YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Bought with the Income ofthe ANN S. FARNAM FUND POET EOYAL A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTOEY OF EELIGION and LITEEATUEE IN EEANCE CHARLES BEAKD, B.A. "Pour moi, je suis da l'ordre de tous les Saints, et tous les Saints sont de mon ordre." Angilique Arnauld VOLUME THE SECOND LONDON LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 1861 CONTENTS THE SECOND VOLUME. BOOK III. PORT ROYAL IN ITS RELATION TO LITERATURE AND SOCIETY. CHAP. I. BLAISE AND JACQUELINE PASCAL. Materials for Pascal's Life . Pascal Family Birth Early mathematical Promise Treatise on Conic Sections . Jacqueline's Verses . . . Eichelieu and the Pascals . Removal to Normandy . . Friendship with Corneille . Les Palinods de Rouen . . Arithmetical Machine . . Problem of the Vacuum . . Torricelli's Hypothesis . . Pascal's Experiments. . . The Puy de Dome. . . . Skirmish with the Jesuits . Controversy with Des Cartes] Des Cartes' Plagiarisms . . His Jealousy Pascal's first religious Impres sions Etienne Pascal breaks his Leg Guillebert, Cure of Eouville. Page 4 5 6 T9 10 12 14 1415 17 19 2020 2123242627 282930 , Page Etienne Pascal's Surgeons . . 31 Frere St. Ange 33 Jacqueline at Port Royal . . 37 Her Father's unwillingness . . 38 Etienne Pascal's Death ... 38 Her Brother asks Delay ... 39 Jacqueline's Dowiy . . . . 41 Pascal's worldly Life .... 43 " Prayer to God in Sickness " . 45 " Thoughts on Death "... 46 " Discourse on the Passions of Love" 46 Did Pascal love? 47 The Due de Roannez .... 48 " Discourses on the Condition of the Great" 49 Madlle. de Roannez .... 50 Pascal's Letters to her ... 51 Her Marriage and Remorse. . 52 Domat 54 Renewed application to Sci ence 55 Carosses a, cinq sols .... 56 Weariness and Dissatisfaction . 57 Letter of Jacqueline on her sister's illness 58 A 3 VI CONTENTS OF THE Page Accident on the Bridge of Neuilly 60 Pascal's "Vision " and "Amu let " 61 Condorcet's Interpretation . . 62 Voltaire and the " Abyss " . . 63 Passage from Leibnitz ... 64 . Pascal's Interview .with his Sister 65 Singlin's Sermon 67 Pascal at Port Royal des Champs 67 Cartesianism at Port Royal . . 68 The Provincial Letters ... 7 0 The Cycloid 71 Pascal's increasing Hi-health . 73 Final Austerity 74 Benevolence 76 Moral Estimate of his last Years 78 Fatal Illness 81 Death -82 Alleged Recantation .... 83 Origin of the Thoughts ... 84 Its Editors: M. de Treville . . 85 M. de Brienne 86 Publication ofthe Thoughts . 87 The Archbishop and the Pub lisher 88 Successive Editions . . . . 89 Voltaire's Remarks .... 90 Condorcet's and Voltaire's Editions 91 Bossut's Edition 91 M. Victor Cousin's " Report " . 92 Pascal's original Notes ... 93 Evidence against the First Edi tors 95 M. Cousin's Statement of the Case 95 Condorcet's and Bossut's Edi tions 96 How far is Port Royal guilty? . 97 Theory of the First Preface. . 98 Arnauld on the Alterations of the Thoughts 99 Probable Motives of the Editors 100 Page Theory of Authorship at Port Royal 102 The Thoughts not originally aphoristic 104 Plan of the Thoughts. ... 105 Conversation on Epictetus and Montaigne 107 Twofold Division of the Thoughts 110 Theory of Human Nature . .111 Man's fallen Grandeur . . .112 Impossibility of Natural Re ligion 113 Second Part of the Thoughts .113 Connection of Pascal's Theory with his Jansenism . . .115 With his Mathematical Studies 115 Is Pascal a Sceptic? .... 117 The Question answered . . .118 Style of the Thoughts ... 120 Of the Provincial Letters . . 121 Character of his Originality . . 122 Individuality of mental and moral Constitution .... 123 Likeness to his Sister .... 123 Passionate Love of Truth . . 124 Conclusion 126 CHAP. n. THE SCHOOLS OF POUT KOTAL. Educational Theory of the Jesuits 127 St. Cyran and Education . . 128 His Love of Children . . . 129 Employs his Disciples in teach ing 131 Beginning of the Schools . .132 Report of Du Fosse . . . .133 Schools in the Rue St. Domi nique 135 Removal from Paris .... 136 D'Aubrai's first Visit . . . 137 Final Suppression . . . .137 Theory of Training . . . .138 Daily Life in the Schools . .140 SECOND VOLUME. Vll Page Friends and Teachers . . .141 Walon de Beaupuis . . . .142 Birth and Education . . . 142 Retires to Port Royal des Champs 143 Undertakes the Direction of the Schools 144 Retirement to Beauvais, and Ordination 144 Forbidden to exercise his Functions 145 Mode of Life 145 Death 146 Claude Lancelot 1 47 Educates the Princes de Conti 1 48 Retires to St. Cyran . . . .149 Death 150 Port Royalist Method of teach ing Languages 151 Port Royal Latin Grammar . 151 Greek Grammar 152 Other Grammars and School- books 153 " Grammaire Generate ". . .154 Port Royal Logic : its Origin . 155 Editions and Translations . . 156 Object and Method . . . .157 Pierre Nicole: Birth and Edu cation 160 Miscellaneous Learning . . .161 Becomes a Teacher at Les Granges 162 Controversial Works . . . .163 "LaPerpetuite delaFoi". .164 "Essaisde Morale" .... 166 Renewal of the Jansenist De bate 168 Nicole makes his Peace with the Archbishop 169 Distrust and Anger of his Friends 170 Arnauld's Generosity . . .171 Last years 173 Death 174 Character 175 Other Scholars of Port Royal .176 Page D'Aubigny : the Duke of Mon mouth 177 Tillemont 177 Birth and Education . . . .178 Youthful Studies 179 Ordination : later Life . . .180 Habits and Character . . .180 Ecclesiastical History . . .184 Circumstances of its Publication 185 Character of the Work . . .185 Tillemont's Death 186 Burial 187 Passage from his Meditations . 187 CHAP. HI. THE FOUK BISHOPS. Theory of Life at Port Royal . 189 The Four Bishops • . . .190 Buzanval, Bishop of Beauvais . 191 Legal Education 192 Obtains the See of Beauvais . 193 The Seminary 194 Character 196 Death 197 Arnauld, Bishop of Angers . 197 Consecration 199 Character 200 Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers . . 202 Consecration 204 Mode of Life 205 Takes at first no Part in the Controversy of Grace . . . 206 The Regale 207 Singular Position of Parties ~ . 208 Death of Caulet 209 The Four Articles . . . .210 Settlement of the Debate . .211 Pavilion, Bishop of Alet . .212 Influence of Vincent de Paul . 212 Offered the Bishopric of Alet . 213 Consecration 214 Description of Alet . . . .215 Former Bishops and their Clergy 216 Instruction ofthe Parish Priests 217 Vlll CONTENTS OF THE " Page Visits, Synods, Missions . . .219 Girls' Schools. 220 Personal Devotion of the Bishop 222 His Household 224 Conduct to Lay Penitents . . 225 Advice to De Ranee . . . .226 Opposition and Vexations . . 227 Jansenist Opinions and Friend ships 228 The Ritual of Alet .... 229 Old Age and Death .... 230 CHAP. IV. MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE. The House of Conde .... 233 Henri, Prince de Conde . . . 234 Birth of Mad. de Longue- ville 235 Resolves to retire to the Car melite Convent 237 The Court Ball 238 Various Testimonies to her Beauty and Powers of pleas ing 239 The Hotel de Rambouillet . . 241 Mad. de Rambouillet and her Family 241 ** La Guirlande de Julie " . . 244 Influence of the Hotel de Ram bouillet on French Literature 245 Frequenters of the Hotel de Rambouillet 247 Conde and his Sister at Chan tilly 248 Madlle. du Vigean .... 249 The Due de Longueville . . 250 Marriage 251 Mad. de Montbazon and the lost Letters .... t 252 The Princesse de Conde takes up the Quarrel 253 The fatal Duel ,....[ 255 Death of Coligni 257 M. de Longueville at Munster 258 Page Mad. de Longueville's journey into Germany 259 Return to Paris 260 Fresh social Triumph . . . 261 La Rochefoucauld's Confession 262 His Birth and Youth .... 263 Intrigues against Mazarin . . 264 Motives of his Connection with Mad. de Longueville . . . 265 Beginning of the Fronde . .266 The Day of Barricades . . .267 The War of Paris . . . . .268 Mad. de Longueville at the Hotel de Ville 269 Cessation of the War .... 270 Fresh Troubles 271 Arrest of the Princes . . . . 272 Flight of Mad. de Longueville into Normandy 273 Attempt to escape by Sea from Dieppe 274 With Turenne at Stenai . . .275 Turenne loses the Battle of Rethel 276 Counter Revolution : Release of the Princes 277 Refusal of Conti to marry Madlle. de Chevreuse . . . 278 Renewal of civil War . . . 280 The Fronde of Bordeaux . . 281 Triumph of Mazarin and the Queen 282 The Fronde and the English Civil Wars 283 Mad. de Longueville's Share in the Fronde 284 Alienation from La Rochefou cauld 285 The Scuderys and the Grand Gyrus 287 Letter to the Carmelite Prioress 288 Religious Crisis 289 Return to her Husband . . . 290 Reconcihation with the Court . 291 The Prince and Princesse de Conti 291 SECOND VOLUME. IX Conversion by Pavilion , . . 292 Pavilion's Treatment of his Penitents 294 Inefflcacy of Mad. de Longue ville's Religious Guides . .296 Madlle. de Vertus . . . .297 Mad. de Sable 298 Takes up her Residence at Port Royal 299 Relation to the Community . 300 Fear of Infection 302 Love of Eating 303 Correspondence with Mad. de Longueville 304 Singlin's Interview with Mad. de Longueville 305 Her general Confession . . . 306 Exertions for Port Royal . .307 La Rochefoucauld's later Years. 309 His Memoirs 310 His Maxims 313 Mad. de Longueville's Children 317 The Comte de Dunois . . .318 The Comte de St. Paul . . .320 His Death 321 Mad. de Longueville's final Re tirement 323 Her Death: Conclusion . . . 324 CHAP. V. RACINE. Racine and Pascal equally Port Royalist, but in a different way . 326 Family of Racine 327 Birth of Jean Racine ; early Education 328 Close Connection with the So litaries 329 Studies at Port Royal . . . 330 Early Verses 331 " La Nymphe de la Seine " . 332 Beginning of Rebellion . , . 333 Journey to Languedoc . . . 335 Return to Paris 338 Page " La Renommee aux Muses " 338 Boileau ; early Life .... 339 Devotion to satiric Poetry . . 340 Racine's Acquaintance with Moliere: "The Thebaid" .342 English and French Tragedy . 343 "Alexandre" 345 Quarrel with Moliere .... 346 Letter from La Mere Racine . 347 Alienation pf Racine from Port Royal 348 Controversy with Nicole . . 349 ¦' Andromaque " 351 " Les Plaideurs " 352 " Britannicus " 353 "Berenice" 354 "Bajazet" 355 Mad. de Sevigne on Racine and Corneille 356 La Champmele 357 " Mithridate " 358 " Iphigenie " 359 "Phedre" 361 Pradon's " Phedre " . . . . 362 Boileau's Epistle to Racine . 363 Boileau's Friendship for Ar- nauld 364 The " Arret Burlesque " . . 364 Racine's Retirement from the Theatre 366 His Marriage 367 Reconciliation with Nicole and Arnauld ....... 368 Historiographer 369 Adulation of the King . . .371 Explanation of it 373 Racine and Boileau at Court . 375 Boileau a Molino-Jansenist'. . 377 Racine Gentleman-in-Ordinary to the King 379 His Happiness at Home . . , 380 Mad. de Maintenon and St. Cyr 382 "Esther" 383 "Athalie" 385 Minor Poems 387 CONTENTS OF THE Page " Abrege de 1'Histoire de Port Royal" 388 Alienation of the King . . . 389 Letter to Mad. de Maintenon . 391 Last Illness 393 Death; Will; Burial . Last Years of Boileau Death Character of Racine . Of Boileau . . . . Page 394 , 395 . 396 , 397 . 399 BOOK IV. FROM THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH TO THE FINAL DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL. CHAP. I. THE LAST TEAKS OF PROSPERITY. Page Introduction 403 Simon, Marquis de Pomponne 404 Disgrace and Recall .... 405 Death and Character. . . . 406 D'Andilly's Interview with the King 408 Returns to Port Royal and dies 409 Mad. de Sevigne 410 Renaud de Sevignt; . . . .411 Due and Duchesse de Liancourt 412 M. de Pontchateau . . . .416 First Connection with Port Royal 417 Final Retirement 418 Austerities 419 Death 421 Alleged Miracles 422 Hamon : Physician and Mystic 423 Origin of Mysticism in personal Character 424 Hamon's Retirement to Port Royal 426 Physician of the Solitaries . . 427 Method of Life 428 Shares the Imprisonment of the Nuns . .' 429 Treatises written for their Edi fication • 430 Page Other Treatises of Piety . . 432 Commentary on the Song of Solomon 433 Last Years 434 Claude de Ste. Marthe . . .435 CHAP. II. THE FINAL PERSECUTION. Instability of the Peace . . .437 Harlay, Archbishop of Paris . 438 Dispute at Angers .... 439 The Bishops' Letter to the Pope 440 Arnauld and the Regale . . 441 Am auld required to leave Paris 4-13 Flight to Mons 444 Harlay at Port Royal . . . 445 Boarders and Confessors ex pelled ... 445 New Confessors , . . . . 448 Le Moine: Le Tourneux . . 449 Eustace 451 Death of De Saci 452 Burial 453 Deaths of Angeliqiie de St. Jean and of De Luzanci . . . 454 Character of De Saci. . . . 454 De Sagi and the Bible . . . 457 The New Testament of Mons . 459- De Saci'-s Bible 452 SECOND VOLUME. XI Page Character of Angelique de St. Jean 463 Abbesses du Fargis and Ra cine 466 Fruitless Application to the Archbishop 467 Arnauld's exile 467 Change of Residence .... 470 Arrest of his French Corre spondents 472 Incessant literary Activity . .474 Attitude towards the Protest ants 475 Last Years and Death . . .477 Burial: Epitaphs 478 Character 479 Death of Harlay 484 De Noailles, Archbishop . . 484 Attack made by Port Royal de Paris 486 La Belle Hamilton . . . .487 Page Marechal's visit 488 The Case of Conscience . . . 490 The Bull Vineam Domini . . 49 1 Seizure of Quesnel's Papers . 492 Bull read and received at Port Royal 494 Death of the last Abbess . .495 Sequestration 496 Appeal and Remonstrance . .497 Bulls for the Destruction of Port Royal 498 Le Tellier, Royal Confessor . 499 Public Sympathy: Madlle. de Joncoux 500 Forcible Dispersion . . . 502 Indignation at Paris .... 504 Imprisonment of the Nuns . . 505 Order for the Demolition of the Buildings 507 Exhumation 508 Epilogue 510 BOOK III. PORT ROYAL IN ITS RELATION TO LITERATURE AND SOCIETY. YOL. II. I. BLAISE AND JACQUELINE PASCAL. The name which Port Eoyal most confidently offers to the admiration of the world is indisputably that of Blaise Pascal. The glory of Eacine was gained in an arena to which Port Eoyal would willingly have barred his entrance. St. Cyran, Singlin, Nicole, even Arnauld, are so completely identified with a peculiar church party, and an unpopular theology, as to be known only to students of ecclesiastical history. They belong to Catholicism and Port Eoyal ; Pascal to religion and the world. His brilliant achievements in mathematical and physical science have given him a high place among discoverers: his "Provincial Letters'' mark an epoch of the French language, and are still a model of style : his " Thoughts " are a contribution to Christian evidence, much pondered by other than Jansenist theolo gians. And yet he is Port Eoyalist at every point, and a critic ignorant of Port Eoyal must fail to understand him. His glory is reflected upon the community; and it, in return, has to answer more than one heavy accusation, brought by his modern admirers. The mathematicians complain that powers, which promised to add much to the positive knowledge of mankind, were wasted in the dreams of a gloomy and suicidal austerity ; the students of litera ture, that a garbled copy ofthe "Thoughts" was deliberately suffered to misrepresent to posterity the mind of the master. Before long we shall have to inquire whether it B 2 4 PORT ROYAL. is possible to give a full answer to these charges : now it is sufficient to reply, that the world owes the " Provincial Letters" to the danger, the "Thoughts " to the deliverance of Port Eoyal ; and that every religious thought which Pascal has left, is intertwined with the theology which St. Cyran imposed upon the community. The time has only now arrived, at which the life of Pascal could be written. Men have long had in their hands the simple and touching biography which his elder sister, Madame Perier, wrote soon after his death, but which was not published till 1684. Even then, however, all that related to Pascal's share in the debate of the Formulary was carefully suppressed, as likely to aggravate the persecu tion already recommenced against Port Eoyal.* These omissions were partly repaired in a memoir, entitled "Memoire sur la Vie de M. Paschal, contenant aussi quel- ques particularites de celle de ses parens," — contained in the " Eecueil de plusieurs Pieces pour servir a l'Histoire de Port Eoyal," published at Utrecht in 1740. This memoir was founded upon papers left behind her by Marguerite Perier, the subject of the famous miracle, who, surviving her cure by nearly eighty years, was the last depositary of the traditions of the palmy days of Port Eoyal. At this point research into the life of Pascal stood still for a century. The " Thoughts " were reprinted again and again ; now annotated by Voltaire, now by Condorcet : and scattered sayings or fragments of Pascal's composition were added one by one. A complete edition of all his works was pub lished in 1779, and reprinted in 1819. It was reserved for our own generation to discover that the current copies of the " Thoughts " differed widely from the still extant manu script, and that the world had mistaken for the genuine * Havet, Pensees, Notes sur la Vie de Pascal, p. 1. Recueil d'Utrecht, p. 350. BLAISE PASCAL. 5 utterance of Pascal, the emasculated work of his editors. M. Victor Cousin has the merit of the discovery, but other labourers have eagerly pressed in at the gate which he opened. M. Prosper Faugere, M. Ernest Havet, and M. Louandre have all published genuine editions of the " Thoughts," each arranged after a fashion of its own. At the same time, the new interest thus awakened in Pascal's works has not failed to embrace also his life. The manu script stores of the Imperial and of many private Jansenist libraries have been ransacked. Every word that could pos sibly throw any light upon the history of the Pascal family has been emulously printed by M. Cousin and M. Faugere. The papers of Marguerite Perier, upon which the memoir of 1740 was founded, are edited by each; and each has devoted a volume to the letters, the poems, the character of Jacqueline Pascal, the subprioress of Port Eoyal. Vol taire held Pascal up to ridicule as a fanatic ; M. Cousin has discovered that he was a sceptic ; and the Abbe May nard, who has since published a refutation of the "Provincial Letters," employs two goodly volumes in proving that Pascal was neither fanatic nor sceptic, but a devout son of the Church. Protestant critics have not abstained from the fray; and M. Vinet has left behind him a volume of eloquent essays, one object of which seems to be to show that at heart Pascal was hardly a Catholic at all. Now, for the first time, all the necessary materials are at the command ofthe biographer; and the critic who goes astray in estimating Pascal's philosophical position, will at least not wander for lack of guidance. The Pascal, like the Arnauld family, belonged to Au- vergne, and although it boasted a patent of nobility, conferred by Louis XL, was of parliamentary rather than of noble condition. Etienne, the father of Blaise Pascal, was the son of Martin Pascal, treasurer of France, and of Marguerite, daughter of M. Pascal de Mons, seneschal of B 3 6 PORT ROYAL. Clermont. He was educated for the legal profession, and had become second president of the Court of Aids at Clermont, when he married, in 1618, Antoinette Begon. By her he had three children, who survived to man's estate; Gilberte, born in 1620; Blaise, in 1623; and Jacqueline, in 1625. The eldest daughter married, in 1641, her cousin Florin Perier ; and was mother of Etienne, Louis, Blaise, Marguerite and Jacqueline Perier, all of whom maintained a close connection with the second generation of Port Eoyal.* Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont, on the 19th of June, 1623 ; his sister Jacqueline on the 4th of October, 1625. In the following year their mother died; and the father, a man of considerable scientific acquirement and a serious turn of mind, began to deliberate upon the pro priety of entirely devoting himself to the education of his son, who showed signs of ability beyond his years. Ac cordingly, in 1631, he sold his office at Clermont to his brother, and removed with his family to Paris, where he invested the greater part of his property in bonds upon the Hotel de Ville. His house became the resort of the first mathematicians ofthe day, Mersenne, Le Pailleur, Eoberval, Carcavi ; and the little society, thus drawn together, was the nucleus of the French Academy of Sciences, first in corporated in 1666. Etienne Pascal was proud of his children, especially of his son; and would entrust their education to no less careful hands than his own. He would keep them, he said, " above their work," and so did not teach Blaise Latin till he was twelve years old. But in the meantime the child's mind was being conducted through a kind of gymnastic training ; he acquired general notions of grammar, and of the relations of languages to each other, and was encouraged * Marg. Perier, ap. Faugere, Jacq. Pascal, p. 418. EARLY PROMISE. 7 to observe and investigate natural phenomena. While still a child, says his sister, his attention was drawn to the sound produced by striking a porcelain plate with a knife, and to the fact of its cessation as soon as the plate was touched by the hand. From this he proceeded to make other acoustic observations, the result of which was a little treatise on sound, written when he was only twelve years old, yet not deficient in power of reasoning or ac curacy of statement. The story of Pascal's early proficiency in mathematical knowledge is well known. His father, perhaps perceiving the bent of the boy's powers, refused to give him any mathematical instruction, that he might not be prevented by it from making due progress in the study of languages. Again and again Blaise vainly begged for lessons in geo metry ; he was told that he should be taught as the reward of success in Latin and Greek. The mathematical books, which no doubt abounded in Etienne Pascal's house, were locked up ; and when the mathematical friends came, the child was sent out of the way. But I will continue in Madame Perier's own words : — " My brother, seeing this resistance, asked him one day what this science was, and what it treated of ; my father told him, in general terms, that it was the way to make correct figures, and to find the proportions which they bear to each other, and at the same time forbade him to speak of it again, or to think of it any more. But his mind could not remain within these limits, after it had had these simple means of escape, — that mathematics, namely, is the way to make figures infallibly correct : he began to meditate upon it in his play hours ; and, being alone in a room where he was accustomed to amuse himself, took a piece of char coal and drew figures upon the boards, trying how to make, for example, a circle which should be perfectly round, a triangle whose sides and angles should be equal, and other B 4 8 PORT ROYAL. such things. All this he discovered by himself, and after wards investigated the relative properties of figures. But as my father's care to hide all these things from him had been so great, he did not know even their names. He was obliged to make definitions for himself : he called a circle a round, a line a bar, and so on with the rest. After these definitions he made axioms, and, at last, perfect de monstrations ; and, as in these matters one thing follows •'; upon another, he pushed his researches so far, that he came to Proposition xxxn. of the First Book of Euclid. As he was engaged upon this, my father came into the room where he was, without my brother's hearing him, and found him so engrossed that it was long before he perceived his approach. It is impossible to say which was the more surprised ; the son to see his father, on account of the ex press prohibition which he had given, or the father to see his son in the midst of all these things. But the wonder of the father was much greater when, having asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was trying to find out the theorem which forms Proposition xxxii. of the First Book of Euclid. My father asked him what had made him think of investigating that ; he said, that it was because he had found out such another thing ; upon which, the same question being repeated, he told him other demonstrations which he had made; and, finally, still going backwards, and always explaining himself by help of his terms ' round' and ' bar,' he came to his definitions and his axioms. " My father was so amazed at the grandeur and power of this genius, that he left him without saying a word ; and went to the house of M. Le Pailleur, who was his intimate friend, and also very learned. When he arrived there he stood motionless, like a man out of his mind. M. Le Pailleur, seeing this, and noticing that he was shedding tears, was shocked, and begged him not to delay the com munication of the cause of his trouble. My father answered, JACQUELINE PASCAL. 9 ' I do not weep for sorrow, but for joy. You know the pains I have taken to keep my son from any knowledge of geometry, lest it should divert him from his other studies ; nevertheless, see what he has done!' Upon that, he showed him all that he had discovered ; how, so to speak, the child had invented mathematics. M. Le Pailleur was not less surprised than my father had been, and told him that he did not think it right to keep such a mind captive any longer, or to hide this knowledge from it, and that, without holding him back any more, he must let him see books." * Acting on this advice, Etienne Pascal gave his son Euclid's " Elements," as a book for his hours of recreation ; still exacting from him an exclusive devotion of his hours of study to other pursuits. He soon read them through, and understood them without explanation. Before long he became fit, by help, we are to suppose, of other mathema tical books, to take his place in the little society of which his father was a member ; and no one, we are told, was more fertile than he in the production of new problems, or more ingenious in the criticism of those offered by others. At the age of sixteen he composed a treatise on conic sections, which, though not printed, was pronounced by competent judges to deserve that honour. Des Cartes, to whom a copy was sent, paid it the compliment of disbelieving that it could possibly be the production of its alleged author, f Meanwhile, the little Jacqueline, two years younger than her brother, was displaying signs of almost equal precocity. Sisterly partiality paints her childhood in the brightest colours; she was beautiful, sprightly, sweet-tempered, a universal plaything and favourite. At seven years old she began to learn to read. For a time the work went on * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 5. f Baillet, Vie de Des Cartes, lib. v. ch. v. p. 39, quoted by Maynard, vol. i. p. 169. 10 PORT ROYAL. slowly ; her attention could not be held down to the dull lesson, till, one day hearing her sister read poetry, she cried, *¦ If you want to teach me to read, make me read in some book of verse ; I will say my lessons as often as you please.' Henceforward all her talk was of verse; she committed many poems to memory, and at eight years old began to write poetry of her own. At eleven, she is said, with the help of two companions, daughters of M. Saintot, treasurer of France, to have composed a regular comedy in five acts, duly divided into scenes, and conformed to the dramatic rules of the day. The play was twice represented by the young authors and their friends, in presence of a large audience, and furnished matter of conversation to the fashionable circles of Paris. The pregnancy of Anne of Austria in 1638 afforded Jacqueline Pascal the opportunity for one of those frigid conceits, which, by a great stretch of French courtesy, are called epigrams. "The invincible child of an invincible father " had moved in his mother's womb, and therefore "is already more powerful than the God of War. For before his eyes have ever seen the firmament, his slightest motion is an earthquake to the enemies of France." This, with a sonnet on the same subject, was thought sufficient to warrant the presentation of the young poetess to the Queen. She was taken to St. Germains by Madame de Morangis, a friend of the Pascal family, and introduced into the royal ante-room, where Mademoiselle, Madame de Hautefort, and other ladies were waiting for the Queen, who was busy in the adjoining boudoir. The gay circle crowded round the child ; read and praised her rhymes. " If you are so clever at making verses," said Mademoiselle, " make some for me." The little one retired soberly into a corner and soon produced the required stanza. Madame de Hautefort had laid the same command upon her, with the' same result, when the Queen sent for Jacqueline and her JACQUELINE PASCAL. 11 guide. The royal incredulity as to the verses which had formed the pretext for the visit was removed by the pro duction of the two impromptu stanzas, and for the day the child was the plaything of the court. Her sister relates, with not unnatural pride, that at the Queen's private repast Jacqueline shared with Mademoiselle the honour of attend ing to the royal wants. The verses of this memorable day were printed in 1638 under the title of "Vers de la petite Pascal," and dedicated to Anne of Austria in a prose letter written by Jacqueline herself. How strange the contrast between this brief sunshine of court favour, and the hea,rt so soon broken by the troubles of Port Eoyal ! * About the same time Etienne Pascal was unlucky enough to incur the displeasure of the all-powerful Cardinal. He had invested the savings of his life in bonds upon the Hotel de Ville at Paris ; and the government had arbitrarily curtailed the interest, and so lessened the value of the pro perty. Etienne Pascal encountered one day some of his fellow-sufferers at the house of the Chancellor Seguier ; hard words were uttered, as often by men who compare their wrongs ; and Gilberte Pascal hints that words were not unaccompanied by acts of violence. The Cardinal dealt summarily- — as was his wont — with such symp toms of disaffection ; the principal offenders were thrown into the Bastille, and Etienne Pascal, though innocent, was obliged to hide himself in the houses of various friends. Jacqueline, who, in spite of her poetical precocity, was yet a child in all her ways, and exercised over the whole household the sweet fascination of its youngest member, was the chief consolation of his tedious concealment. But in September of the same year she was seized at her father's house with the small-pox, and lay in extreme danger. It is a pleasing proof of the affection which bound together this remark- * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. pp. 54—57. V. Cousin, J. P. p. 61. 12 PORT ROYAL. able family, that Etienne Pascal forgot his own risk in that of his motherless daughter ; he hastened to her bedside, and did not leave it, even to take necessary repose, till her safety was assured. But returning health did not bring returning beauty : the disease left behind it only too visible marks of its power. Jacqueline, unable to mingle with the gay world of Paris — always ready to caress her — passed the winter contentedly with her childish playthings, and thanked God for His mercies in a poem, which, both in its construction and in the sober piety which it breathes, is far beyond her years.* In February 1639, the Cardinal took a fancy to see a comedy represented by child actors, and placed the neces sary arrangements in the hands of his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon. We are to suppose that the remembrance of Jacqueline's former success had not passed away; for Madame d'Aiguillon sent to ask for her services and for those of her friend, Mademoiselle Saintot. " M. le Car dinal does not give us pleasure enough, for us to take any pains to please him," was Gilberte Pascal's proud reply to a request which, in most Parisian households, would have been taken as a command. Madame d'Aiguillon, who always appears in the stories of the period as a kind- hearted woman, did not take offence, but pointed out to Mademoiselle Pascal that her compliance might be turned to her father's advantage ; and promised all her own in fluence with her uncle. After some consultation with the friends of the family Gilberte yielded, and Jacquelinel studied her part in Scudery's long-forgotten play " L' Amour Tyrannique." The 3rd of April, 1639, was the important day. A fashionable crowd assembled at the Hotel Eiche-^ lieu ; and the Cardinal's mind had been carefully disabused of his prejudices against M. Pascal. The play succeeded! * V. Cousin, J. P. p. 70. JACQUELINE PASCAL. 13 beyond expectation : the little actress of thirteen was the heroine of the night. No sooner was the representation over, than she left the stage, intending to speak to her patroness, Madame d'Aiguillon ; but seeing the Cardinal turn away, feared to lose the occasion, and ventured to accost him without introduction. He sat down again, took her on his knee, and seeing that she wept, caressingly asked her the reason. She faltered out a complimentary address in verse, which she had herself written, asking pardon for her father: Madame d'Aiguillon supported, and Eichelieu good-naturedly granted, the petition. . In a letter dated the next day, which is still extant, Jacque line had the happiness 'of assuring her father that he might safely return. She naively recounts the compliments and caresses which had been lavished upon her, and does not forget the comfits and dried fruits with which the little performers were regaled. Her brother's mathematical talents had not been passed over ; the Cardinal was anxious to become better acquainted with the whole family. On his return, therefore, Etienne Pascal hastened to thank Eichelieu, and took his three children with him. The Cardinal was all affability : the talk was no more of the Bastille, but of employment and promotion ; he was ravish ed to restore M. Pascal to a family which so urgently required all his attention ; and he recommended the chil dren to his care, for he hoped himself one day to make them something great. Eichelieu was nearer the end of his course than perhaps he thought, when he made these courtly speeches. But they remind us of his offers to St. Cyran, of his visit to Antoine Arnauld ; and are another proof that he possessed one characteristic of greatness, the faculty of seeing greatness in others.* * Mad. Perier, ap. Cousin, J. P. p. 34. Marg. Perier, ibid. p. 55. Let tres de Jacq. Pascal, ibid. p. 72. 14 PORT ROYAL. Not long after this interview, Etienne Pascal was ap pointed Intendant of Normandy. The province was greatly disturbed ; not only were all the concerns of the revenue in disorder, but government offices had been plundered, and tax-gatherers murdered. The parliament of Eouen was interdicted from the performance of its functions, and the administration of justice entrusted to officers sent from Paris. To remedy such a condition of things Eichelieu employed both the military and the civil power of the state ; Marshal de Gassier was ordered to march troops into the province, and M. de Paris sent with hinr as intendant of the army. The other intendant, Etienne] Pascal, was especially charged with the reform and collec tion of the revenue. He discharged the duties of his office with great success, for several years after the death of his patron, and was recalled only when, in 1648, the parliament of Paris took advantage of the Fronde to demand the removal of all provincial intendants.* The residence of Etienne Pascal in Eouen was the occa sion of a new literary triumph for his daughter, the more interesting as it brings her into friendly relations with one of the greatest of French poets, Pierre Corneille. Corneille was a native of Eouen, and had now retired thither to avoid the acknowledged animosity of the great Cardinal His powers and his reputation were alike at their highest; he had produced the "Cid "in 1636, "Cinna" in 1639; "Les Horaces" is about to follow in 1641, "Polyeucte" in 1643, The competitors with whom he strove for public favour were contemptible, and the world only laughed when Eichelieu avowed his preference of " L' Amour Tyrannique" oyer the " Cid." Eacine was born in the very year in which Etienne Pascal came to Eouen ; and the days in which. Corneille saw his senile efforts rejected by the players are * Marg. Perier, ap. Cousin, "Etudes sur Pascal, p. 313. PALINODS DE ROUEN. 15 yet far distant. We do not know whether any old tie of friendship united Corneille with the family of Pascal; literature, and the fact that both belonged to the par liamentary society of Eouen, are sufficient to account for the intimacy which certainly existed. Will it be a quite unwarranted flight of imagination to suppose that the poet, still in the first vigour of manhood, and eagerly mounting, step by step, the ladder of fame, may have come sometimes to the house of M. l'lntendant-General, and read to the quick, bright-eyed girl, or the thoughtful, sickly boy whom he found there, the ringing phrases of " Les Horaces," yet unheard upon the boards ? It is at least easy to believe that the grave piety of the household may have turned his thoughts to the display of Christian heroism in the " Polyeucte." There existed at Eouen a brotherhood of the Conception of the Virgin, founded by some of the chief inhabitants of that city as far back as 1072. After the lapse of 400 years a poetical competition was established in connexion with it : an annual assembly was held, and prizes awarded to compositions in various forms of verse, but all strictly in accordance with fixed rules, and devoted to the single object of celebrating the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. The whole, from the restrictions of versification anciently imposed upon the competitors, was called, " Les Palinods de Eouen." Corneille himself had won a prize in 1633, and now proposed to Jacqueline that she should enter the lists. His successful poem, rescued from a not quite undeserved obscurity by M. Faugere *, is a compari son between Eve and Mary, drawn out in a series of well- balanced antitheses, and of course all in favour of the latter. Who can resist the theological conclusion ? If Eve was * Jacq. Pascal, preface, p. xix. 16 PORT ROYAL. formed without taint of original sin, how much more Mary ? So the devout poet concludes : — " Ce que Dieu donne bien a, la mere des hommes Ne le refusons pas a la mere de Dieu." Perhaps a special method of treatment was prescribed to the poets who competed at Eouen ; more probably Jacque line modelled her effort on that of her friend and adviser. Whichever was the case, the poems display a strong family likeness. But the object of comparison is now the ark of the covenant ; and the point of the stanzas — neither better nor worse than those of Corneille — is : " Si done une arche simple, et bien moins necessaire, Ne saurait habiter dans un profane lieu ; Comment penserez vous que cette sainte mere, Etant un temple impur, fut le temple de Dieu ? " The prize of December 1640 was adjudged to the young poetess, and brought to her, as her sister narrates, with sound of drum and trumpet. But Corneille, who was present at the adjudication, stepped into the place of her whom he gallantly called " the young absent muse," and thanked the presiding judge in an impromptu stanza, which is as good as impromptu verses usually are. Jacqueline appeared in the following year with a poetical offering of thanks more carefully composed, and so ended her public career as a muse. Her poems were henceforward only for her family and her intimate friends, and in our own day £ have been recovered from some dusty cabinet of MSS. by j the zeal of those who affectionately collect everything thatj relates to the household of Pascal.* Meanwhile the brother's education had not been neglected, j " During all this time," says Gilberte Pascal, speaking-cf the period before her father's removal to Eouen, " he con-| * Cousin, J. P. p. 78. Faugere, J. P. appendix, p. 484. ARITHMETICAL MACHINE. 17 tinued to learn Latin and Greek ; and besides that, during and after meals my father conversed with him, sometimes on logic, sometimes on physics, and other parts of philo sophy ; and this is all that ever he learned, never having been at college or had other masters for these things any more than for the rest. My father took a pleasure, which may very easily be conceived, in the great progress which my brother made in all these sciences ; but he did not discern that great and constant application, at so tender an age, might seriously affect his health ; and, in truth, it began to be weakened from his eighteenth year. But as the inconveniences which he experienced were not yet very great, they did not prevent him from continuing his ordi nary occupations; so that it was at this time, and at the age of eighteen, that he invented that arithmetical machine, by which not only are all kinds of calculations made without pen and without counters, but without a knowledge of any rule of arithmetic, and yet with infallible accuracy." * This famous machine is said to have owed its origin to filial piety. The finances of Normandy were in great con fusion, and Pascal saw with pain the long and monotonous calculations through which his father was compelled to struggle in the attempt to reduce them to order. He con ceived, therefore, the idea of a machine, which, by the simple turning of a handle, should perform all the elementary operations of arithmetic. The conception was a new one, and seems to us, accustomed to the mechanical wonders of a later age, to have excited an over-strained admiration in the contemporaries of Pascal. It was no less than an act of creation, they said; an inspiration of intellect into wheels of wood and brass. The execution was harder than the con ception, for it cost the inventor all that was left to him of youthful health and vigour. If, as his sister says, the idea * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 8. VOL. II. C 18 PORT ROYAL. occurred to him in his eighteenth year, the complete realisa tion of it occupied eight years of labour and anxiety. He made no less than fifty models of various form and materials, He had to contend against both the treachery and the stupidity of his work-people. At one time he gave up the project in disgust, and resumed it only at the request ofthe Chancellor Seguier, to whom, in 1645, he dedicated the result of his labours. At last in 1649, he obtained a royal patent, which protected him from imperfect imitations, by imposing a fine of 3000 livres upon the vendor of > any instrument not certified as genuine by himself. In 1650, he sent his machine to Queen Christina of Sweden, with a letter in which he complimented her as empress of the realm of science. The compliment was not inapt to one who, though already resolved to lay aside her crown, had prevailed upon Des Cartes, Grotius, Salmasius, Vossius, Huet, and many other strangers of less illustrious name, to adorn her court at Stockholm. To enter upon a description of Pascal's machine would lead us too far from our main purpose ; and would also, in the absence of diagrams, be a difficult and thankless task. We have no certain intelligence of its fate. Like other arithmetical machines, it appears to have been rather a marvel of inventive skill than a source of practical advan tage; its construction was complicated and easily dis arranged ; and its powers neither great nor various. It was altered and improved by the illustrious hands of Leibnitz; and with all the earlier machines upon a similar principle, fell into disuse as logarithms became more and more a part of general mathematical knowledge. One which bears the autograph of Pascal, "Esto probati instruments signacuhm hoc. Blasius Paschal, Arvernus, 1652," was long preserved in the royal library at Paris, and is now in the possession of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. M. Prosper THEORY OF THE VACUUM*. 19 Faugere also states that he saw three at Clermont, Pascal's native place.* It has been a subject of justifiable regret that Pascal's inventive skill should have been bestowed upon a machine which has proved of little real benefit to mankind, and that so many years of his short life should have added nothing to the stock of human knowledge. While, however, he was still poring over his machine, his attention was turned to a department of science, where his effort soon yielded a brilliant result. The hydraulic engineers of Cosmo de Medicis, Duke of Florence, had been surprised to find that a pump constructed upon the common principle,' would not raise water to a greater height above the reservoirs from which it was drawn than thirty-two feet. The received explanation of the action of the pump was, that nature abhorred a vacuum ; and that consequently, as fast as a vacuum was formed by the elevation of the piston, the water rushed upwards to fill it. But why should not this be the case at any height ? Galileo was asked to solve the mystery. For some unknown reason he did not seriously apply himself to the question, but reaffirming the ancient principle, asserted that it had its limits of application, and that nature did not abhor a vacuum at a greater height than thirty-two feet. He does not seem, however, to have been satisfied with his own reply; for he is said to have commended the difficulty to the researches of his friend and pupil Torricelli. The latter at once perceived that the weight of the water was an element in the problem, and proceeded to try the experiment with some other liquid. He found that a column of mercury twenty-eight inches in height, stood in a tube inverted in a reservoir of the same fluid ; and as the specific gravities of water and of mercury * Recueil d'Utrecht, p. 244. Havet, Notes to Vie de Pascal, p. xvii. Fau gere, J. P. p. 9. Maynard, vol. i. p. 171. QSuvres de Pascal, ed. Bossut, vol. iv. pp. 7 — 50. C 2 20 PORT ROYAL. ¦were in the ratio of thirty-two feet to twenty-eight inches, concluded that the columns of water and of mercury, of these respective heights, exercised an equal pressure upon their bases. What natural force was it, then, which counter balanced each of these columns ? Torricelli had received from Galileo the truth, that the air was a fluid of a certain weight, and now applied it to explain the new phenomenon. In 1645, he publicly announced that the cause of the suspension ofthe water in the pump at the height of thirty- two feet, of the mercury in the tube at the height of twenty-eight inches, was the pressure of the air upon the reservoir from which each fluid was drawn. But at the same time, this theory, however true, was in Torricelli's hands only an hypothesis ; he had devised and executed no experiments to test it. He died in 1647, and his theory was unable to make head against the maxim which, strong in the prescription of centuries, tyrannised over men's minds and senses. Some vapours disengaging themselves from the water or the mercury, some "subtle matter," generated no one knew whence or how, stood in the apparently empty space above the liquid, and prevented its ascent. Such were the ideas which satisfied even the powerful mind of Des Cartes, when, about 1646, his friend and correspondent, Pere Mersenne, brought the news of Torricelli's experiments from Italy to France. From him, Pascal, still at Eouen, heard the story; and in conjunction with M. Petit, in tendant of fortifications, commenced a course of experi ments. He did not yet know, we are told, the explanation offered by Torricelli ; but had been led by an independent course of thought, to doubt the principle of the abhorrence of a vacuum. He tried experiments similar to those of Torricelli, under every variety of circumstance. He con-, trived a pipe fifty feet in height ; but the water showed no more alacrity to fill a great void than a small one. He THE PUY DE DdME. 21 satisfied himself by repeated observations that the vacuum was real, and not apparent only; and found that the supposed "matter" was so subtle as to escape the action both of the senses, and of all scientific tests then known. Accordingly in 1647 he published, as an earnest of a greater work on the same subject, a little book entitled "Experiences Nouvelles touchant le Vide," in which he maintained the reality of the vacuum formed under the circumstances above described. In order, however, to place the question beyond the possibility of doubt, some crucial experiment was still wanting ; and the happy thought occurred to Pascal, that if the height of the water in the pump, or of the mercury in the barometrical tube, depended upon the pressure of an atmospherical column, it would necessarily vary with any variation in the weight of that column. The difficulty was to contrive an experiment in which the weight of the atmospherical column should vary sufficiently to produce a corresponding perceptible variation in the mercury or the water. He hit at last upon the expedient of carrying a barometer to the top of a high mountain, and noting whether the mercury rose in proportion to the supposed diminution of the counterbalancing atmospheric weight. The Puy de Dome, a mountain 4839 feet in height, which rises abruptly from the town of Clermont, seemed to afford a favourable place for the experiment, and in November, 1647, Pascal requested his brother-in-law, Florin Perier, to undertake it. From various causes it did not actually take place till September 19th, 1648, when it was minutely recorded in a paper published in the same year.* This celebrated experiment, which was witnessed by a party of scientific inquirers, including more than one * The narrative may be found in Pascal's worts, ed. Bossut, vol. iv. p. 345. c 3 22 PORT ROYAL. clerical philosopher, was begun in the garden of the Minim Fathers, supposed to be the least elevated spot in the town of Clermont. Two tubes, each 4 feet long, and hermetically sealed at one end, were filled with mercury and inverted in a reservoir of the same fluid. In each the mercury was seen to stand at 26 in. 3* lines. One tube was left in this position in charge of a Minim Father, who was instructed to watch and report its variations throughout the day. A portion of the same mercury, together with the second tube, was carried by Perier and his friends to the top of the mountain, which was fortunately free from clouds. There the experiment of the garden was repeated, and to the joy and astonishment of all, the mercury refused to rise higher than 23 in. 2 lines. Five times the ex periment was made under different circumstances : in a little chapel which stood on the summit, and in the open air ; while the weather was fine, and amid the rain and wind which swept over them ; but always with the same effect. On the way down another trial was made, which confirmed the former by producing an intermediate result. In the meantime the tube in the garden had shown no sign of variation during the day, and its travelled com panion, on being inverted in the mercury by its side, in dicated precisely the same atmospherical pressure. The next day a tube was carried up the tower of Notre Dame de Clermont, and again a fall of the mercurial column, corresponding to the height above the garden in which the stationary tube still remained, was observed. A similar experiment was afterwards made by Pascal himself, at the church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie at Paris. In all these cases an invariable ratio between the elevation at which the trial was made, and the height of the mercurial column, was noted. The observation ofthe changes ofthe barometer, as we may venture by anticipation to call this rude instrument, was continued during two or three years,. SKIRMISH "WITH THE JESUITS. 23 by Florin Perier at Clermont, as well as by Des Cartes and Chanut, the French Ambassador, at Stockholm. The results were transmitted to Pascal, and together with some remarks upon similar experiments which had been made in England by the celebrated Eobert Boyle, are preserved in Bossut's edition of his works.* The publication of the "Experiences Nouvelles" was followed by a controversial skirmish with the Jesuits, which presents a curious analogy with St. Cyran's duel with 'Garasse. It seems as if the defenders of Port Eoyal were fated to sharpen upon other fields the weapons which they were to use in the great coming battle of Jansenism. Pere Noel, a member of the Society, writes in courteous phrase to Pascal, suggesting difficulties in the way of the new theory. A like courteous answer is returned ; and the correspondence, so far, is merely a private interchange of argument between two men of science, and was indeed not printed till 1779. A personal interview is talked of to save Pascal, now seriously ill, the labour of writing; when all at once Noel publishes a treatise, "Le Plein du Vide," in which he brings to bear upon the investigator, who so hardily despises the authority of ages, all his force of reasoning and sarcasm. Pascal, indignant at what he conceives to be a breach of faith, rejoins in a letter addressed to the mathematician, Le Pailleur ; while in the following year, 1648, Etienne Pascal mingles in the fray, and reduces Pere Noel to affrighted silence. In 1651, a Jesuit professor in a college at Clermont rekindled the dying ashes by a statement made in the course of instruc tion, that Torricelli and some unknown Polish Capuchin had preceded Pascal in his experiments. Pascal promptly replied in a letter to Eibeyre, a distinguished magistrate of • * QSuvres de Pascal, vol. iv. p. 364, et seq, c 4 24 PORT ROYAL. Clermont; the Jesuit explained, retracted, made compli ments; and the controversy came to an end. A more important matter was the claim which Des Cartes made to the original suggestion of the experiment of the Puy de Dome, and the alienation of feeling which it evidently produced between him and Pascal. On the 1 1th of June, 1649, Des Cartes, then at Stockholm, wrote to the mathematician Carcavi to ask whether Pascal's projected experiment upon the mountains of Auvergne had succeeded. " I might justly," he proceeds, " look to know this from himself rather than from you, because it was I who advised him two years ago to make the experiment, and assured him that, though I had not made it myself, I did not doubt of its success. But as he is a friend of M. de Eober- val, who seems to profess himself none of mine .... I have reason to believe that he adopts his prejudices, and that it is not prudent for me to address myself to him for what I want." f Carcavi showed the letter to Pascal, who, according to Bossut, " despised it and made no answer." But in the letter to Eibeyre, of which I have already spoken, he says, " It is true, sir, and I assert it without hesitation, that this experiment is of my own invention ; and in so far, I may say that the new knowledge which it has revealed to us, is wholly my own." The contradiction is sufficiently direct; are we to believe Des Cartes or Pascal ? The collateral evidence on either side is scanty and con flicting. Several passages in Des Cartes' letters, prior to this date, may be admitted to prove that with Galileo and Tor ricelli, he was acquainted with the weight ofthe atmosphere; one | seems to show that he had anticipated Torricelli's explanation of the problem of the pump. On the other * Bossut, CEuvres de Pascal, vol. iv. pp. 69 — 221. f Des Cartes, Lettres, part iii. no. 67, conf. nos. 68, 69, 70. X Quoted by Hallam, Lit. Hist. vol. iii. p. 424. DES CARTES AND PASCAL. 25 hand Jacqueline Pascal, in a letter dated September 25th, 1647*, relates the particulars of two visits which Des Cartes paid to her brother in Paris. The conversation turned upon Pascal's recent experiments, and Des Cartes, if the reporter may be trusted, still held to the theory of some subtle matter, which occupied the apparent vacuum. A corroboration of Jacqueline Pascal's statement is afforded by the fact, which the critics do not seem to have noticed, that in both the letters to Carcavi in which Des Cartes asserts his claim, he directly or indirectly reaffirms the theory of subtle matter, which he seems to think is con firmed by the experiment of the Puy de Dome. It is true that this theory is not necessarily inconsistent with that of atmospheric pressure ; and in so far, Jacqueline Pascal's statement does not invalidate Des Cartes' assertion. But the two theories are so closely connected, as to make it improbable that the adherent of the one should have fore seen the new truth involved in the other. The fact too, that Des Cartes busied himself at Stockholm in the year which followed the experiment, in making barometrical observa tions which were transmitted to Pascal, is an argument on the same side. It is hard to suppose that any man, especi ally a confessedly jealous man like Des Cartes, would labour in behalf of a rival who was withholding from him a share in the glory of an immortal enterprise. On the other hand, Des Cartes' character in matters of this kind is not clear. No man's mind ever comprehended the universe of human knowledge in a more imperial grasp ; few can be compared with him for the worth and variety of his contributions to the intellectual treasury of the race. By his side Pascal appears narrow, and we turn to the in tensity of his genius to compensate us for its comparative want of breadth. But it remains a fact, that while Des * Cousin, J. P. p. 94. 26 PORT ROYAL. Cartes was loud in the assertion of his own originality, no man of real eminence in science or in letters was ever ex posed to so many accusations of plagiarism. The age was one which teemed with new truth ; and it is possible enough that the same discoveries rewarded the search of more than one inquirer, working from the old landmarks in the same direction. But this will not account for all the charges against Des Cartes. Leibnitz, in a remarkable passage quoted by Hallam, has drawn up an extraordinary list of discoveries claimed by him, which are to be found more or less definitely indicated in the writings of his predecessors. " In fine," he concludes, " Des Cartes, as has long been noticed by learned men, and as is too clear in his letters, was an immoderate contemner of others, and through greediness of fame, did not abstain from artifices which would seem to have been hardly honourable." * And one instance in which the charge of plagiarism was all but brought home to Des Cartes, is not without instructive points of resemblance to his controversy with Pascal. In 1631, a little work, entitled " Artis analyticse Praxis," by Harriott, a companion of Sir Walter Ealeigh, was posthu mously published, in which important additions were made to the theory of equations. In that year Des Cartes was in England. By and by he adopted in a work of his own, the whole of Harriott's labour ; not only making no ac knowledgment, but in a letter to Mersenne, positively claiming the merit of entire originality. It is true that he gave to algebraic science an extension of which neither Harriott, nor any previous mathematician had ever dreamed ; but the glory of his great achievement cannot wipe out the stain of his small theft. The charge of pla giarism in this matter was urged against him more than once during his lifetime, but without drawing forth any reply.*!* * Hallam, Lit. Hist. vol. iii. p. 97. f Ibid- vol. iii. p. 406. DES CARTES AND PASCAL. 27 We must add to this the fact mentioned by Leibnitz in the passage above quoted, that Des Cartes lived on noto riously bad terms with nearly all contemporary men of science. He had a quarrel with Fermat, the famous geome trician of Toulouse, as to their respective claims to the discovery of the theory of maxima and minima ; in which all the advantage, at least in point of temper, was on the side of the latter. His disagreement with Eoberval was one of the standing scandals of the day in literary circles ; it comes out in the letter to Carcavi about the experiment of the Puy de Dome ; and Jacqueline Pascal mentions an altercation between them, which took place at her brother's lodging. And Pascal, who was a member of the same scientific society as Eoberval and Fermat, might easily be regarded by Des Cartes as leagued with his foes. The great philosopher had already heard with uneasy mind of Pascal's wonderful promise; and while sharing the throne of European science with Bacon, had condescended to depre ciate the performance of a boy of fifteen. I cannot there fore think it wonderful, that remembering some train of ideas which had passed through his mind, or recalling some expression which had dropped from his lips, during his interview with Pascal, he should have persuaded himself that the merit of the experiment was unjustly appropriated by the latter. This would be as characteristic of him, as the assertion of an unfounded claim to originality would be unlike Pascal. The isolation and self-dependence of Pascal's genius ; his ignorance of books, and of others' labours ; the character of individuality which is so strongly impressed upon all the processes and results of his thought, ought to protect him from the charge of plagiarism even 'when brought by Des Cartes.* But there is another side of Pascal's education of which * Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques, vol. ii. p. 205. Maynard, vol. i. p. 176, et seq. 28 PORT, ROYAL. we have almost lost sight, in tracing the early triumphs of his mathematical and physical genius. From the very first the germ of his final devotion to religious thought is visible in his character. Whatever contradictions seem to be in volved in the two halves of his intellectual activity, appear and demand reconciliation at the hands of his biographer, almost as much in the first as in the last years of his life. At present our task is confined to the accurate apprehen sion of the character, which afterwards we must endeavour to describe as a whole ; to tracing the growth of the rival forces, which afterwards came into rude collision, and shattered the feeble body which was the arena of their struggle. Etienne Pascal's was a quiet, grave household. The eldest daughter, four years older than her brother, appears to us, by more glimpses than one, as the little housewife, ruling with childish dignity and trying to fill her mother's place with a thoughtful love beyond her years. In 1641, she married her cousin Florin Perier; but remained for two years in Eouen, dividing, no doubt, her cares between her sister and her own little one. We have seeD already, that the elder Pascal had a deep sense of parental responsibility, for he undertook the whole labour of hie children's education. A sincere believer in the authority and s doctrines of the Church, he was anxious to make thetti like himself. But let Gilberte Pascal tell her simple story of the religious spirit which pervaded her father's house hold. She is speaking of her brother's twenty-fourth year * : — " Up to this time he had been preserved by a special protection of God from the vices of youth ; and what is still more strange in a mind of that tone and character, had never been inclined to free thinking in matters of religion, having always confined his attention to natural * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 10. EARLY RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. 29 phenomena. He has often told me that he owed this, as well as everything else, to my father, who, having himself a very deep respect for religion, had inspired it into him from his childhood ; impressing upon him that whatever is the object of faith, cannot be that of reason, and much less subject to it. These maxims which were often re peated to him by a father whom he much esteemed, and in whom he observed great scientific knowledge, accom panied by a power of strong and close reasoning, made so deep an impression upon his mind, that he was not at all shaken by any free-thinking conversation which he heard ; and although very young, he looked upon freethinkers as men who held the false principle that the human reason is above all things, and so knew not the nature of faith. And thus this mind, so great, so vast, so full of curiosity, was at the same time submissive as a child's in all matters of religion ; and this simplicity has reigned in him all his life, so that even after he resolved to pursue no other study than that of religion, he never applied himself to the curious questions of theology, but employed all the strength of his mind in seeking to know and practise the perfection of Christian morality, to which he consecrated all the talents that God had given him, having no other occupation during the remainder of his life, than that of meditating upon the law of God day and night." But these general religious impressions were deepened by an event which first brought the Pascal family into connection with the religious party now beginning to be designated by the name of Port Eoyal. In January, 1646, Etienne Pascal, who had left his house on some errand of charity, fell and broke his thigh. He appealed for surgical aid to two brothers, men of independent fortune in the neighbourhood of Eouen, who, possessing a natural aptitude for bone-setting, had not disdained either to improve the faculty by education, or to hold themselves at the service 30 PORT ROYAL. of misfortune. They came, remained in his house for three months, and proved to be physicians of the soul no less than of the body. Their manners and conversation at tracted the attention of the family to which they were showing such disinterested kindness; the grave and almost stern character which Etienne Pascal had impressed upon his children was not likely to be repelled by an ascetic view of religion ; and the works of Jansen, of St. Cyran, of Arnauld, did the rest.* The way in which these two brothers, MM. de la Bou- teillerie and des Landes, had been drawn into the vortex of Jansenism, is sufficiently illustrative of St. Cyran's influ ence and way of working. M. Guillebert, a young theo logian of Caen, became in Paris the fellow-student and friend of Antoine Arnauld. Impressed with his religious views, he asked and obtained an interview with St. Cyran. The usual result followed. St. Cyran, who would spare no pains for a promising proselyte, undertook the direction of his conscience, and formed him after his own model. By and by, Guillebert, who held a professorship in Paris, was presented to a benefice- in Normandy, and instead of performing the duties which thus devolved upon him, con tinued his theological studies in the capital, became a doctor of the Sorbonne, and kept a curate to do his work in the country. St. Cyran, now in Vincennes, remonstrated against such a violation of ecclesiastical morality, and Guillebert at once abandoned Paris for his cure. Here at Eouville, near Eouen, he was the instrument of what, in the religious technology of the day, is called a " revival. " He managed the affairs of his parish with ardent zeal and irreproachable tact. Men came from all the country round to hear his sermons ; lawyers of Eouen hired apart ments in Eouville that they might spend the Sunday there. The testimony of calumny to his success was not wanting; * Mad. Perier, ap. V. Cousin. J. P. p. 39. THE GOOD SURGEONS. 31 for enemies pretended that a new sect of ' Eouvillistes ' was rising in the Church. The Book of Frequent Commu nion was his practical guide, and many of those who adopted its maxims as a rule of life, entered into more or less close connection with Port Eoyal. The families of De Bernieres, and of Du Fosse, parishioners of Eouville, are already known to us as friends of the community. M. des Landes, one of Etienne Pascal's surgeons, had a daughter in Port Eoyal, and a son, who for seventeen years was one of its solitaries. How M. Guillebert again gave up his cure, when De Barcos bade him come to Paris to educate De Sapi ; how he took his modest share in the various controversies of grace ; how he retired for some years to the Abbey of St. Cyran, and died at last at Paris in 1666, are not matters that need detain us here. M. des Champs des Landes, and his brother, M. de la Bouteillerie, were gentlemen of whom we know little more than that they were of high courage, and full of the exaggerated notions of personal honour, which made France, &t the beginning of the seventeenth century, a nation of duellists. How the good cure of Eou ville persuaded them to renounce the work of making wounds for that of curing them, is hard to tell. The Book of Frequent Communion was the instrument of this, as of many another religious marvel. Each erected a hospital in his park. One brother who had ten children, prepared ten beds ; the other who was childless, was not satisfied with less than twenty. Doubtless, as in the case of Etienne Pascal, they often had an eye to the spiritual as well as the bodily ailments of their patients, and did their best to withdraw from the world, those whom their art had restored to it.* Blaise Pascal was the first of the family to be moved by the new religious force. " Immediately after these experi- * Besoigne, vol.iv. p. 128, 376. Du Fosse, p. 76. Recueil d'Utrecht, p. 248. 