Part 3 (1/2)
A more interesting point than any, however, still remains in connection with this period of his life. It was now, or soon after, that Pascal must have composed the ”Discours sur les Pa.s.sions de l'Amour,” one of the most exquisite fragments which have come from his pen,-remarkable both in itself and in the circ.u.mstances of its discovery by M. Cousin about thirty years ago. M. Cousin has himself related these circ.u.mstances in minute detail, and with a certain self-elation. {67d} According to M.
Faugere, there was no particular difficulty, and therefore no particular merit, in the discovery. The fragment was clearly indexed in a catalogue of the Pascal MSS. in the well-known State library of Paris as follows: ”Discours sur les Pa.s.sions de l'Amour, par M. Pascal,” and again in the body of the volume the fragment was ent.i.tled, ”Discours, etc., on l'attribue a M. Pascal.” The genuineness of the fragment seems admitted on all hands. ”In the first line,” says Cousin, ”I felt Pascal, and my conviction of its authors.h.i.+p grew as I proceeded-his ardent and lofty manner, half thought, half pa.s.sion, and that speech so fine and grand, an accent which I would recognise amongst a thousand.” {68a} ”The soul and thought of Pascal,” says Faugere, ”s.h.i.+ne everywhere in the pages, steeped in a melancholy at once chaste and ardent.” {68b}
The following extracts may give some idea of this remarkable paper. It commences in an abstract, aphoristic manner not uncommon with Pascal:-
”Man is born to think; he is never a moment without thinking. But pure thought, which, if it could be sustained, would make him happy, fatigues and prostrates him. He could not live a life of mere thought; movement and action are necessary to him. He must be agitated by the pa.s.sions, whose sources he feels deep and strong in his heart. The pa.s.sions most characteristic of man, and which embrace most others, are love and ambition. They have no affinity, yet they are often united; together, they tend to weaken if not destroy each other. For however grand the human spirit, it is only capable at once of one great pa.s.sion. When love and ambition meet, each therefore falls short of what it would otherwise be. Age determines neither the beginning nor the end of these two pa.s.sions.
They are born with the first years, they continue often to the last.”
”Man finds no full scope for love in himself, yet he loves. It is necessary, therefore, for him to seek an object of love elsewhere.
This he can only find in beauty. But as he himself is the most beautiful creature that G.o.d has made, he must find in himself the type of that beauty which he seeks elsewhere. This defines and embodies itself in the difference of s.e.x. A woman is the highest form of beauty. Endowed with mind, she is its living and marvellous personation. If a beautiful woman wishes to please, she will always succeed. The fascinations of beauty in such a case never fail to captivate, whatever man may do to resist them. There is a spot in every heart which they reach.”
”Love is of no age; it is always being born. The poets tell us so, and hence we represent it as a child. It creates intelligence, and feeds upon intelligence. . . . We exhaust our power of gratifying it every day, and yet every day it is necessary to renew its gratification.”
”Man in solitude is an incomplete being; he needs companions.h.i.+p for happiness. He seeks this commonly in a like condition with his own, because habits of desire and opportunity in such a case are most readily found by him. But _sometimes he fixes his affections on an object far beyond his rank_, and the flame burns the more intensely that he is forced to conceal it in his own bosom. When we love one of elevated condition, ambition may at first coexist with affection.
But love soon becomes the master. It is a tyrant which suffers no rival; it must reign alone. Every other emotion must subserve and obey its dictates. A high attachment fills the heart more completely than a common and equal one. Small things are carried away in the great capacity of love.”
”The pleasure of loving, without daring to say anything of one's love, has its pains, but also its sweetnesses. With what transport do we regulate all our actions with the view of pleasing one whom we infinitely value! . . . The fulness of love sometimes languishes, receiving no succour from the beloved object. Then we fall into misery; and hostile pa.s.sions, lying in wait for the heart, tear it in a thousand pieces. But anon a ray of hope-the very least it may be-raises us as high as ever. Sometimes this comes from mere dalliance, but sometimes also from an honest pity. How happy such a moment when it comes!”
”The first effect of love is to inspire a great respect. We revere whom we really love. This is right, and we know nothing in the world so grand as this. . . . In love we forget fortune, parents, friends, and the reason of this is that we imagine we need nothing else than the object of our love. The heart is full; there is no room for care nor disquietude. Pa.s.sion is then necessarily in excess; there is a plenitude in it which resists the commencement of reflection. Yet love and reason are not to be opposed, and love has always reason with it, although it implies a precipitation of thought which carries us away without due examination. Otherwise we should be very disagreeable machines. Do not exclude reason from love, therefore; they are truly inseparable. The poets are wrong in representing love as blind. It is necessary to take away his veil, and give him henceforth the joy of sight.”
