THE ‘PROVINCIAL LETTERS.’
Pascal’s ‘Letters to a Provincial’ represent a great controversy, the
nature of which it is necessary to explain. They are, at the same time,
the most perfect expression of his literary genius, and touch theological
questions with such an inimitable grace and felicity of expression as to
have awakened a universal intellectual interest. It may be hard to
justify this interest by any analysis of their contents, or by such
extracts as can be given from them. No English can convey the exquisite
fitness of French polemical expression in its highest form, its mingled
force and delicacy, its keenness and yet its lightness. We shall,
however, endeavour to give as clearly as we can an account, first, of the
controversy out of which the ‘Letters’ originated, and then of the
consummate skill with which Pascal conducted it.
M. de St Cyran is not merely one of the chief figures connected with Port
Royal: he was the fountain-head of its special power. To his influence
and teaching it was indebted for its chief glory and its most terrible
sufferings. Jean Baptist du Vergier d’Hauranne, better known by the
above official designation, was of noble family. He was born at Bayonne
in 1581, and early devoted himself to the study of theology at Louvain
and Paris. While a student, he is supposed to have first made the
acquaintance of Cornelius Jansen, and to have begun with him that
co-operation which was destined to bear such remarkable fruits. Their
intimacy was one based on spiritual affinity and a common enthusiasm.
For Jansen was the son of poor peasants, without even a surname. His
father is only known as Jan Ottosen, or John the son of Otto; as the son
in his turn was Cornelius Jansen, or the son of John. Jansen was the
younger of the two friends, having been born in 1585; but he appears to
have exercised a powerful influence over his older companion. The great
bond of their union and common enthusiasm was the study of St Augustine.
For the purpose of pursuing this study undisturbed, they retired to the
seaside near Bayonne, and here they established themselves in scholastic
seclusion. Smitten with the desire of attaining theological truth, they
found the Schoolmen constantly appealing to St Augustine as their
authority, and they consequently resolved to examine this authority for
themselves, and so ascend to what they believed to be the source of their
favourite science. Had they taken only one step further, they would have
approached Protestantism; and as it was, the favourite charge which the
Jesuits afterwards made against them was, that they were Calvinists in
disguise. Unconsciously they were so, notwithstanding all their
disclaimers. The Jesuits were unscrupulous; but their penetration here,
as in many other cases, was not at fault. The doctrines so warmly
espoused by Jansen and St Cyran were the old doctrines of _grace_, which
Calvin and they alike borrowed from St Augustine, and he in his turn
found in the Epistles of St Paul. {105} And the controversy which their
labours were destined once more to awaken in the bosom of the Catholic
Church was nothing else than the old dispute which, since the days of
Augustine and Pelagius, had more than once already agitated it.
The fellow-students continued their studies near Bayonne for five years.
So closely did they work, that Jansen is said to have spent days and
nights in the same chair, snatching only brief intervals of rest. A game
at battledore and shuttlecock occasionally relieved their vigils; but no
serious employment divided their attention with the arduous task upon
which they had entered, of mastering and digesting the principles of the
Augustinian theology. The Bishop of Bayonne offered preferment to
D’Hauranne, and there were projects of settling Jansen also at the head
of a college; but it was not till some time afterwards that either of
them entered upon official labours. They were left during those years to
the uninterrupted studies which subsequently resulted in the great work
of Jansen. The system of theological thought associated with his name
was then definitely matured.
It is beyond our province to sketch the career of these fellow-students,
one of whom became the chief spiritual director of Port Royal, and the
other its great theological centre. The abbey of St Cyran was the only
preferment which D’Hauranne ever accepted, notwithstanding Richelieu’s
repeated offers of a bishopric. He was content to exercise from his
monastic seclusion an influence far more powerful than that of any bishop
of his day. And so penetrating and dangerous did this influence seem to
the great Minister whose efforts to bind him to his side had so often
failed, that he at length shut him up in Vincennes (May 1638). Here he
remained in close confinement for more than four years; but even from
this gloomy retreat the impression of his great personal power was spread
abroad, and felt in many quarters as steadily as before. He survived his
release only a few months. His long imprisonment had broken down his
health; and although the enthusiasm of his spirit was strong as ever, his
weakened body was no longer able to answer to its demands. He could
hardly “hold himself up,” and a slight attack of illness carried him off.
St Cyran’s chief strength seems to have lain in a concentrated enthusiasm
and quiet strength of will which enabled him to hold his own against all
opposition, and to subdue other minds larger than his own to his
purposes. When the Prince de Condé interceded for him after his arrest,
Richelieu’s reply was: “Do you know of whom you are speaking? That man
is more dangerous than six armies. _I_ say that attrition with
confession is necessary: _he_ believes that contrition is necessary.
{106} And in the affair of Monsieur’s marriage all France has given way
to me, and he alone has the hardihood to oppose it.” Against all
enticements and assaults alike he set a proud and firm faith in his own
mission—a patience sublime in its calmness, and in the unwavering
consciousness of Divine right on his side. “I am careful to complain of
nothing,” he said in his imprisonment. “I am ready to remain here a
hundred years; to die here, if God will. I am ready for whatever He
designs—for action or for suffering.” The same faith and quiet assurance
gave him his marvellous influence over others, and that fascination which
made him a power in the cultivated society of Paris. All the Arnauld
family more or less owned his influence; and it was his teaching mainly
that peopled Port Royal with the Solitaries who have made it so
illustrious.
The life and work of Jansen seem at first far removed from Port Royal.
He returned to Louvain after his sojourn at Bayonne, and became a
professor of theology in its famous university, on whose behalf he was
employed in several political negotiations with the Spanish Court.
Finally he was appointed Bishop of Ypres, in which capacity he is chiefly
known in the ecclesiastical world. His fame, however, rests not on any
political or ecclesiastical labours, but on the results flowing from his
original studies at Bayonne. He never forgot his devotion to St
Augustine. He is said to have read the whole of his writings ten times,
and the treatises against the Pelagians not less than thirty times. The
fruit of all this studious devotion was his work known briefly as the
‘Augustinus,’ {107} published two years after his death (in 1640).
Nothing could have seemed more innocent or laudable than the attempt by a
bishop of the Church to set forth the doctrine of St Augustine. The book
professed to have been undertaken in a humble spirit.
“I have avoided error where I could,” says the author; “for the cases
in which I could not, I implore the reader’s pardon. . . . Let the
knowledge of my sincerity make amends for the simplicity of my error.
I know that if I have erred, it is not in the assertion of Catholic
truth, but in the statement of the opinion of St Augustine; for I
have not laid down what is true or false, what is to be held or
rejected according to the faith of the Catholic Church, but only what
Augustine taught and declared was to be held.”
A task of such a character, carried out in such a spirit, might have
seemed a harmless one.
But the Jesuits had long marked both St Cyran and Jansen as theological
foes, opposed to their special doctrines. They endeavoured therefore,
first of all, to prevent the publication of Jansen’s work; and failing in
this, they directed all their efforts to procure a condemnation of the
book from the Court of Rome. “Never,” it has been said, “did any book
receive a more stormy welcome. Within a few weeks of its appearance the
University, the Jesuits, the executors of Jansen, the printer of the
‘Augustinus,’ the Spanish governor of the Low Countries, and the Papal
Nuncio were engaged in a warfare of pamphlets, treatises, pasquinades,
pleadings, synods, audiences, which it would be impossible to set forth
in historical sequence.” {108} In the midst of all this, Jansen’s old
fellow-student received the book, in the preparation of which he also had
had some share, in his prison at Vincennes, as if an echo of his own
thoughts. “It would last as long as the Church,” he said. “After St
Paul and St Augustine, no one had written concerning grace like Jansen.”
The Jesuits were resolved in their hostility. They knew that the book,
while assuming a historical form, and professing in the main to represent
the doctrine of Augustine as directed against the errorists of his own
time, had a side reference to the “opinions of certain modern authors,”
understood to be well-known theologians of their own school. This was in
fact acknowledged in an appendix. Unable any longer to wreak their
vengeance on the author himself, they were resolved to put his work under
ban; and accordingly, a Bull was obtained from Rome in the summer of
1642, condemning Jansen by name, and declaring that the ‘Augustinus’
contained “many propositions already condemned” by the Holy See. It was
doubted whether the Pope, Urban VIII., designed to go the length
announced in the bull, and the terms of the condemnation were rumoured to
have been inserted by a Papal officer in the interests of the Jesuits.
The Universities of Louvain and Paris therefore did not take any steps to
carry out the condemnation. They remained spectators of the controversy
which raged around them, in which the Archbishop of Paris on one side,
and the youngest of the Arnauld family on the other, were conspicuous.
Antoine Arnauld was the last of the twenty children born to the great
parliamentary orator and Catherine Marion his wife, of whom we have
already spoken. His nephews, Le Maitre and De Saci, were so near his own
age, that they were accustomed to call him familiarly _le petit oncle_.
Early consecrated to theological studies by the influence of St Cyran and
his mother, he espoused zealously the Augustinian doctrines. A splendid
prospect seemed opening before him, had he chosen to enter the Church and
pursue an ecclesiastical career in the ordinary manner. But while
thirsting for theological distinction, he had scruples about his vocation
to the holy office. He overcame his scruples so far as to become a
priest; but not only would he not accept the benefices placed within his
reach by powerful friends—he insisted on resigning such as he held. He
even disposed of his patrimony for the benefit of Port Royal, preserving
only as much as would provide him with the bare necessaries of life. He
became a doctor in 1641, and already, in 1643, the interest of the whole
theological world was aroused by his treatise, ‘Of Frequent Communion.’
