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Born at Clermont-Ferr
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Born at Clermont-Ferrand, 19 June 1623; died in Paris, 19 August 1662. He was the son of Etienne Pascal, advocate at the court of Aids of Clermont, and of Antoinette Bégon. His father, a man of fortune, went with his children (1631) to live in Paris. He taught his son grammar, Latin, Spanish, and mathematics, all according to an original method. In his twelfth year Blaise composed a treatise on the communication of sounds; at sixteen another treatise, on conic sections. In 1639 he went to Rouen with his father, who had been appointed intendant of Normandy, and, to assist his father in his calculations, he invented the arithmetical machine. He repeated Torricelli's vacuum experiments and demonstrated, against Père Noël, the weight of air (cf. Mathiew, "Revuede Paris", 1906; Abel Lefranc "Revue Bleue", 1906; Strowski, "Pascal", Paris, 1908). He published works on the arithmetical triangle, on wagers and the theory of probabilities, and on the roulette or cycloid.
Meanwhile, in 1646, he had been won over to Jansenism, and induced his family, especially his sister Jacqueline, to follow in the same direction. In 1650, after a sojourn in Auvergne, his family returned to Paris. On the advice of physicians Pascal, who had always been ailing and who now suffered more than ever, relaxed his labours and mingled in society, with such friends as the Duc de Roannez, the Chevalier Mere, the poet Desbarreaux, the actor Milton. This was what has been called the worldly period of his life, during which he must have written the "Discours sur les passions de l'amour", inspired, it is said, by Mlle de Roannez. But the world soon became distasteful to him, and he felt more and more impelled to abandon it. During the night of 23 November 1654, his doubts were settled by a sort of vision, the evidence of which is in a writing, always subsequently carried in the lining of his coat, and called "Pascal's talisman". After this he practiced the most severe asceticism, renounced learning, and became the constant guest of Port Royal. In 1656 he undertook the defense of Jansenism, and published the "Provinciales". This polemical work was nearing completion when Pascal had the joy of seeing his friends, the Duc de Roannez and the jurisconsult Domat, converted to Jansenism, as well as his niece Marguerite Perier, who had been cured of a fistula of the eye by contact with a relic of the Holy Thorn preserved at Port Royal. Thenceforth, although exhausted by illness, Pascal gave himself more and more to God. He multiplied his mortifications, wore a cincture of nails which he drove into his flesh at the slightest thought of vanity, and to be more like Jesus crucified, he left his own house and went to die in that of his brother-in-law. He wrote the "Mystère de Jesus", a sublime memorial of his transports of faith and love, and he laboured to collect the materials for a great apologetic work. He died at the age of thirty-nine, after having received in an ecstasy of joy the Holy Viaticum, for which he had several times asked, crying out as he half rose from his couch: "May God never abandon me!"
Pascal left numerous scientific works, among which must be mentioned "Essai sur les