Descartes' Secret Notebook
Chapter One
Chapter 1
The Gardens of Touraine
JUST BEFORE RENE DESCARTES WAS born, on March 31, 1596, his mother, Jeanne Brochard, took an action that may well have altered the course of Western civilization. For like Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 B.C., Jeanne Brochard crossed the Creuse River, which lay between her family home, in the region of Poitou, and the small town of La Haye, which lies in the region of Touraine, in western central France.
The Descartes family had originated in Poitou and had lived for many years in the town of Chatellerault, about twenty-five kilometers south of La Haye. Descartes' parents, Joachim Descartes and Jeanne Brochard, who were married on January 15, 1589, owned a stately mansion in the center of Chatellerault, at 126 rue Carrou-Bernard (today's rue Bourbon).
Joachim Descartes was the councillor of the Parliament of Brittany, and this important job kept him away in distant Rennes. Jeanne needed her mother's help in birthing the baby, and this is why she traveled north and across the river to Touraine to give birth to René Descartes in her mother's house in La Haye. Sometime later, once she had recovered, she return ... read full excerpt from Descartes' Secret Notebook ebook
