PFSCL XLIV, 87 (2017) The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal A GNÈS C OUSSON (U NIVERSITÉ DE B RETAGNE O CCIDENTALE ) Philippe de Champaigne’s portraits of a few of the nuns at the monastery Port-Royal give us an idea of what the sisters’ faces looked like. How did he paint them? In fact, we don’t have the answer. Nevertheless, the letters and the narratives written by sisters enable us to know their personalities. Portraits and reported speech are the main choices made to write history at Port-Royal. These choices are equivalent to the “Le genre de vie” and “les dits”, two sequences of the “Légende”, a genre which is essentially a short hagiography that focuses on main milestones, in a person’s spiritual development. 1 Portraits also borrow from this genre its laudatory language, hyperboles, high intensity degree for adjectives. Portraits aim to create the same responses as the “Légende”: admiration and the desire to emulate a model. Portraits are mainly moral portraits. The body, source of sins and corruption for the nuns, is mentioned only if a moral intention legitimates its presence. Christ, the Desert Fathers, saints, are the main models for the behaviour adopted by the nuns. They are also models for drawing portraits. Our study will examine the different aims of the portraits drawn at Port-Royal. We will observe that all these aims are closely linked. To begin, we will analyse moral portraits, then apologetic portraits, linked to the persecutions Port-Royal was subjected to. The letters written by Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, abbess of Port-Royal 1 See Ph. Sellier, “Pour une poétique de la légende: La vie de Monsieur Pascal”, Chroniques de Port-Royal, no. 31, 1982, pp. 51-65, also printed in Port-Royal et la littérature (Paris: Champion, 1999), t. I, pp. 29-48. The legend is “a short narrative, in prose or verse, about the life of an exemplary Christian, written in view of a public recitation by an individual narrator” (“un récit court, en prose ou en vers, de la vie d’un chrétien exemplaire, composé dans la perspective d’une récitation publique par un narrateur individual”). The narrator speaks as an eye-witness or using a set of documents. The length of the narration may vary from two to thirty pages. Agnès Cousson 276 des Champs in 1678, will be our reference documents. Angélique Arnauld, the author of the reform of Port-Royal, in 1609, and Agnès Arnauld are her aunts. 2 Narratives written by the nuns for the memory of the community will complete letters. Nuns began this historiographic writing in 1646, first to give evidence of mother Angélique’s life and virtue, then, after the beginning of the persecutions, to be a testimony of the history of the community. Angélique de Saint-Jean, the historian of the community, is the author of many such narratives. Therefore, she will have an important place in our study. 3 This study aims at highlighting features of the nuns’ protest writings, in other words it sets out to analyze their texts from a literary angle as I have done in my book devoted essentially to their letters. 4 Neither the way the portraits are written nor what information they give of the women they depict have ever been examined before. Most of the time, studies of the nuns’ resistance writings offer a historical approach and focus on the fight between the Jesuits and the Jansenists; other studies are theological and broach the spiritual life of the nuns and their directors of conscience. In the United-States, Daniella Kostroun has chosen an original historical approach by looking at the nuns’ feminist trends. Another distinctive study by Thomas Carr attends to the abbess’s words. 5 We only mention a few instances to which the research carried out by John Conley 2 Angélique Arnauld (1591-1661), reformer and abbess of Port-Royal from 1602 to 1630, and from 1642 to 1654 ; Agnès (1593-1671), abbess from 1636 to 1642, and from 1658 to 1661. They are the sisters of theologian Antoine Arnauld. Angélique de Saint-Jean (1624-1684), daughter of Robert Arnauld d’Andilly, became abbess of Port-Royal des Champs in 1678, after the two houses which composed Port-Royal (the monastery of les Champs and the monastery of Paris) separated, and that we mention later in our introduction. 3 For more about memory work, see our article “Modalités et enjeux du récit personnel dans les Mémoires de Port-Royal: la Relation de la mère Arnauld et les récits de souvenirs des soeurs”, La Mémoire à Port-Royal. L’œuvre des religieuses: de la célébration eucharistique au témoignage, éd. L. Plazenet (Paris: Garnier, 2016), pp. 47-84. 4 See our study, L’Écriture de soi. Lettres et récits autobiographiques des religieuses de Port-Royal (Paris: Champion, 2012), re-ed. 2015. 5 See D. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, and Jansenism: Louis XIV and the Port-Royal Nuns (Cambridge U. P., 2011), and her article “The Gendered Self and Friendship in Action among the Port-Royal Nun”, Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France, ed. Lewis C. Seifert and Rebecca M. Wilkin (Farnham, Surrey/ Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 189-218. See also T. Carr, Voix des abbesses du Grand Siècle. La prédication au féminin à Port-Royal (Tübingen: G. Narr, 2006). The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 277 can be added. Our goal here is to supplement these studies with a thematic and stylistic examination of a few emblematic texts together with the nuns’ apologetic writing. As a reminder, let’s specify that the community had been persecuted by the authorities of the country since 1656, for its support of Jansénius, the author of L’Augustinus, a book condemned by the pope. Persecutions intensified in 1661. Nuns had to sign a Formulaire which contained the condemnation of 5 propositions assigned to Jansénius. They refused, in the name of their conscience. In 1664, several resisting nuns were jailed in convents in Paris, and ordered to sign the Formulaire. Some of them signed, then retracted their signature, the others resisted. In 1665, all the resistants were imprisoned at Port-Royal des Champs. Sacraments, letters and visits were forbidden for five years. The collective captivity ended in 1669, owing to the Paix de l’Église. Resisting nuns stayed on at Port-Royal des Champs. They were separated from their other convent, Port-Royal de Paris, at the behest of Louis XIV. Port-Royal des Champs was destroyed by the king in 1709. 