Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. Maritain's interest and works spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, education, liturgy and ecclesiology.

Maritain was born in Paris, the son of Paul Maritain, who was a lawyer, and his wife Geneviève Favre, the daughter of Jules Favre, and was reared in a liberal Protestant milieu. He was sent to the Lycée Henri-IV. Later, he attended the Sorbonne, studying the natural sciences; chemistry, biology and physics.

At the Sorbonne, he met Raïssa Oumançoff, a Russian Jewish émigré. They married in 1904. A noted poet and mystic, she participated as his intellectual partner in his search for truth. Raissa's sister, Vera Oumançoff, lived with Jacques and Raissa for almost all their married life.

Robert Schuman (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ ʃuman]; 29 June 1886 – 4 September 1963) was a noted Luxembourgish-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat (M.R.P.) and an independent political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building post-war European and trans-Atlantic institutions and is regarded as one of the founders of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO.

Schuman was a man of several cultures. His father, Jean-Pierre Schuman (1837–1900), was born in Évrange, Lorraine, just across the border with Luxembourg. Jean-Pierre Schuman was a French citizen, but after Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire in 1871, he became a German citizen. Robert's mother, Eugénie Duren (1864–1911), a Luxembourger born in Bettembourg, became a German citizen by marriage in 1884.

Schuman was born in 1886 in Clausen, a suburb of Luxembourg as a German by virtue of the principle of jus sanguinis. His mother tongue was Luxembourgish but he was taught French and Standard German at school. Since he learned French only in school (which is mandatory in Luxembourg), he spoke it with a distinct accent.