The Red Book of Heroes Part 21

As usual, the early autumn proved a trying season for Angelique, and she again fell ill of a fever, and spent some weeks at Andilly with her troop of brothers and sisters. But she could not shake off the sad thoughts which were pressing on her, and was glad to go back to the convent, taking with her little Marie Arnauld, then seven years old. The winter pa.s.sed before she could decide what to do, and her illness was increased by the damp vapours arising from the ponds and marshes around the abbey. She was worn out by thinking, and at length the prioress was so alarmed by her appearance that she begged the abbess to do whatever she thought right, as the sisters would submit to anything sooner than see her in such misery.

The relief to Angelique's mind was immense, and she instantly called on the whole community to a.s.semble together. She then spoke to them, reminding them of the vow of poverty they had taken, and showing them how, if it was to be kept, they must cease to have possessions of their own and share all things between them. When she had finished, a nun rose up and silently left the room, returning in a few minutes with a little packet containing the treasures by which she had set so much store. One by one they all followed her example, and Angelique's first battle was won.

In spite of the French proverb which says 'it is only the first step which hurts,' the second step on the road to reform was the cause of far more pain to Angelique, for she was resolved to put an end to the practice of permitting the relatives and friends of the nuns free entrance into the convent; and knew that her father, who during all these years had come and gone as he wished, would not submit quietly to his exclusion. Therefore she made certain alterations in the abbey: ordered a foot or two to be added to the walls, and built a parlour outside with only a small grated window, through which the nuns would be allowed now and then to talk to their families.

All being ready, she again a.s.sembled the sisters, and informed them of the new rule which was to be carried out, and when shortly after a novice took the veil, and her friends were entertained outside the convent, many voices were raised in discontented protest, and more than once the murmur was heard, 'Ah! it will be a very different thing when monsieur Arnauld comes.'

But it was not. Angelique never made one rule for herself and another for her nuns, and by-and-by when her father's work was over in Paris, and they all moved to Andilly, the abbess knew that her time of trial had come. She wrote to either her mother or sister, madame le Maitre, begging them to inform her father of the new state of affairs; but this they do not seem to have done. At all events, on September 24, 1609, Angelique received a message from her father, saying that they would arrive the next morning to see her.

Now the abbess of Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman, delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause of much pain to both she well knew, and she entreated two or three of the nuns--among whom was her sister Agnes, who had resigned Saint-Cyr and was now at Port Royal--to spend the night in praying that her determination might not falter.

It was at the dinner-hour, about eleven o'clock, that the noise of a carriage was heard in the outer court of the abbey. The abbess turned pale and rose from her seat, while those of the sisters whom she had taken into her confidence hastened away to be ready for the different duties she had a.s.signed to them. Angelique, holding in her hands the keys of every outer door leading into the convent, walked to the great gate, against which monsieur Arnauld, who was accompanied by his wife, his son, and two of his daughters, was knocking loudly. He was not used to be kept waiting like this, and did not understand the meaning of it, and when the tiny window cut in the thick oak panels was suddenly thrown open, and his daughter's face appeared, he asked impatiently what was the matter that the gates were locked, and why she did not open them.

Angelique replied gently that if he would go into the parlour beside the gate she would speak to him through the grating and explain the reason of the gates being shut; but her father, not believing his ears, only rapped the louder, while madame Arnauld reproached her daughter with lack of respect and affection, and monsieur d'Andilly her brother called her all sorts of names.

The noise was so great that it reached the refectory or dining-hall, where the nuns were still sitting, and soon their voices were joined to the clamour, some few upholding the conduct of their abbess, but most of them condemning her.

