Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 02-24-08
Jacqueline Pascal /Jacqueline
de Sainte Euphemie (1625-1661)
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"SINCE THE BISHOPS ARE SHOWING THE COURAGE OF GIRLS...."
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Jacqueline Pascal was born at Clermont, the youngest child of Etienne Pascal, a minor noble and government official; her sister, Gilberte, was five years older, her brother, Blaise, not quite two years older. A year after her birth, Jacqueline's mother died; when she was six, her father took the family to live in Paris, where he supervised the children's education. Blaise soon showed a precocious ability in mathematics, and Jacqueline wrote poetry that her family thought good enough to have published in 1637, when she was 12 years old.
In 1638 Jacqueline's father was involved in a protest against the fiscal policies of Cardinal Richelieu and had to leave Paris to avoid arrest. In the following year, Jacqueline (who had already presented some impromtu poems at court) appeared before Richelieu in a play presented by children and took the opportunity to make an appeal on behalf of her father. The family tradition was that it was this that caused Richelieu to allow her father back to Paris and a few months later to appoint him to a desirable post in Rouen. For the next seven years the family lived in Rouen. Jacqueline continued to write poetry: one poem won a national prize, others were sent to court and were well-received there.
In 1646 Jacqueline's father was injured in a fall and was helped in his recovery by men affiliated with a men's center that had been established near the country house of the women's monastery of Port-Royal. The Pascals listened to them and became convinced of the truth of their views. Port-Royal was already controversial: Augustinus, a book by a Bishop Jansen which interpreted Augustine's teachings on free will and God's grace in a way that sounded to some very much like Calvinism, had been published in 1640. Jansen's teachings were supported by those associated with Port-Royal and condemned by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. During the 1640s, however, the controversy was generally restricted to academic circles.
In 1647 when Blaise was in ill health and wished to return to Paris, the 21-year-old Jacqueline went with him to act as his secretary and care-giver. There, she visited the Port-Royal monastery, was impressed with the women she met there, and began to talk of joining them. Her father refused his permission; he intended her to marry. For almost a year, she pleaded with him, but with no success.
Finally, father and daughter came to an agreement: he would accept that Jacqueline would not marry and that she could live a retired life, a "religious life" at home; she would agree to stay with him and care for him until his death. By the autumn of 1651, her father was dead; three months later, Jacqueline was at Port-Royal. But now she had to deal with the objections of Blaise and Gilberte, who had earlier supported her.
When Jacqueline entered Port-Royal in 1652, its leaders were two sisters, the 51-year-old Angelique Arnauld and the 49-year-old Agnes Arnauld, whose family had been involved with the former Cistercian abbey since the beginning of the century. Jacqueline, now Souer Jacqueline de Sainte Euphemie, made her final vows in 1653. For four years she was headmistress of a boarding school for girls; in1657 she was made sub-prioress and novice-mistress, a role she would hold until her death. In that same year she was wrote a report on the teaching methods used at Port-Royal; this would be published afer her death as Reglement pour les enfants.
From 1654 Blaise came often to visit Jacqueline; it was to his conversations with her that he attributed his decision to permanently identify himself with the men of Port-Royal. In 1656 he wrote the letters defending Port-Royal that are known as the Provincial Letters.
During the 1650s the controversy about Port-Royal had grown more heated, but the nuns' daily lives had not been much affected. In 1661, that changed. In April the nuns' confessors and spiritual directors were ordered to leave them, and a few days later the school was closed and the students sent home. At the end of May, all postulants and novices were expelled. In June the nuns were required to sign a document that rejected some statements alleged to be in Jansen's Latin theological work, Augustinus (which, as women, they were theoretically prohibited from studying). Some of the nuns signed the formulary willingly, others reluctantly; Jacqueline was one of the latter. By the end of the year, Jacqueline was dead (Blaise would die 10 months later).
In Jacqueline's earlier letters, we hear a woman who wants to please her family but who is also determined to go her own way. In the later letters, we hear her correctly predicting what the nuns would have to suffer for their beliefs (within four years of her death, in 1664, some of the nuns would be imprisoned; a year later a larger group were placed under interdict; in 1711 Port-Royal would be destroyed). In all of her writings, we hear a distinctive voice.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information on secondary sources.