The aim of this treatise, as of all Arnauld’s writings, was
anti-Jesuitical. He set forth, backed by the authority of “Fathers,
Popes, and Councils,” the necessity of spiritual preparation for the Holy
Communion, in opposition to the formula which had been boldly advanced by
more than one Jesuit teacher, that “the more we are devoid of divine
grace, the more ought we to seek Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.” The
commotion made by the publication shows how grave was the need for it.
On the one hand it was warmly welcomed, many pious bishops and doctors
testifying approbation of its contents; on the other hand it was
violently assailed. The Jesuit pulpits resounded with abuse of it and of
its author. All Paris was disturbed by the noise which it made. “There
must be a snake in the grass somewhere,” it was wittily remarked, “for
the Jesuits were never so excited when only the glory of God was at
stake.” The learned Petavius, and even the Prince de Condé, did not
disdain to mingle in the combat. For a time Arnauld seemed to triumph,
but finally the influence of Rome was brought against him, and he was
glad to take refuge in concealment—the first of the many concealments
into which his incessant polemical activity drove him in the course of
his long life. He never abated his opposition. He had no sooner retired
from one controversy, than he reappeared in some other. His energy knew
no bounds, his love of fighting no pause. When in his old age his friend
and fellow-student Nicole advised him to rest. “Rest!” he said; “have I
not all eternity to rest in?”
It was a matter of course that when the great Jansenist controversy
began, Arnauld should be found in the van of it. ‘An Apology for Jansen’
appeared from his pen in 1644, and a second ‘Apology’ in the following
year. It seemed for a time as if the Jesuits would be foiled in their
efforts to secure the effectual condemnation of the book. But at length
one of their number, Nicolas Cornet, Syndic of the Faculty of Theology at
Paris, collected its essential heresy in the shape of seven propositions.
These propositions were afterwards reduced to five; and at length, on the
31st of May 1653, a formal condemnation of them was obtained from the
Court of Rome. There was no longer any doubt as to the attitude of the
Holy See. All the propositions were declared to be distinctly heretical,
and the first and the fifth, moreover, to be blasphemous and impious.
This result was not reached without much debate and delay. No sooner had
Cornet’s propositions appeared than Arnauld assailed them and all who
supported them. A congregation of four cardinals and eleven theological
assessors had been appointed to examine them in the end of the year 1651.
They had taken, therefore, a year and a half to their work, and the
sentence at length issued was intended to bring the long warfare to a
close. In point of fact it kindled a fresh fire, and opened, if not a
larger, yet a more vital controversy. Arnauld retired willingly before a
new writer summoned by himself into the field, and girded with his
blessing as he went forth to the encounter.
The five propositions, which were professed to be extracted from Jansen’s
book, and as such were condemned by the Papal Bull of 31st May 1653, are
so intimately connected with the ‘Provincial Letters’ as to claim a place
in our pages. They are as follows:—
I. There are divine commandments which good men, although willing,
are unable to obey; and the grace by which these commandments are
possible is also wanting in them.
II. No person, in the state of fallen nature, is able to resist
internal grace.
III. In order to render human actions meritorious or otherwise,
liberty from necessity is not required, but only liberty from
constraint.
IV. The semi-Pelagians, while admitting the necessity of prevenient
grace—or grace preceding all actions—were heretics, inasmuch as they
said that this grace was such as man could, according to his will,
either resist or obey.
V. The semi-Pelagians also erred in saying that Christ died or shed
His blood for all men universally.
It would be needless for us to touch these propositions, even by way of
explanation. We have endeavoured to state them from the original Latin
as clearly as we can, so that they may bear some definite meaning even to
the non-theological reader. But their very statement bristles with
controversy, and the half-extinct meanings of old questions that go to
the root of Christian thought lie hid in their language. All the
propositions were condemned without reserve, but two points were left
unsettled. It was not asserted that the propositions were to be found in
the ‘Augustinus,’ and that they were condemned in the sense in which
Jansen held them, and in no other. The course of the controversy and the
fate of Port Royal in the end mainly turned upon these points.
The Papal Bull condemning the five propositions was speedily published in
France, and the triumph of the Jesuits was undisguised. A great blow had
been struck, and for a time all seemed inclined to bow before it.
Political reasons combined with others to give effect to the Papal
verdict. Cardinal Mazarin, in possession of the favour of the
Queen-mother, had imprisoned his enemy, Cardinal de Retz, who had so long
waged in the intrigues and wars of the Fronde a restless conflict with
them; and as the latter in his prosperity had shown a certain favour for
Port Royal, this was enough to stimulate, on the part of Mazarin, an
interest on behalf of the Jesuits. Yet he was reluctant to move actively
against the Jansenists. M. d’Andilly still had his ear in matters of
State, and by his intervention and that of others the project of an
armistice was for a time entertained. Port Royal was to keep silence, if
its enemies did not push their triumph to an extremity. Even the
indefatigable Arnauld seems to have promised to be quiet. But the
Jesuits were too conscious of their power, and too relentless in their
hostility, to pause in their determination to crush their opponents.
They had recourse both to gibes and to active persecution. They printed
an almanac with the figure of Jansen as frontispiece, flying in the guise
of a winged devil before the Pope and the king into the arms of the
Huguenots. They assailed the Duc de Liancourt, and refused him
absolution in his own parish church, for no other reason but that he was
on friendly relations with Port Royal, and would not withdraw, at their
demand, his granddaughter from its protection. This affair, which
appears to have been deliberately planned, caused a great sensation, and
became, strangely, the indirect occasion of the ‘Provincial Letters.’
Indignant at such an outrage, Arnauld was no longer to be restrained. He
rushed before the public with a pamphlet under the title, “Letter of a
Doctor of the Sorbonne to a Person of Condition, concerning an event
which has recently happened in a parish of Paris to a Nobleman of the
Court, February 24, 1655.” The Letter opened with an expression of his
wish to dispute no more; but as Sainte-Beuve hints, the avowed desire of
peace plunged him all the more into war. His letter called forth
numerous replies. He responded by a “Second Letter,” in the shape of a
volume. In this letter his enemies seemed to see his fate written. They
extracted from it two propositions which in their view clearly
contravened the Papal verdict—namely, 1st, that he had expressed doubts
whether the five propositions condemned as heretical were in Jansen’s
book at all; and 2d, that he had really reproduced the first of the five
condemned propositions in one of his own statements, that according to
both the Gospel and the Fathers, St Peter, a just man, was wanting in
grace when he fell. This was nothing but undisguised Jansenism, and his
accusers in the Sorbonne rallied for his overthrow. A meeting was
summoned to consider the letter, and to judge it and the author.
The details of the proceedings would weary the reader. It is sufficient
to say that, notwithstanding the concessions wrung from Arnauld, some of
which were humiliating enough, he was condemned on the first point (Jan.
1656)—the great question of “fait,” in contrast to the question of
“droit,” involved in the second statement as to grace being wanting to St
Peter in his fall. His condemnation, however, was mainly secured by the
introduction of a number of monks who swelled the majority against him,
and the legality of whose vote was challenged by many members. But, as
Pascal afterwards said, “it was easier to find monks than arguments.”
The second and doctrinal point received professedly more deliberate
discussion. The sittings regarding it were protracted till the close of
the month, the 29th of January. But the result was really forestalled.
The restriction laid on free debate was such as to lead no fewer than
sixty doctors to withdraw, protesting to Parliament against the
interference with their rights. Their protest, however, came to nothing.
Sentence was finally passed, against not only Arnauld, but all who
adhered to him or espoused his opinions. The victim, with his usual
adroitness, escaped his pursuers, and went once more into a concealment
which all their vigilance could not penetrate. Two days after the
censure he wrote to one of his nieces, “I am in very close hiding, and by
God’s grace without trouble or disquiet.” “Would you like me to tell you
where M. Arnauld is hidden?” inquired a lady of the _gendarmes_ who were
searching her house for traces of him. “He is safely hidden here,”
pointing to her heart; “arrest him if you can.”
It was in the interval betwixt the first and second judgment of the
Sorbonne that the first of the ‘Provincial Letters’ appeared. The story
is, {116a} that during the course of the process Arnauld, Nicole, and
Pascal, along with M. Vitart, the steward of the Duc de Luynes (to whom
Arnauld’s second Letter had been addressed), and other friends, were met
in secrecy at Port Royal des Champs. Their conversation turned to the
pending case, and the misapprehensions and prejudices which prevailed in
the public mind regarding it. It was felt that some effort should be
made to clear away these prejudices, and to diffuse right information in
a popular form. Arnauld, ever ready with his pen, was prepared himself
to undertake this task; and in a few days afterwards he read to his
friends a long and serious paper in vindication of his position. But his
friends were not moved as he expected. His pen, powerful in its own
sphere, was not fitted to tell upon the popular mind; and his audience
were too honest to conceal their disappointment. Arnauld, in his turn,
frankly acknowledged the truth forced upon him. “I see you do not find
my paper what you wished, and I believe you are right,” he said; and
then, turning all at once to Pascal, he said, “But you, who are young,
who are clever, {116b} you ought to do something.” The effect was not
lost upon Pascal. He divined with his genuine literary instinct exactly
what was required in the circumstances, although distrusting his power to
produce it. He promised, however, to make an attempt, which his friends
might polish and put in shape as they thought fit. Next day he produced
“A Letter written to a Provincial by one of his friends.” The Letter was
unanimously pronounced exactly what was required, and ordered to be
printed. It appeared on the 23d January 1656; and a second followed six
days later.
