Curated playlist
Members of the Académie Française
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo asked for a pauper's funeral and got the largest in French history.
- MontesquieuMontesquieu published The Spirit of Law anonymously in 1748, and the Church banned it in 1751.
- Jean RacineJean Racine secretly sent his hit play to a rival theater company. Molière could not forgive the betrayal.
- Louis PasteurIn 1885, Louis Pasteur treated a boy mauled by a rabid dog despite holding no medical license.
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
- Jean CocteauJean Cocteau recorded his 1929 recovery from opium in a diary of drawings and withdrawal notes.
- Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de GuibertIn 1770, Guibert's essay predicted a nation with a national army would rule Europe. It came before Napoleon.
- Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré won a royal prize for a problem he did not solve. His entry still revealed the first chaotic system.
- Joseph FourierJoseph Fourier's heat research led to the first scientific proposal of the greenhouse effect.
- Pierre-Simon LaplaceJupiter and Saturn seemed to be drifting off course until Laplace solved it. Newton, Euler and Lagrange had all failed.
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville was sent to America to study prisons. He went far beyond that and wrote a book on democracy.
- Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was shut out of French academic jobs after his thesis. His teacher told him to go abroad, to Istanbul.
- Victor DuruyAt twenty-four, factory worker's son Victor Duruy taught a famous historian's class.
- Hippolyte TaineHippolyte Taine failed his philosophy exam in 1851 after examiners rejected his essay on sensation.
- Louis de BroglieCould matter behave like a wave, as light can behave like a particle? Louis de Broglie asked this in 1924.