author
Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet
1736–1794
A combative lawyer and journalist, he made a career out of arguing against the crowd. His turbulent life took him through fame, exile, prison, and, during the French Revolution, the guillotine.
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 in 1736, Linguet became known in France as a lawyer, journalist, and political writer with a gift for sharp controversy. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes him as someone who delighted in taking positions that set him against almost everyone else, a habit that brought both attention and trouble.
He studied at the Collège de Beauvais and first worked in diplomatic and literary circles before building a public reputation at the bar and in print. Over time he became especially known for his fiercely independent journalism and for political views that often put him at odds with the dominant thinkers of his age.
Linguet's life was marked by repeated reversals, including exile and imprisonment. He was executed in Paris on June 27, 1794, during the French Revolution, and is remembered as a vivid, quarrelsome voice of eighteenth-century France.