. I told her lightheartedly and with an air of confidentiality that I thought they had been given these orders out of fear that I would spoil something in their community. She strongly insisted that it was the opposite—I want to believe it—and she said that she personally had tried to soften this yoke as much as she could. For my part, in order to share her feelings on this issue, I made a small recapitulation of their benefactions to me so that they would see that I was grateful for them. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t sincere. In truth I had been so taken back by the rigorous punishments that I was surprised by the least sign of humanity or of favor. I reminded them of the order or rather the request they had once made that I wear their habit for the vesture ceremony of one of their members. Father Sénault144 was to preach at the ceremony. It’s true that they did this in the most obliging fashion and that I was afraid to seem disobliging by my refusal to do so. As they thought I had a great desire to hear this sermon and didn’t want anyone to see me in their choir, three nuns decided to come together to see me on the eve of the ceremony. They implored me to be willing to wear a blue scapular and a cape of the same color over our usual scapular during the ceremony. They would be honored if I agreed to be part of their company and to help them in their singing. I was as surprised as I could be by this embassy. I hadn’t previously witnessed any kindness that might have prepared me to receive such a fine offer, especially not in this time after Advent. During this period, they hadn’t treated me yet as a heretic and a rebel to the church. I wanted to consider this as some kind of game, but their insistent entreaties made me see that this offer was quite serious. I treated their compliments as something aimed against me. Next, I said that they didn’t have a good enough opinion of me for me to actually merit such a favor from them. On the contrary, I rather thought that they would be afraid that I would profane their habit. They didn’t seem to understand me. They said that I was the one who disdained their habit. I replied that, on the contrary, I respected too much the honor they were doing me on this occasion and that what surprised me even more was that this honor had no relationship to all the rest of their behavior toward me. Finally, no matter how I tried to turn around the thing to excuse myself from it, they made even stronger entreaties. I was reduced to excusing myself in all seriousness on the grounds that I couldn’t do something extraordinary like this except in a case of necessity. I wasn’t able to know what the opinion of our superiors would be on the subject, because we hadn’t foreseen such a particular case and hadn’t been able to deliberate about it as we had been able to do for everything else before our separation. The subject on which they had the kindness to make the offer wasn’t important enough for me to make a decision by myself. Not being able to hear a good sermon was only a minor mortification. But, for example, if they 144. Jean-François Sénault (1601–1672) was an Oratorian priest and renowned preacher. In 1662 he was elected general superior of the Oratorian community.

Report on Captivity 147 had made an offer to receive Holy Communion and had not wanted me to do so unless I covered up my habit, the deliberation would have been more important and perhaps I would have decided to do so, but for a lesser subject I had too much love for the truth and the cross to disguise and hide the one I wore. That was my conclusion. They accepted it with regret. Truly, I found that this was a surprising sign of goodness toward a prisoner they actually held imprisoned night and day during this period. That is why I wanted to commemorate it as one of the occasions when they acted out of their own feelings and not on the basis of obedience to the harsh rules of our archbishop. Neither did I forget the care they showed for my health and my food. They wanted to take it upon themselves to serve me an ordinary meal on the days they were fasting, because they ate meat on three other days of the week. No matter how much I insisted that they should not go to any inconvenience and that they could just leave me leftovers and not make anything expressly, they always wanted to go to the trouble of doing so and to do it without appearing to be inconvenienced in any way. They told me one day that they regretted having given me permission to fast, because everyone told them that I was not strong enough to do so. They asked me what I would have done if they had refused my request. I told them that we had orders as to what we were to do in such a situation, because we had foreseen this dispersion for a long time and we had devised rules for every scenario.145 In this case, we would be obliged to content ourselves with bread and water as long as our strength would permit it and only relax our abstinence when necessity constrained us to do so. They were surprised that we had been so concerned about such an unusual event as to have foreseen all of its circumstances. But to continue my account of my conversation with this good sister, I expressed the shame I felt over being treated too well for a prisoner. They placed me in the same rank as one of their sisters, up to wanting to give me a part in their feasts: those days where they had a ceremony and provided a treat for the community. (Between parentheses, these feasts caused me such scrupulous worry because I was afraid of giving into simony,146 since I believed that these feasts were expensive. I tried every means to avoid eating what they gave me on those days but my fear of giving scandal made me settle for a middle solution: eating what was common fare but to excuse myself from eating what was richer fare, such as paté, biscuits, marzipan, conserves, and so on. I declined them in part by skilled maneuver and in part by saying that these sorts of things were more forbidden by 145. See Mère Agnès’s rules for time of persecution: Counsels on the Conduct Which the Nuns Should Maintain in the Event of a Change in the Government of the Convent. 146. The fear of simony, the purchase of a sacred office or privilege, is tied to Port-Royal’s opposition to the practice of an obligatory dowry for choir nuns. Through the dowry, the family of a potential candidate for the convent paid for the nun’s room and board. The nun is no longer dependent on divine providence and charity for her upkeep.

148 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY our rule, according to the intention of Saint Benedict, than was the use of meat, because they were much less necessary). On this subject, I took the occasion to indicate to this nun that I had received their charity as the poor do, by praying for my benefactors, without knowing who was feeding me, but I would have been even more ashamed if I had thought that I was a total burden to them. She very politely replied that they had never thought in any way that they would receive anything for my upkeep and that I had never been a burden to them. Moreover, I had taken the place of one of their sisters who had been buried the day before I entered their convent. They were surprised when someone brought them two hundred pounds during the month of February on behalf of the archbishop, who told the messenger to say that the king was sending that as my pension. It was then that I learned that I was a pensioner of the king! In this interview she also told me the story of how the archbishop had solicited them to receive me. He arrived two days before our removal. He implored them not to refuse what he had come to ask them to do. Next, he laid the proposal before them. They excused themselves and said they weren’t able to accept it, because their constitutions absolutely forbid them to admit any nun from another order. The only exception would be a trial period for a nun who had asked to be received into the order and whom the order judged capable of living in it. But in reply the archbishop argued that this was an important and extraordinary occasion, where they could easily pass over their common rules. In response they persisted in showing their opposition. They claimed that they believed themselves obligated to maintain with exactitude their rule on this point because it concerns cloister, which is the object of a special and essential vow they profess. During the war in Paris they entered into conflict with some very eminent people and their friends because they didn’t want to take in some nuns who were close relatives of some of their own sisters. These nuns had ardently petitioned to enter their convent and they would have merited this charity because they had been reduced to staying in the homes of lay people. They couldn’t return to their own monastery. Finally, they had shown so much opposition to all the requests the archbishop made to them that he went away angry and chagrined. He told them that since they had raised so many problems, he wouldn’t give them any nuns from PortRoyal if he could find places for them elsewhere. The nuns were anxious that they had quarreled with him and deliberated about what they could do to make him less unhappy. When they saw that the next day no one was brought to the convent, they thought that in fact he would not be giving them anyone. When I arrived, they no longer expected me. Despite all this, I think they were quite happy with this turn of events because it served as their accommodation of him. It didn’t present any obstacle to their zeal on condition that the authorities were placing me in their hands to serve as an example to their community of the severity of the archbishop in dealing with

Report on Captivity 149 those who do not blindly obey him. So, it seemed that the false zeal of authority was speaking and acting like the true zeal of charity. It knows that sometimes it’s necessary to go beyond the rules. It recognizes the necessity of penance, of separation from the sacraments, and all the rest that is considered a novelty in the mouth of the preachers of truth. But all the difference resides in the fact that these two types of zeal serve different masters. This new zeal only pays tribute to Caesar because it issues only from Caesar. That’s why they held firm in refusing to help a poor nun whose salvation might have depended on finding a sanctuary where she would be safe from the perils of the world and why they refused to follow this rule of universal charity, which is supposed to exist in the rules of different orders. But when it’s a case of taking part in the oppression of a persecuted community by making themselves into ministers of the injustice visited on innocent nuns, they judge that these same rules can permit dispensations. They think they are less obliged to follow them than to maintain themselves in the good will and the favor of the people they must do business with. It is true that these good women do not consider what they are doing to us as an injustice. On the contrary, they show a great deal of respect for the line of conduct the archbishop of Paris has held toward us. They attribute everything to his charity and to the care he takes to procure our salvation and the advantage of religion. Despite all this, I wonder if at the bottom of their hearts there doesn’t remain enough light to make a better judgment on things, if they wanted to apply themselves to such an exercise. It’s already certain that when they heard about how the archbishop of Paris acted when he forbade us to receive the sacraments and during our removal from Port-Royal, it seemed to them so excessive that they thought that it must have been a fictional account. When they asked me for the truth about this in confidence and I confirmed for them that this was entirely true, they were so amazed that they couldn’t say a word about it. I clearly noticed their reaction. They were no less amazed on another issue: the determination God gave us through his grace to sustain such a difficult test. The mother superior told me once that they couldn’t understand how so many women, who naturally have a variable spirit, could be united in such a great resolve and extraordinary firmness, no matter what might be done to them. This gave me the occasion to reply to her that she could thereby recognize that we must attribute to God’s spirit what we cannot attribute to the weakness of our own spirit. Moreover, they must not be very convinced that they were rendering a great service to God by becoming jailers at the service of the archbishop of Paris. If they thought they were, they would not be blushing at the office they held. Now, I attest that nothing gave them greater pain than claiming that they held someone as a prisoner. I experienced this many times myself. Since the status of being a prisoner for such a cause was my glory, I lost few occasions to describe myself with this title. I remember that when I had called myself by this title when I speaking to the superior once during

150 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY the first months of exile, she wanted to reproach me for calling myself a prisoner. I was astonished by this reaction. Her position seemed so unreasonable to me that I couldn’t prevent myself from replying. I asked her if she could deny the fact that she was treating someone as a prisoner when she kept her locked up night and day and kept her more restricted in her movements than anyone could imagine. This comment made her blush, because there was no possible reply. Another time, she was repeating what they told me a hundred times: that they were treating me the way they did only out of obedience. This treatment didn’t arise from their initiative. I replied seriously that I had no doubt that they felt humiliated by this post the archbishop of Paris had given them. The nun said, “Humiliated? In what way?” I replied to her, “To perform the office of jailers, Sister. This is hardly proper for nuns but obedience has made you very docile.” She seemed very mortified by this and I immediately changed the topic of conversation. This was only said in passing, but I’ve reported it to show that they weren’t so ignorant as to be completely excusable and that they could still distinguish between good and evil. They are ashamed to admit what they are not ashamed to do. Still, it’s my greatest regret because I sincerely loved them. Outside this point on which they had been deceived, they are very good nuns who might have profited more from the truth than we did, if they had had as much instruction as we had. I often thought that this invention of the signatures was one of the signs of the end of time, because it made us see what Our Lord had said about the last day: that it will be like a net spread out over the whole earth to surprise all those who are not concerned about it. On that day, an infinite number of good souls who fended off other temptations will let themselves be taken without thinking into this trap. They will find themselves enveloped with everyone in this great snare, but they won’t think that they have been trapped because they will see such a large and good company around them. I often spoke to them in parables and sometimes straightforwardly on this subject. I wanted to attack this unfortunate ignorance more than anything else. Up until the last day there, I still showed them that out of the love of truth, I had experienced a real displeasure in having to enter their convent. Before my entry, they had more of an excuse to believe all the calumnies being passed around about us and our friends. But their own experience had convinced them of the falsity of all the alleged heresies they imputed to us and of the pure fabrications in all the things that had been said about Port-Royal. After this, they knew enough about this to question at least whether they were doing us an injustice by mistreating us on the pretext of a signature that was good for nothing. From that point on, they were obliged to educate themselves about the substantial issues at stake and not be content with blind obedience out of fear of erring voluntarily. But they mocked all of this and held firm in their certitude.

