François de La Rochefoucauld, French soldier and author (d. 1680)
François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (French: [fʁɑ̃swa d(ə) la ʁɔʃfuko]; 15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680) was a noted French moralist and author of maxims and memoirs. He is part of the literary movement of classicism and best known for his maxims. Although he only officially published his Memoirs and his Maxims, his literary production is dense. His maxims focus on the merciless nature of human conduct, with a cynical attitude towards virtuosity and avowals of affection, friendship, love, and loyalty. Leonard Tancock regards his Maxims as "one of the most deeply felt, most intensely lived texts in French literature", with his "experience, his likes and dislikes, sufferings and petty spites ... crystallized into absolute truths."Born in Paris in 1613, at a time when the royal court was vacillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the accomplished seventeenth-century nobleman. Until 1650, he bore the title of Prince de Marcillac. His great-grandfather François III, count de La Rochefoucauld, was killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, being a Huguenot.