Marie Angélique Arnauld

or Arnault, called La Mère Angélique (8 September 1591, in Paris – 6 August 1661, in Port-Royal-des-Champs), was abbess of the Abbey of Port-Royal, which became a center of Jansenism under her abbacy.

[1] While Arnauld was being raised by Cistercian nuns in the Abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, at the prompting of her maternal grandfather, Abbess Jeanne Boulehart selected her as her successor at the age of seven.

She was instrumental in the reforms of several other monasteries,[1] transforming them into place of ascetic rigor, with strict monastic enclosures, chapter of faults, silence, fasting, a diet without meat, and prayers beginning at 3:00 a.m.

[3] Mother Angélique was counseled and sustained by Francis de Sales; she wanted to join the group of Visitation nuns close to him, but was not successful.

In 1635, Arnauld came under the influence of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the Abbé of Saint-Cyran, one of the promoters of a school of theology which the Jesuits called Jansenism.