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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 November 2018
In the summer of 1673, in what Koenraad O. Meinsma once qualified as “one of the most inexplicable events in Spinoza's life,” the philosopher left his residence in The Hague to travel to Utrecht and stayed there for some three weeks. This event has garnered much interest, for two main reasons. In the first place, it is agreed that something must have induced the rather homebound Spinoza to undertake the journey, especially since Utrecht was occupied at the time by the French, rendering travel dangerous. The paucity of available sources has kept most scholars from suggesting a motive, but those who have been so bold are virtually unanimous in positing that Spinoza traveled on a diplomatic or political mission, referring in support to his first biographer Johannes Colerus's report, gathered from the philosopher's landlord Hendrik van der Spyck, that at his return he was greeted by a frenzied crowd that was ready to lynch him as a “spy, murmuring that he treated with the French of matters pertaining to state and nation,” with Spinoza countering that “many among the highly placed know why I went to Utrecht.” A second reason for the interest is formed by the connection the trip offers between Spinoza and the French general in Utrecht, Louis II de Bourbon (1621–86), the prince of Condé, renowned not only for his military exploits but also for his interest in the arts and sciences, as evinced in his patronage of dissident thinkers like Isaac La Peyrère of pre-Adamite fame. Condé thus figures in all early accounts of Spinoza's trip, and yet the conflicting nature of these accounts, combined with the paucity of firsthand sources, has left later scholars debating at length the precise nature of the prince's involvement as Spinoza's inviter, as his host, and as his ready benefactor.
For their comments, criticisms, and suggestions, I would like to thank my fellow research team members Piet Steenbakkers and Jeroen van de Ven (Utrecht University), as well as Florent Picouleau (Château de Chantilly), Jonathan Israel (Institute for Advanced Study), Eric Jorink (Huygens ING), Richard Muller (Calvin Theological Seminary), Steven Nadler (Wisconsin–Madison), and this journal's anonymous referees. Unless otherwise noted, all dates follow the Gregorian calendar (“New Style”).
1 Meinsma, Koenraad O., Spinoza en zijn kring: historisch–kritische studiën over Hollandsche vrijgeesten (The Hague, 1896), 370Google Scholar.
2 This thesis seems to have been suggested first by Meijer, Willem, “Spinoza, Baruch of Benedictus de,” in Blok, Petrus J. and Molhuysen, Philipp C., eds., Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1 (Leiden, 1911), 1480–84Google Scholar, at 1483, and was developed more fully by him in his Spinoza: Een levensbeeld (Amsterdam, [1915]), 22–3. It is repeated in Feuer, Lewis Samuel, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (Boston, 1958), 142Google Scholar; Harris, Errol E., Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza's Philosophy (The Hague, 1973), xviiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klever, Wim, “Spinoza's Life and Works,” in Garrett, Don, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge, 1996), 13–60Google Scholar, at 43; Dijn, Herman de, Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom (West Lafayette, 1996), 7Google Scholar; Bunge, Wiep van, From Stevin to Spinoza: An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Leiden, 2001), 159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bunge, Van, De Nederlandse Republiek, Spinoza en de Radicale Verlichting (Brussels, 2010), 34Google Scholar; Bunge, Van, “Spinoza and the Netherlands,” Philosophia Osaka 7 (2012), 1–12Google Scholar, at 2; and Seymour Feldman, introduction to Benedictus Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, vii–xlv, trans. Samuel Shirley, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis, 2001), xi.
3 Colerus, Johannes, “Korte, dog waaragtige levens-beschryving, van Benedictus de Spinoza,” in De waarachtige verryzenis Jesu Christi uit den dooden, tegen B. de Spinosa en zyn aanhangers verdeedigt . . . (Amsterdam, 1705), 159Google Scholar.
4 See Béguin, Katia, Les princes de Condé: Rebelles, courtisans et mécènes dans la France du Grand Siècle (Seyssel, 1999), 363–83Google Scholar.
5 Braun, Johannes, La veritable religion des Hollandois . . . (Amsterdam, 1675), 164Google Scholar; Bayle, Pierre, Dictionaire historique et critique (hereafter DHC), 2 vols. (Rotterdam, 1697), 2Google Scholar: 1088; Bayle, , DHC, 2nd rev. edn (Rotterdam, 1702), 3Google Scholar: 2772 n. F; Bayle to Mémoires de Trévoux, [Rotterdam], [April 1706], in Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, ed. Elisabeth Labrousse, Antony McKenna et al., vol. 13 (Oxford, 2017), 419–25; Maizeaux, Pierre des, ed., Lettres de Mr. Bayle, vol. 3 (Amsterdam, 1729), 1081–2Google Scholar (note with letter 282); Colerus, “Levens-beschryving,” 156–9; and manuscript and printed first-edition (1719) versions of the anonymous “La vie de feu Monsieur de Spinosa,” in Françoise Charles-Daubert, ed., Le “Traité des trois imposteurs” et “L'Esprit de Spinosa”: Philosophie clandestine entre 1678 et 1768 (Oxford, 1999), 473, 634–5.
