Pascals Wager
The Man Who Played Dice with God
James A. Connor
Contents
The Man Who Played Dice with God
The Witch
A Dangerous World
A Thinking Reed
Blaise Among the Geometers
Un Btard Magnifique
Madame Sainctots Salon
Le Libertin rudit
Charming the Cardinal
Conic Sections
The Arithmetic Machine
The Jansenists
The Void
tienne Breaks His Hip
The Showman
Jacquelines Vocation
The Great Experiment
A Skirmish with the Devil
Port-Royal and the Clan Arnauld
The Great Arnauld
The Fronde of the Parlement
Adrift in the World
The Feud
The Gamblers Ruin
Letters to Fermat
The Night of Fire
So Jolly a Penitent
The Jesuit Menace
The Jesuit Menace, Part 2
The Miracle of the Holy Thorn
Pascals Wager
Port-Royal Agonistes
May God Never Abandon Me
Oracles, Dicing, and Schrdingers Cat
1588
PASCAL
Birth of tienne Pascal, father of Blaise Pascal, in Clermont, in the Auvergne region.
FRANCE
May 12: Day of Barricades in Paris. Duc de Guise seizes the city.
July: Henry III capitulates to the duc de Guise.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Spanish Armada nearly succeeds.
1605
PASCAL
FRANCE
Huguenot refugees resettle in Netherlands, Ireland.
Don Quixote is published.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
James River colony founded in Virginia.
Czar Boris Godunov dies.
Paul V becomes pope.
1616
PASCAL
(?) tienne Pascal marries Antoinette Begon.
FRANCE
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Pocahontas arrives in England.
Copernicuss De revolutionibus is placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.
1617
PASCAL
Birth of Anthonia Pascal, who dies days after her baptism.
FRANCE
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Saint Rose of Lima dies in Peru.
Pocahontas dies.
1619
PASCAL
tienne Pascal buys Langhac mansion, near the abbey in Clermont.
FRANCE
Cyrano de Bergerac is born. Jean-Baptiste Colbert is born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Jamestown, Virginia, creates the first representative assembly in the Americas.
Slaves first brought to the colonies.
1620
PASCAL
Birth of Gilberte Pascal, who marries her cousin Florin Perier.
FRANCE
Jean Picard, French astronomer, is born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Plymouth colonists set out from England.
Witchcraft trials begin in Scotland.
Francis Bacon publishes the Novum organum .
Bonesetting becomes a science.
Thirty Years War begins in Prague.
1623
PASCAL
June 19: Blaise Pascal born in Clermont, the son of tienne Pascal, a minor noble and government official, and Antoinette Pascal, ne Begon.
FRANCE
Erotomania first mentioned as a mental illness. Phillipe de Mornay dies.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
August 6: Urban VIII Barberini elected pope. Would order the trial of Galileo.
Wilhelm Schickard invents the calculating clock, a first attempt at a computer.
1624
PASCAL
FRANCE
Cardinal Richelieu becomes first minister of France.
Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac publishes his Lettres .
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
George Fox, founder of the Quakers, is born in England.
War between England and Spain.
Mail service begins in Denmark.
Saint Rosalio makes a miraculous appearance at a plague in Sicily.
16241634
PASCAL
FRANCE
Richelieu builds the Palais-Royal in Versailles.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Cornelius Drebbel discovers gases.
1625
PASCAL
Birth of Jacqueline Pascal.
FRANCE
Henrietta Maria, princess of France and Navarre, marries Charles I of England.
Thomas Corneille is born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
James I of England dies.
1626
PASCAL
Antoinette Pascal dies.
FRANCE
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Saint Peters Basilica is consecrated.
Charles I dissolves Parliament.
The Dutch settle Manhattan.
1627
PASCAL
FRANCE
Richelieu sets out to establish the supremacy of the crown.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
The aurochs are hunted to extinction, with the last one killed in Poland.
1628
1628
PASCAL
FRANCE
Richelieu defeats the rebellious Huguenots.
Richelieu founds the Acadmie Franaise.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
1630
PASCAL
FRANCE
Day of Dupes.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
1631
PASCAL
tienne moves to Paris and directs his childrens education based on the pedagogy of Montaigne. Blaise proves to be exceptional at mathematics.
FRANCE
The bell Emmanuelle in Notre Dame Cathedral is recast.
Ren Le Bossu, French critic, born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Imperial troops massacre about twenty thousand people in the city of Magdeburg.
1633
PASCAL
FRANCE
Saint-Cyran appointed father confessor to the nuns at Port-Royal de Paris by Mother Superior Anglique Arnauld.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Trial of Galileo in Rome.
Samuel de Champlain, at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu, reclaims his role as commander of New France.
1635
PASCAL
Young Blaise revealed as a mathematical prodigy.
FRANCE
The Acadmie Franaise of Paris expands to become a national art society.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
1636
PASCAL
FRANCE
First performance of Pierre Corneilles play Le Cid .
Jacques Marquette, French Jesuit and explorer, born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Harvard College founded in the English colony of Massachusetts.
The first ancestors of John Adams migrate to America.
Roger Williams founds Rhode Island.
1637
PASCAL
FRANCE
Ren Descartes publishes the Discourse on Method .
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
1638
PASCAL
tienne goes into hiding after opposing a fiscal measure of Richelieus, but leaves the children in Paris.
FRANCE
Louis XIV is born.
Richelieu has Duvergier de Hauranne, the abb de Saint-Cyran, imprisoned at Vincennes for the disruption of the peace of the church. The solitaries at Port-Royal move out to the old monastery at Port-Royal des Champs. The nuns remain in Paris.
Cornelis Jansen dies.
The French admiral dEstres runs his entire fleet aground in Curaao.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Dutch settle in Ceylon.
Maria Theresa of Spain, future wife of Louis XIV, born in Madrid.
1639
PASCAL
Blaises sister Jacqueline appears in a play before Richelieu, after which he not only pardons tienne but appoints him tax collector at Rouen.
FRANCE
Jean Racine, French dramatist and Jansenist, born.
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Connecticuts first constitution, The Fundamental Orders, is adopted.
First printing house in the United States is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Montreal settled.
1640
PASCAL
Pascal family moves to Rouen. Blaise publishes his short work Essay on Conic Sections . Essay later discussed by Leibniz.
FRANCE
Posthumous publication of Jansens Augustinus .
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
First book, the Bay Psalm book, printed in America.
1641
PASCAL
Gilberte Pascal marries Florin Perier.
FRANCE
EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
1642