32 PORT ROYAL. ments" (on the weight of the air), says his sister, "and when he was not yet twenty-four years of age, Providence having brought about an occasion which compelled him to read books of piety, God so enlightened him by this read ing, that he perfectly understood thatthe Christian religion obliges us to live for God only, and to have no other object than Him ; and this truth appeared to him so clear, so necessary,and so useful, that it ended all his researches, so that from this time forward he renounced all other know ledge, to apply himself exclusively to the one thing which Jesus Christ calls needful." * As we shall presently see, this is far too broad a statement to be literally true. Even the famous experiment of the Puy de Dome is not yet made : the royal patent for the arithmetical machine dates only from 1649. At the same time an impulse was given, which, however it needed in Pascal himself to be afterwards more powerfully renewed, determined from that moment the destiny of the family. That in the youth eagerly weighing the air, or pondering night and day the machine that was to do the work of human brains, lay undeveloped the author of " The Thoughts," is enough to explain the effect produced upon his mind by the passionate, and yet stern and self-restrained theology of Port Eoyal. Why seek further for reasons ? Yet the very severity of the Christian ideal which it presented would be attractive to his strong and patient will ; its theory of the omnipotence of the Spirit in the work of human enlightenment and sanctification, strangely fell in with the keenness of his mathematical intellect. We cannot doubt thathe possessed, in no common degree, the power of spiritual perception which distinguishes the deeply religious man. That as he penetrated with the swift stride of genius into the mysteries! of nature, he had seen, besetting him behind and before, * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 10. FRERE ST. ANGE. 33 still deeper and less penetrable mysteries. He had ruined his health, which had never been strong, by excess' of application. From his eighteenth year 'to the hour of his death he never passed a day without pain. In periods of sickness things strangely change their shape and relative importance : to one who stood face to face with. an. early death, the conditions on which the Church offered salvation would dwarf in interest all pneumatic problems, and a " horror of a vacuum " take possession of the spirit, not to be explained away by any Torricellian methods. What wonder then, if the sight of such a commentary; upon St. Cysan's earnest theology, as was supplied by the benevolence of his father's good surgeons, awoke in him new thoughts of the beauty of the Christian life ? The first fruits of Pascal's religious zeal are seen in an affair at which Condorcet sneers as a proof of his fanaticism, which Maynard brings forward in testimony of his unim peachable orthodoxy, which Victor Cousin has put in the fullest light, by help of hidden manuscript authorities, and pronounces at last, somewhat unwillingly, to need the apologies of a fair biographer. A Capuchin friar, whose real name was Jacques Forton, but who was better known as the Frere St. Ange, came to Eouen in 1647, and was received in the society which Pascal frequented. He had some pretensions to philosophy ; had written a book " on the connection of faith and reason," and in Paris, whence he came, had held frequent discussions upon religion with doctors of the Sorbonne. Madame Perier, in her apolo getic account of the affair, says that he taught in Eouen " a new philosophy which attracted all the curious. My brother," she proceeds, " having been pressed to go to him by two young men of his own friends, went, but they were much surprised to find, from the conversation which they had with this man, that after stating the principles of his philosophy, he drew from them consequences, as to points VOL. II. D 34 PORT ROYAL. of faith, contrary to the decisions of the Church." * But the proces-verbal discovered by M. Cousin sets the matter in quite another light. Nothing is here said of philosophical lectures. On the contrary, " M. de St. Ange, accompanied by < a gentleman, his friend, came to the house of M. de Mbntflavier ... to see the Sieur Dumesnil his son, who had wished to become acquainted with him, and who was then with the Sieur Auzoult." Conversation followed, first on indifferent, then on philosophical subjects ; and the Capuchin began to state his peculiar opinions. What these were it is hardly necessary to say ; by and by Pascal acci dentally came in ; the previous discourse was communicated to him, and the discussion went on with renewed ardour.' Frere St. Ange was able, he said, to prove the doctrine of the Trinity to demonstration, and by strict process of reason ing to deduce from that all other truths of philosophy and religion. Hence the only office of faith, taking the word in its Catholic sense, was to give us the knowledge that God is our " fin surnaturelle," supernatural object of all thought and striving ; and he asserted that though without faith we could not arrive at this conviction, all other mysteries might be attained by a mind of sufficient vigour, with the help of its own reasoning powers alone. But this was only the beginning of heresies. Jesus Christ was not truly man, or possessed of a human nature. He, as well as the Virgin, was of a different species from the human. The object of creation was the purification of matter, by contact with mind. All the matter in the universe would be gradually worked up in the production of human bodies,,; which, by becoming the receptacles of a Divine Spirit, were brought into union with God. And so on, through many more absurdities of scholastic theology. The conversation was broken off at last^ "with many * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 12. FRERE ST. ANGE. 35 civilities on both sides," and a day fixed for its resumption at St. Ange's rooms, in the house of the Procureur- General. The interlocutors were the same, with the addition of a doctor of the Sorbonne, named Le Cornier, whom the party met on their way, and carried with them. The same sub jects were discussed ; and Frere St. Ange did not hesitate to explain and develope his opinions to an attentive and apparently friendly audience. Only when they parted, once more with the usual courtesies, he reminded them, as they left his door, that he had not stated these things as doctrines, but as the results of his own private speculations. Let Madame Perier again tell her tale: "Having con sidered one with another the danger of leaving a man, who held erroneous opinions, at liberty to instruct young people, they resolved to warn him in the first place, and next, if he resisted the advice which they gave, to inform against him. Thus the matter turned out, for he despised their warning, so that they thought it their duty to denounce him to M. de Bellay*, who then, under a commission from the arch bishop, exercised episcopal functions in the diocese of Eouen. M. de Bellay sent for the man, and having interrogated him, was deceived by an equivocal confession of faith, which. he wrote to him, and signed with his own hand, making besides, little account of a warning in a matter of such im portance, given him by three young men."f The documents discovered by M. Cousin say nothing of the private warning given by Pascal and his friends to the unlucky St. Ange, while Madame Perier's whole account of the transaction is so inaccurate, as to warrant a suspicion of its exactness in this particular. The long proces-verbal, signed by Blaise Pascal and his three associates, itself proves that St. Ange, so far from being actively engaged in propa- * Camus, Bishop of Bellay, the friend of Francis de Sales. f Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 12. D 2 36 PORT ROYAL. gating his heresies among the Catholic youth of Eouen, was almost entrapped, under pretence of friendly philosophical dispute, into the statement of his obnoxious opinions. M. de Bellay sided with him as far as he dared, and tried to hush up the whole matter, but in vain. Pascal applied to the archbishop, who was enjoying himself at his country house ; and he, a Harlay, uncle of the Harlay who, as Arch bishop of Paris, so long harassed Port Eoyal, was only too ready to spur on his reluctant subordinate. The matter was brought before the bishop in council, a new de claration made by the accusers, and an answer to the charges demanded of Frere St. Ange. The preamble to his reply shows the light in which he looked upon the accusation: "Although these propositions," he says, "ought not to be received, since he had neither preached, dogmatised, nor taught in the town of Eouen, and although the very words, ' advanced in private conferences ' form more than half his justification, yet, as it is always advantageous to a priest and doctor to have an opportunity of proving his orthodoxy, j he is willing to meet the articles of accusation." This he does, in an apparently conclusive way, by placing side by side with the inculpated propositions, passages from a book of his, called " Meditations Theologiques," which had been printed with learned approbations and the royal privilege, two years before. But Pascal was not yet satisfied, and again prevailed with the archbishop to set M. de Bellay in motion. A second declaration, even more precise than the first, was exacted from St, Ange, and then the bishop absolutely refused to go further. The father : was called in to moderate the theological zeal of the son, and by his intervention peace was restored to all the contend- j ing parties. Madame Perier, and after her, the Abbe May- nard, see nothing in all this that is not honourable to Pascal's orthodoxy; shall we not act most wisely in falling back upon his youth, and the fresh impulse just given to the JACQUELINE AT PORT ROYAL. 37 religious side of his character as his best excuses ? He has yet to learn in the school of painful experience what orthodoxy and persecution mean. After the affair of the Formulary, I think that he would have been more just to Frere St. Ange. That now his zeal for truth should have outrun his fairness and his charity, is a fact, unhappily, not without many parallels in Church history.* From Blaise Pascal the new religious influence radiated through the family. First Jacqueline, then Gilberte and her husband, who visited Eouen in 1646, last of all even Etienne Pascal yielded to the impulse, and henceforward observed, with greater or less consistency, the maxims of life current at Port Eoyal. But the impression made upon Jacqueline was the deepest and most lasting. At the close of 1646 she received from M. de Bellay the sacrament of confirmation, for which she had prepared herself by study ing the writings of St. Cyran. " From that moment," says her sister, " she was entirely changed." The monastic life, to which she had hitherto been averse, began to present itself to her mind as the only condition in which she could work out her conception of Christian .duty. When in 1647 she accompanied her brother on a journey to Paris, which he made in the hope of shaking off his painful and incapacitating ailments, the desire was strengthened and made more definite by the preaching of Singlin. She now wished to enter Port Eoyal de Paris, and to submit herself to the authority of Angelique Arnauld. M. Guillebert supplied the necessary link between the Pascals and Port Eoyal : Singlin joyfully accepted so promising a penitent ; and, with her brother's full approval, Jacqueline made many visits to the sisterhood and their Abbess. But in May 1648, Etienne Pascal came to Paris, • Cousin, Etudes sur Pascal, p. 343, et seq. Maynard, vol. i. p. 30, etseq. d 3 38 PORT ROYAL. and Singlin insisted that he should be informed of his daughter's new schemes. Blaise undertook the task, but did not meet with the ready acquiescence which he expected. The elder Pascal, divided between natural feeling and a Catholic belief in the superior perfectness of the monastic life, first asked time for consideration, and then sternly refused his assent. Neither son nor daughter had, he thought, dealt openly and fairly with him. The change in Jacqueline's mind had been made known to him only when it was about to issue in irrevocable action. He could trust them no longer ; henceforward they must be content to be watched. It is a significant instance of the moral confusion which ensues from the conflict of the monastic theory with common home duties, that Jacqueline Pascal submitted to the supervision, yet contrived to see Singlin, and to receive letters from Port Eoyal, and that her sister tells the story of deceit with ill-concealed complacency. She withdrew, as far as possible, from society, gave up the amusements of her age and station, and lived, to the bc-st of her ability, a nun's life in her father's house. At last, seeing that her determination was not to be overcome, Etienne Pascal gave way. It was not, he said, that he at heart disapproved of her wish, but he felt that he had not long to live, and if she would postpone the execution of her plans till after his death, he, on his part, would not trouble her with any proposals of marriage, and would leave her free to regulate her life as she pleased. This conversation took place in May 1649, and the com promise lasted till the death of E'tienne Pascal in September 1651. The intervening time, seventeen months of which Jacqueline spent with her father and sister at Clermont, was passed in careful preparation for life at Port Eoyal. She rarely left her room, except to visit the sick, or to attend the offices of religion. She disciplined herself by silence, by fasts, by watching. She JACQUELINE AT PORT ROYAL. 39 abjured the exercise of her poetical talents at a word from Agnes Arnauld. She wore, as far as possible, the monastic garb. And when her filial duties had been completely performed, she hastened to the refuge which had so long appeared to her all that was holy and desirable.* But now an opposition arose from a quite new and un expected source. Her brother, who three years before had fostered and aided her design, preferred a request, like that which from Etienne Pascal had been equivalent to a com mand. He had been deeply moved by his father's death ; his own life was a constant struggle with pain ; his only- other sister was busy with her husband and children in Auvergne; would not Jacqueline at least postpone for a time the execution of her purpose ? . He asked the delay so much as a right, that she was afraid to wound him by a direct denial, and without promising anything for the future, announced her intention of making a ' retreat ' at Port Eoyal. Even this was done swiftly and secretly. " We said no good-bye " writes Madame Perierf, " lest we should give way to our feelings, and I went out of her sight, when I saw her ready to leave the house." She was a little more than twenty-six years of age, when on the 4th of January, 1652, she thus entered Port Eoyal. The years which she had already spent in half monastic seclusion, were accepted in place of the twelve months' trial in the house as a postulant ; and in May she was received as a novice. But first she announced her intention to her brother in a letter, which, in its grave eloquence, is worthy of the sister of Pascal. She is free to do as she .will : God, whose favours and whose chastisements are inextricably intertwined, has removed the only lawful obstacle to her * Mad. Perier, ap. Cousin, J P. p. 40, et seq. Recueil d'Utrecht, p. 252, et seq. Lettres de la Mere Agnes, vol. i. pp. 165 — 196. f Cousin, J. P. p. 53. D 4 40 PORT ROYAL. liberty of ac tion. But that she may take the vows with peace and j oy, she needs her brother's consent. " For this reason," she continues, " I address myself to you, as in some sort the master of my future fate, to say to you, Do not take away from me that which you cannot give. For, although God made use of you to procure for me progress in the first movements of His grace, you know sufficiently well that from Him alone proceed all your love for what is good, and all your joy in it ; and that thus you are quite able to dis turb my joy, though not to restore it to me, if once I lose it by your fault. You ought to know, and in some degree to feel my tenderness through your own ; and to be able to judge if I am strong enough to bear the trial of the grief which I shall suffer. Do not reduce me to the necessity of putting off what I have desired so long and so ardently, and thus expose me to the chance, either of losing my vocation, or of doing poorly and with a languor, which/ would partake of ingratitude, an action which ought to be all fervour, and joy, and charity."* It would be hard to quote more of this touching letter . without transcribing the whole. Pascal was not convinced by it, and came to Port Eoyal next day to try the effect of personal persuasion. At first he had asked for a delay of two years ; now he begged only for a postponement to the festival of All Saints. Even 'this was denied him: Jacqueline stood firm; and the arguments of D'Andilly, who acted as mediator between the brother and sister, effected at least an external agreement.! But when, in June of the succeeding year, the time came for Jacqueline's final pro fession, a new difficulty arose. She was unwilling to enter the monastery without a dowry : some small sum of ready * Cousin, J. P. p. 152. t Mad. Perier, ap. Cousin, J. P. p 52. Lettres de J. P. ibid, pp. 150 —160. JACQUELINE AT PORT EOYAL. 41 money which had come into her possession at her father's death, had been expended in charity, and the dowry could be raised only on the security of the yet undivided inheri tance of the family. Pascal had by this time attained to a position in the society of the capital which his moderate means were no more than able to support ; and he, if not Madame Perier, had begun to reckon upon Jacqueline's share of the property. Sceur Euphemie, as she now called herself, has left a long memoir, in which, desiring to give her testimony to the disinterestedness of Port Eoyal, she has narrated all her troubles. Neither Singlin, nor Angelique, nor Agnes Arnauld, would suffer her to delay her profession, or to make a legal claim upon her relations. They were ready to receive her with or without a dowry ; better a thousand times that she should come to Christ portionless, than break the ties of love which had hitherto bound her to her brother and sister. Temporal were absolutely valueless in comparison with spiritual things ; food and raiment would not be wanting either to her or her companions in the house ; what more was needed ? So when her brother came to see her, she made neither complaint nor claim, and left it to his love to conjecture the cause of the sadness which overclouded her usually gay spirits. He began to recite his grounds of vexation ; but could not persevere, when she told him that the whole matter was settled as he had wished. " I declared to him," she says, " with all the gaiety which my then state of mind allowed, that since the house was charitable enough to receive me gratuitously, and my profession would there fore not be deferred, I was no longer in any anxiety, except to act rightly, and to draw down upon myself the grace which I needed in order to become a true nun." * Pascal yielded, and promised to take upon himself the * Memoires pour servir. vol. iii. p. 93. 42 PORT ROYAL. duty of providing for Jacqueline's life at Port Eoyal; a duty, which we are allowed to suppose, though we are not directly told, that he discharged in a liberal spirit. But La Mere Angelique, not unwilling to accept a gift, was too proud to take one which was grudgingly bestowed. When the neces sary deeds were to be signed, she said to Pascal, that in case Jacqueline should have failed to set the matter in its true light, she felt it her duty to speak to him. "I conjure you, in God's name, to do nothing from any human motives; and except you are disposed to do this alms in the spirit of almsgiving, not to do it at all. See, Monsieur, we have learned from the late M. de St. Cyran to receive nothing for God's house which does not come from God. What ever is done from any other motive than charity, is not a fruit of God's Spirit, and is consequently such as we ought not to receive." * Pascal professed the simplicity of his motives, and the affair ended there. Jacqueline took the veil as a sister of Port Eoyal on the 5th of June, 1653.t In December 1654, Blaise Pascal followed his sister's example, and exchanged the free gaiety of his life at Paris for the austere solitudes of Port Eoyal des Champs. But of the period between what his biographers call his first and second conversions it is not easy to gain an accurate conception. The technical terms of a sect are not absent from the lips of its most sincere adherents, and are rarely to be interpreted in their literal meaning. A worldly and ill-regulated life might signify, from the mouth of a Jansenist, any which was not formed upon the monastic model, as, even yet, to magnify the sins of a sinner is a common way of magnifying the glory of his conversion. We must walk warily, according to the indications afforded by the facts of the case ; for they are plainly distorted, on * Memoires pour servir. vol. iii. p. 100. f Ibid, part ii. rel. xxi?„ vol. iii. p. 54, et seq. PASCAL'S LIFE IN PARIS. 43 the one side, by the supposed necessities of a religious theory, and perhaps bent back, on the other, by the loving force of sisterly partiality. At the end of the year 1647 Pascal tore himself away from his mathematical and physical studies, and went, by medical advice, to Paris. His health was completely ruined. He could swallow no liquids that were not warm, and even these only drop by drop, an incapacity which inflicted frightful torture upon a patient in those days of quart doses and daily purgatives.* The headaches, which dated from this period, became a matter of common talk in Paris; Madame de Sevignet alludes to them as too well known to require explanation. Another account J adds that for some time he was paralysed from the waist downwards, so as to be unable to walk without the aid of crutches ; and that he wore socks steeped in brandy in the hope of restoring some vital warmth to his feet. He was still in the first glow of his religious enthusiasm when he arrived in Paris; and the impression which had been made upon him by the cure of Eouville was naturally deepened by the personal influences of Port Eoyal. We have already seen that Jacqueline Pascal never swerved from the path in which her first relations with Singlin seemed to place her; why, for a, year or two, the tie of companionship with her brother should have been broken, is not easy to say. The distractions of Paris could not have been the sole cause ; for from May 1649 to Novem ber 1650, he was with his father in Auvergne. Etienne Pascal's death deeply touched him, but did not prevent him from trying to interpose between Jacqueline and her scheme of retirement. After the lapse of another year, * Mad. Perier, ap. FaugSre, J. P. p. 15. t Lett. lxxx. f Marg. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 453. 44 PORT ROYAL. we find him reckoning upon Jacqueline's share of the common inheritance as a means of maintaining his social position ; and Marguerite Perier tells us that he had formed a definite plan of buying an appointment and marrying. Her language is explicit enough*: "As he had been forbidden to study, he was little by little induced to see the world ; to play and to amuse himself by way of passing time. At first this was moderate ; but afterwards he gave himself wholly up to vanity, to uselessness, to pleasure, and to amusement, without, however, proceeding to any irregularity of life. The death of his father only gave him more opportunity and greater means of continuing this way of living. But when he was most ready to enter into engagements with the world, to marry, and to buy an appointment, God touched him a second time."*)* His sister, who, however, gives no details of this period of his life, speaks less decidedly, and bears additional testimony to his freedom from all gross vice. Having alluded to the opinion of his physicians, she goes on to say}: "My brother had some difficulty in yielding to this advice, for he saw danger in it, but at last followed it, believing that he was under an obligation to use every possible means for the restoration of his health ; and he imagined that honourable amusements could not harm him, and so went into the world. But although, by the mercy of God, he was always free from vice, nevertheless as God called him to a great perfection, He would not leave him there, and made use of my sister for this design, as He had formerly used my brother, when He wished to withdraw her from her engagements with the world." So when La Mere Angelique, in her conversation with Jacqueline, represents * Recueil d'Utrecht, p. 257. t Conf. Marg. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 453. t Faugere, J. P. p. 15. LIFE IN PARIS. 45 her brother as devoted to the world, its vanities and its amusements*, and Jacqueline, writing to Madame Perier from Port Eoyal des Champs, uses similar expressions*)*, we must make some allowance for the necessary unfairness of monastic judgment on such a point, as well as for regret that so brilliant a convert should have eluded the grasp of their directors. But we are not without positive evidence on the other side. One of the earliest of Pascal's compositions is a " Prayer to God for help to make a good use of sickness," written, it is supposed, about the end of 1647, or the begin ning of 1648. It is too long to admit of the idea that it formed a part of his habitual devotions; it resembles rather those meditations addressed to God, which so abound in the Confessions of St. Augustine. But its spirit is that of the purest and most self-sacrificing piety ; it soars above the level of resignation into the upper air of joyful acquiescence in the Divine Will. " Suffer my pains to appease Thine anger. Make them the occasion of my salvation and my conversion. May I never more wish for health and for life, except to employ it, and end it for Thee, and with Thee, and in Thee. I ask of Thee neither health nor sickness, nor life, nor death ; but that Thou shouldest dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for Thy glory, for my salvation, and for the benefit of the Church, and of Thy saints, of whose fellowship I hope, by Thy grace, to form a part. Thou alone knowest what is expedient for me ; Thou art the sovereign Lord ; do as Thou wilt. Give me Thy mercies or take them away ; only conform my will to Thine, and grant that in humble and perfect submission, and in holy trust, I may apply myself to receive the com mands of Thine Eternal Providence, and adore equally all that descends upon me from Thee." "f * Mem. pour servir. vol. iii. p. 75. f Cousin, J. P. p. 232. •f Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 75. 46 PORT ROYAL. This was probably written soon after what is called his first conversion, and before he had fallen away to the worldly life which Port Eoyal deplored. But three years later, when in September 1651, his father died, at the very threshold of the difference in feeling between himself and Jacqueline, he wrote a long letter to Florin and Gil berte Perier, which furnished to the first edition of the " Pensees " a series of thoughts on death, but which has only lately been printed in its original shape. It is hardly necessary to describe it ; it is enough to say, that whatever the theological value of its speculations, it is evidently the product of a truly religious mind, startled for the moment into a deeper than its ordinary solemnity. There is no trace in it of the passion which we might expect to see, if any remorse had mingled with Pascal's filial sorrow ; he stands by the grave of a good and wise father, with eyes indeed filled with tears, but with clean hands and a quiet heart. He claims the consolations of religion as if he had a right to them; and confidently assumes the duty of inter preting the sorrow and resignation of his sisters as well as his own.* The only other work of Pascal's which dates from this period, is one which has recently been discovered by M. Victor Cousin, among the MSS. of the Abbey of St Germain des Pres. The copy thus disinterred, the only one known to exist, is not in Pascal's familiar handwriting, and even in its title does not confidently assert its author ship ; but M. Cousin's judgment is formed upon internal evidence, and has been approved by critics who are usually not unwilling to differ from him. Here at least we may expect to gain an insight into the nature of Pascal's world liness ; for in a "Discourse on the Passions of Love," — so the fragment is entitled, — neither the mathematician nor * Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 17, et neq. DISCOURSE ON THE PASSIONS OF LOVE. 47 the theologian speaks.* The little treatise is such as we might expect, not from one whose pleasures overpassed the bounds of purity, but from the young man who had formed his conception of the female character in a religious house hold, and whose observations of the connexion between the sexes had been made in a society from which the tradition of a grave and courtly gallantry had not yet departed. He begins with high metaphysical theories, in the manner of Plato, as to the nature and origin of love ; and then descends upon the characteristics of human love in a series of remarks which irresistibly suggest the idea that he had felt the passion, whose growth and changes he so well describes. The whole paper has a fragmentary air, as if it were only the sketch of a fuller work ; the sentences are short and aphoristic ; the divisions of the subject are not so much discussed as indicated in a few pregnant words. But what we have especially to note now is, that the air throughout is pure and sweet. There is no trace of moral miasma on the breezes. The utterance is that of a virgin heart, throbbing with new passion, yet hardly daring to reveal its secret to the beloved object ; learning to inter pret the hidden indications of look, and tone, and manner ; and indemnifying itself for enforced silence by sweet soliloquy, f Is it, then, true that Pascal loved ? And if so, who was the object of his passion? Those who feel that the consciousness of love is a revelation of that which no books can teach, will easily answer the first question in the affirmative, of the anonymous author of the " Discourse on ' the Passion of Love." No tradition remains to throw light upon this dark place of Pascal's life : Port Eoyal was not * This " Discourse '' was published for the first time in the " Revue des Deux Mondes," Sept. 15th, 1843. f For the discourse and the account of its discovery, see Cousin, Etudes sur Pascal, p. 475. 48 PORT ROYAL. interested in preserving such, and to Port Eoyal we owe nearly all our knowledge of Pascal. But we know that he lived much with his superiors in rank ; and of this fact, together with a passage in the " Discourse," his biographers have made warp and woof to weave a long conjectural romance. The passage is the following * : — " Man, by himself, is an imperfect thing : to be happy he needs to find a second. He often searches for this in a condition of life equal to his own, because the liberty and opportunity of declaring himself are' there most easily to be met with. Nevertheless, we sometimes look far above ourselves, and feel the fire increase, although we dare not confess it to her who is its cause. " When one loves a lady of unequal rank, ambition may accompany the beginning of love ; but in a little while the latter becomes the master. He is a tyrant who endures no companion ; he will be alone ; all the passions must bend and obey him. " A high friendship fills the heart of man much more completely than a common and equal one ; little things float to and fro in its space ; only great ones fix themselves and remain there." M. Faugere and M. Cousin agree in believing that Pascal vainly loved some lady of exalted rank; but while the former conjectures that the object of his affection might have been Mademoiselle de Eoannez, the sister of his bosom friend, the Due de Eoannez, the latter rejects the supposition as " an insult to Pascal's loya% and good sense." It is necessary that we should learn to know the brother and sister ; without committing our faith to any uncertain love story, we may do so now. Gouffier, Due de Eoannez, was seven or eight years younger than Pascal, and bound to him by a love^ in which * Cousin, Etudes sur Pascal, p. 490. DUC DE ROANNEZ. 49 admiration of his intellectual superiority had no small share. We do not know how they were first brought together ; but soon M. de Eoannez could not live without Pascal, gave him apartments in his house, and took him more than once to Poitou, of which province he was governor. His appears to have been one of those natures which, without much force or originality of their own, possess the happy faculty of recognising and honouring these qualities in others. He yielded to his friend the whole direction of his life ; put himself into the hands of Singlin when Pascal went to Port Eoyal ; offended his relations by refusing to marry the richest heiress of the kingdom; ranged himself on the Jansenist side in the affair o£ the Formulary; and, finally, transferred title, estate, and ancestral debts to his brother-in-law, content that the last Due de Eoannez should be remembered only as the friend of Pascal. That the intercourse involved no unmanly subservience on the part of Pascal, we might conjecture, even if we did not know it. But Nicole, in his " Treatise on the Education of a Prince," published in 1670, has preserved three short " Discourses on the Condition of the Great," being his recollection of an exhortation given by Pascal to a young person of high rank, whom tradition, in spite of some chronological difficulties, identifies with M. de Eoannez. We have space for only one extract, which, however, sufficiently exemplifies the spirit of the whole.* After speaking of the two kinds of greatness, the natural and the social, Pascal says : " One must speak to kings upon one's knees; one must stand up in the chambers of princes. To refuse them this respect is folly and meanness of spirit. "But as for the natural respect, which consists in esteem, we owe it only to natural greatness : and to the qualities * Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 345. VOL. II. E 50 PORT ROYAL. contrary to this natural greatness we owe, on the contrary, contempt and aversion. It is not necessary that I should esteem you because you are a duke, but it is necessary that I should salute you. If you are both a duke and an honourable man, I shall render what is due to both. I shall not refuse the ceremony which you deserve in your quality of duke, nor the esteem which you deserve in your quality of honourable man. But if you were a duke without being' an honourable man, I should still do justice; for in rendering to you the external respect which social order has attached to your birth, I should not fail to feel for you the internal contempt which the baseness of your spirit would deserve." Is "not this passage a proof that Pascal, like all other kings of men, was too conscious of his royalty to acknow ledge, with more than an outward respect, the artificial distinctions of social rank ? And, on the other hand, the young duke, who attached himself for life to so honest a teacher, could not have been destitute of some of the noblest elements of character. Charlotte Gouffier de Eoannez, his sister, was born in 1633, and would, therefore, be in the earliest bloom of womanhood at the time of Pascal's first intimacy with her brother. Her's is a sad history. Of her early life we know little : two sisters, of whom one was Abbess of Eiel, had embraced the monastic life ; she lived " in the world" with her mother. The inheritance of the family was con centrated upon the duke ; so that, although more than one offer of marriage was made to Mademoiselle de Eoannez, none of the proposed bridegrooms were men of very high rank or large possessions. Why should not Pascal have looked up to her ? asks M. Faugere ; his family boasted an ancient patent of nobility; his means, if not ample,'; were sufficient ; the ineffaced recollection of his youthful fame lent a charm to a fine face and agreeable manners ; the superiority of his genius would help to overbear dis- MADEMOISELLE DE ROANNEZ. 51 tinctions of rank. Who can tell that the hopelessness of such a passion may not have had something to do with that weariness of the world which stole over him in 1654? We know not ; probably never shall know. In December 1654 he flies to Port Eoyal des Champs ; at the end of 1656 we find him engaged in a religious correspondence with Mademoiselle de Eoannez. The friends of Port Eoyal have preserved for us extracts from nine of these letters, in which one critic at least has been able to trace " a tender solicitude not explicable by charity alone." * To us the only fact which throws any light on the possible relations between Pascal and Mademoiselle de Eoannez is the existence of the correspondence ; for its Jansenist editors have made their extracts with too much care to permit any expression, which passes the limits of religious exhortation, to come down to posterity. Next year the result of his influence became plain. Mademoiselle de Eoannez, perhaps to avoid the importunities of a suitor, took advantage of some trifling ailment in her eyes to make a nine days' round of prayer before the Holy Thorn, then the object of enthusiastic popular veneration at Port Eoyal de Paris. The desire of the religious life took entire possession of her; and, disregarding her mother's strenuous opposition, perhaps relying on her brother's tacit approval, she fled one morning to Port Eoyal, where she was received by the Abbess and Singlin. In vain her mother implored her to return ; she entered upon the novitiate with " extraordinary fervour," and, as Sceur Charlotte de la Passion, prepared to live and die in the house. Madame de Eoannez then had recourse to the Queen-mother, who caused a lettre-de-cachet to be issued, commanding the Abbess of Port Eoyal to restore the novice to her friends. The parting was effected only by a display of legal force ; * Pensees, ed. Faugere, Introd. p. lxv. e 2 52 PORT ROYAL. and Mademoiselle de Eoannez returned home to live the monastic life in her mother's house. She cut off her hair, took voluntary vows of chastity and retirement, and for a time steadfastly resisted every attempt made by her friends to procure her settlement in marriage. The influence of Port Eoyal was still strong with her ; Singlin and La Mere Agnes directed her conscience ; and Pascal, either in his own person, or through his sister Madame Perier, maintained his old ascendancy. But in 1665 she was left to her own weakness. Pascal and Singlin were dead, Port Eoyal in the agony of persecution, Agnes Arnauld imprisoned, and Madame Perier compelled to leave Paris for Auvergne. It was now well known in the family that her brother had resolved not to marry ; and all the energy of her sisters, themselves nuns, was exerted to persuade her to some fitting match. Such was before long found in the person of M. de la Feuillade, a younger son of a noble house, to whom, with the King's sanction, the lands, title, and debts ofthe Due de Eoannez were to be transferred. She yielded, and never after ceased to repent. Her husband exchanged the dukedom of Eoannez for that of Feuillade, which was created in his person, and the name which she had sacrificed herself to perpetuate, passed away from the roll of French noblesse. Till her death in 1683, she was a martyr to disease, and underwent many painful operations, which she bore quietly and bravely, in the hope that they might he accepted as some expiation of her weakness. Of her four children, one did not live to be baptized ; another was a cripple ; the third, a daughter, did not attain womanhood ; in the fourth the dukedom of Feuillade expired. She died at last under the knife, leaving by her will 3000 livres to support a lay sister in Port Eoyal, who should fill the place which she had left, and procure pardon for her sin by prayer and mortification. The first lay sister admitted on this foundation was the last nun that Port Eoyal was suffered to receive. MADEMOISELLE DE ROANNEZ. 53 Did I not truly say that this was a sad history? The saddest, I think, which the annalist of Port Eoyal has to tell ; and yet one repeated in hundreds of cases, which, had they been those of a duke's daughter, might have been told as circum stantially as this. To say that disappointed love drove Charlotte de Eoannez into the cloister, is to utter a conjec ture which will never, in all likelihood, receive either confirmation or denial ; but, in the absence of evidence, to ascribe the retirement of Pascal to such a motive is wilfully to misunderstand the depth and force of his character. He was not a man to abjure the world, as a child, who cannot reach its toy, sulks in a corner ; he weighed the world and the cloister in his Catholic balance, — the only balance he had, — and chose what appeared to him the better part. Even so he did not finally withdraw from the conflict of human interests, but re-entered it from another side. The author of the " Provincial Letters " cannot be said to have abdicated his influence on society ; and the " Thoughts " have swayed the mind of posterity more than the experi ment of the Puy de Dome. She sought in the cloister's living death, repose from temptations which she doubted her ability to overcome, and deliverance from a haunting weakness, in the regularity of monastic prayer and obser vance. The trial was never made ; she did not know that it might have failed ; she felt that her worldly life had betrayed even more than the instability which she had feared ; and so looked upon Port Eoyal, from the day of her marriage, as a paradise of holiness, from which her own sin had shut her out. Who can tell how many there have been to whom the other side of the alternative has revealed its hollowness ; who, imprisoned in the changeless round of convent devotion, have panted for the free air of worldly love and duty?* * Marg. Perier, ap. Cousin, Etudes sur Pascal, pp. 390 — 396. Lettres de Pascal, ibid. pp. 431 — 451. Necrologe, p. 76, et seq. Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 301. E 3 54 PORT ROYAL. Another friendship, which dates from this period, may help to throw light upon Pascal's so-called worldly life. Jean Domat was also a native of Clermont, and two years- younger than Pascal. His family was bourgeois, but main tained through the Church a connexion with a higher rank in society ; for his great uncle was the Jesuit Father Sirmond, confessor of Louis XIII., and Antoine Arnauld's first an tagonist.* One brother became a Jesuit ; Jean Domat, the care of whose education Sirmond assumed, passed through the seminaries of the Society with brilliant success, and applied himself to the law. Mathematics first brought him into contact with Pascal ; together they made experiments on the weight of the atmosphere; till at last a close friend ship united them, and, in spite of Domat's Jesuit education, he became Pascal's ally in his resistance to Arnauld and Nicole in the matter of the Signature. To Domat Pascal confided his writings on the Formulary, to be published or suppressed, according to the necessities of the case, and his was the hand which tended Pascal in his last illness. But a long and useful life waited for the younger of the two friends. He had married at the age of twenty-two, and a family of thirteen children rose about him. For thirty years he filled with honour a high legal office at Clermont; resolute , and impartial in the discharge of his duties, and noted for his firm opposition to Jesuit intrigue and encroachment. His treatise " Les Lois Civiles dans leur ordre naturel " t was ac complished under royal patronage, and was acknowledged at once to be the greatest work on jurisprudence which France had yet produced. Boileau $ pronounced him " the restorer of reason to jurisprudence." " He is incomparably," says Victor Cousin §, "the greatest jurisconsult of the Lett, d' Angelique Arnauld, vol. iii. p. 407. Lett, d' Agnes Arnauld, vol. i. p. 445. Pensees, ed. Faugere, Introd. p. lxv. *Vol.i. p. 182. t 3vols. 4to, 1694. t Quoted by Bf Beuve, ii. 500. § JaCq. Pascal, p! 425. DOMAT. 55 seventeenth century : he inspired, and almost formed D'Aguesseau ; he has sometimes anticipated Montesquieu, and prepared the way for that general legal reform which was undertaken by the republic, and executed by the empire. ' Les Lois Civiles dans leur ordre naturel ' is, as it were, the preface to the Code Napoleon." Domat died in 1696, in his seventy-first year, having just finished the work of his life, and leaving behind him the reputation of one whose grave and steadfast character enabled him to fulfil the requirements of his Christian calling without flying from the temptations, or abandoning the duties of common social life. His only conversion was from the prejudices of his Jesuit education to Jansenism : we hear of no excesses of worldliness, which should lead, by natural recoil, to excesses of monasticism. Yet we may note that he was the friend of Pascal's worldly, as well as of his religious years, and that the amity which began in the one period, was continued, apparently without break or change, in the other.* If for a moment we resume in this place the story of Pascal's scientific activity, we shall see that he did not long regard the prohibition of study with which his physicians sent him to Paris in 1647. He never again applied himself to it with the painful assiduity which had been necessary for the perfection of his arithmetical machine, and which had so ruined his health. The wonderful rapidity and ac curacy of his mental operations, enabled him to produce great results at the cost of comparatively little exertion. His barometrical experiments were continued during the years 1649, 1650, 1651, and the results embodied in his "Treatise on the Weight ofthe Air," written in 1653.f The " Cousin, J. P. Appendix III. Documents inedits sur Domat, p. 425. Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 273. t The "Traite de la Pesanteur de la Masse de l'Air," and the "Traite de l'Equilibre des Liqueurs," both intended, according to Bossut, to form part p. 4 56 PORT ROYAL. royal patent for the arithmetical machine is dated May 22nd 1649, and he sends the machine itself to Queen Christina of Sweden in 1650. He investigates the laws of the equi librium of fluids, and lays the foundation of hydrostatical science. He determines many curious numerical problems by his 'Arithmetical Triangle,' which Montucla* charac terises as " a truly original and singularly ingenious inven tion." He engages in a long correspondence with Fermat, the celebrated geometrician of Toulouse ; at the request of the Chevalier de Mere, a well known gambler, he investi gates the theory of probabilities ; and in 1654, the year of his final retirement, he presents to the learned Society, of which his father had been a member, eleven geometrical , treatises in the Latin language. To this period of his hfe also we must refer a scheme which was not put into exe cution till 1662. Pascal was the inventor of the omnibus. The privilege of placing what were called " carrosses a cinq sols " upon certain routes through the city of Paris, was granted by royal patent, dated January 1662, to the Due de Eoannez and two other noblemen ; and we possess a lively letter from Gilberte Pascal to M. de Pomponne, giving a glowing account of the first success of the experiment. An independent tradition ascribes the origination of the idea to Pascal ; it is certain that he had an interest in the undertaking, for he mortgaged his share of the first year's profits to raise money for immediate almsgiving.f In face of all these facts, of his sister's and his niece's attestations to his exemption from gross vice, of his distinct expression of religious faith at various intervals, and of the character of his known friendships — I cannot agree with those biographers who speak of this period of Pascal's life, of a larger work on the vacuum, were written in 1 653, but not published till 1663, the year after Pascal's death. * Histoire des Mathematiques, vol. ii. p. 63. f Faugere, J. P. pp. 26, 80. WORLDLY LIFE. 57 in terms which carry with them the suspicion of profligacy or sensual indulgence. An Augustinian theology makes another and a darker estimate of conduct than a philoso phical morality ; and inverting the old maxim, supposes the greatest saint to have been the greatest sinner. The theory of monasticism works in the same direction, and mistrusts the purity of any life, the ardour of any devotion, which do not assume its forms and own its restraints. There were reasons enough why Pascal should have returned to the eagerness of piety which once before possessed him, without adding remorse to the number. His life was one long-continued pain. Of his sisters, Gilberte was far away in Auvergne, filled with the thousand solicitudes of a wife and mother ; and Jacqueline, the best beloved, from whom he had parted half in anger, seemed to beckon him to her side at Port Eoyal. The society of either, or still more surely an honourable and happy love, might have preserved him to the world. The strong man, who willingly yields himself to the influence of a wise and gentle woman, asserts his superiority over friends of his own sex ; and so Pascal carried Eoannez and Domat with him into the Jansenist ranks. He was, as Le Maitre feared himself might be, "demi-vivant, ou demi- mort," unable, for health's sake, to throw his vast energies into physical studies ; profoundly dissatisfied with the littleness and hollowness of common social life ; a great heart half empty, a great mind half idle. A keen conscience needs no more to produce the deep discontent, which in duller spirits is awakened only by the consciousness of gross and wilful sin ; there are passionate and energetic souls, which recoil more eagerly from moral listlessness, than even from the feverish excitement of self-indulgence. And the time had now come at which the great struggle between religion and the world was to be fought out in Pascal's heart, which, despairing of reconciling the rival duties, shall give itself wholly up to God. 58 PORT ROYAL. In July 1653 Madame Perier was dangerously ill, and Jacqueline expected to hear by every post that all was over. In this extremity she wrote to her brother-in-law a letter, which in its mixture of sisterly tenderness and absolute faith in the purposes of God, reveals all the strength and depth of her character. She loved her sister better than she had ever done when they were together ; at the very moment of writing she was hardly able to endure the agony of suspense. Nevertheless she doubted whether it was right to ask her life of God. " I have done so," she continues, " on behalf of you and of her children ; but when I recollected that God took away our deceased mother from us when we were much younger than they are, and in more critical circumstances than those which will follow this loss, and that nevertheless He has by no means for saken us, but has deigned to testify in our persons that He is the Father of the orphan and the Consoler of the afflicted, I thought that we ought not to oppose ourselves to His commands, but to cast ourselves, with all that is dearest to us, into His arms. " Your children are more His than ours ; let us not fear lest He should abandon them, so long as we commit them to His hands. And as for you, I surely believe that if God deprives you of so great a consolation, it is to draw you wholly to Himself; for although your union may be en tirely lawful, and entirely holy, there is something more perfect still ; and possibly God, knowing by His divine wisdom that you would not have been disposed to listen to the inspiration which He might have given to you, to aspire to so pure a state, and to resolve to anticipate, by a holy and voluntary divorce, that hard separation, which is, sooner or later, inevitable ; wishes to show you that the fictitious obstacles which self-love suggests -on these occasions are removed in a moment when He pleases, and that when it is His will, we must do under SECOND CONVERSION. 59 pressure of necessity, what we could not do of our own accord. . . . " I cannot refrain from telling you, that the only wish I am able to form for any one is that it may please God to place him in a more perfect repose, and a fuller assurance in drawing him to Himself, who is the sole end towards which we move in all that we do. If it pleases Him to grant this mercy to my dear sister, rather than to us, why should we oppose ourselves to her happiness ? I see no other happiness in the world than an entire retreat and a complete abandonment of all things, for the purpose of serving God alone ; but even this is nothing in com parison with the bliss of possessing Him with an entire fulness and a certain assurance of never losing Him more. Let us then stifle as much as possible all the sentiments of nature which oppose themselves too strongly to those which faith and charity ought to give us upon this subject; and since all efforts and wishes are useless against the decrees of God, do with a good heart, what we must do if He has willed it." * In another passage of this fine letter, Jacqueline desires to unite her prayers with those of her brother-in-law that they may both approve themselves wholly faithful to God in this trial. " I implore you to ask of Him this favour for me, as I ask it for you ; and as I know that God is near the afflicted, and listens favourably to their prayers, I include my poor brother in the request, and beg you to do as much for him, that God may please to use this afflic tion to cause him. to return to his better self (rentrer dans lui-meme), and to open his eyes to the vanity of all worldly things." May we not date the new soberness of Pascal's thoughts and plans from these moments of domestic agony ? Jacqueline, writing in December 1654, after her brother * Cousin, J. P. p. 227. 60 PORT ROYAL. had placed himself under Singlin's direction, says, that " for more than a year he had felt a great contempt of the world, and an almost insupportable disgust of the persons who are in it." * It is not easy to trace the operations of the Spirit in another's heart; "whence it cometh, or whither it goeth " is not always revealed, even to the soul upon which it works. The great crises of life often pass away without result, while some little stumbling-block of circumstance is the beginning of new things. And so, all that we can truly say of Pascal is, that soon after his sister's dangerous, yet not fatal illness, he began to turn away his face from the world. An almost contemporary tradition ascribes to a remark able escape from danger the first special impulse in the new direction. One fete day, probably in October or November 1654, he was driving a carriage, drawn by four or six horses, on the Pont de Neuilly. The leaders sud denly took fright, ran away, and swerving from their course at a point where no balustrade protected the road, fell into the river. The traces broke at the critical moment ; and the carriage, with its occupant, remained safe upon the verge. Upon a sensitive mind, especially if already oscil lating between the religious and the worldly life, such an adventure could not have been without its effect. " But it was necessary," says the compiler of the memoir in the Eecueil d'Utrechtf, "that God should take away from him that vain love of science to which he had returned ; and it was without doubt for this purpose that He caused him to have a vision, of which he never spoke to any one except his confessor." The word " vision " in this passage is the result of inference, not a direct statement of fact. All we know is, that after Pascal's death, a servant discovered a little parcel, carefully stitched up in his waistcoat, which * Cousin, J. P. p. 234. •*¦ p. 258. PASCAL'S VISION. 61 he had evidently worn from day to day, and sewn and un- sewn when he changed his clothes. The packet contained two copies of a document in his own handwriting, one on parchment, the other on paper ; plainly a record of some event or train of meditation which he wished to keep ever in remembrance. The following copy has been preserved by the pious care of Madame Perier : — * L'an de grace, 1654. Lundi, 23me Novembre, jour de St. Clement, Pape et Martyr, et autres au Martyrologe. Veille de St. Chrysogone, Martyr et autres. Depuis environ dix heures et demie du soir, jusques environ minuit et demi. Feu. Dieu d' Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, Non des Philosophes et des Savans. Certitude, certitude, sentimens, vue, joie, paix. Dieu de Jesus Christ. Deum meum, et Deum vestrum. Jean x, 17. Ton Dieu sera mon Dieu. Ruth. Oubli du monde et de tout hormis Dieu. II ne se trouve que par les voies ehseignees dans l'Evangile. Grandeur de l'ame humaine. Pere juste, le monde ne t'a point connu, mais je t'ai connu. Jean 17. Joie, joie, pleurs de joie. Je m'en suis separe. Dereliquerunt me fontem aqucs viva. Mon Dieu me quitterez-vous. Que je n'en sois pomt separe eternellement. Cette est la vie eternelle, quHls te connoissent seul vrai Dieu, et celui que tu as envoyL 62 PORT ROYAL. Jesus Christ. J&sus Christ. Jisus Christ. Je m'en suis sSparS. Je Vai fui, renonce. Crucifie. Que je n'en sois jamais shpare. Dieu ne se conserve que par les voies enseign4es dans VEvangile. Reconciliation totale et douce. Soumission totale a, Jesus Christ et a mon Directeur. Eternellement en joie pour un jour d'exercice sur la terre. Non obliviscar sermones tuos. Amen* * What judgment are we to form of this paper ? Condor cet, in his edition of the " Thoughts," throws discredit upon it, after the manner of his school, by calling it "une amu- lette mystique," insinuating under that phrase that Pascal attached a superstitious value to the parchment, or the form of words, apart from the meaning which they convey. By and by, a shapely edifice of misrepresentation was built upon this sandy base, intended to prove that the reli gious fervour of Pascal's last years was the result of a dis ordered brain ; really proving that spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned, and that the school of the Ency- clopedie was blind of the inner vision of the soul. On the * As the various copies of this singular document are not verbally ths same, I have exactly reproduced that of the Recueil d'Utrecht, pp. 259, 260. M. Prosper Faugere departs from his usual accuracy in the statement (Pensees de Pascal, Introd. p. xxix., repeated, vol. i. p. 228,) that Condorcet published it for the first time. The date of Condorcet's " Eloge et Pensees de Pascal" is, according to M. Faugere himself, 1776; that of the Eecueil d'Utrecht, 1740. PASCAL'S VISION. 63 1st of June 1738, Voltaire, speaking of his remarks upon Pascal's " Thoughts," and the animadversions which they had called forth, had written thus to the mathematician, S'Gravesende: — * "Pascal, throughout the last years of his life, believed that he saw an abyss by the side of his chair ; need we on that account have the same fancy ? I, too, see an abyss, but it is in the very things which he believed that he had explained. You will find in Leibnitz's ' Miscellanies,' that, towards the end, melancholy led Pascal's intellect astray ; he even says so somewhat harshly. It is not after all wonderful, that a man of delicate temperament and gloomy imagination like Pascal, should end in deranging, by bad management, the organs of his brain. Such a malady is not more surprising or more humiliating than fever or headache. For the great Pascal to be attacked by it is for Samson to lose his strength." How plain the inference ! A mystic amulet — a haunting hallucination — is it to this that the discoverer of atmospheric weight, the inventor of the arithmetical machine, has fallen ? , If a brilliant career of scientific discovery, which seemed to promise great conquests for the kingdom of positive know ledge, has ended in entanglement in the old religious mists, what better explanation than that the fine intellect broke down, and left the philosopher a prey to superstitious fancies ? But, unfortunately for this theory, the facts upon which it is founded will not bear examination. The Pascal of the " Thoughts " is he of the " Provincial Letters " and the resolution of the Cycloid, labours which give no evidence of failing powers. The story of the abyss rests upon the un supported testimony of the Abbe Boileau, — not the brother of the poet, but a later churchman of the same name — who tells it in a volume of letters published in 1737, four years after the death of Marguerite Perier, the last of * ffiuvres, vol. Ivii. p. 91. 64 PORT ROYAL. Pascal's contemporaries. The passagein the " Leibnitziana," to which Voltaire so confidently refers, is no more than this : "In endeavouring thoroughly to investigate matters of religion, he became scrupulous even to folly." What is this but a moral judgment, which every Protestant must express in terms more or less tender, upon the austerities of Pascal's religious life ? Only, it may be a half j udgment, so long as it is not accompanied by a hearty recognition of the sublime conscientiousness which expended itself in these excesses ; but still, from its own side, right and true.* Other critics have endeavoured to explain the terms of this paper without recourse to the supposition of a vision, under the idea that in so doing they were protecting Pascal's memory from the reproach of superstitious cre dulity. M. Faugere uses the term " ravissement," which may probably be translated by " ecstasy," or " trance ; " the Abbe Maynard adopts the phrase, with the addition of the words, " de priere." The line of demarcation which separates these words from " vision " is easy to define in thought, but hardly discoverable when we seek to apply it to the discrimination of facts. The first denote only a subjective, the latter, in addition, an objective phenomenon: the first place the whole scene of action within Pascal's mind, the latter supposes an appearance perceptible to his senses. Then, in order to define our notion of a vision, we must ask whether we conceive of it as something which might also have been visible to other senses than his, and the answer, in the attempt to make a fundamental distinc tion between the real and the phenomenal, leads us away into depths of metaphysical obscurity. There are peculi arities in the paper, such as the use of the word "feu," and the exact specification of time, which aid the theory that it is the record of what Pascal saw, as well as of what * Conf. Sf Beuve, vol. iii. pp. 285—287. PASCAL'S VISION. 65 he felt. On the other hand, may be alleged the marks of mental change and conflict which it contains, as if it were an epitome of the varying thoughts and impulses of many weeks, rather than the picture of two hours' trance or struggle. Nevertheless, the main fact is, that it records the crisis in the Divine dealing with Pascal's soul; and the single principle which it is necessary to bear in mind, that the Holy Spirit works far more frequently, and as effectually in the recesses of the soul, as through the senses. It is impossible, it would be unphilosophical if it were possible, to deny the reality of that class of spiritual facts which we call visions ; the error lies in setting them apart, and limiting to them the presence of a Divine element in human affairs. With me, to suppose that on the 23rd of November, 1654, Pascal was convinced that he saw a vision of Divine truth, would not detract from the truth fulness and soberness of his mind : as I should not the less believe that God had been with him, had the spiritual struggle been accompanied by no external manifestations. Jacqueline, in a letter to 'her -sister, dated January 25th, 1655, gives a full account of her brother's change of pur pose, but represents it as of more gradual accomplishment than we should suppose, if we concentrated our attention only upon these exceptional facts. For more than a year she had marked a difference in him ; an unwonted weari ness of society, and of all whom he met in it. About the end of September, she says*, " He came to see me, and at this visit opened his heart to me in a way that made me feel sorry for him ; avowing that in the midst of constant occupation and surrounded by circumstances which might contribute to make him love the world, and to which we had reason- to believe him much attached, he was in such sort anxious to quit them all, both on account of the ex- * Cousin, J. P. p. 236. Y0L. II. F 66 PORT ROYAL. treme aversion which he felt to the follies and amusements of the world, and of the constant reproaches of his con science, as to find himself detached from everything in a way which he had never before experienced, or indeed, any thing approaching to it ; but that, on the other hand, he was so utterly forsaken of God, as to feel no attraction on that side; that nevertheless, he forced himself with all his might in that direction, though he was very conscious that it was rather his own intellect and spirit which roused him to what he knew to be better things, than the movement of the Spirit of God : that he believed himself to be so separated from all earthly things, as to be in a condition to undertake everything, if only he had the same sentiments towards God as before : and that at these times he must have been bound in horrible bonds to resist the grace which God gave him, and the movements which He aroused in him, This confession surprised as much as it rejoiced me, and from that time I conceived hopes such as I had never before entertained, and of which I thought that I ought to give you some tidings, in order to compel you to prayer. If I told the tale of all his other visits as particularly as this, I should need to write a volume ; for from this time they were so frequent and so long, that it seemed as if I had no other work to do." This then, was the state of mind upon which the pre servation of the bridge of Neuilly came like a warning voice; which prepared the way for the mysterious experience of the 23rd of November. But it was on the 8th of December, that the final resolution was taken: the feast of the Conception of the Virgin, which long ago had wit nessed Jacqueline's triumph at the Palinods de Eouen, and was now to mark the date of a greater victory. On the afternoon of that day, Pascal was in the parlour of Port Eoyal with his sister, when the bell sounded for nones and a sermon. They entered the church together ; Singlhi PASCAL AT PORT ROYAL. 67 was the preacher. Pascal knew that his own attendance there that day was accidental, and saw that no communi cation could take place between his sister and her director ; yet the sermon seemed as if it had been intended for him self alone. It spoke of the beginning of the Christian life, and of the necessity of making it holy; it declared that God ought to be consulted upon every change of purpose ; that modes of life should be examined with reference to the great interest of individual salvation. Jacqueline fed the, flame of devotion which now burned with unwonted ardour ; so that before long, her brother resolved to put himself under the guidance of some austere director, and to spend all his strength in the work of his own religious education. Who was the director to be ? Jacqueline naturally suggested Singlin ; but Pascal felt at first some undefined aversion to the great confessor of Port Eoyal ; and when this was over come, Singlin's own reluctance to accept the charge of fresh penitents stood in the way. At last the confessor, now at Port Eoyal des Champs, consented to give Jacque line the needful instruction; and for a little time the brother eagerly and humbly followed the sister's guidance. Then room was found for him among the solitaries of the sacred valley, and De Saci filled the place of Jacqueline. There all was well. He wrote to his sister that he " was lodged and treated like a prince." The early rising, the long round of service, even the fasts appeared to suit his weak health better than the rules of the physicians. " I first," writes Jacqueline to him about this time, " found out by ex perience that health depends more upon Jesus Christ than upon Hippocrates, and that, unless God wishes to prove and fortify us by our weakness, the regimen of the soul cures the body." His spirits rose in proportion to the improvement of his health. " I am as glad," writes his sister again, " to find you gay in solitude, as I was sorry to have you so in the world. For all that, I do not know how M. de Saci puts up with so F 2 68 PORT ROYAL. light-hearted a penitent, who pretends to balance the vain joys and amusements of the world, by joys somewhat more reasonable, and by more allowable sallies, instead of ex piating them with continual tears." * But Port Eoyal des Champs was hardly itself when Pascal first found his way thither. The new philosophy of Des Cartes had penetrated even into these holy solitudes;' Arnauld, after a brief preliminary controversy with the master, had become a zealous Cartesian, perhaps not the less zealous because the Jesuits took the side of authority and Aristotle; But we will let Fontaine tell his own story in a more lively passage than often relieves the pioiis monotony of his pages : f " How many little agitations raised themselves in this desert touching the human science of philosophy, and the new opinions of M. Des Cartes ! As M. Arnauld in his hours of relaxation conversed on these subjects with his more intimate friends, the infection insensibly spread oh every side ; and the solitude, in the hours devoted to social intercourse, resounded only with these discussions. There was hardly a solitary who did not talk of ' automata.' To beat a dog was no longer a matter of any consequence. The stick was laid on With the utmost indifference, and those who pitied the animals, as if they had any feeling, were laughed at. They said that they were only clock work, and that the cries they uttered when they were beaten, were no more than the noise of some little spring that had been moved — and that all this involved no sen sation. They nailed the poor animals to boards by the four paws to dissect them while still alive, in order to watch the circulation of the blood, which was a great sub- * Cousin, J. P. pp. 237—245. Marg. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. «& Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 261, et seq. f Mem. vol. iii. p. 74. PORT ROYAL DES CHAMPS. 69 ject of discussion. The chateau of M. le Due de Luynes was the source of all these curious affairs — a source that was inexhaustible. There all ceaselessly talked about and admired the new system of the world, according to M. Des Cartes ; but you could never see M. de Saci enter upon these curious speculations. ' What new idea of the gran deur of God does it give me,' he said, 'to come and tell me that the sun is a heap of shreds {a/mas de rognures) and that animals are clockwork?' And then, smiling gently when they talked to him of these matters, he showed more pity for those who occupied themselves with them, than desire to investigate them himself." The situation was characteristic. Arnauld's singularly wide and versatile intellect had not suffered this great crisis of philosophical thought to pass by unmarked ; in the midst of his professional duties and controversies, he had found time to examine the new philosophy ; after a period of hesitation he had enrolled himself as a follower of Des Cartes, and was about, in the Port Eoyal Logic, to apply and develop the system. De Saci, no more than a theo logian, and concerned even with theology in none but its practical aspects, seized only upon the accidents, the ex crescences of Cartesianism ; was indignant with the new theory of animal life ; thought that Des Cartes' doctrine of the universe emptied it of all power of religious instruc tion ; and welcomed the new philosophy, if at all, because it made reprisals upon the authority of Aristotle, whom theologians had long elevated to an unnatural equality with the Bible and St. Augustine. It was then, into this divided society, that Pascal was sent, " that M. Arnauld " as Fon taine naively says * " might cope with him (lui preteroit le collet) in all that regarded the sciences, and that M. de Sapi might teach him to despise them." It needs no great * Mem. iii. p. 78. F 3 70 PORT ROYAL. knowledge of human nature to prophesy the result. Pas cal was flying from the world to God ; presently, when we look at his " Thoughts " we shall see that with him this meant no less than taking refuge in faith from the incom-. pleteness of science, and the uncertainty of philosophy. Singlin and De Saci conquered Des Cartes and Arnauld. The new solitary threw all the ardour of his nature into his self-mortification ; so that before long, Jacqueline wrote to remind him that neglect of personal cleanliness is not a necessary accompaniment of perfect holiness.* At this point the biography of Blaise and Jacqueline Pascal almost merges in the history of Port Eoyal, and I have no choice but to refer my readers to previous pages, or to repeat a tale already told. It was in De cember, 1654, that Pascal retired to Port Eoyal des Champsfs at the beginning of 1655 that the Due de Liancourt was refused absolution at St. Sulpice ; at the end of that year that Arnauld's "Second Letter to a Duke and Peer" was ex amined by the Sorbonne ; and on the 23rd of January, 1656, that the first " Provincial Letter " was published. From this time Pascal seems to have lived chiefly in Paris. He came thither to superintend the printing of the " Letters," apparently before the voluntary dispersion of the solitaries in March, 1656, and did not return with them to Port Eoyal during the temporary respite obtained for the com munity by the miracle of the Holy Thorn. The deep impression which that singular event made upon him and Jacqueline I have already recorded, and shall again refer to when it is necessary to speak of the origin and literary history of the " Thoughts." No sooner were the " Provincial Letters," and the subsequent controversy be tween the Cures and the Jesuits brought to an end, than the miracle seemed to fill all his thoughts, and for- a year he * Cousin, J. P. p. 246. THE CYCLOID. 