Classic French Course in English

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t it is what he might have done, still more than what he did, that fixes his estimation

hus shut up to his own resources, the masterful little fellow, about his eighth year, drawing charcoal diagrams on the floor, made perceptible progress in working out geometry for himself. At sixteen he produced a treatise on co

ul to Pascal's vivacious and susceptible spirit. His pious sister Jacqueline warned her brother that he was going too far. But he was still more effectively warned by an accident, in which he almost miraculously escaped from death. Withdrawing from the world,

ortune to become chiefly renowned by literary achievement. His, in fact, would now be

ters written by Louis de Montalte to a Provincial, one of his friends, and to the Revere

ng this you seem to lose something of Pascal's thought. For with Pascal the thought and the style penetrate each other inextricably and almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, an inflection of the

did his memorable execution on the Jesuitical system of morals and casuistry, in the "Provincial Letters." In great part, we say; for the flaming moral earnestness of the man could not abide only to play with his adversaries, to the end of the famous dispute. His lighter cimeter blade he flu

e called the final French prose. "The creator of French style," Villemain boldly calls him. Pascal's style remains to this day almost perfectly free from adhesions of archaism in diction and in construction. Pascal showed,

at every contemporary reader of Pascal perfectly knew, as if by simply breathing,-the necessary knowledge being then, so to speak, abroad in the air. Even thus, you cannot possibly derive that vivid delight from perusing in bulk the "Provincial Letters" now, which the successive numbers of the series, appearing

ated some eight miles to the south-west of Versailles, and therefore not very remote from Paris.) Arnauld was "for substance of doctrine" really a Calvinist, though he quite sincerely disclaimed being such; and it was for his defence of Calvinism (under its ancient form of Augustinianism) that he was threatened, through Jesuit enmity, with condemnation for heretical opinion. The problem was to enlist the sentiment of general society in his favor. The friends in council at Port Royal said

the city. The supposed Parisian gentleman, in his interviews with the supposed Jesuit father, affects the air of a very simple-hearted seeker after truth. He represents himself as,

ion." There is nothing in the "Provincial Letters" better suited than this at the same time to interest the general reader, and to display the quality of these renowned productions. (We do not scruple to c

essionals, had not our fathers relaxed a little from the strictness of religion, to accommodate themselves to the weakness of humanity. Anxious to keep on good terms, both with the gospel, by doing their duty to God, and with the men of the world, by showing charity to their neighbor, they needed all the w

fectly impracticable, if I had not known, from what I have seen of your fathers, that they are capable of doing with ease what is impossible to other men. This led me to

I mentioned to you. For example, when I was showing you how servants might execute certain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not remark that it was simply by diverting their intention from the evil to which they were accessory, to the profit which they might reap from the transaction? Now, that is what we call directing the intention. You saw, too, that,

ording to this mode, every thing will b

s, we try to put in practice our method of directing the intention, which consists in his proposing to himself, as the end of his actions, some allowable object. Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to dissuade men from doing things forbidden; but, when we cannot prevent the action, we at least purify the motive, and thus correct the viciousness of the mean by the goodness of the end. Such is the way in which our fathers have contrived to permit those acts of violence to which men usually resort in vindication of their honor. They have n

al movement of the intention; and, by this equitable partition, you form an alliance between the laws of God and the laws of men.

el and those of the world, by thus regulating the intention, let me refer you to Reginald. (In praxi., liv. xxi., num. 62, p. 260.) [These, and all that follow, are verifiable citations from real and undisputed Jesuit authorities, not to this day repudiated by that order.] 'Private persons are forbidden to avenge themselves; for St

contrary to the Scripture, it will, at least, not be from

serves (De Just., liv. ii., c. 9, d. 12, n. 79), that, 'If a man has received a blow on the face, he must on no account have an intention to avenge himself; but he may lawfully have an intention to avert infamy, and may, with that view, repel the insult immediately, even at the point of the sword-etiam cum gladio.' So far are we from permitting any one to cherish the design of taking vengeance on his enemies, that our fathers will not allow any even to wish their death-by a m

