François Marie Arouet (1694-1778) was the son of a treas­ury of­ficial. In 1704, soon after his mother’s death, Arouet was sent to the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris for 7 years. He wrote poetry and performed in plays in Latin and French and when Arouet left Coll­ège at 17, the lad wanted to become a writer. Having already planned a law career for his son, dad forced Francois to be a lawyer’s assistant for two years, but the lad devoted his en­ergy to writing satirical poetry instead. So his father sent him to the country with marquis de Saint-Ange Louis...