JAQUELINE PASCAL; % <$\mku of (ionimtt f\k at fori $og;il. FROM TIIE FRENCH OF m. victim, COUSIN, Iff. PROSPEB i'.\n;i:i;i;. ft yixlt, AND OTHER SOURCES. TRANSLATED BY EL N. WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY W. II. WILLIAMS, D.D. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 2 85 BROADWAY. 1854. s> ^ -7 The Library ' Cong Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by ROBERT CARTER &. BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 216 William St., N. Y. FEINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 97 Cliff Street. Cnntnit r, Introduction, by Rev. W. R. Williams, THE PASCAL FAMILY. Gilberte, Madame Perier. — The "Writings of the Women of Port Royal. — Jnqueline Pascal. — Birth and Edueali'>n of Jaqoeline Pascal. — Her Love of Poetry. — Her Presentation at Court. — The Small-pox, and her Verses on it. — Cardinal Richelieu, and his Reception of Jaqueliue and her Father, . . .23 THE YOUNG POETESS AT ROUEN. Removal to Rouen. — Jaqueline's Reception there. — Her Sister's Marriage. — Her Poems. — Offers of Marriage. — Consolation fat the Death of a Huguenot Lady. — Accident to her Father. — Its Consequences. — Conversion of Blaise Pascal and Jaqueline, . 43 PORT ROYAL. Illness of Blaise Pascal. — His Residence with Jaqueline at Paris. — The Interview with Descartes. — Singlin's Preaching. — Intro- duction to Port Royal. — Sketch of its History and Constitu- tions. — Joint Letter of Pascal and Jaqueline to Madame Perier, 58 PARENTAL OPPOSITION. Recall of Etienne Pascal to Paris. — His Opposition to Jaqueline's Plans. — Correspondences with Mere Agnes. — Her Mode of Liv- ing. — Journey to Auvergne. — Paraphrase of a Latin Hymn. — Port Royal, and Female Genius. — Return to Paris, . . . 104 VI CONTENTS. THE NOVICE. Death of Etienne Pascal. — Feelings of Blaise. — His Opposition to Jaqueline's Plans. — Her Removal to Port Royal. — Letters to him and to Madame Perier. — Pecuniary Trials. — Jaqueline's Narrative. — Her Profession as a Novice, 123 PASCAL'S CONVERSION. Illness of Madame Perier. — Jaqueline's Letters. — Pascal's worldly habits. — His final Conversion through his Sister's Instrumen- tality. — Jaqueline's Account of her Occupation at Port Royal. — Her Letters on Education. — Her Regulations for Children, . 148 JANSENISM AND THE HOLY THORN. Account of the Founders of Jansenism, and the Recluses of La Grange. — Margaret Perier and the Miracle of the Holy Thorn, as related in the Letters of her Aunt. — Poem of the Latter. — The Provincial Letters. — Letters. — To her Nieces. — To the Mere Angelique de St. Jean, on the Death of a Sister, . . 172 PERSECUTION AND DEATH. Jaqueline's last Letters to her Kindred. — The Persecution re-com- mences. — The Formulary. — Departure of the Abbess Angelique from Port Royal des Champs. — The Dispersion of the Novices. — Letter to Jaqueline and Margaret Perier. — Examination of Jaqueline Pascal. — Blaise Pascal forced into Opposition to the Pope. — Jaqueline's Letter on the Formulary, enclosed in one to Arnauld. — The Death of Angelique. — Signature of the For- mulary. — Jaqueline's Death, 201 THE SURVIVORS. Pascal's Feelings on the Death of Jaqueline. — Letters of Condo- lence addressed to him and to Madame Perier. Death of Pas- cal. — After-history of Madame Perier and her Daughters. — M. Cousin's Concluding Reflections, 227 CONTENTS. yu .1AQUELINE PASCAL. An Essay, by M. Vinet, of Lausanne, . A F P E N D I X. Regulation for Children, by JaqtH -Hih- FtM* • Recollections of the Merc Angelique, . 866 315 INTRODUCTION. Pascal deserves to rank among the foremost Dames of the race. In that age of French literature which was emblazoned with the most profuse and gorgeous array of talent, none of his contemporaries surpassed, it' any equalled him in reach and depth of thought, clearness and force of expression, and an eloquence graceful, winning, witty, Bublime, or overwhelming, as the theme and the occasion might demand. In Science he enrolled himself amongst those of most inventive and pro- found genius. To Religion and its defence, ho brought the homage and consecration of powers, which skeptics like Con- dorcet and Voltaire could not venture to scorn, nor aspire even to rival. And he was not a thinker, dwelling apart from the great controversies, and the critical, practical issues of his time. He was a power in his age. Upon the history of his Church, he graved indelibly his mark in the Provincial Let- ters, working thereby an immediate and withal an enduring influence which has no counterpart in literary history. Jesuit- ism received from those Letters a wound from which it never recovered, and which aided many years after to bring about its abolition. Ever since its restoration, the Jesuit Order bears yet about it, amid its resuscitation, the scar not only, but the ulcer, the chronic and incurable infirmity which it contracted 