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1. In English:
(a) A link to the text of Adnah D. Jones' 1898 translation of Felix Cadet's 1887 L'education a Port-Royal, a collection of extracts from the writings of those who established and ran Port-Royal's educational program. Near the end (pp.226-45) is the second half of Jacqueline's Reglement pour les enfants (with some omissions); it is preceded by a 1657 letter to her spiritual advisor. You can also download the work as a PDF file.
(b) In this excerpt from a translation of Philippe Aries' 1960 L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Regime, use your browser's search function to go to the third use of "Pascal" for Robert Baldick's translation of several quotations from Reglement, accompanied by Aries' commentary.
(c) Links to each of the nine pages of an article in the 1847 United States Democratic Review, "Jacqueline Pascal." The article is based on Victor Cousin's 1845 biography and includes translations from Jacqueline and from Gilberte's memoir of her younger sister. (Elsewhere, you can download a PDF file of the French original of Cousin's biography.)
(d) Go to 'Pascal" for a few lines from Jacqueline's letter of advice to a woman on the "work of... sanctification."
(e) Go to "Pascal" for passages from the 1661 letter to her friend Angelique de Saint-Jean Arnauld, sub-prioress at Paris, written the day after Jacqueline had signed the formulary (for more from the letter, see "In print").
2. In 1656, Jacqueline's niece was cured of an eye disease
after touching a relic believed to be part of Jesus' crown of
thorns; the nuns of Port Royal thought this a miracle, and the
archbishop of Paris agreed. Here in the original French are seven
stanzas of the poem Jacquleline wrote after the event, "Stances
sur le miracle de la Sainte Épine."
3. From Blaise Pascal (in English):
(a) A 1648 letter to Jacqueline, in which he describes his pleasure at her plan to enter Port-Royal and speaks of his desire to talk to her of his own future.
(b) In Letter 16 of Provincial Letters, written in 1656, go to the uses of "nuns" to see the problems facing the monastery of Port-Royal. At the same site, you can also link to the other letters.
4. Links to an 1893 article by Marion Libby on Gilberte Pascal Perier, "A Sister of Saints," which includes passages from Vie de Jacqueline Pascal, the memoir that Gilberte wrote after Jacqueline's death; you can link to the page views or to the text.
5. An engraving of Jacqueline, based on a contempory portrait by Philippe de Champaigne.
6. Go to "theology" in this excerpt from Madame de Motteville's Memoires for several paragraphs giving Motteville's view (and probably that of most courtiers) on Jansenists and on their "having taught women... questions of conscience about which none but confessors should be instructed."
7. A review by Christopher Corley of John J. Conley's 2003 translation of some of Jacqueline's work, A Rule for Children and Other Writings (for excerpts from Conley, see "In print").
8. For historical background:
(a) A biography, by J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson, of Jacqueline's father, Etienne Pascal, useful for an understanding of her early life.
(b) From a 1941 book, one section, "The Heritage of Port Royal," which includes a sentence from a 1661 letter by Jacqueline, a sentence that would become her most famous line.
(c) In this timeline of the 1600s, go to the year 1656 for a translation of part of the formulary that Jacqueline signed in 1661. (Since it was assumed that the nuns had not read the Latin Augustinus, the version given to the nuns began, "I believe all that the church teaches... and condemn all that the church condemns." For Jacqueline's view of that compromise, see below.)
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[John J. Conley has translated Jacqueline's Reglement pour les enfants of 1657, as well as a meditation written before her entry into Port-Royal and three reports to her monastic superiors. From Jacqueline's other writing, Conley gives 18 (of 42) poems and 6 (of 26) letters. The introductions and notes are useful; the bibliography includes the few earlier English-language studies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Pascal, Jacqueline. A rule for children and other writings;
edited and translated by John J. Conley (The other voice in early
modern Europe). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. (xxxii,
171 p.)
LC#:BX4735 .P3; ISBN:0226648311, 0226648338
Includes bibliographical references (p.153-163) and index
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"I have had the boldness to ask you for few things in life."
