In the following year, 1779, appeared the elaborate and well-known edition of Pascal’s works by the Abbé Bossut, accompanied by an admirable “Discours sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Pascal.” In this edition the remains are found for the first time in some degree of completeness. All the fragments published by Port Royal, and all those subsequently brought to light by Des Molets and others, are included and arranged in a new order. But meritorious as were Bossut’s editorial labours as a whole, they did not attempt any restoration of the ‘Pensées’ to their original text; and even the new fragments published by him were not left untouched. He embodied, for example, the famous conversation with De Saci, but without giving De Saci’s part of the dialogue. In short, he reproduced, as M. Havet says, all the faults of the first editors, and made others of his own. This is the more remarkable that he is said to have had in his possession a copy of the original manuscripts. Condorcet, however, consulted the original manuscripts themselves, without any thought of doing justice to Pascal’s text. So matters remained till 1842, when M. Cousin published his famous Report on the subject to the French Academy. The French public then found to their astonishment that, with so many editions of the ‘Pensées,’ they had not the ‘Pensées’ themselves. While philosophers had disputed as to his ideas, and critics admired his style, the veritable Pascal of the ‘Pensées’ had all the time lain concealed in a mass of manuscripts in the National Library. Such a story, it may be imagined, did not lack any force in the manner in which M. Cousin told it; and an eager desire arose for a new and complete edition of the fragments. Cousin had prepared the way, but he did not himself undertake this task, which was reserved for M. Faugère, whose great edition appeared two years later, in 1844. Nothing can deprive M. Faugère of the credit of being the first editor of a _complete_ and _authentic_ text of the ‘Pensées.’ Other editions of distinctive merit have since appeared; and it may be admitted that, in the natural reaction from the laxity of former editions, he gave a too literal transcript of the manuscripts, including some things of little importance, and others more properly belonging to an edition of the ‘Provincial Letters’ than of the ‘Pensées.’ But, whether it be the result of early association or of greater familiarity with M. Faugère’s pages, I own still a preference for this edition, while admitting the admirable perspicuity and intelligence of many of M. Havet’s notes, and the splendour of the edition of M. Victor Rochet, the most recent (1873) that has come under my notice.