J. B. de (Jacques-Benjamin) Saint-Victor

Born on January 14, 1772, at Cap-Français in Saint-Domingue, Jacques-Maximilien Benjamin Bins, comte de Saint-Victor, became a French poet and man of letters. He lived through one of the most turbulent periods in French history and built a career in writing rather than in a single narrow field.

He is especially associated with Tableau historique et pittoresque de Paris depuis les Gaulois jusqu'à nos jours, a large-scale work that traces the city from ancient times to the modern era. The book helped preserve his reputation as a writer who combined historical curiosity with a vivid, readable style.

Records from French archival sources also note his involvement in royalist conspiracies during the Napoleonic period and a political mission to Brittany near the end of 1813, which led to his arrest and imprisonment until the fall of the Empire. He died in Paris on August 8, 1858.