Charles-Étienne

Born in Berlin in 1700, he came from a Huguenot background and built a reputation as a French-language author in Prussia. He is generally remembered as a literary and historical writer whose career unfolded in a period when French culture had strong influence at European courts.

He was also connected with the court of Frederick the Great, serving as an advisor and participating in the wider intellectual life around the king. That setting helped place him among the educated, cosmopolitan figures associated with the early Enlightenment in Prussia.

He died in 1745. Though not a household name today, he remains of interest as a writer who helped carry French literary culture into the political and cultural world of 18th-century Berlin.