René DESCARTES - Signed autograph letter of the greatest rarity. 1643.

 René Descartes (1596-1650)

Signed autograph letter addressed to Mr. Alphonse de Pollot, Gentleman of the Chamber of His Highness in The Hague.

One folio page. Autograph address and wax seal residue on the 4th ^sheet .

Egmond aan den Hoef, October 21, 1643.

“Besides, I am very sorry that I recently proposed the question of the 3 circles to the ^Princess of Bohemia. »

Large letter from René Descartes thanking his friend Pollot for his support in the Utrecht quarrel: he vilifies Voetius, the Protestant enemy, and evokes one of his mathematical theories, the circle theorem, the beginnings of Descartes' Theorem .

________________________________________________________

“Sir, Jay did well not to stay any longer in The Hague because I could not have taken as much care of my own affairs as you did, and I would have done much less. I have no words to express the resentment I have for the obligations I have to you, but I assure you that it is extreme, and that I will maintain it all my life . I will write in 3 or 4 days to Mr. ^Vander Hoolck and Mr. ^Brasset to thank them. And even though you think that I have nothing more to do in The Hague, I am nevertheless very tempted to return there in a few days to talk to Mr. ^Vander Hoolck, and to hear more particularly the ways he has proposed to conclude my case. , because I fear that they fear the ministry too much, and by fearing it they give it strength . According to all the rules of my algebra, after the outburst they made, they cannot be exempted from blasme. If they do not chastise him , not for what he did against me because I am not worth it, and I do not flee enough into their good graces, but for what he did against ^Mrs. de Bois le Duc, in which all the false witnesses that he knows how to produce are not sufficient to excuse him of slander, lying and slander because his own writings convince him. Besides, I have great remorse for the fact that I recently proposed the question of the 3 circles to ^Princess of Bohemia , because it is so difficult that it seems to me that an angel who would have had no other Algebra instructions than those that St. [Stampioen?] would have given him, could not complete them without a miracle.

I am, Sir, Your very obedient and very passionate servant, Descartes. [Egmond] Du Hoef on Wednesday October 21, 1643

 It has already been 8 days since I was sent word from Utrecht that there was no longer any fear for me, and that the name of His Highness, in the letters of Mr. Ryusmond, had calmed the whole storm. This is the main joy that I have felt, to see that this name is revered, if not as it should, at least enough to prevent injustice in a city prone to mutiny and where the rebellious spirit of Voetius dominates .

________________________________________________________

Precious autograph letter signed by René Descartes offering a fascinating insight into the Utrecht Quarrel pitting him against his enemy Voetius, and into Cartesian mathematics relating to the “question of the three circles”.

Established in Holland since 1629 in order to freely pursue his research and publications, René Descartes was, from 1641, the target of incessant attacks from Voetius, accusing him of atheism. This “Utrecht Quarrel” took on such proportions that the philosopher called on the French ambassador to defend him. Descartes was condemned by the University of Utrecht on March 17, 1642, banning all writing for or against him. If we are to believe the post scriptum of this letter, on October 21, 1643, the question had been settled eight days ago: “ I was informed from Utrecht that there was no longer any fear for me. , and that the name of His Highness, in the letters of Mr. de Ryusmond, had calmed the whole storm. This is the main joy I felt, to see that this name is revered, if not as it should, at least enough to prevent injustice in a city prone to mutiny and where the rebellious spirit of Voetius dominates. »

Pollot had defended the philosopher in this nasty quarrel, for which the latter thanked him warmly: “ I have no words to express the resentment I have for the obligations I have to you, but I assure you that it is extreme, and that I will keep it all my life.  »

From a Protestant family from Piedmont who took refuge in Geneva in 1620 to escape the persecution of the Duke of Savoy, Alphonse de Pollot (1604-1668) settled shortly after in Holland with his brother. He had a career in the army and at court. Since March 1642, he has been a gentleman of the bedroom to His Highness the Prince of Orange. He was one of the philosopher's closest friends who willingly received him in what he called his “hermitage”.

Gijsbert Voet known as Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676), Lutheran rector of the University of Utrecht (founded in 1636) and holder of the chair of theology, was at the origin of the philosopher's setbacks. A fanatical proselytizer of Protestant orthodoxy, he denounced the sneaky atheism of Descartes through “ medisanse of lying and slander”, also accusing him of his support for the heliocentric theses of Copernicus.

