No Jansenist was ever embarrassed to account for the cessation
of the miracles, when the church-yard was shut up by the king's
edict. It was the touch of the tomb, which produced these
extraordinary effects; and when no one could approach the tomb,
no effects could be expected. God, indeed, could have thrown
down the walls in a moment; but he is master of his own graces
and works, and it belongs not to us to account for them. He did
not throw down the walls of every city like those of Jericho,
on the sounding of the rams horns, nor break up the prison of
every apostle, like that of St. Paul.
No less a man, than the Due de Chatillon, a duke and peer of
France, of the highest rank and family, gives evidence of a
miraculous cure, performed upon a servant of his, who had lived
several years in his house with a visible and palpable
infirmity. I shall conclude with observing, that no clergy are
more celebrated for strictness of life and manners than the
secular clergy of France, particularly the rectors or curés of
Paris, who bear testimony to these impostures. The learning,
genius, and probity of the gentlemen, and the austerity of the
nuns of Port-Royal, have been much celebrated all over Europe.
Yet they all give evidence for a miracle, wrought on the niece
of the famous Pascal, whose sanctity of life, as well as
extraordinary capacity, is well known. The famous Racine gives
an account of this miracle in his famous history of Port-Royal,
and fortifies it with all the proofs, which a multitude of
nuns, priests, physicians, and men of the world, all of them of
undoubted credit, could bestow upon it. Several men of letters,
particularly the bishop of Tournay, thought this miracle so
certain, as to employ it in the refutation of atheists and
free-thinkers. The queen-regent of France, who was extremely
prejudiced against the Port-Royal, sent her own physician to
examine the miracle, who returned an absolute convert. In
short, the supernatural cure was so uncontestable, that it
saved, for a time, that famous monastery from the ruin with
which it was threatened by the Jesuits. Had it been a cheat, it
had certainly been detected by such sagacious and powerful
antagonists, and must have hastened the ruin of the contrivers.
Our divines, who can build up a formidable castle from such
despicable materials; what a prodigious fabric could they have
reared from these and many other circumstances, which I have
not mentioned! How often would the great names of Pascal,
Racine, Amaud, Nicole, have resounded in our ears? But if they
be wise, they had better adopt the miracle, as being more
worth, a thousand times, than all the rest of the collection.
Besides, it may serve very much to their purpose. For that
miracle was really performed by the touch of an authentic holy