CHAPTER II. PASCAL’S SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES.

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 à cinq sols,” as they were called—is attributed to Pascal. It is certain that the privilege of running “carrosses à cinq sols” was granted to Pascal’s friend, the Duc de Roannez, and to other noblemen, by royal patent, in January 1662,—and that the experiment, as described by Madame Périer, 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 page 51for the poor at Blois;²² 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.