Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/290

282 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April Augustine at Bayonne, St. Cyran's native place. St. Cyran has hardly been given the place he deserves in the annals of saintship. There have been few men in any communion who can be compared with him in beauty of character, gifts of personal influence, and devotion to the care • of souls. Abbe De Meyer regards him as a child of the catholic reform movement traceable at that time, but it may be doubted whether he was not rather an independent and original factor, who made the movement of his time rather than emerged from it. The third chapter of the first book reviews the comparative resources of the two parties, Jansenists and Jesuits at the eve of the battle, and describes the triple radiation of St. Cyran's influence, namely through ' les religieuses, les solitaires, et les petites ecoles '. ' Ces trois institutions etaient comme trois centres d'ou rayonnaient sur la societe les idees de St. Cyran.' In Appendix ii the author rebuts the charge that the notable work of the schools of Port-Royal was inconsistent with Jansenist prin- ciples. Abbe De Meyer remarks that St. Cyran had not ' grasped the necessity of assuring himself of the favour of the court '. Need it be said that the independence of worldly support, the indifference to the favour of the great, and the repeated refusal of preferment, were of the very essence of the character of the man and constituted his strength ? His arrest and imprisonment by Richelieu in 1638 did little to impede his work, which was carried on by many devoted disciples. After five years' imprisonment the death of Richelieu led to his release, but prison life had broken his health, and he only survived a few months. Frequent references to Claude Lancelot's Memoirs touching the Life of St. Cyran occur in M. De Meyer's notes, but it is well worth while for the reader to make himself acquainted with Lancelot himself, and the simple and true picture of his beloved master which the Memoirs contain. Returning to the main subject of the chapter, namely the review of forces before the battle began, we find at its close a striking summary of the great strength of the Company of Jesus in France in 1640. The number of its establishments, and its adherents, its riches, and the numerous attendances at its schools, increased from year to year. It possessed sixty-five colleges, two academies, nine boarding schools, seven houses of novices, and other institutions. A no less striking appreciation of the combative ideals of the order and its military temperament concludes the chapter. The Jesuits enjoyed the favour of the court and of the king, but met with little sympathy from the universities and the secular clergy. The second book of the dissertation bears the title of ' Les grandes luttes ', and opens with the appearance of the Augustinus printed at Louvain in 1640 and in Paris in 1641. The author gives a full and clear analysis of this prodigious work, left complete by Jansen at his death in 1638 and published by his two executors. It is unnecessary here to dwell on its contents ; but it must be clearly undei-stood that the doctrine it contained had already before its publication been made effective by St. Cyran, who had lived it out, with all its implications of the utter sinful- ness and helplessness of man and the sovereign efl&cacy of divine grace. But the sting of the Augustinus was in its tail. There, in the ' Parallelon et Statera ' appended to the treatise, was a comparison of the errors of the