NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PORT-ROYAL DES CHAMPS

Port-Royal des Champs, founded in the ^13th century, was a renowned Cistercian abbey. In the 17th^century , when the nuns, decimated by malaria in the marshes, moved to Paris (thus creating the other Port-Royal in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques), the Solitaires - lay and ecclesiastical intellectuals with a love of peace and reflection, led by the Abbé de Saint-Cyran - took over the deserted abbey in 1638 to lead a life of prayer and study. Under the impetus of the very spiritual Mère Angélique (Jacqueline Arnauld by her real name), who returned to the rural abbey in 1648, and the Solitaires - most of whom were members of her own family - Port-Royal became a place where monastic life was redesigned, pedagogy was developed (notably with the creation of the Petites Ecoles, with groups of 5 or 6 boys learning ancient and modern languages in French with a tutor), ideas and debates flourished, and refugees were welcomed during the Fronde. As you can imagine, these attempts at community life between laymen and religious, this political bias, then this questioning of Grace that is Jansenism - a doctrine considered heretical by the Catholic Church, but supported by Blaise Pascal, the most famous of the Solitaires - were not to the liking of the Sun King. After a few years of bitter struggle and several crises (involving Sorbonne and the provincials, the Formulary and Unigenitus), Louis XIV gave the go-ahead for the expulsion and dispersal of the nuns in 1709, whom Rome had already declared heretical in 1653, and for the razing to the ground of the entire building - a demolition project that lasted until 1710.

Today, Port-Royal des Champs is a complex made up of: the ruins of the former abbey; a national museum (formerly the Musée des Granges) housed since 1964 in the Petites Ecoles building; a forest and landscaped estate, including the Verger des Solitaires; and prestigious outbuildings that host historical tours, concerts and exhibitions of the highest quality - all of which the Société des amis de Port-Royal masterfully organizes to bring to life the intellectual and cultural life of this place so steeped in history and commitment. You'll also discover the Cent Marches, the ancient route that enabled Solitaires and children from the Petites Ecoles to reach the abbey; and Pascal's Well, created by the philosopher during his stay at Les Granges in 1655.