Report on Captivity 151 That same day I impulsively told the nun that I did not want to take away the hope that one day God would hear my prayers—I was going to add my tears, because I had shed many of them over this—and that in the future they would recognize as truth what they didn’t believe in the past. She was afraid of my reflection and asked me in a serious tone of voice what I meant by that. To avoid frightening her any more, I only explained a part of it. I replied to her that I had asked God to make her recognize our innocence one day. She smiled and didn’t dare say that she wanted no part of this light. After having given all of my thanks and shown my gratitude for all the kindnesses and services I’d received from the charity of these good nuns during my captivity, I said to the one to whom I was speaking—it was the mother superior— that since I hadn’t asked for anything for ten months, I had a desire to ask a favor. This would be the first and the last I would beg from them. Here was the favor: to have the honor to greet and thank their community, which I still had not seen. It seemed to me difficult enough to leave after such a long stay, without having even the opportunity to recommend myself to their prayers. She seemed to me a little confused and embarrassed by this. I don’t know if this reaction concerned my request or the simple fact that I had taken the opportunity to make it. She told me that she couldn’t reply to this but that she wouldn’t fail to discuss it with her superior. Since this ceremony for something that was already beyond reasonable had ended in a refusal, I asked her pardon if I had been indiscreet in making this request. However, to move on to something that might not have the same consequence, I simply asked her to let me say farewell to Soeur Marie-Chérubine Chapelain, whom I had passed many times in the convent. I had never dared to look at her, because she had not permitted me to do so. She was a nun who had spent three years as a pupil at Port-Royal. Her aunt and two of her sisters who were nuns had died there.147 She replied to me that she personally had been mortified when they didn’t want to permit her to come visit me, although she had requested it many times. She added, “You know, my dear friend, we have our orders.” On this point, however, she promised that no one would make any problems about this last occasion to get together. She took it upon herself to ask for all the permissions of consequence that would be required for the move tomorrow. XXI As they waited in semi-certitude for the authorities to come for us the evening of the next day—no one had promised them anything except that the event would not happen in the morning—they made preparations to have us work together on throwing wax early in the morning. For my part, when I saw that I would have no time the next day to gather up my few belongings and put everything in order, I 147. The two sisters who were Port-Royal nuns were Antoniette de Jésus Le Chapelain, who died in 1635, and Marie-Anne Le Chapelain, who died in 1651.

152 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY decided not to sleep that evening. I had spent the whole day in finishing up work on a reliquary that I had begun to make for them. They also pressed me to leave behind instructions on how to do work in wax. To please them, I did this in the evening and I only finished it as the daylight was ending around nine o’clock in the evening, because it was one of the longest days in the year. Next, I retired to my alcove to pray to God and to recite compline before starting to do a little housecleaning. I scarcely had begun this work when I heard someone coming up to my room. Nine o’clock had rung out—the hour to retire—because this was the time they went to bed in the summer months. I didn’t know what they could want from me. At that moment I saw the mother superior enter. She held a candle in one hand and held a piece of paper in the other. I stepped in front of her and she told me with an astonished and even compassionate facial expression, “Sister, the most astonishing thing in the world has happened. Right now downstairs there is a chaplain of the archbishop who is waiting for you in a carriage. He just gave me this order of the archbishop for you to leave here immediately.” It seems to me that I wasn’t very upset by this. I was cool enough as I pondered all this disorder. What name should be given to a significant order that was so unexpected and delivered at such an inappropriate hour? The poor superior was more frightened about this than I was. She could hardly imagine what she was seeing. She showed me the order of the archbishop to see if I recognized his seal. I told her yes and confirmed that it was his seal. There was nothing to do but to obey. About those things that do not concern conscience, I had no fears. The subprioress entered immediately after this and pressed me to go downstairs. My first thought was to take the papers I had written during my time there, because I didn’t have any others. When I left Port-Royal I took nothing at all with me except a copy of our constitutions. I had no anxiety about hiding anything except these reflections, which, as I’ve said, I wrote down for my consolation from time to time. I was very afraid that they might fall into their hands. I knew that these nuns were very suspicious and that they had thoroughly gone through my possessions when they were sent to their convent. I noticed that they had even pulled the nails out of some cloth material that lined a trunk to see if someone had hidden papers in the space between. I had decided never to lock anything in order to remove any suspicion. I also had placed my papers in a linen packet in this chest, which was never closed. They would never have the least curiosity about going through it when they saw it fully open. So I pretended to want to take some linen from this chest in order to be able to take these papers. Unfortunately, I didn’t find them where I thought I had put them. I was looking for them with a strained anxiety. Thinking to help me, one of those nuns came over to me to give me some light from the candle. She watched what I was doing. She saw more clearly than the day that I was looking for something. I experienced a strange anxiety that I wasn’t finding it. I didn’t doubt that I must have changed

Report on Captivity 153 the place for it and that I no longer remembered where it was. Since they were urgently pressing me to go and I was finding nothing, I finally lost all hope of doing so. I couldn’t wait any longer. So I summoned up my courage and said to the nun who was offering me her light, “Sister, I must frankly tell you the truth. I was looking for some papers I had put somewhere around here. They’re no longer here and I would be mortified to leave them behind. They are only brief devotional reflections and points for meditation that I wrote down occasionally for my consolation. I should have burned them but I beg you to have the goodness to do so when you find them again.” I handed all of this over to God in a state of terrible anxiety. In fact, it would have been very disturbing if these papers had fallen into the hands of the Jesuits. They would have mocked them with unparalleled fervor. But God limited this episode to my having only this all-encompassing fear. In the very moment I was speaking about this to this nun, I placed my hand in another packet. There were my papers. She saw me take them but she said nothing about it to me. I went downstairs with these two nuns. Mère Marie-Elizabeth [Madame de Rantzau] was already asleep. She got up to come say goodbye to me and accompanied me to the door. I didn’t dare to refuse her polite farewell. I would have deeply regretted it if I had left without having had the honor to embrace her once again and to thank her for the many services and kindnesses she had shown me. We must also distinguish what she did as a propagator of the Catholic religion from what she showed me as an individual and very charitable person. She overwhelmed me with her civility and her services because she is so good and humble. That is why it is with no exaggeration that I can say I am obliged to her. She asked me to go into the choir during the time she was going to talk again to the ecclesiastic who was waiting for me. She would try to have him delay the departure until tomorrow. So I entered the choir, which was nearby, and I prostrated myself in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Once again I placed myself under the direction of the Good Shepherd. I told him with all my heart, Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es.148 There are many other shadows to fear in this life than those of the exterior night. Nonetheless, we can walk through them with assurance when his grace accompanies us. A short time later they called me back and the superior told me that it was not possible to do this in another way. They wanted me to leave right away. She showed me unparalleled affection and told me she had decided that I would see the community tomorrow but that now it will be sorry when it learns that I have gone. I assured her that I also felt very sorry not to be able to have merited this consolation but that God hadn’t wanted it. Madame de Rantzau then arrived. I knelt before the superior. She also leaned over to embrace me with much goodness and tenderness. I showed her all that I bore in my heart concerning my 148. “If I walk in the shadow of death, I shall not fear any evil, because you are with me” (Ps 22:4).

154 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY gratitude toward her and my recognition of her charity. For her part, she spoke to me with great goodness and finished by exhorting me with all the affection she could muster to remain united to the church and to never be separated from her. I replied to her in a tone full of affection that I promised before God that I would do what she had asked, but I laughingly added that it would not be in the way she expected. The porteresses who were present at the scene embraced me for the first and last time. Immediately afterward, they opened the door. This ecclesiastic and a woman he had brought along to accompany me then received me. I climbed up into the carriage. I clearly knew where I was going but I did not know the way. I would not have been able to learn it as we traveled, because I didn’t see it. The only light we had came from the candles lighted on the stores we were passing. When we had traveled a little while, the ecclesiastic had the carriage stopped and stepped out without saying where he was going. We still hadn’t said a word to each other but I was easily able to divine that he was going to look for a companion for me. I didn’t know where I was so I couldn’t figure out whom I was going to see. I briefly thought about someone the sight of whom wouldn’t have pleased as much as the sight of the one whom I would embrace a short time afterward. We remained stopped here and waited a good three quarters of an hour in a large public place where many people were passing back and forth. But I didn’t need to hide because the night served as my veil. During this time, the woman who was in the carriage said that it was a very strange time to be driving nuns around but that they couldn’t have done otherwise, because the archbishop had returned very late from Saint-Germain.149 I understood quite well what she wanted to say. I replied, “Madame, it is quite right that we should be ready to execute God’s orders as quickly as we do those of the court.” She replied, “Unfortunately, Madame, you’re quite happy to be involved in such strange things. You are the only people in the world who could tolerate such a way of living.” I assured her that we weren’t doing anything in this situation except what we were obliged to do by our condition as Christians and even more as nuns. If we have renounced our relatives and our material goods when we left the world, it would be quite miserable on our part to be attached to our convent in any way. We entered religious life to seek only God. She spoke again and said that we were the only ones who were capable of such a great detachment and that they didn’t understand this term in the world. Actually, given the way she was talking, she seemed to have a good opinion of us. This started me thinking that we were not so forgotten by the world as I had imagined we were during my time in the desert. There I had been so dead and so buried that I thought that when I left it, I would enter a brand new world where I would no longer know anything or anyone. I wouldn’t know who lived there or what they were doing. Still, I cut this discussion short in order to put some time 149. At that time the court was residing in its palace at Saint-Germain en Laye.

Report on Captivity 155 aside for the prayers I had to say. I now had all the time to say them. I also wanted to meditate because the night was very favorable to it. The moonlight I noticed in several places on the chimney tops made me remember the promise of God: per diem sol non uret te, neque luna par noctem.150 I conceived the hope that his mercy would give us a double protection: against both the rage of persecution and suffering, and the cooling of charity. Both temptations were predicted for the end times. After we had waited a long time, the ecclesiastic returned and brought with him a nun he had step up into the carriage next to me. I couldn’t recognize her from her face or walk, since we couldn’t see in the dark. But I had no time to spend in doubt about who she was. She immediately threw herself around my neck. She said, “Oh? Is this my aunt?” I replied, “What? Is this my child?” That was all we said during our entire time together: at this moment and during the whole way. But these few words came out of the heart. They were enough to permit us to recognize each other and fill each other with consolation. It had a spiritual principle although it also had its emotional side. Most of all, it had to be tasted in silence in the presence of he who is the highest object and veritable cause of this consolation. This experience helped me to understand what Mary Magdalene felt when she heard herself called by name by Jesus Christ, whom she took to be a gardener. Her response consisted in one word—Rabbi!151 Undoubtedly, this mutual knowledge contained everything within a spiritual friendship. The multiplication of demonstrations of affection and of words often diminishes something of the joy forming in the heart. It disturbs the thanksgiving we should render to God above all things in order to consecrate to him the first fruits of such a happy harvest we have brought in after so many tears. From this moment on I began to taste these new fruits of blessing and of joy. Up until this point, as I’ve said, I felt myself quite indifferent to everything that was happening. The anxiety they created in me when they had me believe that Mère Agnès was negotiating some sort of accommodation had deeply upset me. I still wasn’t certain about this issue but I scarcely thought about it anymore. The joy of reuniting with this dear child whom God had supported in such a terrible trial, especially when one considers her age, gave me so much hope that I didn’t listen to my fears anymore. I thought only to praise God, who gave us such sweet signs of his great mercy by beginning to close our wounds and by letting us approach each other again. The rest of the journey was still quite long. We were suffocating from the heat in a glassed-in carriage that was completely closed. I don’t know whether this was the archbishop of Paris’s own carriage. The night became darker and darker, because they were extinguishing the candles on the storefronts. We had neither torches nor lanterns. As a result, there were many places where we couldn’t see anything at all. I examined myself to see if I didn’t have some fear, but it seemed 150. “The sun will not burn you by day, nor will the moon by night” (Ps 120:6). 151. See Jn 1:16, the account of a resurrection appearance.

