RENÉ DESCARTES (France—1596-1650).
Another thinker, over whose life no woman seems to have exercised any influence, is René Descartes. He took part in the siege of La Rochelle in 1629 and then sought solitude in Holland and remained there for twenty years. During this time he published his metaphysical works and made a great name for himself. The Princess Palatine became his warm friend, and Christine of Sweden invited him to her court. He declined her invitation at first, but finally, finding that his theological opponents were determined to suppress him, he fled from Holland and took refuge in Stockholm, where the rigorous climate soon carried him off. Christine, whose counselor and warm friend, in a Platonic sense, he had been for years, mourned sincerely for him. So did other notable women who dimly recognized in him the Socrates of the seventeenth century.