Descartes: A Biography

c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

Thoughts of Retirement 

have gone to Paris simply to buy a parchment, the most expensive and most useless

onethat I have ever received....Still, the thing that most disgusted me was that none

of those [who invited me] showed any interest in seeing more than my face. So I have

reason to think that they wanted me in France only like an elephant or a panther,

because they are rare animals, rather than because they are useful for anything.

The circumstances of Descartes’ hesitant return to Paris in May

reveal not only his continued uncertainty about living in Holland, but a

lack of awareness about political events in France that underlines once

again the extent of his isolation in Egmond.

The intermittent military successes of France in its long-running war

with Spain, beginning in,were compromised by a series of revolts

athome that occasionally escalated almost into civil war. The exorbitant

taxes required for the war effort, and for the expansion of royal power in

the provinces, were one of the main causes of these revolts. The revolts

of thecroquantsin the Southwest in–, and of workers (nu-pieds)

in the salt flats in Normandy in,were among the most notorious

popular revolts against high taxes. They were also symptoms of a more

fundamental political instability that was contained precariously only by

the forceful exercise of royal power.Thus, when Richelieu died in

and Louis XIII died the following year, the balance of power changed

sufficiently that the regent, Anne of Austria, and Richelieu’s successor,

Mazarin, faced unpredictable internal obstacles to ruling a kingdom in

the name of the boy king, Louis XVI (born in).

Disputes over the burden of taxes continued throughout thes.

When they surfaced in Paris in,inthe form of a confrontation between

the regent and the Parisparlement, the issues involved were no longer

merely about taxes. There were now constitutional questions about the

role of theparlementand the absolute discretion claimed for the king’s

powers. The fact that the king was only ten years old, and that the kingdom

was being ruled in his name by a Spanish princess, Anne of Austria,

and an Italian, Cardinal Mazarin, helped underline the extent to which

loyalty to an adult French king had provided the main source of political

stability during the previous years. The conflicts, which continued from

to(usually called the Fronde), were almost predictable and

were manifestly insoluble in the short term. The citizens of Paris erected

barricades in support of theparlementduring the night of–August

, and the confrontation between the members ofparlementand the

regent continued untilOctober. Even this temporary settlement did