1* X INTRODUCTION. in the collision of its adroit and unscrupulous casuists with the terrible and invincible Louis de Montalte, the name that Pas- cal chose to wear on his vizor and shield, as he rode into the lists to cope, single-handed, with the most potent and crafty, the most widely-spread and closely united of the great relig- ious orders of the time. And all this was accomplished amid broken health, and ere an early death had taken him away from other and unfinished tasks of yet larger compass and higher aims. But to the Christian, the crowning grace of Pascal's char- acter is the high, earnest and absorbing zeal for God and His truth that possessed and consecrated all his faculties and at- tainments, and gave the law to their action and influence. He labored not for fame or power, but for Truth and its defenders. In that body of mighty and devout men, the Jansenists of France, were others not unworthy to share by their force of intellect and power as writers, in Pascal's sympathies and his tasks, whilst to some of them, for their simple, earnest and consuming piety, even he looked up with reverence and do- cility. The history of the Jansenists forms one of the most interest- ing and remarkable episodes in the annals of the Christian Church. Although Port Royal, their great foundation, after a fierce and prolonged struggle, sank under the combined force of regal and sacerdotal enmity, Jesuitism could not at the same time extirpate the doctrines and system of Jansen- ism. These yet survived and wrought widely and vividly. Their influence either within or without the bounds of the Romish Church is not yet spent ; and of their relations to the cause of Christian morals and evangelical doctrine, of sound INTRODUCTION. xi learning and national freedom, and individual worth, the Protestant no less than the Romanist may well be the patient and delighted student Whilst the Btruggle was yet going on between a dominant Jesuitism, and the spiritual and more scriptural Jansenism that it hated and proscribed, a contemporary English scholar, Th. Mphilus Gale, one of the most learned of all the Noncon- formists, and the author of the erudite "Courl of the Gen- tiles," published for British Christians a brief history of Jan- senism. Owen's works Bhow his interesl in and acquaintance ■with the same controversy. Thedevoul Archbishop Leighton, whose seraphic piety so delighted Doddridge, and in our own times so enchanted Coleridge, is thought to have derived some of his religious traits from his acquaintance whilst in France, during his earlier years, with some of the excellent Jansenists of that country. In a later day, Count Zinzendorff, i! viver of Moravianism, and who gave to "the United Breth- ren" of Germany their present polity, was in like manner benefited and kindled by intimacy during a visit in youth to France, with devout adherents of the same system. One of the essays of the eYninent Jansenist moralist Nicole, upon which Voltaire has bestowed the warmest eulogi have equally won the admiration of the English philosopher Locke, who translated it into his own tongue, — it is said, for the especial benefit of his patron and friend, the versatile, restless and unscrupulous Earl of Shaftesbury. Left in man- uscript long after Locke's death, it was a few years since for the first time published. More recently Hannah More was an admirer and student of Nicole, and incurred therefor the sportive reproof of Dr. Johnson. Alexander Knox and his Xll INTRODUCTION. friend Bishop Jebb seem to have been conversant with the same treasures of Jansenist piety. An English Protestant, Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, was the. compiler of a work entitled "Memoirs of Port Royal," that, having undergone several editions in her native country, has but this year appeared in our own. Still more recently than Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, a German Protestant, Reuchlin, has gathered from a wide study of the literature of Jansenism, and after personal research amid the manuscript collections of France, the materials for a History of Port Royal which has appeared in his own tongue. St. Beuve, one of the most distinguished of the living critics of France, has for years been occupied in a similar task. His History of Port Royal, the volumes of which have been issued at intervals, remains as yet incomplete. To his labors, his personal friend, the late lamented Vinet, more than once alludes, in the frequent references which that profound thinker and most accomplished writer has made to the history and character of Jansenism. Vinet, it need not be said, was a staunch and uncompromising Protestant. He was more : — a most able and undaunted champion for evangelical doctrine and spiritual religion, to whom his sceptical and Rom- ish contemporaries were compelled to do honor for his attain- ments and taste, and the rare graces of his style, as well as for the power and reach of his intellect.