Editing Blaise Pascal (section)

=== Religious conversion ===
[[File:Blaise Pascal 2.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Pascal]]

In the winter of 1646, Pascal's 58-year-old father broke his hip when he slipped and fell on an icy street of Rouen; given the man's age and the state of medicine in the 17th century, a [[Hip fracture|broken hip]] could be a very serious condition, perhaps even fatal. Rouen was home to two of the finest doctors in France, Deslandes and de la Bouteillerie. The elder Pascal "would not let anyone other than these men attend him...It was a good choice, for the old man survived and was able to walk again..."<ref>Connor, James A., ''Pascal's wager: the man who played dice with God'' (HarperCollins, NY, 2006) {{isbn|0-06-076691-3}} p. 70</ref> However treatment and rehabilitation took three months, during which time La Bouteillerie and Deslandes had become regular visitors.

Both men were followers of [[Jean Guillebert]], proponent of a splinter group from Catholic teaching known as [[Jansenism]]. This still fairly small sect was making surprising inroads into the French Catholic community at that time. It espoused rigorous [[Augustinism]]. Blaise spoke with the doctors frequently, and after their successful treatment of his father, borrowed from them works by Jansenist authors. In this period, Pascal experienced a sort of "first conversion" and began to write on theological subjects in the course of the following year.

Pascal fell away from this initial religious engagement and experienced a few years of what some biographers have called his "worldly period" (1648–54). His father died in 1651 and left his inheritance to Pascal and his sister Jacqueline, for whom Pascal acted as conservator. Jacqueline announced that she would soon become a [[postulant]] in the Jansenist convent of [[Port-Royal-des-Champs|Port-Royal]]. Pascal was deeply affected and very sad, not because of her choice, but because of his chronic poor health; he needed her just as she had needed him.

{{blockquote|Suddenly there was war in the Pascal household. Blaise pleaded with Jacqueline not to leave, but she was adamant. He commanded her to stay, but that didn't work, either. At the heart of this was...Blaise's fear of abandonment...if Jacqueline entered Port-Royal, she would have to leave her inheritance behind...[but] nothing would change her mind.<ref>Miel, Jan. ''Pascal and Theology''. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 122</ref>}}

By the end of October in 1651, a truce had been reached between brother and sister. In return for a healthy annual stipend, Jacqueline signed over her part of the inheritance to her brother. Gilberte had already been given her inheritance in the form of a dowry. In early January, Jacqueline left for Port-Royal. On that day, according to Gilberte concerning her brother, "He retired very sadly to his rooms without seeing Jacqueline, who was waiting in the little parlor..."<ref>Jacqueline Pascal, ''"Memoir"'' p. 87</ref>
In early June 1653, after what must have seemed like endless badgering from Jacqueline,
Pascal formally signed over the whole of his sister's inheritance to Port-Royal, which, to him, "had begun to smell like a cult."<ref>Miel, Jan. ''Pascal and Theology''. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 124</ref> With two-thirds of his father's estate now gone, the 29-year-old Pascal was now consigned to genteel poverty.

For a while, Pascal pursued the life of a bachelor. During visits to his sister at Port-Royal in 1654, he displayed contempt for affairs of the world but was not drawn to God.<ref name="ep52">Richard H. Popkin, Paul Edwards (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', 1967 edition, s.v. "Pascal, Blaise.", vol. 6, p. 52–55, New York: Macmillan</ref>

====''Memorial''====
On the 23 of November, 1654, between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Pascal had an [[Christian mysticism|intense religious experience]] and immediately wrote a brief note to himself which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..." and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He seems to have carefully sewn this document into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes; a servant discovered it only by chance after his death.<ref name="oc618">Pascal, Blaise. ''Oeuvres complètes''. (Paris: Seuil, 1960), p. 618</ref> This piece is now known as the ''Memorial''. The story of a carriage accident as having led to the experience described in the ''Memorial'' is disputed by some scholars.<ref>MathPages, [http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath558/kmath558.htm Hold Your Horses.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240229162655/https://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath558/kmath558.htm |date=29 February 2024 }} For the sources on which the hypothesis of a link between a carriage accident and Pascal's second conversion is based, and for a sage weighing of the evidence for and against, see Henri Gouhier, ''Blaise Pascal: Commentaires'', Vrin, 1984, pp. 379ff.</ref>
His belief and religious commitment revitalized, Pascal visited the older of two convents at [[Port-Royal-des-Champs|Port-Royal]] for a two-week retreat in January 1655. For the next four years, he regularly travelled between Port-Royal and Paris. It was at this point immediately after his conversion when he began writing his first major literary work on religion, the ''Provincial Letters''.