A British writer, Richard Haestier, in a book, Dead Men Tell Tales, recalls that in the turmoil preceding the French Revolution the body of Henry 4,, who had died nearly 180 years earlier, was torn to pieces by a mob.

* 1741 – Nicolas Chamfort, French writer ( d. 1794 )

* 1902 – Julien Torma, French writer, playwright and poet ( d. 1933 )

* 1713 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer ( d. 1796 )

* 1895 – Philippe Panneton, French Canadian physician, diplomat, and writer ( d. 1960 )

* 1715 – Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, French writer ( d. 1747 )

* 1920 – Louis Pauwels, French journalist and writer ( d. 1997 )

* 1941 – François Weyergans, French doctor and writer

* 1621 – Guillaume du Vair, French writer ( b. 1556 )

* 1954 – Colette, French writer ( b. 1873 )

* 1844 – Anatole France, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate ( d. 1924 )

* 1645 – Jean de La Bruyère, French writer ( d. 1696 )

* 1900 – Gontran de Poncins, French writer and adventurer ( d. 1962 )

* 1524 – François Hotman, French lawyer and writer ( d. 1590 )

* Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle.

* 1986 – Simone de Beauvoir, French writer ( b. 1908 )

Alfred Jarry ( 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907 ) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany ; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side.

* 1911 – Hervé Bazin, French writer ( d. 1996 )

* 1920 – Edmonde Charles-Roux, French journalist and writer

* 1604 – François Hédelin, abbé d ' Aubignac, French writer ( d. 1676 )

* 1919 – Michel Déon, French writer

* 1142 – Pierre Abélard, French writer ( b. 1079 )

* 1720 – Antoine Hamilton, French writer ( b. 1646 )

* 1909 – Robert Charroux, French writer ( d. 1978 )

* 1911 – Hervé Bazin, French writer ( d. 1996 )

* 1651 – André Dacier, French scholar ( d. 1722 )

* 1672 – André Cardinal Destouches, French composer ( d. 1749 )

* 1947 – André Weinfeld, French and American Film Director / Producer

* 1905 – André Jolivet, French composer ( d. 1974 )

* 1918 – André Bazin, French critic and theorist ( d. 1958 )

Little is known of Andreas Capellanus's life, but he is presumed to have been a courtier of Marie of Troyes, and probably of French origin ; he is sometimes known by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain.

André Weil (; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998 ) was an influential French mathematician of the 20th century, renowned for the breadth and quality of his research output, its influence on future work, and the elegance of his exposition.

Sweeping forwards, virtually without resistance, the 21 Danish squadrons reformed behind the French around the area of the Tomb of Ottomond, facing north across the plateau of Mont St André towards the exposed flank of Villeroi ’ s army.

Now, far too late, Villeroi tried to redeploy his 50 unused squadrons, but a desperate attempt to form line facing south, stretching from Offus to Mont St André, floundered amongst the baggage and tents of the French camp carelessly left there after the initial deployment.

In 1794, this fortress was used by the French astronomer Pierre François André Méchain for observations relating to a survey stretching to Dunkirk that provided the official basis of the measurement of a metre.

Cahiers du Cinéma (, Notebooks on Cinema ) is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.

André Le Breton, a bookseller and printer, approached Diderot with a project for the publication of a translation of Ephraim Chambers ' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences into French, first undertaken by the Englishman John Mills, and followed by the German Gottfried Sellius.

The French avant-garde kept abreast of Dada activities in Zurich with regular communications from Tristan Tzara ( whose pseudonym means " sad in country ," a name chosen to protest the treatment of Jews in his native Romania ), who exchanged letters, poems, and magazines with Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton, Max Jacob, Clément Pansaers, and other French writers, critics and artists.

* 1853 – André Messager, French composer ( d. 1929 )

The evidence is found in two early maps, one made by the Portuguese cartographer Pedro Reinel in about 1522, the very first map to show the Falklands, the other a French copy of a Portuguese map bought in Lisbon by André Thévet ( 1516-1590 ), a Franciscan friar and prolific writer on many subjects ; this copy is now in the manuscript of a large unpublished work by Thevet in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

In the years after World War II, the French film critic and theorist André Bazin reacted against this approach to the cinema, arguing that film's essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its difference from reality.

* 1896 – André Breton, French poet ( d. 1966 )

* 1951 – André Gide, French writer, Nobel laureate ( b. 1869 )

* 1878 – André Citroën, French automobile pioneer ( d. 1935 )

* 1904 – André Leducq, French cyclist ( d. 1980 )

* 1903 – André Berthomieu, French film director and screenwriter ( d. 1960 )

He became a close friend and inspirer of the French philosopher André Gorz.

French scholar André Lemaire has reconstructed a portion of line 31 of the stele as mentioning the " House of David "., The Tel Dan stele ( c. 841 ) tells of the death of a king of Israel, probably Jehoram, at the hands of a king of Aram Damascus.