* * The Count de Montalembert, in the pamphlet issued by him but the last year (1852), and entitled "Des Intcrets Catholiques au XIX C Siecle" (The Interests of Catholicism in the 19lh century), -which recounts with such glowiDg eloquence the recruited glories, real or im- aginary, of Romanism in the last half century, says that Protestantism, ■with its thousand sects, " has not produced a theologian or a preacher since the death of Vinet and the conversion of Newman." P. 59. INTRODUCTION. xiii With such precedents, numerous and honored, it will not, we must hope, 1"' considered as i ipromising the Protestant character of the accomplished tr ansla tor and co mpile r of the following volume, that she has prepared for the press this sketch of the Life, Character and Writings of the younger Bister of Pascal, illustrating as it does incidentally the princi- ples and struggles of Port Royal and the JansenistB. Kindred in genius, as she was most closely united by affec- tion, to her distinguished brotluer, Jaqueline P faithful witness, and in the mental sufferings which battened her end, a meek victim for the truth as she regarded it. And, like her illustrious kinsman, sin- protested, though vainly, yet to the last, against some of those accommodations, extorted, as they supposed, by the necessities of the time, which some of the other great leaders of Jansenism, the firm and dauntless Anthony Arnauld amongst them, advised and urged. These advances for the sake of peace were unavailing endeavors, that, as Pascal had forewarned the counsellors of them, failed to save the Institution, but sacrificed the truth. It seemed due to the integrity of history to preserve the allusions which in Jaqueline's letters, and other writings, recur not unfrequently to the usages and opinions of the Romish Church. It was a just complaint with respect to one of the English histories of Jansenism, to which we have referred, and was made by tho London Christian Observer, at the time when the history appeared, that by assiduous and systematic suppression, from the narratives and conversations which it recorded, of all the Catholic peculiarities which in the original French authorities they presented, the book taught a Protest- ant reader to suppose the Jansenists more free from grave XIV INTRODUCTION. errors, and more assimilated to Protestantism than in truth they were. For the authority of Scripture, the need of personal con- version, and the great doctrines of grace, as they were stated by Augustine, this body in the Catholic Church contended most strenuously and irrefragably. That the first impulse to their studies in this direction might have been supplied to Jansenius and his friend St. Cyran, by the synod of Dort, and the controversies which it awakened throughout Protest- ant Europe, living as Jansenius did in Flanders, a territory contiguous to the scene of that memorable Synod, — is not improbable. That the Huguenot creed of some of the ances- tors of the Arnaulds may have contributed to render other and Catholic members of the family favorable to views of doctrine so nearly resembling Calvinism, was a favorite im- putation of their Jesuit antagonists : — but seems much less tenable. The great leaders of the Jansenist body sought most strenuously to purge themselves from any appearance of identity or sympathy with the Protestants of France and Holland, by works of controversy directed against eminent Huguenot writers, or written in defence of leading Catholic tenets. Upon transubstantiation, for instance, the work con- jointly issued by Arnauld and Nicole, entitled " The Perpetuity of the Faith," remains yet the most admired bulwark of this doctrine in the Catholic schools, who retain and extol this treatise of Jansenist scholarship, though Jansenism itself as a system, and other writings of these very authors, have in- curred the ban of the Vatican. In the case of a thoughtful and dispassionate Protestant, the study of the lives and writings of the devout Jansenists [NTRODTJOTION. xv must, it would seem to us, serve to deter and alienate from Rome, rather than to win to its communion. The Bystem was an endeavor to grafl the doctrines of grace as Augustine had so mightily and effectively presented them in their sym- metry and fulness, upon all the medieval usages and abuses — the accumulated traditions and inventions of successivi turiee in the Romish Church. Ead Borne accepted these truths, and yielded gracefully to the engraftment, it would have " healed her wound" — the eating, and widening cancer of error within her system — so far at least, as to have made her teachings and her confessors far more Bpecious and at- tractive in the sight of one who, studying the epistles <>t' Paul, had there found a greater than Augustine, in the nam.' and right