Pascal

e ambitions of the world. All the while that he mixed in the luxurious society of Paris, and seemed merely one of its thoughtless throng, there were throbs within him of a higher life w

ith his own indifference and vacillation. Formerly it was his zeal which had drawn her to higher thoughts. Now it is the attraction of her piety which sways him, and leaves him unhappy amidst all the seductions of the

h the story of her brother's spiritual anxieties.

lt herself indebted, under God, for the grace which she enjoyed, no longer himself in possession of these graces: and as she saw my brother frequently, sh

ary 1655, she says that Pascal came to se

Him with all his power, he felt that it was more his own reason and spirit that moved him towards what he knew to be best, than any movement of the Divine Spirit. If he only had the Divine sentiments he once had, he believed himself, in his present state of detachment, capable of undertaking everything. It must be, therefore, some wretched ties [76] which still held him back, and made him resist the movements of the Divine Spirit. The confession surprised me as much as it gave me joy; and thenceforth I conceived hopes that I had never had, and thought I must communicate with you in order to induce you to pray on his beha

both. As to one of Pascal's difficulties, she says, without misgiving-"I saw clearly that this was only a remnant of independence hidden in the depth of his heart, which armed itself with every weapon to ward off a submission which yet in his state of feeling must be perfect." M. Singlin was willing to assist the sister with his advice, but was reluctant himself, in his weak state of health, to assume full responsi

about to return there. Unable to find everything to his wish, however, in his own house, "he obtained a chamber or little cell among the Solitaries of Port Royal," from which he wrote to his sister with extreme joy

k in the morning; and as if it was the will of God that he should join fasting to watching, in defiance of all the medical prescript

érier, and both tell the story at first hand. None could have known so well as they did all the circumstances. It is remarkable, therefor

ated themselves into the Seine. Fortunately, the first strokes of their feet broke the traces which attached them to the pole, and the carriage was stayed on the brink of the precipice. The effect of such a shock on one of Pascal's feeble health may be imagi

ed. How far this was the working of his old religious convictions continually renewing their influence through the conversation of his sister, how far it was mere weariness and disgust with the frivolities of fashionable life, and how far it may have been baffled hope and the disenchantments of a broken dream of love, we cannot clearly tell. All may have moved him, and brought him to that strange state of isolation which she describes f

*

ay he wandered into the famous valley during the chase, and became lost in its woods, when he was at length discovered near to an ancient chapel of St Lawrence, which was much frequented by the devout of the neighbourhood, and that, grateful because the place had been to him a Port Royal or royal refuge, he resolved to build a churc

lichen-marked stones brightened by the warm sunshine of a September day, and the straggling vines drooping their pale dusty leaves over the cottage-doors, made a welcome variety in the monotonous landscape. How hazy yet cheerful was the brightness in which the poor mean houses seemed to sleep! After this the road swept down a long declivity, crowned on one side by an irregular outline of wood, and presenting here and there broken and dilapidated traces of former habitations. The famous valley of Port Royal lay before us. It was a quiet and peaceful

xquisitely touching in their gentle bravery and patience. As I looked at the noble and sweet countenances grouped on the bare unadorned walls, the sacred memories of the place rose vividly before my mind. It was here alone that the recluses from the neighbouring Grange met the sainted sisterhood, and mingled with them the prayers and tears of penitence. Otherwise they dwelt apart, each in diligent privacy,

work in his absence. They agreed to apply it to the erection of a monastery for nuns in this secluded valley, that had already acquired a reputation for sanctity in connection with the old chapel dedicated to St Lawrence, which attracted large numbers of worshippers. The foundations of the church and monastery were laid in 1204. They were designed by the same architect

quandered in luxury; the nuns did what they liked; and the extravagances and dissipations of the world were repeated amidst the solitudes which had been consecrated to devotion. But at length its revival arose out of one of the most obvious abuses connected with it. The patronage of the institution, like that of others,

y called, was endowed with the energetic will, and with more than the usual talents, of his family. He was specially known as Procureur-général to Catherine de Médicis; but, as he himself said, he wore "a soldier's coat as well as a lawyer's robe." He was a Huguenot, and nearly perished in the Bartholomew massacre. He had eight sons, every one of whom more or less achieved distinction in the service of their country; but his second son and namesake peculiarly inherited his father's legal talents, and became his successor in the office of Procureur-général. He more than rivalled his father's forensic success; and many traditions survive of