6 The moral portraits: Angélique Arnauld and the reformed sisters We can find these portraits solely in the Memoires 7 of Port-Royal. These portraits concern mother Angélique and the sisters who witnessed her reform of the convent. The portraits of Angélique Arnauld focus on three features: her virtues (her profound faith and devotion, her application to abide by rules of poverty, silence and obedience), her principles (actions in the name of conscience, founding principles of her reform), her conception of life in a convent and her rules to guide the sisters. Mother Angélique refuses to resort to strong authority. She’s looking for a free acceptation of the rules by each sister. She prefers dialogue to punishment. She wants her own behaviour to be a moral model rather than advise with words. Portraits of mother Angélique show her attachment to poverty and her will to live in accordance with the spirit of the beginning of Christianity. Sister Robert writes that the mother slept for a long time on “une vieille paillasse toute pourrie” (a filthy bed) with a dirty blanket. “It all gave off such a smell that she never went to bed without feeling sick: it was far from being loathsome to her though, since she secretly rejoiced over it and would have been sorry 6 See Louis XIV et Port-Royal, acts of the seminar held on October 14-16, 2015, Chroniques de Port-Royal, no. 66, 2016. 7 Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Port-Royal et à la vie de la révérende mère Angélique, Utrecht, Aux dépens de la compagnie, 1742. Agnès Cousson 278 to have anything altered”. 8 Mother Angélique wanted to have clothes made of painfully irritating textile. Mother Agnès relates that her sister wore serge shirts for twenty-four years (since her conversion, at the age of sixteen years old, until the age of thirty years old). Her skin was so irritated that she had to stop wearing them. She chose other shirts, heavy and unconfortable, “full of prickly bristles” 9 , so that her skin was sore. Mother Angélique also chose food which was detrimental to her health or which she disliked. Her charity for her sisters is often mentioned. Sister Garnier insists on this point: “Mme de Port-Royal takes so much care of her nuns that she carries the fire-wood herself to the dormitory to keep them warm, and she displays such charity for the sick, that indeed she seems to be a nurse”. 10 Mother Angélique sleeps beside sick sisters, in the same room, takes care of them at the expense of her own health. In the narrative of her death, we learn that “She had more tenderness and love for all her children than a true mother”. 11 However mother Angélique’s portrait found in the Memoirs is neither painful nor sad. It reveals the mother’s energy, vigor, her cheerfulness and her maternal character towards the sisters. Her style of speech, which is very direct, with maxims and metaphors easy to understand, reflects her love of simplicity. Her personality displays her idea of religious life. Life in a convent is joy. Self-abnegation, poverty, all the sacrifices needed in the service of God have to be a pleasure. That’s why mother Angélique makes so many efforts to stir the faith of the sisters. Her zeal to stir devotion is another topos in the narratives. This viewpoint explains her will to choose girls who have a profound vocation to enter Port-Royal, whereas other convents’ choices are based on money. Thus, each reformed sister is a witness to the other one. They give evidence of their virtues, the same as mother Angélique’s virtues. Their portraits demonstrate how successful the mother’s guidance was. They prove the benefits of her reform on regularity in a convent. The portrait of virtues is often implicit; the reader makes them out thanks to the depiction 8 Mémoires..., “Relation de la sœur Marie de Sainte-Euphrasie Robert”, t. II, p. 463. “Tout cela sentait si mauvais qu’elle ne se couchait jamais qu’elle n’en eût un soulèvement de cœur: tant s’en faut néanmoins que cela fut pénible à son esprit, qu’elle en avait une secrète joie et eût été bien fâchée d’en changer”. 9 Mémoires..., “Relation de la mère Catherine Agnès de Saint-Paul Arnauld…”, t. II, p. 450. “Pleine de petites pailles qui la picotaient”. 10 Mémoires..., “Relation de la sœur Garnier …”, t. II, p. 432. “Mme de Port-Royal a un tel soin de ses religieuses qu’elle porte même du bois au dortoir pour les chauffer, et elle a une si grande charité pour celles qui sont malades, qu’il semble qu’elle soit elle-même infirmière”. 11 Mémoires..., Angélique de Saint-Jean, “Relation de la maladie et de la mort de la mère Marie-Angélique Arnauld”, t. II, pp. 123-165. The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 279 of behaviour, thanks to a word, and even a short story, another classic way of writing history which was also in use at Port-Royal. Angélique de Saint- Jean relates sister des Tournelles’s story. One day, during winter, the sister couldn’t find her shoes, after a procession. In those times, Angélique de Saint-Jean tells the reader, reformed sisters were bare-footed during processions: Advent time had just started and it was very cold. However as she believed that she was not allowed to break the silence of her retreat to ask what had become of them, she remained several days bare-footed, thinking to herself that God was testing her in this way. 12 The narrative tacitly points out two virtues : obedience to the rule of silence and endurance. Indeed, being bare-footed created a link between reformed sisters and Christ. Thus, individual portraits, based on similar examples of virtues, establish the collective history of the monastery while differences are revealed in this kind of small details. An apologetic aim is to be found in the portraits, besides a morale intention. The narratives look to prove Mother Angélique’s holiness and the reformed sisters’ also, to point out a time considered as a model for spirituality at Port-Royal. That the nuns should read as being virtuous is a sign of God’s favor for Port-Royal. Thus, giving evidence of individual virtues amounts to giving evidence of God’s approbation of Mother Angélique’s reform. The reform of Port-Royal appears in all the texts as