The Utrecht Quarrel – The censorship of thought by the Protestant religion – the battle of faith against the spirit.

After staying there episodically, Descartes settled permanently in Holland in the spring of 1629. It was in these Batavian lands that the philosopher published his most famous texts: the Metaphysical Meditations (1641), the Principles of Philosophy (1644). ) and the illustrious Discourse on the Method published in Leiden in 1637.

Descartes' opposition to the scholastic tradition, his development of the philosophy of doubt, his desire to align all knowledge with mathematical certainty, did not fail to annoy the Protestant authorities.

The first of them was therefore Voetius (see above) who did not hesitate to launch a cabal, hatched in the shadows, against Descartes and his friend Henricus Regius, professor at the University of Utrecht. .

The Utrecht Quarrel is launched and pits Voetius head-on against Descartes. Voetius then instigated the publication of a polemical pamphlet Admiranda methodus, written by his student Martin Schook, in which Descartes is described as "a lying mouth", "a bastard of Christianity".

Descartes, recognizing in these lines the targeted attacks of Voetius, wrote an open letter to the rector. Assuring that he was in no way linked to the Admiranda pamphlet, Voetius obtained the support of the city and the university of Utrecht, – “ a city prone to mutiny and where the rebellious spirit of Voetius dominates ” – which confirmed their condemnation of 1642 prohibiting any writing relating to Descartes.

On March 23, 2005, three hundred and sixty-three years later, to be exact, the senate of the prestigious University of Utrecht – through the voices of Willem Gispen, rector, and Annie Brouwer-Korff, mayor of the city – officially put an end to the banishment of the philosopher, rehabilitating him in a solemn declaration, read in Latin (!), and repealing the judgment confirmed on March 24, 1642 which condemned “the new philosophy of Descartes”. It is therefore surprising to note that this late rehabilitation of Descartes perfectly echoes that of Galileo, himself banished in 1633 by the Catholic Inquisition, and absolved in 1992 by Pope John Paul II. The two scholars – with intrinsically linked principles – then opposed to two distinct Churches, had to wait, both, three hundred and sixty years before seeing their work considered just.

The problem of the three circles at the origin of Descartes' Theorem .

This month of October 1643, “in concert with Pollot, Descartes had proposed to the princess [Elisabeth, daughter of Frederick V, king of Bohemia] a problem which seemed to him most suited to exercising the sagacity of mathematicians, the problem of the three circles” (Charles Adam, Life and Works of Descartes, 1910, p. 411).

Problem “ so difficult that it seems to me that an angel who would have had no other Algebra instructions than those that St. [Stampioen?] would have given him, would not be able to overcome it without a miracle” confesses he told Pollot, almost embarrassed. And yet, Princess Elisabeth resolved it! Conquered, Descartes will entrust him with his own method on tangent circles, giving him the key to his algebra and will indicate to him the two theorems which he constantly used to solve problems and which summed up all geometry in his eyes: properties of right triangles and properties of similar triangles. From 1643, an abundant and regular correspondence began – almost sixty letters – between Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618.1680) and René Descartes. This epistolary relationship, initiated by the princess in the spring of 1643, offers precious testimony to the moral, philosophical, spiritual and mathematical principles of the great man.

The correspondence, which continued until Descartes' death in 1650, was published in 1935 by Boivin, under the title Lettres sur la Morale. In 1644, in homage to the unexpected mathematician who became a privileged correspondent, Descartes dedicated his Principia philosophiae to Princess Elisabeth.

________________________________________________________

Origin :

. Collection of the Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire (the letter was first published by Victor Egger in the Annals of the Faculty of Letters of Bordeaux.)

. Drouot sale – December 1981.

. Private collection.

Bibliography:

. Unpublished letters of Descartes. E. of Budé. Durand & Pedone-Lauriel (1868, pp. 12-16)

. Annals of the Faculty of Letters of Bordeaux. Victor Egger (1881, pp. 190-191)

. Adam and Tannery, Works of René Descartes, IV: Correspondence , letter nº CCCXX.

. Descartes: works/letters , Pléiade, Gallimard, 1999, Paris, p.1108

. Life of Monsieur Descartes , Adrien Baillet, Éditions Table Ronde, Paris, 1992, II.

. Descartes, Correspondence , Volume IV, J. Vrin Philosophical Library.