156 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY to me that it was foolish to fear something when I have no reason to fear death if it arrives at the hands of thieves. Similarly, if I died out of obedience to God and to my prelate, who put me on the road at this inappropriate hour, death could only be a type of martyrdom for me. With that thought in mind, I admired the happiness that everywhere accompanies the peace of a good conscience. With this torch, which the winds cannot extinguish, we resemble those wise virgins who did not fear the obscurity of the night. On the other hand, when this oil of interior peace is lacking in a soul because it has been unfaithful to God, it trembles out of fear. Such a soul not only has good reason to be fearful; the shadows of its conscience make it fear the disapproval of human beings rather than fearing the displeasure of God and offense to him. I occupied myself with the consideration of different things in this profound silence. Where we were, no one said a word of conversation during the entire journey, which lasted two and one half hours. Several times it was necessary to stop and wait for a long time. When we had arrived at the door of the city, it was already closed and we had to have someone open it for us. This stopped us for a time. We waited even longer before the door of Sainte-Marie du Faubourg. We had to remain nearly half an hour in the street before they had awakened the external lay sisters who take care of the entrances. These sisters then had to awaken the nuns in the convent interior to obtain the key for the door they didn’t guard during the night. During this time I heard the bell of the Carthusians,152 which rang out the second round of matins, that is to say, eleven o’clock. I rejoiced in this sound because through it I could recognize how close we were to our poor desolate Zion. I had neither seen nor heard anything about it when I was crying on the riverbanks of Babylon. After a good deal of time, they came to open the door. When we had entered the court of Sainte-Marie, we still had to wait a long time. At this time of the night, the nuns who were supposed to be waiting for us were not yet ready to come down. Because they had been asleep, they needed some time to get dressed. They didn’t have the convenience we have, since we never take off our habits. Finally, they came to open the door. Before the Feast of the Visitation was finished, they received this extraordinary visit. The feast was more ours than theirs, although we must render homage to the charity with which they shared the great joy of their prisoners in this reunion. It was the mother superior herself and five or six other sisters who came to receive us at the door. I won’t give an account of what I was doing or saying at that moment because so many things came to mind that it has all faded from my memory. I only know that these good nuns showed us everything that is possible to show as a sign of affection and of joy in the consolation of others. Actually, they showed much more of this than I did at the time. I still wasn’t certain of anything. 152. The Carthusian monastery of Notre-Dame de Vauvert was located on the border of the Garden of Luxembourg.

Report on Captivity 157 When the superior said something to congratulate me on my deliverance, I replied to her—as was natural given my thoughts—“Unfortunately, Mother, these are the prisoners they transfer from one prison to another.” I don’t want to flatter myself, but in the next moment I forgot my chains and my prison when I saw two of my unchained sisters who had run in front of us at the door. This included Soeur Marie-Angélique, who wasn’t fully dressed even though she was shivering from fever. They gave me no time to think how I should receive them and what I should say to them after the affliction they had visited on me. This had made me apprehensive about seeing them. It would have been difficult for me to hide this when I met them. But suddenly I saw them at my feet, expressing regret for their fault. I didn’t have any time to discern how I was going to act in their presence. Their humility and their affection excited in my heart an extraordinary tenderness. I had already received from God a two-fold reward for all of my losses and was still waiting for the hundredfold in going to embrace Mère Agnès, who was waiting for us in her bed. She had all the joy one could expect from her holy friendship, which had made her feel the separation from me during our captivity as one of her principal sources of dolor. Her charity makes little discernment about the merit of the ones she loves, on condition that she can see this merit in the providential order of God, who has summoned her to love them for his sake. First, they took us in front of the Blessed Sacrament, which we adored as our Eucharist, that is to say, our thanksgiving. How can we acknowledge the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, who has paid in his justice what we owe him because of our sins and who has satisfied our debt by his mercy? In our state we are powerless to acknowledge his graces as we should, especially these singular graces he has given us in this extraordinary occasion when all the goods and evils, all the afflictions and consolations are favors and caresses as precious as they are rare in the recent centuries of the church. After the initial reunion, we climbed up the stairs to the room of Mère Agnès, who received us with the joy with which the angels receive the souls who have escaped the traps of the devil and who leave the prison of this world. I will not give an account of her feelings or mine at this moment. Neither will I describe our words, which could not express these sentiments. The presence of these good sisters who were delighted to see our joy still constrained us a great deal in showing our feelings. We waited for them to retire before we could open our hearts. They properly judged the situation and after a little time they had the goodness to say that against their inclination they were going to leave us to give us the freedom to talk among ourselves. Before they left, however, they wanted to take the trouble to make our beds, but I assured them that I had planned not to sleep that night even before knowing that I was going to pass by their convent. Soeur Madeleine-Christine also told them that she was not going to go to sleep. It was after midnight and these nuns already knew that the authorities were going to make us leave early for Port-Royal des Champs. We would scarcely have enough

158 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY time to have a little reunion. I conversed with Mère Agnès, but just for a brief time because we had to let her sleep. We were afraid that she might be too tired to make the trip if she hadn’t slept. But I found her so full of grace and strength after the long anguish of separation and of the false rumors that had been launched against her that I could say at this moment, Refloruit caro mea et ex voluntate mea confitebor Domino.153 At the same time my sisters recounted their adventures. They explained how the enemy had strongly pushed them to make them fall but how the hand of God had caught them and given birth to the occasion that would raise them up: the new signature demanded after the new bull was promulgated gave them the opportunity to declare that they would not sign. They were all completely resolute on this point. They expressed regret and sorrow over having let themselves be led to the weakness of signing the first time around. In learning this good news of resurrection, I felt myself resurrected from the dead. They added the names of others who had returned to opposing the signature: Soeur Candide, Soeur Catherine de Saint Paul,154 and Soeur Gertrude.155 I learned about the death and life of the last two nuns for the first time. I had no idea that they had originally signed the formulary. They recounted the firm determination of all of our sisters, in particular several in whom I took a particular interest during the entire ordeal. They also cited Soeur Madeleine-Christine—about whom I had previously known nothing—and the constancy and generosity of our holy bishops, especially of the bishop of Alet. Others had tried so hard to make me believe that he had completely abandoned the cause. They gave me news about all of our friends, whom God had protected and supported. Our friends not only continued to defend the truth but also our innocence through public apologies on our behalf.156 All of this was as new to me as if I had left the bottom of a sepulcher after having been buried in it for ten months. No matter how great the pleasure they found in giving me so much consolation at the same time, my sisters showed the greatest emotion concerning the harshness of my captivity. It had made me similar to those poor slaves they redeem from the hands of the Turks. When they return home to their country they no longer recognize it until they have had some time to get to know themselves again. I was just like them. I no longer knew anything, not even the most public things that had now been virtually forgotten in the world because they were so outdated. Such things included the impressions created by 153. “My flesh has been renewed. With all my heart I will praise the Lord” (Ps 27:7). 154. After having signed the first version of the formulary, Catherine de Saint-Paul Goulas refused to sign the formulary contained in the new bull. 155. Anne de Sainte Gertrude Robert signed the first version of the formulary but refused to sign the version contained in the new bull. 156. The most celebrated of these apologetical works was Apologie pour les religieueses de Port-Royal du Saint-Sacrement, co-authored by Anotine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, and Sainte-Marthe in 1665.

Report on Captivity 159 trials, appeals introduced in parlement and debated in the ministerial council, the letters of the archbishop of Paris and the bishop of Angers, the horrible division created by those who signed, and the conduct of Soeur Flavie and Monsieur de Chamillard. To sum it up, everything I now learned gave me extreme consolation, because God personally protected and defended his cause by using his power and grace to support all those, men and women, who were committed to suffer for this cause. This consolation was so great that it was difficult to prevent myself from saying not just “That’s enough!” but even “That’s too much!” In remembering the poverty in which I had been, I now found myself covered with so many riches. At every piece of news I heard, I said, “Oh, my God! This is enough!” If this was all that I had learned, the consolation from it would have sustained me for a long time in prison. I truly felt anxiety over not knowing what I could give God in return for so many goods received. This made me agree to lie down on the bed to rest a little, as they were urging me to. I could then have the time to breathe a bit and speak to God in the silence in order to be able to offer him alone the sacrifice of praise that I had already immolated for him in my heart. But I didn’t stay there long. After about thirty or forty-five minutes, I thought that I shouldn’t lose the occasion to give our friends the news of my deliverance through a handwritten letter. I would have time to write while the other sisters were resting. At least, Soeur Angélique Thérèse, who had the fever, was resting; the other sister was doing her packing. Before this, we had said matins and there were no words in the office that do not seem chosen expressly to carry us to praise the mercy of God, who from then on filled my heart and all my senses. Day soon arrived and I was still writing when the nun who took care of Mère Agnès came to seek news of us and conduct her new guests to see their convent and their garden. When she was leaving us, the mother superior had ordered that they show us around early in the morning. She was afraid that they would come and make us leave before then. This was a display of politeness and friendship. For my part, I hadn’t seen anything else in the convent. The nun then guided us through their cloister and let us see the oratories there, especially the oratory of Saint François de Sales.157 I had many things to say to him but I cut it short, because the time didn’t permit us to make long prayers. They showed us their chapter room, their community room, their refectory, and their kitchen. Everything was very beautiful, very clean, and as decorated as would be proper for a group of nuns. Next, we went into the garden and into the Calvary memorial, where there was a magnificent sepulcher. All the statues there are made out of stone. They are as large as the natural figures in the scene. They are perfectly 157. A spiritual director of Mère Angélique Arnauld, Saint François de Sales enjoyed particular veneration in the convent of Port-Royal. Angélique de Saint-Jean kept a handwritten letter by him on her person as a relic.

160 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY sculpted and so life-like that they only lack language. The vault is composed in such a way that you can’t speak softly enough on one end to avoid being distinctly heard on the other end. Moreover, they say that there is a secret that explains why you can hear in that spot everything that is said in the long greenery-covered alley that is next to it. My sisters never knew that fact during their stay there. It’s the prioress of Paris who heard about this at Montorgueil. Now, if this is true, our sisters could have been trapped here often. They remembered that since they had been there, when they were taken out on a walk, they weren’t permitted to talk among themselves alone except in this area of the garden and in a half-moon area around the Calvary. As long as they didn’t budge from there, they were allowed to speak in liberty. What a sweet arrangement! We still hadn’t finished our promenade when we heard the tower bell ring very loudly. Immediately afterward, they came to tell us that the chaplain of the archbishop had come on behalf of the archbishop to make us leave immediately. The carriage was waiting and they were in a hurry. It was not yet five and a half o’clock in the morning. Mère Agnès had not arisen. She got up hastily and came down immediately, because they had given us enough time to say farewell only to those who had accompanied us. Nonetheless, the mother superior insisted that we take something with us. She had prepared a meal for us in the refectory. We said goodbye with all sorts of expressions of charity and politeness on both sides. As for myself, who had only spent six hours with these good sisters, I had greater thanks to give than did the others, because I had only received compliments and caresses from them, while those who had remained with them longer had had to endure everything. Mère Agnès then stepped into the carriage with her four spiritual daughters and a lay sister from Sainte-Marie. The chaplain from the archbishop accompanied us on horseback. We started our itinerary and then we recited Prime. When these prayers were finished, I wanted to fortify us with a viaticum right from the beginning of our journey. I took a small Bible all in one volume that I carried with me and presented it to Mère Agnès, who opened it. I intended to see what it would please God to give us through it. This is what he tells us by one of his prophets, who had perhaps seen in a vision the great flock redeemed by the blood of its pastor. This is Jeremiah in chapter twenty-three of his prophecy: Vae pastoribus qui disperdunt et dilacerant gregem pascuae meae.158 The passage is too long to put it down here in Latin. “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord God against the shepherds who guide my people: ‘You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them but I will take care to punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow. They will increase and multiply there. I will appoint shepherds for 158. “Woe unto the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture” (Jer 23:1).

