carriage-and-four towards the Pont de Neuilli, when the leaders took the
bit in their teeth, at a spot where there is no parapet, and
precipitated themselves into the Seine: fortunately the shock broke the
traces, and the carriage remained on the brink of the precipice. Pascal,
a feeble, half-paralytic, trembling being, was overwhelmed by the shock.
He fell into a succession of fainting fits, followed by a nervous
agitation that prevented sleep, and brought on a state resembling
delirium. In this he experienced a sort of vision, or extatic trance; in
commemoration of which he wrote a singular sort of memorandum, which,
though incoherent to us, doubtless brought to his memory the
circumstances of his vision. This paper he always kept sewn up in his
dress. The effect of the circumstance was to make him look on his
accident as a call from Heaven to give in all worldly thoughts, and to
devote himself to God. The pious exhortations of his sister, the nun,
had before given him some notion of such a course; and he determined to
renounce the world, and to dedicate himself exclusively to religious
practices.
The account that his sister, madame Périer, gives of the rules of life
to which he adhered is most deeply interesting, as appertaining to a man
of such transcendent genius; and yet deeply painful, since we cannot see
that God could be pleased or served by his cutting himself off from the
enjoyment of all the natural and innocent affections, or by a system of
self-denial, that undermined his health and shortened his life. To
follow up the new rules he had laid down for his conduct, he removed to
another part of Paris; and showed so determined a resolve to renounce
the world that, at last, the world renounced him. In this retreat he
disciplined his life by certain principles, the chief of which was to
abstain from all pleasures or superfluity; in accordance with this
system, he allowed himself nothing but what was absolutely necessary; he
unfurnished his apartment of all carpets and hangings, reserving only a
table and chairs, of the coarsest manufacture: he also, as much as
possible, denied himself the service of domestics: he made his bed
himself; and went to the kitchen to fetch his dinner, and carried it
into his own room, and took back the remains when he had finished: in
short, his servant merely cooked and went to market for him. His time
was otherwise spent in acts of charity, in prayer, and in reading the
scriptures. At first the regularity and quiet of a life of retreat
recruited somewhat his shattered frame: but this did not last. His mind
could not be idle, nor his reasoning powers remain inactive; and he soon
found cause to study as deeply matters connected with religion as before
he had applied himself to the investigation of mathematical truths.
The abbey of Port Royal had not many years before been reformed, and
acquired a high reputation. M. Arnaud (a noble of Auvergne, and a
celebrated advocate,) was the father of a numerous family of children,
and among them a daughter, who, at eleven years of age, was named abbess
of Port Royal. Instead of following the old track of indulgence and
indolence, her young heart became inflamed with pious zeal; and, at the
age of seventeen, she undertook the arduous task of reforming the habits
and lives of the nuns under her jurisdiction. By degrees she imparted a
large portion of her piety to them, and succeeded in her undertaking:
watching, fasting, humility, and labour, became the inmates of her
convent; and its reputation for sanctity and purity increased daily. The
abbey of Port Royal aux Champs was situated at the distance of only six
leagues from Paris; the situation in itself was desolate, but some
private houses appertained to it. Several men of eminent learning and
piety were attracted, by the high reputation that the abbey enjoyed, to
take up their abode in one of these dwellings. They fled the world to
enjoy Christian peace in solitude: but indolence was not a part of their
practice. Besides the works of piety of which they were the authors,
they received pupils, they compiled books of instruction; and their
system of education became celebrated, both for the classical knowledge
they imparted, and the sentiments of religion they inspired. Among these
reverend and illustrious recluses were numbered two brothers of mother
Angelica, the abbess, Arnaud d'Andilli, and Antoine Arnaud, and two of
her nephews; in addition may be named Saci, Nicole, and others, well
known as French theologians, and controversialists. Pascal's attention
being drawn to this retreat by the circumstance of his sister's having
taken her vows in the abbey, he was desirous to become acquainted with
men so illustrious: without taking up his abode absolutely among them,
he cultivated their society, often paid visits of several weeks'
duration to their retreat, and was admitted to their intimacy. They soon
discovered and appreciated his transcendent genius, while he was led by
them to apply his talents to religious subjects. The vigour and justness
of his thoughts inspired them with admiration. Saci was, in particular,
his friend; and the famous Arnaud regarded him with wonder for his
youth, and esteem for his learning and penetration. These became in the
end most useful to the recluses; and from the pen of their young friend
they derived, not only their best defence against their enemies, but a
glory for their cause, founded on the admirable "Lettres Provinciales,"
which have survived, for the purity of their style, vigour of
expression, and closeness of argument; for their wit, and their sublime
eloquence, long after the object for which they were written, is
remembered only as casting at once ridicule and disgrace upon the cause
of religion in France.