of a wiser and greater than either Augustine or Paul, setting forth the same glorious Bystem as t'> the way of sal- vation by grace. Had Kome .lanscni/.ed, men loving the theology of Paul and Paul's Master might have begun to hope that such truths, indulged and honored within the bounds of the Papal communion, must soon expel her remaining errors. But when the Infallible Church cast them out, and condemned their defenders, whilst meaning but to disown St. Cyran or Quesnel, she forgat that she was condemning Augustine, the greatest of the old Fathers. God allowed her thus to put a fresh contradiction amongst her own doctors, and a new and deliberate impeachment of His own Apostles and apostolic verities upon her own records. And the more able, the more excellent, and the more devoted the men and women adhering to Jansenism, thus disavowed and extruded, the more em- phatically did Rome put herself in the wrong ; and her Pro- testant accusers were established, all the more assuredly, as XVI INTRODUCTION. being in the right, when they proclaimed the Communion that persecuted such confessors, and branded such a confess- ion, as a Communion hopelessly blinded and irremediably corrupted— whose delusion was judicial and final, and for whose maladies there remained neither remedy nor hope. It was, again, a justification from a new and opposite quar- ter, of the ground taken in the Protestant Reformation. Salvation by grace, the same great elementary truth that was the core and pith of Jansenism, had in the hands of Luther and Zwingle, of Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer, revolutionized the Churches now known as the Reformed, and sent a new life into the governments, homes, workshops, and sanctuaries of their nations. But it had been the suspicion of some Pro- testants, more conservative than comprehensive in their views, that these truths might have been sustained, and yet the great mass of Romish rites have been retained, and Christendom kept up unbroken the bond of a common ecclesiastical fellowship. The suspicion was based on forgetfulness of the fact that Rome had herself banished the Reformers, and that the rent was torn by her own proud hands, quite as much as by the divi- sive energy of the truth itself. But now, as if to put the truth of this conjecture as to precipitancy in the Reformers to a decisive test, rose tip in Catholic France, a body of learned, able, devout men, who resisted and denounced Protestantism, but asked to cherish, as Augustine had before them cherished, and as St. Paul in Scripture taught them, the great fact of the faith, that man's salvation is merely and purely of God's free grace. They gave every evidence of sincerity, even to obstinacy, in their attachment to Romish usages, the Papal Communion, and Peter's Chair. They honored relics, and INTRODUCTION. XYli kepi saints'' days, and used pictures, and adored the sacra- ment, and wore punctual in confession. En these and the like things, they yearned to be Pharisees of the Pharisees, the most Romanizing of Romanists. But they would, with tli«' •, hold the old and great principles as to the mode of man's salvation, that tie- best men of the Churoh, in i ages, had enounced and defended. In refusing such a desire, offered by such men, Rome silenced tho Protestant cavillers at tho old Reformers. Knox had been charged with barbar- ism, and truly or untruly been represented as savin-- that the rookeries of cathedrals must fall, or the rooks of the would return. The Papacy now virtually uttered a cruder and fiercer edict. It swept out doves and hewed doM a cotes, that the owl might sleep in peace, nor the raven bo shamed by comparison witli the birds of a softer cry and a brighter wing. As to the miracles claimed to have been wrought in de- fence of Jansenist innocence and sanctity, whether in the ear- lier times of the body, while Pascal yet lived, or in the much later age of the Convulsionnaires, as one portion of tin Jansenists were called, the subject would require a volume, if its discussion were to be commenced at all. No one who knows the character, either of Pascal or of his sister, can be persuaded, that for any earthly consideration, they would have lent themselves to a conscious fraud in holy things. That their niece was, after the application of the Holy Thorn, healed of a tedious and noisome ulcer entirely, suddenly, and permanently, seems established by evidence that it would be impossible to overturn. But the force of hope and excited feeling, is to some modern physiologists a sufficient explana- xviii INTRODUCTION. tion. They believe that the physical influence of mind over body is greater than has been generally supposed, and see in this the solution of the mystery. Of the cases of healing, in far later years, said to have occurred in the church- yard of St. Medard in Paris, at the grave of the Jansenist, M. Paris, they