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THE VIOLATION OF THE DEAD 477

the whole place was to be demolished. The Marquis | de Pomponne (son of the minister) took alarm. He petitioned the king to allow him to remove the bodies of his relations, "who had the misfortune to be buried in a place which had fallen under the displeasure of his majesty!" The historian (Dom Clémencet) not unnaturally regards this petition as unworthy of an Arnauld, and yet we can hardly blame him.

Permission was given, and the bodies of all the Arnaulds who lay at Port Royal were removed, nine in all, and the three caskets which contained the hearts of the Mère Angélique and of M. Arnauld, and of one of M. de Pomponne's daughters. They were all buried in the Chapel of an estate belonging to the Marquis. Other bodies were removed, but some were doubtless left underneath the ruins. Racine was laid in the Church of St Étienne du Mont near Pascal. Some of the bodies were buried at the Parish Church of Magny, others in one deep pit in the cemetery of St Lambert. But the most revolting details are given of the way in which the removal of the unclaimed bodies was performed. This is too horrible to describe. Nothing could exceed the indecency and horror of these last scenes. Sainte Beuve appropriately reminds us of the profanation of the royal tombs at Saint Denis in 1793.

And Port Royal at last lay under the feet of its enemies. They had cried: "Down with it, down with it, even to the ground," and they had their will.

Louis XIV. had been able to accomplish his desire. In the seven years of misery and disaster, before his long reign ceased, did he ever think of the innocent whom he had persecuted, of the blood which he had caused to be poured out?

As for the Cardinal de Noailles, he was overwhelmed by the horrors, so far exceeding anything he had feared. His health gave way, and he seems to have enjoyed no peace to the end of his life. He once made a pilgrimage to Port Royal, and knelt there in bitter anguish.1

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"The rest is silence."

For it does not lie within the scope of this book to pursue the fortunes of the later Jansenists, and Père Quesnel, and Père du Guet; these friends of Antoine Arnauld are not of Port Royal.

The story of Port Royal ends with this most revolting destruction of the material buildings, and with the crushing out of a great spiritual movement. For all those › whose names we love-Mère Angélique, Mère Agnès; for all the Arnaulds; for St Cyran and Pascal; for the gentle, tender Du Fossé, Fontaine, and Lancelot; for the well-beloved physician Hamon; for the singlehearted and devoted confessors and directors, Singlin, Sainte Marthe, Le Tourneux, and so many others; for the brave and simple-hearted men who gave up all that makes life seemingly attractive, to devote themselves to prayer and penitence; for the historian and the poet; for the women who risked favour in high places, and who found pardon and peace through the medium of Port Royal; for those whose names we forget, holy nuns, devoted servants; for all these we give thanks to God. For these all go to the making up of that Temple whose builder and maker is God. Not one tear, or privation, or suffering is lost.

But the story is a great warning.

It is possible to crush and to destroy that which was meant in the mind of God to be a power for good in the Church. And it is possible, on the other hand, for holy and noble souls to make mistakes and to be overmuch occupied in attention to one aspect of truth, to forget that the whole is greater than the part, and that the whole body must be "fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth," if the body is to be built up in love.

There is nothing which we more neglect than the teachings of history; there is nothing which will at once so cheer and so warn us as those teachings.

In a book, the value of which is out of all proportion to its size, an eminent professor of Ecclesiastical History

THE LAST BEATITUDE

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has told us how to use these teachings. The diverging tendencies of spiritual thought alike "spring from the teaching of our Lord Himself. They are not antagonistic; but complementary, they are both necessary to the Church."

When shall we learn this lesson, when will those who keep the Christian Creed whole and undefiled recognise that there always must be divergencies? The Puritan, the Catholic, or, as it is so well put in Dr Bigg's book, the Mystic and the Disciplinarian, will always be found side by side in the Catholic Church.

The story of Port Royal is the story of these divergencies in thought-Jesuit and Port Royalist represented two tendencies. The seventeenth century was not ripe for toleration. Port Royal was crushed, and crushed because it stood for what was unworldly as against the worldly world.

"But the souls of the righteous are in the Hand of God. . . . God made trial of them, and found them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace He proved them, and as a whole burnt offering He accepted them.'

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"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven."

1 Unity in Diversity, by Dr Bigg.

NOTES

NOTE 1.-ON Augustinus (p. 99)

When the Bull of Urban VIII. against the book was published in 1643, the University of Louvain issued a letter to the University of Paris, in which it is said :

"Quoi faudra-t-il donc que la doctrine utile de St Augustin, qui a soutenu autrefois tant de combats et remporté tant de victoires, succombe enfin et soit accablée. . . . À Dieu ne plaise que l'héritage du Verbe, incarné et le patrimonie de Jésus crucifié soit ainsi profané et dissipé.

NOTE II.-ON "LA FRÉQUENTE COMMUNION" (p. 184)

Seventeen Bishops wrote a letter to the Pope in favour of Antoine Arnauld's book, in which they speak of the results the book may have in checking laxity in moral questions. They go on to say :—

"Non seulement, il ne combat pas la participation très fréquente de la Sainte Eucharistie, mais il y exhorte les fidèles, et n'en reprend que la mauvaise usage; il soutient qu'on peut différer quelquefois l'absolution, mais non pas qu'on doive la différer toujours; il enseigne qu'elle ne déclare pas seulement que le péché est remis, mais qu'elle opère aussi la remission du péché et qu'elle confère la Grace."

And they go on to say that this teaching is the teaching of the Council of Trent.

NOTE III. THE FRONDE (p. 188)

“La guerre civile fut nommée Fronde, d'un jeu d'enfants interdit par la police, et ce fut en effet un jeu, mais abominable. Un moment, il s'agit d'une réforme de l'Etat, et cette réforme était nécessaire, et très justes étaient les griefs et les colères et même les fureurs contre le gouvernement du Cardinal, mais, tout de suite, au Parlement qui réclame la réforme et se charge de la faire, se joignent des princes, des grands 2 H

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