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Yet he was reluctant to move actively against the Jansenists. M. d’Andilly still had his ear in matters of State, and by his intervention and that of others the project of an armistice was for a time entertained. Port Royal was to keep silence, if its enemies did not push their triumph to an extremity. Even the indefatigable Arnauld seems to have promised to be quiet.
The brotherhood of Port Royal had its beginning in 1637 with the conversion of two of the nephews of D’Andilly and the Mère Angélique, children of Arnauld’s eldest daughter, who had married unhappily and been soon separated from her husband.
He did not return at the appointed time; but M. d’Andilly, at my request, had the goodness to send for him on Saturday, and undertook the matter with so much warmth, and yet skill, that he consented to everything we wished.” Jacqueline gained her point so far; but painful difficulties still remained, the story of which she herself has also told us.
D’Andilly was married, and a courtier—a busy man in the political circles of his day; but he had long bowed before the force of St Cyran’s religious convictions, and finally he too abandoned the world, and sought the retirement of Port Royal, whither three of his nephews had preceded him; and a younger and yet more distinguished brother, the namesake of his father, soon followed him.
The elder brother of Angélique and Agnès Arnauld, known as M. d’Andilly, was amongst his devoted friends; and it was through him that St Cyran first became connected with Port Royal.
It was D’Andilly who said of St Cyran, “I was under such obligations to him that I loved him more than life.” On the other hand, St Cyran said of him, “He has not the virtue of a saint or an anchorite, but I know no man of his condition who is so solidly virtuous.”
She also wrote a treatise on Education, which is much praised by La Rochefoucauld and M. d’Andilly; but which seems no longer to be found: probably it was not much more elaborate than her so-called “Treatise on Friendship,” which is but a short string of maxims.
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