6 Vloten, Johannes van, “Spinoza's uitstapjen naar Utrecht,” De levensbode 12 (1880), 466–70Google Scholar; Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 363–79; Bijvanck, Willem G. C., “Spinoza in Utrecht: Een aanteekening op: Spinoza en zijn kring . . . door K. O. Meinsma,” De Gids 60/4 (1896), 182–93Google Scholar; Cohen, Gustav, “Le séjour de Saint-Évremond en Hollande (1665–1672),” Revue de la littérature comparée 5 (1925), 431–54Google Scholar, 6 (1926), 28–78, 402–23, at 6, 61–78; Brinkgreve-Entrop, J. H., “Spinoza in Utrecht,” Maandblad van Oud-Utrecht 7 (1932), 84–8Google Scholar; Vernière, Paul, Spinoza et la pensée française avant la Révolution (Paris, 1954), 18–23Google Scholar; Assoun, Pierre-Laurent, “Spinoza, les libertins français et la politique (1665–1725),” Cahiers Spinoza 3 (1979–80), 171–207Google Scholar, at 183–90; Popkin, Richard H., “Serendipity at the Clark: Spinoza and the Prince of Condé,” Clark Newsletter 10 (1986), 4–7Google Scholar; Popkin, “The First Published Reaction to Spinoza's Tractatus: Col. J. B. Stoupe, the Condé Circle, and the Rev. Jean LeBrun,” in Cristofolini, Paolo, ed., L'hérésie spinoziste: La discussion sur le Tractatus theologico-politicus, 1670–1677, et la réception immédiate du Spinozisme (Amsterdam, 1991), 6–12Google Scholar; Nadler, Steven, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, 1999), 314–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van de Ven, Jeroen M. M., “‘Crastina die loquar cum Celsissimo principe de Spinosa’: New Perspectives on Spinoza's Visit to the French Army Headquarters in Utrecht in Late July 1673,” Intellectual History Review 25/2 (2015), 147–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Popkin, “First Published Reaction,” 11; see also Popkin, “Serendipity”; and Popkin, Richard H., The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Leiden, 1992), 146–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Meijer, Spinoza, 23; and Vernière, Spinoza et la pensée française, 23.
9 Klever, “Spinoza's Life,” 43.
10 See Rovère, Maxime, Le clan Spinoza: Amsterdam, 1677. L'invention de la liberté (Paris, 2017), 438–9Google Scholar, who is forthright about the highly speculative character of the suggestion.
11 Meijer, Spinoza, 23.
12 Des Maizeaux, Lettres de Mr. Bayle; see also Labrousse, McKenna et al., Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, 421–5.
13 Popkin, The Third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought, 146–7. Cohen, “Le séjour de Saint-Évremond,” 6, 70–1.
14 Van de Ven, “Crastina die.”
15 The note is held in Copenhagen, Royal Library, Special Collections, Thott Collection (hereafter Thott), 1266 4°, and transcribed in Van de Ven, “Crastina die,” 159 n. 70. Prior to its recovery by Van de Ven, it had been published by Van Vloten in his obscure “Spinoza's uitstapjen naar Utrecht.”
16 Van de Ven, “Crastina die,” 155.
17 Annotations from a contemporary witness indicate that Jean-Baptiste Stoupe hosted Condé for dinner on 11/21 June 1673; see [de Wicquefort, Abraham], Journael, of dagelijcksch verhael van de handel der Franschen in de steden van Uytrecht en Woerden . . . (Amsterdam, 1674)Google Scholar, fol. 76v (with p. 202): “11/21 eet conde by dese colonel stoupa.” The annotated copy is held at Utrecht, University Library, Special Collections (hereafter UU), Hs. 3.L.17, no. 1, at http://abo.annotatedbooksonline.com/#binding-9-373, accessed 1 Oct. 2018. Since the younger Stoupe, as an officer of middle rank, did not frequently dine with Condé, this dinner may very well have been the occasion he spoke to the prince about Spinoza.
18 See Gootjes, Albert, “Sources inédites sur Spinoza: La correspondance entre Johannes Bouwmeester et Johannes Georgius Graevius,” Bulletin de bibliographie spinoziste, in Archives de philosophie 79/4 (2016), 817–19Google Scholar. Following Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 371, scholars frequently suppose that letters passed with difficulty between the provinces of Utrecht and Holland. Yet markings on a number of Bouwmeester's letters from this period (5, 21, and 29 July 1673) show that they passed through the regular mail system.
