Paul Scarron was a poet, novelist and dramatist. He was born in Paris: his father was a judge and his uncle was Bishop of Grenoble. He studied at the Sorbonne, and then was tonsured as an abbé (a sort of confessor attached to noble houses), although he never became a priest. He served Charles de Beaumanoir,… Read More from Paul Scarron
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Jean-Paul Marat
Maverick scientist, jobbing medic, sometime political philosopher, eloquent journalist, impassioned political activist – Marat was multifariously gifted but brutally extreme. He was born in Neuchatel, son of a Sardinian religious refugee, but left for the bright lights of Paris, where he studied medicine. He moved to London in 1765, where he began to write philosophical… Read More from Jean-Paul Marat
Georges Couthon
It was as a footnote in a book by Michel Foucault that I first encountered Georges Couthon, a leading light of the French revolution who had paraplegia. Since then, I have visited the Musee de Carnavalet in Paris several times to see Couthon’s wheelchair, a padded wooden contraption with a handwheel for propulsion, but despite… Read More from Georges Couthon