The Girondists (in French: Girondins, and sometimes Brissotins) were a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution. They campaigned for the end of the monarchy but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution. They came into conflict with The Mountain (Montagnards, a more radical faction within the Jacobin Club). This conflict eventually led to the fall of the Girondists and their mass execution, the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The Girondists were a group of loosely-affiliated individuals rather than an organised political party with a clear ideology, and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the States-general from the department of Gironde in southwest France.

The famous painting Death of Marat depicts the revenge killing of radical journalist (and denouncer of the Girondists) Jean-Paul Marat by Girondist sympathizer, Charlotte Corday. Some prominent Girondists were Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean Marie Roland and his wife Madame Roland. They had an ally in American Founding Father Thomas Paine. Brissot and Madame Roland were executed with the guillotine and Jean Roland (who was in hiding) committed suicide when he learned what had transpired. Paine was arrested and imprisoned but narrowly escaped execution.

Henry Charles Litolff (5 February 1818–5–6 August 1891) was a piano virtuoso, composer of Romantic music and music publisher. He became a prolific composer, although he is now known mainly as the founder of the Litolff Edition of classical and modern music. He died at Bois-Colombes near Paris.

Litolff was born in London, the son of a Scottish mother and an Alsatian father. His father was a violinist who had been taken to London as a prisoner after being captured while fighting for Napoléon in the Peninsular War.

He began his musical education under his father, but when he was twelve he played for the pianist Ignaz Moscheles, who was so impressed that he gave him free lessons from 1830. Litolff's promise was indeed realised, and he began to give concerts when he was only fourteen. His lessons with Moscheles continued until Litolff eloped in 1835, at the age of 17, to Gretna Green, to marry the 16-year-old Elisabeth Etherington. The couple moved to Melun and then to Paris.

In 1839 he separated from Elisabeth and moved to Brussels, and around 1841 moved to Warsaw where he is believed to have been the conductor of the orchestra of the Teatr Narodowy (National Theatre). In 1844 he travelled to Germany, gave concerts, and taught Hans von Bülow. The following year he returned to England with the idea of finally divorcing Elisabeth, but the plan backfired and he ended up in prison, and having to pay a large fine. He managed to escape and fled to the Netherlands. He became friends with the music publisher Gottfried Meyer and, after Meyer's death, married his widow Julie (having been able to divorce Elisabeth after he had become a citizen of Brunswick). Litolff and Julie married in 1851 and the marriage lasted until 1858, when he divorced her and moved once again to Paris.

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) (French pronunciation: [maʁki də sad] Audio) was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts; in his lifetime some were published under his own name, while others appeared anonymously and Sade denied being their author. He is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality, and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. He was a proponent of extreme freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion, or law.

Sade was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life; 11 years in Paris (10 of which were spent in the Bastille), a month in the Conciergerie, two years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, three years in Bicêtre, a year in Sainte-Pélagie, and 13 years in the Charenton asylum. During the French Revolution he was an elected delegate to the National Convention. Many of his works were written in prison.

Louis H. O. Ch. Michel (born 2 September 1947) is a Belgian politician. He served in the government of Belgium as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1999 to 2004 and was European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid from 2004 to 2009. Since 2009, he has been a Member of the European Parliament. Michel is a prominent member of the French-speaking liberal party, the Mouvement Réformateur.

From 1968 to 1978, before dedicating his life to his political career, Louis Michel taught English, Dutch and German in the Provincial School of Jodoigne, a rural town 25 miles from Brussels.

From 1967 to 1977, he was chairman of the Young Liberals in the district of Nivelles. Then he became alderman in Jodoigne from 1977 to 1983, "secretary-general" of the Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL) political party from 1980 to 1982 and chairman of the PRL from 1982 to 1990 and from 1995 to 1999.

He was a member of the Belgian federal parliament from 1978 to 2004, first as a representative (1978–1999) and then as a senator (1999–2004).

Michel Jean Legrand (born 24 February 1932, in Bécon-les-Bruyères in the Paris suburbs) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist. His father Raymond Legrand was a conductor and composer renowned for hits such as Irma la douce and his mother, Marcelle Der Mikaëlian (sister of conductor Jacques Hélian), who married Legrand Senior in 1929, was descended from the Armenian bourgeoisie.

Legrand is a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores in addition to many memorable songs. He is best known for his often haunting film music and scores, such as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) featuring the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" for which he won his first Academy Award.

Legrand has composed more than two hundred film and television scores and several musicals and has made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations) and five Grammys and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was twenty-two when his first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.