laudable. We compassionate his mistake when he looks on the uselessness
and helplessness of sickness as a good, but we admire him when we
contemplate his sublime charity. In his last hours he lamented that he
had not done more for the poor; more wholly devoted time and means to
their relief. He made his will, in which he bestowed all that he could,
with any justice, leave away from his family; and as he was forced,
through the excess of his sufferings, to accept more of comfort and
attention than he thought consonant with virtue, he desired either to be
removed to an hospital, where he might die among the poor, or that a
sick mendicant should be brought to his house, and receive the same
attention as himself. He was with difficulty diverted from these
designs, and only gave in submission to the dictates of his
confessor.
He felt himself dying--his pains a little decreased, when a weakness and
giddiness of the head succeeded, precursors of death: his physicians did
not perceive his imminent danger, and his last days were troubled by
their opposition to his wish to take the sacrament. His sister, however,
perceived that his illness was greater than was supposed, and prepared
for the last hour, which came more suddenly even than she expected.
[Sidenote: 1662.
Ætat.
39.]
He was one night seized with convulsions, which intermitted only while
he roused himself to communicate, and, then recurring, they ended only
with his life. He died on the 19th August, 1662, at the age of
thirty-nine.
We contemplate the career of this extraordinary man with sentiments of
mingled pity and admiration. He certainly wanted a lively imagination,
or he would not have seen the necessity of so much mortification and
suffering in following the dictates of the gospel. His charity, his
fortitude, his resignation, demand our reverence; but the view he took
of human duties was distorted and exaggerated: friendship he regarded as
unlawful--love as the wages of damnation--marriage as a sin disguised;
he saw impurity in maternal caresses, and impiety in every sensation of
pleasure which God has scattered as flowers over our thorny path.
A modern writer[59] has said, that he pities any one who pronounces on
the structure and complexion of a great mind, from the comparatively
narrow and scanty materials which can, by possibility, have been placed
before him; and observes, that modest understandings will rest convinced
there remains a world of deeper mysteries, to which the dignity of
genius refuses to give utterance. And thus, in all humility, we despair
of penetrating the recesses of Pascal's mind, while solving mathematical
problems that baffled all Europe; writing works replete with wit and
wisdom, close reasoning and sublime eloquence; and the while believing
that he pleased the Creator by renouncing all the blessings of life; by
spending his time in the adoration of relics, and shortening his life by
self-inflicted privation and torture. His works, replete with energy and
eloquence as they are, present many of the same difficulties. We have
already spoken at large of his "Lettres Provinciales." His "Pensées,"
or Thoughts, which he wrote on loose scraps of paper, meaning hereafter
to collect them in the form of a work, for the conversion of atheists,
contain much that is admirable and true, though we may be allowed to
object to some of his reflections. He has been praised for the mode in
which he enounces the idea, that an atheist plays a losing game[60]; he
had far better believe, since thus he gains the chance of eternal
happiness, while by disbelief he insures eternal damnation. This
thought, however, is founded on misapprehension, and a want of knowledge
of the human mind. Belief is not a voluntary act--it is the result of
conviction; and we have it not in our choice to be convinced. Besides,
love of truth is a passion of the human soul; and there are men who,
perceiving truth in disbelief, cling to it as tenaciously as a
religionist to his creed. The method of convincing infidels by
commenting on the beauty of the morality of the gospel, and its
necessity for the happiness of man, is far more conclusive. On the
excellence of Christianity, and the benefits mankind has derived from
its propagation, is founded the noblest argument for its truth; and he
has urged these eloquently and forcibly in other portions of his work.
Pascal, indeed, must always rank among the worthiest upholders of the
Christian faith; one who taught its lessons in their purity, and only
erred by being good overmuch. The same precision and clearness of mind
that made him a good mathematician led him to excellence in the practice
of Christian virtues; but it also led an adherence to the letter rather
than the spirit, and to the taking up its asceticism in preference to
the holier duties which are an integral part of the plan of the
creation, and form the most important portion of human life.
[Footnote 53: La Vie de M. Pascal, écrite par Madame Périer, sa sœur.]
[Footnote 54: Life of Galileo, by Drinkwater, p. 90, 91.]
[Footnote 55: Innocent X., in condemning propositions, did not cite the
passages in which they were to be found; and, in fact, they are not
quoted with verbal correctness. Voltaire asserts that they are to be
found there in spirit; and he cites passages which establish his
assertion. _Siècle de Louis_ XIV., chap. XXXVII.]
