People

Jules Dumont d'Urville (May 23, 1790 - May 8, 1842) was a French explorer.

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was born in Condé-sur-Noireau, Basse-Normandie, France, was a French Rear Admiral and explorer of the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (April 20, 1808 - January 9, 1873) was the son of King Louis Bonaparte and Queen Hortense de Beauharnais; both monarchs of the Kingdom of Holland.

He was elected President (1848-1852) of the Second Republic of France and subsequently Emperor (1852-1870), reigning as Napoleon III (Second French Empire). In a situation that resembles the case of Louis XVIII of France, the numbering of Napoleon's reign assumes the existence of a legitimate Napoleon II of France who never actually ruled.

Louis XVI of France (August 23, 1754 - January 21, 1793) succeeded his grandfather (Louis XV of France) as King of France on May 10, 1774; he was crowned on June 11, 1775. His father, the dauphin, had died in 1765.

On May 16, 1770 he married Marie Antoinette, daughter of Francis I of Austria and Empress Maria Theresa , a Habsburg. They had four children:

Marie-Therese Charlotte (December 20, 1778 - October 1851);
Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François (October 22, 1781 - June 4, 1789);
Louis-Charles (March 27, 1785 - 1795);
Sophie-Beatrix (July 9, 1786 - June 19, 1787).

Émile Zola (April 2, 1840 - September 29, 1902) was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism and a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

Colette was the pen name of the famous French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (January 28, 1873 - August 3, 1954).

She was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, in the Burgundy Region of France, the daughter of Jules-Joseph Colette and Adele Eugenie Sidonie Landoy ('Sido'). In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars. Her first books, the Claudine series, were published under the pen name of her husband, 'Willy'.

Alfred Dreyfus (October 9, 1859 - July 12, 1935), French military officer best known for being the focus of the Dreyfus affair.