Descartes: A Biography

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Death in Sweden 

nevertheless I do not believe that Mr. Roberval has enough intelligence to refute it.

Thus, as long as he does not have a stronger adversary than Roberval, he will not find

it difficult to defend his position.

This is obviously one of those polite forms of refusal that cannot be taken

literally. It was probably true that Descartes could not have located such an

obscure work in Stockholm. However, the main reasons for not consulting

it were that he had lost interest in mathematical work many years earlier

and, even more importantly, that he knew that all attempts to square the

circle were doomed to failure. When he said that he was too busy, he

was simply exploiting the courtesies of politeness. He may also have been

signalling a significant decline in his intellectual energies. One thing is

obvious, however, about this reply; he grasped the opportunity presented,

once again, to scorn the mathematical abilities of Roberval.

The fact that Descartes was not very busy during the winter of–

is clear from his letter to the French ambassador to Poland, in January.

He had given the queen her early morning instruction only four or five

times during the previous month. In the two weeks prior to writing, the

queen had been out of town. Even Chanut had seen little of her since

his return just before Christmas. In fact, the whole atmosphere of the city

seemed to resonate with the extreme cold of the winter, and the intellectual

activity one might have expected of resident scholars was immobilized like

the frozen waters.

Since I wrote to you onDecember, I have seen the queen only four or five times, and

it was always in the morning in her library, accompanied by Mr. Freinsheim, with no

opportunity to discuss the matters that affect you. Two weeks ago she went to Uppsala,

and I did not follow her there; nor have I seen her since her return (which was only on

Thursday evening). I know that our ambassador has also seen her only once before this

trip to Uppsala, apart from his first audience, when I was present....it seems to me as

if men’s thoughts freeze here during the winter in addition to the water....However, I

assure you that my desire to return to my solitude increases more and more every day,

and I do not even know if I can wait here until your return....Iamnot in my element

here, and I desire only the peace and rest which are goods that the most powerful kings

onearth cannot give to those who, themselves, do not know how to find them.

The murmurings against foreigners who were suspected of having a dis-

proportionate influence on the young queen continued unabated. When

Saumaise’s son wrote to Br ́egy about the local rumours, he mentioned

threats on the lives of foreign nationals, even if he qualified his stories

as the babbling of the inebriated.Descartes, meantime, made sure that