were, in proportion to the multitude of applicants, few and dubious, ill-authenticated or transitory. Hume, indeed, affected to see in these, rivals and counterparts of the miracles of the Gospel, so different in number, variety, constancy of effect, and sufficiency of authentication. Had they been as numerous, startling, and unquestionable, as for the purposes of the sceptic's argument they ought to Lave been— but as in reality they were not — there are many Pro- testants who would see in them no seal of Heaven, but rather a new betrayal of the traits and predicted marks of the Anti- christ whom Paul denounced, and whom Christ's coming is to destroy. Though some thinkers, — the honored Dr. Ward- law in his late work on Miracles is one with them, — deny the power of working miracles to any but the One Supreme God, it has been the judgment of theologians of the highest name in former times, that — in Scripture we find, as from reason we might anticipate, that — under the government of that Supreme Jehovah, He has allowed, under certain limits, the exhibition of superhuman power, by beings superior to man, though in- ferior to Himself. Satan, too, may work his wonders, though, for the purpose they would subserve, they are but lying won- ders. The security of man against fatal delusion, lies in the fact that God exercises the higher power, and works the more numerous, august, and controlling miracles ; and in the prin- ciple, that man, in the case of a doctrine claiming superhuman INTRODUCTION. XIX endorsements, must test the doctrine by the Scriptures, as well as the alleged miracle and seal by his senses. Buttressed about, as Scripture is, by evidence of miracle and prophecy, (which is cumulative and germinant miracle,) the great doc- trines of Scripture might now legitimately ovcrwcigh any amount of supposed miracle that such hostile but superhuman agency should be permitted to work, in derogation and con- futation of those statements of Revelation. Many of the Pro- testant opponents of Rome believe that they see in Scripture distinct warning that her claims were to be, at times, aided by such feigned and delusive prodigies. And seeing, from the histories of Job, and Peter, and Paul, how close the contiguity which the deceiver Satan may secure to the task, and path even of God's elect, such Protestants can believe that good men — the favored and beloved of Heaven, but unhappily en- tangled in an unscriptural system and communion — may, as the consequence and retribution of that entanglement, have been the witnesses and dupes of such specimens of his subtle and potent jugglery. Without undertaking to dogmatise on a subject intricate and disputed, it would seem that, on such principles, we might fully admit the honesty not only, but the eminent piety of those witnessing to strange appearances, which yet, in connection with the unscriptural doctrines and usages they were to support, win neither our submission nor our reverence. The young and accomplished author, whose first appearance the present volume brings with it, seems to us, in most of her translations, to have succeeded in preserving an idiomatic, flowing, and racy style which might often lead the reader to suppose that the document he peruses had been first written XX INTRODUCTION. in our tongue. In introducing to Christians who speak the English language and hold the Protestant system, the char- acter and writings, the Christian graces and the bitter trials, of a gifted and devout Romanist, the compiler trusts that the great truths, in which Jaqueline Pascal, like her fellow-con- fessors, was united with us, will be regarded as receiving fresh illustration from their effect upon one in whom dignity and lowliness, wisdom and simplicity, lofty genius and saintly piety, the martyr's firmness and the woman's tenderness, were so rarely and beautifully blended. WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS. 13 June, 1853. JAQUELINE PASCAL Clje | aural $ a mi In. The family of the Pascals was truly a remarkable one. When Richelieu,* with his eagle glance, perceived in his audience chamber Etienne Pascal, accompanied by his son Blaise, then about fifteen, and his two girls Gilberte and Jaqueline, he was astonished at the chil- dren's beauty, and instead of waiting for the father to introduce them to his notice, himself bade the elder "\iscal take special care of his offspring, saying, " I lean to make something great of them." Etienne Pascal was himself an excellent man. He belonged to an old family of the province of Auvergne, in the south of France, studied law in Paris, and re- turning thence to his native city of Clermont, pur- chased the office of assessor-general. He was after- wards made president of the court of excise. In 1618 he married Antoinette Begon, who died in 1628, leav- ing him with three children, Gilberte, Blaise, and Jaqueline. In 1630 he sold his office of president, together with the greater part of his possessions in * The cardinal-duke, who, in the reign of Louis XIII. of France, exercised despotic authority as Prime-minister. 