Marie Angelique Arnauld

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Jacqueline-Marie-Angélique Arnauld or Arnault, called La Mère Angélique (born September 8, 1591 in Paris; died August 6, 1661 in Port-Royal des Champs) was abbess of Port Royal, a center of Jansenism.

She was the third of the twenty children of the lawyer Antoine Arnauld, and one of six sisters of the philosopher Antoine Arnauld.

Being raised by Cistercians in Port-Royal des Champs, abess Johanna von Boulehart selected Angélique as her successor at the age of seven. Months before her twelfth birthday, Angélique became abbess of Port-Royal on July 5, 1602. She was better known thereafter as La Mère Angélique.

Mère Angélique reformed her convent shortly after becoming abbess, and she was instrumental in the reforms of several other convents.

In 1635, she came under the influence of the abbot of Saint-Cyran, one of the promoters of a Catholic heresy that the Jesuits called Jansenism. During the 17th-century formulary controversy and the persecution of Port-Royal (1648-1652)^[1], she was forced to sign a document condemning the five propositions of Jansenism.