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[From a June 1648 letter to her father. Earlier in the month, Jacqueline had accepted her father's refusal to allow her to become a nun at Port-Royal. Now he was in Rouen on business, and she writes asking if she could at least make a retreat there. After assuring him of her continuing obedience and before even identifying the request she would make, she points out how very, very small the request is:]
It's so small that knowing my intention to obey you in every circumstance, just as I am doing here, and knowing that the issue is urgent, I think that without offending you in any way --- and I would never even entertain the thought of offending you --- I could have actually done this before discussing it with you. [p.133]
[Jacqueline then describes the two to three week retreat she is considering, and tells why this is exactly the right time to do it:]
There couldn't be a better time, either, than that of your absence. There are no other services for me to perform at home. In fact, I'm quite useless here at the moment. Since you've left, I haven't written a single word for my brother. This is what he usually needs me for, but he could easily do without me and use someone else's services....
I have had the boldness to ask you for few things in life. I beg you, as much as I can with all possible respect, not to refuse this request. Please do not leave me without a response, unless you agree that these retreats are such a minor matter that mine could be made without an express sign of your will. In that case I wouldn't have any reason to believe that you disagree with my project unless you clearly indicate that you don't want me to do it.
Since the mail leaves often, since you have ample opportunity to write back, and since moreover silence gives consent, I plan to start preparations for my trip if I do not hear from you by a week from Tuesday at the latest.... [pp.133-34]
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"...to die... to all concerns of flesh and blood."
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[Jacqueline's father did respond, forbidding her to make the retreat. For the next three years, she cared for her father and brother. In the spring of 1651, about four months before her father died, she wrote out a meditation on the death of Jesus that Agnes Arnauld had suggested. The meditation consisted of 51 statements about Jesus followed by Jacqueline's thoughts about what each statement meant for her own life. Some of the passages show the 25-year-old already detaching herself from world and family:]
Jesus died not only from his own sight, but also from the sight of his holy mother, of his relatives and his friends.... This teaches me to die not only to what concerns my own person, but to all concerns of flesh and blood, and to all concerns of friendship. In other words, I must forget everything that does not clearly concern the salvation of my friends. I must not involve myself in temporal matters....
After his death, Jesus was enclosed in the stone sepulcher, as in a place of retreat.... That teaches me that... it is not enough to remove myself by desire or even by effort from the business and the sight of the world. I must also disengage myself from the closest and the most intimate domestic concerns, without finding delight in the sight and the use of these things.... [pp.32-37]
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"Don't force me to consider you an obstacle."
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[Three months after her father's death, Jacqueline entered the Port-Royal monastery in Paris. Blaise, although he had supported her in her original desire, now wished her to wait for at least another two years. Shortly before she was to receive her habit and make first vows, she wrote him a letter, refusing to wait but still asking for his support:]
It's true that I am now free to make my own commitments. It has pleased God...to take away the last legitimate obstacle that could prevent my making the commitment I want to make....
I still very much need your consent and your approval of my decision. I ask for them with all the devotion of my heart. Of course they are not required for my going ahead with the vows. But I want them to be able to fulfill my vocation with joy, with a good conscience, and with serenity....
That's why I am addressing you as if you were a guardian of sorts of what will happen to me.... Don't force me to consider you an obstacle to my happiness if you succeed in delaying the expectation of my desires, or the author of my malaise if you are the reason I fulfill this commitment tepidly. [pp.136-37]
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"...the violence I did to my own inclinations during four
years."
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[She tries to make Blaise see that she has waited long enough:]
You should be satisfied that it is only consideration for your feelings that has prevent me from professing vows during the six months I have been here. Without this consideration, I would have already taken the religious habit. Our mother superiors have accepted my four years of novitiate in the world as a preparatory period before vows.... Only my fear to anger those I love has delayed my ultimate happiness until now.
It's no longer reasonable to continue my deference to others' feelings over my own. It's their turn to do some violence to their own feelings in return for the violence I did to my own inclinations during four years. It is from you in particular that I expect this token of friendship....
Isn't it odd how you would have a serious pang of conscience and how everyone else would criticize you if for some reason you tried to prevent me from marrying a prince, even if the prince lived in some distant place?... [pp.139-40]
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"...the embarrassment of being received... without a dowry."
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[Although money is not mentioned in Jacqueline's 1652 letter to Blaise, the question of her dowry was apparently involved in Blaise's unhappiness: to have removed Jacqueline's share of her father's estate so soon after his death would have seriously affected the holdings of her brother and sister. A few days after making her final vows in June 1653, Jacqueline submitted to her superiors a report on this problem and its eventual solution. Her report was one of many that the leaders of Port-Royal were collecting to defend the community against the criticism of opponents. The purpose of the document is to illustrate the virtue of Angelique and Agnes Arnauld, but it also reveals Jacqueline's own increasing self-knowledge:]
They [letters from Gilberte and Blaise expressing their concerns about breaking up the estate] made it necessary for me to think about delaying my profession for four years in order to retrieve my inheritance from its status as equity for the other parts of our holdings. I didn't even know if it would be completely free for disposal after this long delay.
