His energetic mind planned a system of education, in which, along with
the elements of learning, the youth might be imbued with early piety.
Attracted by his fame, several learned men, some of them of rank and
fortune, fled to enjoy at Port-Royal des Champs a sacred retreat from
the world. This community, which differed from a monastery in not being
bound by any vows, settled in a farm adjoining the convent, called Les
Granges. The names of Arnauld, D’Andilly, Nicole, Le Maitre, Sacy,[27]
Fontaine, Pascal, and others, have conferred immortality on the spot.
The system pursued in this literary hermitage was, in many respects,
deserving of praise. The time of the recluses was divided between
devotional and literary pursuits, relieved by agricultural and
mechanical labors. The Scriptures, and other books of devotion, were
translated into the vernacular language; and the result was, the
singular anomaly of a Roman Catholic community distinguished for the
devout and diligent study of the Bible. Protestants they certainly were
not, either in spirit or in practice. Firm believers in the
infallibility of their Church, and fond devotees in the observance of
her rites, they held it a point of merit to yield a blind obedience, in
matters of faith, to the dogmas of Rome. None were more hostile to
Protestantism. St. Cyran, it is said, would never open a Protestant
book, even for the purpose of refuting it, without first making the sign
of the cross on it, to exorcise the evil spirit which he believed to
lurk within its pages.[28] From no community did there emanate more
learned apologies for Rome than from Port-Royal. Still, it must be
owned, that in attachment to the doctrines of grace, so far as they
went, and in the exhibition of the Christian virtues, attested by their
sufferings, lives, and writings, the Port-Royalists, including under
this name both the nuns and recluses, greatly surpassed many Protestant
communities. Their piety, indeed, partook of the failings which have
always characterized the religion of the cloister. It seems to have
hovered between superstition and mysticism. Afraid to fight against the
world, they fled from it; and, forgetting that our Saviour was driven
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, they retired to a
wilderness to avoid temptation. Half conscious of the hollowness of the
ceremonial they practised, they sought to graft on its dead stock the
vitalities of the Christian faith. In their hands, penance was
sublimated into the symbol of penitential sorrow, and the mass into a
spiritual service, the benefit of which depended on the preparation of
the heart of the worshipper. In their eyes, the priest was but a
suggestive emblem of the Saviour; and to them the altar, with its
crucifix and bleeding image, served only as a platform on which they
might obtain a more advantageous view of Calvary. Transferring to the
Church of Rome the attributes of the Church of God, and regarding her
still, in spite of her eclipse and disfigurement, as of one spirit, and
even of one body, with Christ, infallible and immortal, they worshipped
the fond creation of their own fancy. At the same time, they attempted
to revive the doctrine of religious abstraction, or the absorption of
the soul in Deity, and the total renouncement of everything in the shape
of sensual enjoyment, which afterwards distinguished the mystics of the
Continent. Even in their literary recreations, while they acquired an
elegance of style which marked a new era in the literature of France,
they betrayed their ascetic spirit. Poetry was only admissible when
clothed in a devotional garb. It was by stealth that Racine, who studied
at Port-Royal, indulged his poetic vein in the profane pieces which
afterwards gave him celebrity. And yet it is candid to admit, that the
mortifications in which this amiable fraternity engaged, consisted
rather in the exclusion of pleasure than the infliction of pain, and
that the object aimed at in these austerities was not so much to merit
heaven as to attain an ideal perfection on earth. Port-Royalism, in
short, was Popery in its mildest type, as Jesuitism is Popery in its
perfection; and had it been possible to present that system in a form
calculated to disarm prejudice and to cover its native deformities, the
task might have been achieved by the pious devotees of Les Granges. But
the same merciful Providence which, for the preservation of the human
species, has furnished the snake with his rattle, and taught the lion to
“roar for his prey,” has so ordered it that the Romish Church should
betray her real character, in order that his people might “come out of
her, and not be partakers of her sins, that they receive not of her
plagues.” The whole system adopted at Port-Royal was regarded, from the
commencement, with extreme jealousy by the authorities of that Church;
the schools were soon dispersed, and the Jesuits never rested till they
had destroyed every vestige of the obnoxious establishment.
