Joseph Joubert was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 moralist and essayist, remembered today largely for his Pensées published posthumously.

From the age of 14 Joubert attended a religious college in Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

, where he later taught until 1776. In 1778 he went to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 where he met D'Alembert

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...

 and Diderot, amongst others, and later became friends with young writer and diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

 Chateaubriand

François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...

.

He alternated between living in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 with his friends and life in the privacy of the countryside in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne

Villeneuve-sur-Yonne

Villeneuve-sur-Yonne is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.It is surrounded by a partly intact wall, built during the 12th century, which was one of the 8 residences of the French kings.-Geography:...

.