19 Johannes Bouwmeester to Johannes Georgius Graevius, Amsterdam, 15 June 1673 (Thott 1258 4°).
20 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 5 July 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Omnia Do. Spinosae significavi, quae eum per me scire voluisti, respondit tandem se decrevisse ad vos proficisci, si a Principe Auriaco litteras salvi conductus impetrare poterit; sin minus, vix credo eum permoveri posse ut eat; isti rei nunc incumbit sedulo, eumque aliquid impetratarum haud diffido, quod quamprimum mihi significare promisit.”
21 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 21 July 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Spinosae diploma Principis Condaei misi; venturus an sit nescio. Nihil enim responsi hactenus ab eo habeo.”
22 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 21 July 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Me quod attinet res meae non permittunt, ut, licet tutissime possem, ad vos excurram.”
23 See Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 15 June 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Sanum te ac salvum ad tuos rediisse ex animo gratulor.”
24 Graevius's letter to J. Capellanus from that date is still signed “Utrecht”; see Leiden, University Library, Archief en collectie handschriften van Petrus Burman (hereafter BUR), Q 19, fols. 119v–121r.
25 See Nicolaas Heinsius to Graevius, The Hague, 3 June 1673, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mss. D'Orville (hereafter MS d'Orville), 472, fol. 106. For May 18 as terminus ad quem see the next note.
26 See Utrecht, Het Utrechts Archief (hereafter HUA) 67 (Familie Huydecoper), cat. no. 57 (Registers van uitgaande brieven . . . 1671–1674), journal entry at the date 18 May 1673: “Met confr. Beckker neef Sarvaes besocht, daer nevens Grevius, Wolsoogen, neef Schaep, Wildeschut etc. eens vervarsten.” In a hitherto unknown Spinoza episode, Huydecoper paid a visit to Geurt van Beuningen, “where the atheist Spinoza was present” (“daer den Atheus Spinoza mede was”; see cat. no. 58, at 20 Aug. 1675). I was alerted to this reference through the notes of the late Bert van der Wal, who spent decades studying the Huydecoper family. I am indebted to Marten Jan Bok for drawing my attention to these notes, and to Van der Wal's sister Bini Biemans for helping me to locate them. For Graevius's meetings in Amsterdam see also Louis Wolzogen to Graevius, Amsterdam, 5 June 1673 (Thott 1267 4°); and Petrus Francius to Graevius Amsterdam, 5 June 1673 (Thott 1261 4°).
27 See n. 78 below.
28 If it had just been about a passport, Stoupe might also have turned to François-Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, the Duke of Luxembourg, or, even more conveniently, to his own brother Pierre, both of whom had the requisite authority to issue passports; see Booth, Cornelis, Dagelijksche aanteekeningen gedurende het verblijf der Franschen te Utrecht in 1672 en 1673, ed. Grothe, Jacob A. (Utrecht, 1857), 85Google Scholar; and Munich, University Library, 2 Cod. MS 652 no. 55 (passport for Guillaume Toussin, 9 Aug. 1672, signed by Pierre Stoupe).
29 Braun, La veritable religion, 164: “Car l'on m'assuré que le Prince de Condé, à sa [Stoupe] sollicitation, l'a fait venir de La Haye à Utrecht, tout exprez pour conferer avec lui.”
30 Pierre Stoupe to Condé, Utrecht, 28 July 1673, in Chantilly, Archives Condé (hereafter Condé), Série P, vol. 50, fol. 166v: “Le nommé Spinosa qui est venu de La Haye à la prière de mon frère.”
31 See Pierre Stoupe to Condé, Utrecht, 18 July 1673 (Condé, Série P, vol. 49, fol. 386v): “Depuis vostre départ Monseigneur nous n'avons point eu de nouvelles de Hollande, s'il en vient quelques unes à ce soir cy ou par la suitte qui mérite de vous en faire part, je ne manqueray de le faire suivant l'ordre qu'il vous a plû de m'en donner.”
32 See Jessurun-ten Dam Ham, Suzanne C. J., Utrecht in 1672 en 1673 (Utrecht, 1934), 63–135Google Scholar.
33 Graevius to Heinsius, Utrecht, 3 May 1673, in Pieter Burman, ed., Sylloge epistolarum a viris illustribus scriptarum, vol. 4 (Leiden, 1727), 180–81.
34 Montausier to Graevius, Saint-Germain, 2 Aug. 1672, in Masson, Gustav, “Graevius et le duc de Montausier,” Le cabinet historique 13/1 (1867), 217–38Google Scholar, at 221.
35 See also Jean Chapelain to Graevius, Paris, 20 Dec. 1672, in Lettres de Jean Chapelain, ed. Philippe Tamizey de Larroque, vol. 2 (Paris, 1883), 802.
36 Montausier to Graevius, Versailles, 10 Dec. 16[7]2; and Saint-Germain, 13 Jan. 1673 (Masson, “Graevius,” 221–5).
37 Chapelain to Graevius, Paris, [Feb. 1673] (Lettres de Jean Chapelain, 810); and Melchisédec Thévenot to Graevius, Paris, 15 Dec. 1672 (Thott 1266 4°).