”It is not merely the result of custom, but a dictate of nature, that man should make the first advances in love. . . . Great souls require an inundation of pa.s.sion to disturb and fill them; but when they begin to love, they love supremely. . . . When we are away from the object of our love we resolve to do and say many things, but when we are present we hesitate. The explanation is, that at a distance the reason is undisturbed, but in presence of the beloved object it is strangely moved. In love we fear to hazard lest we lose all. It is necessary to advance, yet who can tell to what point? We tremble always till we reach this point, and yet prudence does not help us to keep it when we have found it. . . . There is nothing so embarra.s.sing as to be in love, and see something in our favour without daring to believe in it. Hope and fear rage within us, and the last too often triumphs.”
The question arises, What interpretation are we to put on these chaste yet glowing sentences? It seems hardly possible to believe that they were not penned out of some real experience. Pascal was not the man to busy himself in writing an imaginary essay on such a subject. Nothing can be conceived less like the sketch of a mere moral a.n.a.lyst standing outside the pa.s.sion he describes. There may be a tendency here and there to over-a.n.a.lysis, and to the balancing of ant.i.theses now on one side and now on the other; but there is the breath of true pa.s.sion all through the piece, and touching, as with fire, many of its many fine utterances. Who was then, conceivably, the object of Pascal's affections? We have it on the authority of his niece that at this time, when he lived so much as the companion of the Duc de Roannez, he contemplated marrying and settling in the world. {71} This, and the indications of the piece itself, have led to the conjecture that he was in love with the sister of his friend. Charlotte Gouffier de Roannez was then about sixteen years of age, endowed with captivating graces of form and manner, animated by a sweet intelligence and by that charm of spiritual sympathy so likely to prove attractive to a man like Pascal. Occupying rooms in the house of his friend, who, we have seen, could not bear him out of his sight, Pascal and Mademoiselle de Roannez were necessarily much in each other's society. What so natural as that he should fall in love, and overlooking all disparity of rank, cherish the secret hope of a union with one so gifted and beautiful?-or why may not ambition have mingled with his love, as he himself implies, and carried him for a time into a dreamland from which all shadows fell away?
It is impossible to do more than form conjectures in such a matter. To M. Faugere nothing seems more probable. M. Cousin resents the supposition as derogatory to Pascal, and as utterly inconsistent with the usages of the age of Louis XIV. But even were it impossible, according to the usages of the time, that Pascal should have ever married Mademoiselle de Roannez, this is no proof that he may not have fallen in love with her. There is much in this paper that favours the idea, that while Pascal loved deeply he yet never told his love; and the social obstacles, which for a time may have seemed to him surmountable, at last may have shut out all hope from his heart. Many causes might unite to do this, even supposing his love was returned. It is certain that he continued the warm friend, not only of the Duc de Roannez, but of his sister; and in after-years a correspondence was established betwixt them implying the highest degree of mutual esteem and confidence. We have only the letters of Pascal; nothing is known of those of Mademoiselle de Roannez; the rigidity of the Jansenist copyists have given us only extracts even of the former. All trace of earthly pa.s.sion, if it ever existed, has gone from the pious page in which the Jansenist saint sets forth his exhortations. Yet it argues no common interest, that Pascal should pause in the midst of his conflict with the Jesuits to advise and direct his former companion; and Faugere professes that even before he had read the 'Discours' he could trace a ”tender solicitude”-more than the mere impulse of Christian charity-beneath all the grave severity of his religious phrases.
The fate of Mademoiselle de Roannez was not a happy one. After vacillating for some time between the cloister and the world-obeying the guidance of Pascal, either directly or through Madame Perier, and even pa.s.sing through her novitiate at Port Royal with ”extraordinary fervour”-she was persuaded to marry and become the d.u.c.h.esse de la Feuillade. But her marriage proved unfortunate. Her children died young; her own health broke down; she herself at length died under an operation, bequeathing a legacy to Port Royal, which had remained entwined with all dearest a.s.sociations. Whether Pascal and she had loved each other or not, this sacred Home bound their best thoughts together, and serves to recall their highest aspirations.
It falls to us now to describe how Port Royal claimed the heart of Pascal, and called forth the chief activities of his remaining years.
CHAPTER IV.
PORT ROYAL AND PASCAL'S LATER YEARS.
Whatever day-dreams Pascal may have cherished, ”G.o.d called him,” as his sister says, ”to a great perfection.” It was not in his nature to be satisfied with either the enchantments or the ambitions of the world.
