Port Royal
A convent near Versailles and a strong-hold of the Jansenist movement. In 1654 Pascal had a profound religious experience, writing on a paper he stitched into his coat
FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the
philosophers and scholars. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy.
Peace.
After this, he became an ardent, if not a fanatical, Jansenist, abandoned mathematics, and
generally sought to mortify his ``vainty.'' It was in the Jansenist cause that he concoted
``Pascal's Wager,'' and wrote that curious passage, advising anyone with religious doubts to ``take masses, drink holy waters, and eventually you will become stupid and believe.'' (From memory.) [CRS]