. Out of this pressure came the remarkable lot of two of the daughters. The benefices of the Church were a fruitful field of provision, and the avocat-général, the maternal grandfather of the children, had large ecclesiastical influence. The result was the appointment not only of one daughter to the abbey of Port Royal, but also

some time afterwards, without any religious bias, she contemplated her prospects with a quiet and proud consciousness of responsibility. The younger sister was of a softer and more submissive nature. She shrank from her high position, saying that an abbess had to answer to God for the souls of her nuns, and she was sure that she would have enough to do to take care of her own. Angélique had n

g their absence from it, of the band of Solitaries whose piety and genius, no less than the heroic devotion of the sisterhood, have shed such a glory around it. It was the spiritual influence of St Cyran which overflowed in this direction. The religious genius of this remarkable man, of whom we shall speak more particularly in the next chapter, laid its spell upon the social life around him, and brought to his feet some of the most able and distinguished young men of the time. The elder brother of Angélique and Agnès Arnauld, known as M. d'Andilly, was amongst his devoted friends; and it was through him that St Cyran first became connected with Port

Pascal's spiritual director, and held with him the famous conversation on Epictetus and Montaigne. To the same group of men belonged Singlin, of whom we have heard so much in former pages, and Lancelot and Fontaine; above all, Antoine Arnauld, the youngest of the large Arnauld family, and the most indefatigable of them all. Singlin was a favourite of St Cyran, and his successor in the office of spiritual director to the monastery, as De Saci was again the successor of Singlin in the same capacity. He was a man of less ability and knowledge than many of the others, the son of a wine merchant, who did not begin his religious studies till a comparatively late period, but of a very direct and simple character, and well skilled in the mysteries of the consci

I was thinking of rising from the table, I saw my brother De Saci, with his usual coolness and gravity, take a little piece of apple, peel it quietly, cut it leisurely, and eat it slowly. Then, after hav

ducation. Fontaine was one of its chief memoir writers, from whom we derive so much of our knowledge of the society; while the younger Ar

y, cleared it of its overgrowth of brushwood, and converted it into a comparatively smiling and salubrious abode. On the return of the sisterhood from Port Royal de Paris in 1648, the nuns found the place improved beyond their expectations. The conventual buildings had been repaired, and the church kept in good preservation. The bells of the church tower pealed a welcome; a large concourse of the neighbouring poor assembled in the courtyard to greet them; while the Solitaries-one of their number, a priest, bearing

of a common lowliness, and sought each his own room for a time. The round of devotion thus commenced was continued with a steady uniformity,-Prime at half-past six; Tierces at nine, and after this a daily Mass; Sexte at eleven; Nones at two; Vespers at four; and Compline closing the series at a quarter-past seven. [89] The Gospel and Epistles were read daily; and sometimes during or after dinner the Lives of the Saints. They dined together; and a walk thereaft

*

he has himself described, and which has given rise to a good deal of useless speculation. During life he never spoke of this matter, unless it may have been to his confessor; [90] but after his death two copies of a brief writing were found upon him,-the one written on parchment enclosing the other written on paper, and carefully stitched into the clothes that he had wo

