Note 136 — LETTER V.

Father Antoine Escobar of Mendoza was a Jesuit of Spain, and born at Valladolid in 1589, where he died in 1669. His principal work is his “Exposition of Uncontroverted Opinions in Moral Theology,” in six volumes. It abounds with the most licentious doctrines, and being a compilation from numerous Jesuitical writers, afforded a rich field for the satire of Pascal. The characteristic absurdity of this author is, that his questions uniformly exhibit two faces—an affirmative and a negative;—so that escobarderie became a synonym in France for duplicity. (Biographie Pittoresque des Jesuites, par M. C. de Plancy, Paris, 1826, p. 38.) Nicole tells us that he had in his possession a portrait of the casuist which gave him a “resolute and decisive cast of countenance”—not exactly what might have been expected from his double-faced questions. His friends describe Escobar as a good man, a laborious student, and very devout in his way. It is said that, when he heard that his name and writings were so frequently noticed in the Provincial Letters, he was quite overjoyed to think that his fame would extend as far as the little letters had done. Boileau has celebrated him in the following couplet:—

Si Bourdaloue un peu sévère,

Nous dit, craignez la volupté:

Escobar, lui dit-on, mon père,

Nous la permet pour la santé.

“If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,

Cries, Fly from pleasure’s fatal fascination

Dear Father, cries another, Escoba,

Permits it as a healthy relaxation.”