Descartes: A Biography

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Death in Sweden 

poorly on Queen Christina if she were to devote too much time to

study and if she associated publicly with a Roman Catholic in an explic-

itly Lutheran kingdom. Having mentioned some of these difficulties to

Chanut, Descartes decided to write to the queen’s librarian, Freinsheim,

and to ask him about his new scruples. As usual, he declared that he was

ready to embark immediately, at the queen’s command, but he needed to

satisfy himself once more about some residual reservations.

Mr. Chanut will confirm that, before he arrived here, I had prepared my few travel

accoutrements, and that I tried to overcome all the difficulties that a man like me faces,

atmyage, when he has to leave his usual residence to undertake such a long journey.

However, despite the fact that he found me thus prepared to depart and that I also

found that he was willing to use all kinds of reasons to persuade me to travel, in case

I had not decided to do so, nevertheless, because he did not tell me that there was an

order from her majesty to command me to make haste and that much of the summer

has still to come, I mentioned a difficulty to him which he thought it best that I should

ask you to clarify.

Having explained this new ‘difficulty’ – about not compromising the good

name of the queen by association with someone who had been involved in

anumber of public controversies with Protestant theologians – Descartes

claimed, somewhat implausibly, that he was still ready to leave immediately,

even without waiting for Chanut’s return, if the queen wished him to

do so. Once Freinsheim replied toward the end of July, confirming the

queen’s interest in having the French philosopher come to Stockholm, the

unfortunate Descartes had exhausted all his remaining excuses. He now

felt obliged to keep his indiscreet promise.

During this period of procrastinating, Descartes continued observing

variations in barometric pressure, and he wrote to Carcavi, in Paris, asking

if there was any news from the Auvergne about the experiment that had

reportedly been done by P ́erier at Pascal’s request. As already indicated,

the famous experiment had been concluded onSeptember, and it

was published in Paris in November of the same year. Had Mersenne still

been alive, he would surely have arranged to have a copy of the results sent

to Descartes, even without waiting for him to request it. Carcavi provided

the next best thing, a reasonably detailed and accurate description of the

experiment and its results.

In his attempt to fill Mersenne’s role, Carcavi was bold enough to men-

tion once again the strained relationship between Descartes and Roberval

and, at the instigation of the Paris mathematician, to request a truce.