The enemies of Port-Royal have attempted to show that St. Cyran and his
associates had formed a deep-laid plot for overturning the Roman
Catholic faith. From time to time, down to the present day, works have
appeared, under the auspices of the Jesuits, in which this charge is
reiterated; and the old calumnies against the sect are revived—a
periodical trampling on the ashes of the poor Jansenists (after having
accomplished their ruin two hundred years ago), which reminds one of
nothing so much as the significant grinning and yelling with which the
modern Jews celebrate to this day the downfal of Haman the Agagite.[29]
In one point only could their assailants find room to question their
orthodoxy—the supremacy of the pope. Here, certainly, they were led,
more from circumstances than from inclination, to lean to the side of
the Gallican liberties. But even Jansen himself, after spending a
lifetime on his “Augustinus,” and leaving it behind him as a sacred
legacy, abandoned himself and his treatise to the judgment of the pope.
The following are his words, dictated by him half an hour before his
death: “I feel that it will be difficult to alter anything. Yet if the
Romish see should wish anything to be altered, I am her obedient son;
and to that Church in which I have always lived, even to this bed of
death, I will prove obedient. This is my last will.” The same sentiment
is expressed by Pascal, in one of his letters. Alas! how sad is the
predicament in which the Church of Rome places her conscientious
votaries! Both of these excellent men were as firmly persuaded, no
doubt, of the faith which they taught, as of the facts which came under
their observation; and yet they held themselves bound to cast their
religious convictions at the feet of a fellow-mortal, notoriously under
the influence of the Jesuits, and professed themselves ready, at a
signal from Rome, to renounce what they held as divine truth, and to
embrace what they regarded as damnable error! A spectacle more painful
and piteous can hardly be imagined than that of such men struggling
between the dictates of conscience, and the night-mare of that “strong
delusion,” which led them to “believe a lie.”
In every feature that distinguished the Port-Royalists, they stood
opposed to the Jesuits. In theology they were antipodes—in learning they
were rivals. The schools of Port-Royal already eclipsed those of the
Jesuits, whose policy it has always been to monopolize education, under
the pretext of charity. But the Jansenists might have been allowed to
retain their peculiar tenets, had they not touched the idol of every
Jesuit, “the glory of the Society,” by supplanting them in the
confessional. The priests connected with Port-Royal, from their
primitive simplicity of manners and severity of morals, and, above all,
from their spiritual Christianity, acquired a popularity which could not
fail to give mortal offence to the Society, who then ruled the councils
both of the Church and the nation. Nothing less than the annihilation of
the whole party would satisfy their vengeful purpose. In this nefarious
design they were powerfully aided by Cardinal Richelieu, and by Louis
XIV., a prince who, though yet a mere youth, was entirely under
Jesuitical influence in matters of religion; and who, having resolved to
extirpate Protestantism, could not well endure the existence of a sect
within the Church, which seemed to favor the Reformation by exposing the
corruptions of the clergy.[30]
To effect their object, St. Cyran, the leader and ornament of the party,
required to be disposed of. He was accused of various articles of
heresy; and Cardinal Richelieu at once gratified his party resentment
and saved himself the trouble of controversy, by immuring him in the
dungeon of Vincennes. In this prison St. Cyran languished for five
years, and survived his release only a few months, having died in
October, 1643. His place, however, as leader of the Jansenist party, was
supplied by one destined to annoy the Jesuits by his controversial
talents fully more than his predecessor had done by his apostolic
sanctity. Anthony Arnauld may be said to have been born an enemy to the
Jesuits. His father, a celebrated lawyer, had distinguished himself for
his opposition to the Society, and having engaged in an important
law-suit against them, in which he warmly pleaded, in the name of the
university, that they should be interdicted from the education of youth,
and even expelled from the kingdom. Anthony, who inherited his spirit,
was the youngest in a family of twenty children, and was born February
6, 1612.[31] Several of them were connected with Port-Royal. His sister,
as we have seen, became its abbess; and five other sisters were nuns in
that establishment. He is said to have given precocious proof of his
polemic turn. Busying himself, when a mere boy, with some papers in his
uncle’s library, and being asked what he was about, he replied, “Don’t
you see that I am helping you to refute the Hugonots?” This
prognostication he certainly verified in after life. He wrote, with
almost equal vehemence, against Rome, against the Jesuits, and against
the Protestants. He was, for many years, the _facile princeps_ of the
party termed Jansenists; and was one of those characters who present to
the public an aspect nearly the reverse of the estimate formed of them
by their private friends. By the latter he is represented as the best of
men, totally free from pride and passion. Judging from his physiognomy,
his writings and his life, we would say the natural temper of Arnauld
was austere and indomitable. Expelled from the Sorbonne, driven out of
France, and hunted from place to place, he continued to fight to the
last. On one occasion, wishing his friend Nicole to assist him in a new
work, the latter observed, “We are now old, is it not time to rest?”
