All accounts agree in stating that the impression produced by the Provincials, on their first appearance, was quite unexampled. They were circulated in thousands in Paris and throughout France. Speaking of the first letter, Father Daniel says: “It created a fracas which filled the fathers of the Society with consternation. Never did the post-office reap greater profits; copies were despatched over the whole kingdom; and I myself, though very little known to the gentlemen of Port-Royal, received a large packet of them, post-paid, in a town of Brittany where I was then residing.” The same method was followed with the rest of the letters. The seventh found its way to Cardinal Mazarin, who laughed over it very heartily. The eighth did not appear till a month after its predecessor, apparently to keep up expectation.[34] In short, everybody read the “Little Letters,” and, whatever might be their opinions of the points in dispute, all agreed in admiring the genius which they displayed. They were found lying on the merchant’s counter, the lawyer’s desk, the doctor’s table, the lady’s toilet; and everywhere they were sought for and perused with the same avidity.[35] The success of the Letters in gaining their object was not less extraordinary. The Jesuits were fairly checkmated; and though they succeeded in carrying through the censure of Arnauld, the public sympathy was enlisted in his favor. The confessionals and churches of the Jesuits were deserted, while those of their opponents were crowded with admiring thousands.[36] “That book alone,” says one of its bitterest enemies, “has done more for the Jansenists than the ‘Augustinus’ of Jansen, and all the works of Arnauld put together.”[37] This is the more surprising when we consider that, at that time, the influence of the Jesuits was so high in the ascendant, that Arnauld had to contend with the pope, the king, the chancellor, the clergy, the Sorbonne, the universities, and the great body of the populace; and that never was Jansenism at a lower ebb, or more generally anathematized than when the first Provincial Letter appeared.