Théophraste Renaudot - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Théophraste Renaudot was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

, and journalist.

Born in Loudun

Loudun

Loudun is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in western France.It is located south of the town of Chinon and 25 km to the east of the town Thouars...

, Renaudot received a doctorate of medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

from the University of Montpellier

University of Montpellier

The University of Montpellier was a French university in Montpellier in the Languedoc-Roussillon région of the south of France. Its present-day successor universities are the University of Montpellier 1, Montpellier 2 University and Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III.-History:The university...

in 1606. He returned to Loudon where he met Cardinal Richelieu and Père Joseph

François Leclerc du Tremblay

François Leclerc du Tremblay , also known as Père Joseph, was a French Capuchin friar, confidant and agent of Cardinal Richelieu...

. In the 1610s, Richelieu became more powerful and Renaudot followed him 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...

. Renaudot, a born protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

, converted to catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

. He became the physician of Louis XIII of France

Louis XIII of France

Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...

.

In 1630, Renaudot opened the bureau d'adresse et de rencontre, where prospective employers and employees could find each other. With the support of Richelieu, he established the first weekly newspaper in France, La Gazette
La Gazette
La Gazette , originally Gazette de France, was the first weekly magazine published in France. It was founded by Théophraste Renaudot and issued its first number on May 30, 1631. It progressively became the mouthpiece of one royalist faction, the Legitimists...

, in 1631. Starting in 1633, he organized weekly public conferences on subjects of interest and published the proceedings

Proceedings

In academia, proceedings are the collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books either before the conference opens or after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers...

; the conferences were discontinued in 1642, when Richelieu died. About 240 conference proceedings were translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

and published in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

in 1664 and 1665.

Renaudot opened the mont-de-piété, the first pawnshop in Paris, in 1637. Appointed "General Overseer of the Poor" by Richelieu, he initiated a system of free medical consultations for the poor (1640). In 1642 he published a self-diagnostic handbook, the first treatise on diagnosis in France.

After the deaths of his benefactors, Richelieu and Louis XIII, Renaudot lost his permission to practice medicine in Paris, due to the opposition of Guy Patin

Guy Patin

Guy Patin was a French doctor and man of letters.Guy Patin was headmaster of the School of Medicine in Paris and professor in the Collège de France starting in 1655...

and other academic physicians. Cardinal Mazarin made Renaudot historiographer to the new king, Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

in 1646.

Renaudot died in Paris, in 1653.

See also