the hand of death of their revenge on the person of the author, they vented it even on his remains. By a decree of the pope, procured through their instigation, a splendid monument, which had been erected over the grave of the learned and much-loved bishop, was completely demolished, that, in the words of his Holiness, “the memory of Jansen might perish from the earth.” It is even said that his body was torn from its resting-place, and thrown into some unknown receptacle.[18] His literary remains were no less severely handled. Nicholas Cornet, a member of the Society, after incredible pains, extracted the heretical poison of “Augustinus,” in the form of seven propositions, which were afterwards reduced to five. These having been submitted to the judgment of Innocent X., were condemned by that pontiff in a bull dated 31st May, 1653. This decision, so far from restoring peace, awakened a new controversy. The Jansenists, as the admirers of Jansen now began to be named by their opponents, while they professed acquiescence in the judgment of the pope, denied that these propositions were to be found in “Augustinus.”
The succeeding pope, Alexander VII., who was still more favorable to the Jesuits, declared formally, in a bull dated 1657, “that the five propositions were certainly taken from the book of Jansenius, and had been condemned in the sense of that author.” But the Jansenists were ready to meet him on this point; they replied, that a decision of this kind overstepped the limits of papal authority, and that the pope’s infallibility did not extend to a judgment of facts.[19] The reader may be curious to know something more about these famous five propositions, condemned by the pope, which, in fact, may be said to have given occasion to the Provincial Letters. They were as follows:— 1. There are divine precepts which good men, though willing, are absolutely unable to obey.
2. No person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence of divine grace.
3. In order to render human actions meritorious, or otherwise, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only free from constraint.
4. The semi-Pelagian heresy consisted in allowing the human will to be endued with a power of resisting grace, or of complying with its influence.
5. Whoever says that Christ died or shed his blood for all mankind, is a semi-Pelagian.
The Jansenists, in their subsequent disputes on these propositions, contended that they were ambiguously expressed, and that they might be understood in three different senses—a Calvinistic, a Pelagian, and a Catholic or Augustinian sense. In the first two senses they disclaimed them, in the last they approved and defended them. Owing to the extreme aversion of the party to Calvinism, while they substantially held the same system under the name of Augustinianism, it becomes extremely difficult to convey an intelligible idea of their theological views. On the first proposition, for example, while they disclaimed what they term the Calvinistic sense, namely, that the best of men are liable to sin in all that they do, they equally disclaim the Pelagian sentiment, that all men have a general sufficient grace, at all times, for the discharge of duty, subject to free will; and they strenuously maintained that, without efficacious grace, constantly vouchsafed, we can do nothing spiritually good. In regard to the resistibility of grace, they seem to have held that the will of man might always resist the influence of grace, if it chose to do so; but that grace would effectually prevent it from so choosing. And with respect to redemption, they appear to have compromised the matter, by holding that Christ died for all, so as that all might be partakers of the grace of justification by the merits of his death; but they denied that Christ died for each man in particular, so as to secure his final salvation; in this sense, he died for the elect only.
Were this the proper place, it would be easy to show that, in the leading points of his theology, Jansen did not differ from Calvin, so much as he misunderstood Calvinism. The Calvinists, for example, never held, as they are represented in the Provincial Letters,[20] “that we have not the power of resisting grace.” So far from this, they held that fallen man could not but resist the grace of God. They preferred, therefore, the term “invincible,” as applied to grace. In short, they held exactly the _victrix delectatio_ of Augustine, by which the will of man is sweetly but effectually inclined to comply with the will of God.[21] On the subject of necessity and constraint their views are precisely similar. Nor can they be considered as differing essentially in their views of the death of Christ, as these, at least, were given by Jansen, who acknowledges in his “Augustinus,” that, “according to St.
Augustine, Jesus Christ did not die for all mankind.” It is certain that neither Augustine nor Jansen would have subscribed to the views of grace and redemption held by many who, in our day, profess evangelical views.