All the while that he mixed in the luxurious society of Paris, and seemed merely one of its thoughtless throng, there were throbs within him of a higher life which could not be stilled. His conscience reproached him continually amidst all his amus.e.m.e.nts, and left him uneasy even in the most exulting moments of the love that filled his heart. This is no hypothetical picture, but one suggested by himself in conversation with his sister. She tells us from her retreat how her brother came to see her, fascinated by the steadfastness of her faith, in contrast with his own indifference and vacillation. Formerly it was his zeal which had drawn her to higher thoughts. Now it is the attraction of her piety which sways him, and leaves him unhappy amidst all the seductions of the society in which he mingles. ”G.o.d made use of my sister,” says Madame Perier, ”for the great design, as He had formerly made use of my brother, when He desired to withdraw my sister from her engagements in the world.”
The severe Jacqueline tells with unfaltering breath the story of her brother's spiritual anxieties. She had ceased herself to have any worldly thoughts.
”She led,” says Madame Perier, ”a life so holy, that she edified the whole house: and in this state it was a special pain to her to see one to whom she felt herself indebted, under G.o.d, for the grace which she enjoyed, no longer himself in possession of these graces: and as she saw my brother frequently, she spoke to him often, and finally with such force and sweetness, that she persuaded him, as he had at first persuaded her, absolutely to abandon the world.”
Writing to her sister on the 25th of January 1655, she says that Pascal came to see her at the end of the previous September.
”At this visit he opened himself to me in such a manner as moved my pity, confessing that in the midst of his exciting occupations, and of so many things fitted to make him love the world-to which we had every reason to think him strongly attached-he was yet forcibly moved to quit all; both by an extreme aversion to its follies and amus.e.m.e.nts, and by the continual reproach made by his conscience. He felt himself detached from his surroundings in such a manner as he had never felt before, or even approaching to it; yet, otherwise, he was in such abandonment that there was no movement in his heart to G.o.d. Though he sought Him with all his power, he felt that it was more his own reason and spirit that moved him towards what he knew to be best, than any movement of the Divine Spirit. If he only had the Divine sentiments he once had, he believed himself, in his present state of detachment, capable of undertaking everything. It must be, therefore, some wretched ties {76} which still held him back, and made him resist the movements of the Divine Spirit. The confession surprised me as much as it gave me joy; and thenceforth I conceived hopes that I had never had, and thought I must communicate with you in order to induce you to pray on his behalf. If I were to relate all the other visits in detail, I should be obliged to write a volume; for since then they have been so frequent and so long, that I was wellnigh engrossed by them. I confined myself to watching his mood without attempting unduly to influence him; and gradually I saw him so growing in grace that I would hardly have known him. I believe you will have the same difficulty, if G.o.d continues His work; especially in such wonderful humility, submission, diffidence, self-contempt, and desire to be nothing in the esteem and memory of men. Such he is at present. G.o.d alone knows what a day will bring forth.”
Finally, after many visits and struggles with himself, especially as to his choice of a spiritual guide, he became an inmate of Port Royal des Granges, under the guidance of M. de Saci. The questions betwixt him and his sister as to his selection of a confessor or director are very curious, revealing, as they do, the quiet self-possessed decision of the one, the scruples of the other, and the proud self-respect of both. As to one of Pascal's difficulties, she says, without misgiving-”I saw clearly that this was only a remnant of independence hidden in the depth of his heart, which armed itself with every weapon to ward off a submission which yet in his state of feeling must be perfect.” M.
Singlin was willing to a.s.sist the sister with his advice, but was reluctant himself, in his weak state of health, to a.s.sume full responsibilities towards the brother. Jacqueline herself appeared to him the best director her brother could have for the time; and there is a charming blending of humility and yet a.s.sumption in the manner in which she relates this, and speaks of ”our new convert.” But finally there is found in M. de Saci a director ”with whom he is delighted, for he comes of a good stock” (dont it est tout ravi, aussi est-il de bonne race).
Pascal first sought retirement in a residence of his own in the country.
It is particularly mentioned amongst the reasons for his withdrawal from Paris, that the Duc de Roannez, ”who engaged him almost entirely,” was about to return there. Unable to find everything to his wish, however, in his own house, ”he obtained a chamber or little cell among the Solitaries of Port Royal,” from which he wrote to his sister with extreme joy that he was lodged and treated like a prince, ”according to St Bernard's judgment of what it was to be a prince.” It is still Jacqueline's pen which reports all this to Madame Perier. She continues in the same letter:-