Pascal Part 2

Descartes, however, in his retirement at Stockholm, plainly cherished the impression that Roberval's intimacy with Pascal prevented the latter from doing full justice to his scientific position and suggestions; and having as yet heard nothing, in June 1649, of the special results of Pascal's experiments on the Puy de Dome in the preceding year, he wrote to his friend Carcavi to let him know about these.

"I pray you, let me know of the success of an experiment which Pascal is said to have made on the mountains of Auvergne. . . . I had the right to expect this of him rather than of you, because it was I who advised him two years ago to make the experiment, and who a.s.sured him that, although I had not made it, I had no doubt of its success. But _as he is the friend of M. Roberval_, _who professes not to be mine_, _I have some reason to think he follows the pa.s.sions of his friend_."

{42a}

That letter was immediately communicated to Pascal by Carcavi, who was his intimate a.s.sociate no less than Roberval. But it seems to have elicited no reply. Bossut {42b} says that he despised it. On the other hand, Descartes's biographer and eulogist, Baillet, blames Pascal for having carefully kept out of view Descartes's name in all the accounts of his discoveries; and produces an array of pa.s.sages from Descartes's letters, showing plainly that his mind was in the line of discovery finally verified by the experiments in Auvergne. {43a} It may be granted beyond doubt this was the case. It would ill become any admirer of Pascal to detract from the glory of Descartes. But it must be held no less firmly, that in the personal question raised by Descartes's letter, the balance of evidence is all in favour of Pascal. There are no indications that the two men ever met save on the occasion so frankly described by his sister Jacqueline. Before this Pascal had not only been busy with the subject, but says distinctly that he had meditated the experiment finally made on the Puy de Dome from the time that he published his first researches. {43b} It was not, indeed, till about six weeks after Descartes's visit, or on the 15th December 1647, that he communicated with M. Perier regarding these experiments, and his earnest desire that they should be made; and it was not till the following September, or about a year after Descartes's visit, that they were actually made. But it is incredible that Pascal could have written as he did if he had really, for the first time, been indebted to Descartes for the suggestion. Descartes's name is not mentioned in his correspondence with M. Perier, nor in any of his writings on the subject; and the delay in making the experiments is sufficiently explained by the facts stated by himself, that they could only be made effectually at some place of greater elevation than he could command-such as "Clermont, at the foot of the Puy de Dome"-and by some person, such as M. Perier, on whose knowledge and accuracy he could rely. If we add to this the force of the statement already quoted from his letter to M. Ribeyre, four years afterwards, or in 1651, that he claimed the experiments as entirely "his own invention," and that he did so "boldly," the case seems put beyond all doubt-unless we are to suppose the author of the 'Provincial Letters'

and the 'Thoughts' capable of wilful suppression of the truth. On the other hand, it is unnecessary to attribute to Descartes anything beyond a mistaken opinion of the value of certain statements which he had no doubt made to Pascal, and possibly some confusion of memory. And that this is not an unwarranted view appears from what he says in a subsequent letter to M. Carcavi, on the 17th August of the same year, 1649-that he was greatly interested in hearing of the success of the experiments, having two years before besought Pascal to make them, and a.s.sured him of success-because the supposed explanation was one, he adds, "entirely consistent with the principles of my philosophy, apart from which he [Pascal], would not have thought of it, his own opinion being quite contrary." {44} This may or may not be true. Pascal certainly held as long as he could to the old maxim of "Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum."

"I do not think it allowable," he says in his letter to M. Perier, "to depart lightly from maxims handed down to us by antiquity, unless compelled by invincible proofs." But the notions of Descartes on the subject of a vacuum were at least as confused as those originally held by Pascal. {45a} It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that the latter could have been indebted to the principles of the Cartesian philosophy-not to say that this is a very different suggestion from that of the former letter, that Descartes himself had advised the experiment to be made.

