| 34. "What did these frogs ever contribute to the world anyway?" Apart from the fact that the basic conceptions of freedom; liberty, human rights, and government by the people received their greatest impetus from the French writers and thinkers of the period called the Enlightenment, " these frogs" have made contributions to history, literature, science, art, philosophy and political ideas which make one of the proudest and most brilliant records in the civilization of mankind. The record of France can stand beside that of any other nation in the world, and in many fields stands well above any other nation. Here are some of the French names which any literate person regards with respect: Writers Villon de Maupassant Rabelais Anatole France Corneille Daudet La Fontaine Romain Rolland Molliere Rostand Racine Jules Verne Voltaire Mme de Stael Rousseau Stendhal Baizac Gautier Victor Hugo de Goncourt Dumas Lamartine Georges Sand Sue de Musset Loti Merimee Mme de Sevigne Prevost Proust Ronsard Le Sage Sardou Jules Romains Flaubert Verlaine Zola Andre Malraux Explorers Cartier Champlain La Salle Marquette Scientists and Inventors Pascal Laennec Toucanta Pasteur Cuvier Bourdon Curie Levassor Cliardonnet Buffon Braille Heroult Berthelot Hailer Saruvage Ampere Lavoisier Sauria Daguerre Montgolfier Le Blanc Musicians Bizet Favre (*sic*) Gounod Debussy Berlioz Lalo Saint Saens Ravel Massenet Painters and Sculptors Cezanne Meissonier Corot Millet Degas Poussin Delacroix Prudhon David Renoir Dore' Rodin Forain Rousseau, P. E. T. Gerome Rouault Houdon Toulouse-Lautrec Ingres Seurat Lebrun Matisse Philosophers Chateaubriand Descartes Charron Montaigne Calvin Pascal Montesquieu Comte Abelard Bergson La Bruyere Maritain Diderot Poincare Condorcet Rochefoucauld Cousin Renan Rousseau Historians de Tocqueville Guizot Thiers Taine Thierry Saint-Simon Quinet |