Descartes' Bones by Russell Shorto Page B

the highest-ranking Cartesian in the French government, Jacques Rohault, in his home just a few blocks to the west, Madame de Sévigné, who lived an even shorter distance away, and other Cartesians got word of it. Foremost among these was Claude Clerselier, the fifty-three-year-old government official who had been one of the earliest converts to Cartesianism. During Descartes’ life, and even more so after his death, Clerselier made himself indispensable as a kind of literary agent. Descartes had deemed some of his writings too incendiary to publish during his lifetime; Clerselier edited them and oversaw their posthumous publication. He also published the philosopher’s correspondence, which wasn’t easy. Descartes’ effects, including his letters, were shipped to France after his death in Sweden, but the ship sank. Clerselier took charge of the salvage operation, employing a team of workers to recover the thousands of sheets and dry them out.
    Through the 1660s and 1670s, Clerselier kept the volumes of Descartes’ works appearing in print, giving the educated classes of late-seventeenth-century Europe fresh intellectual fuel and both keeping Descartes himself in living memory and using his works to further the cause. In doing so, he became the leader of the Cartesians—not in a philosophical or scientific sense but as a general or chief strategist. The followers of Descartes formed a diffuse group that ranged all across the Continent, but its core was remarkably tight knit. Those in the inner circle were linked not only by their devotion but also by ties of blood and marriage. Rohault was married to Clerselier’s daughter, while Clerselier had married Pierre Chanut’s sister.
    It may have been Clerselier—who had been working for so long on the body of Descartes’ writings—who came up with the idea of putting the physical body of the master to use as well. Sixteen years earlier, Chanut and Christina had decided, for their own reasons, to bury the philosopher in Stockholm, but soon after Chanut’s letters announcing the death reached France certain parties began to clamor for a translation to French soil. Nationalism may have been the initial motivation, but in time another thought dawned, and the irony in it probably did not escape their notice. Descartes’ revolutionary philosophy had been rooted in his focus on bodily health, in particular on his own body; that philosophy had recently come into conflict with official views about the physical body of Jesus Christ. Now, in their effort to legitimize that philosophy, and to protect themselves, Descartes’ followers would put his own physical remains into service.
    It took months to organize the sanctification of Descartes. The Cartesians—Rohault, Clerselier, d’Alibert and others—laid out their plans with the exquisite orchestration of political operatives. Their goal was to influence people in church and government, so the effect they hoped to create was one of power and force, something inexorable, that demanded official sanction and respect. Finally, on an evening in late June, their spectacle was ready. As the sun slowly set, a vast group of people gathered in the narrow street in front of d’Alibert’s home just off the Seine. Clergymen, aristocrats, and friends of the philosopher were among the crowd. But, just as important, large numbers of ordinary Parisians, including some of the city’s poorest inhabitants, filled the street. The poor were given flaming torches to carry; the rich rode in carriages. They formed a procession, heading north to the rue St.-Antoine. Here they turned left and came to the blocky edifice of the church of St. Paul, in whose chilly interior the coffin containing the remains of Descartes had been left since the winter. Bearing it with them, the funeral cortege headed south, making a dramatic bisection of the city, crossing the Ile de la Cité to the Latin