a village and parish of Scotland, in the county of Inverness, at the head of a small loch of the same name, in the Isle of Skye. It contains an Established church, a Free church, and a parish school. The natural harbour is well sheltered on all sides, and is capable of containing a large number of vessels. Steamers ply regularly between Portree, the other towns on the west coast of Scotland, and Glasgow. Cattle, salmon, and other articles are exported from Portree. Pop. of the parish, 3557.

PORT REPUBLICAIN, or PORT-AU-PRINCE, the capital of the empire of Hayti, and the chief seaport in that island, stands at the head of the bay of Gonavas, on the W. coast, N. Lat. 18° 35', W. Long. 72° 18'. It is partially fortified towards the land, and there is a battery on a small island that protects the harbour. It has a commanding appearance from the sea; but though the streets are broad and regular, the most of the houses are built of wood, low, and mean in appearance. The chief buildings are,—the palace, court-house, church, arsenal, mint, school, and military hospital; but few of these are of any architectural merit. The surrounding country is swampy and unhealthy. Port Republicain carries on some commerce with Jamaica and the United States. The number of ships that entered the port in 1855 was 182, tonnage 30,530; those that cleared 158, tonnage 26,079; besides the coasting trade, in which were employed 38 ships, tonnage 7241. The harbour is quite safe, except during the hurricanes which occur between August and November. Port Republicain was founded in 1749. It was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1770, and has been much injured on various occasions by fire. Pop. 25,000.

PORT ROYAL, a fortified town of Jamaica, once the capital of that island, at the end of a narrow strip of land forming the S. side of Kingston harbour, N. Lat. 17° 56', W. Long. 76° 51'. It was once a flourishing and well-built town, but it has suffered once and again from earthquakes and fires, and its public offices have been removed to Kingston. It still contains a naval arsenal, barracks, hospital, and other buildings, and its harbour is a station for British men-of-war. The town is chiefly inhabited by Negroes. Pop. 15,000.

PORT ROYAL, a name celebrated in history, and under which is designated two nunneries, the one situated near Chevreuse, about 5 leagues from Paris; the other in Paris, in the Faubourg St. Jacques. Hence the two-fold designation of Port Royal de Paris and of Port Royal des Champs. The latter is the more ancient title, dating back as far as the time of Philippe-Auguste, who having lost his way while hunting, found in this sequestered valley a shelter or "port" for himself and his attendants. The monastery was founded in 1204 by Mathilde de Garlande, wife of Matthieu de Marsi of the family of Montmorency, when he was on the eve of setting out for the Holy Land. The nuns were of the order of St Bernard de Citeaux, and had their own abbess. Pope Honorius III., in 1223, conferred upon it the privilege of affording an asylum to seculars without binding themselves by permanent vows. The abbey became rich, and the rules of St Bernard Port Royal were forgotten. It was reserved for Marie Jacqueline Angélique Arnauld, sister to the famous Antoine Arnauld, to introduce into this institution a thorough spirit of reform. She was chosen abbess, through family interest, at the premature age of eleven years; and she had hardly attained to the age of seventeen, in 1608, when she began her work of reform. She resolved at once to shut out the world, and this she gradually effected. In less than five years her sister Agnès, who had been educated at St Cyr, joined the young abbess, and found the reform all but complete. The older nuns gave an example of sincere submission, and the younger were willing to learn. The "Mère Angélique" was removed at this juncture to introduce her discipline at Maubuisson, where the notorious Madame d'Étrés had hitherto ruled. She remained there five years; and on her return to Port Royal des Champs, thirty nuns of Maubuisson besought her to allow them to accompany her. A great many ladies from all parts of France were eager for admittance; and such a rapid increase—where an abbey originally designed for twelve nuns was now inhabited by eighty—began to be a serious inconvenience. The monastery was situated in a deep and thickly-wooded valley, watered by two extensive lakes, which from improper drainage had spread in one continued marsh over the vale. The house at length became a complete infirmary. Madame Arnauld, mother to "Mère Angélique," purchased at a very considerable cost a house known as the Hotel Clagny, situated in the Faubourg St Jacques, Paris, and presented it to her daughter. She removed her nuns to this house in 1625, calling it Port Royal de Paris, while the original Port Royal des Champs was deserted by all save a chaplain, who supplied the parish church. In 1630 M. Angélique obtained a royal grant declaring that the abbess should be elected triennially by the nuns, upon which she and her sister M. Agnès resigned their offices. Six of M. Angélique's sisters were nuns at Port Royal, and her three brothers filled distinguished posts in connection with the state.