Nothing could have been happier or more admirably suited for their
purpose than those Letters. They took up the subject for the first time
in a light intelligible to all. They brought to play upon it not only a
penetrating and rapid intelligence, but a brightness of wit, and a
dramatic creativeness, which made the Sorbonne and its parties, the
Jansenists and their friends, alive before the reader. Never was the
triumph of genius over mere learned labour more complete. Arnauld, as he
listened to them, must have felt his own thoughts spring up before him
into a living shape, hardly less startling to himself than to his
opponents.
Addressing his friend in the country, the author expresses his surprise
at what he has come to learn of the character of the disputes dividing
the Sorbonne:—
“We have been imposed upon,” he says. “It was only yesterday that I
was undeceived. Until then I had thought that the disputes of the
Sorbonne were really important, and deeply affected the interests of
religion. The frequent convocation of an assembly so illustrious as
that of the Theological Faculty of Paris, attended by so many
extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances, induced such high
expectations that one could not help believing the business to be of
extraordinary importance. You will be much surprised, however, when
you learn from this letter the upshot of the grand demonstration. I
can explain the matter in a few words, having made myself perfectly
master of it.”
Two questions, he says, were under examination—“the one a question of
fact, the other a question of right.”
He explains the question of fact as consisting in the point whether M.
Arnauld was guilty of temerity in expressing his doubts as to the
propositions being in Jansen’s book after the bishops had declared that
they were. No fewer than seventy-one doctors undertook his defence,
maintaining that all that could reasonably be asked of him was to say
that “he had not been able to find them, but that if they were in the
book, he condemned them there.”
“Some,” he continues, “even went a step farther, and protested that,
after all the search they had made in the book, they had never
stumbled upon these propositions, and that they had, on the contrary,
found sentiments entirely at variance with them. They then earnestly
begged that if any doctor present had discovered them, he would have
the goodness to point them out; adding that what was so easy could
not be reasonably refused, as that would be the surest way to silence
all objectors, M. Arnauld included. But this they have always
refused to do. So much for the one side.
“On the other side are eighty secular doctors, and some forty
mendicant friars, who have condemned M. Arnauld’s proposition,
without choosing to examine whether he has spoken truly or
falsely—who, in fact, have declared that they have nothing to do with
the veracity of his proposition, but simply with its temerity.
Besides these were fifteen who were not in favour of the censure, and
who are called Neutrals.”
Having thus stated the question of fact, and the balance of parties
regarding it, Pascal dismisses it at once, important as it proved in the
after-history of Port Royal.
“As to the issue of the question of fact, I own I give myself very
little concern. It does not affect my conscience in the least
whether M. Arnauld is presumptuous or the reverse; and should I be
tempted from curiosity to ascertain whether these propositions are
contained in Jansen, his book is neither so very scarce nor so very
large but that I can read it all through for my own enlightenment
without consulting the Sorbonne at all.”
Only, while himself hitherto inclined to believe with common report that
the propositions were in Jansen, he was now almost led to doubt that they
were so from the absurd refusal to point them out. In this respect he
fears the censure will do more harm than good. “For, in truth, people
have become sceptical of late, and will not believe things till they see
them.”
But the point being in itself so frivolous, he hastens to take up the
question of right, as touching the faith. And here the play of the
dialogue begins:—
“You and I supposed that the question here was one involving the
deepest principles of grace, as to whether it is given to all men, or
whether it is efficacious of itself. But truly we were deceived.
You must know I have become a great theologian in a short time, and
you will see the proofs of it.”
He describes, then, how he had made a visit to a doctor of the Sorbonne,
who was his neighbour, and one of the most zealous opponents of the
Jansenists, to inquire into the controversy. He asked him why the
question as to grace should not be set at rest by a formal decision that
“grace is really given to all”? But he received a rude rebuff, and was
told that this was not the point. “There were those on his side who held
that grace is not given to all, and even the examiners themselves had
declared, in a full meeting of the Sorbonne, that this opinion was
problematical.” This was, in fact, his own view; and he confirmed it by
what he said was a celebrated passage of St Augustine, “We know that
grace is not given to all men.” He was equally unfortunate in his second
inquiry. His neighbour, opposed as he was to Jansenism, would not
condemn the doctrine of efficacious grace. The doctrine, on the
contrary, was quite orthodox, was held by the Jesuits, and had even been
defended by himself in his thesis at the Sorbonne. The inquirer is
confounded, and ventures to ask then in what M. Arnauld’s heresy
consisted? “In this,” replies his friend, “that he does not acknowledge
that the just have the power of obeying the commandments of God in the
way in which we understand it.” Having got to what he supposes the
“heart of the affair,” he posts off to a Jansenist acquaintance, “a very
decent man notwithstanding.” But if he was puzzled before, he is still
more puzzled when he hears the worthy Jansenist declare that it is no
heresy to hold that “all the just have always the power of obeying the
Divine commandments.” Confounded by such a reply, he felt that he had
been too plain-spoken with both Jansenist and Molinist. {120} There must
be something more in this dispute than he understood; and if not, there
was no reason why there should not now be peace in the Church and the
Sorbonne. He returned to the Molinist, whom he had first visited, with
this assurance. The Jansenists, he said, were quite at one with the
Jesuits as to the power of the righteous always to obey the commandments
of God.
“All very well,” said he, “but you must be a theologian to see the
gist of the matter. The difference between us is so subtle that we
can hardly make it out ourselves. It is quite beyond _your_
understanding. Suffice it for you to know that the Jansenists will
indeed say that the just have always the power of obeying the
commandments—this is not the point in dispute; but they will not say
that this power is _proximate_. _That_ is the point.”
Mystified more than ever by this new and unknown expression, of which he
could get no explanation, the inquirer now returned to his Jansenist
friend to demand of him if he admitted it. “Do you admit the _proximate
power_?” was all that he could say to him. He had charged his memory
carefully with the expression, all the more that he did not understand
it. The Jansenist smiled, and said coldly, “Tell me in what sense you
use the expression, and I will tell you what I believe about it.” But
this was just what he could not do. So he gave the haphazard answer,
that he used it “in the sense of the Molinists.” “Which of the
Molinists?” was the rejoinder. “All of them together, as being one body,
and having one and the same mind,” was the second answer at random: upon
which he is assured he is very ill informed; that the Molinists, instead
of being at one, are hopelessly divided, but that being united in the
design to ruin M. Arnauld, they have all agreed to use this term,
understanding it in different senses, and so by an apparent agreement to
form a compact body in order to crush him more confidently.
The ingenuous inquirer hesitates to believe in such wickedness. He
professes himself to be animated by a pure desire of understanding the
subject, and asks still that the mysterious word _proximate_ may be
explained to him. His Jansenist friend professes a willingness to
enlighten him, but says that his explanation would be liable to
suspicion. He must have recourse to those who invented the expression,
and is referred to a M. le Moine, on the one hand, as representing the
Molinists or Jesuits; and a Father Nicolai as representing the Dominicans
or “New Thomists.” Both of these were real characters: the former a
doctor of the Sorbonne, and a violent anti-Jansenist, who had written on
the subject of grace; the latter a Dominican, who is said, however, by
Nicole to have abandoned the principles of his order and embraced
Pelagianism. The bewildered seeker after theological knowledge resorts,
not to these worthies themselves, with whom he professes to have no
acquaintance, but to certain disciples of theirs. In this manner he gets
a definition of “proximate power,” from which it is apparent that, while
the Jesuits and Dominicans are only agreed in using the same
expression—the meanings they put into it being entirely different—the
Jansenists and Dominicans agree in substance, while only differing in the
use of words. The passage in which the result of his successive
interviews is described is one of the happiest in the letter. On
receiving from the Dominicans, whom he terms “Jacobins,” from their
association with the Rue de St Jacques, where the first Dominican convent
in Paris was erected, an explanation of the doctrine of grace, he
exclaims:—
“Capital! So, according to you, the Jansenists are Catholics, and M.
le Moine a heretic; for the Jansenists say that the just have the
power of praying, but that further efficacious grace is necessary—and
this is what you also approve. M. le Moine, however, says that the
just may pray without efficacious grace—and this you condemn. ‘Ay,’
they replied, ‘but M. le Moine calls this power _proximate power_.’
‘But what is this, my father,’ I exclaimed in turn, ‘but to play with
words—to say that you agree as to the common terms you employ, while
your sense is quite different?’ To this they made no reply; and at
this very point the disciple of M. le Moine, with whom I had
consulted, arrived by what seemed to me a lucky and extraordinary
conjuncture. But I afterwards found that these meetings were not
uncommon; that, in fact, they were continually mixing the one with
the other. I addressed myself immediately to M. le Moine’s disciple:
‘I know one,’ said I, ‘who maintains that the just have always the
power of praying to God, but that nevertheless they never pray
without an efficacious grace which determines them, and which is not
always given by God to all the just. Is such a one a heretic?’
‘Wait,’ said my doctor; ‘you take me by surprise. Come, gently.
_Distinguo_. If he calls this power _proximate power_, he is a
Thomist, and yet a Catholic; if not, he is a Jansenist, and therefore
a heretic.’ ‘He calls it,’ said I, ‘neither the one nor the other.’