“Rest!” exclaimed Arnauld, “have we not all eternity to rest in?”
Such was the character of the man who now entered the lists against the
redoubtable Society. His first offence was the publication, in 1643, of
a book on “Frequent Communion;” in which, while he inculcates the
necessity of a spiritual preparation for the eucharist, he insinuated
that the Church of Rome had a two-fold head, in the persons of Peter and
Paul.[32] His next was in the shape of two letters, published in 1656,
occasioned by a dispute referred to in the first Provincial Letter, in
which he declared that he had not been able to find the condemned
propositions in Jansen, and added some opinions on grace. The first of
these assertions was deemed derogatory to the holy see; the second was
charged with heresy. The Jesuits, who sighed for an opportunity of
humbling the obnoxious doctor, strained every nerve to procure his
expulsion from the Sorbonne, or college of divinity in the university.
This object they had just accomplished, and everything promised fair to
secure their triumph, when another combatant unexpectedly appeared, like
one of those closely-visored knights of whom we read in romance, who so
opportunely enter the field at the critical moment, and with their
single arm turn the tide of battle. Need we say that we allude to the
author of the PROVINCIAL LETTERS?
Bayle commences his Life of Pascal by declaring him to be “one of the
sublimest geniuses that the world ever produced.” Seldom, at least, has
the world ever seen such a combination of excellences in one man. In him
we are called to admire the loftiest attributes of mind with the
loveliest simplicity of moral character. He is a rare example of one
born with a natural genius for the exact sciences, who applied the
subtlety of his mind to religious subjects, combining with the closest
logic the utmost elegance of style, and crowning all with a simple and
profound piety. Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont, 19th June, 1623. His
family had been ennobled by Louis XI., and his father, Stephen Pascal,
occupied a high post in the civil government. Blaise manifested from an
early age a strong liking for the study of mathematics, and, while yet a
child, made some astonishing discoveries in natural philosophy. To these
studies he devoted the greater part of his life. An incident, however,
which occurred in his thirty-first year—a narrow escape from sudden
death—had the effect of giving an entire change to the current of his
thoughts. He regarded it as a message from heaven, calling him to
renounce all secular occupations, and devote himself exclusively to God.
His sister and niece being nuns in Port-Royal, he was naturally led to
associate with those who then began to be called Jansenists. But though
he had several of the writings of the party, there can be no doubt that
it was the devotion rather than the theology of Port-Royal that
constituted its charm in the eyes of Pascal. His sister informs us, in
her memoirs of him, that “he had never applied himself to abstruse
questions in divinity.” Nor, beyond a temporary retreat to Port-Royal
des Champs, and an intimacy with its leading solitaries, can he be said
to have had any connection with that establishment. His fragile frame,
which was the victim of complicated disease, and his feminine delicacy
of spirit, unfitting him for the rough collisions of ordinary life, he
found a congenial retreat amidst these literary solitudes; while, with
his clear and comprehensive mind, and his genuine piety of heart, he
must have sympathized with those who sought to remove from the Church
corruptions which he could not fail to deplore, and to renovate the
spirit of that Christianity which he loved far above any of its
organized forms. His life, not unlike a perpetual miracle, is ever
exciting our admiration, not unmingled, however, with pity. We see great
talents enlisted in the support, not indeed of the errors of a system,
but of a system of errors—we see a noble mind debilitated by
superstition—we see a useful life prematurely terminating in, if not
shortened by, the petty austerities and solicitudes of monasticism.
Truth requires us to state, that he not only denied himself, at last,
the most common comforts of life, but wore beneath his clothes a girdle
of iron, with sharp points, which, as soon as he felt any pleasurable
sensation, he would strike with his elbow, so as to force the points of
iron more deeply into his sides. Let the Church, which taught him such
folly, be responsible for it; and let us ascribe to the grace of God the
patience, the meekness, the charity, and the faith, which hovered,
seraph-wise, over the death-bed of expiring genius. The curate who
attended him, struck with the triumph of religion over the pride of an
intellect which continued to burn after it had ceased to blaze, would
frequently exclaim: “He is an infant—humble and submissive as an
infant!” He died on the 19th of August, 1662, aged thirty-nine years and
two months.
