what is equally remarkable, is the art with which so many detached
letters, written at distant intervals, and prompted by passing events,
have been so arranged as to form an harmonious whole. The first three
letters refer to Arnauld’s affair; the questions of grace are but
slightly touched, the main object being to interest the reader in favor
of the Jansenists, and excite his contempt and indignation against their
opponents. After this prelude, the fourth letter serves as a transition
to the following six, in which he takes up maxims of the casuists. In
the eight concluding letters he resumes the grand objects of the
work—the morals of the Jesuits and the question of grace. These three
parts have each their peculiar style. The first is distinguished for
lively dialogue and repartee. Jacobins, Molinists, and Jansenists are
brought on the stage, and speak in character, while Pascal does little
more than act as reporter. In the second part, he comes into personal
contact with a casuistical doctor, and extracts from him, under the
pretext of desiring information, some of the weakest and worst of his
maxims. At the eleventh letter, Pascal throws off his disguise, and
addressing himself directly to the whole order of the Jesuits, and to
their Provincial by name, he pours out his whole soul in an impetuous
and impassioned torrent of declamation. From beginning to end it is a
well-sustained battle, in which the weapons are only changed in order to
strike the harder.
The literary merits of the Provincials have been universally
acknowledged and applauded. On this point, where Pascal’s countrymen
must be considered the most competent judges, we have the testimonies of
the leading spirits of France. Boileau pronounced it a work that has
“surpassed at once the ancients and the moderns.” Perrault has given a
similar judgment: “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. We have nothing more beautiful in this species of
writing.”[43] “Pascal’s style,” says the Abbé d’Artigny, “has never been
surpassed, nor perhaps equalled.”[44] The high encomium of Voltaire is
well known: “The Provincial Letters were models of eloquence and
pleasantry. The best comedies of Molière have not more wit in them than
the first letters; Bossuet has nothing more sublime than the last ones.”
Again, the same writer says: “The first work of genius that appeared in
prose was the collection of the Provincial Letters. Examples of every
species of eloquence may there be found. There is not a single word in
it which, after a hundred years, has undergone the change to which all
living languages are liable. We may refer to this work the era when our
language became fixed. The Bishop of Luçon told me, that having asked
the Bishop of Meaux what work he would wish most to have been the author
of, setting his own works aside, Bossuet instantly replied, ‘The
Provincial Letters.’”[45] “Pascal succeeded beyond all expression,” says
D’Alembert; “several of his bon-mots have become proverbial in our
language, and the Provincials will be ever regarded as a model of taste
and style.”[46] To this day the same high eulogiums are passed on the
work by the best scholars of France.[47]
To these testimonies it would be superfluous to add any criticism of our
own, were it not to prepare the English reader for the peculiar
character of our author’s style. Pascal’s wit is essentially French. It
is not the broad humor of Smollet; it is not the cool irony of Swift;
far less is it the envenomed sarcasm of Junius. It is wit—the lively,
polite, piquant wit of the early French school. Nothing can be finer
than its spirit; but from its very fineness it is apt to evaporate in
the act of transfusion into another tongue. Nothing can be more
ingenious than the transitions by which the author glides insensibly
from one topic to another; and in the more serious letters, we cannot
fail to be struck with the mathematical precision of his reasoning. But
there is a species of iteration, and a style of dovetailing his
sentiments, which does not quite accord with our taste; and the foreign
texture of which, in spite of every effort to the contrary, must shine
through any translation.
High as the Provincials stand in the literary world, they were not
suffered to pass without censure in the high places of the Church. The
first effect of their publication, indeed, was to raise a storm against
the casuists, whom Pascal had so effectually exposed. The curés of
Paris, and afterwards the assembly of the clergy, shocked at the
discovery of such a sink of corruption, the existence of which, though
just beneath their feet, they never appear to have suspected, determined
to institute an examination into the subject. Hitherto the tenets of the
casuists, buried in huge folios, or only taught in the colleges of the
Jesuits, had escaped public observation. The clergy resolved to compare
the quotations of Pascal with these writings; and the result of the
investigation was, that he was found to be perfectly correct, while a
multitude of other maxims, equally scandalous, were dragged to light.