It is indeed a melancholy and degrading picture of human nature, to find
men of exalted piety and profound learning, waste their powers on
controversies, which can now only be regarded with contempt, though the
same sentiment cannot follow the virtues which these men
displayed--their constancy, their courage, and noble contempt of all
selfish considerations.
The foundation of the dispute, which called forth at once these virtues
and this vain exertion of intellect, still subsists between different
sects of Christianity. The Christian religion is founded on the idea of
the free will of man, and the belief that he can forsake sin; and that,
according as he does forsake or cling to it, he deserves happiness or
reprobation in the other world. But to this is added, with some, the
belief that sanctification springs from the especial interference of
God; that man cannot even seek salvation without a call; that faith and
grace is an immediate and gratuitous gift of God to each individual whom
the Holy Ghost inspires with a vocation. How far man was born with the
innate power of belief and faith, or how far he needed a particular and
immediate gift of grace to seek these from God, divided the Christian
world into sects at various times, and was the foundation of the dispute
between the molinists and jansenists. The first name was derived from
Molina, a jesuit, who endeavoured to establish a sort of accord between
the Almighty's prescience and man's free will, which gave the latter
power to choose, and sufficing grace to choose well. The jesuits were
zealous in supporting the doctrine of one of their order. They discussed
the points in question with so much acrimony that they laid themselves
open to as violent attacks; they were opposed in particular by the
dominicans; the dispute was carried on in Rome, before assemblies
instituted to decide upon it, but which took care to decide nothing; and
the pope ended, by ordering the two parties to live in peace. Meanwhile
Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, wrote a book on saint Augustin, which
was not published till after his death: this book, which supported the
notion of election by God, was taken up by the adversaries of the
jesuits (hereafter called jansenists, the name of the bishop being
latinised into Jansenius), and they called attention to it. The jesuits
selected five propositions, which they said they found in it, on the
subject of grace and election; and these were condemned as heretical.
Antoine Arnaud rose as their advocate. The jesuits detested him for his
father's sake, who had pleaded the cause of the university of Paris
against them, and gained it. Arnaud declared that he had read the work
of Jansenius, and could not find the five condemned propositions in it,
but acknowledged that, if they were there, they deserved condemnation.
The Sorbonne exclaimed against this declaration as "rash;" for, as the
pope had condemned these propositions as being enounced by Jansenius, of
course they were contained in his book.[55] It was considered necessary
that Arnaud should reply to this attack; but, though a learned man, an
eloquent writer, and a great theologian, his defence was addressed to
the studious rather than the public, and it gained no partisans.
[Sidenote: 1656.
Ætat.
33.]
It was far otherwise when Pascal took up his pen, and, under the name of
Louis de Montalte, published his first letter _à un Provincial_; it was
written in a popular, yet clear and conclusive manner, and in a style at
once so elegant, perspicuous, and pure, that a child might read and
understand, while a scholar would study the pages as a model for
imitation. The success of this letter was prodigious: it did not however
change the proceedings of the Sorbonne; it assembled--its sittings were
crowded with monks and mendicant friars, ignorant men whose opinions
were despicable, but whose votes counted. Arnaud's work was condemned,
and he himself expelled the Sorbonne. This sentence roused Pascal to
continue his labours. He wrote another letter, which met with equal
approbation; but the success only served to irritate Arnaud's enemies;
they obtained another censure of the five propositions from the pope,
and insisted on all suspected persons signing a formula in which they
were renounced. The nuns of Port Royal were called on to put their
names, and, on their resistance, they were threatened with the
destruction of their house, and dispersion.
