LETTER XVI

P. 191, 1. 1. Voicy la suite de vos calomnies où, etc. The sentence is close packed and obscure. The adverb où is made to carry a great deal. Trs. “I corne now to the rest of your calumnies, and herein I shall reply first to those that remain to be dealt with in your warnings” ; or, “ In this letter I shall continue to deal with your calumnies and in it I shall first reply,” etc.

P. 191, 1. 7. Mr. d'Ipre. Cornélius Jansen was bishop of Ypres from 1636 to 1638. Nouet, in his Response à la XVe Lettre, chose to revive an ancient calumny against Jansen : “ Donc,” he cries ironically, “ Jansenius ne promet pas à cet abbé (Saint-Cyran) d’entretenir son neveu Barcos des biens d’un college qu’il a entre ses mains, sans qu’aux contes qu’il en doit rendre, personne du monde n’en sçache rien ? ” The story first took shape in La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monseigneur le Chancelier (1654), by François Pinthereau, in which extracts are given from letters addressed by Jansen to Saint-Cyran, the originals being preserved in the Collège de Clermont. One of these letters réfers to Martin de Barcos, Saint-Cyran’s nephew, whom his uncle was sending to the college of Sainte Pulcliérie at Louvain, of which Jansenius was then Principal. On 19 May, 1617, Jansen writes

to his friend, “ Il n’estoit pas besoin que vous ou Monsieur vostre frère se mist en peine avec tant de soin. Car je luy fourniray tant que vous voudrez tout ce qu’il luy faudra de l’argent du college, je le dis naïvement, que j’ay entre les mains.” . . . Pinthereau leapt to the conclusion that Jansen was promising to misappropriate college funds, and he backed his conclusion by reference to a passage in another letter, two years later: “ Quant à Barcos, vous vous mettez trop en peine du fournissement de ce qu’il aura besoin . . . je vous ay tant de fois répété que cela ne m’incommode aucunement, et le dirois franchement, s’il estoit autrement : non pas que j’aye tant de moyens de moy-mesme qui n’ay rien sinon ma vie, mais c’est l’argent du College qui est en mes mains qui permet bien cela et davantage, sans qu’aux comptes que j’en rends toutes les années personne du monde en sçache rien.” Pascal silences the accusation of embezzlement by quoting a passage from a third letter of a later date, which makes it quite clear that Jansen was only proposing a loan from monies over which he had undisputed control.

P. 192, 1. 5. vostre conte ridicule du Tronc de S. Merry. Cf. VIIe Imposture, ‘‘Nous n’approuverons jamais celle (i.e. la méthode) du Prestre Janséniste, qui inventa l’an passé la méthode d’ouvrir le tronc des Eglises, et qui en fit l’essay dans la cave de St. Merderic . . . The priest was Dr. J. E. Ariste, chaplain of St. Merri in the Quartier du Temple, who was accused in 1655 by the churchwardens of theft from, and appropriation of, the poor box. The Parlement dismissed the first charge, but, by confirming the church in possession of the box, it gave colour to the belief that the chaplain had for some reason removed it. It seems to hâve been a trumpery charge.

P. 192, 1. 17. Ce fameux directeur, etc. This was a graver business. The “ famous director ” is M. Singlin of Port-Royal, to whom a certain M. de Chavigny had, without the consent of his parish priest and without the knowledge of his wife, made a death-bed confession. On Singlin’s advice Chavigny handed to him a considérable sum of conscience money, to be applied in making restitution, for much of his large fortune had been made by moneylending, and we know how the seventeenth century regarded that practice. Singlin informed the widow, who protested vigorously. The case was referred to arbitrators, who decided that Madame de Chavigny should give up 100,000 livres and keep the rest. In this arrangement the foes of Port-Royal smelt captation; but there is no manner of doubt that Singlin and the arbitrators were actuated by the highest motives.

P. 192, 1. 24. vos grands Profés. The Jesuit novice becomes after two years a “ scholastic ” and takes the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Some years later he takes a fourth vow, that he will go wherever he is told, and he is ranked as “ coadjutor ” or “ professed”.

P. 192, 1. 27. vous avez osé imputer, etc., in Meynier’s pamphlet, Le Port-Royal et Genève d'intelligence . . . for which see below, note on p. 193, 1. 33.

