18th-century French writers

Charles Rollin (January 30, 1661 in Paris - December 14, 1741 in Paris) was a French historian and educator, whose popularity in his time combined with becoming forgotten by later generations makes him an epithet, applied to historians such as Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi.

Louis de Rouvroy (16 January 1675 – 2 March 1755), Duke of Saint-Simon, styled duc de Saint-Simon, was a French soldier, diplomat and a noted diarist; he was born in Paris (Hôtel Selvois, 6 rue Taranne, today at 175 Bvd. Saint-Germain).

Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu (1639 – 27 June 1720), French poet and wit, was born at Fontenay, Normandy.

Jean-Baptiste Labat (sometimes called, simply, Père Labat) (1663 – 6 January 1738) was a French clergyman, botanist, writer, explorer, ethnographer, soldier, engineer, and landowner.

Sylvain Maréchal (15 August 1750 – 18 January 1803) was a French essayist, poet, philosopher, and, as a political theorist, precursor of utopian socialism and communism (his views on a Golden age society are occasionally described also as utopian anarchism).

Louis-Gabriel Du Buat-Nançay Louis-Gabriel Du Buat-Nançay (2 March 1732, Tortisambert near Livarot – 18 September 1787, Nançay) was an 18th-century French playwright, historian and political writer.

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (French: [dɔlbak]), was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment.

Jean Terrasson (31 January 1670 – 15 September 1750), often referred to as the Abbé Terrasson, was a French priest, author and member of the Académie française.

Anne-Pierre-Jacques de Vismes, or Devismes, (1745, Paris – 1819, Caudebec-en-Caux) was an 18th–19th-century French man of letters and musicographer.

Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier (11 February 1764 – 10 January 1811) was a French poet, dramatist and politician of French and Greek origin.

Georges de Bièvre François Georges Mareschal Bièvre Marquis (16 November 1747 – 24 October 1789) was a French writer and playwright.

Nicolas Malebranche, Oratory of Jesus (French: [nikɔlɑ malbrɑ̃ʃ]; 6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715), was a French Oratorian, not to be confused with the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri priest and rationalist philosopher.

Louis-Jean-Baptiste-Étienne Vigée (2 December 1758 – 8 August 1820) was a French playwright and man of letters.

Claude Joseph Dorat (31 December 1734 – 29 April 1780) was a French writer, also known as Le Chevalier Dorat.

Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d'Argis (April 3, 1708 in Lyon – January 25, 1791 in Paris age 82) was a French lawyer.

Jean Baptiste Lefebvre de Villebrune (Senlis, Oise, 1732 – Angoulême, 7 October 1809) was a French philologist, physician and translator.

Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d'Aussy (3 June 1737 - 6 December 1800) was a French antiquarian and historian, who introduced the terms menhir and dolmen, both taken from the Breton language, into antiquarian terminology.

Joseph Michel Antoine Servan (November 3, 1737 – 1807) was a French publicist and lawyer.

Dom Louis Le Pelletier (1663, Le Mans – 1733, Landévennec) was a Frenco-Breton linguist.

Antoine-Jean Bourlin, better known as Dumaniant, (11 April 1752 – 26 September 1828) was a French comedian, playwright and goguettier.

Jacques-Antoine Révéroni, baron de Saint-Cyr (5 May 1767, Lyon – 19 March 1829, Paris) was a French military and man of letters.

Jacques Mallet du Pan (1749 – 10 May 1800) was a French journalist, who took up the Royalist cause during the French Revolution.

Charles-Jacques-Louis-Auguste Rochette de La Morlière, called "Le Chevalier" , (22 April 1719 – 9 February 1785) was an 18th-century French playwright.

Jean-Félicissime Adry (1749, Vincelottes, Yonne – 20 March 1818, Paris) was an 19th-century French bibliographer.

Jean-Louis Castilhon (1721, Toulouse – 24 August 1798, Bouillon) was an 18th-century French man of letters and encyclopedist.

Jean-Marie-Louis Coupé (18 October 1732, Péronne (Somme) – 10 May 1818, Paris) was a French abbé, man of letters and librarian.

Jean Bouhier (16 March 1673, Dijon – 17 March 1746, Dijon) was a French magistrate, jurisconsultus, historian, translator, bibliophile and scholar.

Joseph-Gaspard Dubois-Fontanelle (27 October 1727 – 15 February 1812) was an 18th–19th-century French journalist, man of letters, playwright and translator.

