Auguste Laurent in Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

Auguste Laurent (1807-53) was a chemist born near Langres and was a precursor to modern organic chemistry and atomic theory.

Jean (or Jehan) Tabourot in Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

Jehan Tabourot (1520-95), who was born in Dijon and died in Langres, is also known under his anagram Thoinot Arbeau. That isn't the only unusual thing about a fascinating man who is apparently only openly remembered in Langres by a street name: Tabouret was a printer, a canon, a dance theorist and historian who wrote a few intruiguing books. He is perhaps best known for his Orchésographie (1588), which is written as a conversation between the narrator and the student and contains illustraions of dance steps. He also wrote the Calandrier des bergers, thought to bring good luck, and which people are said to have put under their pillows at night to ward off evil.

Boite à lire, Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

 In the centre of Langres, this smart but unassuming Boite à lire.

Boris Beluche in Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

Boris Beluche's Langres nage ('Langres swims'): a kind of prediction? Dunno.

Jeanne Mance in Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

Jeanne Mance (1606-73), who was born in Langres and died in Montréal, the city she co-founded (then named Ville-Marie) in 1642. Where her statue is in Langres was where she was baptised, where L'Église Saints Pierre et Paul was, and Jean Cardot's statue (1968) is placed where the baptismal fonts were. She left Langres in 1640, responding to a (religious) 'mission', and in 1641 left La Rochelle in a large ship. She arrived in Québec after three months, and the then deserted island of 'Ville-Marie' was founded. She died in Montréal.

The house where Jeanne Mance was born.

Denis Diderot in Langres (52), Haute-Marne (52)

Denis Diderot (1713-84) was born in Langres and died in Paris. His statue in his native town in what is now Place Diderot was erected one hundred years after his death: Diderot is everywhere in the town, as he should be but he has obviously become a victim of the tatty tourist industry. Interestingly, though, the house where he was born is now a Maison de Presse on the ground floor. In 2013, three hundred years after Diderot's birth, the mayor of the town inaugurated La Maison des lumières Denis Diderot, which was originally a building constructed in 1580 by Nicolas Ribonnier and given to La Société Archéologique de Langres by the Breuil de Saint Germain in 1923.