P. 193, 1. 2. de Port-Royal, Almost a technical expression. The

NOTES

Solitaries were “ of Port-Royal ” ; the convent had many friends who were not “ of it,” as, for instance, the Duc de Liancourt, who was the accidentai cause of the Lettres provinciales and a “Solitaire amateur”. No more than he, was Pascal “ of Port-Royal The distinctive feature of the Solitaires was complété renunciation of the world, and Pascal, when he wrote the Provinciales , had by no means accomplished this. He was still an “ honnête homme ” in the seventeenth century sense. He did renounce the world before his death, but by that time he had corne very near to renouncing Port-Royal and the cause for which in the Letters he so vigorously fights. See Strowski, Pascal et so7i temps , t. iii. , p. 210; and Stewart, The Holiness of Pascal , Lecture I., and notes.

P. 193, 1. 6. ces pieux solitaires qui s'y estoient retirez. The period of the Solitaries extended from 1637, when Antoine Le Maître and M. de Séricourt were provided with lodgings in the Court of Port-Royal de Paris, till March, 1656, when “ les Messieurs ” were driven from Port-Royal des Champs by order of the King.

P. 193, 1. 7. leurs ouvrages. The writers, par excellence, of Port- Royal were Arnauld, Nicole, and M. de Saci.

P. 193, 1. 17. tout ce que j'ay receu de luy. There seems no need to read into these words, as Havet does, a note of personal pride. The most modest of men may openly dedicate himself to God and his gifts ! to His service. Nicole’s rendering is simply quicquid de illo accepi.

P. 193, 1. 22. pour vous en obtenir le pardon. Havet and Molinier regard this passage as mere rhetoric, not far removed from hypocrisy. “ (Ces prières) ressemblaient sans doute à celle que l’Eglise elle-même fait pour les Juifs le vendredi saint ” (Havet). “ Si jamais il y eut de théologiens batailleurs, pour ne pas dire aggressifs, ce fut bien à Port- Royal ” (Molinier). No doubt; but it should be remarked that Pascal has here in mind, not the great polemists of Port-Royal, Arnauld and Nicole, but the nuns and their Directors ; and the character of no one of these last is open to the charge of harshness or insincerity — not M. Singlin, forced into the priesthood against his will by Saint-Cyran ; not M. de Saci, despite the Enlumineures (“ seule erreur,” says Sainte- Beuve, P. -R., ii., 87) ; not M. Sainte-Marthe, because of his Défense des Religieuses (see Sainte-Beuve, ib., iv., p. 345). These men who were the “directors” known to Pascal, were human, but they were profoundly Christian, and we may believe that they would and did pray for their enemies, and would teach those whom they directed to do the same.

P. 193, 1. 23. point de part a cette injure, “ no share in that calumny ”.

P. 193, 1. 26. Impie fades eorum ignominiâ , Ps. lxxxii. 17 (Vulg.).

P. 193, 1. 33. Le Port-Royal et Genève, etc. In this gross and stupid libel Meynier accused Saint-Cyran and Arnauld of having corrupted the faith of the Port-Royal nuns by means of the Chapelet du Saint Sacrement (a sériés of méditations invented by the Mère Agnès) and

the Fréquente Communion. For le Port-Royal, cf. Haase, § 31, C, Rem. II.

P. 194, 1. 7. L'institution du S. Sagement, etc. An Institut for the perpétuai adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was founded by Madame de Longueville under a Bull of Urban VIII. in 1627. It was housed in the Maison du Saint Sacrement in a Street near the Louvre, and la Mère Angélique was appointed superior, with three sisters of Port- Royal. They stayed here till 1633, when, the founders having died without securing sufficient maintenance for them, they had to return to Port-Royal, taking with them the property and privilèges of the Dévotion. By the sale of the house they were enabled in 1647 to build a church which was dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament and the Virgin, and the same year they exchanged the black scapulary of their Order (Cistercian) for a white scapulary with a red cross, signifying the Body and Blood of Christ (see Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, v., 457 ff.). Henceforward the nuns of Port-Royal were known as the “ Filles du Saint Sacrement

P. 194, 1. 36. significative, “ figurative,” the word used by Meynier with reference to the Calvinistic doctrine.

P. 194, 1. 38. d'une figure vraye et reelle. The editors of the Œuvres de P., who let little escape them, say that they cannot find the source of this quotation. But surely it is simply Pascal’s expansion and justification of the terni “ significative ”.

P. 195, 1. 12. en plusieurs lieux. Cf. “ Dominus noster in caelum sublatus localem corporis sui praesentiam nobis abstulit”. Calvin, Conf. Fidei de Eucharistia.

