biographer and historian, Carlyle, in a letter written in 1854, says, “In all my poor historical investigations it is one of the most primary wants to procure a bodily likeness of the personage inquired after; a good portrait, if such exists; failing that, even an indifferent, if sincere one; in short, any representation, made by a faithful human creature, of that face and figure which he saw with his eyes and which I can never see with mine. Often I have found the portrait superior in real instruction to half-a-dozen written biographies, or rather, I have found the portrait was as a small lighted candle, by which the biographies could for the first time be read, and some human interpretation be made of them.” (G. Re.)
PORT RICHMOND, a part of the borough of Richmond in the city of New York, U.S.A., on the N. shore of Staten Island and on the Kill van Kull Channel. Before 1898 it was a separate village of Richmond county, New York, containing 6290 inhabitants in 1890. It is served by the Staten Island Rapid Transit railway, and by a ferry to Bergen Point, New Jersey, and has steam and electric railway connexions with the municipal ferry at St George, which furnishes easy access to the business districts on Manhattan Island. Among its places of historic interest are the Dutch Reformed Church, which is the direct successor of the church established on Staten Island in 1664 or 1665 by Waldenses and Huguenots; and the Danner Hotel, built soon after the War of Independence on the site of a temporary fort that had been erected by British troops, and used as a private dwelling until 1820. In this house Aaron Burr spent the last years of his life, dying there on the 14th of September 1836. Among the industrial establishments are a shipyard, dry dock and manufactories of flour, lumber, lead paint and builders' supplies. On the first of January 1898, when the act creating Greater New York came into effect, the village became a part of the third ward of Richmond borough.
PORT ROYAL, a celebrated Cistercian abbey, occupied a low and marshy site in the thickly wooded valley of the Yvette, at what is now known as Les Hameaux near Marly, a few miles south-west of Paris. It was founded in 1204 by Mahaut de Garlande, wife of Mathieu de Montmorenci-Marli in 1204; the church was built in 1229 from the designs of Robert de Luzarches. During its early years the convent received a number of papal privileges; the most important of these, granted by Honorius III. in 1223, authorized it to offer a retreat to women anxious to withdraw from the world without binding themselves by perpetual vows. Little is known of its history during the three succeeding centuries, except that its discipline became relaxed; reform was only attempted when Angélique Arnauld (q.v.) was appointed coadjutor to the elderly and invalid abbess in 1598. Angélique's reforming energy soon brought her into contact with Jean Duvergier (q.v.) abbot of Saint Cyran, and chief apostle in France of the Jansenist revival, and the later history of her convent is indissolubly connected with this movement.
In 1626 constant visitations of ague drove the nuns to Paris; they settled at Port Royal de Paris, at the end of the Faubourg Saint Jacques. The deserted buildings of Port Royal des Champs were presently occupied by “hermits,” laymen, mostly relatives of the abbess, who wished for a semi-monastic existence, though without taking formal vows. In 1648, however, some of the nuns returned to the country, and the hermits retreated to buildings at a short distance from the abbey. Here they set up a “little school” for the sons of Jansenist parents; and here Jean Racine, the future poet, received his education. But in 1653 Innocent X. condemned the doctrines of Jansen. Three years later “the hermitage” and school were broken up, and the nuns were forbidden to receive new members into their community. These rigours were much increased when Louis XIV. took up the reins of government in 1660; between 1664 and 1669 the archbishop of Paris laid under an interdict those of the nuns who refused to subscribe the papal censure on Jansen. In 1669, however, came the so-called “Peace of Clement IX.,” when the Jansenists generally were admitted to grace, and the interdict was removed from Port Royal, though the authorities broke up the convent into two distinct communities. The conformist nuns were gathered together at Port Royal de Paris, under an independent abbess; their Jansenist sisters were united at the original building in the country. hereupon followed ten years of peace, for the nuns had a powerful protector in the king's cousin, Mme de Longueville. But in 1679 she died, and Louis at once ordered the nuns to send away their novices and boarders and to receive no others. Finally, in 1705, he got from Clement XI. a new condemnation of the Jansenists, which the few remaining nuns, all of whom were over sixty, refused to sign; and on the 29th of October 1709 they were forcibly removed from Port Royal by the police, and distributed among various conformist convents. In the following spring the buildings were pulled down; even the cemetery was not spared. The land on which the convent had stood was made over to Mme de Maintenon's college of St Cyr; in 1825 it was bought by some descendants of Jansenist families, who have done their best to restore the grounds to their original appearance, and have built a museum rich in Jansenist relics. Port Royal de Paris was secularized at the French Revolution, and is now a maternity hospital.
