Curated category
Members of the Académie Française
- VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris on the 21st of November 1694. He entered the world as the youngest child of a minor treasury official and a woman…
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco was born in the Romanian city of Slatina on the 26th of November 1909. His father belonged to the Orthodox Christian church while his mother…
- Victor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was born on the 26th of February 1802 in Besançon, a city in eastern France. His father Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo served as a general…
- MontesquieuCharles Louis de Secondat entered the world on the 18th of January 1689 at the Château de la Brède. This estate sat south of Bordeaux in southwest France.
- Jean RacineJean-Baptiste Racine was born on the 21st of December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon. This small town sat within the province of Picardy in northern France.
- Louis PasteurOn the 6th of July 1885, Louis Pasteur faced a choice that could have ended in his prosecution. A 9-year-old boy named Joseph Meister had been badly mauled…
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss was born on the 28th of November 1908 in Brussels. His parents were French Jews who had moved there for his father's work as a portrait…
- Jean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, on the 5th of July 1889. His father Georges died by suicide when Jean was nine…
- Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de GuibertJacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert stood in the mud of Germany at age thirteen. He watched his father Charles-Benoît lead troops during the Seven Years'…
- Henri PoincaréOn the 29th of April 1854, Jules Henri Poincaré was born in the Cité Ducale neighborhood of Nancy. His early years were marked by a severe illness that left…
- Joseph FourierJean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier was born on the 21st of March 1768 in Auxerre, Burgundy. His father worked as a tailor and died when Fourier was only nine years…
- Pierre-Simon LaplacePierre-Simon Laplace was born on the 23rd of March 1749 in Beaumont-en-Auge, a small village four miles west of Pont l'Évêque.
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville entered the world on the 29th of July 1805. He descended from an old Norman family that had produced…
- Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was born in Paris on the 4th of March 1898. His father Jean Dumézil served as a highly educated general in the French Army.
- Victor DuruyJean Victor Duruy entered the world on the 10th of September 1811 in Paris. His father worked as a factory worker and expected his son to follow that trade.
- Hippolyte TaineHippolyte Adolphe Taine was born on the 21st of April 1828 in the town of Vouziers. He grew up within a prosperous family in the Ardennes region of France.
- Louis de BroglieLouis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie, entered the world on the 15th of August 1892 in Dieppe, France. He belonged to a noble family that had held…