Editing Jules Simon (section)

==Biography==
Simon was born at [[Lorient]].  His father was a linen-draper from [[Lorraine (province)|Lorraine]], who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic [[Brittany|Breton]].  Jules Simon was the son of this second marriage. The family name was Suisse, which Simon dropped in favour of his third forename.  By considerable sacrifice he was enabled to attend a seminary at [[Vannes]], and worked briefly as usher in a school before, in 1833, he became a student at the [[École Normale Supérieure]] in [[Paris, France|Paris]]. There he came in contact with [[Victor Cousin]], who sent him to [[Caen]] and then to [[Versailles, Yvelines|Versailles]] to teach philosophy. He helped Cousin, without receiving any recognition, in his translations from [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]], and in 1839 became his deputy in the chair of philosophy at the [[University of Paris]], with the meagre salary of 83 francs per month. He also lectured on the [[history of philosophy]] at the [[École normale supérieure (Paris)|École Normale Supérieure]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

At this period he edited the works of [[Nicolas Malebranche]] (2 vols, 1842), of [[René Descartes]] (1842), [[Jacques Benigne Bossuet|Bossuet]] (1842) and of [[Antoine Arnauld]] (1843), and in 1844–1845 appeared the two volumes of his ''Histoire de l'école d'Alexandrie''. He became a regular contributor to the ''[[Revue des deux mondes]]'', and in 1847, with [[Amédée Jacques]] and [[Émile Saisset]], founded the ''Liberté de penser'', with the intention of throwing off the yoke of Cousin, but he retired when Jacques allowed the insertion of an article advocating the principles of collectivism, with which he was at no time in sympathy.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}