Evidently the older philosopher wrote under vague and somewhat inflated ideas of the value of his labours and his conversation with Pascal; while the latter, again, absorbed in his own thoughts on the subject, and unconscious that he had received any special impulse from Descartes or his philosophy, naturally made no mention of his name. His silence when Descartes's accusation was communicated to him indicates the same somewhat lofty reserve and confidence in the independence of his own researches, rather than any contempt. He felt too sure of his position to think of defending himself, or of repelling what he no doubt regarded as not so much a deliberate a.s.sault on the value of his own work, as an exaggerated estimate by the other of his share in that work.

Pascal's researches regarding atmospheric pressure conducted him gradually to the examination of the general laws of the equilibrium of fluids. {45b} It had been already determined that the pressure of a fluid on its base is as the product of the base multiplied by the height of the fluid, and that all fluids press equally on all sides of the vessels enclosing them. But it still remained to determine exactly the measure of the pressure, in order to deduce the general conditions of equilibrium. With the view of ascertaining this, Pascal made two unequal apertures in a vessel filled with fluid, and enclosed on all sides. He then applied two pistons to these apertures, pressed by forces proportional to the respective apertures, and the fluid remained _in equilibrio_. "Having established this truth by two methods equally ingenious and satisfactory, he deduced from it the different cases of the equilibrium of fluids, and particularly with solid bodies, compressible and incompressible, when either partly or wholly immersed in them."

"But the most remarkable part of his treatise on the 'Equilibrium of Fluids,'" continues Sir David Brewster, from whose exposition we quote, {46a} "and one which of itself would have immortalised him, is his application of the general principle to the construction of what he calls the 'mechanical machine for multiplying forces,' {46b}-an effect which, he says, may be produced to any extent we choose, as one may by means of this machine raise a weight of any magnitude.

This new machine is the _Hydrostatic Press_, first introduced by our celebrated countryman, Mr Bramah.

"Pascal's treatise on the weight of the whole ma.s.s of air forms the basis of the modern science of Pneumatics. In order to prove that the ma.s.s of air presses by its weight on all the bodies which it surrounds, and also that it is elastic and compressible, a balloon half filled with air was carried to the top of the Puy de Dome. It gradually inflated itself as it ascended, and when it reached the summit it was quite full and swollen, as if fresh air had been blown into it; or what is the same thing, it swelled in proportion as the weight of the column of air which pressed upon it diminished. When again brought down, it became more and more flaccid, and, when it reached the bottom, it resumed its original condition. In the nine chapters of which the treatise consists, he shows that all the phenomena or effects. .h.i.therto ascribed to the horror of a vacuum, arise from the weight of the ma.s.s of air; and after explaining the variable pressure of the atmosphere in different localities, and in its different states, and the rise of the water in pumps, he calculates that the whole ma.s.s of air round our globe weighs 8,983,889,440,000,000,000 French pounds.

"Having thus completed his researches respecting elastic and incompressible fluids, Pascal seems to have resumed with a fatal enthusiasm his mathematical studies: but, unfortunately for science, several of the works which he composed have been lost. Others, however, have been preserved, which ent.i.tle him to a high rank amongst the greatest mathematicians of the age. Of these, his 'Traite du Triangle Arithmetique,' his 'Tractatus de Numericis Ordinibus,' and his 'Problemata de Cycloide,' are the chief. By means of the _Arithmetical Triangle_, an invention equally ingenious and original, he succeeded in solving a number of theorems which it would have been difficult to demonstrate in any other way, and in finding the coefficients of different terms of a binomial raised to an even and positive power. The same principles enabled him to lay the foundation of the doctrine of probabilities, an important branch of mathematical science, which Huyghens, a few years afterwards, improved, and which the Marquis la Place and M. Poisson have so greatly extended. These treatises, with the exception of that on the Cycloid, were composed and printed in the year 1654, but were not published till 1668, after the death of the author."

Pascal's discoveries as to the cycloid belong to a later period of his life, after he had long forsaken the scientific studies which engrossed him at this time, and had become an inmate of Port Royal. But, as we have already said, it is well to complete our view of his scientific labours in a single chapter.

During an access of severe toothache which, in 1658, deprived him of sleep, his thoughts fastened on certain problems connected with the cycloid. Fermat, Roberval, and Torricelli had all been occupied with the subject, and made some definite progress in ascertaining its properties.