I also considered the embarrassment of being received into the convent without a dowry and of having the dishonor of visiting this injustice on the convent. [pp.44-45]
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"But I was too weak... to be capable of such virtue."
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[When Jacqueline spoke to them about it, the more virtuous Angelique and Agnes had suggested the latter choice. Describing the incident a year later, Jacqueline has come to recognize the pride that had made coming without a dowry so repugnant to one from a moderately wealthy family. At first, Agnes had convinced her to rejoice in being poor:]
If I had stayed in this calm state, I would have faced the problem exactly as she hoped I would. But I was too weak and too upset to be capable of such virtue. I must admit with embarrassment that shortly after the interview [with Agnes] I returned to my original weakness and to my original feelings. [p.46]
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"I don't dare call it a sense of justice anymore."
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[When, a few days later, she sees Jacqueline still weeping, Angelique says:]
"When you see people falling into faults and infidelities far graver in God's sight, why haven't you cried for them as intensely as you have when some people only failed to show some of the affection they owed you?"
I responded with what I thought was a truthful answer. I said that I was bothered only by the injustice they had done to the convent. As for myself, I felt no personal bitterness or distress. in fact, I thought I was personally quite indifferent.
She told me, "You are mistaken, my daughter. ...[W]hat really irks you the most is the injustice done to you personally, because self-love clearly flavors your entire reaction...." [pp.49-51]
[Jacqueline proposes two more arguments:]
Nonetheless, I was still so proud --- I don't dare call it a sense of justice anymore --- that I couldn't absolutely resolve to let things alone, as our mother wanted. So I begged her to consider that if we delayed my religious profession for four years, I could then hope to be mistress of all my affairs.... she said to me, "No, my daughter...."
...I begged her to at least let me threaten them with legal action and see what effect that might produce. She no more consented to this proposal than to any of the others. [p.60]
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"...exhausting their minds and their imaginations."
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[Jacqueline was spared the embarrassment of not providing a dowry; Blaise made the appropriate arrangements for payment --- one day before the scheduled vow-taking. In 1653 Jacqueline became the head-mistress of Port-Royal's boarding school for girls, and four years later she was asked to write a report on her teaching methods (it would be published in 1665, with the caution that the program might be too strict for many students). Part 1 describes a "typical school day" which may appall modern readers with its rigidity. Jacqueline herself seems to recognize the difficulty of having children follow a strict monastic routine:]
Given their youth, we do not try to make them too spiritual, unless we recognize that this come from God. We fear two problems with too great a zeal. The first is that they struggle too hard and end up exhausting their minds and their imaginations rather than uniting their hearts to God. The other is that they grow discouraged when they see that they cannot attain the perfection demanded of them. [p.75]
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" God alone can save us."
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[Part 1 describes the children's daily routine and shows Jacqueline trying to balance her demand for the children's perfection with her genuine affection for them. In Part 2 she speaks more generally of her educational philosophy. When she speaks of the children's prayer, she reveals Port-Royal's strict interpretation of the Augustinian emphasis on God's grace over human action:]
We help them [the pupils] understand that a single trusting, humble, and persevering glance towards God will sustain them far more than all the grandiloquent resolutions they make for themselves. Moreover, these resolutions will be useless if the goodness of God has not shaped them in their hearts by the power of his holy grace. By our own strength, we can only be lost. God alone can save us. [p.114]
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"... more important... than it is to become a woman scholar."
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[Although Jacqueline herself had been given a reasonably thorough secular education, this was not the goal of the Port-Royal school for girls. The students were permitted to have only a few religious books. Those used for public reading were "books whose aim is the formation of a truly Christian woman" (p.116). Jacqueline describes the process:]
We should always try to have them develop the habit of never listening to the readings in a spirit of amusement or of curiosity. Rather, they should listen with a desire to apply their lessons to their lives. To accomplish this, we need to explain the readings in ways that convince the pupils that it is more important to become a good Christian woman and to correct their faults than it is to become a woman scholar.
