of the vows of fidelity which our lips have
pronounced." According to Mme. Perier, the health of the writer of the
above epistle was so undermined by the shock which all that commotion
had caused her, that she became dangerously ill, dying soon after.
Thus was sacrificed the first victim of the formulary.

Cousin says that few women of the seventeenth century were as
brilliantly endowed as Jacqueline Pascal; possessing the finesse,
energy, and sobriety of her brother, she was capable of the most
serious work, and yet knew perfectly how to lead in a social circle.
Also, she was most happily gifted with a talent for poetry, in
relation to which her reputation was everywhere recognized; at
the convent, she consulted her superiors as to the advisability of
continuing her verse making; and upon being told that such occupation
was not a means of winning the grace of Jesus Christ, she abandoned
it.

Cousin maintained that the avowed principle of the Port-Royalists was
the withdrawal from all worldly pleasure and attachment. "'Marriage is
a homicide; absolute renunciation is the true regime of a Christian.'
Jacqueline Pascal is an exaggeration of Port-Royal, and Port-Royal is
an exaggeration of the religious spirit of the seventeenth century.
Man is too little considered; all movement of the physical world comes
from God; all our acts and thoughts, except those of crime and error,
come from and belong to Him. Nothing is our own; there is no free
will; will and reason have no power. The theory of grace is the source
of all truth, virtue, and merit--and for this doctrine Jacqueline
Pascal gives up her life."

Among the great spirits of Port-Royal, the women especially were
strong in their convictions and high in their ideals. They naturally
followed the ideas of man and naturally fell into religious errors;
but their firmness, constancy, and heroism were striking indeed. Their
aspiration was the imitation of Christ, and they approached their
model as near as ever was done by man. In an age of courtesans, when
convictions were subservient to the pleasure of power, they set a
worthy example of strength of mind, firmness of will, purity, and
womanliness. M. du Bled says:

"Port-Royal was the enterprise of the middle-class aristocracy of
France; you can see here an anticipated attempt of a sort of superior
third estate to govern for itself in the Church and to establish a
religion not Roman, not aristocratic and of the court, no