queline, but took no particular notice of Blaise Pascal. The latter
was seventeen; he had already written his _Traite des Coniques_ (Treatise
on Conics) and begun to occupy himself with "his arithmetical machine,"
as his sister, Madame Perier calls it. At twenty-three he had ceased to
apply his mind to human sciences; "when he afterwards discovered the
roulette (cycloid), it was without thinking," says Madame Perier, "and to
distract his attention from a severe tooth-ache he had." He was not
twenty-four when anxiety for his salvation and for the glory of God had
taken complete possession of his soul. It was to the same end that he
composed the _Lettres Provinciales,_ the first of which was written in
six days, and the style of which, clear, lively, precise, far removed
from the somewhat solemn gravity of Port-Royal, formed French prose as
Malherbe and Boileau formed the poetry. This was the impression of his
contemporaries, the most hard of them to please in the art of writing.
"That is excellent; that will be relished," said the recluses of Port-
Royal, in spite of the misgivings of M. Singlin. More than thirty years
after Pascal's ddath, Madame de Sevigne, in 1689, wrote to Madame de
Grignan, "Sometimes, to divert ourselves, we read the little Letters (to
a provincial). Good heavens, how charming! And how my son reads them!
I always think of my daughter, and how that excess of correctness of
reasoning would suit her; but your brother says that you consider that it
is always the same thing over again. Ah! My goodness, so much the
better! Could any one have a more perfect style, a raillery more
refined, more natural, more delicate, worthier offspring of those
dialogues of Plato, which are so fine? And when, after the first ten
letters, he addresses himself to the reverend Jesuit fathers, what
earnestness, what solidity, what force! What eloquence! What love for
God and for the truth! What a way of maintaining it and making it
understood! I am sure that you have never read them but in a hurry,
pitching on the pleasant places; but it is not so when they are read at
leisure." Lord Macaulay once said to M. Guizot, "Amongst modern works I
know only two perfect ones, to which there is no exception to be taken,
and they are _Pascal's Provincials_ and the _Letters of Madame de
Sevigne_."

[Illustration: Blaise Pascal----597]

Boileau was of Lord Macaulay's opinion; at least as regarded Pascal.
"Corbinelli wrot