Port-Royal des Champs,

Port-Royal des Champs, a convent of Cistercian nuns, nearly 8 miles SW. of Versailles, which obtained much celebrity during the 17th century. It was founded for nuns by a member of the family of Montmorency in the early part of the 13th century, and soon after its establishment obtained from the pope the privilege of receiving lay persons, who, without taking monastic vows, desired to live in religious retirement. The discipline of the convent having been much relaxed in the 15th and 16th centuries, one of its worst abuses—that of appointing the superior, not on account of fitness, but from considerations of family or other worldly or political motives—became in the end the occasion of its complete reformation under Marie Angélique Arnauld (q.v.). The community was removed to Paris in 1626, and in 1633 to a new convent, Port-Royal de Paris; and from this time the old establishment of Port-Royal des Champs was exclusively devoted to the use of a lay community. This community soon numbered among its permanent inmates some of the most distinguished scholars of that age, Antony Arnauld, Le Maistre, Antony and Louis Isaac le Maistre de Sacy, Nicole, Lancelot, Séricourt, and others. Their rule of life was most austere, rising at 3 A.M., devoting many hours to prayer and spiritual reading and instruction, and a portion of the day to manual labour. One of their public services was the establishment of a school, for which they prepared well-known educational books, the Port-Royal Greek and Latin Grammars, General Grammar, Geometry, Art of Thinking ('Port-Royal Logic,' new ed. by Professor Spencer Baynes, 1881), &c. But Port-Royal is best known for its adhesion to the Jansenist movement (see JANSEN). The nuns of Port-Royal having refused to subscribe the formulary condemning the Five Propositions, a royal order was issued in 1660 for the suppression of the school and the removal of the boarders of Port-Royal des Champs; and the abbess and several other nuns were arrested, and confined as prisoners in other monasteries. After the 'Peace of Clement IX.' they were permitted to return; but the two communities were placed under separate government. When the final steps for the repression of the Jansenist party were taken about 1707 a formal bull was issued by Pope Clement XI. for the suppression of Port-Royal des Champs, and the transfer of its property to Port-Royal de Paris. The nuns were finally dispersed and distributed over convents of different orders throughout France. The property of the convent and church was transferred to the Paris house, and all the buildings of Port-Royal des Champs were levelled to the ground by order of the king. See Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal (4th ed. 6 vols. 1878); Charles Beard, Port-Royal (2 vols. 1861).