author
Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet
1736–1794
A brilliant, combative voice from eighteenth-century France, this lawyer-journalist built a career on arguing against the crowd. His life moved through fame, exile, imprisonment, and finally the guillotine during the French Revolution.
1 Audiobook
Die Kakomonade Ein Nachlaß vom Doktor Panglos, als ein Supplement des Kandide
by Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet
About the author
Born in Reims on July 14, 1736, Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet became known as a French lawyer, journalist, and man of letters. Britannica notes that he studied at the Collège de Beauvais and quickly earned a reputation for taking strikingly unconventional positions.
Linguet wrote history and political journalism, and he was known for attacking many of the leading ideas and figures of his day rather than joining them. That habit brought him attention but also trouble: across his career he faced exile and imprisonment, including time in the Bastille.
His dramatic life ended in Paris on June 27, 1794, when he was executed during the French Revolution. Today he is remembered less as a calm consensus thinker than as a fiercely independent and provocative public writer.