Agnes Arnauld

Agnès Arnauld on a painting by Philippe de Champaigne

Agnès Arnauld , or Arnault (born December 31, 1593 in Paris , † February 19, 1671 in Port Royal des Champs ) was a French nun, Cistercian and abbess of the Port Royal monastery, a stronghold of Jansenism .

Life

Nun in Saint-Cyr and Port Royal

Jeanne Arnauld, who later assumed the religious name Agnès , came from the family of the lawyer Antoine Arnauld and was, like Angélique Arnauld , one of the six sisters of the philosopher Antoine Arnauld . It was in 1599 at the age of six nominally abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of Notre-Dame des Anges (also Saint-Cyr-au-Val de Gallie ) in Saint-Cyr-l'Ecole appointed to her father of King Henry IV. Granted and dressed as a Benedictine nun on June 24, 1600. By the age of nine she knew the entire Psalter by heart. Her older sister Angélique, abbess of the Port Royal monastery in Magny-les-Hameaux , brought her to her convent, where she witnessed the reform efforts, namely on September 25, 1609 the introduction of the cloister with her father's refusal of admission to the monastery. On January 28, 1611, she was dressed as a Cistercian, made profession on March 1, 1612 and was immediately appointed novice master by her sister . Due to the success of the reforms, the monastery was very popular and also took in two other sisters Arnauld. In 1618 Agnès was appointed subprioress and soon afterwards coadjutor (assistant abbess), while Angélique reformed the Maubuisson monastery from 1618 to 1623 .

Abbess in Tart

Spiritually Agnès was under the influence of Francis de Sales , the oratorian Charles de Condren and from 1624 the new spiritual director of Port Royal, Sébastien Zamet (1588–1655), Bishop of Langres , who promoted the Eucharistic Adoration (“Adoration du Saint-Sacrement “) Promoted. In 1626 he sent Agnès to the Cistercian Abbey of Gomerfontaine , where her reform efforts were unsuccessful, and in September 1629 to Dijon to the Tart Abbey , which she headed from 1632 to 1635 as elected abbess. During this time, her work Le chapelet secret du Saint Sacrement (The Secret Rosary of the Most Holy Sacrament) , written in 1626, was condemned as heretical by the Sorbonne and destined for destruction by the Pope.

Abbess and Prioress at Port Royal

From 1636 to 1642 Agnès was elected abbess of Port Royal, who in 1625 moved from Magny-les-Hameaux (future: Port Royal des Champs ) to Paris in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques and from 1638 she moved to Port-Royal-du-Saint -Sacrement ("Port Royal of the Holy of Holies") called. Officially, it was a single monastery with two locations. The abbess used to reside alternately in the city and in the country. Each location had its own prioress . The Jansenist Jean Duvergier de Hauranne , known under the name of Saint-Cyran, who had been the spiritual leader for Port Royal since 1635, was imprisoned during Agnès' tenure in 1638 (until 1643). From 1642 to 1654 Agnès was prioress and novice mistress in Paris. From 1638 to 1648 she worked (in the sense of the reform she was aiming for with her sister) on a new monastery rule, which was approved by the supervising Archbishop of Paris (the monastery was no longer under the direct supervision of the Cîteaux, who was unwilling to reform ) and which was further revised.

Exacerbation of the Jansenism dispute

From 1648 to 1652 France was shaken by the civil war of the Fronde , whose leaders belonged to Port Royal's circle of sympathizers. Since the Fronde became a traumatic experience for the still childish King Louis XIV , this explains the later destruction of the monastery by the authorities. 1653 started by a bull Pope Innocent X. (1657 renewed by a bull Pope Alexander VII. ) The renewed persecution of Jansenism as Port Royal and his friends (most notably Blaise Pascal with his Lettres provinciales ) against the Jesuits , the the king's ear was supported. After a four-year break between 1657 and 1661, a dramatic change occurred at the beginning of 1661 (in the meantime Louis XIV had personally taken over the government), when all clerics and nuns were required to sign a form in a Condemnation of Jansenism ran out. Refusal to sign resulted in classification as a heretic (a fatal crime at the time). Agnès Arnauld, newly elected abbess since December 17, 1658, was the focus of the action from now on, all the more so when her older sister died in August 1661. After unsuccessful letters to the King and Queen Mother, the Convention decided to sign with a qualifying addition, a compromise that was not accepted. Even after the election of a new abbess on December 12, 1661, Mother Agnès remained the determining force in the monastery by virtue of her personal authority as the almost seventy-year old abbess.

Division of Port Royal and Death in Port Royal des Champs

Since the convention persistently refused to sign the form without an addition for years, it finally came to a dramatic climax in August 1664 (shown in the play Port-Royal by Henry de Montherlant ), which resulted in Archbishop Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont signing it wanted to force by force of arms. He got nine signatures. Those who did not sign (including Mother Agnès) were arrested, imprisoned in various locations and excluded from the sacraments. After nine months of imprisonment, the two monastery towns separated on July 3, 1665. The non-signatories (including Mother Agnès) were taken to Port Royal des Champs, while the signatories stayed in Paris. This separation was confirmed by the Council of State in 1669 and by the Pope in 1671. Two thirds of the abbey's goods went to the 90 sisters of Port Royal des Champs and one third to the (now 12) sisters of Port Royal de Paris. Agnès Arnauld died in 1671 at the age of 78 in Port Royal des Champs, which from 1679 was no longer allowed to take in offspring and was closed in 1709 (after the last nuns had dispersed) and razed to the ground in 1710.

Works

• L'image d'une religieuse parfaite, et d'une imparfaite; avec les Occupations intérieures pour toute la journée . Paris 1666.
• Les Constitutions du monastère de Port Royal du S. Sacrement . Paris 1721.
• Lettres de la mère Agnès Arnauld, Abbesse de Port-Royal . Paris 1858.

literature

• Pearl Bugnion-Secretan: Mère Agnès Arnauld 1593–1672. Abbesse de Port-Royal . Cerf, Paris 1996.
• Hélène Michon: "Le Chapelet secret du Saint-sacrement. La question de l'écriture mystique". In: Le Rayonnement de Port-Royal , 2nd Honoré Champion, Paris 2001, pp. 51–73.

Web links

Commons : Agnès Arnauld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Agnès Arnauld in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)