Marie Claude, I had visited Versailles two years ago. Parallel to its more famous Hall of Mirrors is its Hall of Champions. The Hall of Champions contains busts of France’s famous men.

What I found surprising was that despite Blaise Pascal greatness, I did not find his bust on display with all the rest. There was even a bust of Antoine Arnauld, the Catholic monk, mathematician and friend of Pascal, whose persecution by the Jesuits inspired Pascal’s satirical series of pamphlets. It is a fact that Arnauld later became reconciled with Louis and was accepted at his court. While it is possible that Pascal’s bust was out for cleaning or repair when I made my visit, it struck me as quite likely Louis did not include him, and none of the later governments ever chose to allow it.

If, as you say in a broader sense that “modern France, is just reacting like during Louis XIV’s times,” then, yes, they would still resent a man who individually managed to rain ridicule down on the heads of so many men of consequence.

Then it would not matter that Pascal brought us so many discoveries that made advancement possible.

• Like insurance (from organizing sampling into rigorous probability theory).

• Like the brakes on our vehicles and other pressure related devices (Pascal’s Principle).

• Like proving the vacuum while enduring the added burden of public ridicule from his former mentor, Descartes.

For a whole host of solid science (even before we look at his more philosophical works which there are and have been many grateful admirers) for which people who have thrived under modernity can be grateful, he most certainly should be in France’s Hall of Champions — unless French elites, as the class most likely to be governing the displays at Versailles — still harbor a grudge.

[Does anyone know why blockquoted fonts sometimes get larger than the rest of the text? I can't seem to keep it one size in this post.]