Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

maintain the possession of the Principality of Orange (see Chapter VI, section ii), he proudly
presented his invention of an alternative candleholder. The design was fairly simple, intended
to increase the number of burning hours of candles and it immediately captured the attention
of Christiaan, who was “rather eager to see the treatise with figures.” 361 If nothing else, it
reflects the unrelenting attention of the Huygens for each other’s accomplishments.
iii. Experimental showing
During the years 1660-1666 Christiaan Jr. was, as we have seen, rather itinerant. His
irregular presence at the Montmor-group (Paris) and the Royal Society (London) caused
impatience with his French contacts. Adding to their already described partaking in and care
for Christiaan Jr.’s scientific endeavors, Christiaan Jr.’s brothers and father took over parts of
the burden of experimental demonstration of new instruments, inventions and phenomena
during their stays in these cities. Generally, they were well informed about the secret elements
of the inventions – the ‘causes’ of a phenomenon, the mechanism of the instrument – and
Christiaan Jr. trusted their sincere and careful handling of matters that, when fallen in the
wrong hands, might cause all loss of primacy and priority. Importantly, the correspondence
suggests that the substantial role for Christiaan Jr.’s father and brothers was commonly
accepted by the French and English contacts. Though sometimes Christiaan’s absence would
still be felt, they would be seen as the socially and intellectually acceptable representatives of
Christiaan. Furthermore, the wondrous and striking effects that some of the instruments
brought about, Constantijn Sr. handily applied for “greater” purposes – his position at court.
The interest for Christiaan’s inventions reached many layers of seventeenth-century
upper-society and sometimes assemblies and experimental showings could attract people of
considerable standing. In January 1662 the Dutch ambassador to France Van Beuningen
informed Christiaan that Queen Christine of Sweden might visit one of the assemblies of the
Académie in Paris. The Elector of Brandenburg, together with the Count of Fürstenberg and
the Counts of Horn (father and son), later that year, paid a visit to the house of the Huygens in
The Hague, for an experimental showing of the air pump. 362 Viewing experiments was
fashionable, something that can be seen in the great eagerness of the socially well placed to
partake in these showings – even resulting in early morning visits, an otherwise unusual
361
HUYGENS, C. (1888) OC., Vol. IV, No. 998 (March 22, 1662); No. 1002 (Apr. 1662); No. 1004
(Apr. 12, 1662).
362
Ibid., Vol. IV, No. 957 (Jan. 25, 1662); No. 1067 (Oct. 5, 1662)
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