Note 51 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Recueil de Port-Royal, pp. 314–323. Some papers passed between Pascal and his friends on this topic. Pascal committed these on his death-bed to his friend M. Domat, “with a request that he would burn them if the nuns of Port-Royal proved firm, and print them if they should yield.” (Ib., p. 322.) The nuns having stood firm, the probability is that they were destroyed. Had they been preserved, they might have thrown some further light on the opinions of Pascal regarding papal authority.