[Footnote 56: Madame Périer, in the life she has written of her
brother, mentions the miraculous cure of her daughter: "This fistula,"
she says, "was of so bad a sort, that the cleverest surgeons of Paris
considered it incurable. Nevertheless she was cured in a moment by the
touch of the holy thorn; and this miracle was so authentic, that it is
acknowledged by every body." Racine, in his fragment of a History of the
Abbey of Port Royal, details the whole circumstance with elaborate faith
in the most miraculous version of it. He says, that such was the
simplicity of the nuns, that though the cure took place on the instant,
they did not mention the miracle for several days, and some time elapsed
before it was spread abroad. Voltaire says, that persons who had known
mademoiselle Périer told him that her cure was very long. Still some
circumstance must have made it appear short, or so universal a belief in
a miracle, sufficient at the time to confound the jesuits, could not
have been spread abroad; nor would her uncle, Pascal, the most upright
and single-minded of men, have given it the support of his testimony.]
[Footnote 57: Boileau's admiration for Pascal was unbounded. He declared
the "Lettres Provinciales" to be the best work in the French language.
Madame de Sévigné, in her letters, narrates a whimsical scene that
took place between him and some jesuits. Their conversation turning on
literary subjects, Boileau declared that there was only one modern book
to be compared to the works of the ancients. Bourdaloue begged him to
name it. Boileau evaded the request. "You have read it more than once, I
am sure," he said, "but do not ask me its name." The jesuit insisted;
and Boileau, at last, taking him by the arm, exclaimed, "You are
determined to have it, father; well, it is Pascal." "Morbleu! Pascal!"
cried Bourdaloue, astonished. "Yes, certainly Pascal is as well written
as any thing false can be." "False!" exclaimed Boileau, "False! Know
that he is as true as he is inimitable." On another occasion, a jesuit,
father Boubours, consulted Boileau as to what books he ought to consult
as models for style. "There is but one," said Boileau, "read the
'Lettres Provinciales,' and believe me that will suffice." Voltaire
pronounces the same opinion: he calls Pascal the greatest satirist of
France; and says that Molière's best comedies have not the wit of the
first of these Letters, nor had Bossuet written any thing so sublime as
the latter ones.]
[Footnote 58: He thus expresses his sentiments on individual
attachments: "It is unjust to attach one's self, even though one should
do it voluntarily and with pleasure: I should deceive those in whom I
call forth affection--for I cannot be the end of any one, and possess
not that by which they can be satisfied. As I should be culpable if I
caused a falsehood to be believed, although I should persuade gently and
was believed with pleasure, arid hence derive pleasure myself--so am I
culpable if I caused myself to be loved, and attracted persons to attach
themselves to me. I ought to undeceive those who are ready to give faith
to a falsehood in which they ought not to believe, and in the same way
teach them that they should not attach themselves to me; for their lives
ought to be spent in pleasing God, and seeking him." As if the
beneficent Creator would not be pleased in seeing his creatures linked
by the bonds of those very affections which he himself has made the law
of our lives. One wonders where and how Pascal lived, that he did not
discover that the worst crimes and vices of mankind arose from want of
attachment: and that hardness of heart, pride, and selfishness, would,
in the common run of men, be the consequences of an adherence to his
creed.]
[Footnote 59: Lockhart, in his Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. VII.]
[Footnote 60: The following is Pascal's address to Atheists:--
"I will not certainly make use, to convince you, of the faith by which
we ascertain the existence of God, nor of all the other proofs which we
possess, since you will not receive them. I will act by your own
principles, and I undertake to show you, by the manner in which you
daily reason on matters of less consequence, the way in which you ought
to reason on this, and the part you ought to take in deciding the
important question of the existence of God. You say we are incapable of
knowing whether there be a God. Yet either God is, or God is not--there
is no medium: towards which side, then, shall we lean? Reason, you say,
cannot decide. An infinite gulph separates us. Stake, toss up at this
distance; heads or tails--on which will you bet? Your reason does not
affirm, nor can your reason deny one or the other.
"Do not blame the falsehood of those who have chosen--you cannot tell
whether they are mistaken: No, you say I do not blame the choice they
have made, but that they choose at all; he who chooses heads and he who
chooses tails are both in the wrong--the right thing is not to make the
wager.
"Yes; but the wager must be made. You have no choice--you are embarked;
and not to bet that God does exist, is the same as betting that he does
not. Which side will you be on? Weigh the gain and loss of taking that,
that there is a God. If you win, you win all: if you lose, you lose
nothing. Bet then that he doe's, without hesitation. Yes, you must
wager. But perhaps I wager too much. Let us see. Since there is equal
risk of gain or loss, even if it were only that you gain two lives for
one, it were worth betting; and if you had ten to win, you would be
imprudent not to risk your life to gain ten, at a game in which there is
so much to be lost or won. But here there is an infinite number of lives
to gain, with equal risk of losing or winning, and what you stake is so
little and of so short duration that it is folly to fear hazarding it on
this occasion."
