Descartes in Fontainebleau
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Although Mr. Descartes had provided himself with a kind of establishment in Paris, he did not, however, subject himself so much to residence during the three years he stayed there, that he did not give himself the freedom to undertake walks in the countryside from time to time, and even trips to the provinces.
A few weeks after his return from Italy, he went to Fontainebleau to see the court of France.
There he met the Pope’s legate again, who had the devotion to want to say his first mass at the court on the day of the Assumption of Our Lady, and to give communion to the king, to the two queens, to monsieur, to the princesses, to the ladies, and to several people of all qualities who had been advised to prepare themselves for it.
Descartes could not enjoy for long the advantages that he could receive from the presence of the legate, who left Fontainebleau on the 18th of August, and returned to Rome a few days later.
His legation had not been very pleasant to the court. He had come with faculties that the parliament had forced him to reform. His proposals had been found prejudicial to the interests of France, and it had been recognized that they only tended to favor the Spanish. This is why they had been content to render him extraordinary honors, and to treat him everywhere with a lot of magnificence.
The departure of the legate was followed by the happy successes that the king’s armies had against the Huguenots and the rebels of the kingdom, who were led by Messieurs de Rohan and de Soubize. Marshal de Thémines had won various advantages over the Duke of Rohan in Languedoc throughout the month of July, and had made several cities return to duty.
Admiral de Montmorency with Messieurs de La Rochefoucauld, de Saint-Luc, and de Toiras defeated the Prince de Soubize in various encounters, and pushed him to the island of Ré, near which they won a signal victory over him in September in a naval battle which was followed by the surrender of the island.
Descartes had returned to Paris in August.
But the following year he went to Brittany and Poitou accompanied by Le Vasseur d’Etioles.
He had no more pressing business in these provinces than that of paying his respects to his father, whom he had not seen for almost three years, to see his family in Rennes, and the relatives of the late Madame his mother in Châtellerault and Poitiers. While he was in this last city, they came to beg Le Vasseur to want to honor a thesis with his presence in the college of the Jesuits.
Le Vasseur invited Descartes to want to accompany him there: which he did with pleasure, although he was already reputed not to esteem scholasticism, or the manner in which the Peripatetics treat philosophy. He even wanted to dispute at the thesis, and the Jesuits held themselves so honored by the way he used it in a Latin speech that he first made, and in his arguments, that the father rector sent two fathers of the company the next day to go and thank him.
Having returned to Paris around the month of June, he took lodging in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, in the Rue du Four Aux Trois Chappelets.
But it was no longer as easy for him as before to enjoy his leisure. His old friends, and particularly Mr. Mydorge, and Father Mersenne had so extended his reputation, that he found himself in a short time overwhelmed with visits, and that the place of his retreat was seen changed into a meeting place for conferences.
He could not prevent the number of his friends from multiplying, but at least he was the master of his discernment in the choice he made of them.
One of the first and most perfect of these friends was Mr. Hardy, councilor at the Châtelet, whom he saw at Mr. Mydorge’s, and whom Mr. Mydorge brought to him to unite them together, having made himself the guarantor of his heart.
Monsieur Hardy had joined a great knowledge of mathematics and oriental languages to a signal probity. His name was Claude, and he was the son of Sébastien Hardy, tax collector in Le Mans. He was then only a simple lawyer at the parliament, and it had not been a year since he had had the questions of Euclid printed with the commentaries of the philosopher Marin, whom some have believed to be the same as Marin, disciple of Proclus.
It was the first time that the original Greek of this treatise of Euclid and of the commentary of Marin had appeared. Mr. Hardy had made a Latin translation there incomparably better than that of Bartholomew Zambert: and he had added excellent notes of his own, in addition to those that Zambert had translated from an old scholiast.
Mr. Descartes always made a lot of his friendship with Mr. Hardy since. This is what he made known to him in all the encounters where an occasion to serve him presented itself, especially since he had retired to Holland, from where he took a particular pleasure in sending him the books that were not found in Paris.
Another friend of consequence that Mr. Descartes acquired at the same time, was Monsieur de Beaune, Lord of Gouliou, councilor at the présidial of Blois.