P. 195, 1. 35. Theolog. fam., i.e. Théologie familière avec divers autres petits traitez de dévotion by Saint-Cyran (? 1643). Among the petits traitez are three to which Pascal refers in this Letter : fl) L'Explication des Ceremonies de la Messe, (2) L'Exercice pour la bien entendre, and (3) Les Raisons de la Ceremonie et de l'ancienne coustume de suspendre le Saint Sacrement dans les Eglises au-dessus du grant Autel.

P. 196, 1. 1. voyagere, “itinérant here on earth,” a rare word, for which Littré quotes Montaigne : “ quelque bonne compagnie resseante ou voyagere ".

P. 196, 1. 1. De la suspension, i.e. Saint-Cyran’s third traité. See above, note on p. 195, 1. 35.

P. 196, 1. 3. appuyées. According to the Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy, the subject lies below and thus supports the accidents.

P. 196, 1. 7. Heures, dans la prose , etc. Heures, i.e. “de Port- Royal,” the name given to a kind of Prymer — l'Office de l'Eglise, in Latin and French, with the hymns in French verse, published in 1650 by M. de Saci, under the pseudonym of Jean Dumont.

P. 196, 1. 7. la prose du Saint Sacrement. This is the famous sequence for Corpus Christi Day, viz. St. Thomas’s Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem. The verse to which Pascal alludes is No. 7 : —

NOTES

Sub diversis speciebus,

Signis tantum et non rebus,

Latent res eximiae.

“ Mais la substance change en laissant discernable les voiles du dehors.” The verse given by Molinier, ad loc., is from Saci’s translation of the hymn Verbum supernum prodiens, v. 3, and does not correspond to Pascal’s quotation. The editors of the Œuvres de Pascal wrongly refer to the Office du Saint Sacrement , which was not published till 1659.

P. 196, 1. 25. Defense du Chapelet , etc., i.e. Réponse aux Remarques d'un Théologien contre le Chapelet du très Saint Sacrement , by Saint- Cyran (1634). For Chapelet see above, note on p. 193, 1. 33.

P. 196, 1. 32. Comme l'Escriture parle. Cf. 2 Cor. v. 15.

P. 196, 1. 32. Ib., p. 153 , i.e. in the Explication des Ceremonies de la Messe, one of the treatises in the Theolog. Fam.

P. 197, 1. 15. Mestrezat. Jean Mestrezat (1592-1657), for forty-two years minister of the “ temple ” at Charenton.

P. 197, 1. 17. que c'est un mensonge , etc., quoted from Arnauld’s Seconde Lettre.

P. 197, 1. 24. Controverses, i.e. the short title of Traité qui contient la Méthode la plus facile et la plus asseurée pour convertir ceux qui sont séparez de l'Eglise, par le Cardinal de Richelieu (1651). This work was found among the Cardinale papers after his death in 1643. Pascal summarizes a dozen lines.

P. 197, 1. 32. L'Exercice, etc. See above, note on p. 195, 1. 35.

P. 197, 1. 34. Heures de Port-Royal. See above, note on p. 196, 1. 7.

P. 198, 1. 15. qu'on ne doit point donner, etc. Free summary of the passage in La Fréquente.

P. 198, 1. 22. si vous suiviez, etc. For these words of Brisacier, see above, Letter XV, p. 186, 1. 35.

P. 198, 1. 25. Mascarenhas. Manuel de M., Portuguese Jesuit (1604- 1654).

P. 198, 1. 27. Toute sorte de personnes, etc. From Tractatus de Sacramentis (Paris, 1656), Tr. iv. Pascal omits to state that Mascarenhas gives as reason for his opinion the absence of any text forbidding communion or célébration on the part of a truly contrite sinner who has duly confessed.

P. 199, 1. 19. Il n'y a rien de pire, etc. Cf. Ecclus. x. 10.

P. 199, 1. 27. d'un Ordre tout different. Cf. the magnificent passage in the Pensées, No. 793.

P. 199, 1. 41. p. 33 should be^>. 35.

P. 200, 1. 5. le livre de Petrus Aurelius : Pétri Aurelii Theologi opéra . . . (Paris, 1632). This work was composed by Saint-Cyran (? and his friends) in defence of épiscopal jurisdiction against the English Jesuits who objected to the daims of Richard Smith, appointed in 1625 titular bishop of Chalcedon and vicar apostolic. Cf. Stillingfleet, Discourse concerning idolatry (1672), pp. 369 ff.

