← Fame through time1700-1799
The 18th century
Whose working lives fell in the 18th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 18th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Voltaire22 decades - 2
Marie Antoinette22 decades - 3
Maximilien Robespierre14 decades - 4
Marquis de Sade12 decades - 5
Louis XVI of France22 decades - 6
Louis XV of France22 decades - 7
Charles X of France22 decades - 8
Montesquieu22 decades - 9
Antoine Lavoisier2 decades - 10
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgordnot measured- - 11
Joséphine de Beauharnais17 decades - 12
Philip V of Spain22 decades - 13
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayettenot measured- - 14
Olympe de Gouges22 decades - 15
Jean-Paul Marat19 decades - 16
Jeremy Bentham22 decades - 17
Jacques-Louis David7 decades - 18
Louis XVIII of France22 decades - 19
Denis Diderot21 decades - 20
Georges Danton0 decades - 21
Pierre-Simon Laplace2 decades - 22
Toussaint Louverture22 decades - 23
Madame de Pompadour22 decades - 24
Madame du Barry22 decades - 25
Joseph-Louis Lagrange0 decades - 26
Charlotte Corday22 decades - 27
Marquis de Condorcet1 decades - 28
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck2 decades - 29
Charles XIV John of Swedennot measured- - 30
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun1 decades - 31
Louis Antoine de Saint-Justnot measured- - 32
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeaunot measured- - 33
Joseph Fouché10 decades - 34
Pierre Beaumarchaisnot measured- - 35
Marie Leszczyńska13 decades - 36
Louis XVII of France22 decades - 37
Henry Cavendish22 decades - 38
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffonnot measured- - 39
Joseph de Maistre21 decades - 40
Jean-Philippe Rameau11 decades - 41
Henri de Saint-Simonnot measured- - 42
Marie Tussaud0 decades - 43
Carlo Buonaparte20 decades - 44
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès0 decades - 45
Jean-Honoré Fragonard6 decades - 46
Philippe II, Duke of Orléansnot measured- - 47
Pierre de Marivaux22 decades - 48
Louis, Duke of Burgundynot measured- - 49
Camille Desmoulins22 decades - 50
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérousenot measured- - 51
Jean le Rond d'Alembert7 decades - 52
Antoine François Prévost12 decades - 53
Pasquale Paoli22 decades - 54
Lazare Carnot14 decades - 55
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle20 decades - 56
Stanisław Leszczyński0 decades - 57
Louis Antoine de Bougainville4 decades - 58
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos2 decades - 59
André Masséna2 decades - 60
_in_ceremonial_robes_of_the_Order_of_the_Holy_Spirit_by_Antoine_Fran%C3%A7ois_Callet.jpg?width=120)
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléansnot measured- - 61
Louis, Dauphin of Francenot measured- - 62
François-Noël Babeuf21 decades - 63
François Boucher21 decades - 64
Manon Roland10 decades - 65
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot2 decades - 66
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb0 decades - 67
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin0 decades - 68
Louis-Alexandre Berthier1 decades - 69
Paul Barras6 decades - 70
Alessandro Cagliostro22 decades - 71
Adrien-Marie Legendre0 decades - 72
Jacques Hébert0 decades - 73
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin0 decades - 74
Louis Joseph, Dauphin of Francenot measured- - 75
Józef Poniatowski0 decades - 76
François Couperin14 decades - 77
Gaspard Monge22 decades - 78
Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballenot measured- - 79
Nicolas Appert6 decades - 80
Robert-François Damiens7 decades - 81
André Chénier22 decades - 82
Jacques Pierre Brissot0 decades - 83
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot0 decades - 84
Letizia Ramolino3 decades - 85
Jeanne Baret0 decades - 86
Charles Messier1 decades - 87
Abraham de Moivre0 decades - 88
Jean-Baptiste Kléber0 decades
- 89
Louis de Montfortnot measured- - 90
Jean Victor Marie Moreaunot measured- - 91
Chevalier d'Éonnot measured- - 92
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier0 decades - 93
Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans0 decades - 94
Alexandre de Beauharnais22 decades - 95
Anne Marie d'Orléans0 decades - 96
Jean-Antoine Watteau18 decades - 97
Jean-Baptiste Donatiede Vimeur, comte de Rochambeaunot measured- - 98
Charles-Henri Sanson1 decades - 99
Yolande de Polastron0 decades - 100
Charles François Dumouriez0 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.