At this moment, a singular circumstance occurred, which to this day is,
by many, considered a miracle. A sacred relic, one of the thorns of our
Saviour's crown of thorns, had been lately brought to Paris. To a
protestant the pretence of the existence of such a relic is ridiculous,
but the catholic church has always upheld a belief in the miraculous
preservation of these instruments of our Saviour's passion and death.
The holy thorn was carried to many convents, and among others to Port
Royal, and all the inhabitants went in procession, and kissed it. Among
them was a niece of Pascal, daughter of madame Périer. She had been
long ill of a fistula in an eye: she touched the wound with the relic,
and it healed at once.[56] The news of this miracle was spread abroad;
it was believed, and all Paris flocked to the convent. A religious
house, the scene of an actual miracle, was considered too highly
favoured by God to be persecuted; the nuns and the jansenists triumphed;
the jesuits were, for the time, silent and abashed. To add to their
defeat, Pascal continued to write his Letters to a Provincial, attacking
the society with the arms of wit and eloquence. The Jesuitical system of
morality, full of mental reservation and ambiguity--its truckling to
vice, and contradiction to the simple but sublime principles of the
gospel, afforded him a wide field for censure. He wrote not a mere
controversial work, interesting to theologians only, but a book
addressed to all classes. It gained immediate attention; and its
eloquence and beauty have secured its immortality.[57]
The success of this book, the activity of his mind, and his sedulous
study of theology, naturally led Pascal to conceive the project of other
works. The scope of that which principally engaged his attention was, a
refutation of atheists. He meditated continually on this subject, and
put down all the thoughts that occurred to his mind. Illness prevented
him from giving them subsequently a more connected form, but they exist
as his "Pensées," and many of them deserve attention and veneration;
while others, founded on exaggerated and false views of human duties,
are interesting as displaying the nature of his mind. The acuteness and
severity of thought which in early life led him to mathematical
discoveries, he now applied to the truths of Christianity; and he
followed out all the consequences of the doctrine of the church of Rome
with an uncompromising and severe spirit. Want of imagination, perhaps,
caused his mistakes; for mistakes he certainly made. He is sublime in
his charity, in his love and care for the poor, in his gentleness and
humility; but when we learn that he, a suffering, dying man, wore a
girdle armed with sharp points as a punishment for transient and
involuntary emotions of vanity--when we find him reprehending his sister
for caressing her children, and denouncing as sinful the most
justifiable, and indeed virtuous departure from ascetic discipline, we
feel that the mathematical precision with which he treated subjects of
morals is totally at war with the system of the Creator, madame Périer
relates, that she was often mortified and hurt by his cold manner, and
the apparent distaste with which he repulsed her sisterly attentions.
She complained to their sister, the nun; but she understood better his
motives, and explained how he considered it a virtue to love without
attaching himself, and also deemed it sin to excite attachment; and
proved that notwithstanding his apparent coldness his heart was warm, by
mentioning the earnestness with which he served her on any occasion when
she needed his assistance. His most active feeling was charity to the
poor; he never refused alms, and would borrow money on interest for the
sake of bestowing them; and when cautioned that he might ruin himself,
replied, that he never found that any one who had property ever died so
poor but he had something to leave. It was a hard life to which he
condemned himself; a careful avoidance of all attachment--a continual
mortification of his senses, and the labour and sadness of perpetual
association with the suffering; added to this, he aimed at such a state
of abstraction as not to receive pleasure from food; and aware of an
emotion of satisfied vanity when consulted by the learned men of the
day, he, as has been said, wore a girdle armed with sharp points, which
he struck into himself, so to recall his wandering thoughts. A sense of
duty--love of God,--perhaps something of pride, kept him up long; but he
sunk under it at last. He spent five years in a rigid adherence to all
his rules and duties; then his fragile body gave way, and he fell into a
series of sufferings so great, that, though existence was prolonged for
four years, they were years of perpetual pain.
