It was on this date, November 18, 1647, that French writer and philosopher Pierre Bayle was born in Carla-le-Comte in the foothills of the Pyrenees, the son of a Protestant minister. In his youth he weighed the merits of Catholicism and Protestantism and apparently chose the wrong team. When the king expelled the Huguenots from France in 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Bayle was among them. He thereafter made his home in Holland.

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Originally published October 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.