Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: for on May 14, 1638, Saint-Cyran was arrested by order of the King and, as was mentioned above, he was thrown into prison. We need not here examine in detail the reasons which had led to this and of which Saint-Cyran himself enumerates seventeen. M. Carre attributes his arrest to the fact that he had defended Jansen's work on Grace, entitled Augustinus; but this is obviously incorrect, since the Augustinus was not published at Louvain until 1640, two years after the death of its author. Racine in his Histoire abrlgde de Port-Royal specifies three reasons; jealousy on the part of certain ecclesiastics of Saint-Cyran's success as a 'director of souls'; his breach with Richelieu on the theological doctrine of attrition and the question as to the nullity of a marriage between Gaston, Duke of Orle"ans, and Margaret of Lorraine; and thirdly his book entitled Petrus Aurelius, to which reference has already been made and which had incensed the Society of Jesus against its author. It seems obvious that, whatever may have been the charges alleged against Saint-Cyran, he was recognised by civil and ecclesiastical authorities alike as too strong a personality to be allowed to come into opposition with them. Richelieu in his early days as Bishop of Lu9on had met Saint-Cyran and had come to know him well and to esteem him highly. When therefore in later years Richelieu rose to power, he made strenuous efforts to win the allegiance of one whom he declared to be the most learned theologian in Europe. No less than five—some say eight—bishoprics were offered to Saint-Cyran; but the Abbot refused to exchange independence for preferment. And since his attitude was in every point uncompromising, it was inevitable that he should be regarded as a danger and should accordingly be confined where his writi...