Port-Royal-des-Champs () was an

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

Cistercian nuns Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order of the Catholic Church. History The Cistercian Order was initially a male order. Cistercian female monasteries began to appear by 1125. The first Cistercian monastery ...

Magny-les-Hameaux Magny-les-Hameaux () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Population Education There are four preschools: Ecole Francis Jammes, Ecole André Gide, Ecole Petit Prince, and Ecole Jean Ba ...

, in the

Vallée de Chevreuse Vallée de Chevreuse (, ''Chevreuse Valley'') is the valley of the Yvette River in the Yvelines and Essonne departments. It encompasses the communes around Chevreuse (Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, Choisel, Dampierre-en-Yvelines, Dampierre, etc.) w ...

southwest of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

that launched a number of culturally important institutions.

History

The abbey was established in 1204, but became famous when its discipline was reformed in 1609 by its

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

Marie Angelique Arnauld (1591-1661). The

Arnauld family The Arnauld or Arnaud family Lord de la Mothe, de Bessac, de la Besse, de Villeneuve, de Ronzière et d'Artonne, then d'Andilly, de Corbeville and Marquess de Pomponne is a noble French family prominent in the 17th century, and closely associate ...

became its patrons and the abbey's subsequent history was directed by a number of the members of that family. In 1625 most of the nuns moved to a new Port-Royal in Paris, which subsequently became '' Port-Royal de Paris'' (or, more commonly, ''Port-Royal'') while the older one was known as ''Port-Royal des Champs'' ("Port-Royal of the fields"). At the original site, several schools were founded, which became known as the ''

Petites écoles de Port-Royal The Petites écoles de Port-Royal was the name given to a teaching system set up in 1637 by the intellectuals who gathered at Port-Royal-des-Champs in the middle of the 17th century at the height of the Jansenist controversy. They functioned from 1 ...

'' ("Little Schools of Port-Royal"). These schools became famous for the high quality of the education they gave.

Playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tr ...

was educated at Port-Royal. In 1634

Jean du Vergier de Hauranne Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the Abbé (Abbot) of Saint-Cyran, (1581 – 6 October 1643) was a French Catholic priest who introduced Jansenism into France. Life Born in the city of Bayonne to a family of Gascon and Basque merchants, Vergier stu ...

, Abbé de Saint-Cyran, became

spiritual director Spiritual direction is the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divinity, divine, or to learn and grow in their personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of their encounters ...

of the abbey; he was a companion of Jansenius and the implementer of

Jansenism Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century Christian theology, theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in Kingdom of France, France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of Free will in theology, f ...

in France. From that point forward, the abbeys and schools of Port-Royal became intimately associated with that school of theology. ''La logique, ou l'art de penser'', the '' Logique de Port-Royal'', was an important textbook on logic first published anonymously in 1662 by

Antoine Arnauld Antoine Arnauld (; 6 February 16128 August 1694) was a French Catholic theologian, priest, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patr ...

and

Pierre Nicole Pierre Nicole (; 19 October 1625 – 16 November 1695) was a French writer and one of the most distinguished of the French Jansenists. Life Born in Chartres in 1625, Nicole was the son of a provincial barrister, who took in charge his education ...

, two prominent members of the

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

movement;

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal (19June 162319August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest ...

likely contributed considerable portions of the text. As it was written in the vernacular, it became quite popular and was in use, as an exemplar of traditional

term logic In logic and formal semantics, term logic, also known as traditional logic, syllogistic logic or Aristotelian logic, is a loose name for an approach to formal logic that began with Aristotle and was developed further in ancient history mostly by ...

, into the twentieth century, introducing the reader to logic, and exhibiting strong Cartesian elements in its metaphysics and epistemology (Arnauld having been one of the main philosophers whose objections were published, with replies, in Descartes' ''

Meditations on First Philosophy ''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' (), often called simply the ''Meditations'', is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. T ...

