Pensées

The census claim needs a material correction on precedence. The Pensées were first printed in the summer of 1669 with a title page bearing that date, lacking the ecclesiastical approbation and the final table of contents, and were distributed to only a handful of readers — chiefly the bishops whose approval was being sought. That 1669 pre-original is the true first printing, but only TWO copies survive, both institutional and both unobtainable: the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Rés. D 21374, state A) and the Médiathèque of Troyes agglomeration (Des Guerrois 1874, state B, a more advanced state of revision carrying twelve correction cartons against ten in the BnF copy). The 1670 Paris edition is state C, differing from those by the printed date on the title page and by the presence of the cartons required by ecclesiastical censorship. The January 1670 Port-Royal edition is therefore the first PUBLISHED edition and the first obtainable in commerce, and it is what "first edition of the Pensées" means in practice. Pascal wrote in French and published in Paris; English translations follow decades later and are separate works, not issues. Les Provinciales is an earlier and separately collected Pascal high spot: the eighteen letters appeared individually and anonymously between January 1656 and May 1657, and the first collected edition is "Les Provinciales, ou les lettres escrites par Louis de Montalte à un provincial de ses amis, et aux RR. PP. Jésuites", 1657, under the false imprint "Cologne, Pierre de la Vallée" — a fictitious address covering Daniel Elzevier of Amsterdam; the pseudonym Louis de Montalte is Pascal's. Sources differ on the format of the 1657 collection (in-12 and in-4 are both described), so the format should not be relied on as a point.