It remains for the public to judge how far the present version may have succeeded in giving a more readable and faithful transcript of the Provincial Letters. No pains, at least, have been spared to enhance its interest and insure its fidelity. Among the numerous French editions of the Letters, the basis of the following translation is that of Amsterdam, published in four volumes 12mo, 1767; with the notes of Nicole, and his prefatory History of the Provincials, which were translated from the Latin into French by Mademoiselle de Joncourt. With this and other French editions I have compared Nicole’s Latin translation, which appeared in 1658, and received the sanction of Pascal. The voluminous notes of Nicole, however interesting they may have been at the time, and to the parties involved in the Jansenist controversy, are not, in general, of such a kind as to invite attention now; nor would a full translation even of his historical details, turning as they do chiefly on local and temporary disputes, be likely to reward the patience of the reader. So far as they were fitted to throw light on the original text, I have availed myself of these, along with other sources of information, in the marginal notes. Some of these annotations, as might be expected from a Protestant editor, are intended to correct error, or to guard against misconception. To the full understanding of the Provincials, however, some idea of the controversies which occasioned their publication seems almost indispensable. This I have attempted to furnish in the Historical Introduction; which will also be found to contain some interesting facts, hitherto uncollected, and borrowed from a variety of authorities not generally accessible, illustrating the history of the Letters, and the parties concerned in them, with a vindication of Pascal from the charges which this work has provoked from so many quarters against him. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. BY THE TRANSLATOR.