Pascal’s ‘Letters to a Provincial’ represent a great controversy, the nature of which it is necessary to explain. They are, at the same time, the most perfect expression of his literary genius, and touch theological questions with such an inimitable grace and felicity of expression as to have awakened a universal intellectual interest. It may be hard to justify this interest by any analysis of their contents, or by such extracts as can be given from them. No English can convey the exquisite fitness of French polemical expression in its highest form, its mingled force and delicacy, its keenness and yet its lightness. We shall, however, endeavour to give as clearly as we can an account, first, of the controversy out of which the ‘Letters’ originated, and then of the consummate skill with which Pascal conducted it.
M. de St Cyran is not merely one of the chief figures connected with Port Royal: he was the fountain-head of its special power. To his influence and teaching it was indebted for its chief glory and its most terrible sufferings. Jean Baptist du Vergier d’Hauranne, better known by the above official designation, was of noble page 104family. He was born at Bayonne in 1581, and early devoted himself to the study of theology at Louvain and Paris. While a student, he is supposed to have first made the acquaintance of Cornelius Jansen, and to have begun with him that co-operation which was destined to bear such remarkable fruits. Their intimacy was one based on spiritual affinity and a common enthusiasm. For Jansen was the son of poor peasants, without even a surname. His father is only known as Jan Ottosen, or John the son of Otto; as the son in his turn was Cornelius Jansen, or the son of John. Jansen was the younger of the two friends, having been born in 1585; but he appears to