At this point monsieur Arnauld, seeing that Angelique would not give way, bethought him of a trick by which he could gain a footing inside the walls. If, he said, Angelique had lost all sense of duty and obedience to her parents, he would not suffer his other children to be ruined by her example, and Agnes and little Marie must be given up to him at once. No doubt he reckoned on the great door being opened for the girls to come out, and that then he would be able to slip inside; but, unfortunately, Angelique knew by experience of what her father was capable, and had foreseen his demand. She answered that his wishes should be obeyed, and seeking out one of the sisters whom she could trust, gave her the key of a little door leading from the chapel outside the walls, and bade her let Agnes and Marie out that way. This was done, and suddenly the two little nuns were greeting their father as if they had dropped from the skies.

At length understanding that neither abuse nor tricks could move Angelique, monsieur Arnauld consented to go to the parlour, and there a rush of tenderness came over him, and he implored her to be careful in what she did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh treatment. Angelique was not prepared for kindness, and after all she had undergone it proved too much for her. She fell fainting to the ground, and lay there without help, for her parents could not reach her through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking that monsieur Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on her head, carefully kept away.

At last, however, they realised that help was needed, and arrived to find their abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering were to implore her father not to leave that day, and the visitors pa.s.sed the night in a guest-room which she had built outside the walls, and next morning she had a long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed placed on the convent side of the grating.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She fell fainting to the ground.]

In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for monsieur Arnauld still to inspect the outer buildings and gardens, as he had been in the habit of doing, while his wife and daughters had leave to enter the convent itself when they wished. But this was not for a whole year, as madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn never to enter the gates of Port Royal, and it was only after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows taken in haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once more to see her daughter.

The income left by the founder of Port Royal was very small--about 240 l. a year--little enough on which to support a number of people and find work for the poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many things as 1,200 l. a year now.

When Angelique first went there as abbess, monsieur Arnauld, who managed all the money matters, paid all that seemed necessary for the comfort of his daughter and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the gates on him Angelique would no longer accept his help, as she felt she could not honestly do so while behaving in a manner of which he disapproved.

So she called together her little community, and they thought of all the things they could possibly do without. The masks and the gloves had already been discarded, and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters to give up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants who crowded about their doors, but their food and their firing. Not that she intended to support anybody in idleness; Angelique was far too sensible for that. She took counsel with her father, and found work for the men, and even the children, in the gardens and lands belonging to the abbey.

Their wages were small, but each day good food was prepared in the kitchens--Angelique had no belief in bad cooking--and was wheeled out by the sisters in little carts as far as the garden walls, where the workmen could eat it while it was hot. Then some of the children or women were employed as messengers to carry bowls with dinners to the old and ill. Of course some of these were in the abbey infirmary, and were looked after by the nuns, and especially by Angelique, who took the one who seemed to need most care into her own room, while she slept on the damp floor--for half the sickness at Port Royal was due to the marshes that surrounded it. If it happened that she had her cell to herself, there was no fire to warm her, yet she often got up in the night to carry wood to the long dormitory where several of the nuns slept, so that they, at least, should not suffer from cold.

All the daily expenses she saw to herself, as debt was hateful to her, and she and the sisters denied themselves food and wore the cheapest and coa.r.s.est clothes, not for the sake of their own souls, but of other people's bodies.

In many ways, though she did not know it and certainly would have been shocked to hear it, Angelique resembled the Puritans, whose influence in England was daily increasing. She had a special dislike to money being spent on decorations and ornaments in churches, or in embroidered vestments for priests, and never would allow any of them in her own. She also invented a loose and ugly grey dress for the girls to wear who desired admission to the convent, instead of permitting them to put on the clothes they had worn at home, as had always been the custom. The first to wear it was her own sister Anne, who after leading the gay life of a Parisian young lady for a year, at fifteen resolved to abandon it for ever and join her three sisters at Port Royal.

It is possible that monsieur Arnauld may have regretted his hastiness in forcing Angelique and Agnes to become nuns when he saw one daughter after another following in their footsteps. Anne he had expected to remain, for she was full of little fancies and vanities, and he could not imagine her submitting to the work which he knew the abbess loved.