''). The atmosphere of serious study and Jansenist piety attracted a number of prominent cultural figures to the movement, including

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. Pascal defended the schools publicly against the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

in the Jansenist controversies which agitated the French

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, in his ''

Lettres provinciales The (''Provincial Letters'') are a series of eighteen letters written by French philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Written in the midst of the formulary controversy between the Jansenists and the ...

'' in 1657. Perhaps even more striking, several important persons of the court were close to Jansenism, such as the

Duke of Luynes The Duke of Luynes ( ) is a territorial name belonging to the noble France, French house d'Albert. Luynes, Indre-et-Loire, Luynes is, today, a commune in France, commune of the Indre-et-Loire ''département in France, département'' in France. The ...

or the Duke of Liancourt. Members of the

had managed to receive important jobs such as Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, Minister of

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

. The Jesuits, on the other hand, enjoyed predominance in political and theological power in France and Europe, providing a personal

confessor In a number of Christian traditions, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism, a confessor is a priest who hears the confessions of penitents and pronounces absolution. History During the Diocletianic Persecut ...

to the King, etc. Port-RoyalRemoval

As a result of the Jesuit attacks on Jansenism, the schools of Port-Royal were regarded as tainted with

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

. Louis XIV wanting peace in the church, the elementary schools were forcibly closed by

papal bull A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by the pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden Seal (emblem), seal (''bulla (seal), bulla'') traditionally appended to authenticate it. History Papal ...

in 1660, following the formulary controversy. In 1661, the monastery was forbidden to accept

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience. Religion Buddhism ...

s, heralding its eventual dissolution. The abbey itself was abolished by a bull from

Pope Clement XI Pope Clement XI (; ; ; 23 July 1649 – 19 March 1721), born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 November 1700 to his death in March 1721. Clement XI was a patron of the arts an ...

in 1708, the remaining nuns forcibly removed in 1709, most of the buildings themselves razed in 1711. The chapel, containing Mère Angélique's tomb, as well as some buildings, still exist in the vast grounds of what eventually became Paris' leading maternity hospital, known as Port-Royal Hospital. A celebrated history of Port-Royal and its influence was written by

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (; 23 December 1804 – 13 October 1869) was a French literary critic. Early life He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824–27). In 1828, he se ...

in 1837-1859.

Museums

The remains of the monastery of Port-Royal-des-Champs may still be seen at

, in the Chevreuse valley. Operated as Musée de Port-Royal, the 30-hectare estate includes the ruins of the abbey and its outbuildings. A 17th century building houses the Musée national de Port-Royal des Champs, which exhibits 17th and 18th century paintings and engravings.

Gallery

Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels, c. 1709" widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="3"> Image:Abbey of Port-Royal, Caring for the Sick by Magdeleine Hortemels c. 1710.jpg, Image:Abbey of Port-Royal, Distributing Alms to the Poor by Louise-Magdeleine Hortemels c. 1710.jpg, Image:The Sisters of the Abbey of Port-Royal by Magdeleine Hortemels c. 1710.jpg, Image:Abbey of Port-Royal, General View by Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels c. 1710.jpg, Image:Abbey of Port-Royal, Nuns Meeting in Solitude by Magdeleine Hortemels c. 1710.jpg, Image:Abbey of Port-Royal, View of the Refectory by Louise-Magdeleine Hortemels c. 1710.jpg,

Persons connected to Port-Royal

Antoine Le Maistre Antoine Le Maistre (2 May 1608 – 4 November 1658) was a French Jansenist lawyer, author and translator. His name has also been written as Lemaistre and Le Maître, and he sometimes used the pseudonym of Lamy. Background and early life Le ...

* Marie Angelique Arnauld *

* Jacqueline Pascal, sister of Blaise Pascal *

Marc-Antoine Charpentier Marc-Antoine Charpentier (; 1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his ''Te Deum'' ''H.146, Marche en rondeau''. This theme is st ...

Notes

External links