Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, who lived from 1657 to 1757, was a French writer and a member of three of the academies of the Institut de France, noted especially for his accessible treatment of scientific topics during the Age of Enlightenment. Born in Rouen and a nephew of the dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille, he trained in law but gave it up to write about philosophers and scientists, defending the Cartesian tradition as a commentator and explicator rather than a primary contributor. His Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes of 1686 was an influential work on the plurality of worlds, and his Histoire des oracles of 1687 caused a stir in theological circles. In 1697 he became perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, an office he held for forty-two years, writing its history and sixty-nine éloges of its members, and he later published Éléments de la géometrie de l'infini in 1727 and Théorie des tourbillons in 1752.