From Pascal’s Pensees (60 in the Lafuma numbering) with the Penguin translation. Plaisante is too rich to ever translate satisfactorily, but I think the rendering here could do better at flagging it as ironic reapplication of a specialized term. Even assuming no one would read a note on the salon background, something as simple as ‘a charming [justice that a river can give limit to … could there be anything more charming …’ seems to hit the tone better.
It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river …. Could there be anything more absurd than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and his prince has picked a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?
Plaisante justice qu’une rivière borne … Se peut-il rien de plus plaisant qu’un homme ait droit de me tuer parce qu’il demeure au-delà de l’eau et que son prince a querelle contre le mien, quoique je n’en aie aucune avec lui.
Extracts 