Port-Royal-des-Champs

The atmosphere of serious study and Jansenist piety attracted a number of prominent cultural figures to the movement, including mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal.

Pascal defended the schools publicly against the Jesuits in the Jansenist controversies which agitated the French Roman Catholic Church, in his Lettres provinciales in 1657.

The Jesuits, on the other hand, enjoyed predominance in political and theological power in France and Europe, providing a personal confessor to the King, etc.

Louis XIV wanting peace in the church, the elementary schools were forcibly closed by papal bull in 1660, following the formulary controversy.

The abbey itself was abolished by a bull from Pope Clement XI in 1708, the remaining nuns forcibly removed in 1709, most of the buildings themselves razed in 1711.