Making allowance for the different position of the parties, it is very plain that the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, Jansen and Molina, Calvin and Arminius, was substantially one and the same. At the same time, it must be granted that on the great point of justification by faith, Jansen went widely astray from the truth; and in the subsequent controversial writings of the party, especially when arguing against the Protestants, this departure became still more strongly marked, and more deplorably manifested.[22] The revenge of the Jesuits did not stop at procuring the condemnation of Jansen’s book; it aimed at his living followers. Among these none was more conspicuous for virtue and influence than the Abbé de St. Cyran, who was known to have shared his counsels, and even aided in the preparation of his obnoxious work. While Jansen labored to restore the theoretical doctrines of Augustine, St. Cyran was ambitious to reduce them to practice. In pursuance of the moral system of that father, he taught the renunciation of the world, and the total absorption of the soul in the love of God. His religious fervor led him into some extravagances. He is said to have laid some claim to a species of inspiration, and to have anticipated for the Saviour some kind of temporal dominion, in which the saints alone would be entitled to the wealth and dignities of the world.[23] But his piety appears to have been sincere, and, what is more surprising, his love to the Scriptures was such that he not only lived in the daily study of them himself, but earnestly enforced it on all his disciples. He recommended them to study the Scriptures on their knees. “No means of conversion,” he would say, “can be more apostolic than the Word of God. Every word in Scripture deserves to be weighed more attentively than gold. The Scriptures were penned by a direct ray of the Holy Spirit; the fathers only by a reflex ray emanating therefrom.” His whole character and appearance corresponded with his doctrine. “His simple mortified air, and his humble garb formed a striking contrast with the awful sanctity of his countenance, and his native lofty dignity of manner.”[24] Possessing that force of character by which men of strong minds silently but surely govern others, his proselytes soon increased, and he became the nucleus of a new class of reformers.
St. Cyran was soon called to preside over the renowned monastery of Port-Royal. Two houses went under this name, though forming one abbey.
One of these was called Port-Royal des Champs, and was situated in a gloomy forest, about six leagues from Paris; but this having been found an unhealthy situation, the nuns were removed for some time to another house in Paris, which went under the name of Port-Royal de Paris. The Abbey of Port-Royal was one of the most ancient belonging to the order of Citeaux, having been founded by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, in 1204. It was placed originally under the rigorous discipline of St.
Benedict, but in course of time fell, like most other monasteries, into a state of the greatest relaxation. In 1602, a new abbess was appointed in the person of Maria Angelica Arnauld, sister of the famous Arnauld, then a mere child, scarcely eleven years old! The nuns, promising themselves a long period of unbounded liberty, rejoiced at this appointment. But their joy was not of long duration. The young abbess, at first, indeed, thought of nothing but amusement; but at the age of seventeen a change came over her spirit. A certain Capuchin, wearied, it is said, or more probably disgusted, with the monastic life, had been requested by the nuns, who were not aware of his character, to preach before them. The preacher, equally ignorant of his audience, and supposing them to be eminently pious ladies, delivered an affecting discourse, pitched on the loftiest key of devotion, which left an impression on the mind of Angelica never to be effaced. She set herself to reform her establishment, and carried it into effect with a determination and self-denial quite beyond her years. This “reformation,” so highly lauded by her panegyrists, consisted chiefly in restoring the austere discipline of St. Benedict, and other severities practised in the earlier ages, the details of which would be neither edifying nor agreeable. The substitution of coarse serge in place of linen as underclothing, and dropping melted wax on the bare arms, may be taken as specimens of the reformation introduced by Mère Angelique. In these mortifying exercises the abbess showed an example to all the rest.
