When Descartes complained to the authorities of this unfair treatment, 4 the only reply was an order by which all mention of the name of Cartesianism, whether favourable or adverse, was forbidden in the university.
At Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen, Franeker, Breda, Nimeguen, Harderwyk, Duisburg and Herborn, and at the Catholic university of Louvain, Cartesianism was warmly expounded and defended in seats of learning, of which many are now left desolate, and by adherents whose writings have for the most part long lost interest for any but the antiquary.
The Cartesianism of Holland was a child of the universities, and its literature is mainly composed of commentaries upon.
In France Cartesianism won society and literature before it penetrated into the universities.
Clerselier (the friend of Descartes and his literary executor), his son-in-law Rohault (who achieved that relationship through his Cartesianism), and others, opened their houses for readings to which the intellectual world.