God’s wish, simply complied to by the mother. The apologetic portraits The following portraits take up again the motif of election of Port-Royal and add to it the motif of the martyr. Resisting nuns present their fight as God’s fight. They confirm that they are resisting for God and through God. In 1664, Péréfixe, the Archbishop of Paris, came to Port-Royal to order the nuns to sign the Formulaire. Mother Ligny 13 , abbess of Port-Royal, resisted 12 Mémoires..., “Relation de la mère Angélique de Saint-Jean”, t. II, p. 458. “C’était au commencement des Avent et il faisait fort froid. Néanmoins comme elle crut qu’il ne lui était pas permis d’interrompre le silence de sa retraite pour s’enquérir de ce qu’elles étaient devenues, elle demeura plusieurs jours nues jambes, pensant en elle-même que Dieu l’éprouvait par cette rencontre”. Sister Giroust (1611-1691) was bestowed the Habit of the novice on September 8 th , 1628. She was one of the sisters who resisted signing the Formulaire. 13 On August 26 th , 1664, Madeleine de Sainte-Agnès de Ligny (1616- May 11 th , 1675) was among the nuns sent into exile. She was first taken to the Ursulines convent in Agnès Cousson 280 his command. Angélique de Saint-Jean narrates the scene in a portrait based on the opposition between their behaviour. Indeed, Péréfixe’s violence contrasts with the calm of the abbess: [...] He assembled the community whom he talked to with extraordinary feeling ; any other phrase would be disrespectful ; he said that we were rebellious, stubborn, disobedient, and consequently were unworthy and incapable of receiving the sacraments, he forbade us to go near them and said he would bring some order to our house according to what he deemed necessary and to what God would inspire him to do. A soon as he had finished speaking, he rushed out with such speed that it was impossible to tell him anything. We were overtaken by cries and tears, as you can well believe. A short moment later he came back to the visitors’ room to say that he forbade us to see and talk to anyone from the outside, and also to let anyone into the house for fear of disobedience. He said that we were as pure as angels, as arrogant as Lucifer and as stubborn as demons. He left saying he would be back soon. It was an honour for our mother to be abused, and the humility and silence with which she endured it were such as to touch the most hardened. 14 Praise and criticism are conveyed through description and reported speech. Péréfixe and Mother Ligny reveal themselves, the former his defects, the latter her virtues. This choice keeps Angélique de Saint-Jean from making any comments, in compliance with the rule of humility, and gives more credence to criticism. The abbess stays calm. She remains mute in the face of Péréfixe’s insults. She is full of wrath in the spiritual sense of the term. the faubourg Saint-Jacques. On September 10 th , she was led to her brother’s home where she stayed for a time. 14 Letters, to Mlle de Vertu, August 21 st , 1664. Our quotes from letters by Angélique de Saint-Jean which have not been previously published refer to the collection of the library of Port-Royal, Paris, LT 88/ 93 ms. “Il fit rappeler la communauté à laquelle il parla avec une chaleur extraordinaire; le respect empêche d’user d’autres termes ; il déclara que nous étions des rebelles, des opiniâtres, des désobéissantes, par conséquent indignes et incapables de recevoir les sacrements, qu’il nous défendait d’en approcher, qu’il mettrait ordre à notre maison selon qu’il le jugerait nécessaire et que Dieu lui inspirerait. Aussitôt qu’il eût achevé cette parole, il sortit dans une telle vitesse qu’il fut impossible de lui dire un mot. L’on était dans les cris et les larmes que vous pouvez penser. Un moment après il remonta au parloir pour dire qu’il défendait à peine de désobéissance de voir et de parler à qui que ce soit de dehors, et de donner entrée dans la maison à personne. Il dit que nous étions pures comme des anges, superbes comme Lucifer, et opiniâtres comme des démons. Il sortit en disant que nous le reverrions bientôt. Notre mère a eu l’honneur d’être traitée avec injures, et elle les a souffertes dans une humilité et un silence capables de toucher les plus durs.” The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 281 Her composed behaviour can be paralleled with Christ’s silence during his Passion. Thus the abbess becomes an example of the radiance of the Saints celebrated by Pascal 15 and arouses the admiration of the reader. Mother Ligny also gives evidence of her will to imitate Mother Angélique, the moral model of the community. Mother Angélique doesn’t say a word during her period of suffering in Port-Royal, under Sébastien Zamet’s direction. She was no longer abbess at this time and she had to walk across the dining hall, before the children’s eyes, a basket full of rubbish hanging from her neck. She remained mute, calm, even smiling. Mother Ligny is an example of the “quiet patience” of the nuns in the face of persecutions. Angélique de Saint-Jean explains why recording this virtue is important: In such trials, do we not owe God and our fellow creatures a quiet patience which edifies and which does away with the pretext that claims that we rebel against everything, that we submit to nothing, and that we show no sign of the humility or meekness that all the saints manifest when they find themselves in similar circumstances […]? 