formal decision. In the meantime, an ‘Apology for the Casuists’ was published by a Jesuit of the name of Pirot, of such a character as to increase rather than abate the scandal, and a new controversy gathered around this publication. The Sorbonne took up the question, and, after examination, condemned Pirot’s Apology (July 1658) as they had formerly done Arnauld’s propositions, and ultimately it was included by Rome in the ‘Index Expurgatorius,’ along with the ‘Provincial Letters,’ to which it was designed as a reply. While the question was before the Sorbonne, the curés of Paris published various writings, under the name of ‘Facta,’ in support of the conclusions to which they had come. These writings were prepared in concert with Pascal and his friends, and the second and fifth are ascribed entirely to his pen. It is even said that he looked upon the latter, in which he drew a parallel betwixt the Jesuits and Calvinists (to the disadvantage of the Protestants), as the best thing he ever did. [153] Long after Pascal’s death (in 1694) an elaborate answer appeared, by Father Daniel, to the ‘Provincial Letters,’ under the title of ‘Entretiens de Cléandre et d’Eudoxe sur les Lettres au Provincial;’ but notwithstanding a certain amount of learning and apparent candour, the reply made no impression upon the public. Even the Jesuits themselves felt it to be a failure. “Father Daniel,” it was said, “professed to have reason and truth on his side; but his adversary had in his favour what goes much farther with men,—the arms of ridicule and pleasantry.” As late as 1851 an edition of the ‘Letters’ appeared by the Abbé Maynard, accompanied by a
professed refutation of their misstatements. But the truth is, Pascal’s work is one of those which admit of no adequate refutation. Even if it be granted that he has occasionally made the most of a quotation, and brought points together which, taken separately in their connection, have not the offensive meaning attributed to them, this touches but little the reader who has enjoyed their exquisite raillery or has been moved by their indignant denunciation. The real force of the Letters lies in their wit and eloquence—their mingled comedy and invective. They may be parried or resented—they can never be refuted.
We have already quoted Voltaire’s saying, “The best comedies of Molière have not more wit than the first Provincial Letters.” “Bossuet,” he added, “has nothing more sublime than the concluding ones.” They were regarded by him as “models of eloquence and pleasantry,” as the “first work of genius” that appeared in French prose. When Bossuet himself was asked of what work he would most wish to have been the author, he answered, “The ‘Provincial Letters.’” Madame de Sévigné writes of them (Dec. 21, 1689): “How charming they are! . . . Is it possible to have a more perfect style, an irony finer, more delicate, more natural, more worthy of the Dialogues of Plato? . . . And what seriousness of tone, what solidity, what eloquence in the last eight Letters!” Our Gibbon attributed to the frequent perusal of them his own mastery of “grave and temperate irony.” Boileau pronounced them “unsurpassed” in ancient or modern prose. Encomiums could hardly go higher, and yet the language of Perrault is in a still higher strain: “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.” Their style especially is beyond all praise. It has “never been surpassed, nor perhaps equalled.” There may be, as there is apt to be in all such concurrent verdicts, a strain of excess. The duller English sense may not catch all the finer edges of a style which it may yet feel to be exquisite in its general clearness, harmony, and point; the absurdities of verbal argument and of Jesuit sophistry may sometimes pall upon the attention, and hardly raise a smile at this time of day. It is the fate of even the finest polemical literature to grow dead as it grows old; yet none can doubt the immortality of the genius which has so long given life to such a controversy, and charmed so many of the highest judges of literary form. It is not for any Englishman to challenge the verdict of a Frenchman in a matter of style.
Pascal himself evidently thought highly of his success. He liked the controversy, its excitement, and the applausive echo which followed each Letter. Like every true artist, he felt the joy and yet the gravity of his work. He took up his pen with a pleasurable sense of mastery, and yet he wrote some of the Letters six or seven times over. He spared no pains, yet he never wearied. All his intellectual life for the time was thrown into the controversy, and his most finely-tempered strokes made music in his own mind, while they carried confusion to his adversaries and triumph to his friends. The sensation made by the Letters was, of course, mainly confined to France; but the nervous Latinity of Nicole soon communicated something of the same sensation to a wider
circle. [156] Pascal has himself told us that he never repented having written them, nor “the amusing, agreeable, ironical style” in which they were written. Even the condemnation of the Papal See, abject in some respects as was his devotion to his Church, did not move him on this point. He left on record, amongst his Thoughts, the following solemn declaration: “If my Letters are condemned in Rome, what i condemn in them is condemned in heaven. Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE ‘PENSÉES.’
From Pascal’s finished work we turn to his unfinished Remains. The one will always be regarded as the chief monument of his literary skill, and of the executive completeness of his mind. But the other is the worthier and nobler tribute to the greatness of his soul, and the depth and power of his moral genius. Few comparatively now read the ‘Provincial Letters’ as a whole; fewer still are interested in the controversy which they commemorate. But there are hardly any of higher culture—none certainly of higher thoughtfulness—to whom the ‘Pensées’ are not still attractive, and who have not sought in them at one time or another some answer to the obstinate questionings which the deeper scrutiny of human life and destiny is ever renewing in the human heart. No answer may have been found in them, but every spiritual mind must have so far met in the author of the ‘Pensées’ a kindred spirit which, if it has seen no farther than others, has yet entered keenly upon the great quest, and traversed with a singular boldness the great lines of higher speculation that “slope through darkness up to God.”
The literary history of the ‘Pensées’ is a very curious one. They first appeared in the end of 1669, in a small duodecimo volume, with the appropriate motto, “Pendent opera interrupta.” Their preparation for the press had been a subject of much anxiety to Pascal’s friends. What is known as the “Peace of the Church”—a period of temporary quiet and prosperity to Port Royal—had begun in 1663; and it was important that nothing should be done by the Port Royalists to disturb this peace. It had been agreed, therefore, that all passages bearing on the controversy with the Jesuits and the Formulary should be omitted; but beyond this Madame Périer desired that the volume should only contain what proceeded from her brother, and in the precise form and style in which it had left his hand. She evidently lacked full confidence in the Committee of Editors, of whom the Duc de Roannez was the chief, notwithstanding their professions of strict adherence to the manuscripts. The volume at last appeared, with a preface by her own son, and no fewer than nine “approbations,” signed amongst others by three bishops, one archdeacon, and three doctors of the Sorbonne.
Unhappily Madame Périer had too much cause for alarm. Editors and Approvers alike had claimed the liberty, not only of arranging but of modifying both the matter and the style of the ‘Pensées,’ and this notwithstanding a statement in the preface that, in giving, as they professed to do, only “the clearest and most finished” of the fragments, they had given them as they found them, without adding or changing anything. “These fragments,” says M. Faugère, “which sickness and death had left unfinished, suffered, without ceasing