911 



PORT-ROYALISTS. 



PORTA, GIAMEATISTA. 



Aristophanes, but he would not undertake the work, which in Dr. 

 Kaine a opinion would not have occupied him more than six months. 

 The money was no temptation to him, and he was over-scrupulous in 

 hii notions of the duties of an editor, never fully satisfying himself, 

 and conceiving that something was still wanting, where no one but 

 himself could discover auy deficiency. 



Xhoje who knew Porsou best esteemed him most. He cared not 

 for money ; he was economical in his habits, but, with his small 

 means, most generous to the three orphan children of his brother 

 Henry. We cannot conclude this notice better than by quoting the 

 words of the Rev. Thomas Turton, Regius Professor of Divinity, 

 Cambridge : " There is one quality of the mind in which it may be 

 confidently maintained that Mr. Porsou had no superior I mean, the 

 most pure and inflexible lovo of truth. Under the influence of this 

 principle, he was cautious, and patient, and persevering in his 

 researches; and scrupulously accurate in stating facts as he found 

 them. All who were intimate with Mm bear witness to this noble 

 part of his character, and his works confirm the testimony of his 

 friends." ('A Vindication of the Literary Character of the late 

 Professor Poraon,' by Crito Cantabrigiensis.) 



PORT-ROYALISTS. The Port-Royal-des-Champs was a celebrated 

 convent of nuns, situated not far from Versailles, on the left of the 

 high road leading from Raiubouillet to Chartres. The site of the 

 convent is a deep vale, enclosed by hills. The monastery was founded 

 about 1204, with a donation made by Matthieu de Marli, of the family 

 of Moutmorency, when he was going to set out for the Holy Land. 

 The nuns were of the order of St. Bernard, and, by a papal bull, had 

 the right of choosing their abbess. In 1223 the pope conferred on 

 the convent the right of affording an asylum to such lay personages 

 as, being disgusted with the world, and being their own masters, 

 should wish to live in monastic seclusion without binding themselves 

 by permanent vows. 



The important period of the history of Port-Royal begins with the 

 appointment of the elder Ange'lique Arnauld, sister of the famous 

 controversialist Antoine Arnauld. [AnxAULD, ANTOINE.] Angelique 

 was a mere child when she was appointed, through family interest, to 

 be coadjutrix of the abbess Jeanne de Boulehard, about the year 1600. 

 In 1002 Boulehard died, and Angclique, then not quite eleven years 

 old, was consecrated abbes*. She was of course assisted in the exer- 

 cise of her office by the elder nuns. As she grew to womanhood, she 

 conceived the plan of a reform in the discipline of the convent, which 

 had grown rather loose, and she carried it into execution. The leading 

 features of this reform were a community of goods, absolute silence, 

 abstinence from meat, rigid seclusion, ascetic exercises, and the infliction 

 of penitential mortification. In 1626 Angdlique removed with her 

 nuns to a house in the Fauxbourg St. -Jacques at Paris, on account of 

 an epidemic which raged at Port-Royal-des-Champs, and which was 

 attributed to the dampness and unhealthiness of that district. In 

 1633 a new and more spacious house was purchased for the monastic 

 establishment at Paris, in the Rue de Boulai near the Kue-Coquilliure, 

 and the church was consecrated by the archbishop of Paris with great 

 solemnity. The njw convent was called Port-Royal-de-Paris. The 

 building of Port-Royal-des-Champe, which continued to belong to the 

 same monastic institution, was occupied afterwards by several pious 

 and learned men who wi-ln d to live a secluded life according to the 

 spirit of the papal bull of 1223, and who were styled ' Les Solitaires 

 de Port-Royal.' 



