Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

François van Aerssen is a case in point. A diplomat for the Dutch at the French court
of Henry IV during the years 1598 – 1613 until the latter’s death, 56 he had “breathed” the
vapors of court for a decade and a half before he was sent on his missions to the courts of
Venice and London, missions on which he chose Huygens as the embassy’s aide. He “had his
hundred eyes at all the keyholes in Paris” as another diplomat put it, and was part of the
Dutch diplomatic mission to France in 1610 where the ambassadors received the highly
unusual honor to be awaited at the border by a prince, two marshals and four or five hundred
noble horsemen. 57 The Dutch Republic had to wait until 1650 (see quote above) until a French
King gave a comparable honor.
Stating that the rules of courtoisie and civilité only started to enter Dutch public life with
the appearance of Dutch translations and homeland writers’ editions of manner books 58 seems
unjustified as the Dutch, often francophone, elite could do well with Italian and French
editions. Furthermore, and more importantly here, forms of etiquette and behavior in
diplomatic circles often preceded national trends. Roodenburg tells us how “the resemblance
between the ‘pointilles’ cherished in these [Dutch diplomatic] circles and the rules that
were later expounded by De Courtin 59 and Van Laar 60 [in their Dutch manner books] is
really remarkable.” 61
A part of several high Dutch diplomatic missions together with van Aerssen,
Huygens was nourished extensively with the appropriate codes of demeanor, probably by
a combination of apprenticeship and available textual guides like “Traitté de la Court”, “Le
Parfait Ambassadeur” or “Le parfait Courtisan” – the French translation of Il Cortegiano. 62
56 BARENDRECHT, S. (1965) François van Aerssen, diplomaat aan het Franse hof (1598-1613), Leiden,
Universitaire Pers., p263. Maria de Medici, mother and Regent of the young King Louis XIII after the
death of her husband, King Henry IV, declared van Aerssen persona non grata in 1613.
57 Ibid., p242, 255
58 “Il Cortegiano” was not translated in Dutch (or Flemish) until the 1670s. Antwerp however did see
three Spanish editions published in the sixteenth century. BURKE, P. (1996) The fortunes of the Courtier :
the European reception of Castiglione's Cortegiano, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.,
p62, p160-1. Further catalogue-records seem to indicate that in Holland only Stefano Gauzzo’s De civili
Conversatione and Erasmus’s De civilitate morum puerilium were available in the Dutch Republic – though
to what amount remains unclear. ROODENBURG, H. (1991) The 'hand of friendship': shaking hands
and other gestures in the Dutch Republic. IN BREMMER, J. N. & ROODENBURG, H. (Eds.) A
Cultural history of gesture : from antiquity to the present day. Cambridge, UK, Polity Press., p156.
59 De Courtin, “Nouveau traité de la civilité,” with its first Dutch translation published in 1672 in
Amsterdam one year after the first edition in French.
60 C. van Laar, “Groot ceremonie-boek der beschaafde zeeden,” 1735
61 ROODENBURG, H. (1991) The 'hand of friendship': shaking hands and other gestures in the Dutch
Republic. IN BREMMER, J. N. & ROODENBURG, H. (Eds.) A Cultural history of gesture : from
antiquity to the present day. Cambridge, UK, Polity Press., p170
62 All of these titles can be found in the catalogue of Constantijn’s library (HUYGENS, C.,
RIJKSMUSEUM MEERMANNO-WESTREENIANUM & STOCKUM W.P. VAN PUB. (1903)
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