Pierre Bayle

Alors que Quesnay ne s’occupait que de l’amélioration de la situation économique de la France, d’autres penseurs songeaient à détruire tout ce qui était ancien et vermoulu, à libérer l’esprit des liens qui le tenaient en tutelle, et le corps de la contrainte des privilèges de caste. Un des premiers qui luttèrent pour le progrès des lumières, l’humanité et la tolérance fut l’écrivain philosophe Bayle. Né dans le midi de la France, il vécut d’une existence agitée par deux changements de religion; il devint professeur à Sedan et à Rotterdam. Le sommaire de sa pensée est contenu dans son œuvre maîtresse, le Dictionnaire historique et critique, ouvrage où des générations d’hommes du XVIII^e siècle, dans tous les pays, cherchèrent un aliment à leur curiosité intellectuelle. Bayle contribua grandement à répandre l’esprit critique, le goût de penser et de chercher.

Pierre Bayle

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas Père, French novelist and dramatist, was born July 24, 1803. His youth was roving and dissipated; the few years after he became of age were spent in Paris experimenting in literary forms; at twenty-six he took the public by storm with his play Henry III. and his Court. He was probably the most prolific great writer that ever lived, his works singly and in collaboration amounting to over two thousand volumes; he had some ninety collaborators, few of whom ever did successful independent work. A catalogue of his productions would fill many pages. The most popular of his novels are: The Three Musketeers series (including Twenty Years After and The Viscount de Bragelonne) and The Count of Monte Christo. He died December 5, 1870.

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Alexandre Dumas

Fénelon

François de Salignac de le Mothe-Fénelon, French theologian and author, was born at the Château de Fénelon in Périgord, August 6, 1651. He received holy orders at the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, and on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) was sent on a mission for the conversion of Protestants in Saintonge and Poitou. He was later intrusted with the education of Louis XIV.’s grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, and received as a reward for his services the abbey of St. Valery and the archbishopric of Cambrai. For many years Fénelon was engaged in a theological dispute with Bossuet concerning the devotional mysticism of the celebrated Madame Guyon, whose opinions he defended in the Maxims of the Saints. Fénelon’s masterpiece, The Adventures of Telemachus, was published in 1699. Intended by the author only for the amusement and instruction of the young Duke of Burgundy, it was regarded by the king as a satire on the court. In consequence the book was suppressed and Fénelon was restrained within his own diocese. Other works are: Dialogues of the Dead, Dialogues on Eloquence, Letters on Religion etc. Fénelon died at Cambrai in 1715.

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Fénelon

La chanson de Fortunio

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Alfred de Musset

Le comte Roland est étendu sous un pin

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La Chanson de Roland