Descartes was born at La Haye in Touraine. At the age of eight he was entered in the Jesuit College at La Fleche. Those priests seemed to have given him a much better grounding in Mathematics that he could not have gotten in other colleges at that time. At the age of seventeen, he went to Paris to sow wild oats, and discovered that he had none to sow because he was so indifferent to the female gender. He then thought as a mathematician he could break the casino bank, but fast realized that the casino had a dark side that he wasn't familiar with. He then left France in order to return in 1622 just to put in order his finances, and set out again on travels. He took a proud spirit to dare his scope. Consider what he learned: mathematics, physics, astronomy, physiology, psychology, philosophy etc.; who would venture today on such a circumnavigation? In the epochal "Discourse on the method" he announced a first principle that in itself could have brought the world of authority down upon his head, but he doubted everything.