Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/357

 PASCAL 335 less passion for Charlotte de Roannez, the duke s sister. It cannot be too decidedly said that all this is sheer romancing. The extant letters of Pascal to the lady show no trace of any affection (stronger than friendship) between them. As to Pascal s worldly life, it might be thought that only the completest ignorance of the usual dialect of the stricter religious sects and societies (and it may be added of Port Royal in particular) could induce any one to lay much stress on that. A phrase of Jacqueline s about the &quot; horribles attaches &quot; which bound her brother to the world may pair off with hundreds of similar expressions from Bunyan downwards. It is, how ever, certain that in the autumn of 1654 Pascal s second &quot; conversion &quot; took place, and that it was lasting. He betook himself at first to Port Royal, and began to live a recluse and austere life there. Madame Perier simply says that Jaccpueline persuaded him to abandon the world. Jacqueline represents the retirement as the final result of a long course of dissatisfaction with mundane life. But there are certain anecdotic embellishments of the act which are too famous to be passed over, though they are in part apocryphal. It seems that Pascal in driving to Neuilly was run away with by the horses, and would have been plunged in the river but that the traces fortunately broke. To this, which seems authentic, is usually added the late and more than doubtful tradition (due to the Abb6 Boileau) that afterwards he used at times to see an imaginary precipice by his bedside or at the foot of the chair on which he was sitting. Further, from November 23, 1654, dates the singular document usually known as &quot; Pascal s amulet, &quot; a parchment slip which he wore con stantly about him, and which bears the date followed by some lines of incoherent and strongly mystical devotion. But, whatever may have been the immediate cause of Pascal s conversion and (for a time) domestication at Port Royal, it certainly had no evil effect on his intellectual or literary powers. Indeed, if he had been drowned at Neuilly he would hardly be thought of now as anything but an extraordinarily gifted man of science. It must also be noted that, though he lived much at Port Royal, and partly at least observed its rule, he never actually became one of its famous solitaries. But for what it did for him (and for a time his health as well as his peace of mind seems to have been improved) he very soon paid the most ample and remarkable return that any man of letters ever paid to any institution. At the end of 1655 Arnauld, the chief light of Port Royal, was condemned by the Sorbonne for a letter which he had published expressing doubt whether the famous five propositions were to be found in Jansen, and, as much was made of this condemna tion, it was thought important by the Jansenist and Port Royal party that steps should be taken to disabuse the popular mind on the whole controversy. Arnauld would have undertaken the task himself, but his wiser friends knew that his style was anything but popular, and over ruled him. It is said that he personally suggested to Pascal to try his hand, and that the first of the famous Provincial Letters (this familiar name, or rather misnomer, is an abbreviation from the proper title of Lettres ficrites par Louis de Montalte a un Provincial de ses Amis) was written in a few clays, or, less probably, in a day. It was printed on the 23d January 1656, and, being immensely popular and successful, was followed by others to the number of eighteen, in which not merely the special points at issue but the whole ethical and doctrinal system of the Jesuits was pulled to pieces. In the Provinciates Pascal, who it must be remembered published under a strict incognito, denies that he belongs to Port Royal, and in fact, though during the last years of his life he was wholly devoted to its interests, he was never a regular resident there, and usually abode in his own house at Paris. Shortly after the appearance of the Provinciales, on May 24, 1656, occurred the miracle of the Holy Thorn, a fragment of the crown of Christ pre served at Port Royal, which cured the little Marguerite Perier of a fistula lacrymalis. The Jesuits were much mortified by this Jansenist miracle, which, as it was offici ally recognized, they could not openly deny. Pascal and his friends rejoiced in proportion. But the details of his later years after this incident are somewhat scanty, and as recorded by his sister and niece they tell of increasing ill health, and of ascetic practices and beliefs increasing still more. One curious incident, contrasting equally with this state of things and with Pascal s studious character and renown, is what Madame Perier calls &quot; 1 affaire des carrosses,&quot; a scheme of the Due de Roannez and others for running omnibuses in Paris, which was actually carried out, of which Pascal was in some sort manager, and from which he derived some profit. This, however, is an excep tion. Otherwise, for years before his death, we hear only of acts of charity and of, as it seems to modern ideas, extravagant asceticism. Thus Madame Perier tells us that he disliked to see her caress her children, and would not allow the beauty of any woman to be talked of in his pre sence. What may be called his last illness began as early as 1658, after which year he never seems to have enjoyed even tolerable health, and as the disease progressed it was attended with more and more pain, chiefly in the head. In June 1662, having given up his own house to a poor family who were suffering from small-pox, and being unwilling that his sister should expose herself to infection, he went to her house to be nursed, and never afterwards left it. His state was, it seems, mistaken by his physicians, who to the last maintained that there was little danger so much so that the offices of the church were long put off. He was able, however, to receive the eucharist, and soon afterwards died in convulsions on August 19th. A post mortem examination was held, which showed not only grave derangement in the stomach and other organs, but a serious lesion of the brain. Eight years after Pascal s death appeared, in a small volume, the book which has given most trouble to all students of Pascal, and most pleasure to some of them. It purported to be Pascal s Pensees, and a preface by his nephew Perier gave the world to understand that these were fragments of a great projected apology for Christianity which the author had in conversation with his friends planned out years before. The editing of the book was peculiar. It was submitted to a committee of influential Jansenists, with the Due de Roannez at their head, and, in addition, it bore the imprimatur of numerous unofficial approvers who testified to its orthodoxy. It does not appear that there was much suspicion of the garbling which had been practised, garbling not unusual at the time, and excused in this case by the fact of a lull in the troubles of Port Royal and a great desire on the part of its friends to do nothing to disturb that lull. But as a matter of fact no more entirely fictitious book ever issued from the press. The fragments which it professed to give were in them selves confused and incoherent enough, nor is it easy to believe that they all formed part of any such single and coherent design as that referred to above. But the editors omitted, altered, added, separated, combined, and so forth entirely at their pleasure, actually making some changes which seem to have been thought improvements of style. As an instance of their anxiety to avoid offence, it may be noticed that they rejected, apparently as too outspoken, Madame Perier s invaluable life of her brother, which was written to accompany the second edition of the Pensees, but did not actually appear with them till 1684.