‘He is a heretic then,’ said he; ‘ask these good fathers.’ It was
unnecessary to appeal to them, for already they had assented by a nod
of their heads. But I insisted. ‘He refuses to use the word
_proximate_, because no one can explain it to him.’ Whereupon one of
the fathers was about to give his definition of the term, when he was
interrupted by M. le Moine’s disciple. ‘What!’ said he; ‘do you wish
to recommence our quarrels? Have we not agreed never to attempt an
explanation of this word _proximate_, but to use it on both sides
without saying what it means?’ And to this the Jacobin assented. I
saw at once into their plot, and rising to quit them, I said, ‘Of a
truth, my fathers, this is nothing, I fear, but a quibble; and
whatever may come of your meetings, I venture to predict that when
the censure is passed, peace will not be restored. . . Surely it is
unworthy, both of the Sorbonne and of theology, to make use of
equivocal and captious terms without giving any explanation of them.
Tell me, I entreat you, for the last time, fathers, what I must
believe in order to be a Catholic?’ ‘You must say,’ they all cried
at once, ‘that all the just have the _proximate power_.’ . . . ‘What
necessity can there be,’ I argued, ‘for using a word which has
neither authority nor definite meaning?’ ‘You are an opinionative
fellow,’ they replied. ‘You shall use the word, or you are a
heretic, and M. Arnauld also; for we are the majority, and if
necessary we can bring the Cordeliers into the field and carry the
day.’”
The second Letter, entitled “Of Sufficient Grace,” is exactly in the same
vein:—
“Just as I had sealed my last letter,” the writer opens, “I received
a visit from our old friend, M. N---, a most fortunate circumstance
for the gratification of my curiosity. For he is thoroughly informed
in the questions of the day, and up to all the secrets of the
Jesuits, at whose houses, including those of the leading men, he is a
constant visitor.”
Using his friend conveniently as an informant, Pascal proceeds to explain
to the Provincial the question of sufficient grace as betwixt the
Jesuits, Jansenists, and Dominicans. The amusement of the Letter
consists in the manner in which he brings out, as before, the substantial
identity in opinion of the Dominicans and Jansenists, notwithstanding the
junction of the former with the Jesuits to oppress the latter. The
Jesuits hold the old Pelagian doctrine that grace is given to all,
dependent for its efficacy upon the free will of the recipient. This is
with them _sufficient grace_. The Jansenists follow St Augustine, and
will not allow any grace to be _sufficient_ which is not also
efficacious. What is the view of the Dominican?—
“It is rather an odd one,” he says; “for while they agree with the
Jesuits in allowing a _sufficient grace_ given to all men, they
nevertheless hold that with this grace alone men cannot act, but
require further from God an _efficacious grace_ which determines
their will to action, and which is not given to all.”
In short, _this grace_ is _sufficient_ without being so. It bears the
same name as the grace of the Jesuits, but in reality the Dominican
doctrine is that of the Jansenists, that men require efficacious grace in
order to pious action. What is the meaning of all this jumble of
opinion? Simply, that the Dominicans are too powerful to be quarrelled
with. The Jesuits are content that they should so far use the same
language with them.
“They do not insist upon their denying the necessity of efficacious
grace. This would be to press them too far. People should not
tyrannise over their friends; and the Jesuits have really gained
enough. But the world is content with words; and so the name of
sufficient grace being received on all sides, though in different
senses, none except the most subtle theologians can dream that the
expression does not signify the same to the Jacobins and the Jesuits;
and the result will show that the latter are not the greatest dupes.”
This conclusion becomes the subject of conversational by-play, similar to
that of the first Letter:—
“I went straight,” adds the writer, “to the Jacobins, at whose door I
found a good friend of mine, a great Jansenist—for you must know I
have friends amongst all parties—who was inquiring for another
father, different from the one I wanted. But I persuaded him to
accompany me, and asked for one of my New Thomist friends. He was
delighted to see me again. ‘Ah, well,’ I said to him, ‘it seems it
is not enough that all men have a _proximate power_ by which they can
never act with effect; they must also have a _sufficient grace_, with
which they can act just as little. Is not this the opinion of your
school?’ ‘Yes,’ said the good father, ‘and I have this very morning
been maintaining this in the Sorbonne. I spoke my full half-hour;
and had it not been for the sand-glass, I bade fair to reverse the
unlucky proverb which circulates in Paris—“He votes with his cap
[merely by nodding his assent, without speaking] like a monk of the
Sorbonne.”’ ‘And what about your half-hour and your sand-glass?’
said I. ‘Do they shape your discourses by a certain measure?’
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘for some days past.’ ‘And do they oblige you to
speak half an hour?’ ‘No, we may speak as shortly as we like.’ ‘But
not,’ I said, ‘as much as you like. What a capital rule for the
ignorant—what an excellent excuse for those who have nothing worth
saying! But to come to the point, my father—this grace which is
given to all, is it sufficient?’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘And yet it has no
effect without _efficacious_ grace?’ ‘Quite true,’ said he. ‘And
all men have the _sufficient_, but not all the _efficacious_?’
‘Exactly so.’ ‘That is to say,’ I urged, ‘that all have enough
grace, and yet not enough—that there is a grace which is
_sufficient_, and yet does not _suffice_. In good sooth, my father,
that is subtle doctrine. Have you forgotten, in quitting the world,
what the word _sufficient_ means? Do you not remember that it
includes everything necessary for acting? . . . How, then, do you
leave it to be said, that all men have _sufficient_ grace for acting,
while you confess that another grace is absolutely necessary for
acting, and that all have not this? . . . Is it a matter of
indifference to say that with sufficient grace we can really act?’
‘Indifference!’ said he; ‘why, it is _heresy_—formal _heresy_. The
necessity of efficacious grace for effective action is a point of
_faith_. It is heresy to deny this.’ ‘Where, then, are we now? and
what side must I take? If I deny sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist.
If I admit it, like the Jesuits, so that efficacious grace is no
longer necessary, I shall be a heretic, you say. And if I admit it,
as you do, so that efficacious grace is still necessary, why I sin
against common-sense, I am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. What can I
do in this dilemma, of being a blockhead, a heretic, or a Jansenist?
To what a strait are we come, if it is only Jansenists, after all,
who are at variance with neither faith nor reason, and who preserve
themselves both from folly and error?’”
The Dominican, in short, is made to appear very ridiculous in his union
with the Jesuits. Clearly he fights on their side against the Jansenists
at the expense of his honesty and consistency. He is confounded by a
parable representing the absurdity of his position.
“‘It is all very easy to talk,’ was all he could say in reply. ‘You
are an independent and private person; I am a monk, and in a
community. Do you not understand the difference? We depend upon
superiors; they depend upon others. They have promised our votes,
and what would you have me to do?’ We understood his allusion, and
remembered how a brother monk had been banished to Abbeville for a
similar cause.”
The writer is disposed to pity the monk as he relates with a melancholy
tone how the Dominicans, who had from the time of St Thomas been such
ardent defenders of the doctrine of grace, had been entrapped into making
common cause with the Jesuits. The latter, availing themselves of the
confusion and ignorance introduced by the Reformation, had disseminated
their principles with great rapidity, and become masters of the popular
belief; while the poor Dominicans found themselves in the predicament of
either being denounced as Calvinists, and treated as the Jansenists then
were, or of falling into the use of a common language with the Jesuits.
What other course was open to them in such a case than that of saving the
truth at the expense of their own credit! and while admitting the name of
sufficient grace, denying, after all, that it was sufficient! That was
the real history of the business.
This pitiful story of the New Thomist awakens a respondent pity in the
writer. But his Jansenist companion is roused to indignant
remonstrance:—
“Do not flatter yourselves,” he exclaims, “that you have saved the
truth. If it had no other protector than you, it would have perished
in such feeble hands. You have received into the Church the name of
its enemy, and this is to receive the enemy itself. Names are
inseparable from things. If the term _sufficient_ grace be once
admitted, you may talk finely about only understanding thereby a
grace insufficient; but this will be of no avail. Your explanation
will be held as odious in the world, where men speak far more
sincerely of less important things. The Jesuits will triumph. It
will be their sufficient grace, and not yours—which is only a
name—which will be accepted. It will be theirs, which is the reverse
of yours, that will become an article of faith.”
In vain the New Thomist proclaims his readiness to suffer martyrdom
rather than allow this, and to maintain the great doctrine of St Thomas
to the death. His allusion to the importance of the doctrine only calls
forth more severely the indignant eloquence of the Jansenist, and he
brings the Letter to a close in a passage which forestalls the graver and
loftier tone of the later Letters.
“Confess, my father, that your order has received an honour which it
ill discharges. It abandons that grace which has been intrusted to
it, and which has never been abandoned since the creation of the
world. That victorious grace which was expected by patriarchs,
predicted by prophets, introduced by Jesus Christ, preached by St
Paul, explained by St Augustine, the greatest of the Fathers,
embraced by his followers, confirmed by St Bernard, the last of the
Fathers, sustained by St Thomas, the Angel of the Schools,
transmitted by him to your order, maintained by so many of your
fathers, and so gloriously defended by your monks under Popes Clement
and Paul—that efficacious grace which was left in your hands as a
sacred deposit, that it might always, in a sacred and enduring order,
find preachers to proclaim it to the world till the end of time—finds
itself deserted for interests utterly unworthy. It is time that
other hands should arm themselves in its quarrel. It is time that
God should raise up intrepid disciples to the Doctor of Grace, who,
strangers to the entanglements of the world, should serve God for the
sake of God. Grace may no longer count the Dominicans among her
defenders; but she will never want defenders, for she creates them
for herself by her own almighty strength. She demands pure and
disengaged hearts, nay, she herself purifies and delivers them from
worldly interests inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel.