These were condemned in a general assembly of the clergy.[48]
Unfortunately for the Jesuits, they had not a single writer at the time
capable of conducting their vindication. Several replies to the
Provincials were attempted while they were in the course of publication;
but these were taken up by the redoubtable Montalte, and fairly
strangled at their birth.[49] Shortly after the Letters were finished,
there appeared “An Apology for the Casuists,” the production of a Jesuit
named Pirot, who, with a folly and frankness which proved nearly as
fatal to his order as it did to himself, attempted to vindicate the
worst maxims of the casuistical school. This Apology was condemned by
the Sorbonne, and subsequently at Rome; its author died of chagrin, and
the Jesuits fell into temporary disgrace.[50]
But, with that tenaciousness of life and elasticity of limb which have
ever distinguished the Society, it was not long before they rebounded
from their fall and regained their feet. Unable to answer the Letters,
they succeeded in obtaining, in February, 1657, their condemnation by
the Parliament of Provence, by whose orders they were burnt on the
pillory by the hands of the common executioner. Not content with this
clumsy method of refutation, they succeeded in procuring the formal
condemnation of the Provincials by a censure of the pope, Alexander
VII., dated 6th September, 1657. In this decree the work is “prohibited
and condemned, under the pains and censures contained in the Council of
Trent, and in the index of prohibited books, and other pains and
censures which it may please his holiness to ordain.” It is almost
needless to say, that these sentences neither enhanced nor lessened the
fame of the Provincials. It must be interesting to know what the
feelings of Pascal were, on learning that this work, into which he had
thrown his whole heart, and mind, and strength, and which may be said to
have been at once his _chef-d’œuvre_ and his confession of faith, had
been condemned by the head of that Church which he had hitherto believed
to be infallible. Warped as his fine spirit was by education, his
unbending rectitude forbids the supposition that he could surrender his
cherished and conscientious sentiments at the mere dictum of the pope.
An incident occurred in 1661, shortly before his death, strikingly
illustrative of his conscientiousness, and of the sincerity of purpose
with which the Letters were written. The persecution had begun to rage
against Port-Royal; one _mandement_ after another, requiring
subscription to the condemnation of Jansen, came down from the court of
Rome; and the poor nuns, shrinking, on the one hand, from violating
their consciences by subscribing what they believed to be an untruth,
and trembling, on the other, at the consequences of disobeying their
ecclesiastical superiors, were thrown into the most distressing
embarrassment. Their “obstinacy,” as it was termed, only provoked their
persecutors to more stringent demands. In these circumstances, even the
stern Arnauld and the conscientious Nicole were tempted to make some
compromise, and drew up a declaration to accompany the signature of the
nuns, which they thought might save at once the truth and their
consistency. To this Pascal objected, as not sufficiently clear, and as
leaving it to be inferred that they condemned “efficacious grace.” He
could not endure the idea of their employing an ambiguous statement,
which appeared, or might be supposed by their opponents, to grant what
they did not really mean to concede. The consequence was a slight and
temporary dispute—not affecting principle so much as the mode of
maintaining it—in which Pascal stood alone against all the members of
Port-Royal. On one occasion, after exhausting his eloquence upon them
without success, he was so deeply affected, that his feeble frame,
laboring under headache and other disorders, sunk under the excitement,
and he fell into a swoon. After recovering his consciousness, he
explained the cause of his sudden illness, in answer to the affectionate
inquiries of his sister: “When I saw those,” he said, “whom I regard as
the persons to whom God has made known his truth, and who ought to be
its champions, all giving way, I was so overcome with grief that I could
stand it no longer.” Subsequent _mandements_, still more stringent, soon
saved the poor nuns from the temptation of ambiguous submissions, and
reconciled Pascal and his friends.[51]
But we are fortunately furnished with his own reflections on the subject
of the Provincials, in his celebrated “Thoughts on Religion:”
“I feared,” says he, “that I might have written erroneously, when I saw
myself condemned; but the example of so many pious witnesses made me
think differently. It is no longer allowable to write truth. IF MY
LETTERS ARE CONDEMNED AT ROME, THAT WHICH I CONDEMN IN THEM IS CONDEMNED
IN HEAVEN.”[52]
It is only necessary to add, that Pascal continued to maintain his
sentiments on this subject unchanged to the last. On his death-bed, M.
Beurrier, his parish priest, administered to him the last rites of his
Church, and came to learn, after having confessed him, that he was the
author of the “Provincial Letters.” Full of concern at having absolved
the author of a book condemned by the pope, the good priest returned,
and asked him if it was true, and if he had no remorse of conscience on
that account. Pascal replied, that “he could assure him, as one who was
now about to give an account to God of all his actions, that his
conscience gave him no trouble on that score; and that in the
composition of that work he was influenced by no mad motive, but solely
by regard to the glory of God and the vindication of truth, and not in
the least by any passion or personal feeling against the Jesuits.”
Attempts were made by Perefixe, archbishop of Paris, first to bully the
priest for having absolved such an impenitent offender,[53] and
afterwards to force him into a false account of his penitent’s
confession. It was confidently reported, on the pretended authority of
the confessor, that Pascal had expressed his sorrow for having written
the Provincials, and that he had condemned his friends of Port-Royal for
want of due respect to papal authority. Both these allegations were
afterwards distinctly refuted—the first by the written avowal of M.