38 Chapelain to Graevius, Paris, 20 Dec. 1672; and Chapelain to Ottavio Ferrari, Paris, 4 June 1673 (Lettres de Jean Chapelain, 802, 821).
39 Graevius to Heinsius, Utrecht, 21 April 1673 (Burman, Sylloge, 179): “Pincipem Condaeum hic indies expectant hospites nostri.”
40 See Graevius to Heinsius, Utrecht, 27 July 1673 (Burman, Sylloge, 186–8). That Graevius left a very favourable impression is clear from Thévenot to Graevius, Paris, 19 April 1675 (Thott 1266 4°).
41 P. Stoupe to François-Michel le Tellier (marquis de Louvois), Utrecht, 22 Feb. 1673, in Recueil de lettres, pour servir d’éclaircissement à l'histoire militaire du regne de Louis XIV, vol. 1 (The Hague, 1740), 295–6.
42 Jean-Baptiste Stoupe to Graevius, Brugelette, 1 July 1674 (Thott 1266 4°). See also Thévenot to Graevius, Paris, 28 Dec. 1674 (Thott 1266 4°).
43 Graevius to J.-B. Stouppe, Utrecht, 8/18 Nov. 1683 (UU 7.C.30 = Hs. 1678, pp. 24–5).
44 See Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 364; and Jessurun-Ten Dam, Utrecht in 1672 en 1673, 132–3.
45 J.B. Stouppe to Graevius, Brugelette, 1 July 1674 (Thott 1266 4°).
46 Graevius to J.B. Stouppe, Utrecht, 8/18 Nov. 1683 (UU 7.C.30 = Hs. 1678, pp. 24–5).
47 See Albert Gootjes, “The Collegie der sçavanten: A Seventeenth-Century Cartesian Scholarly Society in Utrecht,” in Jo Spaans and Jetze Touber, eds., Enlightened Religion: From Confessional Churches to Polite Piety in the Dutch Republic (forthcoming).
48 See Gootjes, Albert, “The First Orchestrated Attack on Spinoza: Johannes Melchioris and the Cartesian Network in Utrecht,” Journal of the History of Ideas 79/1 (2018), 23–43CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
49 Lambertus van Velthuysen to Jacob Ostens/Benedictus Spinoza, Utrecht, 24 Jan. 1671 (prb. Old Style), in Spinoza Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, 5 vols. (Heidelberg, 1925–87), 4: 207–18 (Ep. 42).
50 I.e. van Mansveld, Regnerus, Adversus anonymum Theologo-politicum liber singularis . . . (Amsterdam, 1674)Google Scholar.
51 Graevius to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Utrecht, 22 April 1671, in Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, vol. 1, part 1, 2nd edn (Berlin, 2006), 141–3Google Scholar (Letter 82); and Francis Burman to Jacobus Alting, [Utrecht], 5 July 1670 (Burman, Burmannorum pietas, 228).
52 See Laerke, Mogens, “À la recherche d'un homme égal à Spinoza: G.W. Leibniz et la Demonstratio evangelica de Pierre-Daniel Huet,” Dix-septième siècle 232 (2006), 387–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 The Graevius connection was first suggested by Van Vloten; see his “Spinoza's uitstapjen naar Utrecht,” 466–7. It can also be found—without any evidence—in Austryn Wolf, introduction to The Correspondence of Spinoza (London, 1928), 23–69, at 56.
54 The six composing letters of La religion are dated from 4 to 19 May 1673, and a manuscript copy was sent as an appendix to a letter dated 25 July 1673; see Benítez, Miguel, “Le jeu de la tolérance: Édition de la lettre À Madame de . . . sur les différentes religions d'Hollande,” in Canziani, Guido, ed., Filosofia e religione nella letteratura clandestina: Secoli XVII e XVIII (Milan, 1994), 427–68Google Scholar, at 440–41. For the political circumstances see de Witt, Pierre, “Les collaborateurs du colonel Stoppa: MM. de Louvois et de Luxembourg,” Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français 32 (1883), 368–80Google Scholar, at 368–74.
55 Benítez, “Jeu de la tolérance,” 438–41. The similarity between Stoupe and Van Velthuysen has also been noted by Klever, Wim, Verba et sententiae Spinozae: Or Lambertus Van Velthuysen (1622–1685) on Benedictus de Spinoza (Amsterdam, 1991), 17Google Scholar.
56 [Stoupe, Jean-Baptiste], La religion des hollandois . . . (Cologne, 1673), 66Google Scholar.