71 busied himself in laying the foundation of an elaborate work on the evidences of religion. Then his maladies returned with redoubled force, and the four years before his death, in 1662, were one long languishing. The first form taken by Pascal's renewed illness, was a violent toothache, which altogether deprived him of sleep. One night, early in the year 1658, as he lay awake distracted with pain, his mind reverted to old pursuits, and he began to reflect upon the properties of the Cycloid, a curve which had long been a fertile source of difficulty and contention to geometers. One happy thought suc ceeded another; the problem was solved, the toothache it is to be hoped, at least forgotten, and in eight days the whole investigation reduced to mathematical form and order. There Pascal himself was willing to have left the matter ; but the Due de Eoannez, jealous for the reputation of his friend, and anxious to prove that Catholic piety was not incompatible with the successful pursuit of science, persuaded him to issue a series of problems, and to offer a prize for their solution within a given time. Accordingly, in June 1658, Pascal, under the name of Amos Dettonville (an anagram of his old pseudonym, Louis de Montalte), published his " Questions." * The answers were to be sent to * I may introduce in this place a contribution to the elucidation of the " Thoughts." In Art. VII. No. 17 (Havet, p. 108) Pascal speaks of a certain Salomon de Tultie as a writer whom he places by the side of Epictetus and Montaigne. The passage has greatly puzzled the critics. Who could this unknown person be, whom Pascal, a man of scanty erudition, thinks worthy of being named in such good company ? M. Faugere says, "Nos recherches, et celles de plusieurs erudits n'ayant pu nous procurer aucune notion sur Salomon de Tultie, nous supposons que Mad. Perier, de la main de laquelle ce passage se trouve eicrit dans le manuscrit, aura altere le nom de l'ecrivain cite par Pascal." M. Havet, in rejecting this hypothesis, goes on to say, " On serait tente de croire que Salomon de Tultie n'est qu'un pseudonyme, un ami de Pascal, par exemple, qui lui avait soumis quelque recueil de pen- sees, ou Pascal avait remarque celle qu'il cite. Ou qui sait si ce n'est pas lui-meme que Pascal designe ainsi ? " M. Havet trembles upon the verge F 4 72 PORT ROYAL. his father's old friend, the mathematician Carcavi, before the 1st of October; the first in point of date was to receive a prize of forty, the second of twenty pistoles. If before the appointed time no correct answer was sent in, Pascal engaged to publish his own solutions. The Cycloid is the curve generated by a point in the , circumference of a circle, which makes a single complete revolution along a horizontal base. The learned historian of the mathematical sciences, Montucla, calls it the Helen of geometers ; so numerous and tangled were the contro versies to which it gave rise, both before and after the publication of Pascal's " Questions." Its very discovery is a matter of dispute, and the honour of having solved the first problems which presented themselves in relation to it was hotly contested by French and Italian mathema ticians. Des Cartes and Eoberval quarrelled about it, as about everything else ; and Torricelli was accused, unjustly. as it appears, of having stolen his method of determiningllj its area and tangents. Into so perplexed a matter it is not for us to penetrate ; it is enough to say that Pascal im peached the accuracy or the completeness of all the answers sent to him, and ended by publishing his own, in a treatise which entered not only into the properties, but the history of the famous curve. Christopher Wren and Wallis were among the English competitors for the prize, and the latter did not hesitate to declare that he had been unfairly treated. Another competitor, Pere Lalouer§, a Jesuit of Toulouse, was more energetic in his remonstrances than Wallis ; but the public was accustomed to take part with Pascal against the Jesuits, and did not fail him this time. Leibnitz* decides that both Wallis and Lalouere had of the truth. The curious reader will find that Salomon de Tultie is only an anagram of Louis de Montalte, the author of the Provincial Letter", ani of Amos Dettonville, the proposer of the problems of the Cycloid. * Quoted by Maynard, vol. i. p. 241. INCREASING WEAKNESS. 73 solved the problem, but then neither of them published his treatise on the Cycloid till after the appearance of Pascal's. Perhaps the end of the whole matter was not so much to prove the thesis which the Due de Eoannez had in his mind, as to show that ascetics take up their old passions when once more they enter the world's struggles ; and that the purity of the monastic life is due rather to the absence of temptation than to the vigour and discipline of the moral nature. To turn from the pages in which Madame Perier describes her brother's life during these last years, to the volume of his works which is almost wholly occupied by the controversy of the Cycloid, is suf ficient to prove that no eagerness of austerity could smother the fire of intellectual emulation in Pascal's soul, no spiritual affections bar the access to his heart of the old love of abstract truth.* The glimpses which we catch of Pascal during the last four years of his life are but few ; nearly all our knowledge is drawn from his sister's affectionate record. In August, 1660, he is at Clermont, and writes to Fermat with an apology for not hastening to meet him as had been pro posed. " He cannot walk without a stick, or hold himself on horseback ; three leagues, or four at most, is a day's journey in a vehicle ; it has taken him twenty-two days to come from Paris into Auvergne." f Then we have seen how, at the end of 1661, he took up a bolder position even than Arnauld in regard to the Formulary, and discarding the distinction between " fait " and " droit," which he had defended in the " Provincial Letters," insisted that any form of signature should reserve not only the orthodoxy of the Augustinus, but the true doctrine of grace. So in like manner we have already conducted Jacqueline to the end * Montucla, vol. ii. p. 65, et seq. Maynard, vol. i. p. 224, et seq. f St" Beuve, vol. iii. p. 245. 74 PORT ROYAL. of her career, in October, 1661. The cure of her niece, the perils of the convent, the necessity of signature ; her duties, first as mistress of the novices, and then as sub-prioress of Port Eoyal des Champs, — these things were her hfe during the seven years which remained after her brother's conversion. A few letters, which, except those already quoted, have but little interest ; an enthusiastic poem on the Miracle ; a code of regulations for the children who were being educated at Port Eoyal, and her last sublime letter of grief and protest, are all that now remain to break the silence of that conventual secrecy in which her life was hidden. Pascal, falling lifeless to the ground, when he saw, as he thought, the truth betrayed by those to whom God had entrusted its defence ; Jacqueline slowly dying in the cloisters of Port Eoyal, of remorse for having unwittingly aided in the treachery — do not these things reveal to us a diviner strength, and a higher possibility of attainment, than even the powers which compelled wheels of wood and iron to do the work of human brains, and tracked the secret of the Cycloid in a single sleepless night? The last years of Pascal's life were passed in rigid self- mortification. He resolved to "renounce every pleasure and every superfluity." He dispensed, as far as possible, with all attendance, requiring others to perform for him only those services which he could not perform forhimseMv He reduced the furniture of his room to the standard pre scribed by bare necessity. He accustomed himself to eat so carelessly, as to be ignorant of the composition of his: meal ; although, on account of his delicate digestion, there were but few kinds of food which his stomach would retain. Savoury meats or nauseous medicine he accepted with the same indifference ; either must necessarily be taken, and that was all. His whole time was spent in prayer and in reading the Scriptures, of which he acquired so accurate a knowledge, as to be able at once to name the chapter from FINAL AUSTERITY. 75 which any given text was taken. The hundred and nineteenth Psalm was an especial favourite with him ; he could not talk of it without rapturous admiration. After the aggravation of his illness had compelled him to postpone or abandon the execution of his great work, he spent much of his time in going from church to church, according to a register which he had compiled of the special services in each. Many persons resorted to him either for practical religious advice, or for the resolution of their theological doubts; but he regarded even such intercourse with the world as this as a possible snare. After his death, it was discovered that he had worn next his skin an iron girdle, studded with spikes, which he was wont to press close with his elbow, whenever some real or fancied temptation pre sented itself in the midst of this pious discourse. But this was not all ; he aimed at fixing himself in an unnatural, perhaps impossible isolation from all human affections. They were but so many weaknesses of the flesh; shackles which the strong runner for God would cast away from his feet. He rebuked Madame Perier for allowing her children to caress her ; true love could be shown in a thousand better ways. Jacqueline had more than once to assure her sister, that the brother who received all her kindnesses so coldly really loved her as well as heart could desire. When Madame Perier proposed to marry her youngest daughter, and a suitable match presented itself, Pascal protested against the marriage in a letter which is almost savage in its fanaticism. " The married state is no better than paganism in the eyes of God ; to contrive this poor child's marriage is a kind of homicide, nay, Deicide, in her person." * So at Jacqueline's death, he sternly shut up his grief in his own heart, and had not even a word of sympathy for his sister's sorrow. " God give us grace to die * Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 56. 76 PORT ROYAL. as good a death," was all he said; and rebuked Gilberte's tears with the declaration that the death of the just was no subject for lamentation, and that they ought to thank God, that He had so recompensed their sister for the trifling service which she had rendered to Him. " It is wrong," he wrote in the " Thoughts," * " that any one should attach himself to me, even though it be done voluntarily, and with pleasure. I must deceive those in whom I awaken this desire, for I am not the final end of any being, and have not wherewith to satisfy any. Am I not about to die? Thus, then, the object of their attachment would perish. , In the same way as I should do wrong to give currency to a falsehood, although I persuaded men gently, and it was believed with pleasure, and so gave pleasure to me too1 — I do wrong to make myself beloved, and to attract persons to attach themselves to me. Whatever advantage may result to me, I ought to warn those who are about te assent to a falsehood, not to believe it ; and in the same way not to attach themselves to me, in as much as they ought to give their life and strength to please God, and to seek after Him." But it is hardly possible that ny form of Christianity, how imperfect or distorted soever, should not include some social duty ; and so Pascal expelled personal love from his heart, to enthrone general philanthropy in its place. He begins a sort of confession of faith with the words " I love all men as my brethren, because they are all ransomed. I love poverty because Jesus Christ loved it. 1 love wealth because it gives me the means of assisting the wretched."t Few men have more consistently carried out these prM* ciples. We have already seen how in the last year of his life he mortgaged his expected profits from the carosses a cinq sols for the benefit of the poor of Blois. Although * Pensees, ed. Havet, p. 324. f Ibid. p. 343. SERVICE OF THE POOR. 77 his infirmities compelled him year by year to exceed his income, he never refused an alms. " I have noticed that however poor one is, something is always left behind when one dies," was his answer to remonstrance on this head. He exhorted his sister to devote herself and her children to the work of ministering to the poor ; no religious disci pline could be better than familiarity with misery and privation. And this should be done by every one accord ing to their several ability ; " to serve the poor, poorly, was most agreeable to God ; " the foundation of hospitals was not every man's work, like the daily and private as sistance of the indigent. One instance of his charity, which occurred about three months before his death, Madame Perier must tell in her own words ; " As he was returning one day from mass at St. Sulpice, there met him a young girl, about fifteen years of age, and very beautiful, who asked an alms. Being touched to see this person exposed to so manifest a danger, he asked her who she was, and what obliged her thus to ask alms ; and having learned that she was from the country, that her father was dead, and that her mother, having fallen ill, had been taken to the Hotel Dieu that very day, he thought that God had sent her to him as soon as she was in want ; so that without any delay he took her to the Seminary, and put her into the hands of a good priest to whom he gave money and whom he begged to take care of her, and to place her in some situation, where, on account of her youth, she might have good advice and be safe. And to assist him in this care, he said that he would send next day a woman to buy clothes for her, and all that might be necessary to enable her to go to service. The next day he sent a woman who worked so well with this good priest, that after having clothed her, they placed her in a good situation. And this ecclesiastic having asked of the woman the name of him who was doing this charitable act, she 78 PORT ROYAL. ' said that she was not empowered to tell it, but that she would come from time to time to see him, and to provide for the wants of the girl. And he begged her to obtain permission to reveal the name, saying, ' I promise you that I will never speak of it as long as he lives ; but if it should be God's will that he dies before me, it would console me to make this action known ; for I think it so noble, that I cannot suffer it to remain in obscurity.' " * What are we to say of these latter years of Pascal's life? I have described them as I find them described by his sister ; the story, so far without comment, lies under the reader's eye. Hardly in the prime of life, and yet at the very point of death ; with intellectual powers capable of any achievement, yet crippled by unremitting bodily torment; exorcising doubt by arguments which lend a majesty to ecclesiastical authority, and yet rebelling against the Church, to fulfil a higher allegiance to truth ; with a heart made for love, and household angels, such as fall to few men's share, turning his back upon all affections hut the holiest, and in comparison with that, heaping fierce depreciation upon every other ; spying a danger to purity in a child's caress, and paganism in faithful wedlock; having fled from the world to avoid temptation, yet needing the help of a spiked girdle to overcome it — what ideal is this of the Christian life ? We are not allowed to find the key to the mystery in Pascal's infirmities, which prevented the devotion to theological, of the powers which he had withdrawn from scientific study. " Sickness," he said in his last illness, " is the Christian's natural state ; for it places us in the condition in which we ought always to be ; suffering evil, deprived of all the goods and all the pleasures of sense, exempt from all the passions which are busy during the whole course of life ; without ambition, * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 29. LAST STRUGGLE. 79 without avarice ; in the constant expectation of death. Is it not thus that Christians ought to pass life ? " And yet, what would become of the world, if all Christians did thus pass their lives ? To what a height of moral grandeur does not this last struggle after perfectness raise itself? We lose sight at first of all but the divine strength of will, the ardour and constancy of self-sacrifice, the upward rush of aspiration, which enable a human life so to deprive itself of all earthly delights, that it may find its single, all-sufficient delight in God. In Pascal, at least, there is no reason to doubt the purity of the motive ; no wild remorse for a pro fligacy as wild, drove him to solitude and self-maceration ; no popular renown for sanctity rewarded his past, or spurred him to fresh austerity. His mode of life was deliberately adopted as that which alone became a Christian man ; and its very obscurity was a necessary constituent of its worth. And men to whom virtue comes in winning guise, and brings her own charms with her in home pleasures, and innocent recreations of art and literature and society, wonder, not without awe, at the fortitude which cuts away all these things from life, as possible occasions of sin, and is content to live and die, deprived of every gift of God, save the gift of Himself. So, not seldom, we are blinded to the real proportion of things; as the crag that rises riven and bare in one clear sweep from our feet, impresses us with its height more than the loftier hill which swells gently from the plain, and is corn-covered to the top. Is then the ascetic's life the hardest? Not so thought St. Cyran, when he doubted whether even D'Andilly could make his peace with God in the world ; he would have his friend fly to the desert, as the less arduous post in life's battle. To live a holy life by shunning temptation, and by conquering it, are not the same thing ; and this, the Protestant, not that, the Catholic ideal is the noblest. 80 PORT ROYAL. I cannot pause, nor is it necessary, to develop the argu ments which make against the monastic theory, of which Pascal's latter years were no more than a practical exaggera^ tion. When first I began to write this story, it was necessary to learn to move and think within the limits of monasticism ; to accept it as a fact which could not be fully understood by one who watchfully kept the attitude of suspicion and attack. And now the cry of protest which I cannot but utter, is not against Pascal, still less against Port Eoyal, but against the whole theory of life, which is involved in the monastic system, and not always repudiated by Protestants of the purest blood. The doctrine of Port Eoyal only informs that theory with a religiousness not necessarily its own : the eager strength of Pascal's character pushed it to its farthest logical extreme. It is a theory which, by concentrating the undivided attention of the soul upon the conditions of existence in another life, makes it deaf to the demands of love and duty in this. The question which its votary asks himself is not, How can I best fill my place here ? but, In what way shall I most certainly insure my safety there ? So, as it is part of the world's moral constitution, that opportunities of duty should be also possible occasions of sin ; that there should be a point at which innocent enjoyments cease to be innocent, and domestic affections traverse the course of a higher duty; this theory bids men apply themselves to win heaven, by evading the problem of earth : and for very dread of sin, to turn their backs upon the possibility of virtue. I say nothing ofthe inherent selfishness of such a view of Hfe; of the way in which it turns inward upon himself, and his spiritual state, all a man's thought and striving, and roote up the faculty of unconscious affection, and natural enjoy ment. One thought sufficiently condemns it; that the highest type of human life cannot be such as, realised inafi men, would make the world a howling wilderness. It seems LAST ILLNESS. 81 to me that Pascal, feeling the love of God on his life in the love of wife and children ; pressing on with swift step into the mysteries of the physical universe ; striving too (there is nothing inconsistent in the double task) to strengthen the defences of revealed religion, and presenting the example of one more faithful and God-fearing life to the foul license of court and city, might have learned secrets of Divine wisdom and human possibility, of which the recluse of Port Eoyal, the haunter of Parisian churches, must have remained ignorant. And yet the image of the poor girl rescued from the pavement of the wicked city, and of many another wretched one who owed to that kind hand some brief respite from wretchedness, rises up to rebuke our judgment. Let us turn to the brief story of his death. We have already seen that the last four years of Pascal's life were no more than one unremitting struggle against the maladies of his youth, which had returned with redoubled force, and were probably aggravated by his unnatural mode of living. The fatal illness began in June 1662, with a dis gust of all food, followed in a few days by a very violent colic. He needed his sister's help, yet was in danger of being deprived of it; for a child, one of a large family, to whom from motives of compassion he gave an asylum in his house, being ill of small-pox, he would neither suffer the little patient to be removed, nor expose his sister to the risk of carrying the infection to her own children. 'The least danger,' he said, ' would be in his own removal ; ' and so, forgetful of himself to the last, was carried to his sister's house, Eue Neuve St. Etienne. Here he lingered for nearly two months ; now shaking off the disease for a time, and now yielding to its renewed attacks, but always per suaded, in opposition to the opinion of his physicians, that the end was not far off. The friends of Port Eoyal, from whom his difference of judgment had involved no estrange- Y0L. n, a 82 PORT ROYAL. ment of heart, were often with him ; he confessed not only to the Cure of the parish, but to Ste Marthe, one of the directors of the community. His last wish, which his sister* however, did not think fit to gratify, was that he might be carried to the Hospital of Incurables, to die among the poor. For a few hours before his death he was insensible, but a brief interval of restored consciousness and freedom from pain enabled him to receive the last sacraments of the Church. He died on the 19th of August 1662, having just completed his thirty-ninth year, and was buried in the church of St. Etienne du Mont.* To believe that Pascal died in the conviction that the resistance of Port Eoyal to the Formulary had been a mis take and a sin, and that after all Pere Annat, and M. de Perefixe were on the right side, must have been a hard trial even to Jesuit credulity. Yet such a story was sedulously propagated. M. Beurrier, the Cure of St. Etienne du Mont, had visited Pascal on his death-bed, and had administered to him the sacraments of communion and extreme unction. Two years and a half after Pascal's death, * For details of Pascal's later life, see Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. pp. 16—45. A singular story, apparently without much historical foundation, ha! been published by Michelet; Histoire de la Revolution Francaise (vol i. p. 77, quoted by SfBeuve, vol. iii. p. 293). Madame de Genlis told some name less person that the Duke of Orleans, being much engaged in processes of alchemy about the year 1789, needed a skeleton for some mysterious pur pose, and that the bones of Pascal were disturbed from their resting-place, and brought to him. Parallel with this, is another wonderful tale whicli I have not thought it worth while to quote from Marguerite Perier*s memo's ! that at a, year old, Blaise Pascal was struck by a mysterious illness, the result of witchcraft j and that the grave and learned Etienne Pascal was not ashamed to have recourse to a wise woman, who succeeded, by powerful charms, in diverting the spell to an unlucky cat, whose death was the sigiwl for the ^child's recovery. M. Pascal's scientific acquirements may &>*< '*' that age, have elevated him above such vulgar superstition ; b«t the talc agrees ill with his well-known devotion to the Church. Those who wish to learn the strange details will find them in Faugere, Jacq. Pascal, p. 447. ALLEGED RECANTATION. 83 in the very heat of the persecution of the nuns, the Arch bishop of Paris sent for M. Beurrier, and asked him whether Pascal had not died without the sacraments. When the Cure replied that he had himself administered them to the dying man, the Archbishop angrily inquired how he had dared to give them to so notorious a Jansenist. M. Beurrier, in a fright, bethought himself of some aliena tion from Arnauld on the subject of the Formulary, of which Pascal had spoken, and interpreting the fact to suit his present need, told M. de Perefixe that his penitent had blamed the friends of Port Eoyal for their obstinate resist ance to the ecclesiastical authorities. Such a story was too good to be lost ; the Archbishop at once put it into the form of a declaration, and compelled, the half-reluctant Cure to sign it. A year after, Pere Annat published the statement in one of his controversial pamphlets, and under pre tence of doing justice to Pascal, inflicted what his friends felt to be a grievous wound upon his memory. The matter was at once explained : the cause of Pascal's differ ence with Arnauld was shown to be his more ardent, not his failing Jansenism, and M. Beurrier acknowledged his mistake. But the declaration still remained in the Arch bishop's hands, and the Cure was too timid, at the moment when the cause of Port Eoyal seemed irretrievably lost, to brave the displeasure of his superior. Again, when the "Thoughts" were published at the beginning of 1670, the Archbishop, in the first fervour of reconciliation with Port Eoyal, said many polite things of the book, and proposed to the publisher to prefix, at least to the second edition, a document, which so signally redounded to the orthodox credit of the author. Fresh explanations were made, new affidavits signed, when at last the death of M. de Perefixe in 1671 took the seal from the Cure's lips, and the mistake was promptly and authoritatively corrected.* * Mad. Perier, ap. Faugere, J. P. p. 87. Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 347, et seq. c 2 84 PORT ROYAL. Before we attempt to form a general estimate of Pascal's mind and character, it is necessary to become acquainted with his posthumous work, the " Thoughts." The singular fortunes of this celebrated book compel me to speak at some length of its literary history. The miracle of the Holy Thorn was the occasion of the " Thoughts." The event impressed itself deeply upon the mind of Pascal, then in the first glow of religious fervour. Such a cure performed upon his niece and god-daughter presented itself in the light of a special mercy vouchsafed by God upon himself. I have before told * how he thence forward adopted as his armorial bearings an eye, sur rounded by a crown of thorns, with the motto " Scio cui credidi ; " and have quoted passages from the new recen sion of the " Thoughts " to show the argumentative use which he made of the miracle. From considerations on' the place and function of miracles in religious evidence,.!, he passed to the larger question, and set to work, to use the words of Madame Perier f, "to refute the principal and most false reasonings of the atheists." The last year in which he was able to work continuously, was devoted to the new scheme; in the execution of which he expended all his wonted ardour ; then, for three years more, he was able only to write or dictate brief memoranda at intervals of relief from pain. When after his death, his friends jealously collected his papers, they found no partially finished treatise, not even the plan or outline of such, but a confused mass of fragments. None were of any con siderable length, many consisted of only a word or two; some were carefully elaborated in form, others were written in a kind of mental short-hand, designed rather to recall than to express a train of thought. These were the mate rials which Port Eoyal and the family of Pascal undertook to edit. * Vol. i. p. 308. f Faugere, J. P. p. 19. THE THOUGHTS. 85 The task, both from the fragmentary condition of Pas cal's notes, and the state of ecclesiastical affairs, was one of extreme difficulty. The Due de Eoannez was conspic uous among the editors by his zeal ; Etienne Perier, the eldest son of Gilberte Pascal, represented the feelings of his family. Besides these, Arnauld, Nicole, Treville, Du Bois, and De la Chaise, are mentioned as forming a com mittee of supervision. The first two are already well known to us ; MM. du Bois and de la Chaise belong to the rank and file of the Jansenist army, and will disappear into obscurity when they have done this work. M. de Treville was a gentleman of Beam, who had been brought up with Louis XIV., and had acquired a degree of scholarship which in a subaltern of the royal guards excited much wonder. About 1666 he became one of Madame de Longueville's coterie, and took a share in the revision of De Saci's " New Testament ;" but his " conversion " was publicly announced only after the sudden and frightful death of Henrietta Stuart, Duchess of Orleans, in 1670, of which he was a witness. Then for a time he formed one more link between Port Eoyal and the fashionable society of the day ; on the one hand en gaging in all the secret deliberations of the Jansenists, on the other, not forfeiting by any monastic retreat, or no table austerity, his place in the salons of Paris. His con versation was esteemed the perfection of polite intercourse, and from his judgment in matters of taste there was no appeal. He was one of those men who impress their contemporaries with a great sense of ability, yet who from I fear of falling below their reputation, or indolence, or a secret consciousness of inferior powers, are careful not to ¦t run the risks of authorship. After some ten or twelve j years the man of taste conquered the Jansenist ; he began, | says St. Simon, "to make verses, to give recherche" dinners " — in short, to bring to bear upon the world the refinement which had been all but thrown away at Port Eoyal* But O 3 86 PORT ROYAL. Port Eoyal never wholly lost its hold upon any heart which it had once possessed, and after many vibrations between society and the cloister, Treville died a penitent at last.* An active negotiator in this matter, if not himself an editor, was the Comte de Brienne, an eccentric, changeful man, the vicissitudes of whose career can only be accounted for on the supposition of partial insanity. He was the son of Lomenie, Comte de Brienne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs during the minority of Louis XIV., and was himself, from a very early age, destined to the highest employments. He married the daughter of M. de Cha- vigni, another minister of the Eegency, and at the age of twenty-three succeeded to his father's office. But the death of his wife, or, as others hint, a less creditable cause, developed the latent insanity of his blood ; he resigned his post, retired to the Oratory, and in due time took orders. Of this he s*6on repented, but in vain ; he could not rid himself of the sacerdotal character, and all his efforts to reinstate himself in his old office were fruitless. Hence forward his whole life was a succession of escapades, more or less befitting the priestly character, which sat some times heavily, sometimes lightly upon his shoulders. In 1664, Madame de Longueville, who was his godmother, brought him into relations with Port Eoyal, and for a time he was an ardent Jansenist. With Lancelot he made a pious pilgrimage to Alet, the diocese of the good Pavilion. In 1667 he contracted an intimate friendship with the Perier family at Clermont. But one by one the Jansenist leaders learned to mistrust his eccentric zeal; and a year after the publication of the " Thoughts," Lancelot writes to M. Perier, that M. de Brienne's friends " are in despair and are devising some means of placing him in confinement." The last eighteen years of his life were passed in the madhouse * St" Beuve, vol. iv. p. 474, et seq. St. Simon, Mem. vol. vii. p. 222. . FIRST EDITION. 87 of St. Lazare, and his only son, in whom an illustrious family became extinct, died childless an,d insane.* At the time of which we are now speaking, Brienne's friendship for Madame Perier and his zeal for Port Eoyal were alike warm. From two still extant letters, which he wrote to Madame Perier in September and November 1668, we gain some little insight into, the editorial councils. How was the work to be done ? The omission of such passages as referred to the Society of Jesus, or to the controversy of the Formulary, was a manifest necessity : to publish them would be to endanger the peace of the Church. Other thoughts were in too fragmentary a state ; others again, perhaps from their incompleteness, appeared unedifying, even dangerous. But when such needful omissions had been made, Madame Perier desired that the volume should contain nothing that was not from her brother's hand, and in the form in which he had left it. She heard with alarm of alterations, transpositions, explanations, embellishments. She fancied that M. de Eoannez's work upon Pascal's notes amounted to " a great commentary." In answer to all this, M. de Brienne assures her, with anxious reiteration, that nothing has been done which was not absolutely necessary, which she, and Pascal himself, were he living, would not approve. Nothing has been added ; nothing changed. The readers of the book will be fully informed in the preface, as she wishes, of the exact nature of the materials with which the editors have had to deal, and of the fact that their work has been simply one of arrangement. After all, the proposed preface did not fulfil these promises, and M. and Madame Perier insisted on the substitution in its place of one written by theii- son. The book, a little duodecimo volume, was pub lished in January 1670, bearing upon its title-page the apt Virgilian motto, " Pendent opera interrupta." f * St" Beuve, vol. iv. p. 415, et seq. St. Simon, Mem. vol. xii. p. 160. f Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 354. For Brienne's Letters, see Pensees, ed. Fau- G 4 88 PORT ROYAL. The perils of the book began with its birth. It was customary that all theological works should before publi cation receive testimonies to their orthodoxy from men of learning and repute. Pascal's " Thoughts " appeared with nine such testimonies, signed by three bishops, one arch deacon, and thirteen doctors of the Sorbonne; among whom were Choiseul, Bishop of Comminges, and the Abbe le Camus, afterwards Bishop of Grenoble, and Cardinal. When the volume was about to be issued, M. de Perefixe sent to the bookseller, Desprez, to ask for a copy, and to interdict the sale until it had undergone his inspection. After consultation with Arnauld and others, Desprez him self took the book to the Archbishop ; resolved, though complaisant thus far, to resist any ecclesiastical encroach* ment upon the liberty of the press. The Archbishop had heard that the work had a taint of Jansenism in it; M. Desprez fell back upon the character of the examiners. Why had he not submitted it for approval to the Professors of the University ? Those learned gentlemen, said the book» seller, were so busy that they often kept a book six months without giving their opinion ; a man might as well shut up his shop as wait for them. The Archbishop thought it very hard, and his almoner dutifully agreed with him, that books should be published in his diocese without his permission; but as the law was against him, he confined himself to a promise that he would consider the matter. He tried to coax Desprez into publishing the declaration of Pascal's altered opinions, of which we have already spoken, by declaring that he was all but ready to add his own signa ture to those of the other examiners. The cautious book seller thanked his Grandeur, but said nothing of the declara tion ; and so the interview ended. The Archbishop's death, gere, vol. i. p. 390. Letter of Mad. Perier to Mad. de Sable, St* Berne, vol. iii. p. 306. REPRINTS OF THE THOUGHTS. 89 not many months afterwards, probably prevented any further proceedings.* A second edition was published in the course of the same year, and a third in 1671, both reprints of the first. A fourth followed in 1678, " augmented," as the title-page bears, " by many thoughts of the same author," and also by three dissertations of no great value from the pen of M. du Bois. With this edition it was originally intended to publish the Life of Pascal by his sister, which had been written as far back as the year 1667. But the time had not yet come to tell the whole truth about Pascal. The story of the "Provincial Letters" might give the Jesuits the occasion of attack, for which they were anxiously waiting. It would be a wrong to Pascal's memory not to deny the reality of his pretended recantation, while to do so would probably cause the suppression of the book. The publication of the Life was accordingly postponed till the edition of 1678 was reprinted in 1687. Even then — and in the form in which we now have it — it makes no allusion either to the "Provincial Letters" or to Port Eoyal ; and the student who derived his whole knowledge of Pascal from Madame Perier's biography would be ignorant of his relations to both. It is not necessary to enumerate the various reprints of this edition, which were published at Paris and elsewhere. The work retained the same shape till, in 1727, the Bishop of Montpellier took occasion, in a letter to M. de Soissons, to give some hitherto inedited thoughts of Pascal on miracles. In 1728, Pere Desmolets, librarian of the Oratory at Paris, included in his "Memoires de litterature et d'histoire" several new fragments. One was a dialogue between Pascal and De Saci on the study of Epictetus and Montaigne, which he had extracted, without however giving his authority, from Fontaine's still unprinted memoirs. The others were taken * Eecueil d'Utrecht, p. 356, et seq. 90 PORT ROYAL. from the papers of Pascal's nephew, the Abbe Perier ,"and in cluded essays of some length on " Self-love " and the "Art of Persuasion." On eaoh of these occasions Marguerite Perier, still, in extreme old age, the faithful guardian of her uncle's reputation, asked for evidence that the fragments newly published were really his. The required proof was given, and the additional materials remained for the first critical editor. The next period through which the " Thoughts " passed was « one of controversy. It is true that in 1733 the Arch bishop of Embrun had raised a cry of objection, and Pere Hardouin, in his " Athei detecti," had placed Pascal among a goodly company of hitherto reputed Christians. But the first serious opposition came from Voltaire, and was con tained in certain " Eemarks upon Pascal's Thoughts," pub lished with his Philosophical Letters in 1734.* It is needless to say that Pascal's whole object and plan were dis tasteful to him ; that he looked upon him as a servant of true and sound knowledge, whom the old superstition had seduced from his duty, and imprisoned in perpetual useless- ness. That Port Eoyal should have inspired the " Provincial Letters " was well enough, but it was simply melancholy that such fine powers should have been wasted upon the evidences of Christianity. Nevertheless, though Voltaire in his correspondence about this date shows that he heartily despises the whole of Pascal's theory of miracle and pro phecy, he confines his attack to the doctrine of human nature contained in the " Thoughts." He was not yet the Voltaire of later years ; this was his first essay in philo sophical criticism, and men wondered to see the author of "Zaire" and the "Henriade" enter upon so strange a contro versy. He found sufficient matter of dispute in Pascal's * The statement in the text is that of M. St« Beuve (P. R. vol. iii. p. 315). In the edition of Voltaire's works, from which I have quoted, the Eemarks are dated 1738. MODERN EDITIONS. 91 exaggerated statement of human corruption and depravity ; and for a time, the battle raged only about that position- It is singular that no French Catholic divine was willing or able to take up Pascal's cause ; Voltaire's only opponent was a Huguenot refugee of Utrecht, M. Boullier. The next edition of the " Thoughts " proceeded from the school of Voltaire. In 1776 Condorcet published " Eloge et Pensees de Pascal," adding one or two yet unknown fragments ; and in 1778, Voltaire, who died the same year, reprinted it, with a few introductory remarks, in which a comparison is drawn between Pascal and Condorcet, very much to the advantage of the latter. The thirty years which have passed since the publication of Voltaire's " Eemarks," have not been without their influence. He has no scruples now about attacking Christianity ; Jesuit, Jansenist, Calvinist, are abused with savage impartiality. Why either Condorcet or Voltaire should have troubled themselves to edit Pascal is not easy to say. Neither suppression nor annotation could transform him into a disciple of their school. The " Thoughts " received the form in which they re mained up to our own day, in the edition of Pascal's whole works, in 5 vols. 8vo. published in 1779, by the Abbe Bossut. It is a singular illustration of the virulence of the Jansenist controversy, that though the debate had long ago subsided, and the Jesuits had been banished from France for nearly twenty years, M. de Malesherbes, the minister to whose department the matter belonged, hesi tated to authorise the edition, and advised that it should bear the impress of a foreign printer. The advice was taken, and the edition, which was really published in Paris by Nyon, purports to come from the establishment of Detune, at the Hague. It gathered together the various fragments which had successively appeared, and added one or two others ; among them the "Discourses on the Condition ofthe 92 PORT ROYAL. Great," extracted from Nicole's " Treatise on the Education of a Prince." But with this exception, Bossut did not refer to the authority upon which these additions were made, and arbitrarily divided the " Thoughts " into two parts, one containing those immediately relating to religion; the other those which refer to philosophy, morals, and belles lettres. Such as it was, Bossut's became the model of subsequent editions. The most important of these is that of Lefevre, which also includes Pascal's whole works, and was published in 1819. An isolated effort of amendment was made in 1835, byM. Frantin, who issued at Dijon, " The 'Thoughts' of Blaise Pascal, restored in accordance with the plan of the Author." But the new editor did not avail himself of the only means for the execution of his purpose — consultation of the original MS. — and his title-page held out hopes which were not fulfilled. Such was the condition of things when, in 1842, on occasion of a public competition for the best eulogium on Pascal, M. Victor Cousin read to the French Academy his now celebrated " Eeport on the Necessity of a new Edition of Pascal's ' Thoughts.' " * He had conceived the happy idea — strange that it should have occurred to none of Pascal's numerous editors — of comparing the printed text of the "Thoughts" with the original MS., which had long lain in the " Bibliotheque du Eoi." It had been brought thither from the library of St. Germain des Pres, and bore marks of its authenticity, not only in the well- known handwriting of Pascal, but in three attestations, carefully specifying its contents, and signed by the Abbe Perier. Besides this, two copies of the original MS. were known to exist, which, on comparison with it, were found * Published in the Journal des Savants, April to November, 1842; and afterwards enlarged with prefaces and supplementary matter into Etudes sur Pascal, 5th ed. 1857. M. COUSIN'S REPORT. 93 to be, in the main, faithful. One of them had actually been in the hands of Bossut, but without preventing him from reproducing the errors of previous editions. To these authorities, then, M. Cousin turned, with startling result. For nearly two hundred years the world of letters had been deceiving itself with the idea that it possessed a work on the Evidences of Christianity from the hand of Pascal. The statement in the preface of 1670 that "nothing had been added or changed," was entirely false. The genuine fragments had undergone alterations of every kind, abridgment, amplification, transposition, total suppression. Each succeeding editor had dealt as hardly as the first, with such new material as had come to his hand. " There are not," says M. Faugere, " twenty successive lines, either in the first or any subsequent edition, which do not pre sent some alteration, great or small." * We must return upon our steps, and briefly trace the history of this process. Pascal, in the earlier part of his life, had been accustomed to perform the work of composition in his mind, and to have recourse to pen and paper only to record the finished conception. But in the years which immediately preceded his death, his frequent paroxysms of pain rendered this process too difficult, and he fell into the habit of com mitting his thoughts, as they occurred to him, to slips of paper, which his editors found put together in different files or bundles. Most of these fragments were in his own handwriting ; others he had dictated to any amanuensis whom chance threw in his way. Some slips were written by' Madame Perier, one by Domat, one by Arnauld, and one or two are conjectured, from the rudeness of their orthography, to be from the hand of Pascal's servant. The whole are now carefully inserted in a large folio volume of 491 pages. This was probably done by the * Pensees, Introd. p. xxii. 94 PORT ROYAL. original editors, as they state that the bundles in which they found the papers were altogether without arrangement; an assertion which remains true of the MS. in its present condition. The difficulty of restoring order to such a chaos was increased by the illegibility of almost every fragment. Many bore marks of frequent erasure and correction : and the handwriting of Pascal at the best has more resemblance to the traces which an insect with inked feet might leave in crawling over the pages, than to any human calligraphy. It was impossible to say whether all these fragments were or were not intended to form part of the work on the Evidences : they were the disjointed record of all that had passed through Pascal's mind for the last four years of his life. Some of them were no more than passages from Montaigne's " Essays ; " which he had transcribed, say one set of theorists, that he might refute them at his leisure; according to another, with the intention of adopting them as part of his argument. Many belonged to the period of the " Provincial Letters," or were at least the relics of that controversy ; others plainly referred to the Jansenist debate. When, therefore, Port Eoyal is cited at the bar of criticism to answer the accusation of altering and suppressing the remains of Pascal, the indictment should be fairly drawn. It had not to deal with a finished work, or with materials that could be said in any conceivable sense to make up a book at all. The task was to edit a mass of confused and intractable fragments : to collect from the shipwreof; of Pascal's health and life such relics as might be worthy of himself and precious to the Church. To have inter cepted the " Provincial Letters "on their way to the press; to have abridged, embellished, garbled them, and then to have sent them forth under Pascal's name, would have been quite a different thing from the treatment which the " Thoughts " underwent at the hands of Port Eoyal. In a work which even approaches completion, the author's intention is plain, ALTERATIONS OF THE THOUGHTS. 95 while the notes which fill his portfolio, if published at all, must leave room for a large exercise of editorial discretion. Such an edition as that of M. Faugere (1844), which simply reproduces the original MS., even in parts of sentences and words, however useful now, as a reaction against former in accuracy, would have been absurd in 1670. And thus the accusation against Port Eoyal divides itself into two parts, one of editorial incompetence and indiscretion, one of literary dishonesty to Pascal and his readers. With M. Victor Cousin's report in our hands, it is difficult to overstate the evidence against the first editors. He divides it into three parts ; in the first he treats of the interpolations; in the second, of the alterations; and in the third, of the omissions of the edition of 1670. It published the " Prayer for Aid to make a good Use of Sickness," though With a warning that it did not form a part of Pascal's projected work. It contained " Thoughts on Death," which are now discovered to be extracts from the letter which Pascal wrote to Florin and Gilberte Perier on the death of his father. The chapter entitled "Thoughts on Miracles " is almost wholly made up of fragments of his letters to Mademoiselle de Eoannez, torn from their con nexion, and printed without a hint of their original form.* Almost every page of the book is an imperfect represen tation of Pascal's manuscript. It is impossible in this place even to describe the voluminous evidence of the fact: let M. Cousin speak for himself f: — "Analysis cannot invent a way of altering the style of a great writer, which that of Pascal has not suffered at the hands of Port Eoyal. There was no Jesuit censure * It may be remarked, that in 1670, Mademoiselle de Roannez, then Madame de la Feuillade, was still living, a fact which may have interposed a difficulty in the way of publishing even such extracts from Pascal's letters to her as we now possess. f Etudes sur Pascal, pref. p. v. 96 PORT ROYAL. to apprehend here; no other censure was applied than that of mediocrity upon genius ; — we allude to the younger Perier and the Due de Eoannez, for there are in truth alterations such as we have not the courage to impute to Nicole and Arnauld. It is very probable that Nicole and Arnauld were consulted upon certain Thoughts, and upon the edifying character which it was thought right to give to the book ; but as far as regarded the details, that is to say, the style, Pascal was given up to his nephew and M. de Eoannez. And thus he has come down to us, mutilated and disfigured in every way. We have given numerous examples of every kind of alteration ; alterations of words, alterations of terms, alterations of phrases ; sup pressions, substitutions, additions ; arbitrary compositions, sometimes of a paragraph, sometimes of a whole chapter, by help of phrases and paragraphs foreign to one another; and what is worse, decompositions more arbitrary still, and quite inconceivable, of chapters which in Pascal's MS. were profoundly elaborated, and perfectly connected in all their parts." I am bound to add, after a careful exami nation of the evidence, that M. Cousin proves his case. A few words will finish the enumeration of the editorial sins which have been committed against Pascal. Condorcet had consulted the original MS., but did not introduce a single correction into the text. He pubhshed for the first time, but with much arbitrary abridgment, a fragment entitled " De l'Esprit Geometrique." He suppressed some Thoughts, the mystic piety of which was displeasing to his cold and material philosophy, although they had appeared in previous editions. Nor did Bossut, whose labours gave the form to subsequent impressions of the " Thoughts," treat the unfortunate author with more consideration. He had in his possession one of the copies of the MS. of which I have spoken, but reprinted the text in all its former inaccuracy. The new fragments which he published un- ALTERATIONS OF THE THOUGHTS. 97 derwent alteration at his hands. He made an arbitrary division of the work into two parts, the titles of which correspond to nothing in Pascal's intention. He adopted from Pere Desmolets the extract from Fontaine, relating Pascal's conversation with De Saci on Epictetus and Montaigne. But he has cut out De Saci's part; con verted a dialogue, which was highly characteristic of the interlocutors, into a dissertation ; omitted all the lively background of the scene, and taken upon himself to amplify and abridge at pleasure. He has interpolated in the midst of the "Thoughts," with which it has no connection whatever, Nicole's report of Pascal's "Discourses on the Condition of the Great." He has added certain short treatises on philosophical and mathematical subjects, which have no reference to Pascal's work on Christian evidence, and belong to the earlier part of his literary life. He has recorded, as if it proceeded from Pascal's pen, a half jocular judgment of Des Cartes' philosophy, which is a relic of his conversation preserved by Marguerite Perier. On the same footing stands the declaration of the spirit in which he wrote the " Provincial Letters," which I have already quoted.* He has extracted sayings of Pascal's from Madame Perier's Life, and has even turned into an aphorism an opinion ascribed to him in the "Logic of Port Eoyal." Last of all, M. Frantin, in the edition of 1835, which promised a restoration of the work to its first form, suppressed every fragment which referred, how ever indirectly, to the Society of Jesus, Surely never author had such reason to complain of his friends, as Pascal of the editors of the " Thoughts !" To what' extent, then, is Port Eoyal guilty in regard to Pascal ? Let the circumstances be more narrowly looked at before we attempt to reply. I have described the con- * Vol. i. p. 288. ' VOL. II. H 98 PORT ROYAL. dition in which Pascal's notes were left, and so have ac quitted the editors of the charge of wilfully deforming a finished production. What was to be done with them? " Of three possible methods of dealing with them," says Etienne Perier in the preface, " the first was to print the whole just as it stood; the second was to follow the in dications left by Pascal, to use his materials, and to attempt to finish his work. The first was rejected as unproductive of practical good, and unjust to the author's memory; the second, after a fair trial, was laid aside as impracticable. Thus," he continues, " to avoid the inconveniences which presented themselves in both these methods of editing, an intermediate one was chosen, which has been followed in this collection. Among this great number of thoughts, we have taken only those which appeared the clearest and most finished; and we give them as we have found them, without adding or changing anything; except that, where they were without arrangement or connection, and confusedly dispersed up and down, we have put them in some sort of order, and brought under the same title those which were upon the same subject, and suppressed all which were either too obscure or too imperfect." * A most sensible theory ! — the only fault to be found with it being that the performance of the work belied the promises of the preface. Nor is there any excuse for the falsehood of the statement. Etienne Perier took a chief share in the preparation of the MS. for the press, and must have known the exact amount of alteration which the fragments had undergone. I can only account for it, and at the same time furnish some slight excuse, by sup posing that he was embarrassed between conflicting autho rities and interests. He was but twenty-six, and this was the first important matter with which he had been in- * Quoted by Faugere, Pensees, Introd. p. xxi. ALTERATIONS OF THE THOUGHTS. 99 trusted. His mother, at Clermont, insisted, as we learn from Brienne, that nothing should appear in the book which was not her brother's, and in the state in which he left it. On the dther hand, Arnauld, Nicole, Eoannez, Treville, assured him that the alterations which they had made were absolutely necessary. To such opinions he could not but bow ; perhaps was persuaded that Madame Perier's objections were no more than the result of her womanly and provincial ignorance of literary matters. And the preface which he was suddenly called upon to substitute for that which had displeased his mother, was probably his attempt to reconcile all differences and quiet all suspicions. The difficulty was indefinitely increased by the number of hands through which the book necessarily passed. Not only all the editors whom I have enumerated, but also each of the churchmen with whose testimonials it was issued, assumed the right of suggestion and alteration. A letter from M. de Comminges, in which he thanks Etienne Perier for having made the changes which he had proposed, is still extant.* But a letter from Antoine Arnauld to the elder Perier, in reference to certain objections which had been made by the Abbe le Camus, puts the matter in the clearest light. f "You see, Sir, what it is which has prevented me, not only from writing to you sooner, but also from conferring with those gentlemen on M. le Camus' diffi culties in regard to the 'Thoughts.' I hope that the whole thing will settle itself, and that except some pas sages, which it will be quite right to change, they will agree to leave the rest as it is. But permit me, Sir, to tell you, that one ought not to be so rigid and scrupulous in leaving a book, which is to be exposed to public criti- * Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 389. ¦f Lettres d'A. Arnauld, vol. ix. p. 184. H 2 100 PORT ROYAL. cism, in precisely the state in which it came from the author's hands. It is impossible to be so very exact, when one has to do with enemies as spiteful as ours. It is much more to the purpose to anticipate frivolous objections by some little change, which only softens an expres sion, than to reduce oneself to the necessity of making apologies. " This has been the rule of our conduct in regard to the ' Considerations sur les Dimanches et les Fetes ' of M. de St. Cyran, printed by the late Savreux ; some of our friends revised it before it went to press, and M. Nicole, who is very accurate, having examined it again after it was printed, made many erasures. Nevertheless the Doctors, to whom I gave it for their approbation, found occasion for many remarks, some of which appeared to us to be reasonable, and rendered fresh erasures necessary. Friends are less fit to examine a book in this way than indifferent persons, because the affection which they have for a work makes them more indulgent and less clear-sighted." What, then, were the considerations by which this free treatment of Pascal's remains was regulated ? The peace of the Church had been just concluded, and it was essential that no book which came from Port Eoyal should contain any irritating reference to former debates. Pascal had died in the very heat of the controversy ; would assuredly have held aloof from the peace had he lived ; and there were numerous passages in his notes which would displease Jesuit and Molinist, as much as the "Provincial Letters" themselves. These, then, were remorselessly expunged; a proceeding for which the stoutest stickler for Pascal will hardly blame the friends of Port Eoyal, who, in 1670, saw before them the promise of a new period of peace and usefulness. Some fragments had been cancelled by Pascal himself; others contained palpable errors of historical or theological statement; what could Port Eoyal do but ALTERATIONS OF THE THOUGHTS. 101 omit and correct ? One or two passages again had a freer political tone than would have been acceptable at court ; Pascal, whose character was at all times singularly inde pendent, had passed his youth amid the troubles of the Fronde, while the period from 1655 to 1670 had witnessed a great development of royal power, and a corresponding growth of restriction upon private liberty of speech and action. Port Eoyal had long lain under the imputation of favouring the Fronde, and in the critical posture of its affairs may be readily pardoned even an undue political caution. In the next place, the book, if possible, was to be made orthodox and edifying. By and by, when we find out what Pascal's real theological position was, we shall see how much is involved in this ; now it is enough to note the difficulties occasioned by the form of his thought and the turn of his phrase. The style of Port Eoyal is grave, sedate, cautious ; if not destitute of a certain dignity and elevation, yet rarely rising to any heights of passionate elo quence ; correct rather than felicitous in the choice of words ; intolerant of new combinations and unexpected transitions. Pascal's writing is something different from this ; is the work not only of an accurate and elegant scholar, but of a man of original mind and ardent imagination. His soul is written in every line ; almost every phrase has an indi viduality of its own. In such rough notes as form the materials ofthe "Thoughts" these qualities appear with increased distinctness ; what the half-formed sentences lose in polish they gain in power ; while their bold generality is often more startling than orthodox. And so his editors, even Arnauld, the greatest of them, did not understand him ; they knew not that they were correcting the thoughts of a more powerful thinker, embellishing the work of a more consummate artist, than themselves. It is in the modern editions of the " Thoughts " that we must look for the vivid and nervous style of the " Provincial Letters." H 3 102 PORT ROYAL. It is now difficult to say what share of responsibility the real leaders of the Port Eoyalist party must assume for the first edition of the " Th oughts. " The historian of Port Eoyal is not concerned to defend M. de Eoannez, or Treville, Du Bois, or La Chaise. But with these the names of Arnauld and Nicole are conjoined ; while in the absence of positive proof, successive critics, according to the predilec tions or prejudices of each, conjecture them to have taken a greater or less share in the work, which all agree to con demn. And it is fair to add, that the theory of authorship which prevailed at Port Eoyal, from the times of St. Cyran to a period subsequent to the publication of the " Thoughts," was peculiar. We have already seen that St. Cyran's literary activity was all anonymous ; that it was to the last uncertain whether he was the Petrus Aurelius, whose fame had been so great in the Gallican Church.* A good and true book, he thought, was a work done for God, with which no selfish considerations should be permitted to mingle ; if the service were well done, it mattered nothing who or what the servant might be. So through all the flourishing period of Port Eoyal the rights of authorship were willingly abdi cated. The directors of the party set each man to do such work as was fittest for him; many pens were employed' upon one book, and the name which appeared upon the title-page was sometimes an assumed one, often, when real, not that of the workman who had performed the greatest share of the labour. Arnauld and Nicole found facts, and sometimes arguments for the "Provincial Letters:" the " Facta " of the Cures of Paris were from many hands ; the numberless memoirs and statements which appeared throughout the controversy ofthe Formulary, were of doubt ful or double authorship. The school books for which Port Eoyal was so long famous, circulated as the production * Vol, i. p. 135. ALTERATIONS OF THE THOUGHTS. 103 of " Messieurs de Port Eoyal : " the " Logic " was the joint work of Arnauld and Nicole: the "New Testament," which goes under the name of De Saci, engaged in its translation and revision the attention of six or seven others. We have seen in Arnauld's letter, that Port Eoyal did not scruple to treat a posthumous work of St. Cyran's much as it treated Pascal's " Thoughts." But the crowning instance of the application of this theory, is the celebrated treatise on the Eucharist, " De la Perpetuite de la Foi." It bears the name of Arnauld ; was formally approved by twenty- seven bishops ; its three volumes were dedicated to three successive Popes, and won the universal applause of the Church. Yet it was really the work of Nicole. The modest author thought it fittest that a priest and doctor should uphold the orthodox faith, and transferred to his friend the honour which arose from so triumphant an apology for the doctrine of the Church. I do not defend this theory; it is enough to state it. But men who were so careless of their own literary rights were not likely to be careful of the rights of others. They thought that they could improve and adorn Pascal ; make an edifying book out of his fragments ; erect another monument to the letters and theology of Port Eoyal. To us the mistake would be half ludicrous, if it were not wholly sad ; but it involves from their point of view no moral delinquency. They had found a diamond, and, like unskilful lapidaries, needlessly lessened its size and dulled its lustre in the cutting. For the unlucky statement in the preface, that the diamond had been neither cut nor polished, let Etienne Perier be responsible.* * For many of the facts stated above, and in general for the literary history of the "Thoughts," I refer to Cousin, Etudes sur Pascal, pp. 1 — 310. St" Beuve, vol. iii. pp. 294 — 336, and especially to M. Prosper Faugere's Introduction. Pensees de Pascal, vol. i. Three editions of Pascal's " Thoughts " which have been published since h 4 104 PORT ROYAL. A necessary pre-requisite to a just estimate of this cele brated book is to dismiss from the mind the idea suggested by the title, and to some extent by the form of its contents, that Pascal intentionally threw his thoughts on religion into the aphoristic . shape. The brevity of many of these fragments, the clear and incisive style in which they are written, and the difficulty of assigning to each a place in any connected argument, combine to produce an impression upon the reader's mind which belies their whole history. For the most part they do not express in brief and com pressed phrase an independent and rounded thought Many of them are mere memoranda, incapable of deliver ing their full meaning to any mind but the writer's. Others state only one view of a subject, one side of an alternative, and either receive the needful modification in other statements, as incomplete and one-sided as them selves, or are left to illustrate the fitness of the motto prefixed to them, " pendent opera interrupta." It is im possible now to say how far the extraordinary hardihood of certain thoughts and phrases was due to Pascal's desire to preserve for future use his conception in all its first force, and to what extent the same quality would have characterised the finished work. No book could be more M. Cousin's Report may be thus characterised. That of M. Faugere, 2 vols. 8vo. 1844, is a careful reproduction of the MS. in its minutest details, pre ceded by an excellent introduction, and including in their new form the letters and fragments which Bossut had incorporated with the " Thoughts." It is, however, deformed by a new and arbitrary arrangement ofthe whole. That of M. Havet, 1 vol. 8vo. 1852, is at present the best that has been issued, containing not only the amended text, and all the documents which are necessary for its illustration, but a careful and minute body of annota tions. In short, M. Havet has edited the " Thoughts " as he would hare edited an Obscure and imperfect work of some Greek or Latin author. The edition of M. Louandre, 1 vol. 12mo. 1854, has little that is distinctive. It is called a "variorum" edition, and, making free use of its predecessors, contains all (with the exception of M. Havet's notes) that the student of Pascal needs. PLAN OF THE THOUGHTS. 105 unjustly judged upon a system of textual interpretation ; especially at the present time, when editors have scrupu lously reproduced even the half-written words of the original MS. It is true that every phrase directly pro ceeded from Pascal's mind ; but also true that the book, as now edited, contains the refuse of his portfolio, as well as the finished conceptions of his genius. We may think our selves fortunate if we can surely trace the general course of his argument ; we have no right to build theories upon the careless notes, which were designed only to furnish matter for future meditation. There is a singular biographical interest in thus penetrating into the secret workings of such a mind ; and the student of Pascal's life will, I ven ture to say, more constantly see in this book the man than his thought. But any conclusion which we draw, both as to the cogency of his argument, and its relation to his own mental history, must be drawn, not from the balance of conflicting passages, still less from the obscure indications of one or two isolated fragments, but from the general complexion of his thought, and the position which he plainly takes up before the difficulties of natural and revealed religion. The plan of Pascal's projected work is preserved for us in a remarkable conversation, reported by Etienne Perier, in the preface to the first edition ofthe " Thoughts." Some ten or twelve years before, that is about 1657 or 1659, Pascal, at the request of several friends, developed, in a dis course which occupied two or three hours in the delivery, the conception which he had formed of a work on the evidences of religion. Human nature is the starting-point. A man of adequate intelligence, who has, up to a certain time, lived a quite unconscious life, begins to .examine himself. He is perplexed by the unexpected mysteries, obscurities, contradictions which the examination brings to light, and can no longer refram from an inquiry into his origin and 106 PORT ROYAL. destiny. He turns first to the philosophers, but finds in their theories of human nature so much that is defective^ contradictory, and manifestly false, as to compel him to seek elsewhere a firm foothold of faith. His search into the various religions of the world is rewarded by no better result, until he is arrested by the singularity of the pheno menon presented by the Jewish people. He opens their sacred books ; he finds there a doctrine of the origin of the world and the creation of man, which at first sight strikes him as incomparably more reasonable than any hypothesis to account for these things which he has found in any other system. The account of man's first state of innocence and strength, of his fall, and of the consequent corruption of human nature, next forces itself upon his attention as an adequate explanation of the strange mixture of power and weakness, of grovelling and aspiration, of which he has become conscious in himself. But these books not only describe the symptoms of the great human malady, but provide a medicine, inasmuch as they contain the clear ; promise of a deliverer to come ; in short, could any external proof of their authority be produced, nothing would be wanting to complete the scientific accordance with all the conditions of the problem to be solved, in which they already stand. Such proof Pascal next proceeds to give. He dwells alternately on the internal evidence of the authenticity and authority of the books of Moses, and on the external force of conviction exerted by his miracles. But then all the law is to be received by us in a( figurative sense, as the type and shadow of better things to come; and the realisation of these figures in Jesus Christ, and especially the fulfilment in him of Hebrew prophecy, upon which great stress was laid, naturally lead the mind from the Mosaic to the Christian dispensation. Here the course of proof, both in regard to the Saviour and his apostles, is the same — an appeal to the historical verisimilitude of PLAN OF THE THOUGHTS. 107 their lives, to the character of their teaching, and to the evidence of their miracles. And the singularity of these facts, together with their extraordinary coincidence and harmony, is employed to prove that the Christian religion, as finally established in the world, is the work, not of man, but of God.* The following fragment, which has been published only since 1842, points to a similar course of argument. It is evidently a brief summary of the same plan as is indicated in the conversation reported by Etienne Perier. " First Part : Misery of man without God. Second Part : Happiness of man with God. (Otherwise :) First Part : That nature is corrupt : By nature herself. Second Part : That there is a Eedeemer : By the Scriptures." The second form of the scheme plainly indicates, not only the subject matter of each division, but the kind of evidence to be brought to bear upon it. t That a characteristic portion of this argument had long been in Pascal's mind appears from his famous conversa tion with De Sapi upon Epictetus and Montaigne, which took place soon after his first retirement to Port Eoyal in 1655. A report of this conversation was first pub lished in 1728, by Pere Desmolets, who extracted it from the then unprinted memoirs of Fontaine. Who the reporter was it is now impossible to guess. Fontaine, the only person who could throw any light on the matter, had been dead nearly twenty years when it was first given to the world. But the genius of Pascal is visible in every line of the report, especially as printed by Desmolets, before Fontaine's editors had planed away the few roughnesses which relieved the otherwise level surface of * Pensees, ed. Faugere, vol. i. p. 372. f Pensees, ed. Havet', p. 267. 108 PORT ROYAL. his style.