Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

correspondence with and poems for his sons (see Chapter IV), was the important attachment
of a hereditary line of father to son to a high public function. 133
Christiaan Sr. (Constantijn Sr.’s father), in Frans Blom’s words, was a “homo novus”,
the “initiator of a family of public servants in The Hague’s administrative centre.” 134 He had
fulfilled the position of secretary to the Stadholder for a few years, but more importantly the
secretariat of the Council of State for forty years of which the last decades on his own (see the
first section of this chapter). When Constantijn Sr.’s elder colleague, Junius, was severely ill,
Constantijn took his chances to take up the dormant linkage between the House of Orange
and the Huygens family.
In his letter of June 17, 1645 to his master, Huygens “in all humility” indicated that a
certain “hope” had lingered in him “during some years” to take over that little bit of function
that Junius did as his colleague-secretary – “that is to say, to be able to continue doing that
which I [Huygens] have done since so long.”
I see that normally it is the fruit and recompense of long service that the honor of functions,
parted amongst several officers, comes back together with the last survivor [survivant]. Of four
secretaries that late Mr. the Prince [Willem of Orange the Silent], father of Y[our] H[igness]
[Frederik Hendrik], has left, Mr. the Prince Maurits [Frederik Hendrik’s brother and
predecessor] has reposed just at Mr. Melander. Of the four that he had for the Council of
State, the function stayed, without any more colleagues, to my late father, who survived
[survescut] the three others. 135
Along the lines of this tradition, Huygens wished to be the survivor, thus duly rewarded with an
honor for all his efforts to protect that of the Stadholder. Huygens also took the liberty to
reflect on the fulfillment of the position after his own last breath, clearly showing his greater
idea about his family’s position and its relation to that very-illustrious House:
133 Parival, for instance, also used survivance as a term to indicate hereditary professional functions: “Au
commencement de 1631, les Etats Généraux donnérent à Guillaume, fils unique du Prince d’Orange la
survivance des Charges & des Gouvernemens de son Pére.” PARIVAL, J.-N. D. (1710) Les delices de la
Hollande, contenant une description éxacte du païs, des moeurs et des coutumes des habitans, The Hague, van
Doolen., p332, italics added.
134 HUYGENS, C. & BLOM, F. R. E. (2003) Mijn leven verteld aan mijn kinderen in twee boeken (De vita
propria sermonum inter liberos), Amsterdam, Prometheus., p11
135 HUYGENS, C. (1911) BW., Vol. 24, Lett. 3981 – Constantijn Sr. to Prince Frederik Hendrik. p158.
“De quatre secretaries qu’avoit laissé feu Monsign.r le Prince, pere de V. A., Monseign.r le Prince
Maurice s’est reposé au seul S.r Melander. De quatre qu’il y en avoit au Conseil d’Estat la function
demeura, sans plus de collegues, à feu mon pere, qui survescut aux trois autres.”
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