57 Bijvanck, “Spinoza in Utrecht,” 191–2, suggests that the Spinoza passages in La religion were added after Stoupe's conversations with him in Utrecht, but their inclusion in a manuscript copy dating from before Spinoza's arrival precludes this possibility. Benítez, “Jeu de la tolérance,” 440–41. The way Stoupe—and Graevius—used Bouwmeester as intermediary in fact makes it rather unlikely that he had any contact with Spinoza prior to his arrival in Utrecht. The same applies to Meinsma's oft-cited suggestion that the Utrecht patrician Everard Booth was involved. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 372–3. At any rate, Cohen's thesis (Cohen, “Le séjour de Saint-Évremond,” 6, 70; so also Van de Ven, “Crastina die,” 153) that Stoupe crossed to Dutch territory early in June 1673 is based on a misreading of Bardo Magalotti to Condé, Ameide, 1 June 1673 (Condé, Série P, vol. 47, fol. 18): “J'ai renvoié au colonnel Amama le passeport de M. Stoupe, et luy ay mandé que, quand il voudra descendre (ainsi que je feré de tous ceux qui auront des passeports), qu'il le fasse.” Magalotti is actually referring to a passport issued not for one of the Stoupes, as Cohen assumed, but by Pierre Stoupe—Jean-Baptiste was not authorized to issue passports—and for the Dutch commander Gerrit van Ammama (†1677). This use of the preposition de is also unambiguously attested in Montausier to Graevius, Saint-Germain, 13 Jan. 1673 (Masson, “Graevius,” 224): “On luy a trouvé . . . le passe-port de M. Stouppe.”
58 See Muller, Frederik, Catalogue d'une riche et très intéressante collection de manuscrits . . . délaissés par Mr. Jean Henri van Swinden . . . (Amsterdam, 1866), 53Google Scholar (#545): “Burman, Franc., Théologien renommé. Lt. aut. sig. en Holl., à W. van Blyenburg à Dordrecht, d'Utrecht, 26 Nov. 1671. Lettre très-remarquable sur l’Ethica [sic; read Tractatus theologico-politicus] de Spinoza, qui fut refutée par Blijenburg.” The manuscript of the refutation is mentioned in Burman to Willem van Blyenbergh, Utrecht, 2 Sept. 1672, in Leiden, University Library, Bibliotheca publica latina (hereafter BPL), 246: “UEd. aangenamen is my, tot Leiden synde, wat laat nagesonden. Thuis komende hebbe ik met Mr van Dreunen [= the Utrecht printer Meinardus van Dreunen] gesproken, die my seide, dat syn koffer, daar UE schrift in is, tot Amsterdam, by seker Heer, my geroemd, in goede bewaringe was; ende dat UE schrift bysonderlik in syn schuld-boek lag. Soo dat hy meind het soo wel bewaard is, als ergens konde syn. Altijd hy konde het nu niet magtig worden. Hy vertrouwde UE soud daar in gerust syn. Soo niet, ik sal sien, of het nog verder mogelik is iets daar in te doen. Alsoo ik soo ongeerne als UE soude sien, dat dien schat, die velen nog soo voordeelig sal syn, soo ongelukkiglik soude ankomen.”
59 van Blyenbergh, Willem, De waerheyt van de Christelijcke godts-dienst en de authoriteyt der H. Schriften . . . (Leiden, 1674), 114–19Google Scholar. The same point is made in passing in Melchior, Johannes, Epistola ad amicum, continens censuram libri, cui titulus: Tractatus theologico-politicus (Utrecht, 1671), 33Google Scholar.
60 van Blyenbergh, Willem, Wederlegging van de Ethica of Zede-Kunst van Benedictus de Spinosa (Dordrecht, 1682), 127–32Google Scholar, 216–19.
61 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 29 July 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Quin apud vos iam sit D. Spinosa, nullus dubito. Haga enim profectus est xxvi huius Goudam, atque illinc Ultraiectum.” The terminus ad quem for Spinoza's arrival is 28 July 1673; see the letter from that date cited above in n. 30.
62 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 7 Aug. 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Tum paulatim vento secundo tota Classis versus littus Hagiense, et Scheveningen, progressa est, accedentibus nonnunquam minoribus navigiis tam prope ad littus ut tormentorum ictibus illud infestarent. Unde et Hagienses adeo perterriti fuere, ut curribus navibusque pretiosiora quaeque sua avehere multi jam inciperent, atque ut verum fatear jam ego etiam nonnihil metuere caepi supellectili litterariae, lucubrationibusque D. Spinosae quas meliori fortunae destinatas precor.”
63 Bouwmeester to Graevius, Amsterdam, 7 Aug. 1673 (Thott 1258 4°): “Vos, ut lubet, conjecturam de hisce facite; Spinosae enim has etiam scriptas esse volo, cui legendas dare velis precor, meoque nomine, ut statim scribat ad me, hortari. Omnia sedulo curabo, quae petiisti.”
