LETTER XI

Between the date of the Tenth Letter and that of the Eleventh (18 August), belief in the reality of the Miracle of the Holy Thorn had gathered strength. On 2 August, Queen Henri etta Maria began a neuvaine at Port-Royal de Paris; on 4 August, Mlle, de Rouannez kissed the relie and felt the first promptings to a religious life, which were fostered by Pascal himself in a sériés of wonderful letters, and which found fulfilment a year later, in July, 1657. On 8 August the doctors drew up their certificates as to the cure of Margot Perier. Owing partly perhaps to the popularity which Port-Royal gained by these incidents and partly to the curiosity awakened by the Letters, the process of printing was henceforward somewhat easier to accomplish. Arnauld invented a practical device which covered the expense and left something in hand. For ail this see Œuvres de Pascal , t. v., p. 279.

Meanwhile the clergy of Rouen rallied to their brother of St. Maclou, attacked by the Jesuit Brisacier, and addressed a pétition to their archbishop that he would publicly censure the Casuists. Their pétition was endorsed by the clergy of Paris in an Assembly held on 7 August, and printed by these last in the course of the next month.

The Eleventh Letter is founded on Arnauld’s Response à la Lettre d'une personne de condition touchant les réglés de la conduitte des Saints Pères dans la composition de leurs ouvrages (March, 1654). Pascal adopts Arnauld’s arguments and authorities, and casts them into literary form.

P. 121, 1. 1. mes Reverends Peres. Pascal now begins a frontal attack, addressing the Jesuits by name.

P. 121, 1. 2. les lettres. See below, Appendix B. “ Answers to the Provinciales.”

P. 121, 1. 6. que j'ay tourné ... en raillerie. Nouet’s words (Première Response , p. xvii.) are “Aussi est-ce une espèce de blasphémé que de traiter les choses saintes en raillerie ”. Pascal silently corrects the slipshod “ traiter”. On the whole question of the use of ridicule in

NOTES

religious controversy, cf. Dr. Hey, Lectures in Divinity (1822), vol. i., bk. ii., cc. 3 and 4.

P. 122, 1. 20. impertinence = irrelevance.

P. 122, 1. 23. la crainte qui en est le principe. Cf. Ps. cxi. 10.

P. 122, 1. 41. In interitu. Prov. i. 26.

P. 123, 1. 4. Videbunt justi. Ps. li. 8 (Vulg.).

P. 123, 1. 5. Innocens subsannabit eos. Job xxii. 19.

P. 123, 1. 7. paroles que Dieu a dit. Cf. Haase, § 92, C.

P. 123, 1. 15. Ecce Adam. . . . Gen. iii. 22.

P. 123, 1. 17. S. Chrysostome. Hom. xviii. in Gen., and v. in Matth.

This and the following references are supplied by Nicole in his trans¬

lation.

P. 123, 1. 18. Rupert. Rupert of Deutz, O.S.B., + 1129 ( MPL , clxvii., col. 315).

P. 123, 1. 21. Hugue de S. Victor. Hugh of Saint Victor (1098-1141).

P. 123, 1. 22. que cette ironie, etc. Havet says tbese words hâve no right to be marked as a quotation but he is mistaken. They are a conflation of two contiguous passages from Hugh of Saint Victor ’s Annotationes elucidatoriae in Pent. (MPL, clxxv., col. 43).

P. 123, 1. 28. Jeremie. Cf. Jer. li. 18.

P. 123, 1. 31. S. Augustin. Cf. Sermo xxii., 8, where the object of

the divine ridicule is the Foolish Virgins.

P. 123, 1. 37. Daniel. Cf. Dan. xiv. 18.

P. 123, 1. 37. Elie. Cf. 2 Kings, xviii. 27.

P. 123, 1. 38. S. Augustin. Cf. Tr. XII. in Joan.

P. 124, 1. 4. S. Chrysostome. Cf. In Joan. Hom. xxv.

P. 124, 1. 4. S. Cyrille. Cyril of Alexandria. Cf. In Joan. lib. ii., cap. i. (MPG, lxxiii., col. 44).

P. 124, 1. 9. ignoroient . . . soutenaient. Cf. Haase, § 81, A.

P. 124, 1. 10. qu'on peut estre sauvé, etc. See above, Letter X.

P. 124, 1. 18. S. Hierome dans ses lettres. Cf. Epist., lxxxiv., xcix.,

P. 124, 1. 19. Tertullien dans son Apologétique, etc., i.e. Apol. adv. gentes.

P. 124, 1. 20. contre les religieux d'Afrique. Cf. De opéré monachorum, c. xxiii., xxxi., xxxii.

P. 124, 1. 21. les chevelus = criniti fratres. Cf. Aug., op. cit., c. xxxi. Long hair was reckoned effeminate, contrary to the apostolic decree, and deserving of ridicule.

