Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

however, Mersenne embarked on his travels. He was absent from Paris on

two extended journeys, and there was no communication from Descartes

again until the autumn of.In the case of Princess Elizabeth, she

was forced to leave The Hague in August,following an altercation in

which her brother Philippe was accused of involvement in the death of a

French citizen in The Hague. Descartes seems to have visited her for the

last time, perhaps in August of that year, when she asked him to read and

comment on Machiavelli ’sPrince.Descartes continued, nonetheless, to

correspond with Elizabeth in Germany, although he now had to address

his letters to her younger sister, Sophie, for forwarding to Elizabeth.

French Translations

InDescartes seems to have agreed to suggestions, rather than to have

initiated the projects himself, to have French translations of his two major

works published in Paris. TheMeditationshad been republished in,

in a corrected Latin text, with the addition of the Seventh Objections

(from Father Bourdin) and Descartes’ replies, together with the source

of so much subsequent controversy, the infamous letter to Father Dinet.

Likewise, thePrincipleshad been published in Latin with a view to its

potential use in colleges as a textbook of philosophy that might compete,

forreaders, with scholastic texts. Louis Charles d’Albert, duke of Luynes

(–), had prepared a French translation of the six Meditations.

Since this represented only about fifteen percent of the book that appeared

in, Claude Clerselier was responsible for most of the work involved,

because it fell to him to translate all of the Objections and Replies.

Descartes reviewed the translation and took advantage of the opportu-

nity to add clarifications to the text and to reduce the predominance of

scholastic jargon that had been used in Latin.

There still remained a question about what to do with Gassendi ’s orig-

inal objections, or with the much more extensive response to Descartes’

replies that Gassendi had published (in Latin) under the titleMetaphys-

ical Disquisition. Descartes had initially considered omitting Gassendi’s

Objections completely from the French version, especially since their

author had complained about their inclusion in the Latin text. Thus he

wrote to Huygens, long before the French translation had been completed,

that ‘when they print myMeditationsin future, I shall unburden them of

the fifth objections [Gassendi’s], which are useless and which comprise