Beurrier, and the other by two depositions formally made by Nicole,
showing that the real ground of Pascal’s brief disagreement with his
friends was directly the reverse of that which had been assigned.[54]
Few books have passed through more editions than the Provincials. The
following, among many others, may be mentioned as French editions:—The
first, in 1656, 4to; a second in 1657, 12mo; a third in 1658, 8vo; a
fourth in 1659, 8vo; a fifth in 1666, 12mo; a sixth in 1667, 8vo; a
seventh in 1669, 12mo; an eighth in 1689, 8vo; a ninth in 1712, 8vo; a
tenth in 1767, 12mo.[55] The later editions are beyond enumeration. The
Letters were translated into Latin, during the lifetime of Pascal, by
his intimate friend, the learned and indefatigable Nicole, under the
assumed name of “William Wendrock, a Saltzburg divine.”[56] Nicole, who
was a complete master of Latin, has given an elegant, though somewhat
free version of his friend’s work. He has frequently added to the
quotations taken from the writings of the Jesuits and others; a liberty
which he doubtless felt himself the more warranted to take, from the
share he had in the original concoction of the Letters. Nicole’s
preliminary dissertation and notes were translated by Mademoiselle de
Joncourt, a lady, it is said, “possessed of talents and piety, who, to
the graces peculiar to her own sex, added the accomplishments which are
the ornament of ours.”[57] Besides this, the Provincials have been
translated into nearly all the languages of Europe. Bayle informs us
that he had seen an edition of them in 8vo, with four columns,
containing the French, Latin, Italian, and Spanish.[58] The Spanish
translation, executed by Gratien Cordero of Burgos, was suppressed by
order of the Inquisition.[59] But all the efforts made for the
suppression of the Provincials only served to promote their popularity;
and their enemies found that, if they would silence, they must answer
them.
Forty years elapsed after the publication of the Provincials before the
Jesuits ventured on a reply. At length, in 1697, appeared an answer,
entitled _Entretiens de Cleandre et d’Eudoxe, sur les Lettres au
Provincial_. The author is known to have been Father Daniel, the
historiographer of France. This learned Jesuit undertook the desperate
task of refuting the Provincials, in a form somewhat resembling that of
the Letters themselves, being a series of supposed conversations between
two friends, aided by an abbé, “who is excessively frank and honest, one
who never could bear all his life to see people imposed upon.” The
dialogue is conducted with considerable spirit, but is sadly deficient
in _vraisemblance_. The author commences with high professions of
impartiality. Cleander and Eudoxus are supposed to be quite
neutral—somewhat like the free-will of Molina, “in a state of perfect
equilibrium, until good sense and stubborn facts turn the scale.” But,
alas! the equilibrium is soon lost, without the help either of facts or
of sense. The friends have hardly uttered two sentences, till they begin
to talk as like two Jesuits as could well be imagined. Party rage gets
the better of literary discretion; the Port-Royalists are “honest
knaves,” “true hypocrites,” “villains animated with stubborn fury;”
Arnauld’s “pen may be known by the gall that drops from it;” Nicole
“swears like a trooper,” and as to Pascal he is all these characters in
turn, while his book is “a repertory of slander,” and is “villainous in
a supreme degree!”
The whole strain of Daniel’s reply corresponds with this specimen of its
spirit. Avoiding the error of Pirot, and yet without renouncing the
favorite dogmas of the Society, such as probabilism, equivocations, and
mental reservations, which he only attempts to palliate, Father Daniel
has exhausted his skill in an attack on the sincerity of Pascal. His
main object is to convey the impression that the Provincials are a
libel, written in bad faith, and full of altered texts and false
citations. In selecting this plan of defence, the Jesuit champion
evinces considerably more ingenuity than ingenuousness. He was well
aware that, at the time of their publication, the Letters had been
subjected to a sifting process of examination by the most clear-sighted
Jesuits, who had signally failed in proving any falsifications. But he
knew also, that, during the forty years that had elapsed, the writings
of the casuists had fallen into disuse and contempt, mainly in
consequence of the scorching which they had received from the wit and
eloquence of Pascal, and that it would be now a much easier and safer
task to call in question the fidelity of citations which none would give
themselves the trouble of verifying. In this bold attempt to turn the
tables against the Jansenists, by accusing them of chicanery and pious
fraud, the very crimes which they had succeeded in establishing against
their opponents, the unscrupulous Jesuit could be at no loss to find,
among the voluminous writings of the casuists, some plausible grounds
for his charges. At all events, he could calculate on the readiness with
which certain minds, fonder of generalizing than of investigating facts,
would lay hold of the mere circumstance of a book having been written in
defence of his order, as sufficient to show that a great deal may be
said on both sides. As to the manner in which Daniel has executed his
task, it might be sufficient to say, that it has been acknowledged by
the Jesuits themselves to be a failure. Even at its first appearance,
great efforts were made to suppress it altogether, as likely to do more
harm than good to the Society; and in their references to it afterwards,
we see the disappointment which they felt. “There was lately published,”
says Richelet, “an answer to the Lettres Provinciales, which professes
to demolish them, but which, nevertheless, will not do them much harm.
