Friedrich Franz Karl Hecker (September 28, 1811 – March 24, 1881) was a German lawyer, politician and revolutionary. He was one of the most popular speakers and agitators of the 1848 Revolution. After moving to the United States, he served as a brigade commander in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Ludwig Devrient (15 December 1784 – 30 December 1832) was a German actor, noted for his playing in the works of Shakespeare and Schiller.
Devrient, who was born in Berlin, left a commercial career for the stage in 1804. He joined a travelling theatrical company, and made his first appearance on the stage at Gera as the messenger in Schiller's Braut von Messina. By the interest of Count Brühl, he appeared at Rudolstadt as Franz Moor in Schiller's Die Räuber, so successfully that he obtained a permanent engagement at the ducal theatre in Dessau, where he played until 1809. He then received a call to Breslau, where he remained for six years. Such was his success in the title-parts of several of Shakespeare's plays, that the leading actor August Wilhelm Iffland began to fear for his own reputation; yet that artist was generous enough to recommend the young actor as his only possible successor. On Iffland's death, Devrient was summoned to Berlin, where he was for fifteen years the popular idol. He died there in December 1832.Ludwig Devrient was equally adept in comedy and tragedy. Falstaff, Franz Moor (in Die Räuber), Shylock, King Lear and Richard II were among his best parts. Karl von Holtei in his Reminiscences gave a graphic picture of him and the "demoniac fascination" of his acting. He also wrote several plays and a history of the German stage (1848–74) in five volumes. With his son, Otto, he published translations of Shakespeare's plays.
Devrient was a member of a notable theatrical family, his three nephews all being actors. Karl August Devrient (1797–1872) was popular in heroic and character roles such as Lear, Shylock, and Faust. Another nephew, Eduard Devrient (1801–1877), directed the Court Theatre, Dresden (1844–46), and the Karlsruhe Theatre (1852–70). Gustav Emil Devrient (1803–1872), was the youngest and most gifted of all three nephews of Ludwig Devrient.
Charles-Theodore-Henri De Coster (20 August 1827 – 7 May 1879) was a Belgian novelist whose efforts laid the basis for a native Belgian literature.
Joseph Victor von Scheffel (16 February 1826 – 9 April 1886) was a German poet and novelist.
Adrian Ludwig Richter (September 28, 1803 – June 19, 1884) was a German painter and etcher, who was strongly influenced by Erhard and Chodowiecki. He was a representative of both Romanticism and Biedermeier styles.
He was the most popular, and in many ways the most typical German illustrator of the middle of the 19th century. His work is described as typically German and homely as are the fairy-tales of Grimm, for whom he produced several woodcuts.
Alfred Rethel (May 15, 1816 – December 1, 1859) was a German history painter.
Gustav Nachtigal (German: [ˈɡʊstaf ˈnaxtɪɡal]; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire. The Gustav-Nachtigal-Medal, awarded by the Berlin Geographical Society, is named after him.
Louis Gustave Fortuné Ratisbonne (29 July 1827 – 24 September 1900) was a French man of letters.
He was born at Strasbourg. He was the son of the banker Adolphe Ratisbonne and his wife Charlotte Oppenheim (daughter of Salomon Oppenheim), and the nephew of the priests Marie Theodor Ratisbonne and Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne. He studied at the school of his native town and at the College Henry IV in Paris. He was connected with the Journal des Debats from 1853 to 1876; became librarian of the palace of Fontainebleau in 1871, and three years later to the Senate.
Louis Ratisbonne's most important work was a verse translation of the La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), in which the original is rendered tercet by tercet into French. L'Enfer (1852) was crowned by the Academy; Le Purgatoire (1857) and Le Paradis 1859) received the prix Bordin.
He is also the author of some charming fables and verses for children: La Comédie enfantine (1860), Les Figures jeunes (1865) and others. He was literary executor of Alfred de Vigny, whose Destinées (1864) and Journal d'un poète (1867) he published. Ratisbonne died in Paris.
Through the influence of Thiers, Ratisbonne was appointed librarian at Fontainbleau, where he succeeded Octave Feuillet, and later he was transferred to the Palais du Luxembourg.
Louis Hyacinthe Bouilhet (27 May 1821 – 18 July 1869) was a French poet and dramatist.
Bouilhet was born in Cany, Seine Inférieure. He was a schoolfellow of Gustave Flaubert, to whom he dedicated his first work, Melaenis, conte romain (1851), a narrative poem in five cantos dealing with Roman manners under the emperor Commodus. His volume of poems Fossiles attracted considerable attention for being an attempt to make science a subject for poetry. These poems were also included in his Festons et astragales (1859).
As a dramatist he was successful with his first play, Madame de Monlarcy (1856), which ran for 28 nights at the Odéon; Hélène Peyron (1858) and L'Oncle Million (1860) were also favorably received. Of his other plays, only Conjuration d'Amboise (1866) met with any real success.
Bouilhet died on 18 July 1869, at Rouen. Flaubert published his posthumous poems with a notice by the author in 1872.
Bouilhet was Flaubert's mentor and guide; Flaubert never wrote anything without his advice. A few months after Bouilhet's death in 1869, Flaubert wrote about his old friend, "When I lost my poor Bouilhet, I lost my midwife, the man who saw more clearly into my mind than I did myself." According to Starkie, Maxime Du Camp, who knew Bouilhet and Flaubert well, said of the two authors, "It was Bouilhet who was the master, in the matter of literature at least, and that it was Flaubert who obeyed." Throughout their lives, Flaubert referred to Bouilhet as "Monseigneur."
