Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

Vall ́ee des Barreaux, Damien Milton, and Jacques Bordier – who notori-

ously enjoyed all the delicacies of France – it would be understandable in

retrospect that his biographical details are obscure.His visit to Descartes

was sufficiently memorable that, five years later, Descartes recalled his

earlier lengthy visit to Holland when they returned to live together at

Egmond-Binnen during the winter of–.In, Descartes had

already begun to sketch what eventually became thePrinciples of Philos-

ophy, and he acknowledged in March that Picot ‘liked myMetaphysics’

(iii.). It is most likely, therefore, that they discussed together his work

in progress. Picot was later responsible for the French translation of the

Principles.

Without independent evidence, one must think of Descartes during

this winter as a relatively isolated and lonely figure, spending hours each

day at his escritoire while he waged an epistolary war with Jesuits and

foreign critics, in many cases not fully appreciating the identity of his

correspondents. Even Pierre Fermat re-emerges as a potential critic, when

Descartes gives firm instructions to Mersenne not to show him a copy of

theMeditations.‘Iconsider Mr. Fermat one of the least capable of offering

good objections to it. I believe he knows mathematics, but in philosophy I

have always noticed that he reasons poorly’ (iii.). As often happened,

it was too late because Mersenne had already given him a copy.

Descartes’ attorney in Brittany wrote to him in January, and his

brother, Pierre, wrote at the end of February,possibly reporting

onthe settling of their father’s will.Very soon afterward, Descartes

arranged to rent a small castle at Endegeest, which was owned by Pieter

van Foreest van Schouwen (who was still a minor and living in Rome

atthe time).The Van Schouwen family was Catholic, and the nearby

village of Oegstgeest had a small Catholic church where Descartes could

worship without hindrance. Many years later, when Descartes’ corre-

spondence was being published, Samuel Sorbi`ere recalled this period

in Descartes’ life when he seemed more at peace than usual. He was

ideally located, because he could travel to The Hague and return the

same day, and he could travel by canal to Utrecht, Delft, Rotterdam,

Dordrecht, Haarlem, or Amsterdam. ‘He had a sufficient number of

domestic servants...arather attractive garden, with an orchard at the far

end, which was surrounded on all sides by open fields from which one could

see emerge a number of more or less elevated church towers’ (iii.).

Baillet reported that Descartes was also more receptive to having visitors