son of his guardian Arnold Frans Coops. He saw many patients and soon, apparently with Boerhaave's permission, also started giving private lessons in pharmacy and materia medicae, drawing 60 British students for his first course alone. He never was officially licensed to do so, and in 1734 the university forbade him to continue. Within a year or two, he could afford buying a stately house. Though they had no close personal relationship, Van Swieten was a great admirer of Boerhaave. After his study, Van Swieten kept attending Boerhaave's classes, making extensive notes on each and purportedly missing only one lecture between 1725 and 1738. Eventually, Van Swieten published these notes in five volumes between 1742 and 1771. When Boerhaave died in 1738, Van Swieten was by many considered his natural heir and he did take over part of Boerhaave's practice. However, he was not and had not expected to be offered his chair, since Catholics were not accepted as faculty at Leiden University. In the meantime, in September 1729 Van Swieten had married Maria L. E. T. ter Beeck van Coesfelt (c.1711–1784), the daughter of a notary in The Hague and the sister of a fellow student in Leiden. Though she did not feature prominently in Van Swieten's public life, contemporaries reported a very happy marriage. Between 1731 and 1746 they had six children, five in Leiden and one in Vienna. The first (1731) was named Elisabeth after his mother, the oldest son (1733) was named Godfried after her father, and the youngest child (1746) was named Maria Theresia after the Empress, who was also her godmother. Their son Godfried (later in Austria spelled Gottfried) became famous in his own right as Austrian ambassador and patron of the great classical composers. November 1742 saw the death of Joannes Baptista Bassand, personal physician of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresia and a former student of Boerhaave. As a Catholic and a foremost student of Boerhaave, Van Swieten received an offer to fill this position as well as that of director of the court library in early 1743. He respectfully declined, writing to a friend that he much preferred to remain "a small republican than to carry a pompous title that simply conceals a slavish existence". After one-and-a-half years of enticements, Van Swieten finally accepted the offer in October 1744. Before his letter of acceptance had arrived, Van Swieten found himself called