* "Pascal had been sent to Port Eoyal," says Fon taine, " that M. Arnauld might cope with him in all that regarded the high sciences, and that M. de Saci might teach him to despise them." Now M. de Saci's " manner in talking with people was to adapt his conversation to those with whom he spoke. If he saw, for example, M. Cham pagne, he talked with him of painting ; if M. Hamon, he discoursed of medicine; if the surgeon of the place, he questioned him on surgery .... every subject,, helped him to pass to God, and to bring others to Him also." So when Pascal came, he began to talk to him of his philosophical studies, and as these were for the most part confined to Epictetus and Montaigne, those authors formed the subject of conversation. The situation was sufficiently singular ; each ofthe interlocutors was a man of but little reading ; Augustine and the Bible were to De Saci what Epictetus and Montaigne had been to Pascal. The one reposed securely in the arms of his religious system, and saw in philosophical study only a source of superfluous knowledge and painful disquietude. The other was deterred from much meditation on other men's minds, by the introverted activity, the restless self-questioning of his own. The issue of such an encounter could not be doubt ful. The real battle had been fought in the long weariness of Pascal's Parisian life, and won in the ecstasies, of the 23rd of November. This is no more than a mimic fight, in which armies, only apparently hostile, deploy their forces, and struggle and yield, according to a preconcerted plan. For more than the briefest outline of this conversatio**,-- • the reader must betake himself to Fontaine, or to one of the recent editions of the " Thoughts." Pascal first dwells on the lofty conception of human duty which characterises the half Christian stoicism of Epictetus; upon his clear perception and systematic development of the truth "that *" Pensees, ed. Havet, Introd. p. xxxiv. Fontaine, vol. iii. p. 77. EPICTETUS AND MONTAIGNE. 109 man's -whole study and desire ought to be to know and obey the will of God." He would have been worthy even of divine honours had he been equally well acquainted with his weakness. But he knows only one side of human nature ; is ignorant of a whole series of facts in regard to it ; and so is led into innumerable practical errors. To him, both in his knowledge and his ignorance, Montaigne is pre cisely contrary. Human weakness is his constant theme ; of human aspiration after better things he knows nothing. Our faculties are deceptive ; the single refuge from dogma tism is universal doubt, and in the very assertion that we doubt, we dogmatise. As a Christian and a Catholic, he receives the faith submissively ; and then turns round and attacks heretics with his accustomed weapons. How is it possible that their theories should be true, since truth and certainty are altogether beyond the reach of human intel lects ? Eevelation apart, what presumption for a finite mind "to form a conception of an infinite being ! On what, but on the very truth that God is, and that He is just and true, do we rest our faith on the trustworthiness of those facul ties which we illogically use to search after and find Him? Nor does any other human knowledge rest on a more certain foundation ; geometry is based upon axioms which are in capable of proof; physical science is full of assumptions ; the doubtfulness of history is an old reproach; politics, morals, jurisprudence have no foundation except in force and usage. " What know I ? " is the wise man's motto ; and as for action, since all actions are equally justifiable or unjustifiable, custom weighs on the side of one alternative, and he does as others do. What then is the reconciliation of these two philosophies? Each is true in part, and in part false ; where are we to find the doctrine which will weld them into a homogeneous whole ? In the Catholic dogma of the fall of man. The theory of Epictetus assumes that man still possesses all the pristine strength and beauty of 110 PORT ROYAL. his nature, and ignores the absolute incapacity of his present condition. The theory of Montaigne describes him as he is, but does not take into the account his dim recollections and irrepressible desire of a more perfect state. The one is the parent of pride, the other of inertness ; the one denies that man wants, the other forgets that he can receive, any help that is not in himself. And thus we are led back once more to Pascal's characteristic position, that all revealed truth rests upon the incapacity of the human mind, all moral achievement upon the corruption of the human heart. Bossut's division ofthe "Thoughts" into two parts, one containing " Thoughts on Philosophy, Morals, and Belles Lettres, " the other, " Thoughts immediately relating to Eeligion," is not without an accidental conformity with the plan of the book. It consists of two halves, philosophical and theological, which correspond to the common distinc tion between natural and revealed religion. The first is occupied with the career of the supposed inquirer up to the point where he becomes acquainted with the books of Moses. It paints human nature, and brings into strong relief the inability of philosophy to explain its mysteries. The second, which is still less complete than the first, treats of the correspondence between the doctrines of Christianity, as conceived by Pascal, with the facts of human nature already stated, and draws out the arguments in favour of revealed religion, derived from miracle, type, and prophecy. Many sections of -the argument, as sketched by Pascal in the conversation before alluded to, are altogether wanting, Some fragments which found a place in the MS. volume probably record other trains of thought. The*most finished portion of the whole will be found in the thoughts on the nature and condition of man, upon which his whole fabric of evidence was made to rest. And these clearly reveal to us that peculiar theory of the relation of man PASCALS PYRRHONISM. Ill to religion, which at once distinguishes this book from others on the same subject. Pascal is Montaigne with a difference. He adopts the whole of his doctrine of human nature, and states it with a vehemence and a precision altogether foreign to the Epicurean philosopher of Perigord. For the latter was quite content with it, believed it as much as he believed anything, and held his Catholicism only as a point of prudence, and in deference to the prejudices of his time and country; while the former would have found this level waste of uncertainty a howling wilderness of despair, if he had not seen in it the way to a happy region of faith. Man is but a point in the universe, midway between two infinitudes ; one of which escapes him by its magnitude, the other by its littleness. He thinks, and the dispropor tion between the finite faculty and the infinite object of thought mocks all his efforts in the pursuit of truth. Imagination always lies in wait to entice reason from her straight path ; the meanest physical hindrances distract a mind mated with a frame of flesh and blood. It is hard to say whether our dreams or our waking thoughts are realities. True philosophy laughs at philosophy; the confession of ignorance is the end as well as the beginning of the high est wisdom ; only Pyrrhonism is truth. The moral is as helpless as the intellectual nature. We are the playthings of pride, vanity, self-love, hypocrisy. Eight and justice are based on usage, and derive their authority from force. " Three degrees' elevation of the pole overturns all juris prudence. A meridian determines truth; after a few years' possession, fundamental laws are changed ; right has its epochs. The entry of Saturn into the Lion marks the origin of such or such a crime. Fine justice that is bounded by a river ! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on that."* " Justice is that which is established." f * Pensees, ed. Havet, p. 40. f Ibid. p. 73. 112 PORT ROYAL. "Justice is subject to dispute; force is easily to be recog nised, and is beyond dispute. Thus men have not been able to give force to justice, because force has contradicted justice, and has asserted that it was unjust, and itself just. And thus, being unable to effect that what was just should be also strong, men have ordained that what was strong should be also just."* To sum up all in one phrase, "Weare incapable alike of truth and goodness." t But Pascal, however accordant with Montaigne in his estimate of human faculties, cannot be satisfied, like him, to leave the matter there ; to utter a garrulous philosophy while all these floods of uncertainty are seething below, or to wander contentedly through life, possessing and asking for no moral guidance. Man, as described by him, has not lost all his dignity, inasmuch as he is conscious of his misery. Only a dethroned king is unhappy in the loss of a kingdom ; no man afflicts himself for the want of that which he never possessed. The knowledge of our wretched ness is itself our grandeur. " Man is no more than a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but it is a reed that thinks. It is not necessary that the whole universe should arm itself for his destruction. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, he would be more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he dies, and the advantage which the world has over him. The universe knows nothing of it. "if Our sense of the grandeur of the human mind appears in the disproportionate value which we set upon one another's good opinion ; our consciousness of misery in the whole of our amusements, which are only eager attempts to forget an ever-present woe. It is, then, to this mixed frame of mind that revealed religion addresses itself, at once explain ing the contradictions and satisfying the wants of human * Pensees, ed. Havet, p. 75. f Ibid. p. 45. % Ibid. p. 20. SECOND PART OF THE THOUGHTS. 113 nature. The story of the original innocence of man reveals the source of our aspiration ; the promise of a Saviour answers to our acknowledged incapacity and wretchedness. God does for us in the Bible what we could never have done for ourselves, and brings down to our level a truth other wise inaccessible to our striving. There is no such thing as natural religion ; revealed religion is alone possible.* It is not necessary to describe Pascal's method of dealing with the evidences of revealed religion. The most interest ing section of the second portion of the work is that which treats of miracles; though here it is quite plain that not the miracles of the Scriptures, but those of the Holy Thorn were chiefly in his view. The Biblical science of Pascal's age and Church was shallow, credulous, illogical ; and there is no proof that he was up to the level even of his age and Church. He never quotes the Old or New Testament in the original languages, but always in the Vulgate. He sometimes falls in his citations . into mistakes of simple ignorance. Of the existence of all the branches of inquiry included in the words " Biblical Criticism," he evidently knows nothing. We might have expected from him in this half of his work, many striking and suggestive remarks on the events of the evangelical history ; many profound inter pretations of single texts or phrases of Scripture. But the incompleteness of his labour has, to a great extent, deprived us of these ; and the value and interest of the " Thoughts " lie almost wholly in the first or philosophical section. The phrases natural and revealed religion in themselves imply, that man's religious knowledge may be divided into two parts ; that which he has or might have discovered by the exercise of his own faculties, and that which flows in * The reader may remark, in connection with this part of the subject, that the God on whom Pascal seems to rest, in that singular record of the 23rd of November, is " the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, not of philosophers and learned men." Y0L. II. I 114 PORT ROYAL. upon him from a supernatural source. The line between; them will be differently drawn by different religious systems. Some conceive it to be for the honour of revealed religion to narrow the extent and impair the validity of the con clusions of natural theology ; while others are willing to find in its arguments a confirmation of the teachings of Scripture. Philosophers and divines make this a con-i stant battle ground ; each party anxious to reduce the pretensions of the other to the narrowest possible Hmits. But even when this question is settled, others still more difficult rise up for solution. What is the function of reason in regard to revelation ? Has it a critical office to perform towards the truth which it is confessedly.:, unable to originate ? Is that function of criticism con-< fined to the evidence of revelation, and out of place in regard to its substance? Is it right that reason shouloK freely test even the external authentication of revealed truth, or is there not an authority which may stand in the place of evidence, and impose a system of doctrines upon the unwilling mind? I do not pretend to answer these questions, which the theological student will recognise as lying at the basis of all Christian controversies; I only indicate them for the purpose of clearly defining Pascal's theory of rehgious evidence. He confined the functions of the human intellect within the straitest limits. It has no power of discovering, of testing, of combining religious truth. An universal doubt is the only end in which it can reasonably rest. He does not think it worth while to « trouble his readers with the metaphysical reasonings*"* J or with the argument from nature, in proof of the being •¦ and attributes of God ; they have no true force of conviction in them. He founds revealed, on the impossibility of natural religion. The powers of reason in regard to revel*i»|| tion are simply receptive. •''**' Were my attitude towards Pascal's " Thoughts " one of THE JANSENISM OF THE THOUGHTS. 115 philosophical criticism, I might point out the inconsistency of his theory of human reason with the task which he under took, and so adduce his work as an answer to itself. What object in producing evidence to faculties which are inca pable of estimating it ? Is not the whole Protestant habit of thought towards religious truth, logically deducible from the very idea of a book on " The Evidences ? " But it is more to the present purpose to show the close connection in which the theory of the "Thoughts" stands to the whole of Pascal's thought and life. His contempt of philosophi cal research had a double source in his Jansenism and in his mathematical studies. The only theory of Christianity which exercised any powerful influence upon him, takes its root in the doctrine of original sin. Human faculties, by reason of the primal transgression, have become hopelessly weak and corrupt. The heart, formed for disinterested affection, stirs only with self-love ; the conscience STrs in its discrimination of right and wrong. Only the omni potent grace of God, the single and all-sufficient helper of the soul, can begin and complete the work of restoration. And we have only to extend the same theory to the intel lectual powers of man, to find ourselves in Pascal's position. The human reason as originally given by God, was fitted for the investigation and discovery of truth. But it, too, has suffered by the general malady, and can no longer perform its functions, except by help of the Holy Spirit. Strength ened and purified by Divine grace, it is able to apprehend the truths of revelation, while its independent strivings after God, necessarily end in uncertainty and error. ' It is not uninstructive to mark, that Pascal's mind, when left to itself, took a mathematical direction ; and that , mathematical methods of investigating truth were, those which he most successfully used. And a great familiarity with necessary truths, and with the precise and cogent , reasonings used in their demonstration, often unfits the mind I 2 116 PORT ROYAL. for dealing with philosophical and religious theories. The possibility of absolute proof, the exclusion of a difference of belief, the manifest absurdity of an opposite hypothesis in the one case, contrast strangely with the diverse readings of evidence, the conflict of testimony, the con stant inconclusiveness of demonstration, the existence of diverging and even contradictory opinions in the other. An inquirer trained in the schools of mathematics, comes to religion, asking for proof of a kind which she is not pre pared to give ; her historical evidences appear to him full of breaks and flaws, her certainties of consciousness no better than. bold assertions. His researches have been into relations of number and magnitude which precisely accord with the constitution of his own mind, and do not stretch beyond his grasp ; here the soul is in contact with infinite existence, whose many-sidedness perplexes its survey, whose depth mocks its insight, the very characteristic of whose infinity it is to transcend and confound its methods of proof. We know God only by a direct act of conscious ness prior to, and independent of all argument : analogous to the operation of the mind, by which we apprehend the ideas which are the foundation of all mathematical reasoning. These very ideas Pascal, in his later speculations, came to regard as requiring, and yet incapable of proof ; and thus vitiating by their primal uncertainty all the mathematical conclusions, which, with whatever cogency of reasoning, were drawn from them. His habit of mind therefore, was such as to misapprehend and exaggerate the inconclusive ness which his religious theory encouraged him to find in the speculations of natural theology. The arguments for the existence of God did not compel conviction like the demonstrations of Euclid, and were therefore contempt*};: ously thrown aside. A passage in the "Thoughts," which Pascal himself struck out, and replaced by another less startling in phrase, ALLEGED SCEPTICISM. 117 comprehends the whole of his theory of human know ledge : " II faut avoir ces trois qualites, pyrrhonien, geometre, Chretien soumis : et elles s'accordent, et se temperent, en doutant ou il faut, en assurant ou il faut, en se soumettant ou il faut." * However- logically accordant with Jansenism Pascal's position might be, it was hardly likely to find favour with his editors ; all of them men of a less eager spirit than himself, and some of them famous for the philosophical speculations at which he scornfully laughed. Antoine Arnauld in a letter to Florin Perier, which I have already quotedf, animadverts upon the doctrine that justice is altogether based upon force and usage, and defends his opinion that the passage which contains it should be omitted from the published work. It was perhaps owing to such changes and omissions as were made by Port Eoyal, in hope of accommodating the book to the standard of Jansenist orthodoxy, that the charge of scepticism was not definitely brought against Pascal until it was made in M. Cousin's " Eeport." Since that time the con troversy has been bitter. The philosophers impeach Pascal as a traitor to philosophy. Even the Jesuits forget his Jansenism in the desire to claim him as a defender of reli gion. And as usual, neither party succeeds in convincing the other. To enter upon the details ofthis debate would be foreign to the general purpose of my work, and would besides, in volve the necessity of copious quotation and minute criticism of Pascal's text. The materials for a general judgment of the strife have already been afforded. If the summary of Pascal's argument, which I have given, be * Pensees, ed. Havet, p. 184. t Lettres d'A. Arnauld, vol. ix. p. 184. 13 118 PORT ROYAL. in the main true ; if I have at all rightly described his} method of proof, he must be held to belong to the sceptical school of philosophy. The question is not one which can be decided by quoting fragment against fragment; by balancing an isolated declaration of doubt with an isolated declaration of belief. This method is especially inapplicable to such imperfect notes and hints as alone Pascal has left, and could prove at best only that he was more or less con sistent in his adherence to a governing principle of thought. The scepticism, if it is there at all, leavens the whole book; is involved in the assumptions from which it starts, and the methods by which it proceeds ; lurks in the conclusions to which it arrives. It may be wholly or in part unconscious: believing men often write and say, what to other minds appears to contain the very essence of unbelief. And with out wishing to adopt the words in which M. Cousin states his case, or to take a side in the debates to . which that statement has given rise, I am compelled to believe, that in regard to all philosophical truth, Pascal was as much a sceptic as his favourite teacher Montaigne. Montaigne rested quietly in his philosophical doubt; J Pascal, with marvellous mental dexterity, built his edifice of religious faith upon its uncertain foundation. And thus he was not a sceptic, if we use the word in its common English meaning. It is impossible to doubt the almost fanatical sincerity of his religious belief. Eeligion appeared to his conscience to ask the sacrifice of all that had hitherto made the brightness of his life ; his intercourse with the world, his domestic affections, his mathematical and physical studies, the comforts which alone could prolong and make endurable his frail and painful existence ; and the sacrifice^ was unhesitatingly offered. He ranged himself from the first upon the side of a persecuted minority of the Church, and devoted his wonderful powers to its defence with such1 eagerness and persistence, as to overrun the zeal of the ALLEGED SCEPTICISM. 119 great captains who had enlisted him in the service. There is no proof that he betook himself to the Church as the one refuge open to him from the torments of doubt ; or that by any effort of will, he compelled a mind, which would other wise have wandered through boundless fields of specula tion, to rest uneasily beneath the shadow of authority. His faith was clear, calm, undoubting ; his book is not so much the record of any personal struggles through which he had himself arrived at Christian belief, as the exhibition of what he considers the best way of dealing with atheists. He finds that his keen mathematical intellect can detect flaws in the ordinary evidences of religion. He sees that those evidences are not logically accordant with the doc trine which shapes his theory of Christianity. And there fore he resolves to accept the conclusions of the sceptics up to a certain point, and yet to deduce from them the doctrines of Eoman Catholicism. Other men need a rock upon which to build their lighthouse ; he will erect his beacon upon the quicksands, or the heaving waves themselves; they attach their argument to the assumption of faith in human faculties; he will chain his reasoning to the confession of their incapacity. The doctrine is sceptical enough ; but the teacher, if we look only to his personal belief, no sceptic* * To cite passages from the " Thoughts " in support of the opinions ex pressed above, would be to plunge into the textual debate which I am anxious to avoid. But I may generally refer the reader to the celebrated argument for the existence of God, which substitutes for the rejected a priori and a posteriori arguments, a proof, that according to the theory of probabilities, it is most advantageous to believe ih God, although it is impossible to demonstrate that He exists. (Havet, art. x. p. 145.) Passages similar in spirit, are scattered throughout the first or philosophical half of the " Thoughts, ; " and in the new editions may be read, in all their original force and abruptness of phrase. The following quotation from Locke is not without instruction in this connection : — " Reason is natural revelation, whereby the Eternal Father of light, and I 4 120 POET ROYAL. It shows the vitality of Pascal's style, that any trace of the qualities displayed in the "Provincial Letters" was still to be found among the corrections and embellishments in troduced by his editors into that recension of the "Thoughts," which under different modifications passed current till 1842. And now the restored text exhibits a style like that ofthe "Provincial Letters" in the making. The force, the life, the precision of phrase are all there ; more rarely the exquisite polish which almost lifts Pascal's finished woiks above the reach of criticism. Never was a book so full of unconscious autobiography, as the "Thoughts " in their new form. In the case of some of the more polished fragments We can trace the thought from the first rude hint or exaggerated statement, through more stages than one, up to the epigrammatic neatness and perfection which stand out in bold relief from the page. It is a singular privilege to be thus admitted into the studio of a great artist in words, and to watch him at his work. But beyond this, the life of the man is as plainly revealed as the habits of the author. The Jan senist, the friend of Port Eoyal, the destroyer of casuistry, the doubter of Papal infallibility, the geometrician, the ascetic, the devout Catholic, the sick man, are all there. The whole argument rests upon the doctrine of grace, and the correlative doctrine of original sin. If he speaks of miracles, his thoughts are of the Holy Thorn ; of the Church, he cannot be silent as to the scandals which afflict, Fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which He has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God. So that he that takes away reason, to make way for revelation, puts out the light of both, and does much-what the same, as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope."— Essay, book iv. chap. xix. § 4. PASCALS STYLE. 121 and the debates which divide it. His heart goes with his mind into every subject of discussion. He condemns the use of the personal pronoun by authors, and yet leaves his soul upon every page. He not unfrequently calls up some imaginary interlocutor, with whom he argues, upon whom he spends all his persuasions. His eagerness vents itself in apostrophe and ejaculation. Had his work been com pleted, it might have lost in life and movement, what it would have gained in polish and correctness ; incomplete, it remains the transcript of the writer's heart. For the perfection of Pascal's style — I had almost said for the perfection, of prose composition— we must go to the " Provincial Letters." At first the reader forgets to notice the style, so natural, so complete is its presentation of the author's thought ; as sometimes the distant hills stand out so clearly as to encourage the belief that no atmospheric medium floats between. Some happy turn of phrase, some subtle touch of irony reveals the hand of a master ; and he begins to discover that every sentence possesses the polish, and many the point of an epigram. Yet the point is in the matter, not merely in the words; the phrases are not padded to fill out the limb of an antithesis ; each fully expresses its thought and no more. But every thought is expressed in a way which defies amendment ; a word more or less is felt to destroy the fine harmony and proportion of the whole. The naturalness' of the dialogue, the keenness of the wit, the grave and quiet irony, the Socratic art with which the inquirer compels his various interlocutors to speak as serves his purpose, would be alone sufficient to account for the fame of the book. In them speaks the Pascal of the salons of Paris ; the Pascal of Port Eoyal utters himself in the sublime moral vehemence, the eloquent invective, of the later letters. The gay mockery of the debate on sufficient and efficacious grace, seems to proceed from other lips than those which de- 122 PORT ROYAL. nounce the calumniators of Port Eoyal. And the change is great from either to the almost savage sarcasm, which, in the " Thoughts," attempts to cut away the ground of certainty from all human knowledge, and denies, that apart from revelation, there are such things as truth and justice. The perfectness of Pascal's style is an indication of a similar quality in his mental constitution. Whatever he did was done with wonderful force, precision, complete ness. I do not know how far this remark would apply to the method of his mathematical investigations ; it certainly is true of their results. The experiment of the Puy de Dome exactly supplied the missing link in the chain of discovery, and established for ever the fact of atmospheric pressure. The arithmetical machine was, so to speak, a creation out of nothing, the offspring of his own brain, and was patiently improved till it answered its purpose. The theory of the Cycloid was, in like manner, swiftly, surely, independently worked out, and surpassed the labours of the competing geometers as much in completeness and symmetry of execution as in rapidity of conception. And this is the character of Pascal's originality. He does not construct systems of the universe, or mark an era in philosophical thought, or compass the whole sphere of human knowledge, like Des Cartes. He is not conversant with all the literature which it becomes a learned man to know, like Arnauld. He probably knew little Greek and no Hebrew ; much of his classical learning came to him at second hand from Montaigne ; all the books with which his writings betray any acquaintance might be enumerated in half-a-dozen lines. What he thought and knew came almost wholly out of himself, was the result of his inde pendent thought, and bears, in the completeness of its symmetry, the impress of his nature. If sometimes his originality, in regard to any special thought or investiga- INDIVIDUALITY OF CHARACTER. 123 tion, has been called in question, the explanation will be found in his ignorance of what other men thought and did. The substance, in such cases, is only apparently another's ; the perfectness of the form wholly his own. But Pascal's originality is twofold ; it is an individuality of character as well as of mind. And this is the thought which once more brings us back to Jacqueline, of whom we might almost seem to have lost sight. The foundation of the brother's and sister's life was laid in that eagerness and sensitiveness of spirit, which are at once the condition and the trial of a certain kind of genius. For both, the common round of social duty appeared too level and con fined ; and both sought a higher ideal in the watchfulness, the mortification, the rapture of the monastic life. Yet either was unable to subdue a restless conscience, an ener getic will, an eager spirit to the monotonous uniformity of a community or a party ; Port Eoyal stood almost alone against the Church ; yet Jacqueline died of a broken heart, because she had set even Port Eoyal above her own con science, and Blaise fainted in despair, when, as it seemed to him, Arnauld preferred peace to truth. And the strongly throbbing heart, which so lives and moves in the fragments of Pascal's " Thoughts," is equally to be noted in Jacque line's letters. The phrases are full of tears even yet. When she implores her brother, on her first flight to Port Eoyal, not to take away from her that which he cannot give ; when she declares to Arnauld that if it is not a woman's part to defend the truth, she can at least die for it> — - she touches the perennial fountains of emotion, and the reader's heart, after two centuries of change and for- getfulness, leaps forth to answer hers. There is even a certain unity about her life which is wanting to her brother's. At Port Eoyal, brothers and sisters ran a noble race, in which the victory was not always to the stronger sex ; Angelique and Agnes Arnauld are greater than the 124 PORT ROYAL. Bishop of Angers and the Doctor Antoine : and Angelique de St. Jean Arnauld is the ablest of D'Andilly's children. So in Jacqueline Pascal we note none of the hesitation which made her brother vibrate between the worldly and the religious life, and perhaps finally avenged itself in the fanatical austerities of his last years. She makes her choice at first; delay only confirms her intention; and her life flows on in quiet, happy current to the end. The thread of gold which runs through the whole of Pascal's character, and forms the clue to the comprehension of its unity, is his passionate love of truth. There is a point of view from which every phase of what we call genius may be reduced to this single idea. The man of genius is he who is able to penetrate beneath the outward shows of things to their real nature ; and to express what he sees, whether by help of pen, or brush, or chisel, in language intelligible to those who have not his own faculty of insight. His words are not only more beautiful than theirs, but in their very beauty are felt to be more true. He soars so high above the external differences of things, as to be able to group them according to their real affi nities, and to reconcile apparent contradictions, in the unity of an essential likeness. However circumstance and the natural limitations of his faculties may combine to give a certain direction to his insight, no truth ever comes amiss to him, for he recognises it as one aspect of the infinite reality upon which he is wont to gaze from another side. This universal appetite for knowledge, this eager welcome of all truth, in the full belief that it is part of one harmonious whole, however imperfect the present apprehension of the harmony, is indeed the prerogative of the noblest minds, and when joined with a faculty of investigation as various as itself, makes up a character which the world has rarely seen. Pascal was not such, perhaps could not have become such, under any conceivable discipline of circumstance; VERSATILITY AND UNITY OF CHARACTER. 125 and yet shows a many-sidedness of genius, which it is hard to parallel elsewhere. In pure mathematics, as well as in physical science, he moves with the firm and graceful step of a master; and the magnitude of his achievements continually rouses, and almost justifies the regret that he should have abandoned these for less fertile fields of labour. His single effort in mechanics is a remarkable example of creative power. Even in the act of undermining all philosophy, he gives signal proof of philosophical insight and acuteness. His theological speculations have upon them the indelible mark of his originality; though his acquaintance with the literature of the subject is of the scantiest-, he does not fall into the track of other apologists, but pursues a path of his own. It is not often that the same mind has such a power of appreciating two kinds of truth so different as the mathematical and the religious ; a still rarer phenomenon that it should possess so keen a sense of beauty as to form a tie of affinity with the nature of the poet or the artist. Yet Pascal was an artist in words ; his style is as perfect and rounded a creation as those of Corneille and Eacine ; and perhaps in the very characteristics which make it prose, truer than theirs to the spirit of the French language. But then the quality of Pascal's genius of which I am speaking is not a mere in tellectual versatility ; the passion for truth filled his heart and life as well as his mind. There are men who join to great powers of discovering truth, a singular carelessness as to their own moral relations to it ; will hide it, or retract it, or explain it away, or hold back from following it to its necessary consequences, at the prospect of any danger to life and reputation. Pascal, on the other hand, was almost a Protestant in his attitude to theological truth ; and did not so much accept the creed of his Church, as select for himself a form of Catholic belief to which he clung with a constancy, which in an earlier age would have 126 PORT ROYAL. won for him a crown of martyrdom. And then it is not always the philosopher, the man of letters, the theologian who possesses that insight into moral truth, that fierce energy of will, which enabled Pascal to translate the lessons of Port Eoyal into the austerities of his last years. For here the love of truth assumes a fresh shape ; he sees before him, as he thinks, the ideal of a Christian life ; he hates pre tence and unreality in himself, not less, but more than elsewhere; and he spends his remaining strength in the attempt to make himself a true man. There is a certain incompleteness in Pascal's life, a feel ing of promise unfulfilled, of powers too soon condemned to inaction, which surround it with a tender and melancholy interest. The fight was fought out at an age when some men have hardly armed themselves for the struggle ; and more than half the manly years of that too brief life were spent in enforced idleness. How trite, and yet how true a homily bf human weakness is read by the marriage of that strong and fiery soul to so frail a frame of flesh and blood ! Even in the contemplation of his achievements, it is hard to forget the still greater possibilities which passed away with him to the grave fruitless. Not often are we so powerfully re minded that there is something in human nature which surpasses its best performance ; that while the meanest man is better than his actions, the noblest cannot rise in execution to the level of his thought. THE SCHOOLS OF PORT ROYAL. 127 II. THE SCHOOLS OF POET EOYAL. The credit of having first perceived the power of education as a social force, and of having systematically attempted to apply it to the attainment of certain fixed ends, belongs to the Jesuits. The influence which they aspired to exercise could not be based upon any popular enthusiasm, which, however overmastering, was necessarily fluctuating and transitory. Other religious orders had succeeded in swaying the mind of Christendom by an appeal to the religious passions ; but each in turn, had been compelled to make way for a younger, and therefore more powerful rival. And the Society of Jesus, with that keen practical instinct which so strangely tempered the fanatic zeal of its founders, felt that if its empire over men's hearts and lives was to be more lasting and complete than that of the Franciscans or the Dominicans, it must attack society in the school room, and mould the age by educating it. As soon, there fore, as it was established on a firm foundation, it began that career of aggression upon the ancient seats of educa tion, which it has continued, with a persistence which marks its sense of the importance of the struggle, up to the present day. No school was too humble, no college too splendid to escape its insidious encroachments, or its open rivalry. Many of the old universities were in possession of other religious orders, who hotly resented the interference of the intrusive teachers ; so that in some places, as in Paris, we find the University arrayed in avowed and unre- 128 PORT ROYAL. lenting opposition to the Jesuits. But the Society, where- ever it seriously set itself to acquire supremacy, was soon supreme in the education of the rich and powerful laity. It would spare no pains to form the mind and character of a young nobleman. Its discipline knew how, to vary according to the requirements of the pupil or his parents ; in some seminaries the course of training was austere enough; in others, there was no neglect of worldly and courtly accomplishment. The ablest of the brotherhood" thought the education of those who in a few years were to fill high places in Church and State, an office worthy of all forethought and labour. It would be wrong to deny that many of these workers in a calling which does not even yet receive its due share of honour, were moved by a true and noble zeal in the cause of literature and education ; and yet it is beyond doubt that a single spirit subtly per vaded every Jesuit college, and that the great aim was to make all the pupils faithful sons of the Church, and ardent friends of the. Society. To this many greater ends were sacrificed ; and in the comparative ill success of the Jesuit seminaries, considered simply as places of education, the freer spirit of the old universities has been avenged. The human mind is a plant, which, if it is to blossom and bear fruit, must be fed and fanned by the free dews and airs of heaven. Since the revival of letters, not a single work of genius, not a marked step in scientific discovery, can claim a Jesuit origin. Port Eoyal, in the brief period during which it was permitted to flourish, boasts more famous names than the Society after three centuries of existence. The schools of Port Eoyal began with St. Cyran. His single point of resemblance to the Jesuits, was his recog nition of the importance of education and confession, as the means by which the influence of the Church should be brought to bear upon the world. He too, like the Society, ST. CYRAN AND EDUCATION. 129 may have had his ecclesiastical schemes which he desired to promote by these instruments ; though, if so, they re garded rather the reformation than the maintenance of the Church in her present condition. However this may be, he at least used them in a different and more scrupulous spirit. The Jesuits would accept any penitent, and saw that an influence might be exerted through and upon all ; St. Cyran scrutinised his penitents as closely as a sincere penitent might scrutinise his director, and turned away more than he received. The Jesuit seminaries were public places of education which sought to bring the spirit of the Society into contact with the whole nation ; the schools of Port Eoyal, as established by St. Cyran, were private classes where a few chosen boys of known parentage and promising disposition were trained by half-a-dozen teachers. Perhaps the two systems of education had hardly a fair trial ; for the long rivalry between Jesuit and Jansenist which I have already recorded, stamped a party impress upon the pupils of Port Eoyal, which under more favourable circumstances would not have been an effect of their training ; while the Jesuit colleges, taking their scholars from a wider and more varied field, as well as being less solicitous to produce a specific moral and religious result, appeared to encourage a freer and more natural development of character. But it was the fault of the Society that Port Eoyal became a party; and hardly its merit, if, amongst so many pupils, some outgrew the swaddling clothes of its system of education, and instead of Jesuits, proved to be men. There was nothing more remarkable in St. Cyran's character than his love of children. And yet it hardly seems to have been a spontaneous outflow of affection so much as a half tender, half reverent emotion with which he regarded those in whom the original corruption of human nature had been newly washed away in baptism, and who, by watchfulness and prayer, might still be kept VOL. II. k 130 PORT ROYAL. in a state of grace. " Thus M. de St. Cyran," says Lan celot *, " always manifested to children a kindness which amounted to a species of respect, that in them he might honour innocence, and the Holy Spirit which dwells with it. He was wont to bless them, and to make the sign of the cross upon their foreheads ; and when they were old enough, he always said to them some good word which was, as it were, a seed of truth which he scattered in passing, and in God's sight, in order that in His good time, it might germinate." His maxims of education were characterised by the same deep insight into human nature as his use of confession. "He usually reduced all that ought to be done with children to these three things : to speak little, to bear much, to pray still more." The teacher was to work more by the silent forces of love and example, than by precept. To gain the affection of children it was worth while even to share in their amusements : the grave and austere St. Cyran had been known to play at ball with little ones of seven years old. Punishment, especially corporal punishment, was to be used only in the last resort, when patience and expostulation and all gentler means had failed ; and even then not without fervent prayer. " To punish without previous prayer," he said, " was to act like the Jews, and to forget that everything depended upon the blessing of God, and upon His grace which we must try to draw down upon them by our patience." But while prayer was the teacher's strength, he was to avoid the error of instilling into the children's minds religious ideas and emotions beyond their years. St. Cyran " was careful to give the caution, that in order to manage children well, it was rather necessary to pray than to cry, and to speak more of them to God, than of God to them ; for he did not approve of holding long religious discourses with them, or of weary- > * Vol. ii. p. 332. ST. CYRAN AND EDUCATION. 131 ing them with instructions." He thought it needful to regulate in the minutest particulars the place of education, that the children might have none but honourable and pious examples before their eyes. For this purpose, the teacher ought to have entire control over his pupils, even to the setting aside, for a time, of parental authority. St. Cyran himself had refused, on this ground, to undertake the education of a prince of the house of Lorraine. And he anticipated the method of more modern times in desiring to adopt his system of training to the different aptitudes of his scholars: only a very few, he thought, were worthy of a learned education ; and the practice of conducting all through the same course of instruction ended in incumbering Church and State with a crowd of incompetent servants.* The good Lancelot, in relating how St. Cyran thought the education of the young an " employment worthy of angels," "in which he would have delighted to pass his whole life," seems, though a teacher himself, to think that some apology is needed to save his master's dignity, and cites a list of Fathers of the Church who did not dis dain this labour. St. Cyran had no such thoughts for him self: during all the last years of his life, the training of little children occupied a large part of his time and care : one after another, Singlin, Lancelot, Le Maitre, De Barcos were engaged by him in this employment. He had a scheme for building a school, in which six chosen children should be educated under the care of a good priest, and a single master to teach Latin. This was necessarily aban doned when he was imprisoned at Vincennes, and two thousand livres which he had set aside for the purpose, were given to the poor. But his interest in teaching was not on that account intermitted. He managed during this * Vide Lancelot, vol. ii. p. 330, et seq. "De la charite de M. de St. Cyran pour les enfants." k 2 132 PORT ROYAL. period to send several children to his abbey of St. Cyran to be honestly and piously brought up, and to persuade some of those disciples to whom his will was law, to take charge of others. He fancied that he should like to o undertake the bringing up of children from their earliest infancy; to send to the frontier for some little ones, orphaned by the fortune of war, whom he might estabhsh' honourably in life, and whose prayers, as one who had stood in a father's place, he might enjoy. While he was at Vincennes, he adopted the son of a poor widow ; kept the child in his room until the ill-temper of the governor's wife compelled him to send him away, and then provided a home for him at St. Cyran. The boy turned out badly; defied the efforts of all his teachers, and at last became a hardened thief. But as long as St. Cyran lived, he never gave him up. During the few months between his release and his death, he saw him every day. No occupation, not even his great work against the Calvinists, was suffered to interfere with this ; " he would leave everything," says Lancelot, "to say some good word to him, or to try to bring him back to God."* We have already seen that as early as 1637 f , Singlin had been persuaded by St. Cyran to take charge of two or three children ; and had retired with them for a time to the then deserted valley of Port Eoyal des Champs. When he was recalled to make one of the little community which gathered about Le Maitre in the courtyard of Port Eoyal de Paris, the work of education was not intermitted. We find recorded the names of several children, who at this time engaged the attention of Lancelot and Le Maitre, and who, at St. Cyran's imprisonment, followed their masters to Port Eoyal des Champs. When after the visit of Laubar- * Lancelot, vol. i. p. 133 ; vol. ii. p. 333. Fontaine, vol. i. p. 162, etseg.j vol. ii. p. 81, et seq. t Vol. i. p. 152. ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOLS. 133 demont, they were driven from this resting place, it was with the parents of one of their pupils at Ferte Milon that the little company found an asylum. After their return to Port Eoyal at the end of 1639, Le Maitre occupied him self in teaching two children, one a younger son of M. d' Andilly, the other of Madame de St. Ange ; a task which he had undertaken in compliance with St. Cyran's wish. Little by little, some of the other solitaries who appear to have possessed an aptitude for the work joined in it ; and pupils were not wanting. In 1643, M. Thomas du Fosse, a gentleman of Eouen, brought three of his sons to Port Eoyal, and placed them in the hands of a M. Selles, who cared for their intellectual training, and of M. de Bade, who watched over their religious and moral education. But still no regular system of teaching had been devised ; and there was no organisation of school or college.* The youngest ofthe three Du Fosses, who maintained throughout his life a close connection with Port Eoyal, has left us an interesting account of the instruction which he received. " In regard," he says, " to the instructions which they gave us in matters of faith and piety, they were assuredly very different from those which some evil-intentioned and mis informed persons have published to the world. Our catechism was that which is entitled ' Theologie Familiere,' printed with the royal privilege, and the approbation of learned men. They explained to us the principal articles of faith in a way that was simple and adapted to our capacity. They inspired into us above all things, the fear of God, the avoidance of sin, and a very great horror of falsehood. Thus I can say that I have never known per sons who were more sincere, and with whom it was necessary to live with a more open heart. For they were enemies to every kind of concealment, and had deeply * Lancelot, vol. i. pp.35, 108, 111, 118—125, 287, et seq. Fontaine, vol. ii. p. 81. Du Fosse, p. 33. Conf. vol. i. p. 151, et seq. K 3 134 PORT ROYAL. graven upon their hearts that declaration of Scripture, which joins in the burning lake of fire and sulphur all hars with wretches and murderers. " As to the statement which has been set abroad, that they taught us in the c little schools of Port Eoyal,' that Jesus Christ did not die for all mankind ; that God was not willing that all men should be saved ; that the com mandments were impossible of fulfilment, and other things of that nature, I should be to blame if I did not bear wit ness to their entire falsehood. I do not think that I ever even heard this kind of proposition spoken of during the whole time of my studies ; except once, when a foolish and insolent almanac appeared in Paris, in which they were alluded to ; or when the Constitution of Innocent X. which condemned the Five Propositions, was published in the Church. Those who imagine that these gentlemen had a plan for establishing a new doctrine, and that they kept schools with the view of instilling their opinions into those who were there taught, are very ignorant of their true character. Never were children brought up in greater simplicity than we, and those who came after us. Nowhere were these theological matters less spoken of than in our schools ; and I dare assert, without fear of being contra dicted by any of my schoolfellows who are still living, and engaged in the business of the world, that we knew much less about them than most of those who came from the public colleges of Paris."* The schools early felt the shock of the troubles of Port Eoyal ; for in 1644, while the Jesuits were expending their first rage on the " Book of Frequent Communion," it was thought well to send the children to Le Chenai, a house near Versailles, which then belonged to M. le Pelletier des Touches, one of St. Cyran's penitents, and through- * Du Fosse, p. 49. RUE ST. DOMINIQUE. 135 out the whole of a life, which stretched even into the eighteenth century, a faithful friend of Port Eoyal.* The storm passed away and the scholars returned to Port Eoyal only to be transferred in 1646 to Paris. The work increased upon the teachers' hands as well as their own capacity for performing it : many of their friends in the world eagerly desired the benefit of such teaching for their children, and the experience of the last few years had gradually grown into a system of education. A M. Lam bert offered them a house in the cul-de-sac of the Eue St. Dominique d'Enfer, not far from Port Eoyal de Paris ; . where, for the first time, a regularly organised school was opened. There were four masters, MM. Lancelot, Nicole, Guyot, and Coustel, each of whom presided over a room which contained six scholars. M. Walon de Beaupuis, an excellent ecclesiastic of whom we shall have to speak more at length, 'superintended the whole. Every Sunday the boys attended vespers in the convent chapel, and heard Singlin's sermon. Those whose parents were able to afford it, paid an annual sum of 400 livres ; which was augmented by a fourth, on account of the dearnCss of provisions, during the war of the Fronde. Some, however, received a gratuitous education.f The establishment was sufficiently obscure and humble to escape any but very watchful eyes of suspicion. Even the name by which it was known, " Les petites Ecoles de * M. des Touches died in 1703, in his eighty-first year. Ifindinanote to Lancelot, vol. i. p. 337, an anecdote in connection with his name which shows the character of Louis XIV. in a better light than the Jansenist con troversy usually throws upon it. M des Touches had sent to the Bishop of Pamiers (Caulet, one of the Four), whose revenues had been sequestrated for his opposition to the king in the affair of the Regale, a present of 2000 crowns. The fact became known, and the king was pressed by many to imprison M. des Touches. " It shall never be said," was the reply, " that I sent any one to the Bastille for doing an alms." f Du Fosse, p. 58—60, 90—94. Vie de Nicole, ch. iii. K 4 136 PORT ROYAL. Port Eoyal," seemed to disclaim any rivalry with existing colleges ; although it must be confessed that the training given was sufficiently complete to render a recourse to the latter unnecessary. But Port Eoyal had already for some years been an object of suspicion to the Jesuits, who were not likely to see with equanimity this invasion of what they regarded as their peculiar province. In February 1648, La Mere Angelique writes to the Queen of Poland* that it was currently reported that the children in the Eue St. Dominique formed a religious order; that they observed a monastic seclusion; wore a uniform dress; had a chapel of their own ; and were called the " Little Brethren of Grace." And indeed a commissary of police made a sudden inspection of the schools at this time, with no immediate result that we hear of. A change, perhaps in consequence of this visit, was again made about the year 1650. Du Fosse, with one or two companions, was sent under the care of a M. le Fevre, to Magny; and thence, after about six months, to Port Eoyal, " not however to the Abbey as before, but to a farm which is upon the hill, called Les Granges." Others were sent to the Chateau des Troux, near Chevreuse, the house of M. de Bagnols; and others to Le Chenai, now the seat of M. de Bernieres. It is not easy to speak with confident accuracy of all these changes ; but the year 1653 may be fixed as that of the final and total removal of the schools from Paris.f This division of the schools into three parts, each of which might reasonably be expected to attract less notice than the whole, was doubtless a measure of precaution. The establishments at Le Chenai and Les Troux assumed almost a private character ; at the first the children of M. de Bernieres, at the second those of M. de Bagnols, were * Lett. vol. i. p. 360. t Du Fosse, p. 99. Besoigne, vol. iv. p. 410. Fontaine, vol. i. p. 170. et seq. FIRST ATTACK UPON THE SCHOOLS. 137 being educated in their father's house; and to associate with them one or two companions of their own age could hardly be accounted a crime against Church or State. But the respite thus obtained was brief. At the beginning of 1656, the condemnation of Antoine Arnauld by the Sor bonne had crowned the triumph of the Jesuits ; and the Pope had requested the king to disperse the hermit com munity of Port Eoyal. A letter from the treasurer of the Queen-mother's household to D'Andilly warned him of the approaching danger; and after a vain remonstrance, the schools at Les Granges were broken up, and the children, fifteen in number, restored to their friends. When, there fore, the Lieutenant Civil, M. d'Aubrai, appeared at Port Eoyal des Champs on the 30th of March, he found the buildings deserted except by two disguised priests, who successfully played the part of hard-working farm labourers. From Les Granges he went the same night to Les Troux. Here he found the three children of M. de Bagnols with only three or four companions, boys of good family, but unable to pay for the education which they owed to the charity of their host. Next day at Le Chenai, he met with a larger household ; above twenty children inhabited a wing of the mansion, where their studies were superin tended by M. de Beaupuis. ' And although all was smooth and fair-seeming; though the Lieutenant Civil and his companions were full of compliments, the schools received a shock from this visit which they never recovered. Parents began to ask themselves whether it was worth while, even for the sake of a good and cheap education, to con fide their »children to men, upon whom the shadow of royal displeasure so manifestly rested. The school at Les Granges does not seem to have reassembled. Those at Le Chenai and Les Troux maintained a feeble existence till March 10th, 1660, when M. d'Aubrai returned, and on the part of the king commanded their instant dispersion. M. 138 PORT ROYAL. de Bernieres was first forbidden to lend his house for such a purpose, and then exiled to Issoudun in Berri, where he died in 1662. M. de Bagnols was already dead ; and the care of his orphan children was taken out of the hands to which he had committed it, and entrusted to a relative who was supposed to be free from the taint of Jansenism. No attempt was made to reconstruct the schools after the Peace of the Church.* In this chequered existence of some twenty years' dura tion, the schools of Port Eoyal developed a system of educa tion singularly in advance of the age, and produced manuals of instruction, some of which are not obsolete even yet. It is difficult to make even an approximate estimate of the number of pupils who were being trained at any given time. The schools were never, in the full sense of the word, public ; the parents of the scholars were all friends of Port Eoyal, and any boy of doubtful or unpromising disposition was at once removed. M. Ste Beuvef from many minute indications, has come to the conclusion, that between the establishment in the Eue St. Dominique in 1646, and the final suppression in 1660, the number never exceeded fifty, and often fell short of it. In the brief sketch which I have given of St. Cyran's maxims of education, I have anticipated much that needed to be said of the spirit which pervaded these celebrated schools. Their theory of training, like all the practical | expressions of Jansenism, had its root in the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Every unbaptized child is an example of the corruption of human nature; and although the grace given in baptism restores it to a condition of accept ance with God, the old weakness remains, which, except it be counteracted by such strength as the Church by God's * Rec. d'Utrecht, p. 234. Du Fosse, p. 129, 169. Besoigne, vol. iv. p, 411—413. Conf. vol. i. pp. 302, 304, 326. t Port Royal, vol. iii. p. 393. THEORY OF EDUCATION. 139 help can supply, will lead deeper and deeper into sin. Ordinary education not only does not check the evil ten dencies of the heart, but even seems to strengthen them. Children are suffered to hear every kind of conversation, to read what books, to amuse themselves with what diver sions they will; their natural inclinations to wrong fall in with the customs and judgments of the world ; their teachers are too busy or too careless to contend with the sleepless vigi lance of the enemy of souls ; and the little ones not only become corrupt themselves but the cause of corruption in others. The only remedy for these things is a constant and prayerful watchfulness on the part of able and pious teachers. The work is in some respects painful ; and can be adequately performed only by those who engage in it from motives of charity. It is difficult; and the number of teachers must therefore bear a larger than the common proportion to that of scholars. As the great object of Christian education is to preserve in the child the image of Jesus Christ communicated in the sacrament of baptism, all occasions of worldliness and sin are to be avoided ; and neither in the character of their teachers, in the conduct of their domestics, or in the general arrangements of the school, are the children to see any thing inconsistent with virtue and innocence. The two great instruments of government are love and prayer ; the masters are to be gentle, hopeful, forbearing ; to grow in sensibly into the affections of their pupils ; and not even to use authority untempered by love. Prayer rather than speech, thought De Sapi, must be relied upon for the reform of any little irregularities ; for only through prayer could the proper moment for speech become known. The soul was the first thing in this system of education ; the mind only the second ; to make brilliant scholars was a less desirable • thing than to train up good Christians. As Singlin far more truly represents Port Eoyal than Le Maitre 140 PORT ROYAL. or Arnauld, so the characteristic result of the schools should be looked for rather in the character than in the literary achievements of their scholars. Yet the school which in so short a period produced Tillemont and Eacine is above the reach of criticism on this side also.* The manner of life in the schools is easily described. Five or six boys slept in the room of each master, who assumed the whole supervision of them. They had sepa rate beds, desks, books ; and sat in such a position as to be well under the teacher's eye, and yet not able to com municate with one another. Half-past five was the hour for rising, in which the master set the example. After prayers, work was begun and continued till seven, when the lessons thus prepared were repeated. Then followed breakfast ; and work again till eleven, which was the dinner hour. During the meal some edifying book was read aloud, as in a convent refectory. Each class, headed by its own master, dined at a separate table. After dinner, the children, still under the supervision of their teachers, who never lost sight of them, played in the garden till one o'clock, when they were brought together into the hall for an hour's common instruction. From two to four the classes, now dispersed into their several chambers, were occupied in study ; at four some refection, answering to our tea, was served out ; then work again till supper, at six. Supper, like dinner, was followed by recreation in the garden till eight. From eight to half-past, the lessons for the next day were looked at ; and then after prayer, in which the whole household, children, teachers, and servants, joined, all retired to rest together. The Sunday was, of course, otherwise apportioned. The children went to morning mass and to vespers in the parish church. The first service was preceded by catechetical instruction from * St" Marthe, quoted by Besoigne, vol. iv. p. 398,' et seq. De Saci, apud Fontaine, vol. ii. p. 391, et seq. FRIENDS OF THE SCHOOLS. 143 the superior ; and after a longer play hour than a pub- the afternoon was occupied in reading. An occajlder- half-holiday was spent either in the garden or in a waPort The children were dressed alike, that there migh'fol- no difference between rich and poor. The healthy de lopment of the body was cared for as well as that of t?d mind; out-door games of skill and strength were encouraged and billiards, chess, and draughts were the resources of . wet day. Corporal punishments, frequent and severe in other schools, were here very rare : a look or a word sufficed to reprove slight faults, and those who showed grave defects of character which might prove hurtful to others, were at once removed from the school.* To one who patiently studies the Jansenist memoirs of the time, many of the friends of Port Eoyal seem to group themselves naturally round the "Petites Ecoles." We speak of Singlin in connexion with the internal life of the monastery : the biography of Arnauld is almost the history of the Jansenist controversy ; Le Maitre stands out from the rest of the Solitaries as a representative figure. So a certain number of grave- and quiet men, who, for the rest, did not mingle in the more stirring transactions of our story, and were content with the lowest functions and obscurest places in the Church, were in the earlier portion of their lives connected with the schools, either as teachers or scholars, and spent their later years in literary labour, which, however honourable and useful, often brought little reward of fame to the labourer. Such was Walon de Beaupuis, the superior of the school in the Eue St. Dominique, and afterwards at Le Chenai ; Lancelot, who was the chief author of the grammars, known as the work of MM. de Port Eoyal ; Nicole, the partner of Arnauld's life-long labours ; and greater than any of these, Le Nain * Fontaine, vol. i. p. 262, et seq. ' Memoire sur les Ecoles de Port Royal.' * PORT ROYAL. 140 ilemont, the accurate and impartial historian of the or A**jx centuries of the Church. shou'mong these, Charles Walon de Beaupuis is, though literleast conspicuous, not the least characteristic figure. whi was born in 1621, the son of Nicholas Walon, Sieur de is jaupuis, Counsellor of the King at Beauvais, and of lame Marguerite de la Croix, his wife.* The family, if the Character of its intimate friends may be taken as an indi cation, was a religious one; and the young Beaupuis early showed signs of a grave and orderly disposition. The diocese of Beauvais was one in which the Jansenist doctrine was soon and firmly rooted : Godefroy Hermant, a famous doctor of the Augustinian theology, was a canon of the Cathedral and a professor in the college which flourished at its side. Another canon was that M. Manguelen, who afterwards retired to Port Eoyal des Champs, and for a few months before his death in 1646, performed the functions of director of the Solitaries.! Into the hands of the latter M. de Beaupuis fell, and received a bias which determined the whole future direction of his life. He had passed three years in the study of rhetoric at Beauvais, when in 1637, he occupied a fourth in listening to the instructions of Pere Nouet in Paris. Then after a brief devotion to philosophy in another school, he went to sit at the feet of Arnauld, who, not yet admitted to the Sorbonne, was teaching in the College of Mans. This course was ended, in 1641, and the young student transferred himself for the study of theo logy, to the College of Cluny, which was recommended to him by the half-monastic life led by its inmates. Here he was applying himself to the works of St. Augustine when, * The life of M. de Beaupuis occupies nearly the whole of a volume, entitled " Vies interessantes et edifiantes des Amis de Port Royal. Utrecht, 1751," to which I make this general reference. t Vol. i, p. 215. "WALON DE BEAUPUIS. 143 in 1643, the "Book of Frequent Communion" was pub lished. In this, as in so many more instances, a smoulder ing fire was fanned into a flame ; Manguelen fled to Port Eoyal des Champs, and in May 1644, De Beaupuis fol lowed him. About the same time arrived a more distinguished penitent, M. Litolphi Maroni, Bishop of Bazas, who was anxious to lay down his episcopal dignity and to work out his salvation in this holy desert. But the directors, who had no scruple in detaching less illustrious persons from the common round of duty, were probably unwilling either to take the responsibility of a bishop's resignation, or to deprive themselves of a bishop's influence in the Church : and so, after a time, sent M. de Bazas back to his diocese to introduce reforms accordant with his new theory of the Christian life. He asked Singlin for a companion who should aid and advise him in this work ; and Manguelen was chosen. The latter at once gave up his canonry at Beauvais, and taking M. de Beaupuis with him, set out for Bazas. The reforms were hardly begun when the bishop died, and Manguelen and his friend were compelled to return. Perhaps the incident would be scarcely worth a record, had it not already been the second occasion in M. de Beaupuis' history in which the claims of a rigidly Catholic theory of life had come into collision with Pro testant notions of filial duty. While a student at Paris he had made a " retreat," which, as is not obscurely hinted in the narration of his life, had hastened, if it had not caused, his mother's death. So now we are allowed to collect that the direction given by Manguelen to his career, was repugnant to his father's wishes ; as it is certain, even from the apologetic account of his biographer, that the journey to Bazas was purposely and most disingenuously concealed from him. The student of the New Testament will re- Piember that the attempt to make religious duty clash 144 PORT RUXAli. with, and override filial obligation, is of older than Catholic invention.* On his return from Bazas, M. de Beaupuis, now in his twenty-fourth year, finally resolved to adopt the theological profession: and not only prepared to take a Bachelor's degree, but received the four minor orders of the priesthood. The death of M. Manguelen, in 1646, which under some circumstances might have seemed likely to detach him from Port Eoyal, only bound him the more firmly to it; and in the following year he assumed the direction of the Petites Ecoles, now established in the Eue St. Dominique. It is characteristic of his modesty — a quality which eminently distinguished the whole class of Port Eoyalists to which he belongs — that even now he takes no higher rank in the hierarchy than that of Deacon, and postpones to a much later , period his assumption of the dignities and responsibilities of the priesthood. In 1653, he followed a part of the schools to Le Chenai, where M. de Bernieres gave up a wing of his house for the accommodation of his children and their schoolfellows. And when, in 1660, the schools were finally dispersed, M. de Beaupuis first for a time continued his work as a teacher in the family of Florin Perier, Pascal's brother-in-law ; and then in 1664, settled himself in his native town, where the Bishop, M. de Buzanval, openly favoured the now harassed friends of Port Eoyal. Here in 1666 he was ordained Priest, There is some thing touching in the evident reluctance with which this man of forty-five years, whose whole life had been a struggle of unobtrusive duty, assumes the sacred office : he consents to take this step only after much reflection, and many solicitations of his friends, and even then, delays long before he enters upon his new duties. Henceforward, his * Mark vii. 10. WALON DE BEAUPUIS. 