De S. Magdalena Maria Angelica
De S. Magdalena Maria Angelica [1]
is the name by which Jaqueline, one of the daughters of Anthony Arnauld (q.v.), was known after she became the prioress of the noted convent of Port Royal. "She at first led a very dissolute life, such as was common at that time in the French nunneries; but in 1609 the fear of God came upon her, and she entered upon a very different course of life; and afterwards becoming intimate first with Francis de Sales, and then, in 1623, with the abbot of St. Cyran, she conformed both herself and her convent to their views and prescriptions.... . The consecrated virgins inhabiting it followed with the utmost strictness the ancient, severe, and almost everywhere abrogated rule of the Cistercians; nay, they imposed on themselves more rigors and burdens than even that rule prescribed." Dr. Murdoch's Mosheim, Eccles. s. is. bk. iv, cent. xvii, sec. ii, pt. i, ch. i, 46. (See Port Royal). The relation which this retreat sustained to the Jansenists has been detailed in the article Jansenius, Cornelius (2).