He would have laughed sadly enough if he could have seen how right he was. On the first night that Anne slept in the abbey, she laid a cloth on a table in her cell, and tried to make it look a little like the dressing-table she had left in Paris. Angelique happened to pa.s.s the open door on her way to the chapel, and, smiling to herself, quietly stripped the table. Some hours later she went by again, and over it was spread a white handkerchief. This she also removed, but, leaving Anne to apply the lesson, she did not make any remark, and sent her to clean out the fowl-house.

By this time the eyes of the world had been turned to Port Royal, and to the strange spectacle of a girl who, possessed of every talent which would enable her to shine in society, had deliberately chosen the worst of everything, and had induced her nuns to choose it too. Possibly the quiet and useful life led by the Port Royal sisters may have made the gaieties and disorders of the other convents look even blacker than before; but however that may be, when Angelique was about twenty-six a most difficult and disagreeable piece of work was put into her hands.

The king, Louis XIII., a very different man from his father, Henry IV., had determined to put an end to the state of things that prevailed, and resolved to begin with Maubuisson.

Now n.o.body had ever attempted to interfere with madame d'Estrees, who was still abbess, and when the abbot of Citeaux, her superior, informed her that in obedience to the king's commands he proposed to come over and inspect Maubuisson, she was extremely angry. Without caring for the consequences, she locked up in a cell two monks who had brought the message, and kept them without food for some days; after which she roughly bade them return whence they came, and thought no more about the matter.

For two years the affair rested where it was; then the king again turned his attention to Maubuisson, and wrote to the abbot of Citeaux inquiring why his previous orders had not been carried out, bidding him send an officer at once and obtain an exact report of the conduct of the nuns and the abbess.

The commissioner, monsieur Deruptis, arrived with three or four men at Maubuisson, and congratulated themselves when they found the doors flung wide and they were invited to enter.

'The reverend mother is too unwell to see anyone to-day,' said the nun who admitted them, 'but she has prepared rooms in the west tower for your reception, and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you herself.' So saying she led them down several pa.s.sages till she reached a little door, which she unlocked, and then stood back for them to pa.s.s in. As soon as they were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men realised what had happened they heard the key turn in the lock.

For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing to eat but a very little bread and water; while every morning the commissioner was severely flogged till he was almost too weak to move. At length, driven to desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze themselves through a narrow window, and returned dirty and half-starved to the abbot.

Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends and relations thought she had gone too far, and they were besides very angry with her for allowing her own young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be secretly married there. They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer the messenger came back saying that the abbess would listen to nothing; but the abbot, now thoroughly angry, only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estrees would refuse to see him when it came to the point, but she _did_; he then, as was his right, called an a.s.sembly of the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her bed; so, fuming with rage, he went back to Paris and told the whole story to the king.

After certain forms of law had been gone through, which took a little time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey, and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at last he sent for his archers and ordered them to force an entrance.

'Open, in the king's name!' cried their captain; but as the doors remained closed, he signed to his men to force them, and soon two hundred and fifty archers were in the abbey, seeking its abbess. During the whole day they sought in vain, and began to think that she was not in the house at all; at length a soldier pa.s.sing through a dormitory noticed a slight movement in one of the beds, which proved to contain the rebellious abbess. The man bade her get up at once, but she told them that it was impossible, as she had hardly any clothes on. The soldier, not knowing what to do, sent for his captain, who promptly bade four archers take up mattress and abbess and all, and place them in the carriage which stood before the gates.

In this manner, accompanied by one nun, madame d'Estrees entered the convent of the Penitents.

It is very amusing to read about, but at the time the affair made a great noise, and the other abbesses who were conscious of having neglected their vows had long felt very uneasy and watched anxiously what would happen next. Of course, Maubuisson could not be left without a head, and as soon as the abbess was removed, the abbot summoned the nuns before him and informed them that they might choose which of three ladies should take the place of madame d'Estrees. One of the three was madame de Port Royal.

