Descartes: A Biography

c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

Thoughts of Retirement 

unknown, Christina’s subsequent life seemed to confirm the unusual cir-

cumstances of her birth with what was at least an ambiguous sexual orien-

tation. Following the king’s death, Sweden was ruled for twelve years by a

five-person regency until, in December, Christina reached her matu-

rity and assumed her royal duties as queen. She began almost immediately

to foster diplomatic initiatives with Mazarin against the Habsburgs, an oth-

erwise improbable alliance between a Lutheran kingdom and a staunchly

Catholic one. Pierre Chanut was thus favourably placed, in Stockholm, to

have access to the queen and to respond to her newly acquired interest in

all things French.

Chanut had given the queen an advance copy of thePassions of the Soul,

which was not yet published, and he had evidently shared with Christina

the lengthy letter about the sovereign good that Descartes had written in

response to an earlier royal request. The queen seems to have been more

interested in humanist culture, especially what she could learn of Greek

and Roman civilization, rather than in the religious beliefs and obser-

vances of her Lutheran kingdom. Descartes unwittingly satisfied both

these interests, and she wrote to him accordingly onDecember,

when she was just twenty-two years old. She thanked him for his opinions

about the sovereign good ‘in the letter that you were kind enough to write

to me, and also for theTreatise on the Passionsthat you enclosed with it’

(v.). Chanut reported on the same date that he had accompanied the

queen on a journey to visit copper and silver mines, during which she

relieved her boredom by reading. The French resident had brought his

ownreading material on the journey – a copy of Descartes’Principles–

and he entertained or distracted the queen by reading the Preface to her.

This caught her attention, and she requested assistance in making sense

of it. Chanut suggested that her librarian, Johann Freinsheim, might pro-

vide this service, but the queen insisted that Chanut should also help. The

French resident thus found that one of his official duties in Stockholm was

to read Descartes’Principlesand tutor the queen so that she could under-

stand it too. When reporting all this to Descartes, whom he mistakenly

believed was still in Paris in December, Chanut added ominously:

‘Her Majesty is very interested in your fortune and in whether they are

taking care of you in France. I do not know if, once she has acquired a taste

foryour philosophy, she may tempt you to come to Sweden’ (v.). This

was the first hint of a possible invitation. It was followed soon after by an

official royal request.