1797 births

Félix Savary, who was born on 4 October 1797 in Paris and died on 15 July 1841 in Estagel, was a French astronomer.He studied at the École Polytechnique, where he was later a professor of astronomy. He was a librarian at the Bureau des Longitudes between 1823 and 1829, and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 December 1832.In his works Mémoire sur les orbites des étoiles doubles and Sur la détermination des orbites que décrivent autour de leur centre de gravité deux étoiles très rapprochées l'une de l'autre, published in 1827, he was the first to use observations of a visual binary star to calculate the orbit of one star about the other. He applied his method to the star ξ Ursae Majoris.He worked with Ampère, publishing in 1823 the work Mémoire sur l'application du calcul aux phénomènes électro-dynamiques.

Théophile François Marcel Bra (23 June 1797, Douai - 1863) was a French Romantic sculptor and exact contemporary of Eugène Delacroix. He was deeply involved in the Romantic era through his uncompromising personality and complex spirituality. His fantastical inspiration evokes the universes inhabited by Goya, William Blake or Victor Hugo - he was at one and the same time a Bonapartist and an anglophile, a passionate Christian disciple of Swedenborg and an admirer of Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Pierre-Chéri Lafont (16 May 1797 – 19 April 1873) was a French actor, born at Bordeaux.

Abandoning his profession as assistant ship's doctor in the navy, he went to Paris to study singing and acting. He had some experience at a small theater, and was preparing to appear at the Opéra Comique when the director of the Vaudeville offered him an engagement. Here he made his debut in 1821 in La Somnambule, and his good looks and excellent voice soon brought him into public favor. After several years at the Nouveautés and the Vaudeville, on the burning of the latter in 1838 he went to England, and married, at Gretna Green, Jenny Colon, from whom he was soon divorced. On his return to Paris, he joined the Variétés, where he acted for fifteen years in such plays as Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Le Lion empaillé, Une dernière conquête, etc.
Another engagement at the Vaudeville followed, and one at the Gaîté, and he ended his brilliant career at the Gymnase in the part of the noble father in such plays as Les Vieux Garçons and Nos bons villageois. On 12 July 1848 he married the dancer Pauline Leroux.
He died in Paris on 19 April 1873 and is buried in Montmartre Cemetery with Pauline Leroux.

Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet and early French Romanticist. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare.

Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, anglicized name Henry Engelhard Steinway, (February 22, 1797 – February 7, 1871) was a German-American piano maker who made pianos in both Germany and the United States. He was the founder of the piano company Steinway & Sons.