no 



PASCAL 



rinin of fluid*, tin- mathematical theory c.f proh- 

 aliility, and the pro|>crties of the cycloid. In the 

 very last in. mill- of hi- life we hnd him lui-ily 

 engaged in a scheme for running omnibuses on the 

 street* of Paris. 



In the autumn of 1C.47 lie returned to Paris, anil 

 we fitul him frequently MOMBpuyinB JaaqMliiM 

 in her visits to tin- church of 1'ort Koyul. Next 

 year their fatlier relumed to Paris a* t'ouncilloi ..I 

 State, anil took the pair to Clcrmont for nearly 

 two yean. In Septemiier ItWl he died, in 

 line," now free to cam- out her desire, joined Port 

 i:.iynl in tin- January of HW2. From sonic of her 

 .r.ited phrases Paitcal has l>een needlessly 

 supiMised to have lived u worldly lif'- with the Due 

 de Roannez ami other friend-, ami hi- liisruiir* tiir 

 let Patnoiu de f Amour has IM-CII interpreted as 

 itupired by a hopeless passion for Chariot te (loutlier 

 duke- sister, then alxmt sixteen 

 yean old. C<Ttain it breathes a genuine passion 

 throughout, nml ilicre can be little doubt that it 

 wan written out of some real experience. If Pascal 

 liil love her, it i- nio-t |irol>alile that he never told 

 his love, for h<; continued to the close the warm 

 friend ami corrcsiMindcnt of herself and her brother 

 alike. She vacillated awhile Ik-twecn the cloister 

 nnd the world, passed through her novitiate at 

 Port Koyul, then manied the Due de la Feuillade, 

 saw her' children die and her own health decay, 

 and early sank into the yr.iv <. 



In the autumn of IC.~>4 Paitcal s second conver- 

 sion occurred, and from thin period date those 

 severe and gloomy austerities which darkened his 

 life and doubtless "hastened him to the grave. The 

 immediate occasion may have lieen a narrow escape 

 from death through his horses running away when 

 driving to Neuilly, hut the moment that remained 

 ever sacred in his memory wax that of a remark- 

 aide vision or ecstasy, Novemher 23, 1654, com- 

 memorated in a few broken sentences of im- 

 pMsioned and mystical devotion in his Profession 

 of Faith, or Amulet, as Condorcet called it, which 

 was found after his death, copied in his own hand- 

 writing l>oth on paper and parchment, and sewn 

 into his (Imililet, Ix-ing apparently stitched anew 

 into every change of clothes. (See, hut only for 

 its facts, Ltlnfft L'Amulette de Pascal, MM.) 

 From this time a complete change passed over 

 his life; he subjected himself to the most rigid 

 mortifications, complete ilenial of self, Imnndless 

 charity, and alwudiite ol-dicnce to liis spiritual 

 director, and ever won- around his body a girdle 

 of iron, the sharp points of which he would press 

 into hit llesh when In- felt in danger from worldly 

 temptations or wandering thoughts. For a time 

 he livi-d in Port Koyul, anrl henceforth he threw 

 liirn-elf with a pa. ionutc ilevotion into its cause, 

 Arnauld was condemned hy the SorlHinnu in HM.'I, 

 not merely for doubting whether tin 1 famous Fi\c 

 l'in|i.iiioTi. condemn- 1 were actually contained 

 in the work of .Ian-en, hut also for asserting the 

 identity of the August iniaii and .laiisenist doctrine., 

 of </'""'"' '//'".'', and for declaring that the ar>;u- 

 inents asea ajtaint the .1 v.crc themselves 



erroiiiHius or fnlsil'ml : and his friends now thought 

 the time ha<l come for the jmblic to be informed 

 nliout the whole ipiestioii at issue. 



IB a bappy hour I'.i-eil \\.i- induced to lend his 

 pen to the canw, nnd on the 2.'ld .lanuary Iftjfl, in 

 the interval l-ctwccn the fin-t and secoml judg- 

 inent <rf the Sorlxinii'' on Arnauld. ap|K:ui< 

 Leittr trritlfH ton I'mn ii'-inl In/ mir nf/n'.i /',.. 

