But Eustace was a
man now, made older than his twenty-five years by what he had
undergone, and though always most respectful to my mother, he could
not but follow his own judgment and form his own friendships. And my
mother's dislike to having Clement Darpent at the Hotel de Nidemerle
only led to Walwyn's frequenting the Maison Darpent more than he
might have done if he could have seen his friend at home without
vexing her.
I do not think that he much liked the old Counsellor, but he used to
say that Madame Darpent was one of the most saintly beings he had
ever seen. She had one married daughter, and two more, nuns at Port
Royal, and she was with them in heart, the element of Augustinianism
in the Jansenist teaching having found a responsive chord in her soul
from her Calvinist education. She spent her whole time, even while
living in the world, in prayers, pious exercises, and works of
charity, and she would fain have induced her son to quit secular life
and become one of those recluses who inhabited the environs of Port
Royal, and gave themselves to labour of mind and of hand, producing
works of devotion and sacred research, and likewise making a paradise
of the dreary unwholesome swamp in which stood Port Royal des Champs.
Clement Darpent had, however, no vocation for such a life, or rather
he was not convinced in his own mind that it was expedient for him.
He was eight or nine years old when the conversion of his family had
taken place, and his mother had taught him carefully her original
faith.
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