16 15 “Only the Saints’ radiance does not seem to be derisory to him, because they are humble, i.e. they appear to be anti-heroes, for heroic aspirations stem from the exaltation of oneself”, notes Ph. Sellier, Le Mythe du héros (Paris: Bordas, 1990), p. 91. See also B. Pascal, Pensées, ed. P. Sellier (Paris: Bordas, 1991), fr. 339. “The saints have their power, their glory, their victory, their lustre, and need no worldly or intellectual greatness, with which they have no affinity; for these neither add anything to them, nor take away anything from them. They are seen of God and the angels […]. God is enough for them.” 16 To M. Arnauld, July 1666, letter no. CXXXII. “Ne devons-nous pas à Dieu et à notre prochain dans ces rencontres une patience tranquille qui donne de l’édification, et qui ôte le prétexte que l’on prend de nous accuser que nous nous révoltons contre tout, que nous ne nous soumettons en rien, et que nous ne donnons aucune marque de l’humilité et de la douceur que tous les saints ont fait paraître quand ils se sont trouvés en des occasions semblables.” Those lines echo advice given by Sacy, confessor at Port-Royal, and aver that self-representation is mediated through writing by means of consultation. Sacy asks mother Le Féron to narrate the state of the house of Paris and the violent treatment inflicted on the nuns: “It would be advisable to include what you notice in the sisters’ conduct that is most holy, and also all the graces that God grants them, in order to oppose this true narrative to the false rumors which are spread about the disorders of your house, and which are pretexts to justify the violence you are submitted to” (“Il serait bon d’y mêler aussi ce que vous voyez de plus saint dans la conduite de vos sœurs, et toutes les grâces que Dieu leur fait, pour opposer ce récit véritable aux faux bruits qu’on fait courir du dérèglement de votre maison, par lequel on prétend justifier les violences qu’on vous fait souffrir”), Louis-Isaac Le Maistre de Sacy, Choix de lettres inédites, (1650-1683), ed. G. Delassault (Paris: Nizet, 1959), Agnès Cousson 282 This passage justifies the use and the aim of portraits. Reader can understand the line adopted by sisters for self-representation. The emphasis on their moral exemplarity has to contradict the accusations of the Jesuits, of being “rebel, heretic nuns who don’t take part in the sacraments”. 17 Except for the matter of signing the Formulaire, sisters neither resist nor express any complaint. They just commit their suffering to paper, as evidence of the violence inflicted upon them. This course of action explains the relative conformity between all the portraits. Each sister seems to be the double of another sister. Thus, singularity disappears in favor of uniformity. All the members of the community share the same virtues, in the same high degree. That’s why the portrait of a third party becomes a tacit self-portrait. The portrait of Jean Hamon, who was the doctor of Port-Royal, seems to depict a male double of the nuns: He is the most blissful man that I know of, because he has all the benefits of the most sanctified position in the Church and is fully blessed by them at the same time. He is as austere as a penitent, as solitary as an anchorite, as restrained as a prisoner. He suffers for charity in the same way as we suffer for justice. He attends to the body and comforts the soul; he devotes his whole day to God, and never holds back from being of service to his neighbour. Yet so that you believe me, I shall tell you how he lives. He is staying in the room where M. d’Épinay used to work, [...] he never leaves it, except twice a day, once to hear mass, and once at five o’clock in the evening to see his patients in the monastery, and then have dinner. He has not had any fire lit in his room yet, and does use any other. He does not leave that little den, and does not take a walk. He does not see nor talk to anyone, or so seldom and so little that it can be described as entering no conversation. That is what is known of him, God looks upon the rest. But December 20 th , 1664. In a letter dated December 13 th , 1664, he advised the nuns to defend themselves with the sole argument of conscience and to answer their detractors with humility, “because they only strive to portray you as suspicious and stubborn persons” (“parce qu’ils ne tâchent qu’à vous faire passer pour des personnes suspectes et opiniâtres”). The nuns exercise such “silent patience” only as far as worldly deprivations are concerned, in accordance with the Bible’s prescription to turn “the other cheek”. They refuse to make a request to the king asking him to grant them their former right to take walks in their garden. The sanction exemplifies the use of “sheer violence” destined to “subdue” them. They fight for what they brand as essential: justice and the rights of their community. Should they not defend themselves in this case, their position would amount to consenting to injustice, Angélique de Saint-Jean explains. 17 See for example Father Rapin’s accusations, Mémoires, ed. L. Aubineau (Librairie catholique E. Vitte, 1865). The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 283 am I not right to say that he is blessed! That our guards should witness this is not unwelcome, such examples are scarce elsewhere. 18 Angélique de Saint-Jean, the author of this portrait, avoids laudatory words. She adopts the same means as before. She conveys to the reader the virtues of the doctor through the description of his way of life. Jean Hamon leads a monastic life. He shares piety, austerity, self-denial, the love of silence and solitude of the nuns. The bareness of his room calls to mind the dwellings of the Desert Fathers. He shares their way of life too. The portrait leads to the doctor’s sanctification: Jean Hamon is a “blessed man”. Portraits can be plural. It’s the case of the description of the mute chorus formed by the nuns, imprisoned at Port-Royal des Champs, in 1665. They celebrate the forbidden mass in silence, perfectly united: […] If you could see our choir, it has never been more beautiful, more crowded, more orderly, more uniform. We carry out the same ceremonies as punctually all together as if our voices were united. […] in the midst of which one can only hear a deep silence which calls for extraordinary respect for the presence of a God for whom we sing such a new and different hymn from what is customary, because He is the only one to hear the language of the heart, the thoughts of the mind, and the harmony of charity which is always achieved when conducted by truth. Otherwise zeal deprived of science and blind obedience arouse discordance, when one believes one serves God by killing those who belong to him. 19 18 To M. de Luzancy, December 31 st , 1665. “C’est le plus heureux homme que je connaisse, car il a tous les avantages des plus saints états qui soient dans l’Église et en jouit en même temps. Il est austère comme un pénitent, solitaire comme un anachorète, resserré comme un prisonnier. Il souffre pour la charité ce que nous souffrons pour la justice. Il assiste les corps, il console les âmes ; il s’occupe tout le jour de Dieu, et ne laisse pas de servir le prochain. Mais afin que vous m’en croyiez, je veux vous dire comme il vit. Il est dans la chambre où travaillait M. d’Épinay, […] il n’en sort jamais, sinon deux fois le jour, l’une pour entendre la messe, et l’autre à cinq heures du soir pour voir ses malades au dedans, et ensuite aller au dîner. Il n’a point encore fait de feu à sa chambre, et n’en voit point. Il ne bouge de ce petit trou, et ne se promène point. Il ne voit et ne parle à personne que si rarement et si peu que cela se peut dire n’avoir nulle conversation. Voilà ce qui se sait, Dieu voit le reste. Mais n’ai-je pas raison de dire qu’il est bienheureux! Il n’est point mauvais que nos gardes voient cela, ces exemples sont rares ailleurs.” 