She chose as her dormitory the filthiest cell in the convent, a place infested with toads and vermin, in which she found the highest delight, declaring that she “seemed transported to the grotto of Bethlehem.” The same rigid denial of pleasure was extended to her food, her dress, her whole occupations. Clothed herself in the rudest dress she could procure, nothing gave her greater offence than to see in her nuns any approach to the fashions of the world, even in the adjustment of the coarse black serge, with the scarlet cross, which formed their humble apparel[25]. Yet, in the midst of all this “voluntary humility,” her heart seems to have been turned mainly to the Saviour. It was Jesus Christ whom she aimed at adoring in the worship she paid to “the sacrament of the altar.” And in a book of devotion, composed by her for private use, she gave expression to sentiments too much savoring of undivided affection to Christ to escape the censure of the Church. It was dragged to light and condemned at Rome[26]. There is reason to believe that, under the direction of M. de St. Cyran, her religious sentiments, as well as those of her community, became much more enlightened. Her firmness in resisting subscription to the formulary and condemning Jansen, in spite of the most cruel and unmanly persecution, and the piety and faith she manifested on her death-bed, when, in the midst of exquisite suffering, and in the absence of the rites which her persecutors denied her, she expired in the full assurance of salvation through the merits of the only Saviour, form one of the most interesting chapters in the martyrology of the Church.
But St. Cyran aimed at higher objects than the management of a nunnery.
His energetic mind planned a system of education, in which, along with the elements of learning, the youth might be imbued with early piety.
Attracted by his fame, several learned men, some of them of rank and fortune, fled to enjoy at Port-Royal des Champs a sacred retreat from the world. This community, which differed from a monastery in not being bound by any vows, settled in a farm adjoining the convent, called Les Granges. The names of Arnauld, D’Andilly, Nicole, Le Maitre, Sacy,[27] Fontaine, Pascal, and others, have conferred immortality on the spot.
The system pursued in this literary hermitage was, in many respects, deserving of praise. The time of the recluses was divided between devotional and literary pursuits, relieved by agricultural and mechanical labors. The Scriptures, and other books of devotion, were translated into the vernacular language; and the result was, the singular anomaly of a Roman Catholic community distinguished for the devout and diligent study of the Bible. Protestants they certainly were not, either in spirit or in practice. Firm believers in the infallibility of their Church, and fond devotees in the observance of her rites, they held it a point of merit to yield a blind obedience, in matters of faith, to the dogmas of Rome. None were more hostile to Protestantism. St. Cyran, it is said, would never open a Protestant book, even for the purpose of refuting it, without first making the sign of the cross on it, to exorcise the evil spirit which he believed to lurk within its pages.[28] From no community did there emanate more learned apologies for Rome than from Port-Royal. Still, it must be owned, that in attachment to the doctrines of grace, so far as they went, and in the exhibition of the Christian virtues, attested by their sufferings, lives, and writings, the Port-Royalists, including under this name both the nuns and recluses, greatly surpassed many Protestant communities. Their piety, indeed, partook of the failings which have always characterized the religion of the cloister. It seems to have hovered between superstition and mysticism. Afraid to fight against the world, they fled from it; and, forgetting that our Saviour was driven into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, they retired to a wilderness to avoid temptation. Half conscious of the hollowness of the ceremonial they practised, they sought to graft on its dead stock the vitalities of the Christian faith. In their hands, penance was sublimated into the symbol of penitential sorrow, and the mass into a spiritual service, the benefit of which depended on the preparation of the heart of the worshipper. In their eyes, the priest was but a suggestive emblem of the Saviour; and to them the altar, with its crucifix and bleeding image, served only as a platform on which they might obtain a more advantageous view of Calvary. Transferring to the Church of Rome the attributes of the Church of God, and regarding her still, in spite of her eclipse and disfigurement, as of one spirit, and even of one body, with Christ, infallible and immortal, they worshipped the fond creation of their own fancy. At the same time, they attempted to revive the doctrine of religious abstraction, or the absorption of the soul in Deity, and the total renouncement of everything in the shape of sensual enjoyment, which afterwards distinguished the mystics of the Continent. Even in their literary recreations, while they acquired an elegance of style which marked a new era in the literature of France, they betrayed their ascetic spirit. Poetry was only admissible when clothed in a devotional garb. It was by stealth that Racine, who studied at Port-Royal, indulged his poetic vein in the profane pieces which afterwards gave him celebrity. And yet it is candid to admit, that the mortifications in which this amiable fraternity engaged, consisted rather in the exclusion of pleasure than the infliction of pain, and that the object aimed at in these austerities was not so much to merit heaven as to attain an ideal perfection on earth. Port-Royalism, in short, was Popery in its mildest type, as Jesuitism is Popery in its perfection; and had it been possible to present that system in a form calculated to disarm prejudice and to cover its native deformities, the task might have been achieved by the pious devotees of Les Granges. But the same merciful Providence which, for the preservation of the human species, has furnished the snake with his rattle, and taught the lion to “roar for his prey,” has so ordered it that the Romish Church should betray her real character, in order that his people might “come out of her, and not be partakers of her sins, that they receive not of her plagues.” The whole system adopted at Port-Royal was regarded, from the commencement, with extreme jealousy by the authorities of that Church; the schools were soon dispersed, and the Jesuits never rested till they had destroyed every vestige of the obnoxious establishment.
