Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

observations. It is not true that Christiaan Jr. swung out of the orbit of his father’s ambitions
and had to determine his own path the moment he became seriously interested in the natural
sciences – which was during his adolescence. Rather, Christiaan Jr.’s talent for the natural
sciences, just like his father’s for poetry and music, seems to have been seen mainly as a very
good asset by his father to settle his name and successfully enter courtly circles. This argument
is strengthened by the fact that Constantijn Sr. actively used his son’s inventions and
experiments to strengthen his own position at court. It was not until Christiaan Jr. began a
process of courting the patronage of Louis XIV that a position outside the realm of diplomacy
became a real option. In this, Christiaan Jr.’s ambitions and those of his father completely
coincided.
The Huygens family had already been working together as a team on the development,
production, and distribution of Christiaan Jr.’s scientific instruments for some years when
Christiaan received his first gratuity from the French King. The gift was an indication that
Christiaan Jr.’s name and fame had been successfully finding its way in the chambers and halls
of the French Court, something the Huygens-team had been working on steadily. Christiaan
had been given the honor of the gratuity by the courtier Jean Chapelain, friend of Christiaan
and his father and client of Louis XIV’s first minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. There seems to
have been a striking “coincidence” of factors: Constantijn Sr.’s years in Paris for diplomatic
negotiations with Colbert and the King, both Christiaan Jr.’s and Constantijn Sr.’s good
contact with Chapelain, and Chapelain’s central role in Colbert’s program to attract savants
and men of science. To my mind this complex of facts is not particularly coincidental, but
rather forms a proof that the worlds of Constantijn Sr. and his son Christiaan Jr. have been
kept apart unjustifiably. The realms of diplomacy, the court and natural and experimental
philosophy were in fact intimately connected. As Christiaan Jr.’s ambitions in the natural
sciences came to fit in those of his father – gaining a favorable socio-professional position by
seeking patronage from one of the most important rulers of Europe – Constantijn Sr.,
influential and ambitious, could be of very great help for his son.
The worlds of Constantijn Sr. and Christiaan Jr. were alike in many ways. Christiaan
Jr. needed courtly manner books to keep up with the latest finesses of civilized behavior;
Constantijn Sr. thankfully used the presentation of his son’s magical lantern and telescopes to
create favorable circumstances for his diplomatic negotiations. Aside from being a very
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