24 JAQUELINE PASCAL. Auvergne, investing the proceeds in rents of the Hotel- de-Ville in Paris, whither he removed in order to edu- cate his children, more particularly Blaise. He was a well-informed and even a learned man, who associated with mathematicians and scientific persons, and shared in their toils. There is extant a letter of his to the Jesuit Noel, wherein he advises him, in a tone half- jest, half-earnest, not to commit himself .in disputing with Blaise Pascal about the weight of the atmosphere, and warns him that he will find the latter a formidable adversary. He bestowed on his son a somewhat sys- tematic education, which was not without its influence on the bent of his mind. The two daughters also re- ceived very thorough instruction. The elder, Gil- berte, devoted to the other children all a mother's care. Margaret Perier, her daughter, says of her, " When my grandfather came to Paris for his chil- dren's education, she was ten years old. She married at twenty-one, while her father was living in Eouen," Monsieur Perier, a distant cousin, who belonged to Clermont, but was sent with a commission to Nor- mandy in 1640, which he executed so well as to ex- cite the esteem of Monsieur Pascal, and the latter gave him his daughter's hand. They resided partly in Au- vergne, partly in Paris or Eouen. " When at Cler- mont, Mad. Perier went into society suitable for per- sons of her age and rank, and was much admired, being beautiful, graceful, and very witty. My grand- father had educated her, and from her earliest youth THE PASCAL FAMILY. 25 amused himself with teachingher mathematics, philoso- phy, and history." This picture need not be suspected of embellishment. The austere Margaret never flatter- ed, and such a Jansenist as she would not have noticed her mother's beauty, unless it had been something ex- traordinary. The Jansenist manuscripts contain many of Mad. Perier's letters, but posterity is more indebted to her for the well-known " Life of Pascal," au admi- rable biography, which makes us love Pascal. His sister, in the discharge of her affectionate task, says as little as possible of herself, and thinks only of deline- ating her brother. Nevertheless, as Reuchlin remarks, the Life of Pascal by Mad. Perier, plainly yet uninten- tionally reveals the latter's sound sense, and loving care for one who was her pride, and whom she deeply reverenced. Many sufferings awaited him through life, biut she, like a true Martha, stood at his side to help him, while Jaqueline, though younger than he, may be considered as Pascal's spiritual twin-sister. Gilberte early regarded her brother as a superior being, both in mind and character, and though she was herself no idle spectator of his great achievements, Jaqueline exercised a stronger influence over him. The latter in after years manifested the spirit of a Mary. Hand-in-hand with him she traversed the journey of life, and his death soon followed hers. The twin-souls were not long divided. Jacjueline is a much more remarkable character than even Gilberte. Heaven had gifted her with genius as 26 JAQUELINE PASCAL. well as with feminine attractions. Ueither in intellect nor disposition was she inferior to her brother Pascal, and it is impossible to measure what her attainments might have been, had she cared for fame, and culti- vated her native powers. But perfection, of whatever kind, imperiously requires of all who would attain it, that they should eagerly and perseveringly search for it. To win fame, we must value it, for genius needs resolute tillage before it will yield abundant fruit. So is it with virtue ; the happiest dispositions, the most noble instincts of our nature, are insufficient, unless to these be added a determination to do right, submission to law, and ceaseless vigilance in order to prevent errors, to fortify and develop good impulses, and to convert them into good habits. The women of Port Eoyal set before themselves great objects, salvation and spiritual perfection ; and sought to attain their ideal by continued effort, diligent meditation, earnest prayer, and austere self-denial. Half as much care bestowed on their minds, would have placed them in the first rank of writers. Where are tie men who have dared more, struggled more, suffered more or better than these very women? They knew and braved persecution, calumny, exile, imprisonment. When they wrote, they did it with a mingled sim- plicity and grandeur. We cannot but recognize in them minds and hearts of a rare and totally different stamp from those of the most brilliant dames in the cotemporary court circles. With a little cultivation, THE PASCAL FAMILY. 