64 [Bouwmeester] to Graevius, Amsterdam, 14 Aug. 1673 (Thott 1267 4°, in folder “Breve til Graevius uden Underskrift”): “Ad Spinosam de publicis scripsi, qui tibi eas legendas dabit.” The letter to Spinoza mentioned here is no longer extant.
65 [Bouwmeester] to Graevius, Amsterdam, 14 Aug. 1673 (Thott 1267 4°, in folder “Breve til Graevius uden Underskrift”): “op de Pavelioens graght / tuschen de bier, en veer / kay ten huysen van / Monsr Spyk” (see Figure 1). This is the first excerpt of Spinoza's own hand to emerge since 1975, when the Dutch bibliophile Adri K. Offenberg announced the discovery of Ep. 12A to Lodewijk Meyer.
66 This terminus ad quem is established by the letter cited in n. 101 below.
67 See P. Stoupe to Condé, Utrecht, 28 July 1673 (Condé, Série P, vol. 50, fol. 166v; cited in n. 30 above); and “La vie de feu Monsieur de Spinosa” (Charles-Daubert, ed., Trois imposteurs, 473, 635).
68 See Bayle, DHC, 2: 1088 n. F; “La vie de feu Monsieur de Spinosa” (Charles-Daubert, Trois imposteurs, 473, 635); and Colerus, “Levens-beschryving,” 157–8.
69 Strikingly, two of the most extensive studies on Condé do relate how he had Spinoza brought to Utrecht, yet without citing any sources, although for the rest they cite extensively from the Condé family archives at the Château de Chantilly; see Béguin, Princes de Condé, 375; and d'Orléans, Henri, Histoire des princes de Condé pendant les XVIe et XVIIe siècles, vol. 7 (Paris, 1896), 387–9Google Scholar. I am unconvinced by Meijer's suggestion (Meijer, Spinoza, 23) that references to Spinoza in the Parisian archives may have been removed by the French nobility to cover up negotiations with him on behalf of the Dutch.
70 Braun, La veritable religion, 162.
71 See Benítez, “Jeu de la tolérance,” 436–7.
72 Johan van Neercassel to Francesco Barberini, [Utrecht], 25 Nov. 1677, in Jean Orcibal, “Les Jansénistes face à Spinoza,” Revue de littérature comparée 23 (1949), 440–68, at 461–2.
73 For the dinners, see [De Wicquefort], Journael.
74 Oudaan, Joachim, “Op het werk, ’t Mom-aensicht der atheistery afgerukt . . .,” in Adriaan Verwer, ’t Mom-aensicht der atheistery . . . (Amsterdam, 1683)Google Scholar, ***3v–***4r: “die vlek is nimmer uyt te spoelen, / Waar van hy zich op ’t maal der Fransen heeft beroemt, / Dés Uytrecht kennis draagt, hier nutter niet genoemt.” Also in Joachim Oudaans Poëzy, vol. 2 (Amsterdam, 1712), 68–9.
75 See Piet Steenbakkers, “Spinoza's Life,” in Don Garrett, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, 2nd rev. edn (Cambridge, forthcoming).
76 See Cohen, “Le séjour de Saint-Évremond,” 6, 57–78; and Vernière, Spinoza et la pensée française, 14–6.
77 E.g. Graevius to Antonio Magliabechi, Utrecht, 2 July 1675, in Giuseppina Totaro, “Niels Stensen (1638–1686) e la prima diffusione della filosofia di Spinoza nella Firenze di Cosimo III,” in Cristofolini, L'hérésie spinoziste, 147–68, at 167–8.
78 Heinsius to Graevius, The Hague, 24 Aug. 1673 (MS d'Orville 427, fol. 111v): “Heri, cum in publicam prodiissem, quaesivit me domi meae nescio quis tuo, ut aiebat, nomine. Opinor esse hunc ipsum, cui tu libellos ad me perferendos tradidisti . . . Qui tuo nomine me compellatum voluit, Spinosa erat, non alter ille discipulus tuus, qui ubi haereat locorum, vix comperire possum.” The person Heinsius had originally been expecting was Antonius Bynaeus (sts. Peinius).
79 Spinoza to Graevius, The Hague, 14 Dec. 1673 (Spinoza Opera, 4: 238; Ep. 49); translations are from The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and trans. Edwin Curley (hereafter CWS), 2 vols. (Princeton, 1986–2016), 2: 405.
80 Johan van Wullen to Willem Piso, Stockholm, 1 Feb. 1650, in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, vol. 5 (Paris, 1824), 478. See also Dibon, Paul, “À propos de la mort de Descartes,” Nouvelles de la République des lettres 1 (1981), 185–9Google Scholar.