Joseph Aude (10 December 1755 – 5 October 1841) was a familiar of Necker and Buffon whose biography he wrote as well as a comédie en vaudeville about his marriage, presented at the Société littéraire et scientifique d'Apt.

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (28 November 1685 – 29 December 1755) was a French author influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various précieuse writers.

Cosme de Villiers de Saint Étienne (1683-1758) was a French Carmelite bibliographer.

Jérôme Besoigne (1686 in Paris – 1763) was a prominent Jansenist apologist and oppositionist to the Bull "Unigenitus.

Pierre-Joseph Alary (19 March 1689, Paris – 15 December 1770) was a French ecclesiastic and writer.

Élie Catherine Fréron (20 January 1718 – 10 March 1776) was a French literary critic and controversialist whose career focused on countering the influence of the philosophes of the French Enlightenment, partly thorough his vehicle, the Année littéraire.

The abbé de La Marre (or La Mare) (Quimper, 1708 – Bavaria, 1742) was an 18th-century French homme de lettres.

Adrien Quiret de Margency also Adrien Cuyret de Margency (1727 – c. 1802) was an 18th-century French officer of the Maison militaire du roi de France (Gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du roi), writer and Encyclopédiste.

Arnaud Berquin (September 1747 in Bordeaux – 21 December 1791) was a French children's author.

Charles-Louis d’Authville Des Amourettes (1716 – 1762) was an 18th-century French military.

Father Jean-Paul de Rome d'Ardène (25 January 1690 – 5 December 1769 (en 1779, according to the BNF) in domaine d'Ardène in Saint-Michel (modern Saint-Michel-l'Observatoire, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) was an 18th-century French botanist.

François Massialot (Limoges 1660 — Paris 1733) was a French chef who served as chef de cuisine (officier de bouche) to various illustrious personages, including Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, and his son Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was first duc de Chartres then the Regent, as well as the duc d'Aumont, the Cardinal d’Estrées, and the marquis de Louvois.

Louis Abel Beffroy de Reigny (pronounced: [lwi abɛl bɛfʁwa də ʁɛɲi]) (November 6, 1757 – December 17, 1811), was a French dramatist and man of letters.

Pierre de Frasnay (1676 in Nevers – 27 April 1753) was an 18th-century French writer, translator and author of fables in the manner of Aesop.

Jacques de la Faye was a 17th-18th century French writer whose Defensio Religionis ('"Defense of Religion') a 251-page critique of the pantheism of John Toland, was published at Utrecht in 1709.

Jean-Georges Noverre (29 April 1727 – 19 October 1810) was a French dancer and balletmaster, and is generally considered the creator of ballet d'action, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century.

He was trained in medicine at the Hôtel-Dieu, Pitié and the Bicêtre hospitals.

Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant, known as le Père Bougeant (4 November 1690, Quimper, Brittany – 17 January 1743, Paris) was a French Jesuit and historian.

Charles Armand René de La Trémoille (14 January 1708, in Paris – 23 May 1741), 6th duc de Thouars, was the son of Charles Louis Bretagne de La Trémoille and his wife, Marie Madeleine Motier de la Fayette.

Jean (or Joseph)-Michel-Pascal Buhan (17 April 1770 – 24 February 1822) was an 18th-century French lawyer, poet, polemist and playwright.

Louis-Marin Henriquez (1765 – 1815) was an 18th-century French writer and playwright.

Antoine-François Delandine (5 March 1756 – 5 May 1820), was a French writer.

Antoine-François Riccoboni (1707 – 15 May 1772) was an Italian actor of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris, whose stage name was Lélio fils.

Antoine Gilbert Griffet de Labaume (21 November 1756, Moulins – 18 March 1805) was an 18th-century French writer, playwright and translator.

Antoine Bret (9 July 1717, Dijon – 25 February 1792, Paris aged 74) was an 18th-century French writer and playwright.

Auguste-Jacques Lemierre d'Argy (1 March 1762, Paris – 12 December 1815, Paris) was an 18th–19th-century French writer and translator.

Barnabé Farmian Durosoy, (1745 – 25 August 1792, Paris) was an 18th-century French journalist and man of letters, both a plyawright, poet, novelist, historian and essayist.

Barthélemy Imbert (16 March 1747 – 23 August 1790) was an 18th-century French playwright, poet and novelist.