145 life, for more than forty years, is a rare example of quiet holiness, of sober self-denial. It was not one of entire retreat ; for he preached, heard confessions, was for some years superior of a convent of Ursuline nuns, and assisted in the management of the diocesan seminary. In 1679, his protector, M. de Buzanval, died, and was succeeded in the see by M. Forbin de Janson, afterwards cardinal, and known rather for his diplomatic than his ecclesiastical achievements. To the new bishop, Jesuit and Jansenist were alike indifferent, except as they stood on the sunny or the shady side of court favour ; but he knew how to pay homage to Louis XIV., and De Beaupuis was at once in terdicted from the performance of all sacerdotal functions. He retired to the house of his sister, a widow lady of Beau vais : " he had laboured," he said, " for the salvation of souls only in obedience to the repeated commands of tut? late bishop, and could not but rejoice when his Grandeur, dismissing him from all employment, placed him in a con dition to enjoy the repose which he had always sought for." Nor was this an idle boast ; his life was thencefor ward his own, and he regulated it upon a model which excited the admiration, almost the pious envy of friends who would willingly have been condemned to the same happy inaction. He rose from his rude bed every morn-' ing at four; and the day was one long round of public and private prayer, till his bed received him once more at nine. His meals were always frugal, his fasts frequent ; he rarely quitted his room except to go to church, and then went straight to his mark, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. Even his deviations from the uniform course of habit were themselves uniform ; at certain intervals he visited a paralytic friend ; and once a year, on a fixed day, set out on a journey to Port Eoyal des Champs. He was sparing of his words, except to his intimate associates; and with them his conversation, though cheerful and even, YOL, II. L 146 PORT ROYAL. gay, was chiefly on ethical or theological topics. Much of his time was spent in reading the Scriptures and the Fathers, though he would examine and animadvert upon such theology of the day as was sent to him for his opinion. He studied standing at a desk, with head uncovered and the window wide open. No fire was ever allowed in his room ; he thought it enough for himself to put on a cap, and the "closing of the window," said M. Hermant, " was the only faggot which his friends need expect to see." His public charities were as regular as his ' feasts or fasts ; but a pressing need or a shamefaced poverty could provoke him to a liberality, which in pro portion to his means, might be called munificent. So flowed on the quiet current of his life, till, in 1709, it met the silent ocean of eternity. He had attained the patri archal age of eighty-seven years. He was not without his trials at the last ; for he paid the price exacted of all who live to an extreme old age, in the pang of surviving many of those whom he loved best. Hermant, his teacher, Tillemont, his most cherished and distinguished scholar, as well as all the first generation of Port Eoyal, by whose side he had worked and knelt, died before him. No fewer than eight of his nieces embraced the religious life, two in Port Eoyal des Champs ; and two nephews were monks in La Trappe, then under the direc tion of its celebrated founder. But in many cases the uncle, who had joyfully assisted at the beginning of the profession, sadly marked its close. Nor could even so inoffensive a life as his escape the cloud of royal displear sure which darkened upon everything connected with the hated community. It is a proof that Louis XIV. could be mean in his cruelty, that when De Beaupuis made a painful pilgrimage to La Trappe on foot, in order that before he died he might once more embrace his beloved pupil, Dom Le Nain, the sub-prior of the house, the LANCELOT. 147 abbot sent him back with his errand unaccomplished, alleging in excuse for his discourtesy, the express command of the king. Perhaps one who could live and die like De Beaupuis might afford to despise even royal mean ness. Not long before he died, his friends reminded him that his great age warranted and demanded some modifi cation of his method of life. " My age," he answered, " is on the contrary a warning that I must double the guard." And in the midst of a season of distress and agitation which overtook him a few days before the last, he was overheard to say, " It seems to me, nevertheless, that God has given me grace to seek always, and above all things, that Sovereign Good which is none other than Himself." As De Beaupuis, the director, represents the sober piety and severe morals of the schools, so Claude Lancelot, one of the first masters, forms the proper point of departure for the discussion of the books and methods of instruction, of which he was in great part the author. But although his literary activity was unwearied, he, even more than De Beaupuis, shuns the public gaze, and has left few materials for his own biography. His admirable memoirs of St. Cyran are silent in regard to himself as soon as he has explained the circumstances which attached him to his friend and patron ; and the educational works -by which he so greatly increased the reputation and the use fulness of the community, bear upon the title page the name of "MM. de Port Eoyal." I have before briefly narrated how, born in Paris in the year 1615*, he was educated for the ecclesiastical profession in the seminary of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, and how, falling in with St. Cyran, he attached himself to the great confessor with an affectionate fidelity which gave colour and form to all his future life. With Singlin, Le Maitre, and De Sericourt, * Vol. i. pp. 152, 160. L 2 148 PORT ROYAL. he was one of the little company of hermits who lived in the outer court of Port Eoyal de Paris ; and it was in the house of one of his earliest pupils, Vitart, that Le Maitre found with him a refuge at Ferte Milon. After performing the last offices of friendship for St. Cyran in 1643, he became one of the community of Port Eoyal des Champs, where he seems to have occupied himself in teaching till, on the establishment of the schools in 1646, he assumed the charge of one of the four classes. The special subjects of his instruction were, we are told, Greek and Mathematics; while Belles Lettres and Philosophy were entrusted to Nicole. When the schools were removed into the country, he shared with Nicole the direction of the establishment at Les Granges, until it was broken up by the visit of the Lieutenant Civil in 1656. This event, however, did not altogether bar him out from the exercise of his powers as a teacher, for he undertook at Vaumurier the instruction of the Due de Chevreuse, the son of that Due and Duchesse de Luynes who had retired to Port Eoyal before the war of the Fronde. The pupil, who is a prominent figure in St. Simon's memoirs, long showed the effects of such an education, not only in a deep-seated aversion to the Jesuits, but in a genuine interest in matters of religion, which, though it did not take a specifically Jansenist direction, led him into the arms of Madame Guyon and the Arch bishop of Cambrai. Then after a pilgrimage to Alet, the diocese of the good Pavilion, Lancelot was chosen in 1669, by De Saci, to educate the two sons of the Princesse de Conti. This admirable woman, of whom I must speak more at length in another place, was the niece of Mazarin, the sister-in-law of Madame de Longueville and the great Conde, the widow of the Eoyal Prince who had been a leader in the second war of the Fronde. She had been brought with her husband, who died in 1666, under the influence of the Bishop of Alet ; and the result had been LANCELOT. 149 an entire remodelling of their lives according to the fashion of Port Eoyal. Now she was resolved to bring up her two young sons in the same way, and Lancelot was selected to be their tutor. A curious letter in which he recounts to De Saci the way in which he adapted the methods of the Petites Ecoles to Eoyal Highnesses is still extant, and may excite our admiration as well of the docility of the pupils, as of the independence of the teacher. All went well till the death of the princess in 1672. Then it was thought necessary to remove from corrupting religious influences boys who stood so near the throne ; and a cause of quarrel with the tutor was soon found. He was requested to take his pupils to the theatre, and on his refusal, alleging his own scruples and their mother's known wishes, was sum marily removed by royal order. The elder of the two died without issue at an early age-; the younger lived to be not only Prince de Conti, but for a little while, king of Poland, and charmed by the grace of his manners and the liveliness of his wit even those who were unable to respect and admire his character. " Poor Lancelot," says M. Ste Beuve*, " he would have made a saint even of a prince, and lo ! the result is an Alcibiades ! " With this, Lancelot's active life came to an end. He resolved to retire to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Cyran, over which M. de Barcos, the nephew of his bene factor, still presided. Here he remained till 1678, occupied in religious exercises, except during a brief and singular controversy in which he engaged with the learned Mabil- lon. St. Benedict had fixed the daily portion of wine for his monks at one " hemine ; " at how much was this obso lete measure to be estimated ? Doubtless a debate, which in some monasteries at least, threw all the difficulties of sufficient and efficacious grace into the shade ! Lancelot, * Vol. iii. p. 474. L 3 150 PORT royal; with true Jansenist austerity, reduced the " hemine " to half the quantity allowed by Mabillon's more liberal inter pretation ; and the strife of tongues was waxing great when the original combatant, to avoid contention, quietly abandoned the field. In 1678, the reproach of heresy sought out even this unoffending recluse, and he was ordered to withdraw from St. Cyran to Quimperle in Lower Brittany. He obeyed, and spent seventeen years of in voluntary exile in the practice of the austere holiness which he had learned long before in the valley of Port Eoyal. He died in 1695, having reached his seventy-ninth year. The repeated requests of his friends had not pre vailed with him to accept any higher rank in the Church than that of sub-deacon.* It would be difficult to estimate the exact amount of improvement introduced by Port Eoyal into methods of education, without a more precise knowledge of other schools and colleges at the same period, than we possess. We are to some extent driven to conjecture from the state ments of the Port Boyalist teachers themselves, the points in which they differed from contemporary educators. There can, however, be no doubt that the latent Protestantism, if I may so call it, of the community, the power to deviate from established forms of thought and modes of action, displayed itself to the greatest extent in the management of the schools. They began from the principle then heretical, and not always orthodox now, " that children ought to be so helped in every possible way, as to make, if it may be, study more pleasant than play and amusement." So the old plan of giving to consonants names which did not express their syllabic value was abandoned, and a method adopted in its stead which is said to have been the inven- * Besoigne, vol. v. p. 41, et seq. Life of Lancelot prefixed to the Mem. de St. Cyran. Fontaine, vol. iv. p. 274. St. Simon, vol. xii. pp. 215, 225; vol. xix. p. 150. GRAMMARS OF PORT ROYAL. 151 tion of Pascal. The children were allowed to pronounce the vowels and diphthongs by themselves, the consonants only in connection with these ; and thus the difficulty and absurdity of compounding the sound hon of the three dis similar sounds M, 6, enne, were avoided. Then — 0, incon ceivable perversity! — it had been customary to teach little children to read in Latin ; to add to the difficulties which encumber the first attempt to translate signs into sounds, all those which would spring from the use of an unknown lan guage. Port Eoyal made the bold innovation of teaching French children to read in the French tongue ; and not only so, but went to the ridiculous excess of indulging youthful minds with reading books, apt to engage the attention and to spur the will to the task. Latin grammars were then (nor is the practice yet obsolete) written in Latin ; and the pupils were compelled to learn the rules of the unknown language which they were about to study, in the language itself. The " Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre facilement et en peu de terns la Langue Latine," by Lancelot, better known as the " Port Eoyal Latin Grammar," was written in French ; and was the first instance in which the attempt was made to teach a dead through the medium of a living language. In other schools, even young beginners were exercised in written translation only, and were set to com pose themes in a language which they very imperfectly understood ; at Port Eoyal translation was viva, voce ; the teacher's voice, manner, comments helped to give life and motion to the old classic phrase, and to infuse a warmth of thought and feeling into the cold, dead words. French, were to a great extent substituted for Latin exercises in composi tion ; and the result, we are told, was visible in that gradual emancipation of the modern from the restraints of the ancient tongue, which characterises the period known as the age of Louis XIV. The composition of Latin verse was im posed only upon those scholars who manifested some poetical L 4 152 PORT ROYAL. faculty ; to others, the task could only be painful and pro ductive of no result. But sometimes it was thought well to exercise a whole class in this way ; the subject was chosen by the teacher, and each of the scholars was at liberty to suggest a word, a phrase, a turn of expression-: as the inspiration of the moment might prompt. Idiomatic translations of several classic authors were made for the use of the schools, which, it is hardly necessary to say, were carefully expurgated.* The study of the Greek language was much neglected in France during the seventeenth century, and the labours of Port Eoyal did not succeed in effecting more than a temporary revival. The Greek Grammar, which was, like the Latin, the production of Lancelot, is, as all grammars must be, to some extent a compilation from preceding works, but differs from most in the full and modest acknowledgment of its obligations. But the credit is due to Lancelot of having perceived that the Greek is much more similar in construction and spirit to any modern language than the Latin ; and that the difficulties which beset the learner lie rather in the copiousness of its vocabulary than in the intricacies of its syntax. He dis carded, therefore, the hitherto universally accepted plan of approaching the Greek through the Latin : his grammar is written, his translations are made, not in Latin but in French. A less successful book was a " Jardin des Eacines Grecques," which was thrown by De Saci into the form of mnemonic verses, which are often as barbarous as the etymologies which they contain are defective. Yet even this was not without its merits, as no French and Greek dictionary existed at that time ; and the meaning of a Greek word could penetrate into the student's mind only through the medium of an inadequate Latin equivalent.. * Fontaine, vol. ii. p. 396. GRAMMARS OF PORT ROYAL. 153 Perhaps after all, the result of the Greek learning of Port Eoyal is most visible in the tragedies of Eacine ; though none would more sincerely have lamented than Lancelot and Nicole, that the same learning which enabled men to read the New Testament in the original, should help them to produce such profane masterpieces as Andromaque and Iphigenie. The grammars which I have already mentioned, were accompanied by others from the same fertile pen. The Latin Grammar was first published in 1644, dedicated to, and if the traditions of Port Eoyal may be trusted, used by, the young king. The Greek Grammar did not appear till 1655. Both of these were also published in an abridged form. An Italian and a Spanish Grammar on the same plan, followed in 1660, and four Treatises on Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish Poetry, respectively, in 1663. Besides the " Garden of Greek Eoots " which appeared in 1657, and many volumes of translations from Phsedrus, Plautus, Terence, Virgil, and Cicero, which it is not necessary to specify more particularly, a selection of Epigrams {Epigrammatum Delectus) with a Latin preface by Nicole, was printed in 1659. A volume of " Elements of Geometry," by Arnauld, which had been long used in manuscript, was first given to the world in 1667, of which it is sufficient to say that Pascal, when he saw it, burned a little treatise on the same subject which he had himself compiled. A comparison of dates will show that many of these works were not published till after the schools of Port Eoyal had been finally closed. They were the records and monuments of the teaching which had been there given; the instruments by which Lancelot and Nicole exercised their functions to a continually increasing extent, after they were driven from Le Chenai and Les Granges. It is not the first instance in which persecution has only 154 PORT ROYAL. spread over a wider surface the influence which it was designed to extirpate. The " Grammaire generale et raisonnee, contenant les Fondemens de l'Art de Parler, expliques d'une Maniere claire et naturelle, les Eaisons de ce qui est commun a toutes les Langues et des principales Differences qui s'y rencontrent, et plusieurs Eemarques nouvelles sur la Langue Francoise, 1660," stands on a different footing from the works already enumerated, as one of the first contribu tions to the science of general or comparative grammar which has since engaged so much of the attention of students. Arnauld and Lancelot are the joint authors. The latter, meeting with many difficulties in the composi tion of his several grammars, brought them to Arnauld to be resolved. He was so much struck with the philoso phical penetration displayed by his master, that he obtained permission to throw his ideas, into the connected form in which the " Grammaire Generale " now appears. To at tempt to criticise this once celebrated book would be out of place. The advantage of literary over scientific works is, that while the former are possessions for ever, the latter are continually left behind by the advancing wave of human knowledge ; only the student of mathematical history can afford time to read the " Principia," while the " Paradise Lost" flourishes in perennial youth. So, however just might be the theory, however cogent the reasonings of the " Grammaire Generale," the facts upon which its inductions are based were necessarily few, and imperfectly known. Large families of languages, which are now objects of the grammarian's closest and most fruitful study, were then unknown ; and the real affinities of those which were the subjects of comparison hardly suspected. When all these drawbacks are fully estimated ; when it is allowed that the grammars of Port Eoyal have been long superseded by sim pler and more scientific methods, that its etymology was not THE PORT ROYAL LOGIC. 155 in advance of the age, that its translations from the classics were periphrastic and unclassical, and that the schools cannot be said to have produced a Latinist or a Hellenist of more than average merit, the credit due to the modest teachers of the Eue St. Dominique remains unimpaired. Their improvements in the art of education have not been cast away as delusive, but have been carried to a higher pitch of perfection by the experience of succeeding generations. In no particular were they behind, in many far before their time. Their work, which began in the love of child hood, and in a deep religious respect for its comparative innocence, was conducted to the end under a sense of moral responsibility which introduced a new element into the relation between the teacher and the scholar. Nor do I know where else in that age to look for a modest yet dignified assertion of the worth of the teacher's office, a worth which society even now but partially recognises. And to the allegation that the schools of Port Eoyal produced no great scholars, the sufficient reply is, that their single object was the education of Christian men.* The mention of the " Grammaire Generale " naturally leads us to its more celebrated companion, " The Port Eoyal Logic," a work, which, if we may judge from the fact that a recent English translation of it has reached a fourth edition, seems to defy the attacks of time. Its full title is "La Logique, ou l'Art de, Penser, contenant, outre les Eegles communes, plusieurs Observations nouvelles, propres a former le Jugement, 1662." The following account of its origin is given in the preface. A nameless " person of quality," talking one day to the young Due de Chevreuse, " happened to mention to him that he had, when himself young, met with a person who in 'fifteen days made him acquainted with the greater part of logic." Another * For the above account of the school books of Port Royal, I am greatly indebted to M. St" Beuve, Port Royal, vol. iii. p. 413, et seq. . 156 PORT ROYAL. person, perhaps Arnauld, replied that if M. de Chevreuse would take the trouble, he would impart to him all of logic that was worth knowing in four or five days. The challenge was accepted, and an abstract of logical science drawn up, which the young duke, whose aptitude for acquiring know-- ledge is described as remarkable, easily committed to memory within the specified time. But the work grew upon the author's hands ; MS. copies were circulated ; then in 1662 it was printed. A second edition followed in 1664, a third in 1668, a fourth in 1674, a fifth in 1683, each of which successively was improved and enlarged. It was soon translated into Latin, in which language it was re peatedly reprinted ; into Spanish, and into Italian. The first English translation appeared probably as early as 1685 ; another in 1716 ; and both went through more than one edition. A new translation, accompanied by an excel lent introduction and notes, has of late years been made by Mr. T. Spencer Baynes.* The " Logic " in its present shape, is preceded by two dis courses " in which the design of this new Logic is set forth," and " containing a reply to the principal objections which have been made to this Logic." Both of these are from the pen of Nicole. The work itself is divided into four parts, of which the three first, according to Eacine f, " were composed in common," while the fourth is altogether Arnauld's. Most of the additions made after the publican tion of the first edition are due to Nicole. At the same time, the book, both in its conception and the most impor tant part of its execution, must be considered as having proceeded from the mind of Arnauld. Its fourfold division is based on what are called the four principal operations of the mind, conceiving (congevoir), * Fourth edition, 1857: I am happy to acknowledge my obligation to Mr. Baynes' learned and perspicuous Introduction. f OSuvres, p. 415. THE PORT ROYAL LOGIC. 157 judging (juger), reasoning (raisonner), and disposing (ordonner). In other words, the first part treats of ideas, the second of propositions, the third of syllogisms, and the fourth of method. But this general statement gives only a partial idea of the object of the work. There is nothing here, which, under certain conditions of treatment, might not be brought within the; strict scope of a logical handbook. Our authors, however, take a wider than the ordinary range. Their second title, " The Art of Thinking," better expresses their intention than the first. " Logic," they say, " is the art of directing reason aright, in obtaining the knowledge of things, for the instruction both of ourselves and others." Its chief end, therefore, is rather practical than theoretical ; not so much the analysis of the syllogistic or any method of reasoning, as, in general, the production of the " mens sana." The first preliminary discourse begins, " There is nothing more desirable than good sense and accuracy of thought, in discriminating between truth and falsehood. All other qualities of mind are of limited use, but exact ness of judgment is of general utility in every part and in all the employments of life." They think that the efficacy of logic in producing this quality of mind has been much overrated. But the absurd pretensions in behalf of the science wdiich have been put forward by scholastic philosophers, do not form a reason for rejecting the solid advantages to be derived from it ; and therefore they have incorporated with their book a selection from the common rules. " Now," they proceed, " although we cannot say these rules are useless, since they often help to discover the vice of certain intricate arguments, and to arrange our thoughts in a more convenient manner, still this utility must not be supposed to extend very far. The greater part of the errors of men arises, not from their allowing themselves to be deceived by wrong conclusions, but in their proceeding from false judgments, whence wrong 158 PORT ROYAL. conclusions are deduced. Those who have previously written on logic have sought but little to rectify this, which is the main design of the new reflections which are to be found scattered through this book." Accordingly, while all the technical part of the old manuals is not only to be found here, but is stated with a clearness, and illustrated by a variety of examples which are themselves character istic ofthe book, its most valuable portions are undoubtedly those sections which approach the art of thinking from the moral or practical side, and treat of the " sophisms of self- love, of interest, and of passion," and " of the false reason ings which arise from objects themselves ; " as well as the whole of the last part, which draws its inspiration from Des Cartes' celebrated " Discourse on Method." To point out the particulars in which the "Art of Thinking," considered purely as a logical treatise, differs from previous treatises of the same kind, is a work which belongs to the historian of Mental Science. But we may be allowed to notice here its intensely practical treatment of what had hitherto, for the most part, been a merely formal and scholastic subject of study. It took up the series of pedantically expressed rules which were supposed to supply the only method by which the human mind could investigate truth ; and on the one hand, found a base for them in the living metaphysical thought of the day, on the other, connected them with the whole procedure of science, and the conduct of daily life. The very illustrations in troduced into the most formal portion of the whole, have shaken off the frost of ages of scholasticism. Generation after generation of pupils had repeated the old examples, some of which had descended from the time even of Porphyry and Aristotle ; now for the first time we find our selves in the regions of modern thought — in the sacramental j controversies between Catholic and Huguenot — in the debate of " matiere subtile," and the vacuum. The living French THE PORT ROYAL LOGIC. 159 is substituted for the dead Latin as the medium of instruc tion. The scholar whom the teachers of philosophy sought to train, was one who could argue accurately from given premises, in the syllogistic form, and was quick, by help of the same instrument, to detect the fallacies of other reasoners. The logician of Port Eoyal was the man of a sound and practised judgment; not ignorant ofthe subtle ties of the schools, but accustomed to examine the sound ness of his assumptions as well as of his arguments ; and even if not a philosopher or a man of science, yet possessed of a philosophic and scientific mind. It must not be forgotten that as far as Port Eoyal can be said to have a philosophy, it is to be found not in Pascal's " Thoughts," but in the " Logic." Arnauld, after some preliminary skirmishing with Des 0/ /tes, had en rolled himself among his followers, and/ie "Logic," as well as the "General Grammar," is the legitimate offspring of the "Discourse on Method." On the other hand, the first Preliminary Discourse contains a fierce onslaught upon the Pyrrhonists, whom it summarily qualifies as a " sect of liars," and the chapter on "the Sophisms of Self- love " * halts in its argument to gibbet the vices and follies of Montaigne. The whole passage is so far removed from the calm and equal tone of the rest of the book, as to suggest the idea of a personal polemic against one, whose influence Port Eoyal had been unable to eradicate from the mind of Pascal. But in truth, Port Eoyal is not philo sophical. Arnauld has a name among metaphysicians, Nicole among moralists, Pascal among religious philoso phers; but the speculations of the three could not be united into one accordant whole ; and no one of them was Port Eoyalist on his philosophical side. St. Cyran, Singlin, De Sap i, are, after all, our most characteristic figures ; and • Part. iii. chap. 20. § 6, 160 PORT ROYAL. the Bible and St. Augustine, not Aristotle and the school men, are the fountains of their wisdom. We pass naturally from the " Logic " of Port Eoyal to one who had a large though an inconspicuous share in its authorship, Pierre Nicole. The figures of our story seem to arrange themselves in pairs : two friends connected by a strong tie of love and admiration, and yet to some extent, a greater and a less, a patron and a client. Such were St. Cyran and Lancelot; De Sapi and Fontaine; Tillemont and Du Fosse ; Pascal and De Eoannez ; and especially Arnauld and Nicole. The activity of Arnauld is so inter woven with the main web of our narrative as to have made it hitherto impossible to detach it and look at it by itself; but that of Nicole is so much less original and independent, and in its last years so separates itself from the fortunes of Port Eoyal, as to invite and allow an estimate in this place. Once more, however, it will be necessary to anticipate in some degree the chronological order of events. Pierre Nicole was born at Chartres, on the 13th of October, 1625, of a respectable legal or parliamentary family. His father, Jean Nicole, a man of considerable classical learning, himself laid the foundations of h:" son's education, which was continued in Paris, where, in 1644, he took the degree of Master of Arts. From his earliest boyhood he was a great, almost an indiscriminate reader ; and his memory was so retentive as never to lose the im pressions once made upon it. M. Ste Beuve* quotes from Brienne the following amusing description of Nicole's omnivorous appetite for books : — " I should say of him, that no one whom I know has read so many books and narratives of travel as he ; without counting all the classic authors, both Greek and Latin, * Port Royal, vol. iv. p. 304. NICOLE. 161 poets, orators, and historians; all the fathers from St. Ignatius and St. Clement up to St. Bernard; all the romances from Amadis de Gaul to Clelie and the Princess of Cleves; all the works of ancient and modern heretics from the ancient philosophers to Luther and Calvin, Melancthon and Chamier, from whom he has made ex tracts; all the polemics from Erasmus to Cardinal du Perron, and the innumerable works of the Bishop of Belley; in a word, (for what has he not read?) all the writings ofthe period of the Fronde, all 'pieces de contra- bande,' all treatises on politics from Goldast to L'Isola." He soon exhausted his father's library, and then betook himself to the stores of his friends. In after life, indeed, scandal said, that like another great reader, Coleridge, he sometimes forgot to return the books which he borrowed. The effects of this miscellaneous reading were, to some extent, corrected by the religious tone of his father's house hold. La Mere Marie des Anges, one of Angeiique's earliest novices at Port Eoyal des Champs, and her succes sor at Maubuisson, was his aunt* ; and one of his sisters, of whom he was wont to say that her natural powers surpassed his own, was educated in the same house. And the charac ter of the future moralist of Port Eoyal is illustrated by an anecdote of this period of his life. His father's cousin, Claude Nicole, also a distinguished lawyer, had published a volume of poems, of which a licentious freedom of speech was not the least marked characteristic. The young theo logian in vain endeavoured to work upon the author's sense of decency ; the poems ran through several editions ; literary complacency was too strong for morality, and the blot remained upon the religious escutcheon of the family. But after the poet's death Nicole, with consent of his daughter and representative, prevented the issue of a * Vol. i. p. 48. TOL. II. M 162 PORT ROYAL. fresh edition, and bought every copy upon which he could lay his hands. His original intention had been to pass through the theological courses of the Sorbonne, to take its degrees, and finally, to devote himself to the Church. Meanwhile he found employment in the schools of the Eue St. Domi nique, and did not become Bachelor of Theology till June 1649. A few days afterwards, Nicholas Cornet, brought forward the Seven, which were the precursors of the more famous Five Propositions ; * and as the debate waxed hotter and hotter, Nicole began to doubt whether it would be wise for him to assume a Doctor's dignity and responsibility in so divided a faculty. He was already connected with the obnoxious party by ties of friendship as Well as of a common conviction ; but then, to pause at this point would be to give up the possibility of taking orders, and therefore, all hope of preferment in the Church. The choice was soon made ; he retired to Port Eoyal with the schools, and in conjunction with Lancelot, directed the establishment at Les Granges. Here, in 1654, Arnauld found him, and concluded with him that Hterary and personal alliance which lasted for a quarter of a century. The moment was critical ; the controversy had been decided against the Jansenists, for Innocent X. had issued his bull, and the French Bishops had all, after a pro tracted struggle, accepted it. The combat was about to become personal ; in 1655, occurred the affair of the Due de Liancourt, which ended in the expulsion of Arnauld, and all the Jansenist Doctors from the Sorbonne.f Pam phlet after pamphlet — some anonymous, some bearing the name of Arnauld ; theological, controversial, personal, — appeared in rapid succession ; and in all, Nicole, now once more in Paris, bore a large, though an unacknowledged part. * Vide vol. i. p. 245. f Vide vol. i. p. 253, et seq. NICOLE. , 163 Then in 1656 and succeeding years, he furnished sugges tions, quotations, corrections for the "Provincial Letters;" took a share in the Casuistical controversy to which they gave rise; and under the name of Wilhelm Wendrock, translated them into Latin.* From this period to the Peace of the Church in 1668, his literary activity con tinued unabated. The mere enumeration of the titles of his works would occupy more pages than one. Some have been already mentioned. The " Apology for the Nuns of Port Eoyal," which he wrote in conjunction with Ste Marthe; the "Lettres Imaginaires," the "Lettres Visionnaires," the " Treatise on Human Faith," against M. de Perefixe. Whenever it is possible to catch a clear glimpse of his personality, apart from the tasks which he performed in conjunction with others, he is always on the side of con cession and arrangement. One account attributes to him the famous but useless distinction between " fait " and " droit." He is against Pascal in that conflict of opinion to which I have made more than one allusion ; he takes part even against Arnauld, in the treaty set on foot by the Bishop of Comminges. t To none, in all likelihood, was the Peace more truly welcome than to this practised con troversialist. From 1656 to 1668, Nicole was for the most part Arnauld's companion in his many hiding places. In 1658-9, indeed, while busy with the translation of the " Provincial Letters," he was absent in Flanders and Ger many ; but then returned, to share a concealment, which it is impossible not to believe, was more irksome than perilous. For a considerable period, they found an asylum in the house of Madame de Longueville, where, however, under an arrangement which was honourable both to hostess and guests, they insisted upon defraying their own expenses. * Vide vol. i. pp. 285, 286. t VM* To1- *• PP- 358—419. W 2 164 PORT ROYAL. Other places of refuge, carefully recorded in the Jansenist memoirs, it is not necessary to enumerate here. As soon as the announcement ofthe Peace enabled the Jansenist leaders to appear in public, Nicole hastened to Troyes, where he was anxious, at his own expense, to establish a school for girls, and thence to the Abbey of Haute Fontaine, the head of which, M. Le Eoi, had long been a friend of Arnauld and his party. Here he devoted himself for a time to the completion of his great work " La Perpetuite de la Foi." The Jansenists, from St. Cyran downwards, had always been anxious to prove their orthodoxy, by the eagerness of their controversial zeal against the Calvinists. Even in the midst of their own troubles, they seem to have been always able to deal a blow at La Eochelle or Charenton; and strike at Jesuit or Huguenot with perfect impartiahty and equal ardour. The history of the most famous of these polemical works may serve to illustrate the side of Jan senist activity which gave birth to them all. Le Maitre, during the period of his retreat, had collected, as an intro duction to the " Office of the Holy Sacrament," a number of passages from the Fathers, which the Due de Luynes trans lated into French, and to which Nicole prefixed a short paper, proving that the faith of the Church in regard to the Eucharist had never undergone any change. A MS. copy of this paper fell into the hands of Claude, the celebrated Huguenot minister, who replied to it. In 1664, Nicole printed his little dissertation in an expanded form, adding remarks upon the animadversions of his opponent. This 12 mo volume is known by the name of " La petite Perpetuite " to distinguish it from the larger work into which it afterwards grew. Claude was not slow in publishing a reply, which appeared , in 1665, and in three years reached a seventh edition. In NICOLE. 165 the meantime Nicole, under many difficulties and interrup tions arising from the debates in the Church, had been work ing upon an elaborate and exhaustive treatise on the sub ject, the first volume 'of which he was able to complete at Haute Fontaine in 1669. It was entitled " La Perpetuite de la Foi de l'Eglise Catholique touchant l'Eucharistie," and was dedicated in a Latin epistle from the pen of Arnauld, to Pope Clement IX. Twenty-seven Archbishops and Bishops, as well as twenty Doctors, among whom was Bossuet, supported the work by their written approval., A second volume appeared in 1672 ; a third, which com pleted the work, in 1676. Clement X. received the dedi cation of the second, Innocent XI. that of the third volume, with many gracious words. Many of the first Protestant nobility of France, and among them Marshal Turenne, declared themselves converted bj Nicole's arguments, and embraced the ancient faith. Jesuit and Jansenist were reconciled over the body of the Calvinist victim; there was even a rumour of a Cardinal's hat offered to Arnauld. And yet, as we have seen, the book, with the exception of the dedication, was not the production of Arnauld, but of Nicole. The whole affair is an illustration of the little esteem in which Port Eoyal held the rights of authors. No Christian man, it was believed, would consider himself or his reputation in the matter, except to rejoice, if by any means he could be preserved from temptations of self-love. So Nicole insisted that the name of Arnauld, a priest and doctor of the Church, should appear upon the titlepage of " La grande Perpetuite ; " it was not fit that so great an undertaking should be supported by the authority of a layman like himself. And he considered it a fortunate thing, that both he and his friend were placed in a posi tion which rendered the vanity of authorcraft impossible. For praise and compliment passed by the true author of M 3 166 PORT ROYAL. the work, to offer themselves to one who could not accept them for himself. For some reason, now not easy to discover, Nicole seems to have been incapable of remaining long in one place, and soon left Haute Fontaine for Madame de Longueville's Hotel in Paris. Again, after a few months, he removed to the Abbey of St. Denys, where Cardinal de Eetz, the titular head of the foundation, permitted him to reside in the abbot's lodging. From St. Denys he went to Port Eoyal des Champs, whence we trace him, as he makes pilgrimages to the shrines of living and departed saints, to Angers, to Alet, to Annecy. These years, however, were far from being idle. The second and third volumes of the " Perpe tuite " were written ; the controversy with the Huguenot ministers carried on with unabated vigour ; and the first four volumes of the " Essais de Morale " written and pub lished. " Pierre Nicole," says Voltaire *, " was one of the best of the Port Eoyalist writers. What he wrote against the Jesuits is little read now-a-days ; but his ' Moral Essays,' which are useful to the human race, will never perish. Above all, the chapter on the means of preserving peace in society, is a masterpiece, unequalled in its kind, in ancient literature." So the reader of Madame de Sevigne will recollect many passages of the " Letters," in which she speaks almost with rapture of this once famous book. Let the following be a sample f : " I read M. Nicole with a pleasure that carries me away ; above all, I am charmed with the third treatise on the means of preserving peace among men ; read it, I pray you, with attention, and see how clearly he displays the human heart, and how every one recognises himself in it, — philosophers, and Jansenists, and Molinists,— in short, everybody. This is what I call search- * Siecle de Louis XIV., vol. i. p. 146. t To Mad. de Grignan, Sept. 30th, 1671. NICOLE. 167 ing the heart to the bottom with a lantern ; that is just what he does ; he reveals to us what we feel every day, and which we have not the wit to distinguish nor the sincerity to con fess ; in one word, I never saw such writing as that of these Messieurs." And more than one English critic, finding in Nicole's moral speculations a neutral ground between the two churches, has praised them with a hearty appreci ation, not too often manifested between Protestant and Catholic theologians. The " Moral Essays," as they now stand, occupy no fewer than fourteen volumes of Nicole's collected works. But three of the volumes, included under the general title, con sist of his life and letters ; while five others are made up of reflections upon the Gospels and Epistles prescribed by the Church for the Sundays and holidays of the year. Of the six remaining volumes, only four were published, at various intervals, during his life ; two others are a col lection of moral treatises on different subjects and occasions. This statement sufficiently indicates the somewhat hetero geneous character of tbe volumes which form the nucleus of the work. They are so far from containing a system of ethics, as to be absolutely without a plan. Circumstance, or the conversation of some friend, — often, we are told, the good physician Hamon, — excited in Nicole's mind a train of moral reflection, the result of which was an essay. The subjects are the moralist's common-places: self-know ledge ; human weakness ; rash judgments ; the fear of God ; true greatness ; and one among others, which sounds a little more piquant, on the means of profiting by bad sermons. They are treated from the theological and prac tical, rather than from the philosophical side ; with more solidity, good sense, discrimination, than point or eloquence. An able and sincere man cannot write on such topics with out «aying much that is worthy of remembrance and re flection ; and Nicole's style, like his thought, flows on in a M 4 168 PORT ROYAL. clear, strong, unruffled stream. But it is hard to understand Madame de Sevigne's raptures. To a modern" reader, much ofthe "Moral Essays " appears, it must be confessed, somewhat dull. The critic would pronounce them sound and good, rather than attractive. They are among those books which are always more praised than read. And the Augustinian theology, which of course forms the frame work of Nicole's speculations, never appears in a less lovely form than here. In Pascal, its horror is at least made grand by the fire and passion of his soul; the human nature which he displays to us is the nature of a fallen angel, and its misery has something of an epic dignity.1 But Nicole heaps image upon image, and exhausts all the resources of a cold fancy and, one almost suspects, of a not too warm heart, to express the mean wretchedness of man, and the eternal blackness of his fate. He makes us feel that Jansenism is endurable only when it is the religion of eager wills and tender hearts; that the single excuse for believing in the utter weakness and degradation of men, is the consciousness of a divine ardour to raise them above their woe. In 1677, Nicole, weary as he was of controversy, had the ill fortune unwittingly to renew the Jansenist debate. Two bishops, MM. d' Arras and de Saint Pons, complained to the new Pope, Innocent XL, of some recent decisions of the Casuists, which seemed to them injurious to the cause of morality ; and through the intervention of Madame de Longueville, borrowed Nicole's pure and forcible Latinity. The result was a royal intimation, transmitted through M. de Pomponne, to his uncle and Nicole, to the effect, that hitherto the King had been satisfied with their conduct; but that now complaints against them were frequent, and they were suspected of a desire to break the Peace of the Church. Nicole hastened to withdraw himself from Paris, and fixed himself at Beauvais, where the Bishop, NICOLE. 169 M. de Bu2anval, had some years before presented him to a small benefice. But fate had more than one blow in store for him. He had three homes which he might fairly call his own ; one at Paris in the Hotel de Longueville, one at St. Denys, and one at Beauvais. But in 1679 Madame de Longueville, M. de Eetz, and M. de Beauvais, died one after another ; the persecution of Port Eoyal re commenced; and Nicole thought fit to fly to Brussels, where he was soon after joined by Arnauld. Persecution seemed to have reknit the bond which had been loosened by prosperity, when Arnauld was invited by Van Neer- cassel, one of the founders of the Jansenist Church which still maintains so anomalous an existence in Holland, to take up his abode in that country. All at once Nicole hesitated. He was getting old, and no longer able to bear the laborious and clandestine life which he must lead with Arnauld ; he suffered from a chronic asthma, which the marshy air of Holland was likely to aggravate ; he was ready to abandon controversy for ever, if for the rest of his days he might be allowed to live in peace. So he wrote a letter to Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, in which he ex plained his conduct in the affair of the two bishops, and alleging the quiet course of his life during the past ten years, declared that his only desire was to think of his eternal welfare, and to spend his time in study and prayer. Wherever he was, he would take the utmost care to avoid everything that could make a noise, or give the Archbishop any trouble. This letter was written in July 1679 ; but it was not till May, 1683, that after much anxiety and change of residence, which to one of his studious life and peculiar temperament involved considerable hardship, Nicole was suffered to come to Paris. He soon found that in making peace with his enemies, he had run the risk of quarrelling with his friends. All the party of Port Eoyal had been so wont to see him act 170 PORT ROYAL. as the companion and secretary of Arnauld, that the inde pendent line of conduct which he now pursued appeared like treachery and ingratitude. Letter after letter poured in upon him, reproaching him because he was not as ready as ever to make himself a prisoner and an exile ; because he was weary of controversy, and longed for some quiet cell where he might immure himself with his books and be at peace. The trial was very hard to bear ; for he was sensitive to every breath of praise or blame that came to him from those whom he loved. He writes to his friend, Madame de St. Loup *: — - " Since all the world stones me, and you do not differ from others in this respect, it would perhaps be well, Madame, to know how large are the stones which you throw at me ; that I may judge whether it will be safe to approach you by a letter, and whether it may not draw down upon me some stone able to crush me at once ; for you know that I do not willingly expose myself to blows, and have never professed to be brave." And then he goes on to compare the stones which lie all about him, to insults which he cannot throw back again at those who have cast them, since arguments are the only weapons which he is able to wield. The remedy which he used to procure some relief at least from excitement, is characteristic of the veteran author, f " These letters having prevented me from sleep ing for nearly a fortnight, I had recourse to various remedies : I took emulsions, gruel, and at last opium more than once. All this having been without effect, I resolved to deliver myself from these thoughts by refuting all the arguments, pitiable as they seemed to me, which were alleged against me ; and I composed a paper which was entitled ' Apology, &c.' I do not know what effect this paper had upon four or five persons to whom I showed * Quoted by Ste Beuve, vol. iv. p. 369. t Goujet, Vie de Nicole, p. 298. NICOLE. 171 it ; but it certainly produced upon me the result which I intended, which was to restore my sleep to me, for it re established me in my ordinary state." To all his corre spondents, even to one who, writing from a comfortable abbey which he had managed to keep through all the Jansenist troubles, vehemently reproached him with his selfish love of peace and ease, he replied with unvarying good temper. Arnauld alone did not misunderstand him, but, at the moment when he most missed his friend's help and company, acknowledged his right to independence of action. He wrote to Nicole, in answer to a letter which he had received from him upon this subject*: — " I am obliged to you for having opened your heart to me. You could not do it to any one who has more sympathy with your troubles, and compassionates you more. And although I cannot always be of your opinion, I shall never pretend that you are obliged to be of mine, especially when the question is of entering upon engagements to which you may have too great a repugnance. I shall always be grateful for the help which you have afforded to me ; but this does not give me the right to ask you for fresh help ; and that God does not inspire into you the desire is enough to cause me to accept this privation as an order of His Providence." And then, after a calm discussion of the po licy of Nicole's letter to the Archbishop, he concluded: — "We may fall into disgrace with our Lord for having failed to turn to account a talent which He has given us. The talent which you have of writing in Latin is very rare, and one that may be used to the great advantage of the Church, especially in a Pontificate such as this. You bury it in the ground when you show so great an inclination to mix yourself up in nothing. Excuse my heat ; it is per- * Lettres d' Antoine Arnauld, vol. iii. p. 148. 172 PORT ROYAL. haps an ill-regulated zeal which makes me say all these things. It seems to me, nevertheless, that I have no other interest than that of God and the truth. Adieu, love me always, and be sure that I shall take no part in all the tittle-tattle of the world ; and on whatever side you range yourself, the little pain that it may give me will never prevent me from looking upon you as my friend for death and life, consoling myself for your absence, if in no other way, by the words of St. Augustine : ' Quamvis non videamus nos oculis carnis, animo tamen in fide Christi, in gratia Christi, in membris Christi tenemus, aruplectimur, osculamur.' " But to those who reproached Nicole, Arnauld would not allow that his friend was at all in the wrong. He wrote to M. de Pontchateau*: — " I learn by a letter from M. Nicole that his friends have allowed themselves to be terribly pre judiced against him on paltry grounds, and in regard to a matter in which he is entirely right Is it not use ful that he should be at peace in order that he may work for the Church ? Is he not always doing this in one way or another ? Is it not right that every one should act accor ding to his gifts ? Has he not rendered sufficiently great service to have earned our gratitude, and the right of not being treated as a slave, who is not at liberty to do as he pleases ? He has very, noble views, and of the last impor tance ; and instead of entering into them, and giving him the means of carrying them out, you wish that he should apply himself to things for which he has no inclination ; and because he does not do this, he is all but treated as a deserter. This has always appeared to me so unreasonable, that you must pardon me if I have not been able to restrain myself from opening all my heart to you upon this occasion." What better example of the magnanimity * Lettres d' Antoine Arnauld, vol. iii. p. 176. NICOLE. 173 of love ? The lonely exile, still fighting the almost hopeless battle of his truth and his party, with the infirmities of age quickly stealing upon him, sees the one companion upon whose help and society he had been wont to rely in former times of trouble, leave his side, to purchase rest by conces sions which his conscience will not permit him to share. Yet his voice almost alone repels the charge of cowardice and treachery which is hurled against his weaker friend, and at the same time assures him of unabated love and honour, absent or present, in life and in death. The period of rest which Nicole had so ardently desired lasted for twelve years. After one or two changes of resi dence, he fixed himself in some rooms which belonged to the convent known as that of La Creche, and had a direct communication with its chapel. There was space for his books, and for a picture or two, on which he set great store; . and the royal garden, in which he took his daily walk, was hard by. His manner of living was simple, yet not austere ; he had a country house to which he retired in the summer months ; and his friends, many of them among the most illustrious in the literary and theological circles of Paris, often filled his unpretending lodging. But rest with Nicole meant only freedom from anxiety, not abstinence from work. He wrote in these years two books of contro versy against the Protestants, which unhappily did not render unnecessary the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He assisted Arnauld in a metaphysical dispute with Male- branche ; and then astonished the world by entering on a lively debate with his old colleague on the much debated, never exhausted topic of grace. Nicole had long desired, like most thoughtful and fair theologians, to find some middle point of reconciliation between the conflicting theories of predestination and free will ; and now in his old age put forward a theory, of ' general grace,' which, while abandoning no Augustinian position, might also be accept- 174 PORT ROYAL. able to Catholic, who were not Jansenist theologians. The attempt succeeded as ill as might be expected ; the contro versy passed away with as little fruit as many more which preceded and have followed it ; and is noticeable here, only as showing that controversy, even on so exciting a topic, could be conducted with Christian candour and equa bility of temper. Nicole's relations with Port Eoyal des Champs, though not intimate, were never wholly inter mitted. Perhaps there was something of timidity on one side, of distrust on the other. Yet he busied himself in editing the devotional works of Hamon, the physician of Port Eoyal, and prefixed an introduction to a memoir of his aunt, La Mere Marie des Anges, which had been prepared by a sister of the house. One would think that towards the end he must have felt somewhat lonely. He was among the youngest of his generation, and as they passed away one by one before him, may have been conscious of a secret separation of spirit which would add a fresh sadness to the sense of loss. In 1692, he writes to Arnauld, on occasion of the death of his brother, the Bishop of Angers*, " It seems to me as if I had been born in a church lighted by various lamps and torches ; and that God suffers me to see them extinguished one after another, without the appear ance of any new ones in their place. And thus the air seems to grow darker and darker, because we do not deserve that God should fill up the void which He Him self makes in His Church." Then, in 1694, Antoine Arnauld died ; and in the next year Nicole,— last of the Eomans, as his constant admirer, Madame de Sevigne, i wrote of him, — followed in his seventieth year. His dying wish was that his heart should be taken to Port Eoyal des Champs, and there buried with that of his never estranged friend. ¦&v * Nouvelles Lettres, part ii. p. 227. NICOLE. 175 Nicole was not a Port Eoyalist of the purest blood. He had never known St. Cyran ; indeed, his first theological performance had been a polemic against St. Cyran's nephew and successor, De Barcos. Although his aunt had been Abbess of Port Eoyal, and he had himself lived for some time at Les Granges, he nowhere appears as the close friend of the community. He had little of the spirit of party in his composition ; and, but for the early bias given to his thoughts by Arnauld, might have employed his learning and ability for the general interests of Catho licism. He was the uniform advocate of moderation and concession. Except in the case of the " Provincial Letters," where the cause of Christian morality was concerned, he was adverse to any course that may appear violent and ex treme. So, alone among the friends of Port Eoyal, he speaks slightingly of Pascal's " Thoughts : " of him alone the biographers have no stories of austerity to record. Moderation of thought, word, and life was the ideal at which he aimed. Many little traits of character and conduct remain to confirm this estimate. He was timid, sensitive, absent ; would not go out in the wind lest the tiles should fall upon his head ; dared not venture into a boat without a swimming-belt ; was found standing at a clear crossing in the street, quietly waiting for the passage of some carts which had gone their way long before. He exaggerated in fancy the perils of his intercourse with Ar nauld, and surrounded himself with a useless apparatus of precaution. When they lived with Madame de Longue ville and passed several hours daily in her company, the great lady found Nicole the more gentle and pleasant of the two ; he took more pains to amuse her than his sterner and more masculine friend, and had more talk fit for the ear of a princess. Yet he was one of those men whose mind cannot work with full energy, except with help of pen and paper ; he was often overpowered in conversation by 176 PORT ROYAL. those whom he felt to be weaker than himself in argument ; and of a certain nameless doctor, was wont to say, " He beats me in my chamber, but I have refuted him before he has got to the bottom of the stains." Arnauld made Nicole controversialist and Augustmian ; left to himself, ' he concluded a peace with the court, and produced a theory of grace, which was certainly not Jansenist. Had circumstance thrown him into a Benedictine monastery, he might have emulated the peaceful industry of Mabillon;3 and spent the long years of a life, which must always have been simple, sweet, and innocent, in heaping up volumes of ecclesiastical lore, ignorant of all disputes but those which agitated the little world of his convent.* A list of those who were educated in the schools of Port Eoyal would convey little information to English readers. The new methods of education were applied on too small a scale and for too short a time to produce any very startling result. Yet such a list would include the names of nearly all the younger Arnaulds ; of the three brothers Du Fosse; i of the two sons of Bignon, Avocat General, one of whom succeeded to his father's office, and the other obtained high ; legal preferment ; of M. de Harlay, the French Plenipb- ' tentiary at the Peace of Eyswick ; ofthe Due de Chevreuse, whose name has been already mentioned in connection with that of his tutor, Lancelot ; of the nephews of Pascal; , and of many more worthy scions of Parliamentary families;! who in the latter years of the century preserved the memory of their place of education by the grave and austere spirit of their life and magistracy. It is curious to note among these the name of a younger son of the noble Scotch house of Lennox, who, adopting his French patro- * For the events of Nicole's Life I am chiefly indebted to the Abbe Gon- jet, "Vie de Nicole; " which forms the fourteenth volume of his moral works. But I must also refer to M. Ste Beuve's elaborate sketch, Port Royal, vol iv. p. 302, et seq. TILLEMONT. 177 nymic of D'Aubigny, entered the Church, became Canon of Notre Dame, Almoner of Charles II.'s Portuguese Queen, and died in 1665, a few hours before the arrival of a courier from Eome, who was bringing him a Cardinal's hat. A still more singular name is that of Charles II.'s ivnfortunate son, the Duke of Monmouth, who, in the time of his father's exile, was sent with his tutor to pass a couple of years (1658 — 60) at the house of M. de Bernieres at Chenai.* But the two pupils of whom Port Eoyal is justly proud are Eacine and Tillemont. The former will ask at our hands a separate and more elaborate treatment ; and was besides, Port Eoyalist only in youth and old age, not in the hopes and strivings of manly life. His dramatic success was an offence in the eyes of his old teachers, and at one time brought him into open conflict with them ; the contemporary memoirs hardly mention his name ; and not till the second generation do the Jansenists seek to attract to themselves a glory reflected from his. But Tillemont is, from birth to death, the consummate example of the training of Port Eoyal. He never abandons the attitude of a pupil. When at the age of sixty his last illness begins to steal upon him, he will not go to Paris for medical advice till he has obtained the sanction of his aged teacher, M. de Beaupuis. He died a few days before his father, and was conscious of a humble exultation in the thought that he had never disobeyed him. In his will, he speaks of the holy education which God had pro vided for him at Port Eoyal, — "for which 1 bless Him with my whole heart, and for which I hope, through His mercy, that I shall bless Him throughout all eternity." His epitaph takes up the thought and declares of him that "sancte educatus, sancte vixit." But in no respect is Tillemont more characteristically the true child of Port * Besoigne, vol. iv. p. 415, et seq. Ste Be'uve, vol. iii. pp. 488, 489. ;* VOL. II. N 178 PORT ROYAL. Eoyal than in the pious monotony, the austere obscurity of his life. A few words will exhaust all we have to tell of one, whose name the Church will not willingly let die.* Sebastien le Nain de Tillemont, the son of Jean le Nain, Maitre des Eequetes, and of Dame Marie le Eagois, was born at Paris, November 30th, 1637. His father was an old friend of Port Eoyal, and when, in the second war of the Fronde, the nuns were compelled to leave the Fauxbourg to seek refuge in the heart of the city, M. le, Nain with M. de Bernieres marched at their head.f The future historian, when between nine and ten years of age, was sent to the schools of Port Eoyal, which were then just established in the Eue St. Dominique. The child was father of the man. He showed at this early period ': not only the same character, but the same tastes as in after life. Livy was his favourite author ; and it is recorded of him that he rarely laid the volume down till he had read an entire book. He passed through the course of classical instruction usual in the schools, and long before the publi cation of the "Art de Penser," was instructed in logic by its authors. The Annals of Baronius engaged his attention'] while he was still quite a boy, and gave occasion to innu merable questions, which he carried to Nicole. The latter, who was no mean proficient in ecclesiastical history, at first easily satisfied the applicant with an extemporaneous reply; but by and by, the difficulties proposed by the pupil became less easy of solution, and the master ingenuously confesses that he trembled at his approach. But before long, Tillemont became dissatisfied with any ecclesiastical a history at second hand. At eighteen he began to study the Scriptures and the Fathers for himself, and arranged all the * I have taken the facts of Tillemont's Life, when no other reference is given, from "La Vie et l'Esprit de M. le Nain de Tillemont " (1713), by his secretaiy, M. Tronchai. t Vol. i. p. 226. TILLEMONT. 179 facts which he found there according to the plan of Usher's Annals, a book which he had read with much pleasure. When, in 1656, the schools at Port Eoyal des Champs were broken up, Tillemont, with his friend Du Fosse and a good priest, in whose charge they were placed, retired to Paris, and, in a little house in the Eue des Postes, spent some four years in hard study. About Lent, 1660, the two friends removed to Les Troux, now empty by the death of M. de Bagnols and the final dispersion of the schools, in order that they might especially apply them selves to Church history, under the supervision of the learned curate of the parish, M. Burlugai.* But before long, Tillemont found it expedient to seek a refuge in the universal asylum of the Jansenists, the diocese of BefOais, where the Bishop received him with open arms. Here he spent eight or nine years in quiet study, part of the time in the seminary, part in the house of M. Hermant. Already he was beginning to be regarded as one who posr sessed more than a common knowledge of the first ages of the Church ; and his modesty was sorely wounded by the deference paid to his opinion by his superiors in age and ecclesiastical rank. At last, when M. de Beauvais, after having induced him to receive the tonsure, informed him that his greatest earthly consolation would be the hope of having him as the successor to his see, the modest student fairly fled, and with his father's permission once more took up his abode with Du Fosse in Paris.f But life in Paris appeared too full of distractions to a student who divided all his time between his books and his devotions, and after two years he retired to St. Lambert, a village between Chevreuse and Port Eoyal. The Peace of the Church was yet fresh, and De Sapi lived undisturbed with his friends and the community of which he Was the * Du Fosse, pp. 131, 170. t Conf. Du Fosse, p. 321. N 2 180 PORT ROYAL. head, in the old home in the valley. Hence he cast his eyes upon Tillemont, over whose conduct he had long had entire control, and whom he now resolved to train as his suc cessor in the direction ofthe monastery. Year by year he led him up the many steps which conduct to the Eoman Catholic priesthood, till finally, in 1676, Tillemont, now forty years: of age, was ordained. His next act was to build for him- self a modest dwelling in the court-yard of Port Eoyal des Champs, where it was his hope and purpose to end his days. But in 1679, before he had occupied his new home,, for two entire years, the second persecution began ; De Sapi took up his abode at Pomponne, and Tillemont retired to the estate, about a league from Vincennes, from which he derived his name. Here the rest of his uneventful life was passed. Once he made a journey into Holland to visit Arnauld and the Dutch Jansenists. Once he was tempted to enter the active life of the Church, and accepted the curacy of St. Lambert, the village near Port Eoyal, where he had formerly lived. But this was the single occasion of his life in which he acted without asking his father's advice;! and on hearing that M. le Nain disapproved of the scheme, he at once gave it up. Till his death in 1698, his life is one noiseless round of study and of prayer. In the words j •of his epitaph, — "a puero ad finem vitse, unus semper ac sibi constans, quotidie repetiit quod quotidie fecit." Tillemont laid it down as a fundamental maxim for the regulation of conduct, that the inconstancy of man couldj only be corrected by rigid adherence to a predetermined course and the formation of fixed habits. On this he modelled his own life. He rose every morning at half- past four ; in Lent at four. He considered that his health| and the work on which he was engaged, exempted him ' from the obligation to rise in the middle of the night to say j matins. Throughout the day he was exact in reciting all ; the offices of the ritual, either in his own house or in the ; TILLEMONT. 181 parish church. He dined at noon, supped at seven, and retired to rest at half-past nine. After dinner he allowed himself two hours' relaxation, which he usually spent in walking ; all the rest, of the day, not thus accounted for, was devoted to his books. Even as he walked he was wont to pray and to sing psalms, and often joined in the simple processions of the village. He took great pleasure in church music, and sometimes attempted composition. In accordance with what he believed to be the practice of the primitive Church, he made pilgrimages to distant shrines, and always performed these journeys on foot, staff in hand, like a simple country priest. His conversation was grave and yet cheerful ; he rarely spoke unless first addressed, and loved to turn the discourse to subjects of edification. He made no display of erudition in his talk ; it was necessary to question him to find out that he was more learned than other men. Towards his inferiors in age or station he was always gentle and considerate ; him self a child in spirit, his love of children was deep and tender. He would even have them present at public worship. " Their cries," he said, " are their prayers, and prayers to which God is not deaf." "They were the holiest part of the Church, and their presence would help to render its intercessions effectual." He liked to talk with the peasants and wayfarers whom he met on his journeys, and to leave with them some precious truth enshrined in an apt, but homely similitude. Of his servants he had an especial care, and occupied some minutes daily in their religious instruction. " They are as noble as we," he was wont to say, " and man owes to man no more than friend ship." His charity was great. As soon as he had received his quarter's income, he laid aside a portion for the poor, which he entrusted for distribution to the Cure of the parish; and had besides many pensioners of his own to whom he made a monthly allowance. His biographer » 3 182 PORT ROYAL. records many ingenious methods which he used to stir up others to a similar liberality of almsgiving. His whole life was one effort of self-control, and his habits were very simple and frugal ; but we do not read of any fasts or austerities which, measured by the standard of his own Church, could justly be called excessive. He writes to his brother, who was Sub-prior of La Trappe,—" Everybody is not obliged to fast as you do at La Trappe, but every-1 body is obliged to resist the desires of concupiscence, which pride and the remains of our corruption constantly excite in us, and to expiate the sins into which we thus fall." The finer shades of such a character as Tillemont''' could be appreciated only by one who lived with him and watched its slow development from day to day. Even so grave and monotonous a thing as Jansenist holiness differs from man to man ; and the characteristic variations which are too slight to be embodied in their uneventful lives, or to be preserved upon the printed page, would be plain to the keen insight of love. Perhaps we shall not be wrong1 j in fixing upon a very genuine humility, a shrinking modesty, a prompt self-distrust, as the quahties which form the keynote of Tillemont's character. His great work never began to appear till within a few years of his death, and was for the most part posthumously published. But long before this he had been labouring for others, and had been content to see the fruits of his erudition enrich the works of his friends. While he was at Beauvais, M. Hermant published lives of four Greek fathers, to which Tillemont largely contributed. He helped Du Fosse in the lives of Tertullian and of Origen, which were a prelude to his greater work on the lives of the Saints. When De Sapi undertook to write the "History of St. Louis," it was Tillemont who patiently accumulated the vast heap of materials necessary to the accomplishment of TILLEMONT. 