Port Royal was the religious expression of the best part of the middle classes in France. In , the last year of the sixteenth century, little Jacqueline Arnauld, a child of seven, was appointed coadjutrix to the lady-abbess of Port Royal, while her sister Jeanne, two years younger, was made abbess of the neighboring convent of Saint Cyr.
Antoine Arnauld, father of these childen, and of a numerous progeny besides, was an eminent lawyer of Huguenot descent; and their grandfather, M.
Marion, advocategeneral of Henry IV. He probably considered this a legitimate and honorable method of providing for the younger daughters of his friends.
Antoine Arnauld had made a great reputation by a famous plea against the Jesuits, instrumental in procuring their recent expulsion. Everything went on as if the confirmation had been issued in due form. Little Jeanne went to Saint Cyr to perform her duties by proxy, and Jacqueline was sent away from home to a convent, to be trained for her new responsibilities, and to be initiated into her religious life. The choice of abode was a strange one, for she was sent to Maubuisson.
It is said that Gabrielle complained of being banished so far from Paris, and begged her royal lover to give her sister charge of some other convent not so remote. Thus, in the shadow of the royal amours, and under the influence of such a woman, Jacqueline passed two years of her childhood and received her first impressions of convent life.
