Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters
1653
The French mathematician and mystic Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales, anonymous broadsides savaging the casuistry of the Jesuits with devastating wit. Written in lucid, conversational French, they invented modern polemical journalism and wounded the Society of Jesus more deeply than any papal censure. Voltaire later called them the first French prose worth reading.
In context
Also in 1653 (4 other events on record)
- Taj Mahal Completed · South Asia · Culture
- Cromwell Becomes Lord Protector · Europe · Politics
- Cromwell Dissolves the Rump · Europe · Politics
- Aurangzeb Conquers the Deccan Forts · South Asia · War
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Culture
Era
Enlightenment (1651–1800), one of 696 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources