Descartes in Frankfurt

Descartes left Breda in July of the year 1619 to go to Maastricht, and from there to Aachen, where he learned the state of affairs in Germany and the preparations that this city was accustomed to making for the coronation of emperors.

Upon arriving in Mainz, he learned that the Elector Johann Schweikard had summoned the other electors of the empire according to the usual forms and had called upon them to go to Frankfurt on July 28 to proceed with the election of a new emperor.

The imperial crown was in question for Ferdinand, previously named the Archduke of Graz.

This prince was the son of Archduke Charles, Prince of Styria, and the grandson of the Emperor Ferdinand I and Empress Anne, heiress of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary.

His father was the younger son of Emperor Maximilian II.

So Emperor Matthias, and Archdukes Maximilian of Austria and Albert, prince and governor of the Low Countries, were his first cousins. These three brothers, I mean Emperor Matthias and Archdukes Maximilian and Albert, seeing themselves without children and sickly, had him crowned first king of Bohemia in Prague on July 20 of the year 1617; then of Hungary in Pressburg on the first of July of the following year.

Archduke Maximilian having died in November of the same year, and the Emperor having fallen ill around the beginning of the following year, their brother Albert, who was their only heir, also handed over the administration of Austria to Ferdinand, with full authority to receive all homages and oaths, by letters dated from Brussels on February 2, 1619. So that at the death of Emperor Matthias, which occurred on Wednesday, the tenth day of the following March, Ferdinand entered into possession of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, and of the archduchy of Austria; and he took his measures to have himself elected King of the Romans, then Emperor of Germany.

Descartes was in Frankfurt when Ferdinand arrived there as king of Bohemia and elector of the empire.

The other electors had already gone there before, the three ecclesiastical ones in person, and the three Protestant ones through their ambassadors.

Ferdinand was elected King of the Romans with the ordinary ceremonies on August 18 according to the old style retained by the Protestants, or the twenty-eighth according to the new style established since the reformation of Pope Gregory XIII.

On the same day, they were dispatched to Aachen and to Nuremberg, to bring the imperial crown and ornaments to Frankfurt.

The coronation was set for the thirtieth day of August according to the old style, which was to be the ninth of September according to the new.

If Descartes did not appear at this first ceremony, it was perhaps in execution of the orders given to foreigners, that is to say to those who are not in the entourage of the electors, to leave the place where the election of the King of the Romans takes place.

But he was present at those of the coronation, having slipped into the city by some trick of skill or by some pretext that we do not know; and he was curious to observe closely what happened there.

As early as the day before the ceremony, the gates of Frankfurt were closed, and the soldiers were posted by guard corps on the ramparts.

On the morning of the next day, the inhabitants were arranged in the squares, from the palace of the future emperor to the court, and from the court to the church of Saint Bartholomew where the ceremony was to be held. The ecclesiastical electors had gone to the church before the others, to change their electoral dress and put on the pontifical ornaments.

The King of the Romans was led there at 8 am.

He was preceded by a large number of officers and gentlemen who walked on foot. After them followed the Landgrave of Hesse, who had been obliged to leave the city twelve days before with the ambassador of Spain and several lords during the election.

The landgrave was accompanied by his brother and his two sons, all four on horseback. They were followed by five heralds of the empire, who marched in front of the ambassadors of the three secular electors, carrying in their hand the marks of the empire, namely the globe, the scepter, and the sword. The crowned king, dressed in the electoral dress, was on horseback under a canopy carried by two consuls and four senators of Frankfurt.

When he arrived near the church, the ecclesiastical electors assisted by their suffragans, and the principal clergy, went to receive him at the door, led him to the altar, and led him to his armchair which was elevated on two steps, and accompanied by a prayer stool and a richly adorned canopy. They then began the kyrie eleison in music; and the Elector of Mainz, who was officiating, made the usual requests to the elected king emperor, namely, if he did not promise to live and die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion; to defend and protect it; to administer justice equally to all; to increase and amplify the empire; to defend and protect orphans, wards, widows; and to render the honor due to his holiness. He took the oath on these requests; then the officiating elector, turning to the assembly, asked them if they would not submit themselves under the government and empire of Ferdinand, and swear obedience to him. The assembly having answered “yes,” and shouting that he must be crowned: the officiating elector took holy oil on a golden paten, anointed him on the forehead, the top of the head, the chest, the right arm, the hands, saying each time: (…).

The anointing finished, the ecclesiastical electors with their suffragans led the king into the choir and dressed him in the old imperial and pontifical clothes brought from Nuremberg, namely, the chasuble, and the long alb with the stole on the neck which hung down to his feet. They also put the gloves on his hands, and led him back dressed like the deacons, from the choir to his seat, where the officiating elector gave him the blessing again. After, he was led back to the high altar, where the Electors of Trier and Cologne took the sword of Charlemagne which had been placed there with the crown and the scepter, drew it from the sheath, and put it in the hand of the elected king emperor, when the Elector of Mainz said to him, (…). The sword, put back in the sheath, was then girt on him by the ambassadors of the secular electors, when the same officiating elector said, (…).

After, the officiating one took the ring from the altar and put it on the king’s finger, then the globe, and the scepter which he also put in his hands, the scepter on the right, the globe on the left, with the ordinary form of prayers. The three ecclesiastical electors took the royal crown from the altar, placed it jointly on his head saying, (…), and then covered him with the golden mantle of Charlemagne. The king gave the globe or the orb to the ambassador of the Elector Palatine, and the scepter to that of the Elector of Brandenburg, then he turned back to the altar, and took the accustomed oath. After, the mass was continued in music.

The new emperor communed from the hand of the officiating elector, who, assisted by those of Trier and Cologne, led his majesty to the middle of the church on an elevated stage, where a magnificent throne had been set up, on which they placed him while the Te Deum was sung. The ecclesiastical electors descended from the stage to undress and put back on the electoral dress; but the emperor remained on the throne, and created several knights whom he struck with the sword of Charlemagne. Having descended, he left the church in almost the same order as he had entered it. The officers of his court went in front; then the counselors of his imperial majesty and of the electors; then the gentlemen; after them the barons, the counts, and the princes.

They were followed by the five heralds who went in front of the Elector of Trier who marched alone, and after him the ambassadors of the Elector Palatine and of Brandenburg together, the first carrying the globe, the other the scepter. The ambassador of the Elector of Saxony followed alone carrying the sword; after him marched the emperor alone, dressed in the imperial dress, the crown on his head under a canopy carried by the same people as before.

The Electors of Mainz and Cologne marched together after the emperor. All were on foot, and went in this order to the court by the bridge of the Main covered with red carpets, the first piece of which was put into pieces by the people, as soon as the emperor had passed. They were followed by three officers of his imperial majesty, mounted on horseback, and throwing gold and silver pieces to the people which were tokens of two kinds, on the reverse of which was engraved the day of the coronation.

Descartes stayed a few more days in Frankfurt, and he was a spectator of the horse races and other rejoicings of the imperial court, until the ambassadors of the secular electors had returned to their masters. He was deliberating on the course he had to take when he learned that the Duke of Bavaria was raising troops.

This news made him leave with the intention of joining them, without knowing precisely against which enemy these troops were being prepared.

He could not ignore the noise that the troubles of Bohemia were making throughout Germany. That is all he knew about it. As he cared little about entering into the interests of the states and princes under whose domination Providence had not made him be born, he did not intend to carry the musket to advance the affairs of some, nor to destroy those of others.

He therefore joined the Bavarian troops as a simple volunteer without wanting to take up any employment; and it was then being published, but in general, that they were destined against the bastard of Mansfeld, and the other generals of the revolted Bohemians. But the Duke of Bavaria made it known a short time later that they were to march against the Elector Palatine Frederick V, whom the states of Bohemia had elected as their king four days before the coronation of Emperor Ferdinand II, whom they wanted to exclude from the kingdom of Bohemia by this enterprise.

The commitment in which Descartes found himself by this declaration did not cause him any embarrassment, because his intention was not to serve under the Duke of Bavaria any differently than he had under the Prince of Orange.

But to shed more light on this part of his life, which became one of the most important due to the mental occupations that the winter quarters he spent in Germany procured for him, it is good to take up the history of these troubles of Bohemia at their source and to make a small summary of their consequences until the time when Mr. Descartes was a spectator of them.