Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

V. The Honorable Art of strategic Communication & Publication
“My father, who has a very particular care that we continue our correspondence”
Constantijn Huygens Jr. to Christiaan Huygens Jr. – Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. I, No. 55 – Jun. 19, 1648
In Part I we have seen how Constantijn used his talents to create and preserve an
immense correspondence-network with many of the most important people of his time
(socially, politically, intellectually, artistically, etc.). He built his own status and that of many
others (including, of course, the consecutive Stadholders) by increasingly taking an active role
of patron and broker of patronage-relations. Constantijn Sr. knew the importance of
correspondence-networks and social contacts and shared them with his sons in order to
enhance their future possibilities significantly. He taught his sons how to use these resources
advantageously. Furthermore, I will show that he was also involved in the strategic publication
of several pieces of Christiaan Jr..
i. Aristocratic networking
Aside from the array of high-placed friends whom Constantijn Sr. had invited to teach
his sons, he brought Christiaan Jr. in contact with many men and women of standing.
Constantijn Sr. would take Christiaan with him to the court-in-exile of the Winter-Queen,
Elizabeth of Bohemia, who lived close to their home in The Hague. In this thin aristocratic air
Christiaan and his father would have both “witty” and deep intellectual discussions with the
Queen’s daughters, Princess Elizabeth Palatine in special, and many other visiting gentle
women and men. 218 Christiaan also got the opportunity to share many of his father’s contacts
218 ZUYLEN VAN NYEVELT, S. V. (1906) Court life in the Dutch Republic, 1638-1689, London, New
York,, J. M. Dent & co.; E. P. Dutton & co., p78 and GODFREY, E. (1909) A sister of Prince Rupert :
Elizabeth princess Palatine and abbess of Herford, London, H. Lane., p122: "With such men as Huyghens and
his clever son, the brothers Dhona, the courtly de Pollot, the Queen's friend, Lord Craven, and perhaps
occasional visits from the philosophical young Englishman, Charles Cavendish, to say nothing of the
brothers coming and going, there can have been no lack of brilliant conversation.”
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