*

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*

en a volume more or less relating to it. He supposes the vision to have occurred to Pascal on the evening of the day when the event at Neuilly had upset his nervous system-always easily disturbed-and brought before him a frightful picture of his alienation from God, and the piety of his early manhood. Facts mingled with the dreams of his excited imagination. He saw the horses plunging over the precipice, and an abyss seemed to open beside him-the abyss of eternity; when, lo! from the depths of the abyss there appeared a globe of fire (un globe de feu) encircled with the Cross; and the irresistible impulse was stirred in him to throw aside the world for ever, and embrace God,-"Not the God of philosophers or of savants," but "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob-the God of Jesus Christ," from whom he had been severed, but from whom he felt he never more would be severed; abiding in Him in "sweet and total renunciation" of all else. The idea, of course, is that Pascal's dream or vision was the result of physical derangement; and it may be safely granted that if the reality at all corresponded to Lélut's imaginary picture, this is its natural explanation. The story of the "vision" and the "abyss" are thus made, not without a certain appeara

racle of the Holy Thorn may be an evidence of the one, and the unnatural asceticism of his later years a proof of the other. But to speak of the author of the 'Provincial Letters,' of the problems on the Cycloid, and finally of the 'Pensées,' as if his intellect had suffered

idance of M. de Saci, and to have felt an unwonted measure of happiness in his triumph over the world and in the possession of his own quiet thoughts. We have seen how he spoke of being treated "like a prince," and even his health seemed to improve, notwithstanding the regularity and severity of his religious devotions. He communicated his feelings of elation to his sister, who replied (19th January 1655)

ver, in the beginning of the following year (1655), when the affair of M. Arnauld and the Sorbonne was approaching its crisis, and the idea of his famous letters was started in a meeting, to be afterwards mentioned, between him and Arnauld and Nicole. After this, during the publication of the 'Letters,' Pascal seems chiefly to have resided in Paris, probably with a

of Pascal, and became a great fact in the history of Port Royal, staying for a time the hand of persecution, and pointing, as its friends believed, to the visible interposition of heaven. How could the accusations against Port Royal be true, seeing what God Himself had done on its behalf? "This place, which men say is the devil's temple, God makes His house. Men declare that its children must be taken out of it, and God heals them there. They are threatened with all the furies; God loads them with His favours." This was Pascal's own language on the subject, [97] and there can be no doubt that the supposed miracle deeply affected him. He was "sensibly touched," it is sai

g them to paper; but now he began the habit of transferring his ideas rapidly, and sometimes imperfectly, to manuscript, as they arose in his mind. In many cases, if not in all, these first sketches remained as originally made, without any revision or further reconstruction; and from the mass of papers accumulated in this manner during these years the 'Pensées' were formed-th

r Incurables, and breathe his last there; the story of his rescue of the poor girl who asked alms from him on the streets; his unparalleled patience, and even gladness, in suffering, so that he seemed to welcome it and bind it about him as a garment; his wonderful humility and yet his noble courage at the last in the matter of the Formulary,-all this goes to the heart of the reader. It must be a cold heart that is not moved by the picture of a great soul striving "to renounce all pleasure and all superfluities,"-to copy literally, like St Francis, the portrait of his Master. But here, as everywhere, the human copy falls infinitely short of the divine Original. There is the loveliness of a true human life beneath all the picture of suffering presented to us in the Gospels. All the hues of natural feeling have gone out of the last years of Pascal. He not only bore suffering-he preferred it; and he boldly justified his preference. "Sick

atter of subscribing the Formulary demanded from the Port Royalists. He had himself previously been willing to subscribe, with certain restrictions, when his sister Jacqueline alone stood out in her resistance to what she deemed a treasonable betrayal of the cause. She signed at last, but against her conscience, and, so to speak, with her blood. She died immediately afterwards,

one of whose children had taken smallpox, and he would allow neither the child to be removed nor his sister to run the risk of carrying infection to her children. He left his own home for hers, therefore, on the 27th of June, and never returned. Three days after his removal he was seized with a violent colic, which deprived him of all sleep. His physicians at first were not alarmed, as his pulse continued good, but gradually pain and sleeplessness wore him out. He confessed both to

rangely often come from the contemplation of human weakness rather than of human strength. There is certainly less to love in him than to admire-less to call forth delight than respect. The play of natural individuality is hidden behind lines of lofty distance, and latterly of Jansenist severity. A proud, ascetic, and worn figure seems to rise befor