Report on Captivity 161 them who will shepherd them so that they no longer need to fear and tremble. None shall be missing,’ says the Lord. “The Lord says, ‘Behold, the days are coming when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David.’ He will reign as king and govern wisely. He will do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell in security. They will give him this name: ‘The Lord our justice.’ “The Lord says, ‘The day will come when they will no longer say, “As the Lord lives, he brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.” Rather, they will say, “As the Lord lives, he brought the descendants of the house of Israel up from the land of the north.” I will bring them back from all the lands to which I banished them. They will live gain on their own land.’ “The prophets will say to themselves, ‘My heart is broken within me. My bones tremble. I am like a drunkard, overcome by wine, because of the holy words of the Lord. The land is full of adulterers. Because of them the land is in mourning and the pastures are barren. Their course is evil, their power unjust.’ “The Lord says, ‘Both prophet and priest are godless. In my own house I uncover their evil. As a consequence, their path will become for them slippery ground. In the darkness they will lose their bearings and fall headlong from the path.’ The Lord says, ‘I will bring the year of punishment upon them. I saw unseemly deeds among the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied in the name of Baal and led my people astray. But among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen more shocking deeds: adultery, mendacity, alliances with the wicked. No one turns away from evil. I consider them like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ “Thus says the Lord of hosts about the prophets, ‘Lo, I will give them wormwood to eat and poison to drink. From Jerusalem’s prophets ungodliness has gone forth into all the land.’ Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of your prophets. They fill you with emptiness. Their visions come from their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say, “You will have peace,” to those who despise the word of the Lord.’ They say, ‘No evil will overtake you,’ to those who walk in hardness of heart. Who has stood in the council of the Lord to see him and to hear his word? Who has heeded his word, in order to announce it? Look at the storm unleashed by the Lord! His wrath breaks forth in a whirling storm that bursts upon the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not abate until he has done and accomplished what he has desired in his heart. When the time comes, you will fully understand this. I did not send these prophets, yet they ran in my name. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. If they had stood in my council and proclaimed my words to my people, they would have brought them back from their evil ways and their evil deeds. “The Lord says, ‘Am I only a God close up? Am I not also a God who sees from far away? Can people hide in secret without my seeing them? Do I not fill both the heaven and the earth?’ says the Lord.

162 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY “ ‘I have heard the prophets who prophesy in my name say they had a dream. How long will this continue? Is my name really in the hearts of prophets who tell lies and their own mendacious fantasies? They recount their reveries to each other, thinking they can make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forget my name for that of Baal. Let the prophet who has a dream recount it! Let the prophet who has my word speak it truthfully!’ “The Lord says, ‘What has straw to do with wheat? Is not my word like fire, like a hammer shattering rocks?’ “The Lord says, ‘I am against the prophets who steal my words from each other. I am against the prophets who borrow speeches to pronounce oracles. I am against the prophets who tell their lying dreams. They lead my people astray by their lies and their empty promises. They have no mission or command from me. They do not do any good whatsoever for my people,’ says the Lord. “The Lord says, ‘When this people or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you will answer, ‘You are the burden of the Lord. And I cast you off.’ If a prophet or priest of anyone else mentions the burden of the Lord, I will punish that person. When speaking with one another, you will ask, ‘What answer did the Lord give?’ or ‘What did the Lord say?’ But you will not mention the burden of the Lord anymore. Everyone claims that his or her word is this divine burden. As a result, they distort the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God. This is how you will question a prophet: ‘What answer did the Lord give?’ or ‘What did the Lord say?’ But if you persist in using the phrase ‘the burden of the Lord’—which I forbade you to use—I will lift you up on high and cast you from my presence. I will do this to you and to the city that I gave to you and to your fathers. I will bring upon you eternal reproach and eternal, indelible shame.”159 Can anyone doubt that providence was present in such a match between two things? Who could have chosen a passage in either the Old or the New Testament that could be applied more literally to what is happening in our community and in the current event of our return? We see here a large community endowed with all sorts of graces by God and instruction concerning the truth; this is represented figuratively by a flock feeding in its pastures. The pastors who have ripped away its unity and destroyed its spirit and its discipline as much as they could are indicated in the passage by their proper name. The passage clearly distinguishes between those of us who were dispersed among different convents and those they chased away that day from our convent in Paris. Finally, it is impossible to indicate more intelligently and in more positive terms the reunion God was going to make on that day and our return to our convent of Champs, where God began to reassemble the remains of this great flock. This includes all those who had escaped from so many perils and temptations by the strength of his grace, which 159. Jer 23:1–40.

Report on Captivity 163 had made them unshakable, and also those who had fallen for a time under the power of enemies and who had been pulled out of their hands by the all-powerful hand of this Good Shepherd, who does not let any of the lambs his Father has given him perish. All that remains is to verify what this prophecy says about the future, since all the past and present have been accomplished before our eyes: ut ex perceptione praesentium munerum firma sit expectatio futurorum.160 As the church says, nothing is more capable of strengthening the hope we must have that God in the future will accomplish his promises and crown his graces in us than the experience we have already had. We have seen in so many ways how he cares for us and the protection of his grace on a religious family that wants to find support only in his grace. We hadn’t traveled three quarters of a league when we realized that there was an unshod horse who was limping. We had to go all the way to Châtillon to find a farrier. We stopped there for quite a long time but what slowed down our journey increased our joy, because during this pause our sisters from Paris, who had left thirty minutes after us, had the time to catch up to us. It is impossible to describe the transport of joy that overwhelmed us and them when we saw the first carriage and all those white habits and red crosses that appeared in the distance. As we had stopped, this carriage went in front of us and passed within twelve to fifteen feet of us. The only thing we could do was greet them from a distance. Both sides sent up a shout of joy that sprang up from the heart. There was no way of restraining it. After this carriage, one carriage passed after the other, until there were five of them. They went so fast that it was nearly impossible to detect who were in them except for a few of them who were seated at the windows. Whatever desire they, like us, might have had to draw nearer was blocked by Monsieur Le Madre, who escorted the prisoners of the archbishop of Paris. He prevented them from stopping and made them all pass in front of us, except for a final carriage, which made the sixth one carrying our sisters, and the seventh, if you count ours. This last carriage always remained behind us and stopped to wait for us. This conduct lasted the entirety of the journey. Although we had some very poor horses who didn’t work well and this carriage could have passed in front of us, it always stopped so that it could serve as a rear guard. It moved and stopped as we did. We couldn’t understand the mystery of its movements because we didn’t know who was in it. We always moved in single file. These seven carriages, lined up one after the other, made quite a handsome sight or, rather, an admirable procession. Everyone in it blessed God and followed the cross of Jesus Christ. We weren’t able to meet each other except outside of Jouy, where, since the path became difficult to navigate, we had to break the line and stop awhile. The other carriages approached 160. “May the reception of these gifts here present show our firm hope in those that are to come” (Prayer drawn from the Easter Vigil).

164 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY very close to ours and we saw each other and spoke to each other for a brief moment. But what was there to say, since we were so transported by joy at the opportunity to see each other again? I do not know what I can compare this spectacle to. This large group of people stood up straight in the carriages and extended their hands and cried out with joy to see Mère Agnès. They had all received the threat that they wouldn’t see her again for the rest of their lives. They were surprised to see me among others. This went against the little hope they had that I could be on this journey. I think that this resembled a little the resurrection of the dead, just as our preceding captivity had resembled their sepulcher. But the first words we were able to say clearly after these confused shouts were only words of thanksgiving for the mercy God had shown us in having sustained us in our firm adherence and fidelity to his truth. He had already compensated our suffering by the joy of our reunion. Among all the consolations, this was the greatest we could have desired after all we had suffered from such a cruel separation. This carried an additional joy with it to the extent that we noticed among our sisters those whom we loved more or those whom we feared were the most likely to be retained in Paris. Especially when I saw Soeur Candide and even more Soeur Anne-Gertrude among others, I no longer knew what to say to God about this triumph of his grace. I could only use the words of the prophet: Dicant qui redempti sunt a Domino, quos redemit de manu inimici et de regionibus congregavit eos.161 This describes how we saw each other filled with his mercy: both those he had preserved in the truth and those he had redeemed from their errors. We wouldn’t have been able separately to offer him our thanksgiving if he hadn’t reunited us to sing together for him a canticle of blessing and of recognition of all we equally owe to him. Each one of us is obliged to acknowledge that she owes him everything she is. This new moment of rejoicing nearly made us forget the suffering of the past. We barely remembered that we were still under the yoke that had hung upon us for the past year. But we were about to take it up again. Through the lay sister we had with us, we asked a servant who accompanied the mysterious carriage that always followed us who was inside. He said that it was the grand-vicar,162 a civil official,163 and another ecclesiastic, along with still more nuns. This baffled us a little because we couldn’t figure out the purpose of this escort and what sort of commission had been given to such people. Ordinarily, they are not made to travel for nothing. We didn’t know if there were some nuns from Sainte-Marie they wanted to introduce and establish as commissioners at the Champs convent—as they had done in Paris—or if they were going to pronounce some sentence of ex161. “Let us sing the canticle of those whom the Lord has redeemed. He has redeemed them from the power of the enemy and has reassembled them from different countries” (Ps 196:2). 162. Guillaume de la Brunetière du Plessis-Gesté was appointed vicar-general in 1661 by the chapter of Notre-Dame. 163. Nicolas Chéron was an official from Bourges.

Report on Captivity 165 communication against us. In the end, we couldn’t figure this out but we judged, since they had us travel as a gang of prisoners, that they were leading us undoubtedly to some prison and that we still hadn’t escaped from the harsh treatment by Archbishop de Péréfixe. This turned out to be literally true but it happened in a different way than we could have imagined. Still, what the servant said—that the civil official was with the grand-vicar—turned out to be false. He had with him only Monsieur de Chamillard and Monsieur du Saugey, along with one of our sisters, Mademoiselle de Montglat,164 and a lay sister from Sainte-Marie. XXII We happily finished our journey. We arrived all together in this deserted and desolate house. At first, we were struck by the solitude. We saw only two of our former servants coming toward us, instead of all the people we were accustomed to meeting when we arrived at the convent in the past with a smaller company. There were no ringing bells and no festive bonfires like we used to have when we greeted the return of Mère Angélique, but it was much more beautiful to see in one moment this ancient church fill up with nuns who in the very color of their habits clearly expressed that they had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, which still stained the crosses they wore. We all knelt down at the feet of this Good Shepherd, who was gathering together his dispersed sheep. He alone saw the movements of the heart of each one. Perhaps they resembled each other, but I have no doubt that the angels also joyfully watched such a rare ceremony, which was similar to their solemn worship because everything happened in silence and in perfect modesty. These were thirty-six victims who, having already been sacrificed once like their divine model, came to join those who had remained in the convent and the others who had yet to arrive. By forming together one unleavened bread through the sincerity and truth they had maintained, they would be able to continue to offer to God in other ways the sacrifice they had already offered. This is similar to how Jesus Christ unceasingly renews in the Eucharist the sacrifice he offered for us on the cross. If you had seen this procession with the invisible eyes of faith, it might have resembled a procession I saw in a dream over two years ago. I know that we shouldn’t play games with dreams and treat them as if they are prophecies, but I like some of them because they provide useful comparisons. This particular dream does exactly this. I dreamed that I was at Port-Royal de Paris in a place where there was a window that looked out at a gallery from below. The gallery led to the door of the convent. From there I could see all of our Paris sisters march in procession. All of them were holding rose branches with the most beautiful flowering roses in the world. Soeur Flavie was walking down the middle of the 164. Anne-Victoire de Clermont de Montglat (1647–1701) was a pupil and then a novice at PortRoyal. Forced to leave Port-Royal, she ultimately became the abbess of Gif.

