more significant, almost "lifted" out of Montaigne, down to a figure of
speech or a word. The parallels[A] are most often with the long essay of
Montaigne called _Apologie de Raymond Sébond_--an astonishing piece of
writing upon which Shakespeare also probably drew in _Hamlet_. Indeed,
by the time a man knew Montaigne well enough to attack him, he would
already be thoroughly infected by him.

[A] Cf. the use of the simile of the _couvreur_. For comparing
parallel passages, the edition of the _Pensées_ by Henri Massis (_A
la cité des livres_) is better than the two-volume edition of
Jacques Chevalier (Gabalda). It seems just possible that in the
latter edition, and also in his biographical study (_Pascal_; by
Jacques Chevalier, English translation, published by Sheed & Ward),
M. Chevalier is a little over-zealous to demonstrate the perfect
orthodoxy of Pascal.

It would, however, be grossly unfair to Pascal, to Montaigne, and indeed
to French literature, to leave the matter at that. It is no diminution
of Pascal, but only an aggrandisement of Montaigne. Had Montaigne been
an ordinary life-sized sceptic, a small man like Anatole France, or even
a greater man like Renan, or even like the greatest sceptic of all,
Voltaire, this "influence" would be to the discredit of Pascal; but if
Montaigne had been no more than Voltaire, he could not have affected
Pascal at all. The picture of Montaigne which offers itself first to our
eyes, that of the original and independent solitary "personality,"
absorbed in amused analysis of himself, is deceptive. Montaigne's is no
_limited_ Pyrrhonism, like that of Voltaire, Renan, or France. He
exists, so to speak, on a plan of numerous concentric circles, the most
apparent of which is the small inmost circle, a personal puckish
scepticism which can be easily aped if not imitated. But what makes