He was one of the greatest geniuses of his time, at least in what concerned mathematics: and Mr. Descartes has left in several places in his letters testimonies of the quite extraordinary esteem he had for his capacity and his merit. Mr. de Beaune was not content to cultivate the friendship of Mr. Descartes by visits, when they were both in Paris, or by letters during their absence. He also made himself the interpreter and commentator of his geometry, and he highly took his defense against the ignorance or the malignancy of the envious, whom his reputation had raised against him in France since the printing of his books. Mr. Descartes did not have the satisfaction of seeing this excellent friend more than once since his retreat to Holland. But one can say that he was rarely absent from his memory: and one must judge of the anxiety he was in for his preservation, on a false news that had been spread of his death towards the end of the year 1640. He made known in advance how sensitive the loss of such a friend would be to him, because, he says to Father Mersenne, he held him for one of the best minds that were in the world.
Mr. Descartes also made friends with Mr. Jean Baptiste Morin, doctor of medicine, and royal professor of mathematics in Paris. He was a native of Villefranche in Beaujolais, and older than Mr. Descartes: but he survived him by six years and a few months. It had already been several years since Mr. Morin had put himself in the rank of authors, when he began to know Mr. Descartes: and from the year 1619 he had published in Paris a Latin book under the title of “New Anatomy of the Sublunary World.” Mr. Descartes, who had a very great discernment of minds, never esteemed him beyond his worth. But although he knew precisely what he could be worth, he did not fail to consider him at least in the first years of their acquaintance, with all the regards and all the politeness that he could have had for a friend who would have had a straighter heart, and a more solid mind. There was certainly justice in treating Mr. Morin this way.
For one can say that Mr. Descartes had few friends more ardent and more engaged than him in his interests, if one refers to the terms of a long letter that he wrote to him twelve years later. “The Reverend Father Mersenne,” says Mr. Morin, “can assure you that I have always been one of your supporters: and by my nature I hate and I detest this ‘rabble of malicious minds,’ who seeing some elevated mind appear like a new star, instead of being grateful for his labors, and new inventions, swell with envy against him, and have no other goal than to obscure or extinguish his name, his glory, and his merits: although they are drawn by him from the ignorance of things, of which he liberally gives them the knowledge. I have passed by these piques, and I know what an ell of it is worth.
Posterity will pity my misfortune: and speaking of this age of iron, it will say with truth that fortune was not for learned men. I wish nevertheless that it may be more favorable to you than to me, so that we may see your new physics. I beg you to believe that among all the men of letters of my acquaintance, you are the one I honor the most for your virtue and your generous plans.”
The friendship of Mr. Morin was not otherwise useless to Mr. Descartes while he remained in Paris. It was of a very tangible help to him in the preparation of the instruments necessary to make his new experiments: in which he seconded the industry of Father Mersenne who also worked in the same way for the service of Mr. Descartes.
Father Guillaume Gibieuf, doctor of Sorbonne, priest of the congregation of the Oratory, was also one of the main friends that Mr. Descartes made during the three years of his stay in Paris. This father was equally skilled in philosophy and in theology. But he was not the only one of his congregation with whom Mr. Descartes contracted habits. This one still had quite particular ties with Father de La Barde, Father de Sancy, and Father de Gondren who was since the second general of the congregation: to say nothing of Cardinal de Bérulle who conceived a quite particular affection and esteem for our philosopher. After this consideration, it will no longer be necessary to take precautions against the double error of Mr. Borel, who did not hesitate to say that Father Gibieuf, and Father de La Barde were the main enemies of Mr. Descartes, and that these two fathers were Jesuits. These two errors apparently came from the little application with which Mr. Borel had read the letter that Mr. Descartes wrote to Father Mersenne on the 19th of January 1642.
To tell the truth, it speaks of a response from Mr. Descartes to Fathers Gibieuf and de La Barde, but this response was nothing other than clarifications to difficulties that these fathers had proposed to him to instruct themselves rather than to dispute. From the article which concerns these two fathers, Mr. Descartes passes to another concerning the Jesuits, this is what caused confusion in the ideas of Mr. Borel.
This author was more accurate when he counted Mr. de Balzac among the friends of Mr. Descartes. He adds that Mr. de Balzac had received in 1625 a very good office from Mr. Descartes, who served him very appropriately with Cardinal Barberini, legate in France against Father Goulu, called in his convent Dom Jean de Saint François, General of the Feuillants, who published against him two years later two volumes of letters under the name of Phyllarchus. What is certain is that Mr. Descartes and Mr. de Balzac were from then on in the commerce of the most intimate and most sincere friendship.