The enemies of Port-Royal have attempted to show that St. Cyran and his associates had formed a deep-laid plot for overturning the Roman Catholic faith. From time to time, down to the present day, works have appeared, under the auspices of the Jesuits, in which this charge is reiterated; and the old calumnies against the sect are revived—a periodical trampling on the ashes of the poor Jansenists (after having accomplished their ruin two hundred years ago), which reminds one of nothing so much as the significant grinning and yelling with which the modern Jews celebrate to this day the downfal of Haman the Agagite.[29] In one point only could their assailants find room to question their orthodoxy—the supremacy of the pope. Here, certainly, they were led, more from circumstances than from inclination, to lean to the side of the Gallican liberties. But even Jansen himself, after spending a lifetime on his “Augustinus,” and leaving it behind him as a sacred legacy, abandoned himself and his treatise to the judgment of the pope.
The following are his words, dictated by him half an hour before his death: “I feel that it will be difficult to alter anything. Yet if the Romish see should wish anything to be altered, I am her obedient son; and to that Church in which I have always lived, even to this bed of death, I will prove obedient. This is my last will.” The same sentiment is expressed by Pascal, in one of his letters. Alas! how sad is the predicament in which the Church of Rome places her conscientious votaries! Both of these excellent men were as firmly persuaded, no doubt, of the faith which they taught, as of the facts which came under their observation; and yet they held themselves bound to cast their religious convictions at the feet of a fellow-mortal, notoriously under the influence of the Jesuits, and professed themselves ready, at a signal from Rome, to renounce what they held as divine truth, and to embrace what they regarded as damnable error! A spectacle more painful and piteous can hardly be imagined than that of such men struggling between the dictates of conscience, and the night-mare of that “strong delusion,” which led them to “believe a lie.”
In every feature that distinguished the Port-Royalists, they stood opposed to the Jesuits. In theology they were antipodes—in learning they were rivals. The schools of Port-Royal already eclipsed those of the Jesuits, whose policy it has always been to monopolize education, under the pretext of charity. But the Jansenists might have been allowed to retain their peculiar tenets, had they not touched the idol of every Jesuit, “the glory of the Society,” by supplanting them in the confessional. The priests connected with Port-Royal, from their primitive simplicity of manners and severity of morals, and, above all, from their spiritual Christianity, acquired a popularity which could not fail to give mortal offence to the Society, who then ruled the councils both of the Church and the nation. Nothing less than the annihilation of the whole party would satisfy their vengeful purpose. In this nefarious design they were powerfully aided by Cardinal Richelieu, and by Louis XIV., a prince who, though yet a mere youth, was entirely under Jesuitical influence in matters of religion; and who, having resolved to extirpate Protestantism, could not well endure the existence of a sect within the Church, which seemed to favor the Reformation by exposing the corruptions of the clergy.[30] To effect their object, St. Cyran, the leader and ornament of the party, required to be disposed of. He was accused of various articles of heresy; and Cardinal Richelieu at once gratified his party resentment and saved himself the trouble of controversy, by immuring him in the dungeon of Vincennes. In this prison St. Cyran languished for five years, and survived his release only a few months, having died in October, 1643. His place, however, as leader of the Jansenist party, was supplied by one destined to annoy the Jesuits by his controversial talents fully more than his predecessor had done by his apostolic sanctity. Anthony Arnauld may be said to have been born an enemy to the Jesuits. His father, a celebrated lawyer, had distinguished himself for his opposition to the Society, and having engaged in an important law-suit against them, in which he warmly pleaded, in the name of the university, that they should be interdicted from the education of youth, and even expelled from the kingdom. Anthony, who inherited his spirit, was the youngest in a family of twenty children, and was born February 6, 1612.