Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

Pope (Sixtus V), or by the faculty of theology at Paris. Faced with such

united political and ecclesiastical opposition by Catholics, Henry publicly

abjured his Protestantism inand then wrote to the new Pope, Clement

VIII, asking for absolution. This was eventually and somewhat grudgingly

conceded two years later, in.Itremains a matter of dispute whether

Henry IV was sincere in his change of religious allegiance, or whether he

publicly changed sides in order to mollify his powerful political critics. It

is at least clear that he remained sympathetic to the position of Huguenots

in his kingdom, and he signed the Edict of Nantes into provide them

with minimal religious and political tolerance. Huguenots represented a

minority in the kingdom at about–percent of the total population.

However, they were particularly well represented in certain towns, where

they had their own local representative bodies. La Rochelle was famously

oneofthose, at least before the siege of–, and so was Chˆatellerault,

where Descartes’ family lived.

Following his conversion to Catholicism, the king acceded to a long-

standing request from the Jesuits for permission to return to France, and

in Septemberhe invited them to open a new college at La Fl`eche,

where he himself had grown up as a young boy. Nonetheless, he also

acknowledged the objections of the University of Paris against granting

the Jesuits permission to reopen their former college, Clermont College, in

Paris.Thus La Fl`eche College was very much more than simply a college

founded with formal royal approval. It was to be called ‘The College of

King Henry IV’; it represented a provisional substitute for the prestigious

Jesuit college at Paris; and it was endowed with funds and prize money by

the king so that students would not have to pay tuition fees. Finally, as a

special mark of his interest, the king decreed that, after his death and that

of the queen, their hearts should be preserved in the choir of the college

chapel and that their portraits should be displayed there. In making this

provision, he hardly anticipated the circumstances or the relative speed

with which his decree would be implemented.

The college opened for new students in February, and Descartes’

older brother, Pierre, was among the first to enroll. Despite the official

opening date, the school was still under construction for many years, and

the church was not completed until,longafter Descartes had left.

La Fleche accepted two kinds of pupils, those who were boarding and`

those classified as ‘external’ or day students. Within a few years, the total

number of students increased to approximatelyboarders and,