19 Angélique de Saint-Jean, to her brother Arnauld de Luzancy, September 27 th , 1665. “Si vous voyiez notre chœur, il ne fut jamais plus beau, plus rempli, plus rangé, plus uniforme. Nous faisons les mêmes cérémonies aussi ponctuellement toutes ensemble, que si nous mêlions nos voix. […] au milieu de cela l’on n’entend qu’un profond silence qui imprime un respect extraordinaire pour la présence d’un Dieu à qui l’on chante un cantique si nouveau et si différent de l’usage des Agnès Cousson 284 This portrait can be read as an answer to the opponents, faced with the failure of the persecution. The harmony of the chorus and the nun’s serenity are given as signs of the truth of their resistance. By contrast, “discordance”, which is a feature of the opponents’ speech, becomes the sign of the falsity of their own fight. The self-representation of the nuns as blissful prisoners is steady during the years of collective captivity, at Port-Royal des Champs, from 1665 to 1669. Nuns are delighted with an ordeal that they understand as a “sanctifying grace” and as the best evidence of their election by God. The happiness drawn from suffering for God wins against moral suffering. 20 In the narrative of deaths, portraits convey the same message. The calm and the serenity of the dying sister, in spite of being deprived of the last rites, have to prove the benefits for the soul of actions carried out in the name of conscience. They are evidence of the good faith of the nuns. The meaning of the portrait is double. The dying person is erected as a moral model to imitate. Her example comforts sisters who assist her and supports them in their resistance. In 1667, sister Goulas, who signed the Formulaire, then retracted her signature, was at peace when death approached. Angélique de Saint-Jean narrates that sister Goulas’ strong fear of death even disappeared suddenly making way for her desire to die. Her ultimate words “Veni domine, et noli tardare” are written as evidence of God’s favor for the resisting community: She leaves us fully edified and at the same time fully in awe at how God tends the little ones in his flock. For one can discern his Providence in each of the circumstances which preceded and accompanied her blissful death. 21 The “quiet death” of the converted sister is read as the sign that God has forgiven her for having strayed. It’s also the sign of God’s approval of her retraction. The quiet death becomes an enticement to act in the name of conscience against the rule of obedience to the superiors which was rejected by resisting sisters in the name of obedience to God’s rule. Sister Goulas hommes, parce qu’il n’y a que lui seul qui entend le langage du cœur, la pensée de l’esprit, et l’harmonie de la charité qui est toujours juste quand la vérité en règle la mesure. Autrement le zèle sans science et l’obéissance aveugle font un grand désaccord, quand on croit rendre service à Dieu en faisant mourir ceux qui lui appartiennent.” 20 See our article “‘Nous sommes les plus heureuses filles du monde’, la captivité des religieuses à Port-Royal des Champs à travers leurs lettres”, Port-Royal et la prison (Paris: Nolin, 2011) pp. 177-196. 21 To Antoine Arnauld, May 23, 1667. “Elle nous laisse toutes comblées d’édification et en même temps d’admiration de la conduite de Dieu sur les petits de son troupeau. Car on voit sa Providence dans toutes les circonstances qui ont précédé et accompagné cette heureuse mort.” The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 285 encapsulates her consolation in the phrase “to die suffering for the truth”. Her ultima verba, written by Angélique de Saint-Jean, calls to the reader’s mind that the fight of the sisters is God’s fight: After all this is what comforts and strengthens more than miracles. […] That is why thanks to truth our faith finds much more support in such visible effects of the grace of Jesus-Christ, which are to be perceived in the innocent and pure souls; and the admirable peace he grants them, which is a sign of a clear conscience, should convince those who are unable to prove that we are criminals otherwise than by assuming it is not our conscience, but human interests which prevent us from obeying them. 22 The portraits in the illness and death narratives contribute to shaping the image of an exemplary community. The writing models, the Lives of saints and the Legends, explain once again the stylistic and thematic homogeneity of the portraits: “The rigidity of the hagiographic death narrative took a large part in encoding death writing”, relates Constance Cagnat in La Mort classique: Simple facts, like the date of death or a quiet passing away, have become signs, signs of the holiness of the deceased. Hagiographies have therefore fashioned a kind of language of the death narrative, which can be strategically borrowed from by anyone to apologetic ends. 23 The portraits of the dying women recall all the commonplaces of the quoted genres. The Port-Royal nuns pass away in the saints’ states of mind, with joy, piety, humility, recrudescence of faith at the last moment. The portrait of the dying Mother Agnès Arnauld, by Angélique de Saint-Jean, engenders a sanctification of the former abbess, set as a model of virtue. It corroborates the theme of God’s intervention in the composition of the community: 22 Same letter. “C’est cela après tout qui console et qui fortifie plus que des miracles. […] C’est pourquoi dans la vérité, notre foi trouve un plus grand soutien dans ces effets si sensibles de la grâce de Jésus-Christ, qui paraissent en ces âmes si innocentes et si pures; et l’admirable paix qu’il leur donne, qui est une marque de la bonne conscience, devrait convaincre tous ceux qui ne sauraient prouver que nous soyons criminelles qu’en supposant que ce n’est pas la conscience, mais des intérêts humains qui nous empêchent de leur obéir.” 