Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

have painted quickly a portrait of the departing philosopher.Having

made his farewells, he travelled by sea with Picot’s valet and arrived in

Stockholm in early October.Although Chanut was still in Paris, he

had left letters with his wife, Penelope, to welcome Descartes to Sweden

and to offer him accommodation in his home.Accordingly, Descartes

lodged with Madame Chanut and her two children, and began almost

immediately to instruct the queen in Cartesian philosophy.His orig-

inal reservations about the journey were unfortunately confirmed soon

after his arrival. Christina had invited a number of scholars from different

European centres to come to Sweden, where she had vague ambitions to

found an academy that could exploit the library that had been looted by

Swedish troops from Rudolph II’s Prague. They included Isaac Vossius

(–)–aprominent Dutch philologist – who accepted her invi-

tation, and Claude Saumaise (–), who rejected it. There was a

serious danger that the visiting scholars would be exhibited merely as

ornaments to her majesty’s ego, and that they would find little incentive

or opportunity to engage in genuine scholarly work.

Christina arranged for Descartes to provide philosophy discussions in

her library at five o’clock in the morning. After the first two sessions,

he was already concerned about the wisdom of the whole enterprise, and

he began to make plans to leave as soon as he could extricate himself

diplomatically from a very disappointing situation. While he could hardly

express these reservations to people he barely knew in Stockholm, he felt

free to reveal his more personal concerns to his trusted correspondent in

the German lands, Princess Elizabeth.

The queen is very much taken with the study of languages. However, since I do not

know if she has ever learned anything about philosophy, I cannot judge how much she

will acquire an interest in it nor whether she will be able to devote much time to it or,

consequently, whether I will be able to satisfy her or be of any use to her. Her great

enthusiasm for learning languages motivates her, at present, to study Greek especially,

and to gather many ancient books.

Descartes considered telling the queen more or less frankly about his

reservations and, in that way, he thought he could at least satisfy the

demands of duty. That might also have provided him, he thought, with an

opportunity ‘to return so much sooner to my solitude, without which it is

difficult to make any progress in the search for truth’ (v.). Whatever

might happen, Descartes thought that nothing could persuade him to