But, with that tenaciousness of life and elasticity of limb which have ever distinguished the Society, it was not long before they rebounded from their fall and regained their feet. Unable to answer the Letters, they succeeded in obtaining, in February, 1657, their condemnation by the Parliament of Provence, by whose orders they were burnt on the pillory by the hands of the common executioner. Not content with this clumsy method of refutation, they succeeded in procuring the formal condemnation of the Provincials by a censure of the pope, Alexander VII., dated 6th September, 1657. In this decree the work is “prohibited and condemned, under the pains and censures contained in the Council of Trent, and in the index of prohibited books, and other pains and censures which it may please his holiness to ordain.” It is almost needless to say, that these sentences neither enhanced nor lessened the fame of the Provincials. It must be interesting to know what the feelings of Pascal were, on learning that this work, into which he had thrown his whole heart, and mind, and strength, and which may be said to have been at once his _chef-d’œuvre_ and his confession of faith, had been condemned by the head of that Church which he had hitherto believed to be infallible. Warped as his fine spirit was by education, his unbending rectitude forbids the supposition that he could surrender his cherished and conscientious sentiments at the mere dictum of the pope. An incident occurred in 1661, shortly before his death, strikingly illustrative of his conscientiousness, and of the sincerity of purpose with which the Letters were written. The persecution had begun to rage against Port-Royal; one _mandement_ after another, requiring subscription to the condemnation of Jansen, came down from the court of Rome; and the poor nuns, shrinking, on the one hand, from violating their consciences by subscribing what they believed to be an untruth, and trembling, on the other, at the consequences of disobeying their ecclesiastical superiors, were thrown into the most distressing embarrassment. Their “obstinacy,” as it was termed, only provoked their persecutors to more stringent demands. In these circumstances, even the stern Arnauld and the conscientious Nicole were tempted to make some compromise, and drew up a declaration to accompany the signature of the nuns, which they thought might save at once the truth and their consistency. To this Pascal objected, as not sufficiently clear, and as leaving it to be inferred that they condemned “efficacious grace.” He could not endure the idea of their employing an ambiguous statement, which appeared, or might be supposed by their opponents, to grant what they did not really mean to concede. The consequence was a slight and temporary dispute—not affecting principle so much as the mode of maintaining it—in which Pascal stood alone against all the members of Port-Royal. On one occasion, after exhausting his eloquence upon them