The story of the Jansenists and their struggle with the Jesuits is well known. It is surely one of history’s best remembered storms in a teacup. The Thirty Years’ War, with casualties running into millions, has left less impression on the collective memory, at least outside Germany, than the entirely bloodless harassment of two French convents. Its renown is almost solely due to Pascal, whose Provincial Letters and Pensées are deservedly acknowledged as classics of French literature. The publication of modern accounts of the affair with high literary merit, notably Sainte-Beuve’s Port Royal,
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