PORT ROYAL, a celebrated Cistercian abbey, occupied a low and marshy site in the thickly-wooded valley of the Yvette, at what is now known as Les Hameaux near Marly, about 8 miles to the south-west of Versailles. It was founded in 1204 by Mathilde de Garlande, wife of Matthieu de Montmorenci-Marli, during his absence on the fourth crusade, and in its early years it received a variety of papal privileges, including (1223) that of affording a retreat to lay persons who desired to withdraw from the world for a season without binding themselves by permanent vows. Apart from the famous reforms begufi here in 1608 by Jacqueline Marie Arnauld (g ’.v.), the Mère Angélique, the history of Port Royal presents little of general interest until about ten years after the establishment (1626) of the sister house in Paris, when the community fully came under the influence of Duvergier de Hauranne (see vol. vii. p. 567), abbé of St Cyran, the friend of Jansen, and leader of the anti-Jesuit movement in France. The religious views of St Cyran spread rapidly in Port Royal de Paris, and among the members and connexions of the Arnauld family; and it was under his influence that in 1637 Antoine Le Maître (1608-1658), a nephew of the Mère Angélique, resolved to abandon his brilliant prospects as an advocate and seek a life of ascetic retirement. He found a lodging for himself at Port Royal des Champs (as the mother house came to be called for distinction’s sake), which since the departure of the nuns in 1626 had been untenanted. In the following year he was joined in his religious retreat by his younger brothers Simon de Séri-court (1611-1658), who had served in the army, and Louis Isaac (1613-1684), better known in the world of letters by his assumed name of De Sacy. They were at various times joined by others until in 1646 the “solitaries of Port Royal,” apart from merely occasional visitors, had risen to the number of twelve. From almost the beginning of his sojourn Le Maître, carrying out the ideas of his imprisoned master St Cyran, devoted a considerable part of his time to teaching; the number of pupils and also of teachers gradually increased until in 1646 and following years the “Petites Écoles,” as they were modestly called, around Port Royal les Champs and in Paris, although destined to be short-lived, attained a great and widespread success (compare vol. vii. p. 675). Of the regular teaching staff probably the most distinguished were Claude Lancelot (1615-1695) and Pierre Nicole {q.v.')∙, of the pupils it is enough to mention Tillemont (7.v.) and Racine (⅛.v.). In 1648 the Mère Angélique with some of the nuns returned from Paris to Port Royal des Champs, which in the interval had been considerably enlarged, while the neighbourhood had been rendered more salubrious by the labours of the solitaries, who now removed to the farmhouse of Les Granges on the height above. In the same year Antoine Arnauld (y.τ ’.), the apologist of the Augustinus, came into residence, and thenceforward the “gentlemen of Port Royal” became closely identified in the public mind with the Jansenist cause. The open struggle, which began with the publication in 1653 of the bull of Pope Innocent X. condemning the five propositions (see Jansenism), came to a disastrous crisis in 1656, when Arnauld was expelled the Sorbonne, and he, as well as Sacy, Fontaine, and Nicole, had to go into hiding. The publication of the Provincial Letters in the course of the same year did not tend to soothe the Jesuits,.but the timely “miracle of the Holy Thorn” (24th May 1656; see vol. xviii. p. 335) helped to postpone somewhat the evil days that were coming on the Port Royalists. But only for a time; for in 1661 the young and ardently orthodox Louis XIV. caused the Petites Écoles to be broken up and the postulants and novices of the two religious houses to be dispersed. For continued contumacy both houses were in 1664 laid under interdict, which was only removed when the “peace of the church” was established by Clement IX. in 1669. In the same year, however, Port Royal de Paris was separated from the parent house with a grant of one-third of the revenues, and placed under Jesuit management. The nuns of the abbey of Port Royal des Champs were allowed to take in children as pupils, but not to receive any accessions to their own number, and the Petites Écoles were not resumed. The “peace,” such as it was, was again destroyed by the bull of Clement XI. in 1705, and in 1708, the nuns proving inflexible, a papal bull was granted for the final suppression of Port Royal des Champs and the transference of the whole property to Port Royal de Paris. The dispersion of the aged sisters took place in the following year: the buildings were levelled with the ground in 1/10; and in 1711 the bodies (to the number, it is said, of nearly 3000) that lay buried within the desecrated precincts were disinterred and removed to other places. Port Royal de Paris continued to subsist in obscurity until 1790.

See Sainte-Beuve, Port Roynl (3 vols., 1842-43; 4th ed., 6 vols., 1878), an exhaustive work, by which all the earlier histories have been superseded.