Autumn VIII. Port Royal and the Jansenists + Illness 2

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Autumn VII. Goethe + Historical dates

I have been reading Sainte-Beuve’s Port Royal, a book I have often thought of reading, but its length, and my slight interest in that period, always held me aloof. Happily, chance and mood came together, and I am richer by a bit of knowledge well worth acquiring. It is the kind of book which, one may reasonably say, tends to edification. One is better for having lived a while with “Messieurs de Port-Royal”; the best of them were, surely, not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.

Theirs is not, indeed, the Christianity of the first age; we are among theologians, and the shadow of dogma has dimmed those divine hues of the early morning, yet ever and anon there comes a cool, sweet air, which seems not to have blown across man’s common world, which bears no taint of mortality.

A gallery of impressive and touching portraits. The great-souled M. de Saint-Cyran, with his vision of Christ restored; M. Le Maitre, who, at the summit of a brilliant career, turned from the world to meditation and penitence; Pascal, with his genius and his triumphs, his conflicts of soul and fleshly martyrdom; Lancelot, the good Lancelot, ideal schoolmaster, who wrote grammar and edited classical books; the vigorous Arnauld, doctoral rather than saintly, but long suffering for the faith that was in him; and all the smaller names -- Walon de Beaupuis, Nicole, Hamon -- spirits of exquisite humility and sweetness -- a perfume rises from the page as one reads about them. But best of all I like M. de Tillemont; I could have wished for myself even such a life as his; wrapped in silence and calm, a life of gentle devotion and zealous study. From the age of fourteen, he said, his intellect had occupied itself with but one subject, that of ecclesiastical history. Rising at four o’clock, he read and wrote until half-past nine in the evening, interrupting his work only to say the Offices of the Church, and for a couple of hours’ breathing at mid-day. Few were his absences. When he had to make a journey, he set forth on foot, staff in hand, and lightened the way by singing to himself a psalm or canticle. This man of profound erudition had as pure and simple a heart as ever dwelt in mortal. He loved to stop by the road and talk with children, and knew how to hold their attention whilst teaching them a lesson. Seeing boy or girl in charge of a cow, he would ask: “How is it that you, a little child, are able to control that animal, so much bigger and stronger?” And he would show the reason, speaking of the human soul. All this about Tillemont is new to me; well as I knew his name (from the pages of Gibbon), I thought of him merely as the laborious and accurate compiler of historical materials. Admirable as was his work, the spirit in which he performed it is the thing to dwell upon; he studied for study’s sake, and with no aim but truth; to him it was a matter of indifference whether his learning ever became known among men, and at any moment he would have given the fruits of his labour to any one capable of making use of them.

Think of the world in which the Jansenists were living; the world of the Fronde, of Richelieu and Mazarin, of his refulgent Majesty Louis XIV. Contrast Port-Royal with Versailles, and -- whatever one’s judgement of their religious and ecclesiastical aims -- one must needs say that these men lived with dignity. The Great Monarch is, in comparison, a poor, sordid creature. One thinks of Molière refused burial -- the king’s contemptuous indifference for one who could do no more to amuse him being a true measure of the royal greatness... not there was dignity, in the palace chambers and the stately gardens, but in the poor rooms where the solitaries of Port-Royal prayed and studied and taught. Whether or not the ideal for mankind, their life was worthy of man. And what is rarer than a life to which that praise can be given?

Alpha.

Can you see them? The associations I see here with M. de Tillemont and both Lost Time and The Magic Mountain? Probably just as well... When Ryecroft describes him setting off cross-country on foot with “his staff in hand” I snorted thinking of the Baron’s propensity for travelling the same way. And then he had to describe him stopping to chat up children... run away little children, run away!

The Magic Mountain association is more positive, I’m happy to say. The Jesuit character Naphtha represents a (vaguely) similar life of intellect and service. A non-materialistic, non-glory seeking, non-bourgeois life devoted to the best in man. I have many issues with the religious aspect of all this, which I will get to in a moment, but there is also an aspect to this life devoted to God that, and this may sound unlikely, appeals to my teenage Marxist leanings.

Ryecroft said, much earlier, that he would have been suited to an academic life, a life devoted to study and education, and I seconded that with the caveat that academics can be worse than teen school girls when it comes to cliques and inane rules and dogma -- and the same can be said of churchmen. A monastic life would be more attractive still, as it eliminates all the worldliness and simplifies life even more. The church provides what little you actually need in the way of shelter and clothing and food, and you devote yourself to being of service. I could so do that, and happily. Provided the Powers That Be were not dicks about everything... but what are the odds of that?

Jansenism.

Jansenism was a Christian theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who died in 1638. It was first popularized by Jansen's friend Jean du Vergier, Abbé de Saint-Cyran, and after du Vergier's death in 1643, was led by Antoine Arnauld. Through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement within the Catholic Church. The theological centre of the movement was the Parisian convent of Port-Royal, which was a haven for writers including du Vergier, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Jean Racine. [Source Wikipedia]

I was raised Protestant but I can't express how tiresome I find these lapsing Catholics. I suspect that this was a time, like the 1960s, that you had to experience to really understand and appreciate. But really, these nit picking debates over minutia of Christian belief are just exhausting to someone who doesn't give a damn about the Sacrament or who is going to heaven. Plus, how hard is it to grasp the notion that the Roman Catholic Church takes its dogma very seriously. You don't just take exception to a couple of crucial points in the middle of the Counter-Reformation and expect the Vatican to not react.

Also, isn't it interesting that Wendell Berry is most known for writing about the Port Royal area of Kentucky? No? Well, anyway, Ryecroft is obviously pleased with the Port Royal Catholics because they are Protestants in sheep's clothing.

Illness cont.

I am in that stage of my cold where the worst is over but the cold isn’t, quite. I have a slight cough, the purpose of which is to propel the detritus of my internal fight against this disease out of my body -- or at least out of my sinuses and lungs. From time to time I engage in a very satisfying round of blowing my nose. I still feel “off” but it is mostly a spacey sort of feeling that combines nicely with the unusually fine weather. With no nasty symptoms nipping at my heals, I mostly feel grateful and appreciative of everything. The streets around me are somewhat over-occupied by the scum of the earth today... but I don’t mind because for me it is a fine day.

When my usual slightly sore throat (the most I’ve had the past few years) turned into an uncomfortably (but still moderate) sore throat, I did not rejoice. And when my throat quickly settled down, rather than progressing to the next -- strep suggestive -- stage, and my sinuses, while far from happy, refrained from falling (or contracting) to that miserable stage where you can barely breathe, I was not disappointed. But I have missed, just a little, this feeling of relief and semi-euphoria that follows a “decent” illness.

In an odd sort of way, an illness is something of a holiday from your everyday life. A pause, a break, a retreat. You return to your normal life refreshed and rejuvenated, and appreciative. I don’t regret this cold -- and the timing was excellent. One might even say it was just what the doctor ordered.

Next: Autumn IX. Scientific positivism.