Applying to the Collège Royale de la Flèche: Questions for parents. Unrecorded.

[Applying to school]. Collége Royal de la Flèche. Mémoire Instructif Sur les formalités à remplir par les Parens qui demand des Places au Collége royal de la Flèche, pour leurs Enfans. Montpellier: De l’Imprimerie de Jean-François Picot, seul Imprimeur du Roi, Place de l’Intendance, 1777. 4to [24.6 x 19.3 cm], [2] ff. Folded, well preserved.
 
 
Unrecorded memo printed in 1777 in Montpellier for the use of officials charged with vetting young applicants to the Collège Royale de la Flèche. The document outlines conditions and requirements for admission and provides interviewers with a set of questions to ask parents concerning their children and themselves. 
 
The school was founded by Henry IV in 1604 as a Jesuit college (René Descartes studied there from 1607 to 1615). Following the expulsion of the Jesuits, the institution operated from 1764 to 1776 as a cadet academy to educate and prepare the children of indigent noble families for entry to the École militaire in Paris. Between 1776 and its closing in 1793 during the Revolution, the school was run as a Royal College under the management of the Pères de la Doctrine chrétienne. It was reestablished in 1808 as Prytanée national militaire and today still operated in that capacity.
 
This Mémoire Instructif was printed in 1777, about a year after the school’s repurposing as the Collège Royal de la Flèche on 20 May 1776. The memo begins with preconditions for the consideration of applicants: that they be ages 8 to 10, that they are within four degrees of nobility on the father’s side, that they be poor, that they be in good shape (“qu’ils soient bien conformés”), and that they know how to read and write (“so that they can be put to studying languages at once”).
 
There follow 6 numbered points listing required information to be gathered from parents of prospective students, including birth/baptism records, father’s death certificate if applicable, proof that parents cannot pay for school, certificate from doctor and/or surgeon attesting to student’s good health. 
 
The Mémoire Instructif closes with 13 questions/requirements for parent, which include providing proof of sufficient degree of nobility, the name and surname of the father, the father’s age, noting if he was in the Magistrature or army and if any other ancestors distinguished themselves in those professions, if the child’s mother is still living, giving names and surnames of children (multiple brothers may apply at the same time), the number of siblings the applicant has, attesting to whether the child read and write (“He ought to expect that he will be given examinations on these two point upon reception to the Collège”), if the child is confirmed and when he took his first Communion, if he is physically fit, if was raised at home, at a pension (boarding school) or in collège, and where the parents live (diocese, post office where letters should be addressed, etc.).
 
That the memo was printed in Montpellier, which is nearly 400 miles from La Fleche, suggests that officials at the college cast a wide net.
 
 
This Montpellier 1777 La Flèche Mémoire Instructif is not recorded (OCLC, KVK), but Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève holds a 1777 Paris version (l’Imprimerie royale). Similar titles relating to admissions at La Flèche are held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France only (for the years 1764, 1768, 1775, and 1787). 
 
*B. Beaupère, Histoire du Prytanée national; B. Coudreau, Les grands destins du Prytanée; L. Chanteloup, Les trésors du Prytanée national militaire de La Flèche; S. Geoffray, Répertoire des procès-verbaux des preuves de la noblesse des jeunes gentilshommes admis aux écoles royales militaires, 1751-1792, pp. 177-78.