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 obvions disa.dvantage.

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

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

P. 12, 1, 11. leti/r opinion, i.e. the Dominicans' theory of efl&cacious grâce + sufficient grâce. Ses 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 raiaing 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 sensé attaching to "bonhomme" at this time.

P. 15, 1. 26. Une peinture de V 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. 16, 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 Prench, meaning " to rise up againsfc ". 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 1656 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. rheresie de Luther. The Society of Jésus was not founded till twenty years after Luther's excommunication in 1520 ; but his doctrines were only let loose in Europe in 1652, 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 serait perie. The use of " être " with " périr " is apparently confined nowadays to légal 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 follow."

P. 18, 1." 13. Sai?it Bernard, of Clairvaux (1091-1163).

P. 18, 1. 14. L'ange de Vécole. 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 81 January.

P. 20. Besponse 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 ou 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 Prench Parnassus ". Cf. Tilley, From Montaigne to Molière, p. 111.

For the lady, the choice lies between Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Longuevillo, and Mme de Sable. In favour of the former is qiîoted a fling of Racine's in his cruel letter to Port-Royal (1666), "Ne lui (i.e. Mlle de Scudéry) a-t-on pas môme 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 maybe urged that Pascal would not hâve becn at the pains of so much mystery, if the writer had not been some really groat lady ; that Nicole in his translation uses the words " insignis fœmina " vvhich do not apply to the novelist but which do apply to Mme de Sablé, and still more to Mme de Lougueville. The latter is described by a contemporary as reading the Lettres au Proviticial "avec un grand plaisir". The lady to whom the letter was addressed is no doubt Pascal's sister, Gilberte, wife of Florin Perler.

With regard to the Âcademician, 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 1636, 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 Unes 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.

LETTER IIL

P. 22, 1. 2. Une copie mamiscrite. The Censure was voted on 31 January, but did not appear in print until 17 February, a fortnight's grâce boing allowed in case Arnauld chose to recant. Declining to do so, he was duly degraded on 15 February.

P. 22, 1. 3. Je me suis trouvé, etc. Notice the académie tone of this paragraph, suitable in a reply to an académie letter.

P. 22, 1. 27. on les accusoit ouvertement, etc. For the story of the Conférence at Bourg-Fontaine in 1621, soe Letter XVI. and notes.

P. 23, 1. 4. si atroces ; 1. 7. détestables (see critical notes). The softening of the vigour of Pascal's original expressions throughout this Letter is to be noted.

P. 23, 1. 8. ses plus déclarez ennemis. Cf. Haase, § 155, B.

P. 23, 1. 8. tout leur estude. The amateur philologists of the slxteenth century tried to make masculine nouns of '■ étude" and other words derived from féminine plurals, e.g. " œuvre ". They partly succeeded,

but Vaugelas in 1647 fixed the gender of " étude " as féminine for ail sensés, while Malherbe distinguished between "étude" masc. = "the action of study," and " étude" fem. = " the place of study ".

P. 23, 1. 27. ses Apologies . . . en plusieurs colonnes, viz., the Epistola et alter Apologeticus . . . ad sacram facultatem Parisiensem, 17 January, 1656 (Œuvres d'Arnauld, t. xix., pp. 628 S.), in which Arnauld set out in three columns the incriminated passage from his second Letter and the texts of St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom which support it. This Ecrit à trois Colonnes must be distinguished from the more famous one presented to the Pope in 1653 by M. Lalane, one of the Jansenists who went to Rome to plead the cause of the Augustinus. Cf. Sainte-Beuve, P.R., t. iii., p. 17. Arnauld's Epistola is precededby a really noble covering letter (16 January) from which Pascal borrows the passage of St. Augustine "que Jésus Christ nous montre un juste," etc.

