of a decree existing in the divine mind before the creation of our
species. But Jansen died before the book was finished, and two years
elapsed before it was published, but, when published, it was the
signal for a contest which distracted Europe for seventy years.

[Sidenote: St. Cyran--Arnauld--Le Maitre.]

While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and friend,
De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot of the monastery
of St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the centre of that gay city,
a learned and ascetic hermitage. This was during the reign of
Louis XIII. His reputation, as a scholar and a saint, attracted the
attention of Richelieu, and his services were solicited by that able
minister. But neither rewards, nor flatteries, nor applause had power
over the mind of St. Cyran, as he was now called. The cardinal hated
and feared a man whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means
to quarrel with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes.
But there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to
his studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an
asceticism which even his church did not require, and devoting all his
thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin and Augustine,
he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an inward change,
that he made grace precede repentance. A man so serene in trial, so
humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in ordinary life, and yet
so distinguished for talents and erudition, could not help exciting
admiration, and making illustrious proselytes. Among them was Arnauld
D'Antilly, the intimate friend of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le
Maitre, the most eloquent lawyer and advocate in France; and Angelique
Arnauld, the abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most
distinguished ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble
by her beautiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess
of her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that time
was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of a Capuchin friar
had turned her thoughts to the future world, and she closed the gates
of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chevreuse, against all
strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic duties which her church
and age accounted most meritorious. She soon after made the
acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued her mind with the principles
of the Augustinian theo