The two years immediately following his visit to France – 1645 and 1646 – were a transitional period in Descartes' life in many senses of that term. In Paris he had met a number of potentially supportive scholars, and he had begun almost immediately to cultivate their friendship. However, once returned to the north of Holland, he seemed to lapse into a general malaise. He heard on 25 November 1644 that his friend Bannius had died during his absence. During the following months he wrote relatively little; he tried with limited success to complete the missing parts of the Principles; and he completely sundered his friendship with one of his most loyal and committed followers, Regius. There was some compensation for this intellectual stagnation in the preparation of French translations of his two Latin books, the Meditations and the Principles, although the work involved in translating them was done by others. Midway through this period he also began to work on a completely new project – which he called the passions of the soul – partly at the request of Princess Elizabeth and partly in response to queries from Chanut. Even here, however, his tentative explorations were qualified by a lack of interest in publishing the results.