biography
| name: |
Renaudot, Théophraste
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pronunciation:
[ruhnohdoh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1586–1653)
|
| biography:
| Physician and journalist, founder of the first French newspaper, born in Loudun, WC France. He practised medicine in Montpellier, then settled in Paris (1624), and was appointed physician to King Louis XIII on the recommendation of Père Joseph. He dedicated himself to caring for the poor, opened a medical clinic in 1635, with free dispensaries, and also opened the first pawnshop (1637). Ordered to stop his activities in 1644 on the pretext that he had not gained his qualifications from the University of Paris, he became involved in the Gazette, a periodical which he had founded in 1631 under the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, and began to print his own short stories. His son and then his grandson succeeded him until the latter's death in 1729. (The Gazette would not stop production until 1914.) He also composed biographies of Condé and Mazarin, and took over the editorship of the Mercure de France in 1635. Historiographer to the king, he was accomodated in the Louvre but died in poverty. |
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