Jean de La Fontaine was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, as well as in French regional languages.
Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a small group of Italian and French collectors. He returned to Paris for a brief period to serve as First Painter to the King under Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, but soon returned to Rome and resumed his more traditional themes. In his later years he gave growing prominence to the landscape in his paintings. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.
The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. This, however, was dependent on a Christmas pantomime, a successor to which is still performed in the United Kingdom.
Charles Perrault was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his 1697 book Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The best known of his tales include Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, Cendrillon ("Cinderella"), Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté, La Belle au bois dormant, and Barbe Bleue ("Bluebeard").
Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He had a glittering career, and acquired enormous wealth. He fell out of favor, accused of peculation and lèse-majesté. The king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the country's politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a doctrine often characterized as a variant of mercantilism, earned him the nickname le Grand Colbert.
Cardinal Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat, and politician who served as the chief minister to the kings of France Louis XIII and Louis XIV from 1642 until his death in 1661. In 1654 he acquired the title Duke of Mayenne, and in 1659, 1st Duke of Rethel and Nevers.
Charles Le Brun was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of all time", he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and much influenced by Nicolas Poussin.
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is a novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is the third and last of The d'Artagnan Romances, following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. It appeared first in serial form between 1847 and 1850.
Philippe de Champaigne was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, the premier art institution in France in the eighteenth century.
JeanFouquet (ca.1420–1481) was a French painter and miniaturist. A master of panel painting and manuscript illumination, and the apparent inventor of the portrait miniature, he is considered one of the most important painters from the period between the late Gothic and early Renaissance. He was the first French artist to travel to Italy and experience first-hand the early Italian Renaissance.
Gerrit Dou, also known as GerardDouw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe-l'œil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. He was a student of Rembrandt.
Pierre Paul Puget was a French Baroque painter, sculptor, architect and engineer. His sculpture expressed emotion, pathos and drama, setting it apart from the more classical and academic sculpture of the Style Louis XIV.
Robert Nanteuil was a French portrait artist: engraver, draughtsman and pastellist to the court of Louis XIV.
Marie de Nemours, originally known as Marie d'Orléans-Longueville (1625–1707), was Princess of Neuchâtel from 1694 to 1707. She was the daughter of Henri II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville and Louise de Bourbon. After the death of her brother Jean Louis Charles d'Orléans-Longueville in 1694 she succeeded him as sovereign Princess of Neuchâtel, although she remained a prominent member of the French royal court.
Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, Seigneur and then Marquis (1682) of Pomponne was a French diplomat and minister.
Georges de Brébeuf (1618 – 1661) was a French poet and translator best known for his verse translation of Lucan's Pharsalia (1654) which was warmly received by Pierre Corneille, but which was ridiculed by Nicolas Boileau in his Art poétique.
Paul Fréart de Chantelou was a French collector and patron of the arts. He encouraged major artists of his era, in particular Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), and is known for his diary describing Bernini's visit to Paris in 1665.
Pompone de Bellièvre (1606–1657) was a French magistrate, ambassador and statesman, ending his career as first president of the Parliament of Paris, from 1653 to 1657.
The Louis XIV style or Louis Quatorze, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Claude Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–91).