183 the design ; materials which he willingly transferred to La Chaise when De Saci gave up the task. Even in regard to the book, which had been the labour of his life, he was equally self-denying. Some of his friends found fault with his plan. He could not, he said, conscientiously adopt any other, but he was willing to abandon the design altogether, and to place his collections at the' disposal of any competent scholar. He hid himself from success, and would not read, even at his father's request, the favourable review of the first volume, which appeared in the "Journal des Savants." Nothing was so painful to him as a compli ment; the only praise which he valued was the assurance that his book was not without a power of practical edifica tion. He was humble to a fault in the reception of criticisms and corrections, and met the jealousies and as perities of rival scholars with anxious gentleness and self- forgetfulness. All the while he was not sure whether the edifice of learning which he was erecting for the Church, might not be an occasion of temptation to the architect. He was afraid that he took too much pleasure in his quiet and laborious life. He found it hard to quit his books even to go to prayer. He writes to De Eance,the celebrated founder and Abbot of La Trappp * : " We love our work, and love it the more the greater it is, and the more it is of God. And we willingly believe too, that everything that can further our work is innocent, holy, and of God's ordaining, — vce praignantibus et nutrientibus. Although my work compared with La Trappe is nothing, I yet feel how much I have to dread this woe, both in its production and in all its results. I find examples of this even among the saints. Forgive me, father, if I fear for you also, since the greatest saints are also men so long as they live in this place of trial." Among his meditations, too, we find the * Quoted by Reuchlin, Port Royal, vol. ii. p. 427, N 4 184 PORT ROYAL. following*: "May I then occupy myself in my work with' humility, or rather with confusion, as in a penance which I have deserved. If I discover anything, may I believe that I have received it from Thee ; and may I not believe that I have received any great thing so long as I am not possessed of Thee, Thou Source of all truth ! In beholding what Thy saints have done, have spoken, have suffered, may I gratefully and yet fearfully consider that this is a talent which Thou hast placed in my hands, that I may turn it to good account ; and with this intent may I strive to obtain from Thee that which Thou didst give to them, or at least may I be confounded at the sight of my own weakness, which is so disproportioned to the teaching of Thy saints. If in this way only I applied myself to study, it would not puff up my spirit, it would not dry up my heart ; I should be always disposed to leave it for reading yet more holy, and to present myself before Thee in prayer ; I should not, little by little, and under various pretexts, extend the period of study to diminish the time due to other employments. If I laboured only to fill the place where Thou settest me, I should not be grieved when Thou changest that place by the different circumstances which Thou causest to arise." Tillemont's " Ecclesiastical History " at present consists of two great but unequal portions: the "Histoire des Empereurs, et des autres Princes qui ont regn6 durant les six premiers Siecles de l'Eglise," in six, and the " Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire Ecclesiastique des six premiers Siecles," in sixteen volumes. This division of what is pro perly one work into a sacred and a secular history, was not a part of the author's plan. When the book in its original shape was sufficiently advanced, the first volume was put into the hands of a regularly appointed censor. He differed * Reflexions Chretiennes sur divers Sujets de Morale, p. 20. TILLEMONT. 185 from the author on several weighty points. Tillemont had ventured to assert that there was no evidence to prove the presence of ox or ass at the Saviour's birth ; that the Magi did not arrive till after the purification ; that Mary the wife of Cleophas might possibly be the sister of the Virgin ; and the censor's zeal for historical truth would not permit him to sanction such misstatements. Tillemont, on the other hand, with a due sense of the dignity of his calling, refused to give way ; and the publication would have been indefi nitely postponed, had not some one hit upon the idea of publishing the secular history, which did not need the super vision of a censor, by itself. The success of this paved the way for the appearance of the " Ecclesiastical History," properly so called ; a new and more accommodating censor was ap pointed, and the work was published in the shape which the author had given it. The first volume of the " History of the Emperors " appeared in 1690, and was followed, during the author's lifetime, by three others ; the fifth was issued in 1701, the sixth not till 1738. The "Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire ecclesiastique," were published at inter vals from 1693 to 1712; but of the sixteen volumes, only four appeared during the author's lifetime. The rest were edited by his faithful secretary and biographer, Tronchai. Du Fosse* aptly describes Tillemont's design in these words : " wishing to give to the Church the original title- deeds of its history, he has taken care never to confound what he himself says with what is said by ancient authors." The work corresponds indeed to its modest title ; it is a vast collection of materials for the history of the Church, brought together by unwearied industry, and displayed with unfailing honesty. Tillemont's criticism is that of his age and Church; his style is the clear, concise, but unadorned and monotonous style of Port Eoyal ; he does * Memoires, p. 502. 186 PORT ROYAL. not even attempt to unite his materials into a whole, and to describe the progress of the Church in a single stream of narrative as majestic as itself; still less does he aim at any philosophical breadth of view, which might comprise all the moral of his subject in one grand generalisation, But to read him is, according to those who have the best right to give an opinion, almost like reading the wide literature from which he draws his stores of fact; he " nothing extenuates or sets down aught in malice," whether it make for or against his Church. For some parts of the Augustan history, Gibbon thinks the study of Tillemont ' preferable to that of the original documents.* These ' compilations, he says in another place, spare him a too long and ungrateful search across the ocean of theological j controversy, for they may "alone be considered as an immense repertory of truth and fable, of almost all that the Fathers have preserved, or invented, or believed."! . And once more "f : " I applied the collections of Tillemont, ; whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of ' genius, to fix and arrange within my reach the loose and scattered atoms of historical information." Many more 1 such testimonies might be quoted, but they only repeat I the praise of Gibbon, and cannot increase or diminish its value. It is pleasant to note how the book and its author correspond ; how a modest and incorruptible truthfulness -: is characteristic of both. Tillemont was in his sixty-first year when he died at Paris on the 10th of January, 1698. His father, who had reached a patriarchal age, survived him but a few days; Du Fosse, his schoolfellow and friend, died within the year. He desired to be buried at Port Eoyal des Champs, by the side of the eldest son of M. de Bernieres, who had been * Misc. Works, ed. Sheffield, vol. v. p. 266. f Ibid. vol. iv. p. 591. I Ibid. vol. i. p. 213. TILLEMONT. 187* his youthful companion. But the nuns esteemed the remains so confided to them too precious to be deposited in the place thus poiuted out, and prepared a grave within the cloister on the left side of the choir. Thither, on the third day after his death, the body of Tillemont was sorrowfully borne ; and on the morrow, clad in all priestly vestments and holding a crucifix in the dead hands, was reverently committed to the earth.* His life had been very still; listen to the words in whicli he anticipates a rapturous silence as the true bliss of Heaven t: "If this inner piety which is peculiar to the Christian religion could be perfect in this life, it might perhaps produce a worship and an adoration wholly inward and spiritual like that of the angels. But that which it cannot do now, it will one day do in Heaven, where the saints will ceaselessly adore and praise God in divine songs which love will form in their hearts, with no interruption by a tumult of voices and transitory corporeal sounds, since there will be nothing there but what is immutable and eternal. " There, being filled with God Himself and enjoying His truth by a contemplation full of light and warmth, we shall sing His praises, not in syllables which pass away before they are heard, and words as imperfect as the faith which produces them is obscure, but in a silence worthy of His greatness. All the passions which now tear us in pieces by so many different desires, all the various created objects which give us so many distractions in prayer, so many imaginations and thoughts, caused by the mobility and lightness of our spirits, all this will be silent then. Nothing will interrupt our silence ; and our soul, all at one with itself, or rather with God, by a happiness which is the opposite of that outer darkness with which Jesus Christ * Du Fosse, p. 500. Fontaine, vol. iv. p. 402. f Reflexions Chretiennes, p. 182. 188 PORT ROYAL. threatens his enemies, will see only God, will hear only God, will enjoy only God, in short, will love only God. This is the happiness which God promises to us. This is the secrecy and silence towards which faith causes the soul which it animates to aspire : and which it enables it, as it were, to anticipate by continual groanings of heart. " Give us, 0 God, this inner piety which will produce in us both prayer and all other outward actions of virtue, and which will end in that eternal praise which our hearts will render to Thee in Heaven, amid the silence of all created things." 189 III. THE FOUR BISHOPS. We have already had sufficient opportunity of determining the relation of the Jansenism of Port Eoyal to the theory and practice of the monastic life ; it may not be so easy to define the method in which it would deal with the diffi culties of those who were unwilling to forsake the world, and yet anxious to do their duty in it. The Jansenist is, in this respect, the most logical form of the Catholic doctrine. There is no certain way of conquering life's temptations ; the Christian's only resource is to fly from them. The monastic is the ideal form of the Christian life ; the human race would expire in the act of consum mating its own perfectness. Perhaps the severest fanatic of modern times has never kept steadily before his eyes all the necessary consequences of his theory ; and Eoman Catholicism, at least, has always been sufficiently indulgent to the worldly propensities of its disciples. Port Eoyal is no exception to the general failure in consistency, and so to the last numbered as many friends without as within the cloister. But it never ceases to hold up the superiority of the solitary life, to bewail the hard fate of those whom imperative duty detained amid the distractions of the world, and to inculcate the necessity of periodical retreat and self-examination on the part of those who would make their peace with God. We can nowhere trace the exist ence of a theory of the secular life, which, by help of earthly work and love, should keep an uninterrupted inter course with Heaven. Port Eoyal is content to leave in the 190 PORT ROYAL. world only those whom it cannot win for the cloister ; and these, on the single condition, that the home shall as much as possible resemble the cell. It is a necessary consequence of the troubles and con troversies of the party, that the types of character which have hitherto presented themselves to our view have a certain monotony of colour, which only the vividness of spiritual life preserves from being sectarian. St. Cyran, Arnauld, Singlin, Nicole, De Saci, even to some extent, Pascal, are engaged in the same debates, perform the same work, struggle with the same difficulties ; work and diffi culties being other than they might have been, had Jan senism not been treated as an incipient heresy, and Port Eoyal as a nursery of schism. This similarity of purpose, and effort, and character, which partly grew up from within, and was partly forced upon the Jansenists from without, explains, if it does not justify, the constant accusation of their enemies, that they formed a party in the bosom of a Church whose theory does not admit the existence of parties. Nor can we escape, so long as we remain within the circle of our subject, from the prevalence of the Port Eoyalist type. It moulds, with more or less completeness and consistency, the characters of all who acknowledged the personal influence of the long line of confessors of the community. But to complete our knowledge of it, we must watch it upon the field (by us hitherto unsurveyed) of ecclesiastical duty; and in the lives of the Four Bishops note how Port Eoyal would have governed the Church. X The prelates, who, at the most critical moment of the struggle, interposed to shield Port Eoyal from the united violence of King and Pope, were Nicolas Choart de Bu- zanval, Bishop of Beauvais ; Henri Arnauld, Bishop of Angers ; Etienne Francois de Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers ; and Nicolas Pavilion, Bishop of Alet. That their firm THE BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS. 19i3 resistance succeeded at last in procuring the Peace of the Church, may be partly due to the known sympathy of many more of their episcopal brethren, partly to the cha racter of the new Pope, Clement IX., but in a still greater degree, to their own exemplary virtues. Public opinion, which is slow to distinguish between minute differences of doctrine, quickly notes contrasts of conduct ; and in days when princes of the Church emulated the princes of the world in dissoluteness, it weighed much in favour of Port Eoyal that every bishop who was suspected of Jansenist leanings was pious, self-denying, poor, a haunter of his diocese, an encourager of sound learning, a relentless foe to ecclesiastical abuse. The difficulty of my subject is, that in the memoirs which remain, I can hardly trace the features of four individual men. In the words of an author from whom the facts of my story are chiefly taken*, " I must warn my readers of a kind of monotony of very similar things which they will find in the lives of these four great Bishops ; it will always be a penitent life, zeal for the salvation of souls, good government of the diocese, charity towards the poor, love of simplicity, poverty, fru gality ; synods, episcopal visitations, missions, and so forth. If some readers apprehend weariness of this uniformity of virtues and good works, they may be reassured beforehand by the thought that the historical events which compose the mass of these lives form a variety which leaves no room for weariness, and that if there is a repetition of virtues, there will be none of the facts which prove them." Nicolas Choart de Buzanval, the son of Theodore Choart and Madeleine Potier, was born at Paris, July 25th, 1611. His family on both sides, had held high offices in * Vies des Quatre Evesques, engages dans la cause de Port Royal : pour servir de Supplement a l'Histoire de P. R. en six volumes (par Besoigne). 2 vols. 1756. Preface, p. 3. j '19-2 PORT ROYAL. Church and State ; two of his maternal uncles preceded him in his see. He lost his father when he was fifteen years of age, and his education was chiefly directed by his uncle, Augustin Potier, Bishop of Beauvais. His elder brother had chosen the profession of arms ; the younger ; had to make his election between the law and the Church, and decided in favour of the former. At the age of twenty, he became Counsellor of the Parliament of Brittany, but , not being old enough to practise, went to Italy in the suite of the Marechal de Crequi, Ambassador of France at the .Holy See. Here he remained some time ; then on his return applied himself diligently to his profession, in which he gave fair promise of excellence. After awhile a brilliant prospect of political advancement seemed to open before him. When, in 1643, Louis XIII. died, his uncle, the Bishop of Beauvais, was Almoner and Confessor of the Queen. Eichelieu had preceded his master by a few months,, and the question of all-absorbing interest about the court was, who was to play the part of Eichelieu during a long minority and with a female regent. The Bishop, who, if we may trust De Eetz*, had a better heart than head, entered upon the struggle for power; the Queen made use of his influence with the Parliament to procure the recognition by that body of her sole regency ; and perhaps promised him, certainly gave him reason to hope for, the succession to Eichelieu's ministry and Cardinal's hat. In the meantime the other ministers, eager to pay court to the rising star, nominated Nicolas Choart Ambassador to Sweden, and everything was prepared for his journey when the bubble broke. Mazarin had already established that personal supremacy over the Queen's mind which after wards gave rise to so many scandalous stories ; the Bishop of Beauvais was banished to his diocese, and the ambas- * Memoires, p. 37. - THE BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS. 193 sador expectant sent back to the dull routine of legal practice. Augustin Potier retired to Beauvais a wiser, if a disap pointed man, for the last seven years of his life were spent in the diligent discharge of his episcopal duties. Yet a taint of the court lingered about him still. He conceived the idea of resigning his bishopric, which was not only very wealthy, but carried with it the dignity of a peer, in favour of the nephew whose political advancement he had failed to secure. Our biographers tell us that Nicolas Choart had already given up the law ; but it is permitted us to infer that he had not taken this step without an eye to possible promotion in the Church. The family job was cleverly and successfully effected. The President De Novion, was also a nephew pf the Bishop of Beauvais ; and as it was now the period of the Fronde, when it was im portant to the Queen to conciliate the Parliament, agreed to use his influence in behalf of his cousin on condition that a pension of 12,000 livres, in favour of his own son, should be charged on the revenue of the see. Nicolas Choart was ordained priest at the right moment ; his uncle resigned the mitre; and a royal decree made the new ecclesiastic, now forty years of age, Bishop of Beauvais, Congratulations flowed in upon him from all sides, and not least from the chapter of his cathedral. But the represent tatives of that body, two grave and reverend dignitaries, seeing that their new bishop bore his episcopal responsi bility very lightly, ventured to remind him of what he had undertaken, and to recommend his perusal not only of the Scriptures, but of works of St. Chrysostom and St. Gregory upon the priesthood. He had the good sense and good feeling to act upon their advice, and soon grew uneasy at what he had done. The simoniacal arrangement made by his cousin, which he now learned for the first time, sharpened the stings of his conscience, and for a while his vol. n. o 194 PORT ROYAL. fixed resolve was to resign his ill-gotten dignity, and to devote himself to the service of the Church as a simple priest. At length the advice of those to whom he referred his difficulties, prevailed with him to give up this intention, and he was consecrated on the 8th of January, 1651. But no consciousness of the faithful discharge of duty ever obliterated from his mind the feeling of shame at the manner of his first entrance upon it; and, but for the Bishop of Alet, he would some years before his death have abandoned his diocese and retired to the Chartreuse. The life of the Bishop of Alet will afford the best opportunity of entering upon the details of episcopal ad ministration, which, under different modifications, charac terised every diocese fortunate enough to be governed by a Jansenist prelate. In the case of the other three bishops, it will be necessary to select only those marked peculiarities which were produced either by the circumstances of the case, or the bent of their own disposition. Like his brethren in the resistance to the Formulary, M. de Beau vais was ascetic, prayerful, charitable, rarely left his diocese, and exercised a vigilant personal superintendence upon every part of it. But he was specially distinguished by the pains which he took in the education of the priests, whom he afterwards instituted to the parishes under his care. He gradually introduced into the College of Beauvais learned and pious teachers, under whose management it became so flourishing as to attract scholars from all the surrounding country, and even from Paris. From it the aspirants after ecclesiastical position passed into the Seminary, an institution founded by Augustin Potier, but enlarged and first firmly established by his nephew, for theological studies alone. The students, who entered at the age of twenty-one, passed three years in preparation for the priesthood. Of these the first was a year of probation, and the course was indefinitely lengthened whenever it SEMINARY OF BEAUVAIS. 195 seemed desirable. All the scholars, who generally num bered forty, were lodged, fed, and taught at the Bishop's expense. As much pains was taken to form the habits and the character as to instruct the mind; the day from a quarter past four a.m. to bedtime, was an almost uninter rupted round of study and of prayer. The subtleties of scholastic theology were neglected in favour of those great truths and principles which ought to form the staple of a parish priest's teaching ; and the students were especially encouraged to read the Scriptures and the Fathers. To pass through the seminary was the only way to ordination in the diocese of Beauvais ; the Bishop neither accepted nor refused candidates for the priesthood, except in concert with the superiors. At the same time he was personally acquainted with the students, almost lived at the semi nary, and himself conducted all the examinations. He was conscientiously strict in his institution to parochial charges ; and if he were asked for a benefice, looked upon the request as reason enough why it should be refused. His liberality and tenderness to the young priests whom he had educated were those of a father, and they, on their part, cheerfully submitted themselves to his will. It was in part owing to the seminary, that when the troubles of Port Eoyal began, the diocese of Beauvais was a refuge for the Jansenists. I do not find recorded the way in which the Bishop first became connected with the unpopular party; but we have already seen* that in 1664, two of his near relatives were nuns in Port Eoyal de Paris. Almost at the commencement of his episcopate, he had maintained his Jansenist convictions under very difficult circumstances. His chapter had ventured, in 1653, to publish the bull of Innocent X., with a mandement opposed to that which he had drawn up in somewhat cautious terms ; * Vol. i. p. 391. o 2 196 PORT ROYAL. and a controversy arose, between the majority of the canons on the one side, and the Bishop with a faithful minority on the other, which dragged on its weary length till the Peace of the Church in 1668. Throughout the whole of this period, the Bishop maintained his ground against treason within, and royal and papal menaces without; and afforded an asylum beneath the walls of his cathedral to more than one persecuted Jansenist. The first superior of his seminary was Nicolas l'Eveque, one of the priests who, upon his nomination, had so faithfully reminded him of his episcopal responsibility ; the second was M. Walon de Beaupuis, who continued at Beauvais the work which he had begun in the schools of Port Eoyal. MM. Hasle and Hermant, well known in their day as Jansenist doctors^! were teachers 'of theology ; and Tillemont was at one time an inmate of the seminary, and, in the Bishop's own hopes at least, the destined successor to his see. But the Bishop of Beauvais was also Count of Beauvais, ' Peer of France, and a great territorial lord, with an exten sive secular jurisdiction. His manner of life was neverthe- i less the simplest possible ; and the vast unfurnished halls of his palace proved that the abundant income of the see was not spent to procure ease and luxury for the Bishop. The amount which he set apart every year for fixed objects "' of benevolence was almost incredibly large; a great hospital|| for the aged and sick poor, as well as for orphans, owed its origin and chief support to his liberality ; and in the famine of 1662, he would have sold his plate to supply the wants of the distressed, had not the city refused to permit the sacrifice, and offered to raise the requisite funds. In the management of the episcopal estates, he was gently and forbearing ; and it is recorded as an example of rare kind- | ness, that he permitted his farmers to keep the game within due limits. Before his time, the magistracies of the county had been put up to sale by the Bishop, as supreme THE BISHOP OF ANGERS. 197 lord ; M. de Buzanval professed himself willing even to buy upright judges, if they could be had, and abolished an abuse which was destined to keep its hold on the nation at large for a century more. He made it a matter of con science to be accessible to every man, and to hear in person the complaints of his vassals and fellow-citizens ; while his dignified courtesy won from the nobility of the province a respect, which his other virtues might have failed to secure. He added to the character of the Faithful Bishop that of the Christian Gentleman. When in 1679, he died, aged sixty-nine, he had almost completed the twenty-eighth year of his episcopate. j / The Bishop of Angers claims our especial interest as an Arnauld: Henri, the second son, and sixth (child of Antoine Arnauld and Catharine Marion. He wais born in 1597, and was destined to succeed to his father'^ practice at the bar ; though long afterwards, when he had distinguished himself in the 'service of the Church, it was remembered that Francis de Sales had predicted this great change in his life.* We are not informed of the circumstances which led M. de Trie — as at this period of his life Henri Arnauld was called — to abandon the practice of the law, on which he seems to have entered, or of the preparation which he made for entry into the Church. When M. Arnauld the elder died, the great families for whom he had acted as agent offered to continue their connection with his son ; but the offer was firmly dechned by D'Andilly on his brother's behalf. Still we hear nothing of any such ardour in the cause of truth and piety as distinguished the entrance of Antoine Arnauld into the priesthood. The time of worldliness for /the Arnaulds is not yet quite passed; and Henri Arhauld, instead of seeking some village cure, or drawing eager crowds round a metropolitan * Mem, pour servir. vol. i. p. 152. / O 3 198 PORT ROYAL. pulpit, sets out in 1620 in the train of the returning nuncio, Cardinal Bentivoglio, for Eome. There he lived for five years in the Cardinal's house, exciting high ex pectations of the part which he was afterwards likely to play, as an ecclesiastical diplomatist and minister. Although called the Abbe Arnauld, he does not seem to have taken orders till, during his stay in Eome, the King gave him the Abbey of St. Nicholas at Angers. On his return, a Canonry in the cathedral of Toul, together with the dignity of archdeacon, was added to this pre ferment ; and shortly after he was chosen Dean of the same chapter. (When in 1637 the Bishop of Toul died, Henri Arnauld Was unanimously elected by the chapter to the vacant see, and at the same time received the King's assent to his nomination. But a difficulty arose with the Pope, who claimed the right of naming the Bishop of Toul; and the election was never carried into effect. The Abbe de St. Nicholas reihained for some years longer a political churchman; and in 1645, was sent to Eome to conduct some delicate negotiations with Pope Innocent X. His errand was one which hardly accords with the conception of ecclesiastical purity, entertained at Port Eoyal. The last Pope, Urban VIII., who was a Barberino, had enriched his nephews with a shamelessness of nepotism, up to that time unknown even at Eome. At the accession of Innocent X., the two cardinals Barberini attempted to stand their ground. Mazarin had risen to his height of power by their help, and now endeavoured to throw over them the protection of his government. But the facts were too patent,. and after a few months, the cardinals, with their brother Taddeo Barberino, in whom Urban had tried to found a new Eoman family, fled to France. It was to negotiate their return that Henri Arnauld was sent for the second time to Eome. The story of his success, and of many other negotiations which he carried on Mth the minor princes THE BISHOP OF ANGERS. 199 of Italy, may be read in five volumes of his despatches, which his great nephew, the son of Pomponne, published in 1748.* The year 1648, in which the Abbe de St. Nicholas returned, from Eome, may be taken to represent the most flourish ing period of Port Eoyal. It was that in which Angelique Arnauld led back a colony from the house of Paris to their long deserted home ; the hermit community was numerous and peaceful ; the Five Propositions had not been invented, and the voice of calumny was yet low and powerless. And while in 1649, Henri Arnauld was in retreat at Port Eoyal, the bishopric of Angers was offered to him, no doubt as a political reward for political service. He accepted it; and in June 1650, was consecrated in the con vent church of Port Eoyal de Paris. It is hard to think that his brothers and sisters did not feel the incongruity of his diplomatic churchmanship with their own theory of the ecclesiastical life ; I can find no trace in their corres pondence of the exultation which such an event might otherwise have been expected to excite. Angelique, at the new Bishop's express desire, came from Port Eoyal des Champs to witness his consecration, but she spent the whole time of the ceremony in solitary prayer for him on whom so heavy a charge was laid.f And she writes to a friend, — the only mention I find of the event in the letters of the Arnaulds, — " It is not my brother D'Andilly who is Bishop of Angers ; it is M. de St. Nicholas. You are well pleased,, and I am deeply grieved, fearing lest he should succumb tinder so terrible a charge, in a time when the disorders of the Church are so terrible. I beg you to pray God, that He may have pity upon him." \ * Reuchlin, Port Royal, vol. i. p. 183. Memoires de l'Abbe Arnauld, p. 512, et seq. t Mem. pour servir. vol. i. p. 250. \ Lettres d' Angelique Arnauld, vol. i. p. 531. o 4 200 PORT ROYAL. D'Andilly tells us * that his brother's retreat at Port Eoyal was only the prelude to his final retirement to his Abbey at Angers, where he intended to pass the remainder of his life in exercises of piety. However this may be, the new Bishop's conduct testified to his possession of the strong and earnest character of his family; he applied himself to the business of his diocese, with the same reso luteness as Angelique had set herself, thirty years before, to rule her unwilling nuns. As soon as he was consecrated, he set out for Angers, and during an episcopate of forty- two years, never quitted his diocese but once, and that, to aid in the conversion of a Protestant nobleman of high rank. His life was ascetic; his labours incessant. He allowed himself but four hours' sleep, and even this brief period of repose was often broken by prayer. He exer cised a personal superintendence over his clergy ; and was at all times accessible to every one who wished to see him. The country house of the bishopric was only two leagues from Angers, but he had held his see many years before he visited it; "a bishop " he said, " who wishes to do his duty, makes no journeys except to visit every part of his diocese." And when his friends pressed him to set apart one day in every week for rest and relaxation, he replied, that "he would gladly do as they wished, if they could find him a day on which he was not a bishop." f It would answer no good purpose to narrate the progress' of the greater and the lesser controversies in which the Bishop was involved during his long residence at Angers ; to describe his visitations, to count up his alms, to note his austerities. We have seen already, that as became one of his name, he firmly upheld the cause of Port Eoyal in the debate of the Formulary; though rather with the mild persistence of Agnes, than with the more fiery earnestness * Memoires, p. 419. t Conf. Du Fosse, p. 295. THE BISHOP OF ANGERS. 201 of Angelique or Antoine Arnauld. He would have acqui esced in the Subjicimus * ; and joined with D'Andilly in recommending the compromise to their more controversial brother. He may have felt justifiably unwilling to peril his station and influence in the Church for so slight a dis tinction as that which Antoine made the ground of his continual resistance ; he had to answer to God for his diocese, and would fain finish the work which he had begun. We may conjecture,' then, that he heartily welcomed the Peace of the Church, as giving him the opportunity of yet a few years' labour in the cause of Catholic truth and discipline. He was already above seventy when the Peace came ; and could hardly foresee that he was destined to survive the event almost a quarter of a century, and to witness the renewed gathering of the storm. We hear of him twice in these latter days from Madame de Sevigne. She writes from Angers, on the 21st of September, 1684, " I have dined, as you know, with the holy prelate ; his sanctity, joined with his pastoral vigilance, is an incompre hensible thing; he is a man of eighty-seven years of age, and sustained in his constant fatigues only by the love of God and of his neighbour. I chatted an hour with him in private, and found in his conversation all the vivacity of mind which characterises his brothers; he is a prodigy which I am delighted to have seen with my own eyes." And again, on the 8th of July, 1685. "I have been a witness of this prodigy ; I have received the benediction of this holy man, and have kissed his hand with extreme pleasure. It is admirable to note how all his diocese fears to lose him, and to see in his place some fellow who will think only of pleasing the Bishop's enemies ; instead of which his sole thought is of forgiving all the affronts which they delight to heap upon his old age." Du Fosse, * Vol. i. p. 421. 202 PORT ROYAL. who visited Angers in 1691, gives us the last glimpse of, the good Bishop, now blind, and struggling with the weak nesses of extreme old age. He describes, as a touching, sight, the sadness with which he gave his benediction to the candidates for ordination, who were about to seek the sacrament, which he was now unable to impart, in another diocese.* His mind was still clear, his charity. as ardent as ever. It was a proverb in Angers, that to be recompensed by the Bishop, it was only necessary to do him some wrong ; and few could die in peace without his blessing. The end came on the 8th of June, 1692, when he had attained the patriarchal age of ninety-five years. He left no property behind him ; and in giving directions, for his burial in an obscure part of his cathedral, com manded this simple epitaph to be placed on his grave: " Here lies Henri Arnauld, Bishop of Angers." His long life was almost contemporary with the History of the Eeformed Port Eoyal. He was two years old when Henri IV. conferred the coadjutorship upon the little Angelique;: and the monastery was rased to the ground within twenty years of his death. The name of the Bishop of Pamiers, Etienne Francois de Caulet, introduces us to the second great controversy which, in the seventeenth century divided the Gallican Church. Two of the four bishops, who in the cause of Jansenism withstood both Pope and King, now in the affair of the Eegale, leagued themselves with the Holy See against the whole power of the, French Church and State. As the. struggle was not without an indirect influence upon the fortunes of Port Eoyal, and is singularly illustrative of the peculiarities of Eoman Catholicism in France, it may. receive a brief treatment in this place. The Bishop of Pamiers, like his brethren of Beauvais and * Du Fosse, pp. 412, 430. THE BISHOP OF PAMIERS. 203 of Angers, was of parliamentary family, not without its pre tensions to noble descent and station. He was born in 1 6 1 0, at Toulouse, where his father was President ofthe provincial parliament. Etienne de Caulet, after passing through the hands of a private tutor, was sent to the Jesuits' College, and then under the charge of M. de la Fond, Abbe de Foix, to Paris. Here, while he was studying at the Sor bonne, his preceptor, with a generosity, the precise motive of which remains unexplained, resigned the Abbey of Foix in his favour. No austere scruples, arising from a Jansenist or any other source, prevented his acceptance of the gift ; and we may gather from the cautious admissions of his biographer, that the young Abbe de Foix was not less worldly than other ecclesiastics of his rank and age. The poison could not however have penetrated very deeply into his nature; for a strong impression was soon after made upon him by an ascetic preacher, who then furnished lively religious sensations to the congregations of Paris ; and the remonstrances of his father did the rest. He put him self under the direction of the celebrated Pere Condren, General of the Oratory, who fanned the flame of religious zeal already smouldering in his heart, prepared him for ordination, and directed his energies to missionary labour. In this the Abbe de Foix was not alone. A number of young men, whose history and circumstances were not dis similar to his own, had felt Condren's influence, and were now engaged in the work of preaching, not without strik ing evidence of success. But before long, a division of opinion arose among them ; some wished to continue the work in which they were already engaged ; others to establish a seminary for the training of preachers and parish priests. The difference was referred to Pere Con dren, who decided that each party should endeavour to serve God in the way that seemed to them best. The leader of those who inclined to the seminary was the Abbe Oilier ; 204 PORT ROYAL. with him went Caulet, and one or two others. Their first attempt was unsuccessful, the second met with a better fate. The Cure of Saint Sulpice, a parish on the outskirts of Paris, was old and no longer able to do his work; but struck with the evident piety and earnestness of the young recluses, offered to resign his cure to them. An exchange was finally effected : the Abbe Oilier gave up to the old man a priory which he himself held, assured him, in addition, an annuity from the revenues of the parish, and became Cure of Saint Sulpice. Here he and his friends once more set to work, and founded an institution which still flourishes in unimpaired usefulness. The energy and ability of Etienne de Caulet in this new situation attracted before long the favourable notice of Vincent de Paul, who was often consulted by the Queen- mother in the disposal of bishoprics. About the end of 1643 the Bishop of Pamiers died ; and the Queen wished to bestow the see upon some member of the new congrega tion of St. Lazare, which Vincent de Paul had founded The founder, more anxious for the humility and simple- mindedness of his new order than for its ecclesiastical honour, put away the perilous favour, and besought that it might be conferred upon his friend the Abbe de Foix The Queen readily assented ; but not the Bishop designate. He was sincerely unwilling to undertake episcopal respon sibilities ; and his leader, the Abbe Oilier, fearing for the prosperity of the new institution, eagerly dissuaded him. At length, after three months' delay, the importunity of the court, and the advice of more disinterested friends, prevailed ; and he was consecrated in March, 1644. But the Abbe Oilier never forgave him. Pamiers, a suffragan bishopric of Toulouse, is a city of Languedoc, pleasantly situated on the river Auviege, which, taking its rise in the Pyrenees, flows into the Ga ronne. To this remote region M. de, Caulet retired to THE BISHOP OF PAMIERS. 205 spend thirty-six years in the unintermitted discharge of episcopal duty. The diocese was in a woeful state. The Huguenots had more than once got the upper hand in Pamiers, and compelled the last Bishop to take refuge with his clergy in the neighbouring town of Foix. Even the historian who records the violence of the Protestants, which, he alleges, had spared neither ecclesiastical life nor property, admits that the ignorance and immorality of the Catholic clergy were scandalous. The cathedral and bishop's palace, which stood at a little distance outside the gates, had been wholly demolished. The Bishop began his work of restoration by establishing his own household according to an approved model ; he dispensed with the services of a pompous train of domestics : the few servants whom he kept were men of tried character ; two or three virtuous ecclesiastics aided him in the transaction of busi ness, and the management of his family ; all was regularity, sobriety, simplicity, not only in appearance, but in spirit. The whole house was like a monastery ; and the Bishop was foremost in the austere uniformity of life, which he required of all who lived with him. From four in the morning to nine at night, the day was occupied .in public or private prayer, in the business of the see, and in the study of the Scriptures and the Fathers. Twice a year he made, in company with the canons of his cathedral, a religious retreat ; and every year exchanged a fortnight's visit with his friend and neighbour the Bishop of Alet. Being joint Seigneur with the king of the city and diocese, he made provision for the administration of justice by choosing magistrates, to whom, instead' of selling, he gave their offices ; and by establishing regulations of police, the character of which betrayed their ecclesiastical origin, and which were not always sustained by the parliament of Toulouse. He founded a seminary for the education of priests, held synods, visited his diocese from parish to 206 PORT ROYAL. parish. With help of his sister, Catherine de Caulet, widow of the Baron de Mirepoix, who belonged to one of the most ancient families in Languedoc, he established girls' schools in every town and village. Little by little, ¦ after encountering a long and harassing resistance, he re formed the chapter of his cathedral: compelling the canons, who, in the troublous times of the last Bishop, had thrown off almost all ecclesiastical restraint, to live together, simply and soberly, and to apply their super fluous revenues to Church purposes. Towards the Hugue nots, who were numerous in Languedoc, the Bishop held a high hand. In open defiance, we must suppose, of the Edict of Nantes, he seized their church, appropriated it to his own purposes, and obtained a decree from the civil power, which, by forbidding any Huguenot to sleep in Pamiers on pain of a fine, practically expelled the whole Protestant population. We hear much of his humi lity, his indifference to the world, his lavish almsgiving; but there is an air of cold and unloving austerity about even his virtues, which prepares us for his biographer's statement, that while he lived the people honoured more than they loved him, and found out many of his good qualities only when he was gone. It is time that we turned from these details to the two great controversies in which M. de Pamiers took a promi nent part. In the earlier years of his episcopate, he-was so far from having any Jansenist leanings that he would not suffer the doctors of Port Eoyal to be so much as named in his presence ; and the Bishop of Alet, who was wont to have the " Book of Frequent Communion " read to him as he sat at table, substituted some other work during his friend's annual visit. The good Pavilion had impartiality enough not to sign the letter asking for a condemnation of the Propositions which the bishops addressed to Innocent X in 1650, and sufficient influence with his friend to induce THE REGALE. 207 him also to withhold his signature. Little by little the eyes of the Bishop of Pamiers, thus saved from committing himself, were opened. He heartily joined in the condem nation of the "Apologie des Casuistes," in 1657. While he was thus enlightened as to the theoretical morality of the Jesuits, he saw the practical operation of their system in the obstinacy with which they thwarted the plans of M. d'Alet for the good of his diocese. Still his was a case of gradual conversion. When the Formulary was first published, he yielded to the solicitations of his early friends, and offered no open opposition to it. It was only after a time, when one or two of the protesting prelates had given way, and as if to show that the final resistance offered to the king was a matter not of cabal but of individual con viction, that the Bishop of Pamiers took the position by the side of his brethren of Beauvais, Angers, and Alet, from which he never afterwards moved. The Peace of the Church was concluded in 1668 ; the debate of the Eegale began in 1673. An effect and token of the modified independence of Eome claimed by the Gallican Church, was the right exercised by the King of France of appropriating the revenues of all vacant bishop rics, and of nominating, during the vacancy, to all benefices within the diocese not having cure of souls. But this right, known as the Eegale, was admitted not to extend to the provinces of Languedoc, Guienne, Provence, and Dauphine, until, in the year above mentioned, Louis XIV. published an edict stretching his claims over every cathedral church in the kingdom, except one or two which had special grounds of exemption. The bishops of dioceses which had not been hitherto subject to the Eegale were, by the same instrument, required to take an oath of fealty, in default of which the King would consider that he had the same right to nominate to vacant benefices as if the see were not occupied. The clergy for the most part bowed to the 208 PORT ROYAL. royal will ; Caulet of Pamiers and Pavilion of Alet " un happily," says Voltaire*, " the two most virtuous men of the kingdom," resolved to defend the rights of the Church. The struggle soon began : in 1675 Louis intruded a nominee of his own into the diocese of Alet, in 1677 into that of Pamiers. Then followed an interminable succes sion of letters, protests, appeals ; the King maintaining his rights, the bishops defending every foot of ground with equal inflexibility. The situation was a strange one. The same parties were engaged in this conflict as in that of the Formulary, and yet had changed their relative position in a way which reminds us more of the ever-shifting combinations of worldly statesmen than of the steadfast policy of a Church which lays claim to immutability. Then, the Pope, the King, the Jesuits, and the majority of the French clergy had been all on one side ; on the other, only the Janserdsts and some undefined force of public opinion in society and the Church. Now, the two Jansenist bishops stood alone with the Pope. The King drew to his party the over whelming majority of the Gallican clergy, always more jealous of papal than of civil supremacy, and now deeply' leavened with the servility of the age. " Were the King to turn Huguenot," said the Prince de Conde, "the clergy : would be the first to follow him." The Society of Jesus forgot their old allegiance to the chair of Peter in their personal hatred of the Jansenist bishops. The Pope found the most strenuous defenders of his rights in the very men whom more than one of his predecessors had treated as heretics. Before long the quarrel had intertwined itself ' with the tangled thread of European politics. Louis and the Jesuits openly espoused the cause of James II. ; Innocent XI. at least secretly favoured the undertaking of > * Siecle de Louis XIV. vol. ii. p. 300. THE REGALE. i 209 / William oLC-range. "Men said," reports Voltaire*, " that to put an end to xhe' 1;r^fe^fU*>^Ej**ror^ai^^he Church it was necessary that King James should become Protestant, and the Pope, Catholic." The Bishop of Alet died in 1677, having by his age and virtues escaped any active persecution. The whole weight of resistance now fell upon Caulet, who, an " Athanasius contra mundum," did not blench. All the temporalities of his see were seized, and his requgst that this measure might not be allowed to interfere with the usefulness of his seminary or the rebuilding of his cathedral, scornfully disregarded. Everything was taken, even a few faggots which were found in the palace, and the produce of a little garden of potherbs. But the cures of his diocese at once collected and sent to him 600 livres ; others bought him a pair of mules for his litter, that he might still visit the villages in the mountains ; and many laymen vied in the supply of his wants. He had recourse to the Pope ; and Innocent XI., mild and gentle as he was, showed no want of firmness in upholding his cause. But the end was not far off; and the King knew it. He could afford to wage war with something like moderation against two Bishops, each of whom had passed his seventieth year. On the 8th of August, 1680, the Bishop of Pamiers died, after having ruled his church for thirty-six years. Henceforward the King could address himself to the struggle with the Pope, undisturbed by the thought of dissension in the Gallican Church. This is not the place for more than the briefest account ofthe subsequent progress ofthe controversy. The French clergy, in their successive assemblies, supported the King in strong and still stronger declarations; till in that of 1682, they adopted the famous "Four Articles," the Bill * Siecle de Louis XIV. vol. ii. p. 302. VOL. II. P 210 ' PORT ROYAL. of Eights oi the Gallican Church. The first declared that " kings and sdyerGi^sj^pTiiSt'gtittfecifo any ecclesiastical power, by God's order, in temporal things ; that they can not be deposed directly or indirectly by the authority ofthe heads of the Church ; that their subjects cannot be released from the submission and obedience which they owe to them, or be absolved from their oaths of fidelity." The second maintained the decrees of the Council of Constance against the absolute supremacy of the Pope ; the third affirmed the inviolability of the Gallican usages. The fourth went still further, asserting that the decisions of the Pope were not incapable of amendment, until confirmed by the uni versal assent of the Church. Innocent retaliated by refusing bulls to any ecclesiastic present at the assembly of 1682, who had been subsequently raised by the King to the epis copate ; Louis once more rejoined by prohibiting all newly appointed Bishops, whether parties to the adoption of the " Four Articles " or not, to apply to Eome for their bulls. So from year to year the quarrel grew more bitter. In 1689, Alexander VIII., in 1691, Innocent XH., ascended the papal chair. New occasions of offence continually embittered the original dispute ; and the whole weight of the papacy was cast into the scale of European pohcy, adversely to the influence of France. Thirty-five French Bishops were at last, in default of the Pope's sanction to their appointment, unable to perform any episcopal func tion : the King had seized Avignon, a part of the papal territory, and imprisoned the nuncio; the Pope, on his side, had excommunicated the French ambassador. Only one step more was necessary to complete the schism, and that, it was reported, Louis was ready to take. Men were begin ning to look for the erection of France into a separate Patriarchate, independent of the see of Eome, and the nomination of Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, as the first Patriarch, when all at once the King gave way. It was THE BISHOP OF ALET., 211 all-important for him to detach the Pope from the great combination, which under William III., threatened the European supremacy of France. The Bishops designate, who had not been concerned in the adoption of the " Four Articles," were permitted to solicit and to receive their bulls from Eome. Those who were more guilty in the eyes of the Pope made a private, individual, equivocal submission, and were canonically installed. The King withdrew the edict, which rendered instruction in the doctrine of the " Four Articles " compulsory in all schools and colleges. Still the victory, though indisputably on the side of the Pope, was not without its drawbacks. The "Four Articles " had been publicly adopted : they were never publicly re pudiated. The obligation was not replaced by a prohibi tion to teach them, and they remained the doctrine of a large part of the Gallican Church. Once more it was seen that a clear and honest settlement of a Eoman Catholic controversy is an almost impossible thing.* The Bishop* of Alet is the true Jansenist Saint. His virtues were more patent to the world than St. Cyran's, his life contemporaneous with the troubles and glories of the party. He was not one of the little knot of friends and kinsfolk who formed the nucleus of French Jansenism, but had been reared in an independent and half hostile school of theology ; so that while, on the one hand, the Port Eoyalists magnified him as a convert, he did not attract, on the other, the bitterest rancour of their enemies. He belongs more to the Gallican Church at large, and less to a sect or party in it, than any of the famous men whom we have yet encountered ; those who were swayed by the most opposite theological prejudices united in revering his virtues, and if he had not been a Jansenist, he might have been a saint. * Guettee, Histoire de l'Eglise de France, vol. xi. book ix. chaps, i. ii. iii. Ranke, History ofthe Popes, vol. ii. p. 419, el seq. F 2 212 PORT ROYAL. There are many saints in the calendar, who could with ad vantage be displaced, to make room for St. Nicholas of Alet. Nicolas Pavilion was born at Paris, in the year 1597. His family was respectable, though not noble; and his father and mother kept a grave and pious household. The boy, destined from his earliest years to the service of the Church, was sent to pursue his secular studies in the college of Navarre, where, while yet in the lowest classes, he re ceived the tonsure. Once more we come upon the trace. of the incurable irregularity of the Eoman Catholic Church. The parents of Nicolas Pavilion, who are described as sober, God-fearing people, had not seen any impropriety in providing for their son, by procuring for him a canonry in the Cathedral of Condom, which, by and bye, was exchanged for an annuity chargeable on its revenues. When, in later life, a severer theory of ecclesiastical morality con vinced the annuitant of the wrong to the Church involved in such an arrangement, he at once gave up his claim. While yet young, Pavilion fell under the ' influence of St. Vincent de Paul, who was then founding his cele brated congregation of the Mission. The ardent phi lanthropist undertook the young man's spiritual direc tion, invested him with some degree of ecclesiastical authority by giving him sub-deacon's orders, and employed him in teaching and catechising in the prisons of the capital. The sermons of St Francis de Sales, when on his second visit to Paris in 1618-19*, completed the impression made by Vincent de Paul : and when the elder Pavilion wished to follow up the canonry of Condom, by buying for his son the office of Eoyal Almoner, the young man refused, alleging that he wished to pass his life in preach ing the gospel to the poor. It was perhaps from the mis taken idea, that for this work a complete and scientific * VoL i. p. 90. THE BISHOP OF ALET. 213 study of theology is unnecessary, that he declined, in oppo sition to his father's wishes, to enter the Sorbonne, and prepared himself for the priesthood by private reading, especially of the works of St. Thomas. He became in this way one of Vincent de Paul's most efficient helpers in the missions of Paris ; preaching, holding meetings for charitable purposes, presiding at religious conferences in connection with the house of St. Lazare, and forming the minds of those who were aspiring to join in the same labours. He had been engaged in the performance of this obscure work for many years, when suddenly a ray of royal favour shone upon him. In 1637 it chanced that D'Andilly, then in full activity as mediator between Church and Court, heard one of his sermons. His praise of it induced the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, niece of Cardinal de Eichelieu, to find out the plebeian preacher and his church. The Prin cesse de Conde went with her ; and all at once Pavilion was a fashionable orator. Those who went merely to gratify an idle curiosity remained to repent and pray ; and the all-powerful cardinal, whom his niece kept waiting for his dinner, sent for Pavilion, and offered him the vacant bishopric of Alet. He refused it stoutly ; was even un willing to take the week's grace which the Cardinal pressed upon him. All his friends urged him, at first in vain, to accept the offer. He could not make up his mind to leave the work in the streets of Paris, which was plainly prospering in his hands. At last he was somewhat shaken by the solemn address of his master. "I will rise up against you at the last judgment," said Vincent de Paul, " with the souls of the diocese of Alet, who will perish for want of the instruction which you have refused to give them. It is to those unknown lands, to those frightful mountains, that the true zeal of the house of God ought to lead you." Presently, in deference to the judgment of P 3 214 POET ROYAL. others, Pavilion gave way. He had always wished, he said, to be a village curate : God had fulfilled his desire in making him a village bishop. On account of some disagreement between the Court of France and the Holy See, the bishop designate did not receive his bulls for two years. He spent the time in strict seclusion at St. Lazare, preparing himself by study and prayer for his new office. Twice only he left his retreat; once to preach before the cardinal, and again before the King. The honest severity of his admonitions was variously received at court ; some caught the preacher's philanthropic ardour, others sought to lower him in the royal esteem. Louis XIII. had manliness enough of his own to appreciate the Christian manliness of Pavilion, and silenced his detractors by offering him the richer and more attractive see of Auxerre. But Pavilion answered "that he did not belong to himself, but to the Church of Alet ; and that from the moment when his Majesty had judged him necessary to the good of that diocese, he was no longer permitted to abandon it." At last the bulls came : he was consecrated at St. Lazare on the festival of the Assumption, 1639 ; and on the 8th of October of the same year set out for Alet. The journey occupied three weeks. When he reached his destination he was heard to repeat the words of the 132nd Psalm — "This is my rest for ever ; here will I dwell, for I have desired it." The city could not have presented a very cheerful ap pearance to Parisian eyes. It lies at the foot of the Pyrenees; and the diocese extends to the boundary-line between France and Spain. To reach the town it is ne cessary to pass through a long defile in the mountain, cut by a torrent, by the side of which a narrow road, which in the seventeenth century was hardly passable for a wheeled carriage, had been made. I quote the following description of it from the account of a pilgrimage made THE BISHOP OF ALET. 215 by Lancelot and Brienne to Alet in 1667. The narrative was sent by Lancelot to La Mere Angelique de St. Jean.* " The frightful passage of the mountain defile, which is about half a league in length, makes the appearance of this little town somewhat more attractive. The first ob jects that meet the eye are a new stone bridge, with three fine arcades, and the Bishop's palace, which consists of a large building erected by the old abbots, where there is a garden, together with a very beautiful terrace, which runs all along the river : but this is all that there is beautiful in Alet. "When we arrived, the gate of the town, which "is not finer or larger than that of your monastery, was closed, like that of a private house ; and we learned that this was compulsory at all festivals, that no carriage might enter. This was Sunday. We remarked so great a modesty in all the people, who were pretty numerous in the streets, that I think we could have recognised Alet by this alone, if we had happened to have been there without knowing it. " The town is small, but neat. All the streets are narrow, but all, even to the least, paved and very clean. There is a great covered market in the middle. There are no faux- bourgs, and the circuit of the walls appeared to me to be not much greater than that of your monastery. . ; . . " The mountains which bound it on the north and west are very precipitous. To ascend them is an hour's walk for a robust person ; and the road is very steep and straight. They are fully eight or ten times higher than yours ; being separated from the palace only by the river, that is, by a short stone's-throw. Those on the east are a little less steep ; and those on the south make an opening, which * Relation d'uq Voyage fait a Alet, &c. Mem. de Lancelot, vol ii. p 4 216 PORT ROYAL. gives sufficient light to the town, because they ascend gradually, but nevertheless in such a way, that you find nothing but mountains, one piled upon another, as far as the boundaries of Spain." * The diocese of Alet is one of three — Alet, St. Papoul, and Mirepoix — which were endowed by Pope John XXII. from the revenues of an ancient and celebrated Benedictine abbey at the first-named place. When Pavilion arrived there, there was work enough before him to satisfy the most eager appetite. The town was half in ruins ; the cathedral had been burnt by the Huguenots, so that mass was cele brated in the refectory of the Benedictine monastery ; and the roof of the Bishop's house let in the rain, which had made its walls green and its floors rotten. The episcopal city contained only six hundred communicants; and the revenues of the see would not furnish forth a moderate English rectory. For more than a hundred years the bishopric of Alet had been held in commendam by other prelates, three of whom had been members of one family. In 1622 a M. Polverel had been appointed, who, however, died before receiving his bulls. His brother, a captain of cavalry, applied for and received the benefice, which he kept till his death in 1637. Strange stories were told of him. He did not know Latin from Spanish. He had bought more than one ecclesiastical office about the Court, and passed most of his time in Paris. When he visited his diocese, he did not reside at Alet, but at a country house, where he had a mistress and a family, for whom he provided out of his church patronage. Such was the man whom Nicolas Pavilion succeeded. It is said that the clergy of Alet, as ignorant, dissolute, and worldly as their head, had some presentiment that these pleasant times of license could not last, and found all their fears realised in the * Lancelot, vol. ii. p. 385. STATE OF THE DIOCESE. 217 appointment of a Bishop from St. Lazare. Vows and prayers, they thought, could nevertheless save them from the necessity of decent and sober living ; so they made all manner of promises to the Virgin if she would only defend them against the new Bishop ; and caused a picture to be painted, in which they were represented, as, clad in their surplices, they preferred this unique request at the feet of their protectress. It would be difficult to illustrate more completely the moral blindness of superstition. The new Bishop began by forsaking the country house, in which his predecessors had lived, and establishing him self with one or two trustworthy ecclesiastics in the dila pidated palace at Alet. His next step was to visit every parish of his diocese, in order to inform himself of its spiritual state. The survey must have brought to light some strange facts, for his first effort of practical reform had for its object the instruction of the clergy in the simplest truths of religion. He divided the diocese into six districts, in each of which fortnightly meetings of the parish priests were held, presided over by ecclesiastics of approved learning and orthodoxy. The principal mysteries of Christianity, and the fundamental moral and ceremonial duties, were the subjects of discussion at these conferences; while elementary works on Catholic doctrine were at the same time distributed among the clergy. , Every month the Bishop drew up a paper of theological questions, which was given to the parish priests, and answered before the next conference. These answers having been examined and approved, formed in due order the subjects of pulpit and catechetical instruction "on the Sundays and festivals; and the whole matter was conducted with such regularity, that one truth or duty was simultaneously explained or enforced in every church in the diocese. By these means the zeal and learning of the Bishop were made to compensate for the defects of his subordinates; the teachers themselves 218 PORT ROYAL. were gradually taught, and a guarantee was obtained for the maintenance of sound doctrine. M. d' Alet's first assistants in this work were three priests' of the Mission, whom Vincent de Paul had sent with him into Languedoc. But before long he discovered that eccle siastics accustomed to a monastic life were ill fitted to instruct those who had a parochial cure of souls, and so found means to replace them by instruments better suited to his purpose. A connection which he afterwards formed with the Jesuits lasted, in like manner, but a few years : the society has always been noted for its impatience of episcopal control, and did not belie its reputation at Alet. But at the very first the Bishop had established a school and a seminary, which, in due time, began to bear fruit ; while the report of the apostolic simplicity and self-denial of his life, as well as of the great things which he was doing in Alet, soon attracted brave and capable soldiers to his standard. The list of those, who gave up the prospect of advancement in other dioceses to labour under the good Bishop among the Pyrenean rocks, is not short. Many laymen, even, retired to Alet^ content to occupy the humblest stations in the Church's service; M. de la Eoque, a gentleman of birth and fortune, tilled the garden of the seminary; and another, of like station, kept a village school. Some, at least, of the Bishop's clergy imbibed, his spirit of self-sacrifice. One, who outlived him, was known to have exchanged his benefice for one of much inferior value, that he might work in the place which most seemed to need his peculiar powers. M. Taffoureau, the next Bishop, was asked one day if hehad not found some remains of Jansenism in his diocese. He told, in answer, the story of this good cure, and said, "These are the remains of M. Pavilion's Jansenism, which I jealously preserve, and which are the consolation of my ministry." Eegular episcopal inspections constituted a part of VISITATIONS, SYNODS, MISSIONS. 219' M. Pavilion's machinery for the oversight of his diocese.- Every parish in turn was solemnly visited. The ceremony began with mass ; after which the Bishop preached on the gospel of the day, or on that of the preceding Sunday, adapting his remarks to the peculiar circumstances of the place. The sermon was interpreted by the cure into the dialect of the province ; after which the state of the parish was minutely reviewed; wants supplied, scandals abated, penances prescribed. This lasted for several days, till the visit ended, as it had begun, in an episcopal exhor tation. Besides this, all the cures were summoned, once a year, to Alet, to meet the Bishop in synod. As many as possible were lodged in the palace : the rest were received as guests by citizens of Alet, as it was a rule that no priest should be seen in a house of public entertainment. After high mass had been said, the first day of the synod was occupied by an address from the Bishop on the various duties of parish priests. On the second, complaints were received, difficulties tosolved ; the irregular were reproved, the feeble encouraged., On the third day a mass was said for the repose of those who had died since the synod of the preceding year; questions relative to the tem poralities of the clergy were discussed, and syndics and deputies, who were to have charge of these matters for a year, were appointed. Then the cures were dismissed, with a final exhortation from the Bishop. At the time of Jubilee, and on some other great occa sions, an extraordinary effort was made to glean the ears which had escaped the regular reapers. This was called a mission. The way was prepared by public prayers for the success of the enterprise, throughout the diocese; and every cure was instructed to dispose the minds of his parishioners to receive the missionaries. These were about- forty in number ; many of them ecclesiastics whom the Bishop had procured from. Toulouse or even from Paris ; 220 PORT ROYAL. others connected with his own household or with the semi nary. Before proceeding into their several districts, they all took a solemn leave of one another and the Bishop, who, on his part, stationed himself at some central spot, where he was within easy reach of all. The mission usually lasted from a fortnight to three weeks. Eegular religious instruction was given to the people during a large part of each day ; and every house and family was visited, that private opportunities of exhortation might not pass unused. Quarrels were made up without the assistance of the law ; cases of conscience were resolved; evil habits corrected, pressing wants relieved. If we may trust the historian, from whom we .have so often quoted, the moral reform at which the missionaries aimed was deep and thorough. "They disabused them of the popular error, that they would be deprived of the benefit of the Jubilee, if they did not receive absolution, and communicate during the fortnight or three weeks that it lasted. They incessantly repeated to them, that the conversion of the heart is the essential thing, and that, as great maladies are not cured in a day, much time and labour are necessary to effect a solid and durable conversion." * And he adds, that after a time a considerable moral amendment, and an edifying discipline, were visible in the diocese. One ofthe Bishop's most useful labours was the establish ment of an organised system of female education. Like most other successful organisations it began from a small seed, and only gradually grew to embrace the whole diocese; Madame de Bonnecaire, a pious widow of Alet, who was eager to engage in works of charity, was induced by the Bishop to become the mistress of a girls' school in that . city. He took a great interest in its success ; drew up a code of regulations ; and made it an opportunity of addres- • Vies des Quatre Eveques, vol. i. p. 30. GIRLS' SCHOOLS. 