"the Church has forgotten to insert a pe

ogist, friend. But, not to wander from the point, let me request your attention to the following passage, cited by Diana from Gaspar Hurtado (De Sub. Pecc., diff. 9; Diana, p. 5; tr. 14, r. 99), one of Escobar's four-and-twenty fathers: 'An incumbent ma

trine admits of a wide application. But yet there are certain cases, the solution of wh

u please, that we ma

of the intention," returned I, "th

, and induce them to say of him that he was a hen, and not a man-gallina, et non vir; in that case he may, to save his honor, appear at the appointed spot-not, indeed, with the express intention of fighting a duel, but merely with that of defending himself, should the person who challenged him come there unjustly to attack him. His action in this case, viewed by itself, will be perfectly indifferent; for what moral evil is there in

ffect now and then. Consider the broadness and coarseness in pleasantry, that, before Pascal, had been common, almost universal, in controversy, and you will better understand what a creative touch it was of genius, of feeling, and of taste, that brought into literature the far more than Attic, th

adopting the bantering style which he did in the "Provincial Letters," as well as of t

ked, lastly, if I myself read all the books which I quoted. I answer, No. If I had done so, I must have passed a great part of my life in reading very bad books; but I read Escobar twice through, and I employed some of my friends in reading the others. But I did not make use of a single pass

a brief passage, which we had selected and translated for the purpose, to exemplify from the same source Pascal's serious eloquence. It was Voltaire who said of these productions: "Molière's best comedies do not ex

tely he had even, in a memorable conversation, sketched his project at some length to his Port Royal friends. With so much, scarcely more, in the way of clew, to guide their editorial work, these friends prepared and issued a volume of Pascal's "Thoughts." With the most loyal intentions, the Port-Royalists unwisely edited too much. They pieced out incompletenesses, they provided clauses or sentences of connection, they toned down expressions deemed too bold, they improved Pascal's style! After having suffered such things from his friends, the posthumous Pascal, later, fell into the hands of an enemy. The infidel Condorcet published an edition of the "Thoughts." Whereas the Port-Royalists had suppressed to placate the Jesuits, Condorcet suppressed to please the "philosophers." Between those on the one side, and t

ch we modify at our discretion, by comparison of the

ic of the more shallow, trifling sort, to speak. This sceptic repre

ng, which reflects upon every thing and upon itself, and is no better acquainted with itself than with any thing else. I see these appalling spaces of the universe which enclose me, and I find myself tethered in one corner of this immense expansion wit

h enclose me like an atom, and like a shadow whic

ie; but what I am most ignorant of, is t

all forever either into nothingness or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing which of these two

d some enlightenment; but I am unwilling to take the trouble, or go a single step in search of it; and, treating with contempt those who perplex themselves with such solicitude,

elect such a one for the confidant of his affairs? Who would have recourse to such a o

t from original nobleness, supplying the needed link, and the only link conceivable, of explanation, to unite the one with the other, the human greatness with the human wretchedness. This contrast of dignity a

phor, at the same time the fragility of man's frame and th

m. An exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than that whi

ty consists, th

ted philosopher: "In the universe there is nothing g

to suffer when looked at in the way in which Pascal asks you to look at it in the following Thoug

. This amusement was well enough for Augustus or Alexander; they were young p

our telescope, with the result of seeing the o

f La Rochefoucauld. Pascal was, no doubt,

en knew what others say of them, there

e most current of

at move on and bear us

s the substance of the book prop

ledge of our misery without that of God gives despair. The knowledge of

eld to a touch from the heart, and become pathetic, in such utterances as the foll

ouldst not seek me if t

y agony; such drops of

ut not unjust austerity,

to seek it if it is obscure, should be deprived of it. What do they c

nd him, as a memorial of his later life, a remarkable result of investigation on the curve called the cycloid. During his final illness he pierced himself through with many sorrows,-unnecessary sorrows, sorrows, too, that bore a double edge, hurting not only him, but also his kindred,-in practis

f the world,-if there are few brighter, there a