THE LIFE OF MR. PASCHAL,; with his letters relating to the Jesuits, in two volumes. Translated into English by ...
London: James Bettenham, 1744. First English edition. 8vo, pp. [xvi], [lxiv], 228; [iv], 320. Engraved frontispiece in each volume by George Vertue, one of Pascal, the other of Antoine Arnauld. Bound in contemporary plain calf with leather label (one chipped, one lacking). The First Edition of Andrew’s translation of the "Lettres Provinciales", together with the first appearance in English of the life of Pascal by his sister, Mme. Perier. Anonymously published in 1656-7. See Maire 2 : pp 362-3 and 5 : 218. See Printing & Mind Of Man 140. Item #39357
This is Paschal's famous defence of Jansenism, the seventeenth-century French ascetic movement of reform inside the Roman Catholic Church. It stands as a brilliant and noble defence of thought in religious faith. The author's first important ethical work and a classic of French prose, it was composed following Paschal's removal in 1654 to Port Royal, the monastery famous as the centre of the Jansenist movement. The Lettres were originally issued clandestinely in a series of eighteen separate parts between January 23, 1656 and January 15, 1657. Paschal's attack against the methods of argument employed by the Jesuits seriously weakened their position in France and was largely responsible for their traditional bad reputation. The prefatory biography was written by Paschal's sister, Jacqueline Perier, who was a nun at Port Royal.
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