221 sing the married and single women of Alet, on the duties peculiar to their sex. For some years this was the only girls' school in the diocese. Then, when the Demoiselle de Montazels, a young lady of good birth, took a fancy to become a nun, and applied to M. d'Alet to recommend a convent to her, he told her that she would better fulfil her Christian duty by teaching the poor girls in the village, of which her father was seigneur. The advice was taken; and Madlle. de Montazels, in spite of much ridicule and opposition, persevered in her work. By and bye she was imitated by others of her age and station; till the Bishop thought it advisable to train his volunteers, and established a kind of female seminary at Alet, under the presidency of Madame de Bonnecaire, to which they might resort for instruction and advice. The schoolmistresses were divided into two classes. Those ofthe first class were stationed in the country parishes during nine months of the year, and returned to Alet only in the harvest time, when their scholars were busy in the fields. The second class were a kind of reserve, who were at home in the establishment at Alet, and remained at the disposal of the Bishop for any special emergency. All wore a secular habit ; were bound by no vows ; and did not, even at Alet, observe any monastic seclusion. But their habits of life were the simplest possible ; they received no visits, except from their near relations ; and were immediately and personally dependent upon the bishop. Those in the country were not permitted to visit the cures, or to under take any offices about the Church, which might bring them into communication with them ; if it was absolutely neces sary to speak to the parish priest, it might be only in the church, and in the presence of some decent matron. In addition to the instruction of the children, the mistresses catechised the women and elder girls on Sundays and festivals ; taking care, however, to adhere strictly to the 222 PORT ROYAL. written instructions of the Bishop. They visited the sick and relieved the wants of the poor, for which purpose the mistress of the seminary supplied them with suitable cloth ing from a central storehouse. M. d'Alet was often tempted by the success of his scheme, and the solicitations of his friends, to erect his little body of schoolmistresses into a recognised community. The organisation had spread into the dioceses of Toulouse and of Pamiers; and had he been disposed to imitate most founders of orders, might easily have extended much further. But he said that " communities always de generate : that one must do the good which lies near at hand, and leave the future to Providence; and that, be sides, he did not think it reasonable to charge his successor with young women, who perhaps might not conduce to the true well-being of the diocese, or to oblige virtuous young women to serve an ill-intentioned Bishop." Such self-abnegation is not common in any church, and is es pecially not of the kind which Eoman Catholicism en forces.* M. Pavilion was one of those who thought that the elevated station and special duties of a Bishop did not absolve him from the minutest personal attention to all his flock. " A Bishop," he was wont to say, " is the sun of his diocese, and ought to give light and warmth to every part of it." Only a few days after his arrival at Alet, he struck the key-note to which all his subsequent conduct was attuned. Walking through the town, he saw a poor man in the agonies of death lying on a wretched heap of straw, and ordered one of his attendants to fetch a bed. The reply was, that they had not had time to procure the necessary furniture, and that the Bishop's own household had hardly beds to lie on. " Then fetch," * Conf. Lancelot, vol. ii. p. 408, et seq. THE BISHOPS CHARITY. 223 rejoined M. d'Alet, " the mattrass of my own bed, for I cannot leave this poor wretch in the state in which I see him," So when his share of his father's property came to him, and his near relations not only entertained, but ex pressed the hope, that, using the iucome as he pleased, he would reserve the principal for the benefit of his family, he answered only by sending orders to Paris to dispose of the whole, and applying the proceeds, no less than 40,000 crowns, to the relief of his people in a year of famine. Nor was his charity bounded by his own diocese. When the plague was raging in Toulouse, he sent to the sufferers not only a considerable pecuniary gift, but a large diamond, which he had inherited from his mother, and which had hitherto been used to adorn the Host. His own clothes were in tatters from very age ; and he denied himself even necessary books. His Bible was worn out with use ; and when some friends remonstrated with him on the state of his breviary, which would hardly hold together, "It is true," he replied ; " but a new breviary would be worth at least fourteen or fifteen livres, and in the meantime some poor man might perhaps want a blanket. I had rather that the poor man had the preference, and I still use my old breviary." * In 1651 the plague broke out in Languedoc. At the first news, the bishop set out for the village where the sickness had begun ; devoted all his time and strength to raise the courage, and supply the wants, of the sick ; and never left the district till the malady had spent its force. The inhabitants of Alet selfishly complained of his con duct, and expressed their fears that he would bring the infection to them: he silenced them by threatening to take up his permanent abode in the afflicted part of his diocese. Need it be said that his example was as con- * Lancelot, vol. ii. pp. 400—404. 224 PORT ROYAL. tagious as the plague, and that many of the cures died manfully at their post ? So, on another occasion, sickness, the result of famine, broke out in Capsir, a little district high up in the Pyrenees, on the very frontier of Spain. The ignorant people imagined that it had been caused by sorcery; a wise man of Carcassone was sent for, who, having been promised a reward of a hundred crowns, selected from the inhabitants of five parishes;" thirty-two women whom he accused of witchcraft. The popular excitement was great ; the magistrate of the district shared, or at least did not attempt to stem it ; the unhappy women were thrown into prison, and the only question was as to' the severity of their punishment. The cures, in despair,' applied to the rural dean ; and he, in hot haste, sent for the Bishop. It was winter, and the snow fell thickly; and M. d'Alet, when he arrived at the foot of the moun tain, was warned by those who were accustomed to the route that it was impossible to proceed. But life was at stake, and he went on. After a time even the guide turned back ; but the rural dean knew the country, and, accompanied by him, and by two stout servants, the Bishop still pressed forward. During the two first days, when they were on horseback, they only accomplished four leagues; on the third they were obliged to proceed on foot, and occupied nearly the whole day in struggling through three miles. The Bishop's reward was, that he was not too late. The universal reverence in which he was held disposed the inhabitants to hear him ; a few stern words of common sense brought the impostor to his knees, and after a full confession, he was handed over to the civil authorities for punishment. The Bishop's household was regulated in accordance with his general principles of action. His object was to make it as much as possible like a monastery, where frugality, austerity, obedience to fixed rules, mould the THE BISHOP'S HOUSEHOLD. 225 life from day to day into a pious monotony. His servants were carefully chosen from, candidates for ordination ; ' when not otherwise engaged, their time was spent in study ; and they were uniformly clad in a half-ecclesiastical garb. He looked upon them all as his children, and took the liveliest interest in the formation of their religious cha- , racter ; so that it was not uncommon for good families of the province to ask admission for their children into the Bishop's household. All rose at five o'clock, and the day was begun and ended with prayer. As in a monastery, communication with the world outside was strictly for bidden, and a book of devotion was read alo.ud during every meal. Games of chance were not permitted, but on Sundays and festivals, until vespers, the servants were allowed to divert themselves with ball and skittles. The Bishop's own habits were of the simplest. His clothing, the furniture of his house, the ornaments of his church, were poor even to meanness ; all that he could spare after the supply of the barest necessities was the inheritance of the poor. He ate but little ; and his table was so frugally supplied, that a country cook, whose talents at the best were not very remarkable, left his service in fear of for getting his business. It was to be expected that, remote and difficult of access as was Alet, many persons should resort to the good Bishop for religious advice and consolation. In his dealings with all of them is manifest a practical good sense not always consistent with the monastic theory of his church. We , have seen how he sent Madlle. de Montazels to her village school, and kept M. de la Eoque out of the monastery to till the seminary garden. So when a noble gentleman, M. Montfaucon de la Pejan, who had come to Alet to be under the Bishop's direction, wished, after the death of his wife, to take orders, he gently said, " You will do much better to remain as you are, and live like a Christian ; " and VOL. II. Q 226 PORT ROYAL. encouraged him to devote himself wholly to the education1 * of his son. So also the Comte de Fenelon and his wife made a retreat at Alet ; and the former becoming, like M. de la Pejan, a widower, wished to enter the ecclesiastical state. The Bishop replied, " that he had five little children ; that it was his duty to bring them up and provide for them according to their condition ; that to dispense with this duty very extraordinary tokens of God's will, which he did not see in him, were needful ; and that therefore he could not in conscience abandon a certain duty to follow a movement of zeal and piety which did not accord with it." We shall see, when we come to speak in another place of the Bishop's most illustrious penitents, the Prince and Princesse de Conti, that he would not permit the former to resign the government of Languedoc, and directed his thoughts away from the monastic Hfe to the duty of making reparation for the misery caused by the Princes' War. He dealt differently with those who had already taken ecclesiastical obligations upon themselves. It was to him that the celebrated Abbe de Eance, the reformer of La Trappe, turned for advice when he first resolved to abandon his gay and luxurious life in Paris, and did not yet know how he should best serve God. He held five rich benefices ; how should he compensate to the poor for the wrong which he had done them in applying the revenues of the Church to his own pomp and pleasure? M. d'Alet thought well to deal at first gently with such a penitent, and advised him to sell his patrimony, and to expend the proceeds in charity. From Alet, De Eance went to Pamiers. He told Caulet that his neighbour was a pitiless man, and had deprived him of all he had, except his Church preferment. " Alas, yes," said M. de Pamiers, " M. d'Alet is a strange man. But, M. l'Abbe, how many benefices have you ? " " Five," was the reply ; " three ; abbeys and two priories." "As for me," rejoined the VEXATIONS. 227 Bishop, " I say that M. d'Alet has treated you too indul gently ; if you had come to me I should have reduced you to a single benefice." The one benefice which De Eance kept was La Trappe.* At the same time the Bishop was not without his vexa tions. The secular clergy bore with a bad grace his vigorous measures of reform ; the regulars and the mendi cants rebelled against his strong assertion of episcopal authority ; tthe gentry of the province resented his plain denunciation of their vices, and the watchfulness of his ecclesiastical police. He had a firm faith in the powers of the Church; excommunication was a weapon which he freely used against his enemies ; and his conceptions of what was fitting for a Christian country seemed to have been derived rather from Geneva than from Eome. He put down not only duelling but dancing ; and we read in Lancelot's approving paget,of a sound flogging administered to a young gentleman, just leaving the school of Alet, who was convicted of having kissed a pretty girl, as well as danced with her. There is, however, no doubt that in the main the Bishop waged a righteous war against many abuses and iniquities of long standing; and the result was the formation of a league by the gentry and clergy, — each of whom bore a proportion of the expense, — -to throw legal obstacles in his way, and to weary out his perseverance by pursuing him from court to court. -At last, after a long litigation, the dispute came before the King, who appointed a mixed commission of clergy and laity to examine and decide upon it. The Bishop, whose affidavits were drawn up by Antoine Arnauld, fell back upon the Council of Trent ; absolution had not been postponed, or refused in the diocese of Alet, except in cases mentioned in the canons of that council ; and ecclesiastical censures had never been * Conf. Lancelot, vol. ii p. 390, et seq. t Vol. ii. p. 432. Q2 228 PORT ROYAL. employed, except when absolutely necessary. After thirty- two sittings the commission pronounced judgment in his favour. M. Pavilion had at first no Jansenist prejudices. He had come from the school of St. Vincent de Paul, who was hardly more than a half friend of St. Cyran, and distin guished himself by his animosity against his disciples. He had entirely devoted himself, as we have seen, to the internal affairs of his diocese, and was not prepared, by any preeminence of theological learning, to pass judgment on nice questions of grace and predestination. But when, as early as 1643 or 1644, Vincent de Paul endeavoured to excite his old disciple to hostility against the Book of Frequent Communion, he had the honesty to reply that the work related to a practical matter, of which he thought himself qualified to judge ; that it had appeared to him orthodox and edifying ; and that, " as he could not but respect the doctrine, he left the judgment of the method to God, who alone can judge of the intentions of men.'' So in 1650 he refused to sign, and prevented his neighbour the Bishop of Pamiers from signing, the letter of the French Bishops to the Pope, complaining of the doctrine ' contained in the Augustinus. Little by little, we hardly : know by what process of conversion, he came to range himself entirely on the side of the Jansenists, who derived an unexpected strength from his already established repu tation as " the father and model of the Gallican bishops.". I have before related how he was the first of the Four Bishops to oppose the Formulary ; the last to yield to any suggestion of compromise. As long as he was inflexible the cause of Port Eoyal was safe ; no peace could be made without him. His distance from the capital, the poverty of his see, the apostolic simplicity of his life, all added weight to his authority. He had never visited Paris since he first left it for Alet; and is recorded once to have THE RITUAL OF ALET. 229 replied to a peremptory mandate ofthe King that he should appear at court, to answer certain charges which had been preferred against him, that " he was busy with the affairs of his diocese, and could not come." Now, this seclusion cor responded with the wishes of the Jansenist leaders, in keeping him from the temptations of enemies and the bad advice of foolish friends. So he became more and more closely united with Port Eoyal. The nuns sent him their handiwork in token of their veneration, and received prayers and relics in return. He professed the utmost admiration of their great doctors. " We knew nothing," he said, " before we knew MM. de Port Eoyal ; and we cannot sufficiently praise God for having caused us to know them."* I have already, in speaking of the Bishop of Pamiers, described the position which M. d'Alet took up in regard to the Eegale. When the dispute broke out he was already seventy-six years of age ; and he died before it had attained its full virulence. He escaped, therefore, the more active measures of persecution which were taken against his neighbour and ally ; though the consciousness that in his old age he was distrusted, and thwarted in all his plans for the good of his diocese by the civil power, and the belief that the bishops of the southern provinces were weakly giving up rights of the Church, which only he and Caulet had the courage to defend, must have been suffi ciently bitter. He seemed fated to pass his latter years in controversy, though his opponents often changed sides, and it was now with the Pope, now with the King, that he con tended. At the very crisis of the debate on the Formu lary, in 1667, he published a Eitual, in which he had digested into a whole the body of theological instructions which he had, during so many years, provided for his * Lancelot, vol. ii p. 425. «3 230 PORT ROYAL. diocese. In this, which was the undoubted right of every bishop, he was assisted by the Jansenist leaders ; Arnauld and De Barcos are each mentioned as sharing the respon sibility, if not the absolute authorship, of the book. All at once Clement IX., who had already ascended the papal chair, published a bull, motu proprio, in which he condemned the Eitual of Alet in the severest terms, excommunicated all its readers, and ordered every Bishop to seize and burn it, wherever found. A few months earlier the bull might have accorded with the public opinion of at least a part of the French Church ; but at the moment of its publication every one was longing for peace. It was received therefore in silence, and not officially published, either by the nuncio or the court ; while the Bishop, by the advice of his friends, prepared a second edition, in which some slight alterations were made, and which was preceded by the approbation of twenty-eight prelates. The Pope again protested, and the King forbade the edition. But the prohibition must have been well understood to be only a matter of form; the impression was distributed; and M. d'Alet controverted the allegations of the Pope in a long pastoral. The dis cussion was ended by the death of Clement LX. in 1670.* The dispute of the Eegale was growing every day more bitter, when in 1677, the Bishop, now in his eightieth year, was warned of his approaching death by an attack of para lysis. He partook of the sacraments secretly, in order to avoid an excitement which might hinder him in the per formance of his final duties, and then, gathering up all his strength, wrote for the last time to the Pope and the King. To the former, he recommended his unhappy dio cese, in which he already saw his life's work undone ; and implored Innocent XI. to repair the wrong which Clement IX. had inflicted upon him in the condemnation of his * Conf. Guettee, vol. x. p. 409; vol. xi. p. 44. DEATH. 331 Eitual. To the latter, he firmly and respectfully defended his resistance to the royal orders, and demanded the resto ration of three ecclesiastics who had been sent into exile for obeying the commands of their Bishop. Then he lay down to die. A second attack of paralysis finished the work of the first ; and though leaving his mind untouched, took away the power of speech and motion. He tried in vain to say a word of farewell to the people of Alet, who pressed in to see him once more. His friends the Bishops of Pamiers- and St. Pons attended him during the few days through which he lingered, watching with mourn ful love the perfect submission with which he waited for the moment of dissolution. It came on the 8th of Decem ber. He had passed his eightieth year, and had filled for thirty-nine years the see of Alet. In compliance with his own wishes, the place of his burial was marked by no epitaph. ¦ P- 224- 284 PORT ROYAL. to the absence of political principle in the leaders of the war. The very tone of the memoirs, while it confirms the fact, authenticates this explanation of it. The aris tocratic annalists narrate only the shifting combination of parties, the ramifying thread of intrigue, the steady foresight of private interest, — and have not a word to waste on the wretched citizens, the starving husbandmen, at whose expense the great game was played. But now and then some less interested spectator half-unconsciously raises the veil, and we see the vast mass of misery, help lessly silent, behind. The years of the Fronde are the period of Madame de Longueville's life which her biographer would, if he dared, willingly pass by. She must bear, in common with all the chief actors of the scene, the reproach of a guilty indif ference to the real interests of France, a wanton careless ness of human tears and blood. Perhaps those who, from proximity to a throne or the possession of political power, are accustomed to look upon men in the mass, as an instru ment to be wielded for great public or private ends, rarely feel the keen sense of personal responsibility in these things ; and in the case of Madame de Longueville, half a lifetime of repentance and reparation is to be weighed against the thoughtlessness of a few years. Br-*? we may fairly urge for her the additional excuse that throughout the Fronde, she sought and obtained nothing for herself. The desire to please, not unnatural in a beautiful and accomplished woman, and which in her at least was as near akin to love as to vanity, was at once excited and gratified by the opportunity of playing a great part in politics which the Fronde offered to her. It is true that she wanted resolution to put away the intoxicating cup from her lips before she had drained it to the dregs, and urged Conde to civil war, that she might escape the control of a husband whom she did not love and had THE BEGINNING OF REPENTANCE. 285 irreparably injured. But from first to last she struggles, not for herself, but for others. Now she is the instrument of La Eochefoucauld's petty ambition, and now contends for what she thinks her brothers' just pre-eminence in the state. In the various treaties with the Queen, every article of which is a fresh illustration of the small selfish ness of the Frondeurs, she makes no stipulations for herself. All she wins from the Fronde is a woful con sciousness of her own weakness, and the desire hencefor ward to abandon the life in which she could so little trust her own guidance, for one in which wiser hands than hers should lead her safely back to God.* Before the Fronde of Bordeaux had finally come to its inglorious end, Madame de Longueville hid herself in a convent of Benedictine nuns of that city, and with a mind, in which weariness and despair were just beginning to assume the form of repentance, looked out upon the future. She was almost alone in the world. Her mother was dead ; one brother an exile ; the other, alienated from her by some of the wretched intrigues which had made such remorseless sport with character and happiness. She felt no desire to rejoin her husband, over whom Madlle. de Longueville exercised undisputed sway, and besides, could not foretell the manner of her reception. And La Eoche foucauld's love had long been changed into mean and bitter hatred. Perhaps the first ardour of their attachment had been cooled by her long absence at Stenai ; but after the * I have found it impossible, in this necessarily brief account of the Fronde, to indicate the source from which every fact has been taken. Besides Villefore's Life of Mad. de Longueville, and M. V. Cousin's elabo rate volumes, I have to acknowledge obligations to Michelet's brilliant, but somewhat imaginative sketch, "Richelieu et La Fronde." At the same time my chief debt is to the memoirs of the time, particularly to those of Cardinal de Retz, Mad. de Motteville, and La Rochefoucauld. I have also consulted those of " Mademoiselle," and of the Duchesse de Nemours, Mad. de Longueville's cold-hearted, and prejudiced step- daughter. 286 PORT ROYAL. liberation of the Princes she had still obeyed his guidance, and it was by their joint advice that Conde had plunged into civil war. But on a journey into Berri, which preceded the breaking out of the troubles, Madame de Longueville had shown herself pleased by the homage ofthe Due de Nemours, a brave and handsome cavalier, who at that time embraced the Princes' party. He was the avowed lover of Madame de Chatillon, a lady who rivalled Madame de Longueville both in beauty and in influence over the mind of Conde. It is easy to understand the temptation which the atten tions of the Due de Nemours offered to one who delighted to exercise her all-conquering powers of fascination ; she could at once strike a blow at a rival whom she disliked and feared, and confirm in his attachment to her brothers' cause an important ally. The journey lasted but a few days, and it is needless as well as unfair to put a worse interpretation upon Madame de Longueville's conduct than is justified by the supposition of such motives as we have ascribed to her. But La Eochefoucauld seized upon the opportunity greedily, as one who had long waited for it ; and soon published to the world that his love was dead. Worse than this, he insinuated into Conde's mind sus picions of his sister's entire fidelity to the .cause; persuaded M. de Nemours, who had again entered into bondage to Madame de Chatillon, publicly to mark his indifference to the object of his brief devotion ; and finally succeeded in shutting out Madame de Longueville from her brother's councils. He tells the tale himself as coolly as he recounts the motives which once induced him to win her heart, that he might coin it into political capital. Of course, with him it is only one instance the more of woman's fickleness, and the ill-requited constancy of man. When in the battle of the Porte St. Antoine he was almost blinded by a gun-shot, he parodied the lines in which he had once falsely paraded an all-sacrificing self-devotion:-?-. THE GRAND CYRUS. 287 "Pour ce cceur inconstant, qu'enfin je connais mieux, J'ai fait la guerre aux Rois, j'en ai perdu les yeux." Each version is as untrue as the other.* In pleasing contrast with La Eochefoucauld's faithless ness, stands the unshaken fidelity to our heroine of two humble friends who belonged to the circle of the Hotel de Eambouillet, George and Madeleine de Scudery. The former was the nominal, the latter the real author of that yoluminous romance, the Grand Cyrus, once the delight of more than one generation of novel readers, in which Madame de Longueville herself, under the name of Mandane, played a conspicuous part. The successive pub lication of its ten volumes was contemporary with the wars of the Fronde; the first saw the light in 1649, the last in 1653. When the first two appeared, they were dedicated to Madame de Longueville, then the idol of the Parisian populace ; her portrait adorned the frontispiece, her beauty and her wit were the subjects of rapturous adulation. The third volume was issued about the end of the same year; the fourth in 1650, when Madame de Longueville was escaping at the peril of her life into Holland; the fifth, a little later, when she was lingering in weary inaction at Stenai. The Scuderys had no sym pathy with the Fronde; and the brother, whose name appeared on the title-page of the romance, was afterwards deprived by Mazarin, of the government of Notre Dame de la Garde, for this very fidelity to the friendship of the proscribed Princess. But every volume as it was pub lished, bore her arms, and echoed with her praises, whether it appeared at the moment of her prosperous or adverse fortune. The tenth and last issued from the press in Sep- * Mem. de Madame de Nemours, p. 655. Mem. de la Rochefoucanld, p. 478. V. Cousin, Mad. de Longueville pendant La Fronde, p. 86, et seq., V- 139, et seq. 288 PORT ROYAL. tember, 1653, at the time when Madame de Longueville, almost friendless, was waiting for the final decision of the court as to her place of residence. She had never given more than thanks and love to her constant friends, and now had no more to give ; her affection was dangerous ; and there was no longer any hope of a sudden change of fortune, which might lift high in air those who were grovelling in the dust. Yet the tenth volume of the Grand Cyrus bore her portrait like the first; and the "dedication repeated all the courteous devotion which had waited upon her youthful steps, at the Hotel de Eam bouillet.* Throughout the days of her troubled prosperity, Madame de Longueville had never quite lost sight of her old friends, the Carmelite sisters of the Fauxbourg St. Jacques. She had kept up an often interrupted intercourse with Madlle. du Vigean ; and, on occasion of her mother's death, had received and answered a letter of condolence from the ; Superior. She turned once more to them in her present abandonment and distress. To the Prioress she writes f : ' " Just now I desire nothing so ardently as to see the end of this war, that I may come and cast in my lot with you for the rest of my days. I cannot do this till after the peace, by reason of the misfortune of my life, which was given to me only that I might experience whatever the world has of bitterest and hardest. What has made me take the resolution, of which I have just spoken, is, that if I have had any attachments to the world, of whatever kind you may imagine, they are broken, and even crushed.'^ This news will not be unpleasant to you. . . . I de- sire that to give me a feeling for God, which as yet I have not, and yet without which I should nevertheless act as I have said, if the peace were made, you would do me * Cousin, La Societe Francaisc, &c. vol. i. p. 28, et seq. j f Villefore, part ii. p. 65. j RELIGIOUS CRISIS. 289 the favour to write to me often, and to confirm me in my horror of the world. Send me word what books you would advise me to read." There is little religious feeling in this letter: it is the voice of disappointment seeking relief in a quarter to which Madame de Longueville's theory of religion, and the recollection of a more dis interested and genuine aspiration, alike pointed. Pre sently came an order from the court that she should repair to Montreuil, an estate in Anjou belonging to her hus band; then, after a time, she was permitted to take up her abode at Moulins. Here was the tomb of her uncle Montmorenci, whose fate had so excited her childish com miseration; and here his widow wore away her days as Superior of a convent of " Filles de Sainte Marie." The chord of the former association was once more struck; and the Abbess, who lived to lament an old attempt at revolution, took to her heart the niece who was the victim of a new one. Little by little the spectacle of the cloister peace, and of a virtue which seemed to have emerged from the region of conflict into one of harmony with itself and with God ; as well as pious reading and kind advice, seem to have wakened to growth the germ of religious feeling which had long slept in Madame de Longueville's heart. At last, on the 2nd of August, — she has herself preserved the date, — the crisis came. As she was reading, i she says : " It was as if a curtain were drawn from before the eyes of my spirit; all the charms of the truth, as sembled in a single object, presented themselves before me; faith, which had remained as if dead, and buried beneath my passions, was renewed; I found myself like one who, after a deep sleep, in which she had dreamed that she was great, happy, honoured, esteemed by all the world, wakes all at once, and finds herself loaded with chains, pierced with wounds, beaten down by weariness, t TOL. II. u 290 PORT ROYAL. and confined in a gloomy prison." * The sincerity of this conversion may be best vouched for by the fact that, after a stay of a few months at Moulins, she made no attempt to hide herself from shame and duty in the cloister, but went quietly back to Normandy, and did her best for her husband and children. M. de Longueville survived till 1663. The story of his conduct to his wife during these nine years is soon told. He took her back without reproach, and behaved to her with a gentlemanly courtesy, which in time suffered the growth of confidence and esteem. She did not make her peace with the Queen as easily as with her husband; Conde was now commanding the armies of Spain, and every fresh success which he gained over the generals of his country was cause of fresh suspicion against his sister. She was but thirty-five, her beauty had hardly lost its first brilliance, her powers of pleasing were unimpaired, and she might yet, thought Mazarin and his mistress, break away from a seclusion and a restraint so foreign to all her wishes, and become the centre of a new Fronde.f But we do not find any evidence that such a temptation assailed her. Though her heart, as ever, went with Conde, and beat quicker than its wont at the news of his victories or reverses, she really desired, and patiently waited for, a reconciliation with the court. At first she * Villefore, part ii. p. 73. f It was long before Mazarin ceased to fear the heroines of the Fronde, When at the peace of the Pyrenees in 1660, the Spanish ambassador made it a stipulation that Conde should be restored to his rank and dignities in France, a question arose as to Madame de Longueville. Don Luis de Haro remarked with some shade of contempt, that one woman could not surely disturb the tranquillity of the state. " That is all very well for you Spaniards," answered Mazarin, "your women trouble themselves about nothing but lovemaking ; but in France it is not so, and we have three, the Duchesse de Longueville, the Princess Palatine, and the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who are capable of ruling or upsetting three great kingdoms."— Villefore, part ii. p. 109. THE PRINCE DE CONTI. 291 did not quit Normandy, which was her habitual residence throughout these years ; then we find her taking her place as a princess of the blood at the great festivals of royalty ; at last she is chosen by her husband to convey his com plaints and wishes to the ear of the King. M. de Longue ville did not interfere witl\ her religious observances, except to protest when they seemed likely to degenerate into excesses of austerity ; and Port Eoyal, when the Duchess adopted its guidance, had the good sense to teach her, that no duty could be so imperative as that of watching over her husband's declining years. Before he' died he grew to value her kindness, as well as to claim it as a right ; and she had the satisfaction of attempting to expiate the unfaithful thoughtlessness of her youth, by years of watchful and tender care.* Madame de Longueville's repentance was almost imme diately followed by a still more startling conversion, that of her brother Conti. He had been originally destined for the Church, and throughout the wars of the Fronde had continued to hold the numerous and wealthy benefices which had been heaped upon the royal aspirant to eccle siastical honours. But he had never taken orders ; and as soon as he had made his peace with the King, cast about for some means of irrevocably cutting himself off from the possibility of entering the Church. Conde, long before, had married a niece of Eichelieu, and so obtained the com mand of armies ; Mazarin had seven nieces for whom he wished to find husbands ; why not repeat so successful a Stroke of policy? The Cardinal could desire nothing better than this opportunity of allying himself with the blood royal, and Anne Marie Martinozzi, a girl of seven teen, was ordered to bestow herself on the humpbacked ^bridegroom, the flagrant vices of whose life were not * Villefore, part ii. p. 77, et seq. Cousin, Mad. de Sable, p. 183. V 2 292 PORT ROYAL. atoned for by manliness or independence of character. He was not even recommended by any sincerity of passion; Mazarin had two nieces still unmarried, and he cared not which fell to his share ; his object, as he openly said, "was to marry the Cardinal." Yet, after the marriage, another phase of family history seemed likely to be repeated, for Louis XIV. fell in love with Anne Martinozzi, as Henri IV. had once done with her husband's mother, Charlotte de Montmorenpi. Conti, who was commanding on the frontiers of Spain the army which he had bought by his marriage, at once sent for his wife, who joined him in Languedoc at the end of 1654. It was hardly necessary; the Princesse de Conti was made of other clay than the facile ladies whom Louis XIV. was accustomed to solicit, and publicly repulsed him in a way which, if he ever recollected it among the easy victories of his manhood, must have seemed strange to the all-conquering King. The young Italian lady, whom fate had thus so strangely united with a weak, wayward, debauched Prince, was, even in her girlhood, of a grave, resolute, almost severe charac ter ; unable to accustom herself to the ways of courts ; true in word as in life. It is not therefore strange, when we remember what Catholic engines of conversion are, that her husband should first have felt their efficacy. He had been in leading-strings all his life, obeying the guidance now of his sister, now of a mistress, now, even of a servant; in 1655 the confessor's turn came. He had srone to Pezenas, to represent the King at the meeting of the Estates of Languedoc, and there received the homage of Pavilion, Bishop of Alet. Conti, worn out with debauch, was lying wearily in bed, wondering, perhaps, at the bitterness of " the husks that the swine did eat," when the good Bishop came to pay the formal visit demanded by etiquette. Something, said the Prince, seemed to whisper, to him that here was the man to whom he must entrust THE PRINCE DE CONTI. 293 himself if he would be delivered from his sin and his fear, and the visit of compliment was converted into a serious interchange of confession and advice. Pavilion knew only too well the character of the penitent with whom he had to deal ; for the south-west provinces of France had been the head-quarters of the Fronde in its latter years. So he prescribed a rigid and long course of penitence; recommended the Prince to the care of M. Ciron, a pious ecclesiastic of Toulouse who happened to be then in Paris, and consented that he should receive absolution only after nine months' perseverance in self-mortification had proved the reality of his repentance. It was not till two years afterwards that Madame de Conti, then only in her nineteenth year, agreed to place herself by her husband's side, under the care of the Bishop and M. Ciron. The change must have been wrought in her mind little by little; partly, perhaps, by Pavilion's almost savage sincerity, partly by watching the transforma tion of her husband's life, partly by the secret promptings of bodily weakness, which began to warn her that, young as she was, her death might not be distant. Who can wonder that at first the passionate language of self-abase ment, which Pavilion and his own conscience might rightly place upon her husband's lips, would seem untrue upon her own? Whatever changes of feeling preceded her con version she was faithful to her thought after as before it ; and wife, widow, mother, is henceforward a Christian, ac cording to the model of Alet, till she dies. In 1660 the Prince was appointed Governor of Languedoc, which gave him the desired opportunity of receiving and acting upon Pavilion's advice. With his wife he made a " retreat " at Alet in 1661, and again in 1662; laying aside for the time all state as the representative of royalty, and listening to the good Bishop's exhortations like any other layman of the province. A third time, in 1665, he came to Alet to U 3 294 PORT ROYAL. take counsel with Pavilion both as to his own religious condition and the affairs of his government. In the spring of 1666 he died. It is noticeable how the Bishop of Alet, in common with the school of Jansenist theologians, to which he at this time unconsciously belonged, upheld, in dealing with such a penitent as the Prince de Conti, the claims of common, every- day morality. He would not suffer him to fly to a cloister and attempt to atone for profligacy by austerity. He withstood his desire to resign the govern ment of Languedoc, and taught his penitent that a wise and righteous administration of public affairs, not a faith less abstinence from them, was the best sacrifice which a Prince could bring to God. He exacted from him hard and humiliating proofs of sincerity ; to one gentleman of Bordeaux the Prince restored a great sum of money; of another he humbly asked pardon for having seduced his wife. When the Princess received her share of Mazarin's vast inheritance, she and her husband wished to employ the ill-gotten wealth in one splendid act of ecclesiastical munificence. There was a plan for building and endowing a costly church on the domains of Conti, another for founding a convent of Carmelite nuns, where the Princess might retire from time to time for religious meditation. But Pavilion also had his scheme. He held the Prince directly responsible for the wretchedness caused by the civil war, and asked of him an account of all the Church revenues which he had received and squandered. Now there was an opportunity of restitution. But he did not think promiscuous almsgiving enough, however lavish it might be ; he proposed to the Prince to inquire through the province of Berri for the families which had suffered most in the war, and to cause restitution to be made from house to house. The Princess at first rebelled' against' a plan which was not only unattractive to the THE PRINCE DE CONTI. 295 imagination, but involved something of humiliation with its munificence. Presently she gave way ; as one who yields rather to inner conviction than to the will of a director. Fontaine tells an anecdote of her widowhood, which illus trates her renunciation now. De Saci had inculcated upon her the necessity of almsgiving, with reference to some occasion of great public misery, and she " having a pearl ¦necklace of admirable beauty and very great value, as soon as she was informed of the wretchedness of the poor, deem ing this string of pearls a superfluity, sacrificed it to help them. It is true that as she gave it, and looked at it for the last time, she heaved a little sigh, but her faith soon smothered it and remained victorious over nature."* Her weak and pliable husband, on the contrary, was incapable of choice when under the control of a stronger will than his own. He. would go any lengths in virtue, as in vice ; and for the same reason. An amusing story has been preserved to the effect that his boys, in reading the Old Testament with bim, always passed over the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. " Our father is so good," they said, on being asked the reason, " that if God demanded it of him, he would do with us as Abraham did with Isaac. So we keep that from him." I have already, in speaking of Lancelot's ineffectual attempts to educate these boys after the fashion of Port Eoyal, alluded to Madame de Conti's widowhood. From the very first a common religious interest had reconciled all differences between her husband and his sister ; while after a time, when Madame de Longueville had fallen into the hands of Singlin, and the Bishop of Alet had discovered his unconscious affinity with the Jansenist party, they were all united upon the common ground of Port Eoyal. The two Princesses worked together for * Fontaine, vol. iv. p. 267. c 4 296 PORT ROYAL. the Peace: Madame de Sevigne pleasantly called them " the mothers of the Church." * But Madame de Conti did not long survive the success of her efforts, and died, in the thirty-fifth year of her age, and the sixth of her widowhood, in 1672.f Madame de Longueville had at first no point of contact; with Port Eoyal: there was nothing Jansenist in the manner or the instruments of her conversion, and her history is one of religious aspiration, not of theological conviction. When once she was embarked in the cause of Port Eoyal, men said,, not altogether unjustly, that she had found her right place in the Church, and from heroine of a political had become leader of an ecclesiastical Fronde. And, beyond doubt, it must have been a pleasant thing to that restless mind and eager will, to find once more a field of public action upon which they might lawfully exert themselves : she, who had formerly made treaties of peace and war with Spain, not unwillingly pleaded the cause of Port Eoyal with Pope and King. But it was not the desire of action, or any leaning to a rebellious theology, that brought her to Port Eoyal. She wanted a director, and could find none elsewhere. She came to Singlin, as Angelique Arnauld had formerly gone to St. Cyran, because she wished to submit herself to a stronger and wiser will than her own. The cures and, monks who undertook her ' case ' could not see into her heart, even when she opened it to them, and prescribed spiritual medicines, which left her ailing as before. At last, in 1661, many indications of circumstance pointed) to Singlin as the confessor in whom she would find all she needed. But before we bring our heroine into the, quiet port, where she is all our own, we must again enlarge * Lett. xxix. March 13, 1671. t Vies des Quatre Eveques, vol. i. p. 103, et seq. Besoigne, vol. iii. p. 36, et seq. Fontaine, vol. iii. p. 378. Sta Beuve, vol. iv. p. 422, et seq. MADEMOISELLE DE VERTUS. 297 our gallery by adding to it the portraits of two friends, who formed the final link between her and the community henceforward to be inseparably connected with her name. The first of these, Madlle. de Vertus, seems to have attached herself to Madame de Longueville before 1654, for we hear of her as helping her friend's reconciliation with her husband. From that time they lived together on terms of sisterly equality, till in 1671 Madlle. de Vertus made a final and complete retreat to Port Eoyal des Champs. She, too, was of an illustrious house, descending on the father's side from that royal family of Brittany which was united, in the marriage of Anne of Brittany with Louis XII., to the reigning dynasty of France. Her mother, a beautiful and profligate woman, was the daughter of La Varenne, who, once a cook, gained rank and in famous notoriety by ministering to the pleasures of Henri TV. Madlle. de Vertus was the younger sister of Madame de Longueville's old enemy, the Duchesse de Montbazon, but possessed neither her beauty nor her audacious wan tonness. The family was poor; her other unmarried sisters had taken refuge in the convent; and she lived first with one great lady, and then with another, till she found in Madame de Longueville the friend of a life-time. Some unexplained mystery connects Madlle. de Vertus' name with that of La Eochefoucauld — could it be that the two friends had the same wrongs to deplore ? What ever may have been ber sins, her repentance preceded that of Madame de Longueville ; and she was, as Eacine said in her epitaph, " the visible angel of whom God made use to aid this Princess to find the narrow way of salvation." Of the two, she had the more equable temper and the sounder judgment; and by the gentle constancy of her character often attracted those whom her friend repelled by some trace of the old pride and caprice. Throughout the whole of Madame de Longueville's attempt to allay 298 PORT ROYAL. the troubles of Port Eoyal, Madlle. de Vertus stands by her side, and leaves her at last only to wear away a linger-] ing old age in the arms of the beloved community.* The other friend is one who asks from us a more minute and careful attempt at portraiture ; for her connection with Port Eoyal was, in many ways, unlike that which bound others of her rank and sex to the community. Madeleine de Souvre was the daughter of Gilles de Souvre, Marquis de Courtenvaux, a soldier to whom Henri IV. gave a marshalls baton, and the charge of his son Louis XIII. She was born in 1599 ; and at the age of fifteeen married Philippe de Laval-Montmorenci, Marquis de Sable, to whom she bore four children, none of whom have any connection with our story. Her husband died in 1640 ; about which time we first hear of her at Port Eoyal in company with Madame de Guemene, and the future Queen of Poland.f The intercourse thus begun was never wholly intermitted ; and about the year 1653, Madame de Sable, a widow, whose only daughter had embraced the religious life, built for herself a house in the court-yard of Port Eoyal de Paris, having a communication of its own with the outside world, and a private door into the convent. Till her death, in 1678, this was her abode. She had been beautiful in her youth, and had not wanted admirers, the most illustrious of whom was the un fortunate Henri de Montmorenci, brother of the Princesse I de Conde. But Madame de Sable held a chief place in i the society of the Hotel de Eambouillet; was indeed, i according to her last biographer, " the type of the perfect1;,] precieuse;" and thought it no wrong that a wife and mother should receive such chaste and refined homage as M. de Montausier so long vainly offered to the " divine * Cousin, Mad. de Sable, pp. 228, 340, et seq. St° Beave, vol. iv. p. 493. Besoigne, vol. iii. p. 131. t Vol. i. p. 193. MADAME DE SABL& 299 Julie." Madame de Motteville, who knew her well, con firms this view of her relation to the Due de Montmorenpi, and adds, that she indignantly rejected his attentions when he began to raise his eyes to the Queen, " not being able to receive with pleasure such respect as she was compelled to share with the greatest Princess of the world." * She was, in truth, formed rather for friendship than for love ; her heart was too cold, her affections too self-centred, to suffer the mastery of the warmer and less conscious passion. Her natural powers, which were good, had been cultivated by intercourse with the best society of the day ; she loved to converse with men of letters, and they in turn asked and valued her opinion of their works. Voiture addressed many letters to her; La Eochefoucauld po^ fished his "Maxims" with her help. But the greatest tribute to the solidity of her mind is, that Arnauld sub mitted to her approval the preliminary discourses of " The Port Eoyal Logic." Madame de Sable's relation to Port Eoyal is not easy .to describe. If any religious fervour first brought her there, it was neither deep nor lasting ; she is severed by a whole hemisphere from the spirit of the monastery while actually dwelling in its court-yard. A single letter ad dressed to her by Angelique Arnauld is still extant : it is dated March 11th, 1653, at the very beginning of her ! residence at Port Eoyal, and strikes, as it were, the key note of all her long subsequent correspondence with Agnes and Angelique de St. Jean Arnauld. f Angelique gently reproves her for her absurd fear of disease and death, and warns her that her windows, which look upon the convent garden, must not be open to strangers, whose approach might infringe upon strict conventual seclusion. From that time there is a constant interchange of notes betweeu * Mem. de Mad. de Motteville, p. 18. f Lettres d' Angelique Arnauld, vol. ii. p. 293. 300 PORT ROYAL. the house in the court-yard and the Abbess' parlour, full of complaint, and remonstrance, and patience, and recon ciliation. Madame de Sable bargains that she shall be kept accurately informed of all the sickness of the house ; while at the same time she and her servants are always de tecting some unreported illness, or magnifying a trifling ailment into a case of infectious disease. Thence fresh charges, and fresh explanations. The smell arising from the manufacture of tapers for the church offends her nostrils; and she will go, if some place sufficiently remote from her lodging cannot be found for the process. After she has been ten years at Port Eoyal, she finds out that her rooms have no morning sun upon them ; and La Mere Agnes tries to console her with the idea that her face in the church is turned to the east, and so towards the Sun of righteousness. Then— for she is no longer young when she takes up her abode at Port Eoyal — she all at once loses her troublesome sense of smell ; and many a querulous letter is written in the consciousness of this affliction to Agnes Arnauld, whose sober exhortations shine with a gleam of suppressed humour as she informs her corres pondent that she herself has had no use of her nose for nearly fifty years, and does not find herself seriously worse for the privation. By and bye, the sense of taste begins to grow dull; and again there is a long lamentation, and much kindly attempt at comfort, not unmingled with rebuke. I doubt whether in the palmy days of Port Eoyal, Angelique Arnauld would have suffered so singular a connection to be prolonged ; • for she had borne im patiently the worldliness of greater ladies than Madame de Sable. But in the time of trouble, the Marquise was in a thousand ways useful to the community ; who, on their part, persuaded themselves that they were useful to her. If it was hard in the midst of a struggle of con science, which seemed to involve their very existence, to MADAME DE SA\ _„ £01 have to answer quietly her petty complaints and soothe her small jealousies, they at least knew that she was using for them all the resources of a masculine intellect, and a great social influence. So they bore with her to the last ; and made her the confidante of their secretest councils. She remained at her house all through the reign of La Mere Eugenie, a friend in the enemy's camp. But when the true Port Eoyal was established once more in the house in the valley, she could not resolve to follow her friends. She was already seventy years of age ; how should she leave Paris, and her pleasant Hterary coterie, and the physician in whom she put her trust, to bury herself in the country, and, above all, at a spot which was noto riously unhealthy? M. de Sevigne, a gentleman who stood in a similar relation to the convent, did not hesitate to transplant himself to Port Eoyal des Champs, and even had the rudeness to tell her that God had put a term to her fife, which all her fears and precautions would not lengthen by' a single day. But then he had been a rough soldier, with no great tincture of letters, and was not in any respect an example for a woman of mind and fashion like herself. So till her death in 1678, she remained at Port Eoyal de Paris, an apparent, though not a real link of union between tbe hostile houses. She lived with the new friends, much as she had lived with the old ones ; and maintained with Port Eoyal des Champs the ancient com merce of jealous, querulous, and yet friendly letters. The good sisters who have compiled the annals of Port Eoyal well knew that Madame de Sable did not belong to them in the same way as Madame de St. Ange, or Madame de Longueville ; and have consulted at once honesty and gratitude in abstaining from either praise or blame in their brief notices of her connection with the house. 9 Other contemporaries were not so abstinent, and Madame de Sable's peculiarities are preserved in a swarm of anec- 302 PORT ROYAL. dotes. Her fear of infection was a subject of constant ridicule to her friends. Voiture*, who had attended the deathbed of a grandson of Madame de Eambouillet, ad dresses her thus : — " Know then that I who write to you do not write ¦ to you, for I have sent this letter twenty leagues from this place to be copied by a man whom I have never seen." Julie de Eambouillet, who had nursed Madame de Longueville through the small-pox, begins a letter to Madame de Sable: — "Madlle. de Chalais will, if she pleases, read this letter to Madame la Marquise, stand ing to leeward of her ; " and goes on to enumerate a host of half-absurd precautions which she promises to take if Madame de Sable will consent to receive a visit from her.t On such a theme Tallemant lets his scandalous pen run wild ; and if some of his stories are hard to be believed, the very fact of their currency shows what was Madame de Sable's repute in the salons of Paris. " One day, when she went to call on the Marechale de Guebriant, in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, she said : — ' Ah, what a difficulty I am in ! Which way shall I return ? I saw upon the Pont Neuf a little boy who has lately had the small-pox! He is begging, and in driving him away, my people might catch it ; and there is something on the Pont Eouge that creaks.' At last, although she lived in the Fauxbourg St, Honore, she went over the Pont Notre Dame." Again, she could not bear to speak either of her own or another's death. When her intimate friend, the Comtesse de Maure, was dying, she sent her companion, Madlle. de Chalais, to inquire how she was. " ' But,' added she, ' take care not to tell me that she is dead.' Chalais got there as she expired. When she returned, — 'Well, Chalais, is she as bad as she can be? does she not eat?' 'No,' answered Chalais. 'Nor speak?' 'Still less.' 'Nor hear?' 'Not at all.' * Quoted by St° Beuve, vol. iv. p. 449. f Cousin, Mad. de Sable, p. 17. MADAME DE SABLfi. 303 'She is dead then?' 'Madame,' answered Chalais, 'at least it is you who have said it, not I.' " But besides all this she was a distinguished epicure ; prided herself upon the delicacy of her taste, and criticised cookery books with authority. Pisani, Madame de Eambouillet's son, said to her one day, in jest, " that she might try in vain to expel the devil from her house, for he had entrenched himself in her kitchen." Eapin comes to her for the receipt of a salad, and La Eochefoucauld exchanges maxims of morality for instructions in the art of making carrot soup. She teases the sisters of Port Eoyal with sending them presents of good things which their rule will not permit them to enjoy. When Agnes Arnauld is first imprisoned, the cha racteristic form assumed by Madame de Sable's sympathy is a gift of new bread. The longer we dwell on this side of her character the harder it is to understand, why of all places in Paris where she might have built a house, she chose the court-yard of Port Eoyal.* Madame de Sable's acquaintance with Madame de Longueville dates at least from the days of the Hotel de Eambouillet ; for in two letters which she wrote to Julie de Eambouillet in answer to that which I have quoted, she shows herself jealous of her friend's superior courage in tak ing her place by the bedside of one whom they both loved. The Fronde was a great divider of friendships ; and Madame de Sable held fast to the party of Mazarin and the Queen. But about 1659 or 1660 the old intercourse was resumed, first by letter, and then, when Madame de Longueville came to hve in Paris, by personal communication. Each was in. possession of all the other's thoughts on the subject which soon began to occupy their whole attention; and * Lettres d'Agnes Arnauld, nos. 398, 443, 445, 446, 447, 450, 454, 455, 494, 585, 593. Cousin, Mad. de Sable, passim. St" Beuve, vol. ii. p. 253 ; vol. iv. p. 447, et seq. Tallemant, vol. iv. p. 74, et seq. La Rochefoucauld, Lettres, pp. 230, 231. 304 PORT ROYAL. notes were constantly exchanged between Port Eoyal de Paris and the Hotel de Longueville. The friends agreed that all letters and papers should be burned as soon as read ; Madame de Longueville religiously kept, Madame de Sable deliberately broke the contract. Two hundred letters written by the former are part of the large collec tion of Madame de Sable's correspondence, made and pre served by her physician, Valant. We read in. some of them: — "Burn this note at once, I beg, as well as all that I write to you, and send me word that it is burned." " Do not be afraid to write clearly, for I burn your letters the moment I have read them." " Burn this, in God's name : " and so forth. Gratitude for the help given us by these letters, in tracing a critical part of Madame de Longueville's career, almost forbids us to characterise as if deserves, the faithlessness which not only omitted to fulfil such an engagement, but actually handed over the unre served outpourings of friendship to be filed, and copied, and collated by an indifferent person.* We do not hear of Madame de Longueville in connec tion with Port Eoyal till the spring of 1661. In a letter to Madame de Sable, dated December 31st, 1660, she says, " All the Jansenism in the world would not have hindered me from coming to see you had I been longer or more at liberty in Paris ; " implying in this phrase, that Madame de Sable had feared lest her residence at Port Eoyal might prove a barrier to intercourse with her friend. But not long after this, we find her visiting the death-bed of Angelique Arnauld, and asking for an interview with Singlin, who, at that time, in fear of a lettre-de-cachet,<}iad concealed himself in a house in the suburbs of Paris' of which Madame Vitart was the reputed tenant. Madlle. de Vertus was the instrument of communication with * Cousin, Mad. de Sable, p. 174. SINGLIN. 305 Madame de Sable* and Port Eoyal. " I beg of you," she writes, "to send your friend here to-morrow. He must come in a chair and send back his porters ; I will give him mine to take him wherever he pleases. He will be put in a room where no one will see him. A maid-servant will wait upon him at the door of the apartment. He will not be asked who he is. Thus, my good Madame, he need not fear any difficulty. I only wish to know the precise time in order to get rid of any strangers who may happen to be with me. If he comes in a chair, let it go straight into the court-yard. I greatly desire the accomplishment of this, for the poor woman has no rest. If I could see her in good hands, I assure you it would give me great joy." But Singlin, as usual, hesitated. He had looked upon his enforced concealment as a token that God wished him to abandon the direction of consciences, and to live the life of a simple penitent., At last, reading one day the account of our Lord's conversation with the Samaritan woman, at a time when the jealousy of the Pharisees had compelled him to quit Judea, he saw the analogy with his own case and the duty now asked of him, and yielded. Nevertheless many precautions were necessary. He visited the Hotel de Longueville, under the name of M. de Mar- tigny. He changed his cassock for a physician's cloak and wig : and was cautiously introduced, as we have seen, into the presence of his penitent. He could not refrain from a smile, says Fontaine, to see himself thus disguised. "Manus quidem, manus sunt Esau. The hands are the hands of Esau : but I must try, that beneath these clothes which hide my real self, the voice shall be always the voice of Jacob."* Soon Madame de Longueville had found in Singlin the * Fontaine, vol. iii. p. 317, et seq. Cousin, Mad. de Sable, pp. 181, 232. Lett, de la Mere Angelique, vol. iii. p. 529. VOL. II. X 306 PORT ROYAL. director for whom she had so long waited. It is not un reasonable to suppose that the great Frondeuse felt an attraction towards a form of doctrine which was loudly accused of heresy, and a community which seemed to hang upon the verge of schism. But, at the same time, she was earnestly seeking for peace on the path of self- mortification, and as yet had not found it. Her directors had wearied her with impositions of penance, but had never touched the malady which was the true cause of her unrest. In a general confession which, at Singlin's desire, she wrote in November 1661, she reveals a cha racter which it is not difficult to reconcile with much that the memoir writers, and especially De Eetz and Madame de Nemours, have recorded of her. Pride, self-love, a desire to excel, a wish to hold the foremost place in men's thoughts and words, are the varying names of a principle of action which had governed her life with fatal power. It assumed a comparatively harmless form in the motives which bade her shine at the Hotel de Eambouillet; it smoothed the way to her liaison with La Eochefoucauldy and plunged her into the troubles of the Fronde ; it ex aggerated to her the bitterness of a return to her husband's hearth, and urged her to involve Conde in civil war ; even now she is not sure that it is not the secret cause of the docility with which she submits herself to Singlin's direc tion, and, transformed into an angel of light, guides her pen in the very record of her sins. In the management / of so difficult a penitent, Singlin displayed all the tact aj*d good sense which seem to have rarely failed the confessors of Port Eoyal in their dealing with wounded consciences. He relieved her at once from all extraordinary obligations of austerity, except such as she chose voluntarily to as sume. He insisted upon her full and ungrudging perfor mance of the duties of a wife and mother, as the best penance. He would not suffer her to contemplate the idea CONNEXION WITH PORT ROYAL. 307 of retirement to a monastery. Seeing that the only safety for a mind so fertile in subtleties, a spirit so mobile to every wind of caprice, lay in the practical duties of religion, he placed before her the necessity of repairing the wretched ness caused by the wars of the Fronde, and engaged her sympathies in the cause of Port Eoyal. He associated with her in all pious exercises and labours Madlle. de Vertus, as a friend, whose calmer and more equable nature would help to soothe her restlessness. When, in 1664, Singlin died, his place was assumed by De Saci, who continued the work till his arrest in 1666. Long before this time, Madame de Longueville had become entirely devoted to the cause of Port Eoyal ; and the friends and confessors of the community were hers also.* The seven years, from 1661 to 1668, which intervened between Madame de Longueville's first visit to Port Eoyal and the Peace of the Church, were those of the hardest struggle against the Formulary. I have already narrated the fortunes and the issue of the fight ; a few words will complete all that it is necessary to add as to Madame de „, Longueville's part in it. At first we are told, and can easily believe, that Madame de Sable advocated a prompt and unconditional signature ; and that her friend, not yet fully imbued with the spirit of the community, used her influence in the same direction. But as the contest grew hotter, and on the side of Port Eoyal apparently more hopeless, all her sympathies went with the sisterhood in their stubborn resistance to ecclesiastical tyranny. M. de Longueville died in 1663; and his widow thenceforward took up her permanent residence in Paris, where her house became the rallying point of Jansenism. For five years she afforded an asylum in the Hotel de Longueville, which no * Fontaine, vol. iii. j>. 322, et seq. St" Beuve, vol. iv. p. 516, et seq. St" Beuve, Portraits de Femmes, p. 300, et seq. X 2 308 PORT ROYAL. police ventured to search, to Arnauld and Nicole. There, too, were held the conferences which finally settled the form of that version of the New Testament, which usually goes under the name of De Saci. Thither gathered themselves all who dared to sympathise with the imprisoned sisterhood, and there were made the first efforts to procure an armistice. It would be untrue to say that the Peace of the Church was wholly due to Madame de Longueville ; a concurrence of circumstances, with which she had nothing to do, had pre pared the way, and made it possible, at the moment when Clement IX. was elevated to the Papal chair. But to her belongs the merit of having seen and seized upon the favourable instant: of judiciously and unsparingly employing in the work of reconciliation all the means at her disposal. She induced Gondrin, Archbishop of Sens, to take up the cause of the Four Bishops. She set Conde to work upon the King. She herself wrote to the Pope and his cardinal-secretary. She put in motion every engine of private or public influence which Port Eoyal could com mand. She smoothed down the suspicious conscientious ness of her friends, as well as the angry prejudices of their opponents. And at last in 1668 she had the satisfaction of seeing Arnauld welcomed by the Nuncio, and graciously received by the King; in 1669, the still greater pleasure of knowing that La Mere Agnes and her nuns were released from their long confinement. To have employed in nego tiating the peace of the Gallican Church the same powers which she had once misused to let loose upon her country the miseries of war, must have been a grateful salve to her wounded and unquiet conscience. She was spared the pain of seeing her work undone ; the peace lasted no longer than her life.* * St« Beuve, vol. iv. p. 259, et seq. Cousin, Mad. de Sable, p. 235, et seq._ Besoigne, vol ii. p. 395, et seq. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 309 While following the fortunes of Madame de Longueville, we have altogether lost sight of La Eochefoucauld. They parted, as we have seen, before the end of the Princes' war, and do not appear ever to have met again. But during the years which immediately followed Madame de Longue ville's connection with Port Eoyal, Madame de Sable was the intimate friend of both, and is thus the means of once more bringing La Eochefoucauld within reach of our story. For his famous "Maxims" received their epigrammatic polish at her house in the court yard of Port Eoyal, and obtained, as a sort of worldly version of the Augustinian doctrine of human nature, the applause of more than one Jansenist theologian. At the battle of the Porte St. Antoine, La Eochefoucauld received a wound, which for a while deprived him of sight. He had seen for some time that the Fronde was a losing game, and now blind, gouty, disappointed, cynical, threw up the cards, and buried himself and his ailments in the country. Time and rest restored his eyesight ; others, as deeply implicated in the Fronde as himself, gradually regained the royal favour ; and little by little the old in triguer ventured to show himself once more, and to plot for his son's advancement at court, as eagerly as he had once plotted for his own. But he never again took a pro minent part in public affairs. Even if the king's rooted distrust of all those who had troubled his minority could have been eradicated, his reign offered no scope for La Eoche foucauld's peculiar powers. Louis wanted brilliant generals and able administrators, and the veteran Frondeur was neither of these. He was made to swim in troubled waters ; to grasp his own or his party's advantage in the lawless shock of public and private interests ; to weave an endless web of petty intrigue ; to provide for the necessities of the moment by new and ever-changing combinations ; — not to govern a peaceful kingdom in obedience to a regal will, or X 3 310 PORT ROYAL. to concentrate all its resources in one strong blow against a foreign enemy. So he became the polished man of society, whose talk was a model of brilliant conversation, and whose literary reputation was at least as great as became a gentle man of distinguished birth and station. He had no talent for public speaking ; he stammered and turned pale if he had to address five or six persons at once ; and refused to be of the French Academy for fear of the harangue which he must have made at his entrance. But in a drawing- room he was without a rival ; and strange as it may seem to those who have read our story, the drawing room which he most affected, was that in the court yard of Port Eoyal. He had occupied himself, during his period of retirement, in the composition of memoirs of his own time ; which still remain to guide, and at the same time perplex, the his torian in his attempt to narrate the true tale of the Frondd. As regards the author himself, they are artfully apologetic; while bearing with a heavy hand upon the sins and weak nesses of friend and foe. Perhaps the most truthful narra tive would have been displeasing to the actors in that wild tragicomedy. Who could write the history of the struggle without staining the fair fame of the combatants ? How ever this may be, La Eochefoucauld was greeted with a storm of indignation, when, in 1662, his " Memoirs " were published at Cologna St. Simon tells us how his father was so indignant with the misrepresentation of his conduct at a particular emergency, that he went to the publisher's shop in Paris, and wrote in every copy of the edition, opposite to the passage of which he complained, "The author has lied." Conde had many reasons of anger, and was loud in the expression of it : Madame de Longueville, who had not fewer, conquered her indignation and was silent. La Eochefoucauld had recourse to the usual method of defence in such cases. He had never intended to publish his memoirs ; the copy of the manuscript which had got into LA ROCHEFOUCAULD'S MEMOIRS. 