The Abbé de Saint-Pierre and the Emergence of the 'Quantifying ...

Abbé Saint-Pierre and the “Quantifying Spirit” 6
open to Saint-Pierre and by all accounts, including his own, he completely immersed himself in
them.
At first, it was the “new science” of the seventeenth century that most attracted his
attention. “My college studies having been completed,” Saint Pierre reminisced later, “I had the
pleasure of passing three or four years studying physics.” 13 “Physics” had a much broader
meaning in the seventeenth century, connoting the general study of the causes of all natural
phenomena, and Saint-Pierre’s studies exposed him to the full range of this discipline. At the
Jardin du roi, another important site of Parisian intellectual sociability, he attended the anatomy
lectures of M. du Verney and the chemistry lectures of M. Lemery, both members of the Royal
Academy of Sciences. He also attended the Parisian “conférences de fiziques” as Saint-Pierre
called them offered by Mr. De Launay and the abbé Bourdelot.
De Launay’s gatherings were more intimate and erudite, befitting their location in what
was once the library of the famous Cabinet du Puy. Here Saint-Pierre honed his skills as a
learned conversationalist while being exposed to the philosophy of Gassendi which was
Launay’s trademark. The self-proclaimed “academy” of abbé Bourdelot was quite different.
Founded in the 1660s by the Prince de Condé, Bourdelot hosted a weekly gathering of savants in
his Parisian home, in effect creating one of the most important scientific institutions of the
period. Its audience, which on one occasion was estimated at over 400 persons, included three
classes of participants: listeners (the vast majority), occasional speakers, and active savants who
constituted the core membership of the group. The latter were invited to dine with their host after
the session, and these dinners were but one part of Bourdelot’s work as master of ceremonies,
intellectual director, and all-purpose impresario of the entire enterprise. 14