While Arnauld’s process before the Sorbonne was in dependence, a few of
his friends, among whom were Pascal and Nicole, were in the habit of
meeting privately at Port-Royal, to consult on the measures they should
adopt. During these conferences one of their number said to Arnauld:
“Will you really suffer yourself to be condemned like a child, without
saying a word, or telling the public the real state of the question?”
The rest concurred, and in compliance with their solicitations, Arnauld,
after some days, produced and read before them a long and serious
vindication of himself. His audience listened in coolness and silence,
upon which he remarked: “I see you don’t think highly of my production,
and I believe you are right; but,” added he, turning himself round and
addressing Pascal, “you who are young, why cannot you produce
something?” The appeal was not lost upon our author; he had hitherto
written almost nothing, but he engaged to try a sketch or rough draft,
which they might fill up; and retiring to his room, he produced, in a
few hours, instead of a sketch, the first letter to a provincial. On
reading this to his assembled friends, Arnauld exclaimed, “That is
excellent! that will go down; we must have it printed immediately.”
Pascal had, in fact, with the native superiority of genius, pitched on
the very tone which, in a controversy of this kind, was calculated to
arrest the public mind. Treating theology in a style entirely new, he
brought down the subject to the comprehension of all, and translated
into the pleasantries of comedy, and familiarities of dialogue,
discussions which had till then been confined to the grave utterances of
the school. The framework which he adopted in his first letter was
exceedingly happy. A Parisian is supposed to transmit to one of his
friends in the provinces an account of the disputes of the day. It is
said that the provincial with whom he affected to correspond was
Perrier, who had married one of his sisters. Hence arose the name of the
_Provincials_, which was given to the rest of the letters.
This title they owe, it would appear, to a mistake of the printer; for
in an advertisement prefixed to one of the early editions, it is stated
that “they have been called ‘Provincials,’ because the first having been
addressed without any name to a person in the country, the printer
published it under the title ‘Letter written to a Provincial by one of
his Friends.’” This may be regarded as an apology for the use of a term
which, critically speaking, was rather unhappy. The word _provincial_ in
French, when used to signify a person residing in the provinces, was
generally understood in a bad sense, as denoting an unpolished
clown.[33] But the title, uncouth as it is, has been canonized and made
classical forever; and “The Provincials” is a phrase which it would now
be fully as ridiculous to attempt to change as it could be at first to
apply it to the Letters.
The most trifling particulars connected with such a publication possess
an interest. The Letters, we learn, were published at first in separate
stitched sheets of a quarto size; and, on account of their brevity, none
of them extending to more than one sheet of eight pages, except the last
three, which were somewhat longer, they were at first known by the name
of the “LITTLE LETTERS.” No stated time was observed in their
publication. The first letter appeared January 13, 1656, being on a
Wednesday; the second on January 29, being Saturday; and the rest were
issued at intervals varying from a week to a month, till March 24, 1657,
which is the date of the last letter in the series; the whole thus
extending over the space of a year and three months.
All accounts agree in stating that the impression produced by the
Provincials, on their first appearance, was quite unexampled. They were
circulated in thousands in Paris and throughout France. Speaking of the
first letter, Father Daniel says: “It created a fracas which filled the
fathers of the Society with consternation. Never did the post-office
reap greater profits; copies were despatched over the whole kingdom; and
I myself, though very little known to the gentlemen of Port-Royal,
received a large packet of them, post-paid, in a town of Brittany where
I was then residing.” The same method was followed with the rest of the
letters. The seventh found its way to Cardinal Mazarin, who laughed over
it very heartily. The eighth did not appear till a month after its
predecessor, apparently to keep up expectation.[34] In short, everybody
read the “Little Letters,” and, whatever might be their opinions of the
points in dispute, all agreed in admiring the genius which they
displayed. They were found lying on the merchant’s counter, the lawyer’s
desk, the doctor’s table, the lady’s toilet; and everywhere they were
sought for and perused with the same avidity.[35] The success of the
Letters in gaining their object was not less extraordinary. The Jesuits
were fairly checkmated; and though they succeeded in carrying through
the censure of Arnauld, the public sympathy was enlisted in his favor.