P. 24, 1. 7. autant différente. Cf. Haase, § 98, A.

P. 25, 1. 7. les plus horribles qu'on pourr oit former. Cf. Haase, § 75, Rem. III.

P. 25, 1. 26. La vérité est si délicate. Contrast with this ironical passage the serions treatment of the same thème in the Pensées : " La justice et la vérité sont deux pointes si subtiles que nos instrumens sont trop mousses pour y toucher exactement. S'ils y arrivent, ils en ecachent la pointe, et appuyent tout autour, plus sur le faux que sur le vray " (No. 82).

P. 26, 1. 7. la première question, i.e. "de fait".

P. 26, 1. 35. on crie dans les rues. Arnauld's censure was cried in the streets from 22 Pebruary.

P. 27, 1. 8. par un catéchisme. Such as were frequeutly held in the church of St. Louis (the présent church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis in the rue Saint- Antoine). Pascal gives an example of a catechism in Letter XVII.

P. 27, 1. 10. Une procession. Pascal refers to a procession through the streets of Mâcon on Shrove Tuesday, 1651. A schoolboy dressed up as " Suf&cient Grâce " dragged after him a bishop of Ypres with blackened face and a paper mitre. Cf. Hermant, Mém., t. i., p. 521.

P. 27, 1. 11. une comédie. Nicole tells us that this was a play produced at the Collège de Clermont.

P. 27, 1. 12. tm Almanach. The Almanach in question was issued in December, 1658. It represented the Rout and Confusion of the Jansenists. Jansen, furnished with bats' wings, is followed by Error, Ignorance, and Fraud. The Pope, escorted by Religion and the Church, blasts him with thunder. The King, surrounded by Zeal, Piety, and Concord, smites him with sword and sceptre. Jansen's followers flee for refuge to Calvin. Port-Royal replied to this explosion of bad taste by a set of verse entitled Les Enlumineures du fameux almanach des Pères Jésuites, first édition, January 15, second édition (2,200 exécrable Unes), 10 Pebruary, 1654. Hère is an example :—

" Enfin Molitia, ploin de gloire, Triomphe avec ea bande noire, Le litre arbitre audacieux Domine la grâce des cieux, Et l'humble Augustin en déroute Crie eu vain qu'au moins on l'écoute. . . ."

The discrédit of the Enlumineures belongs to tbe gentle M. de Saoi, one of Arnauld's nephews, and a ♦' aolitary". That Pascal's taste was offended thereby is évident from the Pensf^s : " les Enlumineures m'ont fait tort " (No. 925).

P. 27, 1. 19. un S(;avant Théologien. Was this Pascal himself ? Cf. " Ce sont d'habile» gens. Ils ont craint que les lettres qu'on escrit aux provinciaux " {Pensées, No. 925).

P. 27, 1. 24. ^ur exposer simplement, etc. See above, note on p. 1, 1.6.

P. 27, 1. 26. s'estant voulu . . . écarter. Cf. Haase, § 68, Rem. IL

P. 27, 1. 28. le second apologétique. See above, note on p. 23, 1. 27.

P. 27, 1. 40. Pacte de M. Arnauld. See above, note on p. 1, 1. 6.

P. 28,1. 27. Ce n'est que dans M. Arnauld. Cf. "Une proposition est bonne dans un autheur et meschante dans un autre. Ouy : mais il y a donc d'autres mauvaises propositions " (Pensées, No. 926).

P. 28, 1. 40. Ce n'e.st qjie sa personne. See Introduction, p. xxv.

P. 29. E.A.A B.P.A.F.D.E.P. The most probable expansion of thèse initiais is " Et Ancien Ami Biaise Pascal Auvergnat Fils De Etienne Pascal ". A contemporary but unlikely suggestion is that the letters " E.A.A." represent " Et Antoine Arnauld " ; that they originally came at the end of the séries and were shifted to the front in order either to baffle curiosity or to do honour to Arnauld. In any case Arnauld's share in the Letter, whether direct or indirect, is apparent throughout.