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 Mère Angélique 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 God but that which came from God.” 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 page 63presence 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 Mère Agnès, 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 God. 8 He is represented as being so much engrossed with the vanities and amusements 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.” 9 All the means at his command were hardly sufficient to enable him to live in the world “like others of his condition,” and the associates with whom he was known to be mingling. 10
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