But much still remained to be done, and especially to resolve the problems connected with it in a "general and uniform manner." "Pascal,"

says Bossut, "devised within eight days, and in the midst of cruel sufferings, a method which embraced all the problems-a method founded upon the summation of certain series, of which he had given the elements in his writings accompanying his 'Traite du Triangle Arithmetique.' From this discovery there was only a step to that of the Differential and Integral Calculus; and it may be confidently presumed that, if Pascal had proceeded with his mathematical studies, he would have antic.i.p.ated Leibnitz and Newton in the glory of their great invention."

Having communicated the result of his geometrical meditation to the Duc de Roannez and some of his other religious friends, they conceived the design of making it subservient to the triumph of religion. Pascal himself was an ill.u.s.trious example that the highest mathematical genius and the humblest Christian piety might be united; but in order to give _eclat_ to such an example, his friends proposed to propound publicly the questions solved by the great Port Royalist in his moments of suffering, and to offer prizes for the best solutions given of them. This they did in June 1658. A programme was published making the offer of prizes of forty and twenty pistoles, for the best determination of the area and the centre of gravity of any segment of the cycloid, and the dimensions and centres of gravity of solids and half and quarter solids which the same curve would generate by revolving round an abscissa and an ordinate. The programme was put forth in the name of Amos Dettonville, the anagram of Pascal's a.s.sumed name as the writer of the 'Provincial Letters.'

Huyghens, Sluzsius, a canon of the Cathedral of Liege, and Wren, the architect of St Paul's, sent in partial solutions of the problems-those of Wren especially attracting the interest of both Fermat and Roberval.

But Wallis, of Oxford, and Lallouere, a Jesuit of Toulouse, were the only two compet.i.tors who treated all the problems proposed. It was held that they had not completely succeeded in solving them; and Dettonville published his own solution in an elaborate letter addressed to M.

Carcavi, and in a treatise on the subject. Carcavi was an old friend of Pascal's father as well as of himself; and being a lawyer as well as a mathematician, the arrangement of the affair seems to have been intrusted to him. This did not save him, however, from attacks by the disappointed candidates, who accused him of unfairness; and Leibnitz has given his decision that both Wallis and Lallouere, in the treatises which they published,-which did not, however, appear till after Pascal's,-had succeeded in solving the problems. Upon such a point we cannot pretend to judge; but it may be safely said that the design of the Duc de Roannez was hardly realised in the issue. It was sufficiently proved, indeed, that Pascal, in the midst of all his austerities and devotional exercises, was the same Pascal who had held his own both with Descartes and with the Jesuits. But the life of thought which survived in him no sooner touched the outer world of intellectual ambition, than it flamed forth into something of the pa.s.sion of controversy which his pen had already kindled in another direction. Religion is best vindicated, not in the strifes of science, but by the beauty of its own activities.

Pascal's labours on the cycloid may be said to bring to a close his scientific career. There is still one invention, however, of a very practical kind, a.s.sociated with the very last months of his life.

Amongst the letters of Madame Perier, there is one of date March 24, 1662, addressed to M. Arnauld de Pompone {50}-a nephew of the great Arnauld-in which she gives a lively description of the success of an experiment "dans l'affaire des carrosses." The affair was nothing less than the trial on certain routes in Paris of what is now known as an "omnibus;" and the idea of such conveyances for the public-"carrosses a cinq sols," as they were called-is attributed to Pascal. It is certain that the privilege of running "carrosses a cinq sols" was granted to Pascal's friend, the Duc de Roannez, and to other n.o.blemen, by royal patent, in January 1662,-and that the experiment, as described by Madame Perier, was made with great success in the following March, and that Pascal had an active interest in the undertaking. His sister tells that he had mortgaged his share of its first year's profits in order to provide for the poor at Blois; {51} and a note from his own hand, appended to his sister's letter, shows with what eagerness he entered into the affair and hailed its success. It is singular to connect the name of Pascal, and that, too, during the last sad months of his life, with so world-wide a commonplace as the omnibus.

CHAPTER III.

PASCAL IN THE WORLD.