Consider well, my father, and take heed lest God remove the
candle-stick from its place, and leave you in darkness and dishonour
to punish the coldness which you have shown in a cause so important
to His Church.”
The first two Letters are closely connected. They deal with the special
question between Arnauld and the Sorbonne. A short “Reply from the
Provincial” is interposed between the second and third. This reply may
be supposed to be a part of the device employed by Pascal to arouse
public attention and circulate the Letters. The friend in the country
tells how they have excited universal interest. Everybody has seen them,
heard them, and believed them. They are valued not merely by
theologians, but men of the world, and ladies, have found them
intelligible and delightful reading. This is no exaggerated picture of
the sensation which they produced. Their success was prodigious, and
increased with every successive Letter. In an atmosphere charged with
the theological spirit, yet wearied with the dulness of theological
controversy, Pascal’s mode of treating the subject came as a breath of
new life. Here was one who was evidently no mere theologian—who knew
human nature as well as Divine truth. His clear and penetrating
intellect saw at once the many aspects of the dispute lying deep in the
human interests and passions engaged; and as he touched these one by one,
and by subtle and vivid strokes brought them to the front—as Molinist,
New Thomist, and Jansenist appeared upon the scene, and showed in their
natural characters what play of dramatic life was moving under all the
dulness of the debate at the Sorbonne—there was a universal outcry of
welcome. The Letters passed from hand to hand. The post-office reaped a
harvest of profit; copies went through the whole kingdom.
“‘You can have no idea how much I am obliged to you for the Letter
you sent me,’ writes a friend to a lady; ‘it is so very ingenious,
and so nicely written. It narrates without narrating. It clears up
the most intricate matters possible; its raillery is exquisite; it
enlightens those who know little of the subject, and imparts double
delight to those who understand it. It is an admirable apology; and
if they would take it, a delicate and innocent censure. In short,
the Letter displays so much art, so much spirit, and so much
judgment, that I burn with curiosity to know who wrote it.’”
This is the report of the Provincial; and if it is Pascal himself who
speaks, he had little idea that his own _badinage_ would be echoed by
grave critics, in after-years, as not in excess of the actual merit of
his productions. “The best comedies of Molière,” says Voltaire, “have
not more wit than the first Provincial Letters.” It must be admitted
that the brightness of the wit is somewhat dimmed after the lapse of two
centuries. Even the genius of Pascal fails to lighten all the tortuous
absurdities of controversies so purely verbal, and there is an occasional
baldness in the clever device of pitting Molinist, New Thomist, and
Jansenist against one another. The professed artlessness of the speeches
is at times too apparent. But nothing, upon the whole, can be finer than
the address with which this is done; the changes of scene and the turns
of the dialogue are managed with admirable felicity; there is an
exquisite fitness and Socratic point in all the evolutions of the
argument, which we feel even now when we see so clearly behind the
scenes, and know that Molinist and New Thomist must have had a good deal
more to say for themselves. We have only to imagine the atmosphere of
the Sorbonne, or the wider social atmosphere throughout France in the
seventeenth century, impregnated to its core by a subtle controversial
ecclesiasticism, to realise the impression made by “the Small Letters.”
The question everywhere was, Who could have written them? There seems at
first to have been no suspicion of Pascal. He had previously only been
known as a scientific writer; and the secret was, of course, jealously
guarded. Although planned at Port Royal des Champs, he did not remain
there while engaged in their composition. He repaired, as we have
already said, to Paris, and after a while took up his abode “at a little
inn opposite to the Jesuit College of Clermont, just behind the
Sorbonne.” Here he lodged with his brother-in-law, M. Périer, who had
lately come to Paris; and here, too, the latter was visited by Père
Defrétat, a Jesuit and distant relative, who came to tell him that the
suspicions of the Society were beginning to point to Pascal. All the
while Pascal was busy in the room below; and, “behind the closed curtains
of the bed by the side of which they were talking, a score of fresh
impressions of the seventh Letter were laid out to dry.” {132}
Pascal rejoiced in his incognito. It was not till the controversy had
somewhat advanced that he assumed the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. The
third Letter he closed mysteriously with the letters E. A. A. B. P. A. F.
D. E. P., which have been interpreted to mean “Et ancien ami Blaise
Pascal, Auvergnat, fils de Étienne Pascal.” There can be no doubt that
he took a distinct pleasure in the anonymous wounds which he inflicted.
He had a certain love of controversy from the beginning, a feeling of
self-assertion when he took up a cause, and a personal ambition to
triumph in it, which carried him forward, and which come out with almost
painful vividness in the closing letters.
The rage of the Jesuits may be imagined. At first they hardly knew
whether to laugh with the world or to be indignant. The first Letter was
read in the dining-hall of the Sorbonne itself. Some were amused, others
greatly provoked. But, as the Letters proceeded, there was no room for
any feeling but indignation. It was so difficult to set forth any direct
reply to productions mingling such a subtle irony with grave attack.
They could only say of them, as they afterwards more formally did—_Les
menteurs immortelles_. Of the first Letters it is said that 6000 copies
were printed; but, as they were easily passed from hand to hand, this
gives no idea of the numbers who actually read them. Their fame grew
with each successive issue. More than 10,000 copies were printed of the
seventeenth Letter; and editions of the earlier ones were so frequently
reprinted, that it can no longer be told which belonged really to the
first edition.
It is impossible, and would be useless, for us to attempt any description
of the whole series of Letters. We have thought it right to dwell at
some length on the first two, because they enter so directly into the
controversy betwixt Pascal’s friends and the Sorbonne, and because they
are really, in some respects, the cleverest, if not the most valuable.
The third Letter, on the “Censure of M. Arnauld,” and again, the three
concluding Letters, {133} are closely connected with the first two.
Their object, in one form or another, is the defence of the Jansenist
doctrine, and of the Port Royalists, as its supporters. The intervening
twelve Letters stand quite by themselves. They open up the whole subject
of the moral theology of the Jesuits, and constitute the most powerful
assault probably ever directed against it. The subject is one which, in
a volume like this, we can only touch upon, and this more with the view
of drawing out the marked literary features of Pascal’s assault, than of
meddling with the merits of the controversy which he waged so
relentlessly. In the meantime, we must wind up, as briefly as possible,
the more personal aspects of the controversy.
Between the date of the second and the third Letter, the process before
the Sorbonne had been finished, and M. Arnauld’s censure pronounced. The
third Letter deals with this censure. The writer represents the long
preparation for it, the manner in which the Jansenists had been denounced
as the vilest of heretics, “the cabals, factions, errors, schisms, and
outrages with which they have been so long charged.” Who would not have
thought, in such circumstances, that the “blackest heresy imaginable”
would have come forth under the condemning touch of the Sorbonne? All
Christendom waited for the result. It was true that M. Arnauld had
backed up his opinions by the clearest quotations from the Fathers,
expressing apparently the very things with which he had been charged.
But points of difference imperceptible to ordinary eyes would no doubt be
made clear under the penetration of so many learned doctors. Thoughts of
this kind kept everybody in a state of breathless suspense waiting for
the result. “But, alas! how has the expectation been balked! Whether
the Molinist doctors have not deigned to lower themselves to the level of
instructing us, or for some other secret reason, they have done nothing
else than pronounce the following words: ‘This proposition is rash,
impious, blasphemous, deserving of anathema, and heretical!’”
It was not to be wondered at, in the circumstances, that people were in a
bad humour, and were beginning to think that after all there may have
been no real heresy in M. Arnauld’s proposition. A heresy which could
not be defined, except in general terms of abuse, seemed at the least
doubtful. The writer is puzzled, as usual, and has recourse to “one of
the most intelligent of the Sorbonnists” who had been so far neutral in
the discussion, and whom he asks to point out the difference betwixt M.
Arnauld and the Fathers. The “intelligent” Sorbonnist is amused at the
_naïveté_ of the inquiry. “Do you fancy,” he says, “that if they could
have found any difference they would not have pointed it out?” But why,
then, pursues the ingenuous inquirer, should they in such a case pass
censure?—
“‘How little you understand the tactics of the Jesuits!’ is the
answer. ‘How few will ever look into the matter beyond the fact that
M. Arnauld is condemned! Let it be only cried in the streets, “Here
is the condemnation of M. Arnauld!” This is enough to give the
Jesuits a triumph with the unthinking populace. This is the way in
which they live and prosper. Now it is by a catechism in which a
child is made to condemn their opponents; now by a procession, in
which Sufficient Grace leads Efficacious Grace in triumph; and
by-and-by by a comedy, in which the devils carry off Jansen;
sometimes by an almanac; and now by this censure.’ The truth is,
that it is M. Arnauld himself, and not merely his opinions, that are
obnoxious. Even M. le Moine himself admitted ‘that the same
proposition would have been orthodox in the mouth of any other; it is
only as coming from M. Arnauld that the Sorbonne have condemned it.’
. . . Here is a new species of heresy,” concludes the writer. “It
is not the sentiments of M. Arnauld that are heretical, but only his
person. It is a case of personal heresy. He is not a heretic for
anything he has said or written, but simply because he is M. Arnauld.
This is all they can say against him. Whatever he may do, unless he
cease to exist he will never be a good Catholic. The grace of St
Augustine will never be the true grace while he defends it. It would
be all right were he only to combat it. This would be a sure stroke,
and almost the only means of establishing it and destroying Molinism.
Such is the fatality of any opinions which he embraces.”