The confessionals and churches of the Jesuits were deserted, while those
of their opponents were crowded with admiring thousands.[36] “That book
alone,” says one of its bitterest enemies, “has done more for the
Jansenists than the ‘Augustinus’ of Jansen, and all the works of Arnauld
put together.”[37] This is the more surprising when we consider that, at
that time, the influence of the Jesuits was so high in the ascendant,
that Arnauld had to contend with the pope, the king, the chancellor, the
clergy, the Sorbonne, the universities, and the great body of the
populace; and that never was Jansenism at a lower ebb, or more generally
anathematized than when the first Provincial Letter appeared.
This, however, was not all. Besides having the tide of public favor
turned against them, the Jesuits found themselves the objects of
universal derision. The names of their favorite casuists were converted
into proverbs: _Escobarder_ came to signify the same thing with
“paltering in a double sense;” Father Bauny’s grotesque maxims furnished
topics for perpetual badinage; and the Jesuits, wherever they went, were
assailed with inextinguishable laughter. By no other method could Pascal
have so severely stung this proud and self-conceited Society. The rage
into which they were thrown was extreme, and was variously expressed. At
one time it found vent in calumnies and threats of vengeance. At other
times they indulged in puerile lamentations. It was amusing to hear
these stalwart divines, after breathing fire and slaughter against their
enemies, assume the querulous tones of injured and oppressed innocence.
“The persecution which the Jesuits suffer from the buffooneries of
Port-Royal,” they said, “is perfectly intolerable: the wheel and the
gibbet are nothing to it; it can only be compared to the torture
inflicted on the ancient martyrs, who were first rubbed over with honey
and then left to be stung to death by wasps and wild bees. Their tyrants
have subjected them to empoisoned raillery, and the world leaves them
unpitied to suffer a sweet death, more cruel in its sweetness than the
bitterest punishment.”[38]
The Letters were published anonymously, under the fictitious signature
of Louis de Montalte, and the greatest care was taken to preserve the
secret of their authorship. As on all such occasions, many were the
guesses made, and the false reports circulated; but beyond the circle of
Pascal’s personal friends, none knew him to be the author, nor was the
fact certainly or publicly known till after his death. The following
anecdote shows, however, that he was suspected, and was once very nearly
discovered: After publishing the third letter, Pascal left Port-Royal
des Champs, to avoid being disturbed, and took up his residence in
Paris, under the name of M. de Mons, in a _hotel garni_, at the sign of
the King of Denmark, Rue des Poiriers, exactly opposite the college of
the Jesuits. Here he was joined by his brother-in-law, Perrier, who
passed as the master of the house. One day Perrier received a visit from
his relative, Father Frétat, a Jesuit, accompanied by a brother monk.
Frétat told him that the Society suspected M. Pascal to be the author of
the “Little Letters,” which were making such a noise, and advised him as
a friend to prevail on his brother-in-law to desist from writing any
more of them, as he might otherwise involve himself in much trouble, and
even danger. Perrier thanked him for his advice, but said he was afraid
it would be altogether useless, as Pascal would just reply that he could
not hinder people from suspecting him, and that though he should deny it
they would not believe him. The monks took their departure, much to the
relief of Perrier, for at that very time several sheets of the seventh
or eighth letter, newly come from the printer, were lying on the bed,
where they had been placed for the purpose of drying, but, fortunately,
though the curtains were only partially drawn, and one of the monks sat
very close to the bed, they were not observed. Perrier ran immediately
to communicate the incident to his brother-in-law, who was in an
adjoining apartment; and he had reason to congratulate him on the narrow
escape which he had made.[39]
As Pascal proceeded, he transmitted his manuscripts to Port-Royal des
Champs, where they were carefully revised and corrected by Arnauld and
Nicole. Occasionally, these expert divines suggested the plans of the
letters; and by them he was, beyond all doubt, furnished with most of
his quotations from the voluminous writings of the casuists, which, with
the exception of Escobar, he appears never to have read. We must not
suppose, however, that he took these on trust, or gave himself no
trouble to verify them. We shall afterwards have proof of the contrary.
The first letters he composed with the rapidity of new-born enthusiasm;
but the pains and mental exertion which he bestowed on the rest are
almost incredible. Nicole says “he was often twenty whole days on a
single letter: and some of them he recommenced seven or eight times
before bringing them to their present state of perfection.”[40] We are
assured that he wrote over the eighteenth letter no less than thirteen
times.[41] Having been obliged to hasten the publication of the
sixteenth, on account of a search made after it in the printing office,
he apologizes for its length on the ground that “he had found no time to
make it shorter.”[42]