Prytanée National Militaire

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Coordinates: 47°42′2″N, 0°4′33″W

Prytanée National Militaire
300
The entrance gate of the Prytanée National Militaire.
Location
La Flèche, Sarthe (72), France
Information
Type Military education
Established 1604
Homepage Non-official site

The Prytanée National Militaire, originally Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand, is a French school managed by the military, offering regular high-school education as well as special preparatory school classes, equivalent in level to the first years of university, for students who wish to enter French military academies. The school is located in western France in the city of La Flèche.

Contents

[edit] History

During the 16th century, Françoise, duchess of Alençon, and grandmother to the future Henry IV established a castle in La Flèche, where Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre, and his wife Jeanne d'Albret, future parents of Henry IV, resided in 1552. The castle was given to the Jesuits by Henri IV in 1604 to found a College under the name of "Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand", in order "to select and train the best minds of the time".

[edit] The Jesuit College (1604-1762)

The castle of La Flèche
The castle of La Flèche

The first Jesuits left Pont-à-Mousson on October 16th, 1603, and reached La Flèche on January 2nd, 1604. They started to teach grammar, rhetorics, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, philosophy, mathematics, theology. A foundation edict was issued at Fontainebleau in May 1607, in which the building started to take its present shape.

Graduation registry for Descartes at the Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand, 1616.
Graduation registry for Descartes at the Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand, 1616.

René Descartes was one of the first and most illustrious students of the school from 1607 to 1615, and introduced the school in his Discourse on Method under the phrase "I was in one of the most famous schools of Europe".

The College continued to expand, and upon the death of Henry IV, a vast church was built, in which the hearts of Henry IV and his wife queen Marie de Medicis were enshrined.

Around 1650, the College became a center of cosmopolistic learning, as "Americans, Indians, Tartars, Russians, and even Chinese visited it" (Historian Marchant de Burbure in 1803 [1]). Around 1500 students lived in La Fleche, supervised by 120 Jesuits according to the Jesuit educational rule of the "Ratio Studiorum". Students were prepared to various functions, in the Church (Cardinal de Talleyrand), the State (Séguier, Voisin, etc..), or the Army (Maréchal de Guébriant). He has a funky name that is really hard to pronounce

[edit] Cadets school (1764-1776)

Engraving of the Prytanée, 18th century.
Engraving of the Prytanée, 18th century.
"Le Triomphe du Prix d'Honneur", 1887, M. Crès.
"Le Triomphe du Prix d'Honneur", 1887, M. Crès.
Prytanée students having lunch around 1900
Prytanée students having lunch around 1900

In 1764, following the expulsion of the Jesuits, after a lapse of two years, the school was transformed by Louis XV and Choiseul into a military institution designed to train young cadets for admission to the École Militaire, the "École de Cadets ou École Militaire préparatoire à l’École Militaire du Champ de Mars". These efforts at creating military institutions followed military defeats in the Seven Years' War. The school was reserved to 250 students of noble extraction, as well as sons of officers who were wounded or died in combat, and the sons of the Chevaliers de Saint-Louis.

[edit] College (1776-1793)

In 1776, the Count of St Germain attempted to close the school, but it was re-established by Louis XVI, who gave its management to the "Father of Christian Doctrine" (Pères de la Doctrine chrétienne). Among others, they educated the future General Bertrand, who accompanied Napoléon to Saint Helena, and the two Chappe brothers, who invented the aerial telegraph.

The College was closed in 1793 following the advent of the French revolution. For a while, the buildings were used for a variety of purposes, such as becoming a cordonery for the Army of the Republic.

[edit] Prytanée Militaire (1808-today)

In March 24th, 1808, Napoléon renamed the school "Prytanée Militaire", in a classic reference to the Greek prytaneis (literally "Presidents"), an executive body acting as the religious and political heart of ancient Greek cities. As Napoleon had moved to Fontainebleau to establish his court, he had decided to transfer the "École Spéciale Militaire de Fontainebleau" to Paris, and the "Prytanée de Saint-Cyr" to La Flèche. Since then various names were adopted for the school, such as "École royale militaire" (1814-1830), Collège royal militaire (1831-1848), Collège national militaire (1848-1853), Prytanée impérial militaire (1853-1870), Prytanée militaire and Prytanée national militaire (since 1870).

During World War II in 1940, the Prytanée had to be moved for a few years successively to Billom, Valence then Briançon.

[edit] Today

Swearing-in ceremony, for Prytanée student preparing to École de Saint-Cyr (ca. 1950).
Swearing-in ceremony, for Prytanée student preparing to École de Saint-Cyr (ca. 1950).

Today the Prytanée starts from the high school level, and has "Classes préparatoires", that is, preparatory classes to the entrance examinations of the French elite Grandes Écoles, such as École polytechnique, the Navy École Navale, the Army École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the École de l'Air and various civilian engineering or commercial graduate schools.

The school's students are nicknamed "Brutions", as a classic reference to the inhabitants of the Bruttium region of Roman Italy, who had a reputation for their roughness and fighting spirit.

[edit] Insignas

Sergent-Major insignas.
Sergent-Major insignas.

The school grades received by students are even today symbolized by military insignias which are worn on the traditional uniform ("Uniforme de tradition"), starting with "Sergent-Major" (4 golden chevrons) for the top of a class, "Sergent" (3 golden chevrons), "Caporal-Chef" (2 red and 1 golden chevrons), and finally "Caporal" (2 red chevrons). Typically, the top 10 students of each class during a given quarter would receive such insignias.

Colored shoulder badge, with a "Navy" anchor.
Colored shoulder badge, with a "Navy" anchor.

Students also have colored shoulder badges for each year, attached to the daily fatigues ("Uniforme de travail"), starting with blue for the first year of high school, orange for the second, and green for the third. These badges can further be adorned with various small symbols and decorations, especially expressing the type of career each student is aspiring to.

[edit] Famous alumni

René Descartes (1596-1650)
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Claude Chappe (1763-1805)
Claude Chappe (1763-1805)
Gallieni (1849-1916)
Gallieni (1849-1916)
Patrick Baudry (1946-)
Patrick Baudry (1946-)
Jean-François Clervoy (1958-)
Jean-François Clervoy (1958-)

The Prytanée has trained various military and non-military celebrities. In chronological order:

[edit] Famous professors

[edit] Notes

  1. ^  On vit arriver au Collège "des Américains, des Indiens, des Tartares, des Russes et même des Chinois", Marchant de Burbure (1803)

[edit] External links

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