Gustave-Adolphe Hirn (21 August 1815 – 14 January 1890) was a French physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and engineer who made important measurements of the mechanical equivalent of heat and contributions to the early development of thermodynamics. He further applied his science in the practical development of steam engines.
Charles Jacques Bouchard (6 September 1837 – 28 October 1915) was a French pathologist and an esperantist born in Montier-en-Der, a commune the department of Haute-Marne.
Josette Rey-Debove (November 16, 1929 – February 22, 2005), was a French lexicographer and semiologist. She was the first female lexicographer in France, and held many prominent posts in this field, where she used her influence to promote feminist changes to French language usage. Her husband, Alain Rey, was also her colleague.
Francesco de Sanctis (28 March 1817 – 29 December 1883) was a leading Italian literary critic and scholar of Italian language and literature during the 19th century.
Joseph Bienaimé Caventou (30 June 1795 – 5 May 1877) was a French pharmacist. He was a professor at the École de Pharmacie (School of Pharmacy) in Paris. He collaborated with Pierre-Joseph Pelletier in a Parisian laboratory located behind an apothecary. He was a pioneer in the use of mild solvents to isolate a number of active ingredients from plants, making a study of alkaloids from vegetables. Among their successes were the isolation of the following compounds:
Quinine sulfate later proved to be an important remedy for the disease malaria. Quinine is the active anti-malarial ingredient in the bark of cinchona tree.Neither of the partners chose to patent their discovery of this compound, releasing it for everybody to use. In 1823 they discovered nitrogen in alkaloid compounds. Other compounds they discovered include colchicine and veratrine.
The crater Caventou on the Moon is named after him.
Léo Pétillon (22 May 1903 – 1 April 1996) was a Belgian colonial civil servant and lawyer who served as Governor-General of the Belgian Congo (1952–58) and, briefly, as Minister of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (1958).
Pétillon studied Law and practiced as a lawyer, before entering the Belgian colonial service in 1929. He worked for several years at the Ministry of the Colonies in Brussels, serving as aide to a series of ministers. In 1939, he secured a posting to the Belgian Congo as aide to the Governor-General and spent most of World War II in the colony or with the Belgian government in exile in London. In 1946, Pétillon was promoted to Vice Governor-General, given responsibility for the Belgian mandate of Ruanda-Urundi. In 1952, he was promoted to the position of Governor-General himself, holding the position until 1958. After the end of his tenure, he briefly held a Ministerial position himself as technocrat in the government of Gaston Eyskens. He retired in 1959 and published several books. He died in 1996.
Jules Destrée (French: [dɛstʁe]; Marcinelle, 21 August 1863 – Brussels, 3 January 1936) was a Walloon lawyer, cultural critic and socialist politician. The trials subsequent to the strikes of 1886 determined his commitment within the Belgian Labour Party. He wrote a Letter to the King in 1912, which is seen as the founding declaration of the Walloon movement. He is famous for his quote "Il n'y a pas de Belges" (There are no Belgians), pointing to the lack of patriotic feelings in Flemings and Walloons, while pleading for some kind of federal state.
Virginie Claire Désirée Marie Hériot (26 July 1890 – 28 August 1932) was a French yachtswoman who won in the 1928 Summer Olympics in the 8 Metre Aile VI.
Marcel Jacques Amand Romain Boulenger (Paris, 9 September 1873 – Chantilly, Oise, 21 May 1932) was a French novelist and fiction writer. He was awarded the Prix Nee of the Académie Française in 1918 and the Prix Stendhal in 1919. He was also a fencer of international standard, competing in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries.
Agnès Martin-Lugand (born 1979) is a French novelist who gained fame with Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du café (Happy People Read and Drink Coffee) when she published it on Kindle in December 2012. By 2017, her five novels had clocked up sales of two million worldwide.