a French essayist and philosopher, remembered primarily for his epistolary novel Obermann. Senancour might have spent his life writing in complete obscurity were it not for a charge leveled against him by a public prosecutor for slandering religion in the second edition of his Résumé de l’histoire des traditions morales et religieuses (1827) wherein he described Jesus as a "youthful sage." He was initially found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison and fined 300 francs, but the penalties were dropped on appeal.
