tenderness came over him, and he implored her to be careful in
what she did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh
treatment. Angelique was not prepared for kindness, and after all she
had undergone it proved too much for her. She fell fainting to the
ground, and lay there without help, for her parents could not reach her
through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking that monsieur
Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on her head, carefully kept away.
At last, however, they realised that help was needed, and arrived to
find their abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering were to
implore her father not to leave that day, and the visitors passed the
night in a guest-room which she had built outside the walls, and next
morning she had a long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed
placed on the convent side of the grating.

[Illustration: She fell fainting to the ground.]

In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for monsieur Arnauld
still to inspect the outer buildings and gardens, as he had been in the
habit of doing, while his wife and daughters had leave to enter the
convent itself when they wished. But this was not for a whole year, as
madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn never to enter the gates of Port
Royal, and it was only after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows
taken in haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once more to
see her daughter.

* * * * *

The income left by the founder of Port Royal was very small--about
240 l. a year--little enough on which to support a number of people and
find work for the poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many
things as 1,200 l. a year now.

When Angelique first went there as abbess, monsieur Arnauld, who managed
all the money matters, paid all that seemed necessary for the comfort of
his daughter and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the gates
on him Angelique would no longer accept his help, as she felt she could
not honestly do so while behaving in a manner of which he disapproved.
So she called together her little community, and they thought of all the
things they could possibly do without. The masks and the gloves had
already been discarded, and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters
to give up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants who
crowded about their doors, but their food and their firing. Not that she
intended to support anybody in