23 “De simples faits, tels que la date du décès ou la facilité du passage, sont devenus des signes, les signes de la sainteté du défunt. L’hagiographie a ainsi élaboré une sorte de langage du récit de mort, dont pourront s’emparer à des fins stratégiques tous ceux qu’animera un dessein apologétique”, Constance Cagnat, La mort classique. Écrire la mort dans la littérature française en prose de la seconde moitié du XVII e siècle (Paris: Champion, 1995), p. 176. The death narrative is made up of three sequences: the last illness, the passing away, and the aftermath of the death. Agnès Cousson 286 What God had endowed this person with, in nature and in grace, was so agreeable, that I know of no-one who knew her and who did not love her, not to mention the veneration she aroused in everyone thanks to the piety and wisdom that defined her conduct, her actions and her words, and that spread even on her face and in her motions, in which only the orderly and the edifying could be seen. Her death was so perfectly like her life, that even those who were not able to be present can imagine it, since the fretfulness generated by illness and death did not alter one moment such a uniform equanimity, which seemed to be the specific feature of her virtue. 24 The French imparfait, the grammatical tense used in the description in the Legends, makes the virtues consistent and persistent. They seem to form a habitus. 25 We can thus find another topos of the hagiographies, the “beautiful death”, a reward for a pious life, and a saint’s virtue that we have not yet evoked, the mother’s capacity to win hearts, a virtue shared by Saint Antoine, and by Angélique Arnauld as a child. All of them loved Agnès Arnauld since everything about her was lovable. The mother represents an incarnation of virtue in the short narrative written by Angélique de Saint- Jean on the same subject. The will of sanctifying the mother is intact. The style has not changed: Her end was very similar to her life. Greater patience has never been seen. Her gentleness, her charity and her piety were level to the last moment. And what is so extraordinary that we have never seen a previous example of, is that when she drifted into sleep at the end, a sleep that lasted nearly twenty-four hours, although it was so heavy that it prevented her from feeling the pain, it did not divest her of a moment of independence of mind, and each time we woke her up and made her talk, she would not only answer as sensibly as she would have had she been well, but also in the same agreeable way and in the same terms, and with the same face, 24 February 19, 1671 to Robert Arnauld d’Andilly. “Tout ce que Dieu avait mis dans cette personne, et par la nature et par la grâce, était si aimable, que je ne sache personne qui l’ait connue et qui ne l’ait aimée, sans parler de la vénération qu’elle attirait de tout le monde par cette piété et cette sagesse qui paraissaient dans toute sa conduite, ses actions et ses paroles, et qui se répandaient jusque dans son visage et son geste, où l’on apercevait rien que de réglé et d’édifiant. Sa mort a été si parfaitement semblable à sa vie, que ceux mêmes qui n’y ont pu être présents peuvent se la représenter, puisque l’agitation du mal et de la mort n’ont pas altéré un moment cette égalité d’esprit si uniforme, qui était comme le caractère particulier de sa vertu.” 25 “Virtue, Thomas Aquinas would say, is a habitus, the stable fruit of actions repeated time and time again” (“La vertu, dirait Thomas d’Aquin, est un habitus, le fruit stable d’actions maintes fois répétées”), Ph. Sellier, “Pour une poétique de la légende”, p. 63. The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 287 that were usual to her charity and her mind’s natural gentleness, when she wished to show fondness and openness to people. Her love of praying accompanied her to her dying breath, and always in the peace that went everywhere with her, without us being able to perceive, neither in her words, nor on her face, any trace of the horror that is inseparable from death and that nature always feels. On the contrary, until the last moment, when she could no longer answer, she was still smiling to show that she was paying attention to what we were saying and to the prayers that were being said around her. Her body remained in the same stable state as her mind ; and the only movement she made was to try to raise her arms in order to bless the whole community who was tearfully asking her to do so, as she had been required to do by several individual persons who had beseeched her earlier on. 26 The author retrieves a signpost of classical saintliness from hagiographies: the conformity between life and death. “Death,” notes Constance Cagnat, “is an abstract of the saints’ lives: it condenses, in a climax, the great features of their existence”. 27 The mother dies while smiling and talking - other commonplaces of the saints’ Lives. The gesture compensates for the failing word, as an ultimate mark of the sick woman’s kindness. The pathos-effect achieved through this final effort joins the virtues described above, arousing admiration and the desire to imitate. A last commonplace used to accredit 26 To Mother Maurisse, letter no. CC bis, 1671. “Elle a fait une fin toute semblable à sa vie. Jamais on n’a vu une plus grande patience. Sa douceur, sa charité et sa piété ont été égales jusqu’à ce dernier moment. Et ce qui est si extraordinaire que nous n’en avons encore vu aucun exemple, dans l’assoupissement qui lui prit à la fin, et qui dura près de vingt-quatre heures, quoiqu’il fût si grand qu’il lui ôta le sentiment de toutes ses douleurs, il ne lui ôta pas un moment de liberté d’esprit, et à chaque fois qu’on la réveillait et qu’on la faisait parler, elle répondait non seulement avec autant de sens qu’elle aurait fait en santé, mais avec ce même air d’agrément et dans les termes, et dans le visage, qui était ordinaire à sa charité et à la douceur naturelle de son esprit, quand elle voulait témoigner de l’affection et de l’ouverture aux personnes. Son amour pour la prière l’a accompagnée jusqu’au dernier soupir, et toujours dans cette paix qui l’accompagnait