166 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY procession in her rank as superior. She carried between her hands a silver house, which I took for a reliquary. She conducted this holy procession to the door of this cloister. As I slept, I admired it as the most beautiful thing I had ever seen: these white habits, and this green, and these rose carnations all created a beautiful effect. Now, I say that this comparison is justified, because it is literally true that Soeur Flavie led all of us to the door by her intrigues and betrayals and she had herself named superior in order to dominate our sisters. Leaving the participation in the sufferings of Jesus Christ as our ornament and wealth, her only ambition was to preserve a temporal convent, where she would be in command and make the convent successful and flourishing. That is what the archbishop often said. It is also true that although we already have between our hands flowering roses—the grace God has given us to let us suffer for him in so many ways has given birth to them—these roses are not yet cut; they are still attached to the branch full of thorns. We can’t hold them in our hands without being pricked. This situation makes us see that we still haven’t won anything for having suffered something if we don’t continue to love suffering and embrace all of the suffering that God continues to use to test us in this place. He is still preparing it for us. Now the procession had arrived but it was necessary to have it enter the convent. There was scarcely any delay because the prioress of this house,165 who was waiting for us with the entire community with an impatience that you can easily imagine, immediately opened the door of the sacraments. Having been the first to get up from the stairs where she had been kneeling, Mère Agnès was the first to walk in and was followed by all of us, as the sheep follow their pastor, whom they know, and not strangers. The grand-vicar made us enter, but I don’t know exactly what happened at that moment. It is written down elsewhere. How can anyone express the joy we experienced among ourselves and that we found difficult to contain before they shut the door? When I tried to do so, I didn’t know how. Those who know what a perfect union and friendship are can imagine what they had to suffer for a year. Some of them underwent a terrifying captivity, where it could be said that they had spent ten months buried alive and everything they loved in the world was dead for them. The others underwent an assault more cruel than death when they suffered separation from their mother and sisters, division and treason from those who had abandoned them, the domination by imposed foreigners, and the continual attack by all sorts of evils and by a complete dispersion of the community. I say that those who can really claim to have suffered all of these burdens without any consolation can well imagine the joy that we experienced when we embraced each other that day and when we told each other, in quem spermaus quoniam et adhuc eripiet, the accounts of our adventures. We could thank God, qui de tantis periculus nos eruit et eripit,166 “who had delivered 165. Marie de Sainte Madeleine du Fargis was the prioress. 166. 2 Cor 1:10.

Report on Captivity 167 us from so much danger.” We hope that in his goodness he will still deliver us from even more. I couldn’t find a better ending than this joyous hope. Based only on the charity of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the virtue of the Holy Spirit, this hope can never mislead us. On the contrary, it is the solid foundation of the spiritual edifice that God wants to form in us. It must be built out of the living stones he has assembled from different places in this deep valley, where we had arrived just in time to celebrate all together the feast of the dedication of this church, which occurred on the following Sunday. The thirty-six who arrived on Friday and the seventeen who arrived the next day filled up our choir, together with all of the community that was already in this convent. Never had we sung with greater consolation and spiritual joy the following phrase: Haec est domus Domini firmiter aedificatia; bene fundata est supra firmam petram.167 “It is here that the house of God is solidly built. It has a strong foundation, because it is built on stone” and it puts its confidence only in the grace of its savior. He told us when he passed among us these words of the gospel we read on that day for the current Sunday: Misereor super turbam, quia ecce jam triduo sustinet me.168 “I have great compassion on these people, because they have remained with me for three days and they have had nothing to eat.” This also applies to us, because his providence orders everything and is contributing everything to the consolation of our faith. Soli Deo salvatori nostro per Jesum Christum dominum nostrum, Gloria et magnificentia et imperium, et potestas ante omne saeculum et nunc et in saecula seculorum. Amen.169 “To God alone, our savior, be glory, magnificence, power, and empire, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, now and forever. So be it!” Port-Royal des Champs; November 28, 1665 Soeur Angélique de Saint-Jean

167. Prayer from the office of the Dedication of Churches. 168. Mk 8:2. 169. Composite prayer blending passages from Saint Paul and Revelations.

On the Conformity between the State to Which Port-Royal Has Been Reduced and the State of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist Introduction Composed during the internment at the Annonciade convent between 1664 and 1665, On the Conformity is a spiritual mediation on the parallel between the state of the persecuted Port-Royal nuns and that of the crucified Jesus present in the Eucharist. With characteristic boldness, Angélique de Saint-Jean compares the opponents of Port-Royal to the clerics who immolate Jesus on the cross and in the sacrifice of the Mass. The text focuses on the deprivation of the sacraments that the nuns endured under the ecclesiastical penalty of interdict. Rather than weakening their faith, this deprivation has opened the nuns to a more immediate experience of Jesus the High Priest, no longer accessed through the mediation of sacraments and of the visible priesthood. The text reflects the Eucharistic theology and piety characteristic of Catholicism reformed by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was strongly encouraged; the service known as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament became popular. Port-Royal was one of the first religious communities to practice perpetual Eucharistic adoration. Typical of Tridentine piety, the tabernacle on the altar becomes the focus of prayer. The text presents Jesus as the prisoner of the tabernacle, a special focus for the nuns condemned to house imprisonment. The references to “oblation,” “suffering,” and “immolation” underscore the sacrificial theology of the Eucharist operative in the text. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s use of “annihilation” to describe one’s spiritual posture before the crucified Christ echoes the école française’s stress on mystical annihilation, which the Port-Royal nuns imbibed during the Oratorian ascendancy (1626–1633), when the Oratorians Bérulle and Condren served as the convent’s principal preachers and confessors. The translation is based on the following text: Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Sur la conformité de l’état où est réduit P.R. à l’état de Jésus Christ dans L’Eucharistie, in Vies intéressantes et édifiantes des religieuses de Port-Royal et de plusieurs personnes qui leur étaient attachées, vol. 1 (Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1750), 250–56. • On the question of the first plan we had for the establishment of the Institute of the Blessed Sacrament, our constitutions say that it often happens that God through a secret inspiration of his eternal wisdom directs the souls who serve him without 169

170 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY showing them at first the ends he has in mind.1 We believe we have discovered some of the purposes that God had in this establishment, as indicated in the first chapter of the constitutions. But I think that at that time we only envisioned those ends from a distance. It is in the present moment that God is making those ends manifest by the extraordinary and marvelous direction he is exercising over our community. He is doing this by consecrating us to the cult of this mystery, worthy of all adoration, wherein Jesus Christ is exposed without interruption as a victim to our eyes of faith. He wanted to associate us to his sacrifice in order to honor him by an adoration of conformity and imitation. This turns us into hosts that, like him, are immolated for God in the same way that Christ immolates himself for his father. That is why the nuns of the Blessed Sacrament must have read in this book of life all the rules of their institute. If they had properly engaged in meditation during their sessions at the foot of the altar, they could not be surprised to find themselves practicing everything they adored in Jesus Christ in the state to which he reduced himself in the Eucharist. They have reason to rejoice when they see they have become similar to him in many things. This is especially true of those who have become exiles and prisoners outside their own home. 1. In the Eucharist Jesus Christ is immolated by the priests and pastors; therefore, we must accept that our own pastors and ministers are the ones who sacrifice us. 2. Jesus Christ is distributed by their hands when they want and to whom they want; therefore, we must not complain that he has given them authority over us to deliver us into the hands of unknown people as they please and for as much time as they please. 3. In this sacrament the species are broken and divided, but the body of Jesus Christ remains indivisible; similarly, we have been separated externally from each other by a strange act of violence, but the union formed by charity among our hearts remains inseparable and without alteration. 4. Jesus Christ in the sacrament is invisible and without sensible action; similarly, we have become invisible to everyone who knows us. We have nearly disappeared from human sight, unapproachable like the dead. Just as they no longer have any physical movement or action to maintain any commerce with the living, we are dead and our life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God. 5. Jesus Christ is covered and in a way locked into the sacramental species as in a kind of prison. This is what gives us esteem for our own prison, where we 1. Written primarily by Agnès Arnauld, the Constitutions of The Monastery of Port-Royal of the Blessed Sacrament (published in 1665) stipulated that the convent would hold perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in its chapel. Each nun would be assigned an hour to meditate before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a monstrance. The effort of Angélique Arnauld and other Port-Royal nuns to establish a new, separate order devoted to Eucharistic adoration (the Institute of the Blessed Sacrament) in the 1630s met with failure.

On the Conformity between the State and Jesus Christ 171 are locked away with him. He is even closer to us inasmuch as the prison door is closed to the entry of all human consolations. 6. Jesus Christ in the sacrament has been reduced to a state where his enemies have the power to mistreat him with all the indignities they want. How could we complain to see ourselves reduced to a state where we no longer expect any earthly protection against the power of those who oppress us? God has delivered us into their hands. 7. Jesus Christ in the sacrament appears to be abandoned by his father, who does not avenge the injuries from which he suffers. It should be our consolation that God treats us as he does his son. In withdrawing the visible protection he had made us experience at other moments, he gives us a reason to hope that he is reserving much greater favors for us. These are the price of the sufferings we have endured out of love for him. 8. Jesus Christ in this sacrament gives life to souls only by a type of annihilation of his own life and destruction of himself; therefore, we should be consoled if we are no longer able to help the souls he has entrusted to us through external means of assistance. By dying to ourselves and by suffering, we can be more useful to them than we had ever been before. 9. Jesus Christ in the sacrament is offered for everyone and in place of everyone. On this point we are still in conformity with him because on this occasion we are victims chosen to be immolated by the fury of those who would like to bring about the downfall of the disciples of Saint Augustine, over whom God has not given them any power. Therefore, Jesus Christ offers us a rich occasion to imitate him in the highest practice of charity, which consists in giving one’s life for one’s friends. 10. Jesus Christ in this mystery is the same in several different places. This is what will happen to us if being alone and separated in so many different places as we are, we still hold to the same conduct and try to edify by our good order, our humility, and our silence. It is this that will make it appear that we are animated by the same spirit. 11. The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving, as the name “Eucharist” signifies. We have the consolation that our suffering gives particular honor to the grace of Jesus Christ, because it is only the result of the hatred of those who have undertaken to fight the doctrine of grace. We should consider ourselves blessed to have endured this in recognition of all the favors with which he has filled us, especially for having known this truth concerning grace, which is the support of all of our hope. 12. This sacrament is called the place of charity. This is why we should love our captivity and our chains. We are only suffering to maintain this chain of charity. We cannot break it by a signature that would dishonor a holy bishop because that would be to break at the same time our union with Jesus Christ. This is the

172 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY singular affiliation we have with this mystery, which is the seal of union of the faithful. 13. This sacrifice must cease before the last day. It is proper that a convent, which is entirely consecrated to honoring him, should be destroyed when it pleases him, because it would honor him more worthily by its destruction than it would have done by its survival. Sacrifice is much more than a simple act of adoration. 14. The body and blood of Jesus Christ are under different species in this sacrament and represent his death by this mystical separation; similarly, our separation from each other is a type of death. It even has something harder than death. Because it is sensitive to the feelings of our Christian friendship, it does not end our suffering as death ends all the sufferings of life. 15. The colors of the species of bread and wine, the white and the red, which indicate the innocence and suffering in Jesus Christ, teach us that we must imitate him in both qualities. We must attach ourselves to sincerity and not refuse the suffering this will call down upon us. Like him, we must drink the wine with the milk. We must find it good that after having consoled us with the abundance of his benefits and graces, he also makes us drink from his chalice, which is the most excellent of his gifts. 16. The Eucharist is called the mystery of faith because the senses play no part in it. If our faith did not raise us up beyond their experience, this sacrament would be a stumbling block for us. It is the same thing with our suffering. If we viewed it through a different eye than that of faith, we would succumb by the simple view of something so painful. If we raise our spirit above our senses, we will enter into such an admiration of this grace God is granting us that we will be reduced to adoring his goodness toward us without being able to understand it. In the same way, we adore his power in the Eucharist without understanding how it operates. 17. Jesus Christ is elevated and suspended over the altars in view of everyone.2 We are now exposed like a spectacle in front of the entire church, the angels, and all humanity. They look at us, albeit with quite different opinions, and wonder what will be the outcome of our fight. 18. Jesus Christ is under a pavilion like a king in his camp or like a traveler who has no other refuge. Like him, we find ourselves without a house and without a permanent city. We find ourselves to be foreigners and engaged in a war with enemies who do not want peace. We want to fight only with the arms of charity and patience.

2. Under the influence of its chaplain Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran, the reformed Port-Royal convent revived the medieval practice of suspending the consecrated hosts in a metallic dove over the altar.