27 tlicy were capable of producing master-pieces. For what in fact is style ? The expression of thought and character. Whoever thinks meagrely and feels but feebly, is incapable of a good style. On the cont way, any one of lofty intelligence, devoted to sublime templations, and that has a soul in unison with i tellect, cannot help occasionally writing lines worthy of admiration. And if reflection and study be su j >< ■ r- added, such an one has within him the materials of a great writer. The More Agn&s and the Mere An- gelique wrote much, yet neither they nor their brother Antoine Arnauld, left behind them models of compo- sition. How was this ? They lacked the difficult art of making expression equal the thoughts and feelings it was intended to convey. That art they would have disdained, or rather rejected as sinful. Far from dis- playing their genius, they endeavored to stifle it in humility, in silence, and in complete abnegation of the world and self. They only wrote as they spoke, from pure necessity. Here and there certain beautiful phrases escape from them unconsciously, by the sole force of noble thought. JBut art being absent, their unpolished and careless style soon sinks, and unless dictated by strong feeling, becomes diffuse, dull, or dry. And Jaqueline Pascal, their disciple, their equal in intelligence and feeling, imitated them in the attempt to extinguish her own enthusiasm and genius, or rather to turn both into another channel. She attained the moral excellence she sought ; she failed in attaining 28 JAQUELLNE PASCAL. the literary excellence slie despised. We acknowledge that her writings are not highly polished, but they in- dicate great natural talent. Many of her pieces in prose and verse are to be found scattered through the Jansenist collections ; and to these we have united a number of pieces hitherto unpublished, more especially letters addressed to her sister Gilberte and her brother Pascal. No means of improving our knowledge of that noble family ought to be neglected, and Jaque- line, moreover, deserves attention for her own sake. Gilberte Pascal, not satisfied with writing her bro- ther's life, sought also to preserve some memorials of her darling sister. Accordingly she composed sketches of Jaqueline from early childhood until the latter's entrance into the convent of Port Eoyal, which dis- play the same simplicity, good sense, and graceful style as does the " Life of Pascal." Several paragraphs devoted to her aunt, in the Memoirs of Margaret Per- ier, Gilberte's daughter, continue and complete her mother's work; and by the aid of these sparse frag- ments, the biography of Jaqueline Pascal must be composed. However, the writings she has left, and her confidential letters, show her intellect and disposi- tion, and teach us not only to admire but to love her. Her life and writings may be divided into three parts. 1. From her childhood till her conversion. 2. Prom her conversion till she became a nun. 3. From thence until her death. " My sister," says Madame Perier, in her Sketch of THE PASCAL FAMILY. 29 the Life of Sister Jaqucline de Sainte Euphemie, by- birth Jaqueline Pascal, "waa born at Clermont* on the 4th of October, in the year L625. I waa six years older than she, and can remember that as soon as she began to speak, she gave signs of great intelligence, besides being perfectly beautiful, and of a kindly and sweet temper, the most winning in the world. She was, therefore, as much loved and caressed aa a child could possibly be. My father removed to Pari- in 1631, and took us all with him. My sister was thru six years old, still very pretty, and so agreeable that she was a general favorite, in request with all our friends, and spent but little of her time at home. "At seven years old, she began to learn to read, and by my father's wish, 1 became her teacher, This was a troublesome task, on account of her great aversion to it ; and do what I would, I could not coax her to * Clermont, a city of Auvergne, one of the southern provinces of France, now comprising the Departments of Puy de Dome and Can- tal. Auvergne is a mountainous region, proverbial for the obstinacy of its inhabitants. Blaise Pascal was proud of his birth-place, and Jaqueline thus describes it in one of her poems : — " A climate, fertile in unnumber'd charms, Though ornaments, save nature's it hath none In stern simplicity, untouch'd by art, It yields a picture of its Maker's power. There, in Auvergne, — from those proud peaks afar Whose gloomy heights nor fruit nor harvests know, But in their stead dark precipices yawn ; — Rises a little hill, so fresh and fair, So favored by the Sun's celestial ray, That Clairmont seems its most appropriate name." 30 JAQUELINE PASCAL. come and say lier lesson. One day, however, I chanced to be reading poetry aloud, and the rhythm pleased her so much that she said to me, 'If you want me to read, teach