P. 124, 1. 22. contre les Gnostiques, i.e. ''EA eyxos K°ù avarpoir^ rrjs if/evSuyvjuou yvuxews (Adv. Haer.).

P. 124, 1. 22. S. Bernard. Cf. Epist., 236.

P. 124, 1. 30. Ce que fay fait, etc. Cf. “ Congressioni lusionem députa, lector, ante pugnam” (Adv. Valentin., c. vi.).

P. 125, 1. 11. que Jesus-Christ, etc. Cf. “ testatur (Ignatius) ad se fréquenter venisse meditationes quarum nomine Jesum désignât et Mariam . . .” (Imago primi saeculi, 1. c. 5).

P. 125, 1. 13. qu'un Prestre , etc. Cf. Letter YI. and Letter IX.

P. 125,i 1. 27. c'est tuer son ennemi en trahison , etc. Cf. Letter VI.,

P. 126, 1. 1. Haec tu miser icorditer irride. Cf. Aug., Contra Parmeniarum , iii. , c. 4.

P. 126, 1. 4. L'esprit de charité, etc. Cf. Greg. Naz., Or., xli., In Pentecosten.

P. 126, 1. 5. qui oseroit dire , etc. Cf. Aug., De doctr. Christ, iv., 1.

P. 126, 1. 17. qu'on peut tuer, etc. See âbove, p. 74, 1. 36.

P. 126, 1. 20. qu'un juge, etc. See above, p. 82, ]. 36.

P. 126, 1. 23. avec privilège, i.e. the privilège du roi, orright to print and protection against piracy, as regulated by an ordinance of Louis XIII. in 1629. The allusion is to Sirmond’s Defense de la Vérité (see above, note on p. 117, 1. 39).

P. 127, 1. 5. que leur ressentiment part. See critical note and cf. Haase, § 81, A.

P. 128, 1. 2. Malheur aux aveugles, etc. Cf. Aug., Contra Epist. Parmen., iii., 4.

P. 128, 1. 14. Splendentia, etc. Cf. Aug., De doctr. christ., iv., 28.

P. 128, 1. 21. reüssir. Here in the etymological sense, “ issue forth ” from Latin re-exire.

P. 128, 1. 21. la vérité de Dieu, etc. Job xiii. 7.

P. 128, 1. 22. Il est du devoir, etc. “ Veritatis enim ministros decet vera proferre.” Hilar. Pictav., Contra Constant., vi.

P. 128, 1. 42. Les médians, etc. A free paraphrase of Aug., Epist., 48 (98).

P. 129, 1. 8. de sçavans hommes et très catholiques. Cf. Haase, § 156, B.

P. 129, 1. 9. autrefois. From 1554 onwards the Sorbonne had repeatedly censured Jesuit doctrine and practice.

P. 129, 1. 16. à moins qu'il y en ait. Cf. Haase, § 104, A.

P. 129, 1. 32. porte à avoir, “ incites to ".

P. 129, 1. 35. On doit toujours, etc. Cf. Aug., Epist., 138 (5).

P. 130, 1. 16. Binet. See above, note on p. 96, 1. 13. The work in question is Consolation et resjouissance pour les malades et personnes affligées, par Etienne Arviset, prédicateur du Roy.

P. 130, 1. 20. Dévotion aisée. See above, note on p. 27, 1. 18.

P. 130, 1. 23. Peintures Morales. See above, note on p. 98, 1. 8.

P. 130, 1. 26. Eloge de la pudeur, etc. Once more it is Jesuit taste that is most at fault. Sainte-Beuve has some trenchant observations on Le Moyne in Port-Royal, t. iii., pp. 285 fï. Molinier thinks that the Jansenist criticism of the Jesuit poet is too severe : but to a man of Pascal’s austere enthusiasm such jeux d'esprit were nothing short of blasphemy.

P. 131, 1. 2. Delphine. Delphine (who in a later édition of the Ode becomes Lucrèce) was Lucrèce de Quincampoix, step-mother of S. J.

NOTES

Du Cambout, abbé de Pontchâteau, an ardent Jansenist, for whom see Sainte-Beuve, op. cit., passim.

P. 131, 1. 16. Que l'eaUy etc. . . . This passage is from livre 1.

P. 131, 1. 20. P. Garasse. See above, note on p. 98, 1. 28. The author of the Somme des Veritez had been rebuked by Saint-Cyran, who quoted the passages here incriminated, and his book was censured by the Sorbonne in 1626.

