"The “Nurseries of Republicans”: French <em>Collèges</em> After the Jes" by Kaci Parker

Publication Date

12-2023

Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)

October 2023

Type of Culminating Activity

Thesis

Degree Title

Master of Arts in History

Department Filter

History

Department

History

Supervisory Committee Chair

Erik Hadley, Ph.D.

Supervisory Committee Member

Raymond Krohn, Ph.D.

Supervisory Committee Member

Lisa McClain, Ph.D.

Abstract

The landscape of secondary education before the French Revolution has not yet been studied as a potential cause of, and factor in, the coming Revolution. After the Jesuits were expelled from France in 1763, their secondary schools—the collèges—were confiscated by the government. This government coalition of the royal monarchy and the law courts of France, known as the parlements, took over the schools and ran them as the “Interim” system. Despite previous historiography which stresses the continuity of these systems, my research has found that there were deep changes that happened in both the curriculum and the teachers of the Interim schools. These changes in turn had an impact on the revolutionary generation, who began school at the exact time the Interim system was implemented. These claims are backed up by contemporaries of the French Revolution, who identified the Interim schools as the “nurseries of republicans”—the origins of the Revolution.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.18122/td.2187.boisestate

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