P. 200, 1. 10. de sa mémoire , “ from her own memory ”.

P. 200, 1. 16. trois assemblées generales, etc., in 1635, 1641, 1645-1646. P. 200, 1. 22. vos confrères d' Angleterre. Knott and Floyd. Cf. Bayle, Dict., s.v. Knott.

P. 200, 1. 32. que Dieu nous donne , etc. Arnauld défends himself on the same lines in his Seconde Lettre.

P. 201, 1. 23. le Cardinal du Perron. Jacques Davy Du Perron (1556- 1618), cardinal, 1604. He preached the funeral sermon of Bonsard, he engaged in long controversy with Bishop Andrewes, and he was a chief agent in procuring the conversion to Catholicism of Henry IV. His Traité du Saint Sacrement de V Eucharistie (1622) was written to confute Du Plessis Mornay’s attack on the Mass.

P. 201, 1. 27. la Manne. Cf. “ C’est ce Sacrement que Saint Jean appelle dans l’Apocalypse une manne cachée Pascal to Mlle Bouannez, October, 1656.

P. 201, 1. 30. S. Eucher. Bishop of Lyons, ca. 434. The passage here quoted is from his Liber formularum spiritualis intelligentiae ( MPL , 1., col. 746). Cf. “ La Synagogue ne perissoit point parce qu’elle estoit la figure ... la figure a subsisté jusqu’à la vérité ” (Pensées, No. 646).

P. 201, 1. 37. c'est le propre de la loy, etc. Cf. Heb. x. 1.

P. 201, 1. 39. lafoy . . . n'est point, etc. Cf. Heb. xi. 1, Bom. iii. 20-22, Gai. v. 4-6.

P. 202, 1. 7. abhorrer les Calvinistes. Havet exclaims : “ Combien une telle expression nous étonne ! ” But the editors of Œuvres de Pascal point out, quoting Darmsteter and Hatzfeld, that “ abhorrer” has also the sense of “ avoir un grand éloignement pour,” in which sense Pascal uses it in his Traité sur le Vide.

P. 202, 1. 16. ce que M. Arnauld a dit, etc., in La Fréquente.

P. 202, 1. 27. Annat. Cf. Besponse à quelques demandes. For this work, see above, note on p. 32, 1. 9.

P. 203, 1. 3. ces termes . . . n'y furent jamais. Maynard makes a great point of the fact that although the expression “local presence ” is avoided in the canons of the 13th session of the Council of Trent, yet the lst chapter of that session says : “nec enim haec inter se pugnant ut ipse salvator noster semper ad dextram Patris in caelis assideat juxta modum existendi naturalem, et ut multis nihilominus aliis in locis sacramentaliter praesens sua substantia nobis adsit,” etc. But Pascal knows this and admits it (see p. 204, 1.5,“ miraculeusement en plusieurs lieux à la fois ”). He might hâve shown that Meynier was a poor scholastic in not recognizing the différence between “ esse in loco” and “ esse localiter in loco,” i.e. according to the conditions by which bodies ordinarily occupy place, or, as he says himself, “dans l’estendue ordinaire des corps en leur lieu ”. He might hâve referred Meynier to Du Perron, Traité de l'Eucharistie, iv., c. 23, where the question is fully handled. But on the principle that “ les impostures ne méritent d’estre refutées qu’en passant,” he contents himself with pillorying the

NOTES

Jesuit’s distortion of the canons of Trent and his ignorance of St, Thomas.

P. 203, 1. 28. Rougissez , etc. Cf. Ecclus. iv. 30.

P. 203, 1. 37. Vestendue. “L’étendue” is the property of a body to occupy a position in space. So Descartes, Discours de lu Méthode. See above, note on p. 203, 1. 3.

P. 204, 1. 19. Jarrige. Pierre Jarrige (1604-1670). He abjured not only his Order but his religion in 1647, and published in 1648 a pamphlet, Les Jesuistes mis sur l'eschafaut pour plusieurs crimes capitaux par eux commis dans la province de Guyenne. This he retracted two years later. He was received back into the Church and disappeared into a Jesuit house at Antwerp.

P. 204, 1. 33. cœur de pierre , etc. Cf. Ezek. xi. 19.

P. 205, 1. 23. Filleau. A Poitiers lawyer, uncle of the good friend of Port-Royal, Filleau de la Chaise (to whom we owe the account of Pascal^ plan for his great apology, see Stewart, Holiness of Pascal, p. 52), published in 1654 an extravagant story of a conférence supposed to hâve been held at Bourg-Fontaine, near Villers-Cotteret, in 1621, between Jansen, Saint-Cyran, and a number of friends, for the express purpose of destroying Christianity in favour of Deism. A conférence no doubt took place, but its object was probably the reform of morals rather than of doctrine.

