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In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought. These are the sides of him which are revealed with extraordinary splendour in his Pensées a collection of notes intended to form the basis for an elaborate treatise in defence of Christianity which Pascal did not live to complete. The style of many of these passages surpasses in brilliance and force even that of the Lettres Provinciales. In addition, one hears the intimate voice of Pascal, speaking upon the profoundest problems of existence the most momentous topics which can agitate the minds of men. Two great themes compose his argument: the miserable insignificance of all that is human human reason, human knowledge, human ambition; and the transcendent glory of God. Never was the wretchedness of mankind painted with a more passionate power. The whole infinitude of the physical universe is invoked in his sweeping sentences to crush the presumption of man. Man's intellectual greatness itself he seizes upon to point the moral of an innate contradiction, an essential imbecility. 'Quelle chimère, he exclaims, 'est-ce donc que l'homme! quelle nouveauté, quel monstre, quel chaos, quel sujet de contradiction, quel prodige! Juge de toutes choses, imbécile ver de terre, dépositaire du vrai, cloaque d'incertitude et d'erreur, gloire et rebut de l'univers! In words of imperishable intensity, he dwells upon the omnipotence of Death: 'Nous sommes plaisants de nous reposer dans la société de nos semblables. Misérables comme nous, impuissants comme nous, ils ne nous aideront pas; on mourra seul. Or he summons up in one ghastly sentence the vision of the inevitable end: 'Le dernier acte est sanglant, quelque belle que soit la comédie en tout le reste. On jette enfin de la terre sur la tête, et en voil
Joseph au Ble, that stood at the great stair, and kept watch over the storeroom of corn and bread, had often guarded an empty chamber. St. Joseph au Labeur, overlooking the great kitchen of the Convent, had often been deaf to the prayers of "my aunts," who prepared the food of the community. The meagre tables of the refectory had not seldom been the despair of the old depositaire, Mere St.
The instinct which impels friends and servants to fly from sinking fortunes is a well-established fact in human natural history; but Fouquet's hold upon his followers was extraordinary: it resisted the shock of ruin. They risked court-favor, purse, and person, to help him. Gourville, before he thought of his own safety, carried a hundred thousand livres to Madame Fouquet, to be used in defending the Surintendant, or in bribing a judge or a jailer. The rest of his property he divided, intrusting one half to a devout friend, the other to a sinful beauty, Ninon de l'Enclos, and fled the country. The "professor" absorbed all that was left in his hands; Ninon returned her trust intact. This little incident was made much use of at a later day by the Philosophes, and Voltaire worked it up into "Le Dépositaire." From the Bastille, Pellisson addressed to the King three papers in defence of his chief: "masterpieces of prose, worthy of Cicero," Voltaire says, "ce que l'éloquence a produit de plus beau." And Sainte-Beuve thinks that Louis must have yielded to them, if he had heard them spoken, instead of reading them in his closet. The faithful La Fontaine fearlessly sang the sorrows of his patron, and accustomed "chacun
However, in matters of less importance, I desire to be 'de vos secrets le fidele depositaire'. Trust me with the general turn and color of your amusements at Paris. Is it 'le fracas du grand monde, comedies, bals, operas, cour, etc.? Or is it 'des petites societes, moins bruyantes, mais pas pour cela moins agreables'? Where are you the most 'etabli'? Where are you 'le petit Stanhope?
Ninon was afterward called "La belle gardeuse de cassette," and Voltaire, whose vigilance no anecdote of this nature could escape, has made it, with some variations, the subject of a comedy, well known to every admirer of the French drama, under the name of "La Dépositaire."
However, in matters of less importance, I desire to be 'de vos secrets le fidele depositaire'. Trust me with the general turn and color of your amusements at Paris. Is it 'le fracas du grand monde, comedies, bals, operas, cour, etc.? Or is it 'des petites societes, moins bruyantes, mais pas pour cela moins agreables'? Where are you the most 'etabli'? Where are you 'le petit Stanhope?
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