Pascal's health, we have seen, was very delicate. His labours to perfect his arithmetical machine had seriously impaired it. The attack of partial paralysis, described by his niece, seems to have taken place in the early summer of 1647. As soon as he was able, he removed to Paris, where we find him settled with his younger sister in September of the same year. It was on the twenty-fifth of this month that Jacqueline writes from Paris of Descartes's memorable visits. One of the motives of his change of residence was no doubt to consult the best physicians of the day; and Descartes, who, amongst his other numerous gifts, had some skill in medicine, made his second visit to him partly as a physician.

"He came in part," says Jacqueline, "to consult as to my brother's illness." He appears to have given him very sound advice, which, unfortunately, Pascal did not follow-"to lie in bed as much as he could, and take strong soup." On the contrary, he was "bled, bathed, and purged," after the usual medical routine of the time, apparently without any good effects, or any alleviation of his sufferings.

The father also returned to Paris in May 1648. The Provincial Parliament, with regained authority, had exacted the recall of the Intendants appointed by the Court. etienne Pascal's services were remunerated by the dignity of a Counsellor of State, and he was set at liberty to rejoin his children. It was at this period that the struggle took place betwixt father and daughter as to the latter's determination to choose a religious life. Encouraged by her brother after his access of zeal at Rouen, Jacqueline was gradually more and more drawn towards piety. After their settlement in Paris they went frequently together to the Church of Port Royal de Paris, to listen to the sermons of M.

Singlin, whose touching pictures of the beauty and perfection of the Christian life awoke in the youthful enthusiast the desire of entering Port Royal. She opened personal communications with the sainted head of the House, the Mere Angelique, and also with M. Singlin, who recognised in her all the marks of a true vocation, but who would not allow her to proceed further without her father's consent and approval. The brother at this time strongly sympathised with her aspirations, and favoured them. On the father's arrival in Paris, the design of his daughter was imparted to him. He was greatly surprised and moved by the proposition-pleased, on the one hand, by his daughter's devotion, and yet deeply wounded by the idea of parting with her. He took time for consideration, and at length made up his mind that it was impossible to give his consent. Not only so, but he strongly blamed his son, who had broken the matter to him, for encouraging his sister's design without first ascertaining whether it would be agreeable to himself, and he seems for the time to have felt so much distrust in them both, that he instructed an old domestic, who had been with them from their youth, to watch over their actions. This is the narrative of Madame Perier; {54a} and the unpleasantness which arose out of this event appears also implied in Jacqueline's letter to her sister in the spring of the same year.

{54b}

In 1649 the Pascal family left Paris for Auvergne, and seem to have remained there for about a year and a half. Madame Perier says nothing of this visit, so far as her brother is concerned, beyond the fact that he accompanied Jacqueline and her father. The likelihood, however, is, that the visit was in some degree prompted by a regard for Pascal's health. He had made in Paris some progress towards recovery, notwithstanding the severity of his treatment. But he was still far from well, and it was judged necessary, "in order to re-establish him entirely, that he should abandon every sort of mental occupation, and seek, as much as he could, opportunities of amusing himself." Her brother, she adds, was very reluctant to take this advice, "because he saw its danger." At length, however, he yielded, "considering himself obliged to do all he could to restore his health, and because he thought that trivial amus.e.m.e.nts could not harm him. So he set himself on the world." When this definite change in Pascal's life began is left uncertain, but there are indications that he had largely abandoned his studies in 1649 and the following year. During these years there is nothing from his pen. The interval between the "recital" of the experiments on the Puy de Dome (1648), and his letter to M. Ribeyre, 12th July 1651, is blank in any record of scientific or literary labour. This is not conclusive, of course, that he was idle; but taken in connection with the remarks of his sister, and the retirement to Auvergne, it suggests that the family may have sought there, in rural isolation and domestic reunion, the means of entirely withdrawing Pascal from his severer studies, and the scientific companions who were constantly prompting them in Paris. It may be, also, that the father sought the means of withdrawing Jacqueline from the neighbourhood of Port Royal, and from the equally exciting a.s.sociations to her connected with that neighbourhood.