In the three concluding Letters, as we have said, Pascal reverts to the
special subject of Jansenism and Port Royal. These Letters are
considerably longer than the opening ones. It is of the sixteenth, in
fact, that he makes the well-known remark, that “it was very long because
he had no time to make it shorter.” Upon the whole, also, these Letters
are less happy in style and manner. It is evident that Pascal, if he
gave blows which made his opponents and the opponents of Port Royal
wince, also received some bruises in return. The shamelessness of the
attacks made upon his friends and himself, contemptible as they were in
their nature, left scars upon a mind and temper so sensitive and reserved
as his. The “insufferable audacity” with which “holy nuns and their
directors” had been charged with disbelieving the mysteries of the faith
was “a crime which God alone was capable of punishing.” To bear such a
charge required a degree of humility equal to that of the nuns
themselves—to believe it, “a degree of wickedness equal to that of their
wretched defamers.” As for himself, it seemed enough to say of him that
he belonged to Port Royal, as if it were only at Port Royal that there
could be found those capable of defending the purity of Christian
morality. He knew and honoured the work of the pious recluses who had
retired to that monastery, although “he had never had the honour of
belonging to them.” And in the seventeenth Letter he says:—
“I have no more to say than that I am not a member of that community,
and to refer you to my letters, in which I have declared that ‘I am a
private individual;’ and again in so many words that ‘I am not of
Port Royal.’ . . . You may touch Port Royal if you choose, but you
shall not touch me. You may turn people out of the Sorbonne, but
that will not turn me out of my lodging.”
These statements, of course, are to be received as so far a part of the
disguise under which Pascal pursued his task. It was true that he had no
official connection with Port Royal, that he was under no rule to live in
its retirements, and that he was only occasionally found there. He was
singularly free, “without engagements, entanglement, relationship, or
business of any kind.” All the same he was a Port Royalist in sympathy
and community of opinion. The interests of Port Royal were his
interests, and its friends his friends. His own sister was one of its
zealous inmates. There is a certain force, therefore, in the taunt that
Pascal, in “unmasking the duplicity of the Jesuits, did not hesitate to
imitate it.” His statements are not beyond the licence accorded to those
who would drive an enemy off the scent, and shelter themselves within an
anonymity which they have chosen to assume; but they are none the less
artful and misleading. They justify themselves as the fence of the
_littérateur_, hardly as the armour of the moralist. But the truth is,
that long before this Pascal had warmed to his work as a
controversialist. He was determined to give no advantage, and to spare
no weapons within the bounds of decency, that might make the Jesuits feel
the force of his assault. Their accusation of heresy especially
exasperated him.
“When was I ever seen at Charenton?” {138} he says in the seventeenth
Letter, addressed to the Jesuit Father Annat. “When have I failed in
my presence at mass, or in my Christian duty to my parish church?
What act of union with heretics, or of schism with the Church, can
you lay to my charge? What council have I contradicted? What Papal
constitution have I violated? You _must answer_, father; else—you
know what I mean.”
The Jansenist doctrine of grace, as we have already explained, approached
indefinitely the doctrine of Calvin. Both were derived from Augustine;
and St Thomas, as his interpreter, handed on to the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries the precious deposit. The line of thought was
continuous, and it was not easy to break it at Calvin, and isolate him as
a heretic, while holding to other teachers as Catholic and orthodox.
This was the dilemma of the New Thomists, so pithily expressed by one of
themselves in the second Letter. But it was also Pascal’s own dilemma;
and the consciousness which he and his friends had of the nearness of the
Jansenist doctrine to that of Calvin, made them all the more sensitive
under the charge of heresy. The Jesuits had art enough to see the
advantages which came from this association. The Port Royalists and
Pascal failed in the magnanimity which clung to a truth no less because
it was identified with an abused name. They insisted upon distinguishing
between the tenets of Jansen and Calvinism. If what the Papal decree
meant and the Sorbonne meant in the condemnation of the Jansenist
proposition was that they condemned the doctrines of Calvin, then they
were all agreed.—Jesuits, Jansenists, and Port Royalists.
“Was that all you meant, father?” asks Pascal in his concluding
Letter. “Was it only the error of Calvin that you were so anxious to
get condemned under the name of ‘the sense of Jansen’? Why did you
not tell us this sooner? you might have saved yourself a world of
trouble; for we were all ready without the aid of bulls or briefs to
join with you in condemning that error. . . . Now, when you have
come the length of declaring that the error which you oppose is the
heresy of Calvin, it must be apparent to every one that they [the
Port Royalists] are innocent of all error; for so decidedly hostile
are they to this, the only error with which you charge them, that
they protest by their discourses, by their books, by every mode, in
short, in which they can testify their sentiments, that they condemn
that heresy with their whole heart, and in the same manner in which
it has been condemned by the Thomists, whom you acknowledge without
scruple to be Catholics.”
The professed point of difference stated in the same Letter—namely, that
the Thomists and Sorbonnists (and of course the Port Royalists with them)
held that efficacious grace is resistible, while Calvin held that it was
irresistible—may or may not hold in reference to special expressions of
Calvin. But there is nothing, upon the whole, stronger in Calvin than
there is in Augustine on the subject of grace; and on the other hand, an
“efficacious grace,” which is “resistible”—which the human heart can
accept or repel _at will_—seems open to all the ironical play which
Pascal directs so skilfully in his first Letters against the Jesuit
doctrine of a _sufficient_ grace which is not yet sufficient. The truth
is, that apart from verbal subtleties, which Pascal could handle no less
familiarly, only far more skilfully, than his adversaries, there is no
rational position intermediate between the Pelagian doctrine (which is
also substantially the Aristotelian) of free will and moral habit, and
the Augustinian doctrine of Divine grace and spiritual inspiration. The
source of character is either from within the character itself, which has
power to choose good and to be good if it will, or it is from a higher
source—the grace of God, and the power of a Divine ordination. These are
the only real lines of controversy. The Christian thinker may decline
controversy on such a subject altogether, acknowledging that the mystery
of character is in its roots beyond our ken,—that we know not, and in the
nature of the case cannot know, where the Human ends and the Divine
begins. In such a case there is no room for argument. But we cannot
with consistency step off one line on to the other. In other words, we
cannot logically abuse Calvin while we hold with Augustine, or profess to
revere St Thomas while we abuse Jansen.
But it is more than time to turn from this side of the ‘Provincial
Letters.’ This was the controversy out of which they sprang—which
mingles itself most with the personality of Pascal—and hence it has
claimed a somewhat detailed treatment. The great subject to which the
intervening and chief portion of the Letters is directed is not, indeed,
more important in itself, but it is more diversified, and more
practically interesting. Here, however, Pascal was more obviously
performing a task than in the other Letters. He was speaking less out of
his heart. Having grappled with the Jesuits, and noticed their tactics
in the affair of the Sorbonne, he is led to look into their whole system.
He takes up their books and studies them, in part at least; while his
friends Nicole and Arnauld also study them for him. And the result is
the remarkable and memorable assault contained in his thirteen
Letters—from the fourth to the sixteenth—directed against all the main
principles of the Jesuit system.
It would lead us quite away from our purpose to enter into the range of
this great controversy, or to endeavour to estimate its value, or the
merits of the attack and defence on particular points. The subject is
one by itself, more or less entering into the whole question of morals,
and especially the immense fabric of casuistry or moral theology built up
by successive teachers in the Jesuit schools. Trained, as he was, a
devout disciple of the Roman Church, enthusiastic on behalf of its
doctrines and preachers, Pascal had apparently no knowledge of the
details of Jesuit doctrine and morality before he began his task of
inquiry and assault. Austere and simple in his own principles of virtue,
direct and unbending in his modes of action, he was evidently appalled by
the study of the Jesuit system, and the endless complexities of
compromise and evasion which it presented. In seizing, as he did
everywhere, upon the immoral aspects of the system, and touching them
with the most graphic colours of exposure, he cannot be said to be
unfair; for the materials with which he dealt were all abundant in their
writings. His quotations may be sometimes taken at random, and may set
forth, without any of the alleviating shades surrounding them in their
proper context, special points as parts of a general sequence of thought.
They were, no doubt, often furnished to him by Nicole or Arnauld, who
hunted them through the immense volumes of casuistical divinity in which
they were contained. But there is no reason to suppose that in any case
he has been guilty of misquotation, or that he has attributed sentiments
to the Jesuit doctors not to be found in them. This is very much his own
statement:—
“I have been asked if I have myself read all the books which I have
quoted. I answer, No. If I had done so, I must have passed a great
part of my life in reading very bad books; but I have read Escobar
twice through, and I have employed some of my friends in reading the
others. But I have not made use of a single passage without having
myself read it in the book from which it is cited, without having
examined the subject of which it treats, and without having read what
went before and followed, so that I might run no risk of quoting an
objection as an answer, which would have been blameworthy and
unfair.”
No doubt this is true. There is all, and more than all, that Pascal
quoted to be found in the Jesuit writings, and his own language is not
too strong in speaking of much that he quotes as “abominable.”
