Patin[442] writes, that it was suspected he had been poisoned.  “We hear, says he, that Grotius is dead at Rostock, on his return from Sweden, of a fever, not without suspicion of being poisoned by the Lutherans, on account of what he says about Antichrist in favour of the Pope:  but I do not think that poisoning is used in that country.”

They carried their wickedness to such a height as to accuse Queen Christina of shortening that great man’s days.  The new Memoirs of the Abbe d’Artigny[443] acquaint us, that Antony Argoud, Dean of the Cathedral of Vienne, haranguing Queen Christina the 13th of August, 1656, pleased her so much, that she gave him broad hints that she would do great things for him if he would attend her in quality of first Chaplain.  The Queen had in her retinue Lesseins, one of the Gentlemen of the King’s Bedchamber, who was ordered to accompany that Princess from Marseilles to Lions.  Argoud telling him of the Queen’s proposals, he diverted him from accepting them by painting out Christina as an inconstant and capricious Princess.  “He forgot nothing to set him against her, even to telling him that Grotius would have been still alive, if he had had nothing to fear from the jealousy of the Swedes; but that the ill treatment of the Queen brought that great man to his grave.”  It is very possible that not having been treated by the Queen so well as he expected, it chagrined him much:  but whatever is not conformable to Quistorpius’s letter, against which nothing solid can be advanced, ought to be rejected as apocryphal.  His corpse was carried to Delft, and deposited in the tomb of his ancestors.  He wrote this modest Epitaph for himself[444]: 

Grotius hic Hugo est, Batavum captivus et exul,
Legatus regni, Suecia magna, tui.

Grotius had the precaution to make his will at Paris on the 27th of March, 1645, a little before his departure.  He had a very agreeable person, a good complexion, an aquiline nose, sparkling eyes, a serene and smiling countenance.  He was not tall, but very strong, and well built.

FOOTNOTES: 

[433] Vind.  Grot. p. 478.

[434] Menagiana.

[435] Hist. du Socinianisme, c. 42. p. 831.

[436] Observat.  Hallen. 15. t. 7. p. 341.

[437] It is a prayer addressed to Jesus Christ, and suited to the condition of a dying person who builds his hope on the Mediator.  M. Le Clerc has recited it at large in the Sentimens de quelques Theologiens de Hollande, 17 Lettre, p. 397.

[438] Memoirs, p. 431.

[439] Sentimens des Theologiens de Hollande, p. 395.

[440] Esprit de M. Arnaud, t. 2. p. 308.

[441] Sentimens des Theologiens de Hollande, Lettre 17. p. 402.

[442] T. 1.  Lettre 7.

[443] T. 1. p. 340.

[444] Ep. 536. p. 915.

BOOK VI.