Pascal reasons better in the following article:--
"We must not deceive ourselves, we are as much body as soul, and thus it
is that persuasion does not use demonstration only as its instrument.
How few things are proved? Proofs only convince the understanding. Habit
renders our proofs strong; that persuades the senses, and gains the
understanding without an exertion of its own. Who has demonstrated that
there will be a to-morrow, or that we shall die? and yet what is more
universally believed. Habit, then, persuades us. Habit makes so many
Turks and Pagans: it makes trades, soldiers, &c. We ought not, indeed,
to begin finding the truth through habit--but we ought to have recourse
to it, when once the understanding has discerned the truth, so to imbibe
it, and imbue ourselves with a belief which perpetually escapes from
us--for to be for ever calling the proofs to mind would be too
burdensome. We must acquire an easy belief--which is that of habit;
which, without violence, art, or argument, causes us to believe, and
inclines all our faculties to faith, so that our soul naturally falls
into it. It is not sufficient to believe by force of conviction, if our
senses incline us to believe the contrary. We must cause both parts to
agree: the understanding through the reason that it has once
acknowledged: and the senses, through habit, by not allowing them to
incline the other way.
"Those to whom God has given religion as a feeling of the heart are
happy and entirely convinced. We can only desire it for those, who have
not this by reason, until God impresses it on the heart."]
MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
1626-1696
It appears ridiculous to include a woman's name in the list of "Literary
and Scientific Men." This blunder must be excused; we could not omit a
name so highly honourable to her country as that of madame de Sévigné,
in a series of biography whose intent is to give an account of the
persons whose genius has adorned the world.
The subject of this memoir herself would have been very much surprised
to find her name included in the list of French writers. She had no
pretensions to authorship; and the delightful letters which have
immortalised her wit, her sense, and the warm affections of her heart,
were written without the slightest idea intruding that they would ever
be read, except by her to whom they were addressed.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born on the 5th February, 1626. The family
of Rabutin was a distinguished one of Burgundy, and Chantal was its
elder branch. Her paternal grandmother, Jeanne-Françoise Fremiot, now
canonized, was a foundress of a religious institution, called the
Sisters of Visitation; which was the cause of a sort of hereditary
alliance between her grand-daughter and the sisters of St. Mary, whose
houses she was in the habit of visiting in Paris, and during her various
journeys. Mademoiselle de Rabutin lost her father in her early infancy.
When she was only a year and a half old, the English made a descent upon
the isle of Rhé, for the purpose of succouring Rochelle. M. de Chantal
put himself at the head of a troop of gentlemen volunteers, and went out
to oppose them. The artillery of the enemy's fleet was turned upon them.
and M. de Chantal, together with the greater part of his followers, were
left dead on the field. It has been 1597. said that he fell by the hand
of Cromwell himself.
[Sidenote: 1697.
July
22.]
The baron de Chantal was a French noble of the old feudal times; when a
cavalier regarded his arms and military services as his greatest glory,
and as the origin of his rank and privileges. His daughter has preserved
a curious specimen of his independence in his mode of treating great
men, and of the impressive concision of his letter writing. When
Schomberg was made marshal of France, he wrote to him--
"Monseigneur,
"Rank--black beard--intimacy.
"Chantal."
By which few words he conveys his opinion that Schomberg owed his
advancement, not to his valour nor military exploits, but to his rank,
his having a black beard, like Louis XIII., and his intimacy with that
monarch. The mother of mademoiselle de Rabutin was Marie de Coulanges,
who was of the class of nobility distinguished in France as of the robe;
that is, as being ennobled through their having filled high civil
situations of chancellor, judge, &c. She died in 1636, when her daughter
was only ten years of age, and the orphan fell under the care of her
maternal grandfather, M. de Coulanges (her grandmother, the saint, being
too much occupied by her religious duties to attend to her grandchild's
welfare and education): he, also, dying the same year, her guardianship
devolved on her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbé de Livry.
Henceforth he was a father to her.
