In November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded to the Short, and sent Laud and Strafford to the Tower, and Hobbes, who had become, or thought he had become, a marked man by the circulation of his treatise (of which, "though not printed, many gentlemen had copies"), hastened to Paris, "the first of all that fled." He was now for the fourth and last time abroad, and did not return for eleven years. Apparently he remained the greater part of the time in or about Paris. He was welcomed back into the scientific coterie about Mersenne, and forthwith had the task assigned him of criticizing the _Meditations_ of Descartes, which had been sent from Holland, before publication, to Mersenne with the author's request for criticism from the most different points of view. Hobbes was soon ready with the remarks that were printed as "Third" among the six (later seven) sets of "Objections" appended, with "Replies" from Descartes, to the _Meditations_, when published shortly afterwards in 1641 (reprinted in _L.W._ v. 249-274). About the same time also Mersenne sent to Descartes, as if they came from a friend in England, another set of objections which Hobbes had to offer on various points in the scientific treatises, especially the _Dioptrics_, appended by Descartes to his _Discourse on Method_ in 1637; to which Descartes replied without suspecting the common authorship of the two sets. The result was to keep the two thinkers apart rather than bring them together. Hobbes was more eager to bring forward his own philosophical and physical ideas than careful to enter into the full meaning of another's thought; and Descartes was too jealous, and too confident in his conclusions to bear with this kind of criticism. He was very curt in his replies to Hobbes's philosophical objections, and broke off all correspondence on the physical questions, writing privately to Mersenne that he had grave doubts of the Englishman's good faith in drawing him into controversy (_L.W._ v. 277-307).