French academic and historian who founded the International Olympic Committee and helped establish the modern Olympic Games. He is known for his academic work in the field of education, and released a book on the subject, L’Education en Angleterre, in 1888.
He traveled to England in the early 1880s and studied with Thomas Arnold, a Rugby School teacher who emphasized the importance of physical education.
His poem, Ode to Sport, was honored with a gold medal at the 1912 Summer Olympic Games.
He was born into an aristocratic family in Paris; his father, Baron Charles Louis Fredy, was an artist who was prominent on the Parisian salon scene.
He was played by actor Louis Jourdan in a 1984 NBC miniseries on the subject of the Olympic Games.
