Curated category
Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni
- Voltaire"This is no time to make new enemies." Those words are attributed to Voltaire on his deathbed, when a priest urged him to renounce Satan.
- Edgar DegasEdgar Degas was born on the 19th of July 1834 in Paris, under the full name Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas. He later adopted the simpler spelling himself, a…
- MolièreMolière collapsed on stage on the 17th of February 1673, mid-performance, coughing and haemorrhaging blood. He was playing Argan, a hypochondriac obsessed…
- Denis DiderotDenis Diderot was born on the 5th of October 1713 in Langres, Champagne, the son of a cutler named Didier Diderot. He died on the 31st of July 1784, having…
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, and he refused it. He said a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an…
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo died on the 22nd of May 1885, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris. He was 83 years old, and he died of pneumonia.
- Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was born in Paris on the 9th of April 1821, into a city that would both inspire and consume him. His father was a senior civil servant and…
- Eugène DelacroixEugène Delacroix once heard the poet and critic Baudelaire describe him this way: "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to…
- Émile DurkheimÉmile Durkheim was born on the 15th of April 1858 in Épinal, Lorraine, France, the son of a rabbi and the grandson of a rabbi, and the great-grandson of one…
- Maximilien RobespierreMaximilien Robespierre was born in Arras on the 6th of May 1758. Thirty-six years later, on the 28th of July 1794, he was executed without trial, sent to the…
- Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was born in Paris on the 4th of March 1898, the son of a highly educated general in the French Army. By the time he died in the same city on…