partout, sans qu’on eût pu voir, ni dans ses paroles, ni dans son visage, aucune trace de cette horreur inséparable de la mort que la nature ressent toujours. Au contraire, jusqu’au dernier moment, quand elle ne put plus répondre, elle souriait encore en témoignant qu’elle avait attention à ce qu’on lui disait et aux prières que l’on faisait autour d’elle. Son corps fut toujours dans la même immobilité que son esprit; et le seul mouvement qu’elle fit fut d’essayer encore à lever les bras pour donner sa bénédiction à toute la communauté qui l’en priait avec larmes, comme elle avait été contrainte de l’accorder à plusieurs particulières qui l’en avaient conjurée plus tôt.” 27 La mort classique, p. 106. Agnès Cousson 288 Agnès Arnauld’s saintliness: the marvellous nature of her death, as attested by the author of the portrait. The dying woman is still in possession of her intellectual faculties despite the drowsiness depriving her of any sensation of her body, a “marvel” suggesting God’s help. If the portrait meets the apologetic intention of its author, it also offers this author, in the form of praise, the means of expressing affection for the mother, without infringing the convent law prohibiting effusion. effusion. To conclude on this point, we can say a few words about a remarkable portrait, of Angélique few words about a remarkable portrait, of Angélique de Saint-Jean, the newly elected abbess of her community, in 1678. It was written by sister Jeanne de Sainte- Domitille for the theologian Antoine Arnauld, Angélique de Saint-Jean’s uncle, December 31 st : Therefore, my dearest father, I wanted you to be displeased about my telling you in general that our mother abbess is good and much loved, I wanted you to ask me how she had managed to win the hearts of so many people in such a short time. Had you enquired about this, I would have answered that she succeeded thanks to her charity, her humility, her gentleness, her wisdom more divine than human, her anointed zeal, her loving kindness with which she moderates her seriousness (which is to be felt more in private than in public), her keenness to see us improve, the respectful way in which she deals with the souls submitted to her, a respect she gains in turn as if she were an angel that God has sent to govern us ; and finally thanks to all the virtues and the great talents that one may wish for in a Superior in religion. This, my dearest father, is what makes our mother abbess loving and venerable to all those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. And I am led to believe that just as it pleased God to show mercy on me, so he did for the others. I witness signs of this which edify me a lot, mainly a renewal in the ardor for observances, an increase in charity for one another and of piety for God, and greater attention than ever to silence. […] It is visible that God rekindles in her the spirit of mother Angélique and of mother Agnès. […] She keeps a steady watch over her flock. She is constantly engaged with it, and gives herself entirely to the community. She behaves towards us all with righteousness, sincerity and equity that delight me. For it seems to me, my dearest father, that it were you. […] Everyone knows that mother Angélique Arnauld your niece is endowed with a great mind and great ability. But some people do not believe her to be even more humble than clever; and that if some form of haughtiness or dryness was manifest in her behaviour before she was in charge, it was only to avoid the position that she pretended (on some occasions, and even towards us all for the last few years) to be in this mood, resorting to any means to prevent us from thinking about her. And she managed it so well that very few were not set against her, and did not worry about her taking up the position. However God, having resolved to The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 289 grant this community with such a gift, united our minds towards her election in such a way that never has there been a more unanimous choice. 28 The same motivations sustain writing. It is a question of witnessing a rare example of virtue. Angélique de Saint-Jean shares with the saints quoted above the gift of attracting everybody’s love in a short time. The marvellous is present through the image of the angel, corroborating thus the theme of God’s intervention in the composition of the community. Angélique de Saint-Jean is a “sign of mercy”, a “great gift” of God at Port-Royal des Champs. Her main feature is “her wisdom rather divine than human”. The 28 “Je voulais donc, mon très cher père, que vous ne fussiez pas content que je vous eusse dit en général que notre mère abbesse est bonne et qu’elle se fait beaucoup aimer, j’avais envie que vous me demandassiez comment elle a ainsi gagné le cœur de tant de personnes en si peu de temps. Si vous m’aviez interrogée là-dessus, je vous aurais répondu que c’est par sa charité, par son humilité, par sa douceur, par sa sagesse plus divine qu’humaine, par son zèle tout plein d’onction, par la bonté dont elle tempère sa gravité (ce qui s’éprouve encore mieux dans le particulier qu’en public), par l’application qu’elle a à notre avancement, par la manière respectueuse dont elle traite les âmes qui lui sont soumises, ce qui la fait respecter elle-même comme si c’était un ange que Dieu nous eût envoyé pour nous gouverner ; et enfin par toutes les vertus et les plus grands talents qu’on puisse souhaiter dans une supérieure de religion. Voilà, mon très cher père, ce qui rend notre mère abbesse aimable et vénérable à toutes celles qui ont des yeux pour voir et des oreilles pour entendre. Et je dois croire que comme il a plu à Dieu de me faire cette miséricorde, il l’a faite aussi aux autres. J’en vois des marques qui m’édifient beaucoup, surtout un renouvellement d’ardeur pour les observances, un accroissement de charité les unes envers les autres, et de piété envers Dieu, et une plus grande attention que jamais au silence. […] Il est visible que Dieu fait revivre en elle l’esprit de la mère Angélique et de la mère Agnès. […] elle veille beaucoup sur son troupeau. Elle en est continuellement occupée, et se donne tout entière à la communauté. Elle agit envers nous toutes avec une droiture, une sincérité et une équité qui me ravit. Car il me semble, mon très cher père, que c’est