Notwithstanding, it may be said that the effect of his representation is
a certain unfairness towards the Jesuits. He presses them at a cruel
advantage when he insists upon developing from his own point of view, or
still more from the mouth of some of their too simple followers, all the
practical consequences of their special rules. The system of casuistry
was one not solely of Jesuitical invention. It was the necessary
outgrowth of the radical Roman principle of Confession. Nay, it
flourished to some extent within the Protestant Church itself in the
seventeenth century, as the writings of two very different men, Jeremy
Taylor and Richard Baxter, show. Once admit the principle of directing
the conscience by external rather than internal authority, and you lay a
foundation upon which any amount of folly, and even crime, may be built
up. This was the general principle of Jesuitism as a system of
education; but it came to it from the Church which Pascal, no less than
the Jesuits, revered. Nay, it was in its general character a principle
as characteristic of Port Royal as of Loyola and his followers. There is
the enormous difference, no doubt, that the ethics of Port Royal were
comparatively faithful to the essential principles of morality which
Nature and the Gospel alike teach—that its practical excesses were quite
in a different direction from the laxity of the Jesuits. But two things
are to be remembered, not in favour of the Jesuits, but in explanation of
their excesses: 1st, that they aimed, as Pascal himself points out, at
governing the world, and not merely a sect—that their whole idea of the
Church in relation to the world was different from that of the Port
Royalists; and 2d, that their system of morals not merely rested on a
wrong and dangerous principle (which Pascal’s no less did), but had been
endlessly developed in their schools by many inferior hands. This was
Pascal’s great weapon against them, and so far it was quite a legitimate
weapon, as he himself claimed. As none of their books could appear
without sanction, the Order was more or less responsible for all the
frightful principles set forth in some of these books. All the same, it
is not to be presumed that such a system of moral, or rather immoral,
consequences was deliberately designed by the Society. Pascal himself
exempts them from such a charge. “Their object,” he says, “is not the
corruption of manners; . . . but they believe it for the good of religion
that they should _govern all consciences_, and so they have evangelical
or severe maxims for managing some sorts of people, while whole
multitudes of lax casuists are provided for the multitude that prefer
laxity.” {144a} The Jesuit system of morality, in short, was the growth
of the Jesuit principle of accommodation, added on to the Roman principle
of external authority. Looking at morality entirely from without, as an
artificial mode of regulating life and society for the supreme good of
the Church, the Jesuit casuists were driven, under the necessities of
such a system, from point to point, till all essential moral distinction
was lost in the mechanical manipulations of their schools. Whatever
happened, no man or woman was to be lost to the Church; the complications
of human interest and passion were to be brought within its fold and
smoothed into some sort of decent seeming, rather than cast beyond its
pale and made the prey of its enemies. {144b} The task was a hopeless
one. In the pages of Pascal the Jesuits too obviously make a deplorable
business both of religion and morality. But they were as much the
victims as the authors of a system which Rome had sanctioned, and which
came directly from the claims which it made to govern the world not
merely by spiritual suasion, but by external influence. Jesuitism may be
bad, and the Jesuit morality exposed by Pascal abominable, but the one
and the other are the natural outgrowth of a Church which had become a
mechanism for the regulation of human conduct, rather than a spiritual
power addressing freely the human heart and conscience.
Our space will not admit of an analysis of the thirteen Letters dealing
with the Jesuits, and we can hardly give any quotations from them.
Suffice it to say, that Pascal passes in the fourth Letter to a direct
assault upon the Society. “Nothing can equal the Jesuits,” the Letter
begins. “I have seen Jacobins, doctors, and all sorts of people; but
such a visit as I have made today baffles everything, and was necessary
to complete my knowledge of the world.” He then describes his visit to a
very clever Jesuit, accompanied by his trusty Jansenist friend, and
gradually unfolds from the mouth of the former the whole system of moral
theology which had grown up in the Jesuit schools,—their notions of
“actual grace,” or the necessity of a special conscious knowledge that an
act is evil, and ought to be avoided, before we can be said to be guilty
of sin in committing the act; their famous doctrines of _probabilism_ and
of _directing the intention_, and all the consequences springing out of
them. Nothing can be more ingenious than the manner in which the Jesuit
is led forward to unfold point after point of his hateful system, as if
it were one of the greatest boons which had ever been invented for
mankind, until from concession to concession he is plunged into the most
horrible conclusions, and the Jansenist can stand the disclosures no
longer, but breaks forth in the end of the tenth Letter into a powerful
and eloquent denunciation of the doctrines to which he has been
listening.
Any lighter vein that may have lingered in the Letters is abandoned from
this point. Pascal ceases to address his friend in the country; the
playful interchange that sprang from the idea of a third party, to whom
Pascal was supposed to be merely reporting what he had heard, occurs no
more. He turns to the Jesuit fathers directly, and addresses them, as if
unable any longer to restrain his indignation, commencing the eleventh
Letter with an admirable defence of his previous tone, and of the extent
to which he had used the weapon of ridicule in assailing them, and
passing on to reiterate his charges, and to repel the calumnies with
which they had assailed him and his Port Royalist friends. The reader
may weary, perhaps, for a little, as he threads his way through the
successive accusations, and the monotonous train of evil principles which
underlies them all, more or less. He may wish that Pascal had gone to
the roots of the system more completely, and had laid bare its germinal
falsehood, instead of heaping detail upon detail, and always adding a
darker hue to the picture which he draws. But any such mode of treatment
would not half so well have served his purpose. His audience were not
prepared for any philosophy of exposure, still less for any attack upon
the essential principles of the Church; he himself did not see how the
successive laxities which he fixes with his poignant satire, or sets in
the light of his withering scorn, spring from a vicious conception of
Christianity and of the office of the Church. He does what he does,
however, with exquisite effect; and the Jesuit Order, many and powerful
as have been its opponents, never before nor since felt itself more
keenly and unanswerably assailed. Many of them were forced to laugh at
the picture of their own follies, and the immoral nonsense which
distilled from the lips of Father Bauny and others, in explanation or
defence of their practices. “Read that,” says the confidential Jesuit
who expounds to Pascal their system: “it is ‘The Summary of Sins,’ by
Father Bauny; the fifth edition, you see, which shows that it is a good
book. ‘In order to sin,’ says Father Bauny, ‘it is necessary to know
that the _thing we wish to do is not good_.’” “A capital commencement,”
I remarked. “Yet,” said he, “only think how far envy will carry some
people. It was on this very passage that M. Hallier, before he became
one of our friends, quizzed Father Bauny, saying of him ‘_Ecce qui tollit
peccata mundi_—Behold the man who taketh away the sins of the world.’”
{147} Then after an elaborate description of all that goes to make a
sin—
“‘O my dear sir,’ cried I, ‘what a blessing this will be to some
friends of my acquaintance! You have never, perhaps, in all your
life met with people who have fewer sins to account for! In the
first place, they never think of God at all, still less of praying to
Him; so that, according to M. le Moine, they are still in a state of
baptismal innocence. They have never had a thought of loving God, or
of being contrite for their sins; so that, according to Father Annat,
they have never committed sin through the want of charity and
penitence. . . . I had always supposed that the less a man thought
of God the more he sinned; but from what I see now, if one could only
succeed in bringing himself not to think of God at all, everything
would be peace with him in all time coming. Away with your
half-and-half sinners who have some love for virtue! They will be
damned every one of them. But as for your out-and-out sinners,
hardened and without mixture, thorough and determined in their evil
courses, hell is no place for them. They have cheated the devil by
stern devotion to his service!’” {148}
It is in hits like these, everywhere scattered throughout the earlier
letters, to which no translation can do justice, and which lose half
their edge by being separated from their context, that the wit of Pascal
shines. A more delicate, and at the same time more scathing irony,
cannot be conceived. He hits with the lightest stroke, and in the most
natural manner, yet his lash cuts the flesh, and leaves an intolerable
smart. All that could be said in answer was, that his representations
were lies. They were conscious exaggerations, no doubt, as all satirical
representations are. This is of their very nature. But the extent to
which they told, and the bitterness of the feeling which they excited at
the time, and have continued to excite amongst the Jesuits and their
friends, show how much truth there was in them. Nothing can be more
pitiful and less satisfactory than mere complaints of their falsehood.
Such complaints were hardly to have been expected from any other quarter
than the Jesuits themselves. Yet even Chateaubriand, in his new-born
zeal for the Church, could say of their author, “Pascal is only a
calumniator of genius. He has left us an immortal lie.”
Of the graver part of the Letters, the following are the only extracts
that our space will permit:—
JESUIT LAXITY AND CHRISTIAN INDIGNATION.
“Such is the way in which our teachers have discharged men from the
‘painful’ obligation of actually loving God. And so advantageous a
doctrine is this, that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and A.
Sirmond even, have defended it vigorously when assailed by any one.
You have only to consult their answers in the ‘Moral Theology;’ that
of Father Pintereau, in particular (second part), will enable you to
judge of the value of this dispensation by the price which it has
cost, even the blood of Jesus. This is the crown of such a
doctrine.” (A quotation is then given from Father Pintereau to the
effect that it is a characteristic of the new Evangelical law, in
contrast to the Judaical, that “God has lightened the troublesome and
arduous obligation of exercising an act of perfect contrition in
order to be justified.”) “‘O father,’ said I, ‘no patience can stand
this any longer. One cannot hear without horror such sentiments as I
have been listening to.’ ‘They are not my sentiments,’ said the
monk. ‘I know that well; but you have expressed no aversion to them;
and far from detesting the authors of such maxims, you cherish esteem
for them. Do you not fear that your consent will make you a
participator in their guilt? Was it not sufficient to allow men so
many forbidden things under cover of your palliations? Was it
necessary to afford them the occasion of committing crimes that even
you cannot excuse by the facility and assurance of absolution which
you offer them? . . . The licence which your teachers have assumed
of tampering with the most holy rules of Christian conduct amounts to
a total subversion of the Divine law. They violate the great
commandment which embraces the law and the prophets; they strike at
the very heart of piety; they take away the spirit which giveth life.
They say that the love of God is not necessary to salvation; they
even go the length of professing that this dispensation from loving
God is the special privilege which Jesus Christ has brought into the
world. This is the very climax of impiety. The price of the blood
of Jesus, the purchase for us of a dispensation from loving Him!