The house which they had left, Port Royal des Champs, now became occupied by a number of pious and learned men, who wished to live a secluded life according to the spirit of the papal bull of 1223, and who went by the name of "Les Solitaires de Port Royal." The most distinguished among these recluses were Claude Lancelot, the grammarian; Antoine le Maistre, nephew of the Mère Angélique, who at the early age of twenty-nine, had abandoned the profession of advocate which he had already begun in so distinguished a manner. Antoine was soon followed by his two brothers, Séricourt a distinguished officer, and De Sacy, the eminent translator of the Bible. Add to these the names of the two Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, and Nicolas Fontaine. The greater number of these were disciples of Du Verger d'Hauranne, abbe de Saint Cyran, celebrated for his connection with Jansenius, who had been his schoolfellow at Louvain, and celebrated no less for his controversies with the Jesuits. The animosity towards the Jesuits, it may be safely assumed, was not a whit diminished in this "solitary" company. These men established a school, which was to consist of five classes of five pupils each; organized with the design of counteracting the lax morality which tainted the education of the Jesuits. The teachers were chiefly Lancelot, Arnauld, De Sacy, Nicole, and Fontaine; known all the world over by the excellent school-books which were published for the use of that institution. There were a Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre la Langue Latin; Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre la Langue Grecque; Jardin des Racines Grecques; Grammaire Générale; Éléments de Géométrie; La Logique, ou l'Art de Penser, written conjointly by Lancelot, Arnauld, Nicole, and De Sacy. Among Port Royal the pupils who received their education here were Tillemont and Jean Racine.

Meanwhile the nuns of Port Royal exceeded 180. It became necessary once more to divide them, and Port Royal des Champs was fixed upon as their new abode. The recluse having removed to a farm-house called Les Granges, which was situated on the top of a neighbouring hill, the monastery was left vacant for the occupation of the nuns, who after a twenty-five years' absence, were received back to their old abode with the greatest joy by the entire neighbourhood. The Mère Angelique, their superior by election, led them to their new residence, and inaugurated their proceedings among the happy peasantry. The double fame acquired by the solitaires and by the religieuses secretly aroused the envy and hatred of the Society of Jesus, who harboured already an old grudge against the family of Arnauld. In 1594 Antoine Arnauld, the father of Angelique, gained a lawsuit in behalf of the university of Paris against the Jesuits; and this success had become, what it was afterwards phrased, "the original sin of the Arnaulds." Besides, the adversaries of Port Royal witnessed with pain the education of the most distinguished youth of the kingdom pass out of their hands. On the 1st July 1649, Nicolas Cornet led on before the faculty of theology the famous quarrel of the "five propositions" upon grace, contained in the book of Jansenius. Antoine Arnauld, in defence of Port Royal, condemned the five propositions on the ground of their having no existence in the pages of Augustinus. Arnauld was accused of Jansenism; and the nuns of Port Royal, with their abbess at their head, had the courage to declare that they could not see the five alleged heretical propositions in the work of Jansenius. Orders for their dispersion were on the point of being issued, when a miracle occurred to the niece of Pascal which arrested the hand of the executioner, and brought temporary peace to Port Royal. In 1656 a formulary, condemning the five propositions as having a part in the book of Jansenius, was issued by the Archbishop of Toulouse, and imposed upon all religious communities. The Port Royalists refused of course. At last a royal order came in 1660 to disperse them. While this was transpiring, the Mère Marie Jacqueline Angelique Arnauld dispersed in quite a different fashion. She died on the 6th of August 1661, leaving behind her a name not calculated to die. The young ladies continued refractory; and Perelis, Archbishop of Paris, arrested abbess, prioress, and nuns, by a party of police, and distributed them to the care of several monasteries, where they were kept in a state of confinement. In 1669 a compromise occurred between the Pope and the defenders of Jansenius, known as the peace of Clement IX., when the nuns of Port Royal des Champs were restored to their convent. They no longer possessed Port Royal de Paris. This community was severed from the original stock by the order of the king, confirmed by a bull of Clement X. Subsequently disputes arose between the two communities, in which the Jesuits and the Archbishop of Paris played an important part. The upshot of it was, that in March 1708 a bull of Pope Clement XI. shut the convent of Port Royal des Champs, and transferred the property to Port Royal de Paris. D'Argenson, lieutenant of police, was sent from Paris with a body of men to distribute the sisters among several convents, to strip Port Royal des Champs of all its valuables, and level the building with the ground, as a nest of Jansenists and heretics. The bodies of Le Maître, of Arnauld, of Pascal, of Racine, &c., which lay buried there, were in 1711 exhumed and transported to the cemeteries of Paris. Port Royal de Paris, enriched with the spoils of the House of Champs, continued to subsist without noise or lustre till 1790.

The books that have been written regarding Port Royal Portsmouth are very numerous. The chief are:—L'Histoire Générale de l'Abbaye de Port Royal, by Dom Clément, 10 vols., Amsterdam, 1755-57; Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Port Royal, by Nicolas Fontaine, Utrecht, 3 vols., 1742; Histoire de l'Abbaye de Port Royal, by Besonge, 8 vols., 1756; Mémoires Historique et Chronologique sur l'Abbaye de Port Royal des Champs, by Guibert, 9 vols., 1755-58; L'Histoire de Port Royal, par Jean Racine, 2 vols., published for the first time in 1757; Les Ruines de Port Royal, by Grégoire, 1801; Geschichte von Port Royal, by Reuchlin, Hamburg, 1839; Port Royal by Saint-Beuve, 3 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1842-43; Select Memoirs of Port Royal, by M. A. Schimmelmannnich, 2 vols., 1835, and 3 vols., 1858.