vousmême. […] Tout le monde sait que la mère Angélique Arnauld votre nièce est une personne de grand esprit et de grande capacité. Mais il y a des gens qui ne croient pas qu’elle soit encore plus humble qu’habile; et que s’il a paru en elle quelque hauteur ou quelque chose d’un peu trop sec dans sa conduite avant qu’elle fût en charge, ce n’a été que pour l’éviter qu’elle a ainsi affecté (en certaines occasions, et même à l’égard de nous toutes depuis quelques années) de paraître de cette humeur, se servant de tous moyens pour nous éloigner de penser à elle. Et elle y avait si bien réussi qu’il y en avait très peu qui ne fussent prévenues sur son sujet, et qui n’appréhendassent de la voir en la place où elle est. Cependant Dieu ayant résolu de faire un si grand don à cette communauté, a tellement réuni nos esprits dans son élection que jamais il n’y en eût de plus unanime que la sienne.” Agnès Cousson 290 portrait also points out, by means of a character, the will of the Port-Royal second generation of nuns to perpetrate the Reform values and to follow the model of the mother-figure. Angélique de Saint-Jean shares the virtues of her aunt Angélique and carries on her practices: enlightenment through examples and words. In 1609 and 1678, Port-Royal des Champs is characterised by an increase in piety, devotion and charity, by a growing love for obedience and silence. Sister Jeanne insists on the continuity from year to year: “It is obvious that God revives in her the spirit of Mother Angélique and of Mother Agnès”. We can find here the theme of confusion of identities. A double of her aunts, Angélique de Saint-Jean is also a double of her theologian uncle. As a new point, the portrait recalls the election of the Arnauld family, often mentioned by the abbesses of the family in their letters. For the first time as well, the primary motivation of the portrait is to go back over the fear that the election of Angélique de Saint-Jean initially aroused in some of the nuns, among whom sister Jeanne. The saints’ virtue of winning hearts is thus immediately put into perspective. The portrait turns faults into virtues. Angélique de Saint-Jean’s “loftiness” and coldness become signs of humility. Her intelligence is put into perspective. The resulting paradox is a portrait diminishing the intellectual qualities recognized by the contemporaries, but perceived as a potential obstacle to the humility at the convent. Besides, the Jesuits, who are referred to in the portrait by the vague term of “people”, mentioned Angélique de Saint-Jean’s intellectual superiority for critical purposes. The last types of portraits, over which I shall pass rapidly, are the captivity narratives of the nuns resisting the signature of the Formulary, written when they returned from their individual detention. 29 The nuns who signed, then retracted their signature, insist on their solitude, their fatigue, their tears, their progressive loss of reason which led them to sign. Their self-portrait as prisoners weakened by pressure allows them to partly reject responsibility for an act they feel repentance for and which is considered a 29 As a reminder, in 1664, the archbishop of Paris ordered the separation of the community. Seventeen nuns were sent in captivity to Parisian convents, with the purpose of having them sign. See the captivity narratives of the nuns in [1723- 1724] Divers actes, lettres et relations des religieuses de Port-Royal du Saint-Sacrement, touchant la persécution et les violences qui leur ont été faites…, [s.l.]: [s.n.]. La Relation de captivité by Angélique de Saint-Jean has been published by L. Cognet, (Paris: “NRF”, Gallimard, 1954), re-ed. S. Laplaque (Paris: La Table ronde, 2005). See our article “Témoigner de sa captivité: les Relations des signeuses de Port- Royal”, Proceedings of the symposium held at Clermont-Ferrand, Témoigner aux XV e , XVI e et XVII e siècles, 2009, éd. D. Berton and M. Vénuat to be published by Champion. The Art of Portrayal in Port-Royal 291 sin by their community. It turns the signature into an act extracted through violence and lies. The portrait of moral suffering also aims, in these retrospective narratives, at fostering forgiveness within the community, the addressee of these texts, and more generally forgiveness of the reader. The second part of the texts, after the prisoners’ decision to retract, reveals, on the contrary, weakened, but serene prisoners. One can perceive the symbolic meaning of this self-representation: the inner torments caused by the signature and the inward peace procured by the withdrawal constitute an incitation to resistance in the name of conscience. In conclusion, we can say that singularity is closely linked to community at Port-Royal. Individual persons disappear in favour of symbols. A nun is nothing on her own. She is not worthy for herself but for God whom she represents. Behaviour depicted in portraits and the words used to paint them express principles of the community, not personal values. In this monastery, dominated by Saint Augustine’s culture, the person is a visible sign of God’s actions on him or her. God is the real origin of the virtues which are to be seen in the portraits. This restitution of virtues to divine will has the advantage for sisters of legitimating reflexivity, forbidden by the convent’s rules, except for confession or edification. Under these circumstances, portraits are a duty. Portraying someone is a means to express one’s gratitude to God, and manifest charity for one’s neighbour whose faith is sought to be aroused in the process. Portraits confirm the aims of writing at Port-Royal. They offer a way to pass on to posterity the value system of the community, created by Angélique Arnauld’s reform. They are a way to create an identity and a memory for Port-Royal, jeopardized by persecutions. The testimony of persons is also a way to reveal the violence hidden behind the walls of the convent, a testimony of persecutions, and also of oneself and of God’s favour for Port-Royal. At least, nuns find moral and emotional support in the models that they describe. Portraits pay tribute to a person, stir up faith, and exhort to resistance. Portraits present exceptional persons, male or female protected by God and lavished by many graces. That’s why they belong in “The Golden Legend” of Port-Royal.