[OEuvres, ed. Amar, 5 vols., Paris, 1820.]

Voltaire . Born in Paris, educated at Clermont. His first satiric writings caused him to be exiled from Paris in 1716. On his return he was suspected of being the author of other satires, and was imprisoned in the Bastille (1717, 1718). In the latter year the production of OEdipe made him famous. L'Henriade appeared in 1723, Marianne, 1724. He was again in the Bastille in 1726, and was exiled to England after a few weeks' imprisonment; he learnt English, met Bolingbroke and Pope, and studied the English philosophers. Zaïre appeared in 1732, and between that date and his death in 1778 he wrote more than twenty dramas in verse. After his return from England he lived for some time at Cirey with Mme du Châtelet; his famous quarrel with the luckless Desfontaines began in 1738 and lasted for some years. He went to the Court, where he had Madame de Pompadour for friend. In 1746 he was member of the Academy and gentleman-in-ordinary to the King. He retired to the hôtel of the Duchesse du Maine at Sceaux in 1747, and returned to Paris after Mme du Châtelet's death in 1749. In 1750, Frederick II invited him to live at Berlin. He stayed three years, and quarrelled with many people, amongst them Lessing, and at last with Frederick. Settled at Ferney, where he lived in state till 1778, when he went to Paris. He had a final triumph there, and died in the same year.

[His poems are printed in vols. 8, 9, and 10 of the edition of his works published in Paris in 1877-85.]

Écouchard- Lebrun . Born in Paris. His contemporaries called him `Pindare'.

Ducis . Born at Versailles. Imitated Shakespeare: Hamlet (1769), Roméo et Juliette (1772), Le Roi Lear (1783), Macbeth (1784), Othello (1792).

[OEuvres complètes et posthumes, 4 vols., Paris, 1826.]

Gilbert . Born in Lorraine. Wrote a satire on his own time.

[Poésies diverses, ed. Perret, Paris, 1882.]

Florian . Born at the Château de Florian, near Nîmes. Great-nephew of Voltaire; acted in the Ferney Theatre when a boy. Wrote comedies and prose romances.

[Fables, Paris, 1799.]

Fontanes . Born at Niort. Grand Master of the University of Paris.

André Chénier . Born in Constantinople. Son of a French consul and a Greek mother. Educated at the Collège de Navarre. Entered the army: had to leave it owing to ill-health. Travelled in Italy and stayed for some months in Rome. Secretary to the French ambassador in England for three years. Became involved through his writings and his friends in the political troubles of the Revolution; arrested at Paris, March 7, 1794. Guillotined in the same year. His poems were published in 1822.

[OEuvres poétiques, ed. E. Manuel. Édition Jouaust, Flammarion, Paris.]

Chateaubriand . Born at St. Malo. Lieutenant in the régiment de Navarre. Went to America, 1791. Served in Condé's army, 1792-3. Obliged to emigrate to London, where he lived for some time in great poverty. Returned to France in 1800. Atala, 1801. Génie du Christianisme, 1802. Secretary of the Embassy in Rome: Minister in the Valais. Travelled in the East. Elected to the Académie, 1811; Napoleon disapproved of his Discours de réception. He published Les Natchez in 1826. He played a distinguished part in diplomatic and political life after the fall of the Empire. (Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, 1849.)

[Mélanges et poésies, vol. 22 of OEuvres, 28 vols., Brussels, 1835.]

Béranger . Born in Paris. His political songs had an immense popularity.