Théophraste Renaudot

Théophraste Renaudot (born 1586?, Loudun, France—died Oct. 25, 1653, Paris) was a physician and social-service administrator who, as the founder of France’s first newspaper, is considered the father of French journalism.

In 1612 Renaudot traveled to Paris, where he became a protégé of Armand (later Cardinal) de Richelieu, who obtained his appointment as physician to King Louis XIII and commissary general of the poor, with the task of organizing a program of public assistance. Not until 1630, however, was he able to open in Paris a bureau d’adresse, combining the services of a labour bureau, intelligence department, and charity organization that directed sick persons to physicians prepared to give them free treatment.

The following year, under Richelieu’s supervision, Renaudot founded La Gazette (later La Gazette de France), a weekly sheet relating government-sanctioned news, which he edited and published until his death. In 1635 he established a free dispensary and two years later added France’s first pawnbroking shops to the bureau’s activities. His installation of public-health services aroused opposition from the medical faculty of Paris, led by the conservative physician Guy Patin; after the deaths of Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643), Renaudot was denied the right to practice medicine in Paris (1644). He was appointed historiographer to Louis XIV by the king’s principal minister, Jules Mazarin, in 1646.