Lycée Louis-le-Grand

Coordinates: 48°50′53″N 2°20′40.3″E / 48.84806°N 2.344528°E / 48.84806; 2.344528

Front entrance of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, in Paris, one of the most famous lycées providing preparatory classes for grandes écoles.

Exterior of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, facing the rue St Jacques

The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (French pronunciation: [lise lwi lə ɡʁɑ̃]) is a public secondary school located in Paris, widely regarded as one of the most prestigious in France. Founded in 1550 as the Collège de Clermont, it was renamed in King Louis XIV of France's honor after he extended his direct patronage to in 1682. It offers both a sixth-form college curriculum (as a lycée with 800 pupils), and a post-secondary-level curriculum (classes préparatoires with 900 students), preparing students for entrance to the elite Grandes Écoles (such as the École Normale Supérieure, the École Polytechnique, Centrale Paris, HEC Paris or ESSEC Business School). Students at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand are called magnoludoviciens.

Louis-le-Grand, founded in 1563, is located in the heart of the Quartier Latin, the traditional student's area of Paris. Rich in history, architecture, culture, this area is home to some of the oldest and most prestigious educational establishments in France including the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. The lycée is situated close to the place du Panthéon, which is the location of its historical rival, the Lycée Henri-IV. These two lycées are home to the oldest preparatory classes in France, which are commonly viewed as the most selective in the country.

Because of this, Louis-le-Grand is considered to play an important role in the education of French elites. Many of its former pupils have become statesmen, diplomats, prelates, marshals of France, members of the Académie française, and men and women of letters. "The Jesuit College of Paris", wrote Élie de Beaumont in 1862, "has for a long time been a state nursery, the most fertile in great men". Indeed, former students have included writers Molière, Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire, revolutionaries Robespierre, Saint-Just and Camille Desmoulins, former French presidents Raymond Poincaré, Paul Deschanel, Alexandre Millerand, Alain Poher, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac as well as many other ministers and prime ministers, philosophers such as Denis Diderot, Emile Durkheim, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida, scientists Évariste Galois, Henri Poincaré and Laurent Schwartz, and artists Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas and Georges Méliès. Renowned foreign students of the lycée include King Nicholas I of Montenegro, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Saint Francis de Sales.