For a classified list of the chief books, ancient and modern, dealing with Port Royal, see the Abrégé de l'histoire de Port Royal, by Jean Racine, ed. E. Gazier (Paris, 1908). See also C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal (6 vols. and index, Paris, 1882); Charles Beard, Port Royal (2 vols., London, 1861); H. Reuchlin, Geschichte von Port Royal (2 vols., Hamburg, 1839-1844), and the books recommended under the articles Arnauld, Jansenism and Pascal.
PORT ROYAL, an island in Beaufort county, South Carolina, U.S.A., at the head of Port Royal Sound, about 16 m. from the Atlantic coast, and about 50 m. S.W. of Charleston. It is about 13 m. long (north and south) by about 7 m. wide. The surface is generally flat, and there is much marshland in its southern part, and along its north-eastern shore. The principal settlement is Beaufort, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Beaufort county, on the Beaufort river (here navigable for vessels drawing 18 ft.), about 11 m. from its mouth, and about 15 m. from the ocean. Pop. (1900) 4110 (3220 negroes); (1910) 2486. It is served by the Charleston & Western Carolina railway, has inland water communication with Savannah, Georgia, and its harbour, Port Royal Sound (between Bay Point on the north-east and Hilton Head on the south-west), is one of the largest and best on the coast of South Carolina. Beaufort's beautiful situation and delightful climate make it a winter resort. In the vicinity Sea Island cotton, rice, potatoes and other vegetables are raised—the truck industry having become very important; and there are groves of yellow pine and cypress. Large quantities of phosphate rock were formerly shipped from here. Among the manufactures are cotton goods, canned oysters, lumber and fertilizer. About 5 m. south of Beaufort is the town of Port Royal (pop. in 1910, 363), a terminus of the Charleston & Western Carolina railway. On the Beaufort River (eastern) shore of Paris Island, about 6 m. north of Bay Point, is a United States naval station, with a dry dock and repair shop.
Jean Ribaut (1520-1565), leading an expedition sent out by Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1517-1572) to found a Huguenot colony in New France, sailed into the harbour, which he named Port Royal, on the 27th of May 1562, took possession of the region in the name of Charles IX., and established the first settlement (Fort Charles), probably on Paris Island. In June he sailed for France, leaving 26 volunteers under Captain Albert de la Pierria. Soon afterward the garrison killed Pierria (probably because of the severity of his discipline), and put to sea in an insufficiently equipped vessel, from which, after much suffering, they were rescued by an English ship, and taken to England. In 1670, a company under Colonel William Sayle (d. 1671) landed on Port Royal Island, but probably because this site exposed them to Spanish attacks, proceeded along the coast and founded the original Charles Town (see Charleston). In 1683, several families, chiefly Scotch, led by Henry Erskine, third Lord Cardross (1650-1693), established on the island a settlement named Stuart's Town (probably in honour of Cardross's family); but three years later most of the settlers were murdered by Spaniards from Florida and the remainder fled to Charleston. In 1710, after the lords proprietors had issued directions for “the building of a town to be called Beaufort Town,” in honour of Henry Somerset, duke of Beaufort (1629-1700), the first permanent settlement was established on the island. The town was incorporated in 1803. In January 1779 about 200 British soldiers occupied the island by order of Colonel Augustine Prevost, but they were dislodged (Feb. 3) by about 300
