| FRENCHSAVANTS | Descartes and Comte, e.g. |
| RENES | Descartes and Lalique |
| FRENCHBRAINS | Prized possessions of Descartes and Curie? |
| RENEW | Descartes and wife to start again? (5) |
| CONTACTLENSES | Vision-correcting devices about which Leonardo da Vinci, Rene Descartes and Sir John Herschel theorised before the first successful versions were made in 1888 (7,6) |
| FRANCE | Country whose cheeses include Comte and Reblochon (6) |
| POSITIVISM | Philosophical system originated by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) that rejects metaphysics and theology in favour of empirical experience (10) |
| BESANCON | Capital of Franche-Comte, France (8) |
| DUC | Peer ranked above a comte |
| ATHOS | The Comte de la Fere, familiarly |
| ORY | Rossini's "Le Comte ___" |
| MIRABEAU | Comte de -, 1749-1791, French Revolution politician (8) |
| FRENCHONIONSOUP | Bowlful often topped with melted Comte |
| NOBLESSE | Ducs, comtes and such |
| EMIGRE | The Comte d'Artois was one for a change of regime |
| THEORY | Guess what's missing from Rossini's Le Comte? |
| MALDOROR | Les Chants de ?, 19th-century poetic novel by the Comte de Lautreamont |
| CAMETOTHEFORE | A Comte salad in that place includes, for starters, fried onions that really stood out (4,2,3,4) |
| YONNE | A department of North Central France, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region (5) |
| CHEESE | Food, such as Comte or Vacherin Mont d'Or, made in fruitieres from the milk of French Simmental cows; or, the idiomatic opposite of "chalk" (6) |
