Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

two important technicalities, forming crucial elements in the handling of the machine. 369 After
repeated attempts and suggestions, sent to and fro by mail between Christiaan and Lodewijk,
Chapelain eventually indicated in June that “I would be more convinced if I was at the place
where you are.” 370 Despite Lodewijk’s care, Christiaan was needed to show the experiment and
convince his gentleman-colleagues. In March of the next year, 1663, having come to Paris after
a stay in England, Christiaan took care of a successful demonstration after all, leading to an
important experimental meeting with “Monsieur le Premier President” 371 and the building of
another air-pump, baptized, in a courtly manner, “La Machine de Versaille.” 372
In England, the process of establishing a matter of fact for Huygens’s anomalous
suspension also took a long time. After Christiaan’ visit to London in April 1661 where he
visited the recently established Royal Society and discussed the experiment with Robert Boyle,
he kept up intensive correspondence on the matter with Robert Moray. It seems to me that
when, throughout 1662, the Society did not accept Christiaan’s hypothesis on the air pump, 373
it became important for Christiaan to put everything to work to convince the English.
Together with his high-ranking father he visited the Royal Society in June 1663, leading
Henry Oldenburg, the Society’s secretary, to write to Boyle: “This afternoon we had no
ordinary meeting: there were no lesse than foure strangers, two French, and two Dutch
gentlemen: ye French were, Monsieur de Sorbiere and Monsieur Monconis; ye Dutch, both
369
Ibid., Vol. IV, No. 1014 (May 18, 1662): “Monsieur Chapelain en faisant ses raisonnements sur mon
Experience du vuide, n’a pas estè bien instruit du fait, croyant qu’on ne pouvoit plus faire descendre
l’eau, après la premier fois. Car cela n’arrive que lors qu’estant descendue on la laisse par 24 heures dans
le vuide se purger d’air, et que puis après on en remplisse une seconde fois la boule avec son tuyau. Mais
je luy en escriray bientost amplement.”
370
SHAPIN, S. & SCHAFFER, S. (1985) Leviathan and the air-pump : Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental
life : including a translation of Thomas Hobbes, Dialogus physicus de natura aeris by Simon Schaffer, Princeton,
N.J., Princeton University Press., p266
371
Probably Monseigneur M. Chrestofle de Thou, knight, seigneur de Cœli, premier president en
parlement.
372
“Finally, on 2/12 March he [Christiaan] wrote that the pump had begun to work well in Auzout’s
rooms in Paris, and that he was now able to produce anomalous suspension for other eminent
Parisians.” SHAPIN, S. & SCHAFFER, S. (1985) Leviathan and the air-pump : Hobbes, Boyle, and the
experimental life : including a translation of Thomas Hobbes, Dialogus physicus de natura aeris by Simon Schaffer,
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press., p267. On the “Machine de Versaille:” HUYGENS, C.
(1888) OC., Vol. IV, No. 1108 (Apr. 20, 1663); No. 1115 (May 1663); No. 1127 (Jul. 1663); No. 1134
(Jul. 1663). The demonstration for “le Premier President”: Vol. IV, No. 1186 (Dec. 15, 1663)
373
SHAPIN, S. & SCHAFFER, S. (1985) Leviathan and the air-pump : Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental
life : including a translation of Thomas Hobbes, Dialogus physicus de natura aeris by Simon Schaffer, Princeton,
N.J., Princeton University Press., p244-50. P249: “So in March and April 1663 it became clear that
unless the phenomenon could be produced in England with one of the two pumps available, then no one
in England would accept the claims Huygens had made, or his competence in working the pump.”
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