sful reforms at Port-Royal, was sent to reform the system of
the Abbey of Maubuisson, thus initiating the important movement which
later involved almost all France. She became convinced that she had
not been lawfully elected abbess and resigned, securing, however, a
provision which made the election of abbesses a triennial event. To
her belongs the honor of having made Port-Royal anew. She was a woman
capable of every sacrifice,--a wonderful type in which were blended
candor, pride, and submission,--and she exhibited indomitable strength
of will and earnest zeal for her cause.

Her sister, Agnes, but three years younger than Marie, also entered
the convent, and, at the age of fifteen, was made mistress of the
novices; during the absence of her sister, at Maubuisson, she was
at the head of the convent; from that time, she governed Port-Royal
alternately with her sister, for twenty-seven years. Her work, _The
Secret Chapter of the Sacrament_, was suppressed at Rome, but without
bringing formal censure upon her.

The last of those great abbesses was Mere Angelique, who lived through
the most troublous and critical times of Port-Royal (1624 to 1684). At
the age of twenty she became a nun, having been reared in the convent
by her aunt, Marie, who was the most perfect disciple of Saint-Cyran.
Mere Angelique was especially conspicuous for her obstinacy, and when
the nuns were forced to accept the formulary of Pope Alexander VI.,
she, alone, was excepted, because of that well known characteristic.
Upon the reopening of Port-Royal (in 1689), her powerful protectress,
Mme. de Longueville, died and the persecutions were renewed; Mere
Angelique endeavored to avert the storm, but all in vain; amidst her
efforts, she collapsed. She was also a writer, her _Memoirs of
the History of Port Royal_ being the most valuable history of that
institution.

Thus, about those three women is formed the religious movement which
involved both the development of religious liberty, free will, and
morality, and of the philosophical literature of the century--a
century which boasts such writers and theologians as Nicole, Pascal,
Racine, etc.

The mission of Port-Royal seems to have been preparation of souls for
the struggles of life, teaching how to resist oppression or to bear it
with courage, and how, for a righteous cause, to brave everything,
not only the persecutions of power--violence, prison, exile,--but
the ruses of hypocrisy and the calumn