me out of a verse-book, and then I will say my lesson as often as you like.' This surprised me, because I did not think that a child of her age could distinguish verse from prose ; and I did as she wished. After that time she was always talking about verses, and learned a great many by heart, for she had an excellent memory. She wanted to know the rules of poetry, and at eight years old, before knowing how to read, she began to compose some that were really not bad, a proof how strong in this respect was her native bent. " She had then two playmates who contributed not a little to her enjoyment. They were the daughters of Madame Saintot, and themselves made verses, though not much older than Jaqueline ; so that in the year 1636, when my father took me with him on a journey to Auvergne, and Madame de Saintot begged that she might keep my sister with her while we were gone, the three little girls took it into their heads to act a play, and composed plot and verses, without the least aid from any one else. It was, however, a co- herent piece, and had five acts, divided by scenes reg- ularly arranged. They performed it themselves twice, with some other actors whom they invited, before a large company. Everybody wondered that such chil- dren should be capable of constructing a complete THE PASCAL FAMILY. 31 work, and many pretty things were discovered in it, so that it became the talk of all Paris for a long time." Thus began the reputation fol talent which Jaquc- line never afterwards lost. The play, could we r t, would be a curiosity, but it has cntinlv disappeared. "My sister still continued to make verses about whatever came into her hftid, as well as on all extraor- dinary occurrences. At the beginning of 1638, when the queen was expecting an heir, she did not fail to write on so fine a subject, and these verses were better than any of her previous efforts. We lived at that time very near Monsieur and Madame de Morangis, who took so much delight in the child's pretty ways, that she was with her nearly every day. Madame dc Morangis, charmed with the idea of Jaqueline's having written verses on the queen's situation, said that she would take her to St. Germain (one of the royal palaces) and present her. She kept her word, and on their arrival, the queen being at the moment engaged, every one surrounded the little girl, in order to ques- tion her and see her verses." Jaqueline was then only twelve years old, and so small of her age, that some suspicion was naturally awakened whether she had really composed them, and her ability was at once tested. "Mademoiselle," then very young, said to * Mademoiselle cle Moatpensier, daughter of the Duke of Orleans, and niece to Louis XIIL, better known in history as the great Made- moiselle. She was afterwards one of the most conspicuous heroines 32 JAQUELINE PASCAL. her, 'Since you make "verses so well, make some for me.' Jaqueline went quietly into a corner and com- posed an epigram for the princess, which plainly showed that it was written on the spur of the moment, by referring to the command that Mademoiselle had just given.' It ran as follows : ' It is our noble princess' will, That thou, my Muse, exert thy skill To celebrate her charms to-day : Hopeless our task ! — the only way To praise her well is to avow The simple truth — we know not how !' Mademoiselle, seeing that she had finished it so quickly, said, ' Now make one for Madame de Haute- fort.'* She immediately wrote another epigram for that lady, which, though very pretty, was easily seen to be impromptu. ' O marvel not, bright master-piece of earth, At the prompt tribute by your charms called forth. Your glance, that roves the world around In every clime hath captives found. That ray, which charms my youthful heart, May well arouse my fancy's art.' Soon after this, permission was given to enter the of the Fronde, aod during that struggle ordered the cannon of the Bastile to be turned against the royal troops. Late in life she mar- ried the Duke de Lauzun, who was greatly her inferior in rank, and repaid her condescension with neglect and unkindness. * Madame de Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the queen, Anne of Austria.. THE PASCAL FAMILY. 33 queen's apartment, and Madame de Morangis led my sister in. The queen was surprised at her poetry, but fancied at first that it was either not her own, or that she had been greatly aided. All present thought the same, but Mademoiselle removed their doubts by showing them the two epigrams that Jaqueline had just made in her presence, and by her own orders. This circumstance increased the general admiration, and from that day forward my sister was often at court, and much caressed by the King, the Queen, Mademoiselle, and all who saw her. She even had the honor of waiting on her Majesty when she dined in private, Mademoiselle taking the place of chief butler.