77

Si Les Provinciales ont si brillamment incarné l’idéal de la fine raillerie, c’est sans doute qu’elles ont su produire le spectacle des maximes jésuites, théâtre de mots plus que d’individus dont les honnêtes gens peuvent rire sans enfreindre cette nouvelle bienséance morale et esthétique. Dans ses lettres, Pascal dramatise la découverte de ces mots, matérialise leurs contours, exhibe et manipule jusqu’au grotesque la pensée des jésuites, qui acquiert ici l’évidence sensible d’une matière risible.

If Les Provinciales so brilliantly embodied the ideal of fine witty mockery, it is undoubtedly because they were able to produce the spectacle of Jesuit maxims, a theatre of words rather than individuals at which honest people can laugh without violating this new moral and aesthetic decorum. In his letters, Pascal dramatizes the discovery of these words, materializes their contours, exhibits and manipulates to the point of grotesqueness the thought of the Jesuits, which acquires here the sensitive evidence of a laughable matter.