“ JANSEN, CORNELIUS (1585–1638) , bishop of Ypres, and father of the religious revival known as Jansenism, was born of humble Catholic parentage at Accoy in the province of Utrecht on the 28th of October 1585. In 1602 he entered the university of Louvain, then in the throes of a violent conflict between the Jesuit, or scholastic, party and the followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St Augustine. Jansen ended by attaching himself strongly to the latter party, and presently made a momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Du Vergier de Hauranne, afterwards abbot of Saint Cyran. ”

“ He looked forward to a time when Belgium should throw off the Spanish yoke and become an independent Catholic republic on the model of Protestant Holland. These ideas became known to his Spanish rulers, and to assuage them he wrote a philippic called the Mars gallicus (1635) , a violent attack on French ambitions generally, and on Richelieu’s indifference to international Catholic interests in particular. The Mars gallicus did not do much to help Jansen’s friends in France, but it more than appeased the wrath of Madrid with Jansen himself ”

“ After taking his degree he went to Paris, partly to recruit his health by a change of scene, partly to study Greek. Eventually he joined Du Vergier at his country home near Bayonne, and spent some years teaching at the bishop’s college. ”