Biography
Paul Deschanel, the son of Émile Deschanel (1819–1904), professor at the Collège de France and senator, was born at Brussels, where his father was living in exile (1851–1859), owing to his opposition to Napoleon III. He is one of only two French Presidents (the other is Valéry Giscard d'Estaing) who were born outside France (Deschanel in Belgium, Giscard in Koblenz, Germany).
Read more about this topic: Paul Deschanel
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)