Besides the readings we perform by ourselves, we tell them what they should read. They are permitted to change neither the book nor the passage we have assigned. There are very few books that do not contain something that should be avoided. [pp.116-17]
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"What are we afraid of?"
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[Port-Royal was the subject of controversy during the whole decade that Jacqueline was a member, but in June 1661 the nuns were ordered to sign a formulary that made a distinction between what the church had condemned and what Bishop Jansen had actually said in his book. Jacqueline found this distinction disingenuous; she signed the formulary but the next day vented her frustration in a letter to Angelique de Saint-Jean Arnauld, sub-prioress at Paris, just one year older than Jacqueline, and a longtime friend (Angelique de Saint-Jean would be one of those imprisoned in 1664):]
Most of us had sincerely hoped that the document would be even worse, since we knew that in these times we could not have hoped for a better one. We could have rejected a worse document with complete freedom. Instead, several of us will probably feel forced to accept it as it is. A false prudence and outright cowardice will lead others to accept it as a good way to secure their persons and their conscience.
But as for me, I cannot secure either by this means....
What are we afraid of? Exile and dispersion for the nuns, confiscation of our temporal goods, prison and death, if you will? But isn't this our glory and shouldn't this be our joy?...
But perhaps they will cut us off from the church! But doesn't everyone know that you can't be cut off against your will?... [pp.147-48]
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"It's not up to girls to argue the cause of truth. Still,..."
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[The clerics who had presented the formulary were apparently surprised by the nuns' resistance. Conley's translation of Jacqueline's most famous line is accurate: the "girls" of Port-Royal were all adults (Jacqueline was 35) but as unmarried women, they would always remain filles, not femmes:]
I know very well that it's not up to girls to argue the cause of truth. Still, we can say in the sad present circumstances that since the bishops are showing the courage of girls, the girls should show the courage of bishops. Nonetheless, if it's not up to us to defend the truth, it's up to us to die for the truth and to suffer everything rather than abandon it. [p.150]
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"Our fears were laughed at."
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[After saying that Augustine of Hippo would not have signed a statement that, although literally true, gave the impression he believed in more than one God, she goes on:]
Perhaps they will say that our authority is not that of Saint Augustine, that it is nothing at all. I would answer... by saying that I spoke of Saint Augustine only in response to how you've treated all my difficulties during the past days. Our fears were laughed at.... [p.151]
Please don't be scandalized by my criticism of the little concern they have shown about our quandaries.... My only concern is that if something similar happens again, they should know that they cannot satisfy us simply by laughing at our difficulties without giving us any reason for this dismissal. [p.152]
[Although Jacqueline had copied out and signed the formulary the day before, she had made a change that would not be acceptable to the authorities. It was Angelique de Saint-Jean's uncle who had adapted the formulary for the nuns, and Jacqueline had asked that this letter be passed on to him:]
...[I]n writing the words "believe all that the church teaches" I omitted "and condemn all that the church condemns," although it is true that I condemn everything that the church condemns. However, I don't think it's the right time to say so, since someone might confuse the church with the current decisions. [p.152]
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"He replied: "That's very good, my daughter.'"
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[Within a few days of her impassioned theological argument
in the letter to Angelique de Saint-Jean, Jacqueline appeared
before a cleric investigating charges of heresy against the nuns
of Port-Royal. In her report of the interview, she tells how
she presented herself: a simple nun, not too bright, not too
widely-read. The investigator was delighted. When he asked what
she thought about the belief that Jesus had died for all, she
responded:]
A: "I usually don't think about such matters, since they aren't very practical..."
He smiled at that and then he said, "...But how do you explain that there are so many souls that are lost eternally?"
A: "Sir, I must admit that that has often disturbed me. Usually when I am praying, especially when I am before a crucifix, that question comes to mind. Then I say to the Lord, 'My God, how is it possible, after everything you have done for us, that so many people perish in misery?' But when these thoughts haunt me, I reject them, because I don't think I have the right to sound out the secrets of God. That's why I just content myself with praying for sinners."
He replied: "That's very good, my daughter...."
He seemed understanding enough, and then he said to me, "Did you teach the novices that Our Lord died for all human beings and why there are both good and bad people in the world?"
A: "Since I don't trouble myself about those things, I try to avoid troubling the novices about them. On the contrary, I try to keep them in a state of simplicity as much as I can."