This philosopher, who esteemed the good heart of Mr. de Balzac even more than his wit, did not fail to boast on occasion of his eloquence and his erudition: but above all he valued the delicacy of his thoughts, and the turn of his expressions. As he knew as much as any man in the world how to conform to the taste of the century and of the country where he had to live, he did not hesitate to compare the purity of the elocution which reigns in the writings of Mr. de Balzac, to the health of the body which is never more perfect than when it is felt the least. He also compared the graces and the politeness that everyone admired at the time in Mr. de Balzac, to the beauty of a perfectly beautiful woman, which does not consist in the brilliance, or the perfection of some particular part, but in a harmony and a temperament so just of all the parts together, that there should be none that outweighs the others, for fear that the proportion not being well kept in the rest, one does not notice the imperfection of the whole body.
It was judging the grammar, and the eloquence of Mr. de Balzac as a philosopher and a geometer: and one can assure that from that time the compliments and the least serious speeches of Mr. Descartes felt his philosophy and his geometry. But it is to be noted moreover that the great sentiments he showed for De Balzac had for principal foundation their reciprocal friendship. He sometimes had fun with the friendship of Mr. de Balzac with their common friends: but contempt, nor indifference did not enter into his jokes. This is what appears enough by the way he explained himself one day with De Zuytlichem, a Dutch gentleman, to whom Mr. de Balzac had written a letter of compliment on the loss he had made of a person who was dear to him.
“Mr. de Balzac was so fond of freedom that even his garters and his laces weigh on him, will not have been able to persuade himself that there are ties in the world that are so sweet that one would not know how to be delivered from them without regretting them. But I can moreover answer you that he is one of the most constant in his friendships etc.”
When the short stay that the legate made in Paris in 1625 would not allow us to believe that Mr. Descartes had had the leisure to plead the cause of Mr. de Balzac before him against the accusations of Father Goulu, we could not deny moreover that he rendered him this good office before the public and all posterity.
One can judge the rest by the way he tried to clear him of the suspicion of “philautia” or self-love which was the main of the defects that were imputed to Mr. de Balzac, and which had made him be given the name of Narcissus by his enemies.
If he is sometimes obliged to speak of himself, he speaks of it with the same freedom that makes him speak of others, and which makes lying unbearable to him. As the fear of contempt does not prevent him from discovering to others the weaknesses and the diseases of his body, the malice of his envious ones does not make him dissimulate the advantages of his mind. This is what one could nevertheless interpret at first in a bad sense in a century where vices are so common and virtues so rare, that as soon as a same effect can depend on a good or a bad cause, men never fail to report it to the one that is bad, and to judge by what happens most often. But when one wants to consider that Mr. de Balzac also explains himself as freely on the virtues and vices of others as on his own, one will not be persuaded that there is in the same man morals different enough to produce all at once the malignancy which would make him discover the faults of others, and the shameful flattery which would make him publish their beautiful qualities; the baseness of mind which would lead him to speak of his own weaknesses, and the vanity which would make him describe the advantages of his mind, and the perfections of his soul. On the contrary, one will imagine much sooner that he only speaks of all these things, as he does, by the love he bears for the truth, and by a generosity that is natural to him. Posterity seeing in him morals all conformed to those of the great men of antiquity, will admire the candor and the ingenuousness of this spirit elevated above the common, and will do him justice of his envious ones who refuse today to recognize his merit. For the corruption of the human race has become so great, that as a young man would be ashamed to appear reserved, and temperate in a company of debauched people of his age, in the same way the majority of the world today mocks a person who makes profession of being sincere and truthful. One takes much more pleasure in listening to false accusations than to true praises, especially when it happens to people of merit to speak a little advantageously of themselves. For it is then that truth passes for pride; dissimulation or lying for modesty."
Descartes spoke in good faith for the defense of his friend.
De Balzac might have had as much frankness, and ingenuousness as he attributes to him in the occasions he took to speak of himself.
But we have seen in our days how pernicious the example of Mr. de Balzac has been to the Narcissuses of our time. Although the malignancy of the century has increased by several degrees since that time, it would perhaps not be impossible for defenders as philosophical, I mean, as little flattering as a Descartes, to have their excuses accepted by the public, if they had at least the merit of a Balzac.