Of Pascal's life at this time in Auvergne we know nothing, or next to nothing. There is, indeed, a single trace, of which the most has been made, in the Memoirs of Flechier, describing his stay at Clermont in 1665 and 1666, a few years after Pascal's death. In these Memoirs, Flechier relates an anecdote of a young lady "who was the Sappho of the country,"

and greatly beloved by all the _beaux esprits_ of the time. Amongst others, "M. Pascal, who had then acquired so much reputation, and another _savant_, were continually with this _belle savante_." It is difficult to know what to make of this vague if piquant anecdote. Some of Pascal's more religious admirers have even been scandalised by it, and have tried to show that it could not refer to the author of the 'Pensees.' M.

Cousin and other parties have emphasised it too much. {55} There seems no reason to doubt that the anecdote relates to the younger Pascal-it cannot reasonably be supposed to relate to his father. Nor is there any ground to suppose that Pascal was less likely to be interested in a beautiful and accomplished _demoiselle_ than any other young man of his age. On the contrary, there is some reason to think him at this time peculiarly susceptible to the charms of female companions.h.i.+p. The pa.s.sing glimpse which the story gives of his occupations in Auvergne, and the comparative brightness and leisure in which it seems to set his life for a little, are pleasing. It suggests the idea that the change to the country had worked successfully, and that with rest and retirement from Paris his health had greatly benefited.

It is a very different picture we get of the once brilliant Jacqueline.

If her father had cherished any hopes of restoring her again to the world, he was destined to disappointment. With her conversion at Rouen, and her a.s.sociation with M. Singlin and Port Royal, her old life seems entirely to have died out. Even her old pleasure in making verses was renounced at the bidding of Port Royal. She was told "that it was a talent of which G.o.d would not take any account-it was necessary to bury it," and this although she only exerted it now in the service of religion and the Church. While Madame Perier has given us no details, and, indeed, no facts whatever, of her brother's life at this time, she has given us a minute picture of Jacqueline's austerities. In everything save in name she had already become a nun. She wore a dress approaching as nearly as possible to a religious habit; she fasted and kept vigils; she spent her whole time either in the house alone, absorbed in religious ecstasy, or abroad in works of active charity; in every way she made it plainly to be known that it was only her father's wish that kept her in the world at all.

After a stay in Auvergne of seventeen months, the family returned to Paris in November 1650. There we still read of the pious labours and devotion of Jacqueline-little or nothing of her brother. How far the leisure of country life may have weaned him from his old pursuits, how far the world had begun to exercise a new attraction over him, we learn nothing. It is evident from his letter to M. Perier on his father's death, nearly a year after this, that he still cherished strongly his religious convictions. Yet there is nothing in all this time to tell of his religious profession; and Madame Perier plainly does not care to dwell upon it, but hurries forward to the later and more edifying period of his career. The impression is left upon us that worldly distractions had already begun to influence his life.

These distractions rapidly acquired force after the father's death in the autumn of 1651 (September). The devoted Jacqueline attended his last moments with a.s.siduous tenderness; but no sooner was the event over than she renewed her determination to enter Port Royal. The issue cannot be so well described as in Madame Perier's words:-

"Being ill," she says, "I was unable to leave Paris till the end of November. In this interval, my brother, who was greatly afflicted, and had received much consolation from my sister, imagined that her affection would make her remain with him at least a year. . . . He spoke to her on the subject, but in such a manner as to convey the impression that she would not so far contradict him for fear of redoubling his grief. This led her to dissemble her intention till our arrival. Then she told me that her resolution was fixed to adopt a religious life as soon as our respective shares [of the father's property] were arranged. She would, however, spare my brother by leading him to suppose she only meditated a retreat! With this view, she disposed of everything in my presence; our shares were settled on the last day of December; and she fixed upon the 4th of January for carrying out her decision. On the evening before, she begged me to say something to my brother, that he might not be taken by surprise.

