Pascal inspires burning words rather than douceur. Indeed, his theological concept contrasts with the worldly interpretation of douceur. Because Augustinianism, centred on grace, freedom and human free will, makes God’s gentleness a necessary violence for the Conversion du pécheur (Conversion of the Sinner). La Vie de monsieur Pascal by his sister Gilberte Périer, as well as the Prière pour demander à Dieu le bon usage des maladies (Prayer to ask God for the Proper Use of Illness) reveal a conception of divine gentleness as penance, which opens the way to consolation for the sinner. In this sense, Pascal’s Pensées address a humanity condemned by the transmission of Adam’s original sin to the entire species, now attached to what destroys it, and which only the redemptive suffering of Christ, in his avènement de douceur (gentle advent), can save from a life already undermined by death.