Abraham de moivre biography of christopher columbus

Biography

Abraham de Moivre was born in Vitry-le-François, which is about halfway between Paris and Nancy, where his father worked as a surgeon. The family was certainly not well off financially, but a steady income meant that they could not be described as poor.

De Moivre's parents were Protestants but he first attended the Catholic school of the Christian Brothers in Vitry which was a tolerant school, particularly so given the religious tensions in France at this time. When he was eleven years old his parents sent him to the Protestant Academy at Sedan where he spent four years studying Greek under Du Rondel.

The Edict of Nantes had guaranteed freedom of worship in France since 1598 but, although it made any extension of Protestant worship in France legally possible, it was much resented by the Roman Catholic clergy and by the local French parliaments.

Despite the Edict, the Protestant Academy at Sedan was suppressed in 1682 and de Moivre, forced to move,