Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

was, according to Sorbiere, ‘a great Catholic gentleman’ who provided`

free medical care and drugs to the poor of Leiden.Descartes had lived

with him briefly inand, since then, had used his services as a reliable

intermediary for many correspondents who were unable to contact him

directly. They sent their letters or books to Van Hogelande, who in turn

could be relied on always to pass them on to the reclusive philosopher.

Descartes was later to leave a trunk containing letters and other docu-

ments in the care of Van Hogelande when he travelled to Sweden. He was

therefore one of the few close friends of Descartes who remained such

throughout his life.

During his visit to Paris in, Descartes met two other sympathetic

readers who were subsequently to become instrumental in publicizing his

work and defending it against critics. Claude Clerselier (–) was a

lawyer in theparlementof Paris. Although he had fourteen children, only

three of them survived. One of his daughters, Genevi`eve, subsequently

married Jacques Rohault, who was a prominent proponent of Cartesian

natural philosophy for decades after Descartes’ death. Once introduced to

Descartes, Clerselier also acted as an intermediary for some of Descartes’

relatives who lived in France and who wished to communicate with him

byletter in Holland.Descartes also met Pierre Chanut (–),

Clerselier’s brother-in-law, who later became one of his cherished cor-

respondents and, as the senior resident French diplomat in Sweden, the

intermediary between Queen Christina and Descartes who encouraged

him to accept the queen’s invitation to travel to Stockholm.

When Chanut was first appointed a diplomat in Sweden, he travelled

overland from Paris to Denmark and passed through the United Provinces

with his family in early October. This provided Descartes with the

opportunity to renew their acquaintance onOctober. The two French-

men spent four days together and consolidated their friendship for life.

Descartes recalled their visit five months later, when he wrote to Chanut in

Stockholm. Apart from complaining about the–winter, which was

the coldest since, and the detrimental impact of the weather on his

plans to grow plants for research, Descartes expressed his warm feelings

toward Chanut.

If I had availed of the honour of writing to you every time I wished to do so, since you

passed through this country, you would have been pestered very often by my letters.

Forthere has not been a single day that I did not consider writing to you a number of

times....If you have deigned to examine what I wrote [i.e., thePrinciples], you would