Note 109 — Chapter XVII

Arnauld d’Andilly was the eldest son of the Antoine Arnauld who, under Henry IV., pleaded for the University against the Jesuits, and whose twentieth and youngest child was the second Antoine Arnauld—the oracle of Jansenism. D’Andilly is looked upon as belonging to the first generation of Jansenists, though he had nothing of the austerity and repulsiveness of that sect. He scarcely broaches polemics. He celebrates in elegant verse the praises of the Blessed Virgin and the prerogatives of St. Peter, and after translating all that is grandest and sweetest in Christian literature—such as the works of St. Augustine, St. John Climacus, St. Teresa, etc.—reposed from his labors by tending the espaliers of Port Royal, of which the beautiful and pious Anne of Austria always had the first fruits.