e Port-Royal des Champs, her brothers, her nephews, her
friends, steeped like herself in penitence. Before her, St. Bernard had
"dispeopled the world " of those whom he loved, by an error common to
zealous souls and exclusive spirits, solely occupied with thoughts of
salvation. Even in solitude Mother Angelica had not found rest. "I am
not fit to live on earth," she would say; "I know not why I am still
there; I can no longer bear either myself or others; there is none that
seeketh after God." She was piously unjust towards her age, and still
more towards her friends; it was the honorable distinction of M. de St.
Cyran and his disciples that they did seek after God and holiness, at
every cost and every risk.

Mother Angelica was nearing the repose of eternity, the only repose
admitted by her brother M. Arnauld, when the storm of persecution burst
upon the monastery. The Augustinus of Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, a
friend of M. de St. Cyran's, had just been condemned at Rome. Five
propositions concerning grace were pronounced heretical. "The pope has a
right to condemn them," said the Jansenists, "if they are to be found in
the Augustinus, but, in fact, they are not to be found there." The
dispute waxed hot; M. Arnauld threw himself into it passionately. He, in
his turn, was condemned by the Sorbonne. "This is the very day," he
wrote to his sister, Mother Angelica, "when I am to be wiped out from the
number of the doctors; I hope of God's goodness that He will not on that
account wipe me out from the number of His servants. That is the only
title I desire to preserve." M. Arnauld's friends pressed him to protest
against his condemnation. "Would you let yourself be crushed like a
child?" they said. He wrote in the theologian's vein, lengthily and
bitterly; his friends listened in silence. Arnauld understood them.
"I see quite well that you do not consider this document a good one for
its purpose," said he, "and I think you are right; but you who are
young," and he turned towards Pascal, who had a short time since retired
to Port-Royal, "you ought to do something." This was the origin of the
_Lettres Provinciales_. For the first time Pascal wrote, something other
than a treatise on physics. He revealed himself all at once and
entirely. The recluses of Port-Royal were obliged to close their
schools; they had to disperse. Arnauld concealed himself with his friend
Nicole. "I am having search made everywhere