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Encyclopedia Britannica



NICOLE, PIERRE (16251695)

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 663 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NEW-NUM
NICOLE, PIERRE (16251695) , one of the most distinguished of the French Jansenists, was the son of a provincial barrister, and was born at Chartres. Sent to Paris in 1642 to study theology, he soon entered into relations with the Jansenist community at Port Royal (q.v.) through his aunt, Marie des Anges Suireau, who was for a short time abbess of the convent. Some scruple of conscience forbade him to proceed to the priest-hood, and he remained throughout life a " clerk in
minor
  orders," although a profound theological scholar. For some years he was a master in the " little school " for boys established at Port Royal, and had the honour of teaching Greek to
young
  Jean Racine, the future poet. But his
chief
  duty was to act, in collaboration with Antoine Arnauld, as general editor of the controversial literature put forth by the Jansenists. He had a large share in collecting the materials for Pascal's Provincial Letters (1656) ; in 1658 he translated the Letters into Latin, under the pseudonym of Nicholas Wendrock. In 1664 he himself began a
series
  of letters, Les Imaginaires, intended to show that the heretical opinions commonly ascribed to the Jansenists really existed only in the imagination of the Jesuits. His letters being violently attacked by Desmaretz de Saint-Sorlin, an erratic
minor
  poet who professed
great
  devotion to the Jesuits,
Nicole
  replied to him in another
series
  of letters, Les Visionnaires (1666). In the course of these he observed that poets and dramatists were no better than " public poisoners." This remark stung Racine to the
quick
 ; he turned not only on his old master, but on all Port Royal, in a scathing reply, whichas Boileau told himdid more honour to his head than to his heart. About the same time
Nicole
  became involved in a controversy about transubstantiation with the Huguenot Claude; out of this grew a massive
work
 , La Perpetuite de la foi de l'eglise catholique touchant l'eucharistie (1669), the
joint
  effort of Nicole and Antoine Arnauld. But Nicole's most popular production was his Essais de morale, a series of short discussions on
practical
  Christianity. The first volume was published in 1671, and was followed at irregular intervals by others; altogether the series numbers fourteen volumes. In 1679, on the renewal of the persecution of the Jansenists, Nicole was forced to fly to Belgium in company with Arnauld. But the two soon parted. Nicole was elderly and in poor health; the life of a fugitive was not to his taste, and he complained that he wanted rest. " Rest," answered Arnauld, " when you haveeternity to rest in!" In 1683 Nicole made a rather ambiguous peace with the authorities, and was allowed to come back to Paris. There he continued his literary labours up to the last; he was writing a refutation of the new heresy of the Quietists, when death overtook him on the 16th of November 1695.
Nicole was one of the most attractive figures of Port Royal. Many stories are told of his quaint absent-mindedness and unreadiness in conversation. His books are distinguished by exactly opposite qualities; they are neat and orderly to excess. Hence they were exceedingly popular with Mme de Sevigne and readers of her class. No other Jansenist writer, not even Pascal, was so successful in putting the position of Port Royal before the world. And although a modern appetite quails before fourteen volumes on morality, there is much solid sense and
practical
  knowledge of human nature to be found in the Essais de morale. Several abridgments of the
work
  exist, notably a Choix des essais de morale de Nicole, ed. Silvestre de Saci (Paris, 1857).
Nicole's life is told at length in the 4th volume of Sainte Beuve's Port-Royal. (ST. C.)


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