The convent of Port Royal des Champs was situated on the road from Versailles to Chevreuse, and hard by, in a farmhouse called La Grange, “Messieurs de Port Royal,” as the Jansenist priests and students were called, made their home. They had for their friends the most distinguished men, scholars and poets of the time; Boileau, Pascal, Racine were of the band. The place itself is now scarcely more than a memory. It was then, wrote Madame de Sévigné, “_Tout propre à inspirer le désir de faire son salut_,” and hither came many a high-born man and woman of the world to find rest and peace. Now a broken _tourelle_ or two, the dovecote and a solitary Gothic arch reflecting in a stagnant pool, are all that remain in the sequestered valley, of the famous Port Royal, which early in the next century was destroyed by royal decree, when its glory had departed, following the foreordained ruling of all mundane achievement; and the extravagance of the _convulsionnaires_ and later followers of Jansenism was stamped out by the bull “_Unigenitus_” against heresy. Arnauld’s heart was deposited at Port Royal at his death, with the remains of his mother and sisters. Louis XIV., as ever his wont had been to genius and intellect, had invited him “to employ his golden pen in defence of religion;” but that was before the great king came under the direction of Madame de Maintenon and Père la Chaise. But that Madame and her Jesuit confessor would long continue to regard the Port-Royalists with favour was not possible. Intolerance succeeded to patronage, and Fénelon was deported to Cambrai, sent afar from his friend, Madame Guyon, whose order of arrest and incarceration in the Château de Vincennes was issued very shortly after Mademoiselle de L’Enclos’ interview with Madame Louis Quatorze in her Versailles sanctum. In her dismay, Madame Guyon contrived to fly to Ninon, seeking protection; but it was of no avail. Without a moment’s delay, Ninon drove to Versailles, and sought an interview with Madame de Maintenon on behalf of Madame Guyon. The interview was not accorded. Nanon—the Nanon of Scarron days, but now “Mademoiselle Balbien”—was delegated to speak with her.—“Mademoiselle Balbien,” who gave Ninon to understand that she was to be addressed no longer as “_tu_” (“thou”), but as “_vous_” (“you”), that the question of Madame Guyon could not even be entered upon, and under threat of being herself again lodged in the _Répenties_ she was bidden to depart.