Municipal Colleges: Small-Town Secondary Schools in France prior to the Revolution

Abstract

Historians of French secondary education in the final few decades of the Old Regime have concentrated on the some 150 colleges operated by religious communities and on the 101 formerly under the Jesuits.' They have not dealt extensively or systematically with about 100 other colleges in a third category. These schools generally were not as large, as wealthy, or as celebrated as those in the other two categories. They can be described as municipal colleges. Situated in small cities and villages, they provided a traditional (classical) education for the sons of minor officials, shopkeepers, farmers, and artisans. They were, in short, colleges in small-town France that served and were perpetuated by the roturiers of modest income living fairly close to them. Thirty-five such colleges, located within the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris, are the subject of this article.2