François Béroalde de Verville

During the civil wars, Béroalde abjured Calvinism and joined the factions around Henri III of France (he may also have served in the army).

Béroalde had close ties to the intellectual and creative milieus of the late 16th century and early 17th century (including Pierre de L'Estoile, Roland Brisset, Guy de Tours) and was under the protection of two conseillers du roi (Pierre Brochard and René Crespin).

His writings cover topics as varied as history, mathematics, optics, alchemy, medicine, painting, sculpture, love, silk...

His most famous work is the playful, chaotic, baroque, sometimes obscene and almost unreadable Moyen de parvenir (first published around 1617) -- a parody of books of "table talk", of Rabelais and of Michel de Montaigne's "The Essays"—in which a host of famous individuals debate, discuss and joke (with often coarse humor) about historical and philosophical matters.

Béroalde's corpus is vast and his works show a preoccupation with encyclopedic learning, the organization of knowledge and the difficulties of interpretation.