A rough wooden enclosure has been erected on the site of the high altar surmounted by a cross. It contained a few memorials, amongst the most touching of which were simple portraits of Arnauld, Le Maitre, De Saci, Quesnel, Nicole, Pascal, the Mère Angélique, the Mère Agnès, Jacqueline Pascal, and Dr Hanlon the physician. Two portraits of the Mère Agnès particularly impressed me. The lines of the face were exquisitely touching in their gentle bravery and patience. As I looked at the noble and sweet countenances grouped on the bare unadorned walls, the sacred memories of the place rose vividly before my mind. It was here alone that the recluses from the neighbouring Grange met the sainted sisterhood, and mingled with them the prayers and tears of penitence. Otherwise they dwelt apart, each in diligent privacy, intent on their works of education or of charity. All the ruin and decay and somewhat dreary sadness of the scene could not weaken my sense of the beautiful life of thought and faith and hope and love that had once breathed there; and never before had I felt so deeply the enduring reality of the spiritual heroism and self-sacrifice, the glory of suffering and of goodness, that had made the spot so memorable.
The monastery was founded, not by Philip Augustus, but by Matthieu, first Lord of Marli, a younger son of the noble house of Montmorency. Having formed the design of accompanying the crusade proclaimed by Innocent III. to the Holy Land, he left at the disposal of his wife, Mathilde de Garlande, and his kinsman, the Bishop of Paris, a sum of money to devote to some pious work in his absence. They agreed to apply it to the erection of a monastery for nuns in this secluded valley, that had already acquired a reputation for sanctity in connection with the old chapel dedicated to St Lawrence, which attracted large numbers of worshippers. The foundations of the church and monastery were laid in 1204. They were designed by the same architect who built the Cathedral of Amiens, and ere long the graceful and beautiful structures were seen rising in the wilderness. The nuns belonged to the Cistercian order. Their dress was white woollen, with a black veil; but afterwards they adopted as their distinctive badge a large scarlet cross on their white scapulary, as the symbol of the “Institute of the Holy Sacrament.”