Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

his experiences with presumably the Orange Court and that of the Winter Queen, were that
even some of the high-ranked did not use napkins, and that they drank their beer from silver
cups – almost too heavy to lift. 273
In terms of a Grand Tour, the following period did not exactly qualify. Christiaan
apparently stayed in and around Holland for the following few years, while his brothers saw
several courts throughout Europe. It was not until 1655 that Christiaan would leave for Paris
in a “continuation” of his tour.
What happened in the mean time? The fact that Christiaan produced several treatises
in the period 1650–1655 and had a rather intensive correspondence with Father Gregory of St.
Vincent has been taken as a reflection of Christiaan’s full-time dedication to what he had
become at that point against his father’s wish: a mathematician/natural philosopher. Limited as
the available sources from this period are (constituted mainly by Christiaan’s scientific
correspondence), another hypothesis is possible.
The years following 1650 were difficult ones for the family Huygens; Constantijn Sr.
had lost his powerful patron, Stadholder Willem II. He saw his and his sons’ future in danger,
falling into the hands of the capricious Princess Amalia and his adversaries at court and in the
States General. Several documents show the intense efforts that the father took in these years
to appoint his eldest son (“mon Aisné”). In a mémoire to his sons, a plagued Constantijn Sr.
wrote in 1655 that the princess and many of Constantijn’s supposed friends were turning
against him and his sons, but that he would continue “to make you capable for the service of
our Fatherland, thus, that if they persist in withholding it from you, those two great
contrarieties, your merit and the injustice of the century, can conduce to illustrate your honor
and to display the shame of the unthankful.” Though Constantijn Sr.’s main efforts for
survivance clearly aimed at Constantijn Jr. the problem was a family affair – after all, eighty
years of loyal service to the House of Orange was at stake! 274
273 HUYGENS, C. (1888) OC., Vol. I, No 67 (25 Dec. 1649). “on s’alloit divertir ins frauwenzimmer ou il
ij avoit 12 damoiselles de la Reine et quelques freuleins, toutes habillées a la Francoise mais dont pas une
ne parloit Francois.” Constantijn Jr. thought that life in Geneva was even stranger than in Denmark:
“On passe le tems gaillardement icij a causer, jouer et veiller, qui veut dire donner des visites après
souper, chose fort usitée icij et mesme par tout en France, dont vous trouveriez les façons de vivre tres
differentes, et bien plus estranges que celles de Danemarc.” HUYGENS, C. (1888) OC., Vol. I, No. 69
(Jan. 1650)
274 “à vous rendre si capables du service de vostre Patrie, que si l'on persiste à vous en déboutter, ces
deux grandes contrarietez, vostre mérite et l'iniquité du siècle, puissent tendre à illustrer vostre honneur
et à estaller la honte des ingrats.” HUYGENS, C. & JORISSEN, T. (1873) Mémoires de Constantin
Huygens : publiés pour la premiére fois, d'apres̀ les minutes de l'auteur, preécédes d'une introduction, La Haye,
Nijhoff., p149; my translation. Also: p146-7
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