Anatole France (eigentl. François-Anatole Thibault), French poet and journalist, 1844-1924

Ironic and skeptical, France was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament". "La Revolte des Anges" (Revolt of the Angels, 1914) is often considered Anatole France's most profound and ironic novel. He is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time".