It is beyond our province to sketch the career of these fellow-students, one of whom became the chief spiritual director of Port Royal, and the other its great theological page 106centre. The abbey of St Cyran was the only preferment which D’Hauranne ever accepted, notwithstanding Richelieu’s repeated offers of a bishopric. He was content to exercise from his monastic seclusion an influence far more powerful than that of any bishop of his day. And so penetrating and dangerous did this influence seem to the great Minister whose efforts to bind him to his side had so often failed, that he at length shut him up in Vincennes (May 1638). Here he remained in close confinement for more than four years; but even from this gloomy retreat the impression of his great personal power was spread abroad, and felt in many quarters as steadily as before. He survived his release only a few months. His long imprisonment had broken down his health; and although the enthusiasm of his spirit was strong as ever, his weakened body was no longer able to answer to its demands. He could hardly “hold himself up,” and a slight attack of illness carried him off.
St Cyran’s chief strength seems to have lain in a concentrated enthusiasm and quiet strength of will which enabled him to hold his own against all opposition, and to subdue other minds larger than his own to his purposes. When the Prince de Condé interceded for him after his arrest, Richelieu’s reply was: “Do you know of whom you are speaking? That man is more dangerous than six armies. I say that attrition with confession is necessary: he believes that contrition is necessary.2 And in the affair of Monsieur’s marriage all France has given way to me, and he alone has the hardihood to page 107oppose it.” Against all enticements and assaults alike he set a proud and firm faith in his own mission—a patience sublime in its calmness, and in the unwavering consciousness of Divine right on his side. “I am careful to complain of nothing,” he said in