 A second was issued a few days later, nml as its 

 ueeewoni followed he MMUned the pseudonym of 

 'ixmis de MonUilte.' These 'little letters ''the 

 greatest tracts for the times thai \n ? ever i--ued 

 flew from hand to band, and the rajte and fury 

 4if the Jeuiits knew no bounds. Never before hud 



lieen seen in the whole ratine of controversy such 

 delicate jet scathing irony, such lightness of touch 

 yet keenness of thrust, such Socralic ilireclness and 

 point, Midi mastery of incisive argument wcilded to 

 perleci (jraee and felicity of phnise and rare distinc- 

 tion of style. 'Thelx-st comedies of Moliere have- 

 not more wit than the first Piovineial Lett 

 says Voltaire, and he adds. ' Itossuet has nothing; 

 more sublime than the concluding ones.' Voltaire 

 lells us that Itossiict himself i-onlessed that had he 

 not written hi own, he would rather have written 

 them than any other liook he knew ; even .Madame 

 ile Scvi^ne Uiwi-d her heml In-fore their Miverei^Tl 

 delicacy and perfection of style; Iloih-nu owned 

 them unsurpassed in ancient or modern time>; 

 mil places them aluwe Plato for wit, I.m-ian 

 for dt-licaU* and artful raillery, and Cicero's orations 

 foi strength and iii^enuiiv of reawming; and trillion 

 tells us that almost e\ery year he perused them 

 with fii-sh pleasure, and from them learned -to 

 manage the weapon of j;riive and temperate irony, 

 even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity.' There 

 are altogether eighteen I.i'tters from the ]>cn of 

 Pascal himself, a brief fragment of a nineteenth 

 awrilied to him. ami a twentieth on the Inquisition 

 frotii the pen of M. Le Maitre. The first two deal 

 with the special question between Arnanld and the 

 Soi Uinne ; the thinl and two coiicludin<; letters are 

 closely connecled with these; the intervening 

 lliiileen (4-16) open up the whole subject of the 

 moral theolojjy of the Jesuits, nnd form the most 

 formidable attack ever made upon the order. The 

 fabric of the moral theology or casuistry of the 

 Jesuits, with all its subtle equivocations and refine- 

 ments for the extenuation of sin, appalled the 

 austere soul of Pascal as he read into it : and by 

 the end of the tenth letter, after completin;.' his 

 exposition of their theology, he turns to address 

 the Jesuit fathers directly, and breaks into language 

 of eloquent and indeed sublime denunciation. The 

 eleventh defends the application of the method of 

 raillery to serious subjects; the twelfth and thir- 

 teenth rise to an eloquence equalled only in Demos- 

 thenes ; the sixteenth is that the length of which 

 he excuses because he had not had time to make it 

 shorter. In the composition of his Letters I'.i-ral 

 owed much to the material- collected in the Port 

 Koyal work, l.a T/ifologie Morale rfcs .Itxuitr* 

 (it>44). His quotations were confessedly often 



furnished for him from the wider reading M friends 

 like Nicole and Arnauld, hut he tells us that he 

 himself read Kscobar's seven volumes I w ice through, 

 and never made use of a single passage supplied to 

 him without having specially examined it and its 

 context. It has been charged against him that he 

 sometimes quotes inexactly, ami that he is unfair 

 in taking quotations out of their svtting, lint the 

 ical grievance of his adversaries is nothing more 

 th. en this, that he turns their Hank by taking their 

 own positions and developing them practically to 

 their natural conclusions. And if it be said that 

 he treated with too great seriousness the si 

 ments nnd arguments of inferior writers, it must 

 lie remembered that all these liooks were issued 

 under the imjiriinutur of the order. At anyrate 

 the Jesuits were much readier with denial and 

 denunciation than counter-arguments ami proof; 

 the replies of Pirot (Ki'iTI, Daniel (16!4), and 

 Dumas (1700) were pitiful failures, and hardly 

 moii- can lie said of the onslaught of Joseph de 

 Maistre (in Dt FJtgltM (.'///.(/,. 1S2I ) and of the 

 Ablx'- Maynard's edition of the Letters wilh a pro- 

 fessed refutation (1851 ). Pascal's own final judg- 

 ment of his work was expressed in these solemn 

 words: 'Though my Letter- !> condemned at ROHM, 

 what I condemn in them is condemned in Heaven. 

 Ad tuiim, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello.' 



his conversion and the beginning of his 



