“Confess, my father, that your order has received an honour which it ill discharges. It abandons that grace which has been intrusted to it, and which has never been abandoned since the creation of the world. That victorious grace which was expected by patriarchs, predicted by prophets, introduced by Jesus Christ, preached by St Paul, explained by St Augustine, the greatest of the Fathers, embraced by his followers, confirmed by St Bernard, the last of the Fathers, sustained by St Thomas, the Angel of the Schools, transmitted by him to your order, maintained by so many of your fathers, and so gloriously defended by your monks under Popes Clement and Paul—that efficacious grace which was left in your hands as a sacred deposit, that it might always, in a sacred and enduring order, find preachers to proclaim it to the world till the end of time—finds itself deserted for interests utterly unworthy. It is time that other hands should arm themselves in its quarrel. It is time that God should raise up intrepid disciples to the Doctor of Grace, who, strangers to the entanglements of the world, should serve God for the sake of God. Grace may no longer count the Dominicans among her defenders; but she will never want defenders, for she creates them for herself by her own almighty strength. She demands pure and disengaged hearts, nay, she herself purifies and delivers them from worldly interests inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel. Consider well, my father, and take heed lest God remove the candle-stick from its place, and leave you in darkness and dishonour to punish the coldness which you have shown in a cause so important to His Church.”
The first two Letters are closely connected. They deal with the special question between Arnauld and the Sorbonne. A short “Reply from the Provincial” is interposed between the second and third. This reply may be supposed to be a part of the device employed by Pascal to arouse public attention and circulate the Letters. The friend in the country tells how they have excited universal interest. Everybody has seen them, heard them, and believed them. They are valued not merely
by theologians, but men of the world, and ladies, have found them intelligible and delightful reading. This is no exaggerated picture of the sensation which they produced. Their success was prodigious, and increased with every successive Letter. In an atmosphere charged with the theological spirit, yet wearied with the dulness of theological controversy, Pascal’s mode of treating the subject came as a breath of new life. Here was one who was evidently no mere theologian—who knew human nature as well as Divine truth. His clear and penetrating intellect saw at once the many aspects of the dispute lying deep in the human interests and passions engaged; and as he touched these one by one, and by subtle and vivid strokes brought them to the front—as Molinist, New Thomist, and Jansenist appeared upon the scene, and showed in their natural characters what play of dramatic life was moving under all the dulness of the debate at the Sorbonne—there was a universal outcry of welcome. The Letters passed from hand to hand. The post-office reaped a harvest of profit; copies went through the whole kingdom.
“‘You can have no idea how much I am obliged to you for the Letter you sent me,’ writes a friend to a lady; ‘it is so very ingenious, and so nicely written. It narrates without narrating. It clears up the most intricate matters possible; its raillery is exquisite; it enlightens those who know little of the subject, and imparts double delight to those who understand it. It is an admirable apology; and if they would take it, a delicate and innocent censure. In short, the Letter displays so much art, so much spirit, and so much judgment, that I burn with curiosity to know who wrote it.’”
This is the report of the Provincial; and if it is Pascal himself who speaks, he had little idea that his own
badinage would be echoed by grave critics, in after-years, as not in excess of the actual merit of his productions. “The best comedies of Molière,” says Voltaire, “have not more wit than the first Provincial Letters.” It must be admitted that the brightness of the wit is somewhat dimmed after the lapse of two centuries. Even the genius of Pascal fails to lighten all the tortuous absurdities of controversies so purely verbal, and there is an occasional baldness in the clever device of pitting Molinist, New Thomist, and Jansenist against one another. The professed artlessness of the speeches is at times too apparent. But nothing, upon the whole, can be finer than the address with which this is done; the changes of scene and the turns of the dialogue are managed with admirable felicity; there is an exquisite fitness and Socratic point in all the evolutions of the argument, which we feel even now when we see so clearly behind the scenes, and know that Molinist and New Thomist must have had a good deal more to say for themselves. We have only to imagine the atmosphere of the Sorbonne, or the wider social atmosphere throughout France in the seventeenth century, impregnated to its core by a subtle controversial ecclesiasticism, to realise the impression made by “the Small Letters.” The question everywhere was, Who could have written them? There seems at first to have been no suspicion of Pascal. He had previously only been known as a scientific writer; and the secret was, of course, jealously guarded. Although planned at Port Royal des Champs, he did not remain there while engaged in their composition. He repaired, as we have already said, to Paris, and after a while took up his abode “at a little inn opposite to
the Jesuit College of Clermont, just behind the Sorbonne.” Here he lodged with his brother-in-law, M. Périer, who had lately come to Paris; and here, too, the latter was visited by Père Defrétat, a Jesuit and distant relative, who came to tell him that the suspicions of the Society were beginning to point to Pascal. All the while Pascal was busy in the room below; and, “behind the closed curtains of the bed by the side of which they were talking, a score of fresh impressions of the seventh Letter were laid out to dry.” [132]
Pascal rejoiced in his incognito. It was not till the controversy had somewhat advanced that he assumed the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. The third Letter he closed mysteriously with the letters E. A. A. B. P. A. F. D. E. P., which have been interpreted to mean “Et ancien ami Blaise Pascal, Auvergnat, fils de Étienne Pascal.” There can be no doubt that he took a distinct pleasure in the anonymous wounds which he inflicted. He had a certain love of controversy from the beginning, a feeling of self-assertion when he took up a cause, and a personal ambition to triumph in it, which carried him forward, and which come out with almost painful vividness in the closing letters.
The rage of the Jesuits may be imagined. At first they hardly knew whether to laugh with the world or to be indignant. The first Letter was read in the dining-hall of the Sorbonne itself. Some were amused, others greatly provoked. But, as the Letters proceeded, there was no room for any feeling but indignation. It was so difficult to set forth any direct reply to productions mingling such a
subtle irony with grave attack. They could only say of them, as they afterwards more formally did—Les menteurs immortelles. Of the first Letters it is said that 6000 copies were printed; but, as they were easily passed from hand to hand, this gives no idea of the numbers who actually read them. Their fame grew with each successive issue. More than 10,000 copies were printed of the seventeenth Letter; and editions of the earlier ones were so frequently reprinted, that it can no longer be told which belonged really to the first edition.