On the Conformity between the State and Jesus Christ 173 19. Jesus Christ in the sacrament is suspended without any support except that which comes from heaven; like him, we should be content to wait for all of our assistance from there. Let us remain under the protection of the God of heaven. Let us neither seek nor desire any assistance that might come on the part of human beings. 20. The Eucharist is the seed of immortality. In a certain manner Jesus Christ dies within it to bear fruit in souls. We should not be surprised that an institute consecrated to it does not multiply like other orders. God’s direction, which wants to make us similar to the one we adore, sows us like the grains of wheat in several fields in order to multiply the fruits of our justice. He might pay greater attention to this growth in justice than to the multiplication of our numbers. Still, we don’t even know if he isn’t using this extraordinary means to make us grow and multiply after he has delivered us from this deluge of evils and iniquity that has flooded the entire earth. 21. Jesus Christ will be present to this church in the sacrament until the end of time. As he had been obedient until death in his mortal life, he wants to be humiliated until the day of his glory in his immortal life. Therefore, let us place no other limits to our suffering, our humiliation, and our submission, other than those that he personally imposed on us when he said that only the one who perseveres or, as another evangelist says, the one who suffers until the end will be saved. To obtain this grace, let us say to him, in te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum.3

3. “In you, Lord, have I hoped. Let me never be put to shame.”

On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt Once We Know Our Duty Introduction Written during her abbacy (1678–1684) at Port-Royal des Champs, On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt exhorts the nuns to remain steadfast in their refusal to assent to the church’s condemnation of certain alleged theological propositions of Jansen. A theological justification of the convent’s posture of resistance, the text warns of the danger of compromise or even negotiation over the theological issues in dispute. Dialogue always takes place within a network of power. Any effort at discussion with Port-Royal’s enemies is doomed to failure for the nuns, since the powerful and more numerous anti-Jansenist party will only use negotiations as a weapon to bring the nuns to complete surrender. Militant resistance alone can bear proper witness to the truth concerning grace. As she develops her argument against compromise, Angélique de Saint-Jean places herself firmly within the biblical tradition of the intransigent prophet. She repeatedly appeals to the example of the prophet Jeremiah (V, X), whose “jeremiads” concerning Israel warned against any treaties with the surrounding Gentile nations and any importation of pagan practices into Hebrew worship. Religious purity demands vigilance against the slightest temptation to compromise and even against discussion. At the antipodes to Jeremiah lies the failed prophet Balaam (XII), who disobeys God by an act of doubt. The abbess of a Cistercian convent, Angélique de Saint-Jean invokes Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), cofounder of the Cistercian order, as an opponent of any hesitation in the performance of one’s spiritual duties (IV). At the antipodes of Bernard lie the Jesuits, the determined opponents of Port-Royal and, from the Jansenist perspective, the masters of moral equivocation. On the Danger exhibits the contested authority of the abbess to function as the primary biblical interpreter and moral guide for her subjects. It also illustrates the lawyerly side of Angélique de Saint-Jean as she marshals biblical, patristic, and spiritual authorities to prove her case regarding certitude and constancy. It is her theological brief on behalf of intransigence as a religious duty. The translation is based on the following text: Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Sur le danger qu’il y a d’hésiter et de douter, quand une fois l’on connaît son devoir, in Vies intéressantes et édifiantes des religieueses de Port-Royal et de plusieurs personnes qui leur étaient attachées, vol. 1 (Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1750), 289–97. I Nothing is as perilous in the affairs of God as the effort to make progress. Just as we cannot do anything without him in the smallest matters—and even more in 175

176 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY those that explicitly concern him—we can fall when we take just one step against his orders. This can happen without any action on his part. This is how the affairs strictly of God can become our own. We can make them all too human when we act on our own. This is why God ceases to help us. We will remain invincible if we always keep ourselves firmly in the position where God has placed us. God can never be surpassed. We can wrongly surpass ourselves only by distancing ourselves from him. It must be something within us that defeats us when we fall, as the Prophet says, inpingentes in viis suis.1 By this passage he shows us that we will never fall as long as we remain in the path of God. We fall when we follow our own path, inpingentes in viis suis. II Because of this, the servants of God believe they are never more secure than when they have to suffer. When their enemies hold them captive, they discover a greater freedom. They are less in danger in the midst of the greatest dangers. Following the counsel of the gospel, they do not fear the evil human beings may do to them; they only fear the evil they themselves might do. By putting them into the impossibility of acting outside by their own accord, they are prevented from growing weak. Being made to suffer, they are fortified. As a result, when we are united with God as we should be, even when he permits our enemies to do what they want, they make us unconquerable and they help us to vanquish them. They ruin themselves when they think they are ruining us. They raise us up above their heads when they think they are abasing us under their feet. III In light of this, perhaps it is a fault to want to leave this happy state in order to begin new negotiations of accommodation, which are always very dangerous for those who have the right on their side. We agree with the theory that as soon as we indicate we are ready to enter such negotiations, we are signaling in some way that we have something to concede to our enemies. There is no accommodation without that. That is why there is no reason to have a consultation when there is no reason to change a position, just as there is no point in discussing the price of an article of merchandise one has no intention of buying. When everything is considered, there is nothing more to do. At the end of a hundred of these meetings we have come to the conclusion that there is nothing more they can ask of us because there is nothing more we can concede. Actually, we may have gone beyond what we should have been willing to concede, but we certainly cannot go any further.

1. Jer 18:13: “They have stumbled in their ways.”

On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt 177 IV Here is the relevant rule of Saint Bernard: nemo super bis quae certae sunt haesitet.2 No one hesitates when he or she is certain about what must be done. Hesitation makes one risk losing the advantage of being certain. When we are in a state of doubt, it is useful to deliberate so that we won’t have to doubt anymore. But when we are not in a state of doubt, deliberation teaches us to doubt. If deliberation is necessary, it removes doubt; if it is useless, it can make doubt arise. That is why we enthusiastically and confidently approve what we know with certitude God approves. As the same church father says, approbemus indubitanter que placere scimus Deo indubitanter.3 We know very well what God is asking of us. Let us have no other thought than that of asking him to give us the grace to do what he asks. Let us use the time for deliberation for prayer. If we do so, we will find a more solid joy in suffering than we would find in looking for means to avoid suffering. V As we have said, these types of consultations and deliberations might not be necessary. It is true that nothing else has such a danger to weaken us or to open the door to purely human reasoning and to thoughts arising from flesh and blood. In these discussions they insist on examining everything in order to neglect no issue and to weigh everything. As a result, we seem to disarm faith, which represses all of our natural feelings in order to make us consider only eternal objects. We often speak without thinking about this with our greatest enemies, which are our senses. They borrow from reason what they need to plead their cause. Sometimes, they cover themselves with the most beautiful appearances from the world. They can deceive us if we are not on our guard. VI We shouldn’t be surprised that the greatest servants of God and the most enlightened people sometimes find themselves facing insurmountable problems during these kinds of deliberation. They are obliged to defer a great deal to reason and to appearances, which are most often opposed to the light of faith. It is impossible to lose this light without becoming lost. If this is what happens to those who are most knowledgeable about the church’s tradition and the teaching of the church fathers, what will happen to those who are ignorant of all of this? When you can no longer talk to people who will help you with good counsel and when you can listen only to people who are suspect, you will be reduced to taking advice from yourself or from your enemies. The only result from having

2. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: “No one hesitates about those things that are certain.” 3. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: “Let us approve without any doubt what it has pleased God to let us know indubitably.”

178 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY been seen together and having conferred on a subject that required no new advice may well be to have weakened each other. VII The charity we bring to others makes us more sensitive to their sufferings. If there is one weak one among us, there is a danger that compassion would let this weakness penetrate into the heart. At the very least, Christian prudence requires us not to look for everything that would soften our circumstances at the very moment when we need, so to speak, a certain firmness that would make us unmoved by all kinds of sufferings in order to feel only those suffered by the truth and the church. Moreover, since we are in the hands of our enemies, it is risky to ask them for these kinds of favors. They will give us only as much as they think will be advantageous to their own position. If we remain as firm as we were before, this will only give them the pretext to persecute us even more. They will claim that we abused the alleged favor they had given us. They will say that we violated the promise we gave them to see what could be done together. That made them hope that we would at least have the thought of doing something more than we had already done. VIII Whatever we might concede to them, we should not believe that enemies as determined as the Jesuits will be satisfied with it. At first, they will be satisfied with the slightest wounds we might inflict on ourselves, but they will do this only to push us to inflict greater damage with greater ease. We know quite well that they will have no difficulty in reneging on everything they might have promised us. They will say either that the king didn’t think this was good or that the pope wasn’t able to agree to it. They will constrain us to make a second effort. Perhaps we will do so to avoid the first effort remaining fruitless. Let us be clear once and for all that our enemies want to bring us down at any price. Only God can prevent them from doing so. Let us have recourse to him alone. Our visible enemies want to destroy our monastery and our invisible enemies are using them and the fear we have of losing our monastery to destroy our faith. But our faith is worth more than a monastery. Our conscience is preferable to a convent that would only be our tomb in the sight of God, if we ever entered it by wounding conscience. IX Do not let us have a consultation concerning what we might do to save our convent, because our salvation consists in doing nothing. In the Gospel, Jesus Christ did not consult anyone about how far he needed to relax his positions in order to avoid the fury of the Jews. And how could he

On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt 179 have possibly consulted during his Passion, when he didn’t even speak? He didn’t open his mouth to defend himself even when he was pressed to do so by the judges. When he began to suffer, he did so only to give witness to the truth of his father. That is where he spoke. He clearly responded to the question as to whether he was the Christ. He added that they would see him one day come in majesty on the clouds to judge the earth. They hadn’t asked him about this. Perhaps we talk more than we should in order to defend ourselves. Perhaps we talk less than we should to glorify the truth. X Saint John did not consult anyone about what he could do to escape from prison. Jesus Christ gave him this glorious tribute: “his enemies have made of him what they wanted to,” fecerunt de illo quaecumque voluerunt.4 He knew very well that he had nothing to do and that he was more deeply in the hands of God than he was in the hands of his enemies. That is why in effect he abandoned himself to God’s direction when he abandoned himself to the power of human beings, who always depend on the power of God. Jeremiah, who was the type of Jesus Christ and of Saint John,5 was far from consulting anyone about what he could do to regain the peace he had lost only because he had been faithful to God. He protested that he hadn’t noticed the plan his enemies had to bring him down: non cognovi cum cogitaverunt super me consilia dicentes, and so on.6 It wasn’t any lack of intelligence that made him incapable of noticing or made him not able to notice what his enemies were doing; it was the fact that he was so filled with the spirit of God that he wasn’t worried about anything they might do to him. He didn’t even think about it. XI When Saint Peter and Saint John reported to the full assembly of the faithful about the bad treatment they had received from the priests after the miracle they performed on the lame man, the Bible doesn’t say that they deliberated about what they had to do. (In fact, there was nothing to do except suffer.) On the contrary, they all addressed God and asked him to give them the strength to speak with complete freedom: Et nunc Domine respice in minas eorum, et da servis tuis 4. Mt 17:12: “They did to him whatever they pleased.” 5. Angélique Saint-Jean is employing the biblical typology used in patristic-medieval exegesis. According to this approach, the figures of the Old Testament serve as “types” or anticipations of the more fully realized figures of the New Testament. The resemblance is often based on moral or spiritual traits. Thus, the prophet Jeremiah’s refusal to soften his prophecies because of popular opposition anticipates the refusal of Jesus and Saint John to avoid arrest and imprisonment because of hostility to their prophetic messages. 6. Jer 11:19: “I did not know that they drew up their schemes against me, saying …”

180 ANGÉLIQUE DE SAINT-JEAN ARNAULD D’ANDILLY cum omni fiducia loqui verbum tuum.7 This is the true usefulness and outcome of sacred assemblies. Such meetings should not be used for consultation; rather, they should be used to foster more ardent and effective prayer, which is always greater when the union among the participants is greater. That is why it is good for us to assemble when we can. It permits us to be passionate in our prayer and to raise up a holy violence toward God. According to Tertullian when he spoke about the assemblies of the first Christians, God cannot resist this.8 But when it’s the very cause of God that prevents us from assembling—the only cause for which we would assemble—the union of hearts is sufficient. Although the spaces may be different, Jesus considers these prayers as one prayer because the hearts are not different and the prayer only springs up from one spirit. XII The dove of the Gospel does no consulting because it is completely simple.9 I know quite well that the prudence of the serpent is also recommended by the Gospel, but it is praiseworthy only when the entire body is exposed in order to save the head, which is Jesus Christ. It’s not necessary to consult anyone to do this. Balaam was on the point of being killed by the angel. He was exposed to this danger only because he had consulted God a second time.10 When God has made his will known, we could be tempting him when we ask him again what he wants. When this Prophet had been commissioned by the Prince of the Moabites to go find what he needed to denounce the people of Israel, he received the order of God not to go there and not to denounce this people: noli ire cum eis.11 That should have been enough for Balaam. But since they had sent new ambassadors to him and he had been tempted by their gifts and their promises, he wanted to consult God one more time. He said: manete hic, hac nocte, et scire quaem quid mibi rursum respondeat Dominus.12 God permitted him to go but the permission was given in anger. Balaam deserved to be blinded because, having already received the light of God, he was still searching for some new light. He thought he would be killed by the angel at the moment of his departure. This journey was the cause of his ruin. It is so perilous to doubt when we shouldn’t doubt anymore, even when we consult only God. Why would we consult other human beings about what we will do when God has had the goodness to assure us personally so many times about what we have to do? 7. Acts 4:29: “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant that your servants may speak your word with all fidelity.” 8. See Tertullien, Apologia, chap. 39, no. 2. 9. See Mt 10:16. 10. See Nm 22:22–35. 11. Nm 22:12: “Do not go with him.” 12. Nm 22:19: “Let us stay this night so that I may know what the Lord will tell me.”

