He was, for many years, the _facile princeps_ of the party termed Jansenists; and was one of those characters who present to the public an aspect nearly the reverse of the estimate formed of them by their private friends. By the latter he is represented as the best of men, totally free from pride and passion. Judging from his physiognomy, his writings and his life, we would say the natural temper of Arnauld was austere and indomitable. Expelled from the Sorbonne, driven out of France, and hunted from place to place, he continued to fight to the last. On one occasion, wishing his friend Nicole to assist him in a new work, the latter observed, “We are now old, is it not time to rest?” “Rest!” exclaimed Arnauld, “have we not all eternity to rest in?” Such was the character of the man who now entered the lists against the redoubtable Society. His first offence was the publication, in 1643, of a book on “Frequent Communion;” in which, while he inculcates the necessity of a spiritual preparation for the eucharist, he insinuated that the Church of Rome had a two-fold head, in the persons of Peter and Paul.[32] His next was in the shape of two letters, published in 1656, occasioned by a dispute referred to in the first Provincial Letter, in which he declared that he had not been able to find the condemned propositions in Jansen, and added some opinions on grace. The first of these assertions was deemed derogatory to the holy see; the second was charged with heresy. The Jesuits, who sighed for an opportunity of humbling the obnoxious doctor, strained every nerve to procure his expulsion from the Sorbonne, or college of divinity in the university. This object they had just accomplished, and everything promised fair to secure their triumph, when another combatant unexpectedly appeared, like one of those closely-visored knights of whom we read in romance, who so opportunely enter the field at the critical moment, and with their single arm turn the tide of battle. Need we say that we allude to the author of the PROVINCIAL LETTERS?