This singular history centres, for the greater part of the time, on the struggle between the Jansenists and the Jesuits, the origin of which may be briefly recalled. I have in earlier chapters referred to the theological victory of the Jesuits over Michel de Bay at Louvain, and to the fierce and protracted struggle they had with the Dominican theologians in Spain and Italy. It may be remembered that this furious struggle as to the real relations of divine grace and the human will had to be suppressed by the Papacy, and all further controversy on the subject was forbidden. When therefore, in the thirties of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits heard that a certain brilliant and virtuous _abbé_ at Paris and a learned theologian of Belgium were plotting to introduce a new work on the subject, they watched them with care. Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, or the _abbé_ de St. Cyran, was an energetic Basque who had finished his theological studies at Louvain University. There he had become intimate with a Belgian student named Jansen, who had views, opposed to those of the Jesuits, on the action of grace. St. Cyran, returning to France, became a secret apostle of these views, and hinted that a learned defence of them was being written. It happened that at that time a Puritan movement was arising within the French Church, as a protest against the extreme laxity of the age; and, as the Jesuits were regarded by the Puritans as encouraging this laxity by their remarkable works on casuistry (as we shall see later), there was a predisposition to accept anti-Jesuit views. Further, there was already a tradition of hostility to the Jesuits among the Puritans. The chief centre of the ascetic movement was the famous abbey of Port Royal, and the abbess of Port Royal, Angélique Arnauld, was a daughter of the great lawyer who had more than once formulated the grievances of the Parlement against the Society. Several members of his large and brilliant family were drawn into the movement.