relief of Perrier, for at that very time several sheets of the seventh or eighth letter, newly come from the printer, were lying on the bed, where they had been placed for the purpose of drying, but, fortunately, though the curtains were only partially drawn, and one of the monks sat very close to the bed, they were not observed. Perrier ran immediately to communicate the incident to his brother-in-law, who was in an adjoining apartment; and he had reason to congratulate him on the narrow escape which he had made.[39] As Pascal proceeded, he transmitted his manuscripts to Port-Royal des Champs, where they were carefully revised and corrected by Arnauld and Nicole. Occasionally, these expert divines suggested the plans of the letters; and by them he was, beyond all doubt, furnished with most of his quotations from the voluminous writings of the casuists, which, with the exception of Escobar, he appears never to have read. We must not suppose, however, that he took these on trust, or gave himself no trouble to verify them. We shall afterwards have proof of the contrary. The first letters he composed with the rapidity of new-born enthusiasm; but the pains and mental exertion which he bestowed on the rest are almost incredible. Nicole says “he was often twenty whole days on a single letter: and some of them he recommenced seven or eight times before bringing them to their present state of perfection.”[40] We are assured that he wrote over the eighteenth letter no less than thirteen times.[41] Having been obliged to hasten the publication of the sixteenth, on account of a search made after it in the printing office, he apologizes for its length on the ground that “he had found no time to make it shorter.”[42]