81 Lambertus van Velthuysen, Opera omnia, 2 vols. (Rotterdam, 1680), 1: ***v.
82 On the similarities see Blom, Hans, “Lambert van Velthuysen et le naturalisme: autour de sa lettre à Jacob Ostens,” Cahiers Spinoza 6 (1991), 203–12Google Scholar; Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 110–13; and Steven Nadler, “Spinoza, Descartes, and the ‘Stupid Cartesians’,” in Steven Nadler, Tad M. Schmaltz, and Delphine Antoine-Mahut, ed., Oxford Handbook to Descartes and Cartesianism (Oxford, forthcoming).
83 Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 111; and Del Prete, Antonella, “La Bible en question, ou comment réfuter Spinoza en défendant Descartes: Lambert van Velthuysen,” Bulletin annuel de l'Institut d'histoire de la Réformation 36 (2014–15), 37–48Google Scholar.
84 Spinoza to Van Velthuysen, [The Hague], [1675] (Ep. 69, Spinoza Opera, 4: 300/CWS 2: 460).
85 Van Velthuysen, Opera omnia, 1: ***r–v and 2: [1368–69].
86 Graevius to Heinsius, Utrecht, 15 April 1680 (Burman, Sylloge, 655; #609).
87 Pierre Prince to Louis Tronchin, Saint-Blaise, 2 March 1683, in Fatio, Olivier, Louis Tronchin: Une transition calvinienne (Paris, 2015), 447Google Scholar.
88 See Wiep van Bunge, “Johannes Bredenburg (1643–1691): Een Rotterdamse collegiant in de ban van Spinoza” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 1990), 143–5, 152–8.
89 Van Velthuysen to Ostens/Spinoza, Utrecht, 24 Jan. 1671 (Ep. 42, Spinoza Opera, 4: 208/CWS 2: 375).
90 Van Velthuysen, Opera, 2: [1369].
91 Christopher Wittich to Van Velthuysen, Leiden, 14 April 1680 (BPL 750).
92 Spinoza to Van Velthuysen, [The Hague], [1675] (Ep. 69, Spinoza Opera, 4: 300/CWS 2: 460).
93 See Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 376.
94 van Maanen, Jan A., “Korrespondenten von G. W. Leibniz: 6. Joachim Nieustadt geb. um 1624 – gest. nach 1685,” Studia Leibnitiana 15/1 (1983), 115–19Google Scholar, at 118.
95 See HUA 703a (Stadsbestuur van Utrecht, supplement), cat. no. 2.1.10 (Publieke werken), no. 112.
96 Spinoza to Jarig Jelles, Voorburg, 5 Sept. 1669 (Ep. 41, Spinoza Opera, 4: 202–6/CWS 2: 40–42). I am indebted to Jeroen van de Ven for the suggested context of this letter.
97 Descartes’ Conversation with Burman, trans. and ed. John Cottingham (Oxford, 1976).
98 See Burman, Franciscus (Jr.), Burmannorum pietas . . . (Utrecht, 1700), 211Google Scholar.
99 Steenbakkers, Piet, Touber, Jetze, and van de Ven, Jeroen, “A Clandestine Notebook (1678–1679) on Spinoza, Beverland, Politics, the Bible and Sex,” Lias 38 (2011), 225–365Google Scholar (entry 93): “burmannus omnem suam doctrinam traxit ex spinosa.”
100 See Graevius to Burman, Utrecht, 5 Aug. 16[7]3 (UU 7.C.30 = Hs. 1678, 147–8), indicating that the latter had been gone dies . . . noctesque. The reason for Burman's trip was the illness of his son Pieter; see Burman to Graevius, Leiden, 21 Aug. 1673, in Becker, J. G. Burman, Epistolae Burmannorum ad amicos . . . (Copenhagen, 1873), 3–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Leiden, 24 Aug. 1673 (Thott 1267 4°, folder “Christophorus Wittichius”). Burman was back in Utrecht by 1 Sept. 1673; see the acts of the Utrecht Reformed consistory at that date in HUA 746 (Nederlandse hervormde gemeente te Utrecht, kerkeraad), cat. no. 10.
101 Graevius to Burman, 10/20 Aug. 16[7]3 (UU 7.C.30 = Hs. 1678, p. 148): “Wittichii disputationes, de quibus nuper agebam, videre cupio. Ille quem dicitur oppugnare, ad suos remeavit lares. Nihil sibi de his disputationibus compertum esse dicebat, quin alia omnia ex Wittichii collegis se accepisse.”
102 The semipublic character of correspondence in the Republic of Letters was particularly problematic for Graevius since Burman was temporarily in Leiden, where the second battle over Cartesianism (1672–6) was raging fiercely at the time.