We know nothing, except by conjecture, of Marie de Rabutin's education
and early years. She says that she was educated with her cousin
Coulanges, who was several years younger than herself. He is known to us
as a gay, witty, convivial man, whose reputation arose from his talent
for composing songs and madrigals on the events of the day, written with
that airiness and point peculiar to French productions of this sort. He
was quick and clever, and the young lady must have enjoyed in him a
merry, agreeable companion. She tells us, also, that she was brought up
at court; a court ruled over by cardinal de Richelieu, who, though a
tyrant, studied and loved letters, was desirous of advancing
civilization, and took pleasure in the society of persons of talent,
even if they were women. She was always fond of reading. The endless
romances of Scuderi were her earliest occupation; but she aspired to
knowledge from more serious studies. Under the care of Ménage and
Chapelle, who both admired her, she learnt Latin and Italian. She must
always have possessed the delicacy and finesse of understanding that
distinguish her letters: vivacity that was almost wit; common sense,
that regulated and harmonized all, and never left her. She was not,
perhaps, what is called beautiful, even on her first entrance into the
world, but she was exceedingly pretty; a quantity of light hair, a fair
blooming complexion, eyes full of fire, and a person elegant, light, and
airy, rendered her very attractive.
[Sidenote: 1644.
Ætat.
18.]
She married, at the age of eighteen, Henry, marquis de Sévigné, of an
ancient family in Britany.
The Bretons even now scarcely consider themselves French. They are a
race remarkable for dauntless courage and inviolable fidelity; for
rectitude and independence of feeling, joined to a romantic loyalty,
which, in latter years, has caused them to have a distinguished place in
the internal history of France. M. de Sévigné was not quite a man
fitted to secure the felicity of a young girl, full of ability, warmth
of heart, and excellent sense. He was fond of pleasure, extravagant in
his expenses, heedless, and gay. In the first instance, however, the
marriage was a happy one. The _bon temps de la régence_ were, probably,
the _bon temps_ of madame de Sévigné's life.
[Sidenote: 1647.
Ætat.
21.]
She bore two children, a son and a daughter. Her letters at this period
are full of gaiety: there is no trace of any misfortune, nor any sorrow.
M. de Sévigné was related to the celebrated cardinal de Retz, in those
days coadjutor to the archbishop of Paris. When France became distracted
by civil broils, this connection caused him to adhere to the party of
the Fronde. His wife partook in his politics, and was a zealous
Frondeuse. We have traces in all her after life of the intimacies formed
during the vicissitudes of these troubles. She continued warmly attached
to the ambitious turbulent coadjutor, whose last years were spent so
differently from his early ones, and on whom she lavishes many
encomiums: she was intimate with mademoiselle de Montpensier, daughter
of Gaston, duke of Orleans; but her chief friend was the duchess de
Chatillon, whom she called her sister.
[Sidenote: 1649.
Ætat.
23.]
Several letters that passed between her and her cousin Bussy-Rabutin,
during the blockade of Paris by the prince de Condé, are preserved. He
sided with the court, and wrote to ask his cousin to interfere to obtain
for him his carriage and horses, left behind in Paris when the court
escaped to St. Germain:--"Pray exert yourself," he writes: "it is as
much your affair as mine; as we shall judge, by your success in this
enterprise, in what consideration you are held by your party; that is to
say, we shall have a good opinion of your generals, if they pay the
attention they ought to your recommendation." She failed; and
Bussy-Rabutin writes, "So much the worse for those who refused you, my
fair cousin. I do not know if it will profit them anything, but I am
sure it does them no honour."
We have mentioned, in the memoir of the duke de la Rochefoucauld, the
depraved state of French society during the wars of the Fronde. Madame
de Sévigné kept herself far aloof from even the suspicion of
misconduct, but her husband imbibed the contagion. The name of his
mistress, Ninon de l'Enclos, gave a celebrity 1650. to his infidelity
infinitely painful to his wife.
[Sidenote: 1650.
Ætat.
24.]
Madame de Sévigné felt her misfortune, but bore it with dignity and
patience. Not long after she had cause to congratulate herself on her
forbearance, when her husband was killed in a duel by the chevalier
d'Albret. The occasion of the combat is not known, but such were too
frequent in the days of the Fronde. The inconstancy of her husband did
not diminish the widow's grief: she had lived six happy years of a
brilliant youth with him; his gay, social disposition was exactly such
as to win affection; and, when he was lost to her for ever, she probably
looked on her jealousy in another light, and felt how trivial such is
when compared with the irreparable stroke of death. Her sorrow was
profound. Her uncle, the abbé de Coulanges, was her best friend and
consoler. He drew her attention to her duties, and assisted her in the
arduous task of managing her affairs, embarrassed by her husband's
extravagance. She had two young children, and their education was her
chief and dearest care, and she was thus speedily recalled to active
life.