Jean le Rond d’Alembert (Dictionary of World Biography: The 17th and 18th Centuries)
Early Life
On the night of November 17, 1717, Mme Claudine-Alexandrine Guérin, Marquise de Tencin, gave birth to a son whom she promptly abandoned on the steps of the Church of Saint-Jean-Le-Rond. There, he was baptized with the name of the church; he was then sent to the Maison de la Coucher, from which he went to a foster home in Picardy. When his father, Louis-Camus Destouches, a military officer, returned to Paris, he sought his son and arranged for the child to be cared for by Mme Rousseau, the wife of a glazier. D’Alembert would always regard Mme Rousseau as his real...
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