Louis, Prince of Condé. La Bruyère was his tutor when he was a boy.

An image of Coutences, near Saint-Demis-le-Guast, where Saint-Évremond was born.

Chamfort wanted to see France a republic, took part in storming the Bastille and wrote speeches for statesmen like Mirabeau. But when he saw Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, he spoke out against it as acerbically as he had against the king and nobility. When Marat was killed, he stated gleefully 'King Murat is dead!'. He was thrown into this prison, the Madelonnettes Convent, which later held the Marquis de Sade. It was notoriously unhygienic, with overflowing toilets, foul air, vermin and poor food. He only stayed for two days, and was afterward under house arrest in a small apartment nearby. One day, his guard complained to him that the theaters in Paris hadn't had any audiences. Chamfort replied, 'Tragedy no longer has the same effect once it roams the streets.'

Jean-François Marmontel, a French historian, writer, and member of the Encyclopediste movement. He was one of Vauvenargues' few friends when he came to live in Paris.

Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, notorious for being a libertine at the court of his brother, Louis XIV.

Robert-François Damiens. From Wikipedia: "On January 5, 1757, as king Louis XV was entering his carriage, Damiens rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was apprehended at once... He was tortured first with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife used in the attempted assassination, was burned using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. He was then remanded to the royal executioner, Charles Henri Sanson, who harnessed horses to his arms and legs to be dismembered. But Damiens' limbs did not separate easily: the officiants ordered Sanson to cut Damiens' joints with an axe. Once Damiens was dismembered to the applause of the crowd, his reportedly still-living torso was burnt at the stake... The execution was witnessed by famous 18th-century adventurer Giacomo Casanova, who included an account in his memoirs: 'We had the courage to watch the dreadful sight for four hours ... Damiens was a fanatic, who, with the idea of doing a good work and obtaining a heavenly reward, had tried to assassinate Louis XV; and though the attempt was a failure, and he only gave the king a slight wound, he was torn to pieces as if his crime had been consummated. ... I was several times obliged to turn away my face and to stop my ears as I heard his piercing shrieks, half of his body having been torn from him, but the Lambertini and Mme XXX did not budge an inch. Was it because their hearts were hardened? They told me, and I pretended to believe them, that their horror at the wretch's wickedness prevented them feeling that compassion which his unheard-of torments should have excited.' —Book 2, Volume 5, Chapter 3"

A detail of the Passemant astronomical clock in Versailles. It shows the time, date, real time average phases of the moon and Copernican planetary motion.

Matilde Dembowski, who Stendhal loved as much as happiness.

Ixion tortured on his wheel. Zeus invited Ixion to Olympus where he became amorous of Zeus' wife Hera. When Zeus found out, he made a copy of Hera out of a cloud and sent it to Ixion, who seduced it. In the middle of the act, Zeus walked in, the cloud turned back to smoke and Ixion was punished by being tied to a wheel that rolled around the world.