The 'ladies of Maubuisson,' as they had always been called, trembled at the thought of what they might have to undergo at the hands of Angelique, yet they liked still less the other abbesses proposed. In the end it was she who was appointed, and a fortnight later arrived at Maubuisson with three of her own nuns, one being her young sister Marie.

Some of the Maubuisson nuns remembered their new abbess quite well, when she had lived amongst them nearly seventeen years before. These she treated with the utmost consideration, for she knew it was unreasonable to expect them to give up all at once the habits of a lifetime, and she thought it wiser to gain permission to add thirty young novices to the community whom she might train herself. To these girls she taught the duties performed by her own nuns, and herself took part in carrying wood for the fires, keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey, washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing the chants, for she had been shocked by the discordant and irreverent manner in which the services were conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on the older nuns, replacing their own servants.

For a year and a half Angelique struggled patiently to soften the hearts of the Maubuisson 'ladies,' but without success, and her courage and spirits began to fail her. Then, in September 1619, an event occurred which, unpleasant though it was, brought her back to her old self, and this was the sudden return of madame d'Estrees.

At six o'clock one morning the late abbess, who had managed to escape from the convent where she had been imprisoned, unexpectedly appeared as the nuns were on their way to church, having been let in secretly by one of the sisters.

'Madame,' she said to Angelique, 'I have to thank you for the care you have taken of my abbey, and to request that you will go back to yours.'

'There is nothing I long for more, madame,' replied Angelique, 'but I have been placed here by the abbot of Citeaux, our superior, and I cannot leave without his permission.' Upon this madame d'Estrees declared that she was abbess and would take her proper position; but Angelique, merely a.s.serting that the king and the abbot had placed her there, and there she must stay, walked calmly to her own seat, while madame d'Estrees, not having made up her mind what to do, went off to see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the early service.

By command of Angelique, everything went on as usual in the abbey, except that the keys of all the doors had been given up to her. But after dinner, to her great surprise, the chaplain came to her and informed her that it was her duty to give way to force, and that if she did not do so quietly the armed men whom madame d'Estrees had left outside the walls would thrust her out. The abbess replied that she could not forsake her charge; but she had hardly spoken when, to her amazement, five soldiers with naked swords advanced towards her, and threatened her with violence if she did not do as they wished. But no Arnauld ever submitted to bullying, and Angelique repeated her words, and said that nothing but force could make her quit her post.

While this conversation was going on the novices, terrified at what might be happening to their abbess, crowded round in order to protect her. They were all very much excited, and when madame d'Estrees, who had entered also, happened to touch Angelique's veil, one of the young nuns turned to her and cried out indignantly:

'Wretched woman! Would you dare to pull off the veil of madame de Port Royal?' and s.n.a.t.c.hing the veil which the abbess had put on her own head, she tore it off and flung it in a corner.

'Put madame out,' said madame d'Estrees, turning to the gentlemen with her, and Angelique, who did not resist, was at once thrust out of the door and into a carriage that was waiting. In an instant the carriage was covered with novices as with a swarm of flies. The wheels, the rumble, the coach-box, all were full of them; it was astonishing how they got there in their heavy, c.u.mbrous clothes. Madame d'Estrees called to the coachman to whip up the horses, but he, perhaps enjoying the scene, replied that if he moved he was certain to crush somebody. Then Angelique left the coach, and the novices got down from their perches and stood around her.

Finding that this plan had failed, madame d'Estrees ordered one of her lackeys to stand at the gate of the abbey and to allow Angelique, her two sisters, and the two Port Royal nuns to pa.s.s out, but no one else.

She herself took hold of Angelique, who was nearly torn in half between her friends and enemies, and pulled her out of the gate, all the novices pressing behind her. The moment the rival abbesses had pa.s.sed through a strong young novice seized hold of madame d'Estrees and forced her to the ground, keeping her there until every one of her companions was on the outside. It was in vain that the lackey tried to stop them.

'If you attempt to shut that door we will squeeze you to death,' cried they, and each in turn gave the door behind which he stood a good push!