Jean Galli de Bibiena (French rendering of Galli da Bibbiena) was an 18th-century French-speaking writer (but of Italian descent), born in 1709 in Nancy and who may have died in 1779 in Italy.

Bénigne Dujardin (1689, Paris – 1771?) was an 18th-century French writer, historian and translator.

Charles-Albert Demoustier (13 March 1760 – 2 March 1801) was a French writer.

Charles-Étienne Pesselier (9 July 1712, Paris – 25 August 1763, Paris aged 52) was an 18th-century French playwright and librettist.

Claude-François-Xavier Mercier de Compiègne (1763–1800) was a French writer and translator.

Born at the château de Voisenon near Melun, he was only ten when he addressed an epistle in verse to Voltaire, who asked the boy to visit him.

François Le Prévost d'Exmes (29 September 1729, Exmes – September 1793, Paris) was an 18th-century French writer, playwright and literary critic.

François Xavier Talbert, dit l’abbé Talbert, (1725, Besançon – 4 June 1805, Lviv (Ukraine) was an 18th-century French preacher and writer. He was a canon in Besançon and later in Paris before emigrating to Ukraine where he died. Concurrently with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he treated the question proposed by the Académie de Dijon on l'Origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (1754) and won the prize. In addition to his Sermons, he wrote Éloges of Louis XV, Montaigne, Bossuet, Massillon and other great French figures, crowned by several academies.

Guillaume d’Abbes de Cabrebolles, also Guillaume d’Abbes, baron de Cabreroles, (21 March 1718, Bédarieux – 1 October 1802, Saint-Martin-d’Aumes) was an 18th-century French lawyer, and Encyclopédisteduring the Age of Enlightenment.

Louis-Léon de Brancas (3 July 1733 – 9 October 1824), 3rd duc de Lauraguais, 6th duc de Villars, was a French general and author, and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Louis d'Ussieux, real name Louis Dussieux, (30 March 1744 in Angoulême – 21 August 1805 in château des Vaux) was an 18th-century French writer, historian, journalist, translator and agronomist.

Louise Levesque, née Cavelier (23 November 1703, Rouen – 18 May 1745, Paris) was an 18th-century French femme de lettres.

Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert was an 18th-century French writer.

Michel, chevalier de Cubières (27 September 1752, Roquemaure, Gard – 23 August 1820, Paris), the brother of Louis Pierre de Cubières, was an 18th-century French writer, known under the pen-names of Palmézaux and Dorat-Cubières, taking the latter name as he had Claude Joseph Dorat as his master.

Nicolas Charles Joseph Trublet (4 December 1697, Saint-Malo – 14 March 1770, Saint-Malo) was a French churchman (canon of Saint-Malo) and moralist, best known for his clash with Voltaire, whose La Henriade he critiqued.

Nicolas-Hubert Mongault (6 October 1674 – 11 August 1746) was a French ecclesiastic and writer.

Nicolas Bricaire de la Dixmerie (c. 1730 – November 26, 1791), French man of letters, was born at Lamothe (Haute-Marne).

Nicolas Fallet (10 September 1746, Langres – 22 December 1801, Paris) was an 18th-century French playwright and journalist.

Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, born in 1689 in Paris, where he died on March 12, 1761, was a playwright, theater historian, libertine novelist and French translator.

Prosper Marchand (11 March 1678 – 14 June 1756) was an 18th-century French bibliographer.

Renée-Caroline-Victoire de Froulay de Tessé, marquise de Créquy de Heymont de Canaples d'Ambrières (1704–1803), was a French woman of letters, by marriage a member of the Créquy family, which counted several distinguished public servants and prelates, particularly in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Robert Challe (17 August 1659 – 25 January 1721) was a French colonialist, voyager and writer, although he never published under his own name, which accounts for his obscurity until his re-discovery in the 1970s.

Dom Antoine Rivet de La Grange (Confolens, 1683 - Le Mans, 1749) was a French benedictine monk and supporter of Jansenism.

Charles Constance César Joseph Matthieu d'Agoult (born at Grenoble, 1747; died at Paris, 1824) was a French Roman Catholic bishop, afterwards a political writer.

Baroness Sophie de Bawr (8 October 1773 – 31 December 1860), born Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, was a French writer, playwright and composer, also known as "Comtesse de Saint-Simon", "Baronne de Bawr", and "M.

Matthieu Marais (1664 - 21 June 1737) was a French jurist and writer.