PÉRIER, GILBERTE. - Elder sister of B. Pascal, b. at Clermont in 1620, d. at Paris in 1687.
In 1641 she married a magistrate of Clermont, Florin Périer; the following year she had a daughter, Marguerite, the protagonist of the famous miracle of the Holy Thorn (1636), much debated in the polemics for and against Port-Royal. In 1646 she joined her father’s family at Rouen, and there she became so steeped in Jansenist spirituality that she withdrew into a veritable domestic seclusion, separating, with his consent, from her husband. She assisted her brother until his death (1662) and later bore witness to her devotion to him by writing his life (published with alterations in 1686), together with many fragmentary memoirs about her own family.
BIBL.: M. Perroy, G. P., Paris 1930. Enzo Bottasso