to stifle in their souls all
earthly affections, and they died of grief on losing those they loved.
"Their life ebbed away in those depths of tears," as M. Vinet has said.

[Illustration: Abbey of Port-Royal----580]

The great Port-Royal was dead with M. de Saci and Mother Angelica de St.
Jean, faithful and modest imitators of their illustrious predecessors.
The austere virtue and the pious severance from the world existed still
in the house in the Fields, under the direction of Duguet; the
persecution too continued, persistent and noiseless; the king had given
the direction of his conscience to the Jesuits; from Father La Chaise,
moderate and prudent, he had passed to Father Letellier, violent and
perfidious; furthermore, the long persistence of the Jansenists in their
obstinacy, their freedom of thought which infringed the unity so dear to
Louis XIV., displeased the monarch, absolute even in his hour of
humiliation and defeat. The property of Port-Royal was seized, and
Cardinal de Noailles, well disposed at bottom towards the Jansenists, but
so feeble in character that determination, disgusted him as if it were a
personal insult, ended by once more forbidding the nuns the sacraments;
the house in the Fields was surpressed, and its title merged in that of
Port-Royal in Paris, for some time past replenished with submissive nuns.
Madame de Chateau-Renaud, "the new abbess, went to take possession; the
daughters of Mother Angelica protested, but without violence, as she
would have done in their place." On the 29th of October, 1709, after
prime, Father Letellier having told the king that Madame de Chateau-
Renaud dared not to go to Port-Royal des Champs, being convinced that
those headstrong, disobedient, and rebellious daughters would laugh at
the king's decree, and that, unless his Majesty would be pleased to give
precise orders to disperse them, it would never be possible to carry it
out, the king, being pressed in this way, sent his orders to
M. d'Argenson, lieutenant of police."

[Illustration: Reading the Decree 581]

He appeared at Port-Royal with a commissary and two exons. He asked for
the prioress; she was at church: when service was over, he summoned all
the nuns; one, old and very paralytic, was missing. "Let her be
brought," said M. d'Argenson. "His Majesty's orders are," he continued,
"that you break up this assemblage, never to meet again. It is your
general dispersal that I announce to you; you a