Claude Adrien Helv%C3%A9tius

Claude Adrien Helvtius December 1771 was a French philosopher, freemason and littrateur.

Claude Adrien Helvtius was born in Paris, France, and was descended from a family of physicians, originally surnamed Schweitzer . His grandfather Adriaan Helvetius introduced the use of ipecacuanha his father Jean Claude Adrien Helvtius was first physician to Marie Leszczyska, queen of France. Claude Adrien was trained for a financial career, apprenticed to his maternal uncle in Caen, but he occupied his spare time with poetry. Aged twentythree, at the queens request, he was appointed as a farmergeneral, a taxcollecting post worth 100,000 crowns a year. Thus provided for, he proceeded to enjoy life to the utmost, with the help of his wealth and liberality, his literary and artistic tastes he attended, for example, the progressive Club de lEntresol. As he grew older, he began to seek more lasting distinctions, stimulated by the success of Pierre Louis Maupertuis as a mathematician, of Voltaire as a poet, and of Montesquieu as a philosopher. His wife, AnneCatherine de Ligniville, Madame

Source: Wikipedia