Henri Alexandre de Catt, a Swiss scholar, was from 1758 the private secretary and close confidant of Frederick the Great of Prussia. He is often described as the king's "reader" (Vorleser), but in fact did not read anything out loud as such, but was engaged principally in correcting Frederick's pronunciation and written expression in French, his preferred language for general purposes. During this time de Catt kept a diary, which since its publication in 1885 has been the source of many episodes of Frederick's life and of things he said.
Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars, the abbot of Villars, also known as Henri de Montfaucon de Villars, was a French abbot and writer in the 17th century.
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, better known as Henri de Saint-Simon, was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He is a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon.
Henri Estienne, also known as Henricus Stephanus, was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually take over the Estienne printing firm which his father owned in 1559 when his father died. His most well-known work was the Thesaurus graecae linguae, which was printed in five volumes. The basis of Greek lexicology, no thesaurus would rival that of Estienne's for three hundred years.
Henri Focillon was a French art historian. He was the son of the printmaker Victor-Louis Focillon. He was Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. Professor of Art History at the University of Lyon, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, at the Sorbonne, at the Collège de France and then in the United States, where he went into exile and taught at Yale University. A poet, printmaker, and teacher, Focillon trained generations of art historians including George Kubler. He remains best known for his works on medieval art, most of which were translated into English.