Bibliography Primary Sources Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de Saint-Jean. Conférences de la Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean sur les Constituions du monastère de Port-Royal. Edited by Dom Charles Clémencet. Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1760. __________. Discours de la Mère Angélique de S. Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, sur le danger qu’il y a d’hésiter et de douter, quand une fois l’on connaît son devoir. In Vies intéressantes et édifiiantes des religieuses de Port-Royal et de plusieurs personnes qui y étaient attachées, vol. 1, 289–97. Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1750. __________. Discours de la Révérende Mère Marie Angélique de S. Jean, Abbesse de P.R. des Champs, Sur la Règle de S. Benoît. Paris: Osmont et Delespine, 1736. __________. Discours de la R. Mère Angélique De S. Jean, appellés Miséricordes, ou Recommandations faites en chapître, de plusieurs personnes unies à la Maison de Port-Royal des Champs. Utrecht: C. Le Fevre, 1735. __________. Relation de captivité. Edited by Louis Cognet. Paris: Gallimard, 1954. __________. Relation ou histoire suivie de la Mère Marie-Angélique Arnauld. In Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Port-Royal et à la vie de la Révérende Mère Marie-Angélique de Sainte-Magdalene Arnauld, réformatrice de ce monastère, vol. 1, 7–261. Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1742. __________. Sur la conformité entre l’état ou est reduit P.R. à l’état de Jésus-Christ dans l’Eucharistie. In Vies intéressantes et édifiantes des religieuses de PortRoyal et de plusiers personnes qui y étaient attachées, vol. 1, 250–56. Utrecht: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, 1750.

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182 Bibliography Conley, John J. Adoration and Annihilation: The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Cousson, Agnès. L’écriture de soi: Lettres et récits autobiographiques des religieueses de Port-Royal; Angélique et Agnès Arnauld, Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Jacqueline Pascal. Paris: H. Champion, 2012. Doyle, William. Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Grébil, Germain. “L’image de Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean au XVIIIe siècle.” Chroniques de Port-Royal 35 (1985): 110–25. Icard, Simon. Port-Royal et Saint Bernard de Clarivaux (1608–1709): Saint-Cyran, Jansénius, Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Angélique de Saint-Jean. Paris: H. Champion, 2010. Kolakowsi, Leszek. God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal’s Religion and on the Spirit of Jansenism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Lesaulnier, Jean. “Deux siècles d’historiographie port-royaliste.” In Images de Port-Royal, edited by Jean Lesaulnier, 225–45. Paris: Nolin: 2002. __________. “Relation écrite par la Mère Angélique Arnauld de ce qui est arrivé de plus considérable dans Port-Royal.” Chroniques de Port-Royal 41 (1992): 7–93. Montherlant, Henri de. Port-Royal. Paris: Gallimard, 1954. Orcibal, Jean. Port-Royal entre le miracle et l’obéissance: Flavie Passart et Angélique de St.-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1957. Reynès Monlaur, M. Grandes abbesses et moniales: Correspondantes de Bossuet. Marseilles: Éditions Publiroc, 1928. Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin. Port-Royal, 3 vols. Edited by Maxime Leroy. Paris: Gallimard, 1953–1955. Sedgwick, Alexander. Jansenism in Seventeenth-Century France: Voices from the Wilderness. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977. __________. The Travails of Conscience: The Arnauld Family and the Ancien Régime. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Sibertin-Blanc, Brigitte. “Biographie et personnalité de la séconde Angélique.” Chroniques de Port-Royal 35 (1985): 74–82. Weaver, F. Ellen. “Angélique de Saint-Jean: Abbesse et ‘mythographe’ de PortRoyal.” Chroniques de Port-Royal 35 (1985): 93–108. _________. “Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de Saint Jean.” In Dictionnaire de PortRoyal, edited by Jean Lesaulnier and Antony McKenna, 103–6. Paris: H. Champion, 2004. __________. The Evolution of the Reform of Port-Royal: From the Rule of Cîteaux to Jansenism. Paris: Beauchesne, 1978.

Index Arnauld d’Andilly, Anne-Marie, 2 Arnauld d’Andilly, Catherine de SainteAgnès, 2 Arnauld d’Andilly, Catherine Le Fèvre de la Broderie, 1 Arnauld d’Andilly, Marie-Angélique de Sainte-Thérèse, 2, 50, 65, 67, 68, 157 Arnauld d’Andilly, Marie-Charlotte de Sainte-Claire, 2 Arnauld d’Andilly, Robert, 1, 25–26, 40, 51, 70–71 Arnauld de Luzancy, Charles-Henry, 2, 51, 71 Ascension, octave of, 119 Assembly of Bishops, 119–20 Athanasius, Saint, 54 Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 3, 5, 13–14, 30, 37, 53–54, 59, 60, 86, 123 Augustinianism, 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18 Augustinus, 3, 4, 7, 14, 15, 37, 62, 140 authority, 22, 53–55, 75, 81, 83, 84, 101–6, 120, 132, 175

abandonment, 19, 32, 46, 97, 127 Abimelech, 135 Ad sanctam Beati Petri sedem, 4 Advent, 72, 76, 79, 90, 146 Albizzi, Francesco Cardinal, 78 Alexander VI, pope, 4 Alexander VII, pope, 119 All Saints, Feast of, 64, 76 Andrew, Saint, 144 Angran de Belisi, Catherine, 126 anguish, 21, 48, 50, 98, 118, 159 Annat, François, 41, 111, 127 Annihilation, 169–73 Annonciades, 6, 11, 17, 18, 21–168, 169 Annunciation, Feast of, 92 Antichrist, 111 Apocalypse, book of the, 75 Arnauld, Agnès de Saint-Paul, 2, 3, 10, 13, 14–16; in exile, 50, 51, 56, 66–67, 76, 97–98, 108, 115, 141–43; reunion with, 155–60, 164–66 Arnauld, Angélique de SainteMagdalene, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13, 14–15, 16, 165 Arnauld, Anne-Eugénie de l’Incarnation, 2 Arnauld, Antoine, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 36 Arnauld, Catherine de Sainte-Félicité Marion, 2 Arnauld, Henry, bishop of Angers, 2, 7, 71, 126, 159 Arnauld, Madeleine de SainteChristine, 2, 157, 158 Arnauld, Marie de Sainte-Claire, 2 Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de SaintJean: biography of, 1–10; on the danger of doubt, 175–79; on the Eucharist, 169–74; influences on, 13–16; and narrative of captivity, 21–168; works of, 10–13

Baal, 161 Baalam, 175, 179 Bail, Louis, 111 Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Feast of, 31 Belgium, 11 Benedict of Nursia, Saint, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 148 Benedictines, 13 Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 14, 18; cited as monastic authority, 24, 53, 59, 72, 76, 86–89, 99, 112–14, 175, 177 Bérulle, Pierre de, 175 Bible, 3, 11, 13, 45, 56, 100, 160 Bibliothèque de la Société de PortRoyal, 13, 17, 18 183

184 Index Bibliothèque nationale de France, 18 Blessed Sacrament, 30, 91, 115, 128, 153, 169–73 Blessed Virgin Mary, 29, 30, 78 Book of Hours, 68 Bourzeis, Amable, abbot of SaintMartin de Cores, 63 Brégy, Anne-Marie de Sainte Eustoquie de Flexelles de, 99, 100 Bretz, Michèle,19 Brinvilliers, Marquise de, 25n11 Briquet, Madeleine de Sainte Christine, 99, 133 Caesar, 149 Caiaphas, 83 Calvary, 52, 159, 160 Calvin, John, 62 Calvinism, 3 Canaanite woman, 75 Carr, Thomas M., 4, 19 casuistry, 14 Catholic Church, 18, 38, 48, 53 Caulet, François-Étienne, bishop of Pamiers, 7 certitude, 106, 150, 151, 177, 178 Chalcedon, Fourth Council of, 42 Chamillard, Michel, 24, 119–22, 123, 159, 165 Chapelain, Antoinette de Jésus, 151 Chapelain, Marie-Anne, 151 Chapelain, Marie-Chérubine, 151 charity, 10, 47, 65, 75, 85, 120, 131, 154 Châtelet, 116 Châtillon, 163 Chéron, Nicolas, 164n163 Chevalier du Guet, 39 Chevreuse, 2 Choart de Buzenval, Marie-Aimée de Sainte Pélagie, 121 Choart de Buzenval, Nicolas, bishop of Beauvais, 7 Christmas, 71, 79, 90, 91, 113 Chroniques de Port-Royal, 16 Cistercians, 2, 13, 14, 18, 175

City of God, 13 Clement IX, pope, 7, 15 Clement XI, pope, 15 Cognet, Louis, 16, 17, 18, 23 concupiscence, 14 Condren, Charles de, 169 conferences, abbatial, 10–13 Conferences on the Constitutions of PortRoyal, 10, 18 confession, 14 Conley, John J., 19 conscience, 1, 11, 15, 19; crises of, 49, 67, 79, 81, 86, 87, 101–6, 132, 134, 156 consolation, 30, 77, 99–100, 153, 155, 159, 164, 167, 171–72 Constantinople, Fifth and Sixth Councils of, 42 Constitutions of Port-Royal, 12, 14, 169–70 consultations, 175–80 Contes, Jean-Baptiste de, grand vicar of archdiocese of Paris, 5, 35, 55 Conversion of Saint Paul, Feast of, 127 Counsels in the Event of Change in the Government of the Convent, 10, 14 courage, 3, 9, 107 Cousson, Agnès, 19 cross of Christ, 29, 92, 115, 144, 147, 163, 169–73, 179 Cum occasione, 4, 41n39 David, King, 30, 110 Dedication, Feast of the, 27 Denis, Saint, 51 depravity, 2, 3, 9 Des Hameux, Suzanne Ardier, comtesse, 33, 66, 90, 94, 106, 107, 116 Deutoronomy, 82, 83 Discourses on the Rule of Saint Benedict, 10, 18 divine office, 73–74 D’Offrémont, François Dreux d’Aubray, Seigneur, 25 Dominicans, 41

