By far the most distinguished of the family, however, was Antoine--_le grand_ Arnauld, as contemporaries called him--the twentieth and youngest child of the original Antoine. Born in 1612, he was originally intended for the bar; but decided instead to study theology at the Sorbonne. Here he was brilliantly successful, and was on the high-road to preferment, when he came under the influence of du Vergier, and was drawn in the direction of Jansenism. His book, _De la fréquente Communion_ (1643), did more than anything else to make the aims and ideals of this movement intelligible to the general public. Its appearance raised a violent storm, and Arnauld eventually withdrew into hiding; for more than twenty years he dared not make a public appearance in Paris. During all this time his pen was busy with innumerable Jansenist pamphlets. In 1655 two very outspoken _Lettres à un duc et pair_ on Jesuit methods in the confessional brought on a motion to expel him from the Sorbonne. This motion was the immediate cause of Pascal's _Provincial Letters_. Pascal, however, failed to save his friend; in February 1656 Arnauld was solemnly degraded. Twelve years later the tide of fortune turned. The so-called peace of Clement IX. put an end to persecution. Arnauld emerged from his retirement, was most graciously received by Louis XIV., and treated almost as a popular hero. He now set to work with Nicole (q.v.) on a great work against the Calvinists: _La Perpétuité de la foi catholique touchant l'eucharistie_. Ten years later, however, another storm of persecution burst. Arnauld was compelled to fly from France, and take refuge in the Netherlands, finally settling down at Brussels. Here the last sixteen years of his life were spent in incessant controversy with Jesuits, Calvinists and misbelievers of all kinds; here he died on the 8th of August 1694. His inexhaustible energy is best expressed by his famous reply to Nicole, who complained of feeling tired. "Tired!" echoed Arnauld, "when you have all eternity to rest in?" Nor was this energy by any means absorbed by purely theological questions. He was one of the first to adopt the philosophy of Descartes, though with certain orthodox reservations; and between 1683 and 1685 he had a long battle with Malebranche on the relation of theology to metaphysics. On the whole, public opinion leant to Arnauld's side. When Malebranche complained that his adversary had misunderstood him, Boileau silenced him with the question: "My dear sir, whom do you expect to understand you, if M. Arnauld does not?" And popular regard for Arnauld's penetration was much increased by his _Art de penser_, commonly known as the _Port-Royal Logic_, which has kept its place as an elementary text-book until quite modern times. Lastly a considerable place has quite lately been claimed for Arnauld among the mathematicians of his age; a recent critic even describes him as the Euclid of the 17th century. In general, however, since his death his reputation has been steadily on the wane. Contemporaries admired him chiefly as a master of close and serried reasoning; herein Bossuet, the greatest theologian of the age, was quite at one with d'Aguesseau, the greatest lawyer. But a purely controversial writer is seldom attractive to posterity. Anxiety to drive home every possible point, and cut his adversary off from every possible line of retreat, makes him seem intolerably prolix. "In spite of myself," Arnauld once said regretfully, "my books are seldom very short." And even lucidity may prove a snare to those who trust to it alone, and scornfully refuse to appeal to the imagination or the feelings. It is to be feared that, but for his connexion with Pascal, Arnauld's name would be almost forgotten--or, at most, live only in the famous epitaph Boileau consecrated to his memory--