[Sidenote: 1658.
Ætat.
35.]
His illness began by violent toothache; he was kept awake night after
night: during these painful vigils, his thoughts recurred to the studies
of his youth. He revolved in his head problems proposed by the
scientific men of the day.
His attention was now chiefly engaged with the solution of various
questions in the higher departments of geometry, especially those
connected with the properties of cycloids. He succeeded in solving many
problems of great difficulty relating to the quadrature and
rectification of segments and arcs of cycloids, and the volumes of
solids formed by their revolutions round their axes and ordinates.
Except so far as they form part of the history of mathematical science,
and illustrate the powers of great minds, such as that of the subject of
this memoir, these problems have now lost all their interest. The
powerful instruments of investigation supplied by the differential and
integral calculus, have reduced their solution to the mere elements of
transcendental mathematics. At the epoch when they engaged the attention
of Pascal, before the invention of the modern methods, they were
questions presenting the most formidable difficulties. To Pascal,
however, they were mere matters of mental relaxation, resorted to with a
view to divert his attention from his acute bodily sufferings. He
entertained, himself, no intention of making them public. It was,
however, the wish of several of his companions in religious retirement
that they should be made public, were it only to afford a proof that the
highest mathematical genius is not incompatible with the deepest and
most sincere Christian faith.
[Sidenote: 1658.
Ætat.
35.]
Pascal yielded, and, according to a custom which was then usual, however
puerile it may now appear, he, in the first instance, proposed the
several questions which he solved as subjects for a prize to the
scientific world. Many competitors presented themselves; and others,
who, though not competing for the prize, offered partial solutions.
Among these were several who have since attained great celebrity, such
as Wallis, Huygens, Fermat, and sir Christopher Wren.
The prize, however, was not gained, nor the problems solved. In the
beginning of the year 1659, Pascal published his complete solutions of
the problems of the cycloid, with some other mathematical tracts. These
admirable investigations cannot fail to excite in every mind a deep
regret, that a morbid state of moral and religious feeling should ever
have diverted Pascal from mathematical and physical research.
Meanwhile his debility and sufferings increased; but he did not, on that
account, yield, but held fast by his system of self-denial, practising
himself in turning his thoughts resolutely to another subject when any
agreeable sensation was produced, so that he might be true to his
resolve to renounce pleasure, while he bore his pains with inconceivable
fortitude and patience; yet they were sufficient to interrupt his
studies. As the only duty he was capable of performing, he spent his
time in visiting churches where any relics were exposed or some
solemnity observed; and for this end he had a spiritual almanack, which
informed him of the places where there were particular devotions. "And
this he did," says his sister, "with so much devotion and simplicity,
that those who saw him were surprised at it; which caused men of great
virtue and ability to remark, that the grace of God shows itself in
great minds by little things, and in common ones by large." Nor did his
sufferings interrupt his works of charity, and the services he rendered
to the poor. This last duty grew into the passion of his heart. He
counselled his sister to consecrate all her time, and that of her
children, to the assistance of those in want; he declared this to be the
true vocation of Christians, and that without an adherence to it there
was no salvation. Nor did he consider that the rich performed their duty
by contributing only to public charities, but that each person was held
to bestow particular and unremitted attention to individual cases. "I
love poverty," he wrote down, "because Christ loved it. I love property,
because it affords the means of aiding the needy. I keep faith with
every one, and wish no ill to those who do ill to me. I endeavour to be
true, sincere, and faithful to all men. I have a tenderness of heart for
those with whom God has most bound me; and, whether I am alone or in the
view of men, I have the thought of God as the aim of all my actions, who
will judge them, and to whom they are consecrated." Such were the
sentiments of Pascal; and no man ever carried them out with equal
humility, patience, zeal, and fortitude. His simplicity and singleness
of heart were admirable; all who conversed with him were astounded by
his childlike innocence and purity; he used no tergiversation, no
deceit with himself; all was open, submissive, and humble: if he felt
himself guilty of a fault, he was eager to repair it: he attached
himself to the very letter and inner spirit of the gospel, and obeyed it
with all the powers of his nature. His memory was prodigious, yet he
never appeared to recollect any offence done to himself; he declared,
indeed, that he practised no virtue in this, since he really forgot
injuries; yet he allowed that he had so perfect a memory that he never
forgot any thing that he wished to remember.
[Sidenote: 1661.
Ætat.
38.]
Meanwhile his peace of mind was disturbed by a fresh persecution of the
jansenists, which caused the dispersion of the nuns of Port Royal, and
proved fatal to his beloved sister. The jesuits rose from the overthrow,
caused by the miracle, with redoubled force, and, if possible, redoubled
malice; they got the parliament of Provence to condemn the "Lettres
Provinciales" to be burned by the common hangman: they insisted that the
nuns of Port Royal should sign the formula, and on their refusal they
were taken violently from the abbey, and dispersed in various convents.
Jaqueline Pascal was at this time sub-prioress; her piety was extreme,
her conscience tender. She could not persuade herself of the propriety
of signing the formula; but the anticipation of the misery that the
unfortunate nuns would endure through their refusal broke her heart: she
fell ill, and died, as she called herself, "the first victim of the
formula," at the age of thirty-six. Before her profession as a nun, she
had displayed great talents; and had even gained the prize for poetry at
Rouen, when only fourteen: her sensibility was great; her piety extreme.
Pascal loved her more than any other creature in the world; but he
betrayed no grief when he heard of her death. "God grant us grace to die
like her," he exclaimed; and reproved his sister for the affliction she
displayed. It was this question of the signature of the formula that
caused his temporary dissension with the recluses of Port Royal. They
wished the nuns to temporise, and to sign the formula, with a
reservation; but Pascal saw that the jesuits would not submit to be thus
balked, and that they were bent on the destruction of their enemies.
Instead therefore of approving the moderation of the jansenists, he
said, "You wish to save Port Royal--you may betray the truth, but you
cannot save it." He himself became more jansenist than the jansenists
themselves; instead of arguing, as M. Arnaud had done, that the five
propositions were not to be found in Jansenius's work, he declared that
they were in accordance with St. Paul and the fathers; and inferred that
the popes were deceived when they condemned them. He accused the
recluses of Port Royal of weakness: they defended themselves; and, the
dispute becoming known, it was reported that Pascal was converted; for
no one could believe, as was the fact, that he was more tenacious of
their doctrines than they were themselves. His confessor aided, at
first, this mistake, by misconceiving the tendency of some of his
expressions on his death bed; and it was not till three years after
Pascal's death that the truth became known.
At the time we now mention, the period of his sister's death, his own
end was near: decrepid and feeble, his life had become one course of
pain, and each day increased his physical sufferings. He became at last
so ill as to need the constant attentions of madame Périer. He had
given shelter in his house to a poor family, and at this juncture one of
the sons had fallen ill of the small-pox. Fearful that, if his sister
visited him, she might carry this illness to her children, he consented
to remove to her house. But her cares availed nothing; he was attacked
by colics, which continued till his death, but which the physicians did
not believe to be attended with danger. He bore his sufferings with
patience; and, true to his principles, received no attendance with which
he could at all dispense; and, unsoftened by pain, he continued to admit
the sedulous attentions of his sister with such apparent repulsion and
indifference, that she often feared that they were displeasing to him.
Strange that he should see virtue in checking both his own and her
sympathy--that diviner portion of our nature which takes us out of
ourselves, and turns our most painful and arduous duties into
pleasures.[58] In the same spirit, when his sister lamented his
sufferings, he observed, that, on the contrary, he rejoiced in them: he
bade her not pity him, for that sickness was the natural state of a
Christian; as thus they are, as they always ought to be, suffering
sorrow, and the privation of all the blessings of life--exempt from
passion, from ambition, and avarice--ever in expectation of death. "Is
it not thus," he said, "that a Christian should pass his life?--and is
it not a happiness to find one's self in the state in which one ought to
place one's self, so that all one need do is to submit humbly and
serenely?" Self-denial thus became a passion with this wonderful man;
and no doubt he derived pleasure from the excess to which he carried it.