[31] Several of them were connected with Port-Royal. His sister, as we have seen, became its abbess; and five other sisters were nuns in that establishment. He is said to have given precocious proof of his polemic turn. Busying himself, when a mere boy, with some papers in his uncle’s library, and being asked what he was about, he replied, “Don’t you see that I am helping you to refute the Hugonots?” This prognostication he certainly verified in after life. He wrote, with almost equal vehemence, against Rome, against the Jesuits, and against the Protestants. He was, for many years, the _facile princeps_ of the party termed Jansenists; and was one of those characters who present to the public an aspect nearly the reverse of the estimate formed of them by their private friends. By the latter he is represented as the best of men, totally free from pride and passion. Judging from his physiognomy, his writings and his life, we would say the natural temper of Arnauld was austere and indomitable. Expelled from the Sorbonne, driven out of France, and hunted from place to place, he continued to fight to the last. On one occasion, wishing his friend Nicole to assist him in a new work, the latter observed, “We are now old, is it not time to rest?”
“Rest!” exclaimed Arnauld, “have we not all eternity to rest in?”
Such was the character of the man who now entered the lists against the redoubtable Society. His first offence was the publication, in 1643, of a book on “Frequent Communion;” in which, while he inculcates the necessity of a spiritual preparation for the eucharist, he insinuated that the Church of Rome had a two-fold head, in the persons of Peter and Paul.[32] His next was in the shape of two letters, published in 1656, occasioned by a dispute referred to in the first Provincial Letter, in which he declared that he had not been able to find the condemned propositions in Jansen, and added some opinions on grace. The first of these assertions was deemed derogatory to the holy see; the second was charged with heresy. The Jesuits, who sighed for an opportunity of humbling the obnoxious doctor, strained every nerve to procure his expulsion from the Sorbonne, or college of divinity in the university.
This object they had just accomplished, and everything promised fair to secure their triumph, when another combatant unexpectedly appeared, like one of those closely-visored knights of whom we read in romance, who so opportunely enter the field at the critical moment, and with their single arm turn the tide of battle. Need we say that we allude to the author of the PROVINCIAL LETTERS?
Bayle commences his Life of Pascal by declaring him to be “one of the sublimest geniuses that the world ever produced.” Seldom, at least, has the world ever seen such a combination of excellences in one man. In him we are called to admire the loftiest attributes of mind with the loveliest simplicity of moral character. He is a rare example of one born with a natural genius for the exact sciences, who applied the subtlety of his mind to religious subjects, combining with the closest logic the utmost elegance of style, and crowning all with a simple and profound piety. Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont, 19th June, 1623. His family had been ennobled by Louis XI., and his father, Stephen Pascal, occupied a high post in the civil government. Blaise manifested from an early age a strong liking for the study of mathematics, and, while yet a child, made some astonishing discoveries in natural philosophy. To these studies he devoted the greater part of his life. An incident, however, which occurred in his thirty-first year—a narrow escape from sudden death—had the effect of giving an entire change to the current of his thoughts. He regarded it as a message from heaven, calling him to renounce all secular occupations, and devote himself exclusively to God.
