LETTER II

P. 10, 1. 2. Monsieur N. The “ docteur de Navarre ” of Letter I.

P. 11, 1. 25 ff. (see critical note). This passage is a good example of the way in which Pascal allowed Port-Royal to doctor his original draft to its obvious disadvantage.

P. 11, 1. 33. cette nécessité excluront, etc. “If efficacious grâce is necessary, what becomes of sufficient grâce? "

P. 12, 1. 9. Clement VIII et Paul V, under whom the Congrégation de Auxiliis was held from 1598 to 1606. See Introduction, p. xx.

P. 12, 1. 11. leur opinion , i.e. the Dominicans’ theory of efïicacious grâce + sufficient grâce. See Introduction, p. xx.

P. 13, 1. 3. toute ma demy-heure. See above, note on p. 1, 1. 6.

P. 13, 1. 5. Il opine du bonnet , etc. To this day Proctors in the Senate-House at Cambridge register assent to “ grâces ” by raising their caps.

P. 13, 1. 33. un autre. Cf. Haase, § 54, A.

P. 13, 1. 39. ce bon homme = ce vieillard. There was no derogatory sense attaching to “bonhomme” at this time.

P. 15, 1. 26. Une peinture de l'Eglise. “ Fas est et ab hoste doceri ” — Pascal appears to hâve borrowed his parable from the Anti-Augustinian A. le Moine. See Molinier ad loc.

P. 15, 1. 35. insulta contre, trs. “ attacked ”. The use of “contre” after “ insulter ” is a recollection of the Latin construction “ insultare in”. It occurs in old French, meaning “ to rise up against ”. Cf. “ faire insulter la commune de Milan contre les françoys”.

P. 16, 1. 42. Abbeville. This incident is apparently historié. A certain Dominican was banished from Paris in 1655 for maintaining a Jansenist thesis. Cf. Hermant, Mém., t. iii., ch. 16.

P. 17, 1. 6. Molina. Luis de Molina (1535-1601). See Introduction, p. xx.

P. 17, 1. 12. l'heresie de Luther. The Society of Jésus was notfounded till twenty years after Luther’s excommunication in 1520 ; but his doctrines were only let loose in Europe in 1552, so that Pascal cannot fairly be charged with inaccuracy.

P. 17, 1. 18. en estât d’estre décriez comme des Calvinistes. As in fact they were described. See Introduction, p. xx.

P. 17, 1. 29. elle seroit perie. The use of “ être ” with “ périr ” is apparently confined nowadays to legal phraseology.

P. 17, 1. 29. vous avez receu, etc. “ You hâve admitted into the

Church a term which is hostile to the truth : the thing it signifies will

soon folio w.”

P. 18, 1. 13. Saint Bernard , of Clairvaux (1091-1153).

P. 18, 1. 14. L'ange de l'école. St. Thomas, “ Doctor Angelicus ”.

P. 18, 1. 14. transmise de luy. Cf. Haase, § 113.

P. 18, 1. 23. Docteur de la grâce. Cf. Introduction, p. xv.

P. 19, 1. 6. la censure est faite. The censure was not pronounced till 31 January.

P. 20. Response du Provincial.

There is little doubt that Pascal himself wrote this delicious reply. It is quite probable that the two letters which he quotes are genuine. Who wrote them? For the Academician, Chapelain has been suggested, and the conjecture is borne out by the description of the writer and the style of the writing. Ever since the report of the Academy on the Cid he had been regarded as the prince of critics : he was soon to be the first of French poets, and “ head of the French Parnassus ”. Cf. Tilley, From Montaigne to Molière, p. 111.

NOTES

For the lady, the choice lies between Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Longueville, and Mme de Sablé. In favour of the former is quoted a fling of Racine’s in his cruel letter to Port-Royal (1666), “Ne lui (i.e. Mlle de Scudéry) a-t-on pas même rendu les louanges dans l’une des Provinciales. N’est-ce pas elle que l’auteur entend lorsqu’il parle d’une Personne qu’il admire sans la connoître ? ” Against her it may be urged that Pascal would not hâve been at the pains of so much mystery, if the writer had not been some really great lady ; that Nicole in his translation uses the words “ insignis fœmina ” which do not apply to the novelist but which do apply to Mme de Sablé, and still more to Mme de Longueville. The latter is described by a contemporary as reading the Lettres au Provincial “ avec un grand plaisir”. The lady to whom the letter was addressed is no doubt Pascal’s sister, Gilberte, wife of Florin Perier.

With regard to the Academician, Pascal had reason to be pleased with the success of his appeal to the Academy at the end of Letter I., if this Réponse is a genuine document ; and with his own skill in parodying Chapelain, if it is a “ pastiche ”. In this last case one may believe that he took spécial pleasure in singing the praises of the Academy in terms which could be seriously used only by a “ précieux ” or by a country cousin, dazzled by everything that hailed from Paris.

P. 20, 1. 9. feu Mr le Cardinal. Richelieu displayed his favour towards the Sorbonne by building a church for it in 1635, and by leaving to it his splendid library.

P. 20, 1. 17. J'en suis marry. Sainte-Beuve ( P. R. , t. iii., p. 67) considers this phrase and the form “die” a few lines earlier to be deliberate archaisms and signs of Pascal’s impatience with the oldfashioned ways of the Academy. But Pascal himself uses “marri” on his own account at the end of Letter V.