I did so with all the precaution I could; but although I hinted that it was only a retreat, with the view of knowing something of the sort of life, he did not fail to be deeply touched. He withdrew very sad to his chamber without seeing my sister, who was then in a small cabinet where she was accustomed to retire for prayer. She did not come out till my brother had left, as she feared his look would go to her heart. I told her for him what words of tenderness he had spoken; and after that we both retired. Though I consented with all my heart to what my sister was doing, because I thought it was for her the highest good, the greatness of her resolution astonished and occupied my mind so that I could not sleep all night. At seven o'clock, when I saw that my sister was not up, I concluded that she was no longer sleeping, and feared that she might be ill.

Accordingly, I went to her bed, where I found her still fast asleep.

The noise I made awoke her; she asked me what o'clock it was. I told her; and having inquired how she was, and if she had slept well, she said she was very well, and that she had slept excellently. So she rose, dressed, and went away, doing this, as everything else, with a tranquillity and equanimity inconceivable. We said no adieu for fear of breaking down. I only turned aside when I saw her ready to go.

In this manner she quitted the world on the 4th January 1652, being then exactly twenty-six years and three months old." {58}

Our readers will not grudge this extract, so touching in its simplicity.

What a living picture does it give us of this remarkable family!-the elder sister's wakeful anxiety-the younger's calm determination-the brother's half-suppressed yet deeply-moved tenderness-the proud and sensitive reserve of all the three. Jacqueline's firmness was heroic, but her heart was full of concern. She had escaped the half-authoritative, half-supplicating entreaties of her brother, and found refuge for her long-cherished solicitudes of heart in the bosom of Port Royal, and the strong counsels both of the Mere Angelique and the Mere Agnes. But after a while this did not satisfy her. When the time came to make her profession, she was anxious to do so, not merely with her own consent, but with her brother's. And accordingly, she addressed him in the following March a remarkable letter, in which, while reminding him that she was her own mistress to do as she wished in a matter so seriously affecting her life, she yet prayed him to give her a kindly greeting in her solemn act, and to come to the ceremony of her taking the vows. The letter breathes at once the affection of a sister and the pa.s.sion of a saint,-the proud firmness so characteristic of the family, with a charming sweetness, blending entreaty with command. She signs herself already "Sister of Sainte Euphemie," the name which she adopted as an inmate of Port Royal, addressing her brother for the most part with the grave formal "you," but now and then relapsing into the old familiar "thou," as if she were still in the family home.

"Do not take that away," she says, {59} "which you cannot give. If it is true that the world has preserved some impressions of the friends.h.i.+p which it showed for me when I was with it, please G.o.d this should not turn me from quitting it, nor you from consenting to my doing so. This ought rather to be my glory, and your joy, and that of all my true friends, as showing the strength of my G.o.d, and that it is not the world which quits me, but I that quit the world, and that the effort which it makes to retain me is to be regarded as only a visible punishment of the complacency with which I formerly regarded it, and which it now pleases G.o.d to give me power to resist.

. . . Do not hinder those who do well; and do well yourself; or if you have not the strength to follow me, at least do not hold me back.

Do not render me ungrateful to G.o.d for the grace which He has given to one whom you love. . . . I wait this proof of your brotherly friends.h.i.+p, and pray you to come to my divine betrothal, which will take place, G.o.d helping, on Trinity Sunday. I wrote also to my faithful one [her sister Gilberte]. I beg you to console her, if there is need, and encourage her. It is only for the sake of form that I ask you to be present at the ceremony; for I do not believe you have any thought of failing me. Be a.s.sured that I must renounce you if you do."

The result of this moving appeal was to bring her brother to her side.

"He came the following day very much put out," she says, "with a bad headache, the result of my letter, yet also very much softened, for instead of the two years which he had formerly insisted on, he wished me merely to wait till All Saints' Day. But seeing me firm not to delay, yet willing to give him some further time to think over the matter, he melted entirely, and expressed pity for the trouble which had made me delay so long a result which I had so long and so ardently desired. He did not return at the appointed time; but M.

d'Andilly, at my request, had the goodness to send for him on Sat.u.r.day, and undertook the matter with so much warmth, and yet skill, that he consented to everything we wished." {60}