This was the origin of the famous school of Port-Royal. One of 

 the first of these recluses was Claude Lancelot, the grammarian. He 

 wns joined by Antoine le Mai.-tre, a distinguished advocate, and his 

 brother Louis Isaac le Maistre de Sacy, by Antoine Arnauld, brother of 

 the Abbess Angtflique, by Pierre Nicole, Nicolas Fontaine, Thomas du 

 Foam 1 , and others. [ARNAULD, ANTOINE.] They were most of them 

 friends and disciples of Da Verger d'Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran, 

 well known for his controversies with the Jesuits, and his connection 

 v, .th Jansenius, who had been his school-fellow at Louvain. Le Maistre 

 de Sacy was for a time spiritual director of the nuns of Port-Koyal-de- 

 Paris. Lancelot and his friends established a school at Port-Royal-des- 

 Champs for the better religious, moral, and scholastic instruction of a 

 limited number of pupils. They objected above all to tho lax morality 

 of the Jesuits, und to their method of education, which admitted no 

 improvement. The school of Port-Royal consisted of five classes of 

 five pupils each. Lancelot, Aruauld, De Sacy, Nicole, Fontaine, and 

 others were the teachers, and they published in concert a number of 

 echool-books which have ever since maintained a reputation. The 

 school of Port-Royal flourished from 1646 to 1C60. It formed many 

 distinguished pupils : Racine and Tillemont were of the number. 

 Among the school-books that were published for the use of that insti- 

 tution the following deserve especial mention : 1, ' Nouvelle Mdthode 

 pour appendre la Langue Latine ; ' 2, ' Nouvelle Muthode pour appeudre 

 la Langue Grecque ; ' 3, ' Jardin des Racines Grecques ; ' 4, ' Grain- 

 maire Ue'no'rale ; ' 6, ' Eleuitns de Ge'ome'trie.' AH these works were 

 written conjointly by Lancelot, Arnauld, and Snoy. 



In the meantime the number of nuns and novices of Port-Royal-de- 

 Paris having greatly increased, the abbess Ange'lique Arnauld deter- 

 mi.T d upon transferring part of them to Port-Hoyal-des-Champs. 

 I I on this tho school of Port-Royal was removed from the latter place 

 to Paris, Ruo St. Dominique, Fauxbourg St. Jacques, but after three 



years the teachers were restored to Port-Royal-des-Champs, where 

 they no longer occupied the monastic building, but a farm-house, 

 called Les Granges, on the neighbouring hill. 



lu 1653, Pope Innocent I. having condemned five propositions in 

 the book of Jansenius, Arnauld wrote to prove that these propositions 

 did not exist in the book of Jausenius, at least not in the sense attri- 

 buted to them. Upon this Arnauld was accused of Jansenism, and 

 the nuns of Port-Royal, with their abbess Ange'lique, refused to sign 

 the formulary acknowledging that the five alleged heretical proposi- 

 tions were contained in the work of Jausenius. At last an order 

 came from the king, iu 1660, to suppress tho school and drive away 

 the boarders from Port-Royal-des-Charnps. The nuns continuing 

 refractory, Perefix, archbishop of Paris, seut a party of police-officers 

 in 1064, who arrested the abbess, her niece Ange'lique Aruauld tho 

 younger, or Ange'lique de St. Jean, the mistress of the novices, and 

 other nuns, and distributed them among several monasteries, where 

 they were kept in a state of confinement. [AiiNAULD, ANOELIQUE.] 

 Meantime some of the nuns who had remained at Port-Royal-de- 

 Paris intrigued with tho government iu order to become independent 

 of Port-Royal-des-Champs, and Louis XIV. appointed a separate 

 abbess to Port-lloyal-de-Paris. In 1661* a compromise was made 

 between the pope and the defenders of Jansenius, which was called 

 " the peace of Clement IX." The nuns of Port-ltoyal-des-Champs with 

 their own abbess were then restored to their convent, but Port-Royal- 

 de-Paris was not restored to them ; a division of property was effected 

 between the two communities, by order of the king, which was con- 

 firmed by a bull of Clement X. dated 1671. Eax;h convent retained 

 its own abbess. Several disputes took place between the two com- 

 munities, in which the archbishop of Paris and the Jesuits took an 

 active part. 



At last, in March 1708, a bull of Pope Clement XI. suppressed the 

 convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs and gave the property to Port- 

 Royal-de-Paris. In 1709 D'Argenson, the lieuteuant-de-police of Paris, 

 was sent with a body of men to Port-Royal-des-Champs, and he 

 removed from thence the nuns, who were distributed among several 

 convents. The convent and church of Port-Royal-des-Champs were 

 stripped of all their valuables, which were transferred to Port-Royal- 

 de-Paris, and the former building was levelled with the ground, by 

 order of Louis XIV., as a nest of Jansenists and heretics. Besoigue, 

 Racine, Clemeiicet, Du Fosse 1 and others have written Histories of 

 Port- Royal. Dr. Reuchliu has lately published an elaborate ' Geechichte 

 von Port-Royal,' Hamburg, 1839. 



The most distinguished men of learning connected with Port-Royal 

 are 1, Claude Lancelot, born at Paris in 1C15. He was a disciple of 

 Du Verger d'Hauranne, came to Port-Royal in 1638, and was one of 

 the founders and promoters of the school. After its dispersion, 

 Lancelot acted as preceptor to several young noblemen in succession ; 

 he afterwards retired to the convent ef St. Cyrau, which being sup- 

 pressed in 1678, on suspicion of Jansenism, Lancelot was sent into 

 exile at Quiraperlc, where he died in 1095. Goujet, in his edition of 

 the ' Mdmoires de St. Cyran, par Lancelot,' gives a biographical notice 

 of the latter, and a list of his works. 2, Louis Isaac le Maistre de 

 Sacy was also a disciple of Du Verger d'Hauranne, took priest's orders, 

 and withdrew to Port-Royal, where he became spiritual director to 

 the nuns, and gave up his property to the monastery. In 1061 he 

 retired to Paris with his friends Nicolas Fontaine and Thomas du 

 Foss<5. In 1666 they were all three arrested, and confined to the 

 Bastile, where Le Slaistre remained three years. During his con- 

 finement he began his translation of the Bible ; * La Suinte Bible,' iu 

 Latin and French, with explanations, which was completed after his 

 death by Du Fosse\ He also translated Terence and Phfedrus into 

 French, and wrote other works in French, both in prose and verse. 

 Hs returned to Port-Royal in 1675, but was ordered by the govern- 

 ment to quit it iu 1 679, when he went to live at the house of his cousin 

 tho marquis of Pomponne, where he died in 1634. His brother 

 Antoiuo le Maistre had died before him at Port-Royal-des-Champs. 

 He wrote several controversial works. 3, Pierre Nicole, born at 

 Chartres in 1625, studied at Paris, and afterwards became one of the 

 professors in the school of Port-Royal. In 1655 he returned to Paris, 

 where ho contributed to Pascal's work, ' Les Lettres Proviuciales." 

 [PASCAL] Persecuted on the score of Jansenism, he took refuge in 

 Belgium, but afterwards returned to Paris, where he published his 

 ' Essaia do Morale,' which established his reputation as a writer and as 

 a moralist. He also published 1, ' Epigrammatum Delectus ex 



omnibus turn veteribus turn receutioribus Poetis,' Paris, 1659 : 2, 



(Memoires pour servir a I'lltsloire de Port-Royal,) 



PORTA, GIAMBATISTA, was born of an aucieut and noble family 

 at Naples, about the year 1550. He applied himself very early to the 

 study of nature, and was deeply read in Aristotle, Pliny, and all the 

 ancients who in any way treat of nature or describe the earth. It is 

 said that at" the age of fifteen he composed the first books of his 

 ' Natural Magic ;' but as ho derived his opinions from such authors 

 as Arnold de Villanova and Cardan, he mixed up numerous fantastic 

 and delusory notions with tho deductions of real science. It appears 



