"Letters to a Provincial" (1656-1657), one of the brightest works of French literature, were practically inaccessible to the Russian-speaking reader for exactly a century.

An encyclopedia of seventeenth-century culture, an important fragment of the polemics between the Jesuits and the Jansenists over the interpretation of Christian morality, a brilliant expression of theological problems by means of secular literature — these are just a few of the definitions of the book that put Blaise Pascal on a par with such polemicists as Montaigne and Voltaire.

Supplemented by Nicolas's classic notes and contemporary commentaries, the publication becomes the most important source for understanding the European historical and philosophical process of the last three centuries.

ru Trushova If you found a mistake in the book, write to saphyana@inbox.ru ExportToFB21, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 03.02.2014 OOoFBTools-2014-2-3-15-5-23-1144 1.0 Letters to a provincial Port–Royal 1997 ISBN 966–7068–04–8

Letters to a provincial

"Sometimes, in order to amuse ourselves, we read the Small Letters. Good God, what a charm it is, and how my son read them! <… > (Is there a more perfect style, or a more subtle, natural, graceful ridicule, which has a greater right to be known as the true daughter of Plato's Dialogues, which in themselves are so beautiful! And when, after the first ten Letters, he addresses the monks, what a thoroughness is felt! What seriousness! What power! What eloquence! What love for God and for truth! What a wonderful way of defending and explaining the truth is offered to us here! (All these are contained in the last eight Letters, each of which is distinguished by a very peculiar style. I am sure that you have read them in passing, choosing only amusing passages, but this is not a book that should be read to while away your leisure."

Madame de Seviñer.

"Pascal's pamphlet, which bears the title of Letters to a Provincial, will perhaps be in the eyes of a dispassionate observer the most obvious confirmation of the advanced principles of Jesuitism. There is hardly a pen more bilious, more irritable, and more despotic than that of Pascal. What does he reproach the Jesuits? Knowledge of the foundations of human society and understanding of the essence of their era. A sullen and fanatical Puritan, Blaise Pascal examined all the principles of the school of St. Ignatius. And what did he find worthy of reproach? Precisely those innovations that were introduced by ideological development into the very heart of Christian doctrine! I know of no one more hostile to the spirit of liberty than the Provincialia."

ZH. — V. — O. — R. Kapefig.

Discourse on the Provincials[1]

Everyone knows on what occasion and under what conditions the Letters to the Provincial were created, published and distributed. If anyone happens to be unaware of this, or has forgotten this, he might be referred to the account of the events mentioned by Nicoles. This source should be supplemented by the information contained in Chapters VI and XVI of the third volume of Port-Royal by Sainte-Beuve, and especially in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth books of Fr. Rapin's Memoirs, in order to hear both sides at least once. I am afraid that before speaking of Jansenism in general, and of the Provincials in particular, more than one critic or commentator has readily forgotten precisely such a requirement.

The public is even better informed about the subject of the famous Letters. Each of them was provided by the same Nicole with a brief and informative summary. Nicolas is also the author of an extensive Table of Contents of Letters. Among the merits of this Table of Contents is that it allows, as it were, to grasp at a glance both the picture of polemics in its entirety, and the very close relations that unite the question of morality and the question of gratitude in the Provincials. But especially an analysis of these relations shows how erroneous is the opinion that Pascal, beginning with the fifth letter, cleverly changed the order of questions (leaving the theologians the main subject of discussion) to somewhat deviated into the field of discussions about morality and the Jesuits. Suffice it to say that it was the Jesuits of Louvain, Paris, and Rome who had been seeking the condemnation of Jansenism for sixteen years, and Jansenia's Augustine was written against them, against Suárez, Vázquez, and Molina (who, according to the allegory which so amused Pascal, were three of Escobar's "four animals"), and also against Lessius. Jansenius accused all these authors of attempts to renew the errors of the "Massilians" and "Semi-Pelagians" in the Church. I am afraid that this is too often forgotten in the case of the Provincials, and in the honour of Pascal's social friends (the Chevalier de Méray, for example), who had supposedly set him, without even thinking of it, on the path of true success.