Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

What is more, the curriculum that Constantijn Sr. taught his sons seems to have aimed
at creating judgment, Castiglione’s sprezzatura or the “inexpressible somewhat” or “secret charm” as
Baldassare Gracián would later call it in his manner book The Courtiers manual oracle; or, The art
of Prudence. 203 In Gracián’s words, the “art of conversing,” writing and moving was more
important than “the seven liberal Arts all together.” 204 Sports, writing, drawing and languages
did not matter when they were not complemented by a certain way of moving and verbal
expression. Constantijn Sr.’s social ambitions (just like his father’s) not only imposed that his
children be well versed in a variety of subjects and languages, but also behave in ways
appropriate to young people of their standing (or, their desired standing). 205
The young men were raised as polyglots, well versed in law, and all subjects that might
come on the scene at court or in diplomacy. Following their father, Constant Sr., and their
grandfather, Christiaan Sr., they were brought up as close as possible to “potential ‘uomini
universali.’” 206 They learned to love what we now think of as “leisure” and learned to see it as a
nice, yet necessary part of their future courtly accomplishments.
iii. Team play: realization of the self and the family
It was during this program of education and their further upbringing that Christiaan
Jr. and his brothers learned to think as a “team,” and came to realize their responsibility for
the survivance of the family. Many activities were done together and shared accomplishments
cherished; personal decisions were weighed against the advantage for the family. And despite
203 GRACIÁN Y MORALES, B. (1685) The courtiers manual oracle; or, The art of prudence, London,,
Printed by M. Flesher for A. Swalle., p117. “Maxime CXXVII. The secret charm, or the unexpressible
somewhat; which the French call Le Je-ne-sai-quoi. And the Spaniards El despejo.”
204 Ibid., p21-2, Maxime XXII
205 "One of the priorities of parenting was what the upper ranks termed ‘breeding’: ensuring that their
sons and daughters exhibited behavior appropriate to their rank, birth order, and gender.” POLLOCK,
L. A. (2001) Parent-Child Relations. IN KERTZER, D. I. & BARBAGLI, M. (Eds.) The history of the
European family. New Haven, Yale University Press., p204-5. That Constantijn Sr.’s and Christiaan Sr.’s
attempt to belong to the highest echelons in society was serious can be seen in the fact that their
educational program was almost completely similar to that of the aristocracy: “Besides following the
manuals on civility, these latter groups [aristocracy and courtiers] also had to master such 'techniques
de corps' as the art of fencing or horse riding, thus establishing a major distance between themselves and
the 'bourgeois gentilhomme' who in Molière's famous play attempts to mimic them (1670).”
MUCHEMBLED, R. (1991) Gestures under the Ancien Régime in France. IN BREMMER, J. N. &
ROODENBURG, H. (Eds.) A Cultural history of gesture : from antiquity to the present day. Cambridge, UK,
Polity Press., p142
206 BACHRACH, A. G. H. (1980) The role of the Huygens family in seventeenth-century Dutch
culture. IN BOS, H. J. M., RUDWICK, M. J. S., SNELDERS, H. A. M. & VISSER, R. P. W. (Eds.)
Studies on Christiaan Huygens : invited papers from the Symposium on the Life and Work of Christiaan Huygens,
Amsterdam, 22-25 August 1979. Lisse, Swets & Zeitlinger., p32
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