Institute of St. Louis

Type of boarding house at the end of the 17th century

The Royal House of Saint Louis ( Maison royale de Saint-Louis ) is the first secular women's school in Europe, which served as a model for many similar institutions in Europe, including the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg . It was located in the village of Saint-Cyr , which was renamed Saint-Cyr-l'École by the name of the school (fr. L'école ).

The initiator of the creation of the shelter and its first leader was Madame de Maintenon , the second wife of King Louis XIV . At her insistence, the king in 1684 ordered the establishment of an institution for the education of 250 noble maidens - orphans or daughters of impoverished nobles , who, due to their difficult financial situation, were not able to give their daughters a decent education. In the village of Saint-Cyr, next to Versailles, the king instructed his architect Arduen-Mansard to build a training building. Construction work went quickly and took only 15 months.

Pupils were divided into four classes, which were called “red” (7–10 years), “green” (11–14 years), “yellow” (15–16 years) and “blue” (17–20 by the color of the wearable ribbons) years old). Older girls who wore black ribbons helped 36 female educators, and sometimes replaced them. When the girl left the walls of Saint-Cyr, she was paid from the treasury a one-time guesthouse in the amount of 3,000 livres.

Pupils of Saint-Cyr under the guidance of Racine learn the text of the drama "Esther"

Before the creation of Saint-Cyr, women's education was entirely in the hands of the church. Madame de Maintenon insisted that the curriculum in Saint-Cyr should be wider than that used in convents. For example, pupils were allowed to take part in theatrical productions. Especially for this purpose, Racine wrote the tragedies " Esther " and "Atalia." Madame de Maintenon was unhappy with the popularity of the performances among the courtiers and forbade anyone other than the royal couple and their guests from attending the performances. This side of school life is depicted in the French film Daughters of the King (2000), where Madame de Maintenon is played by Isabelle Huppert .

Even until 1692, despite the secular nature, the institution did not break ties with the Abbey of Saint-Denis , which sent clerics to Saint-Cyr to "nourish" the girls. In 1692, the school of Saint-Cyr was transformed into a nunnery, all the lady educators entered the Catholic Order of Augustinians . In the XVIII century, graduates of Saint-Cyr were famous for their hypocritical behavior.

After the death of the king in 1715, Madame de Maintenon retired to Saint-Cyr, where she spent the last years of her life and was buried. In 1717, Tsar Peter I visited her here, who was interested in the project of an educational institution for women.

During the French Revolution, the division of society into estates was abolished. Together with other institutions of the " old order ", the Saint-Cyr School was abolished in 1792. The building of the shelter was redeveloped into a military hospital. Napoleon later ordered the opening of a military academy in Saint-Cyr. The traditions of the old Saint-Cyril school were continued by the Maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur, a women's school established by the same ruler.