P. 131, 1. 21. l'heresie, i.e. Nestorianism, which held that there were two Persons in Jésus Christ, whereas the Church teaches two Natures in One Person. Garasse tacitly accepted the impeachment by substituting on a cancel substance for personnalité. But the Sorbonne censured his book on account of “ une infinité de paroles de boufonnerie indignes d’estre escrites et d’estre leues par des Chrestiens et des Théologiens ”. Nouet, in his Response à V Onzième Lettre des Jansénistes , quoted in defenceof the simile used by Garasse a passage of St. Paulinus of Nola, Epist. 4, where Christ is compared to the Good Samaritan who set the wounded traveller on his own beast. “ Hic hominem saucium . . . miseratus accessit et jumento suo, hoc est Verbi Incarnatione suscepit.” Nicole meets this plea by pointing out that in the one case it is Divinity, and in the other only Humanity that is compared to a horse. (Note iii., ad. loc.)

P. 131, 1. 28. un Jésus dévalisé: “ robbed of his baggage”. The phrase in Garasse continues, “ faisant comme par mystère de toute antiquité les armes de la ville de Genève ” — to which Nouet, whoquotes it, adds, “ vostre chère Genève ”.

P. 131, 1. 34. Pere Brisacier. Jean de Brisacier (1603-1668), author, together with Annat, Lingendes, and Nouet, of the Responses aux Lettres provinciales. The book referred to here is Le Jajisenisme confondu dans Vadvocat du sieur Callaghan (1651). Callaglian was an Irish priest, who came to France in 1627, studied under Jesuit teachers, became Doctor of the Sorbonne in 1634, turned towards Jansenism, and was given a cure near Blois by a great Jansenist lady. Him Brisacier attacked publicly at Blois in a sermon preached in March, 1651. A Provençal friend came to Callaghan’s help and Brisacier replied with the Jansenisyne confondu. This was denounced to the Archbishop of Paris by the Mère Angélique and prohibited in the diocese. Arnauld supported the censure and refers to the incident several times in his Second Letter. But Brisacier was not daunted, and returned to the charge against Jansenism at Rouen, under the circumstances already described. His attack against Callaghan seems to hâve been quite unjustified. Callaghan was a blameless man of good family, and not at ail the Irish rogue described by Brisacier. The only real cause of complaint against him was that he was exceedingly scrupulous (à la Jansen) in admitting penitents to absolution and Communion.

P. 132, 1. 2. feu M. V archevesque de Paris. Jean François de Gondi (1584-1654), the first Archbishop of Paris, uncle of the Cardinal de Retz.

P. 132, 1. 11. une autre fois. See Letter XV.

P. 132, 1. 32. des vœux pour leur damnation. These took the form of a set of Latin Alcaics recited in the Jesuit College at Caen in June, 1653. Amongst other things, Christ is besought to exclude from the number of the elect the man who persists in denying that the Precious Blood was shed for each and ail, i.e. who maintains Proposition V. Arnauld refers repeatedly to this Vœu de Caen (“ ad beatam Virginem votum ”) in his Second Letter, where he gives an extract from it.

P. 132, 1. 40. de ce qu’ entre , etc. Cf. Haase, § 109, D.

P. 133, 1. 12. tant esté imprimé de fois. See above, note on p. 46, 1. 33.

P. 133, 1. 13. Bagot. Jean Bagot (1580-1664), authorof Defensio juris episcopalis (1655), which only escaped the censure of the Sorbonne thanks to his friends in the Faculty and the Court.

P. 133, 1. 26. complimens, “ flattering words ”.

P. 133, 1. 31. deü à la vanité , etc. Cf. Tert., Adv. Valentin., c. 6.

P. 133, 1. 36. rideam vanitatem , etc. Cf. Ad nationes, ii., 12.

P. 133, 1. 38. Hœc tolerabilius, etc. Cf. Contra Faustum, xx., 16.

P. 133, 1. 39. un temps de rire, etc. Eccles. iii. 4.

P. 133, 1. 41. ces paroles des Proverbes. Prov. xxix. 9.

P. 134, 1. 1. En achevant cettre lettre, etc. This postscript is omitted in the édition of 1659.

P. 134, 1. 1. un escrit que vous avez publié. This was the first installaient of the Besponse aux Lettres des Jansénistes by Jacques Nouet, which was published some time before August 23. He followed it up by a Besponse à VOnzieme Lettre des Jansénistes.