Before the incarnation we were under the necessity of loving God.
But since God has so loved the world as to give His only Son for it,
the world, thus redeemed by Him, is discharged from loving Him!
Strange theology of our time!—to take away the anathema pronounced by
St Paul against those “who love not the Lord Jesus Christ;” to blot
out the saying of St John, that “he that loveth not abideth in
death;” and the words of Jesus Christ Himself, “He that loveth me not
keepeth not my commandments!” In this manner those who have never
loved God in life are rendered worthy of enjoying Him throughout
eternity. Behold the mystery of iniquity accomplished! Open your
eyes, my father; and if you have remained untouched by the other
distortions of your Casuists, let this last by its excess compel you
to abandon them.’” {150a}
DEFENCE OF RIDICULE AS A WEAPON IN CONTROVERSY.
“What, my fathers! must the imaginations of your doctors pass for
faithful verities? Must we not expose the sayings of Escobar, {150b}
and the fantastic and unchristian statements of others, without being
accused of laughing at religion? Is it possible you have dared to
repeat anything so unreasonable? and have you no fear that in blaming
me for ridiculing your absurdities, you were merely furnishing me
with a fresh subject of arousing attack, and of pointing out more
clearly that I have not found in your books any subject of laughter
which is not in itself intensely ridiculous; and that in making a
jest of your moral maxims, I am as far from making a jest of holy
things as the doctrine of your Casuists distant from the holy
doctrine of the Gospel? In truth, sirs, there is a vast difference
between laughing at religion and laughing at those who profane it by
their extravagant opinions. It were an impiety to fail in respect
for the great truths which the Divine Spirit has revealed; but it
would be no less impiety of another kind to fail in contempt for
falsehoods which the spirit of man has opposed to them. . . . Just
as Christian truths are worthy of love and respect, the errors which
oppose them are worthy of contempt and hatred: for as there are two
things in the truths of our religion—a divine beauty which renders
them lovable, and a holy majesty which renders them venerable; so
there are two things in such errors—an impiety which makes them
horrible, and an impertinence which renders them ridiculous.” {151a}
Many examples from the Scriptures and the Fathers are then quoted in
defence of the practice of directing ridicule against error; and he
closes with a singularly appropriate passage from Tertullian: “Nothing is
more due to vanity than laughter; it is the Truth properly that has a
right to laugh, because she is cheerful—and to make sport of her enemies,
because she is sure of victory.”
“Do you not think, my fathers, that this passage is singularly
applicable to our subject? The letters which I have hitherto written
are ‘only a little sport before the real combat.’ As yet I have been
only playing with the foils, and ‘rather indicating the wounds that
might be given you than inflicting any.’ I have merely exposed your
sayings to the light, without commenting on them. ‘If they have
excited laughter, it is only because they are so laughable in
themselves.’ These sayings come upon us with such surprise, it is
impossible to help laughing at them; for nothing produces laughter
more than surprising disproportion between what one hears and what
one expects. In what other way could the most of these matters be
treated? for, as Tertullian says, ‘To treat them seriously would be
to sanction them.’” {151b}
APPEAL AGAINST THE JESUITS.
“Too long have you deceived the world, and abused the confidence
which men have put in your impostures. It is high time to vindicate
the reputation of so many people whom you have calumniated; for what
innocence can be so generally acknowledged as not to suffer
contamination from the daring aspersion of a society of men scattered
throughout the world, who, under religious habits, cover irreligious
minds; who perpetrate crimes as they concoct slanders—not against,
but in conformity with, their own maxims? No one can blame me,
surely, for having destroyed the confidence which you might otherwise
have inspired, since it is far more just to vindicate for so many
good people whom you have decried, the reputation for piety they
deserved, than to leave you a reputation for sincerity which you have
never merited. And as the one could not be done without the other,
how important was it to make the world understand what you really
are. This is what I have begun to do; but it will require time to
complete the work. The world, however, shall hear of you, my
fathers, and all your policy will not avail to shelter you. The very
efforts you make to ward off the blow will only serve to convince the
least enlightened that you are afraid, and that, smitten in your own
consciences by my charges, you have had recourse to every expedient
to prevent exposure.” {152}
The effect of the ‘Provincial Letters’ was not only to alarm the Jesuits,
but the Church. The scandal of their exposure was so deeply felt, that
the _curés_ of Paris and Rouen appointed committees to investigate the
accuracy of Pascal’s quotations, and the result of their investigation
was entirely in Pascal’s favour. This led ultimately to the matter being
carried before a General Assembly of the clergy of Paris, which, however,
declined to give any formal decision. In the meantime, an ‘Apology for
the Casuists’ was published by a Jesuit of the name of Pirot, of such a
character as to increase rather than abate the scandal, and a new
controversy gathered around this publication. The Sorbonne took up the
question, and, after examination, condemned Pirot’s Apology (July 1658)
as they had formerly done Arnauld’s propositions, and ultimately it was
included by Rome in the ‘Index Expurgatorius,’ along with the ‘Provincial
Letters,’ to which it was designed as a reply. While the question was
before the Sorbonne, the _curés_ of Paris published various writings,
under the name of ‘Facta,’ in support of the conclusions to which they
had come. These writings were prepared in concert with Pascal and his
friends, and the second and fifth are ascribed entirely to his pen. It
is even said that he looked upon the latter, in which he drew a parallel
betwixt the Jesuits and Calvinists (to the disadvantage of the
Protestants), as the _best thing he ever did_. {153} Long after Pascal’s
death (in 1694) an elaborate answer appeared, by Father Daniel, to the
‘Provincial Letters,’ under the title of ‘Entretiens de Cléandre et
d’Eudoxe sur les Lettres au Provincial;’ but notwithstanding a certain
amount of learning and apparent candour, the reply made no impression
upon the public. Even the Jesuits themselves felt it to be a failure.
“Father Daniel,” it was said, “professed to have reason and truth on his
side; but his adversary had in his favour what goes much farther with
men,—the arms of ridicule and pleasantry.” As late as 1851 an edition of
the ‘Letters’ appeared by the Abbé Maynard, accompanied by a professed
refutation of their misstatements. But the truth is, Pascal’s work is
one of those which admit of no adequate refutation. Even if it be
granted that he has occasionally made the most of a quotation, and
brought points together which, taken separately in their connection, have
not the offensive meaning attributed to them, this touches but little the
reader who has enjoyed their exquisite raillery or has been moved by
their indignant denunciation. The real force of the Letters lies in
their wit and eloquence—their mingled comedy and invective. They may be
parried or resented—they can never be refuted.
We have already quoted Voltaire’s saying, “The best comedies of Molière
have not more wit than the first Provincial Letters.” “Bossuet,” he
added, “has nothing more sublime than the concluding ones.” They were
regarded by him as “models of eloquence and pleasantry,” as the “first
work of genius” that appeared in French prose. When Bossuet himself was
asked of what work he would most wish to have been the author, he
answered, “The ‘Provincial Letters.’” Madame de Sévigné writes of them
(Dec. 21, 1689): “How charming they are! . . . Is it possible to have a
more perfect style, an irony finer, more delicate, more natural, more
worthy of the Dialogues of Plato? . . . And what seriousness of tone,
what solidity, what eloquence in the last eight Letters!” Our Gibbon
attributed to the frequent perusal of them his own mastery of “grave and
temperate irony.” Boileau pronounced them “unsurpassed” in ancient or
modern prose. Encomiums could hardly go higher, and yet the language of
Perrault is in a still higher strain: “There is more wit in these
eighteen Letters than in Plato’s Dialogues; more delicate and artful
raillery than in those of Lucian; and more strength and ingenuity of
reasoning than in the orations of Cicero.” Their style especially is
beyond all praise. It has “never been surpassed, nor perhaps equalled.”
There may be, as there is apt to be in all such concurrent verdicts, a
strain of excess. The duller English sense may not catch all the finer
edges of a style which it may yet feel to be exquisite in its general
clearness, harmony, and point; the absurdities of verbal argument and of
Jesuit sophistry may sometimes pall upon the attention, and hardly raise
a smile at this time of day. It is the fate of even the finest polemical
literature to grow dead as it grows old; yet none can doubt the
immortality of the genius which has so long given life to such a
controversy, and charmed so many of the highest judges of literary form.
It is not for any Englishman to challenge the verdict of a Frenchman in a
matter of style.
Pascal himself evidently thought highly of his success. He liked the
controversy, its excitement, and the applausive echo which followed each
Letter. Like every true artist, he felt the joy and yet the gravity of
his work. He took up his pen with a pleasurable sense of mastery, and
yet he wrote some of the Letters six or seven times over. He spared no
pains, yet he never wearied. All his intellectual life for the time was
thrown into the controversy, and his most finely-tempered strokes made
music in his own mind, while they carried confusion to his adversaries
and triumph to his friends. The sensation made by the Letters was, of
course, mainly confined to France; but the nervous Latinity of Nicole
soon communicated something of the same sensation to a wider circle.
{156} Pascal has himself told us that he never repented having written
them, nor “the amusing, agreeable, ironical style” in which they were
written. Even the condemnation of the Papal See, abject in some respects
as was his devotion to his Church, did not move him on this point. He
left on record, amongst his Thoughts, the following solemn declaration:
“IF MY LETTERS ARE CONDEMNED IN ROME, WHAT I CONDEMN IN THEM IS CONDEMNED
IN HEAVEN. AD TUUM, DOMINE JESU, TRIBUNAL APPELLO.”