128 MINISTRY AT WARRINGTON. [Chap. IV. 



departure, he had not studied its exact position. When he 

 reached Paris he supposed that it would be well known, as 

 a new work on Port Royal, by M. St. Beuve, was very 

 popular. It was, however, out of print, and no one seemed 

 able to direct him. At last, in a shop on a boulevard he saw 

 a very old map of the environs of Paris, on which Port Royal 

 was plainly marked. They reached it through Versailles, 

 where he showed his companion the palace, and he found 

 a gallery of portraits of persons of various nations, in an upper 

 story which he had not visited before. " Among them all, 

 none gave me greater delight than some truly heavenly counte- 

 nances, bearing the names of the Mere Angelique, the Mere 

 Agnes, Pascal, Arnauld, Racine, and others of the saints of 

 Port Royal. In the whole collection there were no faces more 

 beautiful than these ; and here they were, hung up with honour 

 in the very palace of their persecutor. Thus posterity rightly 

 judges." After a beautiful walk, they reached Les Granges, 

 once the home of the recluses, the proprietor of which (M. 

 Farmin ?) cherished the associations of the place. " He took 

 us through the gardens, with the beds laid out just as they 

 used to be by the recluses, and then to a grove where, at our 

 feet, lay the ruins of the monastery almost exactly as I had 

 pictured them from your description. The scene, gilded as it 

 was by the glow of the setting sun, filled my soul with solemn 

 beauty and intense peace. 



' They sleep in Jesus and are blest, 

 How calm their slumbers are ! ' 



. . . I had left England almost exhausted by labour and 

 anxiety; and I cannot even now recall the image of that 

 peaceful valley without a holy calm seeking to find its entrance 

 into my soul." 



They could get no accommodation at the little village inn, 

 but their simple habits made them very independent. In the 

 old Hermitage, inhabited by small farmers, they had an " even- 

 ing meal of bread and milk, in a kind of closet, half a dozen 

 Port Royal cats prowling about in hopes of a share. . . . 