103 Wittich, Christopher, Disputatio theologica prima de providentia Dei actuali (Leiden, 1672)Google Scholar, thes. 3.
104 Wittich, Providentia Dei, thes. 5–8, 11.
105 Burman, Francis (Sr.), Narratio de controversiis nuperius in Academia Ultrajectina motis . . . (Utrecht, 1677), 118Google Scholar: “Non possum quin hisce addam, quo pacto monstrificum illud figmentum de substantia tertia . . . proxime conveniat cum execrandis Spinozae, & sequacium ejus, hypothesibus: quorum arcana & domestica opinio, quatenus mihi id compertum est, haec est: Substantia ex seipsa subsistit, & non aliunde dependet. Substantia non absolute, sed respective semper suo modo nobis obvenit, quia intellectus noster adeo est determinatus, ut idea substantiae semper sub idea modi nobis obveniat. Deus est perfectissima & independens substantia, quae in se comprehendit infinitas proprietates substantiae, ut cogitationem & extensionem, quae duae solae nostris ideis distincte obveniunt, quae tamen in Deo non sunt distinctae. Hae nobis occurrunt sub diversis modis, & propterea ut diversae a nobis concipiuntur. Non tantum duo, sed infiniti modi, natura plane distincti, quales sunt modi cogitationis & extensionis, a Deo per infinitam suam potentiam sunt producti: nostrae autem ideae ita sunt determinatae, ut tantum duas modorum naturas cogitemus, juxta quos differentiae generum modorum se repraesentant spiritibus cogitantibus.” That Spinoza's substance implies an infinity of substances is a perfectly natural Cartesian conclusion; see Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 118–20. The possible import of this passage for Spinoza's Utrecht visit was first noted by Klever, Verba et sententiae, 32–3.
106 Spinoza's Opera posthuma were not distributed until the year 1678. I first found Burman's printed Narratio mentioned in Johannes van Leusden to Matthias Nethenus, Utrecht, 11 Feb. 1678 (UU 6.H.28 = S 240, 107–9); the preparations are already mentioned on 3 Sept. 1677 (see 101–5).
107 Spinoza may have obtained a passport from the Prince of Orange through Constantijn Huygens Jr (1628–97), lord of Zuilichem and Zeelhem, who in 1672 was appointed secretary to William III. For Huygens and Spinoza see Vernière, Spinoza et la pensée française, 95–6. It was through the mediation of Constantijn Jr that Heinsius obtained a passport from the prince for his trip to Holland in May–June 1673; see Heinsius to Graevius, The Hague, 3 June 1673 (MS d'Orville 472, fol. 106).
108 See Vernière, Spinoza et la pensée française, 91–92; and Luisa Simonutti, “Premières réactions anglaises au ‘Traité théologique-politique,’” in Cristofolini, L'hérésie spinoziste, 123–37.
109 Oldenburg to Spinoza, London, 22 July 1675 (Ep. 62, Spinoza Opera, 4: 273/CWS 2: 435).
110 Acts of the Utrecht Walloon consistory for 22 Aug. 1675, in HUA 832 (Archief Waalse hervormde gemeente te Utrecht), cat. no. 2, p. 10, art. 6, italics added: “Ils proposeront à la vénérable compagnie s'il ne seroit pas de son devoir de suplier par des députez nos seigneurs les États généraux, Monseigneur le prince d'Orange, et Messieurs les États respectifs des provinces, et particulièrement ceux de Hollande d'empêcher par leur autorité un nommé Spinosa qui n'est que trop connu en ces cartiers par les impiétez qu'il y a enseignées et dans ses livres et dans ses conversations de semer ses erreurs détestables et son athéisme dans ce pais.”
111 See the overview in Israel, Jonathan I., Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001), 284CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
112 Spinoza to Henry Oldenburg, [The Hague], [fall 1675] (Ep. 68, Spinoza Opera, 4: 299/CWS 2: 459). For the decision see Livre synodal . . . des églises wallonnes des Pays-Bas, vol. 1 (The Hague, 1896), 754 (art. 27); cf. also the decisions made in April and Sept. 1676 in Livre synodal, 756 (art. 11) and 759 (art. 7).
113 Spinoza to Oldenburg, [The Hague], [fall 1675] (Ep. 68, Spinoza Opera, 4: 299/CWS 2: 459).
114 Graevius to J.-B. Stouppe, Utrecht, 8/18 Nov. 1683 (UU 7.C.30 = Hs. 1678, p. 25): “In iis [= Van Velthuysen's Opera] sunt lucubrationes ejus contra Spinosae opera posthuma, in quibus tamen refellendis etiam nunc desudat in hoc otio.”
115 For this phrase see Garber, Daniel, “Superheroes in the History of Philosophy: Spinoza, Super-rationalist,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 53/3 (2015), 507–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 521. Garber's warning about reverting to “ideal types” in doing the history of philosophy can be readily applied—albeit on more purely historical level—to scholarship on the 1673 Utrecht visit. See also Michael Della Rocca's response, “Interpreting Spinoza: The Real Is the Rational,” ibid., 523–35, as part of a highly illuminating debate on methodology in the history of philosophy.