He replied: "That's very good.... I thank God with all my heart for having preserved you from all error.... Don't you have any complaints to make?"
A: "No, Sir. By the grace of God, I am perfectly happy." [pp.122-23]
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[This is properly a secondary source, most of it a translation of Victor Cousin's 1845 biography of Jacqueline. However, the book gives translations of 20 of her letters, most not given by Conley (above). Translations from many of Jacqueline's other writings are also included:]
Cousin, Victor. Jacqueline Pascal; or,
a glimpse of convent life at Port Royal. From the French of Victor
Cousin, Prosper Faugere, Vinet and other sources. Translated
by H. N. with an introduction by W. R. Williams. New York, R.
Carter & Brothers, 1860. (318 p.)
LC#: BX4735.P3 C72
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"If you find it glorious and edifying to others to look
filthy...."
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[In 1654 Blaise Pascal had several conversations with Jacqueline about the spiritual life. Early in the next year he made a retreat with the men living a eremetical life in the country, and as a result became enthusiastic about their way of life. Back in Paris, his enthusiasm continued --- to the point where, at the end of 1655, Jacqueline wrote her elder brother a brief but pointed note about his personal hygiene:]
I have been congratulated on the great fervor of devotion which has lifted you so far above all ordinary customs, that you consider even a broom as a superfluous piece of furniture.
It is needful, however, that, for some months at least, you should be as clean as now you are dirty, so that your success may be equally manifest in your lowly and vigilant care of the body, submissive to your spirit, as it has been in a thorough personal neglect.
After that, if you find it glorious and edifying to others to look filthy, you can do so, especially if it be a means of holiness, which I very much doubt. Saint Bernard did not think it was. [p.163]
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[Although the chief focus of Daniella Kostroun's article is on the reports written by three nuns of Port-Royal in 1664, its first pages describe the whole controversy over the formulary and discuss in some detail Jacqueline's 1661 letter to Angelique de Saint-Jean. The "paradox" of the article's title refers to the nuns' use of the claim of women's intellectual incapacity in order to assert their right to disagree with ecclesiastical autorities. All quoted passages are given in Koustroun's translation, with the original given in the notes. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Kostroun, Daniella. A Formula for Disobedience: Jansenism,
Gender, and the Feminist Paradox. The Journal of Modern History,
75 (2003), 483-522.
LC#: D1 .J6; ISSN: 0022-2801
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[John R. Cole's book is a psychological study of Blaise Pascal
(the two"loves" of the title are of God and of self),
but the relationship between Blaise and Jacqueline is thoroughly
discussed. Cole includes letters written by Jacqueline that are
not translated elsewhere; he also quotes from Gilberte Perier's
Vie de Jacqueline Pascal and the Memoire of Gilberte's
daughter, Marguerite Perier. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Cole, John R. Pascal: the man and his two loves. New York:
New York University Press, c1995. (xi, 349 p.: ill.)
LC#: B1903 .C64 1995; ISBN: 0814715109
Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-340) and indexes
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[M.V. Woodgate's is a rather romanticized biography of the two younger Pascals, but it does include letters not given elsewhere. The book was first published in Ireland under the title, Jacqueline Pascal and Her Brother:]
Woodgate, M. V. (Mildred Violet). Pascal and his sister Jacqueline.
St. Louis, Mo. and London, B. Herder book co., 1945. (vii, 207
p.)
LC#: BX4735.P3 W6 1945
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[Although Jacqueline Pascal is not mentioned, Alexander Sedgwick's essay in this collection, "The Nuns of Port-Royal: A Study of Female Spirituality in Seventeenth-Century France," is a clear description of the situation in which Jacqueline found herself from her entrance in the monastery in 1652. Sedgwick shows the world created by the Arnauld women --- Angelique, Agnes, and Angelique de Saint-Jean --- and maintains that it was the refusal of the Port-Royal women to be dependent and submissive that led to the destruction of the monastery:]
That Gentle strength: historical perspectives on women in
Christianity / edited by Linda L. Coon, Katherine J. Haldane,
and Elisabeth W. Sommer. Charlottesvile, Va.: University Press
of Virginia, 1990. (vi, 267 p.: ill.)
LC#: BV639.W7; ISBN: 0813912865, 0813912938
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Updated 02-24-08