His sister and niece being nuns in Port-Royal, he was naturally led to associate with those who then began to be called Jansenists. But though he had several of the writings of the party, there can be no doubt that it was the devotion rather than the theology of Port-Royal that constituted its charm in the eyes of Pascal. His sister informs us, in her memoirs of him, that “he had never applied himself to abstruse questions in divinity.” Nor, beyond a temporary retreat to Port-Royal des Champs, and an intimacy with its leading solitaries, can he be said to have had any connection with that establishment. His fragile frame, which was the victim of complicated disease, and his feminine delicacy of spirit, unfitting him for the rough collisions of ordinary life, he found a congenial retreat amidst these literary solitudes; while, with his clear and comprehensive mind, and his genuine piety of heart, he must have sympathized with those who sought to remove from the Church corruptions which he could not fail to deplore, and to renovate the spirit of that Christianity which he loved far above any of its organized forms. His life, not unlike a perpetual miracle, is ever exciting our admiration, not unmingled, however, with pity. We see great talents enlisted in the support, not indeed of the errors of a system, but of a system of errors—we see a noble mind debilitated by superstition—we see a useful life prematurely terminating in, if not shortened by, the petty austerities and solicitudes of monasticism.
Truth requires us to state, that he not only denied himself, at last, the most common comforts of life, but wore beneath his clothes a girdle of iron, with sharp points, which, as soon as he felt any pleasurable sensation, he would strike with his elbow, so as to force the points of iron more deeply into his sides. Let the Church, which taught him such folly, be responsible for it; and let us ascribe to the grace of God the patience, the meekness, the charity, and the faith, which hovered, seraph-wise, over the death-bed of expiring genius. The curate who attended him, struck with the triumph of religion over the pride of an intellect which continued to burn after it had ceased to blaze, would frequently exclaim: “He is an infant—humble and submissive as an infant!” He died on the 19th of August, 1662, aged thirty-nine years and two months.
While Arnauld’s process before the Sorbonne was in dependence, a few of his friends, among whom were Pascal and Nicole, were in the habit of meeting privately at Port-Royal, to consult on the measures they should adopt. During these conferences one of their number said to Arnauld: “Will you really suffer yourself to be condemned like a child, without saying a word, or telling the public the real state of the question?”
The rest concurred, and in compliance with their solicitations, Arnauld, after some days, produced and read before them a long and serious vindication of himself. His audience listened in coolness and silence, upon which he remarked: “I see you don’t think highly of my production, and I believe you are right; but,” added he, turning himself round and addressing Pascal, “you who are young, why cannot you produce something?” The appeal was not lost upon our author; he had hitherto written almost nothing, but he engaged to try a sketch or rough draft, which they might fill up; and retiring to his room, he produced, in a few hours, instead of a sketch, the first letter to a provincial. On reading this to his assembled friends, Arnauld exclaimed, “That is excellent! that will go down; we must have it printed immediately.”
Pascal had, in fact, with the native superiority of genius, pitched on the very tone which, in a controversy of this kind, was calculated to arrest the public mind. Treating theology in a style entirely new, he brought down the subject to the comprehension of all, and translated into the pleasantries of comedy, and familiarities of dialogue, discussions which had till then been confined to the grave utterances of the school. The framework which he adopted in his first letter was exceedingly happy. A Parisian is supposed to transmit to one of his friends in the provinces an account of the disputes of the day. It is said that the provincial with whom he affected to correspond was Perrier, who had married one of his sisters. Hence arose the name of the _Provincials_, which was given to the rest of the letters.
This title they owe, it would appear, to a mistake of the printer; for in an advertisement prefixed to one of the early editions, it is stated that “they have been called ‘Provincials,’ because the first having been addressed without any name to a person in the country, the printer published it under the title ‘Letter written to a Provincial by one of his Friends.’” This may be regarded as an apology for the use of a term which, critically speaking, was rather unhappy. The word _provincial_ in French, when used to signify a person residing in the provinces, was generally understood in a bad sense, as denoting an unpolished clown.[33] But the title, uncouth as it is, has been canonized and made classical forever; and “The Provincials” is a phrase which it would now be fully as ridiculous to attempt to change as it could be at first to apply it to the Letters.
