Born in Paris in 1694, Voltaire takes of hatred early the absolute royalty and religious intolerance; accomodated well by the largest lords and the princes, it does not think of upsetting the company, and it does not love really the people, but it tackles the abuses boldly, denounces the injustices, makes rehabilitate the innocent ones, such as Calas wrongfully condemned to the torture of the wheel; it is put entire at the service of what it believes the truth, and dies in Paris in 1778 after having exerted an immense influence.

Voltaire is at the same time one of our great writers, at the same time poet, philosopher and historian.

Born in Geneva in 1712, but of French origin, Rousseau carries out a long time an existence miserable, in turn working, servant, charlatan and tutor, enthusiastic of the virtue, but vicious itself; pulled by its burning imagination, it takes of hatred the company; become famous for its genius of writer, it attacks the theatre, education, progress, civilization, but it is made the defender of the religious beliefs, simplicity, freedom.

Threatened of arrest, it is exiled and died in 1778, the same year as Voltaire.

Its influence grows after its death, and much of men of the Revolution are its disciples.

Large scientist, the founder of the modern chemistry, born in Paris in 1743, died on the scaffold in 1794.

Great writer, author of the Letters Persians (1721), the Considerations on the size and the decline of the Romans andthe Spirit of the laws; died in 1755.

The pilori was the post, the pillar or the scaffold on which the criminals, the yoke with the neck, were exposed to the insults of the rabble.

That of the Markets, in Paris, was a species of turn where the patients had the head and the hands passed in holes.

Sometimes one nailed with the pilori the books considered seditious which were to be destroyed then by the hand of the torturer.

Under Louis XIV, Dîme royal, works of Vauban, had been condemned to this humiliating sorrow (1707).

The pilori was abolished in 1789.

Great writer and large erudite, author of a natural History which counts thirty-six volumes.

Great writer, at the same time philosophical and dramatic author, were, with Alembert, the principal author ofthe Encyclopaedia, review of human knowledge.