to M. du Bellay, [20] who was then discharging episcopal functions in the diocese of Rouen for the Archbishop.  M. du Bellay sent for the man, and having interrogated him, was deceived by an equivocal confession of faith which he wrote and subscribed.  Otherwise he made little account of the affair as reported by the three young men.  However, when they saw the confession of faith, they at once recognised its defects, and entered into communication with the Archbishop himself, who, having examined into the matter, saw its gravity,

and sent in writing a special order to M. du Bellay to make the man retract all the points of which he was accused, and to receive nothing from him except by communication of his accusers.  The order was carried out, and the result was that he appeared in the council of the Archbishop and renounced all his errors—it may be said sincerely, for he never showed any anger towards those who had engaged in the affair, so as to lead one to suppose that he had been himself deceived by the false conclusions which he had drawn from false principles.  It was made plain that his accusers had no design of injuring him, but only of undeceiving him, and so preventing him from seducing the young, who were incapable of distinguishing the true from the false in such subtle questions.”

This story reflects somewhat doubtfully on Pascal’s fairness and good sense, even as told by Madame Périer.  But it has not been left in the vagueness in which it stands in her narrative.  M. Cousin published for the first time full details regarding it in the volume by which he may be said to have initiated the new researches into the life and writings of Pascal.  These details, which fill more than forty pages of appendix to M. Cousin’s volume, [21] are no longer of any interest in themselves; but they enable us to understand more clearly the conduct of Pascal and his two friends.  Unhappily they deepen rather than lighten the shade which the story throws upon Pascal’s intemperate zeal.  The name of the accused teacher was Jacques Forton, a Capucin monk, known as the Père St Ange.  He taught no

new philosophy; but he had communicated to Pascal or his friends, in private conversation specially desired by them, certain theological opinions which he had espoused.  These, as given in the statement of the case signed by Pascal and his two friends, mainly concern such abstruse subjects as the relation of reason and faith, and the possibility of demonstrating the doctrine of the Trinity as the source of all other knowledge.  The curious question as to the constitution of the body of Jesus occupies only a subordinate place.  The monk, as shown in the whole proceedings, was evidently more of a speculative dreamer than a heretic—a man fond of disputation about matters beyond his comprehension.  It is mentioned by the three youthful zealots, in the récit bearing their signature, that as they were about to part with him, “after the accustomed civilities,” he was careful to let them know that he advanced the points in dispute, not as dogmas, but merely as propositions or thoughts for discussion, the fruit of his own reasonings.

There is no reason to doubt that Pascal’s conduct on this occasion arose entirely from honest zeal.  He thought religion compromised by the strange reasonings which he had heard.  There is as little doubt, however, that his zeal outran his discretion.  He showed a determination to pursue the matter amounting to persecution.  The worthy priest had evidently no intention of promulgating heresy; for he is glad, when called upon, of an opportunity of proving his orthodoxy.  With this view he produced, side by side with the articles of accusation, passages from a former volume of his which had been printed with official sanction.  Pascal still demurred,

even with this evidence before him.  A second declaration was obtained from the priest, and the bishop refused to go further.  The sympathies of the community were evidently against the youthful zealots; and finally Pascal’s father, convinced that enough had been done to vindicate the truth, successfully interposed as mediator. [23a]

Pascal’s health about this period appears to have undergone a change for the worse.  He suffered from excessive headache and great internal heat and pain.  A singular characteristic of his malady was his inability to swallow water unless it was heated, and even then only drop by drop.  He was the subject, also, of a remarkable paralytic seizure thus described by his niece:—

“He fell,” she says, “into a very extraordinary state, as the result of his great application to his scientific studies; for the senses (les esprits) having mounted strongly to the brain, he became in a manner paralysed from the waist downwards.  His legs and feet grew cold as marble; and they were obliged every day to put on socks soaked in brandy in order to try and restore heat in his feet.  At the same time the physician interdicted him from all study.” [23b]

M. Lélut [23c] explains at length this attack of Pascal’s as a well-known form of dynamical paralysis, of a similar nature with hypochondria and hysteria, proceeding from a disordered state of the nervous affections, the result

of overwork acting upon a delicate organisation.  The result is temporary, as distinguished from the paralysis arising from organic lesion, but indicates a highly susceptible constitution, the ready prey of melancholy and imaginative exaggeration, to which, in M. Lélut’s opinion, Pascal was more or less liable during the remaining years of his life.

CHAPTER II.
PASCAL’S SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES.

Pascal’s scientific studies may be said to have begun with the remarkable incident of his youth already related, when he elaborated for himself, in a solitary chamber without books, thirty-two propositions of the first book of Euclid.  On the other hand, these studies may be said to have extended to his closing years, when (in 1658 and 1659) he reverted to the abstruser mathematics, and made the cycloid a subject of special thought.  But his scientific labours were in the main concentrated in the eight or ten years of his life which followed the removal of the family to Rouen.  It will be convenient, therefore, to notice these labours and discoveries in a single chapter here, which will, at the same time, carry on the main history of his life during these years.  All that can be expected from the present writer is a slight sketch of this part of the subject, which indeed is all that would be interesting to the general