Do you ask how? The reason is, that although this answer shows the
horrid injustice, the abominable slanders, and injurious falsehoods of
the Provincials, against one of the most famous societies in the Church,
yet these Letters have so long, by their facetious touches, got the
laughers of all denominations on their side, that they have acquired a
credit and authority of which it will be difficult to divest them. It
must be confessed that prejudice, on this occasion, is very unjust, very
cruel, and very obstinate in its verdict; since, though these Letters
have been condemned by popes, bishops, and divines, and burnt by the
hands of the hangman, yet they have taken such deep root in people’s
minds as to bid defiance to all these powers.”[60] “The reply,” says
another writer, “as may be easily imagined, was not so well received as
the Letters had been. Father Daniel professed to have reason and truth
on his side; but his adversary had in his favor what goes much further
with men, the arms of ridicule and pleasantry.”[61] This, however, is a
mere begging of the question. _Ridentem dicere verum, quid vetat?_ It is
quite possible that Father Daniel may be lugubriously in the wrong, and
Pascal laughingly in the right. This was very triumphantly made out in
the answer to Daniel’s work, which appeared in the same year with the
_Entretiens_, under the title of “Apology for the Provincial Letters,
against the last Reply of the Jesuits, entitled Conversations of
Cleander and Eudoxus.” The author was Don Mathieu Petitdidier,
Benedictine of the congregation of St. Vanne, who died bishop of
Macra.[62] In this masterly performance, the accusations of Daniel are
shown to be totally groundless, his answers jesuitical and evasive, and
his arguments untenable. The “Apology” was never answered, and Daniel’s
work sank out of sight.
Subsequent apologists of the Jesuits have followed the line of defence
adopted by Father Daniel. The continued repetition of his charges,
though they have been long since disposed of, renders it necessary to
advert to them. For the strict fidelity of Pascal’s citations, we have
not merely the testimony of contemporary witnesses, but what will be to
many a sufficient guarantee, the solemn assertion of Pascal himself. In
a conversation that took place within a year of his death, and which has
been preserved by his sister, he thus answers the chief articles of
accusation that had been brought against the Provincials:—
“I have been asked, first, if I repented of having written the
Provincial Letters? I answered that, far from repenting, if I had it to
do again, I would write them yet more strongly.
“I have been asked, in the second place, why I named the authors from
whom I extracted these abominable passages which I have cited? I
answered, If I were in a town where there were a dozen fountains, and I
knew for certain that one of them was poisoned, I should be under
obligation to tell the world not to draw from that fountain; and, as it
might be supposed that this was a mere fancy on my part, I should be
obliged to name him who had poisoned it, rather than expose a whole city
to the risk of death.
“I have been asked, thirdly, why I adopted an agreeable, jocose, and
entertaining style? I answered, If I had written dogmatically, none but
the learned would have read my book; and they had no need of it, knowing
how the matter stood, at least as well as I did. I conceived it,
therefore, my duty to write, so that my Letters might be read by women,
and people in general, that they might know the danger of all those
maxims and propositions which were then spread abroad, and admitted with
so little hesitation.
“Finally, I have been asked, if I had myself read all the books which I
quoted? I answered, No. To do this, I had need have passed the greater
part of my life in reading very bad books. But I have twice read Escobar
throughout; and for the others, I got several of my friends to read
them; but _I have never used a single passage without having read it
myself in the book quoted_, without having examined the case in which it
is brought forward, and without having read the preceding and subsequent
context, that I might not run the risk of citing that for an answer
which was in fact an objection, which would have been very unjust and
blamable.”[63]
If this solemn declaration, emitted by one whose heart was a stranger to
deceit, and whose shrewdness placed him beyond the risk of delusion, is
not accepted as sufficient, we might refer to the mass of evidence
collected at the time in the _Factums_ of the curés of Paris and Rouen,
to the voluminous notes of Nicole, and to the Apology of Petitdidier, in
which the citations made by Pascal are authenticated with a carefulness
which not only sets all suspicion at rest, but leaves a large balance of
credit in the author’s favor, by showing that, so far from having
reported the worst maxims of the Jesuitical school, or placed them in
the most odious light of which they were susceptible, he has been
extremely tender towards them. But, indeed, the truth was placed beyond
all dispute, through the efforts of the celebrated Bossuet, in 1700,
when, by a sentence of an assembly of the clergy of France, the morals
of the Jesuits, as exhibited in their “monstrous maxims, which had been
long the scandal of the Church and of Europe,” were formally condemned,
and when it may be said that the Provincial Letters met at once their
full vindication and their final triumph.[64]