Pierre Chanut

Who was Pierre Chanut?

Pierre Hector Chanut was a civil servant in the Auvergne, a French ambassador and state counsellor.

In 1626 he married Marguerite Clerselier and had eight children. He was charged by Jules Mazarin and resided from 1646 to 1649 at the Swedish court and in Osnabrück, negotiating the Peace of Westfalia. He held a correspondence with Queen Christina of Sweden to whom he presented the French philosopher René Descartes. Descartes died of pneumonia in his house at Mälaren, 300 meters from Tre Kronor.

In 1651 Chanut departed to Lübeck to a Congress which had to mediate peace between Sweden and Poland. This failed, however, and in 1653 Chanut came back to Stockholm. He probably invited Pierre Bourdelot and Gabriel Naudé, but departed soon after the Netherlands, where he was ambassador till 1655. Back in Paris he became state counsellor. While Ludovico Santinelli was participant at the murder of Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi at Fontainebleau. Christina promised Chanut Ludivico and his two helpers would have to leave her court. After his death his friend and brother-in-law Claude Clerselier, an editor, inherited all the manuscripts by Descartes and published them.