Chronology

1596	René Descartes is born at La Haye in Touraine on March 31.
1597	His mother dies on May 13. His maternal grandmother raises him with his older brother and sister.
1607	He begins his studies at the Jesuit College of La Flèche in Anjou.
1610	Henry IV, King of France and patron of La Flèche, is assassinated. Galileo publishes the Starry Messenger, announcing the discovery of Jupiter’s satellites.
1611	A commemorative celebration is held at La Flèche on June 4 in honor of Henry IV; students read poems they have written, including one praising Galileo’s astronomical discoveries.
1615	Descartes leaves La Flèche, having completed the curriculum, including three years of philosophy and mathematics.
1616	He receives a license in canon and civil law from the University of Poitiers in November.
1618	He enlists in the Netherlands in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau and has a chance encounter with Isaac Beeckman at Breda; he composes his first work, on musical theory, which he dedicates to Beeckman.
1618–48	The Thirty Years’ War rages in the German states, with France siding with Protestant forces against Catholic forces supported by Spain.
1619	Descartes travels in Germany and has a series of strange dreams on November 10. He writes in his notebook that the dreams have “set him on the right course of life”; he begins Rules for the Direction of the Mind, which he leaves unfinished in 1628.
1620	Descartes seeks out Rosicrucians, including the mathematician Johannes Faulhaber. He writes that he “began to understand the foundations of a wonderful discovery.”
1621	Descartes returns to Paris but also takes an extended trip to Italy the next few years (1623-1625).
1624	Trial of the libertine poet Théophile de Viau and condemnation of anti-Aristotelian theses posted by the alchemists and atomists Etienne de Clave, Jean Bitaud, and Antoine Villon.
1627	Descartes meets the founder of the Oratory, Pierre de Bérulle, at the residence of the Papal ambassador during the lecture of an alchemist with whom he openly disputes, giving Descartes the opportunity to display his method.
1628	He leaves for the Netherlands.
1629	He begins a small treatise in metaphysics (now lost) and starts to work on the essays Meteors and Dioptrics and the treatise The World.
1632	Galileo is condemned for defending the motion of the earth.
1633	Descartes stops the publication of The World upon hearing of Galileo’s condemnation.
1635	He prepares final drafts of the Meteors and Dioptrics and starts to work on a preface to them. His daughter Francine is born in July and baptized August 7.
1637	Descartes publishes Discourse on the Method with Dioptrics, Meteors, and Geometry. He considers publishing objections and replies to the work.
1640	He writes Meditations on First Philosophy, which he sends out for objections, and reads scholastic philosophy to be prepared for the onslaught of criticism. Francine dies in September 1640.
1641	He publishes Meditations on First Philosophy with sets of Objections by Johann de Kater (Caterus), Thomas Hobbes, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Gassendi, two sets collected by Marin Mersenne, and his Replies. He begins work on an exposition of the whole of his philosophy in textbook form.
1642	Descartes publishes the second edition of the Meditations with a new set of Objections by the Jesuit Pierre Bourdin and his Replies, plus the Letter to Father Dinet.
1643	The University of Utrecht prohibits the teaching of the new philosophy (reaffirmed in 1645); Descartes starts a correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.
1644	Descartes briefly returns to France for the first time; he publishes Principles of Philosophy, which he dedicates to Princess Elisabeth.
1647	He publishes French translations of the Meditations and Principles, plus Notes Against a Program, a critique of a broadsheet written by Henricus Regius, his former disciple. He travels to France for a second time, meeting Pierre Gassendi and Blaise Pascal, among others.
1648	The University of Leyden prohibits the teaching of his works. Descartes’s principal correspondent, Marin Mersenne, dies.
1649	At the invitation of Queen Christina, Descartes leaves for Sweden in the autumn. He publishes Passions of the Soul.
1650	Descartes dies at Stockholm on February 11. His manuscripts and correspondence are sent to his literary executor Claude Clerselier in Paris.
1659	Jacques Rohault begins his popular conferences on Cartesian natural philosophy in Paris. The conferences continue until his death in 1672.
1663	An edition of Descartes’s writings is placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in Rome with the note “until corrected.”
1667	Descartes’s remains are reburied in Paris with great ceremony; the funeral oration of Pierre Lallement is prohibited at the last moment by royal decree.
1671	Louis XIV issues a decree prohibiting the teaching of anti-Aristotelian views at the University of Paris. This decree provides the basis for a decade-long campaign against Cartesianism in French universities and religious orders.
1674–75	The Search After Truth of the Oratorian Nicolas Malebranche is published and becomes a major Cartesian text.
1677	Spinoza’s Opera Posthuma, which includes his Ethics, is published.
1680	The Sentimens de M. Descartes of Louis La Ville (the Caen Jesuit Le Valois) is published. It charges that Cartesianism supports the Calvinist rejection of transubstantiation. The Cartesian Pierre-Sylvain Régis returns to Paris to publish his Système de philosophie and to revive Jacques Rohault’s conferences, but the conferences are banned and permission to publish is refused, due to the controversy over transubstantiation.
1689	The critique of Descartes in Pierre-Daniel Huet’s Censura philosophiœ cartesianœ is published. It draws an immediate response from Cartesians in France, the Netherlands, and the German states.
1691	Adrien Baillet’s two-volume biography Vie de Descartes is published. The philosophy faculty at the University of Paris is required to sign a formulary condemning a set of Cartesian and Jansenist propositions. The formulary is in place until the end of Louis XIV’s reign in 1715.
1699	The Cartesians Nicolas Malebranche and Pierre-Sylvain Régis are admitted to the Paris Académie des sciences. Cartesian natural philosophy begins to predominate in the Académie and in the French universities.
1720	Descartes’s writings are officially incorporated into the curriculum at the University of Paris.