P. 206, 1. 12. cet ecclesiastique de mérité. The expression is Filleau’s.

P. 206, 1. 15. ces six personnes. These were designated in Filleau’s account by initiais. Only one of them, said Filleau, was still alive when he wrote, viz. a certain A. A. The Jesuits, who took up the story with avidity, would hâve liked to expand this into Antoine Arnauld, but he was a child of nine at the date of the conférence ; so, for want of a better, they fell back on his elder brother, Robert Arnauld d’Andilly, whose initiais, on the principle adopted by Filleau, ought to hâve appeared as R. A. D. A.

P. 206, 1. 28. Valerien. See above, note on p. 187, 1. 31.

P. 206, 1. 32. que ce ne sera point, etc. Another quotation from Valeriano Magni.

P. 206, 1. 35. Chapvelet secret du S. Sacrement, i.e. Histoire du chapelet secret, etc., by la Mère Agnès. See above, note on p. 193, 1. 33.

P. 206, 1. 41. la Censure de feu M. V archevesque. See above, note on p. 132, 1. 2.

P. 207, 1. 16. On Ventend aujourd'huy. ... A reference to the miracle of the Holy Thorn. Cf. Pensées, No. 841.

P. 207, 1. 24. Dicastillus, Gans, Penalossa. See above, note on p. 178, 1. 32.

P. 207, 1. 30. J et II Concile d'Arles. The dates are 316 and 353. The canons dealing with calumny are No. xiv. of the first council and No. xxiv. of the second.

P. 207, 1. 30. Concile de Latran. I can find no Lateran canon to this effect; but the Fourteen Council of Carthage (a.d. 398) in its

55th canon says, “ ut episcopus accusatores fratrum excommunicet. Et si emendaverit vitium recipiat eos ad communionem, non ad clerum Perhaps Pascal is thinking of this.

P. 207, 1. 32. Les Papes , e.g. Gregory III. and Adrian I. See Corp. Jur. Gan. (Decret., Pt. II., Causa, v., q. i., cc. i. and ii.).

P. 207, 1. 37. flagellentur. The Pope’s words are “ Qui in alterius famam publice scripturam aut verba contumeliosa confinxerit, et repertus scripta non probaverit, flagelletur” (Corp. Jur. Can. ad loc. cit.).

P. 208, 1. 7. s'il n'est en estime d'abhorrer , trs. “ unless he is reported to hâte ”. Cf. “ L’estime de modération qu’il avoit ” (Bossuet).

P. 208, 1. 11. ces saints et pieux calomniateurs. The quotation is borrowed from Arnauld (Préfacé to the Enlumineur es).

P. 208, 1. 22. avec S. Paul. ... Cf. 1 Cor. vi. 9.

P. 208, 1. 34. la vérité vous en delivreroit. Cf. John viii. 31, 32.

P. 208, 1. 40. un prophète. Cf. Is. xxviii. 15.

P. 208, 1. 43. D'autant . . . que vous avez mis , etc. Cf. Is. xxx. 12-14.

P. 209, 1. 6. test = tesson, “ potsherd ”.

P. 209, 1. 8. un autre prophète . Cf. Ezek. xiii. 22, 23.

P. 209, 1. 24. dans l'Evangile. Cf. Matth. vii. 1, John vii. 24.

P. 209, 1. 32. Le démon, etc. Cf. Introduction à la vie devote, Pt. III., ch. 29.

P. 209, 1. 33. M. de Genève. St. François de Sales was still simple bishop. He was not canonized till 1665.

P. 209, 1. 35. Cant. 24, i.e. Sermo 24 in Cantica ( MPL , clxxxiii., col. 896).

P. 209, 1. 41. Le peu de temps, etc. The editors of Œuvres de Pascal point out that Pascal was anticipated in this famous phrase by Balzac in his Socrate chrétien (1652).

P. 210, 1. 7. peur des Bénédictins. See above, note on p. 187, 1. 30.

P. 210, 1. 9. Auteur de vos Apologies , viz. Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin ; see above, note on p. 190, 1. 3. Desmarets was not in the least mollified by this extremely handsome apology, if we may judge by the furious tone of his Response à l'Insolente Apologie des Religieuses de Port-Royal, etc., which he published ten years later.