311 the printer's hands, had been stolen from him. Two-thirds of the book was a shameless forgery ; the other third was so garbled and falsified as utterly to misrepresent his meaning. He stated these facts publicly, adding a special apology to Conde and his sister. Meanwhile the mischief was beyond redemption, for the book rapidly passed through many editions, while the disavowal remained comparatively unknown. It is now impossible to arrive with absolute certainty at the facts of the case; for no copy of the memoirs in La Eochefoucauld's autograph is known to exist. But of the many extant manuscripts no one bears out his statement. There is httle doubt, that the book as Originally published, was substantially from his pen ; that if he was not accessory to its issue, he had given the manuscript- a wide circulation; and that he attempted to shield himself from the consequences by a deliberate falsehood. The affront which Madame de Longueville bore in silence was very gross. It is true that the passage * describing the cool calculation of interest, which had first led La Eoche foucauld to seek her love, is not to be found in the earliest edition of the " Memoirs." But at the very first mention of her name, he had said of herf, " that her fine qualities were less brilliant, on account of a failing, which had never before been seen in a princess of such merit; which is, that so far from giving the law to those who paid her a special adoration, she so completely transformed herself into their sentiments, as no longer to have any opinions of her owrn." And besides this ungenerous exposure of a gracious womanly weakness, which alone had enabled him to play a great part in the politics of the Fronde, and had borne no harvest to her, but a bitter shame and sorrow, he narrated with cool triumph the intrigue by which he had .detached her /from Conde, and at once avenged himself and Ante, p. 262. t Memoirs, p. 418. x 4 '312 PORT ROYAL. Madame de Chatillon for the smiles which she had bestowed upon the Due de Nemours. But this is not quite all. There is a theory, which, taking its rise from La Eoche foucauld himself, makes him and Madame de Longueville exchange parts in this drama of passion and treachery. She lured his loving, trusting nature into politics; he fought and plotted only to secure her affection ; and retired from the scene with heart half-broken by her unfaithful ness. But Madame de Sable's portfolios have supplied a complete refutation of this plausible hypothesis, Madame de Longueville, silent of her wrongs to the world, had, it appears, poured forth her indignation to her friend, who, in turn, communicated it to La Eochefoucauld. His answer contains not a word of apology, or of regret. He takes Madame de Longueville's indignation as a sign that she has ceased to hate him. Is it piety, or weariness, ora conviction that he was not so much in the wrong as she had thought, which has produced this change ? He begs Madame de Sable, who is so well acquainted with all the windings of the heart, to furnish him with the means of deciding this psychological problem. If any warmth of disinterested love, of manly tenderness, had ever lingered about that cold heart, he would have suffered the unwritten secret of Madame de Longueville's weakness to die with him. Give him the benefit of every doubt, and suppose that he had not wilfully published it to the world, he should at least have heard in respectful silence, expostula tions and complaints, which it was too late for words to soothe. To lift him to a higher pinnacle of infamy, it needed only that he should seek to anatomise the heart . which he had so cruelly wounded, and attempt to make a surgical study of its wild, despairing palpitations.* * Cousin, Mad. de Sable, p. 203, et seq. Mem. de St" Simon, vol. i. p. 121. THE MAXIMS. 313 The coterie which met at Madame de Sable's, and of which La Eochefoucauld was the most distinguished mem ber, was characterised by a fondness for maxims, sentences, aphorisms. Many books of maxims were the production of its members : Madame de Sable herself published one ; a series of "Thoughts" have been discovered among Domat's papers ; and Pascal, who, like all the heads of his party, sometimes visited the witty Marquise, may have owed to the discussions of her drawing-room the aphoristic form of many of his fragments. But La Eochefoucauld's " Maxims," first published in 1665, is the representative book of its class, not only in French, but in European literature. We are able, in the papers which M. Cousin has brought to light, to trace the growth of this celebrated volume with curious and interesting minuteness. Every aphorism, as it was produced, was sent to Madame de Sable for correction and approval. La Eochefoucauld's letters to the lady are full of the maxims and of the culinary receipts which he asks in return. " You know," he says in one place*, " with what good faith I deal with you, and that maxims are maxims only after you have approved them." They formed the subject of conversation among the wits and ladies who assembled in her salon ; if he was not himself present, remark and criticism were faithfully reported to him. As the series drew near its completion Madame de Sable undertook to collect more formal and deliberate opinions. She sent the manuscript, always without the name of any author, to many of her friends, whose criticisms, either from their literary repute or their acquaintance with the world, might be worth having. The answers, some with, some without signatures, have now emerged into daylight ; and are singularly interesting and significant to those who are sufficiently well acquainted * OSuvres, p. 218. 314 PORT ROYAL. with the social history of the period to form distinct con ceptions of the writers. One fact, at least, is worth re cording for the general reader, that almost all the admirers of the " Maxims " are of the male sex. It is characteristic of La Eochefoucauld that, though the first edition of the " Maxims " was prepared for pub lication with great care, though he never disavowed the work, and though he superintended during his lifetime the issue of four other corrected and augmented editions, the book, like the " Memoirs," was first published in Holland under circumstances of similar suspicion. The genuine edition was at once brought out in Paris, with an elaborate preface by Segrais, who ventured to say, "It is easy to perceive that this work was not destined to see the light. It is the production of a person of quality, who has written it only for himself, and who does not aspire to the glory of being an author." Meanwhile, the "person of quality " set himself, in the most approved fashion of modern days, to procure a favourable review of the book which "he had written only for himself." The "Journal des Savants," the most ancient of European reviews, came into existence in 1665, the very year in which the "Maxims" were published. At La Eochefoucauld's request, Madame de Sable, who was in one sense half the author of the book, wrote an article for insertion in the Journal. It was, as we may suppose, sufficiently favourable, yet not favourable enough for the modern apostle of self-love. Before it was printed he passed his pen through every word that could be supposed "to hint a fault or hesitate dislike." A malicious fate has preserved the original draught of the article, which, side by side with the amended form ex tracted from the "Journal des Savants," maybe read in M. Cousin's pages. It is amusing to find the devices, which are supposed to characterise a degenerate age of THE MAXIMS. 315 critical literature, practised in the first volume of the first review. It hardly comes within the scope of my purpose to attempt to criticise this celebrated work in detail. Its general aim is well known. It consists of a series of moral aphorisms, nearly all of which are directed to prove that the so-called virtuous impulses of the heart are only as many various forms of self-love. It would be impossible to deny that, in executing this scheme, La Eochefoucauld displays a wonderful ingenuity of speculation, and a minute if narrow acquaintance with human character. There is often no escape from the meshes of the artful statement, if the reader trusts to reason to unloose the knots ; if he would be extricated, he must invoke the sharp sword of his own moral impulse to cut them. When he is neither perplexed nor convinced, he is forced to admire the studied symmetry of the thought, the simple perfection of the phrase. And yet the chief impression made on any who are at all accustomed to moral spe culations, is of the author's inadequate knowledge of the human nature which he professes to anatomise and to describe. Whom has he known, we ask, with whom has he lived, that he should paint mankind in such sombre colours? The mystery is only half solved when we re collect the wild and careless selfishness of the Fronde, Madame de Guemene, one of the lady critics to whom the manuscript was sent, hit the blot, when, not knowing of whom she spoke, she wrote to Madame ' de Sable, " What I have seen of the book appears to me to be based rather upon the author's humour, than upon truth ; for the reason why he does not believe in disinterested liberality or pity is, that he judges of all the world by himself." We have only to set the "Memoirs" and the "Maxims" side by side, to see that each is the mirror of the other. 316 PORT ROYAL, La Eochefoucauld's connection with Madame de Sable had nothing to do with her Jansenism, and he never betrays' any interest in the great debate which divided the Church. Yet such of the doctors of Port Eoyal, as had time and thought in 1665 to spare from their own troubles, welcomed and approved his book, for its doctrine, so far as it went, was entirely accordant with their own. It was indeed more valuable than a theological, because it was an independent' testimony to the Augustinian theory of human nature : a nobleman, who had borne his part in all the state affairs of his day ; had seen much of the -world, and of mankind ; and moreover, who cared nothing for any theological con sequences of his doctrine, had come to precisely the same conclusions as the great Latin Father. But La Eochefou cauld's maxims are Jansenism made hideous. He does not say worse things of human nature than Pascal ; but while with the latter's mind, the thought of the state of innocence and the state of redemption is always present, La Eoche foucauld owns the existence of neither. His attention is all upon the morbid anatomy of the corpse upon the dissecting table ; he neither remembers the days of life and vigour, nor looks forward to the moment of resurrection. The difference between him and Pascal leaves its traces even upon their style. Each is clear, simple, epigrammatic ; each has attained the secret of that highest art which conceals itself. But there is a peculiarity about Pascal's speech which is altogether wanting to La Eochefoucauld ; he utters him self like a man with a heart and a conscience ; he takes the reader into his confidence and reveals to him the objects of his love, and hate, and belief. La Eochefoucauld is cold, calm, impersonal in a rare degree ; the first sentence opens the way into his mind, as far as he designs that the reader should penetrate ; all the rest only repeat and strengthen its impression ; and even when we are compelled to agree with the moralist, we learn to fear and dislike the FAMILY TROUBLES. 317 man. His epigrams have all the glitter of polished steel, and are as hard, and sharp, and cold.* The troubles of Port Eoyal were not Madame de Lon gueville's only cause of anxiety in the latter years of her life : her letters to Madame de Sable tell the story of a long series of domestic distresses and struggles. Of her four children, two daughters died in childhood. Her eldest son, Charles d'Orleans, Comte de Dunois, was seventeen when his father died ; the second, Charles Paris, Comte de St. Paul, who had been born at the Hotel de Ville in the first excitement of the Fronde, three years younger. M. de Lon gueville, in opposition to his wife's wishes, had entrusted the general superintendence of his sons' education to the well known Jesuit P6re Bouhours ; she, on the other hand, had given the place of preceptor to the Comte de St. Paul to the Abbe d'Ailly, a Jansenist friend of Madame de Sable, who ill deserved the trust reposed in him, and endeavoured to win the pupil's affections at the cost of unfaithfulness to the parent's wishes. The contrast between the two boys was startling and painful. The eldest, the heir to the Dukedom of Longueville, was deformed in person, and almost imbecile in mind; the younger bright, beautiful, accomplished, the idol of all hearts. M. de Longueville had given up in despair the idea of making the Comte de Dunois a statesman and a soldier, and, with the inten tion of transferring the title and estates to his brother, had compelled him to enter the Society of Jesus as a novice. But he was not yet irrevocably bound to the service of the Church, when in 1663 his father died. He had not suffi cient intellect to feel any vocation for the Church ; even the Jesuits manifested some reluctance to receive him ; and he broke loose from the restraints which had been imposed upon him to take refuge with his mother. * Cousin, Mad. de Sable, chap. ii. p. 64, et seq. 318 PORT ROYAL. Her situation was painfully embarrassing. Conde, with ; all the friends on whose judgment she was accustomed to rely, took the part of the Comte de St. Paul. They drew back in disgust from the thought that the great house of Longueville should be represented to the world by the imbecile brother, while so worthy an heir of its honours stood "near the throne." They entreated Madame de Longueville, who had assumed the entire administration of the family affairs, to carry her husband's intention into effect, and to send back her eldest son to the seminary. But she had more than one reason for hesitation, which they could only imperfectly understand. Her new con ceptions of ecclesiastical morality forbade her to force into the Church one who was scandalously unfit for it; her Jansenism rebelled against suffering either of her children to become a Jesuit. For the sake of both her sons, she was determined that full justice should be done to the elder. No sophistry could rob him of the rights of primo geniture ; if, when he was twenty-five years of age, he were disposed to make a voluntary resignation of his claims to the Comte de St. Paul, well and good ; otherwise she would never consent to his degradation. She may have had a secret consciousness that the Comte de Dunois was the rightful heir to his father's honours, in a way which his brother never could be. The latter had been born in the first warmth of her affection for La Eoche foucauld, and in character resembled rather the brilliant and versatile Marsillac of those days, than the somewhat cold, and slow, and stately Longueville. Nor was this a case of no infrequent occurrence, in which a mother's love is most powerfully drawn out towards the child who needs it most. Justice bade her contend for her elder, but love pleaded for her younger son. She wrote to Conde, who eagerly pressed upon her the claims of the Comte de St. Paul : " Eemember, in giving me your advice, not to FAMILY TROUBLES. 319 look so exclusively on one side, as to pay no regard at all to the other. If we owe more friendship to one, we owe justice to the other ; we owe it to ourselves in God's sight, and even to our own reputation in the conduct of our family. So remember that my eldest son is my son, how ever he is formed ; and that I have, therefore, my duties towards him, which I am bound in conscience and honour to fulfil ; and remember, besides, that even should I not fulfil them, I should not attain my ends, for, being eighteen years and a half old, he would do everything in spite of me, and cause me a thousand griefs by his hatred, and by the connections which he would, sooner or later, form, without any possibility of preventing him, if he did not find in me a mother's heart, that is to say, compassion, forbearance with his faults, and above all, at least, justice. You may answer to all this that, even if I should behave to him thus, you believe him to be so deformed in mind, as almost certainly to act in the same way. It may be so ; but besides that it may also not be so, and that he is not the first who has been changed, whether by the grace of God or by age, I make it a maxim to do my duty to others absolutely without hope of recompence, in the first place for love of my duty, and then because, when I have done all that I am convinced I ought to do for prudence sake, I can much more easily find consolation for ill-suc cess." So she kept the unfortunate young man with her, doing her best to form his mind and character ; making no plans, but leaving the future to determine itself. Her efforts were all in vain. Impatient of restraint, he secretly left her house and fled to Eome, where, in 1669, he took orders under the name of the Abbe d'Orleans. The way was then clear for the Comte de St. Paul, who legally became Due de Longueville and Prince of Neuf- chatel. But the mother's troubles were only transferred from one son to the other. Formed, in body and mind, 320 fUKV HUYAL. to succeed in -society, — at once spoiled by injudicious! teachers, and repelled by the austerities of his mother's! life, — placed, from the first, in an unnatural position to-; wards a brother whom he could neither respect nor love, — | he plunged eagerly into the gay and dissipated life which i seemed so naturally to open before him. The men ad- s mired, the women loved him ; Conde saw renewed in him the brilliant promise of his own youth ; a murmur of j mixed praise and expectation seemed to follow him where- ( ever he went ; only his mother secretly lamented a life 1 which she could not approve, and which made him every - day less courteous and less affectionate to herself. At last, p upon his brother's final entry into the church, she gave \ up the immense ecclesiastical revenues, which had for-^ merly been settled upon the Comte de St. Paul, and : attempted to negotiate his marriage. It is said that she I proposed him as a bridegroom to Mademoiselle, a pro- , ceeding which has an air of policy ill-accordant with Madame de Longueville's single-minded desire for her son's welfare ; for the bride, though the richest heiress in Europe, was at least forty years of age, and had covered herself with ridicule by her unlucky amour with Lauzun. Upon the failure of this negotiation, she turned her at- , tention to the vacant throne of Poland. The Polish Diet had desired to make Conde their King ; but he had loyally ( yielded to the wish of Louis XIV. that he should not de- ' prive his country, in her hour of need, of the advantage of his military genius. Not unnaturally the Poles turned to M. de Longueville, Conde's favourite nephew, who in more than one campaign had given proofs of an ad venturous bravery. The King consented, the Diet pro- 3 ceeded to election; when, in 1672, the French army, under Conde, prepared to pass the Ehine and to invade Holland. The passage, which historians and poets alike' vaunted as a miracle of military skill, was accomplished HER SON'S DEATH. 321 with little loss. But Conde was wounded, and the Due de Longueville killed upon the field. Immediately after the battle, was announced the arrival of the Polish envoys, who came to salute their king, and to carry him back in triumph to Dantzic. In a miserable hut by the river they found Conde, careless of his hurt in the consciousness of his own and the thought of his sister's grief; and by his side, lying beneath a soldier's cloak, all that was left of the last Due de Longueville. ['¦ To describe the effect of such a blow as this upon the poor mother's already distracted heart, we will have re course to Madame de Sevigne's classic words. She writes to her daughter*, "Madlle. de Vertus had returned two days before to Port Eoyal, where she almost always is : they went to fetch her, with M. Arnauld, to tell this terri ble news. Madlle. de Vertus had only to show herself; this hasty return was itself ominous of ill. In fact, as soon as she appeared; 'Ah ! Mademoiselle, how is my brother ?' Her thought did not venture further. 'Madame, he is better of his wound : there has been a battle.' ' And my son?' They answered nothing. ' Ah ! Mademoiselle, my son, my dear child, answer me, is he dead ? ' ' Madame, I have no words wherewith to answer you.' 'Ah ! my dear son ! is he dead upon the field ? has he not had a single moment? Ah! my God, what a sacrifice!' — and with that she falls upon her bed, and all that the most lively grief can do both by convulsions, and faintings, and a mortal silence, and strangled cries, and bitter tears, and appeals to heaven, and tender and pitiful complaints — she has ex- ; perienced all. She sees some persons, she takes nourish ment, because it is God's will ; she has no sleep ; her health, already very bad, is visibly altered for the worse ; and for ' myself I hope that she may die, for I do not understand * June 20th, 1672. TOL. II, X 322 PORT ROYAL. how she can survive such a loss." Presently she began to find some comfort in the sorrow and sympathy, which were manifested on every side. But as her deepest grief had • been in the thought that her son's sudden death had not left a moment for repentance, her best consolation was the discovery, that before he had set out on the campaign, he had seriously applied himself to religious exercises, and after due penance, had received absolution. It is not needful to inquire closely into the depth and probable per manence of the young duke's new impressions; it is enough that they were effectual to soothe a sacred grief into resignation. A few weeks after his death, Madame de Longueville was able to write to M. de Barcos * : " I suppose that you know, that he was about to become King of Poland. If God, in depriving him of life, and the hope of a crown, has had mercy upon him, He has given far more than He has taken away. And so I have only to adore His dealing both with my son, and with myself; it is just, like all that proceeds from the ordinance of His providence. I beg you to ask of Him for me an entire adherence to all His will, and an inner separation from the world, corre sponding to that which he is bringing to pass in my external circumstances, by the ruin of my family. Your charity will not refuse me this favour." La Eochefoucauld also had suffered by that fatal passage of the Ehine. The Prince de Marsillac had been severely wounded, a younger son killed. Madame de Sevigne -I writing to her daughter of his grieft, interrupts herself, " Alas ! I am not telling the truth ; between ourselves, my daughter, he has not felt the loss of the Chevalier, and he is inconsolable for him, whom all the world regrets." And again in the letter which I have already quoted : " There is one man in the world who is little less grieved ; I have * V. Cousin. Mad. de Sable, p. 298. f June 24th, 1672. FINAL RETIREMENT. 323 it in my head that if they had met one another quite alone in those first moments, all other feelings would have given place to cries and tears, which they would have redoubled with all their hearts ; it is a vision." It could hardly have been as Madame de Sevigne fancies, for the very qualities which made La Eochefoucauld delight in the Comte de St. Paul, were those which gave rise to his mother's most anxious solicitude. A great gulf stretched between them, which not even the sense of a common loss like this could fill up. For the last time they felt the touch of the same grief; perhaps for the last time lived again in memory through the old days; and went on their way to meet, even in feeling, no more. The name associated with La Eoche foucauld's declining years is that of Madame de la Fayette; the love which once pretended to such passion and con stancy, had passed away like a morning mist before the sun, and left as little trace behind. After the death of her son, Madame de Longueville pre pared for a final retirement from the world. She quitted her house in Paris ; and resided alternately at the Carme lite Convent which had appeared so desirable to her girlish wishes, and at a house which she had built near the gate of Port Eoyal des Champs. It was still not possible that she should altogether loosen her hold upon secular affairs. She was compelled to make occasional brief visits to Normandy, and became involved in a long lawsuit with her step-daughter about the sovereignty of Neufchatel. The interests of Port Eoyal, too, required that she should maintain some intercourse with the court; in these years the Jansenists were familiarly known as "the friends of Madame de Longueville." Louis XIV. had learned to respect her evident sincerity ; and Conde, once more the devoted brother of their youthful days, served, without shar ing her predilections. Little by little, a harsher austerity fastened itself upon her life : the Carmelite nuns pointed Y 2 324 TORT ROYAL. with pride to the bare boards upon which their princess slept ; and an accident once revealed the fact that she wore an iron girdle. Like Conti she made enormous pecuniary sacrifices to repair the wrongs inflicted by the war of the Fronde ; in one year 4000 persons who lived upon her alms, and the release of 900 prisoners for debt, testified to her prodigal munificence. But beyond this, there is nothing to tell of the last seven years of her life. Their seclusion was almost as complete as if she had indeed taken the veil in one of her beloved retreats. But though necessarily pensive, and almost monotonous, her retirement cannot have been altogether sad, as she reflected that the return ing peace and prosperity of Port Eoyal were in great part the effect of her labours ; and that she had been suffered to continue a Christian work, which holier hands and purer hearts than hers had begun. She died on the 15th of April, 1679, in her sixtieth year. She had long before directed in her will, that her body should be buried in which ever of her monastic homes she might chance to die ; but that her heart should be deposited in the other. So she lay with her mother in the Carme lite Convent ; and her heart was affectionately received and splemnly interred at Port Eoyal des Champs ; where a brief epitaph, gently alluding to the time of her worldliness, records in appropriate phrase of commendation her charity, her selfdenial, her forgivingness, her repentance, and her hearty love for God and the Church. In 1692, Madlle. de Vertus, seventy-five years of age, and worn out with eleven years' confinement to her bed, went to her rest, and was buried in the cemetery of the convent, among the nuns whom she had striven to resemble in spirit, and as far as possible in mode of life. I will not attempt the task of forming a general estimate of Madame de Longueville's character. So large a power of fascination still lingers about it, that the biographer is CONCLUSION. 825 tempted to apologise, when he should weigh, and judge, and perhaps condemn. All comprehensive judgments of character are difficult ; but to hold the balance between sin and repentance is not given to any human hand. There is only One who knows whether the stain upon a life has been wholly washed away by tears. Madame de Longueville herself, when once publicly and grossly insulted by an officer, who approached her with some request, which she was unable to grant, protected her cowardly assailant from the summary vengeance which her servants were about to take. " Stop," she cried, " do not touch him, let him say what he will, I have deserved much worse things." We will leave the matter there.* * Villefore, vol. ii. book vi. p. 121, et seq. Cousin, Mad. de Sable, chap. v. p. 259, et seq. Necrologe, p. 156. r 3 326 PORT ROYAL. V. EACINE. By the side of Pascal, the greatest writer of French prose, I have now to erect the effigy of Eacine, the first of French poets. Each was Port Eoyalist at heart ; each was with drawn by Port Eoyal from labours to which the applause of men promised an immortality of fame ; each died in peace with the community. But while Pascal adopted the Jansenist theory of religion in years of maturity, and never after swerving in his allegiance, devoted to its de velopment and defence his best powers, Eacine, a pupil at Les Granges, rebelled against all the influence of early training, won his reputation by works which Port Eoyal absolutely denounced as sinful, shook a fierce lance of controversy in the face of his old teachers, and, only after many years wandering, repented and returned, to defend the community by pen and voice, to chronicle its glories and misfortunes, and to order his bones to be laid at last in the cloister which his studious feet had often paced in youth. Were the whole interest of Eacine's life centred in his works and the questions of literary history which arise out of them, it would need but a brief narrative in this place ; though even then we might trace the direct in fluence of Port Eoyal in the production of the masterpiece of French tragedy, the "Athalie." But we fortunately possess materials for his biography, which prove that the man demands our love, almost as much as the poet our RACINE. 327 admiration. It is seldom that we are able to penetrate behind the mask of genius, and see — as in the case of Eacine — an honest, kindly human countenance, smiling or sighing beneath. When, newly emancipated from the restraints of Port Eoyal, he pours out his heart to his young friends and rivals in the field of literature, or in middle age exchanges thought and feeling with his life long friend Boileau, or, towards the last, sends homely news of Babet and Nannette to his son in Holland ; his letters are alike frank, simple, innocent. I should willingly rest the lovableness of his character on his friendship with Boileau, one who, like St. Simon afterwards, stands out from the courtiers of Le Grand Monarque, as an honest man — a satirist, whose satires were the natural voice of his conscience. It lasted for thirty-five years without a cloud, and was interrupted only at the death-bed of Eacine. Boileau has many claims of his own to a place in the annals of Port Eoyal ; but even were it not so, I should, hke Louis Eacine, the son and biographer of the poet, find it hard to separate those who were so associated in fame and friendship. The works of these two great poets I must leave, with brief remark, to the literary critic ; while I make a rough and ineffectual attempt to portray the men.* The Eacines were a respectable family long settled at Ferte Milon, a little town of Valois, about fifty miles from Paris. Here Jean Eacine, who died in 1593, was receiver of the domain and duchy of Valois. His son, also Jean Eacine, the poet's grandfather, was comptroller of the salt depot in the same place, and married Marie Desmoulins, who had two sisters, nuns in Port Eoyal des Champs. He was the father of two children, Agnes, who * The following facts, when not specially acknowledged, are taken from the 'Vie de Jean Racine,' by his son, Louis Racine. I refer to Racine's letters, as they are found in Didot's edition of his works, 1 vol. 8vo. 1854. T 4 328 PORT ROYAL. afterwards became Abbess of Port Eoyal, and again, a Jean, who, with his father's name, inherited his office. Two children had been born to him, the poet and a sister, when, in 1643, he died. His wife was already dead, and the little ones were transferred to the care of their mater nal grandfather, Pierre Sconin. Jean Eacine was born on the 21st of December, 1639, and consequently had not reached his fourth year when thus orphaned. How or where his childish years were passed we are not informed. His father's mother, now a widow, lived with his grandfather Sconin, but his single recollection of these days seems to hint at something like neglect. His first place of education, the College of Beauvais, was doubtless indicated by the close alliance of his kindred with Port Eoyal. Two sisters of his grand mother were nuns in that house ; and perhaps in conse quence of this, the son of his uncle and aunt Vitart had been one of Lancelot's and Le Maitre's earliest pupils. At the end of 1638, a year before Eacine's birth, the teachers, driven from their abode by the imprisonment of St. Cyran, had sought a temporary refuge at the scholar's home, at Ferte Milon. The result was the still closer union of the whole family with the suspected community. When, at the end of 1639, the solitaries ventured to return to the deserted valley, M. Vitart accompanied them, and undertook the management of the conventual revenues. In 1650, Madame Desmoulins followed him, and with her sisters, ended her days in the monastery. M. Vitart died in 1641 or 1642, and his widow settled in Paris, where she pursued the occupation of a midwife, and when the per secution of Port Eoyal waxed hot, sheltered De Saci and Singlin in her house in the Fauxbourg St. Marceau.* In October, 1655, the young Eacine, then sixteen years * Conf. vol. i. pp. 161, 326. THE SCHOOLS OF PORT ROYAL. 329 of age, was transferred from Beauvais to the schools of Port Eoyal, which, not long before had been removed from Paris. He appears to have belonged to that branch of the schools which, under the care of Lancelot and Nicole, was established in the farm buildings of Les Granges. Here, an orphan, many of whose near relations were connected with the monastery, he was a true child of Port Eoyal, in whose welfare others, as well as his ap pointed teachers, took a friendly interest. He preserved throughout his life a grateful remembrance of Hamon's kindness. A letter from Le Maitre addressed, " Pour le petit Eacine a Port Eoyal," is worth transcribing, as a proof of the domestic relation in which the boy poet stood to the solitaries. It is written on March 21st, 1656, from Bourgfontaine, whither, after the expulsion of Arnauld from the Sorbonne, Le Maitre had been compelled to retire.* " My Son, I beg you to send me as soon as possible my ' Apologie des Saints Peres ; ' it is the first edition, and is bound in marbled calf, in quarto. I have received the five volumes of my 'Councils,' which you had packed very well ; I am much obliged to you. Send me word if all my books are at the chateau, well arranged upon the shelves ; and if all my eleven volumes of St. Chrysostom are there ; and look at them from time to time to clean them. You must put water into the earthenware saucers, where they are, that the mice may not gnaw them. Give my compli ments to Madame Eacine, and to your good aunt, and follow their advice in everything. Young people ought always to let themselves be led, and not try to free them selves from restraint. Perhaps God will bring us back to where you are. Nevertheless we must try to profit by this persecution, and to make it useful in detaching us from * GEuvres de Racine, p. 650. 330 PORT ROYAL. the world, which appears to us so hostile to piety. Good bye, my dear son ; always love your papa, as he loves you. Write to me now and then. Send me also my folio 'Tacitus.'" The three years which Eacine spent at Port Eoyal were a time of quiet work, not seldom interrupted by a restless longing for a wider and a brighter world than the valley which lay below Les Granges. He acquired a creditable knowledge of Latin and Greek, as well as some acquaint ance with Italian and Spanish. "His means," says his son, " which were very moderate, not permitting him to buy the beautiful editions of the Greek authors, he read them in the editions published at Basle, which are without Latin translations. I have inherited his ' Plato ' and his ' Plutarch,' the margins of which, loaded with his annota tions, prove the attention with which he read them. And the same books show the extreme attention paid at Port Eoyal to purity of morals ; for in these editions, though all in Greek, the somewhat free, or rather naive passages which are found in the narratives of Plutarch, an historian otherwise so grave, are very carefully effaced. They did not trust a young man even with a Greek book, without precaution." His greatest pleasure was to bury himself in the abbey woods with his Sophocles or his Euripides, both of which he knew almost by heart. Perhaps his good teachers would rather have seen him absorbed in some volume of St. Augustine or St. Jerome ; but their time was not yet come. We are told that he found one day — how came such a book at Port Eoyal ? — the old Greek tale " Theagenes and Chariclea." Lancelot came upon him as he was reading it, and at once threw the pernicious volume into the fire. A second copy, which he found means to procure, shared the same fate. By some stratagem he .became possessed of a third, which after a time he volun- BOYISH VERSES. 331 tarily brought to Lancelot, saying " You may burn this like the rest ; I know it by heart." While his grandmother and his aunt and the solitaries were pleasing themselves with the thought that they were educating their boy into a churchman, after the pattern of Port Eoyal, he was all the while training himself into a poet. The poems of this period still find a place in his works. There are six odes, in which he describes in pompous, boyish phrase, yet not without some touches of fancy and natural feeling, the woods, the lakes, the mea dows, the buildings of Port Eoyal. He translated into French verses, long afterwards retouched and published, the festival hymns of the Eoman breviary. We have a Latin poem, in elegiac verse, " Ad Christum ; " and the conclusion of another elegy, on the watch-dog of the monastery, to whom, with true youthful confidence, he promises the immortality which the poet can bestow : — /' Semper honor, Rabutine, tuus, laudesque manebunt ; Carminibus vives tempus in omne meis." But no one saw anything more in his poetry than a foolish rebellion against the discipline of the place. He showed his hymns to De Saci, who in his youth had also felt poetical aspirations; and in his "Heures de Port Eoyal" had translated some of the canticles of the Church. It has been said that jealousy prompted De Saci to advise Eacine to abandon verse-making as an occupation for which nature had not fitted him ; we, who know the good director better, will impute to him nothing worse than want of taste. The admonition at the end of Le Maitre's letter ; the story of the forbidden Greek novel, above all, the way in which Eacine wrote of Port Eoyal when he left it, show that the restraints of the place chafed his spirit, and allow us to .conjecture that he welcomed the change to the College d'Harcourt, at Paris, whither he was sent in 1658. And 332 PORT ROYAL. yet he loved the valley where he had spent three quiet years with Plato, and Sophocles, and Euripides ; as well as the teachers who had introduced him into such noble companionship. These early impressions were the deepest ever made upon a very tender heart, and outlasted all others. Le Maitre and Hamon forgot that the world, which had become dull and distasteful to them, still lay beyond the horizon of the pupil's vision, gay with unima- gined beauty and delight ; that the dreams of fame, which they had renounced as unsubstantial, lured him on, the most solid prize of life. Who ever learns his practical wisdom by help of another's experience? Their theory' of human life was narrow enough to shut out many possible^ ' cases of innocent and healthy development; and assuredly did not include Eacine's. A Protestant judgment might be, that his youthful instincts were wiser and truer than his mature reflections ; and that when he set out to conquer the French stage by masterpieces, no line of which, the most sensitive conscience, need " dying, wish to blot," he had a more correct conception of the right object of human striving, than when, in the full blossom of his powers he condemned himself to silence. I fancy that I see, in the odes of which I have spoken, the germ of the repentance to come ; the key-note of his inner life is struck not in the strains to which the world has listened with delight, but in the uncertain melody of these early and half-for gotten preludes. Eacine had passed through a course of philosophy at the College d'Harcourt, when the marriage of the King in 1660 was the occasion of reams of complimentary verse. The young poet seized the opportunity, and addressed to the new Queen an ode, entitled " La Nymphe de la Seine," which he induced his cousin Vitart, intendant of the Due de Chevreuse, to take to Chapelain, now a forgotten poet, but then supposed to be an almost unapproachable genius; BEGINNING OF REBELLION. 333 The great man condescended to keep the ode three days, and to return it with many written annotations. " It was very beautiful — very poetical : many of the stanzas could not be better. If the author revised the few passages which had been marked, he would make a fine piece of it." One whole verse had to be changed ; Eacine had put Tritons in the Seine, and Tritons only live in salt water. So he obediently made the required alterations ; wishing meanwhile, he says, that all the Tritons were drowned for the trouble they gave him ; and once more took the ode to Chapelain. By him it was shown to the minister Col bert, and Colbert, we are to suppose, brought it under the eyes of the King. The result was an immediate gift of 100 louis. It is impossible to wonder that when this act of youthful generosity had been followed by a constant stream of favours, the effect of which was heightened by the most gracious and flattering familiarity, Louis XIV. rivalled even Port Eoyal in Eacine's mature affections.* > The old love was indeed beginning to grow cold. Be fore his ode, Eacine had written a sonnet on the birth of a child of Madame Vitart, or, according to another ac count, to Cardinal Mazarin on the conclusion of the peace of the Pyrenees, which had given deep offence at Port Eoyal. In the same letter to the Abbe le Vasseur, in which he relates the fortunes of his ode, he says, " I was ready to consult, like Malherbe, an old servant, if I had not found out that she is as Jansenist as her master, aad might betray me, which would be my total ruin, for I receive every day letters upon letters, or rather ex communications upon excommunications, on account of my unlucky sonnet." f He seems to have been living, while in Paris, at the hotel of the Due de Luynes, and after a time was sent down to Chevreuse, his country house, to super- * Lettres, eerites dans sa jeunesse, nos. 3, 4. + nT.nvi'oa Tl 4K9. 334 PORT ROYAL. intend the erection of some new buildings. Excommuni cations from home are not exactly calculated to reclaim a young poet, who has just tasted for the first time the sweets of fame and of royal favour ; and Eacine, impatient of his exile from Paris, never designates Chevreuse — Chevreuse in the close neighbourhood of those holy re treats which but the other day he praised with so fluent a pen — by any more reverent name than that of ' Babylon.' It is a very old story : youth is confident in its powers, age in its experience : and warnings which, under some circumstances would soothe and instruct, are at others like oil poured upon fire. So when in 1661 the full tide of trouble poured in upon Port Eoyal, Eacine writes thus coldly, almost mockingly : — " I went this afternoon to congratulate (upon receiving good news of a son) Madame, our holy aunt*, who believed: herself incapable of any joy since the loss of her holy father, or as M. Gomberville said, her future husband.! In fact, he is no longer upon the throne of St. Augustine ; and has avoided, by a prudent retreat, the unpleasant ness of receiving a lettre-de-cachet, by which he was sent to Quimper. The seat has not been vacant very long. The court, without having consulted the Holy Spirit, ac cording to what people say, has raised M. Bail to it. . . You doubtless know him; perhaps he is among your friends. Ail the consistory have made a schism at the creation of this new pope, and have retired in one direc tion and another, suffering themselves to be governed by the monitories of M. Singlin, who is now considered only an anti-pope. Percutiam pastorem, et dispergentur oves gregis. This prophecy was never more completely ac complished, and of all that great number of solitaries there remain hardly M. Guays, and Maitre Maurice." % * Mad. Vitart the elder. f M. Singlin. f ffiuvres, p. 473. JOURNEY TO LANGUEDOC. 335 Eacine's situation, to the pious fears of his friends at Port Eoyal, seemed to become less hopeful every day. He had made the acquaintance of La Fontaine. He had borrowed money of his cousin Vitart, who rather abetted than checked his rebellion. He had offered a piece, " The Loves of Ovid," to the company of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and was writing gallant notes to an actress about her part.* He had chosen no profession, and did not seem inclined to choose any but this profitless and pernicious pursuit of vain literature. It was evidently time that something should be done, and a possibility of advancement in the Church seemed to offer itself at the right moment. Pere Sconin, Canon of Ste Genevieve, official and grand vicar of the diocese of Uzes, a busy churchman, whose benefices I have not space to enumerate, was Eacine's maternal uncle, and now sent for him into Languedoc, promising that by and bye he would resign his preferment to him, and in the meantime would provide for him by some priory in the gift of his chapter. Perhaps Eacine's friends, when they advised him to accept the offer, both exaggerated the perils of his Parisian dissipation and flattered themselves that, once in the Church, the influence of his education would return and make him all they wished him to be. So, as 1661 drew to a close, he set out for Uzes, where his uncle received him with open arms. He seems to have accepted his exile with a tolerable grace. His uncle was kind, and Eacine's facile disposition was easily won by kindness ; he may have felt a misgiving of his pecuniary success as a poet, and thought, that some sinecure piece of preferment would hardly stand in the way even of his literary designs. So he accommodated him self in everything to Pere Sconin's wishes ; assumed the garb and the habits of a student of theology ; and as the * St" Beuve, vol. v. p. 450. 336 PORT ROYAL. citizens of Uzes spoke a barbarous patois, abstained with out much reluctance from their society. " My uncle," he writes *, " has given me a room near him, and says that I shall help him a little in the multiplicity of his affairs. I assure you that he has plenty. Not only does he transact all the business of the diocese, but he has also the sole ad ministration of the capitular income, until he has paid 80,000 livres of debts, which the chapter has contracted? . . . .In addition to all this trouble, he has also that of building, for he is finishing a very pretty house, which he began a year or two ago on a benefice about half a league from Uzes, which belongs to him." Then, after complaining of the absence of some necessary document which he ought to have brought with him from Paris, he goes on, " For the rest we shall not fail to go to Avignon, one of these days ; for my uncle wants to buy some books, and wishes me to study. I ask no better, and I assure you* that I have not yet had the curiosity to see the town of Uzes, or any one in it. He much wishes that I should learn a little theology in St. Thomas, and I very willingly fall in with it. In fine I agree as easily as may be in all his wishes ; he is of a very kind disposition, and shows me all possible tenderness." In another letter, addressed to his cousin Vitartf, he says,; " I pass all my time with my uncle, with St. Thomas, and with Virgil ; I make many theological and some poetical ex tracts ; this is the way in which I pass my time, and I am not weary, especially when I receive a letter from you ; it serves me for company during two days. My uncle has all manner of good plans for me ; but nothing is yet sure, because the affairs ofthe Chapter are still uncertain. I am waiting for a ' demissory.' Nevertheless he has made me dress from head to foot in black. The fashion of this country is to * 03uvrcs, p. 474. f Ibid. p. 479. LETTERS FROM LANGUEDOC. 337 wear Spanish cloth, which is very beautiful, and costs Iwenty-three livres. He has got me a coat made of it ; and I now look like one ofthe best citizens of the town. He Is always waiting for an opportunity of giving me some pre ferment ; and then I shall try to pay a part of my debts, if I can ; for before that time I can do nothing. I recall before my eyes, all the importunities which you have received from me, and I blush as I write to you : erubuit puer, salva res est. But my affairs are no better, and this sentence is very false, except you are willing to take the blush as an acknowledgment of all that I owe you, which I shall never forget as long as I live." Eacine's letters from Uz&s are certainly not those of one who was looking forward with pious ardour to the ecclesi astical life ; but they are the letters of a clever, ingenuous, somewhat facile youth, who was trying to adapt himself to an inevitable necessity as honestly as he could, and made no pretence to an enthusiasm which he did not feel. On the 16th of May, 1662, he writes to M. Vitart*, "I will try to write this afternoon to my aunt Vitart, and to my aunt the nun, since you complain of me in that respect. You ought, nevertheless, to excuse me if I have not done so, and they too ; for what can I tell them ? It is enough to play the hypocrite here, without doing so at Paris by letter ; for I call it hypocrisy to write letters, in which one must speak only of piety, and do nothing else than beg for prayers. It is not that I have not good need of them, but I wish that they would pray for me, without my being obliged to ask it of them so much. If God wills that I should be a prior, I will do for others as much as they have done for me." At the same time his letters betray the fact that his heart is much more with the poets than the fathers. He begins a tragedy on the story of Theagenes * CEuvres, p. 485. VOL. II. Z 338* PORT ROYAL. and Chariclea. He finds the tale intractable, and com mences another on the classical subject of the hatred of Eteocles and Polynices. I fancy that, docile nephew as he is, he watches with no great dissatisfaction Pere Sconin's fruitless attempts to provide for him in the Church. In the solitude of Uzes, Paris would appear inexpressibly attractive ; and lying on his oars for a year might tempt the young adventurer to a brighter estimate of his success in the pursuit of literature. So in 1663 he returns, not unwillingly, to Paris. He came back with his first tragedy, " The Thebaid," half-finished ; and a fixed determination to devote himself henceforward to poetry. Thoughout Eacine's life two opposing forces contended for supremacy over him ; on the one side, literature, the court, the King; on the other, religion, the influence of early training, Port Eoyal. The opposition was undoubted, even if to an impartial judg ment, it might not have appeared necessary; the King would hold no parley with Port Eoyal, and Port Eoyal would make no terms with the theatre. Now it is begin ning to be the turn of literature and the world ; and the King, by a well-timed and gracious liberality, ensures the victory to his side. Eacine had brought with him from Uzes, or had composed soon after his return, an ode, entitled, " La Eenommee aux Muses." He took the verses to court, and received in payment a pension of 600 livres, granted, as the patent expressed it, " that he might have the means of continued application to polite literature*'! But the pension, although subsequently increased to 1500, and again to 2000 livres, was not the most important con sequence of the ode. It procured him the friendship of Boileau. The Abbe le Vasseur showed it to the future satirist, who returned it with many sensible but comph mentary criticisms. Personal intercourse followed; and an affection and esteem, unbroken while life lasted. A BOILEAU. 339 few hours before his death, Eacine murmured to his friend, "I count it a piece of good fortune, that I die before you.'; - Nicolas Boileau was born at Paris, or according to another account at Crone, a village not far from the capital, in 1636; though sometimes he post-dated his birth by a year, to justify a courtly speech which he one day made to Louis XIV. ; " I was born a year before your Majesty, to announce the wonders of your reign." He was the eleventh child of Gilles Boileau, who held the office of "Greffier du Conseil de la Grand' Chambre ; " and to distin guish himself from his brothers, took the surname of Des- preaux, from a little meadow in the village of Crone. Of these Gilles was a poet, who obtained the honour of admis sion to the French Academy twenty-five years before his more celebrated brother, but is now remembered only as bearing unworthily the name of Boileau. We meet another, Jacques, in the memoirs of the time, as the Abbe Boileau, a gay and witty churchman. Nicolas, the great satirist, had no very agreeable recollections of his youth ; he would not have his life again, he said, on the condition of passing through the same boyhood. He lost his mother when not a year old ; and before he had finished his education, underwent, not without much preliminary torture, the Operation of cutting for the stone. Like Eacine, he studied at the College d'Harcourt, and afterwards at that of Beau vais ; where, whatever his proficiency in graver literature, he spent days and nights in reading poetry and novels, and exercised his immature talent of versification. But the law was to be his profession, and in 1656 he was called to the bar. - A very short trial convinced him that he was not destined to become Avocat-General, and he went through a course of study at the Sorbonne, This, however, was a Z 2 340 PORT ROYAL. second disappointment; he soon found that scholastic theology was " only legal chicanery in another dress." In all likelihood, however, he had not betaken himself to theology without a definite prospect of preferment, for he immediately became Prior of Sainte-Paterne, a benefice, worth 800 livres a year. This he held for eight or nine years ; when, fully persuaded that he had no aptitude for the ecclesiastical life, he not only resigned it, but expended in charity a sum equal to his whole receipt from the revenues of the Church. Henceforward he devoted him self wholly to poetry, and deliberately assumed the function of the satirist. His friends warned him, that he was thus preparing for himself legions of enemies. " Well," was his reply, "I shall be an honest man, and will not fear them." If in after life he conciliated more than an ordinary amount of affection and esteem, and excited no more enmities than seem inevitably to cling to the literary pro fession, the explanation lies in the fact, that his satire attacked abuses and mistakes rather than men, and always fought on the side of good morals and good taste. Perhaps after all, his father was not so far wrong, when he said of the boy satirist, " Colin is a good lad, who will never speak evil of any one." In 1660, the year in which Eacine made his literary debut in his ode on the marriage of the King, Boileau first attracted attention by the satires which are now called, in the catalogue of his works, the first and the sixth. His reputation however was confined to the literary circles of Paris ; and extended, if at all, only by help of rumour, to the public outside. He never willingly printed any of his works, and to the last refused to receive any remuneration from the booksellers. His wants were probably moderate; he never married, and the bounty of the King did much, in the latter part of his life, to make his circumstances easy. At the time of which we speak, his priory, and a small BOILEAU. 341 property which he inherited from his father *, may have placed him in a position of independence. He read well, and beyond doubt was especially skilled in sharpening the sting of his own verses; his talent for mimicry was remarkable ; satire is always eagerly sought for by a society of which every individual expects to find his own name embalmed; and unpublished satire has a piquancy of its own. So Boileau soon acquired the right of entrance into all the drawing-rooms of Paris which professed a literary taste. Madame de Sevigne, Madame de la Fayette, the Due de la Eochefoucauld admitted him to their intimacy ; and the Hotel de Eambouillet conde scended to hear and pass judgment on him. But the poets who directed the taste of that celebrated coterie, now verging upon its decline, were infected with the vicious taste against which Boileau's vigorous good sense was to wage a life-long war, and hostilities began at once. Madame de Eambouillet pronounced an unfavourable judgment on the pretensions of the young poet, who left her house not less satirically disposed than he entered it. In 1665, the year when Eacine first became acquainted with Boileau, the latter, three years older than his new friend, was at least three years before him in the race for fame. He had now written, besides an address to the King, and several minor pieces, his seven first satires. An imperfect and garbled edition of some of them had appeared at Eouen, in the same year; and in 1666 he is about, though sorely against his will, to publish the whole in a correct form. Henceforward the lives of the two poets, till the death of the younger, will run in almost the same course; the period of Eacine's literary activity was also * " Mon pere, soixante ans au travail applique, En mouiant me laissa, jjour rouler et pour vivre, Un revenu leger, et son exemple a, suivre." Ep. V. v. 108. z 3 342 PORT ROYAL. that in which Boileau's muse was most fertile ; and both spent the last years of the century in making vain prepara tions to record the warlike exploits of Louis XIV. Shortly after his return from Languedoc, and before the commencement of his friendship with Boileau, Eacine had made acquaintance with Moliere. It is easy to imagine how Port Eoyal must have groaned over this unhappy association, for Moliere was actor and manager as well as author ; not only a writer of pernicious plays, but one of an excommunicated race, to whom the Church refused Christian burial. All that we know of Moliere proves him to have been in every way worthy of his place in that famous fellowship of wits and poets, who were bound toge ther by reciprocal esteem, as well as by a community of fame. But had he been other than he was, the successful manager would have been eagerly sought by the young poet, who was burning to see his first tragedy upon the stage. One account* states that the subject of the "The- baid " had been suggested to Eacine by Moliere himself; though this is hardly consistent with the fact that the tragedy had been begun at Uz&s, while the friendship with Moliere seems to date only from the return to Paris. How ever this may be, the " Thebaid " was performed in 1664, at what was called the Theatre of Monsieur, at the Palais Eoyal, Moliere himself taking the part of Eteocles. t We do not know how it was received ; to critics, who compare it with his subsequent works, the subject, in its sanguinary details and exhibition of only the violent passions, appears ill chosen, and the treatment weak and nerveless. If the story was at all capable of adaptation to the modern theatre, it was a theme for Corneille; and the peculiar * Etudes de Racine, ed. Marquis de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, vol i. p. 126. f La Rochefoucauld, vol. i. p. 245. ENGLISH AND FRENCH TRAGEDY. 343 excellences which Eacine was about to display were not those of his illustrious rival. One of the later annalists of Port Eoyal, who had pro bably never heard of any other Thebaid than that of the Egyptian hermits, innocently records that the sacred sub ject of Eacine's first tragedy was due to his education in the schools. Its second title, "Les Freres Ennemis," might have directed him from the Egyptian to the Boeotian Thebes as the scene, and to the Phoenissss of Euripides as the origin of the story. We are already upon the classical ground to which Eacine, in conformity with the tradition of the French stage, so prevailingly confined himself. To trace the causes which impressed upon French and English tragedy forms so widely diverse, and breathed into them so .dissimilar a spirit, would be an interesting subject of specu lation, though hardly fit for this place. Both were born of the, mysteries and miracle plays ; both grew to a glorious maturity after but a brief and obscure youth. Yet though only a narrow strip of sea separates the two countries, whole continents of feeling lie between Shakspere and Eacine. The full, many-sided, changeful life which fills the stage of the former, contrasts with the paucity of figures, the simpli city of motive, the statuesque unity of character which mark the dramas of the latter ; the long development of the ..story, the frequent shifting of the scene, with the scrupulous, if not pedantic regard to the unities of time and place ; the quick interchange of dialogue, with the Elaborate and pompous tirade ; the frequent transition from blank verse to prose, or rhyme, as occasion prompts, with the unvaried rise and fall of the heroic couplet. I cannot pause to dilate upon these differences, or to discuss which form of the tragic drama approaches nearest to the ideal standard of perfection. Their result is, that most English- ¦ men are compelled to estimate the worth of French tragedies by artificial tests. In all cases of indigenous literary pro- z 4 344 PORT ROYAL. ductions, international comparisons are difficult ; here they are absolutely impossible. We do not consciously compare Eacine and Corneille with Shakspere and Ben Jonson. When we want to find out what the former really are, we try to penetrate within the magic circle marked out by French canons of tragic excellence, and to gaze with French eyes. The first theatre at Paris had been established about the year 1400, by the Fraternity of the Passion of our Saviour^ for the representation of scriptural mysteries. These con tinued to afford amusement to the population of the capital for nearly a century and a half; till in 1547 or 1548, they were suddenly prohibited by the parliament as indecent and profane. In the following year the actors bought the Hotel de Bourgogne, which they converted into a theatre • and here, in 1552, was represented the first French tragedy, the " Cleopatra" of Jodelle. Already, it is to be observed, the subject was classical ; the dialogue was conducted in long speeches, and every act was concluded by a chorus. The "Dido" ofthe same author; tbe "Agamemnon" of Toutain, the " Julius Caesar " of Grevin, soon followed; the eight tra gedies of Gamier, printed in 1580, were nearly alltakenfrom Euripides or Seneca ; Hardy and Eotrou walked in the steps of their predecessors; — so that when Corneille pro duced his first play in 1629, the form which French tragedy was to take had been already determined. In the choice of subjects, indeed, he showed more originality than Eacine; for his finest plays, " The Cid," " Les Horaces," " Cinna," "Polyeucte," have no classical prototypes. But an enumer ation of the titles of his numerous plays — most of which fall far below the standard afforded by his best works — would show that many of them are founded upon incidents of classical antiquity, while the peculiarities of form, charac teristic of French tragedy, the rhymed metre, the long speeches, the unbending dignity, the careful observance of ALEXANDRE. 345 the unities, are as noticeable in his plays as in those of Eacine.* When, in 1664, "Les Freres Ennemis" was played by Moliere's company, there was room for the young poet. The " Death of Pompey," the last of Corneille's plays which has a just claim to a place in the first rank, had been produced twenty years before ; and though the fertile poet continued to write tragedies and comedies till almost the close of Eacine's brief career, it was only to show the depth to which so aspiring a genius could descend. Eotrou had acknowledged with frank generosity, the superiority of Corneille ; and no other tragic poet of the day is now more than the shadow of a name. Moliere's first comedy, "L'Etourdi," had appeared in 1653, and now he was every year moving Paris to fresh laughter by some new offspring of his wit ; but after a single trial, in which he was not wholly dishonoured, Eacine refrained from provoking so dangerous a comparison, and devoted himself solely to the graver Muse. Corneille was perhaps more afraid of him than he of Corneille. When, in 1665, Eacine finished his second tragedy, " Alexandre," he took it, no doubt with a beating heart, to the house of his great rival. The latter listened attentively, arid then bade his young friend give up all hopes of distinction as a tragic poet. His poetic talents were great ; of dramatic power he had none. Was it an honest criticism, or had the author of the " Cid " some dim foreboding of the contest for contemporary fame, in which he was to be so hopelessly worsted ? " Alexandre " aroused both friendly and hostile criticism; though perhaps on the whole the former predominated. St. Evremond said "that the old age of Corneille alarmed him no longer ; there was now no reason to believe that tragedy would die with him." Still, the piece showed * Hallam, Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 444; vol. ii. p. 262; vol. iii. P. 291, et seq. 346 PORT ROYAL. more promise than performance ; the versification was too facile ; the interest feeble, and the characters, especially that of Alexander, lifeless and indistinct. But while it raised the young poet's reputation, and encouraged the world to expect greater things from him, it put an end to his intimate friendship with Moliere. The precise history of the rupture is not easily disentangled from the varying, and to some extent, contradictory statements of the com mentators. Louis Eacine says that his father, discontented with the representation of his play by Moliere's company, not only transferred it to the troupe at the Hotel de Bour- gogne, but with it induced one of the best actresses to change her allegiance. Another authority* asserts that Moliere, in the first place, refused the parts either of Alex ander or of Porus ; that his theatre, being that of the court, was closed soon after the first representation of "Alexandre," in consequence of the death of Anne of Austria ; that Eacine, unwilling to wait three months for a second performance, produced the tragedy at the Hotel de Bourgogne ; and that the actress, alleged to have been enticed away, took, as is proved by the still extant playbill, no part in the representation. Wherever the truth may lie among these stories, Eacine and Moliere were no longer friends. It is to the credit of both, that they did not become enemies ; but spoke, as honest men should, of each others' character and genius. When Eacine's single comedy, " Les Plaideurs," was at first unsuccessful, Moliere loudly expressed his opinion of its merits. Eacine, on the other hand, when an officious acquaintance hastened to assure him that " Le Misanthrope " had failed, replied, " You have seen it, and I have not; nevertheless I don't believe a word you say, for it is not possible that Moliere, should have written a bad play. Go back again, and examine it more closely." * La Rochefoucauld, vol. i. p. 144. EXCOMMUNICATION. 347 About this time — the exact date is uncertain — came the final excommunication. Eacine had never willingly sundered himself from Port Eoyal ; but now Port Eoyal will have none of him. His aunt, La Mere Agnes de St. Thekle, writes to him : — "Having learned that you intended to* make a journey hither, I had asked permission of our mother to see you, because some persons had assured us that you designed to think seriously of your present condition ; and I should have been very glad to hear this from yourself, that I might testify to you the joy I should feel if God were pleased to touch your heart. But I heard, a few days ago, a piece of news which has greatly troubled me. I write to you in the bitterness of my heart, and shedding tears which I wish I could pour forth before God in such abundance as to obtain from Him your salvation, which is what I desire more ardently than anything in the world. I have then learned with grief that you associate more than ever with persons whose very name is abominable to all who have any piety, — and rightly, since they are for bidden to enter the church, and the communion of the faithful, even in the hour of death, unless they repent. Judge then for yourself, my dear nephew, in what a con dition I cannot but be, since you are not ignorant of the love I have always borne to you, and that I have never desired anything so much as that you should be wholly devoted to God in some honourable occupation. I adjure you, then, my dear nephew, to have pity on your soul, and to look into your own heart with a view of seriously considering what an abyss it is into which you have thrown yourself. I wish that what has been said to me may not be true ; but if you have been so unhappy as not to have broken off an intercourse which is dishonourable to you in the sight of God and men, you ought not to think of visiting us ; for you are well aware that I could not speak 248 PORT ROYAL. to you, knowing you to be in so deplorable and anti- christian a condition. Nevertheless, I will not cease to ask God to have mercy on you, and on me in being merciful to you, since your salvation is so near to my heart." * This letter, whatever its precise date, must have been written in the very agony of Port Eoyal, when the disso lution of the community was imminent, and its chief defenders already scattered to their various hiding-places. Had Eacine felt any lively sympathy in his friends' quarrel, their almost hopeless misfortune would have been to a good heart, like his, a reason for sacrificing much, in order to range himself on their side. But the bonds which now held him to Port Eoyal were wholly personal ; he cared nothing for the "fait," and not much for the "droit"; however sorry he might be to see his old teachers com pelled to quit their beloved solitude, he had chosen his own path in life, which was not theirs, and which it was now too late to change. But tbe receipt of this letter caused even a personal alienation. It was probably only the last of a long series like itself, wearying him with remon strances which awoke no echo in his conscience, and urging on him a way of life against which his whole soul re belled. Why, he may have asked himself, should he give up a career, in which he saw nothing sinful or dishonour able, at the moment when certain success waited to crown his striving, because his aunt and her confessor, and others like them, believed in the necessary wickedness of stage-. plays ? The King smiled upon him ; the public went to see his tragedies ; the best wits of Paris were his friends ; and he had only to work in the way that was easiest and most agreeable to him to ensure his fortune. So he met the excommunication of Port Eoyal with an open defiance, and henceforward there is war between them. * QSuvres de Racine, p. 650. CONTROVERSY WITH NICOLE. 349 Before long, open hostilities broke out, and that on an occasion so trifling as to show how intense was the hidden fire which had long lain smouldering. We have before •noticed the "Lettres Visionnaires " which Nicole wrote against Desmarets de Saint Sorlin, who had published a scurrilous attack upon the " Apology of the Nuns of Port Eoyal."* In the first of these t, he calls attention to the fact, that Desmarets, who in his later years had set up for a prophet, had once been a writer of plays and novels, and then delivers himself of a bitter invective against all such. "A writer of romances and a dramatic poet is a public poisoner, not of the bodies but of the souls of the faithful, who ought to look upon himself as guilty of an infinite number of spiritual homicides, which he either has caused, or might have caused, by his pernicious writings. The greater care he takes to cover with a veil of decency the criminal passions which he describes, the more he makes them dangerous and able to surprise and corrupt simple and innocent souls." Against the anonymous author of the "Visionnaires," Eacine, like Congreve against Collier, took up arms. His cause was better than Congreve's, for both the plays and romances of the time, if we may judge from such as still retain some reputation, were dis tinguished by a decency of treatment which contrasts favourably with the Elizabethan drama, and still more with that of the Eestoration. But his defence of himself and his brother poets is as wrong-headed as Nicole's at tack. His letter, addressed to the author of the " Lettres Visionnaires," published in January 1666, is a lampoon, not an argument. It is but short, yet long enough to probe all the weaknesses of the Jansenists, to repeat with an added sting all the calumnies of the Jesuits; Le Maitre is not spared, nor even La M