Index 185 Donatists, 82, 86 D’Orléans, Gaston-Jean-Baptiste of France, duc, 2 D’Ormesson cousins, 33 doubt, 104, 105, 175–80 dowry, convent, 66 dreams, 114–16, 165–66 droit/fait distinction, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 22, 27, 38, 86 Du Breuil, Father, 94–95 Du Fargis, Marie de Sainte Madeleine, 166 Dunkerque, 61 Du Perron, Jacques Davy, Cardinal, 64 Du Pré, Marguerite de Sainte Gertrude, 26, 96, 98 Du Saugey, Father, 138, 165 Easter, 91, 100, 101, 116, 121, 123 Ecclesiastes, 56 école française, 169 election, divine, 2, 3, 9, 14 Elizabeth, Saint, 141 Epiphany, Feast of, 91, 95 Epistle to the Hebrews, 84 Epistle to the Romans, 82, 84 error, 42, 58, 60, 84, 86, 164 Esther, book of, 10, 13, 45 Étienne, bishop of Paris, 87 Eucharist, 11, 165, 169–73 excommunication, 1, 6, 8; threatened during captivity, 117–18, 119, 120, 123–24, 126–27, 136–37, 165 exile, 11, 15, 21, 35, 40, 52, 101 faith, 5, 30, 47, 53, 57, 65, 67, 74, 97, 101–6, 111, 131, 177 Faithful Narrative of the Miracles and Visions of Soeur Flavie, 13 Farrier, Father, 118 Faure, François, 110 Finnerty, Julie, 16 five theological propositions, 4, 5, 7, 41, 140, 175

formulary, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15; versions of during captivity, 40, 47, 66, 67, 89, 121, 125, 137, 140–41 Fornari, Marie-Victoire, 27n19, 66 Fourcault, Monsieur, 27 François de Sales, Saint, 159 freedom, 3, 4, 5, 13, 18, 33, 34, 80, 81, 96, 176 Fronde, 3 Gallica, 18 Gelée, Marie-Angélique, 52, 56, 57 gender, 11–12, 14 Genoa, 27n19, 66, 113 Gillet, Rachel, 13 God, 10; attributes of, 68, 71, 73, 87, 89, 94, 116; prayer to, 27, 31, 69, 80, 100, 167, 169–70; providence of, 23, 97, 104–6, 143–45; sacrifice for, 29, 32; status before, 46, 51, 71, 75–76, 108–9 Godeau, Antoine, bishop of Grasse and Vence, 37 Gomorrah, 161 Goulas, Catherine de Saint-Paul, 158 grace, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9–13, 16, 18; during early stages of exile, 21, 29, 32, 41, 43, 48, 52, 59, 73, 75; during later stages of exile, 94, 118, 163 Greek, 2, 13 Gregory the Great, Saint, pope, 111–12 Grisel, Jean, 49 Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe, Paul Phillipe, archbishop of Paris, 1, 5, 6, 17; and expulsion from Port-Royal, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 32, 34, 99; interviews with, 35–41; letters to, 63–65, 80–82, 101–6; and opposition to Port-Royal, 58, 116, 131, 148–50, 155, 165 Harlay de Champvallon, François de, archbishop of Paris, 8 heresy, 4, 5; accusations of, 27, 38, 41, 43, 121, 129, 134, 146, 150

186 Index History of the Church, 37 Hodencq, Alexandre de, grand vicar of the archdiocese of Paris, 5, 55 Holy Communion, 14; restrictions on, 40, 64, 79, 90, 101, 116–17, 129, 134, 147 Holy Spirit, 39, 53–54, 77, 79, 83, 87, 93, 104, 107, 167 Honorius I, pope, 42 hope, 47, 97 Hôpital Cochin, 1 Houdin, Mademoiselle, 69 humility, 18, 60, 110, 129, 142, 172

Job, 46, 71 John Chrysostom, Saint, 118 John of Jerusalem, 42 John the Baptist, Saint, 141 John the Evangelist, Saint, 10, 13, 53, 54, 75, 179 Journal of Saint-Amour, 41 joy, 69, 71, 109–10 Judah, 30 justice, 12, 44, 47, 75, 76, 84, 99, 149, 150

Icard, Simon, 19 ignorance, 81, 82, 105, 135–36 Immaculate Conception, 22, 28 imprisonment, 17, 21–168 incertitude, 52, 98 In eminenti, 3–4 infallibility, 53, 54, 83, 84, 89, 137, 138 Innocent X, pope, 4, 41 Innocent XI, pope, 8–9 Institute of the Blessed Sacrament, 169–70 interdict, 1, 6 Irenaeus, Saint, 84 Israel, 161

La Brunetière du Plessis-Gesté, Guillaume de, 164n162 Lamothe, Charles Coquart de, 141–42, 145 Lancelot, Claude, 49 Last Judgment, 25 Last Supper, 53, 113 Latin, 2, 13, 22 laxism, 14 Lazarus, 80 Le Bouthillier, Victor, archbishop of Tours, 49 Le Cerf, Madeleine de Sainte Candide, 26, 68, 158 Le Conte, Marie-Dorthée de l’Incarnation, 88 Le Madre, Monsieur, 163 Le Maître, Antoine, 2, 4 Le Maître, Catherine de Saint-Jean Arnauld, 2 Le Maître de Saci, Louis-Isaac, 2, 6 Le Maître de Séricourt, Simon, 2 Le Normand, Jean, 71 Lent, 80, 106, 116 Leo, Saint, pope, 109 Le Petit, Pierre, 118 Leprêtre, Mère, 58 Lesaulnier, Jean, 19 Letters of Saint-Cyran, 14 Liberius, pope, 54 Ligny, Madeleine de, 23, 24

Jansen, Cornelius, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14; theories of, 21, 37, 41, 55–57, 59–61, 86, 112, 140, 175 Jansenism, 1–5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16; persecution of, 22, 88, 125 Jeremiah, 160–62, 175, 176, 179 Jerome, Saint, 42 Jerusalem, 161 Jesuits, 3, 8; and opposition to PortRoyal, 31–32, 36, 49, 72–73, 92–94, 117–18, 128, 153, 175, 178 Jesus Christ, 11; and the church, 53, 84; and the Eucharist, 169, 173; and grace, 30, 70, 80, 93, 109, 113; and opposition to compromise, 178–79; suffering of, 24, 29, 81, 91

Kings, book of, 10

Index 187 Longueville, Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon, duchesse de, 7, 8 Louis XIII, king of France, 2 Louis XIV, king of France, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 40, 51 Lutheranism, 43, 48, 88, 119, 134 Marais, 6 Martin, Saint, 66 martyrdom, 79–80, 156 Mary Magdalene, 155 Matthew, Saint, 85, 118 Mazure, Nicolas, 106 Miséricordes, 12, 18 Molina, Luis de, 39 Montglat, Anne-Victoire de Clermont de, 165 Montherlant, Henry de, 16 Montorgueil, 106, 160 Moralia, 112 Nathan, 108 Nijmegen, 8 noblesse de robe, 1–2, 21 nonsigneuses, 6 Nouet, Jacques, 31–32, 48–49, 72, 91, 92, 94, 95 Nouvelles écclesiastiques, 15 obedience, 6, 11, 14, 16; accusations of violations of, 100, 101–6, 120–21, 124, 131–32, 145, 149–51; distortions of, 23, 25, 33, 57, 81, 84, 88–89 Of Frequent Communion, 14, 36, 37, 61 On Direction, 13 On the Conformity between the State to Which Port-Royal Has Been Reduced and the State of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, 11, 19, 169–74 On the Danger of Hesitation and Doubt Once We Know Our Duty, 11, 19, 175–80 Oratorians, 169 Orcibal, Jean, 16, 19

Origen, 42 papacy, 39, 53–55, 120, 137, 138 Paris, 1, 6, 21, 76, 115–16 parlement, 119 Pascal, Blaise, 5, 14 Pascal, Jacqueline de Sainte-Euphémie, 5 Passart, Catherine de Sainte-Flavie, 6, 13, 16; critique of, 19, 24, 40, 52, 68, 98–99, 114, 166 Paul of Tarsus, Saint, 13, 59, 77–78, 81, 84, 100, 127, 135 Pavillon, Nicolas, bishop of Alet, 7, 125, 126, 158 Peace of the Church, 7, 8, 12, 15 Péan de la Crouilladière, François, 88 Pelagianism, 14 Pentecost, 135 Périer, Gilberte Pascal, 7 persecution, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11; during exile, 16, 44, 76, 97, 149, 169–73, 178 Peter, Saint, 53, 67, 78, 97, 179 Pharisees, 83 Picpus, 92 Pineau, Geneviève de l’Incarnation, 69, 114 Pomponne, chateau of, 1 Pomponne, Simon Arnauld, marquis de, 2, 7, 12, 137 Port-Royal, 15 Port-Royal, convent of: ethics of resistance of, 175–80; and the Eucharist, 169–74; historical background of, 1–10; literature of, 10–19; persecution of, 21–168 predestination, 2, 9 priest, 169–73 Prince of the Moabites, 180 prophet, 160–63, 175, 176 Proverbs, book of, 100, 105 providence, divine, 4, 9, 11, 22, 56, 75, 97, 162, 173 Provincial Letters, 14 prudence, 9–10, 51

188 Index psalms, 68 Quesnel, Pasquier, 12, 17 Racine, Jean, 2 Rantzau, Marguerite-Elisabeth de: at the beginning of the exile, 21, 22, 28, 29, 33, 36; interviews with, 38–43, 61–63, 89, 110–14, 122–28, 137–41, 141–50; letter to, 82–88; and opposition to Port-Royal, 58, 78–79, 92, 106, 116, 133, 134 Rapin, René, 3 Reflections to Prepare the Nuns for Persecution, 10–11, 18 reform, 2, 4, 8, 10 Reformation of the Interior Man, 14 régale, 9 Regiminis apostolici, 117–22, 124–25, 126–27, 139, 141, 158 Relation de captivité, 18, 23 Rémicourt, Anne-Julie de Sainte Synclétique de, 115 Report on Captivity, 6, 11, 12, 16, 17–18, 21–168 Report or Documented History of Mère Marie-Angélique, 12, 18 resistance, 1, 9, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, 175 Retz, Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de, 35n32, 55, 127 rigorism, 2, 7–8, 80 Robert, Anne de Sainte Gertrude, 158 Rubentel, Marie de Sainte Agnès, 115 Sablé, Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de, 6 sacraments, 1, 6, 14, 18, 24, 101, 169–73 sacrifice, 24, 32, 169–73 Saint-Cyran, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbé de, 2, 3, 9, 13, 14, 56, 61, 62 Saint-Germain en Laye, 154 Saint-Jacques, Faubourg, 2 Saint-Jure, Jean-Baptiste de, 94 Saint-Thomas, convent of, 66

Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin, 16 Sainte-Marie, convent of, 51, 68, 98, 141, 156, 160, 164 salvation, 18, 57, 90 Samaria, 162 Samaritan woman, 130 Sarah, 46 Saul, King, 110 Savonières, Hélène de Sainte Agnès de, 26 Sénault, Jean-François, 146 Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin, marquise de, 2–3 Sévigné, René-Bernard-Renaud de, 26 Sibertin-Blanc, Brigitte, 19 signature, crisis of the, 1, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 18; during exile, 21, 40, 47, 53, 62–63, 66–67, 83, 96, 98; later developments of, 101–10, 121, 125, 138–40, 146, 158 signeuses, 6, 12, 19 simony, 147 Simple Catechism, 14 Singlin, Antoine, 114, 115 sloth, 73, 74 Sodom, 162 solitaires, 2, 118 Sorbonne, 12, 15 Soulain, Françoise de Sainte Clare, 99 sovereignty, divine, 3, 95 Te Deum, 77 Tertullian, 180 Thebiade, 33 Thomas du Fossé, Madeleine de Sainte Melthide, 98, 106–8 Three Conferences on the Necessity to Defend the Church, 11 translation, 17–18 Trent, Council of, 169 Trinity, 60, 77–78 truth, 26, 42, 44, 64, 75, 81, 82, 99, 147 Urban VIII, pope, 3–4 Ursulines, 52, 56, 59

Index 189 Utrecht, 12 Vatican, 3, 5, 15, 53, 110, 127 Vertus, Catherine-Françoise de Bretagne de, 115 victim, 24 Victoria, Saint, 78 Vineam Domini Sabaoth, 15 virtue, 3, 10, 12, 18, 57 Visitation, Feast of the, 141, 143, 156 Visitation nuns, 6, 133 vows, 92 Vulgate, 13, 22 waxwork, 122, 123, 151–52 Weaver, F. Ellen, 19 wisdom, divine, 48 women, spiritual rights of, 8, 10, 12, 16, 18 Ypres, 61–62 Zion, 156