The director's power over so many eminent minds became too great.

Richelieu had comprehended better than the bishops the tendency of M.de St.
Cyran's ideas and writings.

"He continued to publish many opinions, new and leading to dangerous conclusions," says Father Joseph in his _Memoires,_" in such sort that the king, being advertised, commanded him to be kept a prisoner in the Bois de Vincennes." "That man is worse than six armies," said Cardinal Richelieu; "if Luther and, Calvin had been shut up when they began to dogmatize, states would have been spared a great deal of trouble." The consciences of men and the ardor of their souls are not so easily stifled by prison or exile.

The Abbot of St.Cyran, in spite of the entreaties of his powerful friends, remained at Vincennes up to the death of Cardinal Richelieu; the seclusionists of Port Royal were driven from their retreat and obliged to disperse; but neither the severities of Richelieu, nor, at a later period, those of Louis XIV., were the true cause of the ultimate powerlessness of Jansenism to bring about that profound reformation of the church which had been the dream of the Abbot of St.Cyran.

He had wished to immolate sinful man to God, and he regarded sanctity as the complete sacrifice of human nature corrupt to its innermost core.