All this and more Descartes may have intended to discuss with Queen Christine, although we do not know whether he even had time to show her the freshly printed volume of the Passions of the Soul. His stay in Stockholm, after a comfortable and promising start thanks to the hospitality of the Chanut family, would prove unhappy. In the Swedish winter â Descartes writes in his last letter of which we have the complete text â menâs thoughts âfreeze like waterâ.1 The winter of 1649â1650 would not be, like so many others, a winter of meditation but of exhausting early risings: the Queen had him woken up at five in the morning and made him cross a bridge swept by an icy wind â the latter is possibly a theatrical invention of Bailletâs â to discuss philosophy with him.2 Descartes soon longed to return to his âdesertâ, that is, to Egmond, his last and much regretted Dutch residence.3
Christine also pressed him with requests that were unusual for a philosopher. According to Baillet, she commissioned the text of a ballet to celebrate the Peace of Westphalia, which had ended the Thirty Yearsâ War a year earlier.4 In reality, it is not known whether Descartes actually wrote this not-so-memorable Birth of Peace (La Naissance de la Paix), staged on 18 December 1649 on the occasion of the sovereignâs twenty-third birthday, or whether he simply communicated it to one of his correspondents to fill out the parcel he was sending (as can be read in the letter to Brégy which constitutes the only basis for Bailletâs questionable attribution).5 What is certain is that, until a few years earlier, Descartes did not want to compose verses, fearing (prophetically, if he was the author of the Birth of Peace) that he would end up like Socrates, who died shortly after having begun to practice the art of poetry.6 It is also known
In January 1650, Descartes developed a respiratory illness, probably caught from Chanut. True to his principles, he refused bloodletting and run-of-the-mill remedies, trusting natureâs healing power. At the last moment, when he was probably no longer able to understand and express his will, he was subjected to a specific medical therapy that did not improve his condition: he died in Stockholm on 11 February 1650 at 4 oâclock in the morning. Indebted to his friend Van Zurck, defrauded by siblings, misled by the announcement of a French pension and Christineâs promised gifts (perhaps secularized church lands), he was in near poverty. He was also unloved by the Queenâs courtiers: only Chanut and a French priest comforted him while on his deathbed. Some have even suspected that he was murdered, but, conspiracy theories aside, pneumonia was probably his only killer.
Death stilled Descartesâs mind but not his body. Initially, it was buried in Stockholm in the cemetery dedicated to those who did not belong to the Lutheran religion. The skull was later removed and stolen, while the rest of the remains, after a few years, began a complicated return journey to Paris. They were buried in 1666 in the church of Saint-Ãtienne-du-Mont, before being transferred in 1819 to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where they are still to be found. In 1882, a purported âskull of Descartesâ was also returned to France, after being put up for auction: it is currently kept and showcased at the Musée de lâHomme in Paris. In 2020, researchers at Lund University Historical Museum in southern Sweden announced the finding of a different fragment which they believed to belong to Descartesâs skull. To date, no DNA test has been made to confirm the authenticity of the relic, which would rob France of the head of its greatest philosopher.
However, Descartes had spent little of his adult life in France. He had always wanted to be a cosmopolitan and a citizen of the world, as attested
Descartes to Brégy, 15 January 1650 (AT V, 467).
Cfr. G. Moyal, P. Myrén, âLa Résidence de Descartes à Stockholm. Etat des recherchesâ. Nouvelles de la réublique des Lettres, 1995, I, pp. 79â91.
Descartes to Brégy, 15 January 1650 (AT V, 467).
Baillet, Vie, II, p. 395.
See AT V, 457. According to R. Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum, p. 296 ff., the Birth of Peace (AT V, 616â27) is by Hélie Poirier or another court poet (and this attribution cannot be excluded, despite the protests of G. Rodis-Lewis, Le Développement â¦, pp. 212â220). Lars Gustafssonâs paper, âWas Descartes Queen Kristinaâs Peace Advocate? The Authorship of La Naissance de la paixâ, Studia Neophilologica, 2018, 90/1, pp. 71â89, provides a historical and political context for the work but does not significantly contribute to the ongoing debate about Descartesâs possible authorship. However, as is confirmed by Leibnizâs testimony, Descartes certainly devoted his efforts to another theatrical play with a bucolic subject (AT XI, 661).
Descartes to Huygens, 17 February 1645 (AT IV, 776).
The text of the project is reproduced by Baillet and in AT XI, 663â5.