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.