took her whole community to walk on the terrace of the lakes which supplied them with fish, and which are situated near the high road from Maubuisson to Paris. Here they were met by the monks of the abbey of St. Martin of Pontoise, a monastery apparently no better regulated than their own, when they openly and unblushingly spent the summer evenings in dancing on the grass-plat of the terrace.* The pious historian of Port Royal mentions these disorders but as the beginning of their excesses. Perhaps there can be no greater proof of the inconsistency of frivolous amusements with genuine Christianity, than observing how scandalous and shocking those very things appear to us in persons devoted to God, by the vow of a religious order; which we think nothing of amongst our Protestant friends, who are yet bound by an equally awful vow, and an equally solemn sanction, to renounce the vanities as well as the pomps of this world.* * See note, page 83. Such was the scene of disorder which awaited the pious Abbess of Port Royal.* Undismayed, though fully sensible of the difficulties she was about to encounter, she armed herself with a holy courage, resolved to go on in the strength of her Lord. Nor were her three excellent companions less penetrated with the same feelings. The M. Angelique did not indeed attempt either to conceal from herself, or to dissemble with them the arduous nature of the task to which they were called. "My dear Sisters," said she, it may be necessary, and very probably necessary, that not only our health, but our lives should be sacri. ficed, in order to the accomplishment of this work; but the work is a work of God."* Perhaps she recollected the speech of M. dé St. Cyran to a timid disciple, who was advised to abandon a known duty on account of his health. "Sir, it is necessary we should do the will of God; but it is not necessary that we should live."+ * See note, page 83. + Lancelot's Mem. Vol. ii. p. 232. The words, however, of the excellent M. Angelique, proved at once both an exhortation, and, as the event shewed, a prophecy. An exemplary reform, indeed, was established at Maubuisson; but their Abbess's exhortation was literally obeyed; and she, and her three excellent companions, endured such extremity of hardship and persecution, and spared themselves so little, that one of them, the sister Mary Claire Arnauld, sister to M. Angelique, entirely ruined her constitution; and though she survived her visit to Maubuisson near twenty-eight years, she never enjoyed two days' health, till her spirit returned rejoicing to her Saviour. The trial of faith of one of her other companions was less prolonged. She was called from good works to her reward, and died almost immediately on her return to Port Royal.* The first step of the M. Angelique's reformation was the exclusion of all worldly company, and the strict re-establishment * See note, page 83. of the rules of inclosure. She was, however, soon convinced, that it would be ut terly impossible to effect any permanent or solid reformation, without forming a company of new nuns, whose members should be adequate both to set an example, and to restrain the licence of the old ones. She therefore obtained permission to receive novices. The fame of the M. Angelique, and the celebrity of the reform of Port Royal, had been very widely diffused; and hence an immense number of applications for admission crowded in upon her from every quarter.* From amongst eighty persons who presented themselves as postulants, the M. Angelique selected thirty, whom, after a rigorous trial, she judged to possess a solid vocation.* The chief attention of the M. Angelique and her three companions was now devoted to inform the minds, enlighten the con * See note, page 83. sciences, and form the habits of these novices.* Thus, in addition to the whole and sole charge of the vast temporal and spiritual concerns of the immense and rich abbey of Maubuisson, she labored with incredible assiduity, in herself instructing the novices. In this arduous post, her capacious mind not only traced an enlightened plan of reform, in the regulation of her monastery, and the administration of justice in the sphere of its external jurisdiction; but the most minute details did not escape her vigilant attention and sagacious eye.* She not only labored incessantly in the religious instruction of the novices, but her care and her personal exertions extended themselves to every particular of the monastic observances.* She even frequently assisted in teaching them the proper mode of recitation of the service, that it might be performed in a * See note, page 83. |