The most trifling particulars connected with such a publication possess an interest. The Letters, we learn, were published at first in separate stitched sheets of a quarto size; and, on account of their brevity, none of them extending to more than one sheet of eight pages, except the last three, which were somewhat longer, they were at first known by the name of the “LITTLE LETTERS.” No stated time was observed in their publication. The first letter appeared January 13, 1656, being on a Wednesday; the second on January 29, being Saturday; and the rest were issued at intervals varying from a week to a month, till March 24, 1657, which is the date of the last letter in the series; the whole thus extending over the space of a year and three months.
All accounts agree in stating that the impression produced by the Provincials, on their first appearance, was quite unexampled. They were circulated in thousands in Paris and throughout France. Speaking of the first letter, Father Daniel says: “It created a fracas which filled the fathers of the Society with consternation. Never did the post-office reap greater profits; copies were despatched over the whole kingdom; and I myself, though very little known to the gentlemen of Port-Royal, received a large packet of them, post-paid, in a town of Brittany where I was then residing.” The same method was followed with the rest of the letters. The seventh found its way to Cardinal Mazarin, who laughed over it very heartily. The eighth did not appear till a month after its predecessor, apparently to keep up expectation.[34] In short, everybody read the “Little Letters,” and, whatever might be their opinions of the points in dispute, all agreed in admiring the genius which they displayed. They were found lying on the merchant’s counter, the lawyer’s desk, the doctor’s table, the lady’s toilet; and everywhere they were sought for and perused with the same avidity.[35] The success of the Letters in gaining their object was not less extraordinary. The Jesuits were fairly checkmated; and though they succeeded in carrying through the censure of Arnauld, the public sympathy was enlisted in his favor.
The confessionals and churches of the Jesuits were deserted, while those of their opponents were crowded with admiring thousands.[36] “That book alone,” says one of its bitterest enemies, “has done more for the Jansenists than the ‘Augustinus’ of Jansen, and all the works of Arnauld put together.”[37] This is the more surprising when we consider that, at that time, the influence of the Jesuits was so high in the ascendant, that Arnauld had to contend with the pope, the king, the chancellor, the clergy, the Sorbonne, the universities, and the great body of the populace; and that never was Jansenism at a lower ebb, or more generally anathematized than when the first Provincial Letter appeared.
This, however, was not all. Besides having the tide of public favor turned against them, the Jesuits found themselves the objects of universal derision. The names of their favorite casuists were converted into proverbs: _Escobarder_ came to signify the same thing with “paltering in a double sense;” Father Bauny’s grotesque maxims furnished topics for perpetual badinage; and the Jesuits, wherever they went, were assailed with inextinguishable laughter. By no other method could Pascal have so severely stung this proud and self-conceited Society. The rage into which they were thrown was extreme, and was variously expressed. At one time it found vent in calumnies and threats of vengeance. At other times they indulged in puerile lamentations. It was amusing to hear these stalwart divines, after breathing fire and slaughter against their enemies, assume the querulous tones of injured and oppressed innocence.
“The persecution which the Jesuits suffer from the buffooneries of Port-Royal,” they said, “is perfectly intolerable: the wheel and the gibbet are nothing to it; it can only be compared to the torture inflicted on the ancient martyrs, who were first rubbed over with honey and then left to be stung to death by wasps and wild bees. Their tyrants have subjected them to empoisoned raillery, and the world leaves them unpitied to suffer a sweet death, more cruel in its sweetness than the bitterest punishment.”[38] The Letters were published anonymously, under the fictitious signature of Louis de Montalte, and the greatest care was taken to preserve the secret of their authorship. As on all such occasions, many were the guesses made, and the false reports circulated; but beyond the circle of Pascal’s personal friends, none knew him to be the author, nor was the fact certainly or publicly known till after his death. The following anecdote shows, however, that he was suspected, and was once very nearly discovered: After publishing the third letter, Pascal left Port-Royal des Champs, to avoid being disturbed, and took up his residence in Paris, under the name of M. de Mons, in a _hotel garni_, at the sign of the King of Denmark, Rue des Poiriers, exactly opposite the college of