Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

he was looking for. The uncertainty of his personal journey also meant

that, in contrast with the years following,hepreserved very few

traces, in correspondence or otherwise, of his intellectual itinerary. The

oneclear fact is that he travelled extensively, lived in a variety of differ-

ent European centres, made new friends, and that his first steps on this

uncharted journey were in the direction of the United Provinces.

The countries that are now called Belgium, Luxembourg, and the

Netherlands, together with some regions of northern France and western

Germany, were the scene of an intermittent war between Spain and the

emerging Dutch Republic throughout the sixteenth century.The Spanish

Netherlands had been a loose confederation of seventeen provinces under

Habsburg rule before the Reformation. However, during the early decades

of the seventeenth century, the provinces north of the Rhine and Maas

Rivers gradually acquired a distinctive political, linguistic, and social char-

acter that explains their positive response to Calvinism and, especially,

their defensive reaction to the repressive Spanish Counter-Reformation

of thes that attempted to impose Catholicism as the official religion

of the empire.

The Union of Utrecht inthat brought together Holland, Utrecht,

and Zeeland, was a public expression of this developing autonomy and

an omen of the imminent emergence of the new Dutch Republic, with

the province of Holland as its dominant member.Following the addi-

tion over time of four new provinces, Overijssel, Gelderland, Groningen,

and Friesland, the Twelve Year Truce (–) signaled the effective

establishment of the United Provinces as an independent political reality.

The emancipation of these provinces from Spanish rule left intact a

significant portion of the former Spanish Netherlands in the south that

included Flanders, Brabant, and Luxemburg. In contrast with the north-

ern secessionists, the residual Spanish Netherlands remained loyal to

the Spanish monarchy, spoke French rather than Dutch as the official

language, and was officially Catholic. Given the religious and linguistic

affinities with France, one might have expected a greater degree of polit-

ical sympathy and perhaps even military support between the Spanish

Netherlands and its southern neighbours. However, Philip II’s interven-

tion on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire in the civil war in France in,

together with the imperial ambitions of Spain for more than a century and

its pressure on contested borders in eastern and northern France, ensured

that the remnants of the Spanish Netherlands were seen as a common