Jacqueline gained her point so far; but painful difficulties still remained, the story of which she herself has also told us. {61} While eager to be admitted to the full privileges of her vocation, she did not wish to enter Port Royal empty-handed. She thought herself free to endow it with the share of her father's fortune which had fallen to her, and seems not to have doubted her brother's and sister's concurrence in this act of liberality. But they, on the contrary, were both for a time deeply offended that she should apparently prefer strangers to her own kindred. They took the matter "in an entirely secular manner." This greatly grieved her in turn; and, balked at once in her wishes and her sisterly trust, she pictures in the most lively colours the distress she endured. La Mere Agnes consoled her in her disappointment, and sought to carry her thoughts beyond the mere chagrin which so obviously mingled with her higher feeling. Her own somewhat resentful obstinacy gradually yielded to the pure pa.s.sivity of resignation-so strong in its seeming weakness-which the sister of Arnauld preached to her. At length she is content to make no further demands upon her brother. He and Madame Perier shall do as they wish; the money would not be blessed unless it came from free hearts, and was given for the love of G.o.d. She is willing even to be received gratuitously as a sister-a feeling evidently not without its bitterness. Her submission became, as may be guessed, her triumph; a result probably not unforeseen by the deeper experience of La Mere Agnes and M. Singlin.

When her brother-"he who had most interest in the affair"-at last came to see her, she endeavoured to meet him as the Mother advised. "But, with all her effort" she could not hide the sadness of her heart.

"This," she says, "was so unlike my usual manner, that he perceived it at once; and there was no need of an interpreter to explain the cause, for though I put on the best face I could, he easily guessed that it was his own conduct which was the cause of my uneasiness.

All the same, he was desirous of making the first complaint; and then I learned that both he and my sister felt themselves much aggrieved by what I had written. He dwelt on this, but could hardly go on, seeing I made no complaint on my side. Otherwise, I could have destroyed by a single word all his reasons!"

A true family trait! The result of all was, that Pascal yielded to the tender resignation of his sister what he had refused to her arguments.

He was so "touched," she says, "with confusion, that he resolved to put the whole affair in order," and to undertake himself any risks or charges that it might involve.

But the heads of the House required to be satisfied, no less than Jacqueline. They were not disposed to accept any gift which was not freely and piously given. Accordingly, before the final disposition of the property was made, La Mere Angelique took care that Pascal should understand the matter anew from the Port-Royalist point of view. St Cyran had taught them that they were never "to receive anything for the house of G.o.d but that which came from G.o.d." Even he was not a little surprised, according to the statement of his sister, at all this scrupulousness-"the manner in which we deal with such matters;" and the men of business whose presence was necessary on the occasion are represented as astonished beyond measure. "They had never seen business done in such a way." At length, however, all was completed. Pascal professed the genuineness of his motives, and only regretted that it was not in his power to do more.

If this narrative mainly concerns Jacqueline Pascal, it serves to throw light upon the character and life of her brother at this time. In the course of her "relation," Jacqueline, or her interlocutor La Mere Agnes, makes frequent allusion to Pascal's "worldly life." When she is vexed that he will not carry out her desires in the matter of the dowry, she is reminded that she had far more reason to be distressed by the "faults and infidelities" into which he had fallen towards G.o.d. {63a} He is represented as being so much engrossed with the vanities and amus.e.m.e.nts of the world as to prefer his own pleasure and advantage to the good of a religious community or the pious gratification of his sister. It was only by some miracle that it could be otherwise; and there was no reason to "expect a miracle of grace in a person like him." {63b} All the means at his command were hardly sufficient to enable him to live in the world "like others of his condition," and the a.s.sociates with whom he was known to be mingling. {63c}

Plainly at this time Pascal was abandoned by Port Royal. He had "set himself," as his sister briefly says, "on the world." As his niece more particularly indicates, {63d} he had given himself up to the amus.e.m.e.nts of life. Unable to study, the love of leisure and of fas.h.i.+onable society had gradually gained upon him. At first he was moderate in his worldly enjoyments; but a taste for them insensibly sprang up and carried him far away from his old a.s.sociations and the pious severities of his former life. After his father's death this change was more clearly marked. He was master of his own affairs, and he plunged more freely into the pleasures of society, although always, it is distinctly said, "without any vice or licentiousness." All this, his niece adds, was very grievous to her aunt Jacqueline, who grieved in spirit at seeing him who had been the means of making her learn the nothingness of the world return to its vanities.

Too much is not to be made of such statements, or the still stronger expressions of Jacqueline herself in her letters regarding her brother's final conversion. When she speaks of "wretched attachments" binding him to the world, and of his being still "haunted by the smell of the mud which he had embraced with such _empress.e.m.e.nt_," {64} we are to remember that she speaks not only out of the severity of her own youthful judgment, (and what judgment is so severe at times as that of youth?) but out of the mouth of Port Royal. She condemns a world which was no doubt bad enough, but of which she knew nothing. Her allusions to the "grandeur" of her brother's life and similar indications have led Sainte-Beuve and others to speak of his extravagance at this time. He is supposed not only to have lived in the world, but to have lived in a style above his means-the companion of men of higher social position than himself, profuse in their habits and expenditure. That he lived in the midst of society of this kind can hardly be doubted. It is more doubtful how far his own habits had become those of an extravagant man of the world. His chief companion was one who remained bound to him through all the rest of his life, Pascal's influence having drawn him also from the world when the time of his own change came. This was the Duc de Roannez, a young man of fewer years than himself, who seems to have possessed many attractive qualities. He was devoted to Pascal-could hardly "bear him out of his sight," as Marguerite Perier says-and Pascal warmly returned his friends.h.i.+p. It seems as if they had lived together a good deal, or at least that Pascal spent the most of his time with the young Duke; and it was in his house and society no doubt that he tasted the joys and perils of that fas.h.i.+onable and luxurious life of which his sister speaks so bitterly. {65a} It was a life, after all, of thoughtless enjoyment rather than of any deeper folly. Both men were as yet very young-the Duke only twenty-two years of age, and Pascal twenty-eight. After his simple and severe training, and the society of his Jansenist friends, it must have been a change full of excitement, possibly of moral danger, to the once enthusiastic student; for the society of the time was charged with the elements both of sceptical and moral indifference. It has been even said that "no society was ever more grandly dissolute" than that of the Fronde, "when women like La Barette {65b} and La Couronne took the lead in the least discreet pleasures."

Among the men whom Pascal evidently met at the hotel of the Duc de Roannez, and with whom he formed something of a friends.h.i.+p, was the well-known Chevalier de Mere, whom we know best as a tutor of Madame de Maintenon, and whose graceful but flippant letters still survive as a picture of the time. He was a gambler and libertine, yet with some tincture of science and professed interest in its progress. In his correspondence there is a letter to Pascal, in which he makes free in a somewhat ridiculous manner with the young geometrician already so distinguished. Other names still less reputable-those of Miton and Desbarreaux, for example-have been a.s.sociated with Pascal during this period. Miton was undoubtedly an intimate ally of De Mere, and amidst all his dissoluteness, made pretensions to scientific knowledge and attainments as a writer. Desbarreaux was a companion of both, but of a still lower grade-a man of open profligacy, and a despiser of the rites of the Church. Along with Miton and other boon companions, he is spoken of as betaking himself to St Cloud for carnival during the Holy Week.

{66} The truth would seem to be that all these men came across Pascal's path at this time, and were more or less known to him. His allusions to both Miton and Desbarreaux in the Pensees imply this. There is a certain familiarity of knowledge indicated in the very heartiness with which he a.s.sails them-speaking of Miton as "hateful," {67a} and of Desbarreaux as having renounced reason and made himself a "brute." {67b} But it is against all probability, no less than against all the facts known to us, to suppose that Pascal had more connection with such men than meeting them in the society in which he moved during these years, and becoming well acquainted with the intellectual and moral atmosphere which they breathed. It may be too much to say, with Faugere, that he was then consciously imbibing the experience to be afterwards utilised in his great work, or that it was the principles professed by these men which gave him the first idea of such a work; but we may certainly say that the knowledge of them, as well as all the knowledge he acquired at this time, served to deepen and extend his moral intuitions, and to give a finer point to many of his Thoughts. And no student of Pascal can doubt that "if his feet touched for a moment the dirt of this dissolute society, his divine wings remained unsoiled." {67c}