their most intimate associates.  A prize being given every year for the best copy of verses on the “Conception of the Virgin,” it was awarded to certain verses of Jacqueline’s for the year 1640.  When the announcement of the result was made she was absent, but a friend of the family rose and returned thanks in verse in the name of the youthful poetess—Pour une jeune muse absente.  The friend was Corneille, whose impromptu lines on the occasion, along with those of Jacqueline, are still preserved. [16]  Neither have much poetic merit, but they recall an interesting incident.

A bright atmosphere of intellectual emulation and cheerful prospects surrounds the family at this time.  But all the while it is evident, from Madame Périer’s account, that her brother was injuring his health greatly in his undue assiduity in his scientific pursuits.  The attempts to perfect the construction of his arithmetical machine seem especially to have worn out his delicate frame, and to have laid the foundation of the nervous

prostration from which he more or less suffered all his life afterwards.  “From the age of eighteen,” she says in a significant passage that her brother “hardly ever passed a day without pain.  In the intermissions of his sufferings, however, his spirit was such that he was constantly bent on some new discovery.” [17]

In the beginning of 1646 an accident happened which had important consequences both to Pascal and his sisters.  Étienne Pascal fell upon the ice and severely sprained his foot.  During his confinement he was attended by two brothers who had acquired repute in the treatment of such injuries.  They were gentlemen of family in the neighbourhood, who had devoted themselves to medicine and anatomy from benevolent instincts and the love of these studies.  Both were disciples of a clergyman at Rouville, who was an enthusiastic pietist and friend of St Cyran.  Crowds flocked to hear Pastor Guillebert whenever he preached, and many were stirred by his eloquence to devote themselves to pious and philanthropical labours.  One of the brothers under this inspiring guidance built a hospital at the end of his park, and gave his children to the service of the Church in various capacities.  The other brother, who had no children, provided beds in the hospital and attended the sick poor.

The character and conversation of these men made a deep impression upon the Pascal family.  Hitherto esteemed pious, they had not yet made religion an anxious concern in their lives.  Madame Périer says expressly of her brother that he had been “preserved by the special protection of God from all youthful vices, and, what was still more remarkable in the case of a mind of such strength and pride, he had never yielded to any libertinism of thought, but had always limited his curiosity to natural inquiries.”  He attributed, according to her statement, this religious sobriety of mind to the instructions and example of his father, who had a great respect for religion, and who had impressed upon him from his infancy the maxim, “that whatever is the object of faith cannot be the object of reason, and still less the subject of it.”  He had seen, in his father, the combination of scientific attainment with a strong reasoning power, and the maxim therefore fell with weight from his lips.  And so, when he listened to the discourses of free-thinkers, young as he was—

“He remained unmoved by them, and simply looked upon them as men who had adopted the false principle that the human reason is above everything, and who know nothing of the real nature of faith; so that this spirit, so great and inquisitive, which searched so carefully for the reason of everything, was at the same time submissive as a child to all the truths of religion, and this submissive simplicity predominated in him through his whole life.” [18]

This is a significant extract in more ways than one.  In the meantime we quote it as indicating the religious atmosphere of Pascal’s home, and the pious temper

which marked him from the first.  But as yet religion had not taken hold of him with an absorbing enthusiasm.  It had its place in his thoughts, and this a deeply respectful place; but now, about his twenty-third year, in communication with the two friends we have mentioned, and under the same influence which had moved them so deeply, it began to lay hold of him more powerfully.  He and his father and sisters read eagerly the books of St Cyran, and of Jansen, the Bishop of Ypres, whose name became so conspicuous in connection with Port Royal.  A discourse by the latter on “The Reformation of the Inward Man,” and also Arnauld’s “Manual on Frequent Communion,” are supposed to have specially impressed him.  In the language of his sister—

“Providence led him to the study of such pious writings while he was not yet twenty-four years of age; and God so enlightened him by this course of reading, that he came to realise that the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other object besides Him.  So clear and necessary appeared this truth to him, that he gave up for a time all his researches, renounced all other knowledge, and applied himself alone to the ‘one thing needful’ spoken of by our Lord.”

This event is spoken of by Pascal’s biographers as his “first conversion,” and it appears to have been attended not only with a zealous consecration of his own powers to the service of religion, but moreover, as often happens in the case of youthful enthusiasm, with a warm determination against all who seemed to him to be acting at variance with the true faith.  “Although,” as his sister says, “he had made no special study of scholastic

theology, he was not ignorant of the judgments of the Church against the heresies invented by human subtlety.  All indications of heretical opinion excited his indignation, and God gave him at this time an opportunity of testifying his zeal on behalf of religion.”  She then adds in illustration the following story:—

“There was at Rouen at this time a man who taught a new philosophy which attracted the curious.  My brother, pressed by two of his young friends, accompanied them to hear this man; but they were greatly surprised when they found, in conversation with him, that he drew consequences from his philosophy at variance with the decisions of the Church.  He sought to prove by his arguments that the body of Jesus Christ was not formed of the blood of the Holy Virgin, but of some other matter specially created, and several other like subjects.  They pointed out to him his error, but he remained firm in his opinions.  Thereupon, taking into consideration how dangerous it was to leave the instruction of youth in the hands of a man with such erroneous opinions, they